Tatjana T. Jamnik: Ivan or Malina (short story)

Tatjana T. Jamnik Ivan or Malina

My hand hurts, but not the right one, the one I write with, usually banging on the keys of my Olivetti; the left one, which strikes only here and there, and is mostly used for turning pages, pulling paper out of the typewriter. In the wrist, although not all the time, only at certain moves, for example, when I bend my wrist slightly inwards; it’s a specific, particular movement to a specific, particular point, as far as possible, it nips me, and I have to stretch out the wrist, return the hand into a neutral position. Maybe I type too much, I thought, whilst my posture is askew, unnatural; the pain, of course, must have come from somewhere, surely there must be a physiological reason, purely physical cause; perhaps I slept oddly, lately I sleep in the fetus position, tonight I observed myself, I strangely bend my wrists, so that the palm is almost touching the forearm, but why does only the left wrist ache me, if I bent the right one alike, surely the posture during typing is to blame. Or I type too much, type too many unnecessary pages, too many failed letters that are then never sent, ending up torn in the wastebasket, until I, when the bin is full, turn it over into a special bag for old paper, that will go into the paper container.

Actually, this, too, is me writing a letter, writing a letter to an old friend, whom I cannot name nor directly address him with »My dear…«, because it isn’t possible anymore, for perhaps it was never really possible, but merely probable that we were exchanging letters addressed with »my dear«. Even using singular in the second person somehow doesn’t come off my tongue, even less off my fingers; in accordance with the fact that I cannot address this old friend directly, by name, I rather talk about him in the third person, »he« is in a way more natural, it belongs more to the present and present tense, »you« has, paradoxically, shifted into some other time, which it seems to be somehow separated, to have lost its touch with the here and now. © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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I wrap up these sausage sentences a lot, perhaps out of fear that I couldn’t be able to name some other elements of the world that surrounds me, especially this, the nearest one: closet, cabinet, cupboard, telephone, desk, pencil. For me, everything I write is true, and the only possible truth, even my universe – DAS WELTALL! THE COSMOS! – that contracts and expands, expands and contracts as if there was an interchange of inhale, filling up, tension, and exhale, releasing of tension, relief. The universe is pulsating, Lina said, and I called out: Yes, it pulsates like a giant heart. And it pushes us through its ventricles and further in, through the blood vessels, speeding us into the vascular system and through it, and when the circle is complete, its sucks us in again. And so on. I am an insignificant fraction, a dust particle that can be noticed in a sunbeam that has to fall into the room at the right moment, for instance, during the vacuuming of the rug or making the bed, and above all in the right angle in relation to the spectator.

And so I found myself dwelling upon trivial details, Ivan would have surely reminded me that I digressed from the topic, and Malina would say that I must need it for something and would have kept his silence, because Malina understands everything, and Ivan sees everything. But at this point a question of my translator begins to echo in my mind, it did not shake me because of the content but because he did not need the answer, he raised it for himself; however, with the answer he will receive an important information, so that the translation will be even more equivalent, closer to the original; that was a shocking question. He asked me: Which character is more fictitious, Ivan or Malina?

This translator was quite something, I already realized it, when he read aloud a passage in Polish; even though I couldn’t understand a word of it, I heard a familiar rhythm as if it were mine, although it couldn’t be mine, when of all the languages Polish was the one I really didn’t speak; but still, in a strangely softened German, the translator, assured me, that, of course, it was my rhythm, he merely listened to me, and it was not difficult, and this is what came out!

