A Book of Memories (75 page)

I seemed to be stuck with having to ponder the useless questions of how one ensnares the world in the net of one's secret desires and how one becomes captive in the net cast by others.

The westering sun appeared for brief moments behind enormous, swirling, spiraling, dark-gray clouds, through the opening between which the sky's dome shone through in yellows, blues, and reds; a strong wind was blowing, but since it had nothing to cling to on this flat terrain except us, the whole landscape appeared to be silent.

Only now and then could the sound of birds be heard; long, blurry shadows and deeply burning cold lights streaked by.

In the mistless air, the distant horizon with its gentle curves and dips appeared to the eye sharp and close up, and our bodies sensed the air's chill in a similar way; it wasn't an unpleasant cold, because it nicely encircled each limb, gave strength and vigor to our movements.

It's in the northern regions that one experiences this, where the clear transparent cold has a way of isolating the body's warmth, which can then transmit its inner energies, endow one's acts with firmness and simplicity.

She stopped for a moment, I followed a few paces behind; being closer to her in the infinite distances of this vast open space would have seemed out of place; she didn't wait for me to catch up, only turned around to make sure I was still there before walking on, and then she said, You must never be angry at her, Sieglinde is a very decent girl, and she is always right, always, in everything.

When we reached the top of the leisurely sweeping rise, beauty stretched its new face before us with such serene majesty that words would only have marred it.

From here the trail descended more precipitously to the softly undulating land directly below, beneath a sheer drop, as if pulled down by its own immense weight, where deep in its lap it harbored a shimmering little pond, while farther on, bright strips of farmland and dark-crested woods stretched to the horizon, the intimate grandeur of their smooth lines made even lovelier by the orbs of a few solitary bushes.

For a while we stood on this seemingly lofty though rather low hilltop, admiring nature's spectacle from that well-known pose of casual strollers who usually report, in emotion-filled voices, with phrases like No, it was so beautiful, so infinitely beautiful, I thought I could never tear myself away, I had to stay to the end of my days! which, whether we like it or not, is also an admission, full of nostalgic pain, that much as we may like such a spectacle of nature, we don't know what to do with it, can't identify with it, we'd love to but can't, it's too vast, too distant, we ourselves are too alien in it, maybe too alive, and maybe in death we'll be able to move away and look for a different vantage point, perhaps the ultimate one, though we really ought to stay here because, with or without us, this is nature's ultimate landscape; then, after taking that steep trail down to the pond, to the more reassuring and more prosaic level, where the view was no longer so infinitely beautiful and inhuman, Thea stopped and turned to face me.

Sometimes I could scratch her eyes out, she said in a very calm, deep, earnest voice.

As if with her voice she were continuing the tranquillity of the wind, the clouds, and the undulating lines of the land; the sound of her voice was also twisting and winding, though in the opposite direction, back to the very near present.

But if she wasn't there for me, she said, I might have done myself in long ago.

And now, lurking in her voice, there was a nostalgia tinted with some self-pity, for which the beautiful setting had to be responsible, for it filled us both with a kind of anguished yearning, and she had to break with that, too, for she didn't really feel sorry for herself, she always did what she wanted, what her life as an actress demanded, and whatever self-pity she did feel could be neither expressed nor shared; amused by her own insurmountable curiosity, she broke into a sarcastic smile and came out with the question, after all: What sort of gossip was Frau Kühnert spreading about her this time?

I was taken aback by the smile, her pettiness was out of place in this sublime setting even if she knew it, and I didn't feel like answering her, for to betray Frau Kühnert just then would have run counter to my plans; Nothing special, I said, and, opting for the safety of a general observation, added, Though I've never met anyone who's had a chance to observe, in such a primal form, how a role takes shape within an actor.

Her response to my evasion was a wry smile; Within any actor or within me, she asked.

An actor, yes, any actor, I said.

No, there was nothing primal in what she did, she said reflectively, but I had the feeling she was wondering about my refusal to give her a straight answer; True, she went on, she was unschooled and uncouth, but also intelligent enough to know a lot about a lot of things; and then her face reverted to her sarcastic smile.

