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Cut to shreds

April 20, 2021/ Kathrin Schmidt, translated by Sue Vickerman

Gabo Prize Winner - Summer/Fall 2021[translated fiction]

First published as ‘Letzter Versuch’ in Finito. Schwamm Drüber. Erzählungen, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 2011.

I’d known Dotzauer—“little Dotty”—since my childhood in the sleepy village of S., a village of inbreds, which accounted for the higher-than-normal incidence of mental defectives. People talked about this behind their hands in the neighboring villages and in W., the nearby town, but of course it was never said openly. Dotty’s mother was what you’d call older, while her father was a proper ancient monument—you could hardly tell his age behind his beard and his head of silver-grey wavy hair. He’d been lying on the sofa, paralyzed, since Dotty was seven, with his wife constantly shifting him to make him comfy. Whenever we children hid behind the living room door, daring for a glimpse of his bedsores, they’d shock us half to death, our hands flying to cover our eyes and mouths. Just after Dotty turned twelve, she could at last happily announce he’s passed away. Dotty blossomed, but her mum continued to wilt. She withered so much that at seventeen or eighteen, Dotty went dancing with her a few times out of pity and in the hope that her mother might manage to meet a nice man. Dotty would put on her best suit, shave, knot her tie, polish her black shoes and tuck a lace handkerchief into her breast pocket. She was a good foot taller than her mother and when they were out like that, it was actually only Dotty who was a pleasure to behold, handsome and dapper, stepping out next to a match-stick. On the dance floors of the local area, Dotty would, on a good night, be approached by a few cheeky, giggling women, though a sideways glance at the tight knot of her mother’s face would make her put them off. Nothing ever undid that knot, so Dotty finally gave up going dancing with her. She moved to a furnished room in G., the county town, which was only twelve kilometres away but at that time twelve kilometres was sufficient to get far enough away from her mother. It took an hour by rail due to having to change at a small local station, and there was no bus service whatsoever. She attended the College of Banking and Finance and obtained a decent degree in Financial Economics, which brought to her withered mother’s cheeks the only slight pinkish frisson of pleasure she could remember. On the thirteenth of May 1976 she married a surgical nurse working at the local hospital in G.

The night before the wedding she’d tried on her wife’s floral party dress, which was of course too tight and too short on her. That she did this—putting a dash of rouge on her cheeks, a black line on her eyelids—might have caused consternation, but her bride-to-be just found it (so she said) funny.

They went on to have three children—triplets. The local mayor was appointed godparent. It caused quite a stir in the town when, after half a year, Dotty was the one who stayed home with the three little ones. She was seen as a devoted father, and since she had the right, according to the then state regulations, to stay home for two further half-years with her salary paid in full, she arranged things so she could spend those twelve months at home, and her career at the local council faded into insignificance. She recounted to me that for a long time she’d been feeling ill at ease, somehow not “at home” with herself, but had put this down to not actually having a home. She’d hoped she’d get over this feeling once they’d been allocated their first ever apartment—three rooms, kitchen, and windowless bathroom. Then one day she was given a sewing machine by one of her colleagues who occasionally dropped by. To start with she made blankets for the little ones. This gave her practice. Then she bought a piece of truly gorgeous artificial silk in her wife’s favourite colour, mauve, and in secret, made her a beautiful blouse. Puff sleeves, white pin-tucks, rhinestone buttons. And she told me how, between the children’s bedtime and sewing the final seam (her wife being on the late shift at work), she almost couldn’t complete the lovely thing, due to a sudden wrenching in her gut—and the realisation that, time and again, she’d blocked this sensation by immersing herself in her sewing machine till the pain went away. At this moment of truth, the wrenching had stopped, and, barely aware of what she was doing, she’d put on the blouse and applied heavy make-up. She’d wondered fleetingly how come it fitted her so perfectly when it was meant for her much smaller wife, but in a second the thought was gone. Resolute, she kept the thing on.

Arriving home late and seeing this sight, her wife’s reflexively indulgent attitude was soon brought up short, and somewhere between midnight and the end of the conversation (or at least, that first end), the policy of indulgence was in shreds, never to be repaired.

