It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  When she had dressed and taken the other oar the speed increased.

  “I should have done that right away; I’m feeling better already.”

  Not a reproach – rather a regret at having failed to do what she had imagined would be best because of a reluctance imposed by laziness and cold wet clothes.

  “Should we have taken down the scaffold so that we could have rowed instead of paddled?”

  “Rowing would be quicker, but taking down the scaffold would take time, so it’s kif kif.”

  They reached the landing and he took the wet mattress – the wet heavy blankets and the mosquito net while she took the basket and the telescope.

  “I’ll have a warm bath when I come home.”

  Driving back through the heavy rain they were still at ease with mutual fulfilment.

  “You’re shivering.”

  “Women have ten per cent more subcutaneous fat than men.”

  When he stopped in front of her gate she pressed his hand and ran down the garden path – so he drove home to sleep with the echoes of her ripples around him in spite of his chattering teeth.

  XIV

  In the clear light of the early afternoon the urge to re-enter the stage of human activity began to manifest itself as images of past events and future yearnings which intensified to make him feel too restless to endure a state of passive ease with patience or equanimity. To-morrow he could drive to London and get the lists but how complete would this information be? There would be odd lacunae – both concerning accuracy and full access to the clubs. It was all fraught with uncertainties and it was still raining – the Sky was overcast and uniformly dull. Anxious with forebodings and feverish with anticipation he allayed his impatience by conjuring up a nostalgic vision of a narrow winding street with a diversity of small houses – in a conspicuously naïve and shadeless way – using simplifications and glaring colours to endow the scenery with a droll charm – to suggest a fairy tale or the holiday sensation of a child. A temporary escape – a Rabbit hole? Quite a small picture – seventy by fifty – and anyway – there were possibly comparable paintings already at large in the narrow world outside. He used an old canvas – with had the right imprimatura – and freshly ground colours – heavenly blue – Wood-spurge green – yolk yellow – Poppy heart-blood red – and painted carefully but not too carefully – to enliven the little village street – in which he might very well have lived himself – with a solid sense of familiarity – to conjure up a homely shire – a truly human world – a world where Cats could purr at leisure in the sunshine. It had to be suffused by a delicate quaintness – and wavy lines – for there were no straight lines in nature – even light beams were curved by gravity – organic lines – to make it a rhapsody over a given theme – without repetitions – so that every house and every gesture were sparkling and unique. It would be a bore to do or to think the same thing twice. It had to be done with a certain verve to give it a distinctive lightness – to give it an air of playfulness and innate innocence – a curling – waving and circling golden mean – without too much formal symmetry – just a distinctive touch – a rough impression of the underlying symmetric pattern. Early morning sunshine when the inhabitants were dreaming or making tea. Some were greeting the new day from their open windows – a few even stood in their doorways gossiping with their neighbours. He painted slowly but quickly – feeling the painting grow and take on a life of its own – not quite maybe what he had intended – but that did not matter so much – a painting rarely did – and it was always by far the best to follow the suggestions of the painting itself so as to let it unfold according to its own ontology – its own grammar and language – its own genes or rather its own inaudible melody which he – if sensitive enough to that which was – could turn into imperfect forms and opaque colours. That was part of the joy – the ability to follow the impetus regardless of wherever it might lead – though sometimes it would leave him stranded in a cul de sac – but suddenly he felt that the painting was finished – for to continue would risk adding a touch of triviality or even a sense of déjà vu.

  So having cleaned the brushes he left the studio to take a bottle of Bordeaux and match it with Gruyère – bread and olives. Thirteen hours had fled in a minute. The rain had stopped and the night air was fresh and cold. He stood in the garden with the glass in his hand and watched the clouds sail across the Milky Moon. A jellyfish drifting through the dark depth of the Sky. What would she be doing now? Whom? Both of them. Robbing a house and reading a short story – tip-toeing through the rooms of a fine old hôtel whose inhabitants were on holiday – sitting enclosed in the armchair with a book of short stories by James or Borges balanced on her knee. What could be better? Nothing – but – nothing – only to stand here and sip his wine while watching the ghostly castles of the Sky as they fused to glaciers or scattered into swarms of diaphanous Pieridae – floating eastwards – always eastwards towards the Tundra and the permafrost – but when half a mouthful was left in the glass he turned it upside down to grace the Earth – though he should have done so before he began drinking.

