The Communicating Vessels

Friederike Mayröcker, Alexander Booth

• Publisher: A Public Space Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781734590722
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito letterario

For the first time available in English, two portraits of grief by Friederike Mayröcker, one of the significant European writers of our time. Friederike Mayröcker met Ernst Jandl in 1954, through the experimental Vienna Group of German writers and artists. It was an encounter that would alter the course of their lives. Jandl's death in 2000 ended a partnership of nearly half a century. As writers have for millennia, Mayröcker turned to her art to come to terms with the loss. Taking its cue from the André Breton's work of the same name, The Communicating Vessels is an intensely personal book of mourning, comprised of 140 entries spanning the course of a year and exploring everyday life in the immediate aftermath of Jandl's death. Rilke is said to have observed that poetry should begin as elegy but end as praise: taking this as a guiding principle, And I Shook Myself a Beloved reflects on a lifetime of shared books and art, impressions and conversations, memories and dreams. Masterfully translated by Alexander Booth, these two singular books of remembrance and farewell offer a stunning testament to a life of passionate reading, writing, and love.

And I Shook Myself a Beloved

all that is said is constantly taken back so you constantly doubt what was actually said, all that is said exists only in the realm of the possible, but it could easily be different, somehow it has to do with a person, but it crumbles apart, dissolves over and over then takes on a new meaning, it could easily continue, and by no means is it excluded that, well, that’s not the way it was exactly but I have no idea how it could have been any different, etc.

—Peter Weiss

my nerves were all aflutter and Gertrude Stein says that it always showed in his face when he observed a square of grass and it had been just a square of grass but when he met the one he loved and looked out on any square of grass that square of grass was filled with birds and butterflies there where there had been nothing at all, that, you see, is love.

And the way they drag nature into the hall, I say, and was always afraid that if the summer wind grew strong it would blow away all the scraps of paper with my most important notes and that I would never find them again in my apartment, and so I weighed them down with the huge stones EDITH had brought me from Crete, somewhere I would always have liked to go but never managed as I never got round to leaving my home for that long a trip, and so the whole of language floating, as if with arms outstretched.

And then Lili was there and she had an amazing ear, if not much of an eye, but she could immediately weave whatever she saw into some kind of life story, that is, she could see something take place on the street and simultaneously understand everything that had led up to it, the background, and regardless of whether people or animals appeared to her on the street, straightaway she could see their whole lives and fates, that is, was fed with the small and smallest characteristics and events of their daily lives. And then it floraed all around me and I shook myself a beloved.

Whenever I would say to EJ, we should take care of that tomorrow, he would say, but only during the day, in the evening I’m too tired, I can’t take care of anything when I’m tired, I just want to sit quietly, drink a glass of wine and rest awhile. Now, I say to EJ, I’ve reached that point too, I try to take care of my things during the day and in the evening I sit there reading under the lamp or writing letters or listening to a piece of music, isn’t that so, and I put off going to bed from hour to hour as I don’t want the day to end, for morning will follow and those morning hours take up all my energy because I have to force myself to do things, get up wash get dressed. Then one day followed another without life’s basic questions having been solved.

I let myself be carried by my language as if endowed with wings that could carry me into the air, but I don’t see it and it’s got to come on its own.

About half a year before his death we were walking down the Hauptstrasze, past a florist’s shop where I always order bouquets and wreaths for dead friends, when all of a sudden from out of a terrifying silence he asked, so where exactly do you order your wreaths?

The sky was blue that summer, day after day, and when I looked out the window I could imagine it was the blue of the sea, and though it was only a substitute for the sight of silky flat glimmering seawater, it made me happy. Throughout the war we constantly had gas masks in our hands and practiced using them, particularly on quick walks and runs, which was quite difficult, and now and then I could barely get enough air, and when our apartment was destroyed by bombs we moved into the apartment of a friend of my father’s and I immediately began to look through his library and most often pulled out the illustrated editions and catalogs of modern painting and zeppelin alarms day and night.

And I balanced myself above the abyss with outstretched arms, and that’s how I dealt with the clean copy, and when I was in Mondsee and wanted to call my mother from a phone booth the midday bells came in between and I couldn’t hear a thing she was trying to say and she couldn’t understand me either but I spoke so loudly that I could continue, through it all the bells’ heavy sound, and looking at the blue of the sky I felt vexed, a secret blessing, isn’t that so.

The poet, he did not work, did not need to decide what he saw every moment, no, poetry for him was something to be made during rather bitter meditations, so Gertrude Stein, but agreeably enough, in a café. This art does not depict reality, but the perception of reality.

