by Irmgard Keun
Gilgi watches him as he staggers down the stairs with his little case—then slowly closes the door of the apartment. Walks around as in a dream, clears the crockery away and takes it into the kitchen. Goes back to bed. What’s being done to people? What? What? You ought to help each other—that’s so important—and there are pale little children who don’t have enough to eat—and at the labor office—and—yes, when you love each other you only bring each other bad luck. I’d get on without Martin, and Martin wouldn’t run up so many debts without me. And anyway, love isn’t important at all—as long as there are people who want to work and aren’t allowed—as long as there are people who are prevented from earning money—as long as there are little children who don’t have enough to eat … and always this buzzing desire in my limbs, the sweet repellent desire—I can’t stand it anymore, I want to die—I don’t want it anymore—I don’t want—it disgusts me to be so powerless against my body. And if I could talk to Martin about it! But I can’t do that—whatever I say, I’ll never strike to the heart of it, I’ll just give a fuzzy outline—because words which pass the lips never reveal, they only conceal. And Gilgi thinks of the impoverished, hardened young man and longs for Martin—and she feels ashamed that her thoughts of other people’s misery are interrupted by her longing for Martin—and a tiny droplet of hostility flows into the longing—and she feels ashamed because her longing for Martin is paralleled by such a profound sympathy for someone else, another man—and feels guilty—in her own eyes—other people’s eyes—everyone’s eyes—her thoughts go round and round — — — peace, if she could have some peace for once. You probably don’t find peace until renunciation forces you into its gray prison—when you’ve become old and undesired and undesiring … I’m so tired …
Crack—goes the front door—and then Martin is standing in the room, swinging his shoebox cheerfully. “Did a great job getting everything, you’ll be happy, sweet girl … but what’s the matter with you?” He sits down next to her—“Why are you looking like that—so white and—have you been crying?”
Oh, his dear face and his kind voice! “It’s just my cold, Martin.” So tired—you have to dig every word out of yourself.
“I’ll make you some tea, little Gilgi—and you must stay in bed today—hey, tell me, what are all those yellow tins out there in the hallway?”
“Floor wax, Martin—I bought them from—a—poor—man.” Gilgi pulls Martin’s head onto her chest with a lightning-fast movement—he mustn’t see her fiery red cheeks. Martin, my dear Martin, I’ve lied to you. Too tired to tell you it all—no, not too tired—but you would’ve asked questions, questions, questions—and if I’d got the feeling—from a single glance, a single breath, that something which was infinitely sad for me was just “an old boyfriend” for you—that poor broken man—if there’d been just a flicker of some kind of mistrust in your eyes—I would’ve slapped you in the face. Martin, I’ve lied to you—now you’re infinitely superior to me. I love you so much, Martin, I’ll die if I stop loving you—there has to be something which lasts forever, has to be something which has substance. Martin—have I done something hateful, immoral to you now? How that makes me love you. And Gilgi draws Martin’s face up to hers, kisses it all over—everything’s dark, everything’s spinning around—something has to be, something has to continue—Martin—and puts her hands around his stiff, sinewy neck—Martin—I’ve lied to you—I’ve delivered myself over to you because I’ve lied to you—and seven tins of floor wax—and walking, walking, walking from door to door—no work—little children who don’t have enough to eat—that’s so important—why is it sinking now, why is it not important anymore—you, Martin—only you—nothing else matters anymore—only you—closes her hands more firmly around his neck—“I could wish you were dead—don’t we all wish some day for the death of what we love too much—because it doesn’t leave us air to breathe anymore, because it cuts us off from the world … ah, Martin, don’t listen to what I’m saying—because I love you and want you to live” … digs her sharp nails into his neck—“no, let me, Martin—I want to hurt you—I don’t want to be good to you—want to hurt you—I love you so much …”
The next morning Gilgi is quite fresh and cheerful again, with barely a trace of her cold left. Makes coffee in the kitchen, whistling “The Marseillaise.” Olga is sitting at the shiny scrubbed kitchen table, radiating brightness and the scent of chypre … “Just wanted to say goodbye, Gilgi—my train goes in an hour.”
“Oh, Olga, are you really going away now?”
