I'm Not Stiller (32 page)

'And what about the bull?' she asked with an undertone of partiality. 'What about the bull?' He knows by now that it is a matter of life and death and that he will never again plough an Andalusian field. Smothered in blood and with a quivering sheaf of six
banderillas
hanging in his flesh by their barbs, the bull stands still, showing the first signs of exhaustion, and tries to rid himself of his pain by shaking offhis sheaf of gaily coloured darts, but in vain. Stiller showed her the barbs on the two
banderillas.
'And you call that beautiful?' she asked. Stiller didn't call it 'beautiful', but there was something about it, apparently, that fascinated him, something painful too, almost something personal. In contrast to the lady, he was emphatically impartial; but he experienced it all very much from the bull's angle, once clutching at his neck as though he had felt this sheaf of gaily coloured
banderillas.

'And then,' he remarked dispassionately, 'the last round opens.' Sibylle watched it from the couch, incapable of lighting the cigarette she had long ago placed between her lips. 'Thank you,' she said, showing her silver Dunhill lighter, 'I've already got a light.' Well then, the last round, Stiller dubbed it grace versus crude force, light against darkness, spirit against nature. The spirit appears in the guise of a silvery white matador, his naked sword under a red cloth, not to kill, oh no, but to conquer, to perform the figures of deadly peril, one after the other, without retreating a step, elegance is all, cowardice is worse than death, the aim is a victory of the spirit over animal life, and only when he has withstood these dangers, withstood them according to all the rules of the art, only then may he use his sword. Silence fills the arena, with all the rage of exhaustion the bull perceives the red cloth again and charges; the silvery white matador stands firm and the sword plunges, the audience go wild with acclamation and the bull stands with outspread legs, waiting, and suddenly he collapses to the front or falls sideways and dies, His eyes roil, his legs stretch out, the rest is an inert lump, a black mass. Hats spiral down into the arena, flowers, ladies' gloves, cigars, wicker bottles, oranges ... Then at last Sibylle used her Dunhill lighter, and the conversation was open again—

There was no love-making.

'Your wife is a dancer?' asked Sibylle at one point, but she learned little about this woman whom Stiller had turned into a vase; in fact, to judge by his attitude, she was really only a beautiful, rare, dead vase, to which Stiller was married, an object that was only present when Stiller thought of it; and at the moment Stiller had no real wish to think of it. On the other hand, were Sibylle's comments on her Rolf any more informative? Anyhow, there was one thing she did not tell him: that Rolf, her husband, was spending the night in London and would not be back until the following day. Why should she bother him with that? She was quite bothered enough herself by the thought of this 'freedom'...

'Did Sturzenegger ever show you our plans?' she asked, and this question led all of a sudden to a sensible conversation, for Stiller turned out to be an ardent champion of modern architecture, about which he knew something, enough, anyhow, to make Sibylle interested for the first time in her own building, to make her enthusiastic in fact, enthusiastic about her own house. It was (so she says) such a pleasant, matter-of-fact, sensible conversation that Stiller had no difficulty in saying, 'You'll stay to supper, won't you?'

Actually, of course, it had never occurred to Sibylle to stay to supper; at most she had reckoned with the possibility of having a meal together somewhere in town. 'Can I help you?' she asked rather awkwardly, as Stiller filled a saucepan with water and, still talking about architecture, set it on the old-fashioned gas stove. 'Do you like rice?' he inquired casually, lighting the gas. Of course, Sibylle had made up her mind to leave around nine o'clock, or ten o'clock at the very latest. 'Rice?' she replied at last. 'That'll be lovely.' Stiller had to get the garnishings for a Spanish rice dish, and after the bullfight a Spanish dish was the only possible choice; he had to hurry, otherwise the shops would be shut in his face. After a quick glance into his purse, which was obviously not always full, Stiller went out and left his visitor alone in the studio...

