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Beginning

Thomas got off the tram and walked along beside an old wall made of rounded, natural stones. Ivy clambered around it, clinging to the stone. Thomas had checked on the street map that the hospital grounds must be in the next block. He was to report to the Personnel Office at 8 a.m. A glance back at the tram stop, but the clock had obviously stopped. His hands sweated if he found himself on the way to a new place on his own, a place that was to mean something to him, a place where he had to prove himself. They had sweated last autumn in the train to Gommern, they were sweating again today. He clenched his hands into fists inside the pockets of his jacket, spread his fingers, then clenched them again. Before he shook hands with anyone he would have to wipe his hand on the lining of the pocket. He had his school reports with him. There was nothing wrong with them, and nothing he could do about it now — good marks hadn’t helped him in Gommern either. Didn’t he need a letter from the Ministry? he had asked Käthe yesterday. He felt naked. No, no letter had come, and she was sure he wouldn’t need one, not this time. Thomas pressed his briefcase more firmly under his arm and put both hands to his mouth, breathing warm air into the loosely clenched fists. Even though his hands were sweating, they were cold as ice. When he reached the gate and passed the porter, it struck him that he hadn’t combed his hair. There were boys who always had a comb with them, even if they didn’t need it. They had been brought up to have it ready. Thomas was not like that; he was uncombed, badly brought up. Anyone could see that at once. Anyone who wanted could simply see it. Thomas ran one sweating hand through his hair. However, he could smile. He smiled.

He would probably be accommodated in the brick building to the right of the entrance — the crematorium. Why else did it have the big chimney? The laundry, the kitchen, the boiler room — he was sure none of them needed chimneys of this size.

Ahead of him there was a broad path with flower beds down the middle. To the right and left of the beds you could walk on small, light-coloured paving stones, and the flower beds were surrounded by cast concrete stones with pebbles in them. A glasshouse on the left might once have been the hospital’s own nursery garden, they must have grown vegetables there during the years after the war; at least, the glasshouse was mended with cardboard and other materials in places, although it was certainly no longer in use. Thomas thought of the Botanical Garden, which since last August seemed to him like the garden of Paradise. It was over a year now since he had last been there, he had gone over to the west of the city on the suburban train with Michael. They had looked at the carnivorous plants and the collection of poisonous plants. For the last time, although they didn’t know it. They would never go there again. By way of compensation there was the Natural History Museum here in the eastern part of the city. Dusty animal specimens, embryos of mammals preserved in formaldehyde. Ammonites and fossils. Never again would he be able to admire a Drosera omissa, however unpretentious. Or an alpine butterwort. When would he ever see Aldrovanda vesiculosa again? True, it was said that the magical waterwheel plant, hanging in the water as lovely as a green bride, also grew in Europe. But he and Michael had searched the reeds beside the Müggelsee in vain last summer, they had waded along the bank, they had also parted the rushes beside the river, but they had not discovered the beautiful plant anywhere. She was a sensitive bride who liked only clear, clean warm water. You could draw a lesson from the plant; it grew at one end while it died at the other. Life as a waterwheel plant must be good.

I can show that I laugh / if you want me to / and that is often. / The rest is my business.

A robin sat in the black foliage of the borders, pecking. The snowdrops were over. The young green leaves of crocuses and grape hyacinths were coming up. How they shone against the black of the winter leaves. A man on crutches was standing on the path, and Thomas almost ran into him, his eyes were so captivated by the robin. Thomas swerved to one side and apologised. A clock hung from the first low building; it was ten to eight. His hands were sweating. Thomas practised walking with a steady step. This slightly uphill path was a long one. Two gardeners were kneeling on the paving stones, putting plants in the soil. Another gardener was removing blackened leaves from the beds with short, sharp movements, using a fan-shaped rake. Why hadn’t Thomas thought of it before? It would be good to be a gardener. He wouldn’t find his hands sweating if he were a gardener, he could kneel on the ground and sow the seeds of flowers, he would prune rose bushes and take snails to places where they would be safe from the birds.

In the Personnel Office he was received by a woman in a white sleeveless overall. She took his reports into the next room to be examined, and told him to wait out in the corridor meanwhile. A good hour later she called him in again, stamped a small card and told him which ward to report to: 3 A. First he was to collect his work clothes from Building C, Room 132. It would be a good idea to get to the ward by ten o’clock when the doctors would have done their rounds, and the ward sister would have time to show him the ropes. When he left he was not to go the way he had come, but go down the corridor on the left down to the little staircase, and out of the back door of the building. Over the yard, diagonally right, then through the open gate. Thomas nodded. His stamped card and the docket for the work clothes in his hand, the folder with his school reports under his arm, he went out of the door, turned left, and looked for the way to go.

In the ward they showed him where to change his clothes. After that he had to sit down on a bench and wait again. The doctors had not finished their rounds at ten. There was a penetratingly sweet and rotting smell, as if of bacteria, and then a sharp smell of vinegar. Thomas could also pick up the scent of floor polish.

Marie, said a soft voice, and a slender hand was offered to Thomas. I’m the ward sister, I’ll show you round.

Thomas felt that the handshake was encouraging. She must notice his cold, damp skin, and he felt that he was blushing. But her own hand was not as warm as he had feared. It was light and firm.

Don’t worry, I won’t bite. Her voice was not only soft but also husky, with a slight scratchiness in it. Thomas got to his feet and followed her. She stopped outside a narrow door with the letters Staff WC on it, turned on the flat heel of her shoe, folded her arms, and smiled at him. First you must wash your hands. That’s always the first thing to do when you come on duty. Do you understand? Washing your hands is essential.

Thomas nodded. He had to smile. He hadn’t thought of that. He opened the door and washed his hands. Never in his life before, he felt, had he washed them with so much soap and such hot water and at such length as he did now. They were red when he dried them.

When he came out again, she was leaning on the windowsill opposite and gave him a mischievous smile. Let me see.

Unsure of himself, Thomas held out his red hands.

Turn them over. Now she unfolded her arms and touched his fingers as if to help him.

Thomas turned his hands in all directions. Okay?

Almost. It’s important for you to cut your nails as short as possible. And you must brush the nails. Get them nice and clean. In a hospital everything has to be clean, at least everything about us. You want to study?

Thomas tentatively nodded; obviously she had read his personal file.

You see, even if you don’t become a nurse but you’re maybe operating later, your hands have to be clean. Sterile. No germs. Just like they are now. Come on, she said, turning on her flat heels. Come along, she waved enticingly to him to follow her, I’ll find you a pair of scissors.

A slight aroma rose to Thomas’s nostrils. Was it egg yolk, sweet yeast, warm butter? It reminded Thomas of the cakes that Michael’s mother made. The young woman was already turning the next corner, and Thomas had to stride out to keep up with her. He had seldom noticed a woman’s neck before. The pattern where her hairline began touched him, its symmetry was breathtakingly beautiful and made him think of metal filings in a magnetic field. Her hair was pinned up under her cap with thin hairpins, and the finest of little hairs curled at the nape of her neck, shining chestnut brown in the late-winter sunlight. Her shoulders were as narrow as a young girl’s, although she must be several years older than Thomas. She had finished her training, she was in charge of the ward, at least today, when Matron was off duty.

She introduced Thomas to her colleagues in the nurses’ room. Thomas is our new auxiliary. He’ll be staying until October, she said, looking at him for confirmation and winking as she did so, as if they were accomplices. And then maybe he’ll get a place to study. The other nurses said hello, looked up from their tables of figures and their cups and nodded to him.

