That is why I do what I do: I study lots of things in that way, trying to make out the paths the wires take. Crossroads, department stores, beaches, highways, towns. Fields seen from the air, continents displayed on maps. They all have their wires, their connecting threads. Somewhere, a plan of the war exists in outline. If I find it, we shall all be saved. You see how simple it is, once one has thought about it. There must surely be a diagram. Perhaps we shall come across it in some book or other: the Bible, the Koran, or Bartholomew’s Atlas. Or else in cinemas, when the house lights are dimmed and at the same moment the screen blazes up in ten different towns, with Ivan the Terrible, Nosferatu the Vampire, Ngu, Viridiana, Il Crito, Caballo Prieto Azabache, High Sierra, The Mother, Pickpocket, Fires in the Plain.
I am convinced that in the end I will find the plan. It must have the form of a gigantic town, with streets and boulevards, bridges, tall buildings and railway lines; the map of Berlin, of London, of Tokyo. The map of Helsinki or Bogota. Avenues ten miles long, as in Mexico City. Open drains full of muck and rubbish, as in Tegucigalpa. Alleys scarred by shell-holes, as in Vientiane. Deserted concrete esplanades, as in the Los Angeles area. Underground passages, as in Paris. Jetties, as in Dakar. Brick walls, as in Khabarovsk. And then it will also have the form of deserts of rose-red sand, the form of mountain faces. The plan is inscribed in the sky, with the clouds and northern lights. The plan is in blue lakes and reservoirs on the tops of mountains. The wind blows over the ears of corn, opening up paths among them. The wind sweeps clouds off the dunes, at El Paso. And in Holland the wind skims the snow off the surface of the ground. There are fresh clues that must be followed up. If one knows the plan one cannot get lost. It creates the stars and galaxies that stretch to the outermost limits of space. It floats in the very centre of the void, surrounded by its ring of iridescent particles: Saturn’s beauty. It breaks and ripples along jagged bodies: the sea’s curved mass. Impossible to take one’s eyes off the plan. Come with me, Monsieur X, help me to find the labyrinth’s exit. Come and grope along the mirrors until we have found the one that opens like a door.
Instead of making films and writing poems, Monsieur X, I will tell you what would be a good idea: we should construct, on a theatre stage, a great network of wires and rails, with a whole lot of lamps and machines. Then, people would come and look at it, and for once they would see something that resembled them, without beginning or end, all solutions deliberately exposed to view. They would no longer need to wait for time to elapse: they would be able to see everything that is bound to happen. And that would be like being God, or destiny, or something of the sort.
Perhaps the plan is in the language that emerges ceaselessly from the radio. I really like listening to the radio. I sit on the edge of my bed, in my room, and place the little white plastic box on my knees. I open up the aerial. I really like to see the metal aerial pointing in the direction of the ceiling. And then I turn the knobs and listen. I listen to all the noises that pass through the radio set.
There are very clear voices that seem to be speaking into your ear, and which say:
‘This is Radio Monte Carlo. We have just presented your programme, Jazz in the Night’
Or perhaps:
‘The Masters of Mystery’
Or again:
‘Your Station of the Stars!’
There are raucous voices that say lispingly:
‘The Voice of America, Radio Tangeeeers’
Occasionally one hears distant voices which come from the other end of the earth, appear, disappear, drown each other:
‘. . . the working-class forces . . . communiqué from the central committee of the party . . . the clique of Soviet renegade revisionists . . .’
And:
‘Nuo Mikalojaus Konstantino Čiurlionio (1875–1911) mirties praslinko daugian kaip penkias de šimt metu̗ . . .’
And also:
I allow myself to be transported far, very far away, by these voices. I make my home upon the waves that surge back and forth across the earth, that dash themselves against the clouds’ dome, that hunt eagerly for all the wire aerials.
