Malina

by Ingeborg Bachmann

  * * *

  My father is beating Melanie, then, because a large dog begins to bark in warning, he beats this dog who completely submits to his thrashing. In the same way my mother and I also allowed ourselves to be thrashed. I know that the dog is my mother, absolute submissiveness. I ask my father why he’s beating Melanie as well, and he says he won’t stand for such questions, she doesn’t mean anything to him, it’s shameless of me to even ask about her, he keeps repeating that Melanie doesn’t mean anything to him, he only needs her for a few more weeks, for a little refreshment, I ought to understand that. I think the dog has no idea that it could put an end to the beating if it only gave my father’s leg a little bite: the dog howls quietly and doesn’t bite. Afterward my father chats with me, satisfied, relieved by the opportunity to do some beating, but I’m still despondent, I try to explain to him how sick he’s made me, he’ll have to find out sooner or later, with difficulty I list the hospitals I’ve been in and hold up the bills from all the treatments, since I think we should share the costs. My father is in the best of moods, he just doesn’t understand the connection, neither with the beating nor with his actions and my wish to finally tell him everything — it remains pointless, senseless, but the atmosphere between us is not tense, rather good and jovial, because now he wants to sleep with me, drawing the curtains so that we won’t be seen by Melanie, who’s still lying there whimpering, but who as always has understood nothing. I lie down with a pitiful hope, but get back up immediately, I just can’t, I tell him it doesn’t mean a thing to me, I hear myself saying: It doesn’t mean anything to me, it’s never meant anything to me, it doesn’t mean anything! My father is not exactly indignant, since it doesn’t mean anything to him either, he’s reciting one of his monologues, in which he reminds me that I once said it’s always the same thing. He says: Same thing, so no excuses, don’t make excuses for yourself, here with the same thing, if it’s the same thing! But we will be interrupted as always, it doesn’t make any sense, I can’t explain to him that it’s only a matter of being interrupted and never the same thing, and only with him, since I can’t see that it means anything. It’s Melanie who is moaning and causing the disturbance, my father steps onto the pulpit and holds his Sunday sermon, about the same thing, and all listen to him quietly and piously, as he is the greatest Sunday preacher far and wide. In the end he always pronounces a curse on something or someone, to strengthen his sermon, and he’s doing it again, today he curses my mother and me, he curses his sex and mine, and I walk over to the holy water used by the Catholics and moisten my forehead, in the name of the Father, leaving before the sermon is over.

  * * *

  My father has come swimming with me into the kingdom of the thousand atolls. We dive into the sea, I encounter schools of the most magical fish, and I’d like to move on with them, but my father is already after me, I see him now beside me, now below me, now above me, I have to try and reach the reefs, because my mother has hidden herself in the coral reef and is staring at me in silent warning, she knows what’s going to happen to me. I dive deeper and scream underwater: No! And: I don’t want to anymore! I can’t anymore! I know it’s important to scream underwater since it drives away the sharks, so it should also drive away my father who wants to attack me, to tear me to pieces, or he wants to sleep with me again, to take me on the reef so that my mother can see it. I scream: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you more than my life, and I have sworn to kill you! I find a place with my mother, in her ramified, thousand-limbed deep-sea coral torpor which is growing constantly, I cling to her branches, fearful and afraid, I cling to her, but my father grabs at me, again he grabs at me, and it wasn’t me after all, he was the one who had just screamed, it was his voice, not mine: I have sworn to kill you. But I did scream: I hate you more than my life!

  * * *

  Malina isn’t there, I straighten out my pillow, I find the glass with the mineral water, Güssinger, ready to die of thirst I drink this glass of water. Why did I say that, why? More than my life. I have a good life, it’s become better and better because of Malina. It’s a gloomy morning, but already light outside. What am I muttering, why is Malina asleep now? Just right now. He should explain my words to me. I don’t hate my life, so how can I hate something more than my life. I can’t. I only come undone at night. I get up carefully, so that my life stays good, I put water on for tea, I have to drink tea, and in the kitchen where I’m cold despite my long nightgown, I make the tea I need, because at least making tea keeps me occupied whenever I can’t do anything else. When the water comes to a boil, I am not in an atoll, I warm the pot, count the spoonfuls of Earl Grey, I pour the tea, I can still drink tea, can still conduct the boiling water to my pot. I’d prefer not to wake Malina, but I stay up till 7 in the morning, wake him up and make him breakfast. Malina isn’t exactly in the best shape either, maybe he came home late, his egg is too hard, but he doesn’t say anything, I mumble an excuse, the milk is sour, but why after only two days? After all it was in the ice box, Malina looks up since small white clumps are appearing in his tea, and I pour out the cup, today he has to drink his tea without milk. Everything has turned sour. I’m sorry, I say. What’s the matter? asks Malina. Get going, please, go, get ready, otherwise you’ll be late, I can’t talk this early in the morning.