Marie turned round, opened a drawer, took something out and went up to Thomas. She gave him a small pair of nail scissors that she was holding in the hollow of her hand. Take them into the toilet with you, and I’ll wait for you here.

Thomas did as he was told. He cut his nails so short that the skin of two fingers was left sore, and one thumb was bleeding.

Now I’ll take you round the ward, said Marie, and Thomas followed her. Maybe he could follow this woman a good deal of the time? She seemed to know exactly where to go. First she showed him a storeroom where brooms, cleaning cloths, bowls, containers, bedpans and hot-water bottles were kept, as well as vases for flowers.

For if there’s an accident, she said, and her delicate lips sketched a smile.

An accident?

Don’t look so anxious — quick as a cat, she licked her upper lip — we don’t have a patient dying every day. I mean if something goes wrong, if a patient vomits or doesn’t make it to the toilet in time, or a bowl of soup gets spilt. Things like that. You’ll find buckets, scrubbing brushes, all you need in here.

Thomas nodded vaguely. He hadn’t thought of having to wipe up sick and other fluids. There was something glazed about the smile on Marie’s delicate lips. The way she avoided his eyes told him that she had practised smiling, just like him. She could do it on request at any time. There might not be anything more than politeness behind it.

There were nicer things in the next room, where all the cupboards were full of bedclothes. Little notices were fitted above the handles of the cupboard doors. Sheets. Hand towels. Duvet covers. Pillowcases. Draw sheets. Foot sheets. Shrouds. Molton cloths, large, medium, small. Large terry towels. Hand towels. Tea cloths. Bibs. Nappies. Large nappies. Nightshirts. The early shift makes the beds, and the used bedlinen goes in that cart, said Marie, pointing to the large cart standing in the corridor outside the laundry room. Sometimes we’ll be asking you to wheel the cart over to the main laundry.

Thomas nodded. He’d have liked to tell her that she didn’t have to smile for his benefit.

And you won’t be going into this room. Marie pointed to the next door. It’s locked. Apart from the doctors only Matron and I, that’s to say the ward sister on duty instead of Matron, have keys. There are cupboards for medicaments in here, and supplies of cellulose wadding, gauze, cotton wool, muslin bandages, plasters and so on. When the packs of those run out in the nurses’ room you must tell Matron or me.

Wasn’t she cold, with her bare arms under her white nurse’s coat? Her arms were immaculately white, but two long, thin scars aroused Thomas’s curiosity. Where did she get those scars on her arm? Had a patient scratched her, or maybe a cat?

Thomas’s stomach was grumbling. The sound was so loud that even Marie couldn’t miss hearing it. She smiled briefly and looked down. Now for the kitchen. She went ahead of him, taking small steps. Halfway there she turned to Thomas. Of course I’m just going to show you the kitchen. It’s occurred to me that you may be hungry, but there’s nothing for us to eat there. Meals for the patients are brought from the main kitchen in the cart in the morning, at midday, in the evening. They had reached the kitchen. There are two small immersion heaters here. Cans down there. And camomile, peppermint and fruit teas up there in those bags. She stretched to reach a high cupboard door. Thomas wanted to help her, but at the last moment he held back, for fear of touching her. She turned to him and looked startled, because she hadn’t noticed how close to her he was standing. Her perfume stirred an electrical impulse in him. Thomas took a step back. This time her smile was natural, and she looked at the door as if assuring herself that no one was watching them through the open doorway. She folded her arms and placed her right hand in a curiously upright position on the inside of her upper arms. Her fingertips touched the fabric of her coat under her armpits.

Sometimes the tea is served black, usually not. We don’t have any coffee for the patients. If a patient brings coffee we brew it when we have time, but that doesn’t often happen. She reached up to the top cupboard, and then closed the cupboard door again with a practised movement. He could see the outline of her panties under her white coat. Sometimes we’ll be sending you to fetch the cart with the meals, or to take it back to the kitchen later. Depending on what we have delivered, there are also fruit juices, sauerkraut and apples. But only with the doctor’s permission, not all the patients can or should drink fruit juice.

As she recited all this, she licked her upper lip now and then. It happened so quickly that Thomas had to stare at her mouth if he wasn’t to miss it.

Is something the matter? She had a very wide, large mouth, and her delicate lips were almost violet. She was probably cold. You’re staring so. Is something wrong?

Thomas heard her ask, and had to tell himself to stop staring, blink, tear his gaze away from her mouth and look back at her eyes.

No, nothing.

Tell me what I just told you.

He liked her slightly husky voice, and repeated: And up there in the bags there’s camomile, peppermint and fruit teas. Sometimes it’s served black, usually not. We don’t have any coffee for the patients. If a patient brings coffee we brew it when we have time, but that doesn’t often –

— Happen, she said, laughing with satisfaction now. That’s good. You notice everything. Her laugh disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

She had faint blue shadows under her eyes. A tiny vein shimmered on her left eyelid. He seemed to be familiar with those eyes, they looked so close and deep, it was as if he had always known them. Maybe she wasn’t a native of the night, only when she was on the late shift? People of the night, and he was one of them himself, seldom dropped off to sleep before dawn. You watch over the darkness the way a Neanderthal man watched over fire in the cradle of mankind, Michael had told him in their tent, because Thomas had been sitting outside it half the night, smoking.

Marie looked at him attentively. She wore hardly any make-up, just a delicate black line on her eyelids, emphasising the almond shape of her large eyes.

Come along, she said again, gently, and when he followed her the delicately sweet aroma of her perfume streamed into his nostrils.

In the nurses’ room Marie loaded up her trolley for the ward with thermometers, a pair of scissors, small knives, pipettes and syringes for blood samples, cellulose wadding, cotton wool, plasters, and one large and one small container for used instruments. We’ll need these as well, she said, placing several bulb syringes for enemas and a manicure set in the middle compartment. She asked Thomas to wait outside the medicaments room. Then she took a long list from the clipboard, written by someone in meticulous, small handwriting, and Thomas watched her in profile through the door, which stood ajar, as she stood in front of the large cupboard, opened doors and stood on tiptoe to reach an upper compartment. She collected tablets, small bottles of tinctures and ointments.

In the next room she loaded up a second trolley with bedlinen, washcloths and towels that Thomas took down from the upper cupboards for her.

At Marie’s request, Thomas pushed the trolley of bedlinen while she wheeled the trolley of medicaments. Before they reached the first door, Marie briefly explained what to expect. There were six men in the first room on the ward, two of them dying, it could take hours or days but probably not weeks, while it was to be hoped that the others would be discharged once the scars of their operations had healed or they had recovered from pneumonia. The old man by the window had to be attended to first. As he had not passed any stools for too long, according to a chart attached to his bed, he was to be given an enema, and then he must be washed. He’s in pain, said Marie quietly, better not make too much of it if he screams. He’ll scream terribly, he calls us names too. His piles must hurt like hell. She opened the door, and the dazzling winter sunlight fell on their faces. Thomas followed her. Without even thinking about it, he stood next to her beside the bed. She greeted the man, who was dozing, and had to speak to him twice and touch his thin shoulder through the nightshirt to wake him up properly. She pulled the covers back with one hand, with the other she held the man’s hand, and with a skilful grip she laid the thin little man on his side and undid his nightshirt. She pushed it up and undid the nappy he was wearing. Could he sit up today? she asked. The man shook his head, he groaned, why couldn’t they leave him in peace? he asked. He wanted to be left alone, that was all. There was no emotion at all in her voice, no impatience, no regret, only her quiet firmness allowed Thomas to guess at her sympathy as she said that now, unfortunately, she would have to give him an enema. Marie asked Thomas to hold the old man firmly, and showed him exactly how. It was a matter of holding his wrists, his hips, his rickety legs. Thomas held him as she turned round, did something or other, and filled a rubber bulb syringe with water. She bent down and took a bedpan off her trolley. Thomas had to hold the man’s wrists tight. Marie put the bedpan in position on the sheet and skilfully inserted the point of the syringe past the raw flesh. The man’s screams were deafening. Thomas turned his eyes to the window and concentrated on the muscular power of his arms and legs to hold the thin but very strong little man firmly, pushing him down on the mattress with all his might.

