by Klaus Modick
A tender science, if I may put it that way, must engage in a more rigorous search for beauty, which is like a moss of knowledge. It would then realize that beauty and truth are identical. In the botanist’s piercing gaze, science only feeds on and exploits the fullness of the world. The gaze I search for must, instead of viewing nature as leading from an inseparable wholeness to a cataloged system, see it flow through that system back again into its original fullness. I have found such a gaze only once among my colleagues—namely, in Marjorie’s eyes. I saw it there when, while we were out on our excursions, we realized that we could run headlong through the moss. Often, spellbound, I thought I saw this view in museums, as well: in paintings whose vision of nature overcame the merciless one-dimensionality of use-oriented observation, suggesting instead a mode of observing that aimed at identity between viewer and thing viewed.
Once I spoke with Mandelbaum about all this. He understood me well enough, but he warned me, saying, “Scientific observation is also an art, which needs to be learned. But if you make an art out of it, you will see without understanding. Consider Goethe, Ohlburg. He said, ‘Because in knowledge as in reflection it is impossible to bring together a complete whole, because this part lacks the inner and that part lacks the outer, so must we think of science necessarily as an art, if we expect from it any sort of wholeness.’ But be careful, Ohlburg….”
At that time, at my graduation ceremony, when Mandelbaum, already somewhat in his cups, tried to get me to take these words to heart, I believed that I understood them. Now they do lie close to my heart. Now I understand them, because I have learned and suffered from their meaning. Mandelbaum himself no doubt suffered from doing science, but he wanted to cure this suffering through his own efforts. He sought the Archimedean point, where science coincides with knowledge. He will have found that point in the moss of the truth, in death. There, from out of the walled-off truth, from its joints and seams, knowledge proliferates.
STRANGE RELAPSE INTO THE SHADOWY REALM of terminology! Maidenhair moss stands out from all forest mosses by virtue of its impressive growth and its extraordinarily lush development. This voice that I listen for, this gaze that I miss, they flow from its thick cushions, from its smell when I crush it between my fingers, from its caress when I stretch my head toward it. The memory of what has happened to us, and the memory of what has not happened to us, conceals itself only to a limited extent in our brains. Our heads are walnuts, two twisted halves in a hard shell. But memories and knowledge reside in every part of our bodies. Because we no longer know how to remember with our brains, all the more do we lose the knowledge that we can remember with our bodies. So we know only that we know nothing—and barely that much.
Maidenhair moss, like all bryophytes, like all moss plants, is a key, a model, for finding our way back to remembrance, to full knowledge. For they are rootless. The most important task undertaken by the roots of other plants—namely, the absorption of water and of the nutrients that have accumulated within it—is achieved by the entire surface area of mosses. And only through water do the mosses propagate themselves. Thus, not only is the entire body of the moss a single sexual organ; what is more, all the moss’s bodily functions have at their command a limitless capacity for memory. Propagation via water constitutes the moss’s memory of its descent from algae, from the oceans of the Carboniferous period. And this memory will be triggered over and over again by water, but only by water.
The water of the stream is ice-cold. Our feet are red and swollen, blistered from our walk. We dangle them in the current.
Marjorie says, “If I were to let my feet swim away like fish, that would be a strange form of cell division.”
“But I prefer other forms of reproduction.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“And which ones, for example?”
“If we lie down in the moss over there, I’ll show you.”
“But moss reproduces asexually.”
“For sure. But it provides a comfortable basis for more highly developed systems. Don’t you know that? And you a Scotswoman from the mossy Highlands?”
“No. I don’t know.”
The current pressed her foot against mine. Contact in swirling moisture. An autonomic impulse.
“My foot won’t move,” she says.
“I don’t understand.”
