The blind side of the heart

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 going 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.
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 opinions 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?
Back among the guests, Helene had just decided to leave – after all, nurses were supposed to be back in the hostel by ten, and the night shift didn’t end until six in the morning – when she found a young man standing beside her, smiling. He kept smiling down at her so persistently that it looked as if he thought he knew her.
Our friend Wilhelm, said Erich, appearing behind the young man.
Now let me guess, said Wilhelm, let me guess her name.
He’s guessing everyone’s names tonight, explained Erich, slapping his friend on the shoulder. Erich laughed. He’s another Hanussen, oh yes, he’s a real clairvoyant.
Wilhelm removed Erich’s hand from his shoulder. Nonsense, I’m no Hanussen.
He’s only once really had it off with anyone, and not even with a lady. Erich’s eyes pierced Helene.
Wilhelm wasn’t letting Erich embarrass him. He looked searchingly at Helene. Don’t worry, it’s only a game. Wilhelm leaned sideways, as if Helene’s name were written on a note attached to her temple. Then he nodded. Alice. Her name is Alice.
Erich laughed. Fanny, who had joined them, mopped her inflamed eyes and asked Erich to get her an absinthe. Erich did not comply with Fanny’s request; his eyes were on Helene’s face, boring into her own eyes, her cheeks, her mouth.
Well, isn’t she a woman after your own heart? Willy here adores blondes. Erich clapped his friend hard on the shoulder as if he had to tenderize him, like a schnitzel. There may not be much else to say for her, but she’s blonde. Erich laughed, in the belief that he had cracked a joke. His glance showed how readily he would grab Helene if they were alone. Suspecting nothing of that, Wilhelm stood with his back to his friend and there was surprise, almost amazement in his eyes.
At least you’re captivatingly beautiful, dear young lady, stammered Wilhelm. Alice. I’m sure you’re going to tell me your real name.’
Helene tried to summon up a friendly smile. Over Wilhelm’s shoulder she saw the clock in the corridor. The white grandfather clock said nine-thirty. Helene said she was about to leave.
What, already? Wilhelm couldn’t believe it. The party’s only just begun. Surely you’re not going to leave now, on your own?
I must, said Helene with her friendly smile.
Because of the hostel. Erich ran his tongue over his teeth and clicked it suggestively. The effect was obscene. She lives in the sisters’ hostel.
A nun, the Virgin Mary. Wilhelm believed it at once.
Nonsense. Erich set him right. Not that kind of sister, you idiot. She’s a nursing sister.
A nursing sister. Wilhelm spoke respectfully as if there were no difference to speak of between a nun, the Virgin Mary and a nurse. I’ll walk you back.
Thank you, but please don’t bother. Helene stepped to one side and tried to get past this tall young man called Wilhelm. He went to the door with her, helped her into her coat and said goodnight.
Next day Wilhelm suddenly turned up at the hospital. Nurse, he said, you must help me.
Helene was in no mood for companionable laughter and meaningful glances; she wanted to get on with her work. The beds in Ward 20 still had to be made, and the patient in Ward 31 who couldn’t get to the lavatory without help had rung for her ten minutes ago.
Nurse Alice, I’m going to sit on this bench. You can call the watchman or the medical director if you like, but I’m going to wait here until you come off duty. I don’t suppose that will be so very long, will it?
Helene let him sit there and went about her work. She had to keep passing him for over two hours, and the girls in the nurses’ room kept on whispering. That charming gentleman in the corridor, he must be courting her. What a handsome man, how good-looking with his fair hair and blue eyes! One of the nurses stopped beside Wilhelm and struck up a conversation with him. Later, passing Helene, she said: Let me know if you don’t fancy him and I’ll take him.
Helene would have liked to say she could take whatever she liked, but she found it difficult to answer the nurses’ whispers. Her tongue was too heavy in her mouth. As she was washing an old man’s genitals and buttocks, going carefully with his bedsores and burst boils, all the little wounds oozing pus that she tended with ointment and powder, she couldn’t help thinking of Carl, and how he would never come and fetch her now. Never again. Helene’s throat hurt, it felt tight and she couldn’t swallow. With her fingers covered in powder and ointment, Helene couldn’t wipe her eyes.