Behind him, two of the other patients were arguing, but Thomas couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Thomas held out like that for about ten minutes, until his back hurt and the stink was taking his breath away. He would have liked to ask Marie how much longer he must hold the man. He couldn’t open his mouth, because the stench nauseated him so much, and he could hardly breathe through his nose when the little old man suddenly fell silent in his hands and stopped resisting; his body lay limp, as if broken, and Thomas’s own hands now looked to him like an animal’s paws. Cautiously, he raised them and let go of the man, but he was not defending himself any more. Thomas saw his shallow breathing under skin as thin as paper, as his ribcage rose and fell. The man had half closed his yellowish, rather clouded eyes. He had discolorations all over his body, blue, nearly black, and brighter red marks. Marie had disappeared with the bedpan. It seemed to Thomas that he stood there for an eternity, staring at the door and waiting for her to come back. Soon after that she brought a bowl of steaming hot water to the bedside. She handed Thomas a warm washcloth. You wash his face, throat, arms and armpits. I’ll do the rest.

Thomas nodded, held the washcloth, and watched Marie washing the man’s genitals and bottom with short, quick movements.

What is it? She stopped and looked up at Thomas.

I think, I’m afraid I. . Thomas passed his forefinger over the old man’s arm. I’m afraid I hurt him.

The blue bruises? That’s normal. There’s nothing else to be done. He’s been here for a few weeks now, we’re just glad he hasn’t developed bedsores on his back.

Thomas nodded. If Marie said so, maybe it was true. Was old people’s skin too thin, their flesh too soft, did they simply bruise more easily? Thomas took the washcloth and cautiously dabbed the old man’s forehead. He turned the washcloth over and, with the other side of it, wiped his cheeks, chin and mouth. The stubble of his beard looked like little plants, dark little stems growing out of small pits.

Thomas. She stepped to one side and bent over to him from the other side of the bed. In her mouth his name sounded intimate, distinguished, tenderly beautiful. You must get a move on. We have five rooms and almost thirty patients to deal with. Their lunch will be brought at eleven thirty.

Thomas apologised. In her eyes, his attempts must look clumsy, hesitant, awkward. He had never washed another human being before.

With the diabetic patients, the laboratory values entered on the charts had to be consulted, the dose of insulin was calculated to match them, and Marie injected it.

The second room also contained six men, one of whom had not been properly conscious for two weeks; three others would be dead by summer, although two of them would presumably be discharged and sent home before that. Three men lay in the third room; the fourth bed was empty because the patient was in surgery, having an incipient ulcer removed.

Thomas saw two nurses going along the corridor with a trolley. They were making their way to the ward. Marie and he had begun in the first room, the two nurses in the last room, and later they would meet and finish their round in the middle. Or almost finish it. Only the strong or particularly expensive medicinal drugs would be administered by Marie in the other rooms. The fourth room contained five men, and a sixth bed had been vacant since yesterday, because the patient had died.

What of?

Cancer, replied Marie. Most of the patients on our ward have cancer. Diseases seldom come alone. Diabetes goes along with kidney damage and kidney failure, kidney stones and strokes. The older the patients are, the tougher their bodies, the more diseases they accumulate.

When they reached the last room Marie said, in her soft, husky voice, that Thomas had already made good progress. She licked her lips. Only her eyes were smiling now, not a grimace, a sign that she felt close to him, Thomas believed. She had sensed that he didn’t want any pretence. Could he please, she asked, see to the last two patients on his own, because she had to hand out the medicinal drugs and write up entries in the card index and her poisons book. Marie explained what to do for the two men. One could walk, wash and shave himself, and he was to be discharged tomorrow. For the sake of routine, however, his temperature must be taken and he must be weighed without shoes on. The other man was still young, but as well as an ulcer he had a weak heart. Thomas was to help him wash, because he was too weak and careless to cleanse certain parts of his body properly. Thomas was to check his ears. Change his nightshirt. Make up the bed with clean linen, a job done much faster by two people synchronising their movements, and Marie promised to send him a nurse to help with it.

When you’ve finished, come to the front of the ward. You’ll be taking the meals round. It’s easy, the other nurses will show you how. At lunchtime I must write up the reports, but you can have a smoke with the other nurses, or eat your sandwiches if you brought any. After that we’ll see each other again. Marie pushed a loose strand of hair back under her cap and left the room. He felt that he was all alone. Did the patients know how new and inexperienced he was?

It was a moment before Thomas noticed the ribald remarks of the patients, and realised who was the butt of them. Hearing their conversation made him embarrassed; he didn’t feel that he belonged with these people.

At five, Marie went to sign off at the end of her shift. See you tomorrow, she said, shaking his hand. The other nurses giggled and cast him surreptitious glances. One showed him the door of the room where he could change. The nurses whispered, waved goodbye, and wished him a nice evening.

A little later, Thomas was sitting on the bench that stood on the broad path between the flower beds, smoking a cigarette. The tobacco gave him a pleasant sense of mild nausea; it occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten all day. The first blackbirds were singing in the clear February twilight. Thomas didn’t know how many ways out of the hospital there were, certainly there would be back doors and side doors, gates to let delivery vans in, access for ambulances and hearses. But he was sure that sooner or later Marie would have to come along this path. Signing off at the end of a shift couldn’t take hours. Maybe he would smoke two or three cigarettes. He had plenty of time.

Although it was nowhere near dark yet, the lights in the grounds flickered and came on.

Just before the end of her shift, Marie had been called into a room where a man was having breathing problems. Thomas had been expected to follow her. At her request he had opened the window, while the man struggled for air and breathed stertorously. Marie had bent over him, put an oxygen mask on him, and finally sent Thomas for the doctor. When he came back into the room with the doctor, the man had died. He had not been one of those expected to die in the coming days or weeks. A patient with a small cancerous tumour on his liver, it had been successfully operated on, with no sign that any vital organ was about to fail. Where had they taken the body? Thomas wondered.

Thomas lit another cigarette and blew smoke rings into the air. The light nearby dazzled him. He heard a scream from somewhere. Perhaps one of the patients was angry, perhaps he was afraid. A howling ray of light flowers in the cry, / when the ash flakes, / the last black egg breaks / shattered against the sky.

As long as someone could scream he wasn’t marked yet, wasn’t black yet. How many marks had he left on the thin man this morning? It seemed unreal to think that he had known Marie for only a few hours.

He put his head back, and closed his eyes. The smoke tickled his nose pleasantly.