  * * *

  I’m wearing the Siberian Jewish Coat like everyone else. It’s the middle of winter, more and more snow is falling on us, and my bookcases are collapsing underneath the snow, the snow is burying them slowly, while we all await deportation, and the photographs on the bookshelf are getting wet, pictures of all the people I have loved, and I wipe away the snow and shake the photographs, but the snow keeps falling, my fingers are already numb, I have to let the snow bury the photos. I only despair because my father is watching my last attempts, for he doesn’t belong to us, I don’t want him to see my efforts and guess who is in these photographs. My father, who would also like to put on a coat, even though he’s too fat for it, forgets the pictures, he confers with someone, takes his coat off again to look for another one, but fortunately there are no longer any coats around. He sees me leaving with the others, and I’d like to have one more word with him, to finally make it clear to him that he doesn’t belong to us, that he has no right, I say: I don’t have any more time, I don’t have enough time. There’s just not time for that. All around some people are criticizing me for not showing solidarity, “solidarity,” what a strange word! I don’t care. I’m supposed to put my signature on something, but my father is the one who signs, he is always in “solidarity,” but I don’t even know what it means. Very quickly I say to him: Farewell, I don’t have any more time, I’m not in solidarity. I have to look for someone! I don’t exactly know who it is I have to find, someone from Pécs, whom I am seeking among these people, in this terrible chaos. Moreover, the time I have left is quickly running out, I’m afraid he was already deported before me, although I can only talk to him about it, to him alone and unto the seventh generation, which I cannot vouch for, since I won’t have any descendants. Among the many barracks I find him in the very last room, where he is waiting for me, exhausted, a bouquet of Turk’s-cap lilies is standing next to him in the empty room, he is lying on the floor in his sidereal mantle, blacker than black, in which I saw him several thousand years ago. He sits up sleepily, he’s aged a few years, and his fatigue is great. He says with his earliest voice: Ah, at last, at last you have come! And I drop down and laugh and cry and kiss him, it really is you, if only you are here, at last, at last! A child is there as well, I only see one, although it seems to me there should be two, and the child is lying in a corner. I recognized him at once. A woman is lying gently and patiently in another corner, the mother of his child, she doesn’t have anything against our lying down together here before the deportation. Suddenly the order is given: Get up! We all stand up, we start off, the little one is already on the truck, we have to hurry so we can also get aboard, I just have to find our protective
umbrellas, and I find them all, for him, for the gentle woman, for the child, for me as well, but my umbrella doesn’t belong to me, someone once left it behind in Vienna, and I am dismayed because I always wanted to give it back, but I just don’t have any time for that now. It’s a dead parachute. It’s too late, I have to take it so that we can get through Hungary, for I have found my first love once again, it’s raining, it’s pouring, pelting down on all of us, above all on the child who is so cheerful and composed. It’s starting again, I’m breathing too fast, perhaps on account of the child, but my beloved says: Stay completely calm, stay as calm as we are! The moon will rise now any minute. Only I’m still deathly afraid since it’s starting once again, since I’m going crazy, he says: Just stay calm, think about the Stadtpark, think about the leaf, think about the garden in Vienna, about our tree, the princess tree is blooming. At once I calm down, for the same thing has happened to both of us, I see how he points to his head, I know what they have done to his head. The truck has to cross a river, it’s the Danube, then it’s another river, I try to remain completely calm, for here in the Danube wetlands we met for the first time, I say I’m all right, but then my mouth opens wide without screaming, because my voice simply doesn’t come. He says to me, don’t forget it again, it’s called: Facile! And I misunderstand, I scream, voicelessly: Facit! In the river, in the deep river. May I speak with you, madam, for a moment? asks a gentleman, I have some news for you. I ask: For whom, whom do you have to deliver this news? He says: It’s only for the princess of Kagran. I snap at him: Do not pronounce this name, ever. Don’t tell me a thing! But he shows me a desiccated leaf, and I know he has spoken the truth. My life is over, for during the transport he has drowned in the river, he was my life. I loved him more than my life.

