by Ann
Once I remembered, in front of the receiver, that I had a heart: that whatever I did, that heart beat and beat, ceaselessly. And as if in answer, through the tempest, I heard the beats of another heart, dull, even and self-assured. Then I found myself looking at the fabric that hid the loudspeaker behind it, but it did not sigh like my own chest; it did not even quiver.
Or I remembered the name I had once been given, and at the same time I was called by that name, but from a place so far off that I could never have reached there, even if I had set off immediately.
And when the dishes clattered in the kitchen, I was already sitting at table like the others.
The Mimic
The Sixteenth Letter
In Tainaron I have a balcony where I sometimes sit and bask when the sun shines and I have no reason to go into the city. For you it is autumn, but for us it is still high summer.
Yesterday the dazzle closed my eyelids and set fiery landsca pes rolling beneath them. There was a book on my lap, but I did not turn its pages. Here in the courtyard grows a great tree whose name I do not know, and the blaze of the sun was extinguished only when it was snared by the branches.
Look! At that moment I saw below me a group of stones. They were largish cobblestones, grey ones, dappled and reddish ones, granite or possibly gneiss. The centre of the courtyard was paved with them, and they were beautiful stones; but that was not why I was looking at them. It seemed to me that new stones had been brought to the courtyard and that some kind of a hillock had been built, which had certainly not been there before.
Just as this little riddle was beginning to trouble me, Longhorn stepped on to my balcony.
‘Look under the tree,’ I said to him. ‘Do you understand why a hill like that has been built there?’
He looked, and began to smile – if the slow withdrawal of his jaws to the side of his face can be called a smile – I never get used to it.
‘Perhaps you find it amusing,’ I said, a little irritated, ‘that all sorts of obstacles are built on the thoroughfares; I myself can see no sense in it.’
When I glanced at the pile of stones again, I was downhearted, for I thought it began to look like a small grave.
‘Do not worry,’ said Longhorn reassuringly, resting his light forelimb on my shoulder. ‘I see you do not yet know the Mimic. If you wish, I will introduce him to you.’
‘Who is he?’ I asked, and my mood was cheerless, even though the day was bright and autumn was still far off.
‘It is him you are looking at,’ Longhorn said amiably.
I did not blink, but nevertheless something happened in my eyes, for now I could see that what was in the courtyard in the shade of the tree was no pile of stones but a living creature, motionless, whose back was covered in a reddish-grey, lumpy carapace.
I wanted to ask something, but Longhorn made a gesture with his hand. He has, you see, a habit of moving wonderfully gracefully and elegantly, and his movement silenced me indisputably.
‘Now look,’ he ordered, and there was no longer anything or anyone in the shade of the tree. But a round knoll had appeared on the strip of lawn beside the wall, and it, too, was as green as new grass.
‘Is it…?’ I began.
‘Yes, he is quick,’ Longhorn acceded.
‘I do not understand,’ I complained. ‘Is he someone, then? Who is he?’
‘My dear,’ Longhorn said, and looked at me, waving the extensions of his antennae, ‘do you believe that the Mimic could have a personality? Today he is one thing, tomorrow another. Wherever he is, that is what he is – stone a moment ago, now the summer’s grass. Who knows what form he will take tomorrow. But come, let us go; I shall introduce you to one another.’
‘No,’ I said, feeling an obscure rage. ‘I do not wish to. I have no intention of making the acquaintance of such a person. It certainly takes all sorts…’
‘Really,’ said Longhorn, without showing any kind of sympathy, in fact teasingly. ‘So you want everyone to be someone. You want what someone is at the beginning to be what he is at the end.’
‘But surely! There has to be some kind of continuity!’ I shouted. ‘Development, naturally, but at the same time – loyalty!’
I attempted to continue, but I could already feel my irritation slipping away into the summer day that embraced Tainaron from all directions. Soon I was feeling the desire to protect the unknown creature.