Horror stifled us now / And the proud trees seem / in the great dream / under the blood-storm to bow. Barely moving his lips, he began again at the beginning, When the ash flakes, reciting and beating time with his foot on the paving stones. He stubbed his toe on the stones, and began adding another line. A second guessed at for a thousand years —. She must come now, he could feel that she was close. He sat upright and looked down the broad path towards the hospital in search of her.

He recognised her figure in the distance. She was on her own.

What are you doing, still here? She hardly smiled at all, she stopped not two metres away from him, her coat almost touching his knee. He was a boy, she was a woman.

He rubbed his eye with the back of his hand; the smoke stung. Throwing the cigarette on the ground, he trod it out.

I was waiting.

Yes? Her husky voice, the tenderness and certainty in it excited him. He didn’t have to answer the question in it. I could take you home, it’s getting dark.

She put her head on one side. Come along. She reached her hand out to him. No one had ever put a hand out to him like that before, just so that he could take it and walk part of the way with her. Now he was walking beside her, their hands clasped.

You can’t take me home, she said as they went along. They were both silent. She almost floated as she walked, as if she were gliding, in spite of the delicate heels clicking on the paving stones. A few metres before they reached the porter, she said even more softly than before: My husband is waiting for me. I must do some shopping now, collect my child from the crèche, and then I’ll go alone.

Go where?

To Friedrichshain. Home. To my husband. As they passed the porter, she took her hand out of his.

Thomas waited with her just outside the beam of the street light where it fell on the tramline. He could go with her as far as the Frankfurt Gate, where they would both change to different lines. He stood back for her to get in first, and put coins for their fares into the ticket machine. Then he turned the handle, which itself turned the compartments for the money, visible through the glass pane, as it fed out the tickets. The tops of the tickets fell out of the device with a slight rattle. Two tickets, one for her, one for him. The light in the tram made the shadows under her eyes look deeper. Her expression was weary and sad. They sat down on a vacant seat.

I could go shopping with you, he offered.

Another time. She smiled and put her head to one side, resting it on the window. She was wearing a woollen cap that covered her hair, as the nurse’s cap covered it in the daytime. How long was her hair, he wondered, and where did it fall to when it wasn’t covered up? If they had known each other longer, he could tell, she would have laid her head on his shoulder. Her slender hands clutched the bag on her lap. Only now did he notice her bright ring. The nursing staff weren’t allowed to wear jewellery on duty, she had told him so herself that morning, no bracelets or rings because of the danger of injury.

How old is your child?

She’ll be two in April.

A little girl?

She nodded. The corners of her mouth moved, almost imperceptibly, as she looked out of the window into the darkness of the streets passing by. She would disappear into that darkness, Thomas already missed her. His arm touched her shoulder, the slight jolting of the tram brought the fabric of their coats sometimes closer together, sometimes further away. He wondered what to say in goodbye when they left the tram at the Frankfurt Gate and went their separate ways.

In Rahnsdorf, Ella was sitting in the smoking room, with a brocade cloak over her shoulders and a cactus leaf on her head, drawing. There was no one else at home. The twins had been with a foster-family since the beginning of the year.

No one around? Thomas closed the door behind him. Ella carefully turned her head. Her neck was going to be stiff if she balanced the cactus on her head any longer.

Aren’t I anyone?

There was something suspect about her expression. Had they quarrelled? Had something happened?

Käthe’s gone to the theatre. Ella put her pencil down and looked at the fired clay head standing before her. Käthe had made it a few years ago, and its nose was rather too small. She bent carefully, keeping her head erect so that the cactus leaf wouldn’t fall to the floor, and then straightened her back.

Why have you put that cactus on your head?

So that I’ll sit up straight at last. Her injured tone of voice told Thomas that there must have been a quarrel.

I really wanted to go too, but Käthe wouldn’t take me. She says I have to learn to draw properly first, and then maybe she’ll get me a place at the fashion college. On her stool, Ella turned in Thomas’s direction so that she could look at him. But on three conditions. If I’ll take a serious interest in art, if I’ll study drawing properly, and if I go to adult education classes.

So what? I thought you’d been going to those for quite a while.

Tears shot into Ella’s eyes. Of course I’ve been going. For months. But not any more, she sobbed. I can’t even say my multiplication tables from one to ten. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

Thomas went over to her. He was about to take the cactus leaf off her head with his fingertips, but as soon as he touched the fine prickles Ella snapped: Don’t do that! You must help me! She held on to the cactus with one hand, shrieked, and tried to put her hand in her mouth, which was much too small for it.

Wait. Thomas went into the bathroom, opened the drawer of the little cupboard, found the tweezers and hurried back to the smoking room. Wait, I’ll help you, he cried, when he saw Ella leaning forward to bury her face in her hands.

What can I do? I can’t do anything. What do I want? I don’t want anything. What am I? I’m nothing. Ella was crying.

Stop it, Ella, you’ll rub the prickles into your face. He removed one of her hands from her face, and began pulling the prickles out of her skin with the tweezers. As the fine ones kept eluding him, Ella let her tears fall on her hands, and Thomas had to pull himself together to keep from laughing furiously.

I’m stupid. Little-Ella is really stupid.

Please stop that Little-Ella stuff. You’re not stupid. I’ll help you. Thomas had found the easiest way to take hold of the prickles, and now he was pulling them out at increasing speed, until the first hand was clear. Ella had only a very few prickles in her other hand.

They sat down at the big table in the smoking room, and Thomas sharpened a pencil. A large book of pictures of Italian Renaissance paintings served them as a base on which to place a sheet of graph paper. Thomas drew a horizontal line on it, and a vertical line over the horizontal one. That’s the x-axis and this is the y-axis. Imagine the y-axis as a thermometer. Here, this corresponds to one, this to two, this to three. Thomas drew tiny lines along the vertical. And in the minus area you have minus one, two, three, four, and so on. He quickly sketched the units. It’s important to be systematic, always stick to the same sequence, or it won’t work. I’ll show you a simple example first. Assuming that f of x equals. . Thomas noted down the little letters and brackets.

Why x and y? Couldn’t the upright line be there too? Ella raised her eyebrows, with some effort, and fluttered her eyelids. Her shaky voice showed that up to this point she had hardly been able to listen. Already she didn’t understand what he was trying to explain to her.

Of course. Anything could be. But this is about the area of definition, and if I decide that I want to look more closely at a curve, or represent its calculation graphically, then –

The what? Area of de-fit-ion?

Definition. Never mind, just look at this. This f of x corresponds to the parabola that I’ll show you, f (x) = (x — 4)² + 3. Now we’re looking at its situation in the system of coordinates, look where its apex is, see in what direction it opens, and how it is curved. You get the idea?

You act as if I ought to know all this! Ella struck the table with her fist. But I don’t. Apex, f of x, what does it all mean?

The more agitated Ella became, the calmer Thomas was. He knew her moments of despair and impatience, her assumption that she was stupid, her suspicion that no one would ever manage to explain something to her if she simply didn’t understand it already. Here, take this. Thomas handed her the pencil.

So what am I supposed to do with it now? She furiously scribbled on the top corner of the graph paper until the lead broke.

Sharpen it. Thomas held the pencil sharpener out to her. It’s really very simple, he said calmly, smiling confidently at her. Listen.

Ha ha! Very simple.

Every quadratic function is a parabola. Draw the shape down here in the corner. Do you know what a parabola looks like?

