I'm Not Stiller (8 page)

'A woman,' I said, angered by his knack of always entangling me in side-issues, and by his Eversharp, with which he immediately made a note of the name.

'Don't hold anything back,' he said, and after I had served him up a pretty hot story of love and passion, he assured me: 'Of course, I shall treat all this in strict confidence—anyhow, I shan't say a word about it to Frau Stiller.'

I hope he talks!

***

I've been reading the Bible.

(The ghastly dream of the confrontation with Frau Julika Stiller-Tschudy: I am looking from outside through a window at a youngish man, probably the missing man, walking between the café tables and raising his outspread hands in order to display the bright red patches, hawking his stigmata, so to speak, which no one buys from him; embarrassment; I myself am standing outside, as I said, with the lady from Paris, whose face I don't know and who is explaining rather scornfully that the stigma-hawker is her husband, she also shows me her hands—also bearing two bright red scars. It is obvious, this much I can guess, that the point is tó show who is the cross and who the crucified, though none of this is put into words; the people at the café tables are reading illustrated papers...)

***

My warder wanted to know who Helen was. He had just heard the name in the public prosecutor's office. My warder already knew she was the wife of a U.S. sergeant, and also that the sergeant in question came home on leave one morning and surprised us together in the house ... Too tired to make up another murder story, I merely added:

'He was a charming fellow.'

•Her husband?'

'He wanted his wife to go and see a psychoanalyst, and she wanted him to do the same.'

'What happened next?'

'That was all.'

My warder was disappointed, but I realize more and more that this has its advantages; it's precisely the disappointing stories, which have no proper ending and therefore no proper meaning, that sound true to life.

Otherwise there's nothing new.

 

P.S. I don't know what they hope to gain from these on-the-spot investigations. They've evidently abandoned, or at least postponed, their plan of taking me to her lost husband's studio, because of my assurance that I should smash to pieces everything belonging to the fellow who had caused me so much trouble. Now, I hear, they want to go with me to Davos. What for?

***

You can put anything into words, except your own life. It is this impossibility that condemns us to remain as our companions see and mirror us, those who claim to know me, those who call themselves my friends, and never allow me to change, and discredit every miracle (which I cannot put into words, the inexpressible, which I cannot prove)—simply so that they can say:

'I know you.'

***

My counsel was beside himself, as was bound to happen sooner or later; he did not lose his self-control, but self-control had made him white in the face. Without saying good morning, he looked into my sleepy eyes, silent, his brief-case on his knees, waiting till he felt I had sufficiently recovered my senses and was sufficiently curious to know the reason for his indignation.

'You're lying,' he said.

Probably he expected me to blush; he still hasn't grasped the situation.

'How can I believe anything you say?' he complained. 'Every word you utter begins to seem dubious to me, extremely dubious, now that this album has come into my possession. Look,' he said, 'just look at these photographs for yourself.'

Admittedly they were photographs, and I won't deny that there was a certain outward likeness between the missing Stiller and myself; nevertheless, I see myself very differently.

'Why do you lie?' he kept asking me. 'How can I defend you, if you don't even tell me the whole and complete truth?'

He can't understand.

'Where did you get this album from?' I asked.

No reply.

'And you dare to tell me you have never lived in this country, that you couldn't even imagine living in our town!'

'Not without whisky,' I said.

'Just look at this,' he said.

Sometimes I try to help him.

'Herr Doktor,' I said, 'it all depends what you mean by living. A real life, a life that leaves a deposit in the shape of something alive, not merely a photograph album yellow with age—God knows, it need not be magnificent, it need not be historic and unforgettable—you know what I mean, Herr Doktor, a real life may be the life of a very simple mother, or the life of a great thinker, someone whose life leaves a deposit that is preserved in world history—but it doesn't have to be, I mean, it doesn't depend on our importance. It's difficult to say what makes a life a real life. I call it reality, but what does that mean? You could say it depends on a person being identical with himself. That's what I mean, Herr Doktor, a person has lived and his life has formed a deposit, however wretched it may be—it may be no more than a crime, it's bitter when all our life amounts to is a crime, a murder for example, that happens, and there's no need for vultures to circle overhead—you're quite right, Herr Doktor, those are just circumlocutions. You understand what I mean? I express myself very unclearly, when I don't just lie for all I'm worth for the sake of an outlet; deposit is only a word, I know, and perhaps we are talking all the time about things that elude us, things we can't grasp. God is a deposit! He is the sum of real life, or at least that's how it sometimes seems to me. Are words a deposit? Perhaps life, real life, is simply mute—and it doesn't leave photographs behind, Herr Doktor, it doesn't leave anything dead....'

