My desk is nothing to do with you. You have no business with it, none at all!
Retrospective acknowledgement of my marriage to the father of my children. Ella was obviously quoting; her tone was sarcastic. You were positively begging: You must understand! The man who –
Keep your hands off my things or I’ll throw you out!
— who had certainly wanted to marry you, only unfortunately he couldn’t, oh dear! Ella rolled her eyes.
What do you know about it? Käthe slammed Meaning and Form shut. Enough was enough; she banged the journal down on the table.
There was no stopping Ella now, in her delight at scoring off Käthe with something that would hurt at least as much as that comment on a magpie daughter and the mountain of sugar. But now that he’s fallen at the front, and you have to make your way alone with two small children, oh, how glad you’d be of a widow’s pension!
You don’t know anything about it! Käthe’s voice rose, if only to drown out Ella’s, to keep from hearing what Ella was saying. She went on, undeterred, as if Ella were not speaking the painful truth. Both fell silent for a moment, breathless, red in the face. At this point Thomas picked up his board and left the smoking room in silence, while Käthe shouted at Ella: You can take your school bag and go and live somewhere else, it’s as simple as that!
Oh, and where am I supposed to go?
Just get out.
You really wanted to marry a dead man? Have a common-law relationship made official after the event? Because you felt sure that but for the laws he’d have married you? What makes you so certain of that? Ella laughed; she had never before seen Käthe so sober, so nonplussed, in a state of amazement that she would have liked to interpret as shame, but couldn’t, because Käthe wasn’t denying anything, her face hid nothing, it merely showed sheer horror as she looked at the girl.
Käthe opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and said nothing.
I won! Gossamer-thin, malicious jubilation streamed through Ella. True, Thomas had not come back, so there had been no witness to her exposure of Käthe, but an important question had been asked, the curtain had been drawn back. As for the postage stamps and the raisins, and your stupid camping stove which capsized with us that time we were out in the boat, so it’s lying somewhere at the bottom of the Müggelsee today — I ask myself what you mean by communism. Aren’t your goods ours as well? And our neighbours’ goods? Why do you give a mountain of sugar to me and not the Republic?
Because you’re a thief.
Let me share it; I’ll share the ten pounds of sugar with everyone who comes to see us, we’ll let the tea trolley stand there in the corner, and you can tell your friends the story of your criminal child, and I’ll tell them my story about communism, and we’ll invite them to help themselves — go ahead, take as much as you want.
I’ll be in the studio. With these words Käthe stood up and marched to the door.
Why didn’t you come looking for us when we were out in the boat? Ella called after her. You didn’t even notice we were missing! Not for three days, not for three nights, and all the time we were out on the stupid Müggelsee until our boat capsized. The water was icy. We were lucky it happened so close to the bank; who knows how long we could have swum in the lake?
What were you thinking of?
You didn’t miss us one whole evening, one whole day, you didn’t miss us for a moment! Not until we came home dripping wet and shivering, and then you were beside yourself. We had to tell you we’d been gone for three days, out on the Müggelsee at a temperature of zero. And you wouldn’t believe us. People don’t exist for you unless they’re in front of your eyes. You don’t bother about anyone but the poor –
You two taught yourselves a good lesson. A sense of responsibility for yourself begins –
You’re cruel, you and your sense of responsibility. You want to be a heroine for everyone in society, people can’t be poor enough to please you, you’re sorry for the poor — but with your children you suddenly go on about taking responsibility for themselves! Every man for himself, and where will your society be then?
Don’t shout like that, Ella, it reminds me of your father.
As if there were still poor people today. There are only good people, heroes every one of them.
Käthe coolly scrutinised her from head to toe. Take a look in the mirror, my girl, you’re sixteen today, it’s about time you stopped wailing and complaining so much. Clear the table. She pushed the door handle down and turned back once more. It’s eight thirty, school has begun, so why are you still hanging around here?
Just as you like. I’ll be off.
Ella didn’t have to explain anything else, because Käthe had already gone out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Ella did not clear the table. She stuck the handle of the spoon into the top of the sugar mountain. The spoon tipped over sideways. Ella switched off the light; it was fully day now. Thomas wasn’t around any longer. He must have gone to school, he hated arriving late, while she was late all the time. She hadn’t been to school much at all recently. Two boys were in love with her; she made eyes at them both and didn’t love either of them. She enjoyed the soulful looks of a handsome lad known to everyone as Johnny, who had all the girls hanging on his every word, what with the circles under his eyes and his slight squint, but few sounds ever passed his lips. Everyone at school knew about him. They had once danced rock’n’roll together, Ella in the petticoat she had made for herself and nothing on underneath it, he with the circles under his eyes and his longing glances. At the end of the night Ella had turned away, drunk with his unspoken love and already rather tired of it. She had given the last dance to short-legged Siegfried, who had then triumphantly taken her home on his moped. Inflamed by the jealousy with which he had watched Ella and Johnny all evening, Siegfried kissed her stormily before she had made it to the steps up to the front door. Legs, Ella, legs! His thick hair smelled of grease and the night’s cigarette smoke. Ella had only just opened the door when he came in with her, she hung her jacket up on its hook, and he kissed her arms and the hollows of her armpits. She laughed, and he kissed her open mouth; she retreated, and he followed her until they had both landed in her room and on her bed. Door closed, Siegfried on his knees, he had kept his leather jacket on, the peaked cap was still on his head, slightly askew and crumpled; it was meant to make everyone think of Marlon Brando. The rough, see-through chiffon of her petticoat was scratching Ella’s throat, a brief pain, a slight burning sensation, and Siegfried was rocking up and down in defiant delight. Ella didn’t move, she didn’t think of Marlon Brando, she was watching her toes in the air. The petticoat was tickling her nose now, and she didn’t want to sneeze.
Johnny and Siegfried were not the only boys to have fallen for Ella, but they had fallen so heavily that within a few months Ella could hardly walk into the school without finding herself faced with making a firm decision. A decision that she didn’t want to make, and still less could she make it. Ella listened for sounds in the house, for anything that might tell her Käthe was coming upstairs to her studio, for a key turning in the lock and the lodger coming in, although he hadn’t been here since early January. But nothing stirred, she heard only the pendulum of the grandfather clock and, in the distance, the dog barking, perhaps because the postman had come into the yard. Käthe’s shoulder bag was hanging over the armchair; it was made of green leather and printed in a way that made it look like the skin of a reptile. She found the large purse embroidered with a black-and-white pattern. She opened the catch, took out a ten-mark note and six large silver coins, and put it back inside the reptile.