“My foos won’t moos,” she says to herself, under her breath.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“It makes no sense,” she says. “So that’s why it makes sense.” Now I understand, for it pulls us together into the symbiosis for which we have been waiting for weeks. We are mature; we go over to the moss. We lie in the moss, and it enfolds us. It grows together over us. It proliferates through us. We melt into it. It absorbs us. It divides us, then unites us again. It recedes; it penetrates. Sucks. Caresses. Blows. Cools. Warms. Under its yielding softness, the hardness of rock. It gives way. A falling. A floating. A short death. A reawakening. A free fall into contented happiness. A light sweat has fused us together, as though our bodies had produced a specific form of moss. The moss on the stones grows together with this body moss. It dries us. We dry together. We are, once again, two beings.
Drops on my face. Sweat. Or dew from the maidenhair moss in which I am lying. I don’t know. I hear Mandelbaum’s voice while I watch the patches of sweat on Marjorie’s blouse. Mandelbaum has stopped talking about the brown algae Ectocarpus siliculosus, venturing into topics that students in the seminar did not know whether to fall asleep over or be wide awake about.
“… life has varied the theme of combining two complementary cells with an imaginativeness that exceeds any—I repeat, any—attempt to conceptualize it, in its infinite scope.”
Marjorie drops her eyes, smiling. Her patches of perspiration grow.
“If we follow the stream of life from its origins onward, the algae we already studied, and the mosses you know by now as well …”
Our feet bump together.
“… the types of interconnection become ever more varied, ever richer, all the way up to the infinitely subtle strategies of the orchid, or even the highest heights of human love … ah, well, yes. But the principle of mutation brings an excess of uncertainty and restlessness with it—in nature as in social life. I don’t refer to the pseudomutations of the political brown algae, about which we hear so much these days.”
“Stay on topic, Mandelbaum!”
“Hear! Hear!”
The heckles are menacing. The brown algae are propagating themselves. We stroll through the English garden. Marjorie says, “I don’t think I’ll stay in this country.”
When she is mad, she speaks English; when she is furious, she speaks Scottish. Now she is speaking Scottish.
“These people sell the truth. I’m going back. The Highlands are green. Munich turns brown. Sorry, Lukas.”
Marjorie went. She took her gaze with her—and her parting tears.
The drops on my face. Sweat. Or dew from the maidenhair moss. Whose tears? I listen for the voice; I search for the gaze. I saw it once more. She had given up her studies, gotten married, had three children. The gaze was still there. I traveled farther.
MY MOTHER WAS AFRAID OF SNAKES. On warm summer days, we went across the Henntings’ pastures to the forest near Spohle. First went my father, swinging his walking stick with the coat of arms mounted on it, followed by Mother and flanked by us children. Following up in the rear was the housemaid with picnic basket, parasol, and blanket. We always chose the same clearing under a wide-crested oak; but before the blanket could be spread out over the herbs, grass, and mosses, my father would have to rummage around with his stick in order to scare away any potential snakes in the vicinity. Once a harmless, frightened blindworm had emerged from under the blanket and made off through the grass like lightning. It was not fast enough, however, to keep my mother from nearly fainting—though the hired girl, who herself had fallen into a hysterical though still relativ
ely controlled shortness of breath, was just able to ward off my mother’s fainting fit with the use of an eau de cologne–soaked handkerchief. The picnic was spoiled, however; even my father, who did not betray his feelings at the time, must have been deeply shocked, for he urged that we retreat immediately “for Mother’s sake.” Such consideration for “womanish moods” was normally not his style, but, as with moisture, all creeping things were scary to him.
Another time, the time that came to me through my fingertips just a short while ago, when I ran my hands through a thick cushion of maidenhair moss, my parents, the hired girl, and I were alone. Franz must have remained at home to study because of a bad mark at school. The snakes, in case there were any around on this August day, had been chased off, the food had been eaten, and my father was stretched out on the blanket, snoring with an open mouth. Mother sat next to him, browsing through a fashion magazine. The girl read a novel. I strolled through the feltlike underbrush that bordered our clearing. I went off the beaten path and came across a musty-smelling pond, in whose mud and thick weeds I searched for frogs. A branch lying under the surface of the water tripped me up. I fell lengthwise into the rotting, swampy morass. Soaked and stinking, I returned to the clearing. My mother was appalled; my father laughed briefly and then went back to sleep. It was some fifteen minutes by foot to the nearest quarry pond, so my mother sent the girl there to wash me and my clothes.