During this half-hour, Sibylle felt rather strange. What did she want? And what didn't she want? Now she had time to think it over. She stood at the big window that looked out on the Great Minster, smoking and trying to remember where she had parked her car, Rolf's car, and couldn't remember because there was so much else going through her head. Ridiculous! Supper in a studio—what did that amount to? Sibylle was then twenty-eight. She had loved twice in her life, no more and no less, and both times it had been an incursion into a life, into the other person's life. The first man she loved, a teacher to whom she owed her school-leaving certificate, divorced his wife, and the second man married her. She had no talent for mere philandering. Or could this be learnt? A jolly fancy-dress-ball pierrot, such as Stiller had seemed to her three weeks ago, and on top of that an artist, in other words a man without moral scruples, an impudent and experienced rascal who was yet enough of a gentleman to mention no names afterwards—that might be just the thing to give Rolf, her self-confident husband, the fright he had been needing for a long time. Only it seemed that Stiller was anything but an impudent rascal. The closer she came to know him the shyer he was, the more sympathetic, and in reality, here in his studio, there was nothing much left of the jolly pierrot. Stiller was a witty, but secretly very depressed man, a man who had invisible
banderillas
in his neck and was bleeding. Also he was married. Why didn't they live together, Stiller and his ballerina? It was all very unclear. Was it a marriage that had failed, or a perfect marriage? In no case was it simple. What would happen if Sibylle really loved him? And this danger existed. Then again Sibylle said to herself, Nonsense! and turned down the gas flame a little because the water with the rice was already boiling. How different men could be. Sibylle had never met a man who shopped for her and cooked, all without the slightest inquiry as to what he should buy or how he should cook. Once the telephone rang. Naturally she didn't lift the receiver. The ringing had given Sibylle a disproportionate fright. Was it his wife? There was no reason why Sibylle should not have frankly introduced herself to his wife. Ridiculous! Sibylle positively wished that his wife would come in now. Or was it a sweetheart, who had rung so shrilly, so obstinately?

His spatula on the big table, the full ashtrays everywhere, which Sibylle would have liked to empty, all sorts of unfamiliar tools, the rather grubby drying-up cloth, newspapers all over the place, a tie on the door, all this was very masculine, his library rather boyish compared with Rolf's academic bookshelves, and Joseph Stalin not quite so frightening as usual, but nevertheless alien, not her type. Sibylle was pleased with everything that appeared to her strange. And his sculptures (I believe) seemed to her even stranger than Joseph Stalin. Was Stiller a real artist? She admitted to herself that in an exhibition she would have passed by such things. She forced herself not to pass them by, but to form an opinion that would preserve her from love. This wasn't difficult: she didn't love Picasso either, not yet. And these things were much the same. Sibylle couldn't remember ever having read his name in the
Neue Züricher Zeitung;
but even if Stiller were not a real artist, did this preserve her, from loving him?

She felt a great temptation to open a drawer here and there, but of course she didn't do so. Instead she turned the pages of a sketchbook, staggered by the feeling that she had fallen in love with a master, to judge by his sketches. Why was he so long? She hoped nothing had happened to him. A drawer that was almost open anyway contained all sorts of things, but no clues to Stiller's innermost life; it was an attractive, almost boyish muddle—shells, a dusty tobacco pipe, electric fuses, wire pipe-cleaners, which her little Hannes would have so much liked to have, and all sorts of coins, receipts, overdue bills, a dried starfish, a bunch of keys that made one think of Bluebeard, an electric bulb, an army pay-book, rubber patches for repairing bicycle tyres, sleeping powder, candles, a rifle bullet, and also an old, but perfectly preserved brass plate bearing the name
STILLER-TSCHUDY...

When Stiller entered, carrying paper bags, Sibylle was just standing in front of a photograph of the Acropolis with storm clouds. 'Have you been to Greece too?' she asked. 'Not yet,' he answered gaily. 'But we can go there, the frontier is open again now.' He had managed to get his tinned crab and also paprika, instead of rabbit, some fowl, tomatoes, peas, sardines instead of some other small fish, and he was ready to start cooking. Sibylle was allowed to lay the table, rinse the glasses, and warm the plates. Even the salad he had to make himself; Sibylle was only permitted to taste, express delight, and wash the wooden dish. When the telephone rang again, Stiller did not lift the receiver, and for a time his gaiety seemed to have vanished. When the Valencia rice stood on the table smelling delicious, Stiller washed his hands and dried them with manly composure, as though there were no cause for festive animation. They sat down to their first meal together. 'How do you like it?' he asked, and Sibylle stood up, wiped her mouth, and gave him the kiss he had earned by his masculine culinary skill. (Rolf couldn't even make himself a scrambled egg!) They set to. 'Your health!' he said rather awkwardly. There followed a matter-of-fact conversation about the great difference between tinned crab and fresh crab—

And so on.

