Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

As soon as Mother’s arm slipped heavily off the little chest in her sleep and her breath came regularly, Martha took out a slim, mustard-coloured book from under her apron and began reading it. She chuckled to herself, while her feet jiggled up and down as if she were about to start dancing or at least jump up any minute now. Helene looked longingly at Martha; she would have loved to know what made her so cheerful. Helene examined the tangled tapes in her hands. She spotted a white maggot on the dark-blue velvet of her dress, laboriously crawling in the direction of her knees, and felt nausea. And now another tiny maggot dropped out of what she had thought were the empty cocoons in her fingers, to land on her lap not far from the first. The maggot writhed, unsure which way to go. Hoping that Martha could rescue her, Helene whispered: Can I throw this away?

Leaf-green light shone through the drawn net curtains. From time to time a breath of wind made them billow out and tiny motes of dust danced in the narrow shaft of sunlight that shone briefly through the window. Martha rocked forward, stopped the rocking chair there for a few seconds, then rocked back. She turned a page and did not deign to give the tangled tapes in Helene’s hand so much as a glance. When she shook her head sternly, but still smiling, Helene wasn’t sure whether Martha had even heard her; perhaps she was lost entirely in her own world and her thoughts were with her book, or perhaps she was simply glad not to be holding this tangle of moth-eaten tapes and larvae herself. Helene retched. She cautiously put the tangle down on Mother’s bed. Assorted suspender belts, stockings and items of clothing that Mother had worn over the last few days were draped over the end of it.

Martha leaned back in the rocking chair and stretched her legs. With a delicate movement, she put the curl that had slipped out of her thick braid back behind her ear. Now and then she clicked her tongue, crossed one leg over the other and narrowed her eyes, licking her lips as if she particularly liked the flavour of whatever she had been reading. Only when Father came into the room with his dog did she start in surprise. Baldo had his tail between his legs and immediately lay down in front of the stove.

But Father did not notice his elder daughter’s red cheeks or the book that she hastily hid under her apron. He had eyes only for his wife. He didn’t know how he was going to say goodbye, and sighed as he walked up and down in his hussar’s uniform. Every time he turned, he looked at his wife as if asking her for help, turning to her for advice. It looked to Helene as if Father were about to say something, but he just breathed heavily, swallowed and finally sent the girls out of the room.

Later Helene knocked at the closed door; she wanted to say goodnight, and hoped for a glimpse of her father’s new sword and the sash of his uniform. As Helene saw it, the fear that Martha and her mother felt at the thought of Father going to join the army was entirely unfounded. With his imperial moustache, which he wore a little shorter than the Kaiser himself, more out of admiration and respect than because of any initial insidious doubts, with his rock-hard confidence and his love for the girls’ strange mother, Father seemed to her absolutely invulnerable. That impression was reinforced by the gleam and sparkle of the new curved sword. Even as Helene knocked, the door opened just a crack. Father was kneeling on the dark oak of the wooden floor that had been polished only a few days ago. It smelled of resin and onions. He was resting his forehead on Mother’s hand.

Goodnight, Helene whispered, and glanced at the sword that Father had put down casually on the rocking chair. When he did not reply, Helene supposed he was asleep. She tiptoed over to the rocking chair, ran her finger over the blade and was surprised to find how blunt it was, how cool. A faint click of the tongue startled her; she saw Father waving one hand, indicating that she was to go away so that he could be alone with Mother. He didn’t mind Helene’s feeling the blade of his sword, but he didn’t want her there. He had to say goodbye to his wife. Selma Würsich lay stretched out on the bed with her eyes closed; perhaps it was her high collar keeping her neck straight and the smell of onions luring tears from her closed eyes. Mother heard nothing, saw nothing, said nothing.

Helene retreated quietly to the door, walking backwards, and waited, hoping that Father would ask her some question, but he had laid his forehead on the back of Mother’s hand again and was repeating the words: my love, my little pigeon. Helene admired her father for his love. The war could never hurt anyone who loved her mother.

Next evening neither of the girls said goodnight to their father. They heard him pacing up and down in the room next door, and knew he was getting no advice or help. Sometimes he said something, it sounded like: Joy! and then again like: God! Only occasionally, between those words, did they hear his dog whining.

The girls lay snuggling close together. Helene pushed her nose between her big sister’s shoulder blades; from time to time she stuck out her chin and took a breath of air, while Martha turned the pages of her book regularly and laughed quietly to herself. But then, loud and clear, the girls heard their mother’s voice, deep and slightly husky from all her smoking: If you go I shall die.

Helene caressed the faint brown birthmark. Martha’s back was thin and delicate, and she stroked its freckles too, running her finger up and down along the fine lace edging of her sister’s nightdress.

Please, just one word — please.

No begging.

Please. Just one word.

Go on doing that first. Up there, yes, further up.

Helene followed her sister’s instructions and ran her hand over the skin, up the nightdress and Martha’s shoulders, circling there, then down her arm, over its bare skin, once again over her back under the linen nightdress, then down along Martha’s backbone, vertebra by vertebra, she could clearly feel every one of them under the fabric. Then she stopped.

One word.

Star.

Helene moved her hand very slightly, tracking the points of a star, stopped and demanded: More.

Though the star of my fate hath declined.

Helene rewarded Martha. She tickled the back of her neck. Line by line, stanza by stanza, Helene’s hands lured Byron’s words out of her sister’s mouth.

A horse and cart passed by under their window, and as the cart jolted over the cobblestones something jingled and clinked as if it were loaded with glasses. It must be carrying a delivery from the Three Ravens inn, which had moved into its new premises in Tuchmacherstrasse in the spring. The opening had enlivened their street a good deal. The drayman had cluttered up the pavement with his barrels, ladies of the middle class went to the Three Ravens in the middle of the day to drink coffee, while their cooks and housekeepers went shopping up in the Kornmarkt, and in the evening there were hussars bawling at the top of their voices in the street itself, which suddenly seemed too narrow and too small.

At weekends, the town south of the Kornmarkt was now all activity on a Saturday night. Men and women sang and stamped until the small hours to familiar tunes played on a piano. If the piano-player tired and his keyboard fell silent, someone else would bring out an accordion. People came from the little mountain villages at weekends, from Singwitz and Obergurig, even from Cunewalde and Löbau. They went to market in the morning, sold their ladders and ropes, their baskets and jugs, their onions and cabbages, and bought what wasn’t to be had at home, oranges and coffee, fine pipes and coarse tobacco. Then they danced the night away at the Three Ravens, before harnessing the horses to their carts early in the morning and climbing in, or some of them simply pushed handcarts back to their villages in the mountains. But Bautzen was a quiet place during the week.