I tried the whole afternoon
I lost the whole afternoon
* * *
Ivan is livelier than I am. When he’s not exhausted he’s all movement, but when he’s tired he is decidedly more tired than I am, and then he gets mad about the age difference, he knows he’s angry, he wants to be angry, today he has to be especially angry at me.
* * *
Well aren’t you defensive!
Why are you so defensive?
You have to attack, come on, attack me!
Show me your hands, no, not the inside
I don’t read hands
You can see it on the skin of your hands
In women I can see it right away
* * *
But this time I won because my hands don’t show a thing, not a single wrinkle. Nevertheless, Ivan renews the attack.
* * *
I can often see it in your face
You looked old then
Sometimes you look really old
Today you look twenty years younger
Laugh more, read less, sleep more, think less
What you’re doing is making you old
Gray and brown clothes make you old
Donate your mourning clothes to the Red Cross
Who allowed you to wear these grave-clothes?
Of course I’m mad, I want to be mad
You’ll look younger right away, I’ll drive old age right out of you!
* * *
Ivan, who has dozed off, wakes up, I come back from the equator, marked by a once-in-a-million-years event.
* * *
What’s the matter with you?
Nothing. I’m just making something up.
That will be a fine one!
* * *
Most of the time I’m making something up, inventing. Ivan covers his mouth so I’m not supposed to notice he’s yawning. He has to leave at once. It’s a quarter to twelve. Almost midnight.
* * *
I’ve just invented a way to change the world after all!
What? you too? society, relationships? these days that’s got to be the biggest competition around.
You’re really not interested in what I’m inventing?
Not today anyway, that’s for sure, you’ve probably had a powerful inspiration, and one shouldn’t disturb artists as they’re creating.
Fine with me, then I’ll invent it all myself, but let me invent it for you.
* * *
Ivan hasn’t been warned about me. He doesn’t know with whom he’s running around, that he’s dealing with a phenomenon, an appearance which can also be deceiving, I don’t want to lead Ivan astray, but he’ll never realize that I am double. I am also Malina’s creation. Unconcerned, Ivan sticks to the appearance, my living bodily self gives him a reference point, maybe it’s the only one, but this same bodily self disturbs me, while we talk I can never allow myself to think that in an hour we’ll be lying on the bed or toward evening or very late at night, because otherwise the walls could suddenly turn into glass, the roof could suddenly be lifted away. Extreme self-control lets me accept Ivan’s sitting opposite me at first, silently smoking and talking. Not one word, not one gesture of mine betrays what is now possible and the fact that it will continue to be possible. One moment it’s Ivan and myself. Another moment: we. Then right away: you and I. Two beings devoid of all intentions toward one another, who do not want coexistence, do not want to take off somewhere and begin a new life, do not want to break off or agree to use a dominant language. We manage just as well without an interpreter, I don’t discover anything about Ivan, he doesn’t discover anything about me. We do not engage in any commercial exchange of feelings, have no positions of power and do not expect delivery of any weapons to support and secure our identity. A good, easy basis, whatever falls on my ground thrives, I propagate myself with words and also propagate Ivan, I beget a new lineage, my union with Ivan brings that which is willed by God into the world.
Firebirds
Azurite
Plunging flames
Drops of jade
* * *
Dear Herr Ganz,
The first thing that bothered me about you was the way your little finger stuck out while you were showing off in front of some people and treating everyone to your witty bon mots, which were new to me and to the people there but soon no longer to me, as later I heard you repeat them many times, in the presence of other people. You had such a humorous way. What then began to bother me, and continues to bother me, is your name. Today it takes an effort to write down your name once again, and hearing it from others immediately gives me a headache. When I cannot avoid thinking about you I purposely think of you as “Herr Genz” or “Herr Gans,” there have been times when I’ve tried “Ginz” but the best escape still remains “Herr Gonz” because it’s not too far removed from your real name but can, with a little Viennese coloring, make it just a little ridiculous. I have to tell you once and for all, since the word “ganz” comes up daily, spoken by others, even I cannot avoid it, it’s found in newspapers and books, in every paragraph. I should have been on my guard just because of your name with which you continue to intrude on my life and cause me undue stress. If your name had been Kopecky or Wiegele, Ullmann or Apfelböck — my life would be calmer and I could forget about you for long stretches of time. Even if your name were Meier, Maier, Mayer or Schmidt, Schmid, Schmitt it would still be possible for me not to think of you whenever the name came up, I could think about one of my friends whose name is also Meier or about any one of a number of Herr Schmidts, however their spellings might differ. In company I would feign astonishment or enthusiasm, indeed, in my haste, in the heat of these general and generally cruel conversations I could mistake you for some other Meier or some other Schmid. What idiosyncrasies! you will say. Not long ago, when I almost had to fear seeing you, shortly after the new vogue had come in — metal clothes, chain mail shirts, spiked fringes, and jewelry made from barbed wire — I felt armed for a meeting, even my ears would not have been uncovered, as my earlobes were sporting two heavy bunches of thorns in the nicest gray, which started to slip around or hurt every time I moved my head because they had forgotten to pierce holes in my earlobes when I was very young, the way they do for every other little girl in the country, mercilessly, at a most tender age. I don’t understand why in the world they call this age “tender.” I would have been invulnerable in this suit of armor, so armed, so ready to defend my skin, a description of which you will allow me to omit, since you once knew it so well . . .
