by Unknown
Many things within me are different now, changed. And at this point, being the old dog that I am, I can tell you that those moments were worth it all. They were precious even if people thought that they were nothing but traces of an abnormal temperament.
Oh my precious Anna... Forgive me. Why don’t I think of you more often? Why doesn’t your memory overwhelm me like it used to? But these incredible countries I went to changed everything for me. Neither my little hometown nor my first love is big enough for me anymore.
But this is not the reason. It can’t be! I wouldn’t deserve your forgiveness if it were. This life journey and destiny of mine remind me of a myth I had been told when I was but a boy: the myth of the unjustly killed man. For years and years his soul wandered around in the wilderness of the night. You could still hear the rattling of his chains. But after justice was served, he was never heard from again.
My first days back, two months ago, my fellow villagers welcomed my healthy and changed appearance with utter surprise. Their joy felt genuine. Most of them had taken me for dead. Luckily for me, however, the physicians in Zurich believed differently and therefore let me occupy a bed for twelve whole months—from May ‘21 to May of this year—tube-feeding me with special liquid foods.
My mother had died before I returned. She departed with a pain in her heart, that unbearable pain of a mother that did not have the chance to see her child strong again. All the excitement and joy I felt, caused by my psychological resurrection, was overshadowed in the beginning by my sorrow over the loss of my mother. My Lord, forgive that holy woman and let her rest in peace.
The priest is away in Italy. I still feel ashamed about the doubts I shared with him, my lack of faith: a terrible sin. On the other hand, he couldn’t have possibly had any idea about all the incredible things that followed in my three-year struggle between scepticism and remorse.
I try to drive all these thoughts away using energy as an instrument, an energy I never could have imagined I possess. I’m constantly on the move. I’ve taken care of all the inheritance issues, sold my land, I work in the fields in my free time and I try to keep my mind occupied at all times. But when the night comes and all my friends are gone, all these memories, so recent, but at the same time so distant, come back and haunt me before I fall asleep. And when these moments come, I can’t help but think about what I’ve lost…
From time to time, it feels like I’m the castaway of a veritable spiritual shipwreck. And I cannot speak of my vicissitude to anyone; I can’t even confess it to the priest. The things I know cannot even be conceived of by the human mind. The lifeless paper I write on is not just a lifeless sheet of paper anymore; it is my very self. And my very self knows very well indeed the reasons for my firm conviction. And never, for as long as I live and breathe, will I fear that anyone will laugh about what I’ve experienced and seen with my own eyes. And I believe them with all the strength I have left in me.
July 21st, 1922
The number of my evening solitude companions is dwindling. Perhaps they are right. There isn’t much left to say every second night. At this point, most of the times my companions are my books and I am happy with that. Who would have thought that everything that has gone down in history since they were written would justify the value of their contents? My own old childhood loves—Schiller, Goethe, but more recent names as well, such as Einstein, Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Mann and Maeterlinck—I cannot express how strange a feeling meeting them would give me. I—and I alone—could tell them things about the course of the last years of their lives, about how their work would be glorified in history, about their end, things that they never knew and never could have known.
I’m sitting at the foot of a tree, overpowered by the vastness of the existences that I have wandering around me. And yet I feel, from this very spot, as if I could cut the universe in half and squeeze into it!
August 10th, 1922
Tonight I went through hell. On one hand, I felt the urge to speak about everything I know, unburdening my soul, but on the other hand I knew I had to push myself to bury everything deep down inside forever!
Where are you, Mother? Were you alive, I’d tell you everything! To you, everything! I know that you would always respect what is now the most sacred thing in my life.
August 14th, 1922
Two days ago I happened upon Father Jacob on the street. He had returned from his trip to Italy. I thanked him for all the help and support he had given my mother during my lethargy. I told him I would visit him the day after next, which I did. We sat in his garden. How different it felt being next to him this time! All the doubts I used to have were now long gone.
“Father, I’m not the same person I used to be. If only you knew about the changes I’ve been through…”
I reminded him of my past thoughts and my disrespectful conclusions and I assured him that I do not share the same point of view with my old self anymore. At the same time, however, I felt I had no right to speak to him in more detail. He seemed very excited that faith had spoken to me.
“I was wrong father. If only you knew all the great things there are.” I stopped suddenly. The tone of my voice surprised even me. The priest stared at me with bated breath.
“Even the harshest pain is welcome, both physical and mental. Vindication will come in the end. Never should a sigh come out of a human mouth.”
And then came a moment of silence. The priest was now becoming agitated. He looked as if he were trying to make me speak without asking me to. Finally he said, “You see, my son? That is faith!”
“No, Father, no,” I replied in a calm and steady voice. “It’s not just faith that has changed me. You cannot even imagine what is actually out there. The human mind is incapable of realising the greatness of it.”