I like the parasites, too, that live in radio static. Some of them are very deep-toned and go woooouwoooouwoooou without stopping, while others are piercingly shrill and go iiiiiiiiiiii. There are all kinds of them, mysterious animal voices that speak to me, that call to me:
tik tik gloup tik tik gloup tik tik glouip
crrrouiiiccrrroouwooiiik
jjjjjjjjjjmmmmmmmmmmmmm
phiouphiouphiouphiouphiou
dddongdddongdddongdddongdddong
tchtchtchtchtchtchtchtchtchtch
hom! hom! hom! hom! hom!
uuuuuuuuooooooouuuuuuooooo
I listen to them for hours on end, twiddling the knobs and gazing at the metal aerial pointed towards the ceiling. How I would love to learn the language of these parasites of radio static. I am convinced that there are secret messages meaning: ‘We shall attack at dawn tomorrow,’ or: ‘We are about to dynamite point 123. Evacuate vicinity.’ While people are sleeping, and when the radio falls silent, I listen to the parasites in the static and I stay awake.
Upon the ocean full of signs
full of letters
Lost in the midst of the constellations of signs.
Where to go?
Where to go?
Upwards? But there are signs.
To the left? But there are signs.
Forwards? But there are signs.
To leave, and then forget, but dreams are signs.
The dumb man grunts and splutters
over his glass of beer
and his hand rises towards his mouth and makes signs.
The water obscures
the wind
the stones
the trees, the trees!
So much antiquated science is suffocating the world.
To emerge from silence
one single time
everything would have to become dumb all of a sudden.
Then one might hear perhaps
perhaps one might hear
the immemorial humming of the woman’s voice that goes
huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
near, nearer, right inside the ear.
The dog is placed in a dark room and at a given moment, an electric light is suddenly switched on; after half a minute, and during the ensuing half minute, food is given to the dog. This is repeated several times. Eventually, the light; which hitherto has had no importance for the animal and has not activated its salivary glands, now, through the repetition of its simultaneous appearance with the food, becomes a special stimulant of these glands. Each time that the electric light illuminates the room, salivation may be observed. Under these conditions, we say that the light has become a conditional stimulant of the salivary glands. In the present case, the salivary gland is nothing more than a simple indication of the animal’s reaction to the outside world.
Ivan Pavlov.
THE MOMENT THAT a girl is let loose upon the world, all these flagella can be seen flinging themselves at her, all these tresses, all these strands of seaweed can be seen reaching out to her to cover her. She escapes, fleeing with all her strength. She runs down a vast avenue, almost brushing against the walls of the buildings. On the roadway, the caravan of black cars with rubber tyres moves faster than she can do. Each time the girl passes a door or window, a shadow springs out and starts pursuing her. She runs. She goes as fast as she can. She hears her heart thumping in her chest, feels it swelling and subsiding crazily. She runs so fast that she loses her shoes. But she has no time to stop and put them on again, so she abandons them on the pavement and continues running barefoot. Her face is thrown back, her mouth agape, gasping for air. Her hair floats in the wind, sometimes flapping over her face and getting into her mouth so that she cannot breathe.
She does not look where she is going. She closes her eyes so that she can run faster. She trips over things, bumps into lamp-posts an
d passers-by. The soles of her feet slap the ground, she scrapes her toes against sharp pebbles. But she has no time to look back at the traces of blood she is leaving behind her. She has no time to cry out or to think. She has no time to know what she is doing. She runs, she escapes frenziedly from the shadows that are tormenting her. She knows, without needing to think about it, that if she stumbles they will all fall upon her, glaring at her with their goggle eyes. She no longer even has time to be afraid. Quite simply, her body has become a crazed machine with feet that pound over the cement surface of the avenue.
If she could think, if only thought existed, she would be free: then it would be easy. She would stop immediately, in the middle of the avenue, and confront the pack. The warm sun would bathe her face, would make a golden halo round her hair. And she would look at them all, these black cars, these buses, these men with tightly stretched masks, these white buildings, these windows. Suddenly, her breathing would become calm once more, and she would look at everyone with untroubled eyes. She would cross her arms, smiling, and say, almost without moving her lips:
‘Who are you?’
