Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

She would become attentive, buying presents for everyone, there was nothing she wouldn't do for you, she would want to have a baby though she was getting bored to tears with Arno, who spent all his time puttering about in that dreary high-rise flat of theirs when he should have been up in his real world, on top of mountains; if she could only buy him a little house somewhere with a garden, she felt sorry for him all right, but even more sorry for herself for having to live out her life with someone so miserable; and she, Frau Kühnert went on, had to fight her every afternoon, almost coming to blows as she practically shoved her into her car to make her go home, and if she had an evening performance, not only would she not go home but she would roam the streets with someone until morning, or sleep with some stranger, fall in love, or want a divorce because she'd had enough; she'd keep babbling and showing off, trying to captivate everyone, male or female, it didn't matter, and she'd begin to hate those who wouldn't respond, because maybe they were also in the throes of getting into their roles, she'd make rehearsals difficult for them, threaten to denounce them, and then the others would start hating her, too, torment her and denounce her, because I shouldn't think for a moment that this regularly repeated process was only her specialty, they were all like that here, this was a madhouse; but now we were into the next phase — so, as I could see, there was no change here at all — when Thea had to retreat; with opening night fast approaching, she put herself on hold, because she realized she was all alone once again, no one would or could help her, or rather, she should use the raging emotions stirred up by real, living people only onstage and if she used them offstage she'd end up destroying herself; and she wasn't at all as intuitive and spontaneous as I might think, but managed her resources very carefully, calculating and using them with great economy, because in the final analysis she didn't care about anything except what happened onstage, how she'd bring things off there, so if I really insisted on seeing some changes in Thea, I should see only that each new role demanded a different way of arousing her crazed emotions, and an infinite number of ways were possible; she herself did not exist, no matter how hard I tried, I could never see her; now, for example, in her current role, what I saw was not her but the difference, that clear gap or whatever, that separated Thea from the cold calculating bitch onstage who, even while standing over the dead body of her father-in-law, wanted to remain queen, which a sane person would never do; what always made Thea different from her own self was that she kept looking for herself in roles that didn't really suit her; she herself was nothing but a giant absence, a blank, and if I really meant to be of any help, I must never forget that about her.

But since I did not want to be of any help, in anything — it must have been my attentiveness and exaggerated politeness, my obliging, nearly servile humility that gave Frau Kühnert the wrong idea — my behavior stemming from an acute interest, which I was flattered to see Thea showed similarly in me, and if there was anybody I wanted to help, it was Melchior, which is why I felt I was using Thea and not the other way around, Frau Kühnert did not succeed in disillusioning or offending me, because I was shrewdly and obsessively determined to reach the moment of my desired goal, taking into account that its circumstances might be shaped by the characters of the two women, and went about considering and anticipating these eventualities with the cool detachment of a professional criminal preparing for a really big job.

All the same, it took some time before I could predict on any given day whether we were going to give Frau Kühnert a lift or just leave her at the theater, since Thea never said a word about where we were going, as if she didn't know or knew so well she didn't have to say it, the important thing was to go away from here, be somewhere else, alone, or rather with me, which for her had become a peculiar form of solitude: if we were going to end up at the Müggelheim Ridge, near the Köpenick Castle, or in the nature preserve south of Grünau, or in Rahnsdorf, then we'd take Frau Kühnert along and drop her off at Steffelbauerstrasse, which was on the way — of course Thea may have chosen these destinations with Frau Kühnert in mind in the first place, as a polite gesture toward her friend — but when we headed west, toward Potsdam and the gently flowing Havel River, or east, toward Strausberg or Seefeld, then we simply forgot her at the stage door; Thea would only wave goodbye to her, sometimes not even that, which Frau Kühnert, wrapped in the indifference of her jealousy and deep hurt, pretended not to notice, just as Thea pretended that her little wave or lack of it was the most natural gesture in the world.

These acts of betrayal were not without consequences, but as far as I could see, they were consequences their friendship could easily withstand.

Basically, I had no reason to doubt anything Frau Kühnert told me about Thea; after all, she had known her longer, more intimately, and from a different perspective, but she didn't necessarily know her better, because she knew her only as well as one woman might know another; the hidden little currents and secrets, the subtle signals of her gestures, words, and body which Thea sent out meant exclusively for men, Frau Kühnert could see only as an outside observer, while I, an initiate, instrument, or victim, could experience them on my skin, in my body; anyway, our perspectives on Thea were entirely different, and besides, I knew Frau Kühnert well enough to find my way around the labyrinth of her intentions, to understand the method and meaning of her exaggerations.

I had to conclude, for instance, that when it came to years she invariably resorted to overstatement; just as the age difference between Thea and Melchior wasn't twenty years, neither was it true that she had known Thea for so long — it was only ten years, yet these little lies and exaggerations aside, I had no reason to doubt her credibility, and my feelings told me that, for her, brazen lies and exaggerations no less than scrupulous honesty were all part of the same elaborate and formidable — in its passion rather moving — emotional strategy.

Her superstitious insistence on the magic number wasn't necessarily the result of cunning female rivalry: the reason she said twenty years instead of ten was not to put her friend in her place or at least in the right age bracket — it's true she was a few years younger than Thea but far less remarkable in every way — and was the same reason she was so frighteningly candid with me, shamelessly betraying their friendship by calling attention to Thea's age and revealing the agonies and craziness that went with her profession as an actress: Frau Kühnert was alluding to biological, aesthetic, and ethical realities she hoped would keep me away from Thea.

And I couldn't help noticing that these realities, even if I hadn't attributed much importance to them, did succeed in dampening my interest, thrusting me back from the role of emotionally involved participant to the castrated one of observer; Frau Kühnert stepped between us at a crucial moment, when our mutual attractions were about to converge, and, with her jealousy poured into a seemingly innocuous monologue, ventured into enemy territory, which according to the rules regulating the war of love between men and women she had no business entering.

But with great skill and nearly mythic calm Thea managed to drive back these unwarranted incursions.

No strategic move or subtle emotional maneuver by Frau Kühnert went unnoticed by Thea, who was always on guard, like on that windy late October afternoon when Frau Kühnert got hold of me in one of the narrow passageways connecting the dressing rooms, to pant and whisper at me the emotionally enthralling and professionally quite well-done grand monologue about the process of creating a role and maintaining a distance between actor and character, and when Thea emerged from her dressing room, it took only one look at her friend's flushed face for her to know what had been going on and what had to be done about it: putting her quick wits and absolute power over her friend to immediate good use, she grabbed my hand, turned on Frau Kühnert with the words You've been yakking to him long enough, and — brushing her face against Frau Kühnert's, which may or may not have been a peck of a farewell kiss, and if it wasn't, well, it was only because she had no time — she was off, had to run, with me of course, she got me out of a very tight spot by literally pushing me out the door, which was both an act of revenge and a deliberate humiliation from the standpoint of Frau Kühnert, who with the kiss she did and did not receive was left in a state of outraged shock and utter physical helplessness, as though she'd just been stabbed through the heart; I could almost see blood spurting from her chest.