Well, Thomas, there are certain prospects of your getting a place to study medicine.
Medicine? Thomas forgot to blink, and suddenly his eyelids were fluttering. Had he understood Käthe correctly? Medicine was for those who toed the Party line, the children of officers, those who proved their worth in other ways than just getting brilliant results in their school-leaving exam. Thomas couldn’t believe his ears.
In Berlin. Käthe nodded proudly. What did I tell you? Your Käthe will find ways and means. She was singing the words out, carried away by her own joyful news.
And you think of something like this. . Ella hesitated, wondering if it was fair for her to doubt. . something like this in the middle of the holiday season? I mean, the phone hasn’t rung once today. This is New Year’s Day. So how do you know this now?
Hush, don’t ask silly questions. Käthe cut Ella short. You’re pleased, Thomas, aren’t you?
Thomas nodded, yes indeed, he managed to smile. He had learned to do that. The way he looked at her, his silky lashes cast down, his eyes hidden behind them. He felt there was something uncanny about her now, the woman he loved so much. The astonished Ella looked Käthe straight in the face. But how do you know?
Don’t be so inquisitive all the time. Käthe put her head on one side, looking mysterious. As with the naked man who had been kneeling behind Käthe in the studio, Ella felt laughter rising in her, but she suppressed it. She could be serious, pretend to be serious if necessary, she could pretend anything. She poured water into the pan of potatoes and put it on the stove. Ella wondered whether the naked man in the studio had been the lodger. But then wouldn’t she have recognised him? It had been only for a fraction of a second that she saw him, how familiar can a face seem to you in a fraction of a second? Had she recognised someone? Him? Her head was in turmoil. So Käthe’s golden boy was getting what his heart desired, had desired? But he wasn’t jumping for joy, his muscles had wasted during his illness, especially, so it seemed, the muscle of his heart. Ella felt uneasy. The dry air of winter sent her crazy, when she let her hair hang over the table dandruff fell out, like snow, she picked it up with a fingertip and put it on her tongue. The Host, wasn’t that what you called it? Give me this day thy holy bread? Why should she, Ella, be jealous? Jealous of the golden boy.
But you must do a period of practical training, of course. You must work in a hospital for a few months, you know that?
Thomas obediently nodded. His smile had long ago vanished.
You are pleased, aren’t you? A shadow of cautious doubt appeared in Käthe’s eyes. Had she misjudged her darling? Wasn’t she bringing him joy?
Yes, he said firmly, yes, I’m pleased. Just tell me, would you, who’s behind it?
It’s thanks to your grandfather, said Käthe, a mysterious gleam in her eyes. She pointed to the ceiling, probably meaning heaven.
Of course, why had no one thought of him before? The soul gone to heaven. What use was a professor as a grandfather, a great and illustrious mind? Maybe Käthe had spoken to someone of importance at the time of the funeral, made a contact, been able to fix something for her golden boy? Thomas’s strained face showed no joy. Ella felt sure that he had never thought of studying medicine before. The human body interested him less than any plant, any animal. Maybe he had once mentioned that he would be interested in studying botany, that was the name of the course of study he would have dreamed of if he had dreamed at all. But presumably Käthe hadn’t noticed. A place to study medicine must seem to her like a big win on the lottery, a win achieved with the help of the lodger’s friends.
Later, Ella lay on the bed in the room that the lodger hadn’t used for months. Thomas, like a hermit crab, had taken the room over, since he had no other room of his own in the house. Ella listened to the clacking of the typewriter. She had almost finished the wine in her glass, and put it down beside the bed. The clack of the typing sounded like heels going clickety-clack on paving stones, sending messages in Morse code, enticing you. Only the muted light of the desk lamp shining on his hair lit the room. Ella could think of no one she would sooner be close to than Thomas. Lying on the bed, listening to him writing, being with him in his light. How could he help it if Käthe loved him so unconditionally?
Read to me.
Thomas turned round. Holding the sheet of paper in his hands, he began: To Morning: I have lines on my face. His voice faltered, he crossed something out with a pencil and wrote in something new. The rest is great, immensely deep, / with lines on the outside. / Inside there are torn places, and a letter / to my dream of yesterday. // The dream was my word, my song and my life / Filled until then by a draught of hope; / Now I have woken — to a day with no scope / for dreams, that hope wasted on the eternal day. // The loud voices around me / are tinny, scornful in my ears. / No one asked me, I was born / guiltless, of night-time fears. / What’s the use of echoing / others’ loud and cheerful singing? / Inside, in the end, I am at. . How often had she lain like this, letting his words cradle her? The wine made her arms, her forehead and her lips tingle pleasantly.
Are you asleep? Thomas was leaning his hands on his knees, his voice was loud now. She must have nodded off without noticing. You’re not interested. Thomas put the sheet of paper back on the desk.
Yes, I am, of course I’m interested, go on reading, I wasn’t asleep.
Don’t tell lies, you were snoring, loud strong snores.
Ella couldn’t help giggling. Wearily, she turned her head from side to side. Her eyelids felt so heavy that she couldn’t even shake her head.
Can you actually listen without falling asleep? Thomas rubbed his eyes.
Of course I can. Ella sat up with a vigorous movement, and her head fell forward. I saw a smile on your face, she pointed to him, there, I knew it, I spotted it. In between the lines. A smile you didn’t want to show. I know, Ella closed her eyes, I mean, who wants to smile? You were fond of Grandfather, weren’t you?
Thomas breathed in deeply and audibly. Did he have to be patient with her? Ella made her own sense out of his poems; it had as little to do with understanding them as simply listening to them. She just couldn’t listen, she knew that herself, and she couldn’t help it.
We’re all saddled with our own guilt, innocent only when we’re born. Was that a preachy note in his voice? Was he going to deliver a sermon now?
Oh yes? Ella smiled a tipsy smile; sometimes Thomas thought in a very simple, almost plain way.
I did love him, yes. The childish side of him, his bib, the way he dribbled, his hearty laughter when we went to have a meal with the grandparents. Words like bockletop, suddlefoot, snickety-snack, he invented them in the first place, do you remember? He talked to us like that for days when we were little. Covered with the scabs of wounds / In the grip of frozen snow.
Ella shook her head. She had not loved anything about Grandfather, not the professor or his childish side. With the best will in the world she couldn’t see what her brother saw in him. Perhaps her will just wasn’t strong enough. How often was it? Ella found it hard to hide her amazement at the love he suddenly said he had felt, or at least had unexpectedly expressed. If they saw their grandparents two or three times a year, that was often enough.
What does often mean? Love doesn’t observe the frequency of opportunities. And very rarely, sometimes, I forget myself, / as I dare to remember. / As it came, so it goes, / under the pressure of petty things. / I cannot hold it fast, that lovely, lost / ruined dream in the past. / Only the letter I wrote him in his grave / I remember painfully well. // The words are burnt on my mind / they are my only faith — / Now you must forget — it says there, in the blood — / Forget, be silent, wait!