As for me, I couldn’t get to sleep. My head was spinning with thoughts from the conversation, because for me all the things they’d been talking about were kind of beyond the bounds of my imagination. And the thing that troubled me the most was where the master could have been, that God wasn’t there.
The next day I went to him for advice because the fuses kept blowing when I’d turn on this three-way switch. And I asked him:
“Where were you?”
He gave me a suspicious look.
“I hope you never have to go there.” After which he grunted: “Get back to work. You know what you need to do.”
As far as the saxophone was concerned, I was managing to put more and more aside every month. I never missed the chance for overtime. In addition, in the evenings or on Sundays there was work on the side. I wouldn’t take moonshine in payment, only money. I preferred getting paid less but that it be in cash. I could wait, but let it be cash. In pretty much every village there was always someone wanted us to put in a second switch, a second outlet, and for each switch or outlet you’d have to do the wiring. According to the regulations, which is to say, at the lower cost, they were only allowed one switch and one outlet per room. And hallways, pantries, attics weren’t allowed, or anywhere else. The attics you could understand, in most of the houses the attic was under a thatched roof, if there’d been a short circuit the house would have gone up like kindling. But for example, why should you have to walk down the hallway in darkness, groping for the door handle? Or take an oil lamp to the pantry, when there’s electricity in the house?
So we’d install things wherever people wanted them. Privately, it goes without saying. If someone wanted it in the hallway, in their pantry, over the front door, say the word and it’ll be done. For so and so much. Someone wanted to have an extension out to their cattle shed, why not, that could be done. It was rare, but some people asked for that. In one village someone even wanted us to put in an extension to his barn, because he’d bought an electric motor on the cheap, and he wanted to convert his thresher and winnowing machine to electricity instead of keeping on using the treadmill. We did it. He just had to wait a bit till we were able to siphon off some of the materials from the official allocations. But we also did installations in attics under the thatch if people wanted. You’d wrap the cable in an additional layer of insulating tape, feed it through an insulated tube that was made of metal, but properly lined, and attach it on elevated brackets at the necessary distance from the thatch, along a beam, while the switch would be put in on the chimney flue. And nothing untoward would happen. With private work there were no restrictions. As you know, things that were not possible officially were possible unofficially.
Not everyone was in favor of electricity, though, far from it. Some folks wouldn’t even give permission for a pole to be put up outside their house. What, I’m supposed to stare at a pole for the rest of my life? The hell with that! It’s my land up to the middle of the road. There were times they came after us with pickaxes, we had to call the police. They wouldn’t let us into their homes, they’d drive us off like thieves. Especially because with the houses, they weren’t being forced. If someone didn’t want electricity, that was their business. How did they explain it? In different ways. That there’d be another war soon, just you wait. And in wartime oil lamps are your best bet. If you run out of kerosene you can burn linseed oil. You just had to plant flax. Of all the different kinds of light, the most reliable were the sun, as long as God was willing, and oil lamps. It doesn’t need to be as bright in the night as during the day. It’s enough if it’s light during the day, nighttime is for sleeping. Were we trying to turn the world upside down? With all these poles and wires? What if the sparrows and the swallows sit on them? They’ll get burned to cinders. It’ll draw lightning. Sickness too, maybe. The sicknesses we already have are more than enough. You wouldn’t earn anything extra from those kinds of people, of course. But in general you didn’t do too badly with the private jobs. For millers, for example, before the government took over the mills. In the presbyteries and churches. Though with the priests you could never be sure. They’d always get away with a God bless you.
So one time when I counted up again how much I’d put aside for the saxophone, it seemed like it might actually be enough. I had no idea of the price of a saxophone. I started asking around among the musicians in the villages. They could tell me the price of a harmonica or fiddle or clarinet, but most of them had never even heard of a saxophone. Well, I took one day off and headed for the nearest town. There was a music shop, but they didn’t have any saxophones, nor did they know how much one might cost, especially now after the war. So some time later I took myself to another town, a bigger one. They didn’t have one either, but they promised to find out how much one might be, they might even try to order one if they could. They’d also ask around privately, maybe someone would have one, because from time to time people brought them instruments to sell. I gave them my name. I wanted to leave a down payment but they wouldn’t take it. They said to try back in a month or two. If one came in they’d set it aside.
