A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  But if she wasn't there for me, she said, I might have done myself in long ago.

  And now, lurking in her voice, there was a nostalgia tinted with some self-pity, for which the beautiful setting had to be responsible, for it filled us both with a kind of anguished yearning, and she had to break with that, too, for she didn't really feel sorry for herself, she always did what she wanted, what her life as an actress demanded, and whatever self-pity she did feel could be neither expressed nor shared; amused by her own insurmountable curiosity, she broke into a sarcastic smile and came out with the question, after all: What sort of gossip was Frau Kühnert spreading about her this time?

  I was taken aback by the smile, her pettiness was out of place in this sublime setting even if she knew it, and I didn't feel like answering her, for to betray Frau Kühnert just then would have run counter to my plans; Nothing special, I said, and, opting for the safety of a general observation, added, Though I've never met anyone who's had a chance to observe, in such a primal form, how a role takes shape within an actor.

  Her response to my evasion was a wry smile; Within any actor or within me, she asked.

  An actor, yes, any actor, I said.

  No, there was nothing primal in what she did, she said reflectively, but I had the feeling she was wondering about my refusal to give her a straight answer; True, she went on, she was unschooled and uncouth, but also intelligent enough to know a lot about a lot of things; and then her face reverted to her sarcastic smile.

  Did Sieglinde tell me, by any chance, she asked, that she sometimes let herself go completely and was capable of doing the most dreadful things? she could have, of course, they were so close she knew all about her gutter behavior.

  I looked at her quizzically, but she only nodded, perhaps wanted to go no further; she put her hand lightly on my arm.

  There were only two people in her life, she said, everything else was just one big stupidity, no matter what she did, she'd always go back to them, and they would never let her go.

  I know, I said.

  We looked at each other for a long time, a little as we had looked at the landscape before, because I did know what she'd meant and she could be sure I knew; this was the moment when she neutralized not only Frau Kühnert's emotion-driven maneuvering but also my machinations, the emotional dishonesty with which I tried to further Melchior's interests.

  Two human beings were standing in a landscape breathing with a life infinitely greater than theirs, and they understood each other, not with their minds or emotions, for in this understanding the central function was assigned to that naturally accepted given to which we hadn't paid much attention before, neither intellectually nor emotionally, namely, that she was a woman and I was a man.

  The moment exceeded our abilities and intentions, alluded to our natural differences and the one and only possibility of reconciling them, and thus, overriding all our efforts to remain composed, terribly embarrassed us both.

  She didn't let the embarrassment deepen but quickly removed her hand from my arm, gave her shoulder a funny little shrug—at once a coy gesture of surrender and withdrawal—turned, and, now completely in a different time dimension than the city we'd left behind, but also turning away from the landscape, she continued walking along the trail toward the distant woods.

  Table d'Hôte

  Despite my valiant protest, my fiery and effervescent senses are at the mercy of raw forces we usually refer to as base or dark and, if I'm permitted a rather common term, downright obscene, and even in more refined terms they are no less than filthy, evil, deserving of the greatest contempt and harshest punishment; let's hasten to add that all this is not without justification, for everything I'll be compelled to talk about now is indeed related to the unclean end products of bodily functions as well as to the relief and gratification accompanying them; but no less justified is the question: do or do not these raw forces live inside us as do our discriminating moral sensibilities, whose inevitable task it is to fight them? but whether I consider the impure a part of me or alien to me, whether I accept the challenge and take up arms against it or with a weary shrug submit to it, it does exist—whatever I do, I cannot but continually feel its undeniable power, like some pornography of divine origin; if I manage to keep it at bay when awake, then it assails me, treacherously, in my dreams, flaunting its infinite power over my body and soul, there is no escaping it, and to try is to fail, as I learned on the night of my arrival in Heiligendamm, and let that be a lesson! no matter how much I was trying to be rid of my many worries that night—my foolish reflections on my artistic work, the dark yet exciting memories of my parents and my childhood, the arduous and unsettling journey, the equally unsettling though tender and touching farewell to Helene—no matter how much I tried to escape into a long, deep, restful, purifying sleep, it startled me again, although this time rather gently, not treating me as cruelly as at other times when it would appear, let's say, in the image of a naked man offering me his erect phallus, but announcing itself in a most innocent dream image, its appearance no more than a gentle reminder of my helplessness.

