At times winter reminds me of something. Of a mood I was once in, of a desire I once felt? I don't exactly know. It is cold. The air smells of smoke. Of snow. I turn around and listen for something I can't hear. There's a word on the tip of my tongue, I can't say it. A kind of restlessness, you know? You do know. But as you would say, whatever is nameless should remain nameless.
In any case, the night you didn't want to come along Christiane danced for me. She turned on the radio and danced to A Girl Like You, cheerleader face, flowing red hair. She was laughing, and she looked very beautiful. Markus Werner was wearing his grandmother's fur coat and a pair of household gloves made of pink rubber; the fur was mangy. "You're so silly," Christiane said. Markus Werner laid out the cocaine in short lines on his pocket mirror without looking at her. I wasn't tired. I sat on the sofa, leaning against him, his fur coat was wet with snow and smelled funny. I watched Christiane as she filled in the outlines of her mouth with a plum-coloured lipstick: her mouth was big and the lipstick was pointed, like a pen. Markus Werner looked up from his pocket mirror and stared into space.
Where were you? I had phoned you - you were sitting in front of your television set and you said you had taken the wrong drugs: you sounded tired and irritable, and you didn't want to come along. I said, "Christiane has fallen in love." You said, "What else is new?" Then we were silent. I could hear small voices coming out of your television, sounds of war, an air-raid siren; I knew it was cold in your room, frost flowers on the windows. You hung up.
The voice of Edwyn Collins sounded rough as ever. I smoked three cigarettes, one after the other. "Who is it this time?" Markus Werner asked casually, his rubber gloves making a sticky sound. "Oh, shut up," said Christiane as she looked at herself sideways in the large mirror, one hand on her hip, gazing up from under her lashes; there were small blue shadows under her eyes, and she looked terrific. "We're going to have fun," she said, and kissed me on the mouth. I clutched Markus Werner's arm and whispered in his ear - apparently Christiane wasn't going to stop me - "He's an important director. Really important, you know. He's married. We're going to his opening night party, there'll be food, vodka and everything, hey, we're going to have fun." Christiane laughed and pulled me away from him.
Outside it was very cold. I thought of you in your room, sitting in your armchair in front of the television. I knew you wouldn't be watching any old film but sitting there in the semi-darkness, staring straight ahead; I was not disappointed, was not hurt, just a little sad perhaps. It was really cold. The air smelled of snow, and in the empty street our voices had such an unreal hollow sound that we stopped talking; the light from the streetlamps seemed frozen in place. Christiane in her high-heeled shoes fell down, and I looked at Markus Werner; we didn't help her to get up. At the intersection we took a taxi. "To the theatre," Christiane said. She sat down next to the driver, rolled down the window and turned on the radio. The driver made a face hut didn't say anything.
Red flags were flying outside the theatre, and the doors were open. Markus Werner leaned forward and said, "Now, about this play they did here this evening . . . ?" and Christiane gently warded him off. "But what are you going to talk to him about if not the play?" said Markus Werner, giggling. Christiane drew his face close to hers and said very clearly, "I don't want to talk with him at all. Understand?"
At the door I turned around once more. For one final time I considered going back, of going to your place and sitting down next to you in front of your television set. I would have turned off the television and looked at you: it could have been quite easy. I just couldn't make up my mind; then I took a deep breath and ran after Christiane and Markus Werner.
In the theater's Star Lounge long tables were set up. There was fabulous food and coolers full of vodka and small iced glasses, and they had engaged a Russian brass band and switched on the red lights. "Now," Christiane said, and disappeared. I got some bread and fish from the buffet, and Markus Werner stuffed vodka bottles and glasses into his coat pockets. He was still wearing those pink rubber gloves, but no one paid any attention to him. We sat down on the stairs and ate. I drank the vodka in great gulps and I began to feel warm, while Markus Werner sat there fidgeting and constantly wiping his nose. I said, "You do too much coke," and he said, "Where is he, the great director?" The director was standing at the bar. He was tall and fat and seedy-looking, smoking a cigar and drinking whisky, he had this dissolute old-man sexiness that Christiane could never resist and he was famous. I pointed at him and said, "That's him," and Markus Werner began to laugh hysterically and said, "Of course." I looked at the director and thought of the countless directors and playwrights and actors and stage designers who had sat at mine and Christiane's kitchen table, had stood under our shower, had slept in our beds; I thought of their voices on our answering machine, their night-time banging on our door, the smashed glasses and unread letters; I thought that there was always something that wasn't quite enough, and this time, too, something wouldn't be enough; I thought of you, of the frost flowers, of the smell of smoke; I thought we're not enough either.
