It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “Will you help me make sandwiches and tea?”

  As if feeling at home already she opened the refrigerator to find olives – butter – tomatoes and slices of chicken – and when the thermoflasks had been preheated he filled them with water – boiling – at sea level.

  “You’re used to make these preparations?”

  “Yes, I follow the same procedure almost every morning from April to August if the weather is fine, so it’s a routine; and you’re used to make deductions?”

  “Yes, based on the premises I make deductions every time I have to evaluate an option.”

  “So the ability to draw pertinent conclusions has become your second nature? Well, I think we have just about everything we need now.”

  Madeira would alleviate the cold damp sea air that would prevail for a while even after Dawn.

  “That’s quite a lot of things you’ve got there?”

  Burdens – necessities – mental maps that obscured the landscape.

  “We only have to carry them down to the boat from the car, about thirty yards.”

  They drove off just as the first touch of light began to tinge the Sky in the North-east with a pale bluish note. There were still no clouds and he hoped the morning would be bright – warm and windless. Looking out of the open window she was intent on discovering what it was he wanted to show her as that would give her a further impression of what he was himself.

  “You can sit and wait here if you want while I arrange our gear in the boat.”

  “But I’d much rather see what it is you’re doing.”

  The familiar routine was a miracle because of her presence beside him and her simple practical remarks contained absolute truths because she happened to express them. This filigree of leaves silhouetted against the Sky – Friedrich’s Bäume im Mondschein –

  “Look at the light there in the dark water. It grows.”

  “All the time it changes. It’s the change that’s most arresting. Here, put this Jungle Oil on your sleeves, socks, hat and collar.”

  He bailed out the rain water without disturbing the Nightingale that sang fifteen feet away in the Elder thicket and following his movements with her eyes she listened to the modulation – the pauses – the snarls and the fluting twitters that filled all space around them. The boards were wet with rain so he wiped them dry before arranging the mosquito net upon the rafters which he luckily had left standing.

  “Please give me the mattress?”

  Sotto voce. He placed it in the bottom of the boat together with the pillow and the soft woollen blanket – to invite her to lie down – and she handed him the bag with the food and the termoflasks as well as the binoculars and the telescope before jumping down to loose the moorings. Her behaviour was natural – like the change in the light – and she was used to boats. He knew already that she was familiar with the Sea and now her movements displayed her experience. Learning to trust the Sea in all her moods and to trust one’s abilities as well as to know the limits of them became almost impossible at the same time as the ability to acquire the melody of a foreign language vanished. At about the age of sixteen the brain lost its flexibility to accept the rhythmic undulation of the waves and the rhythmic melody of speech. An instinctual savoir faire had clearly been discernible in the way she had stowed the rope and flushed by his foresight or his luck he began paddling to get away from the brink.

  “Shall I take the other oar?”

  As a confirmation – her words came.

  “Yes, let’s go downstream a little here, then there’s a creek to the right where we can listen to the warblers. You certainly know how to paddle.”

  “I paddled up and down the Deveron as a girl. The sea was often too rough. It’s more pleasant to paddle along the coast here or around the Oulton Broad when there’s a strong north-easter.”

  “The North Sea must have been cold. Too cold for swimming or too cold for comfort?”

  “I was tempered in it, you know. The maximum temperature in July, August and September is about fourteen to fifteen degrees. Listen! What’s that?”

  “A Cetti’s Warbler, the twittering is thin, frail and crisp.”

  He whispered the words into her ear as they were quite close and he had to come as close to her as he could. Standing with the oar in her hands – a solid grip she had – she listened with her head held slightly aslant and with half-closed eyes the better to concentrate. The current bore them slowly further down the river and she turned her head to look at him with a hidden smile.

  “I couldn’t see him. What does he look like?”

  “Thirteen or fourteen centimetres long, light brown, with pale greyish belly and throat, difficult to see and impossible to distinguish from the other warblers, only the song is diagnostic.”

  “Are there – what was that?”

  “The Cetti’s Warbler again.”

  “In Scotland I don’t think I have ever heard anything like that, and neither when paddling around here on the Broad, but then I mostly go up river in spring and autumn.”

  “This is their northern limit, and this, look! The small brown bird sitting over there, here’re the binoculars, it’s a Reed Warbler, you’ll have to adjust them. There! In the sedges.”

  He pointed eagerly lest in a second –

  “Yes, just beside the broken branch.”

  “Can you see the fine black markings on the wings? And watch his bill. How he opens it, wide. His song is truly characteristic with a rich pattern of flutes, whistles, snarls and high-pitched crushing sounds; and there is a distinct eagerness in the pitch, an intensifying rhythm, like ti ti ti ti ti ti ti with increasing stress.”

  The rising Sun was now beginning to heat the air but the early morning was still at rest though the signs of transition increased. The wind had not been woken – yet – and a faint white mist was on the point of dissolving above the sedges that grew along the brink.

