Julia Franck - Back to Back

Perhaps Erna pressed Käthe’s hand. You’re strong, you can work.

Of course I can work, no question about that. Käthe was getting heated. She could easily get annoyed with Erna, with her immaculate respectability as a married woman and her part-time job as a teacher. To Käthe, her sister’s life was the quintessence of a secure existence. But I need money to work as well, I don’t have a wife to look after my children. By way of reply Erna started crying. Was she shedding tears of sympathy or of shame for her own better situation? Käthe came marching firmly out on to the veranda, and saw Ella there with her eyes closed. Don’t just lie around idling like that, you’ll sleep half your life away. There are dishes to be washed in the kitchen. Get up, Pimpernel, off you go.

Käthe had bought an enormous carp for New Year’s Eve; Ella and Thomas feared that carp every year. While Käthe was gutting the carp in the kitchen, and her sister Erna was supposed to be helping her to clean the vegetables and peel the potatoes, Uncle Paul and Thomas were playing badminton in the smoking room. Uncle Paul had suggested moving the big table into the next room so that they could run back and forth more freely. He showed Thomas the way he served. Ella sat in front of the radiator, with no one taking any notice of her, rolling a ball of wax with the palms of her hands. Her eyes kept closing, and then she heard the whoosh of the shuttlecock in the air, heard its springy ping and then the firmer plop as it fell.

Thomas was not to put himself under any strain, the doctor had said only just before Christmas, to speed his recovery from shingles, but no one forbade playing games, so Thomas was leaping into the air, bright red in the face. Uncle Paul spoke with a strong American accent, as if he hadn’t been born and gone to school in Germany. You have to jump higher!

Thomas jumped higher.

Faster!

Thomas jumped faster. Ping. Plop. Plop. Plop.

Once Thomas stumbled, gasped for breath and collapsed. Uncle Paul crouched down beside him. In concern, he put his hand on Thomas’s shirt, which was wet with sweat. He patted his nephew like an animal. Oh boy, you’re not on good form.

Thomas shook his head.

Oh boy, repeated Uncle Paul, nodding sadly. Sport is so important. How are you going to study if you don’t keep fit?

I want to get out, whispered Thomas.

What did you say?

Out, Uncle Paul. Out of here. O.U.T.

You mean? Uncle Paul looked around as if he feared someone might be listening to them. Only now did he see Ella, but he just smiled at her briefly, bent over Thomas and said: You know perfectly well you can’t do that to your mother. She loves you.

Thomas sat up, supporting himself on the floor with one arm, blew back his fringe and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. In the middle of his overheated face, a white triangle stood out around his nose. Something was running down his cheek, Ella couldn’t be sure whether it was sweat or tears.

You can help me, Uncle Paul.

But Uncle Paul shook his head. Your mother will get you a place to study, you wait and see.

Please! Now Thomas gripped his uncle’s arm and held it tight. He was gasping. Please.

At this point Ella threw her ball of wax in Thomas’s direction, but although she hit him on the leg with it neither of them took any notice of her.

Thomas, that won’t do. His uncle pinched Thomas’s cheek as if he were an impudent little boy. I’m sorry, Thomas. He stood up and gave Thomas his hand to help him to his feet.

Can’t someone set the table? Käthe opened the door. Do get a move on! Isn’t anyone going to bring the table back in? We’ll be ready to eat in ten minutes!

On New Year’s Day all the visitors left after breakfast. It was not Käthe’s style to go to the door with her guests. Whether or not they were family members, whether they had stayed the night or only an hour, they all had to open and close the door for themselves. Käthe was testing the dampness of her Rosa, a clay figure on which she was working in these winter weeks and which stood on the veranda, wrapped in pieces of cloth. The brim of Rosa’s hat kept breaking off. Käthe was annoyed by her inability to force the clay to do what she wanted.

As soon as she heard the door latch behind her departing family, Käthe heaved a deep sigh, said: L’ospite è come il pesce, dopo tre giorni puzza, and without another word set to work.

In spite of a second visit by the shop assistant from Erkner, this time Thomas’s recovery was slow.

He had become familiar with the pain of his skin over those weeks. Thomas wondered if there was a condition beyond loneliness and pain, beyond cold and the stars, a place where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone, wouldn’t taste piss in his mouth, wouldn’t hear anyone bawling in his exhausted ears, and wouldn’t have to be anyone’s poor boy.

On New Year’s Day he woke up without pain for the first time. Thomas wondered what they had paid the woman. He looked at his ruined skin and fanned it with his sweater. His nerves felt exposed, sometimes the wind cooled him, sometimes it burnt him.

Paid her? Ella shrugged her shoulders. No idea. Anyway, I didn’t give her anything. Perhaps she was asked to choose one of Käthe’s little reliefs?

No, seriously: what did Käthe give her?

The first time, Käthe said hello to her when she arrived and I said goodbye. And the second time Käthe wasn’t there at all. Don’t you remember, she was with her painter friends beside the lock that day? I spoke to the sales assistant, I let her in. So if that’s what you’re asking me, no, she didn’t get anything.

What sort of people are you? You can’t just ask the woman to come here and not give her anything.

You might have thought of that yourself. Ella wasn’t accepting a reproof. Anyway, she had doubts of the efficacy of the sales assistant. Guttlenuts Shatzlebrutz, she could work much better magic herself. How do you know she was the one who cured you? I did it: Guttlenuts Shatzlebrutz.

That’s pathetic. Downcast, Thomas shook his head. Whether the rash goes away entirely again this time or not, she started the improvement, twice. She has to be thanked. Thomas ran his hands through his hair. I’ll go there.

Look out of the window. It’s snowing, it won’t get properly light at all today. Maybe a real witch doesn’t accept payment, hmm? She can make you better by magic if she wants to. Maybe taking money is against her honour?

Then I’ll send her a thank-you present. Thomas brought out the cardboard box in which he kept the bracelets and rings he had made himself from under his bed.

Are you crazy? You’re not going to give her that bracelet, are you? Don’t you remember, that was the one you promised to me?

Dismayed, Thomas turned the bracelet in his fingers. Did I? He seemed to have something on his mind. Sometimes I feel afraid I’m forgetting things.

You mean you hope you are. Ella laughed. You hope you’re forgetting me. You’re not giving that woman any of those things. Or not unless you want to forget me.

But we must give the woman something. Are you sure Käthe didn’t give her anything?

I’ll just go and ask her, said Ella, walking out of the room. Käthe had been down in the studio all day, and hadn’t even come upstairs to eat.

Agotto was lying on the back stairs, wagging his tail. Käthe didn’t like to let him into the studio, because he disturbed her work.

Ella opened the door and went downstairs. What to some are happy dreams . . it wasn’t often that Käthe listened to pop songs; perhaps she hadn’t been in hearing distance or had changed the radio station by accident. . what to others . . Before Ella reached the bottom step she could see Käthe’s bare breasts hanging down to the floor, heavy as melons, almost as if she were mopping up dust with them. . hard cash means . . Freddy Quinn, ‘La Guitarra Brasiliana’, Käthe on all fours, head down, backbone slightly bent, naked and grunting. Behind her knelt a man whom Ella didn’t immediately recognise. Shocked, she went up the stairs again backwards, step by step, without turning round, quietly, making as little noise as possible, she opened the door and closed it behind her. Agotto jumped up at her, licked her hands and whimpered.