Helene crossed the Steinplatz. A thaw had come, changeable weather. She wondered why Carl wanted to see her so urgently. Maybe the philosopher in Hamburg had sent an answer. The man from Freiburg had written just before Christmas rejecting Carl’s application. He was impressed, he wrote, by Carl’s summa cum laude, but not so impressed by Hegel, and the posts for assistant lecturers were all filled. Helene stopped in Fasanenstrasse. A bicycle rang its bell behind her. It suddenly occurred to her that the cyclist might be Carl, who rode his bicycle in all weathers. She turned, but it was only a baker’s boy who must have thought the road itself too slushy for him to ride on it. Helene stepped to one side, standing on a small mound of ice that was melting at the edges, and let the baker’s boy ride past on the pavement. The wheels of his bicycle splashed slush on her coat. They were just waiting for Cassirer’s answer now. In January, all doors were still open to Carl in Berlin. He could choose between those two professors who were vying for him here. But what he really wanted even more was to build up a reputation for research of his own, and for the last few weeks it hadn’t looked as if he still seriously expected a reply from the philosopher Cassirer in Hamburg. What else could seem to Carl so urgent; why didn’t he want to wait until this evening? Perhaps he wanted to see her to discuss the forthcoming visit to his parents that weekend? She was afraid to meet them. She and Carl had almost quarrelled the evening before. Helene had said she couldn’t go to see his parents empty-handed, she wanted to buy them a present. Carl didn’t think that was right. They needed the money badly for other things: food, books, and not least for their future life together when they moved to a proper apartment. Helene wanted to give his parents a little green vase that she had seen at Kronenberg’s, in a corner at the front of the display window. A green vase? Carl had said incredulously, and it had seemed to Helene that he was mocking her. Even this morning, when they said goodbye to each other, Carl had told her his parents really wouldn’t be expecting any present. They had wanted to meet Helene for years and, after all, his parents knew that they weren’t exactly rich. Carl had been putting together the books he would need this morning, standing with his back to her, and murmured something else. What did you say? Helene had to ask, and he had turned round and said, in a casual tone of voice: The fact is, they don’t know you’re living with me. Helene had to sit down. It was a good three years since she had begun sharing his room. Every month she tried to buy as much of the food for their housekeeping as possible with her own money, since Carl refused to take any of it for the rent because his parents paid that. So did he want her to pretend to his parents on Sunday that she was still living with her aunt?
Carl had tried to calm her down, assuring her that he was going to tell them the truth himself on Sunday.
But in Helene’s eyes that was worst of all. How could he take his long-standing fiancée to his home for the first time and say, during lunch: Oh, we’ve known each other for four years now, we got engaged to be married two years ago, but anyway we’ve been living together for over three years? Helene rubbed her eyes.
Look, you would never come with me to see them, how was I to explain that yes, you were living with me, but you didn’t want to meet them?
Oh, so now I’m to blame, am I?
No, Helene, it’s nothing to do with blame. It would have struck them as uncivil. How could I say that you simply didn’t feel confident enough?
Helene had wanted to answer back but didn’t dare, and she felt uncomfortable about that. She had scrubbed at her eyes until Carl came over and held her hands. Who did his parents think, she wondered, was washing and mending Carl’s clothes, making sure he had a hot meal in the evening and keeping the room bright and cheerful, feeding the sparrows on the windowsill, watering the orchid in its herbarium when Carl crossed the Monti della Trinità every summer to go on holiday with his parents near Lake Zürich? When they went away his father did research work at the Swiss National Observatory, working out cycloids and mapping sunspots, while mother and son went to concerts together. His sister hadn’t accompanied them on those holidays since her marriage. Carl had kissed Helene’s hands and assured her that they would clear it all up on Sunday, the two of them. It was only a small thing they had to explain between them then; this was about their life together, after all, and everything that still lay ahead in their future.
Helene had to take care not to slip as she walked along. Ice still lay under the melting snow in many places. She had to wait outside the Memorial Church for a long time; the cars were driving slowly and skidding on the road. Carl was a good cyclist, he’d be careful, or he might have left his bicycle at the library. The big Kurfürstendamm clock said ten to one. Helene felt restless and stationed herself under the awning above the huge window of the Romanesque Café.
She was sure Carl had some good news to tell her. Perhaps he’d been offered another post somewhere? Perhaps he hadn’t made up his mind between the two offers here and wanted to ask her which she thought the best choice? But if he had spent the morning in the library, as he had said earlier that he would, then nothing world-shaking could have happened there. Helene smiled nervously. She remembered how Carl would sometimes stop reading in the evening because he wanted to tell her some great idea that had occurred to him. Helene’s eyes searched to both right and left of the Memorial Church on the other side of the crossing. Wasn’t that a cyclist wearing a cap like Carl’s over there? But perhaps he had left the library some time ago and had telephoned from Viktoria-Luise-Platz? And perhaps that was because he’d met the postman and the postman had brought him a letter from Hamburg. Hamburg was said to be a beautiful city. Sometimes Helene dreamed of living in a city with a harbour. She liked to see big ships. It seemed to her one of the disadvantages of her birthplace that it was neither by the sea nor in the high mountains. She knew mountains only from a distance, and anyway the Lusatian Hills were small and not real mountains at all. The sea was clear and distinct in her mind’s eye; she had painted it in glowing colours for Carl, but she had never actually seen it.
Helene came out from under the awning and took a few steps to the left towards Tauentzienstrasse, in case he was coming that way. She looked around searchingly, wishing he would arrive. The four points of the compass just weren’t enough here, and she didn’t know which way he’d be coming. The sea, no… but she did know the big ships on the Elbe at Dresden. The clock said five past one. Suddenly Helene thought she knew why he had to see her in such a hurry, and laughed with relief. He had bought their wedding rings. Helene straightened her hat. Why hadn’t that occurred to her before? He wanted to give her a surprise, that must be it. Perhaps he’d meant them to meet inside the café here and she had misunderstood. He was inviting her out in honour of the day. Helene looked around her. She couldn’t very well go in; she might miss his arrival. A car hooted. Couldn’t that woman with her two children move a little faster? But the traffic was getting worse and worse, and suppose there was another storm? Helene looked up at the clock. Quarter past one. Perhaps something had kept him. It wasn’t like Carl to be late. When they had arranged to meet somewhere, he was usually waiting for her at the appointed place when she arrived. Helene looked in all directions once again, turned a few steps to the right. He might be coming along Budapester Strasse. The square, the tall church, the pavements, the roadways, they were all clearly visible despite the bright sunshine. Advertising pillars, people standing in line outside kiosks. Both cars and passers-by skidded in the slush; a coachman had to keep cracking his whip to get his horse moving. Helene shifted from foot to foot; her feet were wet and cold. She remembered the horse falling over on the day they arrived in Berlin. Had that horse died? A heart attack, trouble with its brain or lungs. An embolism. She had decided to take her boots to the cobbler this week. This would have been a good day; she’d have had time today. Since she didn’t have a second pair she’d have to wait in the shop until the cobbler had stitched them up and resoled them.