Malina

by Ingeborg Bachmann

  I take the dessert plates and glasses into the kitchen, pace up and down and don’t know what else I could do, I pick a few crumbs off the carpet, Lina will run over it tomorrow with the vacuum cleaner. I wouldn’t want to have Ivan anymore without the kids, I’ll say something to Ivan when he calls, or else I’ll tell him before he leaves, sooner or later I’ll have to say something to him. But it’s better I don’t say it. I’ll write to him from St. Wolfgang, gain some distance, think about it for ten days, then write, not one word too many. I’ll find the right phrases, forget the black art of words, for Ivan I shall write in all artlessness, like the country girls back home write to their beloveds, like the queens who write to their chosen ones, without shame. I will petition for a reprieve, like the condemned who will receive no pardon.

  * * *

  I haven’t been out of Vienna for a long time, including last summer, because Ivan had to stay in the city. I claimed that summer in Vienna was the most beautiful thing in the world, and thought there was nothing so dumb as driving into the country at the same time as everybody else, I couldn’t stand vacations either, the Wolfgangsee would be ruined for me, because all Vienna goes there, and when Malina went to Carinthia I stayed behind in the apartment by myself, in order to go swimming with Ivan a few times in the Old Danube. But this summer the Old Danube has lost its charm, the most beautiful place in the world must be the Mondsee and not Vienna, dead and deserted and crisscrossed by tourists. It’s as though no time had passed. In the morning Ivan will take me to the station, since they’re not leaving with the car until about noon. Fräulein Jellinek drops in late this afternoon, there’s still something we want to take care of.

  * * *

  Dear Herr Hartleben:

  Thank you for your letter of May 31st!

  Fräulein Jellinek waits, and I smoke, she should pull this sheet out and throw it in the wastebasket. I can’t answer a letter written on a 31st of May, the number 31 may not, under any circumstances, be used and profaned. Who does this Herr from Munich think he is? How can he draw my attention to the 31st of May? What business of his is my 31st of May! I leave the room hastily, Fräulein Jellinek is not supposed to notice that I’m starting to cry, she is supposed to file and organize, she’s not supposed to answer this gentleman at all. All replies can wait, they have time until after the summer, in the bathroom it again occurs to me that today I will still write one more decisive, fervent letter, but by myself, in the utmost anxiety, in the greatest haste. Fräulein Jellinek should calculate her hours, I don’t have any time now, we wish each other a nice summer. The telephone is ringing, why isn’t Fräulein Jellinek leaving already. Once again: have a nice summer! happy vacation! best greetings to Herr Doktor Krawanja even though I don’t know him! The telephone is screeching.

  * * *

  I don’t stutter, you’re imagining things

  But I told you the day before yesterday

  There must be some mistake, I wanted to say

  I’m really sorry, the last night

  No I’ve already told you that today unfortunately

  I don’t want you to always do what I want

  I’m not doing that at all, for example it’s absolutely out

  I’m sure I told you, just that you

  But I’m the one who doesn’t have any time today

  Tomorrow morning I’ll be sure and bring you

  I’m in a terrible rush, see you in the morning, at eight!

  * * *

  Strange encounter. Today neither of us has any time for the other, there’s always so much to do the last evening. I would have time, my bags are already packed, Malina went out to eat, for my sake. He’ll come back late, also for my sake. If I only knew where Malina was. But I don’t want to see him either, I can’t today, I have to think about strange encounters. One day we’ll have less time, one day it will have been yesterday and the day before yesterday and a year ago and two years ago. Apart from yesterday there will still be tomorrow, a tomorrow I don’t want and yesterday . . . Oh this yesterday, and now it occurs to me how I met Ivan and that from the very first moment and the whole time I . . . and I am frightened, because I never wanted to think how it was at first, how it was a month ago, never wanted to think how times were before the children appeared, how times were with Frances and Trollope and then how it went with the children and how all four of us were in the Prater, how I laughed with András pressed against me, in the ghost train, or about the skull and crossbones. I never again wanted to know how it was in the beginning, I no longer stopped in front of the florist’s in the Landstrasser Hauptstrasse, I didn’t look for the name nor did I ask. But one day I will want to know it and from that day on I will stay behind and fall back into yesterday. But it’s not tomorrow yet. Before yesterday and tomorrow arrive, I have to silence them inside me. It is today. I am here and today.

  * * *

  Ivan just called, he can’t take me to the station after all, something’s come up at the last minute. It doesn’t matter, he’ll send me a postcard, but I can’t listen any longer, since I have to quickly phone for a taxi. Malina has already left and Lina still hasn’t arrived. But Lina’s on her way, she discovers me with my suitcases in the stairwell, we carry the suitcases downstairs, Lina does most of the lifting, she hugs me in front of the taxi: You better come back to me healthy, gnädige Frau, otherwise Herr Doktor will be disappointed!

