Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

A hand reached for her; she didn’t know the man. His face was covered with white make-up, his lips were almost black, and Helene danced. With every dance her partner’s face and figure changed. Soon Leontine and Martha reappeared. Martha smiled at her as she danced; perhaps, just perhaps, that smile was really aimed in her direction, meant for the music, for her brief disappearance, but Helene wasn’t trying to get near Martha any more. Someone else’s glance had been following Helene for some time in the darkness near the platform, from one of the little tables with the small green lamps. Helene recognized Carl Wertheimer and was glad that he had finally noticed her. Perhaps he was just curious to find out what Leontine’s friends were like. His glance was attentive, but it didn’t bother her. Carl Wertheimer still wore his coat; its smooth fur collar shone, perhaps he was about to leave. He was smoking a short, slender pipe. His eyes kept going to the other dancers, to Leontine, then back to Helene. In spite of his youth, Helene couldn’t help thinking, his features were grave and dignified.

The clarinet called, Helene leaped after it; the trombone pushed at her and Helene leaned back; the trumpet beckoned her on, but Helene hesitated.

Soon after that she twisted her ankle, stumbled and lost her balance. She grabbed Martha’s shoulder to keep herself from falling and leaned on it. Martha must have mistaken her for someone else; she roughly shook off Helene’s hand. The little strap of Helene’s shoe was broken; there was nothing she could do but hold the shoe in her hand and make her way through the sweet-sour odour of the dancing crowd. When she reached the stage she turned left. As soon as she was away from the stuffy warmth of the dancers and their hot clutches she felt a cool draught coming from the darkness. Were there windows somewhere? She couldn’t see any. Perhaps someone had opened the door to let in some air. Helene looked over the dancers’ heads; a long way off, at the back of the room, she saw Fanny’s white face. Fortunately there was no sign of the Baron’s hat. Would she like a drink? Someone jostled her. Helene said a quick no, thank you, and hurried on. She passed figures exhausted by the night’s revels and pale early-morning faces. A shiver ran down her back, and unexpectedly she was looking into the eyes of Carl Wertheimer, the thin-faced young man.

Excuse me, he said, I think you’re a friend of Leontine’s. His voice was remarkably deep for one so young. Her gaze fell on his fur collar. It shimmered so beautifully that she would have liked to stroke the fur.

Helene nodded; of course he didn’t know her name. So she said: Helene, I’m Helene Würsich.

Wertheimer, Carl Wertheimer. Fräulein Leontine was kind enough to introduce me to her friends at the beginning of the evening.

You’re her student.

He nodded and offered her his arm. Do you need help?

I do indeed, my shoe’s broken. Helene held the shoe out to him. She thought of Martha, looked round in alarm, and saw her sister among the dancers with her arms round Leontine. It almost looked as if Martha were going to kiss Leontine in front of everyone. A slight uneasiness, a momentary revulsion overcame Helene; it was not so much the faint sense of being shut out as fear of this stranger’s discovering everything, of revelation of the network in which she too belonged, as Martha’s sister and ally. Helene wanted to divert Wertheimer’s attention.

Have you known Dr Leontine long?

Our aunt invited us to stay. She has lots of friends. Helene made a vague gesture. I’m afraid I have to leave now.

Of course. May I accompany you? I don’t think you ought to be limping home alone through the empty streets.

Yes, please. I’d like that. I’m afraid, she said, thinking of the pigeons picking seeds out of the ashes in the Cinderella story, that I don’t have either ashes or pigeons to lend me charms. Then she realized that her ears were burning; she had meant to suggest not so much charms as virginal patience.

Helene said goodbye to her aunt. Fanny didn’t even deign to look at the young student Wertheimer, but assured Helene that Otta would open the door to her when she got home.

It was light now outside. The birds were twittering softly to greet the summer day, although it had dawned long ago and the street lights were out. A cab was waiting for custom. Clearly people must be beginning to go to work. A newspaper boy stood on the corner offering the Morgenpost and the Querschnitt .

The Querschnitt on the street so early in the morning, said Carl, smiling and shaking his head.

Helene was enjoying her encounter with Wertheimer, and as they asked each other the first tentative questions about their lives she did not tell him how close they were to where she was staying. One foot shod, the other bare and touching the paving stones, Helene felt the sticky surface of the street. The lime trees had been dropping their nectar overnight.

Come, let’s conceal ourselves more closely … Wertheimer looked enquiringly at Helene to see if she recognized his quotation from the poet Else Laske-Schüler.

Life lies in all our hearts. Quickly, casually, Helene tossed the next line back to him.

As if in coffins. Wertheimer happily completed the second verse of the poem. But Helene said no more; she just smiled.

What is it? he asked. Won’t you go on?

I’ve forgotten how the rest of it goes.

I don’t believe that. He looked surprised and a little sorry, but she mollified him.

You say it so cheerfully, but ‘The End of the World’ is a sad poem, don’t you think?

You call it sad? It’s optimistic, Helene! What can be fuller of promise than devotion, a kiss, a longing that embraces us and brings us to the point of death?

You believe she was thinking of God when she wrote it?

Not at all, the divine is closer to her. How does the poem begin? Why, with many doubts! She speaks of weeping as if the good Lord God were dead . But if she believed in God she’d assume he was immortal, so it’s a double rejection of faith; she doesn’t believe in the good Lord any more than an evil Lord or any other kind of god. Is the death of God supposed to make the world weep for him or because it’s rid of him?

Helene looked at Wertheimer. She mustn’t forget to close her lips. Didn’t Martha keep telling her to shut her mouth or insects would fly into it? She had never heard anyone discuss a poem like this.

But wasn’t the poem hers, all hers? Waxing enthusiastic, Helene was talking away now, for her poem rather than her life, although with a man like Wertheimer you couldn’t draw sharp distinctions between the two.

Laske-Schüler doesn’t regale herself on God, she doesn’t regale herself on mankind and their sufferings either, she grants them only a kiss before dying. Believe me, her own mortality, looking her in the face — whether she’s to die of longing and in tears or not — human mortality, her understanding that it’s inevitable, all that’s clearly opposed to God’s immortality.

Do you always read poems backwards?

Only if I meet someone who insists on linearity.

The young man was going to take the tram or a bus and turned the corner.

So you, with your Latinate terms — regaling yourself on them, in fact! — you accuse me of insisting on linearity? I like to take a winding path myself, but I won’t insist on anything, certainly not to you. There was severity in Wertheimer’s words, but the next moment mischief was sparkling in his eyes. How about all that cultural and scientific stuff? Tell me, don’t you think all our efforts are shocking presumption? Doesn’t a club where anyone can be chairman have the biggest membership? Is Dada a wastepaper basket for art?