Telegrams of the Soul (14 page)

“Some strength you got in you if you ain't got none to spend!?” said sweet Anna.

“Let 'im be—,” said Hansi, “everybody knows what he's gotta do. Even the sun probably don't do him no good no more—.”

“Do you despise me too?” said the tanned man, turning to one of the girls who was reading a dime novel, totally immersed in it.

“Why should I despise you? I don't even know you.”

“How did you get started in this kind of life?” said the natural man softly. Such is the standard question of all dilettantes of life.

“My story wouldn't interest the gentleman much—.”

“On the contrary. You seem to me to have been born for something better!” Second standard line of the dilettante!

“I was corrupted—.”

“Aha, by love!”

“No, not love!”

“Then by desire!”

“No, they plied me with drink, on a picnic—.”

“By alcohol then! It's got to have been one of the three poisons—.”

He categorized it all under the rubric “alcohol.”

Anna brushed by and said: “Hey, Mr. Robinson Crusoe, don't you go and corrupt this innocent thing—.”

The Danube island man walked over to the open window, peered out at the darkness of the narrow street lit only with a glaring fleck of light from the pissoir, and took in a breath of the foul air with evident disgust. Then he said: “You've got too little respect for sunlight and fresh air, that's your problem!”

The girls were momentarily befuddled by the thought that they actually might perhaps have too little respect for sunlight and fresh air. Since up till then they really had no respect for it at all.

Only Friederike, who never wanted to hear her named shortened into “Fritzerl” because she was the one they always called that, spoke up: “Well, we've got a better sense of humor than you, Mister—.”

“Zip it,” said the other girls, “don't hurt the guy's feelings, that ain't right—.”

“Farewell, you fallen soul!” said the man and left.

“With our best regards, Mr. Robinson Crusoe—,” Anna called after him.

“What'd you all tell me to zip it for when I put that sorry sap in his place?!?” said Friederike.

“You can't just go 'n rub their nose in the truth; he might still have picked one to take upstairs—.”

“No way, not that sun nut; all his sun-soaked strength makes him weak where it counts—.”

__________________

*
Viennese slang for brothel

The little room is flooded with the scent of a mountain meadow. In the light brown wash basin lies a thick bunch of Daphne Cneorum, rose-colored asters.

“Daphne Cneorum—,” he remarks upon entering, savoring all the types of alpine laurel with their fine fragrance and color, and thinks of mountainsides bathed in sunlight.

“The hell with my flowers—,” she says. “What do you care what they're called—?”

She undresses and crawls into bed.

“Say, what'd Max mean?! Are you fellahs really not going to come by no more?”

“No—,” he says, “it costs money and people talk. What are we, whoremongers?! For heaven's sake!”

Silence.

“Well then, that's that—,” she says softly.

He inhales the clear scent of woman's breath and mountain meadow.

She lies there motionless.

Then she says: “It's a damn shame, it is—. I was proud of you all, proud—. I always said: ‘My friends—!' Maybe I didn't act like I should have. I shoulda pulled the wool over your eyes, made a scene, a comedy—.”

“Come on, sweetheart, don't be such a child—,” he says and kisses her hand.

“You're fine fellahs, ain't you—,” she says, “fine as silk! Why'd you bother coming?! What for?! Nothing to be done—. That's all: ‘Nothing to be done about it.' I can't put it into pretty words, but that's all—. I got thoughts in my head too, see—. That Robert, he's such a dear. I'll tell you a little story. But you can't go blabbing it around town. One time he said to me: “You're tired, Anna, better sleep—.” “ 'S'at what we came up for?!” I says. “Tired is tired—,” he says. “It's just like after a hike in the mountains—.” Ain't that sweet, though—?! I really did fall asleep. Why did I trust him? He's not really my type. But he said: “Go ahead, Anna, sleep!”

Silence. She sighs. Silence—.

“You're a fine lot. Fine as silk. I'm really gonna miss you's—.”

Silence.

“Nothing to be done—. Tell Max—.”

“Tell him what?!”

“Nothing———.”

Silence.

“Why'd you ever bother coming?! What for?! I don't get it. You're fine as silk. I think I'm gonna dry up—.”

The little room smells of Daphne Cneorum—.

She climbs out of bed and plunks herself in an easy chair.

