Translated from the German by Gustav A. Richar
On Sunday morning at a quarter to six, Lilli calls for me. Her cry hits me in my sleep like a hurled knife. Lightning flashes through my brain; my stomach cramps up; my heart flutters. With eyes closed, I wait for her next cry. Minutes pass. Just as my muscles relax and I begin to drift back into a soft, dark sleep, Lilli howls like a wolf. I roll out of bed and shuffle with half-closed eyes over the cold parquet floor to her room. The sweetish smell of pee and a child’s sleep confronts me. I open one eye fully. She stands at the bars of her crib, stretching out her arms to me.
Good morning, Mummy, she says. I’m the beautiful princess, and you’re the wicked witch.
I carry her back to my bed, past the open door to the living room. Jim lies on the couch, his naked arm hanging limply to the floor. He almost always sleeps on the couch now. We have stopped talking about it. Before Lilli’s birth almost three years ago, we could not have imagined spending even a single night in separate beds. There are many things we could not have imagined three years ago. Our life together started out like a little snowball that began to roll only hesitantly. Now it hurtles along, and everything sticks to it: every banality, every fight, every doubt. It continuously grows bigger and faster. Someday, it will be a gigantic sphere, flattening everything.
Evenings, after we have given Lilli her good-night kiss, Jim and I pick up her toys and clean the kitchen, then go exhausted to different rooms. He watches TV; I read. Often I fall asleep without seeing him again. Sometimes — though seldom — we find ourselves together in the darkness, like two pedestrians whose paths have accidentally crossed. It is best then if we feel like strangers. If I am very tired, I even think: Hurry up so I can sleep.
Sleep a bit more, I say to Lilli, and she snuggles up to me.
Milk, she says in my ear.
In a second, I say.
Now, she says.
Wait just a little bit, only a tiny little bit, I murmur, half asleep.
My milk! she yells.
I get up, banging my head against the swag lamp. In the kitchen I pour cold milk into the pot and am astonished that I can measure so exactly how much milk will fill a baby bottle: to the drop. One learns odd skills as a mother. I switch on the range, stick my finger into the milk, and wait for it to turn lukewarm. Standing there in my nightgown with brown kangaroos on a green background, my eyes closed, my finger in the milk, I see myself as a plaster-of-Paris statue in a museum. A small metal plate fastened to my slightly advanced left foot is engraved: Mother.
Juice, Lilli says when I return to her with the milk bottle. I want juice.
I press the bottle into her hand and get back in bed. She throws the bottle across the room. Luckily for her, the bottle does not open. I’m warning you, I say.
I want juice! she shouts.
Not this way, I say, but I get up and get her a glass of juice. She turns away, does not take it.
I’m warning you, I say again.
I want my milk.
Go get it yourself.
I slide back into bed, my head ringing, eyes hurting. She cries in my ear and kicks her legs, hitting me in the stomach. I leap up, snatch her, tuck her under my arm like a purse, carry her back to her crib, and slam the door behind me. She throws a fit.
Shaking with anger, I go back to bed and put a pillow over my head.
Her cries grow louder — louder than ever before, as if she has just discovered a new trick with her vocal cords.
I hear Jim stomp furiously across the hall. He tears open Lilli’s door and shouts, What’s going on?
Lilli switches moods lightning fast. Daddy, she sobs. Daddy.
I know she is stretching out her little arms pleadingly. I hear Jim try to explain to her that I am tired, that he is tired, that one may not scream in the morning when everyone else is still asleep.
Why? Lilli says.
Because it’s Sunday, Jim says.
But it’s already light, Lilli says.
Regardless, Jim says.
Lilli screams.
Jim comes to me and asks if I’ll take Lilli back.
From her room Lilli shouts: My milk, my milk!
God, Jim moans, what’s the time? He bends down toward me and squeezes my leg through the blanket.
My tummy hurts! Lilli shouts furiously. I want my milk!
