Julia Franck - Back to Back

How about the trolls?

They won’t be here until Christmas, they’re in that home in Werder. Did he really want to know how they were? No one else asked after the twins, only Thomas. Going backwards and forwards couldn’t be good for them, if it hadn’t been for Thomas they’d have been forgotten long ago. They probably wouldn’t even come back from their home for Christmas. They’re fine, they really are. At least, we can suppose so as long as there’s no letter.

I’ve got something. I don’t know. . Hesitantly, Thomas pulled at the sleeves of his sweater. The grin had gone.

Got what?

What. . He looked around in search of something. Ella sensed his eyes looking for Käthe, chasing Käthe and failing to find her.

Don’t be like that, tell me what’s the matter.

They’ve sent me home.

Sent you home? Ella couldn’t take it in. Wow, that’s great!

Why was her little brother acting so strangely? He’d never got up to anything bad, surely they wouldn’t have turned him down for labour service? Why wasn’t he grinning?

I’m not well.

Not well? Incredulously, Ella looked at her brother. How did he really seem? Did an invalid look like that? Were the rings round his eyes real, pain expressed in those short sentences? People didn’t fall ill in this family, at least not physically ill. The body proved itself flawless by enjoying unbroken good health. Moments of weakness were for shirkers. Such weaker vessels attracted pitilessly derogatory nicknames, a kind of advance warning. Those who were capable of coping with life and enjoyed their work were people like Käthe who took a cold shower in the morning all the year round, jumped into the icy waters of the Baltic in February, and stood chiselling away at stone or doing other work in a bikini in summer. For some time Ella had suspected that Thomas was Käthe’s favourite child because, apart from his fear of the dark, he had no little aches and pains, there was his radiantly sunny childhood, romantic poetry in his teens, there were the rings, circlets and belts made from brass by Käthe’s golden boy, and of course he always got top marks at school. Above all, however, he was never ill. Nothing about Thomas dried out, no need for him to rest and sleep in a sanatorium. And now he said he was ill? Ella felt resentment, heretical derision. What do you mean, you’re not well?

Don’t laugh. Thomas wrinkled up his nose, looking as if he were about to bare his teeth. The works doctor says it’s shingles.

Shingles? Ella rolled the word around on her tongue. Show me. She was going to pull up his sweater, but he held it down in place. You can die of it if the blisters form a circle all round your body! Ella’s nostrils flared as her fear rose.

Nonsense. Don’t shout like that.

Thomas was suffering, no doubt of it. Ella could hear it in his voice, he was in pain, real physical pain. He sat down in the low leather armchair, Ella knelt on the floor and put a hand on his shoulder. There are old women, you know, witches who can treat that with an incantation, cast a spell and the shingles will go away.

It just has to get better of its own accord. Otherwise I’ll be in pain all my life. It mustn’t spread any more.

Show me, please.

Only if you promise not to show you’re disgusted.

I promise. Ella lifted two fingers as she swore.

And do me a favour, Ella, stop looking at me like a dog. It makes me furious.

I won’t look at you like a dog any more. Ella raised her two fingers again and swore.

When Thomas raised his sweater, carefully, holding it up and away from his body, luckily he had the fabric in front of his eyes and didn’t see Ella’s face. Her silent scream, the open mouth, the look that said she couldn’t believe what she saw. She tried to keep quiet, looked at the raised skin covered with blisters, fiery red, yellow in places with pus both wet and encrusted, mauve like clotted blood at some of the edges of the rash. A devastating, horrible burn spreading everywhere, said Ella, clearing her throat. Looks as if you’ve burnt yourself.

Thomas lowered the pullover.

Where did you catch it?

You’re disgusted after all. Thomas was already smiling his forgiveness. He knew Ella too well, she couldn’t pretend with him.

Not at all. She waved the idea away, and Ella believed what she said, she already felt objectively cool superiority. I’m not disgusted by anything. But where did you catch it?

Don’t worry, it’s not infectious.

As he leaned back in the chair and asked if there was anything to eat in the house — and Ella did not mention the plum compote any more than the stollen, which she had not yet eaten, but she planned to keep for herself — all she could think of was what he was bearing, suffering, enduring.

Don’t look at me like a dog. Thomas spoke sharply, the beginning of the sentence very quiet, the end of it in a voice not very much raised, but she sensed his anger at her helpless pity.

All right. On tiptoe, arms spread wide like a tightrope walker to make a show of her extreme caution, mocking her poor sick brother, Ella left the smoking room and went back to her own room, where the wax of the candle had run down over the holder and onto the rug. Here she crouched in front of the stove and ate her stollen; smacking her lips with relish she licked the burnt sugar off the walnuts. Let Thomas sit there in his armchair, grinning, let him see who could bear it if she couldn’t. He could wait a few more days for Käthe. Would he venture to go and see Michael with his shingles? Or Violetta?

In the morning, when Ella opened the door of the lodger’s room, where Thomas had been sleeping more and more often during the prolonged absence of the lodger himself, he was lying on his bed with his forehead wet with sweat and his face distorted. The skin of his face was reddened by strain, with only a white triangle around his nose left free. A sure sign that he was seriously ill. He was biting his pillow to help him bear the pain.

Help me, please, Thomas groaned, turning on his side. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, and Ella could see the rash under it.

What am I supposed to do?

Ella thought about it; she didn’t know any doctors. She went into the smoking room and looked in the telephone book, but apart from a vet and a dentist she found only a paediatrician and a GP who didn’t have any consulting hours that day.

Get me some painkillers, Thomas called from his room, anything, and maybe the pharmacist can call a doctor. Please!

Ella put Käthe’s woollen coat on. She wondered whether to write to Käthe. Maybe a phone number for the Leuna chemical works could be found?

A doctor came in the evening and examined Thomas. He confirmed the diagnosis: yes, it was shingles, and he couldn’t say what had caused it or suggest anything much in the way of treatment. Apart from painkillers and powdering the rash, there was nothing to be done for shingles.

As soon as the doctor had left, Thomas was whimpering with pain. Ella stuffed cotton wool in her ears to keep the sound out. But in the middle of the night his screaming woke her. She couldn’t bear it, it was sending her out of her mind. She went into his room and shouted at him. Yes, she said, of course it was bad that he was in pain, but if she herself couldn’t get a wink of sleep all night either, it wasn’t going to help anyone. He’d better bite his pillow, she told him, going back to her room, and she took her quilt and lay down on the sofa on the veranda to be out of earshot. Thomas tried to keep quiet.

Five days later Käthe came back. Although she had gone in the Wartburg, she was wearing her pilot’s cap, probably because it was so cold. Agotto was already barking in the yard. He raced in through the doorway ahead of her, wagging his tail. He had jumped up at the door handle and opened it before Käthe came up the stairs with her baggage. There was no greeting, no hello, no how are you? Käthe was indignant. Are you still at nursery school? This is a state commission I have, an important piece of work! Don’t you two have any respect for me? Just because one of my children, almost grown up, is ill, I can’t drop everything back there! What on earth were you thinking of, sending the manager a telegram? She snorted. Am I a professional mother?