And immediately, all this would disappear, would retreat underground. The vast city would start to boil and blister, and would gradually sink out of sight. The cars’ bodies would melt onto the cement, the houses’ windows would close their black scars, the lamp-posts and passers-by would come into leaf. And people’s silhouettes would become transparent, golden-hued blobs through which the light would easily pass, as though through flower petals.
Give a word to the world, just a single word, and lo and behold the whole language immediately breaks loose. A word meaning silence, or perhaps peace, love, enjoyment. And language rushes headlong in pursuit, surrounding the word with its pale ravenous Cytophagas. They who say hatred, hatred, torture, doubt, contempt, hunger, destroy. One wants to be alone. One wants to forget. But these gouts of memories gush forth, these hordes of rodents, these flocks and swarms. In her high room, the girl would like to be unique. She would like the dance of falsehood to end. So she puts her hands over her eyes, and plugs her ears with cotton-wool. She sits at her table and writes down in the little blue plastic-covered notebook entitled
‘EZEJOT’ DIARY:
It must be late. There are no more sounds inside the building, and outside, the lights are nearly all switched off. I am in a room with slightly yellowish walls. It apparently measures fifty feet in each direction. There is a bed, there are two wall-cupboards with a big mirror on each of their doors, but there are no windows, well yes, there is what is practically a French window (which I like), and then by the bed there is a night table that has on it a white telephone, a blue alarm-clock and a white lamp (with white lampshade). There is also a fairly comfortable armchair, a wardrobe with four drawers and a table at which I am in the process of ??? the fact is I’m not too sure what I am doing let’s say I’m writing, smoking, and eating chocolate.
I am tired, my eyes ache, I’ve got a splitting headache (too much smoking, I expect) and what’s more I haven’t eaten lunch or dinner. I ought to sleep, but I shan’t be able to. I feel very uncomfortable, my eyes feel peculiar, so do my ears and legs. Of course, all that is not very serious, still it is just possible that it is an expression of the fear I am feeling. Yes, it is the fear which is making me neurotic, but why am I so anxious, I don’t know, I feel that I absolutely must answer a question, that’s very important, right, I’m ready, I can answer all the questions in the world, but I can’t find them, any more than I can find THE question.
I have a tremendous desire to walk, walk, talk, hear, see, listen. I can’t. If I start walking I will wake everybody up, I couldn’t even speak, they would not give me time, and as for them, I do not want either to see or hear them, so what then? I scratch my legs, my eyebrows and my head.
I feel as though I were trussed up and unable to free myself. I can picture my grandmother assuring me that there is not a single bond to prevent me making use of my arms and legs and hands, and calling me a lunatic. Perhaps she is right, it is mad not to be ‘happy’ and ‘do as all the others do’. That’s true. So suppose I am mad, suppose I really am off my head? What to do, in that case? CURE MYSELF!!!
The 4th
It is 8.30. I have slept well and the weather promises to turn out as fine as during the past few days. So much the better!!!
P.S. for Monsieur X’s special attention
The same day, fifteen minutes later. I send you these few lucubrations, though I really don’t know why. Yes, I know: find the question that I am asking myself.
Bea B.
A few words, like that, in all the din. A tiny lamp trying to burn in the middle of the enormous night. The girl would like to batter walls down with her body. She would like to get out. Will she succeed?
The girl tries to pass through to the other side of the mirror fixed to the cupboard door. She sits down, facing it, and strives, with her eyes, to see what lies within it.
The girl is seated at the café terrace, and she tries to understand where people are going. Or else, at night, she lights a cigarette and watches the glowing tip. The essential thing is never to get lost. There are holes everywhere. The sun is a hole. The earth is a hole. Glasses of water on tables are holes. Wash-basins, sheets of paper, walls painted yellow, shop windows, even eyes, are holes. If one does not watch out, one is bound to fall.
And meanwhile, a few inches away, a few years away, far from her, the city climbs and descends. It extends its sheet of bitumen and its blocks of cement, its esplanades and its squares. It undulates. It vibrates. It contains the gentle heat, 21ºC or so, and the noises. One does not approach it. One does not enter it. Men and women move along the straight streets.
