by Irmgard Keun
Gilgi is typing Herr Mahrenholz’s memoirs of the war. A tedious, uninteresting job—in her opinion. Tick—tick—tick—perhaps Martin will pick me up when I finish—he has before. Martin! We understand each other perfectly—name and substance. Actually it’s quite wrong to say: we understand each other, as if we’ve known each other for ages! An incomprehensible error. The warm, lively understanding of the first hours, days, weeks. We’re more than ready to discover things in common, firmly united in the reciprocal joy of difference. We know a great deal about each other. We’ll know less about each other when we start thinking about each other. What comes later—is intimacy. We mustn’t mistake understanding for intimacy. Understanding each other—at the right distance from intimacy, that’ll take some doing. That’ll really take some doing—similar words—implacably irreconcilable ideas. You don’t create understanding, you understand each other, from the very first moment. “Too fast!” I thought—I’m really ashamed of having thought that. I was so stupid! Waiting is terribly immoral, because it’s so pointless. Because you mustn’t lie your desires out of existence … Gilgi’s thoughts are fleeting, leaving nothing behind—she inspects them briefly and forgets them completely. They appear—they’ve disappeared—she doesn’t know they were there.
Herr Mahrenholz dictates. Walks up and down. A fine figure of a man! As Frau Kron and Frau Wollhammer would say. Face with fresh color and regular features, impressively full white hair, exaggeratedly upright posture. If you look at him for too long, you get a pain in the small of your back. Well, I suppose you’re in love, and can’t look at any man without making unfavorable comparisons. Complete nonsense, what you’re typing here: a little saber-rattling—Company, halt! Occasional philosophical observations, which don’t impress Gilgi, although she doesn’t understand them.
As she’s leaving the house, she sees Martin walking up and down on the other side of the street. She goes weak at the knees, feels painfully queasy—like you feel in an elevator when it jerks into motion. “Martin!” She rushes across the bare, deserted roadway. Laughs idiotically and aimlessly when he lifts her up—the thin little thing! I bet she doesn’t weigh more than fifty kilos! He carries her a few steps to the next street-light: “You’re very pale—I don’t like you working so much! — — — Your new lipstick tastes good, like pineapple …”—“Put me down, Martin—mind my typewriter!”—“I wish it would fall apart”—“Oh, Martin!” A disheveled Gilgi looks at him reproachfully. “You mustn’t damage it,” she says warningly and mistrustfully as Martin takes the little typewriter-case from her hand.
“We’re home again, Martin,” Gilgi says with complete seriousness, without a trace of irony, as they walk into the beautiful big apartment. We’re home again!
“Oh, I’m famished! Did you wait on dinner for me?—And you’ve laid the table, and arranged everything, so nicely! Martin, you’re a model housewife. And champagne! But you don’t need to ply me with seductive fizz anymore.”
While they eat, she talks: “This Herr Mahrenholz? Definitely an attentive man. Nothing dangerous, I can handle him.—What? Oh, Martin, I don’t think men are anything like as bad as people say. Of course most of them try their luck when a pretty young girl comes into their way—you can’t blame them for that. Can you? I find it quite normal and natural. The main thing is that you know how to fob them off tactfully, without starting some great drama of outraged honor, like in that novel, Tragedies at the Typewriter!—No, not white bread—give me the rye loaf—the crust, got to chew something hard, otherwise I’ll quite forget that I’ve got teeth in my kis … in my mouth.—Herr Mahrenholz’s memoirs? A lot of crap, you’d die laughing if you read … I don’t know much about literature anyway, and it doesn’t mean a lot to me, either …”
“So what does mean a lot to you?”
“You do, Martin.” No point in hiding it. She’s finished with all the evasive strategies.
“Don’t you read anything at all, little Gilgi?”