  Loud, strange footsteps were reverberating in a familiar, wet street; the night, mysterious and flecked with the glimmer of gas lamps, enveloped me as smoothly, softly yet firmly, as only a loving woman's embrace or a dream can, and so I sank with it, hardly against my will, surrendering completely to the beauty of the darkness accentuated by the golden halos around the lamps; and since this nocturnal street scene was not far from turning into a person, yes, from becoming Helene herself, although nothing indicated directly that the scene was her embodiment, still, quite freely, without fear or reticence, my senses and emotions blended into and spread throughout this scene as if it were Helene, as though I were belatedly bestowing on her the very feelings which while awake—overwhelmed by the force of circumstances—even at the wildest moments of our ecstasy I was compelled to withhold from her and of course from myself as well.

  It was as though the greatest good, the highest, most complete and splendid good was about to overpower me, and I had to hand over everything I had; indeed, it had already taken everything from me, devoured me, I was it and it was me, yet still it had more to give and so did I, much more skill; it was on the way to this good that my strong footsteps were resounding, this was the street of the good, the night, dark, and lights of the good, and I felt that the more I gave the more I had left to give; and it was all very good, even if my footsteps seemed to echo back to me from a cold, hollow space.

  But from here I could see it, for the nature of the good now made itself visible; and I simply slipped out, emerged from the bothersome noise of my footsteps, to reach it; now I could feel that there was something better than the good, and whatever was waiting for me could only be better, for if I could walk right through all this good so easily and freely, then redemption, for which I had yearned so while lying at the bottom of my suffering, and that unpleasant clatter of footsteps had to do with suffering, could now come to pass without special fuss or ceremony.

  And the love, oh, the love granted me now was great indeed; to love the cobblestones of the street as the cambered light highlighted and absorbed each and every one of them, to love the raindrops ready to fall from the branches, to love those sinister footfalls, too, and the gas jets dancing over the water collected at the bottom of the glass globes, to love the darkness for allowing me to see the light, and the cat that scurried by like an unexpected shadow, to love the soft tracks its paws left behind in the night, to love the glistening surface of the slender, finely wrought lampposts and the sound of that rusty creak the ear could hardly register in this loving daze.

  And the eyes searched in vain.

  For it was like a bubble, could burst any moment.

  The creaking sound grew stronger, and leaving the clatter of my feet behind me on the stones, I was headed toward it; a metal door would make such a rusty sound when creaking in the wind, but there was no wind! I was hoping this would be the la
st clatter, after which nothing more could disturb the thick silence of the dark, but I was still walking and each step produced a new sound.

  And then I saw myself approaching.

  How could I spare the darkness from these noises?

  There I was, standing behind the steel door blown open by the wind, standing in the stench and following intently the sound of those footsteps.

  The wind slammed the door shut with a harsh grating sound, hiding me behind it, but the next instant it flew wide-open and I once more saw myself waiting there.

  But where was I, anyway?

  The place was not unfamiliar even if I could not locate myself in it exactly, which is why the question: Where? persisted; the possibility of being at once here and there made me so anxious I wanted to cry out, and would have, too, had I not been wary of disturbing the darkness with a loud cry, for I was still walking on the street of the good, and knew I was, I wouldn't let anyone deceive me! yet this street led me straight to that door, the bare trees and the wet lampposts were standing there like road markers, I couldn't change course now, I had to reach the steel door that evoked too much shame, desire, fear, curiosity, and humiliation for it to be unfamiliar; its secrets I would have liked to hide even from myself, yet there I was, in the same old spot, waiting for myself in the heavy stench of tar and urine, and I must have stood there for quite a while, because the foul smell had penetrated not only my clothes—whatever happened to my hat?—but my skin as well, it was emanating from me, even from my hair, so there was no point in slipping away, there was a finality about my being there; I had arrived.

