A Book of Memories (77 page)

With a single decisive stroke he drew the razor down the left side of my face, I could hear the fine crackle of my whiskers as they parted from the skin, chuckling inwardly at my own nervousness, because no matter how readily we may present our face to the razor and try to be very relaxed about it, fear for life makes the facial muscles tense and knotted, so we want to see that the razor hasn't gotten stuck somewhere and then slipped and cut the skin, our eyes almost pop from their sockets with curiosity, and at the same time we must continue to exude trust, since otherwise we might hinder the work and thus increase the danger, ourselves becoming the cause of a little accident as unpleasant for us as for the man with the razor, because if the skin is injured, suddenly raw hatred spills out from under the disguise of the intimate physical proximity and mutual attentiveness; he'd hate us for our annoyingly unpredictable skin, which makes a mockery of his skill and experience by having whiskers in swirling clumps, or simply hiding little lumps, not to mention peak-headed pimples, that get in the way of the razor; and we'd hate him for his clumsiness and, most of all, for having put ourselves thoughtlessly into his hands; and the mutual hatred only increases when, looking in the mirror and seeing blood trickling down, we both have to pretend it's nothing, and he begins to whistle in embarrassment and with a wild gesture wrapped in the guise of helpful routine picks up the styptic pencil and, causing more, stinging pain, even takes revenge on us; but so far nothing untoward happened; from the way he smeared the lather on his stretched-out finger and from there flung it into a little bowl, I could tell he was experienced; he turned my head and after stepping even closer, so that my nose almost brushed against his shirtfront, starched to an armorlike stiffness, and I could feel his slightly bent knee very close to my groin, he just as decisively shaved the right side of my face; but despite the barber's skill and experience, his almost surgeonlike precision, the skin remains tense and taut, we feel it quivering on our face, and the most sensitive areas are yet to come, the complex chin region, the neck, the throat, to say nothing of the fact that while he is jumping about brandishing the razor, the thought does occur to us: What if he should accidentally cut off our nose or ear, such horrors have been known to happen! but looking at him like this, from below, with upturned eyes, for all the attractive charm of his youth and strength I found his face somehow much too soft, and this exaggerated softness could be seen only from this angle; on his skin, under which you could sense a layer of white fat, the reddish fuzz had hardly begun to sprout; he'll never have to shave, I noted with satisfaction, he'll remain hairless like a eunuch, which you could also see in his large nostrils and capriciously curving mouth
—he was biting his lower lip as he delicately worked away on my chin—in a few years' time he'll probably grow a second chin, I thought, his big frame will run to fat, he'll pant and wheeze under the burden of his huge mass, and as my throat anticipated the ticklishly sensuous pleasure of the razor's touch, when he'd stretch the skin away from my Adam's apple and run the blade, smoothly and dangerously, over it, I lifted my hand so he couldn't see, and waiting until he got there, not before, and even then making it appear as though I did it from fear, without moving a muscle in the rest of my body, I placed my hand on his firm thigh.

The smooth muscles under my hand were hard, incredibly powerful, my palm was at a loss on them, seemed weak and insignificant, as if I were touching him in vain, for not only did this reveal nothing of his inner nature, it didn't even let me touch the surface, as if this surface, which of course I could feel, were only a cover on the real surface, a protective armor hard to the point of insensibility; this is what I could have thought if I had thought of anything, for it was clear that just as I could not register any reaction in his eyes and mouth or other features of his face bending over me, now I could not do so in his flesh either, no embarrassment, no consent, no rejection; his skin, face, and muscles remained as neutral as all his movements had been; I was the one who wanted to make this cruel neutrality my own, I reacted to him, not he to me; he didn't feel me, seemed not to understand me or, more precisely, didn't think there was anything to feel or understand.

It always seems pointless to make sweeping statements, but still, I have to say that never in my life, not before or after this incident, have I made a more senseless gesture.

By making it, though, I felt I had reached the peak or the bottom of my strange inclinations.

I couldn't just pull back my hand, anyway the gesture couldn't be undone; at the same time I felt nothing, even though I left my hand there; still working on my neck, he was untouched, as if my move had been only a figment of my imagination, which of course couldn't possibly reach him.

I wouldn't have minded if he had slit my throat at that moment.

If with a barely audible crack the razor had cut through the delicate cartilage.

And I couldn't close my eyes, waiting still for a telltale sign.

To shake into the bowl the lather accumulated on his finger he had to turn aside, which was the only reason he moved his thigh away from my hand.

The orphaned hand, a strange stump still part of my body, was empty, left hanging in the air.