She lights herself a cigarette: “Please, Martin, do smoke Mokri cigarettes, there are coupon things in the packets which I can collect, when I’ve got a hundred-twenty they’ll send me a fountain pen, and then I’ll give it to you. Do I read? Yeees—I read newspapers, especially the fat Sunday editions and Uhu magazine, and I’ve read Remarque, I liked him. And then I read Jack London and Colin Ross and Bengt Berg. I read one by Berg just recently—about a little kid in Lapland who grew up quite alone, and had a harsh and sad childhood, and I could really understand that, those were real difficulties, not the kind of problems that are terribly superficial. Modern Weltschmerz makes me want to puke. You know, anyone who’s healthy and has enough to eat simply doesn’t have the right to be unhappy.—And, Martin—the worst ones are those old people who have thrown themselves into the new era. The ones who write about sport-oriented modern youth, driving cars, short skirts, short hair, and jazz, and have an amazing ability to hit the nail right next to the head. They’re right behind the young people! As if the young people cared! And they puff themselves up with an authority they don’t actually possess. The new generation! The new era! They act as though ‘the new era’ had made its bow before them: oh, please, do come with us, Herr X, we’d be completely lost without you. And then Herr X nods graciously and goes with them. Is terribly sympathetic and generous, and occasionally wipes a conservative tear from his eye.” Gilgi stands up, gathers the empty plates and dishes and takes them into the kitchen. Comes back, sits on the arm of Martin’s chair and lights herself a cigarette. “The old people! Either they abuse the new generation or they idealize it—it doesn’t matter which: if those of us who are under thirty took ourselves half as seriously as they do—we would’ve all choked to death on our megalomania already. Yes, and they’ve choked themselves and us with their stodgy words and their endless chatter.” Gilgi falls with a plop from the arm of Martin’s chair—onto his lap. “They—they—they should all be injected with strychnine! They should be ashamed of how they talk about hearts and feelings, I—I’d rather stand naked in Cathedral Square—”—“Yes, but you don’t mean me, you like me, little Gilgi?”—“Oh, you—as if you needed me to tell you that!”
He bends her head back—the light from the standard lamp shines brightly on her face. Her young face. Her young, young face. But nevertheless—here and there, under the eyes, on the forehead, around the corners of the mouth—they’re not furrows and lines yet—no—just slight, distant hints, tiny prophecies that will reach their sad fulfillment in four, five, ten years—despite creams, despite ointments, despite almond-meal face-packs. Little girl, I’ll have to be nice to you, you’re so much poorer than I am. A thousand of my own thoughts, of others’ thoughts, time, air, and desires have etched themselves into my face, boldly and without my permission—but no harm done, as long as a girl like you lets me kiss her. But what about when your expressionless little face is overwritten by time? And what if I kept you for a long time? If the little lines which are coming belonged to me then? What is there in you that would make me want to grow old—with you? Dutiful, stupid, bourgeois child—your work will make your face like a cobweb—why? To what end? So much resolve for so little return. So much obstinate ambition for such a trivial goal. Trrr—trrr—trrr the rain splashes against the window-panes. It’s a cold, sad, unfriendly country, this Germany! You ought to have money still. You ought to take your suitcase in one hand, the little girl in the other hand—travel far away, to some place where there’ll be more light, more fun, much more sun, and teach her how stupid and unimportant the whole time-consuming daily grind here is.
“Are you tired, little one?—It can’t go on like this, I feel like such a brute! We won’t see each other for a week.”
“Not see each other for a week!! Martin! What do you mean? Not see each other for a week??? Why? For my sake?—Oh, Martin,” Gilgi smiles with a kind of hopelessness—“what use would that be? What do you think—would make me more tired: a sleepless night with you—or a sleepless night by
myself? Let’s choose the lesser of two evils—one should always think logically! Cheers!”
Olga picks Gilgi up from the office. “Why haven’t you come by, or telephoned?” She links arms with Gilgi, they walk along together without speaking.
“I’ve got a half-hour at most,” Gilgi says as she unlocks the door to her little attic room. It’s almost a fortnight since she was here last. She has a shameful feeling of disloyalty towards Olga, Pit, the room, the extra work she gives herself, her whole life.
Olga pulls Gilgi down next to her on the divan, examines her with experienced eyes: unmistakable symptoms—slightly drooping shoulders, restless eyes, uncharacteristic softness around the mouth and chin.
“Martin?” Olga asks.
“Yes.”
“Is it serious?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“What’s that supposed to mean: ‘And?’ At the moment, I’m happy.” Gilgi winds up the gramophone … For it can’t last forever … Olga is disturbed to see a few tears dropping onto the record.
“So you’ve become sentimental recently?”
