Julia Franck - Back to Back

Ella went into the kitchen, where she found plates with remains of food on them and a pan, in which the twins had obviously cooked something up for themselves the evening before. She washed the plates and ran water into the pan to soften the residue. She plugged in the little kitchen immersion heater, but when the water boiled she just pulled out the plug and didn’t make tea. Back in the smoking room the twin on the sofa stretched, made a lip-smacking noise, yawned and opened her eyes. Why are you back again? asked the twin, seeing Ella sitting at the table in one of the deep armchairs.

I just am. Ella was cleaning her fingernails with one of the plastic sticks out of the Mikado game.

The twin stood up, nudged her sister with her foot, and disappeared into the kitchen. I’m hungry too, called the other twin from the floor, wait for me. She got up and ran after her sister. A bumblebee was buzzing against the windowpane between the smoking room and the veranda. Ella got out of her chair and opened the French door so that the bee could fly out. Ants had formed a little procession on the veranda table; maybe it hadn’t been wiped down. Once on the veranda, Ella saw that the door to the garden staircase was open. When Käthe was at home she always made sure that all the doors were closed at night. She did not lock them with their keys; she was not afraid of anyone breaking in, but the wind disturbed her, and she didn’t want birds and mice coming in from the garden. Now that the night was over that door might as well stay open.

Give it to me, shouted one twin to the other. It’s not fair, you’re taking a second bite! But the first twin held onto the bread crust and wouldn’t hand it over. The crust was so hard that Ella could hear the girl’s teeth crunching on it. Ow! Stop scratching me, shouted one of the girls, and Ella heard the thud of a blow. She stood in the doorway between the smoking room and the veranda. A squabble broke out, one girl hitting, the other maybe pinching, calling each other names that Ella didn’t understand. They were animals communicating only through sounds and noises. As soon as you intervened in their fighting and bickering they would gang up together against you as the supposed aggressor. Ella’s eyes fell on the long wooden ladder leaning on its side against the wall under the windows. They used it for gathering walnuts from the tree in autumn, and for apples. Ella picked up the ladder, which was not particularly heavy, but long; it must be twice as long as Ella was tall. It might be long enough. With the ladder over her shoulder, and walking carefully so as not to knock it against the bookcase or the pictures on the veranda, Ella went to the garden steps.

What are you doing? Are you picking apples already?

The twins came running up and watched Ella manoeuvring the ladder down the steps.

Can we pick apples too?

They’re not ripe yet, said Ella, when she had the ladder down the steps.

Then what are you doing?

Ella did not reply; she put the ladder over her other shoulder and went round the house through the garden. She carried the ladder to just under Thomas’s window and put it up against the wall there.

Are you going up the ladder? What are you doing?

The second rung was broken. Ella stepped over it and onto the third, climbed the ladder, and held herself in position with one hand on the frame of the open window so that she could pull herself up on the sill. Down below the twins were calling that they wanted to come up as well, but one of the sisters didn’t dare to because of the broken rung, and the other was trying to persuade her to climb it all the same. Ella was now wedged into the narrow space where the window was open. She got hold of the inside catch, opened the window fully, and jumped down into the room.

It was a moment before she could make out the scene before her inside the black walls. She saw a long, narrow back, a woman’s bare buttocks, her legs, one of them bent at an angle. One of her arms was hanging down from the bed, the other lay on the sheet. She was lying face down on something that also had arms and legs, and whose head was half hidden by her long hair. Ella knelt down beside Thomas’s bed, took hold of the long hair and pushed it aside. His open lips are hardly recognisable; something white is coming out of them, something soft that makes Ella think of a cloud or of mould. When Ella lets go of Marie’s hair she touches her arm, which is not really so much hanging off the bed as sticking out stiffly, it is cold, colder than the temperature in the room, colder than a stone would be if these two people had been carved out of stone, and the end of it, where the curled hand almost touches the floor, is a dark colour. Ella thinks of Käthe, who will come home from Leuna this morning.

Ella-a-a-a! Ella-a-a-a! Outside, the twins are calling her in unison, the same voice, the same word, the same impatience.

Sunlit motes of dust dance in the air.

No, says Ella, or maybe she just thinks No. She holds her left hand open and puts Marie’s hair over it, strand by strand, holds it firmly, and looks at what is coming out of Thomas’s mouth. His eyes are not quite closed.

She touches his forehead with her fingers. His forehead is cool. She touches the arm lying beside him; it may have slipped out just a few minutes ago from under the body lying on top of him. His arm is not cool, it seems to Ella almost warm, warm enough to move. But nothing is moving.

Is that a sound?

Ella’s eyes fall on the bottle of wine, which is almost empty, a single glass stands beside the bed, they were probably both drinking from it. She lets go of Marie’s hair.

Here I am, says a twin from the window — the curtain is still billowing between them. Ella gets up, goes over to the window and stands in front of it. The girl is standing at the top of the ladder, but she doesn’t know how to haul herself over the sill, her arms are too short. She is smiling mischievously.

Climb down, Ella tells her sister. Go on, get down that ladder.

The other girl is waiting at the bottom, holding the ladder firmly with both hands. Come on down.

The twin nimbly climbs backwards down the ladder. Ella looks at the bed with the two bodies on it. Stark naked. Why does that term occur to her? Is there a difference between naked and stark naked?

Thomas’s trousers are hanging over the arm of the chair. Ella picks them up, put her hand into one of the pockets, where she finds some folded sheets of paper, and reads. And who will sit / in judgement on us? / You who see us, / do not forget, / we love each other. She stuffs them back and tries the other pocket. She knows what she will read on the small, torn-off note: Coming to my house-warming on 1 September? Please do! And bring Marie with you. She puts the note in her own trouser pocket and arranges Thomas’s trousers as neatly as possible on the chair again. Her glance falls on Marie’s dress hanging over the other chair-arm, a special dress, dark blue with a black velour pattern that Ella would like to touch, a tiny pair of panties on top of it, like a child’s, a little vest with thin shoulder straps. She has arranged her sandals as a pair so that the toes are touching. They are probably closer together than people’s feet could ever stand wearing shoes.

Are you coming, Ella? The twins down in the garden are getting impatient. Ella goes to the window and pushes the curtain aside. Since when were colours so pale? Ella sees the dry grass with spots before her eyes. She climbs out on the windowsill and from there to the ladder.

The twins wait until Ella has reached the bottom.

Well? asks one twin, and then they both ask together: Are they dead?

Ella takes the ladder away; uncertain whether or not to carry it back to the veranda, she lets it fall in the grass. She walks off.