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Deciding

I’d like to see you having to put in a travel application for every journey, having to ask permission — Käthe was kneading the wax in her hands, strong fingers pressing and working the yellow mass to make it soft and malleable. She was outlining the body, a long back, slender legs, the loins. The head was what mattered in the model she was making. The forehead was domed, the eyebrows should stand out better, the mouth struck her as too soft. He was handsome, her young man, as she called Thomas. Sometimes she talked about him as if he were a stranger, a Greek model without a name. Her star, her hope, her gift. No statue ever had silky eyelashes, but Thomas did, and there must be some way of showing them. This time she was concentrating only on the head, he hadn’t had to undress, they were sitting close to each other at a diagonal. The slate covering her workbench shimmered in the yellowish-grey light. Spring rain pattered down on the veranda roof. Käthe didn’t like him to prop his head on his hands, but it felt heavy.

Permission, applications, you sometimes talk like a functionary, Mother. It’s easy for you to talk. You can travel wherever you like.

Pull yourself together! In a bad temper, Käthe flattened the wax forehead, made the dome a prominent back to the model’s head instead. I have work to do here, we’re building a new society.

And where would she have gone? He knew, only too well, that her supposed freedom was nothing but the truth of necessity. After all, his mother did not lack driving forces, felt capable of sacrificing herself to higher duties. Wasn’t he himself the incarnation of her necessity, even if the reasoning behind it could be questioned, never mind whether you went along with Hegel or Marx, depending on your society? Without financial means, without a reputation, still single at the time and with two bastard children, now divorced with four children, deep in the shit? She wanted to be a sculptor. There was no other society that offered someone like Käthe a place. He bit his lip to keep from saying what he was thinking: in this country, you have to have been persecuted by the Nazi regime. Thomas whistled through his teeth. Do you know what I dream of doing? Swimming round the Galapagos Islands. Quietly, he added: And writing.

Käthe laughed. She couldn’t take such dreamy notions seriously. You’ll grow up, study, work, show what you can do. He heard the mockery in her laugh. What, swim round an island on your own? Who? Who wants to read accounts of delightful travels? Her certainty struck home, surprising him. He supposed she wanted to remind him of what mattered in life. So that he wouldn’t dream of worlds no one had ever promised him, worlds that didn’t exist. He knew her warnings.

It’s all about renewing our society, never mind the chameleon’s tongue. Käthe put the wax model on the table and viewed it from all sides.

Your society, thought Thomas, not mine.

It’s said that Michelangelo idealised his models. No one has to invent anything like that about you, the gods were keeping an eye on Michelangelo’s fingers. She laughed. Käthe stroked the regularly formed back of the wax model with one finger. Thomas yawned so as to avoid hearing what she said. She wasn’t speaking to him, anyway, she was speaking to the room, to herself, maybe even to her wax creation, he hoped.

Now, come and sit down properly.

Thomas straightened up and rubbed his face with both hands to get rid of his weariness. She was talking about beauty; he was talking about what was to become of him. He had often known her to fall abruptly silent and turn to other subjects when he was talking about his own wishes, when he read a poem aloud and said he wanted to work with words and make writing his career. Something about that must seem improper to her. He was not trying to make her proud of him, he was just afraid of feeling that she was ashamed.

Why shouldn’t I be a journalist? Do you think my poems are embarrassing?

Embarrassing? Oh, good heavens, no. The poems themselves are — what can I say? You’re seventeen. Käthe squashed the wax nose of her model with some force. You don’t know what work means. Who trusts words today, and by what right? She was modelling the body in a perfunctory way, the legs, the chest, the arms. Thomas felt that she was impatient, he guessed that she would stand up in a moment.

Käthe wiped down her hands. I must go down and work on the stone now. Come with me — she went ahead — the heating’s not on, but you can stay as you are, all I need today is your head.

Thomas followed her downstairs to the studio. She put her glasses on, took the wooden peening anvil, chose a fine chisel and began working on the stone.

What are you thinking of? Käthe’s question came unexpectedly.

Thomas felt bad about his lack of sophistication; he would never enrich language or experience. The world seemed to him large and powerful, it didn’t need him. Why scrabble around like an animal? Language was not political in itself. What you made of it could be political, what many people made of it had to be political. Thomas, however, wanted to snatch language away from the political field and win it back for the world of beauty. He owed her an answer, he ought to tell her what he was thinking of.