No. Ella had cast her eyes down as if ashamed of herself. She sharpened and sharpened an ever longer coil of wood from the point of her pencil.

It’s sharp now. Thomas took the pencil out of her hand and swiftly sketched a parabola. That’s what it looks like. He gave the pencil back to Ella. The last number here, plus three, will show you at a glance where your zero point has shifted along the y coordinate. So if you assume that f of x is the point of intersection of the two coordinates, zero, then look for the level where the apex could be situated.

Here? Ella pushed the pencil to a place on the paper. With verve, she drew a line in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet, put the pencil to the paper again below it and drew a similar line to the left. There’s your parabola!

Yes. Thomas wondered how to ensure that she didn’t get even more worked up. That’s a parabola. And he added, almost inaudibly: more or less.

What?

But not the one that belongs to the equation here. Your parabola needs another equation. It ought to be more like f(x) = x² +3. He didn’t tell her that in addition her parabola did not show the requisite symmetry, but bulged far too much, and was asymmetrical to the axis of reflection.

Well, there you are! Ella got to her feet and threw the pencil down on the table. I told you I couldn’t do it. Anyway, what does f of x mean, why is it all supposed to have a function? I don’t have a function myself, do I? She was shouting so violently that tiny drops sprayed out of her mouth.

Ella, it’s not about you at all, it’s not about your function. He spoke slowly and almost as softly as Marie when she calmly wished him good morning today. Was it really today? It seemed to him an eternity ago, another world, another life. Thomas rubbed his temples, he tried to catch hold of Ella’s hand as she kicked out, pushed the chair back, tore the brocade cloak off her shoulders, flung it to the floor and ran towards the door. Quietly, he said: There is no such thing as a graph without a function. I mean, well, there is, but we can represent it precisely if we know the equation.

Now Ella was opening the door, and she slammed it behind her as loudly as she could. He would go after her, not at once, perhaps in ten minutes’ time when she had calmed down. He would try to begin again from the beginning.

But when Thomas passed the closed door of Ella’s room later, he heard her laughter and the laughter of Siegfried, who had obviously dropped in for a late visit.

After changing, Thomas had arrived in the nurses’ room while it was still dark, half an hour before he came on duty and the shifts changed. He used the time to study the duty roster pinned up in a small frame beside the door. His own name was entered in the bottom column, in pencil rather than the ink normally used. Marie had tomorrow and the day after tomorrow off, and she was on night duty at the weekend. In his own column, Thomas had crosses on all the weekdays, all of them for the early daytime shift, none at the weekend. Disappointed, he turned to a chubby nurse whose eyes were red-rimmed after her night shift. Who draws up the rosters?

Matron. You don’t get any choice, specially not when you’re new here. She yawned in mid-sentence and politely put her hand in front of her mouth.

Thomas thanked her, and left the nurses’ room. It struck him that he had forgotten to wash his hands. As he rubbed them under the white stream of water, he wondered whether to bring an eraser, rub out the pencilled crosses in some unobserved moment, and then enter them in the column for night shifts at the weekend. When he returned to the nurses’ room, a woman with bobbed white hair was standing there, giving instructions in a staccato voice. Thomas shook hands with the matron and told her his name. He confirmed that Nurse Marie had shown him around the day before. The matron issued her orders briefly to the other nurses as they arrived before the shift changed. When they were all sitting at the long table, and just as the hands of the big clock on the wall moved to 6 a.m. exactly, the door opened and Marie joined the others on the bench. Her hair was immaculately pinned up, the narrow line above her eyes delicately traced. The pale rings round those eyes moved Thomas; she still hadn’t given him even a fleeting glance. News of incidents and new developments was exchanged. Marie wrote down details in the ring-bound notepad on the table in front of her. Thomas was sent out to fetch a teapot. When he came back he put the teapot down within Marie’s reach, went round the table and sat down in his own place. The nurses were discussing the new occupant of a bed; the man who died yesterday had obviously been removed. Taken away. The night shift had laid out the corpse and then taken it to pathology. Thomas thought about the pronoun. If there was no living person inside it, the dead husk became an it, not he or she any more.

Did you hear what I said, Thomas? The matron gave him a stern look.

I’m sorry. He hadn’t been listening, or if he had the last sentences had escaped him.

The matron made a note in her book, and was now clearly summing up what had just been discussed. Because of the staff shortage, Nurse Doris is on short-term loan to Ward C for the entire weekend. Thomas, you will stand in for her here. It’s a night shift, but Nurse Marie will be on duty with you. Not much usually happens at weekends, no doctors doing their rounds, no new procedures.

The morning passed in a buzz of activity. The doctor had begun his rounds, the formalities for two new admissions were concluded, preparations were made to discharge three other patients. While the matron accompanied the doctor round the ward, Marie was constantly issuing instructions, letting the nurses know who was to do what in which room. Thomas was sent over the grounds with the laundry cart, then he was told to clean a whole trolley of kidney dishes and instruments, another nurse was to help and show him how to wash the instruments, and then how to put them in a basket for sterilisation later. As she gave these instructions Marie did not look at him, but talked to her colleague who was to show Thomas what to do. Why didn’t she look at him? Thomas stood at the sink for half the morning. Many of the instruments seemed to have been lying in a disinfectant solution with a strong smell for hours, but still they were not easy to clean.

At the midday break Marie disappeared with Matron for a discussion. Only when the food trolleys were taken away and Thomas has been told to take the temperatures of a small number of selected patients for the second time did he see her again. He was just shaking the thermometer down, and smoothing out the pillow at the request of the patient, who raised his head and looked past him curiously. The door behind him had opened, and Marie was there in the room, carrying a tray of gauze, clips and a bottle. She held the tray on the palm of one hand, like a waitress, while she put a strand of hair back behind her ear with the other hand.

Can you help me with the compresses? At last she looked at him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining.

She put the tray down on the bedside table of a patient whose skin had a yellow tinge; he must have a liver problem of some kind.

Thomas was to hold the patient’s arm up in the air while she tied the compresses in place. As if by chance, their bare arms touched. The scent of her intoxicated him. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight in front of her face, the light from the window fell on her shoulders, lay on her back as she leaned forward to close the compress, and briefly brushed past her face as she turned and gently touched Thomas. She held the clip of the compress in place with one hand, stretching the other out towards the tray on the bedside table. She didn’t reach for it, she would have had to grasp him more firmly and push him aside to do that.

Will you give me another clip, please?

Thomas reached behind him and handed her the clip. They stood close to each other, side by side, in silence as Thomas held the man’s arm. Marie leaned forward and clipped the compress in place, their hips touched. Thomas held the arm only a little way up in the air, so that hers could touch his when she straightened up. She picked up the tray, and he followed her out of the room. They were alone for a few seconds in the corridor.

Please don’t wait for me this evening. My husband is coming to collect me. Marie turned round, as if to make sure that no one was listening to them. He’s very jealous. If he sees me with a young man he’ll ask questions. She put the tray down on the trolley and held the brown bottle of disinfectant tincture out to Thomas. Without further explanation, she pulled the trolley of kidney dishes and instruments along behind her. Thomas followed her over to the bed. The man in it was feverish, his reddened eyes gleaming.