Perhaps Malina is more fictitious, this Slavic soul of mine, the © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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vigorous Slovenian, home to the marshy plains around Klagenfurt, the indigenous, a descendant of princes who were, not far from here, set on the capital of a Roman pillar, the so-called Prince’s stone, so that he could take an oath to the princes, to the people to act in their interest; this part of me is grounded, connected to the earth, to the land, for me it represents home and shelter, as it did for the protestants who fled here from Carniola until they were also washed away by the land of Carinthia, and they were forced to go forward, more to the north, while in Klagenfurt catholic churches popped up like mushrooms after the rain, and church high officials were coming and fervently preached to the masses to pull out that weed, to blow chaff out of the hearts of the common people, the second Christianization, butchery – burning of books; and my other side, the German one, which prevailed, although I still like to say me and you, you and me, and I feel at home again, in my childhood, in my childhood landscape, which is gone even though the place still stands, it awakes only in my head, the power of my imagination, my memory. Perhaps some of his blood streams through me, the blood of his people. Malina is my childhood that is gone.

Ivan is the cure for my adulthood, which is not what I had envisioned, most of all, I don’t know my way around here, at no point am I conquering the world, even that fragment that I arranged as my home, provisional, because I don’t know, where this life can carry me again, even that scrap of land, that territory I have to rediscover again and again, accept, get used to it, and make myself at home in it, for every time I move away from it, a tiny thread is torn that so painfully woven by my spider as a safety net, just in case if he would be blown somewhere by the wind or if he would accidentally fall down. The thread is repeatedly torn, and before I met Ivan, I always wandered about afterwards, and helplessly searched for my starting point, and since I discovered Ivan, the grounding point is not dancing around as a shadow rabbit on the wall, but rather stands still and awaits me to come to it, and stand in its circle to be illuminated. Ivan is the light that makes me glow, Ivan is the strength that drives me so I can move and function, Ivan is the well that quenches my thirst, is the spring that fuels my creativity. Ivan is my © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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source of life, he is my hussar on a black stallion with whom I rush through the steppe with the speed of light, is my savior and my master, all I need, what I feel I need, because I am a woman, because I can’t make it on my own so well, because I can’t live as I should so well, because I don’t know how to do it.

But if I think about it, I might have imagined Ivan more, this Hun or Avar on a black stallion, this Hungarian ancestor who is teaching me to play chess and who educates me to live on a purely practically level, who reminds me to eat regularly and that I smoke too much again, this father of two children, who don’t like adults who are invasive with their stupid questions, boys by the names of Béla and András, this tourist guide bursting with energy when he’s not tired, but when he is, he is more tired than me, although he’s younger.

Ivan who dragged me out of the black hole I was sucked in, when I returned from Rome, where I forgot half of my luggage, Ivan who asked me for a light on a tram station once, and from then on the world started to turn in another direction. No one will know of this, for I myself am unaware.

But in reality neither of them are imagined, I swear, so help me God, although I don’t like to swear, they both exist, both of skin and bones, and both historically well documented, Ivan and Malina are Austro-Hungary in a nutshell, a monarchy that still breaths, that still imbues every single corner of the entire Land of Carniola, and it will do so in the future, until the judgment day, as it is true that the Ungargasse stands, I really lived there, and I truly typed and tore up all those letters, even the one that actually wasn’t a letter, because I didn’t address anyone, and I didn’t use the word »you«, still it was a letter, for a particular person with a particular name, which I cannot utter, which I would have sent and I shall address as K. K. Although this might be too much, I feel it as a shove, as violence against myself, some sort of twisted masochism (without the aim to satisfy any need or offering pleasure), a jerk of the blade straight into my heart, stabbing, screaming, despair and horror, horror that nothing can be fixed anymore, that we went too far, that there is no way back, that the abyss between us is only expanding, that I am reaching © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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out but can’t reach you, that I call you yet you don’t hear me, that we are each at its own end of the abyss above earth fault that tears us in fast motion, tears the bond between us, this umbilical cord that carried food in both directions, I scream in horror, because I don’t feel you anymore, I cry out aloud as a child that was ripped away from its mother, I cry but I don’t mourn, I don’t mourn, no.

