The Blind Side of the Heart Read online

  Stylish, murmured Helene to herself. The word sounded like a chocolate; it was meant to describe something high-class, but chocolates just tasted bitter.

  Her uncle was a hat maker and she was his favourite model. She won’t throw out any of those felt confections that look so odd today. I once heard Father telling her angrily she’d been in love with her uncle, that was why she couldn’t part with those old hats. Mother only laughed, she laughed so much that I thought Father’s suspicions must be right. Do you think he minded her being Jewish?

  Helene looked at Martha incredulously and narrowed her eyes. But she isn’t. Helene shook her head to reinforce what she said. I mean, not really.

  You just don’t notice because she doesn’t wear a wig. And what synagogue would she go to? She doesn’t keep separate sets of dishes, she leaves the cooking to Mariechen. But of course she’s Jewish. You think they call her the foreign woman here in Bautzen because she speaks with a Breslau accent. Do you? Do you really believe it’s a Breslau accent? I don’t, it’s the way her whole family talk. She uses all those words that seem to you familiar, and you have no idea that they show what she is.

  Martha, what are you talking about? Helene kept shaking her head slowly and firmly, as if that would silence Martha.

  It’s true. She doesn’t have to pretend to us. Why do you think she never goes to church? She gives the cathedral a very wide berth.

  It’s because of the meat market, that’s why. She says the butchers’ stalls smell horrible. Helene wished Martha would keep quiet.

  But there was no stopping Martha now. When we go to Mass at Christmas with Father and Grandmother, she says someone has to stay at home and cook the meal. What a fib! Why does she have to cook the meal at Christmas, of all times? Because she wants to give Mariechen time off, because she has such a kind heart? No, it’s because she has no business in church with our God at Christmas, that’s all, little angel. Did you never notice before?

  Helene leaned her head on her hand the way she saw Martha do it. Have you talked to her about that?

  Of course. She says it’s none of my business. I tell her if I want to get married she won’t be found in any church register, and I don’t have her family records so half of my own are missing. Guess what she said? She told me not to be impertinent, she said if I went on like that no one would ever want to marry me.

  Helene looked at Martha and knew that Mother was lying. Martha was at least as beautiful as Mother, with the same attractive, narrow nose, the same freckled white skin, the same curving hips. Who’d bother about some kind of old family records?

  Martha said it was no good Mariechen teaching them the stitches to embroider their initials on linen for a trousseau. Never mind their initials, their origin tainted them.

  Mariechen was considered a wonderful needlewoman and lacemaker, even among her own Sorbian relations. But although women often knocked at the door in Tuchmacherstrasse wanting to order lace handkerchiefs and caps and tablecloths from her, she turned them all down. She was in a steady job, she replied with the smile of a faithful servant. Only very occasionally did she give something as a present to a sister, cousin or niece. Most of the lace and little mats that Mariechen crocheted and embroidered in her spare time stayed in the house. Her absolute loyalty created a strange bond between Sorbian Marja and her mistress, Frau Selma Würsich. Perhaps they simply shared a love of fine fabrics?

  Helene looked at Martha. She could see no flaw. Martha appeared to her perfect. Arthur’s glances were by no means the only ones that lingered on her fine features. When Helene crossed the Kornmarkt with Martha, it wasn’t just the young men who looked at her, whistling cheerfully, and wished them good day. Old men too made sounds like grunts and groans. Martha’s steps were light, her strides were long, she stood proud and erect, so that people showed respect when they met her, or that was how Helene saw it. The men clicked their tongues and smacked their lips as if tasting sweet syrup on their tongues. Even the market women addressed Martha as pretty young lady and my beauty. More and more men who would have liked to marry her were to be found every day near the little printing works in Tuchmacherstrasse. If Martha stood behind the counter in the small shop area helping to serve customers, several young men would gather there during the afternoon, getting her to show them different kinds of paper and different typefaces, seldom able to make up their minds. They weighed up the pros and cons, got talking to each other, they boasted of their own businesses or studies with unconcealed glances in Martha’s direction and courted her as best they could. Only when one of them ventured to ask her out for coffee, and she declined with a smile, saying she never went out for coffee with customers, did the point where he decided to order a small print run come closer. But the young men came back another day, they kept watch on each other; every single one of them wanted to make sure that no one else was higher than he was in Martha’s favour. Helene could understand how those men felt, for she herself would have loved to sleep beside beautiful Martha and wake up at her side all her life. Marriage to a man seemed to Helene totally pointless and unnecessary. Marriage was the last thing anyone needed.

