Julia Franck - Back to Back

Thomas had his own doubts, but he sensed that Ella wasn’t expecting an answer to her question.

And it’ll be every month from now on, she went on yet more quietly, I can’t bear it, I’ll go mad, I really will.

That crazed pain of hers — how odd that it came over her so abruptly just when he asked about the twins. Ella loved her imaginary worlds; she soon felt that any sudden distraction from herself was boring, perhaps an injury, a danger.

I’ll make you a hot-water bottle, said Thomas, kneeling in front of her, hands in his lap, and as she did not reply he added: If you like.

Darkness, colourful shadows cooled and moved away in Ella’s dream; what remained was empty, cold darkness. A ray of light, thin as a hair, fell through the keyhole, luminous dust poured through the gap under the doorway, there were footsteps, the sound of knocking at a distant door. Without making a sound, Ella sat up in bed, felt with her hands for the edge of the sheet, the edge of the cloth, the fortress where she was still sitting, if uncertainly. It could be the lodger, a man to be avoided. She bent forward, felt her way along the floor, soft wood, lowered herself to it on her knees and lay face down. Her ribs felt sharp, one hip met the floor, her breasts were too young, her mount of Venus too low, she pushed herself and her bones and her hair under the bed, making her way along on the palms of her hands, she pressed her knees down and pushed herself well back to the edge of the night, where she could feel the skirting board against her hip bones. The skirting board was pleasantly cool, it gave her firm support, she was safe here, or almost. She heard a note in her ears, was it a gong, a bell? Ella couldn’t place it; her skin longed to be cool, but the bowl she had fetched in the night was too far off, the soothing water was out of reach. A soft patter of feet, someone coming along the corridor without shoes on, it couldn’t be the twins, they weren’t here; the pattering sound grew louder, its movement like a wave, its sound a regular, apparently innocent rustling. Dwarves maybe, little kobolds who wanted to bathe in her lakes, in the pools in her basins, a scratching sound, that could be the dog. Ella could deal with sounds, the knocking grew louder, that wouldn’t be the lodger who, after all, had a key, although no door apart from his was ever locked, and he always came into rooms without knocking.

Abracadabra! The yodelling note of the female voice was reminiscent of a jackdaw. A kind of grating gurgle, she knew that voice, yes, it reminded her of Käthe. Maybe it was the effervescence of a woman’s voice, a cheerful warbling, as if to wake nightingales from their winter inactivity. Why would she be calling to Ella, what did she want from her in here?

Light shone in, fell on the entire room. Ella could see two feet in Mongolian shoes, the kind that Käthe wore.

Good morning, Ella! The feet came over to the bed. Ella heard the covers being pulled back. Ella?

Happy birthday! That was Thomas, whose bare feet Ella now recognised in the doorway.

Where is she? Have you seen her? Is she up already? The covers slipped halfway off the bed and hid the view. Ella? In surprise, Käthe went round the room, stopped at Ella’s desk, paper rustled.

But Ella didn’t want to show the two of them where she was hiding. She saw the feet go out of the room; they would go on looking for her in the bathroom and the smoking room. Ella crawled out from under the bed and knocked the dust off her nightdress, stardust from her hiding place in the ground. Wouldn’t it be much better to sleep under the bed in future? She’d feel as safe as in a cave. Why did modern people sleep on beds, unprotected, visible from afar?

Where were you? The figure of Thomas reappeared in her doorway. We were going to wake you up, but you weren’t here.

I was in the loo, lied Ella, and saw from Thomas’s look that he didn’t believe her. Maybe he had just come from there himself, and let her little lie pass only out of kindness because there were much more important things today. He put his arm round her shoulder, pulled her close and whispered in her ear: I hope all your wishes come true, dear little big wild sister. His cold nose brushed her cheek. I have a little present for you, it’s in the shed at Michael’s place.

Ella nodded.

Is anything wrong?

No. She had to say something, think up an idea quickly so that he didn’t notice anything. I don’t have quite enough money yet, but a promise is a promise. This evening in the Johannishof?

You look so scared. Thomas was watching her.

Ella pulled her nightdress over her head and dropped it carelessly on the floor, so that Thomas would pick it up and put it over the chair. Scared? She was going to need at least ten marks. Ella had only thirty pfennigs. She put on her trousers and sweater.

I have one mark twenty, you’re welcome to that. I told you you don’t have to invite me — anyway, it’s your birthday. A person doesn’t get to be sixteen every day, we were still the same age yesterday, now you’re a year older than me again. And Thomas, laughing, nudged her in the ribs.

We’re the Löwenthals, I reserved the table for us last week. They’re sure to think: oh, what an attractive couple, how young they are. Just married? Ella disguised her voice and rolled her eyes; she enjoyed going out with Thomas as a married couple. Michael had told them about the Johannishof, his parents had celebrated their bronze wedding there with their relations from the West. Ten waiters serving one table, the food was carried over to the customer under a domed cover, the waiters wore snow-white gloves, it was a really classy place. Young people didn’t go there, it was only the upper classes who ate in the Johannishof. Like the Löwenthals.

Thomas took Ella’s hand and led her out of the room and along the corridor to the smoking room. There was a smell of Earl Grey tea in there, and the room was full of the music of stringed instruments.

So there’s my birthday girl, where have you been hiding? Cheerfully, reproachfully Käthe lit the big candle. This child was born sixteen sweet years ago, she sang.

Ella clapped her hands like a small child.

But as soon as Käthe had finished singing her little ditty, she said sternly: I have something really special for you this year. She turned to the green curtain behind her back that, together with the big sliding door, divided her bedroom from the smoking room. Picking up the poker, she waved it like a magic wand. Hocus pocus fidibus, three black cats! Now she opened the drawn curtain with the wand. Abracadabra!

Ella couldn’t see at once what Käthe was conjuring up. She pulled the tea trolley through the doorway. There was a pale mound on the tea trolley, a white hill, a shining, glittering mountain.

Who stole the chocolate out of the pantry at festival time, who stole the nuts and raisins if it wasn’t my magpie of a daughter?

Ella looked at Käthe, shocked.

Maybe you think I don’t notice anything? But I don’t like being robbed, particularly not by my own child. The crystallised ginger and candied grapefruit slices, who stole those out of my Czech bowl in the glass-fronted cupboard? Who nibbles the bacon before it gets to the table? Whose fault is it that I’ve stopped buying such things?

Ella shook her head. It wasn’t me, she said in a hoarse, helplessly indignant voice, knowing that she was a very good liar so long as she believed what she was saying herself. She didn’t know about any theft, anything, she knew nothing at all about it, and she wasn’t a magpie.

Your brother then, was it? There was anger in Käthe’s voice; the simplest way, she thought, to convict Ella of lying was to cast suspicion on her brother. Ella wasn’t going to let Thomas be wrongly accused, she would want to confess.