I'm Not Stiller (49 page)

When we received letters like this we always recalled with a smile Stiller's former jeers at country life as 'sentimental escapism'; now he seemed to be feeling better in his
feme vaudoise
than ever before. We were particularly relieved to hear that Frau Stiller had found a satisfactory part-time job: she was teaching eurhythmies in a Montreux girls' school. And Stiller himself had started working. On my wife's birthday she received a whole consignment of pottery—bowls and jugs and plates, most useful things. Stiller had never breathed a word about this. Now he wrote in connexion with his present:

'Here in Glion, you must know, in case you ever come, I've been a potter from birth. I'm making a lot of money now. And once I've got my own kiln things will really start humming. And when I'm tired of making money I shall go up to Caux, which is quite near here, ten minutes on the little railway. But I haven't reached that point yet; I'm not doing my own firing yet. For preference I sell my wares to Americans with good taste. I've got a notice on my garden gate saying "Swiss Pottery", in English. Americans who know something about pottery are frequently astonished to find almost the same decorative patterns in Switzerland that they have seen with their own eyes among the Indians around Los Alamos, Arizona, and especially in the Indian Museum at Santa Fe.'

Stiller never lost his delight in mischievous pranks. He needed a certain measure of disguise in order to feel at ease with people. After my wife had visited Stiller in Glion on her way to the South of France with the children, I asked her about his
ferme vaudoise
; she merely laughed loudly. I must see it for myselfl In reality things were probably not so fabulous as in his letters. Frau Stiller had once more to go 'intp the mountains'. It was during this period of solitude that he kept ringing me up in the evening. His calls were often a nuisance, coming just when we had company. As a rule Stiller had been drinking; he began talking about Kierkegaard and pretended to be in urgent need of elucidation from me. He made these calls from a tavern—his own telephone had been cut off because he hadn't paid the bill. I was never an expert on Kierkegaard; I sent him the book following a conversation about melancholy as a symptom of the aesthetic attitude to life. When he rang me I hadn't got the book handy, and nor had Stiller. Above all, it was obvious that he had scarcely read Kierkegaard yet, so there must have been something else on his mind. He used to hang on for a quarter of an hour or more, halfan hour sometimes, probably just to listen to a voice. In the background I could hear sounds from the tavern, the clink of glasses being rinsed, the clank of a pin-table. I could scarcely make out what he was saying. He must often have thought me a miserly skinflint and cursed me in his heart. I knew his economic position and tried to bring these expensive conversations to an end. I probably wasn't sufficiently capable of putting myself in his place. His jokes did not deceive me as to the degree of his loneliness, his longing for a friend. It was precisely because I was so clearly aware of this that I felt so helpless. All too often I simply couldn't provide what he expected, for I hadn't got it, and consequently he was doing me an injustice with his sudden question: 'Are you mean?' Then he would continue: 'Say something for heaven's sake, I don't care what, but say something!' And he regularly concluded with the words: 'If you ever come to Glion, though I don't believe now that you ever will—!' and fell silent, without replacing his receiver. Then I would say good-bye several times but continue to hear the clink of glasses being rinsed and a French waitress calling out the orders. Stiller waited for me to ring off without saying good-bye himself. We feared these nightly calls. Sometimes we just didn't pick up the receiver; then he would go on ringing until two in the morning.

It was over eighteen months since we had last met, when finally I alighted at Montreux one sunny October day. I didn't recognize him at once on the platform; my own discarded suit gave him a positively bourgeois appearance, and strange to say Stiller did ndt take a single step towards me. Our greeting was a trifle strained. With his steep and stony
vieux sentier
in mind I had only brought an attaché case; Stiller wanted to carry it, but I wouldn't let him. To look at, Stiller was miraculously unchanged, his thin hair slightly greyer and slightly more thin, his bald patch more extensive. My old suit was too short for him, especially at the sleeves, which gave him a boyish look. Stiller immediately asked after my wife and then inquired very heartily about the children, whom he had seen. After a few paces, conversation was no longer the least bit difficult. The fact that I had allowed eighteen months to pass without seeing him was due partly to pressure of work, but partly to other reasons. I realized that now. I had felt slightly afraid of this reunion: our friendship sprang from the time when he was remanded in custody, and it might now have proved, against our wishes, out of date, a recollection instead of a present reality.