Here is the reign of quantity. No individual thoughts, no more desires. No attention is paid any longer to anyone at all. The reign of multiplicity of things destroys solitude ceaselessly. One should speak of infinities peopled with planets, or of all the hairs planted on a woman’s skull. One should use a hundred thousand ballpoint pens, perhaps, to say that, and a hundred thousand blue notebooks containing two hundred pages each. One should bring together the world’s photographs, newspapers, cigarette butts.
So, too, when fear appears, in front of the sun’s hole, or at night-time in the depths of rooms, it is not a single fear but millions of fears that grip the heart. When cries emerge, harsh and strangled, from throats, it is a flight of bats suddenly darkening the sky, passing across the sun like a cloud of smoke.
One should speak of that as one speaks of the sea:
The sea is invention.
Blue, pale, swollen, stretched out, movement that rises and falls, that reaches deep into the conscious mind, that reaches into death itself, but where is death?
A girl is sitting on a bench, one day, around noon, facing the sea. She looks at the sea. Here is what there is:
First, the coast with its sharp, bristling, fissured crags, and its white rocks bereft of grass.
The blue sky. The sun on the left, shining.
Finally, stretching out before the young woman, the sea’s bulging mass. Blue, too, but shimmering with metallic and glassy reflections, criss-crossed by waves, in constant motion. That is what she wants most of all. The girl has arrived from the planet Jupiter, or from even farther away, and she does not know what this sea may be. Is it an animal? Is it an idea? Is it a toxic gas? Is it a klaxgoriam? She does not know. She does not enter it. Nor does she taste it. It is made for the eyes, only for the eyes.
She looks at the sea. The sea looks at her. Alternatively: no-one looks at anyone.
One should speak of that as one speaks of the sea. But how to say it? The war has entered the soul through the pores of the skin, through the lungs as they inhale. The war has blended into the landscape of life. Where there should be a field of corn swaying in the wind, with the blue sky overhead, there is a sort of green and yellow hell, with shivers running through it, and a great mouth with azure gums that sucks every
thing in. How to remain oneself, high up there on the headland, how to be bold enough to look around calmly? A storm sweeps in, the kind of storm that sends tidal waves and ground-swells to suck at one’s feet. How to be oneself, there, confronting the others, confronting the worlds, with a scornful smile and a lion-tamer’s bragging eyes? When the ocean of munching insects, with their thousands of feet and antennae, is rising higher and higher?
There is no refuge left for anyone! The grottoes are gullets. The pyramids are teeth-lined wombs. The lighthouses that shine in the night are the single eyes of gluttonous Cyclopes. Love’s sleek bodies suddenly bristle with scales. The warm rooms snap their jaws shut with a noise of shutters. The books are boxes in which the breath is confined. The image, the one and only image vanishes in the mirrors! The poems, listen to them, listen to them attentively, say:
Grrrr grrrraooh!
Hargn!
Hargn!
Rahoo crrraa
Ra-a-ah ra-a-ah
Nyok!
His reason tottered, for he was remembering what the Follower had written on the ‘card’. You are now caught . . . in the most intricate trap . . . ever devised.
A. E. Van Vogt.
THE WAR CONTINUES. It seems endless. Whichever way one turns, there is nothing to be seen but knives, spears, flashes of light, gun muzzles.
One night, the girl called Bea B. visited a district where violence reigned. It was a sort of city within the city, a district where thick neon tubes glowed night and day. Once there, one forgot everything. There was no longer any way to know the time, or what the weather was like, or even where one was exactly. One entered as though penetrating the crater of a volcano, and one lost one’s last name, one’s age, one’s vigour.
Bea B. saw that the people were no longer the same as before. They went on foot along the narrow streets, having abandoned their cars. Their normally pale faces turned the colour of blood. Their eyes had altered, too; they shone, deep in their sockets, casting odd metallic gleams. Some of them were harsh and leaden, like drops of ink.
War Page 8