The third notebook becomes: In General, and the fourth, I thought that up this morning, is going to be something completely new: Timber Crop. As far as I know, they don’t fell trees here, even though it is perfectly suited for it, anybody can see that. There must be a special reason for it, transportation problems or something like that. Maybe the wood is not suitable at all, too light or too heavy or whatever. Now that I think about it more, it does not seem such a great idea after all.
Then I realize something. The village chief is always talking about the western forest and I want to go to the northern forest, he doesn’t. But what’s in the east? I get up and walk outside. Amazing how cool it stays here in this green tempered light. I follow the demarcation between the forest and the palm trees, with the sea constantly in sight, and I walk this way for half an hour, then everything ends and there’s only the sea. The sea, which makes a sharp turn north. Hence there is no eastern forest, which is one complication less and one added obligation, because I have no choice now, I must explore the northern forest. It is always that way in life, fewer complications, more obligations.
When I am sitting in front of my house in the evening, with the lamp hanging from the stand, I think of Peartree for the first time since he left. Peartree is about halfway now. He sleeps in the forest, in the western, not the northern forest, and I turn my chair about forty-five degrees so that I face in that direction, north. After I’ve sat like that for a while, I feel restless and uneasy and I realize that I’m sitting with my back turned to the door, the door of my world. My world is the forest and the door is the beach, the spot where I came ashore yesterday and where other people too, strangers, can land and force themselves into my existence. I turn my chair back to its former position in order to keep an eye on the door. Everything has its proper place now. The west, that is Peartree, that’s where he really belongs. The north, the unknown, what I am looking forward to, that belongs. The east, that is Nothingness, that also belongs. And the south, that is the door, and what lies beyond it must remain locked out. I sit in the night and look and see Peartree, thirty miles further, if he hasn’t lied. Annoying Peartree, but you also belong.
A day later.
This morning I invite the village chief to discuss the particulars of my first trip to the forest. While talking, I point west and not north, and he is very happy about that. I hear that we will be visiting some second-rate villages, temporary settlements of the people who gather forest products. We will only be away for two days, staying over only one night, because this is the first time. I don’t want to do everything at once and I try to make it clear that Peartree’s pace is too fast for me. The village chief, who is my guest now, is completely in agreement with me.
I wonder if we can leave this same afternoon, but I restrain myself just in time, because that would be incredibly dumb and contradictory, to hurry like that. The truth is that the chief’s painstaking and endless planning for the trip bores me, because I am not looking forward to the afternoon and evening.
Completely uncalled for: in the afternoon I lie down on a long chair beneath the green with a new detective novel, and for three full hours I read attentively to the end. To the end of a day filled with beauty, to the beauty of the evening, of the silence of the lamp and its light.
Of the silence.
Of the yellow light.
A day later.
This is the day of my first journey. More than ever before I feel the slight but invigorating agitation always associated with travel, because this is travel at its purest, its noblest form, indeed, the form of my journey is noble, ancient and full of tradition.
Up front goes the guide, the scout, walking thirty feet in front of me. In its archaic form this distance would have been a day’s travel. My journey is somewhat stylized. This includes where the village chief should be. While he should really be walking a few steps in front of me, he has joined the scout, what one could call the informal style.
I come after him, surrounded by the wall and moat of distinction, I, the prince from the distant court, centuries ago. Respectfully behind me come some lesser dignitaries, members of the village council, if I am not mistaken. There might be some private, well-to-do resin gatherers among them. They have a right, of course, to be part of my retinue. And finally, the train of this retinue is made up of a number of bearers.
We have followed the coast for some time but now, to my great satisfaction, we have changed direction and are heading inland. The forest, as well as the ground cover, becomes denser here, it becomes darker, more ordinary, a less transparent green. In this way we come rather suddenly to our first village. Friendly scouts approach us and there’s a great deal of interest when we enter the settlement. I am happy to sit down, but otherwise it’s not much around here. The Northwood should be better and more beautiful.
We eat, we rest, do some business, and in the afternoon we go on. Excellent village chief. He has picked a good place to stay overnight. The second village when we arrive in the late afternoon is large and clean, and the gentleman who receives us is almost dignified. An oily, polite, fat and doubtlessly rich gentleman is the chief of this second settlement. He looks as if he knows everything that is worthwhile to know in these parts, and when I invite him and some other gentlemen to have a smoke with me after dinner, I feel that I have to take advantage of this opportunity. Forgive me, village chief of mine, but I cannot pass up this opportunity.
This is a fine and large settlement, I say, almost as fine as the big village. They grin and scratch themselves. I point north-west and ask if there are any more settlements there. Yes, two more. And in the north-east? I ask and I point in that direction and look only at my fat host. He grins and says he isn’t so sure.
There’s only one settlement there, my own village chief says. Sometimes people live there and sometimes they don’t. We don’t know anything else about it.
