* * *
Malina:
* * *
Just keep calm. It’s nothing. But will you finally tell me who your father is?
Me:
(and I’m crying bitterly) Am I really here. Are you really standing there!
Malina:
Good God why are you always saying “my father”?
Me:
It’s good you remind me. But let me think about it a long time. Cover me up. Who could my father be? Do you know for example who your father is?
Malina:
Let’s just drop it.
Me:
Let’s say I have an inkling. Don’t you have any?
Malina:
Are you trying to get out of it, trying to be clever?
Me:
Maybe. I’d also like to dupe you for once. Tell me one thing. How did you realize that my father is not my father?
Malina:
Who is your father?
Me:
I don’t know, I don’t know, really I don’t. You’re the smarter of the two of us, you always know everything, your know-it-allness makes me sick. Doesn’t it make you sick sometimes? Oh no, not you. Rub my feet, right, thanks, my feet are the only thing that fell asleep.
Malina:
Who is he?
Me:
I’ll never talk. Anyway I couldn’t, because I don’t know.
Malina:
You do know. Swear that you don’t.
Me:
I never swear.
Malina:
Then I’ll tell you, you hear, I’ll tell you who he is.
Me:
No. No. Never. Don’t ever tell me. Bring me some ice, a cold damp cloth for my head.
Malina:
(leaving) You’ll tell me, you can count on it.
* * *
The phone whimpers quietly in the middle of the night, it wakes me with seagull cries, then the hissing of Boeing jets. The call is from America, and I say, relieved: Hello. It’s dark, I hear crackling all around me, I’m on a lake where the ice is beginning to melt, it was the deep-deep frozen lake, and now I’m hanging in the water by the phone cord, only this cable is keeping me connected. Hello! I already know it’s my father calling me. The lake may soon be completely open, but I’m here on an island far in the water, it’s cut off, and there are no more ships. I’d like to scream into the phone: Eleonore! I want to call my sister, but at the other end of the phone can only be my father, I’m extremely cold and wait with the phone, submerging, surfacing, the connection’s still there, I can hear America well, in the water you can still phone across the water. I say quickly, gurgling, swallowing water: When are you coming, I’m here, yes, here, you know where, it’s really awful, there’s no longer any connection, I’m cut off, I’m alone, no, no more ships! And while I’m waiting for an answer, I see how gloomy the island of the sun really is, the oleanders have keeled over, the volcano is covered with ice crystals, even it is frozen, the old climate no longer exists. My father laughs into the phone. I say: I’m cut off — come here, when are you coming? He laughs and laughs, he laughs as they do in the theater, that’s where he must have learned to laugh so hideously: Hahaha. Nothing but: Hahaha. Nobody laughs like that anymore, I say, nobody laughs like that, stop it. But my father doesn’t stop his stupid laughing. Can I call you back? I ask, just to put an end to this theater. Haha. Haha. The island is going under, you can see it from every continent, while the laughter continues. My father has gone to the theater. God is a show.
* * *
My father came home once more just by accident. My mother is holding three flowers, the flowers for my life, they aren’t red, or blue, or white, but they must be for me, and she throws the first one in front of my father, before he can approach us. I know she’s right, she has to throw him the flowers, but now I also know that she knows everything, incest, it was incest, but I’d still like to ask her for the other flowers, and I watch my father in deadly fear as he tears the other flowers from my mother’s hand, to take his revenge against her as well, he tramples them, he stomps on all three flowers, as he has often stomped about when enraged, he treads on them and tramples, as if he were trying to kill three bugs, that’s how much my life still means to him. I can’t look at my father anymore, I cling to my mother and start to scream, yes, that’s what it was, it was him, it was incest. But then I notice that not only is my mother silent and unmoved, but from the beginning my own voice has been without sound, I’m screaming but no one hears me, there’s nothing to hear, my mouth is only gaping, he’s taken away my voice as well, I can’t pronounce the word I want to scream at him, and as I am straining with my dry, open mouth it comes once more, I know I’m going crazy, and in order to stay sane I spit into my father’s face, but there’s no saliva left, hardly a breath from my mouth reaches him. My father is untouchable. He is unmovable. My mother sweeps away the trampled flowers in silence, the little bit of filth, to keep the house clean. Where is my sister right now? I haven’t seen my sister in the entire house.