  * * *

  I run around the Westbahnhof station, then behind a porter who is carting my suitcases to the end of Track 3, we have to go back since the right car is now on Track 5 and there are two trains leaving for Salzburg at the same time. On Track 5 the train is even longer than the one on Track 3, and we have to run across the ballast at the end of the platform to reach the last cars. The porter wants to be paid now, he thinks it’s a scandal and typical, but then he helps me anyway because I’ve given him ten schillings more, it remains a scandal. I would prefer he didn’t let himself be bribed by ten schillings. Then I would have had to turn back, I would have been home in an hour. The train pulls up, with my last strength I can barely slam the door which was flying open, trying to pull me out. I stay sitting on my suitcases until the conductor comes and ushers me to my compartment. On top of all this the train chooses not to derail before Linz, it makes a short stop in Linz, I’ve never been to Linz, I’ve always only passed through, Linz on the Danube, I don’t want to leave the banks of the Danube.

  * * *

  . . . she no longer saw any way out of the of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters . . . the willows whispered more and more, they hissed, they laughed, they screamed shrilly and sighed and moaned . . . she buried her head in her arms . . . She could move neither forward nor backward, she could merely choose between the water and the overpowering willows.

  * * *

  In Salzburg Antoinette Altenwyl is standing at the station saying good-bye to a few people returning to Munich on the train opposite. I always found this station odious with its absurd waiting times and customs clearance, but this time I don’t need to be cleared, for I’m staying, I belong to Domestic. But I have to wait until Antoinette has kissed and greeted her way through all the people, then she waves to the departing train, as if acknowledging entire nations with her gracious salutations, and of course she hasn’t forgotten about me. Atti is really looking forward to seeing me, he’s going to sail in the regatta soon, I didn’t know? Antoinette always forgets other people’s interests, and so Atti wants to drive me down to St. Gilgen tomorrow, because of course he’s not participating in this first regatta. I listen to Antoinette with growing doubt. I don’t understand why Atti is waiting for me, neither probably does Antoinette, she’s invented the whole thing out of sheer friendliness. Malina sends his greetings, I say drily.

  Thanks, then why aren’t you here together, no, really? they’re still working! and how is our lovely ladies’ man?

  That she considers Malina a ladies’ man is such a s
urprise to me that I begin to laugh: But Antoinette, maybe you’re confusing him with Alex Fleisser or with Fritz! Oh are you with Alex now? I say amiably: You must be crazy. But I picture to myself how Malina, alone in the apartment in Vienna, might have a hard time being a ladies’ man. Antoinette is driving a Jaguar these days, English cars really are the only ones worth driving, and she maneuvers out of Salzburg with confidence and speed, along a shortcut of her own discovery. She’s amazed that I arrived in one piece, one is constantly hearing such droll things about me, that I never arrive anywhere, at any rate not at the expected time and place. I launch into a long-winded description of my first time in St. Wolfgang (leaving out the main event, an afternoon in a hotel room), about how it rained the whole time and how it had been a senseless trip. Although I honestly don’t remember, I let it rain so that Antoinette can make up by offering me a rainless, sunny Salzkammergut. That time I was only rarely able to see Eleonore, for an hour, because she had kitchen duty in the Grand Hotel, Antoinette interrupts me, irritated: No, what do you mean, Lore? how is that? in which kitchen? in the Grand Hotel, that doesn’t exist anymore, it burned down, but it wasn’t at all a bad place to stay! And I hastily draw the curtain over Eleonore and give up trying to enlighten Antoinette and hurting myself. I should never have come here again.

  * * *

  At the Altenwyls’ five people are already gathered for tea, two more are supposed to show up for dinner, and I don’t have the courage to say: But you promised me there wouldn’t be anybody here, that it would be completely quiet, that we’d be all by ourselves! And so tomorrow the Wantschuras are coming, who’ve rented a house for the summer, and on the weekend it’ll just be Atti’s sister, who insists on dragging Baby along, who, are you listening to me? an incredible story, she, born swindler that she is, married this Rottwitz in Germany, apart from that she isn’t very well-born, they say she had a veritable succès fou over there, Germans are always taken in by everything, they really think Baby’s related to the Kinskys and to them as well, the Altenwyls, isn’t it amazing. Antoinette cannot get over her amazement.

