Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

The unexpected advent of Carl Wertheimer on the scene passed largely unnoticed in Fanny’s apartment. He did not call Helene on the telephone, but a messenger brought her flowers. Helene was surprised, alarmed, happy. She placed her hand protectively round the flowers, round the air encircling them, which seemed too dense to carry their faint fragrance. Like a treasure, she carried the anemones to her room. She was alone there and felt glad that Martha would not be back until late. She wondered where he had found anemones still in bloom now. She looked at the flowers; their blue changed during the day and the delicate petals grew heavy.

The anemones faded that evening, but she wouldn’t let Otta take the flowers out of their vase. Helene couldn’t sleep. When she closed her eyes she saw only blue. Her excitement was caused by something she had never known before, an encounter with someone with whom she shared mutual ideas, a mutual curiosity and, indeed, as she confided to Martha, a mutual passion for literature.

Martha yawned on receiving this confidence. You mean in common, little angel, not mutual.

Helene knew clearly now that something unique had happened to her. She wouldn’t mind what Martha thought any more; her meeting with Carl was an incomparable experience, something she didn’t seem able to communicate to anyone like her sister.

When the bell finally rang on Sunday, and Helene heard Otta’s voice clearly and politely repeating his name as if it were a question — Carl Wertheimer? — Helene leaped to her feet, picked up the silk jacket that Fanny had only recently stopped wearing and given her, and followed Carl out into the summer morning.

They took the train to Wannsee and then walked to the smaller Stölpchensee nearby. Carl dared not hold her hand. A hare leaped along the woodland track ahead of them. The water of the lake below them glittered through the leaves, white sails swelled in the distance. Helene’s throat felt tight; she was suddenly afraid that she might start stammering, that her memory of the interests they shared and her delight in them would turn out to be a single occurrence, never to be repeated.

Then Carl started talking: Isn’t the enjoyment of nature for its own sake, the autocracy of the moment, as Lenz shows it to us, a true hymn of praise to life?

That sounds like sacrilege.

You mean doubt, Helene. Doubt is allowed, doubt isn’t sacrilege.

Perhaps you see it differently. It’s not like this for us Christians.

You’re Protestant, am I right? There was no mockery in Carl Wertheimer’s tone, so Helene nodded slightly. Suddenly what she said about her adherence to the Lutheran faith and its nature seemed invalidated, not because she remembered her mother’s atheism and her different origins, but because her God seemed so far away here. Büchner had routed him. Who wanted to recognize God as the Universal?

May I tell you something in confidence, Carl? Helene and Carl stopped where the path forked; to the right it went to the bridge, to the left deeper into the wood. They were still wondering which way to go when she told him what was weighing on her mind. You know, these last few years, since we’ve been in Berlin, I’ve felt ashamed whenever I thought about God, and I knew I’d forgotten him for days and weeks on end. We haven’t set foot in a church here.

And did you find a substitute?

What do you mean, Carl?

Has something given you pleasure? And can you believe in that?

Well, to be honest, I’ve never asked myself that question.

Carl clenched one hand into a fist and shook it at the sky: and he felt, he said, quoting Büchner again, as if he could crush the world between his teeth and spit it out into the Creator’s face: so Lenz swore, so he blasphemed.

Don’t laugh. You’re making fun of me.

Helene, I’m not making fun of you. I’d never dare do that. Carl controlled his merriment as well as he could.

Go on, laugh. It was through laughter that atheism got its grip on Lenz.

You think I’m an atheist? It isn’t as simple as that, Helene. It’s a fact that God doesn’t know anything about laughter. Isn’t that a pity? Carl put his hands in his trouser pockets.

I’d never have thought of confusing you with Lenz. Helene winked at him. At last she knew why she had been standing in front of the mirror with the lily-patterned rim for hours on end, practising winking one eye: it was for this moment. Then she turned serious again and looked sternly at Carl. I was going to tell you something in confidence.

I know, I’ll keep quiet. And Carl did stop talking.

It seemed an eternity before Helene could bring herself to break the silence.

I’m not ashamed any more, that’s what horrifies me. Do you understand? I haven’t been to church here, I’ve forgotten about God; for a long time I’ve felt ashamed when I remembered him. And now what? Nothing.

Let’s walk on. Carl chose the path leading to the bridge. Clouds were towering up, big white clouds sailing singly in the unchanging blue sky beyond them. On the other side of the bridge stood an inn with a garden. There was hardly an empty table in the garden, parties with sunshades and children were talking in loud voices, they too seemed to have forgotten about God. Carl found them a place. He said this was his table, well, once it had been his parents’ regular table, and when he came here by himself now and then it was his. Helene imagined that a life in which you and your parents went to an inn with a garden would be wonderful. Pointing to another table, Carl whispered to her that the painters often sat at that one. The magic of this world seemed to Helene so strange that she felt like standing up and leaving, but now Carl took her hand and told her she had a lovely smile, he’d like to see it often.

Carl Wertheimer was from a good family, prosperous and well educated. His father was a professor of astronomy, so in spite of the financial difficulties of the last few years, his son had been able to study. The waiter brought them raspberry sherbet to drink. Carl pointed to the north-east: his parents’ house was over there, he said, on the other bank. His two brothers had been reported missing in the war; the eldest had been killed and his belongings sent home, but his parents still refused to believe he was dead. Helene thought of her father, but she didn’t want to talk about him.

He himself hadn’t had to join the army, to his mother’s relief. His sister was finishing her university studies this year; she was the only woman studying physics. And she was getting married next year. Carl was obviously proud of his sister. He was the youngest, there was plenty of time for him, so his mother said. Carl clicked his tongue as if deploring this, although his eyes were twinkling and his regret seemed anything but serious. A sparrow came down to perch on their table, hopping back and forth, and pecking up crumbs left by the last occupants.

This glimpse of Carl’s peaceful world by the Wannsee aroused a vague sense of uneasiness in Helene. What could she set against that, what could she add to it? A wasp had fallen into her raspberry sherbet and was struggling for its life there.

Carl must have noticed that Helene, on the other side of the table, had fallen silent. He told her: your eyes are bluer than the sky. And when he had struggled to coax a difficult smile from her, perhaps he thought, she’s ashamed after all, she hasn’t forgotten her God. No wonder when I seize her hand. Probably to get her out of her difficulty, he said, quoting Büchner yet again: My love, is there some terrible crack in your world?

Helene saw the mischief in his eyes and recognized that aspect of his character. It was as if she knew him a little now, and that in itself comforted her. Now he couldn’t stop rummaging around in his memories: To drop the subject of Lenz for a moment, may I advise you to let abstract words crumble to nothing in your mouth like mouldy mushrooms? Even Hofmannsthal recovered from his ennui. And what is it but ennui if a void stretching out before us fills us with discomfort?