  * * *

  Malina is holding me, he’s the one saying: Just stay calm! I have to stay calm. But I walk up and down the apartment with him, he would like me to lie down, but I can no longer lie down on the bed that is too soft for me. I lie down on the floor, but am on my feet again at once because I had lain that way on another floor, underneath the warm Siberian coat, and I pace up and down with him, speaking, talking, leaving words out, letting words in. Despondently I lay my head on Malina’s shoulder, where there must be a piece of platinum following an accident in which he broke his collarbone, so he once told me, and I notice that I’m getting cold, I’m beginning to shake again, the moon is coming out, you can see it from our window, do you see the moon? I see a different moon and a sidereal world, but it’s not the other moon I want to speak about, I simply have to talk, talk without stopping, in order to save myself, in order not to do that to Malina, my head, my head, I’m going crazy but Malina isn’t supposed to know. Nevertheless Malina does know, and I implore him as I race up and down in the apartment, clamped to him, I let myself fall down, get up again, undo my shirt, then fall down once more, because I’m losing my mind, it’s coming over me, I’m losing my mind, with no consolation, but Malina repeats: Just stay calm, let yourself slump down all the way. I slump down and think about Ivan, I start breathing a little more regularly, Malina massages my hands and my feet, the area around my heart, but I’m going crazy, just one thing, I’m only asking you for one thing . . . But Malina says: Why ask then, you don’t have to ask. But again in my voice of today I say: Please, Ivan must never find out, never know (dazed, I realize that Malina doesn’t know anything about Ivan, why talk about Ivan now?) — Ivan must never, promise me, and as long as I can still talk, I’ll talk, it’s important that I talk, you know I’m only talking, and please talk to me, Ivan must never, never know, please tell me something, tell me about dinner, where did you eat, with whom, talk to me about the new record, did you bring it with you, O ancient scent! Talk to me, it doesn’t matter what we talk about, just something, talk, talk, talk, then we’ll no longer be in Siberia, no longer in the river, no longer in the marshes, the Danubian wetlands, we’ll be back here, in the Ungargasse, you my Promised Land, my Ungarland, talk to me, turn on all the lights, don’t worry about the electric bill, there has to be light everywhere, turn on all the switches, give me some water, turn on the lights, turn on all the lights! Light the candelabra!

  Malina turns on the lights, Malina brings the water, my disorientation abates, the dazedness increases, did I say something to Malina, did I mention Ivan’s name? Did I say “candelabra”? You know, I say, less agitated, you shouldn’t take everything too seriously, Ivan is alive and was alive once before, strange, isn’t it? Above all, don’t let it upset you, just that today it’s upsetting me a lot, that’s why I’m so tired, but do leave the lights on. Ivan is still alive, he’ll call me. When he calls I’ll tell him — Malina is once again walking up and down with me, because I can’t lie still, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to tell Ivan, I hear the telephone ring. Tell him, tell him, please tell him! Don’t tell him anything. Best of all: I’m not at home.

  * * *

  My father has to wash our feet, like all our Apostolic Kaisers have to wash the feet of their poor, one day a year. Ivan and I are already taking a footbath, the water is running, foaming black and dirty, we haven’t washed our feet for a long time. We better wash them ourselves, as my father is no longer performing this honorable duty. I’m glad our feet are now clean, glad they smell clean, I dry Ivan’s feet and then my own, we sit on my bed and look at each other full of joy. But now someone is coming, too late, the door flies open, it’s my father. I point to Ivan, I say: He’s the one! I don’t know whether that will get me the death penalty or only send me to a camp. My father looks at the dirty water from which I lift my white, nice-smelling feet, and I proudly show him Ivan’s clean feet. Despite everything, even though he has neglected his duty once again, my father is not supposed to notice how happy I am to have washed off everything after the long journey. The journey from him to Ivan was too long, and my feet got dirty. Next door a radio is playing: da-dim, da-dam. My father roars: Turn off that radio! You know good and well it’s not the radio, I say with certainty, because I’ve never owned one. My father roars again: Your feet are completely filthy, and what’s more I’ve now told everyone, too. Just so you know. Filthy, filthy! Smiling, I say: My feet are washed, I wish that everyone had feet as clean as mine.

