by Irmgard Keun
Broad, broad green lawn, shy little daisies, trees, sky, sun, caressing air—very occasionally a human figure—but who would be taking a stroll in the city forest at this time on a weekday? “Don’t you notice as well, Martin, how even a single person can ruin the view for you?” Martin doesn’t answer. Both look into the sunlight for another half-hour in silence.
“Tell me, little Gilgi”—Martin shatters the silence suddenly—“how was it exactly before we met—who was it that you—liked? You see, I know so little about you.” Gilgi ignores the soft, insistent, inquisitorial tone which men can never avoid when asking such questions. “Yes, there were a few I liked—was probably in love, too—my God, I can’t remember them properly anymore. You know, I suppose the mind remembers, but the feelings have no memory anymore—it’s so difficult to reconstruct something if the feelings have lost the memory.” Martin isn’t satisfied, wants to know more—how—what—who—why—wherefore—. For a moment she looks at him doubtfully from the side—“ach, don’t ask so many questions. There’s probably nothing that’s wiped out more conclusively by the arrival of something new and stronger than old love affairs are.” She lets her head fall onto his shoulder—“don’t ask so many questions, I really don’t think that kind of thing is important”—she has a well-meaning, superior expression around her mouth, as people do who suddenly discover that someone is concerned about something which they themselves consider insignificant.
“You shouldn’t go out in this terrible weather, little Gilgi—your cheeks are hot—probably a temperature …”—
“Heck, it’s only a little influenza, Martin!”
“You should go to bed!”
“Later, Martin—later. I just have to pop out to the labor office—because my money is due today!”
A gray room—filled with the smell of humanity, vapors from wet clothes, dust, and noise. You queue up at the counter—for many, many, many minutes. Immediately in front of you a little, destitute woman with a grubby child on her arm. They’re pushing behind you—women and girls, women and girls, packed together—you’re pushed so disgustingly close to each other … Gilgi’s gaze falls on the greasy hair of the woman in front of her—the yellow-gray scalp showing under the sticky strands. You feel sick in your stomach, your throat—Gilgi closes her eyes. And now everything forces itself upon you—the smell forces itself upon you—the people force themselves upon you—the room forces itself upon you. You’re dissolving among a faceless crowd—what’s left of you? What’s in the room: a buzzing hopelessness, droning like the crying of a half-starved child—a broken will which has lost its power to desire—a waiting in which all purpose has died—fumbling for the days—resting in yesterday—no strength for tomorrow—excluded from common experience—forced out of the circle—forced into another, unwanted commonality. An acceptance of having sunk—an inability to protest—against yourself—absolved of personal responsibility—no longer supported by your own desire and ability—leaning on what’s outside you, leaning on what’s outside you … ach, the breathing around me, and if they wouldn’t stand so close to me in front and behind—I’m about to fall over, but I can’t fall over like this. What’s left of me? Do people ever suspect how completely they can be influenced!!!! The body’s immunity is so disproportionately greater than that of the mind. The slightest concession to weakness, the very least willingness to let yourself go exposes you to the world—alien thoughts enter through your pores, alien wishes, an alien desire, an alien hopelessness—alien influences which take root in you—you don’t notice it, you don’t know it, but days—weeks—years later you might feel the pain of inflamed, sick feelings—might wonder wearily about the incomprehensibility of a wish, a thought which didn’t grow within you yourself, wonder, puzzling over the motive and the purpose of an involuntary action to which you feel no connection—even though often a mere breath was the cause, a breath of a stranger whose face you maybe hadn’t even seen, a breath that entered you—remained—festered—erupted …
Gilgi opens her eyes: still three—seven—eight people in front of her. The monotonous collective noise of those waiting is broken here and there by single sounds, a sharp laugh, the impatient tapping of a foot, words—Gilgi can distinguish different kinds of backs—shoulders in front of her. Brash shoulders, despairing shoulders, tired shoulders, indifferent shoulders … ah, why do I belong to them? Maybe misery and poverty aren’t the worst thing. The worst thing is that the people here have had every feeling of responsibility taken from them. The worst thing is that quite a few of them almost feel comfortable in their “it’s not my fault”—lying down, as in a coffin, in the idea that their misery is exclusively other people’s fault. They let their precious, precious knowledge of their own laziness and incapacity be strangled, let their will for life and desire for action die slowly within them—because it’s not their fault. And the fact that other people’s failure helps to cover the tiny quantum of their own failure—maybe that’s the worst thing, that’s the end, that shows that you’ve died …
Gilgi coughs—her chest really hurts. She shudders with cold. Probably really does have a bit of a temperature—and it’s just the right weather now for catching a chill. The woman with the child thinks so, too—and she remembers that her feet are cold. “If it’d jus’ warm up properly at las’, so that we didn’ need the heatin’ anymore,” she shifts from one foot to the other, the child starts to fret—it has such ugly scurf around its little mouth, and horribly old eyes — — — and one more week—then I have to go to the doctor …
“Ach, little Gilgi, so you went out in the rain for a lousy thirteen marks! My God, you’re such a stubborn, inexplicable girl!”
