The blind side of the heart - By Julia Franck Page 0,9
his name, Wilhelm, but not where he lived. His father was a hero. What about his mother? He knew her name too, Alice. There was something suspect in her background. Once again Peter looked at the door to the station concourse. His neck was stiff from sitting like that for hours, staring the same way. A train came in, people picked up baggage, reached for their nearest and dearest, you had to hold on to everything. Anklam – the train wasn’t going to Angermünde, it was for Anklam. The crowd was happy so long as it was going somewhere, anywhere. It was after midnight now and Peter didn’t need to pee any more, he was just waiting. The platform had emptied, so presumably those who were still waiting had gone into the station concourse. If there was a ticket office wouldn’t it have closed long ago? Perhaps there wasn’t a concourse beyond that door at all, perhaps this station had been destroyed like the one in Stettin. A blonde woman appeared at the far end of the concourse; Peter stood up, jamming the case between his legs, he strained to see, but it wasn’t his mother. Peter stayed on his feet for a while. When he was sitting down again, gnawing at his lips, he heard his mother complaining of the way he persisted in peeling off bits of his body and eating them, he could see her expression of revulsion in his mind’s eye. Someone or other, Peter told himself, someone or other is bound to turn up. His eyes closed, he opened them, he mustn’t go to sleep or he wouldn’t notice if someone came looking for him; he fought against sleep, thought of his mother’s hand and drew his legs up on the bench. He laid his head on his knees and never took his eyes off the station door. When daybreak came he woke up thirsty, and the wet fabric of the seat of his trousers was sticking to his skin. Now at last he stood up to go in search of a toilet and some water.
THE WORLD IS ALL BEFORE US
Two girls lay on a white-enamelled metal bedstead, taking turns to put their bare feet against the warm copper of the hot-water bottle. The little one kept trying to get the bottle over to her side of the bed, pushing with her toes and shoving with her heels. However, at the last moment her sister’s long leg would stop her. Helene admired the length of Martha’s legs and her slender, graceful feet. But the apparently effortless determination with which Martha claimed the hot-water bottle for herself, against Helene’s wishes, drove her to despair. She braced her hands against her sister’s back and tried to find a way for her cold toes to get past Martha’s legs and feet under the heavy covers. The candlelight flickered; every breath of air caused by the scuffling under the blanket as it suddenly rose and fell made the flame gutter. Helene wanted to laugh and cry at once in her impatience, she compressed her lips and reached out for her sister, whose nightdress had ridden up, so that Helene’s hand came down on Martha’s bare belly, Martha’s hips, Martha’s thighs. Helene wanted to tickle her, but Martha twisted and turned, Helene’s hands kept slipping away, and soon Helene had to close her fingers and pinch to get hold of any part of Martha at all. There was a tacit agreement between the two sisters: neither of them must utter a sound.
Martha didn’t cry out, she just held Helene’s hands tight. Her eyes were shining. She squeezed Helene’s hands between hers so hard that her finger joints cracked, Helene squealed, she whimpered, Martha squeezed harder until Helene gave up and the little girl kept whispering: Let go, please, let go.
Martha smiled. She wanted to read a page or so of her book now. Her little sister’s blonde eyelashes fluttered, the curve of her eyes showed under them. How fine the network of veins was round the eye. Of course Martha would forgive Helene sooner or later. All this just because of a copper hot-water bottle at their feet. Helene’s pleading was a familiar sound, it soothed Martha. She let the little girl’s hands go, turned her back to her sister and pulled the quilt away with her.
Helene was freezing. She sat up. And although her hands still hurt she reached out with them, touched Martha’s shoulder and took hold of