The blind side of the heart

The baby’s fine, gleaming dark hair had gradually fallen out in his first months of life, until his little head was bald and a pale gold down began to grow on it. It turned into golden curls, he was golden blond like Helene. According to her conditions of employment, Helene was to work sixty hours a week in shifts, but in fact it was more than that. She had a day off every other week. She collected her child from Frau Kozinska and would have a nursery school place for him when he reached his third birthday. She was glad of that, because quite often, when she had knocked on Frau Kozinska’s door, no one had opened it and she could hear her son crying behind the locked door, calling Mother, Mother, and sometimes calling for his auntie, as he called Frau Kozinska. Then Helene had to wait outside the door because Frau Kozinska had just popped out to do some shopping, and sometimes it was an hour before she came back.
When Helene first took him to the nursery school the teacher asked: What is your little boy’s name? Helene looked at his golden corkscrew curls lying softly on his shoulders.
Peter. She had never yet cut his hair.
Well, we’ll look after your son, said the teacher in friendly tones. Such a pretty little boy.
Helene would have to cut his hair now. The teacher stroked Peter’s head and took his hand.
Helene followed them for a couple of steps, crouched down and kissed Peter’s cheek. She hugged him. He was crying and holding tight to her with his little arms.
I’ll soon be back, Helene promised. I’ll come for you after supper.
Peter shook his head. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t want to stay here, he screamed, he clung to her with tears flowing from his eyes and bit her arm to make her either stay or take him with her. Helene had to conjure up a smile quickly and stand up straight to shake him off, turn her back and hurry out. She mustn’t cry in front of Peter. That made it even more difficult.
When Helene collected him, he gave her a strange look. Where were you, Mother? he asked.
Helene was thinking of the injured nurse from Warsaw who had lost both her legs. She had been brought in only a few days ago and was the first of the war wounded that Helene saw. Her lymph nodes had swollen all over her body, and in many places she had the copper-coloured nodules typical of the condition. They had developed into large papules in the folds of her skin. Helene had to wear gloves and a protective mask over her mouth when she was treating the nurse’s sores, because the papules were already weeping and could be infectious. It was lucky that the patient’s skin was not itching. Thanks to the Prontosil antibiotic, the stumps of her legs were healing well, but her heart muscle wasn’t used to her lying down for a long time, with poor circulation of the blood as a result, and she suffered from insomnia. Medical opinion was that antibiotics might perhaps be useful in treating syphilis too.
Where were you, Mother? Helene heard Peter ask. They were sitting side by side in the tram. Should she tell him she’d been to the observatory or the butterfly house, make up a pretty story? But that would make it even harder for him to understand why she’d left him for twelve hours.
Mother, say something. Why don’t you say anything?
I’ve been at work, said Helene.
Doing what? Peter tugged her sleeve and she wished he would stop it. Doing what?
Couldn’t he give her any peace, must he always be asking questions? Don’t ask so many questions, Helene told Peter.
An elderly lady rose from the seat in front of Helene, probably to get out at the next stop, and held on to the pole. The woman patted Peter’s recently cut hair. What a smart little fellow, she said. Helene looked out of the window. Not many of the wounded came as far as Stettin; most of them stayed in field hospitals and it was only because Helene had a child that she had not been transferred to one of those. Apparently nurses were in short supply; in desperation the authorities were looking for volunteers to work in the field hospitals after a reduced period of training. Unmarried nurses were sent to work in the field hospitals, married women were needed to keep the municipal hospitals going. One day two nurses were sent to Obrawalde and the question of sending Helene as well arose. They could do with an experienced nurse like her there. But Helene was in luck; a doctor made it known that experienced nurses were also urgently needed in the Stettin Women’s Hospital, and the management realized that it would be difficult for Helene to take her child to Obrawalde. Rain beat against the window. Dark had fallen long ago and the lights of the cars looked blurred.
I must say, thank God women like you are still having children. The woman nodded appreciatively.
Helene looked at her only briefly. She didn’t want to nod, she didn’t want to say anything, but there was no stopping the woman.