You have no idea how much each night before I fell asleep I’d imagine hanging that saxophone around my neck, putting the mouthpiece between my lips, running my fingers over the keys. I even decided that when I finally got it, I’d throw a drinking party to celebrate and get drunk myself.
All of a sudden, out of the blue one day, someone heard on the corn cob that there was going to be a change of currency. What’s the corn cob? Not the airplane, they also gave that name to the radio speakers that were put in people’s homes, only if they wanted of course, where they already had electricity. And the new currency, you know what that was about? Not just that there were going to be different banknotes. It was that with the new ones you could buy three times less. You never heard of a change like that? Where were you then? Though never mind that. In any case, a saxophone was out of the question now. To be honest, I didn’t even feel angry. I didn’t feel anything at all. The only thing I felt was that I had no reason to go on living. So I decided to hang myself.
That day we were working on a transformer pole. Transformer poles look like giant As. They’re made of two poles that come together at the top, while lower down they’re reinforced by a linking horizontal crossbeam. I was going to use that beam. The previous day I borrowed a halter from one of the farmers. Towards evening, when I was through with work I put my tools away in the toolbag and dropped it to the ground. I tied one end of the halter to the crossbeam and made a noose in the other end. I put the noose around my neck and I was about to pull my spiked boots clear of the pole when I glanced down at the ground and I saw Uncle Jan. He was standing with his head tipped back, watching what I was doing. No, it wasn’t an illusion. I saw him plain as I see you now.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “I hanged myself, and I don’t see any difference.”
5
No, I stopped saving up for a saxophone. Besides, pretty soon I starting working on a building site, and when I got my first wages I bought myself a hat. Why a hat? I don’t know. Maybe I had to buy something so I wouldn’t be tempted to save up for a saxophone again. And maybe it was a hat because when I was still in school I’d made up my mind to buy a hat once I had a saxophone. Saxophone and hat, I used to like to see myself that way when I imagined myself.
They once brought this film to show at the school. There’s a big hat shop, a man and a woman come in, his name is Johnny and she’s Mary, and the guy wants to buy a hat. He starts trying them on, while Mary sits down in an armchair and buries herself in a magazine. It was the first film I’d ever seen in my life. So when he was trying on all those hats I had the impression that he wasn’t trying them on on the screen, but that he was with us in the rec room. Or that we were all in the shop where he was trying on hats.
He tried hat after hat, while Mary, who by the way was a stunner, was sitting in the armchair like I said, her nose in the magazine. She was wearing f
urs, her legs were crossed, she wore a chic pair of pumps.
I don’t know if you’ll agree with me on this, but a woman’s legs make or break the whole. And as long as she’s wearing nice shoes, everything else can even be very plain. Her face can be plain if the legs are OK. But she has to be wearing nice shoes. You rarely see legs like that anymore. Most all women go around in pants, and even if they’re in a dress they often wear the kind of shoes that remind you of wartime. Plus, these days hardly any of them can walk the way a woman ought to walk. Have you seen how women walk today? Take a look some time. They jerk their legs, stomp their feet. They’re more like soldiers than women. Even here, they’re in bathing suits and barefoot but most of them still walk around that way. And not on concrete but on earth, on grass. A movie director abroad once told me he couldn’t find an actress to play the part of a princess in a movie. The faces were right but not the walk.
So anyway, Mary was so engrossed in her magazine that she wasn’t paying any attention whatsoever to the man. And he kept trying on hats. In each one he would stand longer and longer in front of the mirror, and seemed less and less sure whether he should say, this one might work, or take it off and ask for another one, or study himself in the mirror a bit longer. He’d tried quite a few already, but he evidently didn’t like himself in any of them because he kept asking to see something else. And the clerk, he didn’t bat an eyelid and just kept bringing one new hat after another. Also, each time he brought a new hat he’d smile and give a half-bow. And even though the man could see himself full length in the mirror, the clerk still went around him with a hand mirror, holding it up to one side then the other, now in front of his face, now from behind so he could see how he looked in the reflection of the hand mirror in the big mirror in front of him. Each time, he’d sing the praises of each hat equally while the man was trying it on:
“Take a look now, sir. And now. Tip it forward a little over the forehead. Tip it back a little. A little to the side, a little this way, a little that way. Perfect, just perfect. It goes ideally with your face, sir. With your forehead, your eyes, eyebrows, and so on. Perfect.”
