Because you never looked for me.
Why?
You always just waited, never looked for me.
For a brief moment her heart forgot to beat. Then she asked, in such a quiet voice only Osman, the son of the boat-builder, could understand, Where? Where should I look for you?
Everywhere, said Osman.
Where? The water already came up to her hips. The hem of her long skirt had risen.
Here! Osman’s voice seemed to come from the depths. She thought she could even see the air bubbles in which it rose to the surface.
Then her head was under water too and her long journey began. At first she was surprised that moving was just the same under water as on land. Easier, in fact.
She walked on stones and shells, on smooth-scoured sand and green water-plants. And when she looked up, she saw that the water was rather troubled. The light that came through was dim and everything was blurred.
Once I thought I was seeing mud in bloom. I was bending over a stream to scoop up some water. I saw little star-shaped flowers hanging in the mud. I was overjoyed. A miracle, it seemed to me. Until I knocked my head against the branches of the elder bush above me and even more star-shaped flowers drifted down into the water.
She moved effortlessly. She even walked through the clinging tendrils of the few plants close to the edge as if through a meadow with tall grass.
Why did it never occur to me to go looking for you? She waved away an inquisitive fish which had refused to give way even when she was close enough to stroke it with her eyelashes. It turned round in a flash and its tail touched her forehead. She moved her hand as if to wipe off its touch.
The first time I talked about you in my sleep, my sister told my mother. She couldn’t make head nor tail of it, but I had to stay at home when my sister went out dancing. And when I went on talking about you at night, my sister was given a room of her own, which she kept until she went to live with Tim and married him. By that time, however, she’d already been carrying Tom for a few months
Sometimes my mother slept with me at night, to find out who you were. But as the years passed and I never said to her, That’s him! she abandoned the hopes she’d placed on you.
The water must have been very deep at this point, or was it dark already? She felt fresh and was not, as usual, looking forward to sleep long before it was time to go to bed. The spark of hope that Osman, the son of the boat-builder, had aroused in her was flickering into life and lit a path for her courage through the water.
Perhaps it was just chance that I gave you a name so early on. But my longing was so great, no other name could fulfil it. I can’t say I never doubted you. But after that I just loved you more and more.
It wasn’t so easy now to find a way through the dark water. She didn’t want to end up going round in circles looking for Osman. She had the feeling the water was pushing her in a particular direction. Had she got to a place where a river flowed into the sea?
Whenever I thought, There you are at last, in disguise, but it’s you, it was too soon. The moment I realised my mistake, I felt cold, and I went cold, and that was the end of it.
My mother was getting more and more desperate. What’s the matter with you? she said. You’re not ugly, you don’t smell, you’re not quarrelsome. Why can’t you be so nice to a man he’ll never want to leave you?
I said nothing and sat on the verandah with a book. The apple trees were in blossom in the garden and I liked being there. It was only with you I wanted to be somewhere else … even in the desert.
When I had finished school, they asked me what I wanted to do. Go on going to school, I said. I want to learn how to handle words.
The first time I stood in front of the children to explain something to them, I was lost for precisely those words I’d wanted to learn, and I had to start again from the very beginning. I worked everything out in my head, the way I used to when I was a child sitting in the shed for days on end.
I kept on having to yearn my way through a man who showed me a part of you. And I fell for it often enough. So often, in fact, that I heard it said my nocturnal activities were a bad influence on the children. But the children only saw me during the day and not one ever mentioned them.
I never left the house and the garden with the apple trees. Not for any length of time. And my mother got used to the visitors and the laughter, and even to my tears, when I talked of you and she had no idea how to comfort me.
For time to time there was a phosphorescent gleam in the darkness. Fish brushed against her legs, and sometimes she thought she could see, far above, the keel of an even darker boat.
Should I try to drift along with the current? She tried lifting up her legs, first one and then, when nothing happened, both of them and, lo and behold, she was carried along without her feet touching the bottom.
You never stop learning, she said with a smile to a seahorse curiously watching her float along without having to make an effort with her arms or legs. It’s even quicker if you do nothing.
Suddenly she saw herself on a tandem with Osman, the son of the boat-builder, cycling through the beautiful city of Alexandria, then out along a narrow path by the desert. Unfortunately she couldn’t see his face. He was sitting behind her and she was afraid she’d fall off if she turned round. The wheels would slide on the sand and the pair of them would end up lying there. The farther they rode on their tandem, the wilder grew the blooming all around. The cups of the hibiscus-coloured flowers became so large she was afraid there might be some flesh-eating plants among them and, what was even worse, dream-devouring ones which would leave nothing behind, neither of her, nor of Osman nor the tandem on which they were cycling through the desert.
When she woke up it was a bit lighter on the bottom again and she saw that her legs were still pedalling the tandem. A shoal of smallish fish and a few fat crabs were looking on with interest. My God, she said, the desert … didn’t I always long to see the desert. And her legs jiggled on a bit, as if remembering.
