by Unknown
The other nurses went to dances and on moonlit outings together, and they always asked Helene if she’d like to come too. In the changing room they tried on the shorts they were going to wear on the beach of the Wannsee.
Look at this, said the young nurse who was generally known to be bubbly, swaying her hips and cheerfully sticking out her behind. Helene liked the gesture and thought of Leontine; yes, something about the bubbly nurse reminded her of Leontine. She was like a boy with her cropped hair, standing there in the new shorts and showing the other nurses her behind, although she could be both stern and mischievous on her rounds of the wards. Then another girl would try on the shorts. Wouldn’t Helene like a go, they asked, she really must go to the bathing beach with them some time. Helene refused the invitation, saying she had a prior engagement. She invented an aunt who needed to be cared for; she wanted to be left in peace. The nurses’ giggling and soft laughter were pleasant so long as they left her alone, with silence in the background, but as soon as they tried to draw her into their group, turned to her, demanding answers and wanting her to join them, it felt like too much of a strain. She couldn’t swim anyway, she told the bubbly nurse, who perhaps suspected as much and thought that Helene wouldn’t go swimming with the rest of them out of embarrassment or awkwardness.
Never mind, most of us girls have only just learned to swim this summer, haven’t we? Yes, cried the nurses happily in chorus. Helene liked her colleagues, their cheerfulness appealed to her. She didn’t want pity, she didn’t want embarrassed silence, she didn’t tell any of the others about Carl and his death.
In autumn a rather older nurse told Helene she looked gaunt. Thin. She’d had her eye on her for some time, said the woman, was she ill? Behind the question mark, Helene detected the word consumption and a faint hope rose in her. Helene said no, but she was told to go to the doctor, they couldn’t run any risks in the ward for infectious diseases.
Helene was not ill; her pulse was rather fast, that was all, and her heartbeat was sometimes irregular. The doctor asked her whether she had any pain, whether she’d noticed anything unusual about herself. Helene said she sometimes suddenly felt afraid, just like that, but she didn’t know what she was afraid of. Her heart beat fast, so fast that it caught up with itself and there didn’t seem to be enough room for it in her chest. The doctor listened to her chest a second time, placing the cold metal of the stethoscope almost tenderly on the breast that no longer swelled in a gentle curve. Her ribs could be felt under it. He listened to her heart and shook his head. A little heart murmur, that’s quite common. Nothing to worry about. Her fear, well, perhaps there were reasons for it? Helene shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about Carl, or say that she hadn’t had a period since his death. Perhaps she just didn’t drink enough fluids, but what business was that of anyone else? She had been to see Leontine at the Charité in spring and asked her to examine her. But Leontine had reassured her; she wasn’t pregnant. Helene felt only a moment’s disappointment, for how could she have earned enough to support a child? It was only her heart that sometimes played tricks, her ribcage that seemed too narrow. Her greatest fear was of fear itself.
Well, if that’s all, said the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye. Helene guessed that he was thinking of the famous Viennese case histories of hysteria. When she had dressed again the doctor asked, with a nice smile, whether he could invite her out for coffee with him some time.
Helene said no, thank you very much but no. That was all she said. She went to the door.
No, just like that? The doctor hesitated; he didn’t want to shake hands and let her go until she had said yes. Helene stepped through the doorway, wishing him a pleasant day.
Martha was to stay at the sanatorium until the beginning of winter, and Leontine was looking for an apartment so that they wouldn’t have to move into Achenbachstrasse again when Martha came back. That made it difficult for Helene to prevent unobserved encounters with Erich when she was on her own in the apartment. She lacked the strength and willpower to be constantly on the watch for him in order to avoid such meetings. He pressed his lips on hers, he kissed her where and how he liked. She tried to resist, but unsuccessfully. He would draw her into a room, put his tongue down her throat, and recently he had taken to kneading a nipple with one of his rough hands as he did so. He didn’t mind Cleo watching, whimpering in alarm and wagging her tail pleadingly rather than, as usual, cheerfully.