Your hands are so soft, nurse, they do me good. I always ask after you and whether you’re on duty. You were born for this profession, did you know, Nurse Helene? The old man lying on his bed with his back to Helene – she would have thought he must cry out with pain when she touched his sore flesh – twisted round so that he could at least look her way. He put out his hand and pulled her sleeve. There, he said, pointing to the bedside table. Look in the drawer, Nurse Helene, there’s some money there, do take it.
Helene shook her head and thanked him, but said she didn’t want his money. Whenever anyone gave her a present she returned it. Just sometimes she found coins in her apron pocket that someone had dropped into it unnoticed. This old man had been in the ward for two weeks and his condition was deteriorating. He was disappointed that Helene didn’t want his money. Take it, he insisted, if you don’t take it someone else will steal it.
Let them. Helene put the lid on the powder box, spread the covers over him, and took the basin to throw away the water and clean both it and her hands. Another patient, behind her, was groaning, saying he couldn’t wait any longer. She went over to the man’s bed; he needed the bedpan and asked Helene to stay with him, because he couldn’t manage on his own. A man in the next bed was wailing with pain in a strained, hoarse voice, to attract Helene’s attention. Then he pulled himself together as well as he could.
Two hours later, when Helene had hung up her overall in the locker and put on her skirt, pullover and jacket, Wilhelm was still waiting patiently on the bench in the corridor.
Would she like to come and have coffee? Helene agreed, not that she wanted to, but it seemed the course of least resistance. Outside the door she tried to put up her umbrella, but it stuck. Laughing and ignoring the rain, not to mention her struggle with the umbrella, Wilhelm was telling her something about feedback on the People’s Wireless, a radio device to be unveiled and demonstrated to the public in a few months’ time at the Great German Wireless Exhibition. From amplifier to amplifier, said Wilhelm, spreading his arms wide to show her how many of these new technological developments there were, more than would fit between them. Helene liked his enthusiasm. They walked to the bank of the Spree Canal. You could create the necessary sensitivity by feedback to the high frequency stage, he said. Helene didn’t understand, but she stood there with him out of civility as he stopped in mid-sentence to show her, by gestures, how she must imagine the construction of the device.
Helene now knew that he was an engineer, but it wasn’t clear whether he was talking about inventions of his own or other people’s. She still didn’t understand what he was talking about, but she liked hearing him and watching as he mopped the rain from his brow with his handkerchief. After all, he said, he was sure she couldn’t imagine the extent of possible communication and the amount of information that could be transmitted. In the end everyone would be able to receive the same information at the same time, learning about events that otherwise they would have heard of only by going to some trouble or from reading the newspaper days later – and which newspaper anyway? There were far too many newspapers now. Wilhelm’s dismissive gesture was friendly but determined. There was something infectious about his pleasure and Helene had to smile. She had managed to open the umbrella. Would he like to come under it?
Of course, said Wilhelm, taking the umbrella from Helene’s hand so that she wouldn’t have to reach too high. Sweet girls, he knew, need sweet cakes, said Wilhelm, making straight for a little café. They had apple cake and coffee. Helene didn’t like either, but she didn’t want to be difficult or attract any unnecessary attention. Wilhelm said, and there was no missing the pride in his voice, that within weeks they’d be able to go into full production of wireless sets, so that enough of this new invention could be sold at the Wireless Exhibition. What did she think of naming it Salvation Wireless, asked Wilhelm, laughing. Just my little joke, he added, there are better names. Helene didn’t understand his joke, but she liked to hear him sound so pleased with himself.