Jim delivers her to me as if she were a small parcel. Tears sit motionless on her cheeks like glass beads. Mummy, she says quietly, my milk.
I creep out of the bedroom, across the cold parquet, and retrieve her bottle. If you don’t drink it now, I say, I’ll put it away.
Where? Lilli says.
At 6:12 A.M. I lie on the carpet in the living room with Lilli beside me. Jim lies on the couch, eyes closed, cheek squashed into the pillow, face divided into a young half and an old one. He becomes a silent, old man before my eyes; afraid, I put my hand lightly on his cheek. The trick works: through this gesture my rejection changes to a thin affection, like when we sometimes embrace reluctantly, hoping it will trigger a feeling we recognize. We hold our breaths and listen, full of fear, as if something were dying. All around us, wherever we look, in all the couples we know, it is dead already. They all have this death in their house; they observe us with knowing smiles, waiting for death to come to our house, too.
I am the baby; Lilli is the mother. She lifts her nightie and presses my head against her chest. Drink, she says. I smell her delicate, slightly sour child’s scent, and happiness flows through me unexpectedly, like a gleaming bright light.
And now you’ll sleep, Lilli says, then walks to the door of her room and slams it behind her.
I have to cry now if I am not to spoil her fun. I scream as loud as I can. Jim moans and turns to his other side.
Lilli opens the door a crack and pushes only her hand through. Do you see my hand? she says from behind the door. I am here.
I scream on.
She returns, hands on her hips. What is it this time? she says. In a moment I’ll be sore as hell. I’m warning you. She intones my sentences, but without my rage.
I go on screaming and kicking my legs.
What do you want? she says quietly, caressing me. Without a doubt, she is the better mother.
I am the baby-monster, I say.
Mummy-monster, she corrects me laconically, then sits down on the carpet.
It is totally silent in the house — Sunday silent. Quietly, we watch Jim sleep. Two adults and a child on a Sunday morning. I cannot remember how I got here.
We want to go on an outing, I say to Jim.
He grunts.
With you, Lilli says.
It takes an hour and a half to get out of the city. I sing bloodcurdling children’s songs about foxes, cuckoos, and rabbits that are shot, and piglets that are suffocated, drowned, bewitched, and eaten; I read the same story six times and, with the glove puppet, say, Good day, about a hundred times.
I want ice cream! Lilli shouts.
Later, Jim and I say simultaneously.
From the back seat, I can see only his black curls touching the collar of his leather jacket, his dainty ears, his competent hand on the steering wheel. Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang, I sing quaveringly.
Sing nice, Lilli commands.
Lilli and I sing together, and yell: Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang! We get on Jim’s nerves. I get on his nerves. I can tell by the way he breathes: long, controlled breaths, in and out, in and out.
We’re moving at a snail’s pace. I see other mothers in other cars opening their mouths to sing, handing out candies, talking to squealing children. The fathers sit behind the wheel looking mutely and stoically ahead.
Why must I sing, Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang? I, too, want to be mute and sink into myself as into a pot of honey. Why must mothers talk and sing and argue and appease?
Sing, Lilli says.
We drive into a tunnel, and there is a traffic jam. Jim rolls up the windows and switches off the engine.
Sorry, I say. This outing was an idiotic idea.
He doesn’t answer.
Drive! Lilli yells. Then she’s quiet.
Everyone waits alone. I stare at the dark concrete walls surrounding us. A little green lamp showing the symbol of a man running toward an exit shines in the distance. Lilli looks at me, her great eyes luminous in the dark. Museum, she whispers, and only I know immediately what she means: In the museum we fled to on so many Sundays last winter, when the small house became hell and the weather did not permit even a walk, there was a light exhibit, a completely dark room in which only a weak green light shone. The longer we stayed in the room, the brighter the light seemed to become. After a time, I could recognize the outlines of other visitors, perhaps even their facial features.
