Homo Faber

  ‘Why do you say your life is ruined?’ I asked. ‘That’s just your imagination, Hanna.’

  She thought me, too, stone-blind.

  ‘I can only see what is there,’ I said. ‘Your flat, your scientific work, your daughter – you should thank God.’

  ‘Why God?’

  Hanna was just the same as ever. She knew perfectly well what I meant. The way she played on words! As though it was a question of words. No matter how seriously you meant something, she suddenly got caught up in some word or other.

  ‘Walter, since when have you believed in God?’

  ‘Come,’ I said, ‘make some coffee.’

  Hanna knew perfectly well that I had no use for God, and when it came to the point it turned out that she hadn’t meant it seriously at all.

  ‘What makes you think I’m religious?’ she asked. ‘Do you imagine there’s nothing else left for a woman at the change of life?’

  I made the coffee.

  I couldn’t picture what it would be like when Sabeth came out of hospital. Sabeth and Hanna and I in one room, for example in this kitchen. Hanna noticing how I had to hold myself back to avoid kissing her child, or at least putting my arm round her shoulders, and Sabeth discovering that I really (like a deceiver who has taken off his wedding ring) belonged to Mamma, although I had my arm round her, Sabeth’s, shoulders.

  ‘As long as she doesn’t become an air hostess,’ I said. ‘I tried to talk her out of that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s out of the question for her to become an air hostess,’ I said, ‘a girl like Sabeth, who isn’t just any run-of-the-mill girl…’

  Our coffee was made.

  ‘Why shouldn’t she become an air hostess?’

  All the time I knew that Hanna, her mother, was by no means delighted by this half-baked idea; she was only being stubborn to show me it was none of my business.

  ‘Walter, that’s her affair.’

  Another time:

  ‘Walter, you’re not her father!’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  From the beginning I had been afraid of the moment when we should sit down because there was nothing else to busy ourselves with – now it had come.

  ‘Come,’ she said, ‘talk.’

  It was easier than I had imagined, almost commonplace.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what happened.’

  I was astounded by her calm.

  ‘You can imagine the shock I got,’ she said, ‘when I came into the hospital and saw you sitting there asleep.’

  Her voice was unchanged.

  In a certain sense everything went on as though we hadn’t been parted for twenty years, or more accurately, as though we had spent these twenty years together, in spite of being apart. What we didn’t know about each other were superficialities, not worth discussing, our careers and that sort of thing. What was there for me to say? But Hanna was waiting.

  ‘Do you take sugar?’ she asked.

  I talked about my job.

  ‘How did you come to be travelling with Elsbeth?’ she asked.

  Hanna is a woman, but she is different from Ivy and the others I have known, not to be compared; also different from Sabeth, who resembles her in many ways. Hanna is more understanding; without reproach as she looked at me. I was astonished.

  ‘Do you love her?’ she asked.

  I drank my coffee.

  ‘How long have you known I was her mother?’ she asked.

  I drank my coffee.

  ‘You don’t know yet,’ I said, ‘that Joachim is dead…’

  I didn’t mean to say it.

  ‘Dead?’ she asked. ‘When?’

  I had let myself be carried away, now it was too late, I had to tell – on this first evening, of all times! – the whole story of what happened in Guatemala; Hanna wanted to hear everything I knew, about his return from Russia, his work on the plantation, she had heard nothing from Joachim since their divorce; in the end I didn’t tell her that Joachim had hanged himself, but lied and said angina pectoris. I was astonished to see how calmly she took it.

  ‘Have you told the girl?’ she asked.

  Then there was an endless silence.

  She had thrust her hand under her horn-rimmed spectacles again, as though to hold her face together; I felt like a beast.

  ‘What fault is it of yours,’ she said.

  The fact that Hanna didn’t even cry made everything worse. She stood up.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we must get some sleep.’

  It was midnight or thereabouts, I hadn’t got my watch with me, but apart from that it was really as though time was standing still.

  ‘I’ve put you in Elsbeth’s room.’