Before leaving Montreux Stiller bought wine, St Saphorin, 'to support local industry'. He forced two bottles into his coat pockets and held the third against his neck like a hand grenade. Then we set off. In fact, and almost to my surprise, there was a
vieux sentitr
to Glion. Stony and steep, as described, it led upwards between vine-clad walls. As we advanced we began to feel our age; rather out of breath we stood still and looked at Chillon Castle, below us Territet with its hotels, tennis courts, funicular railways, and chalets, but beyond it the great blue Lake Geneva. It was almost like being by the Mediterranean. Once you can forget the shoddy-looking chalets, this landscape has a liberating breadth that is unusual in our country. Whereabouts on this vandalized hillside a
ferme vaudoise
could possibly be concealed was a puzzle to me. And we must be almost at Glion. Our conversation dealt with wine-growing, then with the concept of culture, of leisure as a prerequisite for culture and with the nobility of enjoyment, with the fundamental difference between potatoes and vines, the spiritual serenity of all districts devoted to viticulture, the connexion between luxury and human dignity and so forth—I did not fail to see the little sign on the iron garden gate bearing the inscription 'Swiss Pottery' in English. Stiller pushed the rusty little gate open with his foot, and without interrupting the conversation led me along a moss-grown path, past all sorts of garden gnomes, to his dream-house.

One glance at the universal dilapidation showed why the rent was so low. Vases of cast iron liberally decorated with arabesques, some of them damaged, a sandstone Aphrodite or Artemis with a broken arm, a little jungle that was doubtless supposed to be the rose garden, lots ofsteps everywhere, crooked, flanked on both sides by banisters, some of them crumbling away, revealing that they were all only cement, a moss-grown fountain, an old kennel, weed-grown terraces—this must have been the garden, populated by a considerable number of jolly garden gnomes of brightly painted pottery, some broken, some undamaged. I still thought this was no more than the path leading to his own estate. Stiller talked and talked, unperturbed by the nauseating surroundings, with which he was familiar. The house itself, a chalet, was fortunately smothered by ivy, only the upper part emerged in all its fake antiquity—a brickbuilt turret with cute little loopholes. In addition there was a wooden façade covered in scroll-work that looked as though it had been made with a fretsaw, and elsewhere blocks of tufa. Everything was united under a roof with enormous eaves. And the whole place was not large, but tiny, like a toy; I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a Swiss chalet distantly related to a Scottish castle.

Stiller now pulled the two bottles out of his jacket pockets, hauled a key from his trousers, and announced that Frau Julika would be back from her girls' school in about an hour.

So there we were. As on so many chalets of this kind, there was a fake marble tablet bearing in gilt letters, some of which had already turned black, the inscription
MON REPOS
. The interior held no more surprises. A wooden bear stood ready to receive umbrellas and above it was a badly tarnished mirror. It was a sunny afternoon and on the ceilings of all the rooms the light reflected off Lake Geneva flickered over grey stucco or bare lath and plaster. A greenish light, like that of an aquarium, Altered in through a veranda with
art nouveau
leaded windows. You could hear the State Railway about as loudly as it must sound in a line-keeper's cottage, and the greased cable of a funicular railway hummed close by.

Stiller was busy, so I was able or compelled to look around to pass the time; he was standing our white wine under a jet of cold water. Later, we sat out of doors on a mossy balustrade surrounded by the ever jolly garden gnomes, and at last I had to say it: 'So this is your
ferme vaudoise?'
Stiller seemed unwilling to discuss any discrepancy between his description and the reality, he merely said: 'It's a terrible pity you never saw my eighty elms, they were supposed to be diseased.' And with that the joke was over. I asked, 'How are you?' and received the impression that Stiller had made up his mind not to complain. 'How's your wife?' he asked back. In subsequent conversations, too, he avoided uttering her name; I don't know why. Apart from this he did not inquire after anyone, and conversation was really a great effort.

'Why don't you put these garden gnomes in the tool-shed?' I asked, for the sake of something to say. Stiller shrugged his shoulders: 'I haven't got time, I don't know, they don't bother me.' But in spite of everything I felt he was glad of the visit. 'When Julika comes,' he said, 'we'll drink our wine.' Meanwhile we smoked...

I remember that insignificant quarter of an hour very well. What does man do with the days of his life? I was scarcely aware of the question, it just irritated me. How could Stiller bear to face this question unprotected by affairs of social or professional importance, without any defences? He sat on the weather-worn balustrade, one knee drawn up and his hands clasped round it; when I looked at him I could not imagine how he could bear this existence, how any man can bear his existence once he has learnt from his experiences and is consequently free from vain expectations...

