Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

Ah, well, that wouldn’t surprise her, Aunt Fanny wrote back. Such disorders ran in the family; and in that case, she asked, who was looking after the girls now?

They looked after themselves, Martha said proudly and she asked Helene to put that in her next letter. Both of them did. And she told Helene to tell their aunt that after just two years of training, and although she was the youngest of the student nurses, she, Helene, was going to take her examination in September. She should say that she was already helping in the hospital laundry and earning a little money there, so the two of them had enough to live on in a modest way. So far what remained of the family fortune had just been able to provide for their mother, the household and their faithful maid Mariechen.

Helene hesitated. Wouldn’t it be better to say what little remained of the family fortune?

Why? A fortune can’t be little, my angel.

But it’s all gone now.

Does she have to know that? We’re not beggars.

Helene didn’t want to contradict Martha. She liked the invincibility of her sister’s pride. She went on writing: So far we haven’t found anyone to lease the printing works, but we can probably sell some of the machinery. We’ll have to sell the Monopol press too, since our money is running out as the currency loses value and we have had no news of our legacy from Breslau. Did Aunt Fanny know anything about her late uncle the hat maker Herbert Steinitz, and the big salon he was said to have opened on the Ring in Breslau?

Ah, yes, the hat maker, Aunt Fanny wrote back. Her well-heeled uncle had liked only one person in the world, and that was her strange cousin Selma. She was sure he had left everything to Cousin Selma. Herself, she had never really cultivated the acquaintance of her Uncle Herbert. Perhaps she ought to make up for that now, after the event? The fact was that her uncle’s reputation depended solely on his fortune. She could ask her brothers about him; one of them still lived in Gleiwitz, the other in Breslau.

It was to be autumn before Martha and Helene received the legacy left to their mother. It consisted of the regular income from the rents of an apartment block with business premises on the ground floor that Fanny’s uncle had had built in Breslau, some securities that were worth hardly anything now and finally a large, brand-new wardrobe trunk that came by cart on one of the first cool days of late September.

The carrier said the trunk weighed so little that he’d be willing to carry it upstairs by himself.

It was lucky that Mother was in her bedroom and didn’t see the trunk. Martha and Helene waited until Mariechen had gone to her own little room that evening, then broke open the lead seals with a knife and a hammer. A scent of thyme and southern softwoods rose to their nostrils. The trunk contained a large number of unusual hats packed in tissue paper, lavishly trimmed with feathers and coloured stones, and inside them square wooden hat blocks that gave off a resinous aroma. The blocks were planed smooth but were sticky at the sides. Each hat had a flat little bag of yellow hemp on it, filled with dried herbs, probably to keep moths away. Among the hats were two curious small round ones that looked like pots and fitted closely on Martha’s and Helene’s heads. At the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in heavy moss-green velvet, lay a menorah and a peculiar fish. The fish was made of horn in two different colours, adorned with carving, and the two sections fitted ingeniously together. Its eye sockets, pale horn set in horn of a darker hue, might once have held jewels, or at least so Martha thought. Inside the hollow horn body Helene found a rolled-up paper. The will. I bequeath all my property to my dear niece Selma Steinitz, married name Würsich, now resident in Bautzen. Uncle Herbert had signed his will. Further inside the belly of the fish was a thin gold necklace with tiny deep-red translucent stones. Rubies, Martha surmised. Helene wondered how Martha came to know anything about precious stones. Instinctively she let the stones slip through her hand and counted them. Twenty-two.

We’ll keep the fish here in the glass-topped display cabinet, said Martha, taking the fish from Helene’s hands and opening the cabinet. She put the fish in one of the lower compartments where it couldn’t be seen from outside. It was tacitly agreed that Helene and Martha would not ask their mother what to do with the fish. If she said they should keep it, that might mean for as long as she lived. They told her nothing about the fish and they hid the two modern cloche-shaped hats in their wardrobes.

When Martha finally, with Helene’s assistance, pushed the wardrobe trunk containing the other hats, the will and the menorah into their mother’s darkened bedroom one morning, then carried it, stepping cautiously, from clearing to clearing, because there was no space for the big trunk on the floor, she looked up in alarm. Like a frightened animal, she watched her daughters’ movements. They lifted the trunk over a pile of fabrics and clothes, over two little tables full of vases and twigs, caskets and stones, and countless other items unidentifiable at first glance, raised it in the air and finally put it down at the foot of Mother’s bed. Martha opened the trunk.

From your uncle the hat maker in Breslau, she said, holding up two large hats heavily trimmed with paste gems, stones and beads.

Uncle Herbert in Breslau, Helene confirmed.

Their mother nodded so eagerly, then glanced at the door, the window and back to Helene again with such a hunted look, that the girls didn’t know if she had understood them.

Don’t open the curtains, Mother snapped at Helene. She snorted with derision as Helene put the menorah on the windowsill beside her smaller candleholder. Candles had last burned in Mother’s menorah on the day of her husband’s death. She had lit only six of them, and when Helene asked why her mother had left out the middle candle she had whispered in a toneless voice that there was no Here any more, hadn’t her child noticed that? Helene opened the window as she suddenly heard a chuckle behind her. Her mother was struggling to catch her breath; something evidently seemed to her incredibly funny.

Mother? Helene tried just speaking to her at first; after all, there were days when a question could be asked to no purpose whatsoever. Her mother chuckled again. Mother?

Suddenly her mother fell silent. Well, who else? she asked, and broke out laughing once more.

Martha, on her way downstairs, called out to Helene. But when Helene reached the doorway her mother spoke again.

Do you think I don’t know why you were opening the window? Whenever you come into my room you open it, unasked.

I just wanted to…

You don’t think, child. I suppose your idea is that my room stinks? Is that what you want to show me? I stink, do I? Shall I tell you something, stupid girl? Old age comes, it will come to you too and it rots you away. Mother raised herself in her bed, rocking on her knees, looking as if she might tip forward and off the bedhead first. And she was laughing, the laughter was burbling out of her throat, physically hurting Helene. I’ll tell you a secret. If you don’t come into the room it doesn’t stink. Simple, eh? Mother’s laughter was not malicious now, just carefree, relieved. Helene stood there undecided. She was trying to make sense of the words. What’s the matter? Off you go, or do you want to leave me stinking, you pitiless girl?

Helene went away.

And close the door behind you! she heard her mother calling after her.

Helene closed the door. She put her hand on the banisters as she went downstairs. How familiar they seemed to her; she felt almost happy to think of these banisters leading her so safely down to the ground floor.