I'm Not Stiller

  'I didn't think,' she said, 'you would ever go bald on top. But it quite suits you.'

  I was simply struck dumb. I was helpless. If I had taken hold of this lady and strangled her she would have gone on believing I was her lost husband.

  'Why didn't you ever write?'

  I said nothing.

  'I didn't even know whether you were still alive—'

  I said nothing.

  'Where have you been all these years?'

  I said nothing.

  'You say nothing—'

  I said nothing.

  'Fancy disappearing like that,' she said. 'Going off and never writing me a line. And just at that time. I might have died.'

  Once I said:

  'That's enough.'

  I don't know what else she talked about, she went on until I took hold of her, and even then she was unshakable in her fixed idea, taking every reaction of mine, whether I laughed or trembled, as a confirmation. She didn't stop forgiving me, though I grabbed hold of her, shook her till her hair-combs fell in showers all round and flung her on the hard bed, where she lay with a torn blouse, crumpled costume, tousled hair, and an expression of bewildered innocence, unable to rise because I was kneeling on the bed gripping her two hot hands in my left fist so that she shut her lovely eyes in pain. Her loose hair was gloriously silky and as light as gossamer. She was breathing heavily as though she had been running, her chest heaving and her mouth open. Her front teeth were splendid, not without fillings, but otherwise gleaming like mother of pearl. And since I had gripped her delicate lower jaw with my other hand, she was incapable of speaking. I looked at her as though she were an object, suddenly quite sober, as though she were just any unknown woman. If

  Knobel, my warder, hadn't come with the ash-tray—

  ***

  It's no good running away. I know that and keep repeating it to myself every day. It's no good running away. I ran away to avoid committing murder, and now I've learnt that my very attempt to run away was the murder. There is only one thing to do: to take this knowledge upon myself, even if no one shares with me this knowledge that I have murdered a life.

  ***

  Freaks of fancy! I'm supposed to tell my life story, and when I try to make myself understood they say, 'Freaks of fancy'. (At least I know now where my counsel picked up this expression together with the patronizing smile that goes with it.) He listens as long as I talk about my house in Oakland, about Negroes and other facts; but as soon as I come to the real story, as soon as I try to tell him things that cannot be verified by a photograph—for example, what happens after you put a bullet in your temple—my counsel cleans his finger-nails and waits for a chance to interrupt me with some trifle.

  'You had a house in Oakland?'

  'Yes,' I said briefly; 'why?'

  'Where's Oakland?'

  'Opposite San Francisco.'

  'Ah,' said my counsel, 'really?'

  It was thirteen feet wide and forty-two feet long (my counsel makes a note, that's the sort of thing he wants to know) and to be quite exact it was really more of a shingle-hut. It once housed the labourers of a farm, but the farm was swallowed up by the town and only the now tumble-down hut remained, along with a giant tree, a eucalyptus—I shall never forget the silvery rustle of its leaves. Round about there was nothing but roofs, a sky filled with leaning telephone poles carrying the washing of my Negro neighbours. To be precise again, there were Chinese living on my right. And the little overgrown garden must not be forgotten. On Sundays you heard the Negroes singing in their wooden church. Otherwise there was silence, a great deal of silence, occasionally broken by the hoarse wail of sirens from the harbour and the rattle of chains that makes the blood curdle. Incidentally, I wasn't the owner of this little shingle-hut, only the tenant. I had absolutely no money at the time. The rent consisted in my having to feed the cat. I can't stand cats. But the cat's food stood ready in green tins, and in compensation I had a kitchen with a cooker and a refrigerator, and even a radio. In the hot nights the silence was often almost unbearable; I was glad to have the radio.

  'And you lived there all on your own?'

  'No,' I said, 'with the cat.'

  He had even got beyond making a note of the cat ... Yet this cat, I now believe, was the first warning. Her owners called her Little Grey and had always fed her in the kitchen, a custom I was not inclined to continue, because of the smell apart from anything else. I opened the daily tin and tipped the revolting stuff on to a plate in the garden, an arrangement which on her side, spoilt as she was, the cat was not inclined to accept. She jumped up to the sill of my open window and glowered at me with her green eyes, spitting. How could I read under such circumstances? I flung her out into the Californian night, a bundle with kicking paws, and shut all the windows. She crouched outside the pane and spat, she spat for hours at a time, for weeks on end, whenever I looked at her. I never failed to give her the tinned food, that was my duty, the only one I had at that time. And she never failed to slip into the house again through some open window (I couldn't spend the whole summer behind closed windows), unexpectedly rubbing herself against my legs just when I was feeling happy. It became a real struggle, a ridiculous struggle to see who could hold out longest, a horrible struggle; night after night I lay awake because she was howling round my hut, denouncing me to the whole neighbourhood as a cruel man. I let her in and shoved her into the refrigerator, but still I couldn't sleep. When I took pity on her, she had stopped spitting; I warmed her some milk, which she vomited. She looked at me as though threatening to die. She was quite capable of ruining everything for me, the little shingle-hut, the garden—She was there even when she wasn't there; she brought me to the point of going to look for her when it was time to shut up for the night. I asked the Negroes sitting on the kerb whether they had seen Little Grey, and they shrugged their round shoulders. She stayed away eleven days and nights. One hot evening, just when Helen had come to see me, she jumped on to the window sill. 'My goodness,' cried Helen; the cat was sitting there with a gaping wound in her face dripping with blood, and looking at me as though I had wounded her. For a week I fed her in the kitchen: she had brought it off. At least almost, for one night after midnight, when I had been dreaming about her, I went downstairs, took her out from among the warm pillows she had snuggled into, and carried her out into the garden—but not without first making sure her wound was healed. Everything began all over again; once more she crouched outside the window and spat. I should never get the better of this animal—

  My counsel smiled.

  'But apart from the cat, I mean, you lived alone.'

  'No,' I said, 'with Helen.'

  'Who is Helen?'

  '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 pr
osecutor'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.