Malina

by Ingeborg Bachmann

  * * *

  A lot of things have intervened, I’ve accumulated more antibodies than you need to be immune — mistrust, indifference, the fearlessness which comes from too much fear, and I don’t know how Ivan coped with such resistance, such impregnable misery, the nights so perfectly rehearsed for insomnia, the unbroken anxiety, the obstinate renunciation of everything. But all this came to nothing in the very first hour, when Ivan didn’t exactly drop from heaven but did stand before me on the Landstrasser Hauptstrasse, his eyes smiling, very tall and slightly bowed, and for that alone I should bestow on him the highest distinctions — the absolute highest — for bumping into me and rediscovering me as I once was, my earliest layers, for retrieving me from underneath all the rubble and I shall beatify him for all his gifts — but for which gifts? — since no end is in sight and none is allowed to arrive, and so I’ll begin simply, with the simplest gift of all, namely, his ability to make me laugh again.

  * * *

  At last I’m able to move about in my flesh as well, with the body I’d alienated with a certain disdain, I feel how everything inside is changing, how the plain and diagonally striated muscles relax, freeing themselves from their constant cramps, how both nervous systems convert simultaneously, because nothing takes place more distinctly than this conversion, an amending, a purification, the living factual proof, which could also be measured and labeled using the most modern instruments of metaphysics. It’s good that I immediately grasped what had so struck me in that first hour, and, consequently, that I joined Ivan without any fuss, without any preconceived ideas. I didn’t waste a moment: an event like this, which you’ve never known, which you can’t know about in advance, which you can’t have heard or ever read about, requires the utmost haste in order to occur. The slightest trifle could nip it in the bud, strangle it, stop it during takeoff, so sensitive is the genesis, the germination of this most powerful force in the world, simply because the world is sick and doesn’t want a healthy force to prevail. A carhorn could have interrupted the first sentence, or a policeman ticketing a badly parked scooter, a passerby could have staggered between us, bawling, a deliveryman could have blocked our view, my God, it’s impossible to think of everything that might have gotten in the way! I could have been distracted by an ambulance siren and looked down the street instead of at the bouquet of Turk’s-cap lilies in the window, or Ivan could have asked someone for a light and never would have seen me. Because we were in such peril standing by the storefront, because even three sentences would have been too many, we quickly departed the danger zone, letting a lot of things just be. That’s why it took us so long to get past the first small, meaningless sentences. I don’t even know whether you could say today we’re able to talk and converse with one another like most people. But there’s no rush. We still have our whole life, says Ivan.

  * * *

  Nonetheless we have managed to conquer our first few sets of sentences, foolish starts, incomplete phrases, endings, surrounded by the halo of mutual consideration. Up to now most of these may be found on the telephone. We practice them over and over, as Ivan calls from his office on the Kärntnerring or again late in the afternoon or else in the evening from his home.

  * * *

  Hello. Hello?

  It’s me, who’d you think?

  Oh right, of course, sorry

  How I am? And you?

  I don’t know. This evening?

  I can barely understand you

  Barely? What? So you can

  I can’t hear you very well, can you

  What . . . is something?

  No, nothing, later on you can

  O.K., sure, I better call you later

  I, I really should see these

  Of course if you can’t, then

  I didn’t say that, only if you don’t

  In any case let’s call each other later

  All right, but closer to six, since

  But that’ll be too late for me

  Yes really for me as well, but

  Maybe it doesn’t make much sense today

  Did someone come in?

  No, just Fräulein Jellinek is here

  Oh, so you’re not alone anymore

  But please, later on, for sure!

  Ivan and I each have friends, and other people besides, and it’s very rare that he knows or I know what’s going on with these other people or even know their names. We have to take turns eating out with these friends and people, at least meet them in a café, or we have to show foreigners around without knowing what to suggest and most of the time we end up waiting for one more phone call. If only fate would just once, but only once, have us meet in the city, Ivan with people, myself with people, then he’d at least realize I, too, can look different, that I know how to dress up (which he doubts) and be chatty (which he doubts even more). For in his presence I grow silent, because the smallest words — yes, now, well, and, but, then, oh! — are so loaded, coming from me to him they have a hundred times their meaning, they’re a thousand times more effective than the amusing tales and anecdotes, the challenging word duels that friends and people expect of me, the gestures, the whims, the charm put on for the sake of appearances, I don’t do anything for appearances’ sake for Ivan, I do nothing to appear, and I’m thankful if I can fix him his drink and dinner, now and then secretly polish his shoes, clean the spots on his jacket, and: Well, that’s that! means more than wrinkling my forehead at a menu or dazzling people with humor and wit, leading a debate, collecting kisses on my hand and wishes for meeting again, it means more than those animated trips home with friends, another drink in the Loos Bar, kisses left and right and: see you soon! Because whenever Ivan has lunch at the Hotel Sacher, on an expense account of course and because he has to, then naturally I’ll have to meet someone in the Sacher’s Blue Bar later in the afternoon, and so we miss each other, whether I want to help this happen or prevent it from occurring, because tonight I’m supposed to have dinner at the Stadtkrug, but Ivan will be out in Grinzing with foreigners, and tomorrow I’m supposed to show some people Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf, the very idea makes me despair, and he’ll be having dinner with some man at the Three Hussars. A lot of foreigners come to see him, a lot come to see me too, and that’s what’s keeping us from seeing each other today, for example, so we’ll just have to phone. And within the set of telephone sentences a completely different subset may be found, while exchanging fleeting glances before going out with different friends, and these sentences have to do with “examples.”