Christiane appeared. She must have been standing in front of a ladies' room mirror again because she had twisted her hair into this knot that I knew she would at some point undo by pulling out a single hairpin, allowing the hair to flow over her shoulders in a wave that made me feel weary. She made her appearance at the edge of the Star Lounge, wandering back and forth among the pillars for a while, approaching the bar then walking away again, lighting a cigarette and gazing about her from beneath lowered eyelids. The band was playing Ween's Buenas Tardes, Amigos. Markus Werner wiped his nose on his rubber gloves, then wiped the gloves on his fur coat, saying, "A real song of betrayal." Christiane bobbed her head a little, buckled at the hip, swayed for an instant, then pushed her way onto the empty dance floor, to the dead centre, positioning herself on the big star, where the chandelier flooded her with red light. All this time the director had been staring vacantly at the dance floor, but now he turned away. When he turned back a little later, right away in fact, he looked at Christiane. And Christiane danced, cheerleader face, hands on her hips, threw her head back and seemed to be laughing; the slit in her dress went all the way up to her behind. Markus Werner giggled non-stop, though I didn't know whether it was because of the coke or Christiane's dancing. I had to laugh, and said, "Hey, she knows how. She really knows how."
She danced for a long time. At some point she raised her hand to her head and released the knot and her hair flooded down her back. Markus Werner buried his head between his knees and said, "I can't stand it." The director was one blurry, fat little heap of greed. I withdrew. I drank vodka and stared up into the lights of the chandelier, feeling a little dizzy, and I thought of all the nights we had got drunk together, you and I, at the wooden tables of some bar or other, it was always wintertime, always snowy outside, and it never grew light. I don't remember the summers. Why not? I've tried to understand why it's over between us, and I realised there was nothing to understand. I thought of you, of your room, of the blue light from the television set, the half-smoked cigarette in your left hand. I thought that you had known all this long before I did; you could have said something, something, anything.
Markus Werner nudged me and said, "Look at that, hey, where are you? You've got to see this," and I looked over at the dance floor. Christiane was still dancing and another woman was dancing with her. The woman was very small and slender. She looked like a child, a precocious child, her skin dark and her hair black. She wore a red dress, and when she spun in a circle you could see her naked buttocks and her pubic hair. She kept spinning, her small hands fluttering about her like birds. She was dancing barefoot, and her way of dancing was completely different from Christiane's. Christiane got out of step. She tried to use her cheerleader face, her swinging hips, the carefully calculated rhythmic movement of her legs, her coolness to counter the other woman's gentle movements, but it didn't work. She saw too much. The small woman had closed her eyes and seemed to be in another world, her black hair covering her face. Markus Werner stared open-mouthed; he lit a cigarette, like someone who has to concentrate, then turned abruptly towards me and asked matter-of-factly, "Who's that?" And I said, "That's his wife. The director's wife. She's from Bali. They got married in Bali."
You would have liked her, this small woman. She was untouchable, in a way that you always liked, and was quite remote, and one could watch her and think up stories about her. She looked vulnerable and beautiful, with tiny, tiny feet, and she was so unreal in this lounge, on these marble tiles, under the light of the chandelier. Christiane left the dance floor and went to the bar. The director came over and stood next to her, not looking at his wife but at Christiane, who ordered a large glass of whisky. The small woman kept on dancing, and I knew that the stone floor under her feet was very cold. Markus Werner looked at me and said, "Do you want to talk?" I said, "No." He got up and left. I went on drinking by myself. It was getting very late. I could see the snow through the large windows, thick, gently falling flakes.