She hid her weariness behind her smile. After her long day’s work at the hospital, exhaustion was now spreading through her as she sat eating cake and drinking coffee. She felt she was behaving properly to Wilhelm if she looked attentive, sometimes raising her eyebrows as if in surprise, and nodding now and then. The words transmitter and receiver took on a significance of their own as she listened to him. A newspaper boy came into the café. There were not many people here, but he took off his cap and cried his wares. The headlines of the evening papers were speculating on the identity of those behind the fire in the Reichstag building.
Over these last few weeks a mood of gloomy indignation had been abroad in the trams and underground trains. Wherever people met, their faces reddened by the cold, their coats sometimes not long enough because fabric taken from them had been needed to make a child a jacket, there was complaint, discontent and argument. They weren’t going to put up with this much longer, they said. No one could be expected to take this kind of thing lying down, not any more, they weren’t going to let the authorities do as they fancied with them. Men and women alike were upset.
Wilhelm fetched Helene from the hospital as often as he could. Communist after communist was arrested. Wilhelm went walking with his blonde Alice and took her to the café. He said he liked to watch her eating cake, she always looked as if she hadn’t eaten properly for days. Helene stopped eating in alarm. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what Wilhelm thought when he saw her eating. Eating had become a mere nuisance to her, and she often forgot about it until evening. She didn’t like the apple cake, she just swallowed it as quickly as possible to get it over with. Wilhelm asked if he could order her another slice. Helene shook her head and said no, thank you. Her dimples were so pretty, said Wilhelm, beaming as he looked her in the face. To her own annoyance, Helene was embarrassed. Did she like the theatre, the cinema? She nodded. It was a long time since she’d been to the cinema; she didn’t have the money, and she had only once agreed to go with Leontine and Martha when they asked her. During the picture she’d found herself crying, which she didn’t like. She never used to cry in the cinema. So she shook her head.
Yes or no, asked Wilhelm.
No, said Helene.
Wilhelm asked Helene to go dancing with him. One day it seemed like too much trouble to turn him down, so she agreed. They went to a dance, and he took her face in his hands, kissed her forehead and told her he was in love with her.
Helene was not pleased to hear it. She closed her eyes so as to keep him from looking at her. Wilhelm thought that was charming and took it as agreement, an announcement that she would soon be ready to be his. It was a good thing Wilhelm didn’t know about the passion with which Helene had invited and responded to Carl’s kisses. SA troops stormed the ‘Red Block’ of the artists’ colony in Wilmersdorf, where writers and artists were arrested and some of their books were burned. Spring came, and there were more book-burnings. Helene heard from Martha that the Baron was among those who had been arrested. Pina was trying to find out the reasons for his arrest; she was desperate to know; she visited all his acquaintances asking them to help her. One day rumour said that he was in contact with the Communist Party, the next that he had been distributing Social Democrat leaflets. Wilhelm wasn’t waiting to find out whether Helene returned his feelings; his own desire filled him and that was enough. He called her Alice, although he knew now that she was Helene. But Alice was his name for her.
In spring the newly elected National Socialist Party organized a boycott. The idea was to leave certain parasites, useless mouths, to starve to death. No one was to buy from Jewish tradesmen, or get shoes mended by a Jewish cobbler, no one was to visit a Jewish doctor or consult a Jewish lawyer. It was wrong for Germans to be out of work while others lived on the fat of the land, the medical director of the hospital explained to the nurses. They nodded; some of them came up with special instances of this unjust state of affairs. The bubbly nurse, who as everyone knew was Jewish, had been fired suddenly last week. No one wondered where she was, no one missed her. Her family might not be prosperous, but why should she have a job when others didn’t? Once she had gone no one mentioned her any more. Another nurse replaced her. There was much talk about the living space that the German people needed.