It is untrue that our relationship was harmonic. It is untrue that I was docile and open-minded and understanding and ready for compromise. In fact I tried to resist you (maybe more that needed), I attacked you with all sorts of accusations (even false), although I was aware that I was in error, I was poking you, repeatedly had outbursts of jealousy, but I was not jealous of the mother of your children, not only of her, but of every woman that you had ever encountered, I was hysterical, I’m still hysterical, no, now I’m in panic, oh my God! (oh my God, even though I’m not religious), why didn’t I stop myself at the right moment, why did I push forward, would it have been any different, if I acted a tad normally, would have then our bond be kept?

I shall never know. No one shall ever know. This letter is also ending up in trash, oh, how on earth could I have send my translator something like this, what would have he thought of me, what would have the others think of me, if they would have found out.

P. S. Maybe I have finally became aware of the seriousness of the situation, maybe I was not in error and he did cut me off, even though he never said it himself, I always had to utter everything instead him, but it is so hard for me to articulate it, he had cut me off, cut off, for his own sake, for my own sake, and for the sake of his new life, so that he can live it, but where am I in this story, or maybe I was not even in it, maybe I will never be, or, perhaps, I am even not here now and all of these thoughts are the yield of a neurotic spirit that persists in the this world, although it has no place here, for the body burned out in a fire due to a cigarette that I might have refused to put out, the body is phantomically aching (knowing © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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too well that this state is called phantomically), maybe out of spite, out of the final defiance, out of the last antagonism towards the person who could not grace me with an explanation as to why it is over, it was simply over, all of a sudden it was over, and no amount of writing helped, and my wandering around the world was also completely surplus, please, tell me and release me. Tell me, what I already sense and almost know.

With this »you« I have broken the universal rule and materialized myself into a voice in the earphone, before I heard you, I recognized her voice.

What is terrifying to me is that nothing, NOTHING!, can turn fate around, turn the clock back, I cannot return to the conclusion point and decide differently – for you, for life, for spring that we could have given each other, for sunshine and hope that now evaporated into nothing, for a new beginning. When I look back, I can clearly see that both of us were given a chance for a new start, I fact we found each other in the first place, because we were both looking for the same thing, that is why we heard each other and recognized each other, for we both sang the same melody, we hummed it openly, nuciliśmy sobie tą melodię, but now we are not able to sing it, let alone entangle our voices in a duet, it is untrue that singing can be learned, everybody knows that.

Sitting here at my Olivetti typewriter with my aching wrist, pondering why I took this road, when I knew – even then – where it leads and that there is no turning back. It would have been better, if I stood still, if I simply wouldn’t do anything, for it is not in my nature, for I am a woman, and women are passive and receiving, and there are many men around me, here is Malina, and also Ivan, one gentle and mild, and the other practical and solid, one for everyday life, and the other for rare, special occasions, but they both care for me, oh, and how they do: one gives me money that doesn’t grow on trees and he also doesn’t picks it up off the ground, while the other offers me spiritual and moral support, a compass, who knows what is good and what is bad, and can show me the right direction, to choose the way to go so everything will be ok. © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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I feel safer than in my parents’ home; for the first time in my life I am not scared and I don’t need to convince myself that everything is going to be all right, because everything already is all right. I have my men who do all these terribly complicated things instead of me, so that I can float, read and write, live within the borders of my world as it suits me best, sink into oblivion. Lethe, Lethe. While before there was Lada*, fertile, burgeoning, thriving into the sky. My boatman is driving me back and forth, back and forth. And the breath dwindles.

Horrific horror, horror horrifying How am I to survive what I know, how am I to decide for, for, for. It doesn’t work, a heap of obstacles, a pile of barriers on my path, stones and rocks that I, How mighty of me!, myself am rolling down the road, by myself, by myself, on the road, I am rolling down…

Translated by Hana Kovač

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Lada: the Slavic goddess of love, beauty, marriage, and spring. © Tatjana T. Jamnik © for translation Hana Kovač

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