Then she opens the Venetian blinds and the morning spills in like a mountain stream.

“Shut the blind—,” he says.

She lets down the blind, crawls back into bed.

“I have friends, three friends—!! Black Bertha, she'll never get it. The dumbbell! Listen up—my heart is hurting.”

He says: “Alright then, we'll be back. But what good does it do you?! We just bother you. Anyways, come June, we're going away. Max is going to the seashore, Robert's going to the mountains———.”

She: “Am I holding you back or what———?!”

She falls asleep.

He feels inside: “Sleep! Extinguisher of consciousness, wave breaker—!”

He thinks: “We're like dumb fate, breaking and entering a human heart, tearing open the white gates of friendship, letting the light come spilling in like a mountain stream—! Then we go and say: ‘What are we, whoremongers?! For heaven's sake, sweetheart, give us a break—!' ‘Adieu,' she says softly. ‘Am I holding you back or what—?!' That's just the way life is, we tell ourselves. A splendid excuse!”

The little room is flooded with the scent of Daphne Cneorum. It's like the incense of mountain meadows—.

The poor soul sleeps.

Sleep-extinguisher of consciousness! Wave breaker—!

The two well-established artists sat together in a little after-hours café engaged in a heated discussion on the innate brutality evident in the “I-ism” of one's fellow man! They stressed the term “
I
-ism” as if thereby precisely to emphasize the fact that: The rest of the world says “Egotism!”

Whereupon the young lady seated nearby said: “What the hell are you two talking about, huh?! What's all this crap supposed to mean? Listen up, just this morning my madame herself served me with a signed writ of seizure. That don't exist, does it, a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure?! It don't exist! Right?”

“Pardon, Miss, but we're no lawyers—.”

“Who needs lawyers?! Listen up! Anybody with a little book learning has got to know that there ain't never been no such thing as a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure! Can you imagine such a thing!? The whole world would be doing nothing else but serving each other writs! Just use your brains a little, fellahs, will ya?!”

The artists discussed the fact that the puffed-up Mr. B. is so full of himself that he hears and sees nothing, like a woodcock in a fir tree. Can't always keep claiming to be blinded by sexual frenzy like the wild fowl!

The girl started whimpering about how she'd been personally served with a signed writ of seizure by her madame. She once again explained to the gentlemen that there ain't never been no such thing as a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure.

So the gentlemen agreed that they'd never heard of such a thing and started kissing up to the girl, presuming her to be somewhat consoled now that they'd concurred.

But the young lady wasn't quite yet up to it. So the gentlemen told her that she'd missed her calling in life; that she was a weepy whore. If she went on like that she'd never lure a lousy dog.

The girl just stared at the end of her nose: “There ain't no such thing as a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure!”

Now the artists took a somewhat more participatory stance and
said: “How much do you actually owe her? How much can it possibly be?!”

The girl replied hopefully: “35 Guldens!”

The artists: “What?! For such a pittance?! And that's all she's blubbering about! Well for crying out loud, you can easily pay it off in installments!”

The girl felt: “Deadbeats, go hang yourselves!”

The artists went ahead and figured out that in weekly installments of only five Guldens she could pay it all off in less than seven weeks. Every penny of it. Or else she could pay it off in monthly installments of 20 Guldens. Or, better yet, daily, a Gulden a day. They agreed that a Gulden a day would be best.

The girl sat there and kept on crying.

The artists got fed up and left.

Outside they said: “What's the use of trying to help a body? You go figure your head off for a stranger! And what do you get for your troubles?! Ingratitude!”

Now the down at the heels waiter walked up to the girl: “Listen, honey, what do you say the two of us head to the courthouse together at 8
A.M.
!? There ain't never been no such thing as a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure! This country's got laws!”

So they went home together to hammer out the details. There were another three hours left till 8
A.M
., which time they put to good use.

At 8
A.M
., her prince in shining armor said to her: “Know what, Mitzi, it's better not to start any trouble with a court of law. I'm sure your madame ain't that mean-hearted. Know what, Mitzi, better pay it back in installments!”

By this time, the girl was all wiped out, and muttered softly as she dozed off: “There ain't never been no such thing as a personally signed and delivered writ of seizure. Ain't that right, Bud?!”