But dead things are enough for my counsel.

'Look,' he said, 'just look at this photograph of you feeding swans. It's definitely you and in the background, you can see for yourself, is the Great Minster of Zurich. Just look.'

There was no denying it. In the background (not very clear) you could see a kind of small cathedral, a Great Minster, as my counsel called it.

'It really all depends,' I said once more, 'what we mean by living—'

'Look at this,' said my counsel, continuing to turn the pages of the album. 'Just look: Anatol in his first studio, Anatol on the Piz Palu, Anatol as a recruit with cropped hair, Anatol outside the Louvre, Anatol talking to a town councillor on the occasion of a prize-giving—'

'So what?' I asked.

We understand each other less and less. If it were not for the cigar he had brought, in spite of his annoyance, I shouldn't have spoken to my counsel at all any more, and it would have been better, I think. I tried in vain to explain to him that I didn't know the whole and complete truth myself, and on the other hand was not disposed to let swans or town councillors prove to me who I really was, and that I should tear up on the spot any further albums he brought into my cell. It was no use. My counsel would not get it out of his head that I must be Stiller, simply so that he could defend me, and he called it silly make-believe, when I contradicted him and swore I was no one but myself. Once more it ended in our bawling one another out.

'I'm not Stiller,' I shouted.

'Who are you then?' he shouted. 'Who are you?'

***

P.S. His cigar makes me feel ashamed of myself. Just now I bit off the crisp tip, and then drew the first few puffs that are always so especially dry and especially fragrant. In a minute I was so amazed by the aroma that I took the cigar from my lips and looked at it carefully. Dannemann! My favourite brand! Really and truly? So he's once more—

***

Went to Davos yesterday. It's just as Thomas Mann describes it. Moreover it rained all day long. Nevertheless I had to go for a very special walk, during which Julika made me look at squirrels while my counsel kept handing me fir-cones to smell. As though I had denied the aromatic smell of fir-cones. Later, in a very special restaurant, I had to eat snails, which are a famous delicacy but make you stink of garlic afterwards. All the time I could clearly observe Julika and my counsel exchanging glances, waiting for me to let slip some admission, or at least burst into tears. None the less I greatly appreciated eating off a white tablecloth again. Since conversation flagged, I told them about Mexico—the mountains round about, though very small, reminded me of Popocatepetl and the Cortez Pass, and I have always found the conquest of Mexico one of the most fascinating stories.

'May be,' said my counsel, 'but we're not here for you to tell us about Cortez and Montezuma.'

They wanted to show me the sanatorium where Julika lay during her illness; but it had since been burnt down, about which my counsel was heart-broken. After the meal there was coffee, kirsch, and cigars
ad lib
. I wondered what they were spending all this money for. The little outing cost about two hundred Swiss francs; my counsel and I went in the State prison van (meals for the driver and the police constable were extra), Julika by train. In better weather it would have been a pleasant bit of countryside, no doubt about it. Once, down in the valley, we overtook the train, Julika waved.

***

My greatest fear: repetition.

***

Frau Julika Stiller-Tschudy discovered the old scar over my left ear and wanted to know how I got it. She kept on about it. I said to her:

'Somebody tried to shoot me.' 'No,' she said pressingly, 'seriously—' I told her a story.

***

P.S. Julika, now that I have seen her more often, is quite different from what I thought at our first meeting. Just what she is like, I should find it hard to say. She has moments of unexpected grace, especially when my counsel is not there, moments of defenceless innocence, a sudden blossoming of the childhood years that were never lived, a face as it must have been the first instant it was awakened by the breath of the Creator. Then it is as though she were surprised herself- a lady in a black tailor-made costume and a Paris hat, generally surrounded by a veil of smoke—surprised that no man has yet known her. I can't understand this vanished Stiller. She's a hidden maid waiting under the cover of mature womanhood, at moments so beautiful it takes your breath away. Didn't Stiller notice? There is nothing womanly this woman does not possess, at least potentially, smothered over perhaps, and her eyes alone (when she stops believing I'm Stiller for a moment) have a gleam of frank anticipation that makes you jealous of the man who will one day awaken her.

