by Unknown
The three of them sat down. I don’t have much time, said Carl’s father when his wife poured him some tea. He didn’t say it to Helene, he said it to his teacup, glancing at the large wristwatch he wore.
You’re very pretty, said Carl’s mother and rather shyly, but admiringly, added: And so blonde.
She’s very blonde, yes. Carl’s father drank from his cup quite noisily. It sounded as if he were washing out his mouth with the tea.
So pretty, too, Carl’s mother repeated.
Leave the poor child alone, Lilly, you’ll embarrass her.
Are you studying, may I ask? The professor put this question too without looking at Helene. He took one of the strawberries and put it in his mouth. His wife pushed a small fruit dish with an even smaller fruit knife over to him, no doubt so that he would find some use for it this time, and before Helene could answer she told Professor Wertheimer: No, Carl told us, remember? She’s a trained nurse.
A nurse? It was a moment before the professor could think what to say next. Well, nursing is a very useful profession. A friend of our Ilse . . .
Ilse is our daughter, Carl’s mother explained.
But Carl’s father was not going to be interrupted. A friend of our Ilse trained as a nurse too and now she’s a doctor.
In London, added Carl’s mother, and asked if she could pour Helene some more tea.
Helene drank her tea. She didn’t want to tell them she was working in a pharmacy now, she didn’t want to explain, unasked, how she and Carl had imagined their future. They had intended to go together to Freiburg or Hamburg, where Helene would study. Probably chemistry, pharmacy or medicine. Carl was in favour of chemistry, she preferred the idea of medicine, but perhaps pharmacy would have been the obvious choice after her work in the pharmacy in Berlin. The snag was that Helene had no money to pay for her studies. But independently of that, her wonderful idea of studying had now moved into the remote distance; it seemed to Helene as if that wish belonged to another, earlier life and was not her own any more. Helene no longer wished for anything. The visions that they had developed, discussed and conjured up together were all gone, had vanished with Carl. The man who shared her memories no longer existed. Helene looked up. How long were they going to sit there saying nothing? Carl’s father had eaten half the dish of strawberries without using the fruit knife. A last trickle of black liquid came from the teapot, and the joy and excitement of Carl’s mother, so palpable at first, seemed to have died down as they sat at the table.
Well, then. Carl’s father took the napkin that he had tucked into his shirt and put it down beside the unused fruit bowl and the little knife.
My husband works a great deal.
That’s not quite right, I don’t work a great deal. I just like working. The professor affectionately put his hand on his wife’s arm.
He has a small observatory up there. Carl’s mother pointed to a terrace higher up the slope, with several telescopes showing above its balustrade.
Only a little one, said the professor, standing up. He nodded to them both and was about to take his leave, but Helene stood up too.
You were so lucky to have Carl as a son. He was a wonderful person. Helene was surprised by her firm and cheerful tone. It sounded like birthday congratulations.
Carl’s mother was crying.
He was her darling, Carl’s father told Helene. Neither of them had said a word about their other two sons.
Carl’s father went over to his wife’s chair, took her head in his hands and pressed it against him. She was hiding her face behind her long, slender fingers. Something about the gesture reminded Helene of Carl, the way he came over to her when she was sad and exhausted, the way he had warmed her cold, tired feet.
The professor let go of his wife. I’ll tell Gisèle to bring you some more tea. Helene was going to refuse it; she didn’t want to stay, she couldn’t bear the silence and the beautiful colours here any longer. She opened her mouth, but no sound would come out, and no one noticed that she had risen to her feet to leave when he did. The professor shook hands with her; his hand was warm and firm. He wished her every happiness, and disappeared through the double doors into the house. Helene had to sit down again.
He was my little darling, said Carl’s mother, with a tenderness in her voice that sent a shiver down Helene’s back. Carl’s mother was kneading her handkerchief on the table in front of her, watching its folds as it fell apart again. Her long fingers ended in oval nails with white half-moons which were so regular that Helene couldn’t help gazing at her hands.
