The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,37

unusually small and over-baked loaf down on her counter when Helene went to buy bread.

Helene asked if she could please have one of the two larger, lighter-coloured loaves still on the shelf instead. But the baker’s wife, who used to press little pieces of butter-cake into her hand only a few years ago, shook her head as well as anyone with almost no neck could. The deep line marking the short distance between her breasts and her head didn’t move at all as she shook it. Helene ought to be glad she could still buy a loaf at all, she said. Helene took it.

You poor thing. The baker’s wife was short of breath, her heavy lids covered her eyes, her words expressed sympathy but her tone was both indignant and injured. Operating heavy machinery these days. A girl, working machinery! The baker’s wife shook her head again in her laborious way.

Helene stopped in the doorway. It’s not hard to learn, she said, and felt as if she were lying. I’ve printed some very nice ready reckoners. I can bring you one on Monday if you like, we could do a deal – you get a ready reckoner, I get four loaves of bread.

Nothing doing, said the baker’s wife.

Three?

To think of girls at a man’s work these days, we can’t have that kind of thing. Your mother’s well off. Why didn’t she let the typesetter keep his job?

Don’t worry, I’ll be starting to train as a nurse in September. We don’t have anything left. Most of what we did have was money, and money’s worth nothing now.

The baker’s wife raised her eyebrows sceptically. These days everyone suspected their neighbours of owning more than they did. Helene remembered how, early this year when she had wanted to do something to please her mother, she had gone into her room and stripped the sheets off the bed to do a big wash. Only when she lifted the mattress to put a clean sheet on it did she see the banknotes. Huge quantities of them tucked into its stuffing. Notes of many different currencies, bundles of them tucked among the feathers and held together with paperclips. The numbers printed on the notes were of small denominations, ridiculously small. As Helene, alarmed by her unintentional discovery, hastily threw the old sheet over the mattress again, she heard her mother’s voice behind her.

You little devil. How much have you stolen from me already? Come on, how much?

Helene turned and saw her mother leaning on the door frame, so angry that she could hardly stay upright leaning against it. She was drawing on her thin cigar as if extracting information from it.

I’ve been asking myself for years: Selma, I’ve been asking myself, who in this house is stealing from you? Her voice sounded low and threatening. And all these years I’ve been telling myself, well, it won’t have been your daughter, Selma, never, not your own child.

I was only going to change the sheets, Mother.

What an excuse, what a mean, shabby excuse. And with these words her mother went for Helene, clutching her throat so tightly that she could breathe only by raising her hand against her mother to push her away with all her might. She pinched her mother’s arms, but they would not loosen their grip. Helene tried to scream and couldn’t. Not until footsteps came up the stairs, and Mariechen audibly cleared her throat, did her mother let go.

Helene had not set foot in her mother’s room since then. She remembered how scared she had been at the sight of those banknotes and wondered how, with her own faultless bookkeeping, her mother could have contrived to put them all aside. Money that, as Helene was sure, was worth hardly anything now. Money that, if it had been spent at the right time, would have kept the whole household going and might have allowed her to study.

Helene looked at Frau Hantusch the baker’s wife. She couldn’t help thinking that the woman’s doubts arose from discontent with her own situation.

Last week we had some particularly good stout paper in. Paper with a high proportion of wax in it. Helene smiled as nicely as she could. It stands up to moisture well, it would be just the thing in your shop.

Thanks, Lenchen, thank you very much, but I can tell my customers the daily price of bread myself. The baker’s wife pointed to her mouth with one fat forefinger. It’s all in here, that’s what counts. Having