I could write about the primeval dragonflies in the Himalayas, he said, and hesitated when he heard her snort. I could write about modern architecture in London, he tentatively went on. Isn’t an uncle of yours an architect there?

You mean the baby of the family?

Didn’t your father send you the newspaper cuttings about those tower blocks he designed? Thomas thought briefly of the odd fact that to this day the youngest sibling, envied by his brothers, was known by everyone as the baby of the family, even if the family no longer existed, still less the bosom of the family, Thomas’s great-grandparents were dead and all the brothers had families of their own. Thomas had never met the English great-uncle who was called the baby of the family. He was seldom discussed, obviously his relations were indifferent to his absence, and it did not bother anyone that since his emigration a great expanse of water lay between them at the very least, perhaps a whole culture.

What do you know about journalism? The sound she made clearing her throat was intolerable. He knew nothing about it, his ears were burning. Wasn’t she the one who was always wanting people to think critically, put resistance to the test, show civil courage? Thomas thought of the pictures from London that he had seen, and said: Why is London extending its city centre today, a good fifteen years after the end of the war, with the help of an architect who fled from Germany? A man who built them air-raid shelters and finally, in the middle of the city, wants to develop beauty of form and buildings for the English metropolis in post-war Europe? Huge apartment blocks that looked almost socialist, providing so much dwelling space all of a sudden in an environment full of single-storey and two-storey houses? Don’t you think that’s interesting?

Do you? Käthe impatiently gave one of the curt answers designed to cut a conversation short, end it, or at least change the subject, getting away from the theme that might interest the other person concerned and moving on to what seemed significant to her.

And the Botanic Garden in West Berlin: did you know they have Guatemalan giant ants there, I think by mistake, but no anteaters? How does man create a balance between plants and animals? Does he succeed, anyway? I could write about that. If I were a journalist I could write –

Thomas stopped. Käthe’s aversion and bad temper could be heard as her tapping grew louder; tiny fragments of stone hit his arms and legs. He had to raise his own voice to drown out the sound.

You could do this and that, huh, you must be joking! You want, you want, and your enthusiasm makes you blind. No one can do that. And I’ll tell you something: it’s obscene to tell people about the giant turtles on the Galapagos Islands while they’re standing in factories here making your shoelaces for you.

Why? Thomas looked at her. Käthe wrinkled her brow. She believed she could transport Michelangelo from Florence to East Berlin, she believed in the idea of people, in people themselves — but not in her son. Her son was not to want anything independently of her, certainly never anything outside her system of coordinates. Her love was pitiless, but it was love, there was no doubt of that. She grimly distorted her beautiful face. What do you know of the world?

Woof woof, he felt like saying, and laughed to himself, because the way she barked like a dog was only too familiar to him as a sign of her unrelenting love. He nodded his agreement. Exactly. But I want to find out about it.

If you want to know about the world stay here, do something with your hands, study chemistry or geology. You could do research into mineral oil, be a professor like your grandfather.

Her eyes were shining. Thomas wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t. There it was again, the noose round his neck, the noose round his legs, the gleam in her eyes. He needed a pair of scissors to cut himself free. Thomas knew how Käthe idolised her father and wanted to please him. If her son would only emulate her father, become a research scientist, a professor at the least, he would make her happy or at least content, for a moment.

Over in the West there’s a lot of loud shouting. Freedom, they call it, but they’re exploiting people. Fascism flourishes over there, take a close look. She was working on the temples of her statue’s face.

Over there I could study journalism without having to be a member of the Free German Youth, said Thomas, but his words were lost in the noise of her tapping. She tapped and tapped and his ears went on burning. He knew she despised people who made off to the West, went there for a comfortable life under capitalism, but he couldn’t stop wondering how it might still be possible for him to get there, in spite of her scorn.

Käthe tested the edge of her chisel, went over to her workbench and picked up a narrower one. Study something sensible first, then we’ll see.

It sounded easy, the way she said that, simple. She never guessed the stifling sensation he’d felt for weeks. He had hoped for a while that the world would expand once he had his school-leaving certificate, but the opposite was the case, it was closing in on him with every minute he spent standing in Käthe’s studio discussing his future.

