Are you talking about us, are you talking about love? Now Helene did touch his finger with hers and noticed him start. He was so captivated that he didn’t even turn his eyes to look at her.
You wanted me to read aloud and I am reading aloud. Love, to Spinoza, is nothing but cheerfulness, cheerfulness contingent on the idea of its ultimate cause.
Your eyes are shining. I could lie beside you all evening just looking at your chin, your profile, your nose, the way the lids come down over your eyes. Helene drew up her knees; there was still the blanket between her and Carl.
Carl was going to explain something about desire in relation to love and the relation of both to reason, but he had forgotten the logic of it all; something else had taken him over, something that could not rest any more, could not be a subject for reflection, he wanted to be outside himself, beyond himself, with her. Words flew past. Her mouth was so sweet. He didn’t want to think any more, he had cast his will aside, there was no restraining him now. He felt naked. The touch of the blanket separating him from her excited him enormously. With pure desire, he looked at Helene and kissed her, kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, his lips felt the smooth skin of her curving forehead, his hand stroked her silky hair, the golden brightness of her hair shone through the narrow opening of his eyelids. His hand felt her collarbone, the curve of her shoulders, his fingertip felt the dimples that he knew so well by sight. Her arms seemed so long, her armpit was moist, he buried his hand in it, he lay close. He heard his breath gasping as he lay against her. Helene’s fragrance lured him so much it hurt. Her arms were folded over her breasts, he had to breathe deeply, he saw time unfurling before him, he could find peace with her if only he wanted to, if only he wanted to, but where was his will now? Reason, he called silently to himself, he saw the word before his eyes, plain and sober, he didn’t know its meaning any more. Nothing but letters with no sound. Sound and meaning were all gone. But his gasping breath was caught between his lips and her curves and hollows, and her breathing was carried to his ear.
The candle hissed, the wick collapsed and sank. The darkness was pleasantly cool. Carl stared into the dark. Helene’s breath came regularly, her eyes were probably closed. He could hardly sleep, her fragrance kept him awake, rousing him even if he did fall into a dream for a few seconds. She was not breathing as deeply as he was, perhaps she wasn’t asleep. He put his hand out to her.
She liked his gentle mouth, his lips, demanding in a different way from Martha’s, with a taste that was new to her.
It will be nice to see your hair grow longer, whispered Carl in the silence. Why was it so short?
So that I could meet you. Don’t you know that? It was long down to here a few hours before I first saw you. Leontine cut it for me.
Carl buried his face in her throat. He caressed her ear with the wingbeat of his lashes. Your hair shines like gold. If we’re ever left starving, I’ll cut it off in secret at night and sell it.
Helene liked the way he said we as she lay there in his arms.
Spring came, the storms died down and the first flight across the Atlantic from east to west had been achieved. Since that winter day, Helene had been spending her nights in Carl’s room. She sometimes did go to Achenbachstrasse, and was relieved to see that Martha seemed better now. Leontine had spent days on end shut away with her. It seemed that Martha had been ill, delirious and in pain, the mirror with the lily-patterned rim above the washstand was cracked, bedclothes had been torn and drenched with sweat in the morning, and had to be changed in the evening or sometimes in the middle of the day, but then she was calm again, weak but at peace. There was still a void full of questions: where did it come from, why, from whom? It was a marvel that Martha managed to get to work in the hospital every day. Leontine said Martha was tough. Her body had got used to it. The two of them had pushed the beds together, and only the trunk under one bed still reminded anyone of Helene and the time she used to spend here, because it had her possessions in it. One day Helene came to visit, opened the trunk, pushed the Baron’s letters aside, and took out the fish carved from horn and the chain.
You can take that with you, said Martha, who didn’t care about the trunk and wanted to be rid of it. Her cloche hat was moth-eaten now; Helene wondered where her own was. She must have left it in the cloakroom of the White Mouse club that evening two years ago.
There’s going to be a vacancy on my ward, said Martha. You could apply. Helene said no, she didn’t want to be travelling north to work in the Jewish Hospital. The pharmacist was paying her better now, and she no longer thought about him when she stood in the pharmacy alone in the evening, mixing tinctures. Carl wouldn’t take any rent from her; his parents gave him an allowance at the beginning of every month. When he went to visit them he took Helene with him on the train to Wannsee, left her in the garden of the inn on Stölpchensee, ordered a raspberry sherbet for her and came back an hour later. Sometimes he asked her if she wouldn’t go with him, saying he would like to introduce her to his parents, but she shrank from the meeting. They might not like me, Helene pointed out, and wouldn’t give way to either his encouragement or his protests. In fact, she enjoyed those Sunday afternoons when she could sit reading in the garden of the inn, undisturbed.
At the end of the summer, through Bernard’s good connections, they got tickets for the new play at the Schiffbauerdamm theatre. Carl sat next to Helene and forgot to hold her hand. His fists clenched, he struck his forehead, he wept, and next moment was shouting approval. Only when the audience demanded the Army Song again as an encore, and people in the back rows stood up, linked arms and rocked in time to the music, did Carl lean back, mildly exhausted, and look at Helene.
Don’t you like it?
Helene hesitated and tilted her head to one side. I don’t know yet.
It’s brilliant, said Carl. His eyes were on the stage again by now, and did not turn back to Helene throughout the performance. He listened, spellbound, to Lotte Lenya, looking almost dazed. When the first verse of the jealousy duet was over and a second followed, Carl was spluttering, doubled up with laughter.
His cheeks were red as he stood up, applauding, even before the final curtain fell. The audience was bubbling over. They simply wouldn’t go until the closing verses of ‘Mack the Knife’ had been sung again. They roared along with it — even Harald Paulsen, playing Macheath, moved his lips, although in all the noise no one could hear if he was singing that song or another one. There was stormy applause. Spectators in the circle and stalls threw flowers on stage. The actors bowed. They looked like dolls, Helene thought, tiny pop-up toys with claqueurs making them bow low, demanding their reappearance again and again. The spotlights wouldn’t allow any of the actors to leave the stage or any of the audience to leave the theatre. They were clapping too, thought Helene, cautiously looking around her. Roma Bahn, who had been cast only recently as Polly, tore off her long bead necklace and scattered the glass beads in the auditorium; she looked as if she was about to walk offstage, but men whistled, either in anger or delight, and she stayed. People shouted, trampled their feet and one man in the stalls threw coins all around.
Helene put her hands over her ears. She had stayed in her seat, the only person to do so; she leaned forward, her chin on her chest, looking down at her lap, and wished she could just disappear. It was more than an hour before they could leave the theatre. People were jamming the exits, they kept stopping, clapping, turning to go back, pushing and shoving. The air was stuffy. Helene was sweating. The uproar frightened her. Someone punched her shoulder, she assumed it was a young man who quickly turned away. Helene did not let go of Carl’s hand. People pushed between them, and again and again it seemed as if they would be forced apart. Helene felt sick. Out of here, she thought, I must get out of here.