The landlady stood outside, still in her dressing gown. Fräulein Helene, she said, looking not at Helene but at the floor. Helene held on to the doorknob; she was so weak that the floor seemed to move and rise, turn round, sway back and forth. The landlady was in some difficulty. Well, many people found it hard to talk early in the morning. My telephone rang, she said, Professor Wertheimer told me his son wouldn’t be coming back, he said he’d had an accident.
Which son? thought Helene.
She knew it was Carl who had had the accident, she had guessed it even before she heard the steps on the stairs and had to open the door. But which son, which son was the landlady talking about now? Helene said: Yes. She didn’t want to move her head unnecessarily, no nodding it, no tilting it, after all, if it turned it might fall off her shoulders.
I asked Professor Wertheimer if you’d been told yet. He said he didn’t think you could have been. I told him I would do it, I could go up to you. Professor Wertheimer said he didn’t know where you lived, but if I could make sure you were told that would be good. He asked me if I had your address. I said I’d have to go and look. I suppose he still doesn’t know you’ve been living here?
Helene clung to the doorknob with both hands.
He’s dead. The landlady must be saying that just in case the message had been misunderstood. That’s what I had to tell you.
Helene took a deep breath; some time she’d have to breathe out again. Yes. Still holding the knob tight in both hands, she closed the door until the latch snapped into place.
If there’s anything I can do for you, Helene, she heard the landlady saying on the other side of the door, will you let me know?
Helene did not answer. She sat down on the bed and took the book on to her lap; she kept blinking: I knew your glance, your eyes, /And deep there, it still seems, /Our fate, our joys arise, /Our love, our dreams. She was reading out loud now, as if she were reading to someone and this was the only way the poem could get out of her. She could not raise or lower her voice even slightly. Helene read the poem through to the end again one last time. The night was over. Then she closed the book and put it on the desk. Helene opened the window. Cold air streamed in. The first streaks of light as day dawned were showing in the sky. There was a pale and delicate tinge of pink among them. She mustn’t take off his vest. Helene washed and put her dress on again. Her shoes were still wet; she had forgotten to stuff them with newspaper. Her coat smelled of yesterday’s smoke.
Helene never managed to get to work that morning. At the last corner, when she could already see the pharmacy’s familiar shop sign, she turned away. She went down the street leading away from the pharmacy. She had not made up her mind where she wanted to go, she had no idea where she could go. She simply put one foot in front of the other. Cars drove past, people walked by, the tram moved on its rails, perhaps squealing, although the city seemed to Helene to be perfectly silent. She was not out of breath, only silent.
Finding it so easy to put one foot in front of the other aroused a memory in Helene, although it went away again at once. Helene crossed streets; she didn’t have to look right and left any more. The pink light had lit up the sky, the world was bathed in pink now, a sallow tone of pink that didn’t suit it. Dark-blue buildings turned violet, and next moment morning had come, there was not a trace of pink left. The pharmacist would wonder where she was. But she was here. She could telephone him and say she couldn’t come to work today. Let him wonder why; she never took time off for sickness, but today she couldn’t, couldn’t go to work. Helene put one foot in front of the other. Tomorrow? What sort of a day would tomorrow be? What could tomorrow be like? Helene didn’t know. She found herself standing at the foot of the broad stone steps in Achenbachstrasse. Otta opened the door and told her that Martha was still asleep and Leontine had gone out an hour ago — she had gone to work.
Helene sat down by the washstand in Martha’s room. It would be only a few hours until Martha woke up. She had been on night duty. Helene was not really waiting, just sitting there and letting time pass. She wasn’t waiting for Martha, she wasn’t waiting for Leontine. Helene wasn’t waiting for anything any more. It was reassuring to find that time passed all the same.
Later, Martha brought her a glass of tea, found her something to eat and telephoned the pharmacist for her. When Martha sat down she held on to the edge of the table, when she walked along she kept touching the wall. Helene knew that there had been something the matter with Martha’s sense of balance for some time. Helene watched the steam rising from the tea in the glass. Martha said something. Helene lowered her head until her chin was on her breast; she could smell him better that way: Carl, the smell of him rose to her from the neck of her dress. Very slightly, so that Martha wouldn’t notice, she raised one arm. Yes, his smell was there in her armpit too, clinging to her along with his vest. Martha said something in a louder voice now, loud enough to make Helene listen at last; she must drink her tea, said Martha, she ought to eat something too. Helene couldn’t imagine ever eating.
She could sit, she didn’t know if she could swallow. She tried it, she swallowed, she put the glass down. That might do for this morning.
At midday she drank the cold tea at a draught and then drank water from the jug on the washstand. The jug was empty, her throat hurt from stretching and closing as she drank. Then Helene sat down again and went on not waiting for anything. Days passed.
If Martha was at work, Helene lay down on her back on Martha’s bed and moaned. Sometimes she wept quietly.
When Martha and Leontine said Helene ought to put on her coat, she put on her coat and followed them. Martha went to number 11 Viktoria-Luise-Platz and brought Helene’s things down from upstairs. She gave Helene’s key back to the landlady and asked her not to tell Carl’s parents that Helene had been living there with him. His parents had paid the rent until the end of the month.
Meanwhile Helene had been sitting on the bench in the square outside the house, watching the basin of the empty fountain and the sparrows hopping about on the edge of the little puddles, dipping their beaks into the water. They were bathing. The water must be cold as ice.
Martha and Leontine wanted Helene to go out as much as possible, to keep moving. Helene kept moving. Martha said Helene had to eat. Leontine said no, Helene didn’t have to do anything. Hunger came back of its own accord. It was good that Helene wasn’t waiting for anything now, not waiting to feel hungry, not waiting for food. Sunday arrived. The plan had been for Carl and Helene to visit his parents that day, Helene remembered. Were his parents praying? God wasn’t there, she heard no voice, no sign appeared to her. Helene didn’t know when Carl’s funeral would be. She didn’t feel brave enough to go to the telephone; she was a stranger to them, after all, and she didn’t want to bother his family, especially now. Time contracted, rolled itself up, folded itself.
Sunday had gone, other Sundays would come and go too.
The sun shone with more warmth now, crocuses were in flower in the beds beside the broad streets. Leontine and Martha said goodbye to her; Leontine was sending Martha to a sanatorium for a month. Dysfunctional equilibrium. What a pompous way of saying she had a poor sense of balance. She had to convalesce and detoxify her body. Martha cried when she said goodbye; she was so sorry that now, of all times, she couldn’t be there for her little angel. Martha clung to Helene, threw her long, thin arms round her so tightly that Helene could hardly breathe. What did anyone need air for anyway? Helene didn’t try to free herself, it was Leontine who had to pull Martha away. Martha was angry, she accused Leontine of hurting her, using expressions Helene had never heard from her before.