Julia Franck - Back to Back

The last quarrel between Käthe and Eduard had been early this year, 1957, and it had taken place in the room next to Ella and Thomas’s, so that they heard every word: Käthe shouting that she wanted to go to the theatre, he had never once gone with her, he took no interest in anything and blamed her for throwing money out of the window with her visits to the theatre. Throwing money out of the window? Could there be a finer, better, more important window on the world than the theatre? Whose money was it anyway? Who worked for it? In her indignation Käthe set about exploiting his latest symptom of paralysis in the arms; before his eyes she took a chisel and forced the drawer of his desk open. He had to watch, with his arms hanging limp and useless. She found a mountain of money in his desk, over two thousand marks, a whole bundle of banknotes. Käthe had expected almost anything, letters and pictures, documents and souvenirs of dubious merit, she had even thought there might be some money, twenty marks, fifty, perhaps a hundred. But not this. Ella and Thomas stole out into the corridor and watched the scene, unnoticed, through the open door. A painful scene. Its painfulness seemed to egg Käthe on to act like a monster. She threw the notes at Eduard, they wouldn’t stick to him, his limp arms couldn’t catch them, they sailed to the floor. Beside herself with fury, she shouted at him that he lay there idly like an invalid, had left her to provide for a family of six by herself all these years, didn’t bother about anything, drove away their household helps, left her to do all the work on her own — she had to watch every mark! He shouted at her not to treat him like a small child. She had broken open his desk, he shouted, that was a criminal act, she was a criminal, he had to live under the same roof as such a person, he had rights as well. Käthe could give as good as she got when it came to shouting, but now she yapped, short and sharp: he was the criminal. All these years she’d toiled on her own, while behind her back he was hoarding money like a madman! What kind of money was it, anyway, where did it come from, what was it for? That was nothing to do with her, he retorted, he had a right to that money, he’d worked for it. Oh, worked for it, had he? Käthe snapped back. When and where, might she ask, had he been working recently? Did he think she didn’t know what he got up to, lounging about and doing his friends a favour now and then?

Here he interrupted her; he’d fought and suffered, he said, she didn’t understand the first thing about that, he hissed, she’d better shut up or she’d get to know him better, and not just him either. Not just him? It wasn’t for her to put on airs, she knew nothing about doing friends a service. To which she asked if he thought she was stupid? Doing friends a service? Maybe it had never occurred to him that she too did friends a service, but for free, entirely unlike him. He was not a true communist, he was a greedy scoundrel and an old miser, keeping what was theirs from her and the children. He wailed that he was an injured man, maybe she remembered who it was she’d married, and he added further furious recriminations. Käthe said she had married him for the sake of the twins, hoping at least to give them a father — but he was the kind of father to cheat his own children, he was a crook, a miserable villain, keeping money from them, hoarding it in his desk on the quiet for years. He ought to be ashamed of himself, said Käthe, he could go to hell, get out of there, never mind where to, she just wanted him out.

She put her peach-stone necklace round her neck, picked up one of the banknotes and let the door latch behind her. The play she was going to see began in an hour’s time.

And he disappeared. A few weeks later, his room was empty.

Thomas tied the cord round a small branch and knotted it firmly. He took the other end of the cord and wove it into the hanging roof. Ella had said she wanted a little bench, and this afternoon he was going to build one into the tree house for her, he knew where already, he would use the big fork in the branches for it. But the roof wasn’t windproof yet.

Ella’s voice was unusually flat, it sounded almost casual: I hate Eduard.

Oh yes? Then why were you always sitting on his lap?

Wasn’t.

Yes you were, all the time. Thomas was trying to tie the leafy roof of their tree house firmly in place with the cord. He had woven twigs together to stabilise it. Ella sat up, crossing her legs.

It was from longing. I was thinking about our father. And wondering what he was like. I was sitting on his lap, not Eduard’s.

Really and truly? Thomas shook his head; he didn’t like to think about it. Anyone else would have seen you sitting on Eduard’s lap.

Ella pushed Thomas with both arms, making him bump into the tree trunk. Don’t be stupid — she was furious — you know perfectly well what he did.

Thomas lowered his eyes. He did know. It was just that Ella hadn’t told him. He could still see old Eduard sitting in his big armchair, plucking at Ella’s arm as she was walking past to get her to sit on his lap. Ella’s giggling, his giggling. Thomas saw Eduard’s hands on Ella’s hips, on Ella’s legs, he remembered Eduard, grinning mysteriously, whispering something in her ear. Only later did Ella tell him what it was. Thomas hadn’t liked the way the pair of them sat together, he hadn’t liked the look on Ella’s face as she sat on Eduard’s lap. Come and play, he had asked Ella at such moments to get her off that lap. Once Eduard had told Thomas: You’re Käthe’s darling, Ella is mine.

He’s a poor bastard. Thomas laid an arm on Ella’s shoulder. Let’s forget him.

Poor bastard? Poor? So what are we, then? You’re just saying that because you didn’t come to my rescue!

Rescue? For a moment Thomas didn’t know what she meant.

Didn’t protect me. Ella sniffed. Her eyes were reddened and running with tears.

Thomas put the hammer down and took Ella in his arms. Her crying was infectious, he felt her tears on his cheeks, her heavy breathing against his chest; if she cried it would start him crying as well. And wasn’t she right? Shouldn’t he have protected her, couldn’t he have kept Eduard from whispering those things in her ear, from touching her and looking at her as if she were the buoy to which he could cling and so save himself?

You mustn’t tell anyone. Ever. Ella rubbed her face against Thomas’s throat. Understand? she whispered.

Thomas nodded. She had often made him promise that before. But what he did to you –

Quick as a flash, Ella put a finger over Thomas’s mouth, her eyes were flashing. You know perfectly well what he did, stop asking questions.

Thomas wanted to go on asking questions, he wanted to know more, because what he did know was by no means all. But he sensed Ella’s anxiety and obeyed her without reservations. Her tears made his throat tighten.

Come on, let’s enjoy being nice and quiet here. Ella leaned against him.

He nodded. We’ll sit back to back and you can tell me about our father.

Thomas knew that Ella loved telling stories about their father, stories that she sometimes invented because she didn’t have enough memories. She had been just two when he died, Thomas was only one year old.

They sat back to back in the tree house. Ella closed her eyes. I see him coming out of the fir trees, climbing up the mountain in his black suit, with a hat on his head, it’s a top hat, his dark hair is falling over his forehead, he has a rucksack on his back and his easel over his shoulder. He’s handsome, only I can’t see his legs, they’re blurred. I can see his face, his eyebrows, he didn’t have a beard then. He had to shave it off for the war.

Did he have a gun?