  * * *

  Ivan claims I’m always saying “for example.” And in order to exorcise these examples, he uses some right now, for example, in the one hour we have left before dinner.

  What now, for example, Miss Know-it-all? What was it like, for example, when I first entered your apartment, the next day, for example, we looked very suspicious.

  I, for example, never spoke to any woman I didn’t know on the street before and it would never have occurred to me that an unknown woman like that would invite a perfect stranger right away to go with — I beg your pardon?

  Don’t exaggerate!

  For example, I’m still unclear as to what you really do. What, for example, can you do all day without lifting a finger? Let me, for example, think about that a second. No, don’t say a thing.

  Oh but please, I can easily explain!

  I, for example, am not curious, don’t tell me, I’m only trying to figure out a few things, but since I’m discreet beyond example I don’t expect an answer.

  Ivan, that’s not the right way!

  What is then?

  If I, for example, came home this evening tired, but still stayed up to wait for a phone call, what, for example, Ivan, would you say to that?

  I think you should go right to sleep, Miss Know-it-all.

  And with that Ivan is gone.

  * * *

  In c
ontrast to other men, Ivan can’t bear it when I expressly wait for a call, take time for him, adjust my schedule to his, and so I do this secretly, I make accommodations and think about his various tenets and theorems, for he was the first to teach me many things. Today, however, it’s late, I should have met Ivan on the way to the post office fifteen years ago. It’s not too late to learn, but there’s so little time for me to put this new knowledge to use. Before going to sleep at his behest, though, I consider the fact that, back then, I could not have understood the lesson in its entirety.

  * * *

  Since it’s ringing, cooing, humming I grab the telephone because it might be Ivan, I start to say “Hello,” but then hang up quietly, as today I’m not allowed a final phone call. It rings once again, then ceases at once, a cautious ringing, maybe it was Ivan, it had to be Ivan and I don’t want to be dead, not yet, and if it really was Ivan, he should be pleased with me, thinking I’ve been asleep for a long time.

  * * *

  But today I’m smoking and waiting, I’m smoking by the phone till midnight, and I pick up the receiver and Ivan asks questions, and I answer.

  * * *

  I just have to get the ashtray

  Just a minute, me too

  Have you lit one as well

  There. Now. No, it’s not working

  Don’t you have any matches?

  I just used the last, no I don’t, on the candle

  You hear that? Hey get off our line, would you

  This phone has its little tics

  What? Somebody’s still jabbering away. You’re sick?

  I said “tics,” it’s not important, “tics” with a “t”

  I don’t understand: you’re feeling sick?

  I’m sorry, it was the wrong word

  Why wrong, what do you mean?

  Nothing, just that when you repeat a word so often

  * * *

  But even if four people are talking all at once, I can still make out Ivan’s voice, and as long as I hear him and know that he hears me, I’m alive. Even if we have to interrupt the conversation, so long as the phone rings back, shrieks, buzzes, raves, sometimes a tone too loud or several tones too soft, if you add the refrigerator, the record player or turn on the water in the tub. But once it does ring — and who knows what a telephone does and what its outbursts should be called? — as long as it allows me to hear his voice then it’s all the same to me whether we understand each other well, barely, or not at all due to a breakdown in the Viennese phone network, which lasts for minutes, it’s also unimportant what he has to say, so expectantly, with renewed vigor or complete fatigue: I start the conversation up again with a simple “Hello?” But Ivan doesn’t realize that, he either phones or he doesn’t phone, yes, he phones.

  * * *

  It’s nice you called

  Nice, why nice?

  Just because. It’s nice of you

  * * *

  But I’m on the floor kneeling in front of the telephone hoping that Malina, too, never catches me in this position, nor should he ever see how I prostrate myself before the phone, with my forehead pressed to the wooden floor like a Moslem on his rug.

  * * *

  Couldn’t you speak a little more clearly

  I have to move the . . . better now?

  So, what are you up to now?

  Me? Nothing much

  * * *

  My Mecca and my Jerusalem! Thus have I been chosen out of all possible telephone customers, I am elected, my 72 31 44, for Ivan knows how to find me on every dial and he can find my number with greater certainty than my hair and my mouth and my hand.

  * * *

  Me tonight?

  Well no, if you can’t

  But you’re the one who

  Right. But I don’t want to go

  Excuse me, but I think that’s

  I’m telling you I have no

  You better go, I had completely forgotten

  You did, so you’re

  All right then see you tomorrow. Sleep well!

