Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

I love you girls, Fanny assured them one morning as they sat on her veranda round the low table, which had a tiled top painted with pale roses, drinking tea and nibbling little sticks of ginger. The veranda was full of the scent of bergamot. Fanny drank her tea with a great deal of sugar and no milk. Every morning a plate of poppyseed cake stood on the table, but Helene had never tasted it; she felt shy of reaching over the table uninvited and helping herself to a piece. Fanny’s lover must still be in bed — in the boudoir, Fanny liked to say. Or at least one of her lovers. Recently a new one had frequently visited the apartment, tall, fair-haired Erich. Like Bernard, he was a few immaterial years younger than Fanny. She didn’t seem to have chosen between the two of them, but they were seldom both her guests at the same time. Also like Bernard, Erich usually slept until midday, but while Bernard spent the rest of the day betting on horses and watching the trotting races, tall blond Erich frequented the Grünewald tennis courts, and now in winter the indoor courts. Once he had asked Helene if she would like to go with him. He had waited to invite her until a moment came when Fanny wasn’t around, and he had put his hand on the back of her neck so suddenly and with such passion that she had been afraid of coming across Erich ever since. It was true that in front of Fanny he took not the slightest notice of her, but his glances fell on her all the more avidly when Fanny’s back was turned. Today the veranda windows were clouded with condensation; the heating was still full on in the apartment, and February snow lay on the trees and rooftops.

The door opened and the housemaid Otta brought in a tray with a pot of freshly brewed tea. From Ceylon, said Otta, placing the tray on the table. She put a silver cover over the pot to keep it hot, and left.

I do love you girls, whispered Fanny again. Her black poodle, who answered to the name of Cleo — Fanny pronounced it in the English way and said it was short for Cleopatra — wagged her short tail, a soft ball of hair. Cleo’s coat shone as she looked attentively from one young woman to another. When Fanny threw the dog a little piece of poppyseed cake, Cleo snapped it up without looking at her, as if she weren’t waiting for something sweet at all, but was giving all her attention to the girls’ conversation. Fanny dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief; she blew her nose a lot, and not just in winter.

Oh, my poor nose is all inflamed again, she whispered, lost in thought as she stared at her knees, like my mind in general. But children, I do love you.

Leontine was perched on the wooden arm of Martha’s chair, jiggling her toes impatiently. Martha had met Leontine again in summer, and since then they had seen each other daily. These days Leontine was spending the night at the ground-floor apartment in Achenbachstrasse more and more often.

My friend says they have only one vacancy. They’re looking for an experienced nurse. That’s Martha. Fanny made a sympathetic little moue in Helene’s direction and batted her eyelashes, to show Helene that she was genuinely sorry. Helene, dear, something else will very soon turn up for you too, sweetheart.

Martha was to start work next week at the Jewish Hospital in Exerzierstrasse, in the north of the city. Fanny had an admirer who was medical director of the ward for the terminally ill. Fanny said he was old and randy, and had described the post as might have been expected of him. The nurse was to be between twenty and thirty. Just like Martha. Yes, the applicant must be the right age, he only liked women of that age, which was why his admiration for Fanny had faded slightly over the last few years. It was difficult to find staff for the terminal ward because of all the incurable illnesses and dying patients, so the management would prefer an older nurse. Well, of course twenty-six was far from old, but all the same Martha had more experience than Helene, didn’t she?

Helene tried to look content with that. Martha couldn’t suppress a yawn. She was still wearing the silk dressing gown that her aunt had recently passed on to her.

Leontine nodded on Martha’s behalf. Absolutely right, no one’s Martha’s equal in emptying and filling things, cleaning up the patients and soothing them, feeding them and applying dressings.

And you’ll learn the right prayers, won’t you? Fanny meant it seriously. She took Martha to synagogue with her on high days and holidays, but even at home Martha had not been very diligent over saying her prayers in St Peter’s Cathedral.

Martha picked a stick of ginger out of the flower-shaped glass dish, crooked her little finger and nibbled the ginger stick. Over the last few months, Helene and Martha had often discussed their reluctance to be a burden on their aunt, living at her expense. They were enjoying life in the big apartment, but they would have liked to give Fanny some money for their board and also to have money of their own to spend. Accepting financial presents made them feel uncomfortable. There had turned out to be problems with the Breslau legacy. The rents didn’t come in regularly, and the agent who was supposed to be managing them hadn’t sent any news for months. Martha and Helene couldn’t bring themselves to ask their aunt for money to send home to Bautzen. When a letter arrived from Mariechen, appealing for help and saying she didn’t know where to turn for money to buy food for their mother, Helene had stolen into the larder and taken some provisions, which they sent by parcel post to Bautzen. At the same time Martha had abstracted one of Fanny’s gramophone records and taken it to the pawnbroker’s to exchange for some money. A loan was the way Martha and Helene had described it to each other, until one day Aunt Fanny asked casually if they knew what had become of her Richard Tauber record, which seemed to have disappeared. Helene had been overcome by a coughing fit so that they could avoid telling all to Fanny. Martha said at once that she had dropped it and it broke. She just hadn’t dared to tell her aunt, she said. False remorse? Martha’s look of wide-eyed innocence was astonishing, as always. Fanny proved magnanimous.

Martha and Helene had applied for posts at several hospitals over the last few months, but so far unsuccessfully. The whole city seemed to be looking for work, and those who did have a job wanted a better one with higher pay. If you had no job you did deals, but the sisters didn’t understand enough about that. People dropped hints about the black market, and bets, and how only pretty girls could sell their services for some things, at least at the revues. Fanny’s friend Lucinde worked in a revue, naked, as she said with relish, wearing nothing but her hair. Helene’s nursing certificates from Bautzen won her some admiration, but her age put the hospitals off, she was considered too young for a permanent nursing post in a hospital.

I’ll take the job. Martha put the nibbled ginger stick down on the rim of her saucer. She rested her head against Leontine and held her hand in front of her mouth. Fanny looked at Leontine and Martha, smiled, and ran her tongue first over her teeth and then over her lips.

I’m glad. But you know you are my guests — for ever, if you like. So far as I’m concerned you don’t have to work. You do know that, don’t you? Fanny looked round at them. She might have no husband and no parents any more, but obviously Fanny was still so rich, without anyone to share her fortune, that she had no financial worries. I wasn’t including Leontine, of course, said Fanny, but then who wouldn’t like to have a beautiful woman as a hospital doctor? When do you take your exams, Leontine?

In the autumn. I’m not hoping for too much — I’ll start with Professor Friedrich at the Charité Hospital. He may help me to get my further degree and my lecturer’s qualification.