You should always be doing well.
You don’t mean me, why me!
Ivan lowers his eyelids three-quarters of the way so he can only watch me through that slit, yet his eyes are so dark, warm and large that he still sees enough of me, then he adds, unless I have another talent as well, a gift for inviting somebody to ruin things.
Ruin what? My well-being? What well-being?
Ivan moves his hand menacingly, since I’ve said something dumb, since there’s something I don’t want to be cured of although it could be cured right now. But I can’t discuss this with Ivan, or explain why I wince at every brisk movement, it’s still so difficult to talk to him, I’m not afraid of him, even though he’s pinning my arms to my back, making me immobile. Despite this I breathe more rapidly, and even more rapidly he asks: Who’s done this to you, who’s put such nonsense into your head, what’s inside there apart from this stupid fear of yours, I’m not anyone to be afraid of, you shouldn’t be afraid of anything, what are you concocting in your head full of lettuce and beans and peas, you silly princess on your pea, I’d like to — no I don’t want to know who’s causing you to wince, jerk your head back, shake your head, turn your head away.
* * *
We have a lot of head-sentences, hoards of them, just like the telephone sentences, the chess sentences or the sentences about life in general, but we’re still missing a lot of sentence sets, we don’t have a single sentence about feelings, since Ivan never pronounces any and since I don’t dare create the first one, but I wonder about this far-off, absent set of sentences, despite all the good sentences we already know how to make. For when we cross over from speech to gestures — which are consistently successful — a ritual begins for me that replaces feelings, not an empty process, nor an insignificant repetition, but rather an essence of solemn formulas newly distilled, accompanied by the only devotion of which I am truly capable.
And Ivan, what can Ivan know about that? Nevertheless he says today: So that’s your religion, so that’s it. His voice has changed its tone, it’s less cheerful, no longer unastonished. In the end he’ll find out what’s going on with me, since we still have our whole life. Maybe not ahead of us, maybe just today, but we do have our lives, there’s no doubt about that.
* * *
Before Ivan leaves we both sit on the bed and smoke, he has to go to Paris again for three days, I don’t mind, I say casually: well . . . because a vacuum exists between what I’d really like to say and each of our sparse utterances, I’d like to tell him everything, but instead I just sit here, grind the cigarette butt painfully and precisely into the ashtray and hand it to him, as if it were of the utmost importance that no ashes fall upon the floor.
It’s impossible to talk to Ivan about myself. But should I just go on without dragging myself into this game? — why do I say game? why? it’s not my word, it’s one of Ivan’s — that’s impossible too. Malina knows where my concern lies, and today for the first time in ages we’ve been poring over atlases, city maps, leafing through dictionaries tackling words, we look up all the places and words and allow their aura to unfold, the aura which I, too, need in order to live, for then the pathos in life is lessened.
* * *
How sad I am, and why doesn’t Ivan do anything about it, why does he sit there grinding out his cigarette instead of hurling the ashtray against the wall, spilling ashes all over the floor, why does he have to talk to me about Paris instead of taking me with him or staying here, not because I want to go to Paris, but so that Ungargassenland doesn’t go to pieces and so I can always keep a grip on it, my own land, my country above all others. I have often been silent, speaking little, but still I talk too much. Much too much. My glorious country, not kaiserlich-königlich, devoid of King Stephen’s crown and the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, my country in its new Union, my country which needs no justification or acknowledgment, but I’m tired and simply move my bishop, only to have to move it right back following Ivan’s next move, I better resign right away, tell him that I’ve lost the game, but that I’d gladly go to Venice with him or to the Wolfgangsee this summer, or if his time really is so scarce, on a day-trip to Dürnstein on the Danube, as I know an old hotel there, and I take care to mention the wine, since Ivan really likes Dürnsteiner wine, but we’ll never travel to these places, since he always has too much going on, since he has to go to Paris, since he has to get up tomorrow at seven o’clock.
Would you still want to see a movie? I ask, because by mentioning that I can keep Ivan from going home right away, I’ve opened the paper to the movie ads. The Three Fantastic Supermen, Texas Jim, Hot Nights in Rio. But Ivan doesn’t want to drive downtown anymore today, he leaves the chess pieces as they are, empties his glass in one move, walks very quickly to the door, as always, without good-bye, perhaps because we still have a whole life ahead of us.
* * *
I sew a button on my dressing gown and glance every now and then at the pile of papers before me. Fräulein Jellinek is waiting, sitting with her head bowed over the typewriter, she’s inserted two sheets with carbon paper between them, and since I’m not saying anything, just biting off the thread, she’s glad to hear the phone ring, she reaches for the receiver and I say: Please just say whatever you want, I’m not in, you have to check (but where is Fräulein Jellinek supposed to check, surely not in the closet or the storage cabinet as I can’t be said to frequent either one) — say I’m sick, out of town, dead. Fräulein Jellinek looks tense and polite, covers the speaker with her hand and whispers: But it’s long distance, Hamburg.
Please, Fräulein Jellinek, just say whatever amuses you.
Fräulein Jellinek opts to say I’m not home, no, she’s sorry, she doesn’t know, she hangs up satisfied. Anyway it was a diversion.
