The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,75

friend says they have only one vacancy. They’re looking for an experienced nurse. That’s Martha. Fanny made a sympathetic little moue in Helene’s direction and batted her eyelashes, to show Helene that she was genuinely sorry. Helene, dear, something else will very soon turn up for you too, sweetheart.

Martha was to start work next week at the Jewish Hospital in Exerzierstrasse, in the north of the city. Fanny had an admirer who was medical director of the ward for the terminally ill. Fanny said he was old and randy, and had described the post as might have been expected of him. The nurse was to be between twenty and thirty. Just like Martha. Yes, the applicant must be the right age, he only liked women of that age, which was why his admiration for Fanny had faded slightly over the last few years. It was difficult to find staff for the terminal ward because of all the incurable illnesses and dying patients, so the management would prefer an older nurse. Well, of course twenty-six was far from old, but all the same Martha had more experience than Helene, didn’t she?

Helene tried to look content with that. Martha couldn’t suppress a yawn. She was still wearing the silk dressing gown that her aunt had recently passed on to her.

Leontine nodded on Martha’s behalf. Absolutely right, no one’s Martha’s equal in emptying and filling things, cleaning up the patients and soothing them, feeding them and applying dressings.

And you’ll learn the right prayers, won’t you? Fanny meant it seriously. She took Martha to synagogue with her on high days and holidays, but even at home Martha had not been very diligent over saying her prayers in St Peter’s Cathedral.

Martha picked a stick of ginger out of the flower-shaped glass dish, crooked her little finger and nibbled the ginger stick. Over the last few months, Helene and Martha had often discussed their reluctance to be a burden on their aunt, living at her expense. They were enjoying life in the big apartment, but they would have liked to give Fanny some money for their board and also to have money of their own to spend. Accepting financial presents made them feel uncomfortable. There had turned out to be problems with the Breslau legacy. The rents didn’t come in regularly, and the agent who was supposed to be managing them hadn’t sent any news for months. Martha and Helene couldn’t bring themselves to ask their aunt for money to send home to Bautzen. When a letter arrived from Mariechen, appealing for help and saying she didn’t know where to turn for money to buy food for their mother, Helene had stolen into the larder and taken some provisions, which they sent by parcel post to Bautzen. At the same time Martha had abstracted one of Fanny’s gramophone records and taken it to the pawnbroker’s to exchange for some money. A loan was the way Martha and Helene had described it to each other, until one day Aunt Fanny asked casually if they knew what had become of her Richard Tauber record, which seemed to have disappeared. Helene had been overcome by a coughing fit so that they could avoid telling all to Fanny. Martha said at once that she had dropped it and it broke. She just hadn’t dared to tell her aunt, she said. False remorse? Martha’s look of wide-eyed innocence was astonishing, as always. Fanny proved magnanimous.

Martha and Helene had applied for posts at several hospitals over the last few months, but so far unsuccessfully. The whole city seemed to be looking for work, and those who did have a job wanted a better one with higher pay. If you had no job you did deals, but the sisters didn’t understand enough about that. People dropped hints about the black market, and bets, and how only pretty girls could sell their services for some things, at least at the revues. Fanny’s friend Lucinde worked in a revue, naked, as she said with relish, wearing nothing but her hair. Helene’s nursing certificates from Bautzen won her some admiration, but her age put the hospitals off, she was considered too young for a permanent nursing post in a hospital.

I’ll take the job. Martha put the nibbled ginger stick down on the rim of her saucer. She rested her head against Leontine and held her hand in front of her mouth. Fanny looked at Leontine and Martha, smiled, and ran her tongue first over her teeth