The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,147
he had finished Wilhelm slapped her bottom. That was good, he sighed, very good. He dropped on to the mattress and rolled over. We’ll be going to Braunsfelde later, he murmured.
Or we could go to the sea, Helene suggested.
Sea, sea, sea. You’re always wanting to go to the sea. There’s a cold wind bl-bl-blowing. Wilhelm laughed. A cold wind blowing.
It’s still almost summer. I’m sure it was twenty degrees yesterday.
Day, day, day, day. Wilhelm lay in the middle of the bed, turned to Helene’s back and smacked his lips. My good wife Dame Ilsebill always wants to have her will, like the story of the flounder and the fisherman. I ought to call you Ilsebill. You always know best, don’t you? Well, that makes no difference, we’re going to Braunsfelde.
Is the house ready?
The house is finished, yes, but we’re not going to live in it.
Helene said nothing. Perhaps this was one of those jokes of his that she didn’t always understand at first.
Surprised, are you? We’re going to Braunsfelde to meet the architect and the buyers. We’ll sign everything and then it’ll be nothing to do with me any more.
You’re joking.
Perhaps jokes are a question of race, child. Wilhelm turned to her now. We just don’t understand each other. Why would I buy a house here when the new contracts haven’t been negotiated yet?
Helene swallowed. He had never before so explicitly used the word race to indicate the difference between them.
There are plans for some important innovations in Pölitz. Getting that job would be quite a coup. Then Wilhelm was snoring, he had begun snoring again directly after this last remark. It was a mystery to Helene how someone could fall asleep in the middle of talking.
After the long winter Wilhelm’s skin was giving him trouble. They had finished supper one evening, Helene had cleared the table, Wilhelm had wiped it down with the dishcloth. Helene was wondering how she could begin the conversation – a conversation that was important to her.
These spots are disgusting, don’t you think? Wilhelm was standing in front of the mirror looking alternately over his right and left shoulders. It wasn’t easy for him to see his back, broad as it was. He ran the palm of his hand over his skin, his shoulders, the nape of his neck. Look, there’s a boil there.
Helene shook her head. It doesn’t bother me. She was standing at the sink, washing the dishes in a basin.
Not you, no. A wry smile escaped Wilhelm. It makes no difference to you what I look like. Wilhelm couldn’t stop examining his back. Will it heal over?
Heal over? You have a good strong back, why wouldn’t that place heal over? Helene was scrubbing the bottom of the pan; sauces had been sticking to it and burning for weeks now. People either have spots or they don’t, she said, rinsing out the pan under clear running water.
What a charming prospect. Wilhelm pulled on a vest, leaned close to the mirror and felt the skin of his face.
Zinc ointment might help. Helene wasn’t sure if he was listening to her advice. She had something else on her mind, the matter she wanted to speak to him about. But if she opened the subject quietly, as a piece of information, as news, as a simple sequence of words, she could feel how the blood would shoot to her face. The spots, on the other hand, really didn’t bother her and never had. Disgust was something different. When she had seen the maggots in her father’s wound she had been surprised by the way they curled and crawled in the flesh. Or perhaps she was imagining that recollection; she had a good memory, but it wasn’t infallible. Disgust, though? Helene thought of the amazement she had felt at the sight of the wound. The wreck of a body. Jews as worms. I am a parasite, thought Helene, but she did not say so. You couldn’t compare the human body with the body politic of the German people. Perhaps she could alleviate Wilhelm’s trouble.
Would you squeeze the pus out of them? Wilhelm smiled at her, a little diffidently but sure that she would. Whom else could he ask to do him this favour?
Of course, if you like. Helene raised her eyebrows as she scoured the pan. But it won’t be much help. The skin will be broken and then there’ll be more spots.
Wilhelm took his vest off again, stood close to her and showed her his back.