Wilhelm fetched Helene from work. As usual, she had been on duty for ten hours, and with the two brief breaks in her shift had been at the hospital for eleven hours in all. He took her arm and led her to the café, and although it was already six in the evening Wilhelm ordered cake and coffee. He drew Helene close to him over the table and told her she must keep a secret. He wasn’t just responsible for building the 4A Berlin to Stettin road, he said, and what was more, some day, as she’d see, it would go all the way to K?nigsberg! Wilhelm’s eyes were shining. His voice dropped even lower. But the secret was this: he had been chosen as the engineer to take the wireless apparatus developed under his supervision to Stettin airfield and get it installed on the tall mast there, because the airfield was to be converted for use by the Luftwaffe. Wilhelm was beaming, and looked not so much proud as bold and determined. His eyes saw adventure, promised adventure. Wilhelm picked up his cake fork, broke off a piece of cake and put the fork to his mouth. His area of work had shifted so far in the direction of Pomerania, he told her, that it had been suggested he should move there.
Helene nodded. She didn’t really envy Wilhelm his ability to enjoy life and his enthusiasm, his belief that he was able to do something important for the German people, for mankind, and in particular for technical progress. But she liked his frank pleasure, the ease with which he laughed and slapped his thigh. It was pleasantly uncomplicated, like the giggling of the nurses.
Are you glad? Wilhelm asked Helene. He lowered his arm and his fork when he noticed that she was not reacting, and didn’t open her mouth to eat more of her own cake.
Please don’t ask me. Helene looked up from her cup of coffee and out of the window.
But I must ask you, said Wilhelm. I don’t want to be without you in my future life, he said, and bit his lip ruefully, because he had meant to keep such a confession for the moment when he asked a certain question. However, Helene didn’t seem to have heard him.
When Wilhelm came back from Pomerania in spring, after a good month away drawing up plans, he bought two rings from the jeweller’s at the railway station and went to fetch Helene from the hospital. He held one of the rings under her nose and asked if she would be his wife.
Helene couldn’t meet his eyes.
She wondered what to tell him. She knew how to beam and smile, that was easy, you just had to lift the corners of your mouth and widen your eyes at the same time. Perhaps, imitating happiness like that, you could even feel a moment of the real thing?
Surprised, aren’t you?
Something like me isn’t supposed to exist at all. It burst out of her.
What on earth do you mean? Wilhelm was at a loss.
I mean I don’t have any papers, any certificate of my descent, and if I did, said Helene, laughing herself now, well, the word Mosaic would come under the definition of my mother’s faith.
Wilhelm looked keenly at her. Why do you say such things, Alice? Your mother lives somewhere in Lusatia. Didn’t your sister say she was a difficult case? It sounded as if she was ill. Are you fond of her, do the festivals she celebrates mean anything to you? Incredulously, Wilhelm shook his head, and there was confident determination in his face. Come away with me, be my wife and let’s begin a life together.
Helene was silent. A man like Wilhelm knew nothing of danger and obstacles that must be overcome. Helene didn’t look at him; she felt a strange stiffness at the back of her neck. If she shook her head he might call her cowardly, spineless. She would stay here. But where?
Are you telling me you distrust me because I’m German, with a German mother and a German father, and they had German mothers and fathers too? he asked.
I don’t distrust you. Helene shook her head. How could Wilhelm see her hesitation simply as distrust? She didn’t want to annoy him. She rather doubted what other options she had open to her. Her own mother was German, but obviously Wilhelm now understood being German in a different way. In modern opinion, German identity was expressed in racial characteristics and required the right sort of blood.
Your name is Alice, do you hear? If I say so it is so. If you don’t have a certificate of ancestry I’ll get you one, and believe me, it will be unobjectionable, it will leave no doubt as to your healthy descent.
You’re out of your mind. Helene was shocked. Could Wilhelm possibly be referring to the new laws whereby every deformity seen in the hospital had to be recorded and reported, because the birth of offspring with hereditary disease must be prevented? And weren’t certain mental illnesses, like the psychological disturbance that many of their neighbours detected in her own mother, also considered hereditary, to be avoided at all costs? The first commandment was to be bursting with good health, and anyone who couldn’t boast such health had better die as quickly as possible before the German people ran the risk of infection, of being besmirched and made unclean by the birth of sick children.
Don’t you believe me? I’ll do anything for you, Alice, anything.