“Only a little influenza, Martin! There were times when I went to the office with a temperature of 39.4.” Gilgi speaks as though it had been great fun to go to the office with a temperature of 39.4. And Martin isn’t satisfied until she’s in bed. “And do you really feel warm?” Right—and now he’ll go to the drugstore and pick up some aspirin, and some elderberry tea or something like that—and he’ll make the elderberry tea when he gets back. And Gilgi wants him to buy his shoes at the same time, too—“you know how it goes, Martin! If you put it off, all of a sudden we’ll be out of money again, and you need shoes sooo badly. And go to Schilderstrasse—you know, where we saw that pair for nineteen marks, they looked verrry smart. And make sure that the soles are good and tough and …”
Martin has been gone for five minutes when the doorbell rings. So what is it now? Gilgi crawls out from under the carefully stacked pillows and blankets, pulls on her black silk kimono with the big yellow sunflower pattern, smooths her hair …
Oh God! She got out of bed for this! A door-to-door salesman, sales representative, traveling salesman—with a dusty little suitcase—“What? Floor wax? Don’t need any.” Gilgi hesitates: it’s terrible to slam the door on such a pleading voice.
“Just let me show you, madam … but wait a minute …”—the man looks at Gilgi in amazement, becomes embarrassed and nervous—“aren’t you Gil—madam, aren’t you—”
“Ooooh, Hans, is it you? She holds her hand out to him. Looks at him: this hardened, waxy face was once so young and fresh and shining … “I didn’t recognize you, Hans, you’ve changed a lot.” Gilgi blushes a fiery red, she’s said something tactless. Wants to make up for it immediately: “Come in, Hans—come … here—sit down, Hans.”
The man lays down his hat with its grease-spotted band beside him. Sits stiff as a board on the extreme edge of the armchair. “Oh, what a wonderful place you have here, Gilgi—but may I still call you Gilgi? Shouldn’t I say ‘madam’ and …”
“What nonsense, Hans—old friends like us!” Gilgi is standing before him—a pampered, well-groomed, well-rested little woman, completely enveloped in expensive embroidered silk … and he’s still got those faithful eyes, old Hans, except they’ve become tired and sad—now a little spark of genuine happiness kindles in them—“I’m so pleased that at
least things are going well for you, Gilgi.”
