Her stomach ached, the thermometer rose, it was dark outside now. Ella lit a candle and proudly examined the ten-mark note that she had placed on the carpet in front of her. She put her head back until her hair felt hot against the stove; her shoulder blades tingled with heat through all the layers of shirts and sweaters she was wearing.
She heard a sound outside the front door. A rattling, the door was opened. Ella sat there rigid. She wasn’t expecting anyone, it was dark outside. Käthe wouldn’t be back for another ten days, and she had taken her dog Agotto with her as usual. Also, Käthe wouldn’t be likely to come through the front door; she usually parked in the yard, where she unloaded her baggage and then came in by way of the studio or the other flight of back stairs. Ella would have heard the Wartburg. Now the door was being closed. Ella listened, keeping quiet. No one knocked, no one rang the bell, no barking, no one calling out who’s there? Should she call out herself, stand up, find out who it was? She didn’t dare. The light in the corridor was switched on. She heard footsteps, bumping and banging. The bathroom door was opened, and Ella heard the splashing of a long jet into the lavatory bowl. Someone was taking a long pee. The intruder must think he was alone in the house, because apart from the faint candlelight that no one could have seen from the outside there wasn’t a single light on. The stove was hot against Ella’s back, she didn’t want to move. The lavatory was flushed, more water flowed in, Ella heard it gurgling as if she were right beside it. The lodger. Yes, it seemed he was busy in Hamburg, and the Wall might make it more difficult for him to travel, but he still had a key. He could have passed it on to someone else who worked with him. Steps came closer. But the intruder passed Ella’s dark room, probably hardly noticed the candlelight in the bright light of the corridor, went on and opened the door to the smoking room. Now Ella heard a voice talking to itself: Your mirror is time — / Endless! / Like mine / You are not flesh, life — / you are fear, and she recognised the voice, I live on fear — death is boring — / and so are you! Ella pushed herself away from the stove, stood up and hurried out of her room, running the last few metres down the long corridor. She pushed the door open with both hands and fell into Thomas’s arms.
What are you doing here? In her relief, she snuggled close to him.
Ouch, watch out, you’re hurting me. Thomas tried to free himself from her embrace, but Ella didn’t want to let go.
Oh, I’ve missed you, dear little brother. You never wrote. I thought you weren’t coming home until Christmas.
What about Käthe? Thomas was still trying to get out of Ella’s arms.
Käthe, Käthe, oh, away on business as usual. The combine in Leuna wants to give her a bigger, more important commission. Ella rolled her eyes. So off she goes for discussions and preliminary sketches. She won’t be back for another ten days.
Please, Ella, let go of me. Thomas grimaced as if he were in great pain, drew in air between his teeth and gripped Ella’s arms so that she couldn’t keep them round him.
What’s the matter with you? Thomas had never before pushed her away so harshly when they were reunited. He was pale, with red rings under his eyes. Have you been crying?
Don’t talk nonsense, he said, but Ella didn’t entirely believe him. Ah, now his grin was back, a forced grin this time, but it was back. When had it first appeared, when had it wormed its way into her company? That cynical grin, how distant he wanted to show himself. Ella breathed deeply; she didn’t want to see that grin.
How about the trolls?
They won’t be here until Christmas, they’re in that home in Werder. Did he really want to know how they were? No one else asked after the twins, only Thomas. Going backwards and forwards couldn’t be good for them, if it hadn’t been for Thomas they’d have been forgotten long ago. They probably wouldn’t even come back from their home for Christmas. They’re fine, they really are. At least, we can suppose so as long as there’s no letter.
I’ve got something. I don’t know. . Hesitantly, Thomas pulled at the sleeves of his sweater. The grin had gone.
Got what?
What. . He looked around in search of something. Ella sensed his eyes looking for Käthe, chasing Käthe and failing to find her.
Don’t be like that, tell me what’s the matter.
They’ve sent me home.
Sent you home? Ella couldn’t take it in. Wow, that’s great!
Why was her little brother acting so strangely? He’d never got up to anything bad, surely they wouldn’t have turned him down for labour service? Why wasn’t he grinning?
I’m not well.
Not well? Incredulously, Ella looked at her brother. How did he really seem? Did an invalid look like that? Were the rings round his eyes real, pain expressed in those short sentences? People didn’t fall ill in this family, at least not physically ill. The body proved itself flawless by enjoying unbroken good health. Moments of weakness were for shirkers. Such weaker vessels attracted pitilessly derogatory nicknames, a kind of advance warning. Those who were capable of coping with life and enjoyed their work were people like Käthe who took a cold shower in the morning all the year round, jumped into the icy waters of the Baltic in February, and stood chiselling away at stone or doing other work in a bikini in summer. For some time Ella had suspected that Thomas was Käthe’s favourite child because, apart from his fear of the dark, he had no little aches and pains, there was his radiantly sunny childhood, romantic poetry in his teens, there were the rings, circlets and belts made from brass by Käthe’s golden boy, and of course he always got top marks at school. Above all, however, he was never ill. Nothing about Thomas dried out, no need for him to rest and sleep in a sanatorium. And now he said he was ill? Ella felt resentment, heretical derision. What do you mean, you’re not well?
Don’t laugh. Thomas wrinkled up his nose, looking as if he were about to bare his teeth. The works doctor says it’s shingles.
Shingles? Ella rolled the word around on her tongue. Show me. She was going to pull up his sweater, but he held it down in place. You can die of it if the blisters form a circle all round your body! Ella’s nostrils flared as her fear rose.
Nonsense. Don’t shout like that.
Thomas was suffering, no doubt of it. Ella could hear it in his voice, he was in pain, real physical pain. He sat down in the low leather armchair, Ella knelt on the floor and put a hand on his shoulder. There are old women, you know, witches who can treat that with an incantation, cast a spell and the shingles will go away.
It just has to get better of its own accord. Otherwise I’ll be in pain all my life. It mustn’t spread any more.
Show me, please.
Only if you promise not to show you’re disgusted.
I promise. Ella lifted two fingers as she swore.
And do me a favour, Ella, stop looking at me like a dog. It makes me furious.
I won’t look at you like a dog any more. Ella raised her two fingers again and swore.
When Thomas raised his sweater, carefully, holding it up and away from his body, luckily he had the fabric in front of his eyes and didn’t see Ella’s face. Her silent scream, the open mouth, the look that said she couldn’t believe what she saw. She tried to keep quiet, looked at the raised skin covered with blisters, fiery red, yellow in places with pus both wet and encrusted, mauve like clotted blood at some of the edges of the rash. A devastating, horrible burn spreading everywhere, said Ella, clearing her throat. Looks as if you’ve burnt yourself.