Oh, what is it, that powerful thing that suddenly can come into being between two people? A current? A force field? An invisible ladder, in this case? He saw that, among all those women, she was different. No less charming, but dazed and desperate like him. He was the only one who saw this in the midst of the hellish uproar. He could not see that she wept but her tear had reached him there. A second one fell, on his shoulder.
A great desire quivered throughout his being. If ever two people must be united in this wilderness, they were the ones. He jumped up and stretched his muscles, felt his strength return to him as though by magic. Did she see him too? He looked up and thought she did. Was that a smile breaking around her mouth? Was that a gleam in her eye? Was it the case that they only existed for one another now?
With the eye of a hunter, he explored the steep rock face. Every fissure, every ledge he perceived and then he plotted his way accordingly, like in the past, when reaching a nest of young vultures was at stake. He gave a sign she would have to understand if the same fire had been kindled within her. And she did understand, for in reply she crossed her arms in front of her chest, thus indicating that she would pray for him the while.
Now the alliance had been sealed. Who knows, she may already have noticed him much earlier on, and her tears had been a call.
Slowly, and uncertainly at first because of his emotion, he began the ascent. As he rose higher and more perilously, the placement of his hands, of his fingers, the support of his feet, the transfer of his weight demanded all his attention. He was inconspicuous doing this: he was one of the many. Only later on, at the edge of the vaulting, did he attract general notice.
Each time he had found sufficient support, he would rest for a moment and look up, and the more clearly he could see her, the more glorious she seemed to him. Now he could read his own, huge desire in her face. No, it wasn’t a game with her like it was with the others, a game of cat and mouse, for beyond the radiance of her love’s glow he could see the fear, the fear of failure, of him falling. But the others had to think that she, too, was luring him to his death.
There had been one perilous moment; not when, for the first time, he saw her lips, her teeth, her nostrils, the wave in her hair, not even when he could distinguish the pupils in her eyes, when they switched focus from their faces to their eyes. All this was just glorious.
Dangerous was the moment when, for the first time, they could call out to each other. He began, and when she answered him she did so in his own language. She was one of his tribe!
By a whisker, he avoided toppling right over backwards. His entire body a-tremble, he clung to the rock and waited like this until he’d calmed down.
His language, his language! His language had not yet died: it was still alive. It revived between the two of them, which was the most important thing, the only important thing. Now, she was completely like him.
Who cared the way the others spoke? Nobody existed for him any more, except her. What he had wished to do when he believed to be closing his eyes for ever, to banish all that surrounded him from his thought, that same thing happened to him now. To him, she was all that truly existed.
This was no trembling with fear, but trembling with happiness, which was why it could change into strength and control. No more abandoning himself to tenderness now, no more words now except the ones trapeze artists will cry out to each other in the circus: no taking an advance on their happiness as long as it hadn’t been captured yet.
The most difficult part of all came at the edge, where he must surmount the incline. He now avoided looking at her on purpose; the sight of her so close by would be as deadly as that of Medusa, would make him fall at once.
Measure for measure, he progressed. He, too, began to incline, over backwards: he had to grip the stone tightly. Softly, almost at a whisper, she gave instructions. ‘Bit more to the left – a little further – no, not there, that bit’s loose – yes, there’s a hollow there – now raise your foot: there’s another ledge there – slide along very slowly – let go your left hand and stretch out as far as possible.’
Yes, she gripped him: Let go!
Now those who were following him with bated breath from below and from the balcony saw him float through the air but to their amazement, he did not fall, though the music had already ceased.
Quite how it was done, no one could really tell: a few seconds on, they saw the prisoner and the slave girl in deepest embrace up there.
She had truly drawn him to her.
Now they were together. Now they could behold one another, say sweet nothings in each other’s ears, melt their joys and their sorrow into one and entrust one another with their bodies.
Both wept with happiness, but they knew, too, that it would not last, and that all that can be between man and woman must be encompassed in that short time.
The sense of this brevity was the only thing that remained within them of the mayhem in the cave; all other things had been completely obliterated by their mutual possession.
Every word, each gesture proved to them that they were alike to an unfathomable depth.
They hurled themselves into the abyss of one another.
Amazement soon turned to anger in those who beheld this. They began to hurl abuse, to shout, to rant. Rage took all in its grip, the prisoners as much as the others. The empress shrieked. Like a fishwife.
None of this got through to the loving couple.
It took a long time before the order had been passed down the line and its execution came into effect.
Then the servants reached them with their stakes and pushed them down.
They still remained united in their fall.
On the ground, she was torn to pieces over his broken back.
Translated by Richard Huijng
9
A. Alberts
Green
Groen
The whole morning it has been nothing but coastline, an exceptionally pleasant and neat coastline, a real piece of nature with palm trees, but they don’t wave. I would like it even more if they did, and if I did not know that the thick, white line under the palm trees becomes more and more dirty and dingy as you get closer, and that filthy huts appear under those same palm trees. I know all that, and I say goodbye to the captain, which is not necessary at all because in an hour he will also be going ashore, and I step into a prahu and we row to the shore.
