The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,32
sewing machine and had no difficulty in keeping it going by stepping on the treadle, the Monopol press obviously called for a man’s strength. Helene put both feet on the pedal and pushed down. The wheel simply jerked forward once. The typesetter laughed. Perhaps he’d like to show her how to clean the rollers, said Helene sharply, looking pointedly at the thick layer of dust lying on them.
She wasn’t going to accept that she wasn’t physically strong enough to learn to use the press. As soon as the typesetter had left in the evening, she went over to the Monopol and practised with her right leg. She leaned on the paper holder and trod down and down again, until the big wheel was turning faster and faster and the friction of the rollers made a wonderfully deep sound. She was sweating, but she couldn’t stop.
By day the typesetter showed her how to use the stitching machine, the pressing machine and the stapling machine. He taught her assiduously, as he had been told to do, but he kept saying, with a twinkle in his eye, that the Monopol would obey only its master. And since her father had gone away, he obviously felt that he was its master now. The certainty that, as he thought, he was indispensable cheered the typesetter.
No one knew that over the past few years a friendly working relationship had developed between the typesetter and Helene. He was the first adult to take her seriously. Ever since she began helping with her father’s accounts at the age of seven, and now, because he was away in the war, had taken over the purchase of supplies as well as the bookkeeping, the typesetter had treated her with great respect. He called her Fräulein Würsich. Helene liked that. And he accepted all her calculations without demur.
Even when Helene could not comply fully with his request for higher wages after the war, nothing about his friendly attitude changed. He discussed the work on hand with her. And if one of the machines needed servicing, he referred back to Helene, particularly now that her mother was disappearing into the upper part of the house for months on end, closing the net curtains and turning her back on the windows. Helene liked the typesetter. It was she who would go up to the kitchen, search the pantry, look round several times to make quite sure no one could see her and fold newspaper to make a paper bag, fill it with pearl barley, put semolina into another bag and finally place a cucumber, a kohlrabi and a handful of nuts in a third. When she found the huge cardboard box of sugar cubes on the top shelf of the pantry one day, she unhesitatingly tore a page off the Bautzen Household Calendar, wrapped a heap of cubes in it and gave that to the typesetter too.
As soon as he had left in the evening Helene went back to practising on the Monopol press in secret. After a few days she practised with her left leg as well as her right. She practised until she couldn’t go on. And when she couldn’t practise any more she practised overcoming not being able to practise any more, and got on with it. In the evening she could feel how strong her legs were growing, and next morning she felt an unaccustomed tugging in them. She knew what it was, but before now she had only ever heard boys say they had cramp in their legs.
One evening she sat high up on her father’s stool, which was fixed to the floor. To her surprise she didn’t even have to stretch her legs; the stool could have been made specially for her. She put both feet on the pedal and trod away. She had to pull in her stomach firmly, which caused a pleasant, tickling sensation; she felt a fluttering inside, as if she were on a swing. She was reminded of Martha’s hands and Martha’s soft breasts.
Only when Selma Würsich asked, a few weeks later, whether her daughter had learned all about the printing press now, did the typesetter demonstrate the cutting machine to her. So far he had avoided even taking her anywhere near it. A dark presentiment now took shape in his mind. He looked at her fair hair, which she wore plaited into a thick braid, and found that he could bring out the words only reluctantly. His comments were brief. First open