Spare me, he said. Marie responded with her exhausted smile. She pulled off a piece of cotton wool and handed it to Thomas, then a piece of gauze, she pushed the covers back, raised the man’s nightshirt and told him that Thomas would be seeing to him today. Thomas had to put down the tincture. Then he wrapped the gauze round the cotton wool and pressed the wad to the mouth of the bottle, waited until it was soaked, and dabbed the patient’s skin with it. The tincture had a mineral smell. The long suture on the stomach of the man, who had a childlike look, was fresh. To keep from crying out, the man drew air in through his teeth with a hissing sound, spraying saliva in pain. A second wad of cotton wool, then a third. Thomas took the kidney dish with the used wads of cotton wool and went to the door. He waited for Marie, and they tidied up the trolley of instruments together in the corridor. What had been taken out of the man, he asked, what was his operation for? Marie told him it had been for fatty liver. The affected part had been cut out and taken away. Where to, he asked, where does the bit of liver that’s been cut out go?

It’s thrown away, burnt. Thomas felt a leaden sensation in the pit of his stomach, his limbs were heavy, he needed a break.

When he was down in the yard on his own, smoking a cigarette, he watched two men carrying rubbish buckets out of the surgical department. This way of dealing with human bodies seemed to him barbaric. The unworthiness of it disgusted him. The idea would have seemed ridiculous had there been a level from which he could have smiled down on it. Called to higher things, who could that be? The emptiness of it clung to him like a certainty. A doctor with a stethoscope round his neck came along the path, a surgeon, Thomas suspected, his gait was so proud and self-important, he was smiling so triumphantly to himself, and as Thomas watched him go the doctor shrank to a tiny figure with a certain helplessness in the way he moved, his hands not knowing what to do, clutching a thin file folder, looking without conscious intent through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses for which a bull had probably had to lose part of its body. See the chin, once so defiant / helpless falling on his chest / And the striking Roman nose / pointing sharply nowhere much. Soon, Thomas heard Marie’s voice again, she was sure he’d be allowed to watch an operation. Thomas trod out his cigarette with the sole of his shoe, throwing livers away, cutting out cancerous tumours, taking corpses to the mortuary.

Back in the ward, Thomas found Marie in the corridor carrying the tray in one hand, pulling the trolley along with the other. Unasked, he followed her, caught up with her, walked along beside her. When she stopped outside the room where medicaments were kept and was looking for her key, he leaned against the door frame. He waited, and took the tray from her. She unlocked the door, took her tray back, disappeared into the room. He heard sounds, and closed his eyes. Heard her sliding something open, heard something clinking softly, a snapping sound, probably a cupboard door opening and closing, he heard her putting items down, placing and laying them in position. When she reappeared, she was holding a box of plasters and a small glass bottle of tablets. She closed the door of the room, slipped the key into the pocket of her coat, and went ahead of him.

How old are you?

Marie stopped and tilted her head slightly to one side. Twenty-six. Her eyes gave nothing away.

I’m almost eighteen, he said, and added quietly, I’ll be eighteen in a few days’ time.

A visiting relation came through the big double door in search of her father. Marie told her where to find him, saying she still had medicaments to give out and could go part of the way with her. Thomas waited indecisively, and then went into the nurses’ room. He asked if he could have a short break to go to the lavatory and smoke a cigarette.

Since the turn of the year, since they had buried Grandfather, and Uncle Paul had gone back to faraway America, he had been trying to write him a letter. Maybe there was a solution that an uncle could see from America, whereas here, from inside the Wall, high as it was, you could hardly even see the stars these days. The drafts of Thomas’s letters always began with questions. Not about Uncle Paul’s health. Questions verging on complaints: Why is the world watching us? That was one of them. How can you people out there pass by and see us pacing up and down behind the bars of our socialist dream? Maybe his uncle didn’t care for irony, cynicism or doubt. After all, he himself claimed to have been in the Red Squad during his schooldays in Berlin. So obviously, even if you had origins in communism, you could live in America? Instead of a sender’s name and address, Thomas drew a face on the envelope with the pupils of its eyes consisting of barbed wire in large, spiky tangles. Perhaps his letters were intercepted at the border, because the authorities were curious and would want to know what such remarks meant. Thomas waited weeks for an answer, and waited in vain. None of the nurses approached him as he stood out in the yard, smoking and scribbling something down with a pencil. They kept their distance, giggling, and waved to him now and then. Forgive my questions, but who should I turn to? Where could I go? Please tell me. He erased the salutation, and over the pale ghost of Dear Uncle Paul he wrote Dear Aunt Erni. Aunt Erna, as he realised when he had written the last letters of her name, was an even less suitable recipient than Uncle Paul. And Thomas didn’t want to get anyone whom he had seen so seldom in his life as his aunt into trouble. Maybe he should write to the family’s French friends, Henri, the friend of Käthe’s youth, and his Natascha? Hadn’t they cut and run when Germany threatened to stifle them, facing them with the prospect of imprisonment and a living death? Once again Thomas rubbed it out and began again.

At the weekend, the late day shift began at 1 p.m. and ended at ten in the evening. During that time, said the rules, members of the nursing staff could take an hour’s break, but in reality that hour’s break almost never materialised. Now and then they went for a smoke, or to go to the lavatory.

Marie had already seen him at midday; she was sitting in the nurses’ room writing figures in a book when he opened the door, glad that he could work with her. Presumably the tiny figures denoted the weight and number of powdered medicaments, drops or tablets. She had to keep the records of all the medicaments administered on the ward.

Hello, she said, and he thought he saw a strange sadness in her eyes. Maybe it was the slight stoop of her shoulders, as if she was bending over, Marie who usually sat as upright as she stood, almost skipping. Perhaps she was just tired, perhaps her little girl had slept badly last night. Her face was strikingly brown; she had rubbed brown foundation into her face, no doubt about it. Thomas took a deep breath. He thought about it. Did she believe she looked prettier with that brown paste? The effect was like an actress at the theatre, the make-up coarse and almost crumbly on her delicate face. She lowered her eyes, and Thomas wasn’t sure whether he had heard a sigh.

He was holding a greaseproof paper bag. Here, I brought this for us.

What is it? Curiously, she craned her neck.

Toasted oat flakes with sugar and cinnamon, smell them.

She obliged him by doing so. The things you can do, she said wearily. Was she forcing herself to smile? Maybe he was being a nuisance?

Thomas put the bag on the table and asked what he could do. Marie opened the window and looked at him. First he was to help collecting the rest of the plates left from lunch. Then he could take over from the nurse in Room 8 who was feeding the severely weakened man with the cancerous growth on his forehead. Later she would tell him what to do this afternoon.

Thomas did as she had asked. He had cleared away the plates, but feeding the man with cancer was difficult. The nurse had managed to get only three spoonfuls inside him. Thomas took over the spoon and the bowl of mush. The nurse closed the window, said goodbye and left the room.

Thomas tried to get the man drinking from a cup with a spout. It smelled of camomile tea with a slight touch of urine. But the sick man was obviously too weak to suck. He only put out his tongue, which had a furry, yellowish-white coating.

My whole mouth hurts, he said, slobbering.

One eye was badly swollen, closed and purple. Pus stuck to the eyelid. Thomas forced himself to see only the surface details, no emotion, he told himself, no disgust, no horror. Only the body is his. My brain is mine. I’m making a fuss because I have to get over a little obstacle, but this man will die. In fact he must. Thomas let his arm holding the spoon drop. You don’t have to eat it, he said, staring at the grey mush. It had an unpleasant smell, no one, however hungry, would want to eat mush like that.