In retrospect I’m sure it must have been a comedy. But at the time it didn’t make me laugh in the slightest. Every hat that Johnny took off and handed back to the clerk was a personal loss for me. Evidently laughter doesn’t depend on what you see and hear. Laughter is people’s ability to protect themselves from the world, from themselves. To deprive them of that ability is to make them defenseless. And that’s how I was. I simply didn’t know how to laugh. It even seemed strange to me that anyone could ever laugh at anything. Most of us who’d found ourselves in that school were the same. Though not all of us, it goes without saying. Some of them were able to laugh even when they were in lockup.
So at the film, some boys were laughing their heads off. But it wasn’t just laughing. Behind the laughter you could sense a growing rage, a resentment. With every hat the man tried on, amid the laughter there were oaths, insults directed at him, at the clerk, and above all at Mary, for losing herself in her magazine and not helping the man. She was just sitting there like me or you. If she’d at least have raised her eyes, said he looked good or didn’t, that that one was worse, the other one was better. Then she could have gone back to her reading.
The rec room was packed, you can imagine what was going on. The moment the guy didn’t like himself in one of the hats there were shouts, whistles, stamping of feet. It was getting louder and louder, more and more bitter, especially because it made no impression on him at all. He even hesitated a tad longer before saying no to this one after all, for some reason or other. The clerk continued to bend in a half-bow, with the same smile on his face, agreeing with the man.
“You’re absolutely right, sir. It really is a little too dark. Really is a little too light. The shade isn’t quite right. The style isn’t quite right. The brim’s a little too wide. With your face, this hat isn’t quite right. Never mind. Let’s see what else there is.”
By this point the room was in uproar. To be honest I was even starting to be a bit afraid. Meanwhile the clerk was going off and bringing a new hat, with the same hope that for sure the man would like this one.
The whole countertop was piled high with the hats he’d tried on, since the clerk set all the hats there in a heap so the man wouldn’t have to wait too long. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d never have been able to imagine so many hats in one place. And all for the head of some guy named Johnny. If he’d at least have been someone. But he was no one in particular. He was just like you or me. I mean I’m sorry, I’m not trying to insult you, but the clerk wouldn’t have known who you are if you’d gone in and said you wanted to buy a hat. All the more if it had been me. Though you he might have recognized. Hat shop clerks are smart people. I knew a guy like that.
In any case, in all that crowded rec room no one knew who Johnny was. We hadn’t an inkling. Unless the clerk knew. Or it came out at the end of the film. After he tried on the umpteenth hat it occurred to me that a hat isn’t such an ordinary thing, though it’s just a covering for your head. The film went on and on, and this guy was choosing and choosing, it couldn’t have been an ordinary thing.
One time they brought this fellow to the school who pulled a rabbit out of a hat. At some point the rabbit ran away and started scurrying all around the rec room, we all chased after it. That time too the room was filled to bursting, we had a heck of a job catching it. It was white as can be, an angora, it was trembling all over it was so afraid, even though it knew how to vanish then appear again, one moment it was in the hat, the next it was gone. Or maybe it was the hat that had this power, such a notion came to me even then.
In the end, the rec room kind of began to take over the job of Mary, who was indifferent to the whole business, and when the man tried on a new hat everyone would jump to their feet and try to persuade him to buy that one, the one he was trying on right now. Then, when he finally decided against that one and asked to see another, they’d yell at the clerk and tell him not to bring the guy any more hats, let him buy that one. That one or none at all.
