– the colour of lilac gushed from the stone, then all at once a pale blue, and a songbird settled on it: that is what Klara said, more or less, and he listened, enchanted.
It was the 12th of August of 1905, a lovely summer day; they were sitting on a lawn and she was wearing the whitest of all her white dresses and he thought: stone, lilac, such a white dress, such a young girl, such shame, such great, frightening happiness –
What is the blackbird singing, Andreas, she asked suddenly, can you hear the blackbird, can you?
But since he didn’t answer, she continued: the blackbird is singing. But not for us! No, certainly not for us – and even less for you: you’re a coward, nothing more Andreas. Let me tell you! For example: what do you see when you look around you? What do you see ? The summer, maybe?
The summer! Don’t make me laugh! You’re boring me, talk to me please, haven’t they left us alone so we can talk in private? So you can make a proposal? So do it! Propose! I’m all ears, I’m listening to what you have to say –
The boys played their harmless games on the lawn, and in their pretty white dresses the girls – since they weren’t allowed to tear off beetles’ legs or make swell toads -- practised the subtle cruelties that give life its ambivalent flavour, it irresistible attraction for the abyss. They played Madame Dorè and it was always the fattest, homeliest girls who were the first to be married, and from then on they had to crouch down in the grass with their heads bowed, as quiet as mice. For them the game was soon over, but none of them ever protested. Almost as if they didn’t care, they put up with being made fun of and excluded, sweating without complaint in their dresses and petticoats.
Perhaps they’d learned this from their mothers, who meanwhile were growing hysterical, one after the other, under a huge white-and-blue-striped sun umbrella.
It’s so hot!
It’s really unbearable!
Occasionally one of them would faint and then restore herself with the help of some salts. This was normal. It would pass. In a country outing you couldn’t expect everything to be perfect. On the other hand, at least there was the possibility of a bit of distraction, of losing yourself in the latest gossip, and so in the end it was worth the trouble.
Foolishness and claptrap.
While the women were hinting at the infinite nuances of love true and false, the old men were silent or discussed politics. They were the lucky ones, they’d almost reached the end of life! But among the boys and the girls and the more-or-less forty year old women, unhappily married and with no lovers, life was still in its full, and was handled with thorns and jolts, plucked as was its due!
It was, as we remember, a brilliant afternoon in August and two young people, according to uncle Anton’s plan, were finally supposed to meet. If all went well, the wedding would be celebrated before the year was over. Klara would finally be taken care of and he could start all over, a new life –
So, my dear Andreas, Klara went on, where were we? I don’t remember, and anyway the topics of our conversation are totally irrelevant, aren’t they? I was talking about a stone, lilac-coloured, pale blue and – about a blackbird. I wanted to be considerate, even to make you feel better - I hope you appreciate my amenability. I could have talked about the blackest of blacks, for example: about a canvass on which you can only see the colour black! You don’t believe me? Yet the day will come, and it’s not so far, when there will be pictures like that and the whole world will applaud the artists! Do you understand what I mean? Do you, yes or no?
Lord, it’s warm, I’m too hot for words! You’ve no idea how tight my corset is, it’s an unbearable fashion, but if I shut my eyes I can see myself flying –
Would you like to join me, would my future husband like to take off his jacket and dare a dance with his adored one? Say I am your adored one, and that you would do anything for me and that you love me as you’ve never loved anyone before! Oh, Andreas, you’ve no idea what’s it’s like when words get mixed up in your head, when the threads get hopelessly tangled into knots, when you can no longer manage to produce a single distinct thought, yet all at once you realize that for the very first time you’ve been able to play a trick on falsehood –
Everything has its price, my dear Andreas, you should know that better than anyone else: haven’t you been working in your father’s office for three years? Uncle Anton says: he is promising, this young man, very promising indeed! Wouldn’t you like, dear Andreas, rather than being a very promising young man, to go down into the depths with your adored Klara? Who said, who dared to say, that a stone will never deign to bloom? Foolishness!
The earth, Andreas, listen, the black earth is opening up under our feet, now, at this very instant, because I want it to, because I order it to, and you will come with me into the bowels of the earth – else go back to your father’s office and busy yourself with the most insignificant things in the world!
Decide!
