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Now she would do it: Standing here above, observed by all those below, who had not believed her capable of it: of leaving this ridiculous GDR, where no one understood, neither at school nor at the gym, that she had it in her to surpass them all, of leaving this ridiculous GDR and starting anew, they had not thought her capable of it, of abandoning her place as a pitied, average high-diver at this tiled provincial swimming pool, which those below take to be the world, and they will not venture onto the 11-meter diving board, because they believe that 10 meters would be the limit, only because they can't see what she sees, these spectators of their own lives, who had not thought her capable of this, of becoming the star, of leaving her position as an animal caretaker and becoming a doctor of philosophy, of proving, as the best student, to these Germans, who believed she was one of them, just because she was German, of proving to them who Kant is, of proving to this professor, whom she had loved, that she would be perfectly capable of forsaking love and going over to hatred, as easily as going from East to West, as if there were no wall, these Catholics who thought she was Catholic, just because father and mother were, who believed her incapable of becoming a Jew, one of the community of victims, she also wanted to become one of them; Now she would do it, from her 11-meter diving board, after she had left behind her name, her profession, her character, her place of residence, her religion, her sex, her desire for the other sex, for the answer-after she had finally left all of that behind her, like the gaping spectators down below, now after she had ascended from being a spectator to being the star, ascended this tower of glory, ever higher and farther beyond reach, with this plunge. |
I knew her, my dear colleague, as a brilliant thinker, her conclusions concerning virginal nature in Hegel and its parallelism to the commonwealth, my dear colleague, were unsurpassed; how can such an intellect become so deranged, I knew her, my dear colleague, as a logical reasoner, how can such sense in a woman deteriorate so completely, I knew her, my dear colleague, as a helpful assistant, how can charity become so distorted into hate, I knew her, my dear colleague, as an animal-loving creature, she could not know enough about every lab rat and parted painfully from each one. I, my dear colleague, have been struck dead by her fucking gun, for you it was only life-threatening, you will survive, I thought so, you always had a better relationship with the dean, you, my dear colleague. 2. We always had a good relationship with her, here in the house, until she brought the turtles home with her, the frogs, the amphibians, the sod, the wading pool, until she had made her apartment into a terrarium and an aquarium as well, until the water began to come through the ceiling and the television was destroyed, until every night up there she began to quack like a duck, bark like a dog, snort like a horse, until she began to shriek in a voice like an unknown bird and we could no longer get any sleep, which had left her, we always had a good relationship with her, here in the house. A schoolteacher moved into her apartment, who looks a little bit like her, with the big glasses and the thin mouth. Sometimes we think that it's really her, she's back, but that cannot be, she is in jail or in the madhouse now. The schoolteacher often sings at night. 3. May 16 Yes, today I decided to begin my career as a high-diver at the "Mermaid" swim club, which will take me to the Tokyo Olympics. September 22 Yes, today I decided to learn to knit or, better, to perish from an unknown disease. July 4 Yes, today I decided never to speak another word to Mick Jagger, to throw away my Rolling Stones albums, and to become a Jew or a drug addict. May 9 Yes, today I decided to publicly revoke my dissertation and to inform my aunt that there is not a single Jew in the Institute for Jewish Studies. December 3 Yes, today I decided to renounce language and practice only deeds. 4. The weapon should be from the Middle Ages, the weapon should be symbolic, the weapon should be deadly, the weapon should be an enigma, the seller of the weapon should be a Jew, the seller of the weapon should be unsuspecting, the seller of the weapon should be a swindler, the buyer of the weapon should be a student, the buyer of the weapon should be educated, the buyer of the weapon should be innocent, the murderer should be the weapon, displaced from the Middle Ages into the present moment, from the outskirts of the ordinary into the center of fear. |
Now the climax has finally been reached: To escape their stares with this plunge, how could she do that, they will say, buy a gun and go into the university, where they presume to stain my Jewish identity with their stares, where they presume to continue to call me by my old name instead of saying Sara, where they presume to doubt that I am the true wife of Mick Jagger and have seen the scar on his stomach, the scar, the healed stab wound, from which he unfortunately recovered, after I left him that night, but the professors will not recover from these two shots with which I shot them out of their unworthy German existence and shot myself upward into the heaven of Einstein and Freud, I, the new formerly German Anne Frank, who did her deed for the Jewish people who cannot defend themselves against the appropriation of their history by uncircumcised professors of Jewish Studies, this people, to whom I have attached myself and now go before them, because they need someone who can lead them on the long journey through the darkness and here I stand on the 11-meter tower, in the spotlight of history, and yet suspended high up with my gun in my hand, in order to look down upon you, ever higher and ready to shoot, you two will be given over to the Dead Sea, through which we had to go, I am flying and destroying your construction and the newspapers will write about me, as though it were only in my head, not in the world, this plunge. |
The audience wanted an explanation for what they had to look at, to listen to, to report and gathered to consider whether this description of an opera was about the presentation of the documented case in which in the eighties a professor of Jewish Studies was killed and another badly wounded by a student, the audience did not come to any conclusion, except one: the observer, the listener sees and hears nothing, if he does not let himself go. So they went back into the viewing room of their history, to the person who was supposed to tell them what they could not understand, for the observer sees nothing. 2. She had known me before, she said suddenly, no, no this is not our first encounter, didn't I remember, it was true that I had had a different appearance and a different name, but I had revealed myself to her, I had been her married Jewish lover and she had threatened to shoot my son if I would not immediately leave my wife, but fortunately I had exchanged my identity and had run to her, to the big shalom. Meanwhile I could never see her eyes. She seemed to me to have turned completely inward. So I ran out and never wanted to see her again. I sensed something. 3. To speak another language, one that only the speaker understands, behind which he is completely concealed, behind which no one can discover him, to mingle the language of the victims and the perpetrators into a violently tender web, like that of men and women, of lunatics and children, of pale cowards and stony mummies, a language like a dance, that satisfies itself before an orchestra without instruments under a sky full of violins, disguised as machine guns, to learn to speak the language of a speechless protagonist, whom one did not encounter except on paper, on the piano. To learn to speak her scream. 4. The boundary crossed from rage into coldness, from motive into action, from terror into paralysis, from eagerness into absence, the boundary crossed from ambition into decline, from intention into chance, from diligence into rest, from sentence into word, from melody into sound, from din into noise, from drawing into line, from history into moment, the boundary crossed with one leap, which stands still, one foot on this side, the other on the far side over the edge, with one leap, which leads no farther. |
I crash down, they lead me away, they transport the corpses away, they write me off in the newspapers, they take a picture of me at the prison doctor's, they pick me up like for a KZ, they dismiss me like a lunatic, they replace me as the star, they tear down my 11-meter tower, they bolt the door behind me, they pull the audience out, they reject my statement, they cut off my hair, they again take away my Jewish name, the Jews turn away from me, my body turns away from me, my classmates turn away from me, Papa and Mama turn away from me, they dismiss me, they tear up the swimming pool, they let the water out, I crash down, 11 meters deep I crash down, they turn off the music, they turn off my thoughts, they turn off the light, they stop my plunge, I crash into the sea of silence, my plunge, I am broken up. I will be broken up, after I had closed, I was treated and finally described. I don't want to go under, there's no water here, turn off these noises, turn off these words, I am crashing down, so short was the plunge, I am crashing and turning myself off. |
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