Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

The other nurses went to dances and on moonlit outings together, and they always asked Helene if she’d like to come too. In the changing room they tried on the shorts they were going to wear on the beach of the Wannsee.

Look at this, said the young nurse who was generally known to be bubbly, swaying her hips and cheerfully sticking out her behind. Helene liked the gesture and thought of Leontine; yes, something about the bubbly nurse reminded her of Leontine. She was like a boy with her cropped hair, standing there in the new shorts and showing the other nurses her behind, although she could be both stern and mischievous on her rounds of the wards. Then another girl would try on the shorts. Wouldn’t Helene like a go, they asked, she really must go to the bathing beach with them some time. Helene refused the invitation, saying she had a prior engagement. She invented an aunt who needed to be cared for; she wanted to be left in peace. The nurses’ giggling and soft laughter were pleasant so long as they left her alone, with silence in the background, but as soon as they tried to draw her into their group, turned to her, demanding answers and wanting her to join them, it felt like too much of a strain. She couldn’t swim anyway, she told the bubbly nurse, who perhaps suspected as much and thought that Helene wouldn’t go swimming with the rest of them out of embarrassment or awkwardness.

Never mind, most of us girls have only just learned to swim this summer, haven’t we? Yes, cried the nurses happily in chorus. Helene liked her colleagues, their cheerfulness appealed to her. She didn’t want pity, she didn’t want embarrassed silence, she didn’t tell any of the others about Carl and his death.

In autumn a rather older nurse told Helene she looked gaunt. Thin. She’d had her eye on her for some time, said the woman, was she ill? Behind the question mark, Helene detected the word consumption and a faint hope rose in her. Helene said no, but she was told to go to the doctor, they couldn’t run any risks in the ward for infectious diseases.

Helene was not ill; her pulse was rather fast, that was all, and her heartbeat was sometimes irregular. The doctor asked her whether she had any pain, whether she’d noticed anything unusual about herself. Helene said she sometimes suddenly felt afraid, just like that, but she didn’t know what she was afraid of. Her heart beat fast, so fast that it caught up with itself and there didn’t seem to be enough room for it in her chest. The doctor listened to her chest a second time, placing the cold metal of the stethoscope almost tenderly on the breast that no longer swelled in a gentle curve. Her ribs could be felt under it. He listened to her heart and shook his head. A little heart murmur, that’s quite common. Nothing to worry about. Her fear, well, perhaps there were reasons for it? Helene shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about Carl, or say that she hadn’t had a period since his death. Perhaps she just didn’t drink enough fluids, but what business was that of anyone else? She had been to see Leontine at the Charité in spring and asked her to examine her. But Leontine had reassured her; she wasn’t pregnant. Helene felt only a moment’s disappointment, for how could she have earned enough to support a child? It was only her heart that sometimes played tricks, her ribcage that seemed too narrow. Her greatest fear was of fear itself.

Well, if that’s all, said the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye. Helene guessed that he was thinking of the famous Viennese case histories of hysteria. When she had dressed again the doctor asked, with a nice smile, whether he could invite her out for coffee with him some time.

Helene said no, thank you very much but no. That was all she said. She went to the door.

No, just like that? The doctor hesitated; he didn’t want to shake hands and let her go until she had said yes. Helene stepped through the doorway, wishing him a pleasant day.

Martha was to stay at the sanatorium until the beginning of winter, and Leontine was looking for an apartment so that they wouldn’t have to move into Achenbachstrasse again when Martha came back. That made it difficult for Helene to prevent unobserved encounters with Erich when she was on her own in the apartment. She lacked the strength and willpower to be constantly on the watch for him in order to avoid such meetings. He pressed his lips on hers, he kissed her where and how he liked. She tried to resist, but unsuccessfully. He would draw her into a room, put his tongue down her throat, and recently he had taken to kneading a nipple with one of his rough hands as he did so. He didn’t mind Cleo watching, whimpering in alarm and wagging her tail pleadingly rather than, as usual, cheerfully.

At such moments Helene was glad when she heard Otta coming, because then Erich would generally let her go. It was even better if Fanny came home from a brief shopping trip or some other outing and Erich moved away from Helene without another word. There were days when some instinct warned Helene not to move from Otta’s side; she accompanied her into the kitchen, she went shopping with her. But there were other days, like today, when Helene thought she was alone in the apartment, picked up a newspaper and sat in the former veranda, which Fanny had converted into a conservatory by adding glazed windows. Then, in the silence, brisk footsteps approached. Erich came in, sat down at the low table opposite her and put one foot on his knee, his leg bent at a sharp angle. Mhm. He made these vague noises from time to time, mhm, as if she had said something, mhm, mhm, he agreed with her, or perhaps it was more of an mhm of disagreement, or an expectant mhm, mhmhm, mhm, just as if he were suffering from some reflex, it was like the snuffling of a guinea pig, mhm, he watched her reading the paper. Ten minutes passed without a word. Erich stood up, took the newspaper away from her and said: I know what you need.

Helene raised her eyebrows. She didn’t want to look at him.

Standing over her, Erich stuck his hand inside her blouse. Helene resisted. The buttons of her blouse came off, the fine fabric tore.

Careful now, he gasped, laughing, and what had been suppressed sighs before turned to loud, fully voiced gasping. Erich laughed, and now he had Helene’s wrists in a firm grip. He forced her down on her knees and flung himself on her, his wet, slavering mouth on her naked upper body. Torso was the word that shot through Helene’s mind, and she thought of the anatomical models used for teaching student nurses about the human body, a torso where the heart beat without any head, without the capacity to think. Limbs had lost their meaning with their function. Everything outside the windows was purple and violet.

Helene tried to push away from him with her shoulders, her whole body, she wanted to free herself, but Erich was heavy as a rock, mindlessly sucking at her skin. He wanted to suck her out of it, moistening every part of her body with his saliva, which smelled of fish oil. As he held her wrists in his grip and pressed her into the armchair, Helene tried to rear up again and push him off her. But it was as if every move she made just spurred him on to greater ferocity. Now his tongue was roughly licking her face, her throat, moving down to her breasts. Helene froze. Got you now, got you now, Erich kept gasping.

I was just about to water the cyclamens, a voice above them said suddenly. If Fanny’s voice was not exactly steady, it was shrill and clear. She was holding aloft a brass watering can, a small one with a long spout. Next moment she brought it down on Erich’s head. Erich did not collapse, but in jumping up he did keep Helene from being struck by the next blow from the can, which now dropped to the floor. Erich had let go of her wrists.