I slowed in the lane. I knew exactly what she meant. ‘Do you . . .’ I hesitated. I wanted to tell her how even the dourest hymns lifted me out of my inwardness, relieved me of the sense of weight I felt, the burden of being.
‘What?’ Thea stopped walking and faced me. She brought her fingertips to her mouth and breathed on them. She wasn’t wearing mittens.
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you ever hear sounds?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Trees and . . . and things,’ I stuttered.
Thea frowned. ‘Blowing in the wind?’
‘No. Well, yes, that, but also voices coming from them. Like singing.’
I waited for Thea to suppress a laugh. But instead she took a step towards me. ‘Human voices?’ she asked quietly.
‘No. No, it’s not like that. Not like human voices. It’s a little like when someone is whispering and you can’t make out the words, but you feel that if you leaned in, it would suddenly make sense.’
‘Noises.’
‘Not noises. Sounds. Like singing. Crying, sometimes. Music.’ The words rushed from me then, pouring out as though from a wellspring. I told Thea that I could hear the high pitch of swarming sunlight in an open field. That the sound of snow falling was like chimes. I told her that I hated the silence of the house in the daytime, that it felt dead, that the only living thing seemed to be the fire in its grate. I told her that I loved to be outside, because that was where the world sang to me.
‘You think I’m mad,’ I said, when Thea had not spoken for some moments. She was looking at me intently. ‘I’m not mad.’
‘Have you told anyone else you can hear these things? Have you always heard them?’
‘Always,’ I said. ‘I thought it was normal. Matthias, my brother, he knows. He believes me. My mother thinks I’m making it up.’
Thea nodded. We walked on, lifting our scarves up over our mouths against the cold.
‘Maybe that is why you sing so well,’ Thea said eventually, pulling the wool from her face. ‘You hear things other people can’t.’
‘Please don’t say anything to anyone. I don’t know why I brought it up.’
‘Can I tell my mother?’ Thea asked. ‘She hears things too, in her way.’
I nodded, relieved at her acceptance of me, of my oddity.
‘I know why you brought it up,’ Thea added.
I waited for her to go on but she said nothing more, only slid her arm around my elbow and pulled me into her side. I was surprised by her warmth.
We walked in silence. It grew colder still, and as we left the lane and crested the rise towards the forest, walking through the fallow field, it began to snow. Heavy flakes caused the meadow around us to disappear. The thick air whirred; it was impossibly beautiful. The pines at the edge of the forest gathered a hem of white before our eyes.
Thea stopped and tilted her head to the sky. I watched as she let the snow light upon her cheeks and chin. It dissolved in the heat of her skin.
‘It feels like a blessing,’ she said, eyes closed. ‘What does it sound like, Hanne?’
I lifted my face, felt the snow settle on it. I knew what she meant. ‘Holy,’ I replied. ‘It sounds holy.’
We stood and let the snow cover our lips and gather in the corners of our eyes. It pealed down around us like the ringing of bells, and we were anointed together, blessed over and over.
Back then, I thought my loneliness came from being too much in the house, in feeling an obligation to become someone I knew I was not. After all this time, I know that I was lonely not just because I wanted to be seen and understood, but because I also wanted to offer understanding.
To find a home for the love within me.
I knew what it was like to feel strange and solitary. How well I was placed, then, to befriend the friendless. My heart was ready to be unfolded and afflicted.
‘Did you thank Frau Eichenwald for the salve?’ my mother asked that night, as she set out a cold supper.
‘Yes,’ I said, looking up as my brother came into the kitchen, face still damp from the washbasin. He sank into a chair. ‘Do you want milk?’ I asked him.
‘What are they like then?’ asked Matthias, accepting the pitcher from me. ‘I saw you walking up to the cottage with the new girl.’
‘Thea,’ I said.
He looked at me over the edge of his glass as he drank. ‘You like her?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Matthias, wipe your mouth,’ Mama muttered.