He wanted to marry you, didn’t he? Carl’s mother looked straight at Helene. It was a glance that wished to know everything and was prepared for anything.
Helene swallowed. Yes.
Carl’s mother had tears running down her delicate, beautiful face. Carl couldn’t help it, you know. He was born to love.
Aren’t we all? That was the question that went through Helene’s head. But no, probably we weren’t. Very likely it was a fact that some people loved more warmly than others and Carl really couldn’t help it. She was wondering how the accident had happened and whether she could ask, if such a question would seem to his mother inappropriate, indiscreet. How exactly did he die? On the other hand, Carl’s mother still couldn’t know that they had been going to meet that day, that he had died on his way to her. That she had waited for him in vain.
She would also have liked to know whether Carl had wedding rings on him at the time of the accident, but she didn’t dare ask his mother that. It wasn’t her place. His last intentions were his alone, or perhaps for his heirs too, and his heirs were his parents.
There was still snow on the ground, said Carl’s mother, drying her eyes with her handkerchief. Fresh tears were trickling out and rolling down her cheeks, hanging on her chin, collecting until they were so heavy that they dripped on her oriental dress, where they made dark patches that kept growing larger.
Helene raised her head. We were going to meet that day.
No glance, nothing to show whether Carl’s mother had heard Helene’s distinctly spoken words.
The sun was shining, said Carl’s mother, but snow was still lying on the ground. He slipped and hit his head on the radiator of a car as he fell. The car couldn’t stop in time. They brought us the bicycle. It was mangled. I rubbed it clean. There was a little blood sticking to the spokes. Only a little. Most of it must have been left on the road.
The housemaid brought another pot of tea and asked if there was anything else they would like. But when Carl’s mother didn’t seem to hear her she went away again.
The snowdrops he had been holding were still fresh. The police officer brought us everything. The snowdrops, his glasses, the bicycle. He had a bag of books with him. There were nine marks in his wallet, nine marks exactly, no groschen, no pfennigs. Carl’s mother smiled suddenly. Nine marks, I wondered if someone had stolen money from his wallet. Her smile faded. There was a lock of fair hair in it. Yours? He died instantly.
Carl’s mother dabbed at her eyes, but in vain. It looked as if dabbing them just made the tears flow more freely. She blew her nose, she wiped the corners of her eyes with a part of the handkerchief that was still fairly dry.
Helene sat up straight. She couldn’t sit here any longer, and one of her legs had gone to sleep. My heartfelt sympathy, Frau Wertheimer. Hearing her own words, Helene was horrified by the false sound of her voice. She meant it, she wanted to say it, but the way she had said it sounded all wrong, indifferent and cold.
Carl’s mother raised her eyes now and looked at Helene from under her heavy, wet eyelashes. You are young, your life is ahead of you. Frau Wertheimer nodded as if to emphasize what she was saying, and there was warmth in her eyes such as Helene had never seen in a woman before. You will find a man who will love you and marry you. Beautiful as you are, and so clever.
Helene knew that what Carl’s mother was foretelling, to comfort them both, was wrong. She was saying it, yes, but her words
hinted at a subtle distinction: Helene could look for another man, she would find one, nothing easier. But no one can look for another son. The likening of one man to another, the competing functions of a human being, the reduction of that human being to his place in the life of those who loved him seemed to Helene fundamentally wrong. But she knew that to shake her head and deny what Carl’s mother had said would hurt her feelings. It was impossible to compare their grief, and there would have been something cruel in it; each of them was mourning a different Carl.
I must go now, said Helene. Although her cup was still full, she rose to her feet. The chair grated harshly as she pushed it back. Carl’s mother stood up; she had to hold the folds of her tea gown. Perhaps she had shrunk inside it. She pointed to the door with one hand, so that there could be no doubt, so that Helene would start on her way through the interior of the house. Helene wanted to wait for her to go first, but she herself was to go ahead. Do go first, said Carl’s mother; she didn’t want Helene looking at her. Helene heard her walking through the drawing room behind her, past the place where Carl’s glasses lay, past the tall vases and some framed silk embroidery that Helene noticed for the first time, past pastel pictures of herons and moths, bamboos and lotus flowers. They were back in the entrance hall. The Rodin picture was of two women, girls dancing naked.