And what about Recklinghausen and London and Prague, what are we going to say there? We wanted to write them today, Fräulein Jellinek admonishes, so I quickly begin:
Dear Sirs:
thank you very much for your letter of, date, etc.
And suddenly it occurs to me that the lining is loose in the coat I call my spring coat in the spring, but which becomes my fall coat in the fall, and I run off to the closet since I have to sew in this lining, I rummage around for some dark blue thread, then inquire gaily: Where did we leave off, what was I saying? Oh, right. Just write whatever occurs to you, that I’ve left town or that I’m indisposed or coming down with something. Fräulein Jellinek laughs a little, she will doubtlessly write down “indisposed,” because she believes in well-tempered refusals, which sound as friendly as they do neutral. One shouldn’t allow people the slightest pretext, maintains Fräulein Jellinek, who always asks permission to go to the bathroom. She returns perfumed, pretty, tall, slim and consequently engaged to an intern from the Polyclinic and she uses her beautiful long fingers on the typewriter to hack out sincerely yours or every now and then best or cordial greetings.
Fräulein Jellinek waits and waits. The lining is sewn and we each take a sip from our teacups.
Just so you don’t forget, the Urania, that’s also very urgent. Fräulein Jellinek knows that now she’s allowed to laugh as much as she wants since we’re in Vienna, which doesn’t fill her with awe like London and Santa Barbara and Moscow, she pens the letter all by herself, although I would say it bears a suspicious resemblance, almost word for word, to the one sent to all clubs and colleges.
Then the problem with England comes up, and I chew on the rest of the blue thread. You know what, let’s quit for today and finish writing this stuff next week. Nothing occurs to me right now. Fräulein Jellinek lets me know she’s been hearing this far too often and that it doesn’t help in the least, she insists on starting, she wants to give it a try herself, in English.
“Dear Miss Freeman:
thank you very much for your letter of August 14th.”
But now I have to explain this very complicated story to Fräulein Jelline
k. I say to her, imploringly: The smartest thing would be for you to dash off two lines and then send all four letters to Dr. Richter, and I say nervously, since Ivan is going to call any minute: But no, for the tenth time, his name is Wulf and not Wolf, not like the wolf in the fairy tale, you can look it up, no, number 45, I’m almost positive, so go ahead and check, then file this junk away and we’ll wait till he writes back, this Miss Freeman has caused nothing but a terrible mess.
Fräulein Jellinek shares this opinion, and she cleans the desk as I carry the telephone into the hall. The very next minute it actually does ring, and I let it ring three times, it’s Ivan.
* * *
Is Jellinek gone?
Fräulein Jellinek, please!
All right Fräulein as far as I’m concerned
In fifteen minutes?
That’d be ok
No, we’re just finishing up
Just whiskey, tea, no nothing else
* * *
While Fräulein Jellinek is combing her hair and putting her coat on, opening and closing her purse several times and looking for the mesh bag she uses to go shopping, she reminds me that there are three important letters I had wanted to write, and that we’re out of stamps, she also wants to buy some Scotch tape, and I remind her that next time she should be sure to collect these people’s names from all the little scraps of paper and write them down in the calendar, you know, all those people, there’s always someone we have to keep in mind, someone who really should be in the calendar or the address book, since it’s too hard to keep track of so many names.
Fräulein Jellinek and I wish each other a nice Sunday and I hope she doesn’t decide to redrape her foulard around her neck once again, because Ivan really might show up any minute, I’m relieved to hear the door close and the delicate, firm heels of Fräulein Jellinek’s new shoes clattering down the stairs.
Since Ivan is on his way I finish up very quickly, only the copies of the letters are still lying around, and Ivan asks just once what I’m up to there, and I say: Oh, nothing, but I look so embarrassed that he’s forced to laugh. He’s not interested in the letters, only in a plain piece of paper with the words “Three Murderers” which he puts back down. In general he avoids questions, but today Ivan asks, what do these notes mean, since I’ve left a few pages lying on the armchair. Merrily he takes one and reads: Deathstyles. And from another piece of paper: The Egyptian Darkness. Isn’t that your writing, did you write that? Since I don’t answer, Ivan says: I don’t like it, I suspected something like this was going on, and nobody wants all these books lying around in your crypt, why isn’t there anything else, there must be other books, like Exsultate Jubilate, which make you mad with joy, you’re always mad with joy yourself, so why don’t you write like that. It’s disgusting to put this misery on the market, just adding to what’s already there, these books are all absolutely loathsome. What kind of obsession is this anyway, all this gloom, everything’s always sad and these books make it even worse in folio editions. Oh, right here, excuse me, but really: Notes from the Dead House.
I say, intimidated: yes, but —
But nothing, says Ivan, and they’re always suffering for all of humanity with all its troubles as well and they talk about all the wars and predict new ones, but when you’re drinking coffee with me or when we’re drinking wine and playing chess, then where are all the wars and where is humanity starving to death, and are you really sorry about all that or just sorry about the fact that you’re losing, or because I’m about to be so hungry I could eat a horse and why are you laughing right now, does humanity have a lot to laugh about right this minute?
