The Blind Side of the Heart

by Unknown

  We must leave, Wilhelm.

  Don’t worry, I have my eye on the time. He said it quietly, he moved softly. Especially before going out, and especially on a great day like this, Wilhelm didn’t want to leave his home before taking her at least briefly. He grabbed her skirt, pushed it up, pulled her knickers down as far as possible – she wasn’t complying with his wish for her to wear them over the suspender belt. Helene felt him push himself inside her and as he went on thrusting, with short, quick jabs, she remembered how Carl used to undress her lingeringly to the last. He would caress her breasts, her arms, her fingers. After that first night, it was enough for Wilhelm to lift her skirt.

  He hadn’t been inside Helene a minute before pushing her up against the table, with her handbag still over her wrist. He stopped, then patted her buttocks. Obviously he had finished. She didn’t know whether he had come or whether his desire had left him.

  Right, we can go, said Wilhelm. He had pulled up his trousers, which had slipped to the floor, and fastened his belt. He looked at himself in the mirror, unbuttoned his shirt and splashed eau de Cologne lavishly on his chest.

  Helene wanted to wash, but Wilhelm said he was afraid there wasn’t time for that. All that washing of hers infuriated him, he added. He took his coat and put it on, looked at the mirror again to check his appearance now that he was wearing the coat, took his small comb out of his inside pocket and ran it through his hair.

  Do you think that’ll do?

  Of course, said Helene, you look good. She had put on her own coat and was waiting.

  What’s that behind me? Wilhelm craned his neck so that he could see his back view better.

  What do you mean?

  Well, that! See that funny kind of crease? And my coat’s all over bits of fuzz. Would you deal with it, please?

  Of course, said Helene, and taking the clothes brush out of the console table she brushed Wilhelm’s coat.

  The arms too. Not so hard, child, this is fine fabric.

  At last they were able to set off. Helene’s knickers were wet. Wilhelm was flowing out of her even as he walked to the car about three metres ahead of her. Perhaps there was some blood too. Her periods had been back for the last three months and she was due again tomorrow, or maybe even today.

  The opening of the Reich autobahn was an endless ceremony full of speeches and commendations, vows made in the name of the future, of Germany and its Führer. Heil. Helene thought everyone near her must be surprised by the reek of sperm clinging to her. Wilhelm’s sperm. There were days when she felt the smell of it was like a brand on her. Obviously Wilhelm didn’t notice anything. He stretched out his arm and stood motionless beside her for hours with his back very straight. On this day his greatest achievement so far was on show to the public. All the workers were thanked, including those who had risked or lost their lives. No one said exactly how they had lost them. One might have fallen off a bridge, another could have been run over by a steamroller. Helene imagined the different possible kinds of death. In any case, theirs had been heroic deaths, just as the building of the whole road was heroic. A reference to the drop in the unemployment figures was intended to emphasize the claim that, among other achievements, the building of this road and the other autobahns that were to follow was a triumphantly successful way of tackling unemployment in Germany. When Wilhelm stepped forward to be honoured, he did not glance back at Helene; presumably the many pats on the back he received from his colleagues prevented him. Wilhelm shook hands, stretched his arm towards the sky and looked around him with a certain pride. His excitement seemed so great that he forgot to smile. Or perhaps the place and the occasion seemed to him too sacred for anyone to venture a smile. He expressed his thanks in a firm voice, he thanked everyone, from the German Fatherland to the secretary of the first German Ladies’ Automobile Club. Heil, Heil, Heil. Everyone had earned a Heil. Unlike the six gentlemen who had been commended and honoured before him, he had not seen and then exploited the tiny loophole left available for him to thank his wife. Perhaps it was because they had no children. After all, the speakers before him could thank their whole families for providing special support in the recent past.

  Before the guests invited to the lunch celebrating the occasion set off in a convoy, Helene left, like most of the other wives. After all, she had to prepare supper and do the laundry. As he said goodbye to her, Wilhelm said he hoped to be home by six, but if he didn’t get back in time for supper she wasn’t to wait for him. He might well be late on a day like this.