At some point Markus Werner was staggering around between the columns, quite drunk and holding - heaven knows where he got it - a megaphone; he kept shouting into the megaphone, always the same thing, but I couldn't understand a single word. I leaned my head against the banister and watched him. It occurred to me that I had never seen him in the daytime, and I wondered whether I wanted to know anything more about him other than the fact that he wore this fur coat in the winter and orange refuse collector jackets in the summer. Three times a week he went out with Christiane and me. I liked him; had I ever talked about him to anybody, I would actually have called him "a friend". Did I take him seriously? Did he take me seriously, did he want something when he said he wanted to talk with me, about what I wonder? I remembered that once he had said, in a very childlike manner, "I could make a film about us." I had said, "What kind of film would it be?" He answered, "A film about nothing happening, about nothing going on between us and around us, just a night like this with you and me and Christiane," and I had laughed rather disparagingly. I watched him - he was much too young, high on coke and drunk, bellowing into his megaphone until his neck swelled. People were avoiding him. I felt sorry for him, and thought I never, ever wanted to see him again. I repressed the impulse to get up, walk over to him, take away the megaphone and kiss him.
A girl was crouched on the star in the middle of the dance floor; she kept banging her head on the floor, her forehead was bloody, and she was crying and saying crazy things. The buffet was bare. On the big red sofa an actress was screwing a stagehand, the stagehand was sweating and the actress was desperately tearing at the back of his T-shirt, which had a picture of Mike Tyson biting Holyfield's ear. The small woman was gone, the director was gone, Christiane was gone. It was still snowing, and somebody was throwing glasses against the wall, and two unreal handicapped men in wheelchairs rolled across the dance floor and disappeared behind the columns. The actress pulled her skirt down, staggered up onto the small stage and said, "For baby," into an over-modulating microphone, she said, "For baby, for baby," then she collapsed. I closed my eyes. I heard Markus Werner yelling, but I still couldn't understand him. I fell asleep. I woke up again because Christiane was standing before me and pulling at my arm; she still looked as she had hours ago, in the apartment, on the street, in the taxi; she looked so wintry, so cool, so cold, her mouth frosty and thin-lipped. She shook me and said, "Get up. We've got to go, we're going somewhere else, where's Werner, what are you doing here anyway?" She didn't say this quickly and agitatedly but very quietly and precisely. I got up and clung to her, looking into her eyes: her eyes were ice blue. I said, "Christiane. How are things?" and she looked at me and said, "Shitty. Things are shitty. But we're going there anyway now."
Are you jealous? Just a tiny bit? A little curious and nervous - wondering where? Where are they going now? You would have gone home. No, you're not jealous, you never were. We went to look for Markus Werner and found him in the toilet, standing in front of the sink, rinsing something off his rubber gloves, and from one of the cubicles came a girl's whining voice, saying, "What's wrong, why are you stopping now? I don't understand." Christiane grimaced in disgust, kicked the cubicle door shut with her left foot, and Markus Werner turned around and said, much too softly, "Does it have to be this way?"
"She's waiting," Christiane said. "She's waiting, and we have to go now, this minute," and Markus Werner suddenly looked helpless and as though it was all too much for him and said pleadingly, "Who's waiting? Who's waiting?" Christiane, already out in the hall, turned around annoyed and shouted, "The Bali woman. The Bali woman is waiting."
The clock outside the theatre had stopped at 11. The snow had formed a deep layer on the street, on the cars, on the streetlamps, and the world was silent and roaring in my ears. The Bali woman, still barefoot and coatless in her red dress, was standing there next to a taxi, holding the door open for us. As Christiane pushed Markus Werner into the taxi his megaphone fell into the snow, then she pushed me in after him and then got in too. Markus Werner whispered, "Your eyes break my heart, little sister." I didn't know whose eyes he meant and wondered whether this was the sentence he had been yelling through the megaphone all evening. The Bali woman sat down on the seat next to the driver, turned around and smiled at us. I smiled back. As the taxi drove off, I leaned over to Christiane and said softly, "So where to? Where are we going now?" and Christiane, looking out the window, said, "To his place. Or hers. We're going to her apartment; he's already there, she wants us to come with her now." I said, "Why does she want that?" and Christiane shrugged. I asked, "Why do you want to?" and she said, "That's neither here nor there."