But I’m not laughing, I say, still I have to laugh and I allow affliction to occur elsewhere, since there isn’t any here, where Ivan is sitting down with me to dinner. I can only think about the salt that isn’t on the table yet, and about the butter I left in the kitchen, and I don’t say it out loud but I take it upon myself to find Ivan a beautiful book, because Ivan hopes I won’t write about the three murderers, he hopes I won’t add to the world’s misery in any book, and I’m no longer listening to what he’s saying.
* * *
A storm of words starts in my head, then an incandescence, a few syllables begin to glow, and brightly colored commas fly out of all the dependent clauses and the periods which were once black have swollen into balloons and float up to my cranium, for everything will be like Exsultate Jubilate in that glorious book I am thus just beginning to find. Should this book appear, as someday it must, people will writhe with laughter after only one page, they will leap for joy, they will be comforted, they will read on, biting their fists to suppress their cries of joy, it can’t be helped, and when they sit down by the window and read still further they’ll start flinging confetti to the pedestrians on the street below, so that they, too, will stop, astonished, as if they had walked into a carnival, and people will start throwing apples and nuts, dates and figs just like on St. Nicholas’ Day, they will lean out of their windows without getting dizzy and shout out: Hear, hear! look and see! I’ve just read something wonderful, may I read it to you, everybody come closer, it’s too wonderful!
And they begin to stop and notice, more and more people assemble, and Herr Breitner says hello for a change, he doesn’t have to prove with his crutches that he’s the only cripple, he croaks hello and how are you, and the fat soprano, who only leaves the house by night, coming and going in taxis, thins out somewhat, all at once she loses a hundred pounds, she appears in the stairwell, her theatrical stride carries her to the mezzanine without any shortage of breath, there she begins her coloratura, her voice twenty years younger: cari amici, teneri compagni! and no one remarks condescendingly we’ve heard Schwarzkopf and Callas sing that better, the words “fat cow” no longer resound in the stairwell, and the people from the fourth floor are rehabilitated, all intrigue dissolves into thin air. Everything stems from the joy following the book’s appearance, a glorious book has at last arrived on earth and in Ivan’s name I set out in search of its first pages, for it should come as a surprise to him. But Ivan continues to misinterpret my secrecy and today he says: You’re blushing all over your face, what’s happening, why are you laughing like an idiot? I only asked if I could have a little more ice for my whiskey.
* * *
When Ivan and I are quiet, because there’s nothing to say, in other words when we don’t talk, no silence descends, on the contrary, I notice that we are surrounded by so much, that everything around us is alive, everything becomes noticeable without being obtrusive, the whole city circulates and breathes, so Ivan and I aren’t worried, because we aren’t detached and locked up without contact, monadically, and we aren’t stuck in some painful situation. We, too, form an acceptable part of the world, two people moving down the sidewalk idly or in haste, stepping on the zebra stripes of a street crossing, and even if we don’t say a thing, even if we don’t communicate with one another directly, Ivan will grab my arm in time and hold onto me so I’m not run over by a streetcar or an automobile. I always have to hurry a little to keep up with him, since he’s so much taller and only has to take one step where I need two, but because of the link to the world I try to keep up with him, without falling too far behind, and in this way we arrive at the Bellaria or the Mariahilfer Strasse or the Schottenring, if there’s any business to take care of. If one of us were about to lose the other we’d notice just in time, because, unlike others, we could never lose our tempers, provoke each other, be insolent, offend or reject one another. The only thing we’re aware of is that we have to be at the travel agent’s by six, that the parking meter might have expired, that we have to rush back to the car right this minute, and then we’ll drive home to the Ungargasse, where we are safe from every conceivable danger that might threaten two human beings. I can even drop Ivan off at number 9, he doesn’t have to come up to number 6 if he’s so tired, and I promise to wake him with a phone call in an hour even if he’s cert
ain to swear at me, cursing and bemoaning the fact he’ll be late for dinner. Because it happens that Lajos has called, the Lajos who once called my place asking for Ivan, when I answered with a secretary’s voice, friendly, coolly, I’m sorry I don’t know, will you please try his number, and then I have to battle a question. Where is Ivan when he’s not home, not with me, and if a certain Lajos is looking for him? I just don’t know, unfortunately I don’t know anything, of course I see him from time to time, by chance I was even walking around town with him today, by chance we drove back together in his car to the Third District, so there’s a man from Ivan’s earlier life named Lajos who’s being quite familiar and is even in possession of my phone number, and up to now I’ve only known the names Béla and András and a mother he calls his mother and whenever he talks about these three he hastily mentions he has to run up to the Hohe Warte without giving the exact street name — this happens often, just that I never hear anything about another woman, nothing about the children’s mother, only their grandmother, who is of course Ivan’s own mother, but I imagine the mother of Béla and András left behind in Budapest, II. Bimbó Út 65, or in Gödöllö in an old summer cottage. Sometimes I think she’s dead, shot, blown up by a mine or simply the victim of a disease in some Budapest hospital, or else she just stayed there, happy in her work, with some man whose name is not Ivan.
Malina Page 5
