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The left-handed woman

March

How I imagine a better life:

I want it to be neither cold nor hot,

there should always be a mild breeze,

and sometimes a storm, during which you have to sit down.

Often nightmares,

gives you something to think of.

I can wake up at the most dangerous point.

And I want nobody at school to jump on my back.

The cars vanish,

the houses turn red.

Everybody would live on islands,

and never get tired.

The cars belong to nobody.

You always stay up at night.

You fa- You fall asleep wherever you happen to be.

It never rains.

Of all friends, there's always four,

and the people you don't know vanish.

All that you don't know vanishes.

Hey, what are you doing?

It's almost spring here.

In Finland it was dark almost all of the time.

Or all bright from the snow.

I didn't get a word of their language.

In other countries at least there are similar words, but there...

nothing international.

The only thing I could remember was the word for beer.

olut.

I was drunk pretty often.

That darkness, and the cold in the nostrils, and I could talk to nobody!

I wanted to tell you something, Marianne.

I was thinking of you up there. And of Stefan.

And after all the long years we have been with each other,

for the first time I felt that we belong together.

I was afraid I would go mad, because of the loneliness.

I have often told you that I love you,

but it's only now that I feel really connected with you. Yes,

In life and death.

The strange thing is, I could even be without you two.

Now that I've experienced that.

Do you still like being here?

I for one am relieved when I get here.

No drink for you?

Do you have plans tonight?

My head's spinning from the plane.

Just what I needed today, being attended to like this.

What security.

What small eternity.

I read an English novel on the plane.

There is a scene with a servant in it.

In whose dignified servitude the book's protagonist...

admires the seasoned beauty

of century-old feudal service.

We're staying here tonight, at the hotel.

Stefan knows where we are, I put a note with the telephone numbers at his bedside.

Tonight I feel as if everything I ever wished for has come true.

As if I could conjure away from one happy place to the next.

With no distance in between.

I feel your magical powers now,

and I need you.

And I am happy.

Everything in me is buzzing from happiness.

Suddenly I had a strange idea.

In fact more an epiphany than an idea.

But I don't want to talk about it.

Let's go home, Bruno.

Quickly.

I have to drive Stefan to school.

Woe betide you, if you won't say it.

Woe betide you if I should say it.

Well, now say it.

I suddenly had the epiphany,

that you would go away from me,

that you would leave me alone.

Yes, Bruno, that's it.

Go away.

Leave me alone.

Forever?

I don't know.

But you will go away, and leave me alone.

What day is it?

I'll think about it over a cup of coffee.

I already know.

Bruno called me immediately.

Do you mean it?

- Are you serious? - I can't talk now, Franziska.

Let's meet at the café after school.

I'm all excited!

Have you ever lived by yourself?

I have.

I despise being alone.

I despise myself when I'm alone.

Bruno will be staying at my place for now.

If you don't want him back by this evening that is.

How does the mean uncle cheat his relative this time?

Stefan always wants to be the rich one.

Since, as he says, that is the better one.

Have you taken my photo off the night stand yet?

Strange,

what happened to us this morning.

Even though we weren't drunk.

I feel a little ridiculous now.

Don't you?

Yes, yeah.

No, not really.

Good thing the office is starting again.

Your casualness!

Do you even remember,

that there was once an intimacy between us?

Beyond the fact that we are man and woman,

but marked by it?

- Can you hear me? - Yes.

Now I can finally reply to your offers concerning translating from French.

I remember the work at your publishing company.

Even though machine typing would regularly give me carpal tunnel syndrome.

Is this game supposed to go on forever?

I for one am not willing to continue playing!

No don't start talking like a child.

Mystic!

Damn you!

A couple of electroshocks would make you reasonable again!

You can always visit, of course. At the weekend, and take Stefan to the zoo.

Do you think I don't exist?

Do you imagine of all the people you're the only one alive?

I'm alive, too, Marianne!

I'm alive!

Do you need money?

We have a joint account, have you had it suspended?

No!

But take it anyway, even if you don't need it.

Please.

I brought you carbon paper for your work.

Please just take it, as well.

Give Stefan my love, and come visit me at the office sometime.

Don't be alone too much,

you'll die of it.

You think what you will!

The more you think you know about me, the freer from you I become!

There's news from school!

Our class needs just four minutes now to take off their coats and shoes.

The principal timed it this morning.

At the beginning of the year it took us ten minutes.

We would have been faster today, too,

if thick Philip hadn't bungled his coat's buttons.

And then he cried all morning.

During break he hid between the coats, and peed his pants.

Do you know how we will manage to be even quicker?

We start running in the stairwell,

and undress while running.

So that's why despite the cold you always want to wear the thinner coat.

Because it's easier to unbutton.

Can't laugh like that.

You laugh like Philip. He always tries hard to laugh.

You're never really delighted.

Just one time you were really delighted with me: when we were swimming,

and I suddenly started swimming towards you without the ring.

When you picked me up, you actually rejoiced.

I don't even remember.

But I do remember!

I knew that you were alone, Marianne.

Ten years.

Do you even recognize me?

I remember everything from back then.

Your farewell at the publishing house.