Did Sieglinde tell me, by any chance, she asked, that she sometimes let herself go completely and was capable of doing the most dreadful things? she could have, of course, they were so close she knew all about her gutter behavior.

I looked at her quizzically, but she only nodded, perhaps wanted to go no further; she put her hand lightly on my arm.

There were only two people in her life, she said, everything else was just one big stupidity, no matter what she did, she'd always go back to them, and they would never let her go.

I know, I said.

We looked at each other for a long time, a little as we had looked at the landscape before, because I did know what she'd meant and she could be sure I knew; this was the moment when she neutralized not only Frau Kühnert's emotion-driven maneuvering but also my machinations, the emotional dishonesty with which I tried to further Melchior's interests.

Two human beings were standing in a landscape breathing with a life infinitely greater than theirs, and they understood each other, not with their minds or emotions, for in this understanding the central function was assigned to that naturally accepted given to which we hadn't paid much attention before, neither intellectually nor emotionally, namely, that she was a woman and I was a man.

The moment exceeded our abilities and intentions, alluded to our natural differences and the one and only possibility of reconciling them, and thus, overriding all our efforts to remain composed, terribly embarrassed us both.

She didn't let the embarrassment deepen but quickly removed her hand from my arm, gave her shoulder a funny little shrug
—at once a coy gesture of surrender and withdrawal—turned, and, now completely in a different time dimension than the city we'd left behind, but also turning away from the landscape, she continued walking along the trail toward the distant woods.

Table d'Hôte

Despite my valiant protest, my fiery and effervescent senses are at the mercy of raw forces we usually refer to as base or dark and, if I'm permitted a rather common term, downright obscene, and even in more refined terms they are no less than filthy, evil, deserving of the greatest contempt and harshest punishment; let's hasten to add that all this is not without justification, for everything I'll be compelled to talk about now is indeed related to the unclean end products of bodily functions as well as to the relief and gratification accompanying them; but no less justified is the question: do or do not these raw forces live inside us as do our discriminating moral sensibilities, whose inevitable task it is to fight them? but whether I consider the impure a part of me or alien to me, whether I accept the challenge and take up arms against it or with a weary shrug submit to it, it does exist
—whatever I do, I cannot but continually feel its undeniable power, like some pornography of divine origin; if I manage to keep it at bay when awake, then it assails me, treacherously, in my dreams, flaunting its infinite power over my body and soul, there is no escaping it, and to try is to fail, as I learned on the night of my arrival in Heiligendamm, and let that be a lesson! no matter how much I was trying to be rid of my many worries that night—my foolish reflections on my artistic work, the dark yet exciting memories of my parents and my childhood, the arduous and unsettling journey, the equally unsettling though tender and touching farewell to Helene—no matter how much I tried to escape into a long, deep, restful, purifying sleep, it startled me again, although this time rather gently, not treating me as cruelly as at other times when it would appear, let's say, in the image of a naked man offering me his erect phallus, but announcing itself in a most innocent dream image, its appearance no more than a gentle reminder of my helplessness.

Loud, strange footsteps were reverberating in a familiar, wet street; the night, mysterious and flecked with the glimmer of gas lamps, enveloped me as smoothly, softly yet firmly, as only a loving woman's embrace or a dream can, and so I sank with it, hardly against my will, surrendering completely to the beauty of the darkness accentuated by the golden halos around the lamps; and since this nocturnal street scene was not far from turning into a person, yes, from becoming Helene herself, although nothing indicated directly that the scene was her embodiment, still, quite freely, without fear or reticence, my senses and emotions blended into and spread throughout this scene as if it were Helene, as though I were belatedly bestowing on her the very feelings which while awake
—overwhelmed by the force of circumstances—even at the wildest moments of our ecstasy I was compelled to withhold from her and of course from myself as well.