I credit this room for the fact that I am still with Jim. In this room I began to hope that one day we would exit the dark that surrounds us, recognize each other as who we really are, and still love one another.
People murmur expectantly as the cabin doors of the sky tram close and the tram begins to move. Slowly, the cabin rises and we all gape at the view: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau float by on the right; Alpsee shines like a great blue eye; mountains stretch in front of us, the valley behind.
When we arrive at the top, Lilli throws herself onto the ground in front of a freezer beside a souvenir shop and yells, I want an ice cream!
Not like that, Jim says.
My tummy hurts! Lilli screams. I want an ice cream!
Anyone with a tummy ache doesn’t get ice cream, Jim says with deliberate calm. I see his carotid artery throb.
For God’s sake, I say quietly, buy her an ice cream or we’ll have hell on earth.
He looks at me crossly. Why do you always stab me in the back? he says.
The poor child, says an old woman passing by.
With one sudden motion, Jim picks the wriggling Lilli up off the ground, heaves her onto his shoulders, and takes off along the path to the cross at the summit.
I want ice cream! Lilli screeches, hammering her fists on Jim’s head.
I stumble after him on the steep, rocky path, feeling Jim’s anger with every step, like pebbles in my shoes. I see it in the folds of his shirt, in the way he keeps his head lowered, the way he forcefully sets one foot in front of the other.
Jolly, laughing children with jolly, laughing parents come toward us. They observe us critically; I lower my eyes. Mutely, we walk on with our screaming child. The cross at the summit is far away.
What do we actually want up there? I say quietly, so quietly that Jim could pretend he has not heard me.
He stops, looks at me. Beads of sweat run over his brow; if I were in love with him just now, I would wipe them off. Well, he says, do you want to turn back?
I don’t know, I murmur.
We stand silently.
I want ice cream! Lilli howls.
At least if we drive back now, we won’t get in another traffic jam, I say.
Whatever you want, Jim says indifferently. I turn away to keep from hitting his face with my fist. I want to hit them both. I want to hit them until they don’t move anymore, don’t say anything anymore, don’t belong to me anymore.
You don’t really want to go to the summit, I say. I can tell by the look on your face.
He turns his head. His profile against the blue sky is imposing. I know that right now he wishes he were a man without a family, a man who could climb a mountain whenever he wanted to, a man in charge of his own life.
Did we make the wrong decision? I say quietly.
He turns his head slowly, having immediately understood the question. I wait for his answer as I would an impending slap in the face.
I don’t know, Hannah, he says finally. I simply don’t know.
A high, penetrating sound rises in my ears, a whistling, like the noise from a faulty TV.
Jim does not move. He stands there like a horse, motionless, head lowered. He wants me to make the decision and be the guilty one — guilty of all the unhappiness, of the ruination of three lives. The whistling in my head becomes higher and higher, until it is not a sound anymore, only a pain.
Well, I gasp, let’s go on. Always on and on until nothing is left of us.
He turns on his heel and continues up the narrow path. I plod behind him, watching the heels of his shoes move mechanically up and down.
My tummy hurts! I want ice cream! Lilli shouts.
She says it another sixty-seven times before we reach the summit. I count, trying to be totally indifferent, like someone counting cars at a busy intersection. I admire her endurance.
Jim stops so suddenly that I almost collide with him. I lift my head. We are at the summit.
Glaciers glitter in the distance. The air tastes thin and sweet. The view takes my breath away.
In front of this panorama, beside the white cross marking the summit, a woman dances slowly, naked above the belt. Two young men with baseball caps and mirrored sunglasses stare at her, aghast. Another woman, with pearls braided into her long gray hair, sells herbs and crystals spread out on a cloth. Jim puts Lilli down and lights a cigarette. He does not look at me.
My tummy hurts, Lilli says. I want ice cream.
Determined, I walk over to the gray-haired woman and ask if she has something for stomachaches.
