The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,40
Helene could not make out what was embossed on them. The further carving at the lower end of the stick showed that it must once have been shortened above the metal tip. Very likely Grumbach had owned that stick for years and years, and after the war its original length had had to be adjusted.
The visitor never took his eyes off Martha as she reached up to open the top of the window. You remember me, don’t you? Old Uncle Gustav? Uncle Gusti? said the visitor, looking Martha’s way, and he must have been glad of her kind smile, which might mean anything, either that yes, she did remember him or that she was pleased to see him again.
Grumbach had settled into the wing chair near his friend’s bed, but he could sit there only if he stooped over. He was sucking his sugar lump to the accompaniment of the familiar throat-clearing and a slight smacking of his lips. Such a big lump of sugar called for good strong teeth, but since his third back molar had recently broken he preferred to suck it.
Uncle Gustav, whispered Helene to Martha at the next opportunity, she couldn’t help giggling. The attempt at familiarity and the term Uncle that he used to convey it struck Helene as so outlandish that, in spite of Uncle Gustav’s obvious frailty, she was on the verge of laughter. The silence was punctuated by his slurping tea with his mouth half open. Helene couldn’t take her eyes off him. She saw his gaze wandering over Martha as if their hospitality gave him licence to stare openly at her. At her shining hair pinned up on top of her head, her long white neck, her slender waist, and most of all at what lay below the waist. To all appearances, the sight made Uncle Gustav feel proud and happy. Until a few days ago he had been permitted only to watch Martha from afar; now he felt really close to her at last. Like most of the men who lived near the printing works, he had watched her growing up with a strangely mingled sense of amazement and desire, the latter suppressed only with difficulty. Grumbach made sure that her other admirers remained at a suitable distance, keeping as beady an eye on them as they did on him. Seeing his old friend at home again gladdened his heart no less than the chance it gave him of gaining access to the house and the company of his friend’s daughters. As the guest now watched Martha carefully cleaning the hypodermic needle, turning her back to him, busying herself at the washstand with cloths and essences to help the wound to heal, it was easy to let his walking stick and the hand resting on it move a few centimetres sideways, so that next time Martha turned he could feel the rough fabric of her apron on the back of his hand. That slender waist and what lay just below it. Obviously Martha didn’t even notice the touch; the folds of her dress and apron were too thick; she kept moving this way and that near the washstand. With sly glee the guest relished the way her movements stroked the back of his hand.
Helene watched Uncle Gustav widen his nostrils and sniff. She felt sure that nothing escaped him, that he noticed the aroma of coffee in the air, and while Martha’s involuntary stroking excited him, he might be wondering whether to ask Helene to bring him a cup. He enjoyed sending his friend’s two daughters around the house in search of this and that. Although Martha had warned him not to smoke when he was with her father, he had asked her to bring first an ashtray for his pipe, then a glass of wine, and later he had not turned down the porridge that Helene had made for her father, although Father could eat hardly any of it.
What smelled so good, Grumbach wanted to know every day as he arrived at the house around noon, as if by chance. Rhubarb pudding, a casserole of beans baked with caraway, mashed potatoes with nutmeg. Grumbach said he hadn’t had a watch since the war, adding that without a wife or children you could easily lose track of the time of day. So it was all the more surprising that he came to visit just in time for the midday meal.
When Martha and Helene had helped him to some of everything,