Without a word Geerte took the baby from her and carried her into the adjacent bedroom.
She should be burped.
I’ll lay her on her stomach.
And cover her well.
Their words died away as if vanishing in cotton. The old floor creaked, almost cried, under Geerte’s steps, which echoed in the high-ceilinged hall under the blackened beams. She should get up. This has been nothing but a kind of extra suckle. She should have left long ago. But she didn’t have the heart because the baby cried so hard. The suckling had so loosened her body she was unable to rouse her sense of responsibility toward her own child. When Geerte returned after a few minutes, she found her in the same position. Including one breast hastily freed from her beige silk blouse: blazon of the ample body. She wore a long, close-fitting, dark, heavy silk skirt that opened into two wide inverted pleats above the knees. With her hands in her lap, she was sitting rather like an old person. Her heavy, dense chestnut hair, gathered in a chignon at the neck, had come somewhat undone.
Geerte lowered herself on her chair, for only a minute, she thought, and scooted a bit closer; their knees almost touched. They were looking at each other, smiling imperceptibly. Their smiles softened the glances with which they grazed each other’s surfaces; they kept returning to each other’s eyes, spending more and more time, one might say lingering more and more impersonally, in them.
I’d like to ask you something, Geerte, something rather personal.
Go ahead, ask away, Erna, anything, replied the other woman quietly.
If it’s too embarrassing, you don’t have to answer it, Geerte, that would be perfectly understandable.
For a long time now, I’ve had the feeling that I have no great secrets from you, Erna. You can hardly have any questions I wouldn’t willingly answer.
I’ve been meaning to ask you for days, how long after the second birth, or after the first one, after giving birth in general, when did you give yourself to your husband.
Never.
There was silence for a while.
What this means, continued the other woman, is that never after the second birth, never again.
Erna had not expected this quick and unequivocal reply. And she thought, no, it’s not possible that this would be the end of her life. And that happiness would last such a short time. Geerte’s answer hit her as a well-aimed coup de grâce. And gone too was the confidence she had had in Geerte. Never again, that just isn’t possible.
She looked at the strange woman with aversion and pity. One simply cannot be done with life at the age of twenty-eight. Involuntarily the next round of their glances set off in opposite directions. They had to avoid each other. As if to obey the dictates of decency.
But maybe it is like that, after all, only no one ever told her. It seems that it’s indeed that way, in which case there’s no point in doubting or protesting. She must accept it.
Geerte had on a light gray-and-white-striped housedress with a high collar. She had the air of a schoolgirl who had been deliberately dressed in uninteresting clothes and who had done nothing to make herself interesting.
Yet she was very interesting.
She showed no penchant for joking or lightheartedness; if she says this is the way it is, then this is the way it is. She kept her legs, in their coarse cotton stockings, pressed tightly together as if she had been ordered to behave decently.
Just as she said.
Her statement created such a tense silence that she was the one who had to break it.
But don’t go away like that, Erna, one shouldn’t go outside like that, she said, her voice hoarse, and she pointed to Erna’s blouse to show where the milk had soaked through.
She had to change clothes anyway.
As though she had shouted, stay with me for a while, my love. Take no offense, no matter what I say. Each with her own strong accent spoke a kind of schoolroom German. Erna with her open vowels, Geerte with the consonants rolling from her throat. Nevertheless, Erna’s impression now was that she had misunderstood something; perhaps the other woman had said something the wrong way in the language that was foreign to them both. As though she understood a sentence that had not been uttered, or that had been said but had a very different meaning.
Thanks for telling me, she responded, a little embarrassed, I’ve noticed it myself. My bras, slips, my blouses, everything is full of milk all the time, she added, laughing a little and a little irritated. She took a deep breath. But if you don’t mind, I’m still interested, could you possibly tell me why you never let him come to you again. Please don’t be angry for my asking such a thing, you probably understand I’m asking this for my own sake.
Which sounded like an unnecessary confession.
As if assuming Geerte hadn’t understood why she asked.
She simply wanted to compel the other woman to continue, to speak, to tell her everything. Not to let modesty hold her back. She felt she was entering unknown territory, violating all the rules of propriety. And that was exactly what she wanted. It helped that she was speaking a foreign language; that way she could go much further than in her own. And Geerte was turning her head this way and that, as if showing her willingness to speak; after all, her openness also had its selfish side. But she was still thinking; she opened her mouth as if in the next instant she’d find the right word, but then she merely nodded to what she thought to herself.
She was struggling.
She did not dare or could not say it.
Erna found so much seriousness rather comical, even though she understood the hesitation.
She struggled stubbornly with herself; she did not want to be false or vulnerable. She lowered her heavy eyelids, her large lips trembled several times. She was thinking, weighing things; and it was beautiful how she let it be seen that she had to reach back into the past for the answer. With her thoughts, she obviously grazed herself several times — while she was thinking, contemplating, and while Erna, in pleasurable anticipation, waited for her response. On every occasion, no matter what they talked about, Erna was moved to the depths of her soul by the seriousness and openness of this exceptionally structured pale face. Absentmindedly, she continued unbuttoning her blouse to free her other breast too, from which milk was visibly seeping. Under her blouse, she wore not a bra but a tight white camisole. Earlier, to free one breast quickly and pacify the baby, she had undone only its upper buttons.
When she was done with the blouse, she had to continue with the buttons.
I’d like to, I’d really like to tell you. Still, I’m not sure I can, said Geerte after a short while, drawing out her words, and as she spoke, her eyes absently focused on Erna’s ringed, nervously busy fingers as they looked for the tiny buttons sewn closely one below the other. The camisole was so tight that the base of each button, sewn with strong thread, stretched every buttonhole to the limit. The impression was that at any moment her strong, ample body would split the fine material and pop all the buttons. It’s also difficult to talk about something like this because I don’t know, I’ve no way of knowing, how you feel about it, Erna. Or anyone else. I believe people don’t talk much about this sort of thing. They think it’s such a simple matter it’s not worth talking about. And perhaps they’re right. I don’t know. A woman gets pregnant, gives birth, and that’s that. That’s the end of it. And then she suckles the baby. But it was never like this for me. For me it was never that simple, and that’s the reason I could never talk about it to anyone.