218
MARIA LEHMANN
out, all of them! Mter such exaltation I'd sink back into my agonies
and fears of disclosure.
And of course "Swallows" was received with strident enthusiasm,
so wild and vociferous it seemed to trouble the silence in which we
live. I had, after all, not been the only one who, on reading it, had
wept as
if
a ton of granite had fallen off my chest. Naturally, there
was in all that loud praise an element of relief at being able, for
once, to say yes to an "official" writer, and with a smiling con–
science, even a thinly veiled hope that "they" had seen the light and
that underground and official literature might eventually become one.
Poor suckers, so much for that!
From the moment "Swallows" appeared in the
Journal,
my
days (and nights!) took on a different, gliding quality. Instead of
the iron ring that had held my life in, there was now the soft,
rounded hand of love. Wherever I went, someone would look round
and smile with an extraordinary expression of sweetness and secret
understanding. I'd had no idea there was so much - what shall I
call
it? - "melting goodness" on tap. The first to lend me a smile was
the
girl
who sells newspapers in the village; her toffee-brown eyes
sparkled, her little breasts rose like two dumplings under her dress.
(Oh, lucky Zerin!) While Clara B., our resident, utterly flat-chested
poetess, took her tray all the way round the cafeteria to pass by my
table and then, too shy to raise her gauzy eyelids, walked on, tray
and all, back to the counter.
The meeting with Jochum, unfunny author, usually pissed, of
funny children's books, was less amusing.
If
somebody had gone up
to Jochum and called him a hyena, Jochum would have screwed
up
his
eyes, back to the furthest recesses of irrelevancy, and spoken
thus: "Hyena with a
y?"
or "Ah, but a hyena
is
a useful animal."
This
clown got hold of me, taking my hand and looking at me
searchingly, beseechingly. I winced. Here was the one who knew,
the friend Zerin had shown
his
poems, in short, the executioner.
But all Jochum wanted to deliver
himself
of was: "So, after all,
you aren't the swine we thought you were." "We?" I shot back,
relief turning to rancor, "and who are 'we'?" Jochum, pursing
his
lips in disgust as
if
my very voice belied the beauty of "Swallows"
(it does), turned and shuffled off.