No, whispered the man, I don’t have to. He sounded grateful, as if Thomas had let him off lightly. Cautiously, he felt the largest of the swellings on the back of his head. Then he dropped back, and his bib upset the cup with a spout that Thomas had not been holding firmly enough.

Thomas fetched a bucket and cloths, and cleaned the bedside table and the floor. The bed had to be made up again; he needed Marie’s help.

They didn’t have time until an hour later, when they put a clean sheet on the bed, turning and moving the man with the growths on his head. Marie fetched cotton wool and some tincture, and carefully dabbed the man’s eye. Thomas watched. He could have watched her for hours curving her fingers, holding the wad of cotton wool, standing there and smiling, fresh, no courage or grief in her attitude, he admired her.

Please go and check the nappies of the patients in Room 1 and Room 6. Thomas went. It seemed that Marie found nothing difficult.

Her gliding gait meant that she could approach you silently, whatever shoes and height of heels she was wearing. Suddenly she was standing beside Thomas, and her delicately sweet perfume rose to his nostrils.

When we come off the shift this evening, then. . She looked at him with her large, velvety eyes.

Your husband will be waiting for you? he asked, finishing her sentence.

No. She lowered her eyes, and once again she looked as sad as she had at midday. He won’t be waiting at the gate, not today. She seemed to be wondering what to say to him, and how. Maybe I could go home to your place?

To my place? Thomas looked at her in surprise.

To your family. You still live at home, don’t you?

Of course you can, said Thomas, nodding vigorously. Thoughts crowded in on him. What made her express that wish?

I can’t go home today. I’ll explain later. She turned and hurried down the corridor, where a patient could be heard calling out through an open door.

Thomas threw the soiled nappies on the laundry cart. His pulse was racing for the rest of the day; wherever he stood, wherever he sat, he was wondering how he came to have this unhoped-for stroke of luck. He also wondered whether Käthe would be at home, or Ella.

As she had on the first day, Marie reached her hand out to him as they went down the broad path between the flower beds towards the porter’s lodge, in the darkness that had fallen some time ago. He held her hand, and felt the warmth that radiated from her.

Walking in the dark, with the light of a street lamp falling on their faces only now and then, they did not look at one another as they talked.

When I’m on late shift or the night shift, at weekends like these, my little girl stays with my parents. I take her to Bergholz on the Sputnik express shuttle, and I collect her again on Sunday or on Monday morning, depending which shift I’m working.

Thomas said nothing. Perhaps her husband worked shifts as well, so he couldn’t look after the child when she was at work or at weekends like this. Thomas felt her hand in his and was glad that she didn’t withdraw it as they passed the porter.

The tram was standing at the stop with all its lights on. They ran to catch it, hand in hand.

Thomas was still holding her hand as they sat side by side. Her ring shone, pale and narrow. He put his other hand under hers, so that he could clasp it entirely, covering it protectively from above, supporting it from below. He wondered if she would let him stroke it. Won’t your husband be surprised if you don’t go home?

Now she bent her gaze so low that he had the impression she felt ashamed.

What will he be thinking?

He thinks I have to work overtime on the shift. Sometimes the night shift is late. Her lips moved as she began, several times, to say more, and with her lips her nostrils moved almost imperceptibly. Fine crumbs of her make-up quivered there, ready to fall off at any minute.

We don’t have a telephone, she said with an anxious smile. I told the nurse on night duty to tell him, if he calls from the telephone kiosk, that I was kept late, and then I went home to Sabine. Sometimes I sleep at Sabine’s.

Now Thomas did press her hand. She freed it from his, opened the large patterned bag on her lap, and searched it until she produced a powder compact.

Excuse me, she said, turning to the dark panes of the tram windows and powdering her nose, forehead, cheeks and chin. Her skin had a grey tinge, and fine cracks showed everywhere in her make-up. Thomas wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to make herself up, any more than she had to smile. But he said nothing and waited until she had put the compact away and had a hand free that he could take and hold in his again. At Alexanderplatz they got off, went up the steps together and waited for the suburban train going in the direction of Erkner.

All the windows in the house were dark when Thomas, still holding Marie’s hand, had walked through the wood from the suburban railway station, and had then gone along the sandy path to reach the wide road paved with cobblestones.

The front door was locked, a clear sign that Käthe and Ella were not at home this evening. He switched on the light in the corridor and led the way to the smoking room. There was a smell of wax. Käthe had forgotten to turn off the flame under the little hotplate on the tea trolley. A tiny remnant of wax was bubbling in the pot, which was steaming. Thomas turned out the flame and stepped on the switch of the standard lamp. Marie held on to her big bag with both hands. Shyly, she looked around, her eyes wandering over the tall cacti by the window, the small clay models standing on the table ready for firing, the large chunk of stone on the windowsill, the shining bowl on the chest of drawers, varnished green. She marvelled at all the pictures on the walls. That bright yellow furze is by Kesting, Thomas said, pointing over to the charcoal drawings. And that one is by Kollwitz, like the etching beside it.

But Marie did not know those names. She nodded politely and said fancy that three times running, until Thomas mentioned no more names after Kollwitz, because he didn’t want to make her feel awkward. What did it mean to her if a picture was by Schmidt or Beckmann? He did not mention the clay Rosa Luxemburg standing under its damp cloth on the veranda. Enumerating all those names would seem conceited to her.

Would you like some wine or some tea?

She couldn’t decide, and then wanted both.

He offered her the armchair in his room and sat on the bed opposite her. She sat on the very edge of the chair, her slender legs crossed at the knees, swinging her heels in their delicate shoes.

May I use your bathroom? I’d like to have a wash.

Your hands?

No, my face. It’s been itching all day. When the foundation dries I can hardly stand it. Now she laughed awkwardly and got to her feet.

He showed her the bathroom. Before he could explain anything she had closed the door. The bolt stuck. Thomas heard her struggling with it in vain. Since Ella’s accident with the lodger, the bolt was bent so badly that no one could shift it.

Thomas opened the bottle of wine and filled both glasses. In the Johannishof, he had noticed that the glasses were only half filled at first. Only later, as the evening wore on, did they seem to be fuller.

Marie didn’t take long. Her skin was reddened; perhaps rubbing off the make-up or the cold water had irritated it. But Thomas saw something else. It took him a moment to realise what he was looking at. The skin over one of her cheekbones was discoloured blue.

Marie must have noticed him staring at her. She put one hand to her cheek and said: I walked into an open cupboard door this morning.

An open cupboard door? Thomas knew he had better keep his mouth closed if he wasn’t going to embarrass her even more.

Yes, I wanted to get the sugar out of the cupboard, and crash! Now she put both hands side by side on her lap, flat, as if she were praying.

Thomas tried to imagine Marie walking into an open cupboard door. Something like that might happen to him, but not Marie. Her eyes saw everything, they were everywhere, penetrating everything, they saw from a distance and close too, everywhere, he was sure of that. Why was she lying to him?

You don’t believe me, she said quietly. Thomas did not reply. Holding his wine glass, he tipped it slightly, held it straight, and wondered whether he had to take hers off the table and press it into her hand so that she could drink. He leaned forward, took her glass and held it out to her.

Here’s to you!

And you!

He had closed the door of his room, and when he heard footsteps and Agotto’s barking in the corridor he knew that no one would open it, any more than anyone expected him to go out, say hello, or even introduce his guest formally. Käthe wouldn’t even know that he had a guest, they were keeping so quiet.

