by Fleur Jaeggy
If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have known anything about my friend. Certainly not from talking to the other inmates at the home for the destitute, who didn’t speak and also never opened the door when someone rang. It was a mute home. It was as though they wanted to show that they were not alive. That they did not have a presence. That way the authorities could not harm them. They had no right to carry documents. Had no civil rights. Then I started to speak less well of my friend, in a more reserved manner. In school she was quite diligent, she studied, not too much. She was like everyone else. Like all of us. And in my head I said, she was not like the rest of us — she was unique. No praise was high enough. I didn’t want the lady to take me for a fanatic. I wanted to be like the lady. Within limits. Not to exceed. I’d had a good education, like the lady. The lady is patient. She seems to take an interest in me. But she doesn’t ask questions. She withdraws her sunglasses from a small handbag. And looks at the lake. She explains. Now she is talking. It is warm. It is really pleasant by the lake. And those walking seem to appreciate the weather and the view of the lake. Which Sissi liked very much.
She no longer has any civil rights, the lady tells me. The mother died some years ago. Not long after I saw her for the last time. From her mother’s house — it was a beautiful apartment — F. had gone almost directly into a clinic. She had tried to harm herself and others even more. She had become dangerous. And had to be given sedatives. I remember that I was able to talk to her a couple of times while she was at the clinic. She had told me that she was fine. Her voice was flat, almost a singsong, a dirge. And she repeated that she was fine. Then a sudden shift in her voice. I want to leave this place. I thought that I would have to manage to get her to leave. She was exasperated. Violent. Her feeling fine was full of violence. She was lucid. They said she wasn’t. That she was just violent. And she wanted to be left in peace. Her legs swelled a little. The medication did not enhance her beauty. But the eyes stayed the same. If Sor Juana had met her, she would have composed an admirable portrait of her. I couldn’t say that to the guardian lady and lawyer, I had to be cautious. And I had a great urge to talk about my friend. To finally talk to someone who knew her. I have the lady’s phone number, the private one, too. The home number. I can go see her. But she doesn’t have much to say. She is schizophrenic, she tells me. I was ready to insult the lady. But I have to pretend not to notice. She is strange, my friend. She is sick, the lady tells me. But she can see that she must have been different once. Once she must have been like everyone else. A good student. Who had good grades. She urges me to be careful when I go visit her. She is violent. So many times they’ve had to put her in a straitjacket.
I think that many times they’ve tried to assassinate her. At the time of my conversation with the guardian of the law I was romantic. And when my friend told me, exasperated, that she wanted to get out, that she had to get out of her room at the psychiatric hospital, I thought that she was a prisoner, her captors wanted to annihilate her. And that’s how it was. I believe that’s how it was. And then I have to blame someone. Someone who has reduced my friend thus. Who took her life away. They tried to make her gentle. Acquiescent toward the world. I tell the lady that I care deeply for my friend. I know that the wind can veer in the wrong direction. As it did for F. As it would for her friend, the only friend she has in the world. That would be me. Only for the lady can there be stability. Harmony. Well-being. The lady has understood more than either of us. About F. K. and myself. She also has a prominent husband and a house in Bel Air. The residential areas around there are beautiful. The areas between Lausanne and Geneva. But I was not looking at them. I had F.’s house before my eyes, desolate and neat. The façade. And the minuscule little windows of the toilets or bathrooms.
The lady tells me that there is no hope for my friend. She will not recover. And why ever should she recover, I think. She is sick, the doctors at the psychiatric hospital have said so. And the tutor lady. But F. hasn’t told me so. She was ironic in telling me about the hospital, all she wanted was to get out. Get away. Then — if she wanted to also get away from this world — that desire is certainly not an illness. An illness would be to stay there, and to come and go from a psychiatric hospital with bars on its windows.
Even here on the lake there is a lack of air. It’s hard to breathe. My friend told me so. She finds it hard to breathe. Not so the tutor lady who is always so kind. And I almost let go of the thought of my friend for a moment and think only of the tutor lady, will she take me in charge? She offers security. And she must have a beautiful house and a well-tended garden. And nature there doesn’t need to be well-tended because it starts out well-tended. It is already predisposed to growing well, to sprouting well, to drying out well, to regrowing just as well. It is as though it pruned itself. Often I look at those plants and those magnificent flowers, even the shabbiest, close together, dyed, undyed in the flower beds, that together make up a color mass, and next to it another color mass, decorative. And the vineyards. From above, one sees them descend toward the lake. One is overcome with yearning when looking at those sun-drenched vines, happy, far happier than F. K. and I when we go for a walk. They feign happiness. Who could blame them? The entire landscape feigns happiness. That is what moves and saddens one. As though something were missing no matter what. Maybe our mistaken lives. F. K.’s and mine. Of the two friends. I try explaining that to the lady. She is so kind. She pays attention to me.