We were in the Frog, the only cafe-bar still open in our former home village, sitting beside each other like we used to, as she told me all this, her eyes moist, though to this day I’ve never been sure whether it was tears. In the intervening years (it now being sixteen years since the mauve blouse) her breasts had become the size of small female fists. She dressed unobtrusively, wore her now-grey hair tied in a ponytail, and had given up going round in skirts and court shoes like she used to. Her voice was too deep to be taken for a woman’s, and even now that Dotty had a birth certificate and ID card “proving” her to be the female she’d been all along, they weren’t of much use. Mockery and catcalling were normal, and these continual violations of her personhood manifested as livid scratch-marks, which had come up on her skin after her “gender reassignment surgery” (as in, the removal of the superfluous testicles, creation of a false vagina, and remodelling of the penis into the soft protrusion called a clitoris).

She said she loved how I called her little Dotty, like in the old days, because that diminutive had been the secret location of the little girl she’d always really been.

Moreover, the name Dotzauer, at least as far as her lineage was concerned, was about to die out since neither the three children nor her ex used it. Even after the divorce (a necessity, as two women couldn’t legally be married) they’d tried to go on living together, but after two years, both had run out of steam. Since then, she’d only seen the children from a distance. She sighed, stroking aside her fringe (which clearly hadn’t been cut by a hairdresser) from her forehead. I was in love with her, and moved in.

Dotty always bemoaned that the conditional tense was endangered as a species by the “real truth” of the present, that it would surely soon be extinct. Hence her determined commitment to its use, so as not to let it get ground down in the jaws of “reality” quite so fast. An example: If today I’d had a small plate of chicken done in coconut milk with fresh ginger and sweetcorn, I’d now be standing here replete and contented in the day’s final hour. With this sentence she could distance herself from the underlying reality (darn, I’ve had nothing good to eat today; the day is ending badly…) and endeavor to insulate herself from bad stuff. The reality might come to her once she was in bed, as she’d be tired and lazy by then, and chicken in coconut milk might duly drift past in slow motion, but she’d just watch it go by and fall asleep. Her expectations had definitely become modest…

During her long years of being single and unemployed she’d made countless blouses, skirts, and dresses that she never wore and which now languished in her cupboards and on her shelves. Only that mauve garment got brought out, now and then: If I hadn’t made her this, I probably wouldn’t be alive today. I heard the sentence many times and always misunderstood what she meant. Shifted into the conditional, it was an expression of her longing for peace and death. While I was away on a spa holiday on the Baltic Sea, this longing was fulfilled. Her old mother told me she’d found her sitting in the armchair with a peaceful smile on her face and the mauve blouse on her lap, cut to shreds.

[original text]