He dipped the sponge in the water and, supporting my head with his arm, washed off my face.

In the meantime I could finally close my eyes.

"This is a cursed place, sir!" I heard him say in my darkness.

By the time I opened my eyes he was again leaning aside to throw the sponge back into the bowl, and there was no telltale sign.

"Some eau de cologne?" he asked, without turning around.

His perfect poise, seeming neither offended nor reproachful, cheered me, for it was as though together we had relegated my failed overture to the world's great junk heap of futile experiments.

"Yes, why not."

At the same time it also occurred to me that his strange statement may have been a secret allusion to those frightful nocturnal noises, the cries and shrieks that woke me from my first sound sleep, with which, for all I knew, he may have had something to do.

In which case my gesture was not an insult and may not have been completely in vain.

Holding the back of my head with one hand, pressing his little finger to my neck and sinking the others into my hair, he used his other hand to splash alcohol on my face.

He fanned my face with a cloth to make the alcohol evaporate more quickly
—at such moments we always feel especially refreshed—and for the first time in a long while we looked into each other's eyes.

He must have known something, the place may have been cursed, but the little event I had managed so successfully to force out of ourselves now made the place of my memories cozy and intimate, suggesting I wasn't mistaken, after all
—his glance remained dispassionate—yes, I'd be just fine here, the fire crackled away cheerfully in the stove, and I could hardly wait for him to gather his things and leave; as if driven by a slight fever, I was ready to pounce on my black briefcase, snap open its lock, spread my papers over the clear desk, and get to work, even if my bitter experiences warned against haste; things are never so simple as our desires would like them to be; one must delay things, one should skim the foam of tension from the bubbling brew of sensations, let it thicken and mellow, for the moment is never ripe when it appears to be! so when at last he closed the door behind him, I first stepped up to the window, then drew aside the white curtains, and the splendid sight indeed cooled me off.

I had a whole hour to myself before the little bell would sound, calling the guests to our commensal breakfast.

The autumn sky was bright, the slender red pines now stood motionless in the park, the night winds having died down completely, and although I could not see the sea from here, or the promenade along the shore, or the bathhouse, or the wide road leading to the station, or the seawall, marshland, and woods behind, yet I knew they were there, within reach, everything that could be important and painful was there.

I saw a few fallen leaves on the decorative tiles of the terrace.

Yes, everything was here, and therefore I could afford not to be here but in my imagined story.

To forget everything.

But wasn't this feeling of lightness nourished by the hope
—so lovely because unrealizable—with which I was deceiving myself that, having finally broken free of my future bride, now this young obliging servant was near me and I could summon him any time I wanted to? but then wouldn't I again be caught between two human beings?

Where, then, was my yearned-for solitude?

The thought unpleasantly linking the two of them in my mind was a pain at the pit of my stomach.

Why were they here, crowding me even in my solitude?

My mood did not darken, though; on the contrary, I was like someone who suddenly glances at his own body with a stranger's eyes and finds its proportions pleasing, not that he doesn't see its flaws and imperfections, and realizes, finally understands, that a living form is always delineated by the relationships among details which are shaped by unalterable processes; the imperfect has its own laws, which is what is perfect in it; functioning itself is perfect, existence is perfect, the unique and unalterable order of disproportions is perfect
—why was this made clear to me only now, on my thirtieth birthday, I wondered, why at this mysterious turning point in my life? after all, ever since I could remember, ever since I had become aware that one's body has a life of its own, I had suffered from a sense of always being cast between two things, two phenomena, two people, as though between two crushing millstones! this was part of my earliest memories! for example, when, divided yet unshared, my body was between those of my mother and father on our long late-afternoon walks on the waterfront promenade, my parents may have been full of mutual hostility and murderous rage toward each other—because their bodies were irreconcilable—yet I not only felt identified but wanted to identify with both of them; I neither could divide myself between them nor had any intention of doing so, even if they had wanted to tear me apart; and indeed, I may have been torn apart, for my features, build, and character were undecided between them; I took after both, and after others as well, many others; only for the sake of simplifying things do we speak of a dual division, a dual likeness, for in reality I also resembled my dead forebears, who lived on in my features and gestures; but now it made me quite happy that these two people, my bride and this valet, strangers to each other, wound up so disturbingly close in my thoughts, for how could I possibly decide, know for sure, or have a say about what I was permitted or not permitted to do if I knew nothing about the origin of anything? how could I share what was unsharable in me? everything is permitted, I decided: yes, I'd be the most obstinate anarchist, and not only because fortuitous events in my youth had led me into the company of anarchists (and those years couldn't simply be dismissed, nor the fact that it wasn't high-minded goals and intellectual aspirations that made me join them), but also because I have always been an anarchist of the body, believing that there is no God besides the body, and that only a completed physical act can redeem my body, when I can feel the infinite abundance of my possibilities.