Look over there, how the boys are still tormenting the toads, how the old men blather and the women feel they’re suffocating, one after the other, if only they could tear off all those clothes –
But what is your Klara saying! Excuse me, dear, I wasn’t paying attention! Now let’s remember: they left us alone so that you could pop the question. Do it, then! Say it! I think uncle must be growing impatient. He’s looking our way, it’s clear that he’s nervous about the success of his enterprise. He loves me, he wants to be free of me, he wants to begin a new life, he can’t stand my paintings in the house any more, because he knows I’m right!
Just think that once, not long ago, he found me in the kitchen giving a hand to the cook. I was plucking a chicken whose neck had just been wrung. It was still warm and when I’d finished plucking it – the cook was very pleased with the job I’d done – I dipped my right hand into its abdomen. That’s how uncle found me sitting when he came into the kitchen, without warning. And, dear Andreas, believe it or not, he didn’t scold me! He simply looked at me, he almost smiled: even he, I think, doesn’t live his life as he’d like to.
But he’s too reserved to admit it, and I love him even more for that. He spends his evenings alone in his library. He has no friends, he prefers the company of his books. He reads Maupassant. Balzac, too, but mostly Maupassant, whom he thinks is the saddest writer of all. Every year he commemorates the anniversary of his wife’s death with a concert at which he is the only spectator. I don’t resent the fact that he’s never invited me to join him, because I know that’s the way he’s made. He’s a man who likes to observe others from afar. He’s never told me he cares about me. He’s afraid, you see, he’s afraid of me –
You’re afraid of me, too, Andreas, aren’t you? Would it terrify you if I told you that at night, at times dressed only in my nightgown, I leave the house to embrace a tree in the garden? Strange habit, isn’t it? I always wonder if uncle knows, if he’s ever seen me, by chance, on a night when the moon is full, or if he’s even stayed to watch me sometimes? I don’t know, but often I imagine that uncle is watching me from behind the window, while I offer the tree my most tender caresses.
You say nothing, Andreas. And you are right.
I could say I was sorry, but that’s not the least bit true. You’ve forgotten all the beautiful words and phrases that you wanted to lay at my feet to make me your betrothed, as they say. You want to make me happy, I know, but what is happiness? Is it white on white and black on black, or is it black on white? Is it sameness or difference? Is it a harmless landscape under the spring sun or eternal carnage before the uncaring eyes of the Lord?
Look at how the children are having fun! Now they’re hitting each other with big sticks, while over there by the pond the fat, ugly girls are still crouching in the grass, silent for the shame of being ugly! Funny, don’t you think? It’s really laughable! But I understand, you don’t feel like laughing right now, of course! You’d like to get rid of you prophetess at last, you’d like to propose properly, with all those beautiful words you’ve been stringing together for days. It’s only natural. Now, my dear, I’m all ears, speak and I shall hear you. You already know the answer !
Thus spoke Klara, and meanwhile her glance slid towards the others and in the end got stuck on the favourite greys of her uncle, whose dark eyes had at that very instant settled on the slight indentation between her neck and her shoulders, where he’d found an obscure peace an infinite number of times. Now Klara could hear Andreas speaking to her, an indistinct murmur reached her ears as though from afar, but she made no effort to understand what he was saying.
At a certain point there was silence, and after allowing a proper amount of time to pass she said with a smile: Of course the answer is yes! With great pleasure will I be your wife! Come, let’s go and call uncle now! He must be the first to know! She jumped up, her shoulder still burning, and running up to uncle Anton threw her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear: You see, it’s just as I told you, the stone deigns to bloom when and how it likes, the die is cast, the very last brushstroke has been made, and now, I believe we can at long last begin –
translated by Brenda Porster
Stefanie Golish was born 1961 in Germany. Having taken her degree (1987) and her Ph.D (1991) in literature at the University of Hannover, she published critical works on Uwe Johnson (1994) and Ingeborg Bachmann (1997). Since 1998 she has also published stories and translations from Italian and from English (Antonia Pozzi 2005, Charles Wright 2007, Gëzim Hajdari in progress, Cristina Campo in progress).
She has also published Vermeers Blau (short story, 1998) and Pyrmont (short story, 2006) as well as numerous essays, stories and translations in literary reviews in Germany and Austria ( “Neue Rundschau”, “Akzente”, “Sprache im technischen Zeitalter”, “Ostragehege”)
In 2002 she won the Würth Prize for Literary, and since 2007 she has edited the literary blog www.lapoesiaelospirito.wordpress.com.