Thomas lowered the pullover.
Where did you catch it?
You’re disgusted after all. Thomas was already smiling his forgiveness. He knew Ella too well, she couldn’t pretend with him.
Not at all. She waved the idea away, and Ella believed what she said, she already felt objectively cool superiority. I’m not disgusted by anything. But where did you catch it?
Don’t worry, it’s not infectious.
As he leaned back in the chair and asked if there was anything to eat in the house — and Ella did not mention the plum compote any more than the stollen, which she had not yet eaten, but she planned to keep for herself — all she could think of was what he was bearing, suffering, enduring.
Don’t look at me like a dog. Thomas spoke sharply, the beginning of the sentence very quiet, the end of it in a voice not very much raised, but she sensed his anger at her helpless pity.
All right. On tiptoe, arms spread wide like a tightrope walker to make a show of her extreme caution, mocking her poor sick brother, Ella left the smoking room and went back to her own room, where the wax of the candle had run down over the holder and onto the rug. Here she crouched in front of the stove and ate her stollen; smacking her lips with relish she licked the burnt sugar off the walnuts. Let Thomas sit there in his armchair, grinning, let him see who could bear it if she couldn’t. He could wait a few more days for Käthe. Would he venture to go and see Michael with his shingles? Or Violetta?
In the morning, when Ella opened the door of the lodger’s room, where Thomas had been sleeping more and more often during the prolonged absence of the lodger himself, he was lying on his bed with his forehead wet with sweat and his face distorted. The skin of his face was reddened by strain, with only a white triangle around his nose left free. A sure sign that he was seriously ill. He was biting his pillow to help him bear the pain.
Help me, please, Thomas groaned, turning on his side. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, and Ella could see the rash under it.
What am I supposed to do?
Ella thought about it; she didn’t know any doctors. She went into the smoking room and looked in the telephone book, but apart from a vet and a dentist she found only a paediatrician and a GP who didn’t have any consulting hours that day.
Get me some painkillers, Thomas called from his room, anything, and maybe the pharmacist can call a doctor. Please!
Ella put Käthe’s woollen coat on. She wondered whether to write to Käthe. Maybe a phone number for the Leuna chemical works could be found?
A doctor came in the evening and examined Thomas. He confirmed the diagnosis: yes, it was shingles, and he couldn’t say what had caused it or suggest anything much in the way of treatment. Apart from painkillers and powdering the rash, there was nothing to be done for shingles.
As soon as the doctor had left, Thomas was whimpering with pain. Ella stuffed cotton wool in her ears to keep the sound out. But in the middle of the night his screaming woke her. She couldn’t bear it, it was sending her out of her mind. She went into his room and shouted at him. Yes, she said, of course it was bad that he was in pain, but if she herself couldn’t get a wink of sleep all night either, it wasn’t going to help anyone. He’d better bite his pillow, she told him, going back to her room, and she took her quilt and lay down on the sofa on the veranda to be out of earshot. Thomas tried to keep quiet.
Five days later Käthe came back. Although she had gone in the Wartburg, she was wearing her pilot’s cap, probably because it was so cold. Agotto was already barking in the yard. He raced in through the doorway ahead of her, wagging his tail. He had jumped up at the door handle and opened it before Käthe came up the stairs with her baggage. There was no greeting, no hello, no how are you? Käthe was indignant. Are you still at nursery school? This is a state commission I have, an important piece of work! Don’t you two have any respect for me? Just because one of my children, almost grown up, is ill, I can’t drop everything back there! What on earth were you thinking of, sending the manager a telegram? She snorted. Am I a professional mother?
Don’t shout at me, Käthe. I thought you ought to know. The works doctor at Gommern sent him home. He’s been here for a week now, screaming with pain day and night. Ella ran both hands through her hair, scratching her scalp nervously and energetically. Honestly, I’ve been sleeping on the veranda the last few nights because I can’t stand it.
So where is he now?
Where do you think? In bed, of course.
Of course, of course. People don’t go to bed in broad daylight. Käthe took her pilot’s cap off and stalked through the smoking room, opened the door to the corridor and called to the rooms off it: Käthe’s back, everyone rise and shine!
But no one rose; no one appeared at all.
Ella had seldom seen Käthe so annoyed with her favourite child. Didn’t he always do everything right, didn’t he say the cleverest things, wasn’t he the most handsome boy in the world?
From a distance, Ella heard Käthe finally walking down the corridor. She stayed in Thomas’s room for quite a long time. When she reappeared she had changed. Her annoyance had given way to deep concern.
If we don’t find someone who can cure this thing he could die, Ella, do you realise that?
For a moment Ella hesitated; then she nodded. I heard of a woman in Erkner. Ella quietly tried explaining her idea. They say she can work magic — with her hands and with spells.
A witch? Käthe laughed heartily and put her blue working jacket on. First you can give me a hand getting the statue out of the car.
Ella looked enquiringly at Käthe. Käthe turned and led the way downstairs and into the yard, where her Wartburg was standing with its tailgate open. A monster wrapped in cloths and a blanket, all tied up with coarse rope, lay on the folded-down rear seat of the estate car. A smell of wet dog came from the car. Presumably Agotto had had to lie beside the statue on the way.
The plaster wasn’t even dry when I had to set out. But it was wonderful, the Brigade there had never seen anything like it. The director’s eyes popped out of his head. Along comes Käthe to show them what art is! Käthe spread her arms wide. Careful, take it by the plinth. No, wait, turn round. Käthe harassed Ella, making her go this way and that, she was to hold on more firmly, bend her knees sooner, more to the left, and be careful where she was treading when she walked backwards. It was the same as usual, as if Ella were helping her for the first time. Every order struck home. No sooner had Ella put the plinth carefully down on the wooden turntable, pulled away the blanket from under the stand and undone the packaging from below, to help Käthe get the statue erect, than Käthe said impatiently: Go a little way to the side, and pushed the statue towards Ella. Ella caught the package in both arms. Two heads came into sight, the bodies scarcely separated yet. A dancer with two heads. Maybe two dancers who were still merged together. Ella could already guess whose leg would belong to a man or a woman later, one of the woman’s legs was coming away from the bulk of the rock at the back, one of the man’s legs was wound round her. They shared a body, their heads were separate.
Do you like it? Käthe was watching Ella’s expression. This woman in Erkner — well, why not? Erkner, that’s some way to go. I have things to do here. You’d better take your bike and cycle there. We want the woman to cure Thomas.
Ella nodded. She rode her bicycle to Erkner to fetch the woman who could work magic.
The woman couldn’t come until the following day, because she worked on Saturday and had to fill the shelves after the shop closed. She was a sales assistant in a grocer’s shop in Erkner.