  Helene waited all the same. She had made pearl barley soup with carrots and bacon, a favourite of Wilhelm’s, specially for today. The potatoes grew cold, fresh liver and onions lay beside the stove ready for frying. Helene herself hated pearl barley and liver, she simply could not get any of those dishes down, so there was no point, she thought, in eating any supper herself later in the evening. She wrote two letters to Berlin: one to Martha alias Elsa, one to Leontine asking why there was no word from Martha. Then she wrote a third letter, to Bautzen. It would bear the Stettin postmark, but as sender’s name she gave only her first name, Helene, written in a childish scrawl so that the postman might think it was just love and kisses from a little girl and suspect nothing. She had not yet told her mother and Mariechen that she was married and now had a new surname. Martha and Leontine had agreed with her that such news might agitate her mother unnecessarily. So Helene wrote to say she was well and had moved to Stettin for professional reasons, to look for a job here since she couldn’t find one in Berlin at the moment. She asked how her mother was and said any reply should be sent to Fanny’s address. Helene opened Wilhelm’s desk and took out the cash box. She knew he didn’t like her to go to his cash box on her own, but once, three months ago, she had asked him for some money for her mother and Wilhelm had just looked at her blankly. After all, he didn’t know these people, he said, and he didn’t suppose that she still wanted to call them relations of hers. So then she knew that he wasn’t going to give her anything. It might be because of maladministration or possible sharp practice, Helene didn’t know the precise reasons, but the income from Breslau had dried up. Finally Martha had said she could send their mother money only every three months; there simply wasn’t enough to go round. Mariechen had written asking for something in kind; she needed hard soap and foodstuffs, dried food would be useful, peas, fruits, oats and coffee, not to mention material for clothes. Helene took a ten-mark note out of the box; she hesitated; another ten-mark note lay temptingly on top of a third. But Wilhelm counted his money. She would have to think of a credible story to account for the absence of this one banknote. The simplest lie was to say she had lost the housekeeping money that he had counted out and given her the evening before. But Helene had claimed to have lost money once before. She took the banknote, put it in the letter to Bautzen and stuck down the envelope. Whether and exactly where the money would arrive was another question. Helene didn’t even know where her last letter had ended up.

  She did some sewing and ironing, and starched Wilhelm’s collars, before going to bed just before midnight. Wilhelm came home at four in the morning. Without turning on the light he dropped on the bed beside Helene, fully dressed, and snored peacefully. Helene could distinguish between his various snores; there was the hoarse, light snoring of the carefree Wilhelm, there was the defiant snoring of the hard-working Wilhelm who had not yet had his money’s worth, every snore was different and told Helene what mood Wilhelm was in. Helene let him snore; she thought of her sister and worried a little. After all, it could be that Martha wasn’t well. Perhaps something had happened to her and Leontine, and no one had told Helene about it because it wasn’t officially known that Martha had a sister, let alone what her name was.

  After an hour Wilhelm’s snoring became disturbed. Then it suddenly stopped and he got up and went out on to the landing. When he came back, Helene lay with her back to him and listened for the snoring to begin again. But it didn’t. Instead she suddenly felt Wilhel
m’s hand on her waist. Helene turned to him. A smell of beer and schnapps and sweet perfume wafted into her face. She had smelled it before, but not as strongly as this.

  What a great day for you. You must be relieved. Helene placed her hand on the back of Wilhelm’s neck. The hair shaved very short there felt strange.

  Oh, relieved, well, this is where it all begins, child. Wilhelm couldn’t articulate clearly. He pushed his hand between Helene’s legs and squeezed her labia with his fingers. Come on, he said as she tried to push his hand away, come on, little animal, you sweet little cunt, come on. He pressed Helene’s arms aside and turned her body over. She resisted, which aroused him, perhaps he thought she did it on purpose to entice him and send him crazy. What an arse, he said. Helene flinched.