* * *
Dear Sir:
I could never pronounce your first name. You have often reproached me for this. But that is not the reason why the thought of a renewed encounter is unpleasant for me. Back then I could have spared myself this name, because the occasion so permitted. I couldn’t bring myself to do this and I discovered that this inability to pronounce certain names or even to suffer excessively because of them does not stem from the names themselves but has to do with the initial, original mistrust of a person, unjustified in the beginning, but eventually, one day, always justified. Of course you were bound to misinterpret my instinctive mistrust, which could express itself only in this manner. Now that a reunion is entirely possible, sometimes I don’t know for the life of me how it could be avoided, only one thought remains to cause me concern: that you can address me by my first name, calling me “Du,” a “Du” that you forced upon me under circumstances you well know, and that I granted you throughout an unforgettably disgusting intermezzo, out of weakness, so as not to hurt you, so as not to show to your face the boundaries I had drawn in secret, which I was forced to draw. It may be customary to introduce a “Du” during such intermezzi, but it shouldn’t remain in circulation after the episode is over. I am not reproaching you for the embarrassing and unspeakable memories you have left me. Nonetheless your thick skin, your utter
inability to recognize my sensitivity to this “Du,” the blackmail you used to obtain it from me and from others all make me fear that you still don’t even realize it’s blackmail, since it comes so completely naturally to you. Certainly you’ve never thought about the “Du” you use so casually, or about why it’s easier for me to overlook a few corpses left in your path than the continued application of this torture that consists in saying and thinking “Du.” Since I last saw you it has not occurred to me to think of you in any but the most proper manner, to think and speak of you with “Herr” and “Sie,” to be sure I do not speak of you unless it is essential, to say: I was once acquainted with Herr Ganz. My only request is that you at least trouble yourself to use the same courtesy.
Vienna, . . .
Very Sincerely,
An unknown woman
* * *
Dear Mr. President,
Your letter, sent in your name and in the name of all, conveys best wishes for my birthday. Please excuse my surprise. You see, this day seems to me — on account of my parents — to be part of an intimacy shared by two people whom you and the others cannot know. I myself have never had the audacity to imagine my conception and birth. Even listing my birthdate, which although without meaning for me, must have meant something to my poor parents, always seemed like the illicit mention of a taboo or exposing unknown people’s joy and pain, which any thinking, feeling person considers an almost punishable offense. I should say any civilized person since our thinking and feeling is in part, in its damaged part, bound to our civilization, to the civilizing by which we have gleefully forfeited the honor of even being considered alongside the wildest savage. You, a distinguished scholar, know better than I what dignity primitive people — the last, unannihilated ones — accord to everything concerned with birth, initiation, conception and death, and in our society it is not only official arrogance that demands we surrender our last vestiges of shame, but even before surveys and data-processing a related, anticipatory spirit was already at work, confident of victory, calling for this enlightenment, which has already wreaked the greatest devastation among confused peoples not yet come of age. And when civilization has lifted the last remaining taboos, humanity will yet be degraded to total immaturity. You congratulate me, and I cannot help but extend these congratulations, at least in thought, to a woman who died long ago, a certain Josefine H. who is listed on my birth certificate as midwife. She should have been congratulated, back then, for her dexterity and a smooth birth. Years ago I learned that this day was a Friday (it seems that by evening the time had come), information which did not exactly thrill me. If it can be avoided I don’t leave the house on Fridays, I never travel on Fridays, Friday is the day of the week I find most threatening. But it is a further fact that I came into the world with half a “good-luck bonnet,” half a caul, although I don’t know why people still believe that this or any other peculiar feature on a newborn should augur good fortune or ill. But I already said that I apparently had only half a good-luck bonnet, and though they say half is better than none, this half cover made me deeply reflective, I was a brooding child, reflection and sitting still for hours are said to have been my most outstanding features. Nonetheless I ask myself today, too late, too late, what my pitiful mother could have made of this dusky news, half a congratulation for half a good-luck bonnet. Who would want to nurse a child, to raise it responsibly if it came into the world with only half a good-luck bonnet. What would you do, Mr. President, with half a presidency, half an honor, half a recognition, half a hat, what would you even do with this half letter? My letter to you cannot become a whole letter, because my thanks for your good wishes are themselves only half-hearted. But since one receives letters without asking for them, replies cannot be expected —
Vienna, . . .