  And then somebody, the one ruling over my dream—for in spite of everything I knew this was a dream, no need to get excited, I could wake any minute, though someone in control of the dream wouldn't let me— only I could not remember who this person might be, although his voice sounded familiar as he whispered that he was waiting behind the door, and no matter that I still felt the calm bestowed on me by my contact with the good, there was nothing to be done, nothing, because all that, he whispered right into my ear now, had been only to entice me: the dark was waiting for me.

  Nothing to be done.

  So I kept walking, not surprised at my trembling; I was afraid, but it seemed there was no degree of fear or anxiety I could not make myself adjust to; I protested, of course, tried to protect myself, but it was as if that certain force were compelling my body, now writhing in protest, to admit and accept all the secret desires it had tried to conceal, to acknowledge the terrible burdens it had to carry all these years, and this struggle made the way long, and my footsteps grew fainter; though the clatter was still there I no longer felt the ground securely under me, and like an epileptic falling into a fit I lost control over my limbs and felt gurgling saliva gushing from my open mouth; I kicked and thrashed and panted, but nothing changed; the grim little structure with its opening and closing, creaking and squeaking black mouth was waiting for me; with clearly human sounds it creaked and groaned and panted in the middle of a clump of bare bushes.

  It just sat there, squat and motionless, etching sharply its ornamental entablature into the night sky, while I wouldn't even dare cry out; I kept walking.

  No wonder, then, that the next morning I was quite exhausted, worn to a frazzle, as they say, as if I hadn't slept all night, though I must have slept very deeply to feel so dazed; still, in my frustration, I would have liked to go back into the dream, bccause maybe it was precisely there and then that what should have happened did happen, but my room in the meantime became much too bright, its features too sharp, as if outside, behind the drawn curtains, snow had fallen; it felt cool, almost cold; occasionally I heard soft footsteps in the hallways, and from the breakfast room downstairs came the even clatter and clang of dishes, snatches of conversation; a door creaked, then the same door that had wakened me during the night slammed again, there was the brief laughter of a woman; all these friendly, soothing sounds reached me softly, from a distance, but I didn't feel like getting out of bed, for all those pleasant morning sounds, familiar to me from childhood, bade me resume a life whose apparent ease and leisure was now not at all to my liking; no, I shouldn't have come here, after all, I said to myself, irritated, and turning over to the other side and closing my eyes, I tried to sink back into the warmth and the dark the dream had offered; but back where?

  Snatches of the dream were still hovering about, it didn't seem too hard to return to it, and the man, too, was still standing there in front of the pissoir's gleaming, tarred wall, still in the pose of handing me a rose, which I didn't want to take from him because the grin on his puffy white face was so repulsive, and interestingly the rose looked blue, purplish blue, a firm, fleshy bud about to burst open; and now it was offering itself to me most insistently, as if morning had not yet come, as if I were still there, lingering with it in the night.

  And then, in the open door between the bedroom and the sitting room, I saw standing before me a young valet with flaming red hair, standing there quietly, steadily, attentively, his friendly brown eyes following every little movement of my awakening, as though he'd been there forever and even had a good idea of what my dream had been about, although it was probably his soundless footsteps or his mere presence that had startled me out of my slumber just now; he was a strapping young lad, his healthy robust build more like a porter's or a coachman's, his thighs and shoulders about to burst the seams of his trousers and green frock coat, a quiet unobtrusive presence that reminded me of my own duties, as if he had clambered out of my dream or from a place even deeper within me, and also made me think of our servant back home and, once again, of the memory-filled night I had just gone through; I sensed the same stolid calm and rough-hewn dignity emanating from his body that I used to feel in Hilde's presence, so while feasting my eyes on the boy's freckled face and also suppressing a powerful yawn, I grumpily repeated the sentence, by now completely superfluous: No, I should never have come here; but if not here, where? I wondered, and this hulking body pressed into the wrong clothes seemed so comical, as did his flat nose, his freckles, his childishly open curious eyes, and the solemn air with which he stood there waiting for my order, and my own grumpiness, now that I was fully awake, also seemed so inappropriate and foolish that I burst out laughing.

