Julia Franck - Back to Back

People around here. Thomas could tell how little Käthe felt she was one of them, how urgently, perhaps by means of her heroic deeds on behalf of the workers, she wanted to be a part of the whole, adapt, fit in, adjust to the place and belong to a Germany that had cast her out a good twenty years ago, when those like her were no longer wanted or needed, were banished, hunted, killed. A Germany that was now recovering only with difficulty.

It began with the air losing humidity, drying up, so that her throat was scratchy, her eyes stung and there was a tickle in her nose. Dry air made life impossible in the long run, or at least very difficult. Ella turned the heating off. If you were a scorpion you could survive in the arid desert, but it wasn’t so easy for a young girl.

No one needed intense heat in winter, so Ella turned off the central heating not only in her room but also in the smoking room. Someone or other kept turning it on again. Ella seldom left her room except to go to the bathroom and fetch water — she wanted to keep her eye on the heating and the bowls of water she put out. She couldn’t discover who kept turning the radiators on again. The heating dried out the air, dried out the carpets, pictures and walls. Cracks appeared in the fabric of the house; eyes wide open, Ella watched them proliferate daily from her bed. The plaster was crumbling above the curtain, just where the wallpaper met the ceiling. Right beside Ella’s bed the wallpaper came away from the wall, buckling because it was so dry. At first it had been only a crack, but for some time Ella had been able to lift the wallpaper so that a length of it came off all the way down the wall, a dry strip of paper with remnants of paste behind it. Ella herself was drying out, scales flaked off her skin, not just out of her hair, the skin of her shins and her arms was getting scaly too, her lips were brittle. Ella did not often embark on a conversation. If she was asked a question, she nodded and saved her saliva for herself, like her tears. She would rather keep her mouth shut to minimise the tickle that made her cough and that she felt whenever she opened her lips and said something. Ella filled all the buckets and basins in the house with water and kept them in her room; she didn’t want to dry up entirely. The basins and buckets stood close to each other on the floor, all the vases and bowls that Ella had gradually been able to find over the last few weeks were on her desk, Ella spread wet towels over the radiator to keep the air moist if someone went and turned the controls on again behind her back.

On the first of February Ella was going down the corridor to the bathroom; she had to take a pee. She did that as seldom as possible so as not to lose fluid, but she couldn’t avoid going to the lavatory once or twice a day. For she also had to drink, and if she sweated she lost fluid only to the room that was so dry. As soon as she had the handle of the bathroom door in her hand, the door was opened, someone seized her wrist and dragged her in. Blue evening light outside the window. Touch me, said someone whose hoarse voice Ella knew, he took her hand and guided it to his trousers, pushed it inside the waistband from above, stuffed her hand down until her fingers felt the skin right there, smooth and slightly damp. She knew the vague sounds he made, Ella didn’t want to see the lodger as well, she looked out of the window at the yard, the evening now drawing in, what you would expect in December, there was the motorbike in the light of the courtyard lamp, and then she saw Käthe and one of her assistants from the studio, perhaps she was telling him how to get the motorbike over the iceberg and into the garage. The lodger smelled yellow, smelled of cigarettes and schnapps. He pushed Ella down on the bench, her hand fell out of his trousers, he pressed her hand, stuffed it back against his thin body, inside his sweaty trousers, and moved it with his own so that it rubbed against his skin, good, yes, that’s good, rub, damn it, rub me, you dirty little tart, you filth, and he rubbed until Ella felt the sliminess, the moisture, and the lodger let go of her hand.

He blew his broad, fleshy nose in a check handkerchief, the same handkerchief that he used to wipe his trousers down. There’s little errands you can run for us, Ella; he opened and closed his zip, wiped the fabric one last time and stowed the handkerchief away in his trouser pocket. Information about that teacher Matzke, little reports on the salon in this place, your smoking room — he imitated Käthe’s tone of voice — when Käthe has visitors, when her brother comes from America, her friends from Paris, her cousin from London, that’s what we need. Everything about the bourgeoisie. What about your grandmother? Is she still alive, does she still keep her domestic staff, is she spending the money she raked in? Jewish decadence. Write a little report. What did Käthe and Eduard quarrel about? Go on, you can tell us everything. It will be to your advantage. If you work for us you’ll get your school-leaving certificate. That’s an offer. Ella’s eyelid was trembling, some of the slimy stuff was caught on it. Fluid, anyway. With all the information he had, didn’t the lodger know that she had hardly ever been to school in the time before Christmas, and since Christmas she hadn’t been there at all? What was she to say about which teacher, and who to? The slimy stuff was dripping from her eyelid to her cheek. Ella didn’t want to soil her sleeve with it. She stood up and tore off a piece of the newspaper that was stacked beside the lavatory instead of proper toilet paper. Carefully, she dabbed the slimy stuff off her eyelid. Who needed proper toilet paper? Did everyone in this house have a regal, velvety soft behind? What a waste to buy toilet paper if you had old newspapers in the house! Once read, those not used for lighting fires and cleaning windows would only be thrown away.

Do you hear me, Ella?

Maybe she ought to shake her head so that he’d know she didn’t hear him, or more precisely didn’t want to hear him? Ella turned on the tap and washed her hands. Soap wasn’t much use. She drank from her cupped left hand, she couldn’t drink from the right hand, the one he had used. She didn’t need a towel, she could leave those few drops of water on her face, they did it good, her dry face, her burning skin.

Can I go now?

With his curiously slender, short-fingered paw the lodger groped between Ella’s legs. We have a secret, you and I. It would be better for you to go along with me. Paw still between her legs, he pushed Ella over to the window. Do you see your mother out there? Do you think she’d like to hear that you’re chasing her lodger? Now, get out. The lodger pushed Ella over to the door. She left.

In her room, Ella crouched on the floor and then lay down, her hand turned away from her body as if it wasn’t hers any more.

The water that Ella had poured into old wine bottles didn’t evaporate easily. Thomas had said that was because of the small surface area and the narrow necks of the bottles. So she had knocked the necks off the bottles, robbed them of their narrow necks. She had to be careful not to touch the sharp broken glass when she topped them up with water. Ella lay flat on the floor, a flounder in the desert. Drying up alive. A flannel on her mouth, under her nose, that was how she thought of the water that brought hardly any relief. Ella breathed in moist air. On the floor was better than above it; Ella preferred sleeping under her bed. She curled up on the floor, she forced her bones under the bed.

At first no one noticed that all the containers had disappeared.

Crusted residues formed on their sides and rims, yellowish scabs showing former water levels, like the annual growth rings on timber. Ella thought it was salt, encrusted salt tracing the course of her dehydration. No, said Thomas, it was calcium, the calcium in the water leaving a deposit. A strange idea. The wet flannel on her mouth was drying, she was breathing more calmly now, dry air paralysed her. Her eighteenth birthday was approaching. If anyone came into her room these days, said something, asked a question, she simply lay there flat on the floor under her bed in silence. Her eyes were sometimes closed, but she was not asleep. What she missed most, now that she had stopped sleeping, were dreams. Someone came into the room.