The Blind Side of the Heart (32 page)

Yes? She had probably said it too quietly; now she called in a louder voice, against the rushing sound on the line: Yes?

This is Carl, Helene, I have to speak to you.

Has something happened?

I want to see you.

What?

Can you leave work early today?

It’s Wednesday. I leave at noon anyway. I’ll be coming out in quarter of an hour’s time.

Helene had to hold the phone close to her left ear to make out what he was saying.

Excellent, shouted Carl. We’ll meet at the Romanesque Café.

When?

Loud crackling interrupted them.

Darling, one o’clock at the Romanesque Café.

One o’clock at the Romanesque Café. Helene hung up. She had been pressing the receiver to her ear so hard that her temple hurt. When she came back into the front of the shop, the pharmacist was wrapping up a packet of Veronal and taking the elderly lady’s money.

You can put your coat on now, Helene, he said in kindly tones, smiling at her mischievously, as if it were in his power to fix a rendezvous for her with the man she loved.

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.

A few minutes before one-thirty Helene decided that if Carl hadn’t arrived by the time it was half past she would go and look inside the café. Perhaps he was finally planning to grant her long-cherished wish to go roller-skating, and had gone to the roller-skating rink to find out how to hire skates and buy tickets. They said it was expensive. The Russian girls at Helene’s evening classes had often talked about the roller-skating rink and the latest acquaintances they’d made there. They met regularly at the rink to pirouette and twirl around. These girls were all younger than Helene and came from good Jewish families. Roller-skating must be fun. Helene waited until the big hand of the clock rested on the numbers six, then seven and finally eight. Then she went in.

The café was full. Customers sat at the little tables, and the mirrors all the way up to the ceiling made it look as if there were even more of them. It was lunchtime, many of the guests were eating meat roulades and potatoes, and the aroma of Savoy cabbage hung in the air. A distinguished-looking gentleman in black waved to a second man in strikingly informal garb; he wore pale, wide-legged trousers, braces over a crumpled shirt and a white beret. All he needed was an artist’s palette in his hand. This was a place where people liked to withdraw into one of the attractive
chambres séparées.
Wine was drunk from tall glasses. Helene’s throat tightened. She looked around and, sure enough, there were customers both young and old eating alone at many of the tables, but no Carl. The clock above the panelled bar said quarter to two. Why was her heart beating so hard? There was nothing for her to worry about. Helene went out of the café again into the Kurfürstendamm. A small crowd of people had gathered, an elderly lady kept calling Thief! Thief! Others were holding a boy who couldn’t be more than ten or twelve. He wasn’t struggling, he was crying. You little rascal, said one of the men holding him. But that wasn’t enough for the old lady. Rogues like you ought to be locked up, she scolded him, you just wait until the police get here!

Helene decided not to wait any longer. She knew that Carl wasn’t going to come now.

Perhaps they had misunderstood each other and he had meant a different time? But she knew perfectly well that he had said one o’clock. Wasn’t it possible that he had meant something else? Maybe another place? They had often met on this corner; maybe he had wanted to meet somewhere else today and mentioned the café by mistake, but with another one in mind? Helene didn’t know where to turn, where to go; she felt afraid, although she told herself there was nothing to fear. She went to a kiosk and bought cigarettes. It was the first time she had ever bought any for herself. She really needed the money for the cobbler, but she couldn’t think about going to the cobbler now, she wanted to smoke a cigarette. She didn’t have a cigarette holder; she’d have to smoke without one. She broke two matches before she managed to light the cigarette. A little piece of tobacco came adrift, tasting bitter on her tongue. It wasn’t easy to hold the cigarette in gloved fingers. Helene didn’t know which way to look now. She was standing in the middle of a busy crowd of people whose lunch break was over and who were hurrying back to work. Some of them might have appointments to keep, and had to run to the station and take a train going west.

The wind blew in her face, a west wind from the direction of the Memorial Church. Helene tried breathing deeply to inhale the smoke. South, east, north. But before she could draw the smoke into her lungs her bronchial tubes closed against it and she had a coughing fit. So she puffed the cigarette instead. Little clouds of smoke came out of her mouth. The rather sour, bitter taste of it made her feel pleasantly light-headed. She took short, quick puffs, blowing out her cheeks as far as she could, and finally letting the cigarette end fall in the slush at her feet, where it went out at once.

Helene didn’t know where to go in search of Carl now. She walked down Tauentzienstrasse to Nürnberger Strasse, round several blocks, past the school where she had taken her evening classes – they had finished months ago now – and she did not turn into Geisbergstrasse until dusk was falling. She could see the black roof of their building from the other side of the square; no light, however faint, showed in their attic room.

All the same, she went up to make sure that no one had come in. The door was locked, the room itself exactly as they had left it in the morning. Helene didn’t take off her coat. She went downstairs again, past the young man who lived on the third floor and kept forgetting his keys, so that he often had to sit outside the landlady’s apartment with a stack of papers, perhaps revising a stage play or the scenario of a film, until someone came to let him in. He generally had a pen in his hand and was scribbling something in the margin of the typewritten pages. Helene went down Bayreuther Strasse to Wittenbergplatz, over Ansbacher Strasse and back to Geisbergstrasse, to Viktoria-Luise-Platz, up to the attic room and back down to the street again. The third-floor tenant must have been let into his room by now.