  So why do you think Father wouldn’t let you marry someone like Arthur Cohen?

  Why? Martha put her head back on the pillow, looking annoyed rather than thoughtful, and when she brought out a handkerchief from under the pillow and blew her nose very thoroughly, as Mother did after a long fit of tears, Helene was sorry she’d asked. But then, unexpectedly, Martha’s smile spread over her face, a smile that she could hardly keep back these days, a smile that easily turned to a chuckle and – only if neither Mother nor Father was around – occasionally to wholehearted, exuberant laughter.

  Little angel, who’d there be for him to rely on then? Mother? If Mother goes to a fair she isn’t seen for days. Very likely she stays at inns in Zwickau and Pirna dancing with strange men until morning!

  Never. Helene couldn’t help smiling, because she didn’t know whether Martha expressed such a supposition just to anger her or whether there was a grain of truth in it.

  And who would look after you? Father can’t get on his horse and go off to the war without knowing we’re provided for. He’s afraid, that’s all it is. And he wants me to look after you. I will, too. You wait and see.

  Helene didn’t reply. She guessed that every word she said would only make Martha think harder and in more detail than ever about possible escape routes. She was sure that for weeks Martha had thought of nothing but how to begin a new life with Arthur Cohen.

  Who’s that book you’re reading by?

  It’s not your sort of book.

  But I want to know.