What do you mean about healthy descent? Helene knew she wasn’t going to get a logical answer from Wilhelm.
Pure descent, my wife will be of pure descent, that’s all I mean. Wilhelm beamed. Don’t look so fierce, my treasure, who could have a purer, more spotless heart than this enchanting blonde woman opposite me?
Helene was amazed by this view of her. Perhaps it was because she had turned down his physical advances?
People are beginning to go away, leave Germany. Fanny’s friend Lucinde is going to England with her husband, said Helene.
Well, as for those who don’t love their forests and their Mother Earth in Germany, they’re welcome to turn their backs on their native land. Let them go, say I. Let them all go. We have work to do here, Helene. We will save the German nation, our fatherland and our mother tongue. Wilhelm rolled up his sleeves. We don’t deserve to perish. We’ll do it with these hands, do you see? No German may fold his hands in his lap these days. Indulging in despair and complaint is not our way. You will be my wife and I’ll give you my name.
Helene shook her head.
You hesitate? Don’t tell me you’d rather give up, Alice, don’t tell me that. He looked at her sternly, incredulously.
Wilhelm, I don’t deserve your love, I have nothing to give in return.
That will come, Alice, I’m sure of it. Wilhelm said this in a clear, frank voice, as if only her agreement were at stake, a decision that would unite them. Nothing in what she said seemed to hurt his feelings or shake his confidence in the slightest. His will would conquer, his will alone. Did she have no strong will of her own? Of course it takes a woman a certain time to get over a loss like yours, he said. You were going to get married, you and that boy. But it’s years ago; you must end your mourning some time, Alice.
Helene heard Wilhelm’s words, which seemed to her both stupid and bold. He was talking away at her. His air of superiority, the commanding tone of what he said, made her indignant. There were words that cancelled each other out. Helene felt that there was something suspect about his heroic courage, something fundamentally wrong. Next moment Helene was horrified by herself. Was she resentful? Wilhelm was cheerful, she’d be able to learn from him. Helene regretted her annoyance and her rejection of him. Wasn’t it just her grief for Carl, a woman’s mourning, as Wilhelm so kindly called it, that made her find it so hard to bear Wilhelm’s own cheerfulness and enjoyment of life?
What are you thinking of, Alice? The future’s at our feet, we won’t think just of ourselves, we’ll think of the common good, Alice, of the people, of our German land.
She wouldn’t be faint-hearted or bitter. It wasn’t life that had injured her feelings, there was no God wanting to make her atone. Wilhelm meant well by her and by himself, and she couldn’t grudge him that. How could she be so arrogant? After all, what he said was true, she had to come back to life, maybe nursing the sick didn’t help much there. But she lacked any real idea of what life should and could be. She would have to turn to someone else for that. And why not someone who meant well by her, who would be happy to hear her say yes, who wanted to rescue her? Wilhelm obviously knew what he wished for, what he preferred, and he was not just close to belief, he did believe. The word Germany was like a clarion call in his mouth. We. Who were we? We were someone, but exactly who were we? She was sure she could learn to kiss again, and above all to come to know and like someone else’s odour, to open her lips and feel his tongue in her mouth, perhaps that was what it was all about.
Wilhelm paid court to Helene assiduously. It seemed as if every rejection by her simply lent him new force. He felt born to great deeds, most of all he wanted to rescue people and the first thing he wanted was to win this woman, whom he saw as shy and charming, to live with him as his wife.
I have two tickets for the Kroll Opera, we owe them to my good connections. You’d like to see those first television pictures, wouldn’t you?
But Helene was not to be won over. She was on night duty almost the whole week and there was no getting around it.
When Martha brought the news that Mariechen had been unable to prevent an incident in which the police had picked up and taken away a woman in the Kornmarkt who was first weeping and then raving wildly, Helene felt anxious. Leontine telephoned Bautzen, first speaking to Mariechen, then to the hospital and finally to the health authority. She learned that Selma Würsich had been taken to Schloss Sonnenstein in Pirna, where they would try to find out just what was wrong with her and use new techniques to decide whether it was hereditary.