  What kind of music is that, enough of that music! My father fumes as never before. And tell me at once, on what day did Columbus reach America? How many primary colors are there? How many hues? Three primary colors. Ostwald lists 500 hues. All my replies come quickly and correctly, but very quietly, I can’t do anything about it if my father doesn’t hear them. He’s screaming again, and each time he raises his voice a piece of plaster falls from the wall or a slat of wood bursts up from the floor. How can he ask like that if he doesn’t even want to hear the answers.

  * * *

  It’s dark in front of the window, I can’t open it and so I press my face against the pane, it’s almost impossible to see. Slowly I realize that the gloomy puddle could be a lake, and I hear the drunken men sing a chorale on the ice. I know my father has stepped in behind me, he has sworn to kill me, and I hurriedly place myself between the long heavy curtain and the window, so that he doesn’t surprise me while I’m looking out, but I already know what I’m not supposed to know: that on the shore of the lake lies the cemetery of the murdered daughters.

  * * *

  On a small ship my father is beginning to shoot his great film. He is the director, and everything runs the way he wishes. Once again I’ve had to give in, for my father would like to film a few sequences with me, he assures me I won’t be recognized, he has the best mask-makers in the world. My father has adopted a name, no one knows which one, it’s been seen occasionally in neon letters at movie marquees across half the globe. I sit around waiting, not yet dressed or made up, with curlers in my hair, only a towel over my shoulders, but suddenly I discover that my father is taking advantage of the situation and is already filming, in secret, and I jump up indignantly, can’t find a
nything to cover myself, nonetheless I run up to him and the cameraman and say: Stop that, stop that at once! I demand the reel be destroyed immediately, this has nothing to do with any film, it’s against my contract, the reel has to be removed. My father answers that that’s precisely what he wanted, it will be the most interesting part of the movie, he continues filming. Horrified, I listen to the humming of the camera and again demand he stop and hand over the footage, but unmoved he continues to shoot and once again says no. I am becoming more and more agitated and cry out that he has one second to think it over, I’m no longer afraid of blackmail, I’ll be able to look after myself if no one comes to my aid. Since he doesn’t react and the second is over, I look out over the ship’s smokestacks and all the equipment lying on the deck, I stumble over the cables and search and search, just how can I stop him from doing this, I rush back to the dressing room, the doors have been taken off their hinges to prevent me from locking myself inside, my father laughs, but at that moment I see the small manicure dish with soapy lye water in front of the mirror, and quick as lightning I have an idea, I take the dish and pour the lye onto the cameras and into the ship’s pipes, everything starts steaming, my father stands there paralyzed, and I tell him that I had warned him, that I no longer have to do his bidding, that I’ve changed, from now on I’ll treat everyone the way I’m treating him, with immediate retaliation for any breach of contract. The whole ship is steaming more and more, the filming is ruined, the work has to be hastily broken off, everyone is standing in groups, anxiously discussing, but they’re saying they didn’t like the director anyway, they’re glad this movie isn’t going to be made. We abandon our ship using rope ladders, then rock away in little lifeboats and are brought aboard a big vessel. As I sit exhausted on a bench aboard the big ship, watching the rescue operations for the small ship, some human bodies float by, they’re still alive but burnt, we have to make room, all of them are to be taken aboard, because another boat has exploded beyond our own sinking ship, one which also belonged to my father, with many passengers on board and where many people were wounded. Without reason I began to fear that my little soapdish also caused the explosion in the other boat, I’m already expecting to be indicted for murder as soon as we land. More and more bodies wash up against us, they have to be fished out, the dead ones as well. But then I’m relieved to hear that the other boat went down for entirely different reasons. I have nothing to do with it, it was negligence on the part of my father.