by Peter Nadas
A shipwrecked person whose feet desperately seek something solid to keep him afloat will grab at anything, anyone, the first available object, and if it buoys him up he won't let go, he'll swim with it, and after a time he'll see he has nothing else! just this? and the object will grimly concur, yes, just this, nothing else! and the implacable impulse of self-preservation, joined of course by rationalization and mystification, will have him believe that the object that drifted his way by chance was really his, it chose him and he chose it, and by the time the sheer force of unrelenting waves casts him onto the shore of mature adulthood, his faith and gratitude will have made him worship what was accidental and adore fortuity, but can his rescue from destruction be really accidental?
Built on shaky emotional ground, the edifices of my sexuality, assiduously maintained for ten years and thought to be sound, were about to crumble; it seemed as if in all my previous love affairs I had merely yielded to the all-powerful instinct of survival, falling back repeatedly and ungratifyingly on pleasures I could always coax out of my body in lieu of one real gesture that might not even be a gesture; I could not grasp the meaning of my exertions, which was why I always had to grab something with my hands and hover over the depths with it, but once the ground had slipped out from under me, I could not regain my footing; that's why I could never really be consoled by physical pleasure, hence the constant, agonizing search for and pursuit of other, restlessly searching human bodies! and I wasn't shocked that through the body of the man sitting next to me I desired Thea, or that in Thea he sought me out, and that in her I found my way back to him, so that both of us were bound to hover over her; we were all trying to establish a relationship for two, but any way we looked at it, there were three of us; and if there were three, there could have been four or five; no, this sort of entanglement was no more surprising than a familiar image ready to become memory except we cannot locate its time and place of origin within ourselves; what did surprise me was that behind our entanglement I seemed to discover, in pure form, the sensual, physical embodiment of the elemental desire squirming around within me, and instead of paying attention to the action onstage, I was concentrating on this! small, sheathed in a bluish membrane, throbbing moistly with a life of its own, quite apart from them and even from me; it was as if I were seeing the bodily home of the pure life force which, regardless of modern theories, is neither male nor female: it has no sex, for its sole function is to allow free communication between human beings.
That evening I was given back some of the old freedom I thought I had lost, freedom of the heart, freedom of feeling, though today I'd say, and not without bitterness, that it was in vain to have regained that freedom, in vain to have all that sensitive perception and observation, because it was in understanding and assessing them that I proved myself a complaisantly foolish child of my times: I had a vague, elusive, but appropriate notion of the state of affairs, but I believed it to be a true discovery and wanted immediately to make it actual, to establish an intellectual position with emotional means, and further, I wanted practical results, success, to influence, run, control things, as though I were a high official of some ministry of love, making decisions based on information provided by available data; the conditioning of ten years spent in sexual manipulation came back to haunt me: I'd trust only what was palpably real, disregard everything that could not be reified and therefore physically enjoyed; in the name of reason I'd shut out of the sphere of reality anything that could not be fully comprehended, distancing myself from everything that could be perceived and validated only by the senses, which made up my personal, subjective reality; yet the opposite was also true: for the sake of my personal reality, I had to deny the existence of a larger, impersonal reality; and though my guilty conscience and a sense of my own unreality tried to tell me I was making a fatal mistake, I did not believe them.
I felt it necessary to relate all this before resuming my narrative and returning to our afternoon walk so I'd have a chance to set the intellectual and mental context in which to see two people interact, two people each of whom was not above using the other as a means to achieve specific ends, though their walk bound them together: to be metaphorical about it, they were walking along the same path that others had taken before them.
What was the point of honorable intentions, of the pursuit of neutrality, if continually, with every step we took, we sank into each other's emotional mire, and if that could not be separated from the living substance of our bodies; we may have confined ourselves to speaking in allusions, with intimations—never touching, at most falling into long silences—but even our words developed meanings that referred only to the two of us, leading us where we wanted to go, drawing out of us precisely what we honestly and not unreasonably wanted to achieve.
That's more or less how things were then; such were the emotional conditions in which we were moving out there in nature, as she began walking in front of me on the well-worn path toward the distant woods, and I, still surprised and pleased, was mulling over her quiet, bitter, terse confession, believing that her real aim was not to remind me of the true purpose and nature of our friendship—just at the point where our relationship turned too intimate and threatened to be impossible for both of us—but to draw me closer to her, take me into the deepest, most secret sphere of her life.
I could barely contain myself; I would have liked to toss all complications aside and reach after her and, moved by gratitude and the need to reciprocate, to pull her slender, fragile body to mine; I sensed her yielding even as she was moving away, although a moment earlier she had said that her whole life was a stupid waste, but for all the stupid things she might do, there were two people in her life, her girl friend and her husband, that she could always go back to; this, in our mutually developed language, meant that we could do anything we wanted to! I shouldn't be afraid of her, she felt safe, she could even abandon them and still they'd be there for her.
