Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

Helene never managed to get to work that morning. At the last corner, when she could already see the pharmacy’s familiar shop sign, she turned away. She went down the street leading away from the pharmacy. She had not made up her mind where she wanted to go, she had no idea where she could go. She simply put one foot in front of the other. Cars drove past, people walked by, the tram moved on its rails, perhaps squealing, although the city seemed to Helene to be perfectly silent. She was not out of breath, only silent.

Finding it so easy to put one foot in front of the other aroused a memory in Helene, although it went away again at once. Helene crossed streets; she didn’t have to look right and left any more. The pink light had lit up the sky, the world was bathed in pink now, a sallow tone of pink that didn’t suit it. Dark-blue buildings turned violet, and next moment morning had come, there was not a trace of pink left. The pharmacist would wonder where she was. But she was here. She could telephone him and say she couldn’t come to work today. Let him wonder why; she never took time off for sickness, but today she couldn’t, couldn’t go to work. Helene put one foot in front of the other. Tomorrow? What sort of a day would tomorrow be? What could tomorrow be like? Helene didn’t know. She found herself standing at the foot of the broad stone steps in Achenbachstrasse. Otta opened the door and told her that Martha was still asleep and Leontine had gone out an hour ago — she had gone to work.

Helene sat down by the washstand in Martha’s room. It would be only a few hours until Martha woke up. She had been on night duty. Helene was not really waiting, just sitting there and letting time pass. She wasn’t waiting for Martha, she wasn’t waiting for Leontine. Helene wasn’t waiting for anything any more. It was reassuring to find that time passed all the same.

Later, Martha brought her a glass of tea, found her something to eat and telephoned the pharmacist for her. When Martha sat down she held on to the edge of the table, when she walked along she kept touching the wall. Helene knew that there had been something the matter with Martha’s sense of balance for some time. Helene watched the steam rising from the tea in the glass. Martha said something. Helene lowered her head until her chin was on her breast; she could smell him better that way: Carl, the smell of him rose to her from the neck of her dress. Very slightly, so that Martha wouldn’t notice, she raised one arm. Yes, his smell was there in her armpit too, clinging to her along with his vest. Martha said something in a louder voice now, loud enough to make Helene listen at last; she must drink her tea, said Martha, she ought to eat something too. Helene couldn’t imagine ever eating.

She could sit, she didn’t know if she could swallow. She tried it, she swallowed, she put the glass down. That might do for this morning.

At midday she drank the cold tea at a draught and then drank water from the jug on the washstand. The jug was empty, her throat hurt from stretching and closing as she drank. Then Helene sat down again and went on not waiting for anything. Days passed.

If Martha was at work, Helene lay down on her back on Martha’s bed and moaned. Sometimes she wept quietly.

When Martha and Leontine said Helene ought to put on her coat, she put on her coat and followed them. Martha went to number 11 Viktoria-Luise-Platz and brought Helene’s things down from upstairs. She gave Helene’s key back to the landlady and asked her not to tell Carl’s parents that Helene had been living there with him. His parents had paid the rent until the end of the month.

Meanwhile Helene had been sitting on the bench in the square outside the house, watching the basin of the empty fountain and the sparrows hopping about on the edge of the little puddles, dipping their beaks into the water. They were bathing. The water must be cold as ice.

Martha and Leontine wanted Helene to go out as much as possible, to keep moving. Helene kept moving. Martha said Helene had to eat. Leontine said no, Helene didn’t have to do anything. Hunger came back of its own accord. It was good that Helene wasn’t waiting for anything now, not waiting to feel hungry, not waiting for food. Sunday arrived. The plan had been for Carl and Helene to visit his parents that day, Helene remembered. Were his parents praying? God wasn’t there, she heard no voice, no sign appeared to her. Helene didn’t know when Carl’s funeral would be. She didn’t feel brave enough to go to the telephone; she was a stranger to them, after all, and she didn’t want to bother his family, especially now. Time contracted, rolled itself up, folded itself.

Sunday had gone, other Sundays would come and go too.

The sun shone with more warmth now, crocuses were in flower in the beds beside the broad streets. Leontine and Martha said goodbye to her; Leontine was sending Martha to a sanatorium for a month. Dysfunctional equilibrium. What a pompous way of saying she had a poor sense of balance. She had to convalesce and detoxify her body. Martha cried when she said goodbye; she was so sorry that now, of all times, she couldn’t be there for her little angel. Martha clung to Helene, threw her long, thin arms round her so tightly that Helene could hardly breathe. What did anyone need air for anyway? Helene didn’t try to free herself, it was Leontine who had to pull Martha away. Martha was angry, she accused Leontine of hurting her, using expressions Helene had never heard from her before.

Don’t you dare separate me from my sister, you bitch, I won’t be parted from her.

But Leontine was sure of herself, and there was no way around it: she didn’t want to lose Martha, so she must get her out of the city, perhaps for a month, perhaps for two. Leontine took Martha away with her first by physical force, then by dint of severity. Helene heard Leontine still talking to Martha as they left the apartment, much as you talk to an animal, not expecting any answer. Without Martha there, Leontine seemed to feel she had no right to stay in Fanny’s apartment. Helene didn’t ask Leontine if she had gone back to her husband.

She hardly saw Leontine. Once Leontine brought some medicine for Fanny, another time she came to fetch a pair of winter shoes that she had forgotten. Helene went with Leontine to the door, where she turned and placed one hand on Helene’s shoulder. Martha needs me. You do know I have to take care of her now, don’t you? Helene nodded; her eyes were burning. She wanted to put her arms round Leontine and hold her close, but she just blushed. And Leontine let the hand slip off her shoulder again, opened the door and left.

Helene was sleeping alone in the room overlooking the courtyard now; she had pushed the beds apart again. She went to work at the pharmacy and was glad that the pharmacist was reserved in his expressions of sympathy. He didn’t pester her with questions. Yet he could hardly know how numb Helene felt. In spring the pharmacist told her she was getting thinner and thinner. Helene knew she was; her clothes were hanging off her, she forgot to eat, and when food was placed in front of her she ate without any real appetite.

One day a letter for her came from Carl’s mother. She wrote to say she was in deep mourning; life without her youngest child was hard. Was she deliberately saying nothing about her other two sons, whose death, Carl had said, she so persistently refused to accept? Carl was buried in Weissensee cemetery, she wrote. Recent events were bringing some changes to their life. Her husband had been offered a post in New York, and this time they were thinking of accepting it. None of their children lived in Berlin now and their daughter was emigrating to Palestine with her husband. Finally, Frau Wertheimer wrote, she knew that Helene might not welcome this request, but in spite of Carl’s death she herself would dearly like to meet her. Carl had spoken of Helene to his parents with such affection, such enthusiasm, he was so much in love that they were sure he had been planning to tell them about a forthcoming engagement in due form when they were all to have met that day in February. Or perhaps she, Frau Wertheimer, was wrong and the young couple had just been friends? She was writing this letter to invite Helene most warmly to visit them, and asked her to telephone. If for whatever reason Helene didn’t want to, she would understand. She wished her every happiness in her young life and was confident that she would find it.