The most important ritual is related to the dinner service. Bella has a special cabinet in the kitchen where she keeps the plates, glasses and cutlery for guests. And really it is a highly select and very expensive set of china, crystal glasses and silver cutlery. I am happy about this because she is so afraid I will break or leave stains on the china that she never makes me do the washing-up when the guests have left.
I have played host to many of Bella’s guests, of all kinds, but nothing can compare with the two occasions when we were visited by Wolfgang—or, as my sister and I called him, ‘the blind man’. This was not meant metaphorically but literally: Wolfgang was blind and moved with a stick. His eyes appeared normal. They were brown and beady and, except for their frequent blinking, winking and, at times, weird circling around as if trying to see everything, left you with no impression that they were without sight. One could guess from afar, nevertheless, that Wolfgang was blind, for in addition to walking with a stick, he held his head unnaturally erect.
My sister had not told me anything of his blindness, which offended me greatly as I was unprepared for such a meeting. She merely informed me that an Austrian musicologist was coming for dinner and that there was no need for me to make a pie this time, just one of my exotic salads. Having done so, I withdrew to my room bewildered that my sister had not once yelled at me for leaving something where it did not belong, nor asked me to help her, nor shown any signs of hysteria before the guest’s arrival. I knew he was due to arrive around seven and so I emerged from my room at quarter to seven, only to find her sitting peacefully reading a book in an armchair in the living room. No new covers on the cushions, the table linen unchanged. My sister was neither short of breath nor anxious, making it obvious that she had not spent the past hour cleaning. The flat looked normal. And Bella, her face free of its usual caking of make-up, was neither framed within one of her eccentric hairdos nor wearing one of her usual black sacks with studs down the side.
‘Is the guest not coming, then?’ I asked, confused.
‘Yes, he’s coming in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet him in front of the building. He’s coming in a taxi. Did I not tell you he was blind?’
I shook my head.
‘Ah, well, he is. So we don’t need to dress up!’ said my sister and laughed out loud.
I was rather put out as I had spent some fifteen minutes dressing up and blow-drying my hair. I had no time to consider whether I would have done the same if I had known the guest was blind, for at that very moment my sister’s mobile-phone rang. When she saw who was calling, she leapt out of the armchair and said: ‘It’s him! He’s arriving fifteen minutes early! The cheek of it! Imagine I had to get dressed or put my make-up on!’
She slipped into some trainers and ran out through the front door. She was back a few seconds later, however, rushing into the toilet to apply some perfume. She advised me to do the same, as blind people have a heightened sense of smell. I obeyed and quickly sprayed myself with perfume. But I did so somewhat clumsily and when I returned to the living room it seemed to me I had gone a little over the top. I was immediately embarrassed by the thought that the guest might notice I had perfumed myself in order to create a good impression, and I also became very self-conscious regarding the quality of my scent and was suddenly convinced that the perfume was no good. I rushed into the toilet to wash it off with some soap. While I was doing that, Bella and Wolfgang arrived, so I missed the moment of his being ushered into the living room.
Wolfgang was already seated on the sofa, blinking and staring with a smile at the upper right corner of the living room. When I approached him, my sister introduced me in English.
‘Wolfgang, this is my sister Ada.’
Wolfgang stood and immediately clasped my outstretched hand as if he could see it and knew where it was. I was impressed by the sense blind people have of the objects around them.
‘Ada’s English is not terribly good,’ my sister explained, the first in a series of subtle insults.
‘I am sure that is not true,’ the blind man said in a heavy Austrian accent. Throughout dinner, he kept saying ‘foh shua’ as a positive comment in his conversation with my sister.
‘Ada is a retired historian,’ my sister continued in her introduction, leaving me no space to express myself, ‘She used to work for the National Historical Institute.’
‘Ach, zoh,’ said Wolfgang, staring at a spot on my right shoulder, nodding his head in confirmation. ‘Did you know Professor Jankovski?’ he asked me, accentuating the ‘o’.