  “The song is completely different from what we just heard, the Cetti’s warbler’s.”

  “Yes, it’s far more varied and distinct. We’re going in there, between the White Willows. This little rill has many advantages, especially as it is unfrequented by the boating fraternity because of the overhanging branches and the shallow depth. So we’ll have it all to ourselves; and in a boat, you can get close to most animals, like you can in a car, on a Horse or an Elephant.”

  “Danger is associated with a walking human.”

  “All animals have enemies they are equipped to fight, and animals have one common enemy they no longer are equipped to fight on equal terms. We can go in here, beside the Willow.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Clarion calls of Eurasian Cranes. They’re on their way to the fields or the marshes to feed.”

  “It’s very loud, but I can’t see them.”

  Standing on the gunwale he lifted the overhanging branches of the Rowan up to let the rafters and the mosquito net pass in under them.

  “Their clarion call can be heard at a distance of several kilometres and the rolling guttural and melodious vocalisation with just a hint of an initial consonant is diagnostic of all crane species.”

  He attached the anchor rope from the prow to the slender stem of an Alder and by common consent they crept in under the mosquito net and began to make tea.

  “You have a well-developed domestic instinct, I think, these sandwiches are really nice, just as the salmon roe and the Champagne we had for lunch. I’m not such a good cook.”

  “The culinary traditions in Scotland are distinct but limited. Does that explain it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but you know everything about food and wine.”

  She was teasing him. Familiarity?

  “No, hardly anything apart from what I have picked up here and there by chance or curiosity.”

  “You only say so because you
know it’s not the case. My diagnosis is ‘false modesty.’”

  “I have an inkling about how vast the subject really might be and I’m therefore very well aware of how limited my experience is.”

  “I just don’t think so. My comparison is with what a human being, who is not a professional, a chef or a vintner, but who is fond of food and fond of wine, can accumulate during a period of twenty years, and your comparison is with the entire abstract field of knowledge globally and historically, and that’s of course altogether absurd; but I’ll admit that it shows the degree of your homely aspirations.”

  Delighted by her teasing sagacity he laughed and – acknowledging his tribute – she nodded benevolently – but it had become too warm for the warm clothes and it was a relief to get out of their cloying grip. Two green-eyed Norfolk Hawkers sat perched on the border of the sedges and the sunlight that came slanting in through a gap in the translucent cover of leaves shone through their transparent wings so that they glittered like icy diamonds in a setting of pale brown and fresh green leaves – but some Hawkers had already absorbed enough photons to follow the flight-paths of their prey above the panicles. Their multifaceted eyes gave them a three-dimensional field of vision which matched their ability to move in all directions –

  “Wait, that’s another bird, listen!”

  “A Sedge Warbler. Now he has stopped singing, but he will begin again in a minute. The song is a very thin high twittering, as if grinding brittle pieces of glass together, interspersed with clear flutes, but the twittering is basic and continuous.”

  They waited in silence though the silence was not silent. There were in the distance Grey Lag Geese clanking – and two Cuckoos vying with one another for a mate – each occupying one side of the rill. The Sedge Warbler began again and they strained their ears to catch as many of the nuances as possible. He urged her on feeling that his enthusiasm and interest had – at least to some extent – been contagious – but then – again – she would also have had that type of patterns or dendritic connections developed in the brain from an early age for there would have been plenty of opportunities along the river.

  “It’s difficult both to distinguish the single notes or sounds and then to conceptualise what they sound like using human phonetics.”

  “Very difficult, and subject to strong subjective associations. But his song is one of the most complex of sound patterns known to exist, and the human ear can only register a part of the diapason; if this is analysed it becomes clear that he never repeats himself. His song is unique, second by second, and specific to him, so while we think that the songs of Sedge Warblers all sound the same, they do not, and Sedge Warblers are, of course, able to differentiate and tell individuals apart, both males and females; for it is the females, who by choosing their mates, generation after generation, have selected the males so as to develop this song. What you hear is what the female Sedge Warblers really appreciate most of all; but it is a continuing process, even to-day, still reaching greater and greater complexity.”

  The paradox that really was as far from being a paradox as anything could be – the apparent juxtaposition between the fundamental characterlessness of consciousness as such and the extreme complexity of living organisms in interaction –

  “And so, maybe, I had better now assert myself as well?”

  The consequence of the past. Pragmatic and smiling. It was her affirmation of being ready to come out and play – but to be certain that she really meant what she said he wanted her to drag him out – to be certain that it was him –

  “I do not feel at liberty any longer to try to influence the future.”

  Although that was an absurd attitude in view of what he had done for the past three weeks he felt serious or almost solemn because of the present implications. The ethical necessity was a given but the impulse just to take her in his arms almost beyond the power of his will.

