“The Hobbler,” by Ingeborg Bachmann - The New Yorker

God alone knows why I limp. My right leg is considerably shorter than my left, and I was never able to find out whether it’s been that way from birth or was caused later, in my early years, by some accident or illness.

For a long time now, I’ve enjoyed telling a story about how my parents’ car collided with another when they took me along on a business trip from Paris to Madrid, how they themselves suffered only minor injuries, whereas mine were beyond the skills of even excellent doctors.

This story suggests, in a very casual way, that I was the son of well-to-do people, and that only later did life play me a bad turn.

Sometimes I get agitated when I spin this story for myself and think of the lost and wasted time that has passed me by and will go on passing me by, lost and wasted, and then the switchboard where I sit from early in the morning until late at night, lifting the receiver to connect the proper extensions, turns into a tomb I can’t climb out of—and the pay slips pile up in my wallet like death certificates issued in my name month after month, with no one there to ask me if, in the end, there is enough air to sustain a breath, a hope that might lead me out onto the street, into the sun, among people, amid their laughter and tears. Maybe there’s still hope for a new morning, for clouds that cluster like ripe grapes which, when squeezed, will release from the heavens the sweet streams of enchanted days. Maybe there’s still hope that I could become weightless and fly, that my feet might drop away, and with them this heavy, dragging leg, which nails me to the cross of helplessness!

But I don’t need that hope. I feel splendid in my clean and comfortable tomb. Only now and then is it too much. “I’ll connect you,” “One moment, please,” “I’ll connect you.” I’ve learned the text well; I can say it perfectly. Even in my dreams I make connections: atop fiery horses I leap over telephone cords, which I connect to muddy foxholes, where I lie as a giant telephone number, forced to repeat my name again and again. “R 27 303,” “I’ll connect you,” “R 27 303.” I connect the giant number that is myself to the worms and to the bustling creatures beneath the dried mud where my head eventually settles. “R 27 303,” “One moment, please,” “I’ll connect you,” “That extension is busy.”

By morning I’ve almost always forgotten everything—except for the text, and that’s a good thing, because I need that text. I can’t possibly forget it. That text is my bread and butter.

But actually I wanted to talk about something else—about the day last spring when I had lost all hope. Back then I was in danger of losing my position at the switchboard because there was a wounded veteran, an amputee, who’d become friendly with the director, or perhaps they’d been friends before. I knew that this man needed to earn money, but so did I—it wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t lost my leg in the war. No, it wasn’t my fault. I would have been happy to lose it; there’s probably nothing I’d rather lose than this worthless leg. I have always lost whatever I’ve set my heart on, always. That filthy little dog who ran up to me just before the end of the war and accompanied me through half the country for two days and nights—as if he knew how necessary his companionship was to me—and who had a more intelligent face than most people; or the large, floor-to-ceiling window in my old apartment, through which drunken shadows and talking faces visited me and comforted me during the bombing raids when I couldn’t make it to safety the way others could; and, finally, Anna’s friendship.

But I don’t want to think about that.

I knew her for only a short time. One day she moved into the small, run-down hotel where I live to this day—into the room next to mine. Another day we greeted each other on the stairs. On yet another day she came up to me and asked me to fix the wiring in her lamp. Oh, I know how to shorten faulty wires and how to restore a broken pin connector! She didn’t have to ask twice; I got right to work.

She shone a flashlight so I could see inside the dark room. When I turned around, the light blinded me, and I couldn’t make out Anna’s face. But the shadow cast by her head hung on the wall behind her like a larger-than-life-size poster. I didn’t look at Anna, but I glanced a few more times at the shadow, from which she, large and looming, approached me.

When I left, she thanked me with heartfelt words. “I’m the one who’s grateful,” I mumbled, worried that she might understand my meaning.

That weekend, she suggested I accompany her on a walk in the park. I was stunned by her boldness.

“Excellent,” I said. “Excellent! Let’s go for a walk! Let’s walk in the park and leave my leg at home. My leg, you see, doesn’t feel its best.”

To add weight to my words, I smacked my hand on my thigh. Naturally, I felt no pain; my leg never feels pain. But she needed to understand that things weren’t as simple as she wished.

Anna didn’t look at my leg. I realized that she hadn’t noticed it at all. She wasn’t even looking at me but gazing past me, out the window.

We didn’t go to the park that day, or ever. But in the evening I would always knock on her door. Sometimes she’d open it and invite me in. I’d sit for hours on a large armchair that groaned with every movement and seemed on the verge of collapsing, telling her what had happened during the day: that the director wanted to give me a raise but for various reasons it would take a while, that new austerity measures were coming, that one of the clerks was accused of embezzlement, and that a truck had scraped the streetcar I’d taken home and slightly damaged it.

I liked talking to her and did so at length, but I was wary of saying anything about myself. When I eventually did, it proved to be a mistake. Incidentally, Anna was also partly to blame.

“Did that happen a long time ago?” she asked, abruptly. I knew immediately that she was referring to my leg and everything relating to it. As I hesitated to answer her, I realized that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her my old story. I still wonder why I was so reluctant. Anyway, I had to come up with a new story on the spot. It worked very well, so it’s an exaggeration to say that I made a mistake.

I gave her a dry, matter-of-fact account of how my mother had died soon after I was born, and how my father had already left her. I then told her, without any hesitation this time, about my life in the orphanage and about school. I wove plausible anecdotes into my story before getting to the point: “I wanted to be an actor,” I said, raising my voice. “I had big dreams. And not just dreams—I was sure I could accomplish something great. You can’t understand that, though. I didn’t have as much time or money as the others; my training was inadequate. But I wanted those big dreams. I wanted them blindly and passionately, and I was hired.”

I paused and looked at her. She’d drawn up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on the back of her hand. She seemed to have fallen asleep. I stood up and pretended to be angry. “I can leave, you know,” I threatened. The toppled armchair lay on the ground next to me. I bent down to set it upright and reinsert its broken leg. Anna didn’t move; she just opened her eyes and looked at me, stupidly—so it seemed to me—and, without saying a word, calmly waited until I had fixed the chair.

Now I was really furious, exasperated by her muteness and indifference. “I was cast in the lead role,” I shouted, beside myself. “In the second act I had to jump out of my lover’s window. During the dress rehearsal, I jumped the way I always had, but this time I didn’t land right, you know, and that was that. That was the end...”

No longer shouting, I coolly stretched my leg out in front of me and looked at the wall, from which, this time, no shadow approached me to lean against my chest. I wanted to leave right away, but I suddenly found myself very close to Anna. I put my arm around her and moved my face close to hers.

“When I was little, I tried to take revenge,” I said, my breath damp on her cheeks.

“Revenge...?” she asked.

“I cut the leg off a cat with a big, sharp knife—it was a tiny, very young kitten. Then I carried the cat down the long path to the river and threw it in the water. I heard it screaming as the water carried it away. It was as if the water were screaming. Yes, the water screamed for a long time. It screamed until evening came, and I lay on the bank and counted the screams.”

Anna turned so pale that her face seemed to shrink; only her lips grew noticeably fuller and redder than before. She let me kiss her without resisting.♦

(“The Hobbler,” a fragment, was written in the late nineteen-fifties, and first published, in German, in 1965. Translated, from the German, by Philip Boehm and Tess Lewis.)

This is drawn from “Ingeborg Bachmann: The Complete Stories.”

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