Blindly (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Magris, Claudio

  I can’t remember when I went into the water—right away, hours later, weeks?—it came up to my knees. It was cold, but that iciness, on the bare skin of my calves, was a pleasant sensation. I gently placed the gull in the sea and it immediately assumed the normal position of a seagull floating on the waves. Its neck was even raised, the head turned directly toward the open sea, as the current carried it away from shore. After a few minutes it was already far away and you could not distinguish it from the other gulls rocking on the water. Beyond the reef you could make out the white crests of the waves. The sea was a vast deserted passageway. I looked at that passageway. It didn’t matter that the bird’s journey would soon be over. It was nice not to need a Charon to be ferried to the other side, to be able to get there on your own.

  I came out of the water. I felt even more tired. The light was blinding me and, after moving the sheepskin and spreading it out on the stones again, I lay down under the prow of the ship, in the patch of shade that the prow and the figurehead cast on the beach. The fleece was soft and thick and kept you from feeling the harshness of the terrain. Lying on my back, with my eyes half-closed, I could see the figurehead above me. The roar of the sea was regular and even and after a few moments I wasn’t aware of it anymore; no sound could be distinguished in the uniform crashing of the surf. Lifting my head, I looked out across the vast bay. The basalt cliffs were a great dark fortress; in the distance, which blunted differences and corrected irregularities, the walls appeared as battlements with merlons and crenels. Staring at them at length, the gaze clouded over, became hazy; the images blurred in that trembling air and there was an occasional flicker, some smoke, on the battlements, the fluttering of a flag on a tower. The sun had shifted; it beat down on the sheepskin, making its filthy yellow shine with a golden glow, but in the lethargy that had overcome me I didn’t even move the inch or so that would have put me back in the shade. I lay there, motionless, with the sun in my eyes.

  I can’t say how much time went by. My father always knew what time it was. Behind the eyelids of my closed eyes, which I squeezed tight and then relaxed, danced small globes of every colour, reds, blacks and yellows, on a continuously changing background, now flaming yellow then dark blue; the disks intertwined and overlapped, brightly coloured suns of the future in a dark or roseate sky, rosy with blood. Every now and then I opened my eyes and quickly shut them again, pressing my eyelids with my fingers; coloured shapes broke up and recomposed themselves in a kaleidoscope, a fiery light enveloped the dark castle and ignited its towers, dark giants collapsed with a fearful rumble—Christiansborg burns, for three days and three nights the Royal Palace burns, the ceiling of the solemn Hall of Knights crashes down with a roar, the tongues of flame streak toward the grand portraits of Danish noblemen and kings, wrap them in their coils, twist around the iron breastplates and ermine cloaks, the paintings peel away from the walls with a crackling sound, the figures writhe and curl up among the flames. Warriors in heavy armour and ancient lords of the sea are put to the stake after the lost battle, gold, precious fabrics and trophies burn relentlessly. The whole sky is a fiery colour, it’s a red spot under the eyelids.

  But it’s late; I don’t know why or in reference to what, but it’s late. Who knows what time it is, even my father’s clocks were destroyed. As my eyelids relax the fire retreats and a blank spot can be seen—it’s the great clock of the Hall of Knights.

  I like that emptiness, I would like to create it around me and behind me; everyone tries to rescue something, I instead prefer to help the fire, toss things into the flames, see them go up in smoke—if only all this earth I have on top of me could vanish into thin air, dissolve like smoke, let me breathe.

  Fire is righteous, it destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and one day it will destroy the new infernal cities. Make a clean sweep, a nice bonfire, outside and inside, in the heart and head which are always so crowded, jammed with too many things. Then there would be room for Maria as well—an open horizon, a sea traversed only by the wind, not that hold constantly filled with too heavy a load, teeming with human flesh—how could I take her with me, imprison and suffocate her in that mob …

  I press my eyes again. Under my eyelids the dots, disks and globes multiply and whirl dizzily, changing their colour and shape; the ball spins and spins faster and faster, it doesn’t stop on any number, all the better, it would undoubtedly be the wrong one. Too many numbers, too many sparks, too many things. Life is a bubo always about to burst. I reopen my eyes; the haziness clears up, that pale disk reappears on the basalt walls, it’s not a clock, it’s a snowball—whiteness again at last, Iceland, the silence of frozen lakes, a white desert where there is nothing—what peace, what relief, the bucket full of water is no longer heavy because it wasn’t a real bucket, now I can see it, it was a sieve and the water drained away through the holes, now I feel empty, light, free. It’s not snow, it’s a white flag; now, thank God, we can finally raise it.