She took me by the hand and went with me toward the pond through the oppressive heat, which prefigured a thunderstorm.
“Take them off.”
“But you have to look away.”
She turned her back to me. I pulled off my things and jumped into the water, swimming far out. On the bank, the girl rinsed out my patched-up shirt and trousers.
“Come back! You need to wash yourself.”
“Come and get me!”
“Come back here! I’ll tell your parents!”
“You old tattletale! Come and get me!”
And then suddenly she really did remove her pale blue summer dress, climbed out of her underwear, jumped into the water, and swam out after me.
“Not so fast, Lukas. I can’t swim very well.”
I went slower, turned over on my back, played dead man, and faced the sun; but with unfamiliar curiosity, I sneaked a look at this body that, making its way through the water with clumsy motions, came toward me. She grabbed me by the leg.
“Finally—come along now.”
“Pull me to shore.”
“I can’t do that.”
“But it’s really easy. Even Franz can do it. I’ll make myself light for you.”
She did not look at me; I did not look at her. I laid my hands on her shoulders, making myself light. Before my eyes, her reddish blond, flowing, dripping hair; under me, her legs spreading apart and closing rapidly. Her heavy breath.
“It’s not going to work.”
“Well then, I’ll pull you.”
I turned over on my back again, grabbed her under her armpits, felt her flinch, felt the base of her breasts, felt her back rise and fall in the water, felt her on my belly, felt myself stiffen, swam, grabbed her more firmly under her armpits, groaned, gasped, heard her breathe in fits and starts. When we had the ground under our feet, we continued to stand next to each other in the water. I began to wash myself.
“Do it right. You must rub.”
“You do it.”
“Turn around.”
She waded toward me, rubbed my back with slow circular movements, scooped up water with her hands, and rubbed them over my hips and thighs.
“You have to do the front yourself.”
“No, please—you do it.”
I turned myself toward her; she had closed her eyes. She wiped my chest and my stomach, touched my childish hardness as if by accident, then gripped it firmly, pushed and rubbed, took my hand, guided it between her thighs, directed it with erratic motions through her reddish blond moss cushion. Characteristic of all Polytrichales, of Catherine’s moss as well as maidenhair moss, is the underdeveloped stem, which spreads out when wet, creeping along the ground as though it were swimming. She breathed heavily. I didn’t know what I felt. The upper twigs are, with the exception of their almost bare base, hairy with soft leaves. These widen out at the base to a sheath. On the tips of the foliated branches appear, in a reddish-colored felt protruding from the flower leaves, the plant’s sexual organs.
Suddenly she pushed me away, jumping up onto the dry land. As she put on her clothes, the moss glowed.
“We have to get back. Come on.”
She no longer took me by the hand. I was twelve. We made our way back silently. The first heavy raindrops fell.
“Where were you, then?” my father wheezed out.
My mother said, “Now we’re all going to get wet.”
THE EVEN FLOW OF A SOFT, STEADY RAIN envelops everything in a gray-blue veil. The boundary between desiring and just letting things happen erodes more and more. The moss approaches me. In order to meet it, however ineffectually, I create the moisture that it needs to live. I walk around in the rain. In the rain, I place my ear on the earth and listen to the voice that is becoming louder. I look at the drops and they look back at me. Before I go to bed, I moisten my body. Sometimes I cry while dreaming. The fertilization of their egg cells can be completed only if mosses are adequately moisturized by dew or tears, flowing water or rain. My love is fulfilled. Sometimes in the rain I hear Mandelbaum’s voice high above—and deep under—the brown algae, the mosses:
“Death is a part of love. As long as cells increase their number through cell division, their survival in a direct, uninterrupted lineage is ensured. But that line does not consist of unique individuals; when they die, they do not take any irreplaceable genetic traits with them. Rather, these traits remain preserved as clones in other cells, which all originate from the same far-distant ancestor. Love, however, means discontinuity between parents and their progeny. In this case, the descendants do not eliminate their forebears genetically, as with cell division, but only psychologically, through substitution and overcoming. To be sure, love always preserves the life of the parents, leaving something of them behind. But this something is eliminated very quickly by life.