I revealed no more. But I had already said too much, more than I was entitled to.
At first, Father Jacob patiently waited for me to proceed. Then, he started asking me, in his own casual, indirect way. Then he started begging me. He called me “son”, he called me “brother” and he reminded me of our past discussions back in the winter of 1919. Finally, he claimed that it was a sin to believe that something can be exclusively ours to keep, ending with how that something would eventually become a burden on my conscience. I regretted having said all that and having spoiled those sacred truths by giving them the shape of human reason.
Since last night, I’ve been thinking that something has changed between the priest and me, and that our long-lasting friendship is now something of the past.
August 16th, 1922
On summer days like these, the sky is so clear—nearly transparent—and the breeze so cool that midday resembles a crystal clear spring morning. I am joyful that I postponed all my errands for tomorrow, all the paperwork, all the boring seriousness of my everyday routine. Mornings like these are not meant to be spent surrounded by four walls. It should be considered a sin to work on such divine days. Now I understand why we, all the worms of this earth, should think twice before we refer to the divine. I was told that all the great things that surround us are far beyond the capabilities of our finite mind to comprehend. That’s why little children find joy in trifles, and based on that, they are undoubtedly much wiser than we are.
Forgive me, Heavenly Father, for my lack of faith.
August 17th, 1922
When three people have a conversation on the pavement in the dead of night, naturally someone might overhear them, no matter how low the volume of their voices, especially if that someone´s open window is directly above their heads.
Half an hour ago, I experienced an annoying situation such as this, without them knowing I was listening. At first, they were talking loudly about local matters. I could hear the deep voice of the hotel owner, the characteristic intonation of our family physician’s voice and a third person, whose voice I could not recognize. At some point, they realised where they were standing and turned the conversation to me. They asked the phy
sician what exactly was wrong with me and he gave them a short lecture on lethargy. The other two kept on asking more questions while a few “Shhhs” interrupted the conversation every time someone raised their voice.
Then the idea popped into my mind. I remembered the motif from the second part of Ruthemir’s Mass. Once, twice, three times I played it in my head without any mistakes. I could easily play it on the piano. I sat on my stool, with my window open and then, the divine melody broke the silence of the night, like a storm of happiness, a genuine expression of the knowledge of the future. Then I approached my window. The physician, the hotel owner and the third man were still standing there talking, as if nothing had happened. Unbelievable! I think that even the hordes of peons that used to haul massive stones for the pyramids would be less indifferent to the sound of this melody.
In a few days I’m leaving for Athens. I’ve already made all the arrangements. I need a more temperate climate — the physicians agreed with me on that. My mind is sound, but my body is ailing; the tuberculosis never went away. I know I haven’t got much time left. Maybe a couple of years…
A NEW LIFE IN ATHENS
Athens, October 20th, 1922
I feel so ensconced in the white city now. I have become accustomed to the warmth brought by the winter sun, the voices of the street vendors, the scent of chrysanthemums and the dust rising from the carriages. I think I’ll fit in just fine here. My greatest pleasure is, however, to go out in the evenings and get lost in the crowded streets, among the bright shop windows and the characteristic, rhythmic churning of the rubber cart wheels. You must be either ill or mad to stay at home at dusk. No one in this city finds pleasure staying home anymore.
The place is poor. It’s apparent from the many beggars on the streets and the amiable elderly men with their tormented violins. But the women here are all well-groomed and elegant with an inexplicable air of true nobility.
I just recalled, without really wanting to, the somehow unjust words that Stefan uttered one day in conversation when he wondered what it would be like to “suddenly find ourselves in the heart of the 20th century, among the most proud and rebellious of the underdeveloped and nearly uncivilised nations of the South” in order to emphasise that the cultural hubs had now moved up North. What ignorant opinions are formed in the absence of any historical knowledge! I now think, Stefan, my friend from the future, with all his pride and affection for the ancient Scandinavian blood that runs through his veins, easily came to unjustified conclusions about the “uncivilised South”. But I, on the contrary, am well aware of all the excesses into which that lucky race was pushed. And I say “lucky” because it could not have achieved anything on its own. They were merely representatives of the other big winning force, by the authorisation of whom they came and re-colonised this tortured continent that was almost annihilated by the fatal war of the year -87 (our 2309AD). This is when a medium-scale nuclear war took place, destroying all of Europe with the exception of Scandinavia. (Europe was then recolonised mostly by the remaining Northern Europeans).
And as far as the Greek nation is concerned, I think there is not a more relaxed nation under the Mediterranean sun. Unless everyone is pretending, including my landlady that does everything in her power to help and please me, and the little eight-year-old boy that was late for school so that he could take me all the way to the Herod Atticus Odeon on his own, and didn’t even accept the tip I gave him.