There is something unmistakably sad and disappointed in his tone of voice when he says this, and his manner is really very dignified. That’s why I bow politely in his direction and change the subject to something more neutral: the history of his people.
A day later.
I am back home and it is evening already and the lamp is brought outside. It seems there is still some cognac left and I finish it. It’s quite a lot of cognac. I sit down with my back to the south, because I have to chase away my fear, I’ve got to steel myself against fear. Because I have to become a courageous man.
There are two possible courses open to me. First of all, I could go to Peartree and ask him the necessary information about the Northwood. He would do that for me. He will probably tell me that one or more nomadic tribes are to be found out there. If I want to have a closer look at these nomadic tribes, Peartree will either approve of it or think it’s ridiculous, probably the latter. The other possibility is not to mention anything to Peartree, and that’s what I’ll do. Because I don’t see how I can make it clear to Peartree that I’m not going there for those nomadic tribes, that I couldn’t care less about them, that things would be a lot quieter if they weren’t there. I can’t make it clear to Peartree that I want to reach the edge of the forest, that I want to walk ten, twenty, a hundred yards into the open plain. Then I will turn around to this green forest. No, I will not turn around, not at first, when I come out into the open onto the plain. Perhaps there’ll be a hill, I’ll climb it and cheer, I’ll shout, as I would never dare do inside the green.
Or I’ll be silent and take a deep breath, as I would never be able to do in the green light. And when I have drunk my fill of light and distance, I will turn around, raise my glass and laugh and call out: I see you, green forest.
I am having a lot of trees cut, a lot of wood, and I am having a house built, so large and wide that it spreads low against the sky. The entrance on the forest side and a wide terrace on the north side. And a basement, that’s a good joke, damn it, I always build houses when I am drunk, damn it all.
A day later.
> Today I carefully examine the business affairs of the village, the supply of resin in storage for shipping, the food situation, the general state of health. The village chief accompanies me everywhere. The Northwood is not mentioned any more, the man deserves it. I try to give the impression of being strictly businesslike, the village chief must be able to count on me, he must be able to trust me.
At home I fix up a little office, pull out my notebooks, and begin my reports. I calculate, I estimate, I make plans. I hesitate for a moment when I hold the notebook Timber Crops in my hands. I put it away again. I really don’t know anything about wood, and I never will. I don’t know the name of even one tree in this area. I’ll discuss this matter with Peartree sometime.
In the late afternoon I am overwhelmed by an uncontrollable desire to walk into the forest. It is four o’clock and I decide to walk north for an hour. That way I’ll still be able to get back before dark. This walk is a serious matter.
It is remarkable how little the forest changes in this direction. It does not become dense and the ground cover stays the same, the light stays the same, everything stays the same, and I am no exception. When I am in my house, in the village, or during the journeys with the village chief, scouts, and the rest, I change like a chameleon. I am courteous, bored, resigned, interested, miserable, drunk, all depending on the place and circumstances. Here, in the Northwood, the place and circumstances stay completely the same and this sameness becomes intensely evident in the green light.
I wonder how I will mark where I’m going in order to be able to find my way again later, but it’s impossible. After an hour I turn back, nothing will come of it in this manner. But after another hour I’m still not home. A compass would be useful here, but I do not have a compass and I am lost. When it is completely dark, I can only grope my way and I am very scared until I see a light shining relatively close by. I stumble in its direction. It is the light from my own house, of course; what else could it be?
Sitting under the lamp after dinner, I consider the possibilities. There aren’t many. This afternoon I went about three miles north, that is three out of the sixty that lie between my house and the edge of the forest. If I walk six hours a day, it’ll take me a week coming and going, and even then I will have to really work at it. I can’t do this alone, I really can’t do this alone.
A week later.
I’m going to see Peartree today and I really want to. I make an arrangement with the village chief that we’ll take at least three – or if we like, four – days walking to get there. If it’s the latter, he says, we have to stay at least once outside a settlement, that is to say, spend the night in the forest. I ask him if he has anything against it. He says: No, I don’t but perhaps you do. I can never figure out if these people are serious about something like this or if they hate not sleeping in a settlement. So I say: I don’t mind doing it in three days. He says: If you want to do it in three days, we can do it in three days, and sleep in the settlements. But I say: If you’d rather take four days, it’s really no problem for me to sleep in the forest. That’s that, I’ve put the burden of sincerity on his shoulders. Hurrying like that doesn’t prove anything, I say. No, he says, it doesn’t.
Finally I have confided in him and told him that I would actually enjoy spending a night outside a settlement. He has nodded and smiled in a friendly manner. He is really an amiable character.
My retinue is a little bigger than the last time, there are more people carrying provisions. I join the vanguard. Today we are walking to the first settlement, the same one from the last journey. Then we continued in