LETZTER VERSUCH

Ich kannte Schüßlerchen seit meiner Kindheit im verträumten S., dem Dorf der Inzucht und der damit verbundenen Blödsinnigkeit überdurchschnittlich vieler seiner Bewohner. Davon sprach man in den umliegenden Dörfern wie in W., der nahebei gelegenen Kleinstadt, hinter vorgehaltener Hand, aber offiziell durfte man das natürlich nicht äußern. Schüßlerchen hatte eine ältliche Mutter, aber ihr Vater war von derart antikem Bestand, dass sein Alter kaum mehr auszumachen war hinter dem weißen Bart, unter dem silbergrauen, wehenden Haupthaar. Er lag, seit Schüßlerchen sieben war, querschnittsgelähmt auf dem Sofa und wurde von seiner Frau um- und umgebettet. Jedes Mal, wenn wir Kinder uns hinter der Wohnzimmertür versteckt hielten, um einen Blick auf seine Dekubitus-Geschwüre zu riskieren, warf uns das beinahe um und ließ uns Hände und Arme vor Mund und Augen reißen. Als Schüßlerchen zwölf wurde, war sie froh, nun sagen zu können, es sei um ihn geschehen. Schüßlerchen blühte auf, aber ihre Mama welkte weiter. Welkte so sehr, dass Schüßlerchen mit siebzehn, achtzehn einige Male mit ihr tanzen ging aus Mitleid und weil sie dachte, die Mutter würde einen passenden Mann kennenlernen können. Schüßlerchen zog sich ihren besten Anzug an, rasierte sich, band sich die Krawatte um, putzte die schwarzen Schuhe und steckte sich ein umhäkeltes Taschentuch in die Brusttasche. Sie war einen guten Kopf größer als ihre Mutter, und wenn man die beiden so sah, freuteman sich eigentlich nur über Schüßlerchen, die hübsch und adrett neben einem Schachtel-Halm einherschritt. Auf den Tanzböden der nächsten Umgebung kam es allenfalls dazu, dass Schüßlerchen von einigen kecken, kichernden Damen herausgefordert wurde, was sie aber nach einem Seitenblick auf den streng verzogenen Gesichtsknoten ihrer Mutter ablehnte. Nichts konnte den Knoten lösen, sodass Schüßlerchen es schließlich aufgab, mit ihr tanzen zu gehen. Sie zog in ein möbliertes Zimmer nach G., in die Kreisstadt, die nur zwölf Kilometer entfernt lag, aber zwölf Kilometer reichten damals aus, sie weit genug von ihrer Mutter wegzuschaffen – die öffentlichen Bahnen fuhren eine Stunde, mit Zwischenaufenthalt auf einem kleinen Zweigbahnhof, und Busse verkehrten überhaupt nicht. Die Fachschule für Finanzwirtschaft besuchte sie und brachte es zu einem passablen Abschluss als Finanzökonomin, was ihrer abgeblühten Mutter den einzigen hell rötlichen Freudenschauer über die Wangen jagte, dessen sie sich erinnern konnte. Sie heiratete am 13. Mai 1976 eine OP-Schwester aus G.’s Städtischem Krankenhaus. (Am Vorabend der Hochzeit habe sie das geblümte Festkleid ihrer Frau anprobiert, es sei ihr natürlich zu eng und zu kurz gewesen. Wie sie das getan habe, mit einem Schuss Rouge auf den Wangen, einem Strich Schwarz auf den Lidern, hätte sie verstören können, aber ihre Braut hätte nur gelacht, sagte sie.) Später bekamen sie drei Kinder auf einmal, und G.’s Bürgermeister übernahm die Patenschaft. Es sorgte einigermaßen für Furore in der Stadt, dass nach einem halben Jahr Schüßlerchen zu Hause blieb mit den drei Kleinen. Man hielt sie für einen hingebungsvollen Vater, und da sie nach dem ersten zwei weitere halbe Jahre zu Hause bleiben konnte nach damals landesüblicher Sitte, bei vollem Lohnausgleich, richtete sie sich für die zwölf Monate häuslich ein und blendete ihre Arbeit im Rat der Stadt aus. Seit Langem schon habe sie an einem unbestimmten Gefühl der Unbehaustheit gelitten, das sie auf die tatsächliche Wohnungslosigkeit zurückführte, erzählte sie mir. Nun, da sie zum ersten Mal eine Wohnung bekommen hatten, drei Zimmer, Küche und Bad ohne Fenster, habe sie gehofft, diesem Gefühl abhelfen zu können. Eines Tages sei ihr sogar eine Nähmaschine geschenkt worden von einem der hin und wieder vorbeischauenden Kollegen, und sie habe zunächst begonnen, Decken für die Kleinen zu verfertigen. Das übte, und als sie eine besonders schöne lila Kunstseide erstanden habe, lila sei die Lieblingsfarbe ihrer Frau gewesen, habe sie ihr heimlich eine wunderschöne Bluse genäht. Puffärmel, weiße Biesen, strassbesetzte Knöpfe. Sie hat mir erzählt, wie sie plötzlich zwischen dem Zubettbringen der Kinder und der letzten Naht, ihre Frau sei zur Spätschicht unterwegs gewesen, Stiche im Unterleib verspürt habe, die sie beinahe daran gehindert hätten, das gute Stück fertig zu machen, aber sie wüsste noch genau, wie sie diese Stiche verdrängt und immer wieder den Moment ihres kurzzeitigen Aussetzens für ein Stück Naht genutzt habe. Sofort danach habe sich der Unterleibsschmerz verflüchtigt, und sie gar nicht gemerkt, wie sie selbst die Bluse anzog und sich stark schminkte. Zwar habe sie sich einen Augenblick lang wie nebenbei gefragt, warum das gute Stück ihr so hervorragend stand, wo es doch für ihre viel kleinere Frau gedacht gewesen war, aber diese Irritation sei nur vorübergehend gewesen, sie habe die Bluse mit größter Selbstverständlichkeit anbehalten. Ihre Frau sei spät nach Hause gekommen, und als sie Schüßlerchen gesehen habe, sei ihr das anfängliche Lachen schon bald abgestorben, irgendwo zwischen Mitternacht und dem vorläufigen Ende eines Gespräches endgültig abhanden- und nie mehr wiedergekommen.

