She had seen something that she wasn’t allowed to see. Something had been let into her world that wasn’t there before. After that, every evening – even though she was an obedient child – she crept over to the window to watch the yellow dress drift across the cobblestones, in all kinds of weather, but always with an inexpressibly sweet and secretive air, and always accompanied by that mysterious umbrella, visible or invisible, depending on if it was raining or not. This vision had nothing to do with the sleepy face that appeared in the neighbor’s door frame when Helga knocked to borrow a bit of margarine or flour for her mother, who was always short on the most important ingredients when she was making gravy. And it made no noticeable difference when, one day, this neighbor moved away. For a long time, the child still waited at the window for that long, yellow dress and the buoyant, translucent umbrella. When the nightly passage through the darkening courtyard stopped, she just shut her eyes and listened to the rain splashing against something taut and silky and more distant than all her childhood sounds and smells.

Helga and Egon moved into a two-room apartment that was similar to her parents’, and it wasn’t far away, either. But it was at street level, and an old wish of Helga’s was fulfilled, now that she could sit in her own house and look out at the traffic. She had what she’d never had before – time – and, since idleness is the root of all evil (she was easy prey for sayings like that), this gave her a slightly guilty conscience. Not toward the husband who provided for her but just in general. She allowed herself to become a gentle, self-effacing individual; she exaggerated the few responsibilities she had, and emphasized her frequent visits to her parents and their visits to her. Her in-laws lived in the country, and she wrote to them often, though she only had met them at her wedding. Her letters – which contained detailed accounts of how she spent her day doing domestic duties and got the most out of Egon’s salary for everyone’s benefit – always ended monotonously with these lines: We are both well and hope the same for you. Your devoted daughter-in-law, Helga.