  We were standing in her room.

  ‘Hanna,’ I said, ‘tell me the truth: is he her father?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes.’

  At the moment I felt relieved, I had no reason to suppose that Hanna was lying and for the moment (the future was in any case inconceivable) the most important thing was that the girl had received a serum injection and was out of danger.

  I gave her my hand.

  We were standing there utterly exhausted, Hanna too, I think, we had really said good night already – when Hanna asked again:

  ‘Walter, how far did you go with Elsbeth?’

  She knew perfectly well.

  ‘Come,’ she said, ‘tell me.’

  I don’t know what I replied.

  ‘Yes or no!’ she demanded.

  What was said was said…

  Hanna was still smiling, as though she hadn’t heard, I felt relieved that it was said at last, positively gay, or at least relieved.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ I asked.

  I would rather have slept on the floor, Hanna insisted that I should get a proper rest, the bed was made up with fresh sheets – all for the daughter who had been abroad for half a year: a new pair of pyjamas, which Hanna removed, flowers on the bedside table, and chocolate, which she left.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ I asked.

  ‘Have you got everything you need?’ she asked. ‘The soap is here…’

  ‘I couldn’t have known,’ I said.

  ‘Walter,’ she said, ‘we must get some sleep.’

  She wasn’t angry, it seemed to me, she even gave me her hand again. She was on edge, nothing more. She was in a hurry. I heard her go into the kitchen, where everything had already been done.

  ‘Can I help at all?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Now you must sleep.’

  Sabeth’s room was rather small, but charming, with a lot of books and a view of the Lykabettos; I stood for a long time by the open window.

  I had no pyjamas.

  I’m not in the habit of nosing about in other people’s rooms, but the photo was standing right on the bookcase, and after all I had known Joachim, her father, myself – so I took it down.

  Taken in Zurich in 1936.

  I had really made up my mind to go to bed, not to think any more, but I had no pyjamas, as I have mentioned, only my filthy shirt.

  At last Hanna went into her room.

  It must have been about two o’clock, I sat on the clean bed the way they sit on benches in public places, when they sleep, the down-and-outs, bent forward (as I always think when I see people sleeping in this way) like a foetus – but I wasn’t asleep.

  I washed.

  Once I tapped on her wall.

  Hanna pretended to be asleep.

  Hanna didn’t want to talk to me, at one point during the evening she told me to stop talking: ‘Everything becomes so small, when you talk about it!’

  Perhaps Hanna was really asleep.

  Her letters from America – I mean Sabeth’s letters – lay on the table, a whole bundle, New Haven postmarks, one from Le Havre, then picture postcards from Italy, I only read one, because it had fallen on the floor: greetings from Assisi (with no mention of myself) with a thousand kisses for Mamma, with a hearty e
mbrace…

  I smoked another cigarette.

  Then I tried to wash my shirt.

  I don’t know what made me think it was all over, the worst anyhow, and how I could have imagined Hanna was asleep.

  I washed as quietly as I could.

  I admit that for quarters of an hour at a time I simply forgot what was going on, or at least it all seemed to me like a mere dream – when you dream you have been condemned to death and know it can’t be true, that you have only to wake up…

  I hung my wet shirt out of the window.

  I looked at Joachim’s face, a masculine face, pleasant, but I couldn’t really see any likeness to Sabeth.

  ‘Hanna,’ I called, ‘are you asleep?’

  No answer.

  I was shivering, because I had no shirt, it never occurred to me to take her dressing gown, which hung on the door, I could see it.

  I saw all her girl’s things.

  Her flute on the bookshelf…

  I put out the light.

  Hanna had probably been sobbing for quite a while, her face pressed to the pillow, until she could stand it no longer. I jumped with fright when I heard her. My first thought: She was lying and I am the father. She sobbed louder and louder, until I went to the door and knocked.

  ‘Hanna,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’

  She bolted the door.

