Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

Oh, you disappoint me, darling. I see you in a little doctor’s car, stopping outside my house with your medical bag. Why not aim for a big private practice — you could get young assistants to help you, men like Erich or Bernard?

Flattered, Leontine smiled. She had developed a curious flexibility in Berlin, she smiled more often, sometimes just with her eyes, and even her movements had become as graceful as a cat’s. Leontine rose and went round the table. She took Helene’s blonde braid in both hands, as if weighing it, then placed one hand on Helene’s head. Helene felt warm; there was nothing nicer than the sensation of Leontine’s hand on her head.

Private patients still don’t trust a woman doctor, said Leontine, raising her eyebrows with a rueful look. And I don’t have the necessary funds either.

Well, of course your assistants don’t need to be men; you could have woman assistants, Leontine. Like Martha and Helene. Fanny chuckled. I hear you’re married to some feeble-minded palaeontologist. One might think he had funds.

Lorenz, feeble-minded? Leontine’s eyes sparkled. Who says so? My dear husband wouldn’t feel at all confident about it if I set up in private practice. Now Leontine was laughing, the wry laughter they knew from the old days.

Surely he must be feeble-minded if he doesn’t notice that his wife fails to spend the night at home! Fanny’s tongue slid along her top row of teeth again, then licked her lips.

Lorenz is liberal on principle — and he’s lost interest in me anyway.

Fanny threw her poodle Cleo a morsel of poppyseed cake and poured herself a glass of brandy. Now her eye fell on Helene. Leontine says you can use a typewriter and do shorthand? Fanny’s nose was running, but she noticed too late. She only just managed to catch the trickle on her chin with her handkerchief. Didn’t you keep the accounts in your father’s printing works?

Helene diffidently shrugged her shoulders. It seemed so long ago that she’d done these things. Her old life had retreated into the distance; she didn’t like to think about it. She practised not remembering — that, she had recently whispered to a young man making up to her at a party, was the only way to hold on to youth. And she had looked at him so innocently that the young man had to take her seriously and wanted to agree with her.

Helene had spent most of the last few months in Berlin reading in Fanny’s library, going for walks and facing up to her private worries about Martha. She seldom let Martha out of her sight, although she admired the fearlessness with which Martha and Leontine smuggled themselves into every louche club in Bülowstrasse. Helene hated the nights when she was woken by the moans of her sister and her sister’s friend. She never felt lonelier than there in her narrow bed, although it was less than a metre away from the equally narrow bed where Martha and Leontine were panting for breath. Sometimes they giggled, sometimes they stopped, whispered and wondered out loud, so that Helene was bound to hear it, whether they had woken her up with their whispers. Then again there were the sounds of kissing, the sighs, particularly Martha’s, and the rustling of the bedclothes. Sometimes Helene thought she could almost feel the warmth radiating from their bodies.

You know my friend Clemens the pharmacist — he’s looking for a girl to help him, someone who can use a typewriter, a pretty girl who’d be nice to the customers. I could ask him.

That’s her all over, said Leontine, stroking Helene’s hair.

You’re discreet, aren’t you? Martha wrinkled her brow doubtfully.

That’s her all over too, repeated Leontine, still stroking Helene’s hair.

Pharmacists keep secrets. Fanny was not exactly whispering, but murmuring in her velvety voice. Mine, Bernard’s, Lucinde’s, half the city’s secrets.

Helene didn’t know what to say in reply. Unlike Martha, she had not managed to win Fanny’s affection and confidence. They had been living with their aunt for almost a year now, Fanny passed on her clothes to them and introduced them to her circle of friends, but it seemed as if she thought Helene a naïve child and would do all she could to ensure that didn’t change. Sometimes Helene thought she detected a kind of reserve towards her in Fanny. She discussed certain things only with Martha, whether they were to do with clothes or society gossip. Helene had seldom felt as much aware of the nine years’ age difference between herself and Martha as she did in their aunt’s presence. Usually all the doors on the ground floor stood open, but when Fanny called Martha into a room with her she often closed the door, and Helene guessed that behind it her little round box with the tiny spoon and the white powder was coming out, something she shared only with Martha and no one else. Then Helene would stand on tiptoe, listening, and hear her sniffing and sighing, and at those moments, when she stood on tiptoe with her cold feet in a dark corridor, with only the pendulum of the white English grandfather clock and its golden dial to keep her company, she was sorry she had come to Berlin with Martha. Fanny had never once asked if Helene would like to go out with them in the evening.

Only when Leontine and Martha visited the now rather faded Luna Park was Helene allowed to go too. The girls went in the old artificial wave pool there — the waves were generated only by the wind now — and splashed about, taking no notice of the gentlemen, both young and older, who strolled around the rim of the basin to watch them. The artificial wave pool was nicknamed the Nymphs’ Basin and the Tarts’ Aquarium in the city, which seemed to the girls poor ways of expressing the lively interest shown by the young and old gentlemen. The girls liked the waves and the slide into the lake, and paid for their own entrance. Didn’t that mean the male spectators had no right to regard themselves as pimps and potential customers?

I’ll tell you girls something: this is a small city. The world thinks it’s large because it’s such a beautiful soap bubble in our imagination. Fanny lit one of her English cigars and tilted her head back. Each fantastic bubble stretches, grows bigger, brighter, more fragile. Is it falling? Fanny drew on the thin cigar. Is it rising? Fanny puffed little smoke rings. Is it coming down? Fanny was enjoying her flight of fancy, but then her smile disappeared. Well, Helene, if you can keep secrets the pharmacist would appreciate that. So would I. I’ll ask him about the job. Fanny nodded as if to confirm her words and encourage herself. She drained the final drop of brandy from her small glass and dabbed her nose carefully with her handkerchief. A tear ran from the corner of her eye. Oh, dear children, how I love you. You do know that you don’t need to work, don’t you? Why should you be any worse off than Erich and Bernard? Stay with me, fill my home and my heart, she said, visibly moved. By her own loneliness, Helene wondered, or by the idea of her generous heart? Fanny blew her nose and caressed Cleo’s muzzle.

The doorbell rang. A little later Otta appeared to announce a visitor. Your friend the Baron, mademoiselle. He’s arrived with several suitcases. Shall I get a room ready for him?

Oh dear, did I forget that? Dear Otta, yes, please get a room ready, the gold room will be best. He’ll be staying some time, he wants to look around Berlin. Turning to Martha, Fanny said, He’s a painter, a real artist. Fanny opened her reddened eyes. The ash on her cigar was getting long. She looked around for something. She had lost track of the ashtray and knocked the ash off the cigar on to the plate of poppyseed cake. The Baron tried his luck in Paris, now he’s come here. It’s only here he thinks he can paint to his heart’s content. If only! These days everyone wants to found a club and be head of it. Fanny gave herself a little shake. Only recently, she said, she had met a lively little man who talked a lot about himself and had made a name for himself too, an artist who rejected any notion of meaningful content in his work. It was just the outer form he valued, the artist’s way of life, recognition and of course followers. Yes, he founded a club and made himself head of it. He was in earnest, that was what surprised Fanny. There must have been something about the encounter, she said, that displeased her in retrospect. Perhaps it was his claim to have a large following who loved, indeed idolized him.