  “You see, even apart from what I feel, I have no alternative but to trust you because of all the things you know, and all the things you have done. Fair play, feelings and logic reinforce each other, and you trust me unconditionally – ”

  To remove any seeds of black doubt which in the future –

  “You must decide either to take the initiative or to disregard it if you feel that that is what you want. I will abide by your decision, whatever it is, regardless of how long I have to wait, even if that might mean that I will have to wait in vain.”

  His irrevocable resolution – the granite stones in the ford – she had to jump.

  “So you want me to take the full responsibility?”

  She was both serious and playful. Two different Matryoshka Gestalten within each other – getting smaller and smaller to a point of no extension and a point of no return. Das ewig weibliche – the primordial mystery of a woman – any woman?

  “I only want you to follow your intuition where ever it might lead you.”

  He sounded her mutable watery depth while she ascertained the flying colours of his yearning.

  “Since you have chased me up and down the country and forced yourself into my life regardless of my resistance you think it’s only fair now if you leave the question open of how far I want to commit myself, but don’t you see that by doing that you have already influenced me to such an extent that I do not feel I have much of a choice left?”

  “If you have the impression that I am trying to force myself into your life I will have to leave you here and now.”

  Did he really have courage to do so? Unperturbed she smiled knowingly for she had the God-given power to decide the outcome.

  “I did nevertheless force myself into your life first and as a consequence you forced yourself into mine, so it’s my decision now if I want to continue.”

  A green and silvery willow leaf shivered slightly in the on-shore breeze. The ineluctability had increased and his silence gave her the answer she took for granted.

  “So you were not really put off or frightened by my violence the other morning?”

  Perhaps she was also delaying the inevitable to heighten the tension.

  “No, but while I felt thrilled by being so close to you, you appeared to be so furious that I had no choice but to try to get away and wait till you had calmed down, and I could begin to explain why – ”

  “Then you do not resent it? You do not hold it against me, do you?”

  Exoneration – the connotation surrounding the denotation of self-assertion.

  “No, you can be gentle or furious, just as you please, I only want you to be as true to yourself as you can. I harbour no second thoughts and I want you as you are without pretensions.”

  “You confound me but simultaneously I feel at ease being confounded, and I do not doubt the authenticity of your reactions or of my own, I feel excited and amazed.”

  “Well, so have I for three weeks. It’s contagious and wonder-full, but it’s not dangerous.”

  A nonchalant touch anatomised his sincerity.

  “It’s almost too good to be true.”

  “Jump back into your right hemisphere then, where you belong.What you just said was a typical concoction of the left hemisphere of your brain, the myopic hemisphere with which you cannot make value judgments.”

  “Do you always have an answer to everything and what’s the difference anyway?”

  Her tentative probing – adjusting the sight – her tests and her final choice. The Sedge Warbler.

  “I only have partial or tentative answers to a few fragmentary notions, and only to the most obvious and self-evident ones of them. The left hemisphere is concerned with very simple musical rhythm, propositional logic, vested interests, well-known facts, language processing, exposition of details and the ability to see them in isolation; contrariwise, the right hemisphere which is more in tune with the limbic system, is concerned with values, with melody and complex rhythms, with th
e overall picture, with depth of meaning, with humour and infinity, with love, serenity and bliss.”

  A rapid rearrangement of perspectives and the presupposition of science.

  “I thought that there was an enormous flow of communication between the two hemispheres.”

  “There is certainly some flow, but the main function of the corpus callosum is to hinder one of the hemispheres from becoming too influenced by the other; so it’s rather a gate than a bridge, and it’s obvious that the hemisphere which is most in touch with the limbic system is the right one, in both senses. Maybe you remember that Hume emphasised that rational thought only should serve the emotions, the passions? The only thing that matters is felt reality, and the stronger the passion the stronger is the sense of reality for nothing matters but the quality of the emotions.”

  “So on both accounts I have no choice but to deepen our relationship, do I?”

  Her smile answered her question but she was still sounding him to take his nakedness.

  “Not if you want to fulfil your fate, your dharmaḥ, know yourself, your destiny, and mine – ”

  “So what do you want?”

  To hear it again – the slow creaking of the cradle – the deep groundswell of the Sea.

  “You!”

  “That’s all?”

  “Come live with mee and be my love

  And we will all the pleasures prove – ”

  She was laughing at his innocence and maybe even at her own.

  “That Vallies, groves and hills and fieldes,

  Woods or steepie mountaine yeeldes.”

  “You certainly are romantic!”

  “I am naturally romantic, and so are you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Mellow scepsis at such make belief though she also suspected that the scepsis was unfounded – and then the astonished acceptance of his innocence as sincere enough to be true.

  “You may be cynical, you may have impish humour, you may be a woman of the underworld but you have the warm heart of a romantic. Honest women are romantic and realistic.”

  Donne d’onore.