Helene packed her things and Wilhelm saw that his moment had come. He wouldn’t let her go on her own, he said, she needed him, she must know that.
In the train, Wilhelm sat opposite Helene. She noticed how confidently he looked at her. He had beautiful eyes, really beautiful. How long was it since she had last seen her mother, ten years, eleven? Helene was afraid she might not recognize her, wondered what she would look like and whether her mother in turn would recognize her. Wilhelm took her hand. She bowed her head and laid her face against his hand. How warm it was. She felt it was a gift that he was with her. She kissed his hand.
My brave Alice, he said. She heard the tenderness in his words, yet she didn’t feel as if they referred to her.
Brave? I’m not brave. She shook her head. I’m terribly frightened.
Now he put both hands on her shoulders and drew her head close to his chest, so that she almost slipped out of her seat. My sweet girl, I know, he said, and she felt his mouth on her forehead. But you don’t have to keep contradicting me. You’re going there and that’s brave.
Another daughter would have gone years ago, another daughter wouldn’t have left her mother in the first place.
There was nothing you could do for her. Wilhelm stroked Helene’s hair. He smelled not unpleasant, almost familiar. Helene guessed, knew, that his words were meant to be comforting. She pressed close to him. What was there in Wilhelm that she could like? Maybe the fact that someone would put up with her.
Only a special permit from the public health authority, for which Leontine had applied in Pirna by way of Bautzen, allowed Helene this visit to her mother.
The hospital grounds were extensive and, but for the high fences, you might have thought that centuries ago this was a royal palace where kings lived, enjoying the view. A delightful landscape stretched out before them at the place where the Wesenitz flowed into the Elbe from the north and the Gottleuba joined it from the south. There was something improbable about the bright sunshine and loud birdsong. Was this where her mother was in safe keeping as a mental patient?
A male nurse led Helene and Wilhelm up some stairs and down a long corridor. Barred doors were opened and locked again after them. The visitors’ room was at the far end of this wing.
Helene’s mother was sitting on the edge of a bench, wearing a nightdress. Her hair was completely silver now, but otherwise she looked as she always had, not a day older. When Helene came in she turned her head to her and said: I told you so, didn’t I? I said you’d be looking after me. But first get me out of here, those hands of theirs churn up my guts. Although there’s nothing grafted in me, no pears bred from an apple stock. Nothing mixed there. The doctor says I have children. I convinced him that he was wrong. Hatched out and flown the nest. One doesn’t have children like that. They should grow from the head, from here to there. Helene’s mother struck first her forehead and then the back of her head with the flat of her hand. Shaken out, as simple as that.
Helene went up to her mother and took one of her cool hands. Just skin and bone. The old skin felt soft, brittle on the outside but soft and smooth on the palms.
No physical contact. The male nurse standing at the door and keeping an eye on the visitors looked as if he was going to come closer.
Don’t you have any women nurses here? cried Helene, and took fright at the volume of her own voice.
Yes, there are women nurses too, but a little extra strength is needed to handle some patients, know what I mean?
It could be I’d scratch, it could be I’d bite, it could be I’d scratch them and bite them all night, chanted Helene’s mother in the voice of a young girl.
I’ve brought you something. Helene opened her bag. A hairbrush and a mirror.
Give those to me, please. The male nurse held out his hand. I’ll be happy to take them and keep them safe. For reasons of protection and security the patients may not have any possessions of their own here.
But Helene’s mother had already picked up the brush and was beginning to tidy her hair with it. Between the mountain and the vale, upon the grass so green, two hares hopped nimbly at their ease, the finest ever seen. She sang unerringly, warbling like the girl she had once been.
The male nurse stamped his foot angrily. This was too much for him.
