Julia Franck - Back to Back

Why was a dying leaf so beautiful? No mating took place in the maple’s autumn, only death, yet it magnificently outshone the courting of other deaths.

Ella had given birth to the child in the lavatory, she claimed. For the first time Thomas didn’t believe her. How? Thomas had asked cautiously, and regretted his question when she began to tell him. After all, there were such things as phantom pregnancies, couldn’t she have had one of them? Hadn’t the child maybe disappeared unnoticed, as people so nicely put it? But Ella would have no truck with such pious wishes. First she had drunk a litre of hot wine, she said, later a large glass of vodka, she had jumped off the bed to the floor, had drunk more vodka, had jumped again, it went on all night, hadn’t he heard her? He had been asleep, he hadn’t heard anything. Towards morning she had drunk castor oil, then she sat on the ice-cold lavatory seat waiting in pain as the cramps set in. Ella’s nostrils quivered. Hadn’t she moaned and groaned? she asked. Distressed, Thomas shook his head. He had been asleep. He hadn’t heard anything. Her wild eyes troubled him. How could he not believe them? He was her close friend, devoted and obedient. He placed his hand on Ella’s forearm, he placed his hand on her temples, he touched her forehead. He wanted to stop the noises she was making, stifle her twittering, and he held her close, to no avail. Ella went on, crackling, burning. First there had been pale scraps. Wouldn’t he believe her? The flashing of her eyes almost caught him out. But then the hairy tangle had fallen into the pan.

Mouth sealed, eyes blindfolded as befitted a confidant’s loyal silence. Not a word to a soul. Thomas had nodded, Ella had gone out dancing. In a few days’ time Thomas was to board the train for Magdeburg. Gommern was the name of his future. One day, surely, he could study geology in Freiburg. Someone who scored top marks in all subjects in his school-leaving exam ought to show that he has two good hands and can work in a stone quarry. He was to stay in the hostel on the spot. Working for the class struggle. Thomas closed the window looking out on the maple tree and drew the curtains again. No wind at all, it was as if he had never aired the room, which smelled stuffy. Thomas watched a spider that had woven a close-meshed funnel of a web between the curtain pole and the wall, and was now weaving another that seemed to be loosely connected to the first; the spider made skilful use of the weight of its body and the consistency of the thread. A knock on the door. There was only one person who didn’t ring the bell or simply walked into the house through the unlocked front door. Thomas went to open the door of the room to Michael.

Our lodger’s gone missing, Thomas announced to his friend, leading him into the stuffy room. He would never talk to Michael about the dubious aspects of the whole affair. He showed Michael the half-full bottle of wine he had found on the veranda. Laughing, Michael took a small package out of his net bag. The smell of grated lemon peel, warm egg yolk and love streamed into Thomas’s nostrils; he accepted the package, which was still warm, his mouth watering.

Michael shrugged his shoulders apologetically. She couldn’t get any vanilla, and she knows you don’t like raisins. She’s really worried, a young man can’t grow without cake, she thinks.

She’s right. Thomas nodded, he smelled the paper and soaked up the love of his friend’s mother, he could already taste the butter. He wanted to share the cake, but Michael waved the offer away, smiling and saying he had plenty of it at home. Thomas ate alone, the little package on the windowsill in front of him; he broke a piece off the cake and then another, eating it straight from his hand, licked the palm of the hand that he had used as a plate, munched the sweet dough. The warmth of the radiator rose from the grille, he went on eating the cake with his back to Michael, who wished him bon appétit again as he ate the last of it.

One of the greatest mysteries of mankind is that Käthe doesn’t do any baking. You know what my mother’s like. She’s afraid Käthe lets you two go hungry.

Thomas nodded, agreeing with him; he rolled up the paper and let the crumbs trickle into his mouth.

A narrow ray of light fell through the curtains onto the brass picture frame, making it look golden. His radiance comes, his radiance goes. Thomas pointed to the black-and-white photograph. An altar to His Majesty, explained Thomas, pointing solemnly up at Walter Ulbricht; he bowed reverently to it and offered Michael the armchair. We have a desk with its only drawer locked, we have a bed that isn’t used, we have air that isn’t moving. His stomach was grumbling; more and more often these days, Thomas felt hungry directly after eating. It might be better not to eat any cakes, and particularly not to eat the love of other people’s mothers. Thomas filled his pipe with the herbs that Michael had grown in his greenhouse on the plot of land near the woods and dried in the loft of his parental home.

Let’s paint the walls black. Thomas pointed to the two buckets of paint in the middle of the room. The colour wasn’t dark enough yet; he tipped black powder into the viscous paint and stirred it in with the long handle of the scrubbing brush. As he puffed the pipe Thomas kept his gums closed and enjoyed the bitter taste cutting through the sweet flavour in his mouth. He handed Michael a broad brush. Under cover of the falling dark, they tarred the air and their mouths, they painted the walls black in the smoke. Thomas spread paint with the scrubbing brush; now the floor was clean and the wall was black. Michael made two newspaper hats and handed one up to Thomas. Thomas stood on the ladder and worked on the ceiling with the scrubbing brush.

The future’s unthinkable in a self-contained system. Michael swung his arm well back and stretched so that he could pass the brush over the wallpaper. The Wall will turn us into animals in the zoo.

Thomas laughed at the idea of freedom and the doctrine of frugality. Ulbricht’s monkey house.

No monkey has to go near the fence.

No lunatic has to climb a wall.

Keep quiet and be good. Michael bent and dipped his brush in the black paint.

No one’s forced to take a jump into the water and venture into the muzzle of a cannon.

Their anger alternated between bitter grief and silliness. Their hair and shoulders were black now.

Death to the tyrant!

They would stay in this room for the rest of their lives. A bunker in prison, no one would dare to drag them out of the crypt where they were buried alive and into a class struggle, it wasn’t their struggle and they didn’t want to be the class. An airgun fired more than just gas into the world. You could use it to kill.

The first shot broke the protective glass; it shattered into umpteen pieces, splinters of glass lay on the desk, on the floor, and there were still a few inside the photo frame. The brass sparkled like gold; there was a hole in Ulbricht’s cheek.

Let me have a go. Michael laughed and took the gun from Thomas. He doesn’t need any eyes now. Michael hit Ulbricht’s left eyebrow. They took turns to aim the gun.

Death to the tyrant, death to the Führer, death to the just man. They had been shooting for about half an hour when the door opened, and the figure of Ella showed in the bright light behind her. She looked at her brother, at his friend, at the picture on the wall that was now full of holes.

What are you two doing?

Our life is over! Michael was lying on his back on the floor aiming the airgun. He fired and said: Wall closed, monkey dead.

The swallows have gone this year, there was an epidemic, they abandoned their nests. Do you know the breeding pair of barn owls? Have you seen them soaring through the air? Pipe in the corner of his mouth, Thomas took the gun from his friend, aimed, shot, and handed the gun back.