Sometimes I think I’m choking, he heard himself say, and saw her narrow chisel pound the sandstone. Maybe I’m just going crazy, the ground is firm but my feet sink in, inside me there’s. .

Her tapping resonated on his eardrums. It was pointless to say anything. He stood there in silence for a while.

Can someone open the door? asked Käthe as she paused for a moment to examine the stone. That could be meant for only one person present, so Thomas went over and opened the door into the yard. It had stopped raining; the air smelled of earth and leaves.

Over there it’s Adenauer, here it’s Ulbricht.

Yes? Thomas turned to Käthe. Why was she stating that fact, what deduction was he supposed to draw from it?

Yes, said Käthe.

You think all the old Nazis have banded together in the West, but good people are in charge here? retorted Thomas.

Käthe put the peening anvil down on her workbench, pushed up her protective goggles, and was now gesticulating with her arms. There’s a chance here. At least there’s a chance. That’s what matters. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She hated to let someone else have the last word. Thomas didn’t have to explain the world to her. She was working like a woman possessed on the rebirth of a society. Thomas did not believe any of that, and he was ashamed of himself when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

You came up against the border at school. Refusing to join the Free German Youth! Baffled, she shook her head; her bitterness hurt him. Perhaps Käthe was horrified to realise that she had raised her voice in anger. She whispered her warning now: There’s no future if you won’t join in. She was not expecting an answer; she raised her chisel and the peening tool and struck the temples of her statue.

Hesitantly, Thomas replied: Isn’t there? He thought of those autumn weeks last year that he had spent in the ranks of the Free German Youth, helping to drain the former marshland of the Friedländer Grosse Wiese, he thought of the flocks of birds whose resting places had been disturbed, he had lain in wait for otters and water rats, but to no avail, they had made off long ago. Thomas remembered rolling off the plank bed in the youth camp one morning to go on duty, and the image he had of himself that morning as he dug his spade into the earth, one of the ranks of all the Free German young people who were fooling around, chattering, grousing, and how he had felt like a monstrous mammal appearing there in the pack of all the others. There was no turning back now. And there was no real decision, for he had felt unable to join the organisation, he could not hold the spade in his hand, he was no young hero, and he was anything but free. Käthe did not take her admonitory glance off him. It wouldn’t be any good if he didn’t join in. How was he to tell her that he couldn’t, that there was something he lacked, he was mutating, he was becoming someone else, he was already someone else? Are you joining in, he wondered, when you go to France to see Henri and your other friends, when you go to England to see your sister? Have you ever signed a statement about someone? Maybe saying your children would join the Free German Youth? Is it all up to your Party, then? Do I have to join some damn association to be allowed to study journalism? Thomas was seething. Käthe’s lowered forehead made him tremble, he couldn’t rage, run wild, he felt only weakness.

At the very least. At least you should join the Free German Youth, even better to join the Party. She looked up, and turned a challenging gaze on Thomas. Even then journalism wouldn’t be advisable. You’re intelligent. I’ve taught you both that nothing in life comes for free. Go in for scientific research, Thomas. Or you could be a mechanic.

I don’t want to be a mechanic. . Thomas hated the desperate, pitiful tone he heard in his voice.

Even though you like metalwork? Make use of your talents.

He didn’t want any encouragement. Her well-meaning severity was repugnant to him, her heartening words tormented him. He was supposed to make concessions, but he couldn’t, his throat felt too tight, his legs too heavy. How could he counter her mockery, her severity and love, tell her that he thought she had it all wrong, and he wanted to find a life of his own? As a mechanic I’d be in some industrial works, welding tractors and axles and no one will ask about my talent. Talent is dangerous, you might want something, want to make something. Better ten tractors a day. I don’t want to! Can’t you understand? I don’t write poems to please or annoy my family. My poems have nothing to do with any of you — I want to write, I want to get out. How arrogant of him that was, his words were intended to attack her. Thomas heard his voice cracking; he had been lying. There would be no poems but for her and his birth in a place that he wished he had never seen. Every poem he wrote was about getting away, escaping and the impossibility of escape.

With delicate little strokes, Käthe was tapping stone away from the back of the head, the nape of the neck. She stopped and turned to him: Then our ways obviously part here. And don’t imagine you can come back, just like that. Anyone who leaves is a coward, a traitor. It’s open to everyone to make off, he can live in comfort in the West. If that’s what you really want, I can write to my brother. Maybe Paul will know of something for you in New York. . Her tone was threatening, Thomas clearly saw how hard she was trying to drive him into a corner by holding out this prospect, and although he saw through her intentions he couldn’t throw off the alarming effect they had on him.

