Gilgi (19 page)

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 things 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?”

Gilgi goes to her, puts an arm around her shoulder—“and if you left him, Hertha?”

“Oh, Gilgi—don’t get me wrong—I couldn’t leave him any more than I could leave the children. I need him the same way I need the children. Whether maybe that’s love after all—or what other kind of feeling it is that gives me an unbreakable bond with him—I don’t know” — — — —

“Hertha—it’ll all get better. I’ll see that you get a pram, and we’ll go to the parks with the children, and you’ll be pretty again …”

“That’s nice of you, Gilgi—that cheers me up. You like me in spite of everything, don’t you? That’s so nice. I’d really like a friend, a woman who understands.—Listen, Gilgi, I’ll tell you something—you still have time—no matter how good things are for you now: make sure you have your own income and your independence—then you can love a man and keep that love alive. See while there’s still time that you’ll never become as helpless and unprotected as I am …”

“But, Hertha, it’ll all get better.”

“Get better!” The blond Hertha smiles wanly—“I’m expecting my third child, Gilgi. Grotesque, isn’t it? You almost want to laugh. Get better? Ach, I don’t want anything for myself anymore—only the strength to hold out—but
everything I want beyond that is for my little children and for Hans—yes, for him too.”

“Hertha—my God—you can’t have the child, you can’t!”

“Looks like I’ll have to, Gilgi—or do you think the health insurer will help me not to? Just don’t tell Hans anything, he doesn’t need to know about it yet—he’s already a nervous wreck, and has enough to worry about.”

“Oh, Hertha, I’ll help you—I’ll work out how … I want to help you—I’ll come visit you often.”

“Yes, come visit me, Gilgi. But—tell me—you don’t look as though everything in your life was just fine, either?”

“Oh, I, Hertha—I’m not at all important.”

“You silly child, as if the most important thing in everyone’s life wasn’t themselves! Your own toothache always hurts more than someone else’s broken leg.” — — — —

The young lady Gilgi is walking through the streets—walking, walking, walking—is so tired and keeps right on walking—right on, without a destination. Such heavy feet—and stones on her chest and stones on her shoulders. And you have to help—I used to think it was enough to get by on your own and not accept any help. I wanted to buy my freedom by not accepting any help—but now I know that you have to help—even if there’s absolutely nothing left of you at the end. How much money have I got now? Of course I might need it for the doctor and the clinic. Should I give her the money? So that she doesn’t have to have the child? Yes, and what about me? It would be completely irresponsible of me. Me with a child! And Martin! We would end up like Hans and like Hertha—oh, my God!—are you really so abysmally egotistical that
completely genuine sympathy with other people always leads you back to yourself? Oh, and it’s not about me at all—but what would become of Martin? What? And all the love and all the beautiful things and all the good things would be destroyed. And I love him precisely because he’s so light-hearted and happy and youthful. And if I stay with him for a long time, then suddenly there’ll be no more money—and all the things that make him happy will be destroyed—and then everything will become so awful … Isn’t there any way out? So what should I do? So what should I—do?… and Hertha doesn’t even have that anymore, her complete and total love for the man she’s bound to—she doesn’t even have that! I’d rather be dead than stop loving Martin. — — But I have to help her—yes, I have to.—

And she lies beside Martin during the night—I could never exist without you. The dark tangle of her thoughts becomes more and more confused. “What’s the matter, Gilgi?” Martin asks. He’s uneasy. He was cheerful and satisfied while she was still only a toy and a diversion to him—now he loves her, and the stronger feeling brings uncertainty, doubt, and mistrust along with it. “Gilgi, what’s the matter—where were you today—don’t you love me anymore—am I too old for you—do you like someone else — — —”

“Don’t worry, Martin, don’t worry—oh, my God—how can you say such things?” He puts a hand on her arm—he only needs to touch her for her skin to start feeling like it’s burning—a sharp little flame springs up from every point of contact. She puts an arm around his neck—“but how can you doubt that I love you.” Something in the dark heaviness of her thoughts forces its way into him—he
defends himself against it—“I don’t have any peace anymore, little Gilgi, just can’t stick it out for so long in one place—let’s go away from here, Gilgi—”