The key to your apartment is on the ledge above the door. I know that. I could stand on tiptoe in the dark hallway, feel for it with my fingers and take it down, put it into the keyhole, quietly unlock the door. I could walk across the hall to your room: you would have turned off the television set by now and gone to sleep. I could stand next to your bed, watch you while you sleep, lie down next to you, you wouldn't notice a thing. But the key isn't lying there for me. I know that too. It's lying there for the one person we've never talked about, it's lying there, ready for her. When the time comes she'll get up on tiptoe, feel around for it, unlock the door, put her suitcases next to your bed and wake you. That's how it is, isn't it? You're waiting. You don't know her, this person, but you know she'll come, and that's what you're waiting for, sitting there and looking at the frost flowers and waiting. I am waiting too.
In any case the Bali woman had no key. She didn't have a key to her own apartment, or she pretended not to have one. We stood outside her apartment door, and she pressed her small brown thumb on the bell, and the bell rang shrilly. Markus Werner lolled around on the landing, wiping his nose, and said, exhausted, "I can't go on." The Bali woman turned around and smiled at him. Up to that point she hadn't said a single word, and I could see that her front teeth had been filed down to small stumps and were completely straight. Markus Werner gave her a strained smile and said with exaggerated precision, "Perhaps we had better leave again?" and then the door opened and there, in the dark of the hallway, stood several small children, four or five tiny children in pyjamas, barefoot, with tousled hair. They stared at us, and we stared back. The children were a grotesque mixture of their parents, with the heavy spongy physicality of their father but eyes as dark, small and distinctive as their mother's. The Bali woman stepped forward into this swarm of pyjamas, stuffed animals and soft children's hands, and the children clung to her and spoke to her in a foreign language.
Markus Werner looked at Christiane, "Did you know about this?" And Christiane, for the first time at a loss, said, "No, I didn't."
In the hallway of the director's apartment we twice stepped on hamsters. The hamsters made ghastly noises, and the Bali woman laughed, picked them up, and threw them into one of the many rooms in the apartment. The children took a final peek through the crack in the door and then disappeared. The director was nowhere to be seen, and the apartment was dark. The Bali woman led us into the kitchen, lit candles, put water on to boil. Embarrassed, we sat down at the kitchen table; I wanted to sit next to Markus Werner, and Christiane wanted to sit next to me, and we kept moving around for a long time, our sense of shame obvious.
Finally we were all seated. The kitchen was large and warm, and outside the windows it was night; unusual garlands were strung across the ceiling; there was a strange smell. We were silent. Christiane avoided my eyes. Like a child, Markus Werner whispered, "What is it we're doing here?" and nobody answered him. The Bali woman made tea from green leaves, placing small cups, honey and sugar on the table. She poured with slow, confident movements, smiling all the time, finally sitting down next to Christiane. Markus Werner was looking at a photo hanging on the wall above the table. In it the director stood next to the Bali woman, and in the background were palm trees and a too-blue ocean; the director was naked except for a tiny loincloth and an ornament of bananas and flowers on his head. He was looking into the camera sidelong and obviously embarrassed, the Bali woman was holding his hand, wasn't smiling; the sky above them looked like rain. Markus Werner said, still with excessive precision, "Your wedding?" and the Bali woman, who had just put her face very close to Christiane's, drew back and nodded. Christiane cleared her throat and put her hands on the table as though she were about to start a meeting. She said, in a determined and firm tone of voice, "So where is he?" Markus Werner answered on behalf of the Bali woman, "He's asleep already."
