Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

Thea did not deal in ideas — or, more precisely, they were embedded in her instincts — and I don't believe she gave them any thought, which was exactly why she was so violently opposed to the kind of acting that relies on identifying with or trying to become the character to be portrayed; she wasn't willing to cheapen the improbable experiences of her own sensuous reality, everything that's alive and visceral in a human being — and that is also the matrix of all ideas — to a mere formula and fit it into the uncomfortable narrow bed of an aesthetically prepared, cleverly confining form that others have declared to be, or by some convention accepted as, reality, an approach that for her would have been shamelessly false and ludicrously untrue, and she never had to ask where she was, for she had to be present in her own gestures, an incomparably riskier task than making a sentence or piece of dialogue your own: unaffected by the scruples of the age and using herself as a free human being, she demonstrated what was common to us all, and she knew she didn't have, couldn't possibly have, a single tendency or trait, a single expression of her body or face, that we wouldn't all instantly recognize and share.

Whenever I spent the afternoon with her she managed with her gestures to lift me, almost to thrust me out of the rut of my self-deceiving ideas, and she did this not with a single gesture but with everything she instinctively chose from her inner freedom and allowed to materialize as gestures.

Ultimately, in many respects, Thea and I were quite a bit alike.

Unlike Frau Kühnert, or Melchior for that matter, who used their bodies, their very lives, to block the way leading to hidden and surprising depths, Thea and I felt that it was only down there at the roots clinging to the silt of the senses, at the origins, that we can obtain the life of our bodies.

I also felt that though I might be dull, clumsy, mean, ugly, cruel, fawning, given to intrigues, or anything that from an aesthetic, intellectual, or moral standpoint might be considered inferior, I could balance this aesthetic, intellectual, and moral inferiority, as well as my moral turpitude, with the firm belief that my instincts were infallible and incorruptible: I'd feel first and know second, for I wasn't a coward, unlike those who know first and only then allow themselves to feel, according to the prevailing norms, and therefore knew intuitively and incontrovertibly what was good or bad, allowed or forbidden, because for me the moral sense was not imposed by a knowledge independent of feelings; I fought as single-mindedly as she for the right of the senses, wanted to use her as a means as much as she wanted to use me, wanted also, defying all taboos of mundane conventions and moral standards, to explore the innermost currents of the relationship among the three of us, and, like her, refused to accept the hopelessness of our situation, because then I would have had to admit the error of my supposedly unerring senses, my moral failure.

Strange as it may seem, one would rather let one's head be chopped off than come out with the admission of such a failure.

She always had trouble with the ignition, cursed it, called her car a piece of shit, kept grumbling she'd have to grow old struggling with such shitty contraptions.

And it was also strange that I thought myself free when I was with Melchior, yet with him I was drowning in the story of my body.

From the clutter of the glove compartment or, not infrequently, from the crack between the seats, she would extract her awful glasses, with one earpiece missing, place them on her nose, and keep them there by throwing her head back a little, at the same time managing to get the car started, and from that moment on, her movements were defined for me by a rather endearing chaotic combination of eager dilettantism and flamboyant inattention: on the one hand, she'd pay no attention to what she was doing, let her mind wander and lose contact with the road and with whatever was happening under the hood and indicated on the dashboard; on the other hand, catching herself drifting off, which often got us into truly dangerous situations, like a frightened little girl she would try, of course too abruptly, to correct her movements, while her glasses, falling forward or slipping off, always hampered her in these corrective maneuvers.

