E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten
Banciu Mother's Day
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-3-941524-46-0
Verlag: PalmArtPress
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Song of a Sad Mother
E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-941524-46-0
Verlag: PalmArtPress
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Carmen-Francesca Banciu was born in Romanian Lipova and studied religious painting and foreign trade in Bucharest. As a result of being awarded the International Short Story Award of the City of Arnsberg for the story 'Das strahlende Ghetto' (1985), she was banned from publishing her work in Romania. In 1991 she accepted an invitation extended by DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence program and came to Germany. She has been living in Berlin since 1992, employed as a freelance author writing articles for the radio and newspapers as well as leading seminars for creativity and creative writing. Since 2013 she has acted as the co-editor and deputy director of the transnational, interdisciplinary and multilingual e-magazine Levure Littéraire. Banciu has received numerous literature prizes and scholarships; her work has been translated into many languages.
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Flowers for Mother
I brought flowers. But Mother wasn’t used to flowers. I am not dead yet, she said. I didn’t know what to do with them. The fleshy roses suddenly seemed obscene. She said: Throw them away if you can’t think of anything better to do with them.
Nothing came to me. It was as if I was paralyzed.
You need to come, Father said on the phone. It was important.
He didn’t say whether it was important for him.
Or for whom. And why.
I should come immediately!
And I took the first flight.
Did she want to see me?
And did I want to see her?
An odor of burnt dolls mixed with the fragrance of chrysanthemum floated in the air.
But chrysanthemum was only in my head.
And that with the dolls was a long time ago.
I brought Mother roses.
Mother lay in bed. She said that I should pray for her.
Mother said: Pray as if it were the same as washing hands. I had only been taught to wash hands.
I can’t pray. Mother never told me about praying. So that I would never depend on anyone. You can only depend on yourself, she said. And I memorized this lesson very well. I memorized this lesson and at the same time forgot it instantly.
Can you imagine? I memorized this lesson forever and forgot it at the same time.
Do you know how it is, to know something and not know? When one is able to do something and is not able? Then one senses that one exists. One is. And one is not. And longs for one’s own being.
You will think I’m crazy. I am not crazy. I am and am not. But is it different with you?
I am not talking to you. I’m talking to me. With the part of me that knows. And is able. And with the part of me that does not know. And is unable. I am in the process of learning how to bring these parts together. Reconcile. Unite them.
And what should come from all this? Not half nor whole. No. A whole being. A balanced being.
And what is balance? Do you know what balance is?
I am also not sure. Even though I sense it on some days. I feel my feet. As they stroke the asphalt. I sense how the foot lifts itself with momentum and positions itself anew. And it is like a dance. Like a chain. Time and time again. As if I were floating. But one does not float. One walks. Walks with oneself. No. One simply walks. And one is not. Rather senses. I am.
Sometimes one walks beside oneself. Sometimes with oneself. In oneself. And sometimes one just walks.
What does she want to hear from me, this young woman? She sat down with me at the table. Without asking for permission. We only know each other by sight. She comes to the café every day to read or to watch the people in the café as she sips endlessly on her small Turkish coffee. Today she looks agitated. She speaks. As if driven by something. Without awaiting an answer.
Balance. What is balance? And who’s balanced, the young woman says. She looks not at me when saying this. She looks out the window. Into the distance. Into a kind of distance that makes time and space disappear.
Balance, she repeats. Is the President of the Republic balanced? What about the Pope? The Mother of God?
She pauses only briefly and looks into her cup, as if there she had, deep inside the cup, discovered a world. Then she continues.
She’s balanced. The Mother of God.
She can balance out the pain of the loss of her son with love. Neutralize it.
She can love the world unconditionally.
And Mother? My Mother. Whom did she love?
Did she love me?
She often claimed to. Always when I wasn’t allowed something that I really wanted. She forbade everything for my own sake. Because she worried about me. Because she was afraid for me. Because she loved me.
Mother loved me and Father. But Father was allowed everything. He was allowed to stay out all night. Even though she worried about him. Father didn’t come home, because he had to do things for our society.
For Communism.
He always had to do something somewhere. Only at home he had nothing to do. Because his duties were best carried out elsewhere. He came home to please us. Even though it wasn’t a pleasure to have him at home and not have him.