  You want to know everything. Martha wrinkled her nose; she liked Helene’s curiosity and she liked still being so far ahead of her sister. A year ago, when Helene was finally old enough to start at the Municipal School for Girls on Lauengraben, she could already read and write. She had learned to play the old piano from Martha, who watched with admiration and a little envy to see how smoothly her hands slipped over the keys without practising, how fast her runs were even in the lower octaves, how surely she remembered the melodies that Martha often had to learn laboriously, note by note. And numbers raced around in Helene’s head even faster and more confidently than her fingers moved over the piano keyboard; no matter what numbers Martha threw out for her, Helene had no trouble in making other numbers out of them, taking them apart, dividing them, fitting them together into something new. After only a few weeks the teacher moved Helene up to do lessons with the older girls, giving her exercises for ten-year-olds. Helene was seven at the time. It began to look as if the teacher would have passed on all she knew to the little girl within a few months, before she was supposed to be the right age for it. Helene was ashamed of herself for not growing up fast enough. She was frightened, too. At fourteen, sixteen at the latest, girls left school and went home to their parents, to take over the running of the household and be introduced to men who were believed to be
well off and to enjoy a good reputation, one to which a young wife would add. Only a few girls were allowed to go on to the High School, and the other girls in the town knew very well who they were and envied them. If one of Martha’s friends said she would like to be a nursery schoolteacher, her parents asked in disparaging tones whether that kind of thing was really necessary. The family had enough money, they said, the girl was well enough educated, she could already choose between two suitors and have a good, well-to-do husband. Martha’s tales of her girlfriends sounded to Helene like a horror story. She would pause for effect as she described how one particular friend, for instance, wanted to marry for love and had told her parents so. The parents just laughed. In a tone of wise superiority, the girl’s father pointed out that the right man had to present himself first, and love could follow. Meanwhile Judge Fiebinger, whose sons were not to begin their studies until they had done military service in the local regiment, was sending his daughters straight to Dresden, one to the conservatory, the other to the women’s teacher-training college. Martha often told Helene about the judge’s daughters. It was a good thing to be a teacher. A few years ago, Martha used to sit beside that budding teacher the judge’s daughter in school and help her with her sums. Perhaps the girl would never have made it to the High School without her help? Martha whispered in Helene’s ear that if she herself went on like this, Father would send her to study too, to Dresden and Heidelberg, she was sure he would. Her whispering lips touched Helene’s ear, they tickled pleasantly and Helene couldn’t get enough of it. Their father had allowed Martha to train as a nurse, so surely in view of Helene’s clever mind he would consider his younger daughter his pride and joy, he’d send her to Heidelberg where she could be one of the few women to study medicine. When Martha painted such a picture of her future, Helene held her breath, hoping Martha wouldn’t stop telling that story, would go on and on, and picture Helene studying human anatomy some day in a huge lecture room at Dresden University, enumerating the funny names of parts of the body, like spinal cord and vertebral canal. Helene drank in such words when Martha came home with them and repeated them to her sister once or twice, only to forget them soon herself. Helene wanted to know more about the rhomboid fossa and the arteries at the base of the skull, but Martha stumbled over her words, as if she had been caught out. At a loss, she looked at Helene and confessed that the names were all she knew, not where those things were and what they were for. She stroked her little angel’s head and comforted Helene, not very long now and she’d be studying the subject herself, only a few more years, she’d soon see. As soon as Martha’s narrative flow stalled – perhaps she had dropped happily off to sleep beside her sister – less attractive ideas occurred to Helene. She remembered that although Father had recently got her to help with the bookkeeping for the printing works, he just muttered quietly, talking crossly to himself, if she found a mistake in the accounts somewhere. He didn’t want to acknowledge that his younger daughter was clever. All the time Helene sat in her father’s office in the evening doing arithmetic, he never once showed any surprise or pleasure. She drew up whole columns of figures just to get him to stop and marvel at them for a change, to notice that she was soon dealing with his accounts more easily than he did himself. But Father ignored Helene’s efforts. When the teacher asked her parents to visit the school building on Lauengraben and talked to her father, telling him that in the course of the school year Helene had studied all the material supposed to occupy the first four years in many subjects, he smiled in a kindly way, shrugged almost imperceptibly, as was his habit, and looked lovingly at his wife, who was ceremoniously taking a needle she had brought out of the lapel of her coat, who then produced the darning thread she had put in her pocket at home and, in mid-conversation and despite the teacher’s presence, set about darning a hole in her dress with the red yarn. While Helene’s parents were relieved to find that their daughter had not stolen anything and had not been naughty in any other way, they did not understand why the teacher had asked them to come to the school to tell them that she would soon be unable to teach their daughter anything else. She was simply planning to let her read rhymes and fairy tales, if her parents had no objection, she said. Helene’s mother bit through the thread with her teeth; the hole was mended. The dog impatiently slapped his master’s leg with his long tail. The teacher’s enquiring look made Helene’s father uneasy. It was not for him, after all, to tell the teacher what she was to do with his daughter.

  When they came home they didn’t say a word to Helene about their visit to the teacher. It was as if their younger daughter were an embarrassment.

  Helene wanted to stay on at school, but she entertained doubts, both niggling and more serious, of the dream that Martha had spun for her. Neither of her parents had ever said a word about Heidelberg or studying. Helene did not want to be sent home ahead of time to keep house for her mother and be set to work clearing cupboards of the debris left by moths.

  Martha sometimes asked Helene: What do you want to be when you grow up?

  But she knew the answer; it was always the same. I want to be a nurse like you. Helene pressed her nose against Martha’s shoulder and breathed in her sister’s scent. Martha smelled like a warm roll and only very slightly of the vinegar that she rubbed into her hands when she came off duty. Helene observed Martha’s smile. Was she glad of Helene’s ever-reliable answer? Did it flatter her to think that the little girl wanted to be just like her? Next moment, however, Helene realized that Martha’s smile had nothing to do with her answer. Martha was stroking the gold-embossed lettering on the cover of her book.

  What a lovely present.

  Let me see.

  Close your eyes, yes, that’s right. You can read it blind.