Still, I felt quite safe next to her; if I saw, for instance, that she hadn't noticed an upcoming sharp curve or, ignoring the dividing line and heavy oncoming traffic, crossed into the other lane, all I had to do was remark quietly on how smooth or wet the road was, how straight or winding, and she'd make the necessary adjustment; an odd kind of security, I admit, but then I sought personal safety in realms far more profound than that of traffic conditions; in this situation, I first of all had to be ready to give up my life, to say, Well, what the hell, if I die, I die, and trust the comic aspect of her driving style, which clearly showed that she had too much faith in her life to be concerned with the petty demands of traffic, she was busy with other things, she couldn't die so silly and senseless a death: without mixing God or Providence in, she sought to demonstrate with her movements that no one ever died of carelessness, death was always something else, even if its direct cause appeared to be carelessness or inattention, no, this was so only in the newspapers, in reality no precaution or alertness can help us, no amount of attention will prevent our little accidents, we cut our finger, step on broken glass, on a shell, a nail, always by accident, but we do not die by accident; I completely agreed with this, as well as with her other conclusions about life, even if in doing so I held on to my seat more tightly — a visible display of being both able and unable to renounce life, which was funny enough to be enjoyable.

Bouncing and bumping on our seats, the car puffing and sputtering, we sped out of the city.

If on the eve of my final departure from Berlin I hadn't destroyed all the notes I took at rehearsals, I'd have a daily record of the changes I felt were taking place in Thea; toward the end she spoke less and less, grew more quiet and dignified, and we generally rode in the car without talking.

Destroying my notes, burning them in Melchior's white tile stove, had a great deal to do with Frau Kühnert: seeing that my relationship with Thea had become more intimate, she lit into me with the seething anger of barely concealed jealousy, but also with the slyly submissive honesty of one bowing before the inevitable, and let me know that what I took to be a singular exciting change in Thea was nothing of the sort, nothing worth mentioning, oh, how sick and tired she was of all this talk about change, luckily for me I hadn't noticed that I was only a tool in Thea's hand, something she needed in her work, she was using me, didn't I see, and when the time came she'd discard me, luckily, she repeated, because this way, at least I relieved her of some of her burdens, actually replaced her for a while, she had known Thea for twenty years, might say she'd been living with her for that long, and so could tell me precisely, with the accuracy of a train schedule, in fact, down to the day, hour, minute, what Thea would do next, and I should know, she said, that if she hadn't noticed how attached Thea had become to me, she wouldn't be so frank with me.

For first rehearsals she always shows up quietly, solemnly, unapproachably, Frau Kühnert went on, trying to charm me with her Theaological knowledge, leaning very close to me, speaking almost into my mouth; though she was never truly beautiful herself, I'd have to agree that she was always able to create indescribable beauty around her, out of nothing, if we want to be blunt about it; before the first rehearsal she'd do something with her hair, dye it, cut it, let it grow, and wouldn't talk about it to anyone, not even to her, spending every free moment with Arno, with whom she was in love again as she'd been in her youth, she'd rush home to him, go on hikes and excursions with him, which Arno, being a professional climber, could certainly do without; and she'd become a regular Hausfrau, making jam, cleaning and painting the apartment, sewing dresses, but by the end of the second week of rehearsals or the beginning of the third, she'd start with these impulsive getaways, just like now, with me, she'd wave her over and they'd ride someplace where she would get soused, behave like any man at his worst, pick fights, sing, belch, quarrel with waiters, fart, throw up all over the table, Frau Kühnert had seen it all, I couldn't tell her anything new, she'd had to pick her up and take her home from some of the most awful places imaginable, and then the next day either she'd send word she was deathly ill, not to expect her, she felt terrible about it, but the doctor said it might take months to recover, a nervous breakdown or an attack of ulcers, something very serious, no, she didn't want to talk about it, it was very personal, a feminine problem, probably a tumor in her uterus, she was bleeding buckets, and she had a kidney infection, her vocal cords were inflamed, or she'd drag herself to the theater, bearing up well, thank you, so well that in the middle of rehearsals she'd have a crying fit and offer to quit the role, and then of course they had to plead with her, tell her how indispensable she was, console and beg her, and she would let herself be persuaded but then sink into the darkest depression, and that was no longer a joke, she couldn't get up, couldn't get dressed, let her hair get all greasy and stringy; and whenever this happened, Frau Kühnert even had to cut her finger- and toenails for her, but through it all Thea felt terribly guilty about letting down her friends and colleagues, who were all so sweet and nice and talented, she ought to be grateful, she would say, to be working with a fine director like Langerhans, who could bring out the best in her, the very best.