Wir beide saßen wie früher im Kröter, der einzigen noch funktionierenden Kneipe unseres ehemaligen Heimatdorfes, nebeneinander, als sie mir davon berichtete, und ihre Augen schwammen in klarer Flüssigkeit, von der ich heute noch nicht sagen kann, ob es Tränen waren. Ihre Brüste hatten inzwischen, es waren sechzehn Jahre vergangen seit jener lila Bluse, die Größe einer kleinen Frauenfaust erreicht. Sie kleidete sich anspruchslos, trug das nun schon graue Haar zu einem Pferdeschwanz gebunden und bemühte sich nicht mehr, in Rock und Pumps zu laufen, wie sie es vor Zeiten noch gemacht hatte. Ihre Stimme war zu tief, als dass sie an eine Frau hätte denken lassen, und selbst dass Schüßlerchen jetzt Geburtsurkunde und Ausweis hätte vorweisen können, die sie als jenes weibliche Wesen ausgaben, die sie ja von Anfang an gewesen war, nützte ihr wenig. Hohn und Spott waren ihr sicher, und ihre Haut trug die Spuren der andauernden Grenzverletzungen als blutrote Kratzer auf neurodermitischen Stellen, die sich nach ihrer geschlechtsangleichenden Operation, wie man das Wegschneiden der überflüssigen Hoden, das Vernähen der Eichel in einer sanften, Klitoris genannten Erhöhung und die plastische Ausformung einer Scheide genannt hatte, zeigten. Dass ich sie Schüßlerchen nannte wie früher, wäre ihr lieb, hatte sie gesagt, denn hinter dem Diminutivum ihres Namens habe sich schon das kleine Mädchen versteckt, das sie einmal gewesen sei. Außerdem sei der Name, zumindest was ihre Linie betraf, am Aussterben, ihre drei Kinder trügen ihn ebenso wenig wie ihre Verflossene. Auch nach der Scheidung, die zwangsläufig hätte erfolgen müssen, da eine Frau nicht mit einer Frau rechtskräftig verheiratet sein konnte, hätten sie noch versucht, miteinander auszukommen, aber nach zwei Jahren seien ihrer beider Kräfte erschöpft gewesen. Seitdem habe sie auch die Kinder nur noch von Weitem sehen können. Sie strich den Pony aus der Stirn, der nicht von einem Friseur geschnitten worden war, wie man ihm unschwer ansah, und seufzte. Ich zog verliebt zu ihr.

Schüßlerchen sprach immer davon, dass der Konjunktiv von der Wirklichkeit bedroht wurde, ja, bald sogar aufgefressen, und dass sie sich deshalb oft so sehr an ihn klammerte, damit er nicht zu schnell im Maul der Realität zermahlen wurde. Ein Beispiel? Ich stünde, hätte ich heute ein Tellerchen Hühnerfleisch in Kokosmilch gehabt, mit frischem Ingwer und Maiskölbchen, jetzt satt und zufrieden vor der letzten Stunde des Tages. Die dahinterstehende Tatsächlichkeit (Mist, nichts Gutes zu essen gehabt heute, der Tag wird ungut zu Ende gehen …) schob sie mit solchem Satz noch ein Stück weg und versuchte, sich abzuschotten vor dem Übel. Lag sie dann im Bett, konnte die Realität kommen, denn dann war sie müde und faul, und Hühnerfleisch in Kokosmilch konnte sich in langsamen Sequenzen an ihr vorbeiträumen – sie sah ihm nach und schlief ein. Ja, sie war ein Muster an Genügsamkeit gewesen …

Während ihrer jahrelangen, alleinstehenden Arbeitslosigkeit hatte sie unzählige Blusen, Röcke und Kleider genäht, die jetzt in ihren Schränken und Regalen vor sich hin dümpelten und die sie nie anzog. Nur das lilafarbene Stück holte sie von Zeit zu Zeit hervor: Hätte ich ihr die nicht genäht, wäre ich vermutlich nicht mehr am Leben. Ich hörte den Satz oft und immer überhörte ich, wie er gemeint war. Er war Ausdruck ihrer in den Konjunktiv gerückten Sehnsucht nach Stille und Tod, die sie sich erfüllte, als ich zur Kur an die Ostsee gefahren war. Sie habe mit einem zufriedenen Lächeln im Sessel gesessen, auf ihrem Schoß die in Streifen geschnittene lila Bluse, als sie sie fand, erzählte mir ihre alte Mutter.