And I always told Mother to stop putting on her slip while standing, that is, climbing into her slip, because there was always such a great danger of her falling, and Christa Kühnhold told me on the phone that, from time to time, the woman with MS she was taking care of no longer had any idea what she should wear on hot summer days : every day she put on the same pair of jeans and woolen sweater, jeans that were so dirty she could have stuck them in a corner where they would have stayed standing up, staring, etc.

The Picassos were in Spain and Fernande wrote long letters to Gertrude Stein describing Spain and the Spaniards and earthquakes (“I’m in a garage,” my old doctor used to say to me while interrupting my reports on the mobile), and they were dining-room relationships, and she’s supposed to say hello to me unconsciously, that’s according to Lenchen. I remember just after the war I was in a garage having my car fixed, so Gertrude Stein, I like garages, I mean, I like a great many things but I almost like garages best.

It was in the postwar years and Mother would always wait outside the restaurant where Father was eating and he’d leave her to wait a long time even though she was hungry but during their vacations, which they most often spent in Gösing or Mariazell, there just wasn’t enough money for both of them and so she’d sometimes buy herself a piece of sausage and get it down with a dry roll, which was really painful for me to hear, inflamed Spanish beggar in my lap the scraps of paper warbled as I write, as I move and cried—who called or was it that told me about Pleyel, and to whom did I respond, yes, Chopin did in fact play a Pleyel, etc. Back at that point in the ’70s I was an ardent Beatles fan and an ardent fan of Satie and I would always say that the whole of classical music was inside it and the whole of Romanticism balled up just the same, and throughout the many years of writing I was very ambitious I was excessively ambitious and EJ always said, you are terribly ambitious I can’t stand it, and on the many car trips we took together EDITH always asked, has Heinz Schafroth turned up, has Marcel Beyer written, has Helga Glantschnig called, and she was happy when I could say, yes, she or he called wrote faxed (properly).

We were in that village world and I dreamed “Ovidian cadences” and Gertrude Stein says that if you are way ahead with your head you naturally are old fashioned and regular in your daily life, and when the doorbell rang, my heart beating faster, I always thought it would be you at the door or at the sound of the phone always hoped I would immediately hear your voice, I say to EJ, you know how you feel, Gertrude Stein said to me and looked at me in her graceful way, she possessed so much grace and rigor and she always made me feel like she knew everything, when I asked her once about something I did not dare ask anyone else and, for a change, she did not know the answer, in an almost dismissive tone she said, I do not know, and that’s how you were turned away and for a long time didn’t dare ask anything else.

After three weeks in the country I come back home but do not recognize it any longer, or is it I can no longer imagine it, and that was a flurry of thought, and I literally had to go from one room to the other to repossess it all. Jargon or conversation remains and Heinz Schafroth wrote a postcard from Greece upon which : when I looked into the eyes of the Lion of Kea I felt a little ashamed of my mortality, he for his part has been looking onto the world’s comings and goings for more than 2,500 years and it doesn’t seem that he intends to cease anytime soon, and how all of these things are necessarily true.

At the moment, writes Leon N., we don’t have any flowers in the apartment at all—with the exception of a white rose : an artificial flower. Ach, I must spread my wings, I say to EJ, to be able to get farther with the copy, or : as if I were endowed with wings (and tears), and as if they could carry me into the air but I don’t see it and it’s got to come on its own. And once again I hear the midday bells from Mondsee where I am standing in the phone booth talking with Mother but the echo of the bells drowns out our voices, etc., I think I’ve forgotten how to swim, I say to EJ, that is, how you swim and thus keep yourself above water, I was always a good swimmer, but now, when I would like to recapture my youth, I can no longer hop into a pool and swim, I’ve simply forgotten how to swim, I say, I ask my old doctor, who by now has an answer for almost everything, if you can forget how to swim when you get old, yes, she says, it’s possible. And my old doctor often says that’s just part of it all, when you’ve known someone long enough, you have to accompany them on their final path, isn’t that so, and when one of my patients has an exhibition or receives a prize it’s just part, you go and are present and wish them well, and she said hello to me unconsciously, that’s according to Lenchen. I mean, with such a snout my snout I already know what’s wrong, and where it’s leading me, I mean, in terms of writing, in what kind of new direction it’s leading me, and I am now writing figuratively.