  Every goddam woman, he had once said, thinks she can see into people’s hearts, but he could see into her vulva, he could look deep into her vagina, the deepest orifice of her body, the juiciest, the orifice that was all his, one that she herself could never see, or not so directly. It was possible that Wilhelm and his colleagues had been with a tart just now. Helene had smelled that flowery perfume. Even a mirror allowed a woman only a glimpse of it. She could never be mistress of the sight of it. Let her look into hearts as much as she liked.

  When he had finished Wilhelm slapped her bottom. That was good, he sighed, very good. He dropped on to the mattress and rolled over. We’ll be going to Braunsfelde later, he murmured.

  Or we could go to the sea, Helene suggested.

  Sea, sea, sea. You’re always wanting to go to the sea. There’s a cold wind bl-bl-blowing. Wilhelm laughed. A cold wind blowing.

  It’s still almost summer. I’m sure it was twenty degrees yesterday.

  Day, day, day, day. Wilhelm lay in the middle of the bed, turned to Helene’s back and smacked his lips. My good wife Dame Ilsebill always wants to have her will, like the story of the flounder and the fisherman. I ought to call you Ilsebill. You always know best, don’t you? Well, that makes no difference, we’re going to Braunsfelde.

  Is the house ready?

  The house is finished, yes, but we’re not going to live in it.

  Helene said nothing. Perhaps this was one of those jokes of his that she didn’t always understand at first.

  Surprised, are you? We’re going to Braunsfelde to meet the architect and the buyers. We’ll sign everything and then it’ll be nothing to do with me any more.

  You’re joking.

  Perhaps jokes are a question of race, child. Wilhelm turned to her now. We just don’t understand each other. Why would I buy a house here when the new contracts haven’t been negotiated yet?

  Helene swallowed. He had never before so explicitly used the word race to indicate the difference between them.

  There are plans for some important innovations in Pölitz. Getting that job would be quite a coup. Then Wilhelm was snoring, he had begun snoring again directly after this last remark. It was a mystery to Helene how someone could fall asleep in the middle of talking.

  After the long winter Wilhelm’s skin was giving him trouble. They had finished supper one evening, Helene had cleared the table, Wilhelm had wiped it down with the dishcloth. Helene was wondering how she could begin the conversation – a conversation that was important to her.

  These spots are disgusting, don’t you think? Wilhelm was standing in front of the mirror looking alternately over his right and left shoulders. It wasn’t easy for him to see his back, broad as it was. He ran the palm of his hand over his skin, his shoulders, the nape of his neck. Look, there’s a boil there.

  Helene shook her head. It doesn’t bother me. She was standing at the sink, washing the dishes in a basin.

  Not you, no. A wry smile escaped Wilhelm. It makes no difference to you what I look like. Wilhelm couldn’t stop examining his back. Will it heal over?

  Heal over? You have a good strong back, why wouldn’t that place heal over? Helene was scrubbing the bottom of the pan; sauces had been sticking to it and burning for weeks now. People either have spots or they don’t, she said, rinsing out the pan under clear running water.

  What a charming prospect. Wilhelm pulled on a vest, leaned close to the mirror and felt the skin of his face.

  Zinc ointment might help. Helene wasn’t sure if he was listening to her advice. She had something else on her mind, the matter she wanted to speak to him about. But if she opened the subject quietly, as a piece of information, as news, as a simple sequence of words, she could feel how the blood would shoot to her face. The spots, on the other hand, really didn’t bother her and never had. Disgust was something different. When she had seen the maggots in her father’s wound she had been surprised by the way they curled and crawled in the flesh. Or perhaps she was imagining that recollection; she had a good memory, but it wasn’t infallible. Disgust, though? Helene thought of the amazement she had felt at the sight of the wound. The wreck of a body. Jews as worms. I am a parasite, thought Helene, but she did not say so. You couldn’t compare the human body with the body politic of the German people. Perhaps she could alleviate Wilhelm’s trouble.

  Would you squeeze the pus out of them? Wilhelm smiled at her, a little diffidently but sure that she would. Whom else could he ask to do him this favour?

  Of course, if you like. Helene raised her eyebrows as she scoured the pan. But it won’t be much help. The skin will be broken and then there’ll be more spots.

  Wilhelm took his vest off again, stood close to her and showed her his back.