And now they look at each other and don’t know what to say—after all, they haven’t seen each other for so many years. “Wait a second, Hans—I was just about to have breakfast, so shall we eat together?” Gilgi runs into the kitchen. She has to sit down for a moment. What have just a few years done to the boy? By now he’s—yes, by now he’s—maybe thirty—that was four years ago when we … Four years! That’s hardly an eternity, four years! That makes you think a bit. Such a lively, cheerful boy, old Hans! You could have fun with him—you could laugh! He had such blond hair and flashing blue eyes and wonderful muscles. Yes, he was always very proud of his muscles. We were together in the swimming club, it started when he wanted to teach me the Australian crawl—he could do the Australian crawl very well—really well. And I was so upset about Jonny—well, I suppose the first man is usually a dud. And I was so utterly sick of Jonny, but it’s always the way that you still can’t bear it when a creep like that — — — I would’ve been quite happy at the time if Jonny, that combination of Douglas Fairbanks and a mailman, if he’d jumped off the roof of the club—because of me. It never occurred to him—he took up with Hilde, the redhead with the curls—and Hans was so nice, we were such good friends—just good friends—and if we hadn’t done that two-week trip in the Hunsrück hills together, we’d probably have stayed “just” good friends too. Anyway, none of it was a big deal—then I went to Frankfurt for five months, because Mayer & Rothe were opening their new branch there—yes, so then I forgot him. It’s funny—how long ago it all is. You just can’t believe that all of it was real once. The guy looks quite starved. Gilgi spreads a few bread rolls—and there’s a half-bottle of Tarragona left over …
“Right, Hans, now tell me a little about yourself.”
“Not much of it’s good, Gilgi.” They both fall silent—the memories they have are—filtered by the passing of the years—still bright, cheerful, light-hearted ones. Were they really so young back then? And now? Surely they must have grown terribly old to be wondering so skeptically about how young they once were.
“And, Hans, do you remember how I stood up there on the ten-meter springboard at the pool and trembled like a blancmange that’s about to be eaten?”
“Yes, and then you dived just the same.”
“And do you remember how we capsized in the canoe?”
“And a Rhine steamer fished us out …”
“God, and they thought we were so interesting—”
“And we thought we were a thousand times more interesting than that.”
“Do you remember how Heinz always took his gramophone onto the boat and played ‘Valencia’ a thousand times?”
“Yes, Gilgi, and then you threw the record into the water while he wasn’t looking. And do you remember how that cute one, Ruth, sang sooo badly to the mandolin that it almost sounded good again!”
“Of course, Ruth! The one who thought she was so beautiful that she couldn’t waste herself on any man, and I suppose that every time she looked in the mirror she was sorry that she couldn’t be a guy as well as a girl and start a relationship with herself.—And how you made that fabulous profit with the Dutch cigarettes!”
“Yes, and when we celebrated in the boatshed that night it wobbled like a nutshell on a storm-tossed ocean—we were having so much fun. And that fat guy, Conny, was so drunk that he was determined to go diving for coral in the Rhine …”
“God, yes, I spent a half-hour hanging onto his leg—otherwise he’d probably still be lying down there now among the broken beer bottles and the tin cans—”
“And he wouldn’t have been one of those corpses that look so peaceful when they’re fished out of the water!” — — —
Do you remember, do you remember, do you remember. And now? That poor gray-faced guy there was once the liveliest of the bunch.— He’s no longer the same at all—and—his life now … you can hardly ask.
But then he starts talking about it of his own accord. Because they’re not very inhibited at all, the guys. God, yes, they don’t say anything—until the need and the opportunity to say something happen to coincide. “… of course back then I was working for my uncle in the transformer factory, and working hard—and everything was going well—and I had quite a clear, straight path laid out before me, which went upwards gradually, but reliably. And then there was Hertha—you remember, Gilgi …” Gilgi thinks—oh yes, pretty blond Hertha with the soft, motherly hips—“of course I remember—she was very good at the breast-stroke—and a lovely girl …”
“Yes, she is,” Hans agrees whole-heartedly. “We got married. You know, she had such funny parents, they always kicked up a fuss when she came home a bit late at night …”
Gilgi nods: “I know—the usual!”