In the end people are unconscious / so : when they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone, so Gertrude Stein, and my maternal grandmother had the habit of not being able to spend a lot of time in one place : at a tavern with her family she wanted to be at home, at home she complained about having to be at home and that no one came to visit, when someone came to visit she yearned to retire to her room or take a walk, I have inherited this unquiet body of hers this character, standing too, leaning against a window or door, standing balancing a bowl from which I’d eaten and drunk while standing, and I can’t spend a lot of time in one place, and whenever I visit someone, walking in, I say I can’t stay long.

I never knew what to say, I was unable to start a discussion or join a discussion because I am unused to being with others, isn’t that so, preferring to talk to myself or reading a book, which, outside of writing and walking, is my favorite activity, etc.

Because my throat, I mean, my throat is tied and making me cry, which is always a sign of having a lot of work to do, isn’t that so, here in these legendary surroundings I am familiar with the sky and whether it has something to say or reveal about the weather to come, which means I am so familiar with the little sheep when they come, and the vapor trails disappearing beneath them, and I have learned that a whirling evening wind means rain the following day and, likewise, when I am in unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar with the sky’s signs I just have to let myself be surprised by the weather the following morning, isn’t that so.

But my eyes were more important than my ears, so Gertrude Stein, and it was always polite to be there, at every reading, and walking into the room Ulla said, WE ARE ALWAYS AT WAR and I was surprised, and it was a flurry of thought, and in my lap the scraps of paper warbled, as I write, as I move, and it floraed all around me and I shook myself a beloved, well, now I have a lit. dog, and in the mornings and afternoons I’d go to Drasche Park, and I enjoyed it though my lit. dog did not pay the slightest attention to me as we walked, astonishing, and so up one street with my lit. dog then down another, and that made me happy, and then another lit. dog walked up : namely, EJ called me from Berlin and said, I’ve found a large flat in a beautiful villa, and there’s a neat lit. dog, too, and you’ll like everything, and so we moved to Berlin for a year and met a lot of people and had a lovely time.

I sleep most of the day because of all the medicine, at night I wait for EJ to speak to me in my dreams, I often dream of him, he acts the way he did when he was alive, I have no fixed ideas about the beyond, sometimes I am afraid to imagine it, sometimes I play with the thought of how it might be, sometimes the feeling that there is no beyond, I read a lot, writing’s only possible when I have these wings, that’s my secret, how much longer do I have to live. My wrinkled forehead, until now no serious illnesses found, which means I could be happy, at times I even am. I don’t know if I believe in God, I pray to him, I guess I believe in him, I cross myself before every church but do not go to Sunday Mass, why not, I beg for his blessing, I ask his blessing for writing, for my health, for the well-being of my dead parents, for EJ’s well-being, I’ve made a note: The Gout Register, no idea. I hope I have a lot longer to live, there are so many things I still want to do, the sm. Ischl in the Kaiserlichen Park of Bad Ischl, I feel the summer wind on my arms and legs, cheeks and forehead, but from time to time it’s cool, rainy, past the same shopwindows a hundred times, and it all repeats, year after year, but how long will everything keep allowing itself to multiply, I believe very strongly in the Holy Ghost, the wings too, but that’s my secret, etc. I’m listening to the end of Arthur Honegger’s Le roi David oratorio, a powerful composition, I’m in the spheres, no flurry of thought but a vision of light while listening, ravishing music, etc.

I could hardly write a thing in Berlin because I’d go on walks with the lit. dog, whose name was Fifi, for hours every day, we lived in the area of Krumme Lanke with its lake and delightful landscape and I would go walking with Fifi, and I see myself, I still see myself the way I do everything and I see myself in moments from long ago, that is, as if I had continuously taken snapshots of myself, I see myself, e.g., at night, after visiting Barbara Frischmuth, stepping out of her house and thinking, I’d be afraid to live in a house all by myself, and as if she’d read my thoughts from my forehead she said, I’m not afraid of living here alone.

