Julia Franck: Back to Back

The boat lay hidden in the reeds; they had found it a few days earlier by the landing stage, rocking on the water, and the wind drove it into the marshy inlet, along with leaves, twigs and larger branches broken off in the storm and washed ashore. It was not tied up, it obviously didn’t belong to anyone. One oar lay in the boat, the other was floating a little way off among the branches.

Thomas and Ella took the things they would need from the house and down the steps to the yard: a quilt, two small saucepans, potatoes, carrots and a chunk of bread. They also took a box of matches, some paper and an empty wine bottle, because Thomas thought they might want to write a message and send it by bottle post. Finally they carried the camping stove and a flashlight over the marshy ground; in October it got dark early, and in the morning there was hoar frost on the leaves and the blades of grass. They would be cold.

They had been on their own in the house for the last two weeks while Käthe was working in the quarry. Just before she left, Eduard had walked out after a row. Thomas and Ella had been looking after themselves; they had boiled potatoes and mixed salt, chives and water with curd cheese, they had been to school, they were ten and eleven and they could do all those things. When Käthe returned at the end of those two weeks, they hadn’t meant to do more than tidy the place up a bit: they had washed the dishes, and while Ella was still drying them Thomas had begun scrubbing the kitchen floor; they scoured the dark marks off the door, they polished the handle with ashes, washed the door frame with soap, whacked the doormat with the carpet beater and scrubbed it in the rain butt. Gentlemen, today you see me polishing up door handles, and soon I’ll sing everyone a song, said Ella.

Laughing, Thomas always put his hands over his ears at that announcement; he didn’t want to hurt Ella’s feelings, but she rarely hit the right note and changed the tune just as the fancy took her. The chandelier would really shine if you polished it up. The smell of brass clung to your fingers. It was fun; they would get the house into such a state of perfection as it had never known before. Thomas dusted the books and the shelves with a dry duster, then wiped the shelves over with a damp cloth, he sorted the art books by period and size, works of literature by alphabetical order, and political writings by subject. In a rumbling voice and looking through their dead father’s field glasses, he called across the expanse of the room: Miss Ella, with all this splendid literature available what will you borrow, a romantic love story or an adventure novel? Are you studying the tale of the Trojan War and all that fighting over Helen? I’ll be happy to make out a borrowing slip for you. Ella took no notice; she was lying under the table with a knife and a sponge, cleaning its underside, something that obviously no one had done for decades. Remains of something clung tenaciously to it, traces of food, maybe, or wax. Ella had soaked the Italian damask tablecloth in the zinc tub in the garden. It needed a thorough wash; over a long time, crumbs and dark stains of sauces and wine had made themselves at home on it.

If Ella and Thomas hadn’t wanted to get their house-cleaning done in two days, Thomas would have enjoyed playing the part of librarian; he was going to draw up a card index for the library and its future readers, he would design borrowing slips for all the books. When she hung the saffron-yellow tablecloth on the washing line, Ella’s arms hurt from the hard work of wringing it out. Armed with a toothpick and a cotton-wool ball, she climbed on a stool to clean the picture frame of the Sicilian landscape. The cobalt-blue sky shone over the rocky countryside where only olive trees would grow. But the shiny stuff coating the frame stained the cotton-wool ball dark, and Ella was afraid she might get not just the dirt but some of the paint off as well. She even tidied the workbox, winding cotton back on reels and embroidery silks around pieces of cardboard, she sorted the buttons into three black boxes and put needles into their little envelopes in order of size. Probably no one but Ella had used that workbox since the housemaid was fired. She played alternately the part of her distinguished grandmother and the seamstress; with her mouth pursed, and in her grandmother’s stilted voice, Ella commented on her own handiwork in French: Alors, c’est si parfait!

Perfetto, perfettamente, Thomas replied in passing, and his tone of voice, rustic and theatrical, imitated Käthe’s criticism of her mother’s upper-class French.

They tidied up all the rooms, square metre by square metre, cleaned and straightened up the whole house as it had never been tidied before. They had washed the curtains in the zinc tub under the elm tree, and hung them on the washing line in the garden to dry in the wind. They ironed them smooth — Käthe wouldn’t believe her eyes. They were maidservant and man-servant, singing a duet of admiration for their employer in tones of goodwill. Just once, the tenor of their conversation about their mistress changed — only recently she had raised her hand in anger to the maidservant over a stolen jar of apple compote, striking the girl so hard that she was knocked almost unconscious. Manservant and maidservant weighed up their mistress’s kindness against her violence, wiping down kitchen surfaces as they talked. They cleaned the oven with a piece of wire wool, making such generous use of scouring powder that they emptied the container; they tidied up the larder, and found a nest of nine tiny, naked mice in a basket full of old shoes. The soft pink of the little creatures’ skin trembled in time with their rapidly beating hearts, they didn’t squeak or squeal, maybe they were too young for that. Thomas picked up the basket, took a boot out and looked at the nest. Little naked mole-rats, he said, his voice soft and velvety. Ella was disgusted by the blind little creatures. She didn’t want to look at them. Ella was in favour of drowning them in the water butt, Thomas was against it. If he took the baby mice down to the cellar their mother would never find them again, and they’d die miserably. So as an animal expert he decided to lure the mother mouse into a trap, and then he could take her down to the cellar alive as well. He put a piece of cheese into a deep stoneware jar and covered it with a board, leaving only a little crack open. That afternoon he found the mouse in the jar, heard her jumping up at the walls inside it and slipping down them again and again. Thomas took the mouse in the jar and the basket containing her litter over the veranda into the garden, and from there to the door of the coal cellar. Ella followed close on his heels; she knew he couldn’t go into the cellar. He didn’t dare go into the dark, he was afraid of it. He knew how to get Ella to bring coal up instead. If you fetch the coal, I’ll do your maths homework. If you fetch the coal, you can have some smoked sprats. If you fetch the coal and take it to the hazel bush beside the cellar door, I’ll carry it up the steps and into the house, and what’s more I’ll heat the stove all week and chop the firewood.

Please, Thomas said, handing her the jar and the basket, you only have to put them down on the floor and take the board off the jar, then they’ll do fine on their own.

What do I get in return?

A story this evening.

It’ll have to be a long one. And something else.

What?

Because that’s not enough.

I’ll carry your bag to school all week, I promise, and I’ll do your maths for you, and your German homework as well.

Oh, all right. Basket in one hand, holding the jar well away from her with the other, her arms outstretched, Ella staggered down the steps into the cellar. At the bottom she fell full length. He heard the mouse squeaking, the jar was broken, only the basket with the litter of baby mice in it had landed intact next to Ella’s head. She struggled to her feet, her trousers torn, her knees sore, her hands black and grazed.