Briefly, Helene thought of the girl she’d seen at noon today. What lovely auburn hair she’d had. Eyes as brown as almonds under red-gold lashes. Her breasts were apple-sized. She had a smile like the morning sun, she had only just come in, aged sixteen. In sign language, the girl had made gestures before she was anaesthetized and Helene guessed what they meant. She was asking questions, and frightened questions too. She had been given a general anaesthetic. Helene had held the retractor. No one had hands as steady as hers. The surgeon cut the Fallopian tubes. You had to be very careful of the tubes when stitching them up. The surgeon had asked Helene to hold the needle while he sneezed and blew his nose. She was always to be relied on, the surgeon had told her, and he asked her to finish the stitching.
She should be proud of herself, said the elderly woman, changing hands and holding the pole with her other hand as the tram went round a bend. Really proud, added the woman with a kindly nod. She was clearly referring to Peter. Helene did not feel proud. Why should she feel proud of having a child? Peter didn’t belong to her, she had given birth to him but he was not her property, not her own great achievement. Helene was glad when she saw Peter laughing, but she didn’t see very much of him and usually he was asleep when they were together. He slept in her bed; he was often frightened at night and didn’t want to be alone. After all, human beings were mammals, weren’t they? Why should a human child sleep alone while all other mammals kept their young with them for the sake of warmth? Helene did not often see Peter awake, and even less often did she see him laughing.
We’d all die out otherwise, you know.
Helene stared through the glass at the street. What did the woman mean by we? The Nordic race, humanity itself? The girl whose tubes had been cut today was a healthy, cheerful girl. Only she was mute. The idea was to avoid her having deaf mute children. Why was it so bad for someone to speak in sign language instead of sounds? Why should that girl’s children be any unhappier than Peter, who didn’t get answers to all his questions either? Later, when the girl had come round, Helene had gone to see her and taken her an orange. She was not supposed to have done that; the oranges were meant for other patients. Helene had given it to the girl in secret. She had held the retractor, she had finished the stitching. If the surgeon had told her to make the incision, she would probably have cut the tubes herself. Helene felt the cool glass against her forehead.
Mother, aren’t you listening? Peter pinched her hand. He looked desperate, almost angry. Obviously he had been trying to attract her attention for some time.
I’m listening, said Helene. Peter was telling her something, saying the other children had throwed marbles.
Thrown, said Helene, thrown marbles, and she thought of that young girl again.
Thrown. Peter’s eyes were shining. He could talk very clearly when she reminded him. The girl would be alone in her bed in the ward now, with the thirty-eight other women patients. Had she been told what the operation on her was for? Helene could tell her next morning, she had to tell her. The girl mustn’t be left wondering later, she should at least know. But perhaps she would no longer be there in the morning.
Hungry, Peter was complaining now. It was time to get out of the tram. Helene remembered that she hadn’t done any shopping first thing in the morning. What shops were open before the beginning of her shift? Perhaps she could ring the grocer’s doorbell. His wife didn’t like it when people rang their bell in the evening, but often Helene had no other option if she hadn’t been shopping earlier, and today she had nothing to eat in the house.
She bought two eggs, quarter of a litre of milk and a whole pound of potatoes from the grocer’s wife. The potatoes were beginning to sprout shoots, but never mind. Helene was pleased to have them.
Don’t like tatoes, complained Peter as Helene put a plate of potatoes in front of him. She didn’t want to lose her temper, she didn’t want to shout at him and tell him he ought to be glad to have them, he’d better eat up. She’d rather say nothing.
Don’t like tatoes, said Peter again, letting a piece of potato fall off his little spoon and drop on the floor.
Helene snatched the spoon away from him and felt like banging it down on the table. She thought of her mother, the angry light in her eyes, her unpredictability. Helene laid the spoon gently on the table. If you’re not hungry, she said, keeping her voice down, you don’t have to eat. She took Peter’s wrist and led him over to the washbasin. He was crying as she washed him.
Eat rinje, whimpered Peter. Eat rinje. He pointed to the picture hanging over the chest of drawers. It showed a basket full of fruit in glowing colours. Did he mean the orange it showed? Should she have brought that orange from the hospital home for him? The girl needed the orange, Peter had potatoes.