“Yes, to Berlin, little Gilgi—now, don’t make such horrified saucer-eyes, little one—I mean, you’re so occupied that you really won’t miss me …”
“It was such a lovely, reassuring feeling to know that you were nearby …”
“Come here, Gilgi.” Olga pulls Gilgi to her, strokes her soft, wavy brown hair, “here’s my address for you—don’t lose it.” Olga puts a piece of paper folded to the smallest possible size down the front of Gilgi’s dress. “So, little one, you know that you have to write to me from time to time, it would be uncouth and irresponsible of you to make me worry because I’d heard nothing from you. Look out—your coffee’s boiling!—if it’s drinkable, you can give me a cup. Right—what else did I have to say? I won’t give you any more advice. Everything that you decide and that you do now has to be worked out by you alone …”
“Yes, Olga. But—but you should’ve told me before that you’re leaving today, I ought at least to have packed your suitcases for you—you’ve absolutely no idea about packing, marzipan girl. How did you possibly get it done?”
“Yes, it was a problem, Gilgi, but I solved it with a stroke of genius. First I boldly emptied all my wardrobes and drawers and threw everything onto the floor—then I ran out of ideas, and didn’t know what to do next. All at once I had a bright idea: I rang up the would-be Mussolini—you know—the Casanova with the black curls, who loves me with such elegant hopelessness that it’d really be a pity if we ever—anyway, I rang him up and invited him for tea—tête-à-tête. You should have seen how he charged in a quarter-hour later bearing roses and chocolates, and smelling adventurously of Coty—evidently he’d also quickly put on a clean collar and a provocative tie—and felt that his boldest hopes had been more than fulfilled. So I led him into my room—took the roses and the chocolates and climbed up onto the big tiled stove and declared that I’d only come down again when all the stuff had been cleared off the floor. Gotta say, he did beautiful work, and took a lot of trouble. I sat up there on the stove, eating chocolates, giving instructions about everything, and occasionally calling some very kind and encouraging words down to him. Afterwards, when it was all done, the room looked as bare as if a plague of locusts had been through it—I said I couldn’t possibly expect him to stay another minute in such an unappealing room, and it would probably be better to take tea at the Restaurant Charlott. — — —
“Now—my little Gilgi—it’s high time I—come on, give me a kiss before I go …”
“Oh, Olga …” Gilgi wants to say something else, tell her—but better not, better not—once something has been said, it takes on such a strange life of its own. “When will we see each other again, Olga?”
“As soon as you need me—for sure, Gilgi. You can always rely on me.—You know”—Olga’s merry blue operetta-eyes suddenly become serious and thoughtful—“I really do like men as such—but it’s funny and it makes me mistrustful to see that there’s no true friendship among men anymore, no honest, immediate sticking together, and above all no unconditional solidarity. All that’s left are ‘comrades’ or ‘party colleagues’—which isn’t much at all. I’d have a hell of a lot of respect for a man who had a male friend he preferred to me. Haven’t you noticed, too, Gilgi—that we’re living at a time where there’s more true solidarity among women than among men? That makes us superior. Pity. I don’t set much store at all by superiority in itself. Oh well, if that’s the way it is!—God, my train!”
Gilgi’s brown fingers close around Olga’s pampered little hand once again.—“All the best, Olga.”—“All the best, Gilgi—where’s Martin?”—“Still in bed.”—“I’ll just say goodbye to him.” Olga flits into the bathroom, pours water onto a sponge—pulls the bedroom door open—takes a solid wind-up and throws the sodden sponge, hitting Martin on the nose—“It was a lipsmacking kiss, my beloved lazybones, wasn’t it? Farewell for a while—I’m leaving town. Be good to my little friend, and don’t forget to send me my procuress’s fee.”
And Gilgi finds that the world has become even darker and gloomier since Olga left. She thinks back on Olga’s words: no solidarity among men anymore … Could well be right. Suddenly remembers her promise to visit Hertha. Maybe this afternoon? You’ll take her some underwear and a few dresses—you’ll talk and behave in a way that allows her to accept them without being the least bit embarrassed.
But today’s visit comes to nothing. Martin’s got money again from somewhere—at midday he goes out suddenly, and ten minutes later he comes back beaming proudly and driving a smart Cadillac—which he’s hired for the day.
