Is that a sound?
Ella’s eyes fall on the bottle of wine, which is almost empty, a single glass stands beside the bed, they were probably both drinking from it. She lets go of Marie’s hair.
Here I am, says a twin from the window — the curtain is still billowing between them. Ella gets up, goes over to the window and stands in front of it. The girl is standing at the top of the ladder, but she doesn’t know how to haul herself over the sill, her arms are too short. She is smiling mischievously.
Climb down, Ella tells her sister. Go on, get down that ladder.
The other girl is waiting at the bottom, holding the ladder firmly with both hands. Come on down.
The twin nimbly climbs backwards down the ladder. Ella looks at the bed with the two bodies on it. Stark naked. Why does that term occur to her? Is there a difference between naked and stark naked?
Thomas’s trousers are hanging over the arm of the chair. Ella picks them up, put her hand into one of the pockets, where she finds some folded sheets of paper, and reads. And who will sit / in judgement on us? / You who see us, / do not forget, / we love each other. She stuffs them back and tries the other pocket. She knows what she will read on the small, torn-off note: Coming to my house-warming on 1 September? Please do! And bring Marie with you. She puts the note in her own trouser pocket and arranges Thomas’s trousers as neatly as possible on the chair again. Her glance falls on Marie’s dress hanging over the other chair-arm, a special dress, dark blue with a black velour pattern that Ella would like to touch, a tiny pair of panties on top of it, like a child’s, a little vest with thin shoulder straps. She has arranged her sandals as a pair so that the toes are touching. They are probably closer together than people’s feet could ever stand wearing shoes.
Are you coming, Ella? The twins down in the garden are getting impatient. Ella goes to the window and pushes the curtain aside. Since when were colours so pale? Ella sees the dry grass with spots before her eyes. She climbs out on the windowsill and from there to the ladder.
The twins wait until Ella has reached the bottom.
Well? asks one twin, and then they both ask together: Are they dead?
Ella takes the ladder away; uncertain whether or not to carry it back to the veranda, she lets it fall in the grass. She walks off.
You’re crying, says one of the twins, going along beside Ella and observing her with unconcealed curiosity. Why are you crying? asks the other twin, trotting along behind them.
A car clatters over the cobblestones. Ella walks along beside the wall of the house as far as the corner, but she doesn’t want to go into the garden now. She goes back, past the twins, who are sitting in the grass beside the ladder. What are we going to do now? asks the first twin. Wait for Käthe, says the second twin.
Without a word, Ella leaves the twins sitting in the grass and goes round to the other side of the house and the entrance to the yard. Didn’t Käthe take her car to the garage before going to Leuna? Has she had her motorbike repaired? It’s been standing in the shed without a back wheel for the past year or so, going rusty. Ella hears the distant squealing of the tram. They can go to meet it. It’s true that Ella does not know exactly when and by what means Käthe will arrive, but she must be here some time in the next few hours. Ella and the twins walk up and down outside the house. When a car passes once, the twins wave to it wildly, as if a steamer were sailing past on the bank. Ella sits down on the sandy path. She leans against the fence, folds her arms over her knees and puts her head down on them. She will look up only when one of the twins calls: Käthe! Until then she can count elephants to her heart’s content. One of them has an almost purple skin, but that could be because of the sun burning down on it. The air above the asphalt flickers. Aren’t the elephants thirsty? They are sinking into fluid tar with their heavy legs. Even making a great effort, they can’t move from the spot, the tar around their legs is sticking them to the ground.
Here comes Käthe! Ella hears the twins calling. She’s coming, she’s coming! And they add: Come on, let’s go and meet her.
Ella’s arm is wet. She stands up, wipes her tears from it with the other arm, and with small steps, swinging her arms, waving her trunk, she follows the twins, who are running towards a woman coming from the tram stop, loaded down with a rucksack and a heavy bag, tottering as she passes the mill on the way towards them.
Thomas is dead, whispers Ella, but Käthe doesn’t see her, looks past her, it is not clear whether she heard what Ella said. Or did Ella only think she said it?
Can’t someone take this bag? says Käthe to the twins, putting the heavy bag down in the middle of the front doorway. Go into the studio, you can make something with the clay in there. The twins do not obey. They are running back and forth between Käthe and Ella, until Käthe gives one of them a shove because apparently she trod on Käthe’s toes. Didn’t I tell you to go down? Out of here! Käthe grabs the twins by the scruffs of their necks, like kittens; holding them like that she takes them through the smoking room to the back door and right through the kitchen. She opens the nearest door, takes the twins by their wrists, hauls them over to the staircase leading down to the studio. You two stay here until I call you. And she shuts the door behind them, even turning the key, as if the twins couldn’t get back into the house any time by going out of the studio door and across the yard.
Käthe telephones, she goes to the toilet, she leafs through her post stacked on the table in the smoking room. She brushes the badminton racket off her chair so that it falls to the floor, and sits down. Soon after that she goes into the kitchen and runs water from the tap. When the bell rings she opens the front door. She points to the door they want and goes back into the kitchen, where she finishes her glass of water.
And what are you doing, running about after me all the time? Ask the men if they’d like some coffee. Take them the sheet they asked for.
Ella opens the dark linen cupboard that stands in one corner of the smoking room. The telephone rings. Käthe goes to answer and says, into the receiver, of course I haven’t forgotten the meeting. . yes. . no. With the sheet over her arm, Ella opens the door into the corridor. The men have broken down the door of Thomas’s room. First there were only two policemen, now a doctor has joined them. Ella looks through the open doorway into the room. The doctor gives instructions. Can she spread out the sheet on the floor beside the bed? Ella nods vaguely; of course she can do that. She shakes out the sheet until it is lying flat and smooth on the bouclé rug. The doctor has asked one of the policemen to lend a hand. It isn’t easy; they try it from different angles, but the bodies are stiffly entwined. Maybe here? Ella hears the policeman ask, and sees him about to take hold of the hip of Marie’s body. The doctor advises the shoulders. Will it take long, will it take minutes, will it take for ever? They are clasping each other tightly. When they lift Marie’s body off Thomas, it turns out that her radiant white skin, still dazzling on her back, is discoloured on her front; there are dark, purple, almost black marks on her stomach and her breasts. Carefully, the two men lay Marie’s body on the flat sheet.
The doorbell is ringing again. Ella goes to the front door, opens it and lets the new men in. Carrying huge zinc tubs, they knock into things all over the place, there is much clattering and clanking.
The first policemen tell their colleagues they can put the coffins down and wait out in the yard; they haven’t finished in here yet. Can they leave the coffins down in the bathroom, or where? Ella nods uncertainly. She approaches the bed and sits down at the far end, beside Thomas’s feet. On the floor, the doctor is examining Marie’s body, pressing his thumbs down on various parts of her stomach. He examines her eyes, and tries to look inside her mouth with a small flashlight. He has put down his stethoscope; it is hanging over Thomas’s trousers on the arm of the chair.