And see the rest of you only every few years? Thomas hated his weakness, his capitulation.

No one has to visit anyone. Those who want to get out had better get out, and that’s that. But let me tell you, 1961 isn’t 1936. Paul went to America because he wanted to study and he was threatened with a camp under Hitler, he had no choice. I went to Italy for the sake of art. It’s all about society, not your private life.

Why didn’t he shout at Käthe? He ought at least to turn away. It sounded pitiful when he said: I can’t do that. I don’t want to leave you. Against his will, his voice sounded pleading. He didn’t love society, nor did he have faith in what was good. He just felt love for the woman who had given birth to him. And he couldn’t be sure even of her.

Käthe went to the open door, stretched, raised her arms in the air and let out a cry of delight in the direction of the beech tree. She was pleased with her work, with herself, with the scent of rain. But the tea in her cup had gone cold; she wrinkled her nose, threw the dregs at the elder bush, and then poured herself more from the Thermos flask.

Thomas felt nothing but shame for his love, which seemed to him terrible, and his failure to understand Käthe’s better society. However, he wasn’t going to be talked out of his own views so easily. It wasn’t just that he wanted to travel; journalists, words, explanations, he thought were needed close to home as well as far away. And someone ought to write about the factories, someone from the stone quarries, the building sites, and about the new buildings, he said quietly. He didn’t believe himself.

She nodded. As you say. From the stone quarries, the building sites. That’s not what journalists do, it comes from inside. Journalists write propaganda, but enlightenment comes from within. We want to do away with educated elitism. That sort of thing goes into the works newspaper. There are wall newspapers in all industrial works, and many other ways of expressing yourself. If you look beyond your own nose for once and you want to do something for society, there’s always the Party and the associations with their journals. We need committed young people.

Your Party is a jail. Thomas scared himself.

What?

Your Party is a barrel, he emended his statement. A bottomless barrel. A band of enthusiasts who believe in salvation through socialism the way others believe in the son of God. I call that blind.

Käthe wasn’t listening to him. With determination and conviction she said, seamlessly: It’s about justice, a more just distribution of all goods, those of the mind as well as material goods. Only if we achieve that can we conquer the fascist spirit. If someone cries, I want more, then it’s only a short step to crime. Why do you think the Nazis murdered communists and Jews?

Thomas, baffled, looked at Käthe. She was radiant when she dreamed of a better society.

He wasn’t expected to respond, she added the answer herself: Out of pure avarice. They wanted everything for themselves. Communists wanted the same for everyone, that endangered the Nazis’ raid on the nation and the many who supported it. She put the chisel to the nape of her statue’s neck, chipped away, stepped back, looked at her stone, chipped and chipped.

What am I to do, then? Thomas asked that question out of deep exhaustion. Although he knew what he had to do anyway. Work. As long as he could remember, he had never worked enough, and work was the watchword of life. Only those who worked could share, and proved themselves equal among equals.

Käthe stepped back, inspected her stone, inspected her son, and bent to pick up a small fragment. Here. You like the stones, don’t you? Her voice was gentle, she had misunderstood him, so she wanted to give him some concrete advice. What’s the point of journalism? What does anyone want with some charlatan of a woman denouncing liberty? Stones last. They lie in the earth, they’re always where mankind is. Käthe dropped the bit of stone on the floor again. First you ought do something manual, a practical year, in industry, in production, an apprenticeship, anything like that. Your training will be continued at the Buna works; they need strong young men like you. And later you can study geology.

Thomas said nothing, even when she paused in her remarks as she did now.

Those who are always clamouring for freedom will only be unhappy; they’ll never get where you are now.

Perhaps she was right; he couldn’t be sure. Thomas had no arguments to oppose her. His eyes fell on the red carnations in the bow window; they were still fresh. Why did Käthe let the lodger give her red carnations on her birthday? What did they stand for — secret signs? Thomas thought of Ella, who had been asleep for weeks. Briar Rose, Snow White, it was like those fairy tales. She wasn’t allowed visitors in hospital. If she woke up everything would be all right. Or at least much better than before. But no one asked for a reason, no one wanted to know anything. They decided on her treatment, they induced sleep. She was to rest. No thinking, no talking.