Rinje! Peter was shouting now, deafening Helene. She bit her lip, she gritted her teeth, she didn’t want to lose patience, patience was all that mattered, it gave shape and form to life. Helene picked Peter up, turned the picture to the wall as she passed it and carried him to her bed.
Another day, she whispered. There’ll be an orange another day. Peter calmed down. He liked to be caressed. Helene stroked his forehead and pulled the blanket up over him.
Mother sing?
Helene knew she couldn’t sing well, she stroked him and shook her head. A woman in the hospital had taken her arm today with a bony old hand and told Helene she wished she would just let her die. Please, I just want to die. Go to sleep, Peterkin.
Sing, please sing! Peter didn’t want to close his eyes.
Perhaps she just had to make a bit of an effort. Helene would have liked to sing, she simply couldn’t. Could she think of a song? Mary and Joseph walked in a garden green, but Christmas was over long ago. Her voice was scratchy, the musical notes wouldn’t come. Peter was watching her. Helene closed her mouth.
Sing.
Helene shook her head. Her throat was hard, the opening too small, she had too little strength and her vocal cords were rigid and creaky. Was there some kind of premature ageing of the vocal cords, a medical condition, voice failure?
Auntie sing, Peter demanded now, trying to sit up again. Helene knew that Frau Kozinska had sometimes sung for Peter. She was often singing when Helene met her in the street or on the stairs too. Sometimes you could hear her voice up in their own apartment. Helene shook her head. Frau Kozinska liked to sing, she was always enviably cheerful, but she had left Peter alone too often, and when she was at home in the evening she was fond of the bottle. It was a blessing that he could go to nursery school now. The weeks when she was on night duty were difficult, however. Helene had to leave Peter alone; he slept most of the time. She told him before he went to bed that she would be back, and locked the door. When she came home in the morning the first thing she did was to fetch coal from the cellar, usually bringing a good load upstairs all at once, carrying the coal in a pannier on her back and buckets of briquettes and logs of wood in her left and right hands. Once upstairs she lit the stove. Peter would be asleep in her bed. She stroked his short fair hair until he stretched and wanted her to pick him up. Then she washed and dressed him, gave him something to eat and took him to the nursery school, where he wanted her to give him a hug, but she wouldn’t, because if she did they would not be able to part company. Home again, Helene saw to doing the laundry, mended the straps of Peter’s lederhosen; now that Baden had had to close his shop she couldn’t find a good cheap draper’s. Baden had disappeared, he’d been taken away in February with the rest of them, to the East, it was said. So Helene mended the straps of the lederhosen and found a coloured button to replace the artificial edelweiss flower he had lost. Then she slept for a few hours herself, added a couple of briquettes to the stove, fetched Peter from nursery school and took him home, gave him his supper and put him to bed, switched off the light and slipped out of the door. She had to hurry to catch the tram and reach the hospital in time for the night shift.
Every two weeks, when Helene had a day off, she took Peter’s hand and they went down to the harbour to look at the ships. Only very occasionally did a warship come in. Peter marvelled at the warships, and she showed him the flocks of birds.
Ducks, she said, pointing to the little formation in the air, five of them flying in a V-shape. Peter liked eating duck, but Helene couldn’t afford to buy it for him. Now and then Wilhelm sent money from Frankfurt. She didn’t want his money; it was hush money, and she didn’t need to be paid to keep her mouth shut. Every few months he sent her an envelope with money and a note from him. Dear Alice, buy the boy gloves and a cap, it might say, but Helene had knitted Peter gloves and a cap long ago. She took the money, put it in an envelope and wrote the address on it: Frau Selma Würsich, Tuchmacherstrasse 13, Bautzen, Lusatia. She sent off the letter without any sender’s name on it right to the end, until the day when she received a long, narrow package from Bautzen. The package contained the carved horn fish. The necklace that had once been in it wasn’t there. Perhaps money had been needed in Bautzen, so the rubies were sold, or perhaps the package had been opened in the post and someone liked the look of the necklace. There was a letter inside the fish. The letter itself stunned her, it smelled of Leontine and it was in her handwriting. Dear little Alice, it keeps on raining in Berlin but the frost has gone at last. I wonder if you are still living at the same address? Martha has been very ill for the last few years. You know her, she doesn’t complain and she didn’t want you to hear about it. We didn’t want to burden you with our news, and Martha wouldn’t let me write to tell you. She had to give up her work in the hospital. They’ve sent her to work in one of the new labour camps. My hands are tied. She could do with a husband now, or influential parents, some close relation. As soon as I’m able to visit her I must tell her that a letter arrived yesterday from the Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care, saying that your mother died of acute pneumonia a few weeks ago in Grossschweidnitz. I am truly sorry, although I know that many consider it a merciful death.