“Yeah, so we just got married. And I was very happy, too, about having our own apartment and everything—everything was wonderful—and as a young guy you thought you were really something when you could say: my wife. And Hertha was a secretary with Brandt & Co., of course, with quite a good salary—not to mention my salary—! We got by really well. And Hertha wanted to keep her job for another two years, until I was earning enough for both of us. But then the first child came along, and she had a nasty chest complaint for a long time. And then our firm went bust—I was running around for months before I got another job. And we had to give up the apartment and moved into a back attic in Friesenstrasse. And Hertha was so good, Gilgi!—never complained, never moaned. And the most difficult time was also the nicest—that’s when I learned what it means when someone really belongs to you.—Then I found something in an insurance company, as an agent—it didn’t suit me at first, you have to talk at people so relentlessly and intensively—but in our times you really can’t afford to say that something doesn’t suit you. I tried terribly hard—but just when I was starting to get the hang of it I was fired again. And Hertha had the second child. But we love each other so much. It’s just terrible, Gilgi, how you only bring each other bad luck when you love each other. Hertha would have got on by herself, and I would have got on by myself too. And together you’re lost, finished. But you belong together come what may, and if you wanted to go your separate ways—it would kill you. Shouldn’t be such a thing as love in the world, Gilgi.”
“Shouldn’t be such a thing as love in the world, Hans.”
“So I ran from pillar to post, helped out in a garage, and as a waiter in a garden restaurant. I addressed envelopes and delivered newspapers. Once I got a good offer for the Dutch East Indies—but of course I couldn’t accept it. Then I was a sales representative again for an underwear factory—then a welfare recipient again for a while. One time I was onto a good thing as a branch manager—if I could’ve paid a surety of four thousand marks—which of course I didn’t have. Then I went from door-to-door again with vacuum cleaners—and now with floor wax.—Gilgi—anyone who hasn’t gone through it themselves doesn’t know what it’s like. Like a criminal, that’s how they treat you, like the worst kind of common criminal. You get the door slammed in your face—you get such angry, hostile looks—and you walk and walk and walk, and often the day’s earnings wouldn’t even pay for the wear and tear on your shoes.—But—damn it, it’s your duty—not to lose heart, isn’t it?” The corners of his mouth are trembling hopelessly—“and it should get better one day, shouldn’t it?”
And he looks at Gilgi, wants to read a Yes in her face—and suddenly his head falls forward onto the table-top, and his shoulders are trembling, his whole body is shaking—he’s crying, my God, he’s crying—a rasping, sobbing sound is coming from his throat—you can’t listen to that, you can’t look at that—a man who’s crying. And the sobbing—my God—Gilgi has leapt up, she’s leaning on the arm of the chair, chalk-white—stop it, stop it, I can’t listen to that—he’s sobbing so brokenly—it’s driving me mad, I’ll jump out of the window if he doesn’t stop … And now he lifts his head, the whites of his eyes are veined with red — —
— “it—will—never—get—better again, Gilgi—I can feel that it will never get better again. And I can’t stand it anymore—just can’t—stand it—anymore—when I walk along the street—and see such plump red-cheeked children, and then think of my own two—so pale and miserable—up there in the stuffy attic. If I was only responsible for myself I’d never, ever lose heart—but I can’t stand it anymore—I don’t know what to do now—can’t go on now …” Tears run down his face, but he doesn’t turn away, he’s not ashamed—once you’ve ended up where he has, you’re not ashamed anymore.
“Hans, dear Hans,” Gilgi says. Because this is one of her group. And you ought to stick together, you ought to stick so closely together. That’s much more important than any ideas about being in love: we young ones ought to stick together. We shouldn’t let all these things happen to each other, we should all, all of us be such true friends …
“I’d better get on, Gilgi,” Hans says, and stands up.
“It’s raining outside.”
“Yes, it’s raining outside.”
“You don’t have an overcoat?”
“Couldn’t redeem it from the pawnbroker.”
“Would you like to leave seven tins of floor wax here for me, Hans?” They’ll cost the exact amount of her unemployment benefits.
“Yeah, you see, Gilgi, I wasn’t used to talking anymore. And you shouldn’t talk, either—it doesn’t make things better, it just makes everything more vivid. See you, Gilgi. It’ll work out all right. Has to work out, doesn’t it? Hey, Gilgi, I’ll write down my address for you—visit Hertha sometime, would you? It’d cheer her up—she’s always so alone—we have no friends at all …”
“Yes, Hans, I’ll visit her. Goodbye, Hans.”