  Helene felt Martha taking her hand, but did not guide it to the book. Instead, she found that she was feeling Martha’s stomach and her navel. Martha’s navel was set in a little hollow, unlike Helene’s, which stood out like a button. Helene squeezed both eyes tight shut and felt Martha taking her finger and pushing it into the pit of the navel.

  There, what can you decipher?

  Martha felt the slight curve of Martha’s belly. How soft her sister’s skin was. Unlike their mother’s belly, which spread out, particularly below the navel, Martha had a beautiful stomach with only the gentlest swelling. Helene felt Martha’s ribs and thought of the gold letters on the mustard-coloured book. She had deciphered them in secret long ago. Byron, said the letters. So she said: Byron.

  Byron. Martha corrected Helene’s pronunciation. Keep your eyes closed and go on reading.

  Helene could tell from her sister’s voice that Martha was pleased with her ability to read blind. Go on reading, Martha told her for the second time. And Helene felt Martha taking her hand and guiding it over her belly, circling, running Helene’s hand over her hips, stroking them. Read.

  A Selection of Lyrical Poetry.

  Helene had noticed the gold letters and had been wondering for some time what exactly lyrical poetry was. But then Martha took her hand again and placed it on her bottom rib.

  Can you see under my skin too, little angel? Do you know what’s underneath the ribs here? The liver lies here.

  Sisterly knowledge. Remember that, you’ll have to learn it all later. And this is where the gall bladder is, right beside it, yes, there. The word spleen was on Helene’s lips, but she didn’t want to say it, she just wanted to open her eyes, but Martha noticed and told her: Keep your eyes closed.

  Helene felt Martha take her hand and guide it up to the next rib, and finally still higher, up to her breast.

  Although she kept her eyes tightly closed and couldn’t see, Helene noticed her own feelings and how hot her face was all of a sudden. Martha was still guiding her hand, and Helene clearly felt her nipple and the firm, soft, perfect curve of the breast. Then down into the valley below, where she felt a bone.

  A little rib.

  Martha didn’t answer, and now her hand was climbing the other hil
l. Helene peered through her lashes, but Martha’s eyes weren’t on her any more, they were wandering aimlessly, blissfully, under her own half-closed lids, and Helene saw Martha’s lips opening slightly and moving.

  Come here.

  Martha’s voice was husky; with her other hand she drew Helene’s head towards her and pressed her own mouth on Helene’s. Helene was startled; she felt Martha’s tongue on her lips, demanding, she could never have imagined how rough and smooth at the same time Martha’s tongue on her lips would feel. It tickled, it almost made Helene laugh, but Martha’s tongue grew firm and pressed on Helene’s lips as if searching for something. That tongue opened Helene’s lips and pushed against her teeth. Helene had to breathe, she wanted air, she opened her lips, and now Martha’s tongue was filling her whole mouth. Helene felt her sister’s tongue moving about in it, back and forth, pushing at the insides of her cheeks, pressing against her own tongue. Helene thought of their last walk beside the Spree, and how Martha had told her to stay a few steps behind her and Arthur. Suddenly she noticed that her hand was lying on Martha’s breast all by itself, while for some time Martha’s hands had been moving in her hair and on her back.

  They had walked to the causeway lying concealed beyond the vineyard; you could reach it only by passing the willows that grew there. The ground was black and slippery. Come on, called Martha, several metres away, and she ran ahead with Arthur. They jumped from tree stump to tree stump, the soft ground yielded, their bare feet sank into it. Little puddles of gurgling water stood everywhere. Swarms of tiny midges were swirling in the air. Here, at this bend of the river, the Spree had made itself a small bay where the ground underfoot was not firm, land on which few people out for a stroll would ever tread. Marsh marigolds were flowering wherever you looked. The daisy chain that Martha had made Helene on the meadow by the river bank threatened to slip off her head; she held it on with one hand, using the other to carry her shoes and hold up her dress to keep it from getting muddy. It was difficult to see where the ground was at all firm, it kept giving way and, fast as they ran, putting their toes down first, their feet were soon black up to the ankle. The sword-shaped leaves of water lilies had a silvery sheen in the sunlight.