Malina

by Ingeborg Bachmann

I contradict him quietly, no, no, I’m all he has, I start to cry because Malina has left, I don’t know what I am supposed to do anymore, I have to remove all the traces, I gather the shards from the street, with my hands I shovel all the flowers and soil into the gutter, tonight I lost Malina and Malina almost had to die tonight, both of us, Malina and myself, but this is stronger than me and my love for Malina, I will go on in denial, a light is burning in the house, my father has fallen asleep on the floor, in the middle of the devastation, everything has been laid waste, destroyed. I lie down beside my father, amid the devastation, for my place is here next to him, who is sleeping, limp, sad and old. And although it disgusts me to look at him, I must, I have to know what danger still is written in his face, I have to know where the evil originates, and I am frightened, but in a different way than usual, because the evil is in a face I do not recognize, I am crawling over to a strange man whose hands are sticky with dirt. How did I get into this, how did I fall into his power, in whose power?