Julia Franck - Back to Back

Why are you so pig-headed? You doubt everything but yourself.

As for my doubts — for a moment Thomas stopped and smelled the herbs on his hand — maybe it’s just that you don’t know my doubts about myself? Thomas packed the herbs into his short-stemmed pipe, tamped them down and tried to light them with a match. The very week after the school-leaving exams Michael and Roland were called up for auxiliary service. Walling up the doors of buildings. Putting up fences, that’s what they call it. So why are they guarded by soldiers and police officers while they work? Digging their own graves, guarded while they do it. Digging our grave. How stupid do they think people are anyway? To be or not to be, that’s what it’s all about.

Calm down, little brother. Ella felt boundless anger rising in her. The readiness is all, the rest is silence. So there. She laughed mockingly. She could have hit Thomas, or at least the floor.

Don’t make fun of me.

Why not? Aren’t you Hamlet, isn’t everything rotten?

Ah, that’s a state secret. Building a few fences taller in the middle of the city, where they’ve decided the frontier of the state will be. Is that coincidence? Barbed wire for rabbits? Thomas filled his pipe again and drew on it, struck a match, drew on his pipe until smoke rose in the air.

You’re crazy. Ella let out a hissing sound.

Let’s hope so, yes. Let’s hope I’m crazy. Puffing at the pipe, Thomas made a face as he tried to smoke it without breathing in, choked and coughed.

Well, maybe they really are just fences?

Oh, sure, and you take a pledge of silence. Thomas held his breath. Smoke built up behind his lips, he pursed his mouth and blew smoke rings into the air. Masonry fences with barbed wire, and soldiers on guard during the building works. Do you know my poem ‘Farewell’? With his free hand he reached under the bed and brought out his blue folder of poems.

Must I?

The great house of parting, / thronged by countless crowds, / rises, gleaming with light / in the night-dark city.// And once in the dome of farewell / the cruel, impatient urge / will carry you away, / on cold rails that never diverge. .// Past the warmth of human dwellings / as familiar voices fade / and pictures fly backwards past you / blurred by tears / from the light to the shade. . // Rails glowing pale red in the sun / dull grey as they pass into mist, / linked lost places left behind / that for us do not exist. .

Ella leaned back until her head hung down over the back of the chair, enjoying the silence that followed the poem. His lament did not move her. She simply felt angry. Face turned to the ceiling, Ella said, slowly: Do you know what I think? You’re just envious that Michael and Roland can start studying at once. School-leaving certificates in their pockets, places to study waiting for them. Never mind, I want to dance, let’s go and dance.

Tell me, what am I supposed to do in Gommern?

My God, Gommern, Gommern, Gommern, that’s all you talk about these days. And it’s not even clear yet whether or not you’ll be sent there.

Into the army or off to the stone quarry. What are they planning for me? What am I supposed to do there?

Ella took a deep breath. She could not share his fears, she was impatient and wanted to dance. Thomas wouldn’t let it rest, he obviously didn’t want to dance, and the noisy party going on outside the door meant nothing to him.

What am I supposed to do there?

Ella whistled softly through the gap in her teeth, sat up ramrod straight and told him what she thought: You’re supposed to show that you don’t feel you’re too good for it. That you’re not superior to it. Not the know-all who always gets good marks. Your work at school was too good, that’s just your bad luck. Käthe is not one of the workers or she’d have had to stay a stonemason instead of becoming a sculptor. Bad luck again. And you don’t have an electrician for a father!

As his pipe refused to burn properly, Thomas tipped the herbs back into his hand and crumbled and rolled them between his palms. The hell with Hamlet. You think I’m the only one affected. Everyone’s affected.

Well, well, well. You’re not everyone. Not everyone attracts all that attention at school, not everyone always thinks he knows best. Ella raised an admonitory forefinger.

Thomas was in no mood for joking; he stayed serious. Once you have your own school-leaving certificate, do you think she’ll let you go straight off to theatrical college?

Ella put her feet on the desk and drummed her fingers on her knees. She pressed her lips together; she had accustomed herself to not answering every question. Particularly not those asked by Thomas when he wanted to open her eyes and dash any false hopes. She heard the hiss of the match. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him sucking at his pipe, sucking away as if for dear life. Who says I’m even going to take my school-leaving exams? At this moment it rather looks as if I won’t.

Thomas puffed at his pipe. Because of special aptitude? Don’t you see that it doesn’t depend on that any more? That’s the principle of subversion. You told me yourself how the lodger tried to blackmail you. .

You’re being horrible. Ella adjusted her position in her chair. Why did Thomas have to start on about the lodger? With his dirty fingers that he tries sticking into everything, his slobbery tongue, his stinking prick. .

Didn’t he ask if you’d like to work with them? With his stupid Security Service? To protect the state? Didn’t he say the teachers would take a softer line with you then, you could pass the exam?

There was pressure at her temples, the roots of her hair were burning, Ella felt hot, the skin of her face was burning, her throat, her voice sounded rough. So? The lodger’s not Almighty God — she shook her head — the lodger has no power at all, just don’t think of him, do you suppose it’s his fault I’ve been ill and I couldn’t finish the year at school and I can’t remember anything? Ella felt sick.

Who knows? Thomas leaned back against the door of the room. Now that I come to think of it — he wrinkled his nose — yes, he did have something to do with it.

Ella heard Thomas going on, but only from a distance; the hissing in her ears had swollen to a rushing sound and she could hardly understand him. What was he saying? That Käthe wasn’t innocent of all blame either. But what’s innocence, and what’s the meaning of guilt when we’re talking about responsibility, about decisions? Ella swallowed, the burning of her skin was barely tolerable, her nausea ebbed and flowed, her heartbeat fell and rose, she was breathing deeply, as Thomas had always advised her to do in such situations. But this time he didn’t seem to notice, he was still talking, and she vaguely heard what he was saying: Käthe believes in communism, even if it’s called socialism these days, otherwise she could never have afforded to rent a huge house like this with a garden, and turn the stable into a studio — penniless as she was in spite of her distinguished family. He said objectively, almost gently, without a note of reproof or sarcasm: Perhaps the lodger came along at just the right moment.

Ella didn’t have to listen to what she couldn’t hear, her ears closed, she shut her eyes and enjoyed the dizziness. Thomas loved Käthe, but they couldn’t talk to each other. In Käthe’s eyes, he was a talented young man, she let him make her brass bracelets, lovers’ rings, a silvery belt that she wore proudly as if it were a chastity belt. He could write his poems, he was to study geology, he was to model for her as well because he was so good-looking. One of these days, as she saw it, he could study chemistry, physics, medicine, whatever he liked; maybe. But not journalism, when not a word was free, let alone the news. Skin could flare up, like the herbs in his pipe, it could burn brightly — but first Thomas was to do Käthe credit, save face for her, show everyone he didn’t think himself superior, her son was not above working in the stone quarry like all the others working in factories and industry. Ella’s itch was overpowering, she scratched.