I don’t know about the rest, but I could walk the most remote and secluded streets and districts after midnight, feeling as safe as I would in broad daylight. Here I’ve met both decent morals and remarkable local culture.
These Mediterranean shores are where civilisation was born and I’m proud to live here now. I feel so light in this foreign, but so beloved country among strangers. I’ve now settled just fine in my humble room. The only thing I fear, however, is that I am starting to feel the same weight in my chest again, the one caused by the knowledge of my numbered days.
Wednesday November 2nd, 1922
In a foreign country the first few weeks are quite difficult. Everything—the morning, the evening, one’s habits, the way one plans to spend the day—needs to be redefined. I truly believe, though, that with the passage of time things will get better; and I rely on the reassurance of Mr. De La S that he will recommend me to some of his German language students, whom he has in abundance. After my visit to the archaeological school with the recommendation letter from Mr. M., I have every reason to be optimistic.
During the past few days the weather has been reminding me of home and loneliness keeps flooding my world and my eyes. If I find students to tutor, I will accept them all even if I am underpaid, with the hope of finally meeting someone whom I can actually trust and with whom I can communicate. Hilda, Stefan, Silvia, where are you?
This evening I sat down opposite the Parthenon—on the northern side—and was lost in thought for hours, my gaze caressed by the inscriptions carved into the rock. Suddenly, soft, approaching footsteps interrupted my daydreaming. I raised my head. It was a tall, seemingly cultivated young man. He apologised in French. I introduced myself and he shook my hand, expressing his joy about me not being Prussian. That’s all he understood from my accent.
“I understand… I understand you very well,” he told me. “When you concentrate your thought entirely on this rock, without allowing your mind to think about anything else, it’s as if you’re living in that era, two thousand years ago. What more could a person have seen back then, if bent over this spot for a couple of minutes? For those minutes, this rock would have been their world.”
I was carried away and answered him, “And after the same number of years it will still be the same. This land has strong and solid foundations. So many things will have happened in the meantime, so much will have changed by then, and yet this piece of rock will remain exactly the same. This is the incredible thing! So, staring at it, and forgetting everything else around us, isn’t it like we’re living in the future for a moment?
He turned around and looked deeply into my eyes. I fell silent.
“Except,” I said after a minute, as if suddenly remembering something, “except then, there would be no bars around it. They would have done away with them.”
He looked at me with a strange expression on his face, a questioning gaze. He seemed a bit offended, not by what I had said, but more by the simple and confident tone of my voice.
“I should go now,” he said right after, “the doors close at sunset.”
THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS SICKNESS
March 20th, 1923
Here we go again. The slight breathlessness and the small but gradual rise of fever every night have returned with the same hostile intentions, with the same malevolent persistence, hints of small and insidious cracks inside me. The end is near; I must deal with it now. The need to unburden my soul grows more imperative by the second. At an age when other people feel young and plan ahead, I am dying with a mercilessly intolerable moral onus inside me.
Everyone in my hometown knows that the physicians were wrong to believe that the disease that tormented me for fourteen days back in 1917 would not come back to torture me again. It returned once more, not for a couple of weeks like before, but for approximately twelve months. They remember rushing me to Zurich in mid-May 1921 and me looking like a dead man. Everybody there knows it. What they don’t know, however, is that the first time I recovered I didn’t remember anything from the time of my illness: for me it was as if I had lost touch with myself and the world just for a second, not for two weeks. On the contrary, the second time I opened my eyes, I was filled with fresh, crystal clear memories of a real 360-day life, so recent and so vivid in my mind!
You can give whichever explanation suits you best—medical, scientific or whatever else—and I will accept them all. Just do not tell me it was a dream or a figment of my imagination because you will never have been more mistaken! There are things that the human mind does not know or comp
rehend. Only if someone put themselves in my shoes could they ever feel my absolute certainty. God be my witness, and I say God because he and he alone can see into the depths of my soul. And he knows how much I respect and cherish his name.
Listen to me, the truth cannot be concealed. The signs are innumerable: first and foremost the passing of time. When one has lived a certain reality for a certain amount of time, when one has seen and touched all these tangible things and their embossed details, it’s very difficult to assert that it was all a dream and not an actual part of one’s real life. The same applies to my experience. It has now been months since I re-found myself and the logical thing would be for these “memories” to have blurred or faded away. Well, I assure you that, never, throughout this period, have I doubted my firm conviction that all these things that happened to me were incidents of actual live experience and that I spent 360 days of real life in the distant future!
March 21st, 1923
I am not feeling better. I think my condition has been exacerbated by the surprising temperature drop over the past few days. This cough, which in the beginning I thought would pass, continues to rack my lungs. I didn’t like the look on the physician’s face yesterday. But what else is there to tell me? If I am to die, so be it. After what I’ve experienced what else remains for me to see? For as much life I’ve got left, that will be my prayer and that is what my soul will await.