“Nonsense. Just nervous. All the racing around, all the—oh, all of it.”
Office, home, work, love—how did she possibly manage all that before? It was different, completely different. She saw long tall Klaus, who was her boyfriend for six months two years ago, two or three times a week. Dancing, movies, summer excursions to the Rhine, canoeing, a weekend’s brief magic—all quite pleasant, fun, and no reason to get excited. If you saw each other, that was fine—if not—well, you had other plans. Both of you. The guy and the girl. Working and getting ahead were still the most important things. You liked each other in a rather cool, undramatic way, and the possibility that a friendly attachment to a man could ever become important enough to disrupt Gilgi’s program would have been the last thing on her mind. And now! Martin has disrupted her program. And the worst of it is that this disruption means more to her than the whole rest of the program.
“And you sit from nine to five in the office, then you rush home for a bit, from seven on you type for old Mahrenholz, and it’s not until nine that you can enjoy being with Martin. Olga, you can probably imagine how quickly the time goes then—because the day only begins at nine p.m. Oh, and I’ve got to move out from the Krons’, right away. If you don’t come home till early morning during Carnival, nobody has the least objection. But after Carnival! If you’re not at home late at night, it looks suspicious—everybody will notice. If I could just get away—! Only I can’t see how to swing it.”
Olga has a pensive, worried expression. Gilgi and Martin! An odd combination. As long as it turns out all right.
Gilgi is sitting at home, at the breakfast table. Herr Kron is reading his newspaper, Frau Kron is slurping her coffee, Gilgi is buttering her roll. No-one speaks. As usual. But this morning’s silence gives Gilgi an uneasy feeling. Of course, they heard her coming home in the small hours again. “I slept at Olga’s,” she says, without being asked. Herr Kron grunts something indeterminate, Frau Kron picks up breadcrumbs from the table and doesn’t say a word. The silence becomes embarrassing. Gilgi is blushing with shame and anger at her stupid excuse. Does she need to say anything? Isn’t she independent, a grown woman? Can decide herself what she wants to do and not do?
Herr Kron folds up his newspaper and leaves the room, making a big point of not looking at his wife. As he pushes out the door, his broad back looks hostile and determined, suggesting: won’t put up with it—not that kind of thing—in my house! And Gilgi thinks unhappily that from Herr Kron’s point of view, he and his back are right. And of course both the Krons have spoken about her, about … it’s intolerable to know that they’ve spoken about these things, so inexpressibly embarrassing.
“Gilgi,” Frau Kron says suddenly, with a slightly plaintive undertone in her voice, and completely forgetting to adopt Cologne dialect. “Gilgi, you’re not doing bad things, you’re not bad, you’re not that kind of girl, are you?” Gilgi clenches her hands until the knuckles stand out, waxy white on the skin. It’s horrible, a conversation like this! She should have moved out of here ages ago. Her mother is drilling questioning looks into her face. It’s unbearable. “You weren’t with a man last night, were you, Gilgi?” Gilgi is ashamed unexpectedly—for her mother. How can she say such a thing, and in such a way? Reproach, sympathy, interest, curiosity—all justified—yes, yes, all justified—but so revolting. Everything between Martin and me is a matter for me and me alone. Why doesn’t she understand that she shouldn’t think about any part of it—I mean, I don’t do that—I don’t think about what goes on between her and her husband …
“Gilgi, you haven’t done anything hateful, have you?”
“What you call hateful, Mother—always becomes hateful, only becomes hateful, when a third person thinks about it and talks about it.” Gilgi is hoping desperately that her mother will understand that this conversation is impossible. But Frau Kron only hears the confirmation of what she feared. “Gilgi, I would never have thought that you …,” she’s crying softly—“you were such a good girl, some man has hypnotized you, some man has seduced you, why didn’t he come to the house like a respectable person?” Ach, God almighty, these touching efforts to absolve me of guilt—a guilt that doesn’t even exist. And Gilgi wants so much to explain: that she loves Martin, that they’re very happy when they’re together, and that it’s all the most simple, the most normal, the most natural thing in the world. But here in this room absolutely nothing is simple, here everything is terribly sinister and complicated and repulsively dramatic.