* * *
My father takes away my keys, he throws my clothes out the window onto the street, but I pass them on to the Red Cross immediately, after I’ve shaken off the dust, for I have to go back in the house once more, I saw the accomplices going inside, and the first one is breaking glass and plates, but my father has a few glasses set off to the side, and as I walk in the door, trembling, and come closer to him, he takes the first one and hurls it at me, next hurls one on the ground in front of me, he throws and throws all the glasses, his aim is so exact that only a few splinters hit me, but the blood trickles from my forehead in little rills, it runs down my ear, it drops off my chin, my dress is smeared with blood because a few tiny pieces of glass have forced their way through the material, it drips more peacefully from my knees, but I want to, I have to say it to him. He says: Just stay where you are, stay put, and watch! I don’t understand anything anymore, but I know there’s reason to be afraid, and then it turns out the fear was not the worst thing, since my father orders my bookshelves to be torn down, in fact he says “tear them down,” and I want to place myself in front of the books, but the men block me, smirking, I throw myself at their feet and say: Just leave my books in peace, just these books, do what you all want with me, do what you want, go ahead and throw me out the window, go on and give it another try, the way you did back then! But my father acts as if he didn’t remember the previous attempt, and he begins taking five, six books at a time like a stack of bricks, and hurls them so they land on their heads into an old wardrobe. With cold, clammy fingers, the accomplices pull out the bookshelves, everything collapses, Kleist’s deathmask flutters in front of me for a while and Hölderlin’s portrait, underneath which is written: dich Erde, lieb ich, trauerst du doch mit mir! and I can only catch these pictures and hold them close to me, the small volumes of Balzac whirl around, the Aeneid gets bent and buckles, the accomplices kick Lucretius and Horatio, but someone else begins neatly stacking some things in a corner, without knowing what they are, my father pokes the man in the ribs (where have I seen this man before: he destroyed a book of mine in the Beatrixgasse) and says to him amiably: That would suit you fine, wouldn’t it, with her too, huh? And now my father blinks at me, and I understand him, because the man smiles sheepishly and says he’d like to all right, and for my sake he also acts as if he’d like to treat my books well again, but full of
hate I wrest the French books from his hand, since Malina had given them to me, and I say: You won’t get me! And to my father I say: You always did sell off each one of us. But my father roars: What, now suddenly you don’t want to? Then I will, I will!
The men leave the house, each has been given a tip, they wave their large handkerchiefs and shout: Heil Book! They tell the neighbors and all the curious onlookers: Our work is finished. Now Holzwege has fallen down, also Ecce Homo, and I squat amid the books, benumbed and bleeding, it had to come to this, for I caressed them every evening before going to sleep, and Malina had given me the most beautiful books, my father will never forgive that, and they’ve all become illegible, it had to come to this, there’s no order anymore, and I’ll never know where Kürnberger was or Lafcadio Hearn. I lie down among the books, I again caress them, one after the other, in the beginning there were only three, then there were fifteen, then over a hundred, and I ran to my first bookcase in my pajamas. Good night, gentlemen, good night, Mr. Voltaire, good night, Fürst, may you rest well, my unknown authors, sweet dreams, Mr. Pirandello, my respect, Mr. Proust. Chaire, Thukydides! For the first time the gentlemen are saying good night to me, I try to avoid touching them so as not to stain them with blood. Good night, says Josef K. to me.
My father wants to leave my mother, he’s returning from America as the driver of a covered wagon snapping his whip, sitting next to him is little Melanie, who went to school with me, grown up. My mother would prefer we didn’t become friends, but Melanie doesn’t stop pressing close to me, with her large, excited breasts that my father likes and which make me cringe, she gesticulates, laughs, she has brown braids, then long blond hair again, she fawns on me so that I’ll leave her something, and my mother keeps moving farther back inside the wagon, silently. I let Melanie kiss me, but just on one cheek, I help my mother climb out and already have my suspicions, since we are all invited, we are all wearing new clothes, even my father has shaved and changed his shirt after the long journey, and we make our entrance into the ballroom from War and Peace.
* * *
Malina:
* * *
Get up, move around, walk up and down with me, breathe, take a deep breath.
Me:
I can’t, I’m sorry, and I can’t sleep anymore if it keeps going on like this.
Malina:
Why are you still thinking “War and Peace”?
Me:
It’s called that because one follows the other, isn’t that the way it is?
Malina:
You don’t have to believe everything, you better think about it.
Me:
Me?
Malina:
It isn’t war and peace.
Me:
What is it then?
Malina:
War.
Me:
How am I ever supposed to find peace. I want peace.
Malina:
It’s war. All you can have is this little intermission, nothing more.
Me:
Peace!
Malina:
There is no peace in you, not even in you.
Me:
Don’t say that, not today. You’re terrible.
Malina:
It’s war. And you are the war. You yourself.
Me:
Not me.
Malina:
We all are, you included.
Me:
Then I don’t want to be anymore, because I don’t want war, then put me to sleep, make it end. I want the war to end. I don’t want to hate anymore, I want . . . I want . . .
Malina:
Breathe more deeply, come on. There, there, it’s better, you see, I’m holding you, come over to the window, breathe more calmly, more deeply, take a break, now don’t talk.
