The apartment was nearly empty. This roof over her head. Aside from the bedroom, all the rooms now echoed as Kaila walked from one into the next. As if the ceilings were higher now, the space suddenly larger, more expansive. Kaila's eyes wandered around the room. Deep in thought, she began groping about in search of her package of tobacco. She would never find it this way. She walked out into the kitchen. For days it had been completely white. Freshly painted and thoroughly scrubbed until it was spotless, for the day when the landlady would come with the new tenants, and for herself, so that she could leave, feeling sleek and unmussed. A quick glance into the furthest right corner. All her cleaning had been useless there. It had the same smell as before, the same smell as three years ago, when her head had hit the floor for the first but not the last time.
"Why this corner?" she had asked herself many times. And the answer was probably mundane, the way most things in life are mundane when one really starts to think about them. It was the only corner of the kitchen that could hold an adult body. That was the reason why. That was probably the reason why. In all this white, there was no sign of her package of tobacco. She must have left it lying somewhere else. She checked the bathroom, the kitchen; there was no sign of it. She went into the bedroom, a room that she hardly ever entered anymore. She had stored all the boxes there, on the left wall. Moving boxes, stacked on top of each other, tall as a man. She had written the contents neatly on the outside of each one, so that the movers would know where they should go in the new apartment: the living room, the children's room (though there wouldn't be any children anymore), the kitchen, the bathroom, and so on. She had also jotted down little notes to herself: "china and cutlery," "flight jacket and books." On one of the boxes it said: "photos, office stuff, lawyer." But "lawyer" had been crossed out. She had decided to remove the three-ring binder that contained all the case records. Just in case. To be on the safe side. In case of theft, while her things were being brought from apartment A to apartment B, since the records weren't covered by insurance. And she didn't want to have to spend any more money making additional copies of them. They were over on the other side of the room now, inside the suitcase she was planning to take with her on the plane.
As Kaila removed her tobacco and cigarette papers from one of the boxes, she thought, "How many corners, how many niches an apartment exposes when it's been emptied." She glanced down the hallway and into the room at the other end, the guest room, the room with the balcony. That had been her realm. The rest of the apartment hadn't really belonged to her. The study. The children's rooms. The dining room. They had all belonged to Martin. Even the living room. That was the place he retreated to when he wasn't working and didn't want to see her. "Get out," he would say, simple as that. And she would obey, she would leave the door wide open, so that he wouldn't feel confined, or isolated. She would walk into the guest room. A plainly furnished room, no personal touches. A cheap bed with an old spring mattress that squeaked when you tossed from left to right, it was murder on your back. A narrow, ugly dresser from Martin's teenage room, a mirror. It looked like a cheap room in a dingy bed and breakfast where you wouldn't want to spend more than a night. But this had been her room. A room with a folding door that led out to a narrow balcony, a balcony typical for buildings of its substantial age. She had often spent entire evenings and then nights here, sometimes even days, because if Martin had given her an order it was in effect until he came up with a new one: make dinner, go to the theater with him, make a phone call, sleep with him. Inside the dresser there was still underwear, a nightgown, a book, a toothbrush, and a small pack of tampons. She wouldn't take any of it with her. Not a single thing. But if she could, she would take the balcony with her. And the light-purple lilac bushes that grew tall in front of it. The scent emitted from their sumptuous umbels in the spring was a fragrance that had carried her far away from here hundreds of times, no, thousands of times, to a place of tranquility and happiness, to a place of peace. To a place she now so badly wanted to create for herself. Step by step. By taking many little, and unrelenting, steps.
Kaila went into the guest room and glanced around. Using only one hand, she managed to open the small package with her dexterous fingers. She sat down in the now vacant corner from which she could see the balcony and the lilac blossoms in their full splendor. This was where Grandma Margot's chest had stood. Now it was beneath all the moving boxes. Carpet tiles, extremely old that had been expensive, covered the floor. Kaila had vacuumed them, and Mrs. Kochnitz, who would be moving in to the apartment the day after tomorrow with her husband, had been pleased to hear that they would be staying. "We can replace them later," she had said. "It's nice to move into a place where the floors aren't cold and bare," she had continued, smiling bashfully, before glancing out the window. Kaila knew that the couple couldn't really afford to rent the apartment; she had told her once that her husband had lost his job and that the statement of earnings they had presented had been forged.
"We used to live her, you know, in this apartment, before the war. I grew up here, and Max lived in the one across the way. There were some complications because my father was a communist. We've both wanted to move back in here so badly." Kaila hoped they would have a good life here, a good life for Mr. and Mrs. Kochnitz. They'd be getting her built-in kitchen, the dishwasher and washing machine, the furnishings in the bathroom, the sofa, the double bed, and the large dresser in the bedroom. Still, the apartment seemed oddly empty, almost hollow, now that all else had been either sold, given away, or packed into boxes.
Here she sat, in the corner that was now vacant due to the removal of the chest. Her eyes wandered around the room. It was strange, that Martin had let her have it. It was also strange that nothing bad had ever happened here. Not once. It was almost as if it had been a relief for Martin that she'd had a room of her own, although technically he'd been able to come in whenever he wanted. It was almost as if this room had given him a sense of relief, or done him justice in some way. No one could accuse him of having laid claim on everything. She'd had something. The balcony had been hers. "You managed to get yourself the best room," he'd always told her. "The room with the balcony." But he'd never made any attempt to do anything about it.
The fact that he'd gained custody of the children pained her deeply. She would miss them terribly. She would worry about them. Constantly. As long as she had been there with them, he had never had a reason to do them any harm. He had called them to him and locked them up in one of the children's rooms. He had always locked them up together. The keys to all the doors in the apartment had dangled on his key chain. It invited ridicule from others. People would ask him, "What's the monster key chain for?" or "What treasures are you hiding behind all of those locks?" He had just looked at them squarely, with a charming smile on his face that said, "wouldn't-you-like-to-know," and then suavely changed the subject. He would lock up the children, Clemens and Bernd, when he wanted to do what he wanted with her. And they weren't let out again until everything was peaceful and quiet again. Inside of himself and in the apartment. The children were not allowed to enter the guest room. Ever. That was one of the rules they had learned to respect at a very early age. And they had learned quickly, because they were bright and knew that Kaila would suffer less if they simply did as they were told. She had never managed to undo this association in their minds. It had proven fatal; it had been too dominant and simply too real. And it had been perfectly clear to both of them what they were to tell the female family court judge at the hearing.
Kaila lit the cigarette and then exhaled a stream of smoke so forcefully that it blew the thoughts of her two sons out of her mind. Out beyond the open folding door, out through the lilac bushes, out and up into the sky. She had tried everything. She had failed miserably. But right now there was nothing she could do. One weekend once a month. That was all she had managed to get for her children and for herself. At least she had managed to get that. The only thing left to do now was to take leave of this room that had been forced to bear witness to her disaster, a room whose four walls had been the surface into which her failure and incompetence had been carved. She also had to start trying to live a life that was worth living. This apartment had been the place where she had agreed to her own defilement, under a thousand pretexts, until her youngest child, Bernd, had come to her in the guest room. It was the night before Martin would go on to lock them inside the apartment at five in the morning, since he would be away for a few days. Bernd had lain down next to her in this room that was off-limits to him, placed his thin arms around her head, and had said to her, "Mom, I think you have to leave."
It had taken her three weeks. Then, one quiet night, she had left, unnoticed. Two days later, Martin had taken the children and left the apartment. The rest had been handled by lawyers and a few women at the women's shelter.
"But how do you take leave from a place that has been home to such failure?" Kaila has asked herself this over and over.
Kaila put the cigarette out in one of the carpet tiles. Mrs. Kochnitz would forgive her. She left the butt on the floor, placed the package of tobacco in her jacket pocket, closed the door to the balcony and walked out the front door. In the entrance hall, she put the keys, as agreed, inside the janitor's mailbox. She hailed a cab and asked to be brought to the airport.
The worst was over. Now came the next step. And the next, and the next one after that. Kaila was determined to see if she might not find some happiness in life, at least enough to keep her alive.
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