Käthe tapped away at her stone. Behind the carnations, there was something moving in the yard. Thomas went closer to the window and looked out. A hawk with long thin legs, shining yellow in the scuffle, was plunging down on something black. It dug its talons in and pecked its prey, black feathers flew up, it hacked and gnawed until the black bird under it was still. Judging by its size, the prey must be a crow, not very much smaller than the hawk. The tapping on the stone stopped. On the flat roof of the shed opposite, Thomas saw another crow following the spectacle curiously.

Switch the radio on, I want to hear the news. Thomas couldn’t take his eyes off the scene in the yard.

What’s the matter — why don’t you move? Her tapping began again.

The hawk skilfully gutted the bird with its claws. It crouched horizontally, like a predatory cat, back and neck in a straight line, above its victim and dug its beak in. It ate organ after organ. A second crow joined the interested bird on the roof, and a third came along. The hawk kept burying its beak in the tangle of feathers.

We rejoice, we celebrate, we wave to our friends. In Vostok 1 Cosmonaut Gagarin took only 108 minutes to orbit the earth, we are proud of our friends, we salute the Soviet Union. Käthe had obviously switched the radio on herself. For days the same remarks had been broadcast at this time of day; pride knew no bounds. Gagarin, a calm man, laughs as he steps out of the spacecraft; he has seen the earth from above, he is the first man in space, our hero.

Black feathers were sailing through the air, the crows on their higher perch had ventured to the edge of the roof, squinting greedily down over the gutter. They were getting restless, it was taking too long for their liking. The breast feathers with their black and white markings flickered before Thomas’s eyes.

And in a few days’ time you’ll be taking your exams. Käthe proudly announced this fact as if it were a new discovery.

So?

The Soviet Union flies into space, you finish school and start in an industrial works — doesn’t that mean something?

Thomas shrugged. He thought of Violetta, who had told him yesterday that she’d like to go to the cinema, smiling as she said so and hoping for him to invite her. The corners of her mouth had twitched, she was waiting in such suspense for his answer. But he had said he was busy all weekend. It had hurt him to see her disappointment. He had looked away from her. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t have the money, it was her hand that had felt for his last time they went to the cinema. She had taken his hand and placed it on her skirt. How was he to respond to a warm, sticky hand like that? He liked Violetta’s dark eyes, her tender, delicate mouth, the snow-white skin of her cheeks. She was waiting for his mouth, for his kiss, he sensed it every time they met, every time they parted. Her longing frightened him. Instinctively, images of the lodger shot through his mind, images that pursued him, that tainted everything male in him with disgust. He didn’t want to be him, not a man like that. But he couldn’t think who else. The fear was left. He saw the binoculars on the workbench behind Käthe. Going over there with long strides, he looked through the binoculars at the scene in the yard. The orange eye of the hawk turned towards him showed no movement; the raptor had gutted its prey neatly, and now it was looking around, eyes fixed and piercing, watching every movement in the yard and the crows on the roof. Thomas admired the brief, fast movements of its head, no glance too much, no glance too little. The orange eye was cold, glowing, beautiful. The grey feathers of its plumage shimmered. The hawk pecked at the dead bird’s head; perhaps the tongue was still left, or an eye, a cheek or part of the entrails that it wanted to eat. With a tiny scrap in its beak, it took off from its victim and soared up into the evening air with outspread wings. What did the world look like from up there, what did the hawk see, what did it recognise? What it saw clearly had significance, but did a warm, yellow evening simply hold out the prospect of more insects, was it more comfortable than rain and a stormy wind, and nothing else? Did the hawk see beauty? And if human beings believed they could tell the beautiful from the ugly, was that because their perception derived from their own imperfect nature? What had Gagarin seen from space when he hovered there and his eye had no other perspective? Blue light. Did Gagarin wonder what the purpose was, or had he been selected because he had no doubts of any kind? As soon as the hawk had gone, the crows flew off their roof and set about the remains of their brother. Two more crows came to join them, but the first two squawked angrily and defended their treasure.

