All of You Every Single One by Beatrice Hitchman

Author:Beatrice Hitchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Julia

JULIA RETURNS TO HER JOB at the Embassy at the end of October. Financially, there is no other choice for them, even though they both know it’s too early. She has lost ten kilos; her cheekbones stand out. ‘Am I gorgeous?’ she asks Eve, with a bitter laugh, as she gets ready to go. On the first day, Frau Berndt accompanies her, and comes into town to walk her home again. This continues for a week, until one morning, Julia says she can go alone.

It is a day of rushing weather and showers that hurl rain against the windows of the building. ‘Grim,’ says one of her colleagues, without looking up from her typewriter; she hits the carriage return for emphasis. Julia has forgotten her umbrella; the sky outside gets dark at two o’clock, and she suddenly wants to be at home very much. She has misunderstood the vague panic that rises from her gut and threatens to choke her, its ebb and flow. She makes her excuses to the other secretaries – a stomach-ache, a quick apologetic smile – and leaves, hurrying for the tram stop on the corner.

All the way home, her hands shake, whether in her lap or clutching the guard-rail, wherever she tries to put them. Frau Berndt, who has been reading up on neurosis, has explained that it is just another facet of her hysterical problem, and that it should go in time, if she keeps talking. There is no money to see a proper analyst, and so there is not much she has not told Frau Berndt, in tears or not in tears, perched on the sofa in the little lodge.

She quickens her step as she turns into the Taborstrasse. On the way into the courtyard, she stops outside Frau Berndt’s to knock. Eve won’t be home for hours, and she doesn’t want to be alone. As usual, she raps on the door and then turns the handle without waiting. It doesn’t budge.

Footsteps from inside, moving towards the door. There is the clunk of a key turning; instead of Frau B., Eve’s frightened eyes looking out, her long white fingers curled around the edge of the frame. ‘We didn’t expect you back so early,’ she says.

‘I didn’t have an umbrella,’ Julia says, uselessly. ‘Why’s the door locked? Can’t I come in?’

Eve holds the door open; pecks her on the cheek as she passes. Inside the tiny living room, there’s Frau Berndt, sitting on the edge of the horsehair sofa, and Rolf, cramped as he always is, folded almost double. Both look startled.

‘I was going to come and collect you,’ Frau B. says, rising to her feet. ‘Poor thing. You’re soaked.’

‘I’m fine – just a little rain.’ They look at her, blank, enquiring, vaguely irritated. ‘Have you been talking about me?’ Then she sees, from Rolf’s flushed face, that they have been arguing.

He is leaning over the drinks table, as if to cover a piece of newspaper with his elbow; she sees the edge of the Neues Volksblatt.

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