Not all decisions were difficult for him. He thought of the swallow that he had found last summer in the yard outside the door of the studio. Swallows nested under the roof; they had built their round nests below the gutter and fed their young there without a pause. At first he had thought the swallow was dead. He knelt down beside it and saw the blue-black sheen of its feathers, the brownish black of its forked tail, the crossed wing tips; its breast was bright white. It lay motionless on its back, its eyes looking as if they were blind. He carefully picked the little bird up. A slight movement of its plumage made him think of the wind; he blew on it, but it did not move. Its light body was faintly warm. Next moment he saw its ribcage rise — it was still breathing — and fall again. Thomas felt tears in his eyes. He stroked the little head with his forefinger. Did small birds like this fracture their skulls? His eyes went to the nests, and he clearly heard the young chirping. The sky and the tops of maple trees were reflected in the upper windows of the studio. It must have flown into one of the windows. How smooth the down of its head was. It neither moved its head nor spread its wings by a single millimetre; it must have severe internal injuries. Its soft feathers ruffled up. Thomas put the bird down on a piece of wood and wondered how he could lay it down to die in peace, how and where he could bury it later. He heard the sound of an engine outside the gate. He didn’t want to be disturbed, he didn’t want company, he wanted to be alone with the swallow. He was going to stay with it and protect it by his presence, so that the cat wouldn’t come along and eat it before it was dead and he could bury it. Suddenly its feathers moved. It flew up. Thomas jumped; maybe he had cried out in alarm. The swallow must have come back to life faster than he could watch it; it had dived off his hand, flew low close to the ground and then soared into the air, up and over to the workshops on the property next door.
The swallows were in the south now, the puddles in the yard were frozen, for the last few days it had been possible to walk on the ice of the reservoir in the woods with slide shoes. Thomas didn’t have any; his feet had grown much larger in the last two years. So over the past few days he had tried to make some out of the brass he normally used to make bracelets and rings. But it was too soft; after his first attempt yesterday deep notches had shown in the soles; the alloy was not stable, and thus not smooth enough for going on the ice. He had promised to give Ella a pair of slide shoes, he just needed a little more money, so it was not surprising that Käthe’s purse caught his eye, a small black-and-white object with a catch on top to open it. It was lying on the radio set. Käthe briefly interrupted her work to switch on the standard lamp in the corner; its three necks with the tulip-shaped lights on them could be turned to shine on the high ceiling, or on the floor that reflected the light — in that position they also lit up her model — or turned on the block of stone. In spite of all the studio windows the natural light was getting fainter and fainter; the sun had disappeared long ago. At this time of year it was bright enough to work without artificial light only for three or four hours a day. A daddy-long-legs was making its way down from the windowsill; it stalked over to a weary fly and set to work on it.
Thomas was chilly; the wood and coal he had put in the stove that morning had burnt down long ago, and he was standing much too far from the little stove anyway.
Thomas thought of Ella, and what she had told him about the lodger. Käthe was chiselling away at the elbow of the sculpture, she took a step back, looked at Thomas, looked at her stone, tapped on the chisel some more, bent down, picked up a large piece of stone, put it on the wooden table and went on working with her chisel. Since Eduard finally went away three years ago, Käthe had been letting the room to a lodger. Thomas and Ella had wanted separate rooms of their own, but Thomas had to sleep on the veranda. The twins seldom came to visit, and when they did they slept on the sofa in the living room. With the lodger, Käthe explained, they could afford heating, central heating with a radiator in every room of the house, running off a big oil-fired boiler in the cellar. The lodger’s name was Heinz. Ella and Thomas referred to him only as the lodger. If they ever did call him Heinz it sounded sarcastic, or at least subversive, and finally ironic, because they knew he had thought up that name for them, on account of his secret activities, so that they could call him something. The skin of the lodger’s face was yellow, and so was his right hand. He was almost always holding an unfiltered cigarette. Käthe’s tapping speeded up, short sharp blows that were to create the tapering of the arm on which she was working and give the impression of muscles. Thomas imagined the lodger with his yellow fingers quietly opening the door of Ella’s room at night; she had told him about it. In his mind’s eye, Thomas saw the lodger pulling off Ella’s quilt, looked at the sleeping Ella, pushing up her nightdress, pushing his yellow fingers between her legs. Ella was awake now, but looked paralysed; she pretended to be still asleep, her heart was in her mouth, she feverishly wondered whether she was dreaming — she had a headache that was spreading — and how she could end the dream, she felt as if her own heartbeats were stifling her, she knew she must resist but she didn’t know how. She had been able to recognise Heinz at once in the darkness of the room. What other man was already in the house at night and could get into her room? He was not wearing his soft peaked cap, his bald head shone instead, the thin wreath of hair above his ears was picked out by the faint light coming through the curtains from the street outside. The tapping of hammer on chisel struck Thomas’s eardrums, he was in the darkness of Ella’s room, it was as if he felt the lodger’s yellow hand creeping under Ella’s nightdress, groping around for her breasts that had only grown in the last few years. Ella turned away, the movement gave her strength, instinctively she sat up. They had exchanged words, Thomas heard them, they were louder than the tapping on Käthe’s stone, stronger than any oblivion, words that echoed inside him as if he had been there with them; it was all happening in his mind.
Hush, the lodger had said to Ella. You don’t want to wake anyone up, do you? Ella shook her head in the dark. Out, she whispered, get out of here. No, the lodger was laughing now, his quiet, snarling laughter. You know very well I’m not going. You’re a girl, Ella, you want it too. Ella clutched the quilt to her. Was he flinching back? Get out, she whispered, louder now. The lodger grabbed her wrist with one hand, and ran the fingers of the other through her hair. Your daddy told me how you like it. My what? You know who I mean. His hand was clutching one breast. Eddy’s little wife. Your mother threw Eddy out. Was it that he didn’t bring enough money home, didn’t he bother about things? Did she neglect him? Did he always have to turn to you? We know that, we and you. Eddy and I know each other, did you know? We work together, Eddy and I, you must keep quiet about that. No one must know. His grip on Ella’s breast was so painful that she wanted to scream. But she couldn’t. Go away, please. Words gulped down, pleading. It wasn’t a good idea for her to beg, he would notice her uncertainty, smell her fear. Ella’s head was ringing. Not likely, said the lodger, bringing his face close to her. Ella could smell the cognac he had been drinking, the tobacco that oozed from all his pores. The lodger pressed his mouth on Ella’s and tried to push his tongue into it. His stubble was prickly. Ella clenched her teeth to keep his tongue outside, she pressed her lips together so that they tingled, pressure, rough, felted, tongue, his hand under the quilt. Ella kicked out with her legs, teeth gritted. The light came on in the corridor, it shone under the door of the room. Now the lodger was whispering. Eddy told me you have a sweet mouth. You really do. Eddy would have taken you with him, you know that. His little wife, that’s what he called you, didn’t he? My little wife. The lodger’s breath smelled horrible. But you were still too young, it wouldn’t have done. Are you sad? No, I’m not. Cackling laughter. He was still clutching Ella’s wrist and pushing it down on the mattress, it was a firm grasp, she couldn’t wriggle out of it. Ella’s fear receded as faintness took over. Not a dream, I’m just fainting, she told herself, thinking almost coolly of a way to make him let go. A door closed, the light in the corridor went out, a second door latched. Silence. You like that, don’t you? The lodger had licked his finger and was searching, with the wet finger, for a way to get between Ella’s legs.