  * * *

  I steal away from the tea, I wander through the village and along the lake, and since I’m already here I pay my visits. The people in these parts change strangely. The Wantschuras apologize for having rented a house on the Wolfgangsee, although I wasn’t reproaching them for it, I’m here myself. Christine is racing restlessly through the house, with an old apron wrapped around her so you can’t see her Saint-Laurent dress underneath. It’s a complete coincidence, she’d rather be in the most backward part of Styria. But here they are now, the Wantschuras — although they could do without the Salzburg Festival. Christine presses her hands to her temples, everything here upsets her. She’s planting lettuce and herbs in the garden, she uses her herbs in everything she cooks, they live so simply here, incredibly simply, today Xandl is simply making some rice pudding, it’s Christine’s evening off. She presses her temples once again, runs her fingers through her hair. They’ve hardly been swimming, one is always bumping into acquaintances, and with that I get the picture. Then Christine asks: Oh? At the Altenwyls? Well you know, it’s a matter of taste, Antoinette really is a charming person, but Atti, how you can stand all that, we don’t have anything to do with each other, you know I really think he’s jealous of Xandl. I say, astonished: But how can that be? Christine says disapprovingly: After all Atti used to draw or paint himself, what do I know, well, he just can’t stand it when somebody really knows how to do something, like Xandl, that’s the way they all are, these dilettantes, I don’t care to deal with them at all, I scarcely know Atti, now and then I run into Antoinette in the village and at the hairdresser’s in Salzburg, no, never in Vienna, basically they’re so utterly conservative, which they’d prefer not to admit, and even Antoinette, although she really is charming, when it comes to modern art, not the faintest notion, and that she married Atti Altenwyl, she’ll never live that down, Xandl, I’ll say whatever I think, I am the way I am, you’re making me furious today, you hear! And I’ll give the kids something to really cry about the minute one of them shows his face again in the kitchen, please, be brave, just once, and call Atti Herr Doktor Altenwyl, I’d like to see his face then, he wouldn’t think it possible, he’s such a knee-jerk liberal, claiming to have a Socialist streak, and even if his calling cards do have Dr. Arthur Altenwyl printed on them a hundred times, then he’s only happy because everyone knows who he is anyway. That’s the way they all are!

  * * *

  Next door at the Mandls, who get more American with each passing year, a young man is sitting in the “living room,” Cathy Mandl whispers to me that he’s an “outstanding’’ author, if I understood correctly, and, if I understood correctly, his name must be Markt or Marek, I’ve never read or heard of anything by him, he must have just been discovered or is looking to Cathy to do the discovering. After the first ten minutes he asks about the Altenwyls with undisguised greed, and I reply only tersely or not at all. What is Graf Altenwyl up to anyway? asks the young genius, and on and on, how long have I known Graf Altenwyl and whether I’m a good friend and whether it’s true that Graf Altenwyl . . . No I have no idea, I didn’t ask what he’s up to. Me? Maybe two weeks. Sailing? Maybe: Yes, I think they have two or three boats, I don’t know. That might be. What is Herr Markt or Herr Marek after? An invitation to the Altenwyls? Or does he just want to keep pronouncing this name? Cathy Mandl looks plump and friendly, red as a lobster, since she doesn’t tan, she speaks a Viennese-sounding American through her nose and an American Viennese. She’s the big sailor in the family, the only serious “danger” for Altenwyl, if you exclude Leibl as a “professional.” Herr Mandl speaks softly and seldom, he prefers to watch. He says: You have no idea what energy my wife possesses, if she doesn’t get aboard her boat soon, she’ll dig up our garden and turn the house upside down, some people really live and others just watch them do it, I’m one of the watchers. And you?

  * * *

  I don’t know. I receive a vodka with orange juice. When have I had this drink before? I look into the glass, as if it contained a second one, and then I remember, I feel very hot and I’d like to drop the glass or empty it, because I once drank vodka with orange juice high up in a house, during my worst night, someone wanted to throw me out the window, and I no longer hear what Cathy Mandl is saying about the International Yacht Racing Union to which she naturally belongs, I drain my glass for the sake of the gentle Herr Mandl, he well knows what fanatics the Altenwyls are when it comes to punctuality, and I stroll back in the dusk, the vicinity of the lake is whispering and buzzing, the flies and moths flit about my face, I’m looking for the path back to the house, on the verge of collapse, and I think, I have to look good, confident, be in a good mood, no one is allowed to see me here with an ashen face, it has to stay outside, here on the path, I may only wear it in my room, alone, and I step into the illuminated house and say radiantly: Good evening, Anni! Old Josefin hobbles across the hall and I beam and laugh: Good evening, Josefin! Neither Antoinette nor all St. Wolfgang will do me in, nothing will make me tremble, nothing will disturb me in my remembering. Even in my room, however, where I’m allowed to appear exactly the way I am, I don’t break down: on the washstand, next to the washbowl made of old faïence, I immediately see a letter. First I wash my hands, carefully I pour the water into the washbowl and replace the pitcher, then sit down on the bed and hold Ivan’s letter, which he had mailed before my departure, he didn’t forget, he didn’t lose the address, I kiss the letter many times and debate whether I should carefully open the edge or whether I should slit the letter with nail scissors or a paring knife, I look at the stamps, another woman in folk costume, why are they doing that again? I’d rather not read the letter right away, I’d prefer to listen to some music first, then lie awake for a long time, holding the letter, reading my name written by Ivan’s hand, lay the letter under the pillow, then pull it out and carefully open it in the night. There’s a knock
at the door, Anni sticks her head in: Please come to dinner, gnädige Frau, they’re already all in the parlor. They call it a parlor here, and because I have to quickly comb my hair, fix my makeup and smile to myself about the Altenwyls’ parlor, I don’t have much time. At the sound of a gong thudding downstairs, I tear open the letter before turning out the light. I don’t see any address, there are only one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight lines — exactly eight lines — on the page, and at the bottom of the page I read: Ivan.