The Undertaking by Audrey Magee Page B

kept it aside for her.
    Her mother left the bathroom, hurried to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, closed it and headed back to her son.
    ‘He has lice. Though only in his hair. And no infections or frostbite, thank God.’
    She closed the bathroom door, then snapped it open again.
    ‘Oh, Katharina, could you get his pyjamas?’
    She rose slowly, her lower spine and pelvis feeling the strain of the day as she moved to his room. She ran her fingers over his awards, lingering over the brass horse on its wooden plaque, the city boy’s triumph over the country riders. She left his clothes on the floor outside the bathroom and knocked.
    ‘Pyjamas.’
    He emerged, washed and shaved, blue cotton sagging from his shoulders, a parent holding each arm as he was led to the sofa.
    ‘I’ll make him something to eat,’ said Mrs Spinell.
    ‘Mother, we really need to put him in bed before the sedation wears off.’
    ‘Katharina, that boy has not eaten properly for weeks. I won’t let him go to bed without food.’
    ‘Fine, then.’
    Katharina lifted his legs onto the sofa and covered him, over-riding his silence with her chatter about her new husband and baby, about the new apartment and the things to be found in the pawn-shops. He said nothing. Noticed nothing. The less he responded, the more she talked, relieved when her mother returned with a bowl of soft, milky, infantile potato. Mrs Spinell spooned it into his mouth, mopping away his spews and dribbles.
    ‘You like that, don’t you, sweetheart?’
    Mrs Spinell scraped the bowl and spooned what was left into her own mouth, reassuring herself that he had eaten well.
    ‘Good boy.’
    Katharina took both his hands.
    ‘It’s time to get him to bed, Mother.’
    ‘Katharina, I haven’t seen him for months. Leave us be.’
    ‘But the sedation will wear off.’
    ‘And what will happen then?’
    ‘I don’t know. I never asked.’
    ‘Just five minutes more.’
    Mrs Spinell sang to him and, with her husband’s help, took him to the lavatory and then to bed. Katharina went to bed too, grateful for the rain clouds hanging over the city. The English would not be coming.
    In the morning, in a warm, thick cardigan, she went to see her brother. He was motionless, but for his lips, which moved frenetically, feverishly. His eyes were open.
    ‘Johannes? Are you awake?’
    She put a hand to his forehead, but found no fever. She sat on a chair at the side of the bed and folded his papery hand into hers, until her mother came in, a house smock already on.
    ‘How is he, Katharina?’
    ‘He’s awake and calm, but muttering to himself.’
    ‘He’s been doing that all night.’
    ‘Have you been up?’
    ‘Your father and I took turns to sit with him.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped.’
    ‘You have little enough rest as it is.’
    ‘Did he sleep?’
    ‘Not much. A little at the beginning of the night. For the rest of the time, he just lay like this.’
    ‘It’s so awful.’
    Mrs Spinell sat next to her son’s feet.
    ‘What do we do, Mother?’
    ‘We’ll have to wait and see what happens. Your father saw this in the last war. Men tended to come out of it.’
    ‘Unscathed?’
    ‘Sometimes. Sometimes not.’
    ‘How long did it take?’
    ‘Days, weeks, sometimes months.’
    ‘The nurse said three weeks.’
    ‘Let’s hope so.’
    ‘I forgot about her letter.’
    Katharina retrieved the nurse’s envelope from the hall. Inside were Johannes’ paybook, leave pass and a letter addressed to their parents. She opened the paybook and looked at his photograph, taken at the start of the war. He was smiling at the camera. She turned the pages, tracking his clothing allowances, equipment, payments and route across Europe into Russia, the scrawled signatures, entry and exit dates, the institutional stamps. The names of three hospitals.
    ‘Johannes has been in hospital before, Mother.’
    ‘What? How do you know?’
    She passed over the book and the letter from an