In spite of my apprehensions, and they were numerous enough, I had given in to her pleading and nagging and agreed to spend the evening with them: "Come on, don't be such a meanie! why can't you come with us, why play hard to get when I so very much want you to come? oh, you boys drive me mad! you'll get to meet him, at least, he's a remarkable character, and you don't even have to be jealous of him, he's not quite as remarkable as you are, Sieglinde, do me a favor, you ask, too! my asking isn't enough? it's me, me who is asking you, isn't that enough?" she was purring, whispering, playing the girlishly awkward seductress, leaning her light, fragile body against mine and taking hold of my arm; it would have been pretty hard to resist such a playful display of affection, yet what compelled me to go was not curiosity, let alone jealousy — the prospect of observing the two of them in a probably perverse relationship didn't intrigue me either — but because from the moment Thea had managed to avert her lustful and horror-filled gaze from Hübchen's half-naked body and, turning toward us, caught my stare, the almost voyeuristic stare of an overstimulated spectator, I too had been deeply, personally touched by her emotional upheaval, playing itself out in the very sensitive border region of her professional and personal candor: it was impossible to decide whether the scene, interrupted by inveterate directorial rudeness just as it was reaching its climax, might not perhaps continue between the two of us, because to bring it to a halt was impossible, about that there could be no doubt.
Yet ours was a very cool-headed game that no single glance, errant or uncontrolled, was going to derail from its consciously, intelligently charted course; a glance like that could only add spice, introduce another hairpin turn of emotions to make more daring and fiery what was and would continue to be essentially cold, as though haughtily, arrogantly enamored of our intellectual superiority, we had said to each other, No, no! we won't do it! we can easily withstand even these impulsive, involuntary looks, and we won't fall on each other like a couple of animals! we'll stick to the warmest mutual interest, which pays attention to the details of every detail and remains, therefore, in the realm of activities of the conscious mind — unnaturally and anti-lifelike, no matter that it can expose the rawest of instincts — precisely because the interest is so intense that the natural ability to let go, the vulnerability necessary for normal human contact, cannot be realized even for a moment: not so unusual a phenomenon, for we need only think of lovers who, reaching the peak of their mutual attraction with its promise of annihilating fulfillment, cannot achieve physical union until they fall back from that rarefied sphere of inspirited love to a more earthly closeness, until their bodies' pain shrinks the spirit of love to a humiliatingly manageable size; then, in the throes of excruciating pain, they can make their way not to ultimate bliss but to the liberating pleasure of momentary, flashlike gratification, arriving not where they had originally headed but where their bodies will allow them to go.
We were standing under the cheerless neon light of the narrow, characteristically ill-smelling corridor between the rehearsal hall and the dressing rooms, storerooms, showers, and toilets; it was here, in the pungent smell of gluey stage sets, paints, powders, and colognes, sweat-stained costumes and human bodies, permanently clogged drains, worn-out slippers and shoes, melting soaps and damp, used towels, that we first touched; I'd never seen her face so close, and it was as though I was looking not at the face of a woman but at some special, cozy, and familiar landscape whose every byway and hiding place I knew, every furrow and shadow, every memory and the meaning of every movement; looking at this landscape stripped me bare, down to my childhood; Frau Kühnert was still standing there, holding the receiver of the pay phone, distant and offended, but also smugly dutifuclass="underline" "You see, your requests can be so humiliating sometimes, but there's nothing I wouldn't do for you," for she'd just finished giving us a supposedly objective report of her conversation with Melchior, and "What did I tell you? face it: I'm irresistible!" Thea cried triumphantly, whereupon Frau Kühnert, with a smile of success but still angry, slammed down the phone; Thea was being outrageous, of course, though no more so than usual, hogging every speck of the success, playful to be sure, quite aware of her own weaknesses, but still! Frau Kühnert's resentment wasn't unwarranted, since the kind of conversation she'd just concluded is never easy — convincing someone to do something he has little inclination to do — yet it was fairly obvious that Melchior's accepting the invitation had nothing to do with Thea's being irresistible but that the ruse had worked, the trap had been well set: what Melchior had accepted was not the invitation but the intermediary, Frau Kühnert, whom he hardly knew and did not want to offend; or, more precisely, since he did not yet suspect that Thea had no compunction about gossiping freely about everything — as if being totally open were the price of guarding the really important secrets of her life — and did not wish to publicize the rather cruel way he had been forced to respond to her impulsive and, as I was to learn later, morally dubious onslaughts, he had no desire to let Frau Kühnert in on secrets that, as it turned out, were no secrets to her; Frau Kühnert's reproachful look and offended tone came not so much because of the unpleasant nature of her conversation, not even the quietly vindictive manner in which Melchior had given Thea to understand that her disagreeably persistent efforts were to no avail, that he remained in control of the situation and that he'd come all right, come gladly, but would like to bring along a friend of his from France who happened to be staying with him, to which Frau Kühnert couldn't very well say no, don't bring him, but instead had to assure him effusively that any friend of his would be more than welcome; what really triggered Frau Kühnert's resentment and anger — yet another surprising and unaccountable turnabout — was the very gentle manner in which Thea turned to me during our conversation, clinging to my arm, purring and flirting, to which I responded, naturally enough, with an awkward grin, for what was she doing grabbing and pawing me when she was really after the other one? or did she now want me instead, repeating her earlier double take, when she'd responded to my unashamed glance after she'd had her feel of Hübchen's unashamed body? or did she want both of us at the same time? bring us together just to play us off against each other? prove that she wasn't interested in Melchior, could twist everyone around her finger, anyone, and thus overcome the humiliation she'd suffered from Melchior's rude rebuff, a hurt she felt like a reopened wound during her scene with Hübchen? because she did yearn for youth and beauty, oh yes, and the wound began to bleed even more when she got into that hopeless argument with the director; in any case, the display of what seemed like tenderness, mutual interest, and trust, the picture of us standing there, clinging, our eyes locked, while life went on around us — props and flats were being carried past, somebody flushed the toilet, and then Hübchen marched out of the shower, naked, and headed for his dressing room, but along the way winked at Thea as if to say, rather insolently, "See, you miserable slut, you'll get from this one what you wanted from me just a while ago" — must have really unnerved Frau Kühnert, who did not comprehend the message, or the meaning of our intense look; what's more, Thea didn't even bother to thank her for having been the go-between, couldn't, really, since she was too busy paying attention to me and of course took it for granted that Frau Kühnert was there to serve her.