So? I have two children myself, don’t I? We have no man around the house. We can’t pay the typesetter any longer. We aren’t making any profit these days. You know that better than anyone, Helene. What did last year look like in the accounts?
Helene put down her knife and fork. She picked up her napkin and dabbed her mouth with it. Better than this year.
And worse than any year before, am I right?
Helene did not nod. She hated the idea of presenting Mother with the words and gestures she expected.
There we are, then. The typesetter is dismissed.
Helene found the next few weeks a difficult time. She wasn’t used to being alone all day. The typesetter hadn’t been seen since the day he was dismissed. He was said to have left the town with his family. Helene sat in the printing works day after day, waiting for customers who never came. She was supposed to be studying from Martha’s book for the admission examination she must take for nursing, but she just leafed through it and found hardly anything she didn’t already know. The exact sequence of compresses and bandaging to be used for various illnesses was part of the final nursing exam rather than this one. Most of the book was concerned with what you would have to learn during your training, and after she had leafed through it the few details she hadn’t known before were fixed in her memory. So Helene began reading other books, the books that she found on her father’s shelves. His daughters were forbidden to take any volumes out of that mighty bookcase, but even in the old days when Father was still here, his daughters had felt that it was a particularly exciting adventure and a test of their courage to borrow those precious books. They would push Stifter’s The Condor further to the left so as not to leave a gap where Kleist’s The Marquise of O, had been standing. The books stood in no particular order on their father’s shelves, which upset Helene a little, but she wasn’t sure whether her mother kept an eye on this disorder, or what might happen if she took it upon herself to rearrange the books in alphabetical order. As she read, Helene kept her ears pricked, and as soon as she heard a sound she hid the book under her apron. She often looked out of the door when she thought she heard Leontine’s deep voice. Once, quite unexpectedly, the door opened and Martha and Leontine came in, laughing, with a big basket.
Goodness, how red your cheeks are! said Leontine, passing her hand briefly over Helene’s hair. I hope you aren’t running a temperature?
Helene shook her head. She had a treasure tucked under her apron. She had found it on the very top shelf of the bookcase, wrapped in newspaper and lying behind the other books as if hidden away. It was more than a hundred years old. The cardboard binding was covered with coloured paper and there was an embossed title: Penthesilea. A Tragedy. Helene apologized briefly to Martha and Leontine, bent down behind the big wooden counter and hid her treasure in the lowest drawer there. She put some of the old Bautzen Household Almanacs over the book to conceal it.
A farmer from the Lusatian Hills had given Leontine the basket of peas as a thank-you present. Months ago, she had splinted a difficult break of his wrist. Now Leontine put the big basket on the counter in front of Helene. It was full of plump green pea pods. Helene immediately plunged both hands into the basket and ploughed them through the pods. They had a young, grassy smell. Helene loved popping pods open with her thumb and the sensation of pushing out the smooth, gleaming, green peas from top to bottom in order of size, to roll down her thumb and into the bowl. She would put the tiny peas that weren’t fully mature yet straight into her mouth. Martha and Leontine were talking about something that Helene wasn’t supposed to understand, giggling and gurgling. They spoke only in mysterious half-sentences.
He was asking all the nurses and the patients about you. Oh, and to see his face when he finally found you! Martha was amused.
Dear child. Leontine rolled her eyes as she spoke, obviously imitating the farmer.
Oh, I come over all peculiar when I see you, nurse! Martha put in. She was spluttering with laughter. Nurse, I’m yours heart and soul!
He didn’t say that? Leontine was laughing too.
He did. You should have seen the way his hand kept going to his trousers. I thought he was going to fall on you there and then.
But our dear professor didn’t think it was funny at alclass="underline" oh, take your peas and go away, you seem to have finished work at noon today. Leontine sighed. And usually I can never stay too long for him.
Are you surprised? Didn’t you hear what he said to the ward sister about you the other day: she may look like a flapper, but she’s something of a bluestocking!
He thinks highly of you, but his fears are growing.
Fears? Leontine waved the idea away. Our professor doesn’t know the meaning of fear. Why, anyway? I’m a nurse, that’s all.
The girls were shelling the peas now.
A long silence followed. But suppose you do go away after all? Martha was bracing herself for anything.
Helene didn’t want to see her sister’s grave face now. She tried to imagine she was invisible.
Leontine did not react.
Go away to Dresden, I mean. To study. That’s what everyone is saying you’ll do.
Never. Leontine hesitated. Not unless you come with me.
That’s stupid, Leontine, just plain stupid. Martha sounded both sad and stern. You know I can’t.
There you are, then, said Leontine. In that case nor can I.
Martha put her hand on the nape of her friend’s neck, drew her face close and kissed her on the lips.
Helene’s breath faltered; she quickly turned away. There must be something she ought to do, look for something on the top shelf of the bookcase, or maybe take a stack of paper out of its pigeonhole and put it on the desk. The picture seemed to be burned on her retina: Martha drawing Leontine towards her, Leontine pursing her lips ready for the kiss. Perhaps Helene had mistaken what she saw? She risked a cautious glance over her shoulder. Leontine and Martha were bending over the basket full of pea pods, and it was as if there had never been a kiss at all.
But suppose you took her with you? She could train as a nurse in Dresden. Leontine was speaking quietly, now, and her glance went to Helene. Helene acted as if she had heard nothing and hadn’t realized that they were talking about her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martha shaking her head. There was another long silence. Helene felt that her presence was inhibiting their conversation. At first she thought of leaving the two of them alone and going out, but next moment she felt rooted to the spot. She couldn’t move her feet; she severed the umbilical cords of the peas and felt a sense of shame. She didn’t want Leontine to leave them, she didn’t want Martha and Leontine to stop talking because of her, and she didn’t want Martha and Leontine to kiss each other either.
That evening in bed, Helene turned her back to Martha. Martha could scratch her own back, she thought. Helene didn’t want to cry. She breathed deeply and her eyes swelled, her nose felt smaller and stuffed up. Breathing was difficult.
Helene didn’t want to count freckles either, or feel for Martha’s stomach under the blanket. She thought of the kiss. And while she imagined kissing Leontine, knowing that only Martha would kiss her, tears escaped from her eyes.
Mother expected Helene to run the printing works so that no red figures had to be written in the accounts books. She found that easier every day. A profit recently entered could easily compensate for the losses of the early part of the year, which appeared numerically slight by comparison. What that meant wasn’t clear to Mother. She was just surprised to see how seldom Helene ran any of the machines.
Not wishing to waste stocks of paper, Helene designed simple calculation tables. She suspected that people could make good use of her ready reckoners in these times of rising prices.