Julia Franck - The Blind Side of the Heart

She had to make a decision, she knew that; no, it was not exactly a decision, it was just something she had to do. All Germans were being ordered to leave the city, there was nothing here any more, no lessons, no fish for Peter. Where could she send him? He wouldn’t part from her, ever, not of his own free will. She had no time for long journeys, she couldn’t take him away and she didn’t know where they could go either. In no circumstances would Peter allow himself to be sent away. He would guess the meaning of any excuse, he would see through any threadbare pretext. Yet she had nothing more for him, her words were all used up long ago, she had neither bread nor an hour’s time for him, there was nothing of her left for the child. Helene’s time meant relief for her patients, helping them to live a little longer with a little less pain. There is a longing in the world, and we will die of it. Why did Else Lasker-Schüler keep haunting her? We don’t die of it, Else, we just cease to be. And that was good. Helene gave herself to the injured and sick who asked for nothing except for her to lay her hands on them, she must and could do that.

At home she found Peter in her bed. He was already asleep. She lit a candle and laid the sprat that she had brought home in her overall pocket, wrapped in a piece of newspaper, on the table. He would be glad to have a sprat for breakfast. She took the little dark-red suitcase out of the cupboard and opened it. At the bottom of the case she laid the woollen stocking with Wilhelm’s money in it. On top of that two shirts, two pairs of underpants, a pullover that she had knitted for him in the autumn. The pyjamas he was wearing were too short for him. Why did Peter have to start growing so fast just now? She would sit down at the sewing machine this very night; she had salvaged it from the fire in the next-door apartment and brought it into hers. She would make him a new pair of pyjamas, nothing elaborate, perfectly simple. She had material for it. Why else had she kept a pair of Wilhelm’s pyjamas all these years? She put two pairs of long socks into the case, and his favourite book. He had been reading and rereading the stories in it for months: the myths of Greece and Rome. Without stopping to think for very long, she wrote a note on a piece of paper: Uncle Sehmisch, Gelbensande. Surely that brother of Wilhelm’s existed? At least there’d be a woman waiting for her husband to come home from the war. There was still food to be had in the countryside. Let them look after Peter. Wilhelm’s money might help. She put the note with the uncle’s address and Peter’s birth certificate under the stocking full of money, right at the bottom; she didn’t want it found too soon, not until the right time. And Peter could have the fish too, he should take it in the suitcase, the carved horn fish. What would she do with it? She burned Leontine’s letter in a pan on the stove, she burned all her letters now. As soon as she had to leave Stettin she would set out in search of Martha, she had to find Martha. She felt certain that Martha was still alive, of course she was alive. Perhaps the labour camp had been a safer place. A safer place to live? Martha was tough too, tough enough. Who knew what would become of them? Helene meant to travel back by way of Greifswald, by way of Lubmin, her patients needed her. She made the pyjamas for Peter; working the treadle with its regular rhythm calmed her. He must want for nothing, that was why he must go, go away from her. Helene shed no tears; she felt relieved. She was cheered by the idea that he would be better off and have someone to talk to him about this, that and the other, that he’d see sunlight in the evening. Helene made a double seam in the waistband of the pyjama trousers and sewed a small bag into it. She put her wedding ring in the bag and a little money; that couldn’t hurt. Then she sewed up the little bag. She put the pyjamas on top of the other things in the case. She mustn’t tell him that this was goodbye, or he would never let her go.

Peter heard what his uncle was telling him. So that woman who calls herself your mother is coming to see you. His uncle snorted into his checked handkerchief and spat scornfully in the direction of the muck heap. Well, let’s get on with it, he said, glancing up at the cranes in the sky. The others had all flown south weeks before. Peter was to help his uncle muck out the cowshed. He needn’t think he was there to idle about. Just because he seemed so clever at school was no reason for him to consider himself too fine for mucking out. Peter did not consider himself too fine. He helped out in the cowshed, he helped with the milking, and he slept on the bench in the kitchen. They tolerated him.

Not a word from her in all these years, his uncle complained. Makes off just like that. Calls herself a mother. His uncle shook his head scornfully and spat again. He dug the pitchfork into the big heap. Mind this at the bottom doesn’t get spread around, Peter, keep piling it well on top.

Peter nodded. He went ahead to the cowshed door, which was kept closed because it was an unusually cold autumn, and opened it. He liked the warm breath of the cattle, their grunting and mooing, their munching and lip-smacking. She had said she was coming on his birthday, his seventeenth birthday. Peter knew that his uncle bore his mother a grudge. He and his wife had no children of their own and obviously never would. Peter had turned into a good farm labourer, helping about the place, but the first years had been difficult; they realized they would have to get used to each other, but none of them knew whether it would be for a few weeks or a few months. By now it was clear to everyone that it was to be for ever, or at least until Peter was old enough to leave. And none of them had really got used to each other, they simply tolerated one another. His uncle and aunt moaned whenever they had to spend good money on something for him to wear. He had had to build his own bicycle, the one he rode to school first in Graal-Müritz and later to the railway station for the train to Rostock; he had made it out of spare parts that were still worth using, finding or if absolutely necessary earning the money for those spare parts himself. He had earned cash by turning hay all day long in his first summer holidays. After that he had been able to convince his uncle and aunt that he could make himself useful. Which was just as well. He wasn’t expected to eat too much either; if he did they would say: That boy will eat us out of house and home. Again and again his uncle and aunt had expressed the hope that someone would come to fetch Peter, his mother was the one who ought to come, after all, she had known their address at the time. Uncle Sehmisch, Gelbensande. Just like that, without asking them. But nothing had been heard of her for a long time. Nothing had been seen of Uncle Sehmisch’s brother either, the brother now living it up in the West on Braunfels market place near Wetzlar with his new lady friend. Oh yes, he was a big shot there, he had no time for a brat like this. Another mouth to feed, that was how they had referred to Peter on the farm in those first years.

Where is she coming from? The West? Peter knew that his question would merely anger his uncle again, but he wanted to know. He really did want to know where she’d be coming from.

The West, huh! Lives near Berlin. Says she wants to see you. Huh. His uncle wrinkled his nose and didn’t look at Peter. Your aunt wrote straight off asking if she wants you back. That’s what we asked her. Not likely! Have you back — her situation wouldn’t allow it, huh, living in a very modest way with her sister in a one-room apartment, working all the time. Huh! His uncle bent down. Aren’t we all working hard? Here, Peter, take a hold of this. Peter picked up one end of the trough, his uncle picked up the other and together they carried it to the most distant of the sheds, where the eldest sow was due to farrow any day now.