The sirens of the big ships sounded a deep note, making your insides vibrate. Helene could feel the humming right to the soles of her feet. Peter asked his mother where the ship’s guns were. The letter was signed, in Leontine’s handwriting: With love from your sister Elsa. As a postscript, she had added the following note: Do you remember our old neighbour Fanny? She has been taken away. An Obergruppenführer lives in her apartment now, with his wife and three nice children. Helene knew what the letter meant. Leontine had to cover up her tracks or both their lives would be in danger, and had chosen the only possible words to describe that monstrous event. She had enclosed some dried rose petals in the letter. They fell out when Helene opened it. Helene wanted to weep, but she couldn’t. Something prevented her; she couldn’t take in what she had read. The petals gave off a sweet scent, or perhaps it was just a trace of Leontine’s perfume. Her real name must not be dangerously connected with Martha, Helene or any other such person. Was Leontine still working at the hospital? Did she have to cut Fallopian tubes and remove ovaries? Did they want to send her too to a field hospital? After all, Leontine was divorced now, she had no children, they could send her anywhere they liked, however many names she adopted: Leo, Elsa, Abelard even. Helene would always have known her firm, swift handwriting again; it had left its mark on her. A great longing came over Helene and made her feel dizzy. She was perspiring.
Guns? Peter tugged impatiently at his mother’s sleeve. Where’s the guns? Helene didn’t know.
Are you sad? Peter looked up at his mother.
Helene shook her head. It’s the wind, she said. Come on, let’s go to the railway station and look at the trains. Helene couldn’t help thinking what it would be like if she simply bought a ticket and went to Berlin with Peter. It ought to be possible to find Leontine. It must be possible. But who knew how dangerous that might be?
The railway station lay on the river Oder just below the city. The trains were coming in and out. Wind blew over the platform, bringing tears to many eyes. They had sat down on a bench and were holding hands. There was a new nurse at the hospital, Ida Fiebinger, who came from Bautzen. Helene had felt strange when she first heard Ida Fiebinger speaking, the melody of the local accent, the closed vowels, the slow lilt of the sentences. Helene kept seeking Ida out. One day Nurse Ida said, when the stormy wind had blown down a tree in the hospital yard: When the wind doesn’t know /where it can blow, /over Budissin it will go, using one of the dialect words for Bautzen. Helene was astonished when she heard it and suppressed a smile with difficulty. It was so long since she had heard that old saying.
Peter said he was cold, he wanted to go home. Helene consoled him and said let them wait for one more train. Once, when the nurses were standing around with their plates in the hospital canteen at lunch, Nurse Ida had turned in mid-sentence to Helene and said: Now I know why I always feel as if I knew you. You’re from Bautzen. Helene had calmly put down her fork, feeling the blood come to her face so suddenly that she had to pretend she had a violent coughing fit. Excuse me, she said. I’m sure you know my uncle, Ida added eagerly, he was a well-known judge in Bautzen until he retired.
Helene shook her head. No, she made haste to say, I’m from Dresden. I once passed through Bautzen on a visit. Isn’t there a leaning tower there? Nurse Ida looked at Helene with disappointment and a little disbelief, but definitely disappointed. You passed through? On my way to Breslau, claimed Helene, fervently hoping that none of the nurses here came from Breslau and would want to talk to her about a city she didn’t know at all. Since then Helene had several times felt Nurse Ida’s enquiring gaze resting on her. The wind howled and hummed around the telegraph poles. Helene looked over the tracks to the locomotive. Only a little vapour still rose from its funnel. It looked as if it wouldn’t be leaving the station today. No one had arrived, and Helene would not buy a ticket. She stood up, Peter held her hand tightly, and they walked up the steps and back into the city in silence.