At such moments Helene was glad when she heard Otta coming, because then Erich would generally let her go. It was even better if Fanny came home from a brief shopping trip or some other outing and Erich moved away from Helene without another word. There were days when some instinct warned Helene not to move from Otta’s side; she accompanied her into the kitchen, she went shopping with her. But there were other days, like today, when Helene thought she was alone in the apartment, picked up a newspaper and sat in the former veranda, which Fanny had converted into a conservatory by adding glazed windows. Then, in the silence, brisk footsteps approached. Erich came in, sat down at the low table opposite her and put one foot on his knee, his leg bent at a sharp angle. Mhm. He made these vague noises from time to time, mhm, as if she had said something, mhm, mhm, he agreed with her, or perhaps it was more of an mhm of disagreement, or an expectant mhm, mhmhm, mhm, just as if he were suffering from some reflex, it was like the snuffling of a guinea pig, mhm, he watched her reading the paper. Ten minutes passed without a word. Erich stood up, took the newspaper away from her and said: I know what you need.
Helene raised her eyebrows. She didn’t want to look at him.
Standing over her, Erich stuck his hand inside her blouse. Helene resisted. The buttons of her blouse came off, the fine fabric tore.
Careful now, he gasped, laughing, and what had been suppressed sighs before turned to loud, fully voiced gasping. Erich laughed, and now he had Helene’s wrists in a firm grip. He forced her down on her knees and flung himself on her, his wet, slavering mouth on her naked upper body. Torso was the word that shot through Helene’s mind, and she thought of the anatomical models used for teaching student nurses about the human body, a torso where the heart beat without any head, without the capacity to think. Limbs had lost their meaning with their function. Everything outside the windows was purple and violet.
Helene tried to push away from him with her shoulders, her whole body, she wanted to free herself, but Erich was heavy as a rock, mindlessly sucking at her skin. He wanted to suck her out of it, moistening every part of her body with his saliva, which smelled of fish oil. As he held her wrists in his grip and pressed her into the armchair, Helene tried to rear up again and push him off her. But it was as if every move she made just spurred him on to greater ferocity. Now his tongue was roughly licking her face, her throat, moving down to her breasts. Helene froze. Got you now, got you now, Erich kept gasping.
I was just about to water the cyclamens, a voice above them said suddenly. If Fanny’s voice was not exactly steady, it was shrill and clear. She was holding aloft a brass watering can, a small one with a long spout. Next moment she brought it down on Erich’s head. Erich did not collapse, but in jumping up he did keep Helene from being struck by the next blow from the can, which now dropped to the floor. Erich had let go of her wrists.
Fanny shouted. What exactly she was shouting Helene couldn’t make out. It was something to do with the hoi polloi, we’re not among the hoi polloi here, that was probably what she’d been shouting. Outlines formed in the purple colour, none of the cyclamen flowers was drooping. Helene clutched at her blouse with both hands, stood up and got back to her room. Once there, she pressed her cold hands to her burning cheeks. Something was thrusting at her skull from the inside, but the something was too soft and her forehead too firm for it to get out.
She heard Fanny and Erich quarrelling until late into the night, but that was nothing new. Helene went to work, she came home and she avoided Fanny.