His pottery was situated in an underground chamber with a good light cut into the side of the hill lower down—once a wash-house with' a drying room and a storehouse for garden furniture, formerly whitewashed, but now papered with grey mould although the sun shone in from midday till dusk. I was relieved: here I found it easier to imagine my friend's days. 'One has to do something,' he commented as we looked at his finished wares, the 'Swiss pottery' with which he earned his meagre livelihood. 'Julika still likes these shallow bowls best,' he said. Another time: 'Everything has to be learnt, you know, and I shall never become a proper potter now.' Stiller took particular pleasure in displaying a potter's wheel he had made himself. As a layman, I considered him a master of his craft when he talked about the pottery of various peoples and periods, about the mystery of certain glazes. In what way had he changed? It seemed to me that his mind was directed more towards things themselves than it had been. Once he had spoken only of himself when he talked about marriage in general, about Negroes, volcanoes, and heaven knows what else: now he talked about 'his' pots, 'his' wheel, 'his' glaze, even 'his' skill, without speaking of himself at all.

'Herr Staatsanwalt!' Frau Julika greeted me. And Stiller gave her a kiss on the check; his hands were rather dirty from the potter's wheel. I found Frau Julika noticeably older, an unusually beautiful woman still, her striking girlish hair with its almost natural sheen stranger than ever. 'He never misses a good excuse to drink wine!' she remarked when Stiller went to fetch his bottles, having first put the two wobbly arm-chairs out in the garden for us. it's nice here,' said Frau Julika, 'isn't it?' In spite of the growing sympathy I felt for this unusual woman, I never quite knew what to talk to her about. It would be wrong to take her cool manner, which was probably only a mask to cover her shyness, personally. In all likelihood she had no inkling how little she communicated herself, and couldn't understand it when people failed to notice her goodwill, her delight at seeing someone or in a little present. She looked at the little hand-printed cloth. 'You can't get anything like that round here,' was all she said. I think she had a profound aversion to expressing herself in words, but on the other hand the way Frau Julika immediately put the little cloth aside, although she probably liked it, made me feel throughly embarrassed too, as though I had been expecting a speech of thanks. Now I inquired about her job at the girls' school down in the valley but learnt practically nothing and had to think what else might interest her. She had cushioned her head on her coppery hair, understandably tired after her day's work.

'Our Stiller has become a real potter!' I began, and she nodded. Earlier on, in the underground chamber, I had been struck by Stiller's remark: Julika still likes these shallow bowls best. This suggested a limited appreciation on his wife's part, a lack of interest or even scepticism regarding his endeavours, yes, the good Stiller seemed to miss something, something like encouragement, criticism within the framework of enthusiasm; down in the underground chamber one got the impression that Frau Julika really regarded his whole activity as a potter as humbug. Now she said to me: 'Don't you think it's amazing what he's done in these two years?' I did think so. 'You should tell him that,' I remarked. 'He'd like to hear it.'—'Don't I tell him?'—'You know what we men are like,' I said evasively. 'We like to make an impression on the woman we love, and if we can't manage that we try the public.' I meant it more as a joke. 'I don't know,' said Frau Julika, rubbing her eyes with both hands, 'what he expects of me. Haven't I told him? Can I help it if he doesn't listen?' I had no intention of interposing myself in the role of guardian, so I broke off the conversation.

'You're very formal with one another,' burst in Stiller, making our embarrassment complete. 'Well,
prosit!'
he said to bridge the gap, and Stiller and I went to work on the cool little glasses. 'Aren't you drinking?' he inquired when Julika did not pick up the glass he had filled for her, because she didn't feel like it. He repeated, 'Well,
prosit!'
For a moment I really wondered whether Julika might not be expecting a child; her refusal to drink wine was as mute as it was definite, as though she wasn't allowed to, and I thought it a pity she didn't at least take a sip. In some way she shut herself out from the start. There is nothing trickier, I find again and again, than a three-cornered gathering. I made a great effort not to be drawn into an alliance with Stiller. It was easy with him, he has a feminine gift of adaptability, and for her part Frau Julika did nothing to prevent herself from being shut out. She lay back among her long hair without a word; her face, which I saw in profile, entranced and disturbed me in equal measure, it seemed to wear an expression of mute terror that had become permanent. Stiller paid no heed to this, but let himself go in witty persiflage, frequently directing his remarks to Frau Julika with an undertone of tender entreaty, half consideration and half coercion. Several times I thought: He makes it too easy for himself, he pays with charm, of which he has plenty, that doesn't cost him anything. It also seemed to me that Stiller was perpetually trying to make amends for something; on such occasions he became polite to the point of timidity.