  I stood listening to her sobs and begged her in vain to come out into the hall and tell me what was the matter, but her only answer was sobbing, at first quietly, then louder again, there was no end to it, and when she did stop for a moment it was worse still, I put my ear to the door, not knowing what to think, at times she simply lost her voice, there was just a whimpering, so that I was relieved when she began to sob again.

  I hadn’t a pocket-knife or anything…

  ‘Hanna,’ I said, ‘open the door!’

  When I managed to force the door open with the poker, Hanna threw herself against it. She positively screamed when she saw me. I stood there stripped to the waist; perhaps that was why she screamed. Of course I felt sorry for her and I stopped pushing the door open.

  ‘Hanna,’ I said, ‘it’s me!’

  She wanted to be alone.

  *

  Twenty-four hours ago (it seemed to me like a memory from my youth!) Sabeth and I were still sitting at Acro-Corinthus waiting for the sunrise. I shall never forget it. We had come from Patras and got out at Corinth to see the seven pillars of a temple, then we had supper at a nearby guest house. Apart from this, Corinth is little more than a hamlet. By the time we discovered there were no rooms free it was already getting dark; Sabeth thought it a wonderful idea of mine just to wander on into the night and sleep under a fig tree. Actually I had only meant it as a joke, but since Sabeth thought it a wonderful idea we really set off across country in search of a fig tree. Then we heard the barking of sheep dogs, uproar all around us, the flocks in the night; there must have been quite a number of the beasts, to judge by their yapping, and in the heights to which they drove us there were no fig trees, but only thistles and wind. Sleep was out of the question. I never thought night in Greece would be so cold, a night in June, downright wet. And on top of that we had no idea where it would take us, a bridle path leading upwards between rocks, stony, dusty, and hence as white as gypsum in the moonlight. Sabeth thought it like snow. We both agreed it was like yogurt! And above us the black rocks. Like coal, I thought. But again Sabeth compared them to something else; and so we chatted as we followed the path that led higher and higher. We heard the whinny of a donkey in the night. Like someone learning to play the ’cello, thought Sabeth. It reminded me of unoiled brakes. Apart from this there was a deathly hush; the dogs had fallen silent at last, now that they could no longer hear our footsteps. We saw the white huts of Corinth – as though somebody had emptied a bowl of lump sugar. I thought of something else, just to go on with the game. Then we came to a black cypress. Like an exclamation mark, thought Sabeth. I contradicted: exclamation marks have the pointed end at the bottom, not at the top. We roamed all night long. Without meeting a single human being. Once we were frightened by the tinkling of a goat, then silence returned to the slopes that smelt of peppermint, a silence accompanied by beating hearts and thirst, nothing but wind in the dry grass – like tearing silk, thought Sabeth. I had to think hard, and very often nothing occurred to me, than it was a point for Sabeth, according to the rules of the game. Sabeth almost always thought of something. The towers and crenellations of a medieval bastion – like the scenery at the Opéra! We passed through doorway after doorway, nowhere any sound of water, we heard our footsteps echoing against the Turkish walls, otherwise silence the moment we stood still. Our shadows cast by the moon – like paper cutouts, thought Sabeth. We always played to twenty-one points, as in ping-pong, then we began a new game, until suddenly, while it was still the middle of the night, we were standing on the mountain top. Our comet was no longer visible. In the distance lay the sea – like a sheet of aluminium, I said; Sabeth said it was cold, but nevertheless a wonderful idea not to spend the night in a hotel for a change. It was her first night out of doors. As we waited for the sunrise, Sabeth trembled in my arms. It is coldest just before sunrise. Then we smoked our last cigarette together; we didn’t say a word about the coming day, which for Sabeth meant the return home. The first light of dawn appeared around five o’clock – like porcelain. It grew brighter every minute, the sea and the sky, not the earth; we could see where Athens must lie, the black islands in the light bays, water and land were parted, a few small morning clouds hung overhead – like tassels sprinkled with pink powder, thought Sabeth; I couldn’t think of anything and lost another point. Nineteen to nine in Sabeth’s favour! The air at this time of the morning – like autumn crocuses. I thought, like cellophane with nothing behind it. Then we found we could make out the surf on the seashore. like beer froth. Sabeth thought, like a ruche! I took back my beer froth and said, like fibreglass. But Sabeth didn’t know what fibreglass was. Then came the first rays of the sun over the sea: like a sheaf, like spears, like cracks in a glass, like a monstrance, like photos of electron bombardment. But there was only one point for each round; it was no use producing half a dozen similes. Soon after this the sun rose, dazzling. Like metal spurting out of a furnace, I thought: Sabeth said nothing and lost a point…. I shall never forget how she sat on that rock, her eyes closed, silent, letting the sun shine down on her. She was happy, she said, and I shall never forget the way the sea grew visibly darker, the Gulf of Corinth, and the other sea, the Gulf of Aigina, the red colour of the ploughed fields, the olives, like verdigris, their long morning shadows on the red earth, the first warmth and Sabeth, who embraced me, as though I had given her all this, the sea and the sun and everything, and I shall never forget how Sabeth sang!