“A wave, a rain shower, and it all passes away. It leaves behind no trace. What gets washed away, what death flushes away, are singular, unique creatures, which can never again be absolutely identically reproduced. What you are, Ohlburg, what I am, will never be again. Never. Death drowns forever the unique specimens that we are. That constitutes our uniqueness, because with algae death does not bring about an extinction of this sort. The only thing that survives us are our works, the children of our intellects, of what we know and feel. The river of death breaks over them, but they remain. They endure as a nonorganic, immaterial image of what we are. In them our essence continues to proliferate, mutating in the minds of those who come later. This happens until oblivion, that death at a distance, the only form of death worthy of the name—until oblivion, in all its dreadfulness, has penetrated the last dry place that remains.”
SOMETHING IS STILL LEADING MY HAND and, through it, allowing the green signs to grow on the paper. The paper is very soft and porous, and the ink flows into it easily. It is as if I go along with it. In the process I feel myself becoming ever softer. A moist breath encircles me, soaks me through. I am cold.
MAY. A PECULIAR COLDNESS HAS ARRIVED. When I came here nine months ago, the lake was the lake, the forest the forest, and the moss moss, surrounded by strange words and names. When I began to lose myself in the moss, when I noticed that the moss even approached me and wanted me near, then the lake was no longer just a lake, the forest became more than a forest, and the moss became something other than moss.
Death is a rich green country, through which a moist wind blows. Deep in that country stands a thatched house. Perhaps it is half-decayed. Or burned down. The rain affects the flow of my thoughts and colors their greenness a water
y blue. There are branches on the old trees up whose bark mosses climb. The wind makes the branches sound out, musical instruments of a universal murmuring. That is a depraved way of putting it, but I know it’s true. Everything harmonizes here. Because this country is attuned to itself, it was able to have an influence on me. It allows things to resonate freely. What surrounds me is the original home of the mosses, a specific place that is nowhere. Mosses are, as is well known, no cosmopolitans. They are rooted rootlessly in particular locales.
I CAME HERE, AND NOW I am in the here. Now and forever. When I will have swum with the moss in the final country—swum to a place of eventful calm—the lake will again be the lake, the forest again be the forest, and the moss simply moss. And nothing else. I will be forest, lake, moss.
SOMETHING BECKONS. SOMETHING GROWS. Something proliferates. I follow passively, yet of my own free will. Everything is equally valid. I grow in all directions, am grown toward everywhere.
ONE WILL HAVE GOTTEN USED to considering death as the best thing that can happen to Homo sapiens. Plants always knew that and still know it better than we humans. There is an indefinable and, for that reason, true way of perceiving plants—a basic or primary awareness of individual plants as well as larger plant cultures. The dying out of a human being’s animal life influences and stimulates this perceptual capacity enormously. What a person can learn if he or she becomes indifferent is immeasurable.
UNDER THE GHASTLY TERM Leucobryum glaucum the beauty of the white moss, the medal pillow, is brought under scientific control. I like to sleep on it. It serves as an indicator, as a pointer to soil that has been depleted, worn out through forestry. It as if the green and lovely plant is smiling out there, beckoning to me—as though it points beyond, floats ahead into a promising immensity. And, like so often, I strike out to follow it. It makes me smile to think that wreath makers transform it into grave decorations. The beckoning shows me the way to the gaze. I see now.