And you know what you can do with your morality.

For me, the valet's temperate thighs, and seeing the tarred wall of the pissoir while dreaming of my fiancée's loins, were no frivolous adventures.

Later, when I walked into the dining room and my eyes were hit by a sudden burst of morning sunshine, flashing and sparkling on the myriad surfaces of glass, mirrors, silverware, and china, not to mention people's eyes, I felt in my limbs this fresh morning brightness, a cozy well-being, the superiority of rebelliousness, and was glad I could immediately share it, look into those eyes with it, and glad that the sea was there, outside the window, still dark and rough from last night's storm, still foamy but gradually subsiding.

And if anything interested me, it was the filthy immorality of this rotten God.

And now I was glad that I had to observe some of those detestable rules of civilized conduct, which I looked down on with the awareness of my superiority, in the knowledge that I was once again in possession of my body.

I found it an infinitely beautiful piece of pious hypocrisy that I, who only two days earlier had made love to my fiancée on the floor of my apartment and a short while ago had felt up the thigh of a valet, was now standing between the open wings of the dining-room door and, blinded a little by the dazzling light, with impunity smiled my most polite smile while listening to the hotelier, a portly, jovial, bald little man, none other than the son of the onetime owner, yes, that's who it was
—when we were both children, he would often knock down the sand castles young Count Stollberg and I had built on the beach, and not only that but, being a few years older than we, had also beaten us mercilessly for daring to protest—this same man, in a loud and solemn yet congenially paternal voice, was now introducing me to the other guests, and I kept bowing in every direction, making sure everyone partook of my glance, just as they kept nodding, making certain their glances were polite enough and did not betray curiosity.

At luncheon and supper everyone could choose from the abundant selection of food and sit at one long table to emphasize the more informal, familial character of these meals, as opposed to dinner, which was served more ceremoniously at five in the afternoon and at which we dined in small groups at separate tables; now there was no need to wait until everyone arrived; with the help of waiters posted around the table, guests could start eating as soon as they sat down, and in this regard nothing had changed in twenty years
—I wouldn't have been surprised to find Mother at my table, or Privy Councillor Peter van Frick, or my father and Fräulein Wohlgast—the very same elegant silver flatware made the same clanging sound on the pale-blue, garland-patterned plates, although they must have gone through several sets since then; the heavy silver serving dishes were arranged with the same casual artistry, offering their varied courses in the form of a quaint relief map dedicated to good taste and designed to titillate the palate: firm heads of light-green artichokes dipped in tangy marinade, lobsters red and steaming in their shells, translucent pink salmon, rows and rows of sliced glazed ham and delicately braised veal, caviar-filled eggs, crispy endives, golden strips of smoked eel on dewy lettuce, various pâtés shaped in cones and balls—game terrine with truffles, fish mousse, pâté de foie gras—slender pickled gherkins, slabs of yellow Dutch cheese, bluefish in aspic, tart, sweet, and pungent sauces and creams in cups and dainty pitchers; mounds of fragrant warm toast, fresh fruit in multitiered crystal shells, crayfish of various kinds and sizes, quails baked crispy red, tiny sausages still sizzling in a pan, nut-filled quince jellies (of which I could never have enough as a child), and of course there were the warm fragrances filling the room, the evanescent whiffs of perfumes, colognes, pomades, and powders released with every gesture, and the harmonious music of crackling, swishing, jangling, splashing, and clinking rising above and submerged in the waxing and waning din of chatter, laughter, sighs, giggles, and whispers; had one decided to stand aside for a moment to find a secure spot in this well-ordered confusion, one would feel as though one were about to cast oneself into a turbulent icy river: gaze already cloudlessly vacant, obliging smile already on his lips, occasionally freezing into an unpleasant grin, and in his muscles the stirrings of pompous self-awareness, necessary if one is to abandon cozy solitude and make contact with others in a safely inconsequential maneuver, because one knows that here anything might happen, even though the public setting precludes the possibility of anything meaningful; nowhere do we feel the pleasant and unpleasant theatricality of our existence, the reality of peaks and valleys in our falseness and in the noble obligation of lying, as we do in company, when everyone is as politely vague as we are elusive, the strain of simultaneous attack and retreat making them vague and unreachable, and this, in turn, makes us feel drained, tired, and superfluous when on our own, and at the same time gratefully light-headed, too, for at the secret bidding of our desires things happen which in reality do not.