I have brought you 'Un Coeur simple' by Flaubert.

We are re-translating it.

The originals read like a Latin historian.

The current translations like a local reporter.

I had business in the neighbourhood. One of my authors lives nearby.

He doesn't write, anymore. I'm afraid nothing more will come from him.

Today I tried...

to get him to write his autobiography,

but he just shrugs it off. He talks to nobody,

sits in front of the television, watches rugby matches.

Makes noises while doing so.

Debates brands of beer.

Has a terrible old age before him, without work, without companions.

But you know nothing of him!

Maybe sometimes he's happy.

Why are you defending the man?

You are only concerning yourself with the child now...

...to avoid responding to me.

Why are you playing the mother-child game?

Maybe you're right.

Go to bed.

Night, Stefan.

Which glass is yours?

I always liked the way you walk.

It's no special walk, as with other women.

You just walk.

That's nice.

It's quiet.

A big house for two people.

And the night...

...it stands all around the house.

Did you come by car?

With a driver, yes.

You have left him waiting this long?

He's used to it.

You forgot to give me the book I'm supposed to translate.

So you wanted to test me.

Now begins the long time of your solitude.

Recently everybody has been threatening me.

But you're not threatening me.

For half a century, the burgesses of Pont-l'Évêque

begrudged Madame Aubain her servant Felicité.

For a hundred francs a year,

she took care of the kitchen and the household,

sewing, washing, ironing.

She knew how to put the bridle on a horse,

how to fatten the poultry, how to make the butter,

and remained loyal to her,

who was indeed not an affable person.

She got up at dawn,

so as not to miss mass,

and worked until evening without interruption.

Then, dinner finished,

dishes in order, and the door firmly locked,

she scraped ashes over the billet of wood,

and lay down to sleep in front of the fireplace.

Why are you laughing?

I have never seen you with glasses.

Are you hungry?

Does it bother you if I do something?

It's cold outside,

and we can't go to Philip's as the house is being cleaned.

It was cleaned yesterday, too.

Listen.

What I'm doing here is work, even though to you it might not look like it.

It's important to me to be undisturbed for a while.

I can't bother with anything else, unlike when I'm cooking.

Will you cook us something now?

I'm also sad, not just you.

She walked,

supported by his embrace.

They slowed down.

The wind was soft, the stars were glistening.

The mighty load of hay was swaying in front of them.

And the four horses, with grinding steps,

kicked up the dust.

Then turned right without command.

She... vanished in the shadows.

Franziska says Stefan has been strangely withdrawn lately.

And what else does she say?

Marianne.

Sorry.

I just wanted to take a closer look at your coat.

It's missing a button.

Stefan.

I'm going to show you how I intimidate the people who come into my office.

First, I wedge my victim in its chair into as little a space as possible,

so he feels powerless.

I talk very close to his face.

And if it's an older person, I talk in a low voice.

So he believes he's already deaf.

It's also important to wear crêpe-soled shoes, like these.

These are power shoes.

Shining and clean.

Next Sunday we'll go to the planetarium.

There we'll see the Southern Cross,

as if we really were in the South Sea.

Waking up tomorrow,

my eyes still closed, you'll be awake already.

Here.

The shit jumps on the piss.

The piss jumps on the shit.

The shit jumps on the spit.

You keep the lights on at night.

And you rearranged everything.

Entirely different books these are now.

You probably haven't kept the wash-bag I brought you from the Far East.

Won't you take your coat off? Would you like a glass of Vodka?

Why don't you just go ahead and call me 'sir'?

So you're having a great time,

alone with your son.

In the nice, warm house with a nice garden, in this great air.

How old are you, anyway?

Soon you'll have a wrinkled neck.

Older and older you'll get.

And say it doesn't bother you.

And one day you'll hang yourself.

How will you spend your time until then?

You're probably sitting around biting your nails.

Don't shout.

The child is asleep.

"The child", as if it shouldn't have a name for me, anymore.

And you're always reasonable.

You women with your puny reason.

With your brutal understanding for everything and everybody.

And you're never bored, you good-for-nothings.

All excited you sit around and let time pass.

You know why nothing can ever become of you?

Because you never get drunk alone.

Like vain photographs of yourselves,

you slouch in your tidy apartments.

Machines of incapacitation for everything alive.

Sniffing the ground,

you crawl every which way,

until death tears your mouth wide open.

You and your new life.

I never saw a woman who changed her life for good.

Did you find that out all by yourself?

I came here on foot.

I wanted to destroy you.

Don't touch me.

Please,

don't touch me.

Sometimes I think you're just conducting a test.

What happens is supposed to test me.

The thought relieves me a little.

Yesterday I was thinking...

It might be good sometimes if there was a God.

You have a new coat.

- You have a new dress. - No, it's the old one.

Stefan would rejoice if you were to write him sometime.

I'm becoming less and less content with myself.

My ever consistent kindness towards the children disgusts me.

It's become so loveless, so powerless.

I'm not considerate enough.

My kindness is a type of contempt, a type of weakness.

I feel like a traitor at school, with my passionless kindness.

I want to achieve that I can be strict.

Like the teachers of the past.