To have him at home always meant to take into consideration that he was home, although he should be somewhere else.
When were fathers supposed to be at home?
Fathers were never supposed to be at home.
Because fathers earn money and earning money doesn’t happen at home. But mothers also earn money. And that also doesn’t happen at home. And yet they have to be at home.
Mother was also not at home. And when she was there, in reality she was not there. Because she had to do her housework. So that one admired her housewife qualities. Or at least didn’t claim that she isn’t a good housewife.
Mother was good at everything. She was also good at being a housewife.
I don’t know if she was good at motherhood. But may one ask mothers something like this?
May one question something like this?
Mother lay in bed. I see her before my eyes as if it were today. Mother was depleted. Crushed by life. The strength was pushed out of her. I’m searching for the right words to describe what happened to Mother, the woman says.
The woman’s name is Maria-Maria.
She came from Bucharest to Berlin. After the revolution. She came to find out whether she could depend on herself.
To throw everything away and start over. From scratch. Out of nothing make something. And how is that best accomplished?
One leaves everything behind and goes away. To another world. Where one has to learn everything anew. The language. How one presses down on a door handle. Flushes a toilet. How to open a window. How one gets money out of an ATM. If one has any.
Maria-Maria says: I came, because I didn’t want to go to Mother’s grave. I never wanted to go there. Because Mother’s not in the cemetery. She’s elsewhere. Where she is, I don’t know. Sometimes she’s around me. Sometimes she’s within me. And sometimes she’s gone. Sometimes she’s in my fears. I have many fears. They are Mother’s fears. But I am learning to conquer them. I am learning to cast Mother out.
Mother burned my dolls. So that I would never depend on anybody. As soon as I started going to school.
My bed was encircled by dolls. I had my own room from very early on. So that I would learn to organize my room. So that I would learn to be responsible for my own space. And at the same time my life. Mother never had time. She had only enough time for me in order to organize my life. But no time to live it with me. Experience it. Mother never experienced.
Mother had duties. From morning till evening. And also at night. But her nightly duties she could rarely fulfill. Father was seldom at home. Mother carried out her headache duties. The duty of her daily headaches.
In my memory, Mother always had a headache. As if she had been born with them. As if Mother and headaches were one and the same.
I was also familiar with pain. It accompanied me for a long time. Until I slowly learned to strip it off. To dissolve it. To free myself from it.
Mother had taught me to love pain.
I loved my dolls. I was able to tell them things. I wasn’t able to tell Mother anything. Mother never listened. I talked to the dolls, but Mother said: Don’t talk to yourself. That’s what crazy people do, and your grandmother.
For Mother, grandmother was the worst role model.
The first day of school was a special day. And not only because of the carefully packaged set of newly printed books sitting on every bench in our classroom.
I was already familiar with books. I could already read, write and do arithmetic. Mother had taught me all of that. I had to learn fast. Because Mother didn’t have patience to explain anything twice. And definitely not time.
Already seven, Mother said, and you’re already going to school. Now you’re big. You need to depend on yourself. Dolls are of no use to you for that.
On my first day of school, Mother burned my dolls.
I should read. I should learn. I should make use of knowledge.
Knowledge was for Mother like nourishment.
And yet, Mother condemned the knowledge of others. You should know what all there is.
Not truly everything. Mother did not want me to know about happiness. One can not depend on happiness. If happiness even exists, Mother said, it comes seldom and disappears quickly. And then you fall into the void that it leaves behind. And suffocate. And drown. And never come out again.
Mother also never came out. Mother never found a way out. Even though she didn’t believe in happiness.
What did Mother believe in?
You need to depend on yourself. Read. Learn. Know. Depend only on the things that you have achieved yourself. Depend on your strength. Your virtues.
Mother was virtuous. Now she lay in bed with her virtues and said: Pray for me.
* * * * * * *
On that morning I visited her in the hospital, Maria-Maria says. Father had called. And said that I should come. I was afraid of seeing Mother. But now Mother wasn’t able to hit me. And burn my dolls. Now she wasn’t able to do anything. Only lie in bed. With her head on three pillows. And it still wasn’t high enough. Sit more than lay. Otherwise the water from the lungs would have flown...