Of course, I could have written to a travel agent, got on a plane and flown there. But what would I have done, alone in the desert? You’re right, perhaps I would have found you sooner.
By now it wasn’t just lighter, the consistency of the water was different. Murkier perhaps, not as clear as where she had started out. She watched the fish swimming along with their mouths open, only swallowing from time to time, as if they had had a particularly tasty titbit.
Perhaps I should try to eat something as well. She pushed the water towards her with both hands, so as to get it between her teeth better and then, following her intention, swallowed several times. Who knows whether I need to eat much at all … She tried to gather her hair and put it up, but she didn’t seem to be able to manage that kind of thing at all.
I wonder if I look very much like Ophelia? She searched through the pockets of her skirt for the little mirror she always carried, because of the children, they always look at you so closely. But then she forgot it and sighed. The children … is it time for my class already? Time to teach them something about words I’m not sure about myself? She seemed to hear a school bell ringing in the distance.
Today the children are sure to ask where I am. I’m fine, children … I’m on a long journey which looks as if it’s going to be interesting. But you can’t follow me, not yet. Your skin couldn’t stand all this water.
Who was it who stuck the heart on my blouse recently?
It had happened at least once every year that one of the children had fixed a heart to her blouse and she’d gone round with it on for a long time without noticing.
The children love me. Once I even went all the way home with the heart on my back and my mother said I should be ashamed of myself, even the children were alluding to my activities.
And once I almost told the children about you. We were talking about what it would be like going out into the world to seek your fortune. It was a class of smaller children. Some wanted to set off there a
nd then. I suggested they should wait a while. Perhaps their fortune would come straight to them? I wonder if that was what I did wrong? I have as good as never moved from the spot.
Once a man wrote to me who had your name, though he spelt it Ousman. The letter came from Senegal, Ousman had my name from an international exchange office and asked me to send him stamps and photos. When I got a photo of him, the face on it was so black, I couldn’t make out his features.
Lost in thought, she strode through the soft mud as if she were looking for something to pin her thoughts to. Sometimes the feeling crept over her that her feet and the bottom were becoming one. Then she would draw up her legs to drift with the current again. She thought she recognised objects people threw in the water, which then sank down slowly, an empty can, its label already gone, pieces of glass … and when she had a proper look, she could see something that looked like kitchen scraps, which didn’t sink down as far as her because the fish ate them up before they got there.
This time I will find you, she said, and I’ll give you enough of my life for us to survive on for a long time.
Her fingers had gone pale and thin, and there were wrinkles along the sides of the tips. She took out her little mirror, but the reflection would not stay still long enough for her to recognise herself.
I wonder if my face’s all wrinkled too? She tried to run her fingers over her cheeks, but couldn’t feel anything. Perhaps this isn’t the right kind of journey. Perhaps, when I’ve found you, we ought to fly, fly high above the world so we can see that it’s round.
Flying, she said, her head held up by the current alone, flying on the back of a bird round the minarets of the beautiful city of Alexandria and then on, up the Nile to Al Qahirah, the Victorious One. Flying over all the mud domes of the city of the dead – a city of the dead where so many living people live – like the beautiful photograph in that book, flying to the citadel and then beyond, on and on…
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a figure beside her. She called out to it, but the figure did not answer, it just drifted along beside her, dark and silent. Some people are so immersed in their own destiny, she said, they don’t notice when there’s someone beside them in the same situation.
Hi! She tried again, but nothing happened.
Trying to move in a specific direction was starting to get a bit strenuous.
Drifting with the current for so long has made me weak.
Then she did manage to give the figure beside her a poke. And when the material simply gave way, she tried to attract the figure’s attention by grabbing its sleeve and tugging it. And lo and behold, the garment opened out, without anyone appearing inside it, lifted up its coat tails and was suddenly caught up in another current, less deep than the one she was in, and floated away over her head. She let go of the sleeve and even turned her head to watch the solitary coat as it spread out more and more. Now and then she had the feeling her body too was already tilting backwards a trifle.
Faster and faster, she thought, could that be the momentum you get with time? Walking … walking is perhaps best, after all, the most pleasant way. We’ll walk together, we have time, plenty of time. We’ll walk along the bank, on and on along the bank, in the shade.
The coat was above her again, spread out like a dark cloud over her body, which was still moving along in a horizontal position … in the shade of the palm trees and the laden camels, past water carriers and mud huts. We’ll watch the great barges on the Nile, none of which will carry an Egyptian princess to her burial chamber any more. We will walk barefoot through the soft dust of the paths and drink tea with the merchants in the shade of their tents. We will listen to the stories and fairly tales, and keep on going up the Nile, on and on…
She hardly felt cold now and all at once she had the feeling she wasn’t going to be bothered by the cold any more. Incredible how the body can adjust, she said. I know I am cold, but I don’t feel it. Will it be the same in the heat on the edge of the desert? I always suffered from the cold, even as a child and now … I’ve not even caught a chill. She tried to sneeze, but couldn’t. I wonder what my life might have turned out like if I had managed to hold it back all those years ago? And she watched the bubbles from her laugh rise up.
