Gilgi (4 page)

“What is it that you want, anyway? If it’s help with your bourgeois problems, I’ll throw you out!” Gilgi pulls the blanket up over her knees, exposing the neatly folded nightshirt of white cotton with red trimming which lies under the pillow. “Touching,” Gilgi laughs. Red-faced, Pit gets up and shoves the nightshirt back under the pillow. He gives Gilgi a poisonous look: “Who told you to make yourself so free with the place?” Steer clear of these women, he has no use for these women, he can get along just fine without them, they shouldn’t come to him and sit on his bed. His hands are trembling; he’d like to hit that girl there. Slowly he goes back to the table, pushing his hips into the edge. Box her ears, right and left. Box her
ears. Disgusting. I have to keep a clear head, my intellect is weak enough as it is.

“Pit, I meant to ask you something, I might leave home entirely and set up on my own.”

“Should’ve done that ages ago.” Why can’t she pull her skirt down? There, at the top of her stocking, you can see a strip of white skin. I’m a pig. Box someone’s ears.

“Pit, I don’t know if it’s the right thing to treat the parents …”

“The right thing!” Snap! Pit has destroyed a pencil, broken it clean in two. “If you want to do the right thing, love your parents, your fatherland, and its dogs! Marry and have children. Every embryo should come under the anti-abortion law. The state wants children, the earth doesn’t have enough unemployed people yet.” Pit is talking himself into a rage.

“Stop it, Pit, there’s no need to be so nasty, I can read the satirical papers in a café if I feel like it.” You want to ask the man something, but he’s only got all that Socialist stuff in his head. I don’t understand politics, it doesn’t make sense to me. Gilgi runs all ten fingers through her hair. There’s no talking to Pit today. She wanted to tell him her ridiculous story. For the last week, she’s choked on every mouthful she’s eaten at home. It can’t go on like that, something has to be done. If they had brought her into the world, all right, then they could look after you, too, for as long as you can’t look after yourself. But now! Yes, if you loved them and belonged to them, then you’d just pay them back with feelings. But to take, take, take—without being able to give anything—dammit, you feel like such a heel! And what if you left home now? That would hurt them so much, a fine way of thanking them! So you thought that Pit might
know what to do, he sometimes hits upon the word that illuminates everything like a hundred-watt globe, but—no point at all, you’ll have to help yourself, Gilgi!—she won’t tell Pit her story.

Since when has she been so eager to talk about herself, anyway? A bad sign! Perhaps the ground is already starting to tremble under her feet? Rubbish, she’s still standing firm.

Pit is decorating a sheet of paper with angular doodles. He’s angry that he’s said so much. If the girl would just leave! She’s just sitting there, running her hand over her knee. She’s wearing silk stockings and smelling of flowers and
eau de cologne
. “Are you planning to stay much longer?” Gilgi glances up. Why is he looking at her like that? Silly boy, what’s wrong? She gets up and stands next to him. “You’re crazy, you are.” Her hand strokes his coarse, rust-red hair. She’s the right sort of girl, a good comrade, she doesn’t take it the wrong way when you’re abrupt with her. Pit keeps quite still while Gilgi’s hand strokes his hair, his face—her hand smells of violets—“Silly Pit, work alone isn’t enough. Intellect is all very well, but there are all kinds of other things about people which are important, too, the road you’re on might lead you right away from a full life.” She’d like to say even more, but that’s not so easy. Oh well, he’ll have understood all right what she means. Find a nice girl who likes you, it doesn’t have to be for all eternity.

“Ow, let go of my hand, Pit, you’re hurting me.”

“Go now, Gilgi.”

“See you, Pit.”

Gilgi stands in the street below, rubbing her wrist. What a grip that boy has! What a struggle he’s making of his life! And she wanted to ask him for advice! He could
do with some advice on his own account. Every man for himself, and God for all of us. Gilgi takes a little notebook from her handbag: Fräulein Margarethe Täschler, Thieboldstrasse. That’s where you’re going now. After all, you’ll be interested to see the being who brought you into the world. Wasn’t at all easy to get the name out of them at home; she found out the address herself.