  The war is coming to an end, the flames lap against the now defenceless city—Copenhagen under the guns of the English fleet raises the signal for surrender, now Nelson will order a ceasefire and peace will begin. Men will be able to treat their wounds, the bombarded ships will be able to remain peacefully docked to have their battered hulls repaired.

  I lie down on my back again, like now, a fitting position to declare yourself beaten and seek compassion. The sun, high above, is a blinding white disk. Now we’ll hear the ceasefire order. But suddenly that disk turns black, a black eye aimed at me—Nelson aims the spyglass but holds it to his blindfolded eye, he can’t see the white flag and does not call a ceasefire. This is how catastrophes occur, a defect of vision, a misunderstanding, the helmsman who doesn’t see the rocks because he’s looking someplace else; death is an old one-eyed pirate, who can’t see what’s in front of him and shouts his orders blindly.

  That eye stares at me from the end of the spyglass, it comes closer and closer and grows larger—an eclipse of the sun, of the earth, the world no longer exists, it’s disappeared behind the black circle, in that black mouth of a cannon. The shot is fired and the darkness spreads, multicoloured sparks gleam at the edge of that darkness, fragments of exploded stars hurled into shadowy space where they founder and die out.

  No, I don’t think I heard the creaking of the figurehead breaking away from the ship and I think it fell on top of me. Undoubtedly I didn’t ward it off; maybe I was asleep, on that fleece that a moment later would once again be drenched in blood. I don’t remember, the memory capacity evidently got used up here. The corroded, worm-eaten wood of the old prow figure must have succumbed to the years, the harsh weather, the abrasion of wind, rain and salt air. The sea consumes. Still it’s strange, because the Argo rotted of course and fell apart, from the time I consecrated it to Poseidon and left it on the seashore, but the devotees who came to venerate it repaired it continuously, replacing one part and then another, so that the ship stood there forever, ancient yet new, intact and immortal, another yet the same, like me, like the gods. Indeed it was assumed into heaven, among the eternal constellations—it ascended up there by sliding backward, sailing in reverse toward the tail and paws of the Dog. But it’s empty, without a crew, without the Argonauts—even without the figurehead, perhaps it was jettisoned when the ship went to meet the gods, to lighten the ballast, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to rise. They say it’s up there, a constellation with almost no stars. On the beach, however, there is no longer any vessel.

  At least I can’t see it, from here. You can’t see anything almost; even if I scratch away this muddy soil everything remains obscure, dim—but then is anyone looking?—that yellowish, shaggy, scrunched-up rag, it looks like a deflated balloon, the water laps at it, soon the tide will carry it away. A ball of rags, a shapeless sphere—it seems it was Nausicaa who invented the sphere, the model of the universe, after having secretly learned it from the Argonauts, to whom the centaur Chiron had taught it. Even Newton mentions it, and so … Then, with that s
phere, Nausicaa went to play ball on the seashore and a kick by who knows who made it vanish among the waves, in the spray from the bora that obscures the sea like sleet. I’d like to know where that tattered ball ended up, but it’s all black, there at the bottom, and you can’t see a thing, not even if you rub the clouded glass vigorously.

