by Jurek Becker
I am sitting on a checked pillowcase containing whatever I’d been able to salvage, and I am bored; beside me a very old woman is weeping, quietly, out of consideration for others. Her tears have long since been used up, yet from time to time she sniffs so violently that it would seem whole torrents were being held back. And her husband, with whom she is sitting on their suitcase, looks around apologetically each time, because no doubt he is embarrassed, because he wants to convey that there’s nothing he can do about it.
To my left, where I now switch my attention, Jacob has managed to get hold of a spot by one of the narrow openings, but I can truthfully state that this proximity is pure coincidence. I didn’t push my way next to him; I don’t go as far as some idiots who make out he is partly to blame for this journey, but I can’t deny a feeling of unwarranted resentment toward him because everything I built up on the foundations he supplied has collapsed. I didn’t push my way next to him; I don’t care who I’m next to: it simply happened that way. Looking between Jacob’s legs I can see Lina, who so far I have known only from hearsay; she is sitting on the rucksack. Because of Lina I find myself liking him a little more again. Who else, I think, would have taken on the burden of a child, and that, I think, almost outweighs my disappointment.
I would so much like to be friends with her, by winking or making funny faces, the kind of thing one does, but she takes no notice of me whatever. She is looking dreamily at the floor, her mind doubtless occupied by thoughts that are remote from everyone else’s, for she occasionally smiles to herself. Or her lips form soundless words, or she grimaces as if suddenly unsure of herself. I enjoy watching her. On the floor I find a little pebble and flick it against her arm. She comes out of her reverie and gazes around to see who it could have been, in every direction except mine. Then she looks up at Jacob, who is beyond all suspicion as he stands motionless at the little opening, his whole attention absorbed by the passing countryside. She taps his leg.
He looks down and asks, “What is it?”
“Do you remember the fairy tale?” asks Lina.
“Which one?”
“About the sick princess?”
“Yes.”
“Is it true?”
It is clear from his expression that he finds it strange for her to be thinking of that just now.
“Of course it’s true,” he says.
“But Siegfried and Rafi wouldn’t believe me.”
“Maybe you didn’t tell it properly?”
“I told it exactly as you did. But they say there’s no such thing in the whole world.”
“No such thing as what?”
“That a person can get well again by being given a bunch of cotton.”
Jacob bends down and lifts her up to the little window. I stand up too: the wheels make quite a racket, and I’d like to hear how it goes on.
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” says Lina. “The princess wanted a bunch of cotton as big as a pillow? And when she had it she got well again?”
I see Jacob’s mouth widen, and he says, “Not exactly. She wished for a cloud. The point is that she thought clouds are made of cotton, and that’s why she was satisfied with the cotton.”
Lina looks out for a while, surprised, it seems to me, before asking him: “But aren’t clouds made of cotton?”
Between their heads I can make out a bit of sky with a few clouds, and I must admit that there really is an amazing resemblance: they do look like tufts of cotton.
“Then what are clouds made of?” Lina asks.
But Jacob promises to give her an answer later, probably partly because she is getting too heavy for him. He sets her down on the rucksack again, then resumes watching the landscape slip past.
This, I think, is my moment. I sit down too, move closer to her, and ask whether she would like me to explain what clouds are made of. Of course she would, and I tell her about rivers and lakes, and about the ocean, about the never-ending cycle of water, about that almost incredible process of evaporation, how water flows invisibly into the sky, in tiny droplets, and forms clouds there, which at some point become as heavy and wet as soaking sponges until they lose the drops again as rain. I tell her about steam too, from locomotives for instance, and from chimneys and all the various kinds of fires. She listens attentively but skeptically; I know that the whole lengthy story cannot be covered in one lesson. And I see Jacob casting a friendly eye on me; perhaps that lesson is responsible for his singling me out, a few days later, to tell me an even crazier story. For there is nothing from my appearance to show that I would be one of the few to survive.
When my knowledge about the formation and composition of clouds is exhausted, I tell Lina not to be shy about asking if there is anything she hasn’t understood. But she makes no use of this offer; with her chin cupped in her hands, she takes her time thinking through the whole matter again. After all, she has to come to terms with a very significant mistake: clouds are not made of cotton.
“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,” Jacob whispers in my ear.
“Why?”
“Because you have no idea the kind of questions this child can ask.”
I look at her and say, “I’ll manage all right.”
His eyes tell me, Just wait and see. Then he asks me whether I would like to look out of the opening for a bit.
“Thanks, I would,” I say.
I stand up expectantly and look out until darkness falls. I see villages and fields, once even a little town in the distance; at a half-overgrown pond I see a group of soldiers resting among lorries, cannon, and cows. And I see a few sleepy stations with platforms and barriers and railway men’s cottages with green window boxes overflowing with flowers, and I wonder whether these are regulation window boxes because they are attached to each cottage and each one is green. And I see people whose faces I can’t make out watching our train pass, but above all I see trees, which I had almost forgotten although I’m still a young fellow, vast numbers of trees. Beeches and alders and birches and willows and pines — my God, look at all those trees, there’s no end to them. A tree was responsible for my not becoming a violinist, and under a tree I became a real man: the wild boar came too late to prevent it. And at an unknown tree my wife Hannah was lost to me, and an ordinance tried to deprive me of trees for all time. Some say that trees addle my mind, I go on standing there, and to this day I like sometimes to take a ride on a train passing through a thickly wooded area, best of all a mixed forest. Till I hear Jacob’s voice: “Aren’t you ever going to get some sleep?”
“Let me stand here a little longer,” I say.
“But there’s nothing more for you to see,” I hear him say.
“Yes, there is.”
For I can still see the shadows of trees, and I can’t sleep. We are heading for wherever we are heading.