  XV

  The morning was still dewy – the weather windy and shafts of slanting sunlight shot through the clouds with startling brilliance. A painting had to suit the humour of the day so a water-colour would again be best. Like the ālāpaḥ presaging a rāgaḥ – kindling the expectation – it had to begin by sieving up from the soles of his feet and evolve to become a chronospecies while it was being formed. He wanted a mood – a certain atmosphere – the atmosphere of a Summer morning such as yesterday before the rain – when the flowers opened their petals to the sunlight. It was the transformation from the inactivity of the night to the activity of the day – the liminal hour when Dawn threw open the pens of darkness to let the light come through. Où tombe la lumière. Precisely – où tombe la lumière in the painting – from a slanting angle on Marsh-marigolds – on the face of a curious woman watching her reflexion in the mirror of the water – on the face of a curious Otter breaking its silky-grey surface to catch a glimpse of the animals haunting the brink. The Otter and the woman at daybreak were looking at each other. It was hardly a sketch yet – rather a suggestion to catch the perspective and the proportions – but as it unfolded before him he could trace the lines he saw in his mind’s eye on the paper – and let the transparent colours give the painting the depth of its hidden meaning. To hint at the story of the home-coming of the soul – of the slow gradual transformation of the soul – as she would discover herself in the water and in the eyes of the Otter – her fellow mortal – as lithe and like water and as lithe as she was herself – the Otter – the woman and the water – three manifestation of the same innate potentiality. To suggest all that which they had in common – if he could – to make it all cohere and give back to great creative Nature a fragment of what he owed her – that was the real meaning of the painting – of any painting – of any piece of music based on silence – so the painting grew as he shrank – like a memory that slowly became metamorphosed to self-identity – for to create in accordance with Nature – not against her – anulomaṃ – not pratilomam – if he could – that was the challenge – to hint at a light that was high-tuned and spring green and to match the pale blue reflection of the Summer Sky above as it illuminated the depth of the wise water and gave it its imperceptibly limited transparency. The lift of the soul – that was what he should draw – out of the painting – to make it vibrate in the air above its two dimensional surface – that was what it was all about – her soul – his soul – the Otter’s soul – the same soul in them all. It was always a question of seeing – really seeing – through and not with the eyes – for that was it. The bread and butter of existence remained seeing – hearing and smelling – not thinking and conjecturing – that only became necessary in case the ability to see – hear – smell and feel failed – for science and knowledge remained a vivisection of life – a subconsc
ious desire to die – and he was engaged in a celebration of life – of that which was alive for a fleeting moment – but with a light touch – for he could not paint the soul – it was invisible – unfathomable – only suggest that it was there – hidden though present every where and every when. But the painting should be left as it was now – almost finished – the slight touch of finishing it would make it more settled – more definite – for as it was it hovered on the verge of being finished and that gave it more life – a more vibrant air – an air of becoming. It invited the viewer to add some touches of his own. Exhausted he rose to look at the weather. The afternoon was already mature. The lists – the clubs? He had forgotten all about them till now – so he telephoned Fjodor.

  “Yes, wait a minute!”

  He waited impatiently and began to be irritated.

  “Have you received the lists?”

  “Oh the lists, yes. I had them earlier this afternoon, but only of thirty-one clubs. My source says that membership would facilitate the information you require concerning the remaining items. I have sent you the names of the missing clubs already.”

  “Fine, I’ll come about eight or nine.”

  Six were missing. He dwindled to the common level of the computer and found that one of the clubs could be joined on-line. Though reluctant to submit the necessary information he obtained membership – user name and password for a fee – but the other clubs required his presence in propria persona. There was only one way forward – so taking the paintings he drove to Lowestoft – to enquire in one of the clubs that had remained sealed to investigation – probably rather by accident than by design. Still he had membership lists of thirty-one clubs. The branches of the leafy trees along the road of his life were swaying in the fresh wind from the Atlantic but the occasional glimpses of the Sun changed now and again the dreary bleakness of the landscape to shy smiles of a windy welcome. The light in the latitudes here was a blessing just as it could be a curse in the desert – where the stars were real. Lowestoft – he used the map – High Street – a sleepy provincial atmosphere stirred by commercial enterprise or enticed by the internal combustion of hypocrisy and gossip. The Karate Club. A low building in need of paint – but with a small tree growing at the end of the gutter to enliven the faÇade. Having parked the car he rang the bell and pushed the door open to a rectangular room in which a young man with a profusion of curls hid behind a computer screen.

  “Good afternoon!”

  “Oh sorry! I didn’t hear you come in. The bell does not always work, you see.”

  A warm smile brightened his pale complexion. He was eager for whatever would come his way.

  “I wonder if you can help me. I hope to be able to enrol as a member of your club.”

  “All right, please take a seat, and if you’ll fill out this form we’ll have all the information we need, but may I ask, as you can see we’re actually quite a small club, and everybody knows everybody else here in Lowestoft, what made you want to become a member? Usually people who come here already know someone at the club, and I don’t think I have seen you before.”

  “Well, I just heard about your club by chance in London two weeks ago, and you’re right, I don’t think we have met before. You see, having decided to get a closer look at some of the martial arts I thought that I might as well enrol in a couple of clubs to become acquainted with the different styles and attitudes so that I really would know what to expect.”

  There – this likeness – Frans Hals’ Fisherman playing – the same smile of joy – or Iuliana’s even when they caught octopodes – with the top of her native Eryx shrouded in pale bluish mist as it framed her profile – her Seirēn lips.

  “So you have not really made up your mind yet?”

  Free and easy as only youth could afford to be and carefree because still trusting in life. He handed him the form and he began feeding the computer.

  “Not knowing much about martial arts I thought that I had better get a general impression first, so as to see to what degree the practice reflects the philosophy.”

  He laughed good-humouredly. Benevolence and interest. He had it in him – still.

