Free The Karnau Tapes by Marcel Beyer

Characterised by inflexibility, it produces a sound quite inappropriate to my age. Its melody is also false, as high-pitched as a child's and at odds with the body and movements of an adult, but devoid of a child's sincerity.
    A medley of cries and hesitations, the speech of a child is coloured by its upbringing.
    *
     
    Papa comes panting up the stairs. Helmut is screaming the house down. Papa's on the landing now, he's calling me. 'What's going on, Helga?' he shouts. 'What have you done to your little brother this time?'
    'It's his own fault, he broke my watch.'
    Helmut stands there bawling with a face like a beetroot. He runs to Papa, who picks him up in his arms and glares at me. 'You're not to hit Helmut, you know that perfectly well, he's too little. He didn't mean to be naughty.'
    Helmut sobs in Papa's arms, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He unscrewed the back of my watch, the one with the red leather strap, and took out all the works. He didn't see me coming because he was too busy rooting around in the case with a screwdriver. He was working away with all his might — so hard that his tongue was clamped between his teeth and the tip was all red and throbbing. He gave a start when he finally saw me, but by that time my lovely watch was completely ruined. The hands were bent, too — not a hope of mending it. I gave him a good slap. He started crying right away, lost his temper and swept all the bits off the table with his arm. Then he ran to the door and cried a bit louder so Papa would hear him down below.
    'Did you hear what I said?' Papa says sternly.
    'But he bust my watch.'
    'Bust? What do you mean, bust? Speak properly when you're talking to your father.'
    'He broke my watch.'
    Hilde and Heide have appeared in the doorway, wondering what all the noise is about. 'Hold your tongue and go to your room at once,' Papa says.
    'But Helmut took it to bits, he deserved to be slapped.'
    'That's enough, Helga. Don't be so damned impertinent.'
    And Papa gives me a slap. I start crying too, now. I run to my room, yelling, 'You're mean and unfair, the lot of you!'
    Papa comes after me, but I slam the door and turn the key, twice. Papa knocks, bangs on my door. 'Open up at once, Helga. You know you're not allowed to lock yourself in.'
    But he can't come in however long he goes on shouting. He can't slap me again either, not when I'm lying on my bed with the pillows over my head. The pillows are wet with tears already. Helmut doesn't shed tears as a rule because he isn't sad, just angry — angry because he isn't strong enough to hit me back. If I clamp the pillows against my ears I can hardly hear Papa banging and yelling outside.
    Helmut's still so little, he doesn't realise when he's being naughty. He's far too young to know, and so are Hilde and Holde and Hedda, not to mention Heide. Mama and Papa are allowed to punish them, but not me — oh no! I'm not old enough for that, but I'm old enough to put up with those little nuisances, old enough to look after them when Mama gets one of her headaches and goes to bed, when everyone in the house has to be quiet, when Mama goes away to recuperate and Papa's not here either — when he spends the night at Lanke and doesn't come home for days on end. But I mustn't ever lose my temper with the little ones. 'Helga's very understanding for her age,' says Papa when he wants to butter me up in front of other people. 'It's sweet, the way she looks after her little brother and sisters.'
    I can still hear him outside in the passage, shouting, 'No film show for you this evening. No film show, Helga, you hear?'
    Then he stops banging on the door. Helmut will be playing with my watch again by now, you bet. Papa won't object, Helmut can get away with murder, being the only boy. The rest of us are just girls. Heide's lucky, she's the only one Mama really cares about. All the grown-ups rave about her blue eyes, but they'll change colour soon enough. All babies have blue eyes to