Too honest confessions, those that touch what we believe to be the most meaningful centers of our emotional life, are also betrayals.
If, for example, someone tells us why he dislikes his homeland, his confession will inevitably be an expression of his love for it and his desire to act on this love, while earnest, passionate affirmation of loyalty to one's country usually betrays loathing, suggesting that this country has caused one much pain, worry, despair, deep doubts, and paralyzing helplessness, and the crippled desire for action must retreat into enthusiastic expressions of loyalty.
Her restraint, laconic responses, and ambiguous yet well-formulated words made me realize that I wasn't wrong, Frau Kühnert was: Thea had changed during the past few weeks, and she was standing on a borderline; her confession to me was possible only because the bond that was the one certainty of her life had become burdensome and intolerable for her, and she shared this with me because she wanted me to thrust her across that border, so that she would break that bond—she did want to break it.
The most obvious means to do this, using my hands, perhaps my body, to give her that push, was out of the question, it would have been too much and inappropriate.
Just as on that memorable Sunday afternoon, when Melchior's heartrending, animal-like sobs had taught me that the body alone would not suffice as consolation, he at the time wanted more, he was asking for my body's future, something I'd have control over only if I were to yield to him completely, unconditionally, and perhaps it was cowardice, but I did not have that kind of control and so I did not give him my body.
And I felt that my body was both insufficient and inappropriate for the task, though with the darkest, most instinctive knowledge that can be extracted from this same body, I sensed the possibilities in Melchior's and Thea's bodies, possibilities where my body could serve only as mediator; all I wanted was to serve them.
In the cause of achieving a distant goal, I offered myself as a neutral means of mediation, and they, obeying the rules of selfishness, accepted and used me as such; what we did not take int
o account was that no moral interest or romantic self-denial can neutralize the sex of any human body; all I had left was my own self-control, but this gave me the pleasurably turbulent excitement of a criminal before his act, so that the desire to help was no longer motivated by love but by the urge to murder love and banish the lovers from my heart.
But in that case it wasn't I who was walking along that trail but two legs, themselves strangers, carrying the hollow form of a servile intention, which is what it had turned into, without the joy of the moment of fulfillment: a leaden weight to be dragged along for the sake of a distant future that might restore one's life, or at least one's honor.
The dark green of the pine needles, like a single massive wave of the sea, tossed and tumbled above the reddish tree trunks.
The trail disappeared under a soft carpet of fallen pine needles once it reached the woods; under the trees it was almost completely dark.
Thea must have sensed that I wasn't too keen on following her there, because she stopped at the first trees and, without pulling her hands from the deep pockets of her red coat, leaned against a tree trunk, looked back as if to size up the distance already covered, and, sliding slowly down the trunk, lowered herself to a crouch, without sitting down.
We did not look at each other.
She was looking out at the soft undulations of a peaceful landscape growing dark under huge, swirling, rippling clouds now obscuring now revealing the light still playing in the sky, and I was looking into dimming woods filled with the pungent smell of decaying leaves, with ephemeral flashes of stray lights still cutting through the dimness, keeping it in constant motion.
After a while Thea rummaged in a pocket, pulled out a long cigarette, matches, and struggling with the wind lit up.
While still busy with the cigarette she said she was doing something she shouldn't.
Yes, I said solemnly, I've often wanted to do more of those things myself.
She blinked up at me, as if to understand the hidden meaning of my transparent witticism, but I did not return her look; I went on standing among the trees without any support.
I was always making these faces, she told me somewhat louder, as if I were smelling something rotten; then, more quietly and cautiously, she asked me if she had offended me in any way.
I looked past her shoulder, but still saw her face, the coy and provocative tilt of her head; what would happen, I suddenly thought, amused by the idea, if I took this soft red furball, knocked her over, and trampled her into the ground right here under this tree? in my jaw and teeth I felt my feet trampling the ground.
The sensation of violence made me nauseous; in the silence I imagined myself after the murder returning to the flat on Steffelbauerstrasse, throwing my things into a suitcase, getting on a plane, and from the air still seeing this place, shrunken to a dot, the telltale red of her coat still visible under the green carpet of treetops.
Just a woman struggling with her impending old age, I thought, but why was their youth so important to them? my annoyance and disgust was directed not at aging but at that special attraction I felt for declining forms, for I found her eroding features beautiful, like her struggle against her decline, which made her open up to me so shamelessly, giving away more of herself than she would have if she was still young and her features still smooth.
Actually, she said, she was sorry she wasn't in love with me.
But she is, I thought to myself.