When ten o'clock struck from the nearby Great Minster, loud enough for Sibylle to hear it distinctly, she couldn't think of leaving, despite her resolution—'You mustn't forget,' Stiller was just saying, 'that I was frightfully young. One day you wake up and read in the newspaper what the world expects of you. The world! In actual fact, of course, it was only written by a well-meaning snob. But suddenly you're a white hope. And along come those who have already arrived, wanting to shake your hand and make themselves pleasant, simply out of fear, as though they were Goliaths scared of young David. It's ridiculous. But there you stand with your delusions of grandeur—until, thank God, a Spanish Civil War breaks out.' Sibylle understood, irun,' he went on, 'that was the first cold douche. I shall never forget that little commissar. I was no white hope in his eyes. He didn't say anything, but the way he looked at me showed that he considered me a dead loss. My idea of Marxism was sentimental twaddle. All the same, I had a training school for recruits behind me, I had learnt how to throw hand grenades and operate a machine-gun. And then, too, I had a friend, a Czech, who vouched for me—'Stiller spoke very slowly, filled his glass with chianti and held it, without drinking.

'Saragossa,' he went on, 'that was the second blow. I volunteered, we were cut off, and someone had to try and break through the enemy lines, I was the first to volunteer. But they didn't take me! There I was, a volunteer who was left standing ... Can you imagine how I felt?'—'Why didn't they take you?'—'They hummed and ha'd until someone else stepped forward, my friend the Czech, he wasn't a man looking for death, but a real fighter ... That was the point,' remarked Stiller, 'I was really only looking for death. Without realizing it, maybe; but people could smell it. During air raids, I was the one who refused to take cover, and I thought I was being brave! And that's how it happened later on the Tajo—' Now Sibylle naturally hoped she would hear the true story, but in vain. Stiller kept beating about the bush, losing himself in side issues, then in a detailed topography of Toledo and finally in a political commentary.

'To cut a long story short,' he said, 'there we were in this arid little
valley—we bandits, as your newspapers called us at the time. Rebels and bandits! It's so easy to forget the way things were in reality, how our dear Switzerland sounded then, our bourgeois Press. What heroes they made of the Fascists!'—'Really?' asked Sibylle without interest. 'I don't remember. I was still going to girls school then.'—'But you can believe me,' smiled Stiller. 'I got to know your Switzerland while I was in Spain. Don't let's talk about that! Anyhow, it will always be that way, they back Fascism, like every bourgeoisie. Today they get indignant about Buchenwald and Auschwitz and all that; let's just see for how long! Today they wash their hands in Swiss innocence, spit on Germany and knew all along. Even at the time of the Spanish Civil War, when we were bandits, along with Casals and Picasso and a few others whom they celebrate today, Switzerland was against Fascism! Just wait...' laughed Stiller, rising to empty the overflowing ash tray and Sibylle was surprised at his tone. 'Would you like some more coffee?' he asked as he emptied the ash tray. 'It's funny,' commented Sibylle, 'how angry you get when you talk about Switzerland.' She had also risen, in order to be closer to him, yes, precisely because she had the feeling Stiller's only reason for making coffee was to get further away from her. 'Just wait,' he said, putting the water on, 'until Germany, our efficient neighbour, is big business again. And if they try Fascism again they'll get all the support they need from Switzerland. Believe me! It's obvious: to begin with, a country that's rearming is always splendid business for its neighbours. Then keep your mouth shut! And believe what our papers say; they'll teach you who are the bandits. Just like last time. Until the friendly neighbour no longer eats our cheese or doesn't need our watches, because henceforth times goes according to its watches, then there'll be an outcry, oh yes, the end of freedom, the end of business, then suddenly we shall be the everlasting safeguard of humanity again, as always, the peace-keepers, the priests of justice—it makes you sick,' said Stiller. 'Forgive me, but that's the way it is.' In his anger he completely forgot to light the gas; Sibylle noticed this but didn't interrupt him, because she didn't want any coffee. 'We're a lot of bastards,' he said and he went on swearing for almost half an hour. Sibylle seemed to enjoy it, as she enjoyed everything about this man that astonished and disillusioned her.