Ella balanced her way along the rail. If she could make it to a hundred planks along the tramline, everything would be all right. What, everything?
One, two, three, four, no Siegfried and no Johnny, no one had turned up at Ella’s new apartment in Köpenick on Saturday, no Michael and no Violetta. Eight, nine, perhaps she had only imagined the invitations and never asked anyone out loud, ten? Ella wobbled, regained her balance and went on. Eleven, twelve, around midnight, tired of waiting, she had gone to sleep. Only next day, on Sunday, had she gone to Rahnsdorf to see Thomas. Why didn’t you come? She knew he had the note, he couldn’t talk his way out of that, she had invited him, she’d even put it in writing. Fifteen, sixteen, or had she counted plank number fifteen twice? Eighteen, nineteen. Why hadn’t he come to celebrate and dance with her? Twenty, twenty-one, he usually liked to be with her. Twenty-three. He had tried over the last two months, tried hard with her when she couldn’t remember a figure or a name, let alone a date. Twenty-five. A fire salamander was lying on the rails in front of her, basking in the sun, Ella wobbled again, she didn’t want to alarm the salamander, she got down into the grass and crouched beside the rail, stretched her hand out and waited. The salamander would come. Bubbles in her head, and blue elephants, they didn’t need any formulas or correct spelling.
When she lost her temper with Thomas while she was studying, because she thought he spoke too fast, when she had cried because she thought she would never get any algebra into her head, where blue elephants still lurked round every corner, stealing as much space as they could, and even when she had been angry, calling him an ape, pulling his hair and throwing her compasses at him because she didn’t understand something — he had just sat there, at the most ducking out of the way. If she had run off he would be waiting for her, handing her her pencil when she came back hours later. The salamander moved its head, it turned, went several steps towards Ella, stopped and waited with its head in the sun. Something had warned it, maybe it could sense Ella’s uneasiness, she had no time to wait here for a salamander while the door of the room in Rahnsdorf had been closed all yesterday evening, and perhaps it still was.
Thomas had sat with her for weeks on end. Her clever little brother, who had simply overtaken and passed her at school, who had sat his final exams the year before. The stars, botany, poetry? Rubbish, good only for the back of beyond. Käthe was pleased, proud of her golden boy’s many interests. Gifted, said Ella to herself, gifted, that was how it sounded when Käthe said it. Ella was certainly not jealous, as Käthe liked to claim. But gifts didn’t do those in need any good, those who were to suffer were gifted. However, the German Democratic Republic had other plans for the sons of what it supposed was its intelligentsia. Ella got up, the salamander startled by her movement, scuttled away. It wasn’t much farther to Rahnsdorf, she could be there in ten minutes’ time if she wanted.
Why hadn’t Thomas come to Ella’s house-warming party? How could he fail to celebrate the most important day of her nineteen years of life with her? Her escape from that dark house, her first apartment of her own, the life of freedom that was just beginning.
Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to leave the twins on their own. Käthe had been in Leuna for weeks, and wouldn’t be back until Monday. Monday was today. It would take her several hours to get here from Leuna, she wouldn’t arrive until late in the morning or around midday. Ella walked along between the tramlines where the grass grew high. She bent down and picked a stem of shepherd’s purse. You could chew the seeds if you felt restless. The heart-shaped little pod lay on the tongue like a tiny sweet. She pushed it between her front teeth and bit it.
When Ella had arrived at Käthe’s house yesterday afternoon, she found his door closed. She heard his voice on the other side of it, and Marie’s voice too. Music was playing softly on the radio. At first Ella didn’t want to disturb them; she thought she would wait for them to leave the room and then tell them off. Why didn’t you come to my party? But when they still hadn’t come out of the room an hour later, she had knocked. There had been no reply from Thomas. The twins ran along the corridor, one chasing the other, they pulled out tufts of each other’s hair and waved these trophies in the air, shouting. Ella had gone into the garden, enjoying Käthe’s absence. Was she a guest in the house now? Did having her own apartment make her a guest here, a secret, uninvited guest? Ella had lain down in the meadow beside the fuchsias to enjoy the last of the sun. Without Käthe there were no orders to do housework, no weeding, no cooking meals. When Ella came into the house later, the twins had bitten each other, and cheerfully showed Ella the bite marks. The door of Thomas’s room was still closed. Ella had listened. Quiet murmuring, she hadn’t been able to make out a word. Or perhaps she had only imagined the murmuring? She had knocked, but no one had answered. She had knocked a second time. All was quiet on the other side of the door. Later she had gone out at twilight to throw little stones up at Thomas’s window. Are you ever going to open that door?
If today was September the third, then yesterday had been the second. Or was she wrong, hadn’t she spent a sleepless night beside the Müggelsee, had she been there not just for a few hours overnight but for a whole day and a night? How long was Thomas going to hide away in his room with his girlfriend Marie?
Ella could see the ruins of the mill behind the trees already; in less than five minutes she would be in Rahnsdorf. Yellow St John’s wort was fading everywhere, the tall grass had scorched during the summer, and the rusty red spikes of sorrel were drying to brown.
The twins had moaned and grumbled; wasn’t Ella going to have something to eat with them? But Ella had not been hungry, and was restless, she kept going up and down the corridor, past Thomas’s locked door, she listened, she went into the bathroom and back to the smoking room, always past that door. When she came into the smoking room the twins were sitting on the sofa, swinging their legs and whining. Ella closed her ears to them and went back to the corridor, the dark corridor, past Thomas’s room, past Käthe’s bedroom, she looked into her own room, the room she had occupied until a few days ago. Her former room, now taken over by the twins. They had tidied up and made their beds. Perhaps they had learned to do that in the children’s home or from their foster-family. Back in the corridor Ella had to pass Thomas’s door again. The silence astonished her. She stopped. Had someone turned off the radio? She knocked. Still no answer. Bastard, thought Ella, just you wait, when you come out I’ll give you a piece of my mind. Where were you, why didn’t you come to my party? Ella could hear her own breathing against the door. She bent down and tried to look through the keyhole. But now that Thomas had changed the lock you couldn’t see through it any more. He might possibly have stopped it up, sticking something over it on the inside. She knocked a second time. Thomas? Ella heard herself asking, and this time she pressed the door handle down. Someone must have locked it. Ella held the handle down and leaned against the door. The new catch didn’t have a key, but hadn’t he fitted a bolt on the inside only a few weeks ago? So the door could be locked only from inside the room. Ella had gone back into the smoking room. The twins had come out of the kitchen with their hands full of raisins, which they placed on the table, dividing them, raisin by raisin, into two equal piles. Couldn’t they cook something themselves? She knew very little about the twins.