  * * *

  So Ivan doesn’t have any time, and the receiver feels like ice, not plastic, but metal, and it slides up to my temple, since I hear he’s hanging up, and I wish this sound were a shot — short, fast, so it would all be over — I don’t want Ivan to be that way today and, since he’s always that way, I wish it were the end. I hang up, still kneeling on the floor, then drag myself over to the rocking chair and take a book off the table: Space Travel — Where To? I read feverishly, this is nonsense, he’s the one who called, he wanted something else to happen as well, and I have to get used to the fact that he’s not going to say anything more if I stop talking, the chapter’s finished, the moon has been conquered, and in order not to anger Malina I gather all my letters on the living room table, in the studio I read them once again, I pile them on top of yesterday’s letters, I rearrange files, Very urgent, Urgent, Invitations, Rejections, Receipts, Paid Bills, Unpaid Bills, Apartment, but I can’t find the unmarked file, the one I need the most, now the telephone goes off, at least a full tone too loud, it’ll be long distance, and with feverish friendliness I practically scream, without knowing what I’m saying and with whom I’m forced to talk: Excuse me, operator, operator please, we’ve been cut off, hello! But was it Munich or Frankfurt? At any rate I’ve been cut off, I replace the receiver, the telephone cord is already tangled again, and I become tangled in it while I’m talking and forgetting myself, it all comes from those phone calls with Ivan. I can’t untwist the cord ten times just because of Munich or whatever it was. Let it stay tangled. I keep the black telephone in view while I read, before going to sleep, when I place it next to the bed. Of course I could exchange it for a blue, red or white one, but it won’t ever come to that, since I won’t allow anything else in my room to change, so that nothing distracts me except Ivan, the only new thing there is, and so nothing diverts my attention from waiting, as the telephone stays still.

  Vienna is silent.

  * * *

  I’m thinking about Ivan.

  I’m thinking about love.

  About injections of reality.

  About their lasting only a few hours.

  About the next, more potent injection.

  I’m thinking in silence.

  I’m thinking it’s late.

  It’s incurable. And it’s too late.

  But I survive and think.

  And I’m thinking it will not be Ivan.

  Whatever’s ahead, it will be something different.

  I live in Ivan.

  I will not outlive Ivan.

  * * *

  But all in all there can’t be any doubt that Ivan and I sometimes find an hour, now and then a whole evening, that we have some time for each other which passes differently. We live two separate lives, but that’s not all, as we never lose our feel for Unity of Place, and Ivan can’t escape it either, even if he’s never thought about it, as he certainly has not. Today he’s at my place, tomorrow I’ll be at his, and if he doesn’t want to construct sentences with me then he’ll set up his chess set or mine, in one of our apartments, and force me to play. Ivan gets annoyed, to punctuate his moves he yells words in Hungarian which must be either abusive or entertaining, up to now I can only understand jaj and jé, and on occasion I shout éljen! An exclamation which is certainly out of place but the only one I’ve known for years.

  What in the world are you doing with your bishop, think that move over, would you please. You still haven’t figured out how I play? If, in addition, Ivan says: Istenfáját! Or: az Isten kinját! I surmise that these expressions belong to a group of untranslatable Ivan-curses, and naturally he succeeds in disconcerting me with these apparent maledictions. Ivan says, you don’t have any strategy, you’re not bringing your pieces into play, your queen is locked in again.

  I have to laugh, then I brood over the problem of my
immobility once more, and Ivan winks at me. Get it? No, you don’t get anything. What’s in your head this time — cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, nothing but vegetables. And now this reckless featherbrained lady wants to distract me, but I’m on to that, your dress just happened to slip off your shoulder, think about your bishop, you’ve been exposing your legs above the knee for over half an hour now as well, but that’s not going to help, and you call that playing chess, well, fräulein, you can’t play like that with me, ok, let’s make our little funny face, I’ve been expecting that too, now we’ve lost our bishop, my dear girl, let me give you one more piece of advice, get the hell out of there, go from e5 to d3, but that’s the last time I’m going to be so nice.

  Still laughing, I lose my bishop, he’s a lot better than I am, the main thing is that sometimes I manage to end with a stalemate.

  Ivan asks, out of the blue: Who is Malina?

  I don’t have an answer for that, we play on in silence, with wrinkled foreheads, I make another mistake, Ivan doesn’t believe in the “touch” rule, so he puts my piece back, I don’t make any more mistakes, and the game ends in a stalemate.

  * * *

  For a stalemate Ivan receives his well-earned whiskey, he gazes contentedly at the chessboard, since thanks to him I didn’t lose, in turn he’d like to find out something about me, but there’s no rush. He still doesn’t say what it is he would like to find out, not yet, he just lets me know he doesn’t want to jump to any conclusion, he loves to conjecture, too much, in fact, he even presumes I have a certain talent although he doesn’t know what kind, at any rate it must have something to do with “doing well.”