God only knows where she gets all those songs from. He reached for the brush and snatched it from Helene’s mother’s hand. In the struggle, the mirror slipped off her lap and broke as it hit the ground. And that too, cried the nurse, picking up the mirror frame and the pieces of glass from the floor. No sooner had he snatched the brush and retrieved the mirror than Helene’s mother let herself slip off the bench to the floor. She was laughing, showing black gaps in her mouth. Helene was horrified to see the missing teeth. Her mother laughed until her laughter gurgled in her throat, and couldn’t calm down.
There’s no point in it, Fr?ulein, you can see that for yourself!
What do you mean, no point? Helene asked, without looking round at the male nurse. She bent down and put her hand on her mother’s head. The grey hair was dry and tangled. Her mother didn’t defend herself, she just laughed. My mother isn’t mad, not in the way you mean. She doesn’t belong in here. I want to take her away with me.
I’m sorry, we have our orders here and we stick to them. You can’t simply take this woman away with you – even if it were your own daughter, you couldn’t in a case like hers.
Come along, Mother. Helene took her mother under the arms and tried to pull her to her feet.
With a rapid stride, the nurse moved towards them and separated mother and daughter. Didn’t you hear me? Those are my orders.
I want to speak to the professor. What was his name – Nitsche?
The professor is in an important meeting.
Really? Then I’ll wait until the meeting is over.
I’m sorry, Fr?ulein, but he still won’t speak to you. You must ask him for an appointment in writing.
In writing? Helene searched her bag, found the black notebook that Wilhelm had given her a few days earlier and tore out a page. The smell of her mother came off her hands, her laughter, her fear, her unkempt hair and the sweat in her armpits. She wrote, in pencil: Dear Professor Nitsche.
Fr?ulein, please. Do you want us to keep you here too? I think the professor would take a certain interest in such a case – after all, he’s doing research into the heredity factor in illnesses like this. What was your name again?
A little respect, if you please, young man. Wilhelm’s moment had come; he intervened. You will let that young lady leave at once. She is my fiancée.
The nurse opened the door. Wilhelm offered Helene his arm. Coming, darling?
Helene knew there was no alternative. She took Wilhelm’s arm and went out. At the end of the corridor she heard a shrill screech behind her. It wasn’t clear whether it came from an animal or a human throat. Nor could she decide, if it was human, whose scream it was. It could have been her mother screaming. Another male nurse opened the door for them. Wilhelm and Helene went along the next corridor in silence. This place was uncannily quiet; there was something very final about it.
In the train to Berlin, Wilhelm and Helene still sat in silence. The train went through a tunnel. Helene felt that Wilhelm was waiting for her to thank him.
Please, she said, don’t call me darling any more.
But you are my darling. Wilhelm’s eyes were on Helene’s face. I have to go to Stettin again tomorrow, for a week. I don’t want to leave you alone in Berlin any longer than that.
I won’t be alone, why would I be alone? My patients are waiting for me, they need me.
Do you think there’d be no patients waiting for you in Stettin? You’ll find patients to nurse all over the world. But there’s only one of me. Alice, my sweet little girl, your abstinence is noble, but to tell you the truth it’s driving me crazy. We must bring it to an end. I need you.
Helene took his hand. You don’t have to persuade me of that, she said and kissed his hand. It was good to hear that she was needed. How was she to talk about it?
What documents do I need to marry you? She was whispering. I don’t have any, not a single one.
That can be dealt with, stated Wilhelm nonchalantly. Didn’t you once tell me you knew how to operate a printing press?
Helene shook her head. The paper, the right print, stamps and seals. Documents like that are very difficult to print.
Leave it all to me. Promise?
Helene nodded. It was good that he wanted to look after her. Wilhelm mentioned a brother in Gelbensande who had been farming since he married, but who knew about drawing up official documents.
For some time the hospital had been urging Helene to produce her papers at long last: her identity card, her birth certificate, her parents’ birth certificates, and if possible a book of family records going back beyond her parents; they wanted to see all that. Helene had claimed that she had no identity card, and whenever she was asked she pretended to be taken by surprise and said she had forgotten her papers. They had given her more time. But she must produce her papers by the end of the month, they had said recently, or she would lose her job.