  Helene hung the pan up on its hook, took off her apron, washed her hands and set to work. Wilhelm’s skin was thick, the pores large, it was firm and very fair skin.

  Wilhelm let out the air through his teeth. He had to ask Helene to go more carefully. That’ll do, he said suddenly and turned to face her.

  Helene watched as he put on garment after garment and finally fetched his shoes, checked to see that they were well polished and put them on. Obviously he was going out, although it was late already.

  We’re going to have a baby.

  Helene had firmly determined to tell Wilhelm this evening. Something had gone wrong, although she was sure she hadn’t miscalculated. Helene could remember how it happened. It must have been on the night when Wilhelm came home late and had woken her up. She had known it was a risky day and had tried to change his mind, but she had not succeeded. Later she had washed for hours and douched herself with vinegar, but obviously it hadn’t worked. When her periods stopped, and a weekend came when Wilhelm was away on business in Berlin and didn’t want to take her with him, she had bought a bottle of red wine and drunk it all. Then she had taken her knitting needles and poked about. After a while she started bleeding and went to sleep, but it wasn’t a period. Her periods had stopped. She had known for weeks; she had been trying to think of some way out. She didn’t know anyone in Stettin; there hadn’t been a letter from Berlin for months. Once Helene tried telephoning Leontine. No one answered. When she asked the exchange to put her through to Fanny’s number, the switchboard operator said the number was no longer available. Presumably Fanny hadn’t been able to pay her bills. There was no way out of it now, there was just her certainty. Wilhelm looked down at his shoes.

  We are?

  She nodded. She had expected, first afraid and then hopeful, that Wilhelm would congratulate himself; she had thought there was nothing he wanted more.

  Wilhelm stood up and took Helene by the shoulders. Are you sure? The corners of his mouth twitched, but yes, there was pride in his face, the first suggestion of delight, a smile.

  Quite sure.

  Wilhelm stroked Helene’s hair back from her forehead. As he did so he looked at his watch. Perhaps he had an engagement and someone was waiting for him. I’m glad, he said. I really am. Really very glad.

  Really very glad? Helene looked doubtfully up at Wilhelm, trying to meet his eyes. When she stood in front of him she had to put her head right back to do so, and even then it was possible only if he notice
d that she was looking at him and looked down at her. He did not look down at her.

  Why the question? Is there something wrong?

  It doesn’t sound as if you’re really pleased.

  Wilhelm glanced at his watch again. How dreadful your doubts are, Alice. You’re always expecting something else. Now, I have an urgent meeting. We’ll discuss it later, right?

  Later? she asked. Perhaps this was one of the secret professional meetings that took Wilhelm out in the evening more and more frequently.

  My God, this isn’t the moment. If I’m too late back tonight, then tomorrow.

  Helene nodded. Wilhelm took his hat and coat off the hook.

  As soon as the door had closed, Helene sat down at the table and buried her face in her hands. For her, the past few months had consisted of waiting. She had waited for letters from Berlin, she had waited for Wilhelm to come back from work so that she could hear words spoken, perhaps she didn’t exactly want to talk to anyone, but just to hear a human voice. When she had asked him to let her look for a job in the hospital he had always refused. In his view the words you are my wife were explanation enough. His wife did not have to work, his wife was not to work, he didn’t want his wife to work. After all, she had plenty of housework to keep her occupied. Not bored, are you? he had sometimes asked, and told her that she could clean the windows again, he was sure they hadn’t been cleaned for months. Helene cleaned the windows, although she had done the job only four weeks ago. She rubbed them with crumpled-up newspaper until the panes shone and her hands were dry, cracked and grey with newsprint. The only people with whom she exchanged a word during the day were the woman in the greengrocer’s, the butcher and sometimes the fishwife down on the quay. The grocer didn’t speak to her, or at least only to say what the price of something was, and her greetings and goodbyes went unanswered. On most days she didn’t utter more than three or four sentences. Wilhelm was not particularly talkative in the evenings. If he was at home and didn’t go out again, which recently had been the case only one or two evenings a week, his replies to Helene were monosyllabic.