Julia Franck - Back to Back

It had been a few more days before Ella ventured to go over to Michael’s place. Ella was freezing, and hadn’t got out of bed all day. She had put on a cap and a scarf, she had drunk hot tea and broth, and after supplies of both were finished she had drunk nothing but hot water all day. In the end it was too much. She put on several pairs of trousers, looked at the thermometer, which showed minus nine degrees, and found a thick woollen coat in Käthe’s wardrobe. Snow was falling as if in slow motion, fine flakes sailing through the twilight. She stood outside the house. Under the apartment where Michael and his family lived there was a butcher’s shop. The shutters were rolled down. Steam came from a small air vent, carrying a salty smell of smoked meat. Ella looked up. The lace curtains at the top windows were illuminated from inside, warm light, there must be candles burning there, the family believed in God and Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent. Ella had never been here on her own before. Whenever they had needed something in the past, she had sent Thomas over to his friend’s family. Thomas could get anything there. But Thomas was in Gommern and wouldn’t come home until Christmas.

Ella, how nice! Michael’s mother was glad to see her and asked her in. How was Thomas, she asked, had Ella heard anything? Ella shook her head, no, nothing, there had only been a brief postcard since he left in September. Arrived safely, will write again. However, Thomas had written two long letters to his friend Michael, but Michael, while giving her a friendly smile, kept quiet about their contents. Ella didn’t like to ask.

Michael’s mother sent her son down to the cellar to fill a rucksack full of coal for Ella.

Would she like to sit down for a minute? Ella nodded undecidedly, it was warm in the living room here. Michael’s mother was sure she would like tea, or would she rather have some cocoa?

Ella drank, gulping greedily. Michael’s mother wrapped up some cake for her too, walnut stollen and dried apple rings. A jar of plum compote so that Ella wouldn’t go hungry while Käthe was away. Ella nodded, and took the rucksack from Michael. Michael would help her to carry the things, said his mother as Ella was wrapping her scarf around her hair and her cap, and going to the door. No, Ella assured her, no, it’s only two streets, I can manage that. The kind glances of mother and son touched her; the love was for her brother, thought Ella, and was glad to feel some of it rubbing off on her. Did she have enough money? Michael’s mother asked as Ella was standing in the doorway, legs apart, stooping forward slightly with the weight of the heavy rucksack. Ella had shaken her head. In fact Käthe had left five marks on the table for her, but she had spent that on a kilo of smoked sprats and a bottle of wine in the dance-hall cafe on the first day. Johnny had carried the tipsy Ella, half asleep, home on his back, put her down outside the door and thanked her for the lovely evening. Ella had slammed the door in his face: she had wanted to sleep and nothing else.

Michael’s mother now disappeared into her nice-smelling apartment and came back to the door with the purse containing her housekeeping money. She wanted to give Ella ten marks. Ella said she felt embarrassed to take it, and as she made that claim she imagined herself really feeling ashamed, and sensed that she was succeeding, she was blushing and awkward, indeed, she was looking meekly at Michael’s mother’s brightly coloured apron. But she took the ten-mark note, folded it and put it in her coat pocket.

Michael’s mother touched her cheek as she might have touched the cheek of a poor child. All alone, she whispered. Her soft hand was alarmingly warm. Ella felt herself deliberately making the shame she had conjured up into misery, a yawning abyss of what seemed to her untold depths, she felt tears come to her eyes as she took a faltering step backwards.

Look after yourself, my dear, said Michael’s mother. Ella felt dizzy. The cold reinforced the rushing in her ears. Even when she was at home, heating the stove and getting a spoon from the kitchen, she felt dizzy. She stabbed a hole in the screw-top lid of the jar of compote with a knife to let the air out, and opened it. She ate the plums spoonful by spoonful, swallowing two plum stones, drank the sweet liquid until the jar was empty, and leaned back against the stove.

Her stomach ached, the thermometer rose, it was dark outside now. Ella lit a candle and proudly examined the ten-mark note that she had placed on the carpet in front of her. She put her head back until her hair felt hot against the stove; her shoulder blades tingled with heat through all the layers of shirts and sweaters she was wearing.

She heard a sound outside the front door. A rattling, the door was opened. Ella sat there rigid. She wasn’t expecting anyone, it was dark outside. Käthe wouldn’t be back for another ten days, and she had taken her dog Agotto with her as usual. Also, Käthe wouldn’t be likely to come through the front door; she usually parked in the yard, where she unloaded her baggage and then came in by way of the studio or the other flight of back stairs. Ella would have heard the Wartburg. Now the door was being closed. Ella listened, keeping quiet. No one knocked, no one rang the bell, no barking, no one calling out who’s there? Should she call out herself, stand up, find out who it was? She didn’t dare. The light in the corridor was switched on. She heard footsteps, bumping and banging. The bathroom door was opened, and Ella heard the splashing of a long jet into the lavatory bowl. Someone was taking a long pee. The intruder must think he was alone in the house, because apart from the faint candlelight that no one could have seen from the outside there wasn’t a single light on. The stove was hot against Ella’s back, she didn’t want to move. The lavatory was flushed, more water flowed in, Ella heard it gurgling as if she were right beside it. The lodger. Yes, it seemed he was busy in Hamburg, and the Wall might make it more difficult for him to travel, but he still had a key. He could have passed it on to someone else who worked with him. Steps came closer. But the intruder passed Ella’s dark room, probably hardly noticed the candlelight in the bright light of the corridor, went on and opened the door to the smoking room. Now Ella heard a voice talking to itself: Your mirror is time — / Endless! / Like mine / You are not flesh, life — / you are fear, and she recognised the voice, I live on fear — death is boring — / and so are you! Ella pushed herself away from the stove, stood up and hurried out of her room, running the last few metres down the long corridor. She pushed the door open with both hands and fell into Thomas’s arms.

What are you doing here? In her relief, she snuggled close to him.

Ouch, watch out, you’re hurting me. Thomas tried to free himself from her embrace, but Ella didn’t want to let go.

Oh, I’ve missed you, dear little brother. You never wrote. I thought you weren’t coming home until Christmas.

What about Käthe? Thomas was still trying to get out of Ella’s arms.

Käthe, Käthe, oh, away on business as usual. The combine in Leuna wants to give her a bigger, more important commission. Ella rolled her eyes. So off she goes for discussions and preliminary sketches. She won’t be back for another ten days.

Please, Ella, let go of me. Thomas grimaced as if he were in great pain, drew in air between his teeth and gripped Ella’s arms so that she couldn’t keep them round him.

What’s the matter with you? Thomas had never before pushed her away so harshly when they were reunited. He was pale, with red rings under his eyes. Have you been crying?

Don’t talk nonsense, he said, but Ella didn’t entirely believe him. Ah, now his grin was back, a forced grin this time, but it was back. When had it first appeared, when had it wormed its way into her company? That cynical grin, how distant he wanted to show himself. Ella breathed deeply; she didn’t want to see that grin.