They drive down the Rhine—past the Siebengebirge hills—it smells of spring, sun, air and wind, earth and folk songs.—“Gilgi, take your hand off my arm—you’re one of those women who aren’t allowed to touch me while I’m driving.”—Oh yes, it’s beautiful—life is beautiful …
They sit in an old inn on the Rhine, drink old wine from Rüdesheim and look at the even older mountains and the water flowing in the river. Darkness descends slowly. A freighter rattles and screeches as it throws out its anchor, then sits heavy and black on the deepening gray of the water.—Guelder roses rest their delicate whiteness on a profusion of leaves, a soft wind wafts petals of cherry blossom through the open window, and the smell of the burgeoning lilac is like a love song in the air. They don’t say much—from time to time they just toss each other a word—like a brightly colored little ball which is caught by gentle hands.
The silence becomes heavier and fuller—it breathes with secrets, and the knowledge of the earth’s eternal harmony with everything that lives.—Silver veils over water and meadows—sweet smell of damp leaves and earth … Gilgi’s hands lie flat and open. A curiously profound knowledge about being here, about being, flows hotly and with a joyful heaviness through her veins—and the sweetness of their shared connection with the moment becomes almost unbearable. Silently she takes the man’s hand, puts her hot, dry lips on the blue-veined wrist and feels the pulsing of his warm, living blood in the depths of brain and body and limbs—and the earth says Yes, and the aroma-laden air says Yes, and the darkly glowing colors and trees and meadows and everything, everything that is growing says Yes—and you drink the Yes and are dizzy with happiness—but still you know about the No behind the Yes and know about the pain behind the happiness and know about the transience of hours saturated with happiness. Know about tomorrow, know about danger, about the everyday and the Never-Again. And deep down you sense the purpose of pain and inevitable loss. Part your lips in a foreknowing smile—and feel the deepest and most sensual desire—desire that senses sorrow, desire that accepts pain, desire that fears fever—a foreknowing fear in the blood which transmutes our joys into gold.
After the labor office, Gilgi went to Hertha. It’s all a thousand times more sad and more bitter than she’d thought. The sun breaks through the gray curtains, harshly and tactlessly illuminating the poverty of the room: one narrow bedstead along the wall, a smaller one beside it, a wash-stand, a cupboard, a table, two chairs, a small gas stove—and that’s all. It smells of people and cabbage and children’s underwear.
Hertha is sitting opposite Gilgi—a tired blond woman with heavy, slow movements. She’s holding the little twelve-month-old boy on her lap—“didn’t want to have him, Gilgi—but now he’s here, and wouldn’t give him up again”—and presses the child’s thick pale head with her rough little hand onto her sagging, heavy breast. Talks in a soft, monotonous voice: “I hated the children so much while I was pregnant with them—do you think that’s made them sad? They’re always so quiet and hardly ever cry and don’t laugh much—sometimes I think that all my love now can’t make up for that hate.—Aaaach,” she stands up, puts the well-behaved child onto the bed, goes to the stove, and turns down the gas jet under the bubbling saucepan. Embarrassed and clumsy, Gilgi strokes the thin, silver-blond hair of the little girl, who stands silently and stiffly beside her—she has never liked children and doesn’t know how to behave with them—the child presses her little head more firmly against the stroking hand—the tiny, gentle, baby animal’s movement almost brings tears to Gilgi’s eyes. Hertha sits down at the table again. The atmosphere in the room becomes increasingly heavy and oppressive—full of acknowledged and unacknowledged hopelessness. You can see the unhealthy flickering of the air. Far down below on the street an organ-grinder is playing, fragments of “The Volga Song” from Lehár’s Tsarevich make their way upwards. The little girl chirrups a few incomprehensible words in her high, cheerful little voice—the child is so ugly with her peaked, bloodless little face—and it really gets to you, an ugly child’s touching lack of awareness.
“When the nice, warm days come again, I’ll take the children to the parks on the edge of town—they’ll get some sun there,” Hertha says in her soft, slow-flowing voice. “Gilgi, you wouldn’t believe how good little Resi looked last summer. And Hans will be earning more money soon, and we’ll buy a pram—you see, they’re a bit heavy for me, and the little boy is quite a weight. — — — — I’m glad you came, Gilgi—I can talk properly with you.”