***

Repetition. And yet I know that everything depends on whether one succeeds in ceasing to wait for life outside repetition, and instead, of one's free will (in spite of compulsion), manages to turn repetition, inescapable repetition, into one's life by acknowledging: This is I ... But again and again (here, too, there is repetition) it needs only a word, a gesture that frightens me, a landscape that reminds me, and everything within me is flight, flight without hope of getting anywhere, simply for fear of repetition—

***

While we were soaping down in the showers today the little Jew told me we were probably seeing one another for the last time, because he was shortly going to hang himself. I laughed and advised him not to. Then we marched along the corridor again one by one with towels round our necks.

The latest news:

'It won't be long now,' said Knobel. 'You'll get your whisky at last, Mr White, perhaps this week.'

When I asked him what he meant, he didn't answer; I realized at once that he had heard something, but wasn't supposed to talk about it. At the end, when he had already picked up the soup pail, he nevertheless added:

'The lady seems to have taken a great liking to you.'

'So what?'

'Anyhow she's gone bail for you,' he said in an undertone, 'a tidy sum.'

'What for?'

'Well—for you, Mr White,' he grinned and winked his eye.

'So that you can go for walks with her.'

***

Once again (for the last time!) I made an attempt today to help my over-solicitous counsel to escape from his positively touching misunderstanding of my situation, which has caused him so much work, so much fruitless work and so much annoyance with me, with me who am really so grateful to him for his daily cigar—

'Are you familiar,' I asked him as I once more bit the dry knob from the cigar, 'with the story of Rip van Winkle?'

Instead of an answer he gave me a light.

'An American fairy tale,' I said with the cigar in my mouth and hence rather indistinctly. 'I read it once as a lad, decades ago that's to say, in a book by Sven Hedin, I believe. Do you know it?'

As I spoke (this is important) I held his silver lighter with the little flame without lighting the fragrant cigar, that one and only sensual pleasure available to me in my imprisonment on remand, no, notwithstanding my avid desire I repeated my question:

'You don't know it?'

'What?'

'The story of Rip van Winkle?'

Only by means of this trick—that's to say by holding the lighter, which I relit every time it went out, and with the cigar in the other hand, all the time on the point of lighting the splendid cigar, indeed once setting the cigar aglow, so that all I had to do was to draw on it, but every time prevented—prevented by Rip van Winkle, whose story was obviously more acutely important than my cigar—only by means of this trick could I compel my busy defence counsel to listen at all.

The story goes something like this.