No, not like the teachers of the past.

Just passionately strict.

Will you please come to our place tomorrow evening?

For a moment there's a feeling that most has been resolved,

and that we're still missing everything.

We need someone who makes war with the world.

Stefan doesn't like to be alone in the evening these days.

Bruno can't be alone, either.

Try to come tomorrow.

An old woman is going to tell stories.

Don't take up drinking!

Now it is your turn.

What you live is entirely new.

Never described.

Not in newspapers, nor in novels,

nor in scientific books.

Maybe...

other stories will come to my mind.

I hope so.

I've been in the same spot you're in emotionally.

For example one day I couldn't speak anymore.

I communicated by writing notes.

Do you always want to be alone like this?

Your father is coming by train today.

I asked him by telegram to come.

How do you do with regard to Bruno, anyway?

The city...

reminds me of the war.

Advertising placards in German.

And the neon signs in the squares:

'Muttonchops with green beans'

'Schnitzel with garnish';

German slogans everywhere in the streets. Horribly intelligible,

and going with them the grimaces of world conquering:

bad tempered death masks.

At every glimpse the impudent company signs:

Siemens, AEG, C&A, Telefunken...

Eventually I was walking the streets only with my eyes lowered.

Shame, shame.

You'll be sleeping in Bruno's room, father.

But I'm only leaving tomorrow.

There's a hole in your jacket.

Do speak.

That's what you came for, isn't it?

Shall we go outside a bit?

As a child you never liked going for walks.

The mere mention of it made you grumpy.

But you'd always be up for an evening stroll.

Do you still write?

You're saying I'm at life's end and still writing.

I think I have lived in a wrong direction.

I'm not blaming the war or other circumstances,

but myself.

Sometimes now my writing seems like an excuse to me.

Sometimes of course it doesn't.

Before falling asleep at night often I don't have anybody to think about.

For the simple fact that I haven't met with anybody all day.

Even though I know how good it feels to fall asleep thinking of someone.

On the other hand I meet with people mainly to...

make sure I'd be found in time if worst came to worst.

Not be lying around for so long.

Stop with your badinages.

Do you cry sometimes?

Never.

Yes, one time. A year ago.

Sitting in the apartment like that...

Afterwards I suddenly felt like going out.

And you're going to end up just like me, Marianne.

A remark that concludes the point of my mission.

It's getting cold, right?

Don't stop when you get an idea. Even as a child that got on my nerves.

What were you going to tell me?

Walking on gravel is so soothing.

Are you comfortable in the supermarket?

Yes! Today, at least!

I want to see a photo of us.

Your picture has been long finished.

I took the liberty of looking at it.

Sorry.

You're not an actor?

Right now I'm unemployed.

You're always bashful when you speak.

That makes it even more embarrassing.

Are you like this in private, too?

For an actor, you're not insolent enough, I believe.

Your mistake is that you always keep something of you to yourself.

You want to be an American movie character,

yet you never risk yourself.

That's why you're just posing.

It is my opinion that you should really learn to speak for once!

Learn to scream, open your mouth!

You haven't even been discovered yet!

And you're not in shape, either.

How long have you been unemployed?

I'm not even counting the days, anymore.

In your next film give a sign that you've understood me.

That's it!

I'm looking forward to seeing you get older from film to film.

The cold makes everything electric.

It did me good that you visited, father.

There is something I still won't do.

At home I'm still not wearing slippers, even though I'm almost 70.

And that's the only thing I'm proud of.

Are there any actual hills in the area?

Over there.

We'll go up there tomorrow.

Shall we go in?

Let's stay outside a little longer.

Yesterday I saw you, walking home from school.

I was driving in a queue, and couldn't stop.

You had your thick friend in a headlock.

Sometimes I think you haven't even existed.

I would like to see you soon.

And sniff you.

Let's take a photo before we go.

April

I saw a pair of shoes for you in that store over there.

Come! Come!

So you're still alive?

Yes, sometimes I'm surprised myself, that I'm still around.

Yesterday it occurred to me that I've stopped counting the days I've been without you.

I had a dream, in which everybody went mad, one after the other.

And whenever it hit someone, he started to rejoice at his life.

So the rest of us didn't have to have a bad conscience.

Does Stefan ask about me?

Visit soon.

My first paper in a long while.

I wasn't even aware what's going on.

What month is it?

April.

Has anything happened in the world?

A lot has happened.

Just now I was in Alabama,

and this is already Tennessee.

I have never pursued a woman.

I've been looking for you, for days.

You two have been so quiet?

Do you have any idea yet what's to become of you?

Stop it!

Always alone. How does one sleep like that?

With a heavy heart.

There are some galaxies so far away,

their light is weaker than the background light of the night sky.

Now even I want to be alone.

A great silence ensued,

and the drums of incense, moving about in full swing,

were sliding on their chains.

Azure steam ascended towards Felicité's chamber.

She opened her nostrils,

sighing in mystic lust,

then closed her eyelids.

Her lips smiled.

The movements of her heart slowed down one after the other.

Vaguer every time, softer,

Like a well running out,

an echo fading.

...Haven't you noticed how there is space only for the one who

brings space himself...