They sat opposite each other until three in the morning, telling one another what they thought about life, in few sentences with long minutes of silence in between.

For instance, seeing her eye fall on the picture of Walter Ulbricht that had been shot at, Thomas said: He made monkeys of us all. He scratched under his armpits, grasped two invisible bars in the air in front of his face, and pressed his pursed mouth between them. Looks good out there.

Marie cautiously laughed, and moved a little further back into the armchair, placing the arm holding her glass on the arm of the chair while she stroked the smooth fabric of her trousers with her other hand. What sort of dog was it she had heard just now? she asked. Thomas told her about Käthe and her dog, who always got something from her plate at mealtimes, the dog she caressed and tickled under the chin. He had never seen Käthe caress a human being. He poured Marie more wine. With alcohol, wishful dreams, oblivion and tobacco, / And we will hate ourselves with all our might. / Oh child, you need not weep, / We take nothing with us when we go. / We will only walk by night. — / You do not see in the dark when an eye breaks. Marie raised one eyebrow. She liked the black walls of his room: It’s like a cave, you can feel safe in here.

The universe, Thomas drank from his glass, but kept the wine in his mouth and did not swallow it, turned it over gently against his palate. His tongue in the wine. That afternoon Marie had said that the man with the eye oozing pus was going blind in it, and they would have to operate next week. By now he knew what it meant for something to be taken away. The eye would disappear. Now he swallowed the wine. Is there a place where no light comes in any more, a place no one thinks about any more?

The shadow of the moon? She looked attentively at the rug between her and Thomas. The loops of its bouclé fabric looked like moss in the faint light. He had the impression that she was thinking of something else.

Everyone thinks of that. Lunik 2 has even been there. Everyone wants to go to the moon. The silence inside the Wall since it was built round us. Over on the other side, where the order to shoot isn’t in force, do people stand on the Wall shaking our barbed wire? Do you want to get shot?

He soon saw, from the way that Marie was suppressing her yawns, that she was tired and shivering.

He offered her his bed, and when she hesitantly agreed, his quilt too. She took the hairpins out of her piled hair and put them on the chest of drawers one by one, until her hair was falling down over her shoulders. Should he offer her a nightshirt? She sat on his bed and took her shoes off. Thomas plumped up the pillow and put it down for her so that she could sleep comfortably. Tentatively, she laid her head on the pillow, her hands under her cheek, her legs drawn up. Only just audibly her teeth were chattering; she pressed her lips together. Thomas put his quilt firmly round the beautiful, shivering woman. He took the sheepskin off the chest of drawers to cover himself.

He put out the small lamp. It was some time before he could make out her shape, the hollows of her eyes and her delicate mouth. Dark hair framed that pale face, and she was looking at him with tired eyes. He would look at her for a long time, for as long as he could.

When a blackbird struck up its trilling in the faint twilight of dawn, it made him blink. How different Marie looked in the dark, how good it was to be with her. We have to go to work tomorrow — his voice croaked, it was so long since he had spoken.

Afterwards, she whispered back.

Close your eyes, he said, putting out a finger to touch one of her eyelids. The skin there was smooth, warm. He would have liked to touch her cheek, but he didn’t dare. Her slight smile under the closed eyelids infected him. In the midst of the darkness he saw her image and felt, even if he did not hear it, the light touch of her breath on his chin.

My husband likes to drink. And he has friends, colleagues at work. He gets together with them at weekends. He invites them to come and see us. And before my little girl was born, now too when she’s away at weekends I have to dance.

Thomas did not like darkness, he wanted to see her, he wanted to see what she was saying, understand just what she meant. Thomas opened his eyes, but she had spoken with her own eyes closed. Dance?

Take my clothes off and dance.

You have to take your clothes off and dance?

Only at weekends, and when the child isn’t there. She spoke so softly that he could hardly make out the words. He wanted to get closer to her, but the idea that he was lying in front of her, like a reflection, suggested caution.

Just dance?

Sometimes other things too.

Other things?

They give him money for it. It’s amusing.

Amusing? He didn’t understand what Marie was telling him.

He says.

Thomas stared at her, his eyes burning, the dim light hurt, and he wanted to say: Look at me. He wanted to know how she would look at him now. But he couldn’t do it. If she didn’t open her eyes of her own accord he wouldn’t tell her to, wouldn’t try to put an arm round her.

His arms lay stiff beside him, his hands clenched into cold fists, nails digging into the sheepskin. So warm and close, / So warm and close, within reach, / your being lay by mine, / but the great gulf yawns, / Where reason parts us — Was her breath steadier, was she asleep now? He couldn’t ask her, he could only whisper something, the beginning of the poem: Where did love begin, / to stir in the heart again? / Who gave the signal / to reveal the pain? Her breathing was so peaceful that he had to make sure she was asleep.

In the dark, she took his head in her hands, held it, and he wondered, as he pretended to be asleep, whether she also held his thoughts. Perhaps they were both asleep and dreaming.

You’re a handsome boy, she said, putting the fingers that had touched his forehead to her mouth and kissing them, then running them over his cheek.

He felt hot under the sheepskin. The heating was on, he had forgotten to turn it off in the evening and open the window. His eyes felt swollen. Her lips, her fingers, his skin. He felt the blood draining from his hands as they went cold in the turmoil of his mind.

No one can make you dance. The defiance in his words alarmed him. As if he were her husband, as if he could make such decisions.

Perhaps to punish him, perhaps out of shame, she closed her beautiful eyes and kept her hands close to her sides now.

He turned over, lay on his back, helpless as a beetle. Beautiful Marie beside him, untouchably close.

She must have heard his arm on the sheet, smelt the cinnamon and burnt sugar, she opened her eyes. In daylight the blue bruise was yellowish green at the edges. She raised her head, sniffed, and brought her lips close to his hands. With her slender fingers she took a few toasted oat flakes and let them drop into her mouth. She licked her lips.

Do you have a mirror in here? She didn’t want to have to cross the corridor to the bathroom without make-up on her face.

He said no, but went out and brought her the big mirror from the corridor wall. She crouched in front of it and put her make-up on. He asked if she would like some tea. They heard footsteps in the corridor. Thomas didn’t know if they belonged to Käthe, Ella, a visitor or a model. Anyone could be walking about the house at this time, in the middle of a Sunday.

Marie said she would rather go down to the lake, which must be quite close.

A wind was blowing, already a mild, spring wind; bare trees towered to the sky, broken branches lay in the mire as they walked hand in hand along the Fliess and over the marshy land. Among the puddles and small pools, you could see the first little green leaves, scillas and anemones peeping through the blackened winter foliage. They had to pick their way around large puddles, and mud clung to their shoes. On the narrow landing stage made of piled boulders, a fallen alder lay in the brown reeds, its root pointing up at the sky, as if the earth were yawning, and Thomas scrambled up on it and gave Marie a hand to help her up. He led her along the trunk by his hand, out over the water, which grew deeper and deeper, to where the little breaking ripples had buried the crown of the tree. They could go no farther. Swaying in the wind, they kept their balance, held hands and looked out over the restless grey water. It was fresh here, cooler than in the wood. They did not talk, but sometimes their eyes briefly met, and their hands did not let go of each other. The wind blew over the lake towards them, raising little waves so that water sprayed in their faces.