  “That may not be all that easy, I think. Most people use Karate or Judo as a kind of recreation, as a way to keep fit, you know.”

  “But you don’t, I think?”

  The abrupt change to sincerity suited the features of his freckled face. Ensō?

  “No, for me it’s more the Zen-like aspect behind it that’s important though it has to become evident in the practice, of course.”

  “What matters, I suppose, is concentration-relaxation, absolute care and carelessness?”

  “Yes, through practice, practice and practice. That will be forty-five Pounds, please, and here’s your user name and password. If you would like to change them you can easily do so.”

  He handed him five crisp bills and got a five crumbled Pound note back.

  “Say, how many members do you have?”

  “Oh, about one hundred and fifty.”

  “And how many good clubs, all martial art styles considered, do you think there are in the whole area, in Norfolk, for example?”

  “That’s hard to say. Maybe twenty-five or thirty, but that depends on what you mean by good? For there are not all that many people who are truly dedicated, but many who are serious and even more for whom it’s a recreation, as I said, a way to keep fit. So about thirty, give or take a few, but here’s a leaflet with information about the club, bylaws and the like.”

  Feeling encouraged he drove to Norwich where the club he had intended to join was closed. Never mind – he could begin by having a look at the lists on the train. Membership of the remaining clubs would have to wait till to-morrow – but only in case he failed to find her to-night. There was just time enough to get a ticket – and catch the train. As usual it was an ordeal – the seething disharmony – especially at Liverpool – the steady cross currents of crowds. This level of confusion – sugared bitter by the assumed rationality of individual survival activity – was visible as Brownian movements. He took the underground to Holborn – changed and arrived at Piccadilly Circus after half an hour. Ten minutes later he pressed the bell – waited for the buzzing answer – and ran up the stairs.

  “You’re late?”

  “Yes, moving physically has become an uphill battle.”

  “Don’t tell me that, I live here.”

  “But it comes as a shock to me every time, just like the cacophony. Anyway, here are three paintings, two for the generall, as you can see, and one of my own.”

  Fjodor took time to acknowledge each painting – and as usual with a deliberate ease – varying the distance and the angles – but especially its place in the sullen light from the window – for the evening Sky was now fading fast – like the colour on the scales of the Salmon and eventually also on the painting. He relied on Fjodor – for he was conscientious and his judgment rarely failed because of his genuine humanity – the soft tissues of his feelings – shielded in a finely smithed ring mail of ironic cynicism.

  “The first two paintings here will be easy, but your own somewhat more difficult though I can think of several possibilities. I like it though and can speak for it with enthusiasm. It has an otherworldly feel. It will have to be someone who can recognise – ”

  “And the list? You said you had the lists?”

  “Yes, they’re in my office.”

  He followed him downstairs wanting for once to get away as quickly as possible.

  “Here they are, but you’ll only get them if I get an explanation, and here’s the little listening device you asked for. The receiver is already adjusted to the transmitter.”

  Relieved to see the key to his future lying on Fjodor’s leather-green writing table he relaxed.

  “Thanks a lot, now, don’t interrupt me, but first, here’s user names and p
asswords for two clubs. Please send them to your connection right away.”

  Fjodor began belabouring his internet computer and when he had finished he sat back in the chair to wait for the explanation.

  “Saturday night, almost two weeks ago now, I was woken by a thief. It was still dark but twilight was on its way. I kept breathing slowly and regularly while not knowing whether I should pretend to be asleep or stage a surprise attack, but I got hold of my flashlight without making a sound while the contents of my writing table were examined in the beam of a faint red light. Then the beam of light slowly began to approach me, coming in between the bed and the windows, which were open. You know, I’m very cautious, but a mighty necessity had come upon me, and my reaction was initiated by the survival instinct though also by imagining that an attack would be the best defence, so I swung the eiderdown aside, switched on the flashlight and sat up in the bed. More or less by chance I got hold of the mask the thief wore and tore it off, but had hardly strength enough left to trust my own eyes. The thief was a woman. I was looking up into her face as she opened her mouth to say ‘Oh hivven nae’ with a distinct degree of anger and annoyance; and while she said that I saw, because the beam of the flashlight illuminated the inside of her mouth, a scar as if from a cleft palate operation. Almost simultaneously I felt a heavy blow on my arm and was thrown back into the bed, but before I had time to react she had jumped out of the window. As she caught hold of the Wisteria it was torn loose from the wall, but she landed safely on the lawn and drove away. I rushed out after her but she had disappeared. Then I went to Scotland and interviewed twelve women of comparable age and ascertained that she probably would have come from the north coast, Buckie or Banff or maybe from an area north of Aberdeen. Following that I persuaded Seymour to join me at the children’s hospital so that we could look at all the cases of female infants born with cleft palates within an eleven year period. There were altogether thirty-six likely possibilities from Moray, Buckie, Banff and Aberdeen. As her athletic performance really was spectacular I felt certain that she practised jūdō or something similar and hence that she, by necessity, had to be a member of a martial arts club in the vicinity. By comparing the names in the lists of the clubs with these thirty-six names of women from Scotland I hope to find her.”