“You’re so brave, Hertha!”
“But what else can I do? I’m not so very brave.”
“You’re very good—I could never be so good.”
“Ach, Gilgi, I’m not good.”
“Yes, you are, Hans says it too. He loves you so much.”
“Yes, I suppose he does.” The blond woman stands up, walks over to the window. Speaks softly and slowly: “I’m not good. What does a stupid man like that know? Oh, Gilgi, sometimes I’ve had such hateful, hostile thoughts. I hated him so much when I realized that the second child was on the way. I hated him so much sometimes, when I saw in the mirror that my beloved beauty was all gone—faded gray skin, a slack mouth, clouded eyes—oh, don’t contradict me, Gilgi—I know quite well what I look like, and I’ve learned to accept it.—And I felt such contempt for him sometimes, all the times I saw him start something incompetently and clumsily and drift further and further into poverty and misery, taking us with him. I’ve had very bitter and very ugly and very, very unfair feelings, Gilgi—and I knew that they were ugly and unfair, too—but I couldn’t always fight them down. But at least I never directed them outside me, I always let them eat me up inside. Oh, I’ll never forget it—with the second baby—how I was lying in the bed there—the contractions had begun too early—they were tearing my body in two—I was screaming, screaming, screaming—and Hans was having a good time with some friends in the back room of a bar, drinking beer and forgetting me. The poor guy! Anything like good times were few and far between for him, and of course he couldn’t know how things were for me—but it was like I’d gone crazy. The pain, Gilgi!—I thought I’d go insane—that’s when I hated him, you see—I could have murdered him—you pig—was all I could think—you pig, you pig—it’s your fault, your fault that I’m lying here like this. Yes, and afterwards, Gilgi—when he was sitting by my bed—then I just stroked his hair and kissed his hand—and that was a kind of asking for forgiveness and wanting to make amends and a tiny bit of lying and dishonesty. No, Gilgi, I’m not good—Hans is much, much better than me. You know, I love the children more than anything—I’d do anything for Hans, too, I’d die for him—but do I still love him?—I don’t know. I think I’ve become too tired to love a man. Of course I know how difficult things are for him and how hard he tries and how good he is—but I can’t tell you how much I envy him, because he can do t
hings and try things, while I have to sit here quietly, without doing anything. I suppose what’s worn me down most of all are these years of helpless, impotent waiting.
“And, Gilgi”—Hertha’s voice becomes even softer—“that—that narrow little bed is where we sleep together—and every evening, every single evening as soon as it gets dark, disgust and fear seize me—my body has become so tired—I can’t bear anyone to touch it anymore. It used to be different—but illness, tiredness, and the unending fear of pregnancy—I suppose they’ve combined to make—that—a torment to me, a horrible torment. And then a man is so stupid and never feels what’s going on inside you. Sometimes I think—if he’d wait and leave me in peace, until maybe I started to feel — — — I hinted that to him once—and he almost fell apart on me, weeping: I disgust you, you don’t love me anymore. A man just doesn’t understand that kind of thing, he assumes with absolute naiveté that the woman feels exactly as he does—well, what could I do—I mean, I had to let him keep his belief in my love, when he’s so good and has nothing except his belief in my love, that’s what keeps him going—so how could I ever take that from him? And after all I also realize a man needs that. But for me it’s so revolting, and such a sacrifice. So then I kiss him and put my arms more firmly around his neck, just so he won’t notice how he disgusts me at that moment and how that makes me hate him. And sometimes I want so much just to lie quite gently and quietly beside him, and then I have such good, tender thoughts and stroke his hair and put my face against his and I’m so grateful and happy when he just kisses me quite softly and lovingly on the mouth—but right away I’m afraid again and actually praying: dear God, dear God, not the other thing now, not the other thing—although I know it can only end one way—and then every time I’m so bitterly, bitterly disappointed again and feel like crying and yelling and putting three marks in his hand so that he can go round the corner to a hooker and leave me in peace.—That’s how good I am, Gilgi, how horrible I am. Do you see now why I can’t stand it when you say that I’m good?”