The sea is filthy, which does not surprise me, and so shallow that we are scraping the bottom. The rowers jump out to push the prahu further, and we are probably still a mile from shore. At first they wade up to their waist through the water, but the sea becomes more and more shallow and I can already see the legs of the biggest one, who is walking right next to me. Finally we are permanently stuck.
I see a bunch of people standing under the palm trees, not doing anything, just standing there, but then I also see that two men are on their way towards me with a litter. They come alongside the boat. The litter is a worn desk chair, nailed to two bamboo poles, with no paint left on it, and with a hole in its cane seat. I sit in it and we wobble towards the beach and a little later I am standing on the sand that is just as filthy as I thought it would be.
Opposite me a man who introduces himself: Peartree. He is a colleague of mine, also living on the coast, but sixty miles further west. Two days’ walk, he says, and I express my admiration at such a pace. Yes, you’ve got to be able to walk around here, he says, and then he asks what I brought with me. And also some beer and gin, I conclude, because I don’t know yet what his attitude is towards beer and gin. How much? he asks. The amount is more than he expected even though I only report half of it, otherwise he’ll be here for another two weeks, and while it is possible, if not probable, that a month from now I will throw myself at any sweaty European as the only white man I have seen for some time, I’ve had enough for now.
This is the village chief, Peartree says, and he points at the front bearer of my chair, and I give him a friendly nod. An
d now you probably want to know where you’re going to stay. He has obviously decided to become more cheerful because he can look forward to beer, gin and a landsman who provided them. I now also notice from his tone and manner that he is nervous; in fact, his nerves are all shot.
We walk on through the palm trees, because my house appears to be beyond the palms in a more ordinary forest. Those palms are like a screen of about a hundred feet between the coast and the forest.
I see my house. It isn’t so much a house as a part of the forest, under a lean-to roof, and partitioned into a couple of compartments. There are chairs and a little table in front, and for a moment I imagine that the glasses are already on the table, but it isn’t quite as bad as that yet, even though it won’t be long now.
The place looks cool and is cool and also quite pleasant. A couple of villagers are watching. They are your servants, says Peartree; your predecessor left them behind. Who was it? I ask. I had met my predecessor some time ago and I know that he’s on leave now, but I think it’s better to act ignorant like a greenhorn on occasions like this.
Can’t remember his name, Peartree says. As a matter of fact, he drank himself to death. I say: That so? And a little later again: That so? Now he knows that I know that things are tough around here. And perhaps I’m showing that I can handle it, as well as future problems, by starting to drink right on top of this. Given the situation, that seems tactless enough. So I say: How about a beer? And we sit down at the table. Perhaps my predecessor didn’t quite drink himself to death, but his servants certainly know all by themselves how to find a crate of beer in my luggage, to break it open and to open the bottles. After things have got a little friendlier between Peartree and me, I feel that I can leave him alone for a while.
Inside my house I’ve got to take a breather and I lie down on my bed, that is to say I lie down on the bed in the room where my luggage is. For the first time since my arrival I experience a feeling of loneliness. I lie back on my bed with my hands folded under my head, though, naturally, I am ready to jump up at the sound of Peartree’s footsteps, because I don’t want him to find me like this. And I think of a girl I once used to know, and I wouldn’t mind if she walked in right at this moment. I would show her the forest, I do believe that it is quite beautiful really, and we would sit together in the garden, this spot in the green forest. Then the beer begins to take effect – we drank rather fast, after all – with the result that I want to keep on drinking.
I go outside and see that I have to restrain myself a little because the captain of my ship has also arrived and he and Peartree are discussing business. Settling old orders and placing new ones. I pour another round and join them to show that I am interested. When I finally realize that Peartree is only talking about private business, I go inside again, but this time I walk out at the rear and into the forest. It really is a very beautiful forest with tall trees that are not too close together, although the crowns touch each other everywhere, with the result that the space beneath them is filled with transparent green light. After I’ve walked for a while it occurs to me that if I keep on walking I will reach the edge of this forest sooner or later, and that I will sit at the edge of the forest and look out over a wide plain. But right now I don’t see my house any more, so it is better to go back.
Peartree and the captain are at the gin already and the conversation becomes general, stories about other lonely places, stories about big cities, and then the captain says that he has to keep an eye on the time. We take him to the beach and we’ve had enough to wave him goodbye when he wobbles in his chair to the prahu. I notice with some satisfaction that the village chief is not one of the bearers. Then we go back to the gin.
I ask Peartree about the forest and if there is an end to it. An edge to the forest, I say. He gets up, goes inside, and comes back with a map on which he shows me where the edge of the forest is, sixty miles north of the coast. He shows me several places along that edge that are easy to reach as far as the vegetation is concerned. He says: You’ll want to get away from that forest every so often.
