Malina

---

Think you're better than others?

Why're you so special?

Your hands!

Give me your lovely white hands!

Stop!

Your father nearly fooled me.

That was his doing.

Come with me now or we're through!

I can't. Not now.

Let me try one last time.

I'll just calm him down,

then I'll come.

I'll see you when it's all over.

He tried to kill me.

Good evening. It's a family party.

The folks are a bit... overexcited.

What quirk of fate brought me to this?

It can't be a stranger.

It can't be for no reason.

That would be a fraud.

It can't be true.

"Around me the angels

lose their wings.

"They carry me as they do the sick,

"as they carry them to heaven.

"In a year or two,

I'll return to the same spot,

"to confuse the places and times,

"and to confuse you, and me, and others."

What are you doing?

Keeping the mail secret,

nothing more.

Not sending them?

No, they won't arrive today.

No more todays for them.

Miss Jelinek typed them, right?

Malina... animal...

Melani, animus, anima...

Ivan, naive...

Here and now.

What's here is useful.

Reassuring. Proves I exist.

You need this to know you exist?

You should talk.

If I say the magnolias are in bloom,

you tell me to buy

a new tipewriter ribbon.

Stop it.

You've always seemed to

be in my life.

Even before I knew you.

In a place only you could fill.

So I was pushed out.

Writing makes me bitterly

aware of it.

In your next interview,

say you don't exist.

It'll cut our expenses.

At least I didn't meet you too soon.

I kept you from banging

into the hot stove,

drowning in your tub and

losing things all the time.

Thank you, Malina...

Come, we'll be late.

Why look at yourself like that?

I've always hated D'Annunzio's remark

that all a woman wants

is to be lovely to a man.

Women hear worse.

The mirror makes me exist!

I say you exist,

even if you're a specimen.

As if I didn't exist.

I always need reassurance that I do,

even from a mirror.

Why're you so pale?

Get out more.

You never wear your striped dress.

Because I gave it to you?

I want some flowers.

What kind?

Yes? Have we met?

First I must go to the post office.

Money orders? Stamps? Packages?

Bathing suit? Savings account?

Sorry, our ways diverge here.

Get in line!

Some nerve!

You could cure me.

Let me explain.

No need to explain...

None at all...

Explain what?

It's nobody's business.

Don't explain anything.

I'm happy.

It's a virus everybody should catch.

An epidemic of it would

cure the worlds ills.

What do you mean? What virus?

A virus that's not a sickness.

What is it then?

I don't know.

I used to be desperate.

Now i feel alive again.

Dressing already?

I warned you.

I have to show some people

around town tonight.

I can't find the last page, but...

I'll try to end this from memory.

About Wittgenstein's

silence on aesthetics:

I've spoken an hour on what

he said can't be said,

that which is best left unsaid.

I'm exceeding the limits of language.

Defining those limits

in itself transgresses them...

The act necessarily violates them.

No words can be wholly justified.

To conclude, how does one distinguish

an "essential word" from

what Heidegger calls "chitchat"

when there is no authority

in language to justify it?

I would venture to say:

consciense...

and admitting it is arbitrary.

We reserved a table for lunch.

Going with your friend or in my car?

We never met!

My car is nearby.

But I thought... You said...

I was at your sister's funeral.

I was once considered a genius.

That didn't last.

So I read. To the press,

a famous acress's brother had

to be a genius.

My writing is where it belongs:

buried!

Say you'll look for me in the closet.

I won't be there.

Is that you?

Right now?

She's leaving anyway.

Immediately, I tell you!

Since she found a man,

she's always leaving.

Come, of course.

Just tea and whiskey... OK.

Type this up and send

the letters to Mr. Richter.

There're no letters to type.

Then write some!

I can't do it Monday.

I have to leave now.

I'm getting married Monday.

Did you write this?

Certainly not.

You know I only write pulp,

and a few things about doctors.

It's your handwriting.

What's this mean?

"Death Styles", "Three Killers",

"The third Man"?

Did you write this?

Must be Miss Jellinek.

She dabbles in poetry.

"The Shadows of Egypt."

You OK otherwise?

Who's going to read these books?

Why write such books?

The others have been written.

You think it's funny?

Humanity has problems.

You forgot the butter.

Must I suffer because

humanity starves?

Try to concentrate a bit.

Your strip-act won't help.

You must make me attack you.

Understand?

I'm in enemy territory

and you must attack me.

It's not a game anymore.

I know I'll win.

Last night we could've reached a draw.

Never!

What's wrong?

I don't want to hurt you.

No one does.

Why are you always scared?

I don't know.

Were you beaten as a child?

No, never.

How about this one?

How do you wear this?

This is how people should see us.

We only look like this

once in our lives.

It can't be this way...

Malina would say:

"Let's call in reinforcements."

Now look at me!

I saw you on TV, ma'am.

Can I... have your... autograph?

Of course.

Sorry, I was called away for a moment.

Ernest, what are you doing here?

Sorry.

Go downstairs now! Hurry up!

Sorry. I'll fix that up.

It's ruined, so I must buy it.

It's not ruined.

A few stitches and it'll

look great on you...

Just a few stitches...

Why're you laughing?

A guy called Lajos called you.

Urgent.

Where do you vanish to?

Jealous?

You must understand me.

I love no one, except children.

I've earned an ice cream.

Bring cigarettes, too,

we'll smoke them together.

It'll be too late for ice cream.

Some other time.

I must go home now, it's late.

I had my thesis exam.

If I know you, it was a drama.

Just the opposite.

I saw embers on the floor

near the stove.

I got a pan and shovel.

Not a soul around.

The smoke and embers were awful.

I smelled of them for days,

my shoes were ruined.

Nothing happened.

So you saved Vienna's Institute

of Philosophy. What about you?

I didn't go up in smoke, alas.

I stayed.

What'd you say?

Nothing.

Go ahead.

Later.

What'll you do later?

I'll never tell you.

What'd you say?

I hate to yell like this.

"Dear Mr. Schonthal...

"Hastily...

"and full of anxiety...

"For years...

"I have been incapable...

"sometimes for weeks on end...

"The woman you thought you knew...

"does not exist!"

I'm simply dead.

Nothing special... letters.

I'm going right to bed.

I'm exhausted.

I'll sleep as long as I like.

You go to bed early too, for once.

Yes, I was awfully tired.

Dead tired.

Dead!

No I'm not in bed yet.

I'm just tired.

That's all, weary.

You must be even more tired.

Now?

You said to come at once, right?

That's what I said.

If not now, when?

You said something before...

I have to take a piss.

...something that made me feel save.

But one line can't tranquilize

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