‘Certainly, we were very close friends,’ I replied, curious to discover how Wolfgang knew the professor. My sister left to fetch some drinks and Wolfgang and I started chatting. By the time she returned, we had developed a discussion concerning our mutual acquaintances. The man’s knowledge of history was truly amazing, as was the fact that he knew so many people in my field. Bella sat down in an armchair and watched us with a deepening frown. Before long she began signalling me to stop talking to the guest: running her finger across her throat, making time-out signs, locking up her mouth with an invisible key. I went on, ignoring her until she addressed me in English in her false British accent: ‘Ada, darling, your zipper is undone.’ I blushed, first with anger and then with shame that my sister should embarrass us both in such a manner, and only just managed to mutter a confused ‘Thank you,’ and zip up my zipper that was indeed undone. As the sound of zipping up resounded in the unpleasant silence, Wolfgang’s mouth twitched at the corner.
My sister used this unpleasant moment to launch her conversation with Wolfgang. As they talked, I pierced her with deadly looks to distract her attention. After several minutes, she began signalling to me with her head that it was time for me to put an end to such behaviour. But I did not, and only intensified my scornful looks. She turned to me and voicelessly mouthed the word ‘ENOUGH!’. I attempted to retort in the same manner, ‘ENOUGH WHAT’?, but inadvertently released the words as a quiet whisper. Wolfgang went on speaking as if he had not heard a thing while my sister, making little confirmatory noises like ‘uh-huh’ and ‘mmm… ’, reached towards the shelf under the coffee table, pulled out a felt-tip pen and scrawled a message on a napkin:
CAREFUL! HIS HEARING IS EXCELLENT!
She handed me the napkin together with the felt-tip. I left them on the coffee table, blushing with fury and embarrassment. Bella continued talking to the guest as if nothing had happened. After a short while, he addressed me again and we picked up our conversation afresh, ignoring my sister. She then reached for the felt-tip and napkin again and wrote on the other side:
STOP BOTHERING HIM! HE’S VERY IMPORTANT TO ME!
Before handing me back the napkin, she said, ‘Ada, do take this napkin to wipe yourself, you’ve left a smudge just there next to your mouth.’ Then she used my confused pause to resume her conversation with Wolfgang while I, reaching the peak of irritation, wrote at the bottom of the same napkin
GO FUCK YOURSELF
and placed it back triumphantly on the coffee-table for her to see. But my sister stubbornly ignored both the napkin and me, and turned her attention completely
on the guest. Covered in sweat with anger, I headed towards the dining room to lay the table. As soon as I approached the china cabinet, my sister’s sixth sense was activated and she apologized to the guest for interrupting in order to call out: ‘Ada, dear, don’t bother with the table. I’ll lay it.’
‘There’s no need, dear sister,’ I said, secretly hoping that the guest would pick up on the irony, ‘You just continue talking while I lay the table.’
By my sister would not surrender where her precious dinner service was concerned. She reminded the guest that dinner was getting cold and, without leaving him an opportunity to finish his tea, dragged him to the dining-room and seated him with almost violent forcefulness at the dining table. The moment I opened the cabinet containing her valuable dinner service, meanwhile, she started waving with her arms and silently yelling ‘No! No!’, somehow still managing to calm herself down sufficiently to resume her conversation with the guest. Having ordered me to sit down and ‘not bother with the dinner’, she opened the cupboard where the everyday plates and glasses are kept and cold-bloodedly laid them on the table, all the time avoiding my eyes. I was even more baffled when she pulled open the drawer where we keep our everyday forks, spoons and knives, though she was careful not to take out those with plastic handles. She also took care to provide the guest with the best napkins, though she gave herself and me the cheap ones. She didn’t notice Wolfgang passing his right hand over the surface and rim of his plate. With the tips of his fingers he then stroked the knife and fork whose handles were engraved with flowery patterns. As he did so he went on nodding his head to signal that he was listening to what I was saying.
Soon Bella finished laying the table and we started the dinner. Wolfgang’s sense of smell was truly excellent and he guessed correctly what food was on the table. My sister politely asked him whether he would allow her to serve some food on his plate. Only when we had started eating did my sister finally turn her head towards me, but when I looked back at her reproachfully for the unrefined dinner service, she immediately averted her gaze, looking first at her food and then at Wolfgang.
the art is inside
