Julia Franck - Back to Back

But Ella shook her head again, looking incredulously at Käthe: Do you really think. . would you believe it of. .? Thomas? How could Käthe drag him into it? Neither Käthe nor Ella took their eyes off each other even for a moment to look aside at Thomas, who didn’t defend himself. He knew as well as the two of them what game they were playing, and he didn’t want to be caught between them.

It was you. Käthe clapped her hands; she wanted to finish this conversation. She had no doubt at all that Ella had been stealing her provisions. That was why she was getting something really special this year. This is your birthday present!

What? Ella stared at the tea trolley.

Sugar. Käthe didn’t reach out a hand to her, did not make any loving gesture, did not wish her a happy birthday. She turned on the very low heel of her Mongolian shoe and walked out of the smoking room.

Sugar? Ella went over to the tea trolley and incredulously touched the white mountain of fine crystals. The sugar rustled beneath her fingertips.

I expect she thinks she’s giving you a treat.

Is that meant to be a comfort? Did Thomas really think that Käthe wanted to give Ella a treat with all this sugar? A real treat? Why not crystallised fruit, then, why not crisp bacon rind, why not onion pie?

My birthday present is sugar? Plain sugar?

The door opened and Käthe came in with a tray. Breakfast for everyone, she filled three cups with tea, put small boards at her place and Thomas’s, held the loaf of bread to her breast and cut several slices. Whenever she cut bread like that, moving the blade of the bread knife towards her body, the bread in front of her full breasts, Ella thought that in the posh nursery of Käthe’s childhood no one had shown her how to cut bread on the table.

Ella sat down at her own place. She had neither a little board nor a knife in front of her. She reached for the bread, but Käthe smartly slapped her hand, making it tingle.

You eat your sugar, she said sternly, triumphantly; there was no doubting that firm voice. Only when you’ve finished it all up do you get something proper to eat again.

Incredulously, Ella looked from Käthe to the tea trolley and back at Käthe again.

I’m sure you’ll manage it easily, little magpie. And then perhaps you’ll be cured, and see for yourself how stupid stealing is.

You want me to eat that whole mountain of sugar?

What do you mean, that whole mountain? It’s a little hill weighing ten pounds, no more, no less. Ought I to have bought sixteen, one for each of your years of life? Ninety, a hundred, one for each pound of your weight? Käthe cut her bread twice, quartered a clove of garlic and put a quarter of the clove on each piece of bread. The salt was in clumps in the salt cellar; Käthe salted her food generously. The first quarter piece of bread and garlic was already disappearing into her mouth, she chewed noisily, munching, smacking her lips. In between meals I shall lock the sugar up here in my cupboard so that you don’t go throwing it away on the sly. That would be a shame. There’ll be nothing else for you until you’ve finished it, only sugar.

Ella rubbed her eyes with her fists; if she went on rubbing like that for some time not only would her eyes be red, she would make tears flow, pitiful, heart-rending tears that would soften any heart. The warm tears ran down her cheeks, her eyelids fluttered, her nostrils widened and quivered.

Don’t make such a fuss, there are millions of people in the world going hungry. You’re too well off here, you’re ungrateful, sly, disrespectful. I’m teaching you respect, that’s all. Käthe cut another slice of bread, broke it in two and gave half to the dog. The arm of the record player made a dragging sound; the disc had come to an end and the needle was scratching over the vinyl. Käthe put the other half of the slice of bread on her board, buttered it and took a mouthful.

Ella’s eyelid twitched; sheer rage took hold of her.

And by the way, there are also postage stamps missing from my desk. Here Käthe opened a thick quarto magazine, Meaning and Form, its title spontaneously arousing Ella’s desire to mock.

To keep herself from snorting with laughter, Ella sucked in her cheeks and bit her lip. Next moment she widened her eyes and puffed out her cheeks. You think I stole them? Her indignation could not have been greater. She felt no shame — although she had in fact been to blame. She had taken postage stamps from Käthe’s desk, and not for the first time. She nodded vigorously, so vigorously that Thomas gently kicked her under the table. Oh yes, of course, I steal everything! Ella was incandescent, shooting sparks. But I left the letters there — the letters you were writing because you wanted to marry a dead man.

You did what? Meaning and Form sank to Käthe’s lap. What letters?

To the Ministry. Ella picked up the dessert spoon on the table in front of her, went over to the tea trolley, pushed the spoon into the sugar and carried it to her mouth as if there could be nothing more delicious in the world. Curiously, she observed Käthe’s wandering eyes. It was beginning to dawn on her what letters Ella meant.

My desk is nothing to do with you. You have no business with it, none at all!

Retrospective acknowledgement of my marriage to the father of my children. Ella was obviously quoting; her tone was sarcastic. You were positively begging: You must understand! The man who –

Keep your hands off my things or I’ll throw you out!

— who had certainly wanted to marry you, only unfortunately he couldn’t, oh dear! Ella rolled her eyes.

What do you know about it? Käthe slammed Meaning and Form shut. Enough was enough; she banged the journal down on the table.

There was no stopping Ella now, in her delight at scoring off Käthe with something that would hurt at least as much as that comment on a magpie daughter and the mountain of sugar. But now that he’s fallen at the front, and you have to make your way alone with two small children, oh, how glad you’d be of a widow’s pension!

You don’t know anything about it! Käthe’s voice rose, if only to drown out Ella’s, to keep from hearing what Ella was saying. She went on, undeterred, as if Ella were not speaking the painful truth. Both fell silent for a moment, breathless, red in the face. At this point Thomas picked up his board and left the smoking room in silence, while Käthe shouted at Ella: You can take your school bag and go and live somewhere else, it’s as simple as that!

Oh, and where am I supposed to go?

Just get out.

You really wanted to marry a dead man? Have a common-law relationship made official after the event? Because you felt sure that but for the laws he’d have married you? What makes you so certain of that? Ella laughed; she had never before seen Käthe so sober, so nonplussed, in a state of amazement that she would have liked to interpret as shame, but couldn’t, because Käthe wasn’t denying anything, her face hid nothing, it merely showed sheer horror as she looked at the girl.

Käthe opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and said nothing.

I won! Gossamer-thin, malicious jubilation streamed through Ella. True, Thomas had not come back, so there had been no witness to her exposure of Käthe, but an important question had been asked, the curtain had been drawn back. As for the postage stamps and the raisins, and your stupid camping stove which capsized with us that time we were out in the boat, so it’s lying somewhere at the bottom of the Müggelsee today — I ask myself what you mean by communism. Aren’t your goods ours as well? And our neighbours’ goods? Why do you give a mountain of sugar to me and not the Republic?

Because you’re a thief.