An unknown woman
* * *
The torn letters are lying in the wastepaper basket, artistically messed up and mixed with crumpled invitations to an exhibition, a reception, a lecture, mixed with empty cigarette cartons, sprinkled with ashes and cigarette butts. Hastily I have put typing paper and carbons in place so that Fräulein Jellinek won’t see what I’ve been doing in the middle of the night. She’s just stopping by, she has to meet her fiancé to arrange the documents for the marriage license. She did not forget to buy two ballpoint pens, but nonetheless once again her hours have not been recorded. I ask: Why for heaven’s sake didn’t you write them down, you know how I am! And I rummage around in my purse and in another handbag, I’m going to have to ask Malina for some money, call him in the Arsenal, but the envelope however finally surfaces, very conspicuously stuck in the Grosser Duden dictionary, secretly marked by Malina. He never forgets, I never have to ask him to do anything. At the right time the envelopes are lying in the kitchen for Lina, on the desk for Fräulein Jellinek, in the old box in my bedroom there are a few banknotes for the hairdresser and, every few months, a few larger notes for shoes and sheets and clothes. I never know when the necessary money will appear, but if my coat has become tatty then Malina will have saved up for a new one, before the first cold day of the year. I don’t know how Malina always manages, even with no money in the house, to bring us through these expensive times, he always pays the rent punctually, and for the most part also the electric bill, water bill, telephone bill and car insurance that I’m supposed to tend to. They’ve only cut off our telephone once or twice, but just because we were traveling and tend to be forgetful when we travel, since we don’t have our mail forwarded. We got off easy again, I say with relief, it should be smooth sailing from here on, if only we don’t get sick, if only nothing happens to our teeth! Malina can’t give me much, but he prefers to let me save on household expenses rather than not grant me the few schillings I spend on things that mean more to me than a full refrigerator. I have my small allowance for getting around in Vienna and having a sandwich at Trześniewski’s and a small coffee in the Café Sacher, for politely sending Antoinette Altenwyl flowers after a dinner, for giving Franziska Jordan My Sin perfume for her birthday, for giving streetcar tickets, spare change or clothes to pushy or lost or stranded people I don’t know, especially Bulgarians. Malina shakes his head, but he says no only if he understands from my stammering that “the cause,” “the case,” “the problem” is assuming immense proportions that we can’t handle. Then Malina strengthens my backbone for a no that was taking shape in me as well. I still backtrack at the last moment, I say: But couldn’t we really, if for example we asked Atti Altenwyl or if I asked little Semmelrock to speak with Bertold Rapatz, he has millions you know, or if you could call up Director Hubalek! At such moments Malina says decidedly: No! I’m supposed to finance the reconstruction of a girls’ school in Jerusalem, I’m supposed to pay thirty thousand schillings for a refugee committee, as a small contribution, I’m supposed to come up with something for the catastrophic floods in northern Germany and in Romania, contribute to the earthquake victims’ support fund, I’m supposed to finance revolutions in Mexico, Berlin and La Paz, but Martin urgently needs a thousand schillings, today, just until the first of the month, and he is reliable, Christine Wantschura urgently needs money for her husband’s exhibition, but he mustn’t know, she wants to get it back from her mother, but Christine has just now renewed an old fight with her mother. Three students from Frankfurt can’t pay their hotel bill in Vienna, it’s urgent, even more urgent is Lina’s need for the next payments on her television, Malina pulls out the money and says yes, but he says no to the really big catastrophes and undertakings. Malina doesn’t have any theory, for him everything divides into “to have or have not.” If it were up to him we’d get by and never have any financial troubles, I’m the one who brings them into the house, along with the Bulgarians, the Germans, the South Americans, the girlfriends, the boyfriends, the acquaintances of both sexes, all these people, the geopolitical and meteorological fronts. I have never heard — and this is something Malina and Ivan have in common — of anyone going to I
van or Malina, it simply doesn’t happen, no one would think of it, I must be more attractive, maybe I simply instill a lot more trust. But Malina says: That could only happen to you, they couldn’t find anyone dumber. I say: it’s urgent.