Her mother is sobbing. That should make you sorry, but it makes you angry. For God’s sake, where’s the tragedy here? Just stop it, would you? An unpleasant emotion rises within Gilgi: alienation—dislike—hostility. Frau Kron lifts her head: “Who is he, then? And, Gilgi”—her voice is bright with hope now—“will he marry you?”
Yes, that was just what I needed! Gilgi stands up. “Will he—marry me? I don’t know. I won’t marry him—I do know that.”
Gilgi disappears into her room and bolts the door behind her. She fishes her big suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, and packs: clothes, underwear, shoes. She moves quickly, quietly, cautiously. In her parents’ room next door, she can make out Herr Kron’s rumbling beer-fed bass and Frau Kron’s excited whispering. She has to leave—it’s the only decent thing she can do. Oh, it’s quite clear to her that her parents must be indignant about her behavior, they have the kind of rock-solid moral ideas which can’t be overturned from one day to the next. She pauses in her packing: hears her father in the next room saying something about “laying down the law.” My God, what a ridiculous, petty story. Moving more quickly now, she tosses underwear into the suitcase. A swift exit. It’s the only solution. You simply can’t stay here, be treated as an errant child, magnanimously forgiven when there’s absolutely nothing to forgive.—The door-handle is pressed down from the other side: “Jilgi!”—Herr Kron’s voice sounds annoyed. Finding the door bolted makes him furious: “Either you’re home by eight tonight, or you need never come home again!” Heavy footsteps, and the front door closes with a loud bang.
Gilgi treads on the suitcase with both feet until the lock catches. She opens the door quietly, hears Frau Kron having her ritual argument with the cleaning woman in the kitchen:
“An’ if the butter isn’t good enough for you …”
“In other houses …”
“I could get ten new cleaning women tomorrow.”
“Carryin’ the heavy trash cans downstairs an’ draggin’ coal up from the cellar an’ then rancid butter for breakf—”
“The butter is not rancid.”
“Yes, it is rancid …”
With a massive effort, Gilgi drags the heavy suitcase down the stairs, it’s almost pulling her right shoulder from the socket, her hand hurts … an empty taxi is driving past outside—Stop! Stop!
“What’s wrong, little Gilgi? Yo
u turn up in the middle of the night—with a huge suitcase?’
“It’s nine in the morning, Martin.” Gilgi smiles wanly and drops the suitcase with a thud in the middle of the room.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Martin says, simply and convincingly. Still not quite awake, he looks alternately at the uncharacteristically elegiac Gilgi-girl and at the suitcase. His hair is tangled, his left cheek is showing the pattern of the lace on his pillow, he’s thrown an old, battered raincoat over his pyjamas. He looks a little like a refugee, an opera-prince in disguise, or a non-gentleman cracksman. Slowly he rubs the back of his hand over the hard stubble on his chin, and suddenly he’s awake. “Wait a moment! Before you start what will doubtless be a lengthy explanation, I’d like to give you a kiss, and for that I need to wash and shave first.” He rushes into the bathroom with the speed of Paavo Nurmi.
And Gilgi does something which she’s never done before, something which is more disorienting and momentous for her than her flight from home: she telephones the office, is put through to Herr Reuter: “… I feel so sick and miserable …”
“Not flu, I hope?”
“No, no, just …”
“Stay in bed …”
Yes, she’ll be there tomorrow—
“A speedy recovery”—“Thank you.” She hangs up, finds herself irresponsible, unfair, lazy, and slovenly. Sits down on her suitcase, cries for a while, then is pleased again because now she’ll be spending the whole day with Martin, and has a bad conscience because she’s pleased. Feels a sharp pang as the finality of her separation from the Krons gradually dawns on her, suddenly feels a quite pointless longing for the silly, green plush Washington room, and shudders at the thought of sitting there again—it’s a terrible mess, everything inside her has become a battleground of bitterly conflicting emotions, everything is rolling, rushing, shaking, there’s no fixed point—only Martin. He enters proudly carrying a tray, having used the brief interval not only to dress himself smartly, but also to brew coffee swiftly. Rolls, butter, jam, honey—it’s all there. It takes only moments to arrange everything on the coffee table, and incidentally to break the handle off a cup. An exquisitely timed movement drops the honey-jar precisely on the narrow strip of parquet floor between the runner and the rug, where it quietly explodes into fragments.
