The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,34

My father’s going to let me study.

Study? Mother was surprised.

Yes, he thinks it would be a good idea. I could earn more money then.

Mother shook her head. But studying costs money. She handed Leontine the dish of potato dumplings.

I don’t want to study, though. Leontine pushed the dark hair back from her forehead. It now fell sideways, like a man’s.

Mother nodded in agreement. Very understandable. Who wants to learn useless things? Nurses are in constant demand. A nurse can always find a job anywhere, at any time.

What sort of useless things? Helene looked enquiringly at Leontine, who was just putting a large piece of roast beef in her mouth.

Well, perhaps not so very useless, replied Leontine, but I don’t want to go away. Away from what, Helene wondered. As if Leontine could hear her thoughts, she said: Away from Bautzen. Helene accepted that, although she doubted it.

Mother nodded again. Helene wondered whether she really understood what Leontine was saying; after all, she had never taken root in Bautzen herself in all these years, far from it. Mother was always restless in Bautzen. As Helene saw it, there couldn’t be many reasons why Leontine would want to stay here. Her father was a well-respected lawyer; he was also a widower and a drinker, both in moderation, as he saw it. He preferred his younger daughters to Leontine and if he went away on work he always took one of the younger girls with him, bringing her back in a new dress or carrying a fashionable parasol. Leontine’s father was a prosperous man; you couldn’t call his eldest daughter a Cinderella forced to do menial work, nor was she ill-used, but she seemed to be in her father’s way. It troubled him that Leontine didn’t get married. From time to time he made suggestions to her, and then they quarrelled. Since the death of his wife over ten years earlier, he had lived alone with his three daughters and his mother-in-law, whose mind had been confused for years. On Sundays he went to St Peter’s Cathedral, walking past the Town Hall arm in arm with his younger daughters, one to right and one to left of him. His mother-in-law followed a few steps behind with the cook, and it looked as if Leontine had no established place in this family. It was left to Leontine herself to choose her company. She usually helped her grandmother along, but as soon as they reached the church and she saw Martha among the cluster of people in the porch, she seized her chance to go to a pew hand in hand with her friend. Here she sat between Martha and Helene, in the place that, in their thoughts, they left free for their father. Even though the war was over, he wasn’t home yet. She liked it when, during the service, Martha placed her hand with its long and beautiful fingers beside her own and they linked fingers. Then she sometimes felt a warm weight on her other side: it was Helene leaning her face against Leontine’s arm as if she had found a mother in her.

Hardly a day passed when Martha didn’t bring Leontine home from the hospital with her to Tuchmacherstrasse. They did the housework together and, depending on their shifts at work, they helped out on the big bleaching ground in the meadows by the Spree. They were inseparable.

Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away from here, Leontine assured them as she took a rather small potato dumpling, and it did not escape Helene’s notice that Martha’s elbow was touching Leontine’s, although the two of them avoided exchanging any glance that might give them away.

Eat up your meat, girls. Helene, how are you getting on in the printing works? Mother smiled with a certain derision. You usually learn so fast. Can you do it all? Is there anything you don’t yet know?

How am I to know what I don’t yet know? Helene helped herself to a slice of beef.

Mother rolled her eyes. She sighed. Perhaps, miss, you would be kind enough just to answer my question.

How am I supposed to answer the question when I don’t know the answer?

Then I’ll answer it for you, dear.

Mother had never before called her dear. It sounded like a foreign word, sharply spoken as if Mother wanted to show Martha’s friend how kind she was to her children, although it didn’t come easily to her. It’s been ten weeks now, she said, plenty of time for you