Meanwhile I speak, think, look at the lake, also look at what isn’t there and realize I’m afraid, afraid and can’t wait to see my friend. I know she doesn’t want to see me. She had even written to tell me so years ago, and that I had to get her out of the psychiatric hospital. But I didn’t manage it. Now I try to get the tutor lady to promise me she’ll never be interned again. F. must never again be admitted. The lady looks at me, kind as ever. Maybe she won’t be admitted, because she’s better, much better. But she must absolutely take her medication. And once a week a nurse comes by to check on things. Medication that doesn’t improve one’s looks.
The lady gets up. She must go. She must go back to her office. I grab hold of her arm. Don’t leave me, I’m thinking. I can’t stay beside the lake any more, watching passersby, blissful at the sight of the water, in that mild almost summery heat. Winter is far away, behind F. K.’s windows. Will she go on giving me news of F.? And the financial situation? I mustn’t worry. F. receives so much a week. She can’t travel abroad. She can’t come away with me. We cannot issue a document. She has a piece of paper, of course, an ID. With the name of the illness.
The Salt Water House
On July 31, 1971, we left Rome by car, an Alfa Romeo 2600, `for Poveromo-Forte dei Marmi. Ingeborg Bachmann manned the road maps. It seemed like a great voyage, with Poveromo further away than Vienna and Klagenfurt, where we had already been. But now we were to spend a month together. Already that could be a mental voyage: cohabitation, prefiguring. The house we had rented was vast, with a garden. But the water was salty. Our first pot of tea was disgusting. The garden, with its somewhat sickly trees, had an end-of-the-summer feel, a quiet neglect. Away from Rome, Ingeborg had just said, think of nothing, no letters, no phone calls, no replies. Her desk on Via Bocca di Leone was covered with unopened mail. And when she said, “nothing,” the tone of her voice conveyed timid resolve. We went to the Pietrasanta station to pick up Oriele and Marcella, the two Jehovah’s Witnesses. Oriele was a mild, perennially smiling lady, her hair billowy. Marcella was stern, thin, but could be easygoing. We fetched water from a well and picked wild arugula in the fields. Expert cooks. The rules of the household were immediately clear without having to be stated. Every day the same. To the sea a little. In the sun a little. Ingeborg swam really well. Whoever wanted to had lunch, a celery stalk or some other thing. At the long table for twelve. At 2 p.m., always. In the afternoon we went to our separate rooms and gathered again at tea time. At night, dinner at home. At the head of the tabl
e a friend of Ingeborg’s, Roberto Calasso. Then nighttime chatter. I don’t think Ingeborg minded that family monotony. I was always struck by her ineluctable delicacy of spirit, if one might call it that, in her way of approaching others, especially friends. As though she knew with the precision of a mathematician all the nuances that might hurt or wound. She set great store by secrets. Sometimes, die schwierige Ingeborg liked nothing better than to jest, even when she was immensely serious. She seems so young, a natural way of being mysterious. Memories are not properly a past.
We lived like recluses. We were so gemütlich we hardly ever went out. Not for coffee, or for the papers. The Witnesses saw to it all. When Ingeborg comes into the kitchen she knocks on the door. She didn’t want to disturb them. Years later Oriele told me that “in the hall” (that’s what they call the place where Jehovah’s Witnesses gather) they had talked of Ingeborg Bachmann. Read excerpts from her books.
According to Oriele, Mrs. Bachmann cared about looking attractive. She changed her clothes often, she was very soignée. In the evening she wore long dresses, and, once again according to Oriele, when she came down the grand staircase she had the bearing of a queen. When tidying up, in the folds of the sofa where Ingeborg usually sat, Oriele found smooth golden hairpins. These she would take to the Signora’s room. But one time she decided to keep them: she wanted to have a souvenir of the Signora, because she thought that maybe she would never have a chance of seeing her again. She has them to this day, tied to a pink silk ribbon so as not to lose them. Because, so Oriele told me, the Signora wore her hair loose, but sometimes she gathered it at her nape. Ingeborg’s room smelled of roses, once again according to Oriele. Some time later she bought the same little blue bottle of rose water that Ingeborg had used. Oriele had given her five vitamin injections. The Witness remembered the Signora Bachmann as a happy person. I can only demur as to the word happiness. But I know. Something like that happened. I would have liked it to go on a long time. And always.
