Gilgi by Irmgard Keun

Author:Irmgard Keun
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781612192789
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2013-11-11T22:00:00+00:00

Gilgi is lying in bed. She’s asleep. Wakes up: one in the morning. Martin has gone out. Why shouldn’t a man go out by himself sometimes? That’s quite in order. But why hasn’t he got back yet? Surely nothing can have happened to him?… Can it?… Nonsense, he wouldn’t cheat on her. It’s not as if they’re married.

Gilgi can’t stand it in bed anymore. Gets up, walks up and down the room. How can you be so listless and so tired, tired from doing nothing all day? You never used to be this tired. And why can’t you be by yourself anymore? You’ve got a pathological fear of being by yourself. Don’t just walk up and down so pointlessly, now, do something, some work. Gilgi pulls on her dressing gown. Switches on the lights in all the rooms, nothing is too bright. Looks uncared-for, the apartment. Gilgi fetches a broom and some rags and a pail from the kitchen, starts scrubbing and cleaning—in the middle of the night. She works until her arms start to hurt, which makes her feel very cheerful and healthy. And Olga is quite right when she says that not working doesn’t agree with her.

Gilgi goes into Martin’s room—his writing-room, if you like—calling it a workroom would seem just slightly exaggerated, even to Gilgi. There are some pages with writing on them on the desk, Gilgi reads a little of them: they’re about the customs and traditions of South Sea Islanders—“it’ll be quite a long, detailed job,” Martin said once—“and is sure to take at least two years.” Gilgi puts the papers back carefully, pointing this way and that—just as they had been. Because you read that somewhere once: how upset men get when women with a mania for tidiness attack their writing desks. Except—presumably you’re allowed to pick up what’s on the floor. Bills! A whole bundle. All unpaid. Gilgi holds them with her fingertips, just as if they were poisonous. Which they are, really. She doesn’t want to look at them, or to talk about them with Martin anymore, either, never again. Don’t worry yourself about them—don’t think about them at all. But it’s terrible when you leave the building together and stroll immediately and without speaking to the other side of the street, just so that you don’t have to go past the delicatessen, because … no, that kind of thing is no fun, and no matter how many times you say that it’s a great joke and a big laugh, you’re always lying.

Letters, letters. From all kinds of places. Gilgi puts them into a pile. They’re all lying around quite openly, the letters. He has no secrets from her, does Martin. Funny habit, chucking everything on the floor. Gilgi feels a kind of housewifely pride well up in her when she sees an Amsterdam postmark on one letter. The little Dutch girl! Oh, she knows the story. The poor child is still in love with Martin. No reason why he shouldn’t write

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