On the front side of the shortened tram in huge letters I dream: MISSING CAT, we went into the garage to get the car and once again she said she wasn’t afraid even though her closest neighbor was rather far away, we were in that village world and I dreamed “Ovidian cadences” and whenever we, EJ and I, talked about our trip to America we always had to think of the East Coast first and Washington and as to Washington nothing but our trip to a Laundromat where we were helped by an old white-haired African American, he had large yellowish eyes, and we talked about New York, we talked about how we stayed at the Algonquin and at breakfast ran into Siegfried Lenz, who was waiting for his translator, but he was so lost he barely saw us, and how at first we stayed in a dirty hotel that we left again immediately and how we went walking down Broadway and someone told us always keep a few coins in your pocket, etc., they’d come in handy if we got robbed, but we never got robbed and the coins jingled in our coat pockets on our way back home, and how Boston was the only city in America that seemed completely European, and how our trip out West took us only as far as Bloomington, where EJ had an acquaintance, and south to Miami, which impressed me, what with the Atlantic sloshing up against the hotel window or me at least imagining it did, and the vegetation seemed paradisiacal, the only thing we didn’t like, I said, were the air conditioners as soon as you stepped into a building or a cinema so that, instead of taking off whatever we were wearing on top, as usual, we had to put on everything we had, I froze in all the buildings, and I asked myself why it was so excessive, was it simply fashion or a habit, and the second thing we didn’t like was that, in some hotels, we didn’t receive any breakfast, which meant that first thing in the morning we had to wander the long streets to find a place with coffee and muffins and sit on a barstool, swinging back and forth, what an uncomfortable way to breakfast, the Algonquin was the only exception : there we received breakfast, and then I paused, I traced.

And then we began to call each other using only our first names, my editor and I, on the phone, and when we talked about friends in common we only talked about José and Sara and Ulla and Jacqueline and Lutz and Katja and Wolfgang and EDITH, strangely enough, one talks to oneself about chestnuts and walnuts and hazelnuts and beechnuts, one talks to oneself about how many one finds and whether they’ve got worms, one talks to oneself about apples and pears and grapes and the kinds one likes the most, in times of war, one talks to oneself about caterpillars but never about spiders or lizards, one talks to oneself about dogs and cats and rabbits but not about bats or mice or moths, so Gertrude Stein, yes, but I am subjected to a step back, a regression, a mountain station, just like how lit. old ladies begin to get cheeks again, like lit. children, babies at the breast, isn’t that so, and so that late summer afternoon I walked up the Waldstrasze, which isn’t too steep and covered in asphalt, and saw ants in droves at my feet, walking over one another, and all the trees seemed bent some of them stretching their main branches in the same direction, in other words, toward the slope of the meadow, it was the end of August and the trees had already begun to lose their leaves, the evening wind blew from the NW and cooled our cheeks, cozy tears, and there was that bag with the swans.

And the huge stones with hieroglyphs and hearts from the coast of Crete that EDITH had brought me lay at my feet in my writing room, and my feet were naked and I thought about the sea and waves and going under and swimming backstroke, which I wasn’t that good at, and all the while I howled and howled, mornings and evenings I couldn’t stop scribbling and howling, in other words, a regression, a regression into puberty, EJ constantly looking into Lili’s eyes at the pub, yes, literally going under in Lili’s eyes, first her left and then her right, and as if wanting to excuse him she said, it’s because I have a rather peculiar iris, and he could not get enough of her, then suddenly he had to tear himself away from her iris, and she knew how often a clock would strike.

And I said to EJ, I can learn a lot from my old doctor, I could learn a lot about life, I say, especially as far as discretion’s concerned, she is the most discreet person and was unable to stand one of her chauffeurs because, as she said, he had no discretion, she always said, he is not discreet, everything he should keep to himself just comes right on out, etc., my old doctor especially reminds me of the figure of Gertrude Stein and I admire her immensely, she is very cultured, she likes to laugh, but she can also take command or be jealous, this arm of blooms.

And over and over we told each other how much we had liked Boston, yes, that it was basically our favorite because it seemed so European, and whenever EJ and I talked about our trip to America we affirmed to each other how much we had liked Boston, indeed, it was our favorite and we repeated ourselves constantly until all we could do was laugh whenever one of us began to speak about Boston, and because everywhere and, most of all to my friends, I said, ach, I’d like to write ONE more big book before I have to go, now I’m afraid, I mean, even more afraid that everything could turn out to be true, I mean, now I’m more afraid of dying than ever before, while my old doctor, to whom I also said, I want to write ONE more book before I die, just smiled and said, I am not afraid of dying whatsoever, I am ready to die at any moment, namely, prepared.

And Elisabeth von Samsonow wrote me a guardian angel for the throat and a dress into which the soul too can climb, and that certain South American doctors can lure the soul back to its ancestral home by waving clothes at that very place where a patient is scared… you’re no doubt out and about a lot and incubating a new book, a bit like Paracelsus writes : “the generation of things with sensation in the soul,” it was gorgeous and the whole day glowed with the beautiful feeling of friendship, etc., then stay healthy while you work, my old doctor said to me on the phone and I write everything down on back of all the fax paper I’ve received from Mario, and my blood pressure was up because, in my head, I was writing and writing constantly while Elisabeth von Samsonow had written me a double-sided letter I really loved and kept with me at all times, I ate a fig and said to E...