She recommends manna, a natural laxative. Breaking off a small piece from an elongated, shriveled dark brown pod, she hands the piece to Lilli and presses the rest into my hand. Lilli puts it in her mouth, chews twice, spits it out, and throws herself to the ground, screaming.
The gray-haired woman seems peeved. She looks at Lilli as if she were a strange animal, then points to the bare-breasted woman and says, Go ask Yella; she does massage.
Holding Lilli’s hand, I approach the dancer, whose breasts are not as young as I thought from a distance. She finishes a complicated-looking movement, then approaches me.
Stomachaches, Yella says, wrinkling her brow. Your child wants to tell you something.
Yes, I say, that she has a stomachache.
Yella raises her eyebrows, her voice becoming businesslike: Lay one hand on her solar plexus, she advises, and hold your other hand up toward the sun.
I look at her blankly. Yella tries to demonstrate on Lilli, but Lilli shrieks hysterically. So Yella puts her right hand on my stomach and stretches her left far above her head in the sun’s direction.
Let the sun’s energy flow through you and into your child, she says.
I want ice cream, Lilli moans.
Yella wants money for her advice.
How much? I say, amazed.
As much as you think my advice is worth, she replies.
So as not to offend her, I suggest twenty marks.
Yella appears shocked. Twenty marks? she says, and breathes indignantly.
I press the money into her hand, grab Lilli, and flee.
You haven’t paid for the manna yet! the gray-haired one calls after me, Seventeen-fifty!
Boiling with rage, I pay for the manna.
Jim has been watching me. He’s sitting on a rock, grinning. I offer him the shriveled pod. Here, I say: manna, heavenly manna.
He bites off a piece, chews, and smiles at me — a light, unexpected smile that does not stop, but increases; a smile that is truly for me.
I kneel on the ground, squeeze myself between his legs, lean my head against his chest.
Manna for Hannah, he says, and pushes a small piece of it between my lips. It tastes like an ancient, dusty fig. I close my eyes; orange-red dots dance in the black.
I want an ice cream, I hear Lilli say.
If she says it one more time, Jim whispers in my ear, I’ll forget myself.
Seventy, I murmur: that’s the seventieth time. I press my back against his groin, put my head on his leg, smell the detergent in his jeans.
A fat woman in shorts and a T-shirt, an enormous gold-colored bag over her arm, arrives at the summit, breathing heavily. She stops beside us and wipes her sweaty hair out of her face. The gold of her bag sparkles and blinds me; I press my face against Jim’s chest, close my eyes.
I want ice cream, I hear Lilli say from far away.
Seventy-one, Jim says. His voice vibrates against my ear.
He caresses the nape of my neck. I open a button of his shirt and, with eyes closed, kiss his chest. I feel his breath in my hair. My body melts. Jim slips his hand under my dress, onto my breast. I can feel his body tense, smell his skin. His scent shoots unexpected tears into my eyes. Small rivulets run from their corners and onto his chest. Tightly, tightly, I press my eyelids together, plunging myself into a dark room. Very clearly, I see the three of us — Jim, Lilli, and myself — as if we’d been photographed with a flash before a black wall. We take each other’s hands and fall together into the silent, soft blackness. Deeper and deeper we fall, without fear.
Lilli’s piercing shriek races through my body like an electric shock.
Lilli! I shout, jumping up even before my eyes are open.
In her hand, she holds an orange-red popsicle that shines like a little sun; carefully, she stretches out her tongue to lick it.
The fat woman shuts her golden bag and nods at Lilli. A bald man in a red-checkered shirt wheezes his way onto the summit and stops beside the woman. Without a word, she opens the golden bag and hands him a can of beer, watery ice sliding from it. The man pops open the can, drinks, and calls, Oh, isn’t that great? So high up!
“Manna” is excerpted fram Bin ich schön? (Am I Beautiful?) © 1994 by Diogenes Verlag, Zurich. Translation © 1997 by Gustav A. Richar.
— Ed.