‘In a sense I understand him,’ I said with some considerable forebearance. ‘He is seeking his own form.’
‘Is that so?’ said Longhorn, and we both leaned over the rail and looked downward. There was no longer any kind of hummock in the courtyard, but beside the large tree stood another tree, but much smaller and sturdier.
‘Does he know we are here?’ I asked. ‘Does he do it for us, or for his own amusement?’
‘It is his work,’ said Longhorn, but I do not know if he was serious.
‘Why are you laughing?’ asked Longhorn in turn.
‘How I love this city!’ I said. ‘Perhaps I shall stay here for ever.’ (What on earth made me say it?)
‘Yes, stay here forever,’ Longhorn said, but his voice darkened to such a depth that I forgot the Mimic and turned toward him in astonishment.
The Great Window
The Seventeenth Letter
It was evening once, and I was a child, out in the street. All the lights were on, street lamps, shop windows, car headlights; and I was standing in front of a toy shop. You know the shop; it is still there, in the centre of town, and you must have passed it many times, or perhaps you have even been inside it in the days before Christmas.
That window! It was lit with prodigal brightness, and along the glass flowed glistening drops; a rainstorm had just passed over the city and everything was clean, never before seen. In front of the dolls, cars, balls and games, immediately behind the glass, a large selection of marbles had been set out in the shape of the petals of a flower. Some of them were transparent, others brightly coloured, others as white as milk.
I had never owned any marbles, and their glow captivated me; I admired them for a long time, but all of a sudden, from far away and without warning, the terrible knowledge slid between them and me – that one day my mother would die.
When this pain hit me, I was looking at a particularly beautiful shimmering blue marble, and something happened: it changed. Its colour did not vary, its size was the same as before, and it remained steady in its place; but all the same it was quite different from before. Something had fallen away from it, something which only a moment ago had made it desirable, the most important thing of all. The marble was no longer of value; it was merely junk, and there was no longer anything in the entire shop window to interest me. It was as if stage spotlights had been extinguished in the middle of a performance and a curtain had been drawn from earth to heavens in front of all the magnificence, a curtain whose name was VOID.
Even the street in which I stood was now a strange street in a strange city; but I went on standing in the same place. A vague desire for knowledge forced me to make an experiment. I wanted to see whether I could make the marble change back to what it was before. Gazing at it unwaveringly, I began to struggle to disperse the thickness of night which, unseen, dominated everything I looked at.
I did not believe the darkness, I said, it is not true; and soon it was indeed not true; it paled and lifted like a night-mist. And the marble glowed before me, lovely as ever.
But then I understood that the plenty of the shop window, all the jewels of its treasure trove, were only a tiny foretaste of what life would bring me with both hands – no, a hundred hands! a thousand!
And I have never left that shop window. I stand and stand, I look and look at how it shines, and goes dark, and shines again. There is night and there is day, and I see both hell and heaven through the same window.
The Work of the Surveyor
The Eighteenth Letter
Today I have looked through my window at
the work of the City Surveyor. I have already watched him in another part of the city, fulfilling his professional responsibilities, and now, this morning, he has reached our street. He measures the lengths and widths of streets, the diameters of squares and the heights of buildings. I do not know why he measures them, but I suppose the information he produces is stored in an archive somewhere and that interested parties can consult them there.
His territory is rather large and he is very hardworking, but he has only one measuring device: his own body. It is a long, green body, and he uses it extremely skilfully; I have previously had the opportunity to admire such agility only in the performances of acrobats. Sometimes his body forms a large loop; the next moment it has stretched out again to a long, straight stretch and he has covered quite a distance along the street. He also has no trouble in climbing vertical brick walls, right up to the eaves, and he does not seem to suffer from vertigo of any kind.
As I came from the shop and took a short cut through the park, I saw the Surveyor eating his lunch on a bench. On his head was the white cap worn by city officials, decorated with spiral patterns. I asked if I might sit with him for a moment, and he willingly made space.
