Julia Franck - Back to Back

Where are my clothes?

Clothes, anyone seen any clothes? Seen her dress anywhere? The boy with the sticking-out ear whose name Thomas had not asked, and he was not going to ask it now, stood in front of him, legs planted apart, the pickaxe swinging in his hand. The boys were roaring. They looked around. A little way off, the group leader was patrolling the ridge between lake and quarry, he blew his whistle, they were not to stand idle. The group leader swung his arm: they were all to come over to the stone quarry. Good luck, he called, the miners’ greeting, as if they were miners. Like a monster, the crushing plant towered up among the trees. The young men climbed over the terraced stones, along the rails, and down into the pit. Thomas, naked, clambered after them.

They were to break up the roughly hewn stone into smaller pieces. Thomas would have liked to know the size and shape to which they were to reduce the stones. He couldn’t see whether the others knew. For the first few hours Thomas hacked away at the stones, still naked; he was freezing, but he wasn’t going to beg. Day was near dawning. A small stone hit his back, a larger one hit his thigh. His knees almost gave way, but he managed to stay on his feet. Don’t look, he told himself, just don’t look at them. That’s what they want you to do. He heard them cracking jokes behind him, the sweat was not pouring off his back but it tingled, making him restless. Without looking up he turned round as he hacked. If they wanted to hit him, he thought, let them hit his head. A gust of wind rose, blowing sand that stung his eyes. His hair was almost dry. When the group leader made his rounds he grinned happily at Thomas. It was as if he knew why Thomas was working naked. The wind puffed out the group leader’s jacket. He was wearing boots. Thomas had his wet, urine-soaked shoes on and nothing else.

Around ten there was a new assignment. Along with two men, Thomas was to load the trucks. Both men had crosses tattooed on one forearm, with the words Faith — Love — Hope. One man’s cross had rays like the sun, the other was on a hill like a tomb. As soon as a truck was full it was winched up the inclined hoist. Thomas stood on the heap of stones bending and bending until his back hurt. On this first day he was the one to do the bending; he picked up each stone and passed it on to the man with the cross like the sun, who passed it on to his friend with the cross like a tomb, who put it into the truck. After a while Thomas put a hand to his aching back, but the man in front just told him, with a mocking look in his eyes, to get a move on, he’d soon get used to this, work wasn’t for the squeamish, and he held out his arms waiting for Thomas to pass him the next stone.

At twelve the group leader blew his whistle for the midday break. Mess-time. Thomas bent down and carried the next stone to the truck himself, since the two men in his chain were already climbing the steps.

What’s the matter, the group leader asked Thomas, don’t you want to get dressed? Thomas nodded. He was not cold any longer, but he certainly didn’t want to climb out of the pit and go to the hut naked.

Go on, then.

Where are my things?

Ooh, lost your things? What a shame. The group leader bit his lip, rubbed one earlobe and grinned. Not hungry?

Thomas shook his head; in fact he was only thirsty.

Well, no slacking, you’re not here to dawdle about. If you don’t want anything to eat you’d better go on breaking up those stones over there, and he pointed to a heap of roughly quarried stones. As soon as the group leader had disappeared Thomas went looking for his clothes, but he couldn’t find them. So he went on breaking stones; he didn’t want to freeze.

After their midday break the stoneworkers came back smoking cigarettes and joking. They took no notice of Thomas. Sometimes they broke up stones, sometimes they sat on them, smoking. Around three the group leader whistled. Some of the men could knock off work now, the others were to do overtime. Because winter would be coming in a few weeks’ time. The men leaving could go up to their huts. Thomas watched them go. At six the whistle went for the end of the second shift. The remaining men disappeared, leaving only Thomas and the group leader behind.

Cigarette?

Thomas nodded.

Comrade Günter. The group leader offered his hand.

I’m Thomas. He shook hands with Comrade Günter. When he stopped breaking stone the cold crept under his armpit and into every other crook and hollow in his body.

A packet was held out to him. Thomas was about to take a cigarette, but Comrade Günter took it back again. Oh, sorry, don’t have many left. The comrade put one in his mouth and tucked the packet away in his breast pocket. It was windy. The group leader cupped his hands round the match, which didn’t light. The wind was whistling now. Thomas felt a drop fall on his shoulder, then another. It was raining. The group leader took a step aside, turned his shoulder to Thomas, lit his cigarette and blew smoke out quickly. Aren’t you cold?

No, claimed Thomas. The smoke narrowed his pores, he felt a greedy, boundless longing for the bitter-sweet taste, for a warming cigarette.

Comrade Günter drew deeply on his cigarette, blew the smoke in Thomas’s face and stepped towards him; he inspected Thomas, his eyes passing over Thomas’s smooth, bare chest, and he drew on his cigarette again. It was raining harder now. Thomas heard the lighted cigarette hiss softly. He felt Comrade Günter’s breath against his bare collarbone, he heard him begin to say something, then hold his breath, and finally breathe in deeply again. I could help you, said the group leader, and now, with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he came even closer, so that Thomas couldn’t bend down to hack at the stones. He felt the heat of the cigarette dangerously close. Come on, said the group leader, and he was going to take Thomas’s hand, but Thomas flinched away. The group leader’s hand landed on his hip, slipped down, dug bony fingers into his naked buttock.

No thanks, no. Thomas clutched the handle of the pickaxe in both hands now. From the distant road, another quiet whistle could be heard. Thomas saw a group of people, heard distant sounds mingled with the wind and rain, maybe another group of workers, young labourers and apprentices on their way back to the hostel after their day’s work. The group leader held his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, he blew the smoke straight into Thomas’s face, then salivated noisily and licked Thomas’s face slowly. Thomas hardly trembled, but he held his breath and closed his eyes in shame. The group leader’s tongue passed over his lips, he clearly heard the man gathering saliva in his mouth again, to leave as thick a slimy trace on his face as possible. Taking small steps, Comrade Günter trod from one foot to the other, and thrust his tongue into Thomas’s ear. Thomas heard him salivating, felt the slobbering, it sounded like spitting.

Maybe some other time. The group leader let out a brief, harsh sound, perhaps meant to be laughter. I’m off now, I’m hungry.

The wind blew more strongly, it roared through the tops of the pine trees above the stone quarry and the little poplars, the raindrops were larger now, the poplar leaves rustled and Thomas kept breathing deeply, he didn’t want to shiver. The smell of Comrade Günter’s spit lingered in his nose. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the group leader climbing out of the quarry up the stone steps beside the hoist. The street lights on the road above had come on. Thomas stopped and did not move. He wasn’t going to let the cold get to him. His body was wet, the wind carried not only rain on it but also sand and tiny twigs and leaves that stuck to his skin and flew into his eyes. He was waiting for darkness. He broke stones now to keep from getting even colder. Rain washed the stone, and with the rain the dust disappeared, the air was clear, washed clean, satisfied. It was as if no one had been here breaking stones all day. And why should they? Thomas had stopped asking himself the point of all this. Stones were quarried from the rock of the pit so that up above they could be poured through a funnel into a breaking machine that would crush them with its steel jaws. Maybe they would end up only as ballast and gravel. They were simply broken up small. He could do that now, naked in the rain, he could break them up on his own as darkness fell. No one would see him.