  Rub it, can’t see a thing, rub it some more, still in vain, in the dark hold. Rub, row, click, turn off, turn back on, make that recorder go forward and back, talk and repeat and say it again, type, record, erase, re-record, rewind fast forward rewind, replay. Especially replay, check to make sure there are no surprises. I wouldn’t want to think that at times, instead of erasing my own questions and explanations and comments, leaving only his text, neat and orderly, I may have perhaps erased his answers without realizing it—but where is he, where is it that he’s talking, that it’s him speaking … Let’s go back … No, it’s not him, and yet earlier, just before, when I checked that same passage and listened to what he was saying, I didn’t notice that the voice wasn’t his, who knows, maybe mine, even though—it’s difficult to recognize your own voice, you don’t know how it sounds from the outside, how others hear it, it’s a different voice—this message on the screen, on the other hand, must really be his, it’s him, that brazen rascal—When you were distracted for a moment, Doctor, I pressed the button, and erased myself, I disappeared, free, still hounded but never really nabbed, free at last, my dear Dr. Ulcigrai. And the PC, the Communist Party, pardon, the Personal Computer will help you even less. A nice virus managed to destroy the data, that seemingly innocuous program that opened a window with best wishes. Tabula rasa. Farewell. But go ahead and continue listening to the tape, if you like listening to yourself—But where is it that—yes now I recognize myself, it’s my voice—let’s try rewinding, it’s still me … forward, rewind—nothing to be done, here too—

  But no, keep looking, keep looking, Doctor.—Where can he be? Even the room is empty, the bed intact. How did it happen, how did he do it. Everything was planned so well, the cells were in safe custody, protected; to escape, to die was technically impossible. If we only knew how … What matters is not that someone does it right under your nose, in spite of all the security, what matters is knowing how it could have happened … Indeed, the science of prisons, concentration camps, penitentiaries, isolation wards is precisely that, a science, well before it becomes common practice. It’s the theory that is of interest; whether one was supposed to die and doesn’t die or vice versa doesn’t matter, but you hanker to learn how he did it, by what method, based on which principles—all well and good if the murderer enters and kills his victim without forcing the door of the hermetically sealed room, or if the prisoner escapes from that hermetically sealed cell, you can even overlook the murder or the escape, but make him tell us how he did it, what the Institution’s weak link was, how one manages to escape from the Lager, from cloning that revives you even after you’re dead, from serial reproduction without end, from a safety net full of holes.

  And yet there must be some clue, some trace … Let’s see, let’s keep looking … the rotting ship, the figurehead … Cold, colder, they used to say in that children’s game when you searched for an object in the wrong place or in the wrong direction … Oh, you again, you’re having fun, aren’t you? But let’s see … That palace forever in flames … Warm, warmer, we’re on the right track … Fire … of course, I’ve got it! Better to be assumed among the gods like the greatest of the Argonauts, Heracles, burned on the pyre on Mount Oeta, transported to Olympus by the flames and by the fiery wind generated by the blaze. It’s useful to have people believe that the wanted man ended up crushed by that figurehead, buried somewhere, even in the park under the bench—even the biographers are convinced of it and have spread this version sanctioned by good faith—preserved by permafrost and ready to be recalled into service. An excellent ruse, you have to admit it. Chiefly because it wasn’t common for convicts to be cremated; they were in fact buried on the Isle of the Dead.

  And instead … who would ever have thought of it. It must have been Black Andy. He kept his promise, paid his debt. Return to the water the prey which that time, in the river, he had taken from it, but return it unrecognizable to everyone, including the water. He was skilful with fire, Andy was; he had started many of them in the forest, since the time he was a child. It must not have been difficult for him to burn the body and even less difficult to scatter the ashes in the Derwent, as planned, there where the current of the river-sea flows toward the Antarctic icefields. By now innocuous, despite the permafrost—fire destroys everything—even chips, those silicon memory platelets, my memory, that of others, of everyone, who knows. Those too destroyed in any case, just to be safe. There’s no longer anything that those freezing waters and those blocks of ice can preserve that could be used by new commanders of future Lagers who want to recall the dead to forced labour for life. The Cybernaut sank, he ended up in the fishes’ mouths, chewed digested eliminated, he is no more. Decentralized Central Committee, dissolved, disconnected. Eritis sicut Deus, (De)us is everywhere, nowhere, the certificate of alleged death is properly stamped and will delight all those eager to accept it as authentic.

  O net, where is your hold, O cloning, where is thy sting? Hogwash, to sidetrack everyone, to sidetrack ourselves, to lighten some of the load. It was a good idea to get rid of even the Argo, sending it up there, and to finally ascend, no, descend to the gods, in a tomb that no one can violate—the sea is a sudarium but there’s no one down below nor will there ever be again, those motes, grains, puffs of ashes that were once flesh are no more, no one will ever recapture them, they’ve escaped forever, gobs of frothy elusive dust, a perpetual ticket of leave, the revolution has won, the Law no longer exists, the codes too have been cremated, the codes of the king, of the People’s Courts, the codes that sentence convicts. Even the genetic code was burned, volatilized, abrogated.