‘Would you like some?’ he asked, opening his lunch box. But I had already eaten, and refused, with thanks. There was something I wished to ask him.
‘Do you find your work interesting?’ I asked, for something to say.
‘Extremely,’ he replied, munching his sandwich. Behind us, in playground, the children of Tainaron, screaming, were playing the games played by all the children in the world: running away, being had, and then exchanging prisoner for persecutor.
‘Have you been doing it for long?’
‘Ever since I reached my full height,’ the Surveyor replied, pouring a steaming, sweet-smelling drink from his thermos flask into his cup.
Bells rang out from the cathedral, the children left the playground and disappeared into the shade of the trees. It was already almost noon, and the siesta was beginning. I could not see any movement anywhere, and heard only the booming of the bells. It felt as if life were standing still, resting and reviving like the Surveyor.
Through the incessant ringing, I heard his even voice: ‘My father did the same work, and his father and his grandfather and his grandfather’s father. A new City Surveyor is chosen from each generation; now it is I.’
And he added something which I did not hear, for the power of the bells swelled to numb the ears.
I bent over toward him and his flat face neared my mouth. Now I could hear what he said: ‘I am the measure of all things.’
But he did not say it haughtily, merely stated it, brushing the crumbs from his chest.
‘But this part of the city is old,’ I thought aloud. ‘Was it not surveyed many generations ago? What could there be to measure here?’
He looked at me in disbelief. ‘What is there to measure?’ he asked. ‘It was a different time then. A different time, and different measuring devices. I and my grandfather are not at all the same size, as you may have thought.’
He took a large piece of fruit from his bag, sinking his many rows of healthy teeth into it. I no longer knew what to say, and felt a fool.
When the Surveyor had sucked the stem clean and dropped it into a rubbish bin decorated with the city arms, he rose decisively and felt it his duty to remark: ‘Back to work!’
He, the measure of all things, hurried energetically to fulfil the demands of his job, growing smaller and smaller on the park path, and a straight, clear furrow was left in its raked sand. He went as official representatives of the people go, or as those who know that everything has its measure, and more – what and who he himself is.
And, following the Surveyor’s example, time too moved on; a dry leaf fell before me on to the dust and it was the first leaf of autumn. The season had changed.
The bells had stopped echoing, but the city radiated its own sound, like a busy bumble-bee. The brightly coloured Ferris wheel of the Tainaron funfair, which was motionless for a moment at midday, started to spin once more. I saw it from the bench on which I was sitting, alone; it can be seen down in the harbour and in all the squares and markets, so high has it been set up, in the constant wind.
The Bystander
The Nineteenth Letter
This morning as I woke up, in bed, I was overcome by a prurient restlessness whose reasons I could not immediately divine. For a long time I sat on my bed and listened. Although it was already late in the morning, the city was silent, as if not a single citizen had yet woken up, although it was a weekday and an ordinary working week.
I dressed myself in yesterday’s clothes and, without eating my breakfast, went down to the street, seeking Longhorn’s company.
But before I could open the front door a surprising sight opened up through the round window of the stairwell: the pavement in front of the building was full of backs, side by side, broad and narrow, long and sturdy; but all were united by stillness, the same direction and position.
All at once I thought of a picture which I had once seen, perhaps in a book, perhaps in a museum; I cannot remember. Perhaps you too have seen it? The crowd in the picture had a common object of interest, which was not visible; it was outside the edge of the picture, perhaps in reality too. But more than the invisible event and its observers, my attention was drawn to a man in the background of the picture who was looking in the opposite direction to all the others. Do you remember him too?