Helene cursed her existence. She was ashamed
of herself for living a life that allowed her to breathe, to work and after a while to take fluids and sleep again, without much effort on her own part. She was ashamed because she could have prevented it; she knew how to kill herself quickly and tidily. What did pain matter, what did little attacks of nausea matter, when they would be finite? But Helene knew that she didn’t want it to come as a surprise when she was found, she didn’t want anyone making much fuss about her or her death, she didn’t want Martha and Leontine and anyone she didn’t know, not that she could call such a person to mind, well, she didn’t want people in general thinking about responsibility or actually blaming themselves for her death. Dying unnoticed, slipping away for the last time was a little more difficult. Ultimately the life and thoughts of other people ought not to be of any interest, you had to say goodbye to that too, we were all solely responsible for ourselves. Helene had so often handled poisonous substances, administering some in small, painkilling doses, others to bring sleep. The box of Veronal that she had taken from the pharmacy with her, just in case, had disappeared from her little dark-red suitcase. Helene didn’t really suspect Otta; she assumed that while she was out Fanny had been snooping among her things and couldn’t resist the sight of the box. But there was plenty of it at the hospital. It wasn’t just morphine and barbiturates, even injecting a little air could kill you if you did it the right way. Life appeared to Helene a pointless affair of living on, of unwished-for survival of Carl. If she wanted to keep her sense of shame within bounds, because it did seem arrogant and light-minded to be ashamed of living when you were still alive, she told herself that if she lived and remembered Carl that would delay his complete extinction for a while. She liked that idea – as long as she lived, thinking lovingly of Carl, and it would be the same for his family, something of him was still left. It was left in her, and with her, and through her. Helene decided that she was living in order to honour him. She would like to be happy and laugh again some day, simply for love of him. Even though he had no more part in it. Helene did not believe people would meet again in another world; yes, that other world might exist, but without the link between body and soul that we know in this one, always demanding union with others, release from our condemnation to isolation and solitude. Hence our thoughts, hence our language, hence our embraces. Helene found herself in a dilemma, torn both ways. She didn’t want to think, she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to embrace another human being ever again. But she wanted to live on for Carl, not in order to survive him but to live for him. What else was left of him but her memories? How was it possible to live on without thought or language or human embraces? The crucial point was not to disturb the mechanism of life, which meant sleeping only as long as was absolutely necessary, eating only as much as was absolutely necessary, and it was a relief to Helene that her work in the hospital divided every day into visible, regular units. Much as time is made visible by the ticking pendulum of a clock, work at the hospital showed Helene her life going on. She didn’t have to think about when it would come to an end. She could cling confidently to the beginning and end of her duty shift, and in between them she took temperatures, felt pulses, cleaned the operating instruments. Helene held the hands of the dying, of mothers in childbirth, of the lonely; she changed dressings, sanitary towels and nappies, her work was useful.
Her life lay before her, from one duty shift to the next.
When she was looking for an apartment Helene passed the Church of the Apostle Paul. The door was open and it crossed her mind that she hadn’t been to church for years. She went in. The smell of incense hung in the air. Helene went forward and sat down in the second pew from the front, folded her hands and tried to begin a prayer, but however hard she racked her brains she couldn’t think of one.
Dear God, she whispered, if you’re there – Helene hesitated; why would God want to speak to you? she asked herself – if you’re there could you send me a sign, just a little sign? Tears were flowing from her eyes. Take away my self-pity and the pain, she said, please, she added. The tears dried up but the pain in her breast was still there, constricting her bronchial tubes and making it hard for her to breathe. How much longer? Helene listened, but there was nothing to be heard except the clattering of a bus outside. At least tell me this: how much longer must I live? There was no answer. Helene strained her ears in the great expanses of the nave.
If you’re there, she began again, but then she thought of Carl and didn’t know what to say next. Where was Carl now? She heard footsteps behind her and turned. A mother with her small child had come in. Helene bowed her head and laid her forehead on her folded hands. Let me not be here, she whispered. There was no self-pity left; Helene felt only a great desire for release.
Where? she heard the clear voice of the child behind her.
There, said the mother, up there.
Where? I can’t see him. The child was getting impatient, wailing. Where is he? I can’t see him.
No one can see him, said the mother, you can’t see him with your eyes. You have to see with your heart, child.
There was no reply – was the child’s heart seeing something now? Helene stared at the notches in the wooden pew and felt a sense of dread; how could she ask God for something when she had forgotten him so long? Forgive me, she whispered. Carl hadn’t died for her to eat her heart out longing for him. He had died for no reason at all. She would manage to live like this, hoping for an answer that didn’t come. Helene stood up and left the church. On the way out she caught herself still looking for signs, signs of God’s existence and her release. Outside the sun was shining. Was that a sign? Helene thought of her mother. Perhaps all the things she found, the tree roots, the feather dusters, were signs to her? It’s not rubbish, Helene heard her mother’s voice say. God needs nothing but human memory and human doubts, her mother had once said.