The Director of the Music Academy was a handsome older gentleman with a fringe of curly hair round a tonsure-like bald patch. He could look at you in such a way that he seldom had to ask for anything, so clearly did his eyes express what he wanted. He wore elegant suits, in the summer natural linen, in the winter grey wool, and it was said he was married to his cello and the young men who went to visit him so often did not count.
One day he came to our house and went in to see my mother. I had no idea why he had come. True, I did play the flute, but if that had been the reason, he could have asked me at the Academy. That was the period when I had to spend a lot of time thinking about myself, so I was sitting in one of the apple trees. It happened to be the one with the table and chairs at the bottom where my mother used to entertain her guests. It had never occurred to me that the Director of the Music Academy would stay for any length of time, and it was only when I saw him and my mother come out with the tray and the coffee pot that I realised what was happening, but by then it was too late to climb down the tree unnoticed.
… and that is why, I heard the Director of the Music Academy say to my mother as they sat down beneath me and filled their cups and plates, that is why I wish to repeat the request I made to you before.
My mother didn’t seem to know quite what to say to this and bit her cheek in embarrassment.
She has perfect pitch and a beautiful soul, said the Director of the Music Academy.
How do you know about her beautiful soul? my mother ventured to ask.
The Director of the Music Academy raised his eyebrows, thought for a minute and then said, She has never once offended my aesthetic sense. She doesn’t bite her nails or chew the ends of her hair like so many girls of her age. She doesn’t wear make-up or signal to lovers with her eyes, as you can see girls of even that age do. The posture of her neck is regal and she has never been caught cheating, I asked her class teacher. He brushed a speck of bark off the lapel of his linen suit that I must have knocked down.
How can you love my daughter if you don’t know her that well? asked my mother in an attempt to mask her confusion.
I wish to marry your daughter, said the Director of the Music Academy, because she suits me in every respect. Moreover, she is still young enough to be moulded according to my wishes. I assure you, he said with a slight bow, that I will always show due consideration for your daughter’s beautiful soul.
That was the moment it happened. I had to sneeze, and so violently I fell out of the tree. So there I lay, giggling like a madwoman from the shock, surrounded by bits of cake, and the coffee had splashed out of his cup and onto the beautiful linen suit of the Director of the Music Academy. When he saw that, he stood up, looked down at his trousers and went pale.
At first my mother froze, but then she pounced on me, dragged me off the table and checked that nothing was broken. Nothing was broken. Apart from my beautiful soul.
It didn’t help that I insisted on apologising. The Director of the Music Academy said a formal farewell to my mother. He did not shake my hand, covered as I was in bits of squashed cake. Pity, he said, before he turned to leave, and it was quite clear to me that I was no longer pleasing in his sight, never would be, ever again. And that night, before I went to sleep, I shed a few tears over my beautiful soul.
It’s a nice arrangement, she said, being carried along even while you’re lying down. That way I can save my energy for when I’ve found you. I can imagine we’ll be pretty tired sometimes after a long walk on the banks of the Nile. And even if we can see the columns of Karnak in the distance, we still won’t have arrived. We’ll stop there for a while, rest beside the graves of the kings, but we won’t have arrived, not by a long chalk. We’ll have things to tell each other for y
ears and years, and as long as the river lasts, we will walk together.
The coat was still floating above her. The distance between them seemed to be staying the same. Now she too was lying in the current, completely horizontal, with her clothes and hair spread out.
My perfect pitch … she smiled. I didn’t even make something of that. I did sit in the garden of an evening, playing my flute, but that was all. And my voice, my voice wasn’t powerful enough. My perfect pitch has never amounted to more than a trick I could perform on request, and sometimes men turned up who thought no end of themselves at the idea of sleeping with a woman with perfect pitch.
Where is this journey going to take me? She tried to turn more onto her side in the current, to see if there might be land at the edge of the water. I will not stop looking for you, even if I have to go to the world’s end. One day I will reach the beautiful city of Alexandria and swim up the Nile from there, to Al Qahirah, to Luxor and Karnak, to Abu Simbel and Elephantine Island. By then I will have found you. Only together can we lose ourselves among the headwaters of the Nile. And the desert will be like a yellowish red glow on the horizon, waving to us with sandy winds.
Sometimes I would hide from my lovers because I wanted to finish a book. All my mother could think of doing was to sit and talk to them. She served schnapps and sandwiches, and made conversation about all branches of art, since she would have loved there to be a real artist among them.
But it also sometimes happened that I fell asleep over the book I wanted to finish and my mother just could not bring herself to show the man in question the door, hoping he might be the one who would eventually marry me. The result was that he would get more and more tired and drunk, until he fell asleep on the sofa in her bay window. Once he had reached that stage, she would go looking all over the house until she had found me, bent over my book She roused me and, together with her I had to get the man up into my room. There we would undress him, I lay down beside him and the next morning he was convinced he had spent the night with me.
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000 Page 36