* * *
My father is dancing with Melanie, it’s the ballroom from War and Peace. Melanie is wearing the ring my father gave to me, but he lets everyone think he’ll leave me a more valuable ring after his death. Next to me my mother is sitting upright and silent, next to us are two empty chairs, two more empty chairs at our table as well, since those two don’t stop dancing. My mother is no longer speaking to me. No one asks me to dance. Malina comes in and the Italian singer sings: Alfin tu giungi, alfin tu giungi! And I jump up and embrace Malina, I implore him to dance with me, I smile at my mother with relief. Malina takes my hand, we stand leaning against each other at the edge of the dance floor, so that my father can see us, and although I’m certain neither of us can dance, we try, we have to succeed, at least in deceiving everyone, we keep stopping as if we had enough to do just looking at one another, only that doesn’t have anything to do with dancing. I keep saying thank you to Malina quietly: Thank you for coming, I’ll never forget it, oh, thank you, thank you. Now Melanie would also like to dance with Malina, of course, and for a moment I’m afraid, but then I hear Malina say calmly and coolly: No, unfortunately, we’re about to leave. Malina has avenged me. At the exit my long white gloves fall on the floor, and Malina picks them up, they fall to the floor on every step, and Malina picks them up. I say: Thank you, thank you for everything! Let them fall, says Malina, I’ll pick everything up for you.
* * *
My father is walking along the beach in the wasteland where he has enticed me, he has gotten married, in the sand he writes the name of this woman who is not my mother, and I don’t notice it right away, only after he has drawn the first letter. The sun shines cruelly on the letters, they lie like shadows in the sand, in the depressions, and my only hope is that the writing will be quickly blown away, before evening comes, but my God, my God, my father is returning with the great golden, gem-inlaid scepter of the University of Vienna, upon which I swore: spondeo, spondeo, and I shall to the best of my knowledge and belief, and never and under no circumstances use my knowledge to . . . He actually dares use this venerable scepter, which does not belong to him, where I placed my fingers and swore my one and only oath, this staff still burning with my oath, to write the name again, this time I can also read it, Melanie and once again Melanie — with nie like never and I think in the twilight: never, never should he have been allowed to do that. My father has reached the water, satisfied, he uses the golden scepter to support himself, I have to run away, even though I know I’m weaker, but I could catch him by surprise, I jump on his back from behind to make him fall, I only want to knock him down because of the scepter from Vienna, I don’t even want to hurt him, for I can’t use this scepter to strike him, for I have taken an oath, I stand there with the scepter raised, my father snorts in fury, he curses me because he thinks I want to break the scepter over his head, he thinks I want to kill him with it, but I only hold it up to the sky and shout to the horizon, over the sea, to the Danube: I bring this back from the holy war. And with a handful of sand that is my knowledge, I walk across the water, and my father cannot follow me.
* * *
In my father’s grand opera I am supposed to take over the lead role, supposedly it’s the wish of the artistic director, who has just announced it, because then the public will come in droves, says the director, and the journalists say the same. They’re waiting with notepads in hand, I’m supposed to say something about my father, also about the role, which I don’t know. The director himself forces me into a costume, and since it was made for
someone else, with his own hand he fastens it with pins that slit my skin, he’s so clumsy. I say to the journalists: I don’t know anything at all, please ask my father, I don’t know anything, it’s not a role for me, it’s only designed to get the audience to come in droves! But the journalists write down something completely different, and I don’t have any more time to scream and tear up their notes, for it’s the last minute before curtain, and I run through the entire opera house, screaming in despair. There isn’t a libretto to be found anywhere, and I hardly even know two entrances, it’s not my role. I’m very familiar with the music, oh, do I know it, this music, but I don’t know the words, I can’t play this role, I’ll never be able to, and, more desperately, I ask one of the director’s assistants what is the first sentence from the first duet, which I have to sing with a young man. He and all the others laugh enigmatically, they know something I don’t, what is it they all know? I have a suspicion, but the curtain rises, and below is this huge crowd, these droves, I start to sing at random, but in despair, I sing “What help for me, what help for me!” and I know the text can’t go like that, but I also notice that the music is drowning out my desperate words. There are many people on stage, some of whom are silent, some of whom sing quietly when they make an entrance, a young man sings confidently and loudly and sometimes confers with me quickly and secretly, I realize his voice is the only one audible in this duet anyway, because my father wrote the whole part for him, and nothing for me of course, since I don’t have any training and am only supposed to be shown. I’m just supposed to sing to bring in the money, and I don’t break character, I don’t step out of the role that isn’t mine, far from it: I sing for my life, so that my father can’t do anything to me. “What help for me!” Then I forget the role, I also forget I have no training, and finally, although the curtain has fallen and the accounting completed, I actually do sing, but something from a different opera, and I hear my voice, too, ringing out in the empty house, rising to the highest highs and falling to the lowest lows, “Thus would we die, thus would we die . . .” The young man is faking, he doesn’t know this role, but I sing on. “All dead then. All dead!” The young man leaves, I am alone on stage, they turn off the lights and leave me completely alone, in my ridiculous costume full of pins. “Can you see my friends, do you not see it!” And with a great resounding lament I plunge off this island and out of this opera into the orchestra pit, now devoid of any orchestra, still singing: “So would we die, that together . . .” I have saved the performance, but am lying between the empty chairs and music stands with a broken neck.
Malina Page 17