You can feel the pre-Lenten carnival in the air … How did you, pigeon, pigeon, pigeon / Get into our kitchen … this year’s hits by Willi Ostermann blare forth from a window somewhere. Gilgi walks along Cathedral Street, past Central Station—Saturday night—they’re dawdling and teeming, rushing and chasing, she crosses Cathedral Square, has to hold on to her hat to stop it being blown away. Thank God, now she’s outside the Savoy Hotel, it’s less windy here. She smooths her trench coat and her hair, adjusts her little beret so that it sits properly again. Turns into Hohestrasse—people, people—they push their way along the narrow sidewalks, you can only make your way slowly. Obey the road rules! Walk on the right! You get quite jumpy when you’re used to taking long, brisk strides. A few morose hookers are standing in a side passage, they look well-behaved, earnest and annoyed, if they weren’t wearing make-up and using belladonna you could take them for unemployed telephone operators. Gilgi walks through Schilderstrasse. “Flowers—Flowers!” A little girl is standing at the corner, half-frozen. “Gimme a bunch.” Yellow mimosa, who should she give them to? She’ll take them to her mother, she might be pleased.

In Thieboldstrasse it’s dirty and dark. It takes Gilgi a while to find the number on the right building. The lobby stinks of rotten fish and yesterday’s laundry. Gilgi climbs
one staircase, another, the building is alive: somewhere a woman is screeching, a child is crying, a man is cursing. There’s a
Cologne Advertiser
lying on a doormat: … And we’ll still hold the time-honored official stag party, even if the whole Carnival disappears up its own … The spoilsports are just bashing their heads against Cologne’s sense of fun and tradition … Oh, the golden Rhineland humor! “The asshole’s boozed away all his unemploymen’ money again,” a woman yells. The building is alive, the building is breathing. Gilgi’s legs feel heavy. Why did she come here, what does she want here? Phew, she can’t breathe. No turning back. She sees a greasy little notice: Fräulein Margarethe Täschler, ladies’ dressmaker, ring twice. Gilgi rings. She hears a drag—drag—drag getting closer—what a stink there is in this building, I feel sick—tap—tap—tap—I’ve still got time to …

“Who’s there?” Why don’t they open up?

“Is someone there?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“Who you wanna see?”

“Fräulein Täschler.”

A safety chain rattles, the door opens: “Come in, Frollein, you gotta be real careful here, ’cos of the burglars. Jus’ the day before yesterday they attacked the poor woman nex’ door, people’re so bad now’days, come on in, Frollein.” Is this her, is this her, is this her? Gilgi clutches the bunch of mimosa to her chest. She doesn’t feel like letting her heart beat wildly, she doesn’t feel like getting excited. It’s a room with a grubby bed, a gas stove opposite, with a few cold fried potatoes sticking to a pan. Next to the window
there’s a black tailor’s dummy, a lady without internal organs. “That’s how we live, that’s how we live / That’s how we live every day …”

“Take a seat, Frollein.” The woman sweeps a few dirty underthings from the chair. A classy girl! If she’s come here for a dress—why else would she come here?

Fräulein Margarethe Täschler, ladies’ dressmaker, ring twice—you have to look at her, Gilgi—you’ve come here to look at her. Take your eyes off the lady without internal organs, the old girl is standing in the corner chirping at the stove, behind which a mangy cat is lying. Misss, misss, misss—and she beckons with a horribly crooked finger, like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel.” Misss, misss, misss—does the Frollein want to have a dress made? Misss, misss, misss. Everyone likes to make a good impression, now and then. One slips on a silk dressing gown, while the other entices a cat out of its hiding place. Misss, misss, misss—this is her, this is her. Gilgi holds fast to the bunch of mimosa and starts talking: yes, she heard about Fräulein Täschler, Fräulein Täschler was recommended to her, now she wants Fräulein Täschler to sew something for her, a dress with a little jacket, and she has brought the material along with her.

This is her. She’s skinny and dried-up, and she has no face at all, she’s lost it. She’s got a bathing cap, a light-colored bathing cap on her head, with yellow-gray strands of hair protruding from it over her forehead. “I got the cap on ’cos of my headaches, I got a cold compress underneath.” And Gilgi recommends aspirin and examines the fashion magazines that the witch-like fingers spread out in front of her. It’s impossible to look up, it’s impossible to look at a woman who has no face! Pan with fried potatoes
stuck on, lady without internal organs, grubby bed, stink compounded of rancid margarine, damp walls, and rotten floorboards.
Elegant World
, Special Beauty Issue: the beautiful grandmother writes to her granddaughter: Carnival, oh, in my day it was still such fun and so delightful, the men always crowded around me even at masked balls, because they could still see my beautiful complexion (using Pfeilring’s products was the secret) … Miss Germany 1931 … “you coulda won the title just as well, Frollein!” And the head with the bathing cap laughs, but the laughter isn’t genuine, it’s a lie. And the head bends down, and now it’s right next to Gilgi’s … I can’t stand the smell anymore, I have to light a cigarette.