* * *
The Bulgarian is waiting for me in Café Landtmann, he told Lina he came directly from Israel and needs to speak with me, I start to imagine who could be sending me greetings, who might have had an accident, what happened to Harry Goldmann whom I haven’t seen in Vienna for ages, I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with world affairs, hopefully no committee is being formed, hopefully no one needs a few million, hopefully I won’t have to take hold of any spade, I can’t bear the sight of spades or shovels since that time in Klagenfurt when they stood Wilma and me against the wall and wanted to shoot us, I can’t listen to any shots at all ever since a certain Fasching, a war, a film. Hopefully it will just be greetings. Naturally it turns out to be something else entirely and luckily I still have the flu and 100° and therefore can’t set out to perform new deeds and get entangled in something. I can see neither scene nor setting, but how do I say that my place is in the Ungargasse? my Ungargassenland, which I must hold, fortify, my only country, which I must keep secure, which I defend, for which I tremble, for which I fight, prepared to die, I hold it with my mortal hands, surrounded even here as I catch my breath in front of the Café Landtmann, my country that is threatened by revenge from all other countries. Herr Franz is already greeting me at the door, he looks around the overfilled coffee house with a dubious mien, but I walk past him with a brusque greeting and make the rounds, since I don’t need a table, a gentleman from Israel has been waiting for me for half an hour, it’s urgent. A gentleman is holding a German magazine Der Spiegel opened conspicuously with its title page facing anyone who enters, but the only thing I arranged with my gentleman was that I would be blond and wearing a blue spring coat, though it’s not spring — but the weather does change from day to day. The gentleman with the magazine raises his hand, but doesn’t rise and since no one else is watching me it might be the urgent man. It is the man, he whispers in a broken German, I ask about my friends in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, but the man doesn’t know any of my friends, he is not from Israel, he was only there a few weeks ago, he’s come a long way. I order a large espresso, with milk, from Herr Adolf, I don’t ask: What do you want from me, who are you? How did you get my address? What brings you to Vienna? The man whispers: I come from Bulgaria. I found your name in the phone book, it was my last hope. The capital of Bulgaria must be Sofia, but the man is not from Sofia, I understand that not every Bulgarian can live in Sofia, nothing more about Bulgaria occurs to me, all the people there are supposed to live a very long time because of the yogurt, but my Bulgarian is not old and not young, his face is easily forgotten, he shakes continuously, fidgets in his chair, and keeps grabbing hold of his legs. He takes some newspaper clippings out of a briefcase, all of them from German newspapers, a large page from Der Spiegel, he nods, I’m supposed to read it, right here and now, the clippings are about a disease, Buerger’s Disease, the Bulgarian drinks a small espresso and I stir my own coffee without a word, quickly read about Buerger’s Disease, written for the layman of course, but even so this Disease must be very rare and unusual, I look up expectantly, I don’t know why Bulgarians are interested in Buerger’s Disease. The Bulgarian moves his chair slightly away from the table, he points to his legs, he is the one with the disease. The agitation rushes to my head, a terrible pain, I’m not dreaming, this time the Bulgarian succeeded, what am I supposed to do with this man and a strange disease in Café Landtmann, what would Malina do right now, what would Malina do? But the Bulgarian remains completely calm and says he just needs to have both legs amputated right away and he’s run out of money in Vienna, he still has to get to Itzehoe, where they have specialists in Buerger’s Disease. I smoke and keep quiet and wait, I have twenty schillings on me, it’s past five o’clock, the bank is closed, the disease is there. Just before losing his temper Herr Professor Mahler shouts from the next table: Check please! Herr Franz calls cheerfully: Be right there! and runs away and I run after him. I have to phone at once. Herr Franz says: Is something wrong, gnädige Frau, I don’t like the way you look at all, Peppi, bring a glass of water, but presto, for the gnädige Frau! I rummage through my handbag in the cloakroom, but the little address book isn’t there, I have to look up the number of my travel agency in the phonebook, Peppi the boy waiter brings a glass of water, I rummage through my bag and find a tablet, which I can’t break in my agitation, I shove the whole thing into my mouth and swallow some water, the tablet sticks in my throat and little Peppi cries out: Jesusmaryandjoseph, you’re coughing, shouldn’t I get Herr Franz . . . ! but I’ve found the number, I phone and wait and drink the water, I’m being connected, I’m being transferred, Herr Suchy is still in the office. Herr Suchy repeats nasally, pedantically: A foreign gentleman will come by, 1st class ticket to Itzehoe, one way, an additional thousand schillings cash, no rush, we’ll take care of it, it will be a pleasure for me, no need to worry, gnädige Frau, küss die Hand!
Malina Page 10