The rent of the apartment that Helene looked at, an attic apartment with a bedroom and living room, was too expensive. She didn’t have enough money, and whenever she went to see a landlady she was asked about her husband and her parents. To avoid being a burden on Fanny, the better to avoid Erich, Helene applied for a room in the nurses’ hostel.
She didn’t have all her qualifications yet, said the matron kindly. Helene claimed to have heard from Bautzen that there had been a fire in which the records of her training were destroyed. The matron was sympathetic and let Helene move into a room, but said she must get new papers as soon as possible.
Martha came back from the sanatorium and moved into an apartment with Leontine. They were working so hard that Helene saw Martha and Leontine only every few weeks and sometimes not for months.
The economic crisis was getting worse all the time. No one escaped its effects. People were buying and selling, speculating, grabbing what they could; they all said they were anxious not to make a loss now, but so far no one had found the knack of avoiding it. Fanny gave a party for Erich’s birthday, a big party, celebrating on a large scale. It was to be bigger than her own, a party in his honour grander than any she had ever given before. In the last few months Erich had left Fanny several times, but he had always come back and now he turned up for his own birthday party. Fanny had issued many invitations, to friends of her own and to friends of Erich, and to some people who didn’t even know that she was more than just his tennis partner.
Helene hadn’t wanted to go, but Leontine and Martha made her. Perhaps the two of them had Helene on their conscience because it was so long since they’d been able to do anything for her.
Fanny’s invitation seemed to Helene an attempt at resuscitation, a measure taken to inject and extend life, a pitiful repetition of earlier invitations. The guests were still splendidly dressed, imitation jewellery sparkled, they talked about betting on horses and the stock exchange rates – more than seventy thousand bankruptcies this year and the number of unemployed had just risen above six million. Someone lit an opium pipe. No wonder wages had to fall by up to twenty-five per cent. Views and opini
ons on the collapse of the Piscator Theatre were exchanged, but Helene didn’t want to listen. Should she feel uneasy because she herself had a job? Life was unthinkable without the metronome of her work at the hospital. Helene didn’t look at the Baron and his Pina either. They had married the year before last and had been at odds ever since, this time not about diamonds and feather boas but about a dress that Pina had bought, without the Baron’s permission and with money they didn’t have. The Baron accused her of borrowing from his friends and deceiving him over their joint property. She denied it all. Soon she was flinging her arms in the air and cried: I confess, I stole the dress! You insisted on knowing, so here’s the truth: I stole it. I’m a thief. From the Kaufhaus des Westens. Now what? Helene looked at the other guests, she looked at her shoes and examined her hands. One fingernail had a black rim. Helene rose from the chaise longue where she had been sitting until now, alone and without being pestered, she crooked her fingers as best she could, curled them up so no one could see the dirty nail, and went out into the corridor, where she had to wait a little while to use the bathroom. As soon as the door was open and the bathroom free, Helene hurried in. She bolted the door. The stove for the water was heated, and Helene turned on the tap. Steaming hot water came out, frothing and white. Helene scrubbed her nails with the nailbrush under running water. The soap lathered, Helene scrubbed, soaped, scrubbed and soaped. Her hands were reddened, her nails became whiter and whiter. She washed her face too, and feeling an itch down her backbone she had to wash her neck as well, as far as she could without undressing. Someone knocked at the door. Helene knew she ought to turn off the tap. Her hands were turning red and hot and clean, then redder and hotter and cleaner, it wasn’t easy for her to turn the tap. Underneath it, the bluish-green tinge of the residue left by the water showed on the sides of the tub. What salts had the water brought in and left there along with the lime in it?