For example, she imagined to herself, she continued after a pause— either misinterpreting the excited flutter of my eyes made her bold or the excitement triggered by her insincere candor had not yet abated—how I must look naked.
Judging by my face and hands and everything else that's visible, she'd guess I was a little soft and flabby, and if I wasn't careful I'd soon look as disgusting as Langerhans.
Everything about me was so ingratiating and obliging, so damn kind and decent and low-keyed, so self-consciously attentive, one might think I had no muscles in my body, and not many bones either, only aesthetic, smooth, hairless surfaces, yes, that must be me, and she wouldn't be surprised if I had absolutely no smell either.
I stepped closer and crouched down facing her; in that case, I said, taking the cigarette from her hand, would she mind telling me just what position she imagined seeing me in, I'd be most curious to know.
She followed the cigarette with her eyes, as if afraid I'd take too long a drag, but also thrilled that in this indirect way at least her lips would touch mine, then quickly took it back; though we were both careful, our hands touched, our fingers exchanging our anxious reserve as if fearing a catastrophe might befall us any moment.
Yes, she said in a deep and husky voice, appearances are deceptive sometimes; it was just possible, she said, that I was all skin and bones, as dry and cruel as I seemed.
Why don't you answer my question? I asked.
She didn't want to hurt me, she said before taking another puff.
You can't hurt me.
Though life is full of contradictions, she said, because when I opened my mouth she had the impression she was sticking her finger into dough, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing either.
Let's not kid each other, I said, it wasn't me she imagined, for her I was more like some necessary supplement, a little extra workout to keep her bones from getting rusty.
Brazenly she laughed in my face; in our crouching position our faces were only inches apart; then she pushed herself away from the trunk and, still crouching, began to sway, letting her face get even closer, then pulling farther apart, she kept playing with the space between us.
No, no, I was wrong, she said, offering the cigarette again; she did imagine me also for herself.
Also, I said.
We are greedy, aren't we, she said.
We were splashing about in the joy of boldness, crude openness, in the way we traded imagined nakedness for shamelessness; the wrinkles around her eyes disappeared; and yet there was something very uncomfortable in all this, as if we were exchanging our cheapest, most superficial aspects.
She even imagined, she said, or at least tried to imagine, what on earth we two could possibly do with each other.
Her face was beaming.
By now the cigarette, having gone back and forth, had only one good puff left; I carefully handed it back to her, and she took it from me just as carefully; as she took the last drag, a long one, as if in the time it took before the cigarette burned her finger, everything had to be decided, she blinked and buried her embarrassment in that blink.
And whatever it was we did together, why wasn't it happening to her, my mean and cynical self thought to itself.
However, the question struck me as a possible answer to a far larger question: why did we consider direct bodily contact, the pleasure deriving from one body penetrating another, more complete and more intense than any kind of mental pleasure, why was that the ultimate in human contact? and even farther afield, almost at the very edge of thought, loomed the question of whether war itself wasn't just such a necessary and deceptive pleasure in the contact between different peoples, for we know all too well that in most cases physical union is nothing more than the manipulation of biological drives, more like a quick, always conjurable, easy, and false consolation for unfulfillable spiritual needs than a true fulfillment.
In principle she had no objection, Thea said, and did not lean back against the tree.
The earlier brightness had gone from her face; pensively she stubbed out the cigarette and pressed it carefully into the ground, under the thick layer of pine needles.
Well, maybe a tiny one, she continued after a brief pause, and that's something every woman must feel when something is taken away from her, something that should be hers to give, but because in this case she was that woman, she involuntarily, almost instinctively, approved.
Oddly enough, she wasn't jealous of us, she said; yes, that first time, at the opera, when she finally figured out what was going on, she mig
ht have been, but only because it caught her by surprise, and did it ever occur to me that she was the one who had brought us together?
The next day when the two of us showed up at her house, and she saw what an effort it took for us not to let on that something had happened between us in the meantime, and how charmingly solemn and serious we became from all that effort, by then she wasn't jealous, but rather glad, well, maybe not glad, that would be going a little too far.
And did I ever notice, she asked, that women were much more tolerant of male homosexuals than men were?
All right, women would say, it's terrible, unnatural, disgusting, but still, I could be his mother.
She stopped talking, didn't look at me, kept patting and smoothing the ground over the buried cigarette, absently contemplating her fingers' fire-prevention activities.
I had a feeling she was going to say it—it was hard for her, but she would say it—and perhaps that's why I didn't want to interrupt, for this was about her and me, the two of us.
But in the present situation, which was very demeaning for her, she went on, she might have been very difficult and she might torment me and say ugly and stupid things to me, but she was really grateful to me, because just by being there I kept her from doing something that could turn into a tragedy—or a farce.
She fell silent again, still unable to say it.