  "Will you be getting up now, Herr Thoenissen?" the valet asked dryly, as if he hadn't heard my laughter, which might have been rather over-familiar.

  "Yes, I think so. Anyway, I should."

  "Will you have tea or coffee?"

  "Perhaps tea."

  "Shall I fill the washbowl now or after the tea?"

  "Do you think one should wash every morning?"

  He was silent for a moment, his expression unchanged, but he did seem to understand something.

  "And will you be taking your breakfast downstairs or shall I bring it up?"

  "No, no, I'll go downstairs, of course. But isn't it rather chilly here?"

  "I'll see to the fire right away, Herr Thoenissen."

  "Yes, and how about giving me a shave?"

  "Of course, Herr Thoenissen."

  He disappeared for a few minutes, an opportunity I should have used to get out of bed and relieve myself—I suspect he took his time to give me a chance to do just that, for among themselves men are considerate that way, I wouldn't call it politeness but, rather, a brotherly appreciation of the embarrassing fact that in the morning an overfull bladder often causes an erection, and to jump out of bed in such a state would mean presenting whoever was there with the sight of a deceptive function of biological processes; we'd have to let him in on something whose true nature we ourselves don't fully understand and for that reason deem rather shameful—in any case, I delayed getting up and when he wheeled in a cart and quickly closed the door behind him I was still lying in bed or, rather, having tucked the pillow behind my back, was half sitting, making myself very comfortable, as if I knew that by getting up I would interrupt, or send in a different direction, an event whic
h promised to be perfect in itself and at the moment was far more important to me than easing some physical discomfort; the pressure in the bladder cannot artificially be relieved, but the erection will subside if we divert our attention from it, and with it the last trace of the dream's sensuous excitement will perhaps also fade.

  These were some of the things I was thinking about while he quietly busied himself around me, rolling the serving cart up to my bed, treading softly on the carpet, and making certain the dishes on the glass-topped cart did not rattle; I felt I was watching a feline, a silent predator, disguised as a valet; the event of the moment, which held me in its grip and which I found pleasing, was the series of his movements and gestures refined to the point of imperceptibility: without dripping a single drop on the gleaming damask napkin, he poured out the steaming tea and asked if I took it with milk—I don't know, should I? I said, but the deliberate audacity of my reply did not bother him; he acknowledged it and at the same time intimated that he was in no position to answer this question, the decision rested entirely with me, but whatever I decided would certainly meet with his approval, the manner of which would be neither submissive nor indifferent but would reveal, in a purely neutral form, the embarrassing perfection of readiness to meet any wish and at the same time take into account my possible eccentricities, which he might find hard to follow; with stubby fingers he folded back the napkin covering a basket of crisp rolls, and after handing me the teacup and the sugar bowl with its silver tongs, he was gone—I don't know how he did it, I didn't even hear his retreating footsteps, he simply left, sensing I had no further need of him.

  Though at the moment there was no one I needed more.

  When after the first sip of the hot tea I looked over the rim of my cup, he was back, carrying firewood in a big wicker basket, and he knelt down in front of the white tile stove, positioning himself so as not to turn his back to me completely, I could see him in profile while he cleaned out the stove and started the fire; with one half of his body he remained at my disposal, ready to let me be if I wished or to respond to my slightest indication of need.