  The perfect escape, perhaps with the complicity of someone here inside, in the ward, someone who spread a virus through the computer and tampered with the tape recordings, someone who is good at imitating all of our voices. Of course it’s a little embarrassing; even the folder has disappeared from the patients’ file cabinet, maybe it was used as paper to light that fire, that pyre, that cremation … Still, someone will have to answer for who’s missing, for who was released without a formal discharge, for who got away. When Cogoi realizes it, he’s the head doctor after all … I think I can already hear him, calm and courteous, though … as he takes off his glasses and enters my empty room, still unaware, and says, My dear Ulcigrai, how are we doing?

  TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD

  “THE FIRST VAGUE IDEA for this book”—Claudio Magris has written to his translators—“dates back to 1988. I was in Antwerp, for the presentation of the Dutch translation of Danube, and I was struck by some of the figureheads I saw, by those eyes gazing beyond, dilated, wide open, almost as if seeing catastrophes that others cannot see. In some confused way, I felt that the enormity which the figureheads seemed to see approaching from the sea had to do with a story that I had been carrying around inside me for years, or rather with a longstanding interest in a tragic story that had actually taken place. I have always been fascinated by actual events, by reality. ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ Melville wrote. The story that I had inside me, and that has appeared, albeit briefly, in other books, is the incredible story of Goli otok, that beautiful and terrible island in the Northern Adriatic where, following the Second World War, Tito set up a horrendous Gulag mainly for the Ustashi and for Yugoslavian Fascists in general and, after 1948, for Stalinists as well, since he had fallen out with Stalin. I was aware that about two thousand Italian workers from Monfalcone, a small town near Trieste, had also ended up on that island: militant communists who had had a taste of Fascist prisons, many of them experiencing Nazi concentration camps and the war in Spain as well. They voluntarily chose to leave Italy at the end of the Second World War and, given
their faith in communism, went to Yugoslavia to assist in the construction of communism in that neighbouring Communist country; after the falling-out between Tito and Stalin, they were deported to that island and subjected to all manner of torture, as in all Gulags and Lagers. They held out heroically in the name of Stalin, that is, in the name of a man who, had he won, would have turned the entire world into a Gulag for people like them, and they lived in that hell unbeknown to everyone.

  “The narrator in my novel, an obviously invented figure, is one of these individuals who lived through history’s tempest and ended up on Goli Otok. I first tried writing this story in the form of a linear novel, but this approach was abandoned, although many of the novel’s elements came together in Blindly. Later I understood why that novel had been abandoned: in a novel, the ‘what,’ the subject, must be identical to the ‘how,’ the style, the voice in which the story is told. It was not possible to tell this terrible story, which encompasses everything, life, love—tangled, torn and lacerated, delirious, a nightmare that surges back and forth continually, like the waves of the sea—in an orderly way. The gaze of figureheads who see catastrophes is not a gaze that imposes order, at least not a conventional order. The story of that revolution, its greatness and its horrors, could not be told in an orderly manner. And in fact I was not able to tell it until I came upon the astonishing story of a late-eighteenth-century adventurer, a Danish seaman, Jorgen Jorgensen, who took part in the early British colonization of Australia and Tasmania, indeed founding the capital of Tasmania, Hobart Town, where he would return many years later as a convict in chains. The story of the grotesque revolution that he organized for three weeks in Iceland made it possible for me to depict, as in a mirror whose reflection is distorted yet truthful, the true and great and terrible revolution, almost a distorted caricature that nevertheless discloses its infamy and greatness, along with the protagonist’s love for the woman he passionately loved and reprehensibly lost. Little by little, from that sea scanned by the figureheads, the myth of the Argonauts emerged as the unifying structure of the story I was telling, which, among many other things, is also a horrific story of the clash of cultures, of horrendous fratricidal violence, of man’s cruel abuse of power over woman, of the struggle for a prize, the golden fleece, which, like the red flag, is always in the wrong hands.