When I then stepped out on to the outside step – and I can tell you that I did it hesitantly, almost unwillingly – I can confirm that a fair number of people were standing in front of the opposite block, too, but that there too silence prevailed. I do not think I have yet mentioned that the boulevard on which I now live runs from east to west. When, this morning, I eyed it from my front door, it looked as if the entire city had gathered along this long, wide street and had been standing there silently – that was my impression – perhaps from the middle of the night onward. The din that, with such numbers of people, generally rises like puffs of smoke, is impressive, but the rage or joy of the crowd could not have dumbfounded me as completely as its silence.
Since autumn is already approaching here, the sun was hanging, at this time in the morning, fairly low at the eastern end of the street, but as far as I could see every single citizen was staring in the opposite direction, at the point in the distance where the boulevard shrinks to a small yellow flower: where the linden trees stand in their autumn glory.
The street was empty. I have often examined its surface, skilfully patterned in stone, but now, as it spread, deserted, before me, when not a single walker was crossing it and no vehicle was rolling along it, I hardly noticed its unique beauty. In the pure dawn of the new day the tramway rails sparkled as if they were made of silver.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps some national day was being celebrated in the city, and that the boulevard was closed to traffic for a great festival parade. It might be that we should soon see the prince himself – if he is still alive – driving past us, perhaps acknowledging us with a slender hand…Or were we expecting a state visit to the city? Would a procession of closed carriages glide past us, taking noble guests to a luncheon reception at the city hall?
But I was soon forced to abandon such thoughts. For nothing about the appearance of the Tainaronians suggested great festivities. There were no bunches of flowers, no balloons or masks. Not a single child was blowing the kind of whistle which, whining shrilly, unwinds from a roll to a long staff, and no one was flying a miniature Tainaron flag, a white pennant printed with a spiral (or perhaps a nautilus; I have never been quite sure which).
Yes, they went on standing silently, and the eastern sun infused the strong heat of copper into their back-armour.
Despite the disapproving glances which were cast at me, I pushed right through to the front row and found myself balancing on a narrow kerb-stone of the pavement.
Beside me st
ood a gleaming black shape that reminded me of a diver. I knocked echoingly on his polished surface and said: ‘Excuse me, but please would you tell me what day today is?’
He glanced at me, disturbed, and after making the rapid and sullen reply, ‘The nineteenth,’ he turned back at once toward the west.
I was none the wiser, but I had only myself to blame – the timing and phrasing of my question had been badly chosen.
Then, my dear, there was a sudden gust of wind, and the Tainaronians suddenly began to crowd around me, so that I had to stand with one foot in the gutter. That did not matter, since I had managed to secure a lookout spot for myself. For something was now happening at the point where the boulevard dived into a dusky tunnel under the linden trees. From that direction, some kind of procession was approaching, something very long and pale; but however much I screwed up my eyes I could not make out any details.
It progressed slowly, and our moments stretched with it, but inch by inch it approached our building; and the better I could make it out, the more astonished I was.
What a parade it was! I could see no glittering carriages or brass bands. Quite the reverse: as it approached, the silence deepened still further, for on the broad boulevard of Tainaron silence combined with silence; the silence of the procession merged with the stillness of the crowd. No flags or streamers, no songs, shots or slogans. But neither did this procession have any of the solemn brilliance of a funeral cortège; not a single flower or wreath gave it colour, and there were no candle flames to flutter and smoke.
When the head of the endlessly long ribbon, which took up almost the entire width of the street, reached us, new battalions rolled forth far away from under the trees. Battalions, I call them, but even today I still do not know whether these were in any sense military. I shall now try to describe to you what I saw before me this morning.
The procession was so uniform that it recalled a snake, but in fact it was made up of countless individuals. Its speed was leisurely, so that I had plenty of time to examine the beginning, which broadened like a reptile’s head and which – apparently like the entire procession – was covered by a transparent, slightly shiny membrane, like an elastic cellophane bag. Inside this membrane, in rows and fronts, marched small creatures; as far as I could see from where I stood they were like grubs, almost colourless and about as thick as my middle finger, but a little longer. I shuddered slightly as I watched them as one shivers when one comes inside from the cold.