It was as though the greatest good, the highest, most complete and splendid good was about to overpower me, and I had to hand over everything I had; indeed, it had already taken everything from me, devoured me, I was it and it was me, yet still it had more to give and so did I, much more skill; it was on the way to this good that my strong footsteps were resounding, this was the street of the good, the night, dark, and lights of the good, and I felt that the more I gave the more I had left to give; and it was all very good, even if my footsteps seemed to echo back to me from a cold, hollow space.

But from here I could see it, for the nature of the good now made itself visible; and I simply slipped out, emerged from the bothersome noise of my footsteps, to reach it; now I could feel that there was something better than the good, and whatever was waiting for me could only be better, for if I could walk right through all this good so easily and freely, then redemption, for which I had yearned so while lying at the bottom of my suffering, and that unpleasant clatter of footsteps had to do with suffering, could now come to pass without special fuss or ceremony.

And the love, oh, the love granted me now was great indeed; to love the cobblestones of the street as the cambered light highlighted and absorbed each and every one of them, to love the raindrops ready to fall from the branches, to love those sinister footfalls, too, and the gas jets dancing over the water collected at the bottom of the glass globes, to love the darkness for allowing me to see the light, and the cat that scurried by like an unexpected shadow, to love the soft tracks its paws left behind in the night, to love the glistening surface of the slender, finely wrought lampposts and the sound of that rusty creak the ear could hardly register in this loving daze.

And the eyes searched in vain.

For it was like a bubble, could burst any moment.

The creaking sound grew stronger, and leaving the clatter of my feet behind me on the stones, I was headed toward it; a metal door would make such a rusty sound when creaking in the wind, but there was no wind! I was hoping this would be the last clatter, after which nothing more could disturb the thick silence of the dark, but I was still walking and each step produced a new sound.

And then I saw myself approaching.

How could I spare the darkness from these noises?

There I was, standing behind the steel door blown open by the wind, standing in the stench and following intently the sound of those footsteps.

The wind slammed the door shut with a harsh grating sound, hiding me behind it, but the next instant it flew wide-open and I once more saw myself waiting there.

But where was I, anyway?

The place was not unfamiliar even if I could not locate myself in it exactly, which is why the question: Where? persisted; the possibility of being at once here and there made me so anxious I wanted to cry out, and would have, too, had I not been wary of disturbing the darkness with a loud cry, for I was still walking on the street of the good, and knew I was, I wouldn't let anyone deceive me! yet this street led me straight to that door, the bare trees and the wet lampposts were standing there like road markers, I couldn't change course now, I had to reach the steel door that evoked too much shame, desire, fear, curiosity, and humiliation for it to be unfamiliar; its secrets I would have liked to hide even from myself, yet there I was, in the same old spot, waiting for myself in the heavy stench of tar and urine, and I must have stood there for quite a while, because the foul smell had penetrated not only my clothes
—whatever happened to my hat?—but my skin as well, it was emanating from me, even from my hair, so there was no point in slipping away, there was a finality about my being there; I had arrived.

And then somebody, the one ruling over my dream
—for in spite of everything I knew this was a dream, no need to get excited, I could wake any minute, though someone in control of the dream wouldn't let me— only I could not remember who this person might be, although his voice sounded familiar as he whispered that he was waiting behind the door, and no matter that I still felt the calm bestowed on me by my contact with the good, there was nothing to be done, nothing, because all that, he whispered right into my ear now, had been only to entice me: the dark was waiting for me.

Nothing to be done.

So I kept walking, not surprised at my trembling; I was afraid, but it seemed there was no degree of fear or anxiety I could not make myself adjust to; I protested, of course, tried to protect myself, but it was as if that certain force were compelling my body, now writhing in protest, to admit and accept all the secret desires it had tried to conceal, to acknowledge the terrible burdens it had to carry all these years, and this struggle made the way long, and my footsteps grew fainter; though the clatter was still there I no longer felt the ground securely under me, and like an epileptic falling into a fit I lost control over my limbs and felt gurgling saliva gushing from my open mouth; I kicked and thrashed and panted, but nothing changed; the grim little structure with its opening and closing, creaking and squeaking black mouth was waiting for me; with clearly human sounds it creaked and groaned and panted in the middle of a clump of bare bushes.