Translator’s Statement

Cut to shreds” by Kathrin Schmidt (first published in German in 2011)

“Cut to shreds” interested me as the trajectory of a transgender woman growing up behind the Iron Curtain toward the end of the twentieth century. Before becoming a full-time writer, Schmidt was a hospital psychologist in the former German Democratic Republic. Schmidt expanded on this story’s subject in her novel You’re not dying (Naked Eye Publishing 2021), which caused a storm, being the surprise winner of the 2009 German Book Prize where it pipped to the post fellow-shortlisted Nobel Prize winner Herta Muller. Translating “Cut to shreds” involved slipping into the dry, understated style of most of the stories in her collection (to be published October 2021). “Cut to shreds” is typical of the collection, which is dominated by tales of small, damaged lives that unfold towards often deadly ends, an overriding theme being loneliness. Lives such as Dotty’s are framed and limited by the social conditions to which they are powerlessly subject, whether these are under the former regime or the new one. Having alighted on a story that thoroughly engaged me, I had to contend with practical translatorial challenges such as, how to name the central character. I changed the original Schüßlerchen, being the surname Schüßler used of the central character in childhood with the diminutive suffix chen, meaning “little Schüßler.” The name needed to be changed so that it worked for the English-language reader at the point in the story where (little) Dotty speaks of the nickname as having been a comfort, due to its gender ambiguity, for the little girl inside the male body. I picked Dotzauer, a fairly unusual Czech-origin name (influenced by the fact that Schmidt’s characters often have eastern European heritage) as it had to fit with the comment that the name was “dying out.” Also, because it can be easily “heard” when read by a person familiar only with English pronunciation. A natural playground diminutive of this, whether for a boy or girl child, would then be “Dotty,” which can be a diminutive of Dorothy. And further, “little Dotty,” to reflect the suffix chen.

After discussion with my readers and helpers, I opted for a title that is not a direct translation of Letzter versuch (final attempt/ one last try) using instead the final phrase at the end of the story, because Schmidt has done this with other of her stories, and because “Cut to shreds” has negative and even slightly violent nuances that better reflect the tale. My issue with leaving it as “final attempt” was that the latter suggests there had been more than one suicide attempt, which was not the case. It might have been meant to convey a more general “last try at making a go of things.” Whatever. I collected the opinions of my readers, then took this liberty.

Kathrin Schmidt, multi-award-winning poet and novelist, was born in Gotha in the former German Democratic Republic, her voice distinctly of the east. Her German Book Prize-winning novel You’re not dying (2009) appeared in thirteen languages and will appear in English in 2021 (Naked Eye Publishing, translation: Christina Les). Stories from Schmidt’s unpublished collection Finito. Schwamm Drüber. (translation: Sue Vickerman) are beginning to be published in the Anglophone world. Kathrin’s poetry is characterized by sometimes Jandl-esque wordplay, an attention to the mechanics of words that is also present in her prose. Schmidt’s latest poetry collection is sommerschaums ernte (2020).

Translator Headshot

Sue Vickerman’s latest translated work is Twenty Poems by Kathrin Schmidt (Arc Publications, 2020). As a Northern Englishwoman, Sue translates her peer Kathrin out of empathy: both hail from regions of “left behind” peoples where populism is on the rise. Sue’s translations of Kathrin’s stories appear in, among other journals, Trafika Europe, Metamorphoses, The Stockholm Review, The Los Angeles Review, Stand (UK) and nomansland (Germany). Sue’s poems, stories, and articles have appeared in The Guardian, Times Educational Supplement, The Poetry Review, Rialto, Mslexia, etc. She has five poetry and four fiction publications in print and edits for Naked Eye Publishing (UK). suevickerman.eu

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October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

March 17, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Jemma Leigh Roe
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The Russian Train

February 24, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cammy Thomas
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Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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