Don’t you dare separate me from my sister, you bitch, I won’t be parted from her.
But Leontine was sure of herself, and there was no way around it: she didn’t want to lose Martha, so she must get her out of the city, perhaps for a month, perhaps for two. Leontine took Martha away with her first by physical force, then by dint of severity. Helene heard Leontine still talking to Martha as they left the apartment, much as you talk to an animal, not expecting any answer. Without Martha there, Leontine seemed to feel she had no right to stay in Fanny’s apartment. Helene didn’t ask Leontine if she had gone back to her husband.
She hardly saw Leontine. Once Leontine brought some medicine for Fanny, another time she came to fetch a pair of winter shoes that she had forgotten. Helene went with Leontine to the door, where she turned and placed one hand on Helene’s shoulder. Martha needs me. You do know I have to take care of her now, don’t you? Helene nodded; her eyes were burning. She wanted to put her arms round Leontine and hold her close, but she just blushed. And Leontine let the hand slip off her shoulder again, opened the door and left.
Helene was sleeping alone in the room overlooking the courtyard now; she had pushed the beds apart again. She went to work at the pharmacy and was glad that the pharmacist was reserved in his expressions of sympathy. He didn’t pester her with questions. Yet he could hardly know how numb Helene felt. In spring the pharmacist told her she was getting thinner and thinner. Helene knew she was; her clothes were hanging off her, she forgot to eat, and when food was placed in front of her she ate without any real appetite.
One day a letter for her came from Carl’s mother. She wrote to say she was in deep mourning; life without her youngest child was hard. Was she deliberately saying nothing about her other two sons, whose death, Carl had said, she so persistently refused to accept? Carl was buried in Weissensee cemetery, she wrote. Recent events were bringing some changes to their life. Her husband had been offered a post in New York, and this time they were thinking of accepting it. None of their children lived in Berlin now and their daughter was emigrating to Palestine with her husband. Finally, Frau Wertheimer wrote, she knew that Helene might not welcome this request, but in spite of Carl’s death she herself would dearly like to meet her. Carl had spoken of Helene to his parents with such affection, such enthusiasm, he was so much in love that they were sure he had been planning to tell them about a forthcoming engagement in due form when they were all to have met that day in February. Or perhaps she, Frau Wertheimer, was wrong and the young couple had just been friends? She was writing this letter to invite Helene most warmly to visit them, and asked her to telephone. If for whatever reason Helene didn’t want to, she would understand. She wished her every happiness in her young life and was confident that she would find it.
Helene didn’t want to go. No part of her wanted to accept the invitation. But like her free will, her fears had left her too. If Carl’s mother wished for a meeting so much, she would grant that wish. Using Fanny’s telephone, she called her at their house by the Wannsee and they agreed on a date for her to visit in early May.
She bought white lilac and took it to the Wannsee. A gardener opened the gate to her. A housemaid met her at the front door. Would she like to leave anything in the hall? Because of the warm weather Helene was not wearing a jacket, only her thin organza scarf, and she didn’t want to take that off and give it to the maid. The housemaid took the lilac from her, so Helene stood there empty-handed as she heard a voice behind her saying: Welcome.
Good day. I’m Helene. Helene went to meet the lady.
Carl’s mother offered her hand. I’m Frau Wertheimer and my husband will be here any moment. I’m glad you came. A light floral perfume rose from her. Thank you so very much.
Don’t mention it, said Helene.
What did you say?
Helene wondered whether she had said something wrong. I was very happy to come. The professor’s wife’s eyelids fluttered slightly; for a moment her candid glance reminded Helene of Carl. She looked around.
Would you like some tea? Carl’s mother led Helene through the high-ceilinged entrance hall. Paintings hung on the walls. In passing, Helene saw the Rodin watercolour Carl had mentioned to her. She wanted to turn and look at it, but was afraid his mother might not think that the right thing to do. The dark picture could have come from Spain. In her long, elegant tea gown, which suggested an oriental princess’s evening wear, Carl’s mother walked through the next room. Its tall windows looked out on a garden where the rhododendrons were in bloom, their pale violet and purple shining against the dark green of the smooth leaves. The grass was tall and sprinkled with wild flowers. Insects danced in the air above. Helene knew from Carl that this garden went down to the lake, and they had a landing stage where their sailing boat and a rowing boat were tied up. Over fifteen years ago, Carl’s brothers, lost in the war, had sailed and rowed those boats.
Carl’s mother went into the next room. Chinese vases a metre high and furniture in the Biedermeier style stood there. The wide double doors leading to the terrace were open and the lake lay below. The smell of newly mown grass rose in the air with the warm moisture of spring; the gardener must be cutting it, although he was nowhere to be seen. This was more of a park running slightly wild than a garden, for wherever Helene looked she couldn’t see a fence. Only some white-painted arches showed where a circular rose garden stood a little way downhill.
Shall we sit down? Carl’s mother pulled back one of the chairs and adjusted the flat cushions for Helene to sit in it. The table was laid for three. In the middle was a dish full of strawberries, which must have been imported from the south, since native strawberries weren’t ripe yet. The strawberries lay on a bed of young beech leaves. A parasol provided shade. Birds were twittering in the rhododendrons and the tops of old broad-leaved trees. Was this the place that Carl used to visit on those Sundays when they went out to the Wannsee together and Helene sat reading in the garden of the inn? She had formed no idea of the appearance of Carl’s home when he visited his parents. Vines climbed up the ochre wall of the house, their leaves still young and soft. So was it from all this splendid colour that Carl came when he fetched her at the inn? Perhaps he had sat at this table, on this chair, and looked at the fading blossom of the apple tree as Helene was looking at it now. Did his mother always wear that fine, sweet, unusually light perfume? The fuchsias in large pots and containers on the terrace were putting out their first flowers and large, almost improbably bright green ferns grew beside the flight of steps that broadened as it went down to the garden leading to the water. The colours dazzled Helene’s eyes. She sat down carefully; the chair creaked and wobbled slightly. The tablecloth was delicately embroidered with flowers. Even Mariechen couldn’t have done it better. Helene carefully ran her hand over the embroidery.
Would you like to wash your hands and freshen up a bit?
Rather apprehensive, Helene made haste to say yes. Only on the way back to the house did she take a surreptitious look at her hands, but she couldn’t see any rim of dirt under her nails, or anything else suspect.
The bathroom was made of marble, even the stove was covered with marble tiles, and the soap was perfumed with sandalwood. Helene took her time. They’d wait for her out there. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses lay on the shelf above the stove. Helene recognized them. It looked as if Carl had only just put them down to go and lie on the lounger in the garden and rub his eyes. When Helene had found her way back to the terrace, she heard a male voice that reminded her of Carl.