The Left-Handed Woman (Die linkshändige Frau)

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?