I think we had some good winters together. Was it one or were there several? I don't remember anymore, and you'd say it wasn't important anyway. We had snow and crisp cold weather, and every time I said I really liked being cold you'd look at me as though you understood. We went for walks when the sun was shining. Those long shadows, and you would break icicles off the tree branches and suck on them. When you fell on the ice I laughed till the tears came to my eyes. We made no promises, and I too wanted it that way; still - forgive me - I am jealous of all the winters you're going to spend without me. I believe that from now on things will always be the way they were in that kitchen at that table sitting next to Markus Werner, with Christiane and the Bali woman. Morning came. I was so tired. I know that things were never any different, I just happened to have been wrong once.
The sky was turning pale outside the windows. It was snowing again, and the snow began to glow. Christiane stood up once, then sat down again. Markus Werner took off his rubber gloves and leaned against me. He kissed me quickly and softly on the neck. The Bali woman saw us and smiled. She said, "There are many jokes in Deutschland." Her voice sounded very bright and childlike, and she stretched out the words and couldn't pronounce the "sch" properly. Markus Werner didn't move. Christiane emitted a short dry laugh and said irritably, "What?" The Bali woman moved closer to the table, no longer smiling. Very seriously she said, "Jokes. I have learned them all." Markus Werner closed his eyes and said gently, "Why don't you tell us one?"
The Bali woman looked up at the garland-decorated ceiling and said, "What is the difference between a blonde and the Titanic?" We didn't say anything. She waited four, five seconds, then said, "With the Titanic you know how many were on her." We still didn't say anything. She looked at us as though she expected an explanation, a clarification of the joke; she looked terribly serious, and her eyes were opened wide. Markus Werner still had his eyes closed, but Christiane's face wore an expression of panic that made me laugh. The Bali woman leaned farther forward and said, "What do you say to a blonde who falls down the cellar stairs?" Again she waited two, three seconds - she actually seemed to be counting - then she answered herself, "Bring back some beer." She said, "Bring back some beer," and all the while she looked with the utmost concentration at the table as though she were reading the words off it.
Then she straightened up. She was now sitting ramrod straight and speaking as though the words had been drilled into her head, "How do you bury a blonde?" and she didn't stop after that. She told one blonde joke after the other, 10, 20, 50 dumb blonde jokes, and I stared at her, stared at her strange, concentrated, crazy face; at some point I no longer understood her at all. She kept speaking faster and faster, and would ask the question and give the answer, ask the question and give the answer without a pause. And then I noticed that Christiane - for how long? - was crying. Markus Werner's head slid off my shoulder into my lap. He was asleep, and his grandmother's mangy fur enfolded his surprisingly small face. I put my hand under his cheek and supported his head. I felt my heart beating. I felt good.
Then all was quiet. In one of the back rooms an alarm clock rang and a director woke up; outside it had grown light. The Bali woman was silent. She didn't look at all exhausted. She got up and pulled Markus Werner off me and he fell against her, then she gently brushed the coat off his shoulders and moved him over to the kitchen bench. She pushed him down on it, covered him with his coat, stroked his forehead with her small brown hand, then kissed him on the mouth. Christiane and I got up and put on our coats. At the kitchen door we turned around once more, and there she was, standing next to the bench in her red dress, looking at us, gravely and directly. She did not say another word, and at that point we left.
Outside it was still cold. An early-morning streetcar drove past us, blue sparks flying off the overhead lines. The city was still quiet and the light was so bright it made me squint. Christiane stopped and tied her hair together at the back of her neck, and I wondered whether I ought to touch her, but I didn't. Her face was all white, and her lips were blue. Then we started to walk, the snow crunching under our feet. I thought that if you had been sleeping you would just be waking up. You would wake up and see the frost flowers on your windows.
It is cold. The air smells of snow. Of smoke. Are you listening for something you can't hear, do you have a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't say? Are you restless? Did we meet - just once - and isn't that enough? I'm going to sleep now. Does winter sometimes remind you of something, you don't know - of what?
(c) Judith Hermann 2001