Rip van Winkle, a descendant of that intrepid van Winkle who opened up the country of America while serving under Hendrik Hudson, was a born lazybones but at the same time, it seems, a thoroughly good fellow, who didn't fish for the sake of the fish but in order to dream, for his head was full of so-called thoughts, which had little to do with his reality. His reality, a good little wife whom everyone in the village could only pity or admire, didn't have an easy time with him. Rip certainly felt he ought to have a trade, a masculine trade, and he liked to pretend he was a hunter, which had the advantage of allowing him to roam around for days on end where no one saw him. He generally came back without so much as a single pigeon, carrying nothing but a bad conscience. His little house was the most neglected in the whole village, to say nothing of his garden. Nowhere did the weeds flourish so merrily as in his garden, and it was always his goats that wandered off and fell into the ravines. He bore it without bitterness, for he was philosophically inclined, unlike his ancestors who all gazed down from the old pictures with every appearance of being men of action. For days at a time he would sit outside his dilapidated little house with his chin in his hand pondering why he wasn't really happy. He had a wife and two children, but he wasn't happy. He had expected more of himself; he was fifty and he still expected more, even if his good wife and his companions smiled about it. Only Bauz, his shaggy dog, understood him and wagged his tail when Rip took down his gun to go squirrel hunting. He had inherited the gun, a heavy thing with a great deal of ornament, from
his forefathers. They must have smiled to themselves when Rip talked about his hunting; what he had seen always exceeded what he had shot. And since his stories couldn't be roasted, his wife, the mother of two children, had soon had enough of them; she called him a lazy good-for-nothing, in front of everyone, which he couldn't stand. So in order to unburden himself of his stories, Rip used to spend almost every evening in the village tavern, where there were always a few people to listen to him, even if his stories couldn't be roasted. His splendid gun and the tired dog at his feet were witnesses enough when Rip talked about his hunting. People liked him, because he never spoke ill of anyone; on the contrary it seems as though he was always a bit afraid of the world and badly needed to be liked. He drank a bit too, no doubt. And if no one listened, that didn't matter either; in any case, Rip and his dog, which put its tail between its legs as soon as it heard Mrs van Winkle coming, didn't go home before midnight, because every evening there was a palaver of which Rip understood as little as his dog, a palaver while he took off his boots, and of course it was obvious things couldn't go on like this, but that had been obvious for years ... One day Rip and his faithful dog went squirrel hunting again, striding out as long as the village could see them; then, as usual, Rip made his first stop, taking a bite from his provisions while Bauz kept watch in case anyone should come round the hill. In return, as usual, Bauz got a small bone, and Rip lit his pipe in order to give his good old dog, who was loudly gnawing at the bare bone, a bit of a rest too. Finally they trotted on into the morning, into the wide sweep of hilly country above the glittering Hudson, a glorious region as may still be seen today, and there was no lack of squirrels. God knows why Rip went on telling everyone he was a hunter! Sunk in thoughts that no one ever got to know, he strolled through the forest. There were hares here, yes, even a deer! Rip stood still and looked at the surprised animal with reverence, his hands in his jacket pockets, his gun on his shoulder, his pipe in his mouth. The deer, which obviously didn't imagine for a moment that he was a hunter, went on calmly grazing. I've got to be a hunter! Rip told himself, suddenly thinking of the tavern in the evening and of his faithful wife, and he put the gun to his shoulder. He took aim
at the deer, which gazed at him. He even pressed the trigger, only there was no powder in it! It was strange, the dog barked even though no shot had rung out, and at the same moment shouts came from the ravine: Rip van Winkle, Rip van Winkle! A very odd-looking fellow, panting under a heavy burden, came up out of the ravine that was as unexpected as it was rocky, bent down so that his face was out of sight, but his clothing alone was disconcerting, a cloth jerkin as in old-fashioned pictures and wide breeches with bright-coloured ribbons, yes, he even had a goatee beard such as Rip's forefathers had once worn. But on his shoulders he carried a handsome little barrel of brandy. Rip didn't take long to respond to his call. You're a polite person, said the fellow with the goatee. You're a helpful person. And with these words, which Rip was so pleased to hear, he hoisted the barrel onto his shoulders, so that Rip abandoned any further questions. First they went uphill, then down into another ravine, an area Rip had never seen before. Even Bauz, the faithful dog, felt ill at ease, rubbing up against his master's legs and whimpering. For there was a sound like thunder coming from the ravine! At last they got to the point when the hard barrel was lifted from Rip's aching shoulders and he could straighten up and look around. This is Rip van Winkle, said the fellow with the goatee, and Rip found himself in the middle of a group of old gentlemen wearing Dutch hats, with stiff, solemn faces and old-fashioned frills. No one said a word, only Rip nodded. It was, as it turned out, a group of skittle-players. Hence the booming and rumbling from the ravine! Rip had immediately to fill the jugs; each of the old gentlemen took a hearty swig, then they went silently back to their skittles and Rip, who liked to show himself polite, couldn't avoid setting up the skittles again. Only now and then, hurriedly, was he able to take a gulp from the jug. It was gin, his favourite liquor! But once again the skittles flew apart and every time with a ringing crack that echoed through the whole ravine. Rip had his hands full. And there was no end to the cracking and rumbling. No sooner had the heavy and rather wobbly skittles been straightened up again, so that Rip could reach for the gin, than the next gentleman stepped up to the alley, shut his left eye in order to aim, and bowled his stone ball, which boomed