Thank you for asking me. Helene turned to Carl’s mother and offered her hand.
It’s for us to thank you for coming, she said, and had to move her handkerchief to her left hand to give Helene her long right hand, which was curiously warm and dry, yet damp at the same time. A light hand. A hand that would not be held any more and would itself hold no one’s.
The housemaid opened the front door for Helene and went to the wrought-iron gate with her.
As soon as the gate had latched behind Helene and she could go down the road, past the wood and into the light of the sun shining pitilessly down, she began to cry. She couldn’t find a handkerchief in her little handbag, so she dried her tears on her bare forearm from time to time, and when her nose ran she picked a maple leaf and blew her nose into that. Young oak shoots in the undergrowth. She walked through the wood, past the red-flecked trunks of the pine trees, over protruding roots. Dust rose from the sandy forest floor.
NIGHT FALLING
Why did you think I was dead? Carl put his arm round Helene and drew her gently to him. How warm he was. There was a greenish shimmer about his fur collar. Helene buried her nose in smooth hair, a pelt smelling of Carl, fine, spicy tobacco.
Everyone thought so. You’d disappeared.
I had to go underground. Carl wouldn’t say any more. Helene thought there could be reasons she wasn’t to know. She was glad he was there with her.
Only the twittering bird disturbed her. Cheep, cheep. Green as stone. The curtains were green as stone, green as lichen, the light made the green stream in, made the colour of the curtains look paler. Helene’s heart was hammering. A slight wind was blowing in, the curtains billowed. Those couldn’t be the curtains of the first-floor room overlooking the courtyard. Not possibly. Helene turned over, her heart racing, lay flat on her front, her heart beat against the mattress, throbbing as if it wanted to go from one place to another, and if she turned on her back again it would leap out of her. It turned a somersault, stumbled, Helene breathed in, she must breathe deeply, breathe calmly, tame her heart, lighten it, nothing easier, her heart was too light anyway, it was already up and away, it was making off. Helene counted heartbeat after heartbeat, she counted to over a hundred. Her throat felt tight, her heart was running away from her counting, she put her fingers on her wrist, her pulse was racing too, pulse at rest, pulse beat one hundred and four, five, six, seven. Ought she to know this blanket, was it hers? What had happened to pulse beat number eight? She must have reached number twelve by now. One hundred and twelve. She closed her eyes firmly, harsh eyes, perhaps she could get back to Carl again. But it didn’t work. The more she wanted to be with him the further away he retreated, going back into the dream, into a world where her will counted for nothing. Helene dried her face with the sheet. Dappled sunlight on the mattress, marking a memory of something, of what? Blankets. Helene held her hand in the light, sun on her skin, that was entirely pleasant. Pleasant as if a day like this might hold something in store for her. Dark patches on the sheet, damp, the sweat had run from her armpits, had been weeping from the pores under her arms, tears, thin sweat. Helene would get up now, she’d be expected, although after her night shift she didn’t come back on duty until two this afternoon. Helene got up. She wasn’t sweating too much. She dressed herself. She had washed her clothes yesterday evening and hung them over the chair in front of the window so that they would be dry in the morning. Her clothes smelled of Fanny’s soap, everything did, except Carl’s vest that she still wore, his inner garment her outer one by night, when she was where he was now. She didn’t want other people to smell Carl, or the mixture that she and Carl had become with time.
Outside the air was full of sunlight. The postman went his way whistling, swinging his bag back and forth, it dangled, a light weight, perhaps he’d delivered all the letters. He glanced at Helene and gave a friendly whistle through his teeth, making it the beginning of a well-known tune. Two children hopped along the paving stones with their school satchels on their backs, one of them fell, the other child had pushed him and now ran away with a mischievous laugh. There was whistling everywhere, and stones and hopping and children and roads, none of it intentional, it had nothing to do with Helene in particular, presumably it would be just the same if she weren’t here. No one meant Helene any harm.