One day Calvino came to see us. He wasn’t talking. There was a piano in the middle of the living room. He remained standing. A beautiful light, somewhat muted, from the windows. We had agreed: if he doesn’t speak, we don’t speak. Ingeborg needed little encouragement not to speak. In the living room the piano, the windows, the light, the stillness were conducive to silence. After maybe a quarter of an hour Calvino said, “Eh . . . Hemm.” It was like a signal. A small, frugal conversation started up. He invited us to dinner that evening at the pension where they were staying. Chichita Calvino and a few other people were there. The conversation was livelier. They talked of Latin American writers. And of the publishing industry in Germany. It was pleasant. But we wanted to go home. Where we went on talking. I walk Ingeborg to her room, say good night to her. I ask her whether she needs anything. I never heard her say that she wanted something. She wanted not to go out. But this wish was never stated.
We went out one other time. The publisher Fischer, who had taken the name Fischer from his wife Tutti Fischer, but was called Bermann, invited us to his house. His wife was called Tutti because apparently she knew tutti, everyone. In the days of Hemingway and Thomas Mann. Mr. Fischer came to open the door. A yachtsman’s blue blazer. His hand, in shaking ours, was energetic. When he shook Chichita Calvino’s hand her opal ring shattered. We searched the patio, where a classical statue, Faustina, was lit up, but found not even a shard. At dinner they talked, the Fischers, of famous writers, all dead. Ingeborg silent. We go into Mr. Fischer’s study. His library contains the complete collection of Fischer paperbacks. We look at them. It’s late. Ingeborg had broken the heel of one shoe on the footpath. Ingeborg couldn’t wait to go home. And at home, as we did every night, we talked for a long time. Though the evening had been of some interest, in spite of the handshake and the lost opal, the place attractive, and the breeze, we decided we would decline all other invitations. Ingeborg’s timid voice firm. Without the possibility of appeal. A dear friend of Ingeborg’s, a friend of many years, came to see her. Witty, elegant, full of charm, so Wienerisch. On his feet he wore dark loafers that seemed an heirloom. And Josef Schwarzenberg was proud of them. He took them with him everywhere. At the table he made references to the years when Bachmann was living in Vienna — and all of a sudden Ingeborg too seemed very Wienerisch — and then to Switzerland. Ingeborg said that there were too many cows, and that aside from the mountains, the pastures, there wasn’t much . . . Once she came to Milan after a stay in the Engadin. “One can breathe here,” she said, “finally, I can breathe.” She had been the guest of an illustrious gentleman. I can say no more. To Ingeborg indiscretion is unforgivable. Josef took a red Confederation passport out of a breast pocket. He was Swiss. He, the most Viennese of Viennese. They had given him citizenship. We spoke of Lernet-Holenia, who had some rooms at the Hofburg. Ingeborg was grateful to him for the way he’d helped her when she’d been a girl from Klagenfurt in the Vienna of The Third Man. Uwe Johnson came from Berlin. With his wife, a daughter, and a friend. Uwe Johnson had just finished writing a thousand-page book. She wore black. The month was coming to an end. A golden hue shines over Ingeborg’s face. The gate closed. I’d like to end by quoting a sentence from a book by Ingeborg: “Schattenschlaf, geflügelte Heiterkeit über Abgründe.”*
* * *
* Shadow sleep, winged cheer flitting over abysses.
© 2015 Adelphi Edizioni S.P.A., Milan
Translation © 2017 by Gini Alhadeff
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published by arrangement with Adelphi Edizioni, Milan.
New Directions gratefully acknowledges the support of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.
First published as a New Directions Paperbook Original in 2017
Manufactured in the United States of America
New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper
Design by Erik Rieselbach
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jaeggy, Fleur, author. | Alhadeff, Gini, translator.
Title: I am the brother of XX / Fleur Jaeggy ; translated by Gini Alhadeff.
Other titles: Short stories. English
Description: First American paperback edition. | New York : New Directions, 2017. | Translation of: Sono il fratello di XX
Identifiers: LCCN 2017000508 | ISBN 9780811225984 (acid-free paper)
Classification: LCC PQ4870.A4 A2 2017 | DDC 853/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000508
eISBN: 9780811225991
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