When it gets dark they bring a petroleum lamp. The thing is hung from an ingenious stand: an iron bar that lies horizontally across another iron bar, which is stuck into the ground. Can’t fall over, Peartree says. I ask him if they have also lit a lamp inside the house. He says: Yes. I say: Because I have to write a letter. To a girl. He says: The boat is already gone and I say: Yes, but. Well, he doesn’t give a damn, Peartree says. I bow to him and go inside. It’s quite a problem because I’ll never find my stationery, oh well, I still have some letters in my pocket and on the back of an envelope I write with difficulty. I’ll copy it tomorrow, sweet darling, sweetest darling.
I tell Peartree about the girl, he tells me about his wife, he is divorced, she ran off with somebody else. We might as well not eat and I tell Peartree about the bottle of cognac that should be somewhere in my luggage and is found by my predecessor’s servant, damn it, my predecessor must have drunk himself to death after all, the servant hasn’t prepared any food either.
A day later.
Today from eight o’clock on is the first day that is completely mine. This day and the following days are my personal property; I can do what I want with them. Now I can cut through the narrow strip of palm trees to the sea and then walk for some distance along the beach to where there are no huts any more, lie down on the sand in such a way that the shade of the palm trees covers me. Because I’ve got a head you won’t believe. Peartree has left. He was up at six, and so was I, for that matter. He was drinking coffee in the garden and looked very angry when I wished him good morning. Angry and also very haughty. He was put out, of course, about having confided in me yesterday. We drank our coffee together and I wasn’t in such great form myself, rather stiff really, because last night I had also revealed my intimate problems to him without holding back, and had sworn that I would follow his advice.
We remained sitting there silently and ill at ease and if Peartree had only said something like: Come on, cut it out, we would have grinned despite our sore heads and would have rubbed our sandpaper tongues against the roofs of our mouths and kept silent and everything would have been all right, except for the emptiness I would have felt after his departure.
But Peartree snapped at me. He called for the village chief, gave instructions, and left at eight o’clock. His attitude spared me the sadness of a farewell. I am beginning to feel better already and think that it’s quite nice around here. Even the palms are waving.
The sea is very wide and far, not a ship in sight, that’s probably always the case around here. There are a few prahus on the beach, those things you’ve got to push, with an outrigger, they won’t get very far in them and I wonder how the fishing is, to hell with it, I don’t feel like getting involved now already with the problems of the village’s economy. I’d rather look at the sea, just like that, as if it’s the sea, and close my eyes and go to sleep.
I wake up with the sun on my legs and then the feeling of owning this as well as the following days has become burdensome enough that I go to look for the village chief. He tells me all about the prahus and the amount of fish they catch. About what they eat and what the forest produces. How purchasing and transportation are arranged. He tells me all sorts of other things but there’s soon an end to what I can take in. So I ask him about the extent of the forest and I point in a northerly direction. I know from Peartree that the edge of the forest is another sixty miles, but I secretly hope that somewhere there will be an open space before that. Because this is one of the few resolutions from yesterday I want to act on: to build a little house near an open space in the forest or better yet at the edge of the forest with a view of the free plain. The village chief looks doubtful. He doesn’t know about that, he says. Can’t we search for it? I ask. He looks even more doubtful and says again that he doesn’t know about that. But I’ll get it out of him. I ask him if there are any people living further up north who might know. Oh, he says, I do
n’t know, and this time it sounds so pitiful that I stop trying. It might cost me my popularity.
I walk with him to his village, brown huts, filthy children, and I keep on walking and I make sure that I stay a couple of steps in front of him, otherwise he will take me to his house, his filthy house, to drink filthy coffee out of filthy cups and to sit in a rickety chair on a stinking front porch. But then he suddenly darts in front of me and he points his thumb so politely and obsequiously at a house, his house, that I smile amiably and, thanking him kindly, go inside. He orders coffee, takes the cup from the hands of a boy, probably his son, and puts it down in front of me. He should also sit down, I say. Oh well, blood is thicker than water, for him as well as for me, but the day is no longer my property, I’m well aware of that.
We’ve become polite neighbours now. I ask the same questions as before, but this time in the affirmative. I say: The fishermen never go very far from the coast? He agrees and nods his head like a village schoolmaster who, years later, has an old student come back to visit him from the big strange world out there. Yes, I say, and the resin from the forest is brought here. By whom? I suddenly ask straightforwardly. By our people, he says somewhat surprised. So they do go into the forest? Yes, he says and he points west. And there? I ask, and I point north, but no, he is not sure about that, he says evasively. And the resin is picked up here by the ship, I say conciliatingly again. Yes, he says. Every six months? Every six months, he repeats with satisfaction. Is that your son? Yes, it is his son, and he’s given my empty cup and returns it filled.
In the afternoon, after a meal, I sit down behind my desk, the desk of my predecessor. I take four empty notebooks and write on the first one: Fishery Report. I’ll pay close attention to that, the number of fishermen, what percentage they are of the total population. And the amount of fish they bring in, of course. And the kind of fish. In short, a thorough report. On the second notebook I write: Forest Products. About the expeditions they make, the amount of time they stay in the forest, about what they have stored and the different types, about the prices given by the dealers.
The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 16