Julia Franck - Back to Back

Don’t shout at me, Käthe. I thought you ought to know. The works doctor at Gommern sent him home. He’s been here for a week now, screaming with pain day and night. Ella ran both hands through her hair, scratching her scalp nervously and energetically. Honestly, I’ve been sleeping on the veranda the last few nights because I can’t stand it.

So where is he now?

Where do you think? In bed, of course.

Of course, of course. People don’t go to bed in broad daylight. Käthe took her pilot’s cap off and stalked through the smoking room, opened the door to the corridor and called to the rooms off it: Käthe’s back, everyone rise and shine!

But no one rose; no one appeared at all.

Ella had seldom seen Käthe so annoyed with her favourite child. Didn’t he always do everything right, didn’t he say the cleverest things, wasn’t he the most handsome boy in the world?

From a distance, Ella heard Käthe finally walking down the corridor. She stayed in Thomas’s room for quite a long time. When she reappeared she had changed. Her annoyance had given way to deep concern.

If we don’t find someone who can cure this thing he could die, Ella, do you realise that?

For a moment Ella hesitated; then she nodded. I heard of a woman in Erkner. Ella quietly tried explaining her idea. They say she can work magic — with her hands and with spells.

A witch? Käthe laughed heartily and put her blue working jacket on. First you can give me a hand getting the statue out of the car.

Ella looked enquiringly at Käthe. Käthe turned and led the way downstairs and into the yard, where her Wartburg was standing with its tailgate open. A monster wrapped in cloths and a blanket, all tied up with coarse rope, lay on the folded-down rear seat of the estate car. A smell of wet dog came from the car. Presumably Agotto had had to lie beside the statue on the way.

The plaster wasn’t even dry when I had to set out. But it was wonderful, the Brigade there had never seen anything like it. The director’s eyes popped out of his head. Along comes Käthe to show them what art is! Käthe spread her arms wide. Careful, take it by the plinth. No, wait, turn round. Käthe harassed Ella, making her go this way and that, she was to hold on more firmly, bend her knees sooner, more to the left, and be careful where she was treading when she walked backwards. It was the same as usual, as if Ella were helping her for the first time. Every order struck home. No sooner had Ella put the plinth carefully down on the wooden turntable, pulled away the blanket from under the stand and undone the packaging from below, to help Käthe get the statue erect, than Käthe said impatiently: Go a little way to the side, and pushed the statue towards Ella. Ella caught the package in both arms. Two heads came into sight, the bodies scarcely separated yet. A dancer with two heads. Maybe two dancers who were still merged together. Ella could already guess whose leg would belong to a man or a woman later, one of the woman’s legs was coming away from the bulk of the rock at the back, one of the man’s legs was wound round her. They shared a body, their heads were separate.

Do you like it? Käthe was watching Ella’s expression. This woman in Erkner — well, why not? Erkner, that’s some way to go. I have things to do here. You’d better take your bike and cycle there. We want the woman to cure Thomas.

Ella nodded. She rode her bicycle to Erkner to fetch the woman who could work magic.

The woman couldn’t come until the following day, because she worked on Saturday and had to fill the shelves after the shop closed. She was a sales assistant in a grocer’s shop in Erkner.

You don’t think I can work magic, you don’t think that, do you? said the woman, reassuring herself as she came through the doorway and shook hands with Käthe. She looked anxious. Ella was curious; she had never seen a real witch at close quarters before.

We think only the best of you. Käthe led the woman to Thomas’s bedside. Ella draw back the curtains. In full daylight the sales assistant looked even slimmer. Shyly, without any grand gestures, she took off her patterned green headscarf and her fine white gloves. She had delicate, slender fingers, she wore thin tights under her pleated skirt, and she had slightly bandy legs with graceful ankles. Her feet were in flat patent leather shoes. Hesitantly, she unbuttoned her coat, which so far no one had taken from her. Ella saw no warts, no hairy chin, no evidence, however small, that this was the genuine enchantress she had hoped for.

I’m not a witch. The sales assistant looked at Käthe and then back at her patient. Thomas was blinking in the bright light.

You’ve helped other people. Go ahead. Käthe was not just expressing confidence; it sounded more like an order. Without a word of goodbye Käthe left the room; she probably had to go down to the studio where her dancing couple was waiting. She had worked on the thing with wax half the night, the plaster had been mixed, the carving was as good as done, she’d even been promised a place at the foundry next month. Two naked models would be sitting downstairs in the studio, waiting for her. Time was pressing.

The sales assistant looked around for something.

Do you need anything? Ella wondered whether the sales assistant would want a cauldron or some herbs for her magic.

Well. . The sales assistant looked down, not at Ella.

Take her coat for her, please, groaned Thomas from his bed. His voice came hissing through his teeth so that anyone could guess at his pain. He braced both fists against the mattress to help himself sit up.

May I? Ella took the sales assistant’s coat, and the slender little woman stowed her headscarf and gloves away in her handbag.

Would you, the sales assistant’s voice was getting quieter and quieter, so that Ella had to stand still to make out what she was saying, would you leave us alone, please?

Why. . and Ella wanted to ask, why should I? But she bit the words back and said: Why not? Ella left the door wide open; she didn’t want to miss anything. As she hung the sales assistant’s coat up on a hanger, she heard the door to Thomas’s room being closed behind her. Wasn’t she a witch herself? Didn’t she know as much about herbs as this sales assistant? Maybe more. What was the woman supposed to know that she didn’t know? She could hardly hear her voice through the door. After a few remarks had been exchanged, there was silence. Ella pressed her ear to the door, she couldn’t hear any rustling, any voices. Once she heard a footstep. After a long time that seemed to Ella like an eternity, Thomas said something that she couldn’t hear properly. She moved away from her listening post on tiptoe, and waited at the end of the long corridor for the door to open.

There you are. The woman stepped out into the corridor and looked around her.

Do you need to go to the lavatory?

What? Oh no, I was looking for my coat.

Here it is. Ella went to the coat stand and handed the sales assistant her coat. Well?

What did you say? The sales assistant put her coat on.

Well, has it gone away? Have you cured him?

I’m sorry, the next few days will show. The slender woman took her headscarf out of her handbag and put it on.

We can’t wait. Ella opened the front door for the woman with a deep bow. The sales assistant did not take much notice of the bow, but stepped over the threshold. Outside the door, she turned to Ella.

It would be a good thing if he didn’t have to go back to that stone quarry, you know where I mean, to Gommern, she said quietly, and with a slight smile she shook hands with Ella.

This was not the way Ella had imagined a witch. She took the big silk scarf that no one must touch or wear but Käthe herself — it had been given to her a few years ago by the French boyfriend of her youth — off the coat stand. She draped the scarf over her head and went into Thomas’s room. Whoooooo! Hocuspocus, abracadabra, when shall we three meet again?