There was cheerful jazz music on the radio. Käthe pushed her protective goggles up into her hair, placed the peening anvil on the workbench and laid the chisel beside it. She went to the sink to wash her hands. I’ll make us something to eat, after that you can sit for me again for the wax model. An announcer’s voice told listeners the time: it was 17.30 hours. Käthe turned the tap on only a little way so as not to drown out the news. The sound of running water mingled with the voice of the radio newsreader: We learn from Cuba that the invasion by North America has been repelled. Let us take the Bay of Pigs as a sign of resistance to American imperialism. Fidel Castro calls on his country to defend itself against the aggressor. The coming together of nations couldn’t mean much to the crows; they had left the yard, leaving only black feathers lying on the ground. Had they taken their brother’s head with them, had they hacked it to pieces, eaten it? Had some other creature slunk into the yard unnoticed to steal the head?

Just think of that. The towel she was using to dry her hands still moving, one ear bent close to the loudspeaker, Käthe positioned herself beside the radio. She would have liked to hear more about the Bay of Pigs, but now the radio was playing music, two good friends, two good friends, they don’t say goodbye when they part, because for two good friends, two good friends, there’s. . She had turned the radio off, she had even less liking for Fred Frohberg than for Freddy Quinn. The world will fall victim to kitsch yet, she said disparagingly, hanging the towel on its hook.

Why does the lodger give you red carnations?

Käthe smiled. Well, he values me. He values my work — she batted her eyelids jokingly — maybe he admires me?

Why did you give Ella that mound of sugar?

Sugar?

Two years ago, don’t you remember?

Why, why! What makes you think of that? What odd questions to ask!

That was how it had begun. Perhaps Käthe hadn’t noticed, perhaps he ought to jog her memory? She got thinner and thinner, the mountain of sugar got hardly any smaller. Thomas thought of the expression on her face, it had entrenched itself there as the months passed, as if she had been paralysed. She had felt revulsion.

Well, so now she’s asleep. The way Käthe said that it sounded sensible, practical. In Käthe’s mind there was no connection between the mountain of sugar and the waning of Ella’s body to a slender crescent. She disliked memories, she did not like to look back, everything ought to go forward. This year I’d have given her a few hours of extra coaching as a present, if she hadn’t been in hospital. Her eighteenth birthday, and she thinks herself grown up.

When you talk like that I get the feeling you’re making fun of her. Are you angry? She can’t help being sick.

Nonsense. Go ahead, defend her. She skips school. When she comes home in a few weeks’ time you’ll have finished your exams. A year younger, and you’re ahead of her. With these words Käthe marched up the stairs.

Thomas didn’t like the way she was playing him off against Ella. He felt ashamed. Maybe, as she saw it, he ought to feel proud because at last he’d be starting real work in the summer. What could be a more suitable period of probation before he studied than experience working in production, industry, a combine? Anyone wanting to study geology had to work for one or two years coal mining, or at least in a quarry or on a drilling rig. It was called practical training. At last he was to show what he could do — manual labour, helping to build the research institutes of tomorrow. The idea was that that made studying possible. . perhaps. Thomas didn’t want to disappoint Käthe. He heard her dictum clearly: If you thought you needn’t bother about celebrating adult citizenship when you were fourteen, if you thought you needn’t bother to join the Free German Youth, then at least show your attitude to the class struggle by working. Anyone who sits around doing nothing doesn’t deserve to study.

He had registered; in September he was to go to Gommern near Magdeburg and begin working in the stone quarry there. In the pit, in the gravel works, crushing rock, never mind which. There’d be a job for a young man like him; oh yes, everyone was useful. He couldn’t tell Violetta that he had to go away for several months. He wouldn’t find out what her lips felt like under his. He already missed seeing the rhythm of her breathing under the skin around her collarbone. Did anyone have a prettier collarbone? When she was happy he could see her pulse beneath the thin skin of her throat. How often had he watched her breathing as her small breasts rose and fell? He sometimes put an arm round her. Once he had put both arms round her and hugged her. It might have been only a moment, a moment he liked to remember, even now. But then he had let go of her, had taken a step back, had said something unimportant so that Violetta wouldn’t notice his arousal, so that the lodger would get out of his mind, and with him Ella’s drought. No more of that.

In a few weeks’ time, Ella was supposed to have slept enough. Siegfried and Johnny were asking Thomas almost every day when they could go and fetch their friend Ella from hospital. He didn’t tell them.