But the clerk wanted the man to buy at least something, and bowing the whole time, with the same smile he’d bring him another hat. At that moment, as if in retaliation for the disappointment he’d caused the room, the choicest obscenities were heaped on both of them. I’d be embarrassed to repeat them. It was like they were throwing stones at both of them. You such-and-such, buy the thing or …! And a lot worse. You this and that, stop bringing him hats! He should buy the one he’s got on right now! Kick his ass out of the store! You know what he can do with that mirror! Son of a …! It was like they got themselves all riled up with cursing, because when the man asked to see another hat, their shouts would get even wilder.
The rec room was low, like you’d expect in a hut. The whole place was shaking, walls, windows, ceiling, it felt like it was about to fall apart. The screen hung down from the ceiling and covered about three fourths of the wall, while the projector stood against the opposite wall behind us. The older boys, along with some of the teachers, were sitting on benches along the side walls, while the rest of us were on the floor. The stream of light from the projector passed right over our heads. For some kids the shouting and whistling and curses weren’t enough, they had to also jump up from the floor into the beam of light, waving their arms as if they were trying to knock the hat off the man’s head as he was trying it on, and knock the next one out of the clerk’s hands when he brought it.
I don’t know if you can imagine all this. It was a storm, a tempest, not laughter. The teachers were shouting, Calm down! calm down! It made no impression. Actually, they may already have been afraid. Especially because the older boys sitting among them on the benches had also gotten to their feet, they were standing in the beam of light right by the screen blocking the clerk’s way back to the man.
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
But the clerk would p
ass right through them like he was walking through mist, give the man the new hat and take back the one that once again he’d decided against. In the end they turned on Mary. You so-and-so, put the magazine down! Tell him to buy the one he’s trying on! Stop crossing your legs! Move it! Kick him on the backside, on the shin, in the balls! I won’t repeat any more of it. At one point it looked like they were going to invade the screen, trash the shop, beat up the clerk and the man, and maybe rip Mary’s furs off, tear off her dress and take her by force. Especially because there were people who’d been sent to the school for doing exactly that.
The teachers were still trying to calm everyone down. We’ll stop the film! You’re criminals, not children, the lot of you! You’ll all get written up tomorrow! You’ll pay for this! That just set everyone going even more. It was only thanks to the clerk that it didn’t end badly. He was the only one who kept his cool and with the same bow, the same smile kept handing the man one hat after another. But the man, whichever one he put on, he would look in the mirror without a trace of goodwill towards himself. Sometimes it was like he was overcome by doubt about one hat or another. Sometimes he’d study himself more closely in the mirror, as if he himself no longer believed it was him standing at the mirror in a hat. And a several moments it looked like he was finally about to say resignedly, maybe this one.
And who knows why, because in the opinion of the rec room he didn’t look good in that particular one, a view that was expressed in a swelling wave of whistles and shouts and stamping. He looks like a scarecrow! Like a beggar! He looks like …! All this slowly turned into a resounding, No! No! No! But the man wasn’t put off, you even got the feeling he was taunting the room by taking his time choosing a hat. And that he’d buy this one to spite the room, though he didn’t like himself in it that much. He smiled at his own reflection in the mirror, he made different kinds of smiles, from having his lips barely parted to a big grin with a row of perfect white teeth like you only ever see in the movies. I mean, everyone knows what people’s teeth are mostly like. Most people should never smile, never speak even. He pushed the hat back from his forehead, then pulled it forward, assuming a mysterious expression. He tipped the hat to the left, then to the right, like he wanted to look like someone he’d seen in a movie. Or he went right close up to the mirror, almost touching it with the brim of the hat, and looked at himself eye to eye, hat to hat. Or he suddenly stepped back and studied himself full length, from the hat all the way down to his feet. He put a hand in his pants pocket, one then the other in turn, or both at once, assuming a relaxed posture. Or he straightened his necktie, smoothed his jacket, and stood stiff as a ramrod. One time he seemed visibly disheartened when he looked at his reflection, another time like he’d be prepared to come to terms with this hat and with himself, but he lacked the willpower. At that point he would turn helplessly to Mary where she sat absorbed in her magazine:
A Treatise on Shelling Beans Page 12