Heinrich Frauenlob, Walter von der Vogelweide, Hölty, Hölderlin, where are you tonight?!? Are your velvet doublets moth-eaten, are your locks all tousled by the storm?!

Here I stand, a seventeen-year-old, in the dead of night on the veranda of a country villa, with my nightgown open, ready to drop my comb so that you can press it against your lips and carry it around down darkened streets, your lips infused with silent songs.

Where are you?!? You dreamy ones?! Dreamers dreaming of us!?

Gentlemen, I danced this afternoon on the lawn in the melancholic old Herzogspark, held my dress with both hands and danced—.

Will you please dream of it tonight, dream of me dancing in the melancholic old Herzogspark holding my dress in both my hands??

Will nobody dream of it tonight?!?

Dream, will you please dream of it! You dreamless ones!

Listen up, gentlemen! I danced this afternoon on the lawn in the melancholic old Herzogspark naked as the day I was born; and I held no dress in my two hands, for I had none on and was naked!

Dream of it! You dreamless ones!

Oh you wretch, you wretch! You took me and used me—!

But dream of it! Dream of it, I beg you, at least this night and the next!

No, he did not dream of it, but slept soundly and deeply like a satiated beast—.

The Cabaret Fledermaus really goes all out to please. Following the appearance of the universally acclaimed and much heralded Wiesenthal Sisters, the Cabaret now brings us a young Moroccan dancer. And all this at a time of day, five in the afternoon, when “the idle world” is particularly prone to idling around. Well now you can wile away the time with the exceptional. The altogether new is preferable to the habitual, as pithy as the latter may be. It's an energizing stimulant like tea, coffee, cigarettes. However skeptical and reserved you might be, something or other of the inertly traditional is rattled and disturbed. You start tallying up your carefully guarded capital of what was, sifting out the true worth; it spawns a change in you, a change for the better. For the stamp collector who suddenly sees that coins are also beautiful, it's the beginning of a recognition that both may be beside the point, not an end to which to devote your life! But something must move forward in us, move forward, forward march! Morocco introduces a new rhythm in our limbs. Long live Morocco! We see before us an unaccustomed kind of light brown skin, muscles developed in an unaccustomed way. The sword dance is strangely astonishing, the belly dance is strangely stirring. How wondrous is woman's body without the deception of drapery! It is so natural that one can no longer fathom that crime “tricot.” Goethe once admired for hours on end a young woman in her God-given perfection. He was happy not to touch even her fingertips. He considered himself sufficiently satisfied at the mere sight of her. He went away pleased as never before. Our sense of modesty focuses on imperfection. It gets caught up with that which is hidden, rightfully indignant that what we see does not bespeak the original concept of the Creator. But the orange-colored skin of Sulamit Rahu passes the test of perfection before the eye of the artist. The nobly grotesque dance of Gertrude Barrison in her green costume designed by Kolo Moser, in which she resembles a new unknown species of bird, carries us away to likewise exceptional worlds. In one of the dancer's indescribably lovely and engaging spoken texts she declares before starting to
dance that all women conform in a cowardly fashion to that to which they are spiritually or economically beholden. Beholden only to her own spirit, she, however, sought to ensnare no one, not even the public. What follows then is a grotesque dance infused with the friskiness and clowning of a child. On top of all that a hairdo that ought to catch on among others endowed with an equally lovable face! But only among them! The third exceptional act is Lina Loos. An uncommon personality, she delivers her extraordinary recitation accompanied by an oboe and in blue moonlight. The young lady expresses her pain and her despair that the man in question does not respond romantically. She dreams of Minnesänger
*
and an entanglement with Mr. So and So. A veritable Altenberg in a newfangled frame. We see before us a wonderfully attractive and frustrated woman, whose complaint we fathom directly, not merely through the byway of a sympathetic poet's heart. And that oboe melody is so poetic! Band leader Scherber composed it. The whole thing is presented as an attack on the feeble reality of daily life. That's why everyone is initially against it and almost offended by it. Even for carefree kids there's only one Christmas a year, one birthday, one nameday. And with grownups, isn't it all the more so? The holidays of the soul and the senses are all too scarce. Poets keep proclaiming them but they never come! So we resign ourselves and make do with the puff. What else can we do? In any case, we'd better not scorn the dreaming poets who point the way to that which we might actually need!