like a thunderclap. They were a pretty strange group of people and, as I have said, not a word was spoken, so that Rip too didn't dare ask when he was going to be released from this drudgery. Their faces between the Dutch hats and the old-fashioned frills, as worn by his ancestors, were so dignified. Only as Rip set up the skittles again he had the disagreeable feeling that they were grinning behind his back, but Rip couldn't turn round and look because while his hand was still on the last skittle, that was wobbling, he heard the booming rumble of the next ball and had to jump out of the way to prevent it from crushing his leg. It was impossible to see when this drudgery would ever come to an end. The barrel of brandy seemed to be inexhaustible, again and again Rip had to fill the jugs, again and again they took a gulp, again and again they went silently back to their skittles. There was only one thing for it: Rip must wake up!...The sun was already sinking into the brown haze of evening as Rip sat up and rubbed his eyes. It was time to go home, high time. But he whistled in vain for his dog. For a while, still half in a dream, Rip looked around for the ravine and the skittle-players with their Dutch hats and old-fashioned frills, but none of that existed! Beyond the forest the broad Hudson gleamed as always and if the dog had just come along faithfully wagging his tail, Rip would have thought no more about the dream. On his way home he would have turned over in his mind what he was going to tell them in the village. To be sure, these stories of his seemed to him a bit like the wobbly skittles that he had to keep putting up so the others could knock them down. Not a sign of Bauz! Finally, Rip picked up his gun from the grass, but just look, it was overgrown by junipers. Not only that, it was also rusty, the most miserable-looking gun in the world. The wooden butt was mouldy. Rip shook his head, turned the thing over in his hand a few times, then threw it away and rose to his feet. For the sun was already sinking. Rip just wouldn't believe that the bleached bones lying beside his knapsack were the last remains of his faithful dog Bauz. But what else could they be? It was all real, he wasn't dreaming, he rubbed his chin and tugged at a beard that reached down to his chest, an old man's beard. Years had passed. How many? Anyhow it was late. Driven by hunger, and no
doubt by curiosity as to how many people he knew were still alive after that stupid game of skittles, Rip van Winkle came to his familiar village, whose streets and houses he didn't recognize. Nothing but strangers! Only his own house was still standing, as dilapidated as ever, empty and with no window panes, inhabited only by the wind. And where was Hannah, his wife? Gradually horror took possession of him. The old tavern, where you could always find out what you wanted to know, was nowhere to be found. Lost and lonely, bewildered, fearful and encircled by unknown children, he asked after his old companions. People pointed to the cemetery or shrugged their shoulders. Finally (in a low voice) he also asked about himself. Wasn't there anyone left who knew Rip van Winkle? They laughed. They knew all about Rip van Winkle, the squirrel hunter, and he heard really droll stories about the man who, as every child knew, had fallen down a ravine or been taken prisoner by the Indians twenty years ago. What could he do? He asked shyly after Hannah, the squirrel hunter's wife, and when they told him, yes, she died long ago of grief, he wept and tried to walk away. Who was he? they asked him and he thought it over. God knows, he said, God knows, yesterday I thought I knew, but today, now that I'm awake, how should I know? The bystanders tapped their foreheads with their fingers and all in vain he told them the extraordinary story of the skittles, the brief story of how he had slept away his life. They didn't know what he was talking about. But he couldn't tell the story any other way and soon the people walked off, only a young and rather pretty woman remained. Rip van Winkle was my father, she said. What do you know about him? For a while he looked into her eyes and no doubt he felt tempted to tell her he was her father, but was he the one they all expected, the squirrel hunter with the stories that always wobbled a bit and fell over when they laughed? In the end he said, Your father is dead. And so the young woman left him too, which hurt him, but no doubt it had to be. So had he woken up for nothing? He lived on in the village for a few more years, a stranger in a strange world, and he didn't ask them to believe him when he told them about Hendrik Hudson, the discoverer of the river and the country, and about his ship's crew that gathered from time to time in the ravines and played skittles, and when he said that was where they should look for their old Rip van Winkle. They smiled. It was true that on hot summer days they sometimes heard a dull rumble from the other side of the hills, a thudding as of skittles; but the grown-ups always took it to be an ordinary storm, and no doubt that's what it was.