The light’s bad, you can’t see anything properly, how can she sew here! The non-face has red eyes, those aren’t eyes, they’re inflamed lids, and they hurt. The beautiful grandmother writes to her granddaughter … You, you, you—why do you put up with it? Why are you living here, why is this your life? If you’re satisfied, someone should strangle you!

A gramophone is playing next door: Drink, drink, brother mine, drink … Why are you satisfied?—Leave all your troubles at home … Why? Drink, drink …

Accepted it, accepted it—I don’t know anything different—I only know the song about the gray-lit hours—Is there anything that’s worth the effort?

Gilgi offers Fräulein Täschler a cigarette. Unexpectedly, she takes it, leans against the bedpost, puffs away like a woman of the world, has a bathing cap on because of her headaches, has a wrinkled, dried-up body and no face. A crucifix hangs above the bed.

Gilgi’s measurements are taken. Bust, waist, height.
When the wrinkled fingers fumble at her waist and the noxious breath wafts into her face, she becomes as gray and pale as the greasy hand-towel beside the washstand.

She could leave, but she doesn’t want to. She starts a conversation with Fräulein Täschler. Fräulein Täschler is pleased to have someone to talk to. And she’ll do well out of it, she’ll charge twenty marks for the dress. Why shouldn’t she be lucky for once and get some classy clients, some good payers? She’ll decorate the seam on the jacket, that always looks nice. Before, the Frollein told her not to—but that doesn’t matter. For her, decorative seams are a kind of article of faith, she won’t give them up so easily.… Scorn all your worries and scorn all your woes / Your life will become … I can’t stand it here anymore—“Fräulein Täschler, wouldn’t you like to have dinner with me in the bar on the corner? We’re having such a nice chat, and I don’t feel like going home yet.”

Surely that will make her think. Something’s going on, something’s not right! But of course she’ll accept, only—she takes care to speak elegantly: “Yerse, but someone like me can’t afford to dine out in the evening.”

“You’ll be my guest, Fräulein Täschler.” That’s what she wanted to hear. She snatches the bathing cap and the compress from her head in one go. She fusses around for a good ten minutes, making pointless attempts to improve her appearance. She pushes what’s left of a black comb through the remnants of her yellow-gray hair, she changes the brown blouse for a green one, and now she looks just as pitiful as before—as far as Gilgi’s concerned. She herself considers it a marked change for the better when she looks in the battered mirror above the chest of drawers, and that’s the main thing, after all. And because she’s
curious now, expecting something, she gradually develops something which looks like a face. A gray face with a chunky nose, inflamed eyelids, a narrow-lipped mouth, and awful teeth. The beautiful grandmother writes to her granddaughter … To end up with a face like that! Why did you let such a thing happen to you? With a face like that, people can’t love you, no matter how hard they try, it’s impossible. They can sob, scream, laugh, sob—and what about my father! What could he possibly look like? And Gilgi feels her face becoming paler and her eyes retreating deep into their sockets.

I’ll start to feel better now, she thinks, as Fräulein Täschler closes the door from the outside. The stink and the close air, they were what I couldn’t stand. When they reach the street, she breathes in deeply. That doesn’t help. She coughs, twice—there’s something in her chest she can’t shift. And there are vapors before her eyes, she can’t see properly, maybe she’s asleep, and it’s all just a bad dream.

Then they’re sitting in the bar on the corner. Fräulein Täschler has a small light ale and an open sandwich on the table in front of her. She’s eating like a very elegant lady, with a knife and fork. Gilgi is drinking a double shot. Eating is impossible, she can’t stop thinking about the cold, sticky remainder of the fried potatoes in the room up there, and she can’t stop feeling that a chunk of those fried potatoes is in her mouth. Another shot! She downs it in one gulp. She shudders, but she still wants to retch. She has the sensation of having become completely removed from herself. There you are, on first-name terms with reality, and suddenly it’s a stranger to you and you don’t know how to approach it … but that doesn’t suit us, that doesn’t suit us at all.

Gilgi drinks another shot, and another. She has absolutely no cause to shudder now, the stuff is going down like water. Usually she’s not interested in alcohol, or even avoids it, but now she’s pleasantly surprised that, just by spending four lots of fifteen pfennigs, you can conjure up such a nice bright red to replace the crappy black before your eyes. Good for you! Right, now she’ll just get to the bottom of this, of how everything was and how it developed. What’s there to be afraid of? She’s holding her life firmly in her hands, and it’ll take a lot more than this business to make her lose her grip. And we’ll put a stop to all the soppy emotionalism we’ve been indulging in recently while we’re at it.