Summer heat made the air above the paving stones quiver, liquid air, blurred images, puddles showing where there hadn’t been any for weeks.
There was a smell of tar; a wooden fence was being painted black on the other side of the street, and the ground under Helene’s feet felt slightly yielding. The tram squealed as it went round the bend, driving slowly, so that the squealing was long-drawn-out, you heard the dragging sound on the curve and saw the sparks flying, and it didn’t stop for a long time. Helene liked everything vague and indistinct these days; she lay in wait for it, but as soon as she thought she saw it, it went away. The heat slowed the city down, enfeebling its inhabitants, thought Helene, making them soft and flexible, crippling them. The less Helene herself weighed, the more oppressively did the heat weigh down on her. It wasn’t unpleasant. Helene’s body had grown thin but not weak. On Leontine’s recommendation she had found a post at the Bethany Hospital and was working as a nurse again for the first time in years. The pharmacist was relieved, and indeed it lifted a burden from his shoulders, for he had hardly known how to pay her recently. She was paid no money at the Bethany either to start with; for the first three months she was on probation, but there would be pay as soon as she had her remaining qualifications. For the time being, Helene borrowed some money from Leontine.
She was friendly to everyone, yet she never really talked to anyone. Good day, she said to the bloated, dying man in Ward 27. Are you feeling better today?
Yes, of course; thanks to your pills I finally managed to stop worrying about my will yesterday evening and get some sleep.
The patients liked talking to her, not just about their illnesses but about their families, whose behaviour could be particularly odd around a deathbed. The bloated man’s wife, for instance, no longer ventured to visit his bedside alone, but always came with his younger brother, whose hand she sometimes sought and sometimes pushed away. There was something about the hands of those two, and the dying man confided to Helene that he had known about their secret relationship for several years, but hadn’t shown that he knew, because he wanted them to inherit his property with a clear conscience. That way it would all stay in the family, wouldn’t it? None of the patients had ever ventured to reply to Helene’s question by asking how she was herself. Her uniform protected her. The white apron was a stronger signal than any of the traffic lights g
oing up at more and more road junctions in the city these days, shining brightly to show who could go and who must stop. If you wore white you could keep your mouth shut; if you wore white you weren’t asked how you were. Courtesy was all on the outside for Helene and hardly tamed her despair, but it controlled it; pity for the suffering of others was her inner prop and stay. She wondered whether her bloated patient could really die more easily for knowing that his wife was having an affair with his brother. Perhaps he was just imagining the affair so that he could bear to say goodbye. It was easy for Helene to remember the names of patients, where they came from, their family histories. She knew who liked to be addressed in what tone and respected the wishes of patients who preferred silence. If Helene did manage to drop off to sleep at night, she was woken by the grinding of her own teeth and her weeping. Only when she dreamed of Carl coming back, kissing her, surprised to find that he had plunged Helene and his family into distress and mourning, but explaining that it was all a misunderstanding, he hadn’t died at all, only then did she sleep well. However, waking up after such nights and returning to her life was difficult, coming back to a new day like this one, an ordin-ary, unasked-for, unwanted, unimaginable new day of her life. What was her life really like? What was it going to be like, was it ever to be anything, was she ever to be anything? Helene tried to breathe, to breathe easily, lightly. But her ribcage wouldn’t expand and she could hardly take in air. She kept thinking what it was like when you fell down flat in childhood and the impact winded you, making breathing impossible for ages, your mouth was open, there was air around it, but the rest of your body was self-contained, closed. Yet living in the usual way, with nothing showing on the surface, was surprisingly easy. She was healthy, she could stretch and bend each of her fingers separately until her hand looked as if it were foreshortened; she could put her head on one side and her body obeyed. Her internal irregularities gave her no trouble; Helene could work even if her heart sometimes skipped a beat and breathing was difficult.