  *

  I saw the breakfast Hanna had prepared and her note: Back soon, Hanna. I waited. I felt very unshaven and rummaged through the whole bathroom for a razor; there was nothing but flasks, boxes of powder, lipsticks, tubes, nail varnish, hairgrips; I caught sight of my shirt in the mirror – it looked more horrible than yesterday, the bloodstains were paler, but they had spread.

  I waited at least an hour.

  Hanna came back from the hospital.

  ‘How is she?’ I inquired.

  Hanna was very strange.

  ‘I thought I ought to let you go on sleeping,’ she said.

  Later, with no excuses:

  ‘I wanted to be alone with Elsbeth, you mustn’t be offended by that, Walter, I’ve been alone with the child for twenty years.’

  I didn’t say a word.

  ‘I’m not reproaching you,’ she said, ‘but you must understand that. I wanted to be alone with her. That’s all. I wanted to talk to her.’

  What did she talk about?

  ‘A lot of confused stuff!’

  ‘About me?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘she talked about Yale, nothing but Yale, about a young man nam
ed Hardy, but it was all very confused.’

  I didn’t like what Hanna told me. The pulse had suddenly changed, yesterday it was rapid, today slow, far too slow, and added to this her face was flushed, Hanna said, her pupils very small and she had difficulty in breathing.

  ‘I want to see her,’ I said.

  Hanna thought I ought first to buy a shirt.

  I agreed to this.

  Hanna made a phone call.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m getting the car from the Institute – so that we can drive to Corinth, you know, and pick up her things, yours too, your shoes and your jacket.’

  Hanna behaved like a manager.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve ordered a taxi.’

  Hanna kept darting about, so that it was impossible to talk, she emptied the ashtrays, then she let down the sunblinds.

  ‘Hanna,’ I asked, ‘why don’t you look at me?’

  She wasn’t aware of it, perhaps, but it was so: that morning Hanna didn’t look at me once. How could I help everything turning out like that? It was true Hanna didn’t reproach or accuse me, she just emptied the ashtrays from the evening before.

  I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  ‘Hanna,’ I asked, ‘can’t we talk?’

  I seized her by the shoulders.

  ‘Hanna,’ I said, ‘look at me!’

  Her figure – I started with surprise as I held her – was frailer, smaller than her daughter’s, daintier, I don’t know whether Hanna had grown smaller; her eyes were more beautiful, I wanted her to look at me.

  ‘Walter,’ she said, ‘you’re hurting me.’

  I was talking nonsense, I could see from her face I was talking nonsense, and I was only talking because silence seemed to me even more impossible; I held her head between my hands. What did I want? I had no intention of kissing Hanna. Why did she struggle? I’ve no idea what I said. All I could see were her eyes, which were horrified, her grey and white hair, her forehead, her nose, everything dainty, noble (or whatever you like to call it) and womanly, nobler than in her daughter, the lizard’s skin under her chin, the crow’s feet on her temples, her eyes, which were not tired but merely horrified, and more beautiful than in the past.