Julia Franck - Back to Back

When darkness had fallen over the fallow land here, Thomas climbed up the wet stone.

The boys were playing skat, anyone who won a trick got to drink spirits from a wooden mug painted in the Russian style. Rain beat against the window. And anyone who won a game could drink from the bottle as long as he could without putting it down. Thomas found his clothes in the corner beside the bed; they were sandy, and so was the rubbish bucket they were lying on. The showers behind the manager’s house could be reached only with a key after previous application. Thomas washed at the basin; there was a cold-water tap.

A newspaper cutting was pinned on the wall, Brigitte Bardot with her big breasts, the drawing pin went through her throat.

A second bottle of spirits was opened. Thomas put on his underclothes, trousers and sweater. Ella had found a place in the wardrobe department of the Deutsches Theater. She wanted to learn dressmaking. She had gone to the interview in her Pan costume. She had been asked to make a small bag with neat seams in front of the wardrobe mistress, sew on a button and make a buttonhole. To her own surprise, she had succeeded at the first attempt. There were huge rooms in the theatre, Ella had told him enthusiastically, breathing deeply through her nose with her eyes closed again and again, because she liked the smell there so much. She could prepare for her school-leaving exam at the adult education college, which held evening classes for people with jobs. Thomas would help her study when he was allowed to come home at Christmas. Now he lay down under the blanket with his clothes on and closed his eyes, although the noise the boys made kept him awake. He pulled the blanket over his head. Perhaps you could choke on your own breath? Or at least lose consciousness and go to sleep? The Fatherland calls you. Thomas heard that rallying cry, soldiers came marching up, and a band of wind instruments and drums was drilling him. He couldn’t march, couldn’t get the rhythm of it, he stood still. The soldiers fired their guns, formed a wall around him, came closer, threw their guns his way, he was supposed to take hold of a gun. He couldn’t catch one, he didn’t want to, the guns hit him, their butts struck his bare body. He wanted to escape, he ran but he couldn’t move from the spot, again and again he saw the wall of soldiers in front of him, guns were thrown to him, banners. Fluttering. Drumming. Music blaring. Fanfares. Protect the Fatherland, protect the Socialist Republic! There it was again, loud and clear. What might have been a dream just now reminded Thomas of reality, the hostel, the hut, the room, the bottom bunk bed where he had been trying to sleep. Thomas thought his eyes were encrusted, gummed up. The boys were still talking noisily at the table, bottles clinking, Thomas pressed the blanket to his eyes. Anyone who joined up now could look forward to a place in the Socialist Republic, training, studies. Solidarity and the right role seemed within touching distance. The boys here were determined. They were talking about the women from the prison on the way into the village, high-spirited laughter, skirt-chasers! All the noise circled around the Wasserburg and its female inmates. When Thomas dreamed again, fast asleep, surrounded by silence, he saw Violetta naked as he had never really seen her. Her red hair shone under his hands, he tasted her skin, it was sourish, unpleasant. There was scarcely any encrustation left when Thomas opened his eyes, dim light was coming through the window from a street lamp, it was silent, and he lay sweating under the scratchy blanket. His trousers and sweater were damp with sweat, the hair stuck to the nape of his neck. Thomas heard the boys breathing, snoring. He didn’t want to undress, he wanted to be rid of the blanket. Cautiously he felt the scratchy thing. The blanket too was damp on top, crumbly, it smelled of vomit. Thomas withdrew his hand, he sat up, the metal springs of the bed above him scratched his scalp, he ducked. Head down, he looked at his bed in the faint twilight. Someone had thrown up on his blanket while he was asleep. It smelled of spirits and vomit, it was what Violetta had tasted like in his dream.

You don’t have to show your fins today, said the older boy in the top bunk as Thomas pulled his sweater over his head. You go diving today.

The other boys laughed. Today Thomas would go diving. Take a header. The pit was over twenty metres deep, but the day before the water had been low, Thomas remembered it, the rocky bottom had kept scratching his stomach when he went full length underwater.

Test of courage, said one of the boys, everyone has to take it. Thomas didn’t reply. He heard the voices of the older stoneworkers in the next room. Thomas opened the door. He would join the older men before the boys were out of bed.

The group leader decided who had to load trucks down in the quarry, and who stood on the edge of the pit by the funnel, or spread the stones over the load surface of the big truck with a spade. He positioned Thomas at the foot of the hoist today. Muscles, that was the idea. Anyone with poor muscle tone would build it up, crushing and loading the stones. Fitness training, the group leader said, was the name of the game in this position, and like all new trainees Thomas was assigned to fitness training. In the morning he broke and crushed stones. Only after a good hour did he decide to take a sip from his water bottle. When he opened it, the bottle had a suspect smell; someone had peed in it. Thomas asked all the men working with him, but none of them were prepared to give him a drink from their own bottles.

When Thomas, following the others, went back to the hut for the midday break for the first time, a horrible smell of blood sausage met him. Dead Granny — the boys were delighted. Thomas went to the toilets and drank cold water from the tap until his stomach was taut. Then he washed out his water bottle several times and filled it with fresh water. He couldn’t eat blood sausage. Potatoes were heaped on his tin plate, and afterwards there was semolina with raspberry syrup. The sticky semolina clung to his mouth, he worked the sticky mass with his tongue and palate, it was like sweetened cement.

Days of rain had left the bottom of the stone quarry underwater in parts. One afternoon, when the first sleet was burning the men’s faces and their gloves, shoes and work clothes were drenched, the group leader stationed himself in front of Thomas, his booted legs apart, put his hands on his hips and said: Your turn today. It’s dry in the explosives storeroom. The gallery’s only eight metres deep. You’ll get your kit from the demolition expert up in front. The lads will show you what to do. Thomas obeyed, he propped his pickaxe against the rock and followed the group leader over the terrain. From the demolition expert he got his equipment, a helmet, a box with the explosive in it, a belt to strap the tools on. The demolition expert explained something to him, something about switching on the lamp and the importance of the water. Thomas found it difficult to listen; he was in the clutch of his fear of darkness. Thomas turned at the entrance to the storeroom. The group leader clapped him so hard on the shoulder that it hurt. Just so as you know, not everyone gets to go down, but you do. Whether that was a threat or praise, Thomas couldn’t make out. At the moment he felt he no longer knew anything about people, what they said and the meaning of their words. Good luck, he heard the group leader call out his watchword. Thomas put the helmet on. His hand was trembling so violently that he couldn’t find the eyelet in the strap. No one here could know how much Thomas feared the dark. There was no Ella for miles, an Ella to scrabble about in the low-roofed gallery for him in return for his doing her maths homework, to put on the helmet instead of him. He was shaking, the rigid fingers of his trembling hands sought the eyelet on the strap of the helmet and couldn’t find it.