The caretaker’s wife sat thinking, without saying a word. A couple of tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled cheeks. Then she got up heavily from the chair and indicated that I should wait a minute. ‘I have a couple of photographs I need to show you,’ she mumbled, as she went past.
A few minutes later, she came back with two framed photographs in her hands. The first was an old, yellowing black-and-white wedding picture of a smiling young couple. The man was tall and dark, the woman a head shorter and much rounder.
‘That was in spring 1928,’ she said quietly. As if that explained it all.
‘The Labour Party had just formed their first government and the future looked bright. A lot of people asked me then, and over the years that followed, how I had managed to find such a good man as Anton. And he was back then: handsome, hard-working and reliable in everything he did. Everything was rosy for the next twelve years. He had a job; the children managed to avoid tuberculosis and grow up. We never complained, despite the long working hours.’
‘And then…’ I said again, still unsure of where this was leading.
‘Then the war came and Anton joined the Resistance. He asked me first, but I couldn’t say no when that was what he wanted and the country’s future was at risk. I have asked myself a thousand times since how life would have been if I had put my foot down and said no. As it was, his life was torn apart by the war, though we didn’t realize it at the time. My Anton was one of the ones who survived the war but could not live with the memories when peace came. He started to have nightmares and problems sleeping, which led to more cigarettes and more and more alcohol. I told you that he was away and you didn’t ask any more questions, but he is actually in hospital and won’t leave until he is in a coffin. I have told him so many times over the years that with the amount he smoked and drank, either his lungs or his liver would take him from us before he was sixty. He is sixty-two now, but it will be over in a few weeks, thanks to his liver and his lungs. If you need to talk to him, you should not put it off longer than necessary.’
She looked down for a moment, then quickly continued.
‘I know what you are thinking: why am I sitting here when my husband is in hospital? Well, it is partly that I have never liked hospitals. But most of all, it is because I can’t bear to see him. He is just a shadow of what he once was, and the only thing left in his life is pain. I always go the minute they call and say that he wants to see me, which is not very often, but it won’t make it any easier for us when it happens either. One of us has to keep things going, for the sake of the children and the people here. So that is why I would rather sit here with this old photograph. I want to remember him as he once was, not as what he has become.’