Free The Other Me by Saskia Sarginson Page A

medicine can relieve pain. I don’t think it’s up to us to end lives – think where that could lead.’
    I speak without thinking. ‘You sound like my —’
    I bite back the word. I can’t get air into my lungs. I struggle up, sitting over bent knees, coughing, palm over my mouth, eyes watering. He sits up too, pats my back, and passes me a glass of water from the bedside table.
    I gulp dusty liquid. Wipe my eyes. We settle again, lying down, making room for each other, my head on his chest.
    ‘Hey. Why are we talking about death?’ He slips his hand under the covers and finds my breast, as if by accident. I shiver. Wanting starts up again, blossoming between my legs, warm and urgent.
    ‘I’m going to introduce you to my grandmother,’ he murmurs, his fingers teasing my skin in soft loops. ‘I think you’d really like each other. She’s the bravest person I know. She survived a concentration camp.’
    Desire leaves me, empties out. I move abruptly, crossing my arms. His fingers fall away.
    ‘You never said.’ My voice is small. ‘You’re Jewish?’
    ‘No,’ he turns onto his back and folds his hands behind his head. ‘I’m a goy.’ He sounds cheerful. ‘My father’s Dutch Jewish. Not Mum. But Dad’s mother is the archetypal Jewish grandmother. All chutzpah and chicken soup. I used to be fascinated by everything at her house. The menorah. The language she used for things. It seemed so exotic and foreign.’ He finds my eyes through the wavering moonlight. ‘Then one day I saw the number tattooed on her arm. It was a shock. It brought it home to me. This whole history I have. Through her. She doesn’t talk about what happened – not unless you ask. She lost her entire family. She’s this tiny wisp of a woman. But she’s stronger than anyone.’
    I inch away from him, acres of cold sheet stretching between us like a desert. Cosmo is still speaking, but his voice is distant. I can’t hear anything clearly for the thunder of blood crashing in my ears. His history has changed my lie, swollen it to new proportions, making it huge and grotesque. Guilt twists up from the past, flooding through my veins, marking me out as my father’s daughter.

ERNST
    1933, Germany
    The radio is on in the parlour. It’s a freezing January and Mrs Meyer sits by the fire knitting, thin ankles crossed under her skirt. Bettina and Agnes are on the floor, practically in the grate itself, shelling nuts into a bowl. Because it’s bitter out, Otto and I are allowed inside with the rest of the family. We kneel hunched over a sheet of paper, cleaning tack.
    Meyer is on a chair by the radio, head cocked towards it, listening. The only other noises are the soft clicking of knitting needles, snap of twigs breaking inside flames, and an occasional tumble of embers. A tinny voice shouts out of the radio into the hushed room.
    A sudden whistling interrupts the programme; sounds crackle and hiss through the transmitter. The voice disappears inside the noise. Meyer frowns and twiddles a knob. The voice rises up from the machine, even louder. ‘Reich President von Hindenburg has appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Party, chancellor of the Reich.’
    Bettina throws a handful of peel into the fire. Flames flare green. I keep rubbing at the leather strap in my hand. Smelling horse sweat, beeswax and burning chestnut skins.
    ‘Hitler is a friend of the farmer.’ Meyer nods. ‘And no friend to communists. Things will get better now.’
    Mrs Meyer takes off her glasses and rubs at her eyes, her knitting abandoned on her lap. She gazes into the fire. ‘Put another log on, Ernst.’
    Meyer turns the radio off. I get up and place a piece of wood in the grate, the heat scorching my face as I lean close.
     
    Two months later, Otto and I travel into town on a Saturday morning with Meyer, to take eggs and cheese to market as usual. As we draw up in the trap on the market square we see at once that something is happening: