Cleaver by Tim Parks

Author:Tim Parks [Parks, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vintage

PART TWO

IX

LET ME PUT it to you, Mr President, that you understand freedom only in the negative sense of freedom from chains. Cleaver was woken by the sound of footsteps. Perhaps there had been the proverbial crack of the twig. At once he was alert. There was no point in going to the bedroom window. Across the gorge, the sun was on the further slopes now. It must be after three. I fell asleep debating with the President of the United States. If there was one thing in our house that was strictly forbidden, his elder son had written, it was to wake my father during his afternoon nap. Who can it be? Cleaver felt muddled. Had he actually said that to the President? Someone was definitely walking around outside the house. Genius must repose, Mother would say. I could peek out of the window in the old Nazi’s room, he told himself. That looked out over the clearing. But if Jürgen or Seffa see, they’ll know I broke in there. Someone will have to repair the damage.

Nevertheless, he crossed the bedroom boards on bare feet and went through the splintered door. I actually want it to be Seffa, he realised, or Hermann, or even Frau Schleiermacher. That was unlikely. It didn’t occur to him to hurry down the stairs and confront whoever it was. He had to pick his way through the boxes and junk. He hadn’t cleaned the place up. There was a crate of empty bottles. How silly, Cleaver remembered of that evening a month before, to have imagined you might uncover some kind of mystery in here. But the accordion had proved a plus.

Even before he got to the window, he saw there was a man with a small backpack on his shoulders examining the door to his john across the clearing. A man in his late thirties perhaps. There was something rather solemn and pensive to his manner. He had a sharp nose, spectacles, thin blond hair. Cleaver watched. A hiker by the looks. A man with a lanky frame. What was he doing so far off the beaten track? There are no signposts or red-and-white flashes around Rosenkranzhof. It is not marked on any map.

The man lifted the latch, opened the door a crack, then closed it sharply, shaking his head. Cleaver grinned. But he ducked aside when the hiker turned round to face the house. As the silence builds up, over two days, three, then a week, then another, you find you don’t want to break it. You don’t want your mental energy dispersed. I was getting close to something important there when I fell asleep, Cleaver remembered. Now he has forgotten. About the nature of freedom. This whole adventure has to do with the possibility of freedom.

He stood a while with his back against a tall cupboard, trapped by the enquiring eyes of this intruder prowling around his house. I would have been happy to go downstairs and speak to Seffa, if only to reassure myself that they weren’t imagining awful things about me.

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