Wolfgang Hilbig - 'I'

Actually she hadn’t so much told it as she’d hoarsely gasped it out, paying no heed to the questions he interposed; turning halfway out of the armchair she’d leant her upper body on the desk, one hand at the triangular neckline of her blouse, as if she lacked air to breathe, and while speaking she’d gone through two cigarettes. — He had to admit that the woman’s agitation had infected him. . and yet he had reacted too matter-of-factly, barely showing that he was on her side (why was it that even in this situation he refused to relinquish his solidarity with Feuerbach?); in his eyes the man was a criminal, that’s what he should have said! — He resolved to go back upstairs to her — he had to hear that story again, in even more detail, he hadn’t been able to get a handle on it, he’d only ever heard stories like that about some perverted Nazis.

The next day, when he rang her doorbell around noon, there ended up being no time to talk. She’d opened the door in her robe, looking more uncertain than surprised. — She had to make her bed, it would only take a minute. . she said; he glanced into the bedroom, where a double bed stood; the side where her husband must have slept was untouched, the bedclothes neatly covered with a curtain-like material. She hadn’t lost the hoarse tone to her voice; she asked him in, and both of them headed towards the bedroom as though they had to finish making the bed together. Suddenly Frau Falbe leant against him; the next moment they were sitting on the edge of the bed. — Come back this evening, I’m busy now, said Frau Falbe; another moment later they were already sprawled across the double bed.

This evening I can’t. . he’d whispered into her ear in a strained voice. . I’m a woman, too, she murmured in reply, stay here, don’t come this evening. — And several times she said apologetically: I know, I know things aren’t easy for you either. .

The strangest thing about it all was that she kept using the formal ‘you’ the whole time. . after barely an hour he was back in his room, overwhelmed and slightly giddy. With the blind down he sat in the armchair in the dark and tried to get his bearings; outside he heard Frau Falbe putter about cleaning the stairs, and so he didn’t dare to leave the room; gradually exhaustion overcame him. The night before he had barely managed to sleep, despite several glasses of beer he’d drunk at a pub after Frau Falbe’s visit; he’d constantly been woken up again by some harmless noise or other, only around five had he stopped hearing things. Shortly before noon he’d been wide awake again, it struck him that he had no more coffee left, and he recalled his landlady’s invitation.

That had been in the morning, and now, as he woke up late in the armchair, there was of course still no coffee. . only tea, which he often drank, but never right after waking up. — It was too late to buy coffee, he’d have to go back up to Frau Falbe. . only now, still half-asleep in his armchair, did he form a clearer picture of that noon’s events, for even in the bright daylight that fell through the two windows of Frau Falbe’s bedroom, he’d sensed things rather than seen them. He recalled that she had torn open the buttoned-up robe, hands flying, and shed the rest of her clothing just as hastily, even as she buried him beneath her. She’d uttered a flood of unintelligible words as she ran her lips ceaselessly over his face and neck (and even at this moment, presumably without thinking, she had kept to the formal ‘you’). . amid continuous murmuring adjurations — a mixture of apologies, assurances and childish scolding — she had tried with one hand, then the other, to give him an erection, while he clutched her upper body as though to calm her down; at last her yanking, inexpert, tireless hand motions transformed his pain into pleasure; she noticed it immediately and spread her lower body astraddle his loins, making him feel his ejaculation a moment later. And she’d remained crouched over him a little longer, covering his face and closing his eyes with both her hands; her two thumbs lay just below his nose, and he breathed the scent they gave off. . it had to be his own smell, quickly dissipating to nothingness, transformed to the neutral smell of her heavy, faintly trembling hands.

Then he heard his landlady in the stairwell again (it was as though she kept finding things to do there because she sensed he was evading her); he went out and said — avoiding both the informal and the formal ‘you’—that he hadn’t managed to go shopping, and a proper coffee would be nothing to sneeze at right now; she gave him a rather shy smile and said she’d come right down. . He must have overslept? — He went back to his room, put on his pyjamas and waited. — As they’d embraced on the double bed he’d kept wanting to ask again about the scene with Harry. . Maybe he hadn’t understood right, could she explain how that was with the gun again? — He pictured the possible consequences of the question: You couldn’t explain that, you could only show it. . He hadn’t even got a chance to speak, but maybe he had been too timid anyway. — This sort of rebuke had a tendency to ambush him, but could usually be dispelled again quickly with reasonable words such as: ultimately he was after objective truths. . yes, he was used to dealing objectively with heated emotions, something he ascribed in large part to the attacks by Feuerbach, who had badmouthed him often enough as hypersensitive. And the enthusiasm with which others spoke of their capabilities in the sexual realm had always struck him as exaggerated. . still, he couldn’t deny that he was prone to a sometimes irksome restraint.

And he’d wanted to protect Feuerbach, of course; he hadn’t been able to face hearing that crude story a second time. . which showed his dependency on his case officer. Still more irksome was the fact that Feuerbach had to intrude now, when his thoughts were focused on Frau Falbe. Whatever he thought about, everything had to do with the first lieutenant. . wasn’t he out here in his hideout because he wanted to change that? At any rate, in a certain sense he had Feuerbach to thank for the experience of that noon. .

How long had he been waiting for Feuerbach, anyway? — No, how long had he been waiting for Frau Falbe; she had promised to come right away with the coffee. Too long not to start thinking about other things entirely. . He’d have to come up with some very shrewd questions indeed if he wanted Feuerbach to tell him the real truth about the gun story. . Whenever he was bored for a moment in this tiny room, his thoughts wandered, suddenly he saw himself strolling up Frankfurter Allee on a fine day, his face in the backwash of evening sun as it trembled and flashed in the exhaust fumes. Or he sat in downtown Berlin in one of the Scene’s jam-packed living rooms, running his eyes from one female form to the next until they rested on the translucent figure of a little West Berliner he referred to as the student. .

He put on his pyjamas in the darkness, with the door of his room open; across the tiny corridor, barely larger than the inside of a wardrobe, came a barely perceptible glimmer, the light from the stairwell glowing in the translucent pressed glass pane at eye level in the outside door. — Mightn’t Frau Falbe have thought he wasn’t there. . or that he wanted to be with her in the dark, and that had frightened her. . That would be foolish, he said, and turned the light on. At that moment the street door opened, and he heard steps in the stairwell. . it couldn’t be her, someone was climbing the stairs, just a few steps, then silence. Quickly he turned out the light again. . on the first floor there was a noise at the door, then silence again; he listened, an uncanny feeling: Who could have gone up to Frau Falbe at this hour?