Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

Name? Someone had come up to Helene’s bed. Why was the military officer so stern? No doubt she had a lot of work to do, there must be reasons. Perhaps Helene had done something wrong. What a humiliation, a nurse lying here in a hospital.

Name?

Sehmisch. Alice Sehmisch.

Not your name, we’ve got that. What’s your son going to be called?

Helene looked at her child breathing through his nose and sucking at her breast as if to suck her up entirely. What delicate, pretty hands he had, tiny little fingers, all those folds, the thin skin, his hand was clutching her forefinger as if it were a branch and he must cling to it at all costs. How could she give him a name? He didn’t belong to her, what presumption to give a child a name. When she didn’t have a name herself any more, or at least not the one that had been given to her at birth for her lifetime. Well, he could call himself something else later if he liked. That made Helene feel better. And she said: Peter.

Only when the nurse had gone away did she whisper to her baby: This is me, your mother. The child blinked, he had to sneeze. How Helene would have loved to show him to Martha and Leontine. Didn’t he look like a girl? My little angel, whispered Helene to his cheek and stroked his long, soft hair.

Wilhelm came home before Christmas. They had sent telegrams in the meantime. He was not surprised that she had had her baby. A boy. Wilhelm nodded; he had expected no less. Peter? Why not? She ought to feed the boy properly, he told her, a few hours after arriving. The baby was hungry, didn’t she hear him crying? And why did it smell like this in the apartment, was it the baby’s nappies, he asked, and his eye fell on the yellow-stained nappies hanging on a line to dry. What’s the matter with you, have you forgotten how to wash clothes? Can’t you see those nappies are still dirty?

They won’t come any cleaner, said Helene, thinking that if the sun would shine she could have bleached them in the sunlight. But it hardly got light outside all day; it had been snowing for weeks.

When little Peter cried at night and Helene got up to take him into bed with her, Wilhelm said, with his back turned to her: You’re coddling yourself, if you ask me. Go and sit in the kitchen if you must feed him. A working man needs his sleep.

Helene obeyed his order. She sat in the cold kitchen with her baby and fed him there until he went to sleep. But as soon as she put him back in his little basket he woke up again and cried. After two hours she slipped into the bedroom, exhausted. Wilhelm’s voice came out of the dark. Get that baby to shut up or I’m leaving again tomorrow.

Not all babies sleep through the night.

You know best, I suppose, do you? Wilhelm turned round and shouted at her. You listen to me, Alice, I’m not having you tell me what’s what.

In the dark, Helene dabbed the spray of his spit off her face. Had she ever tried to tell him what was what?

It’s time you were back at work, he said more calmly as he turned his back to her again. We can’t afford any parasites.

Helene looked at the window. There was only a faint glimmer of light behind the curtain. Wilhelm began snoring, in a strange, chopped sort of way. Who was this man in bed with her? Helene told herself he was probably right. Perhaps she was too used to her baby’s crying to tell when he was hungry. Her milk wasn’t enough for him, yes, he must be hungry, that was it. She must get some milk in the morning. The poor child; if only he’d go to sleep. Peterkin, whispered Helene, who usually disliked pet names, Peterkin. Her lips moved soundlessly. Her lids were heavy.

When Helene woke up her left breast hurt. It was hard as stone, and a red mark was spreading on the skin. She knew what those symptoms meant. So she went over to the basket, took her Peterkin out, carried him into the kitchen and put him to the breast. Peterkin’s mouth snapped shut on it, it was like having a knife thrust into her breast, stabbing, boring, red-hot, the pain stopped her thinking. Helene gritted her teeth; her face was glowing. Peterkin wouldn’t suck, he kept turning his head away, gasping for air rather than milk, spitting and crying, clenching his little fists and writhing.

What’s the matter now? Wilhelm was standing in the doorway looking down at Helene and her baby. Can you tell me what this is all about? His indignant look fixed on her breast. The baby is crying, Alice, and you just sit here, you’ve probably been sitting here for weeks letting him go hungry, have you?

Should she say it? I’m not making him cry. Little Peterkin was bellowing now, his face was red and a white mark showed round his mouth.

Turned mute on me, eh? You’re not going to let the baby starve, are you? Here. Wilhelm gave her a banknote. Get dressed at once, go out and buy milk and feed him, understood?

Helene had understood. Her breast was throbbing, the pain was so terrible that she felt sick and could hardly take in Wilhelm’s orders. She would do as he said, of course, she would simply obey him. She put the baby down on the bed and dressed herself. Without looking at Wilhelm, Helene wrapped a blanket round her baby, picked up the bundle and went downstairs with Peter in her arms.

Your eyes look quite glazed, said the grocer’s wife, do you have a fever, Frau Sehmisch?

Helene tried to smile. No, no.

She took the bottle of milk and the little pot of curd cheese and climbed upstairs with the crying baby. Halfway up she had to stop. Her discharge hadn’t quite dried up, the pain in her breast made decisions impossible. She put down the milk and curd cheese, and laid the baby in his blanket on the steps. Helene went to the lavatory on the landing. When she came out again she saw the cheerful face of their new neighbour, who had opened her door and was putting her head round it. Can I help you?

Helene shook her head and said no. She picked up the bundle of baby and went on up the stairs. As she passed her neighbour, the name on the door caught her eye. Kozinska. It was easiest to notice unimportant things just now. Kozinska, her new neighbour was called Kozinska.

Once she had climbed the stairs she saw that Wilhelm already had his coat on. He had to go out to Pölitz to see how the work was getting on, he said, and she wasn’t to wait up for him. Helene put the baby in his basket and warmed up the milk. She put the milk in a little bottle that had never held anything but tea until this morning, made a compress of curd cheese to cool her breast and fed the baby. By the afternoon her body felt so hot and heavy that she could hardly stand up to get down to the half-landing. She could tell that the baby had wind, the result of the milk and all that crying, swallowing air, but he would soon be full, she was sure, fed and happy. There was no part of her body that Helene could lie on now, her skin itched, she was so thin that she felt the sheet was rubbing her harshly and the air made her itch, she wished she could be out of her skin. Helene was freezing, shaking, there were beads of sweat on her forehead. Once an hour she got up, her legs shaking, and went to make a new compress. She was so weak that she could hardly wring out the cloths and nappies. The fever stayed with her overnight. Helene was glad that Wilhelm didn’t come home. She wanted to put the baby to her breast again, but he twisted and turned and screamed, biting her hard, hot breast. He cried indignantly.

Helene bottle-fed her baby. At first he was still indignant and brought up curdled milk, almost choking, the milk was still too hot and then quickly got cold. Helene gritted her teeth. He would drink, she was sure he would, he wasn’t going to starve to death. Her inflammation went down, so did the swelling of her breast, and a week later it was not quite all right yet, not entirely, but almost. However, when the inflammation passed off her breast milk had dried up. Wilhelm thought that he had taken care of everything. There was just the question of her work, which he wanted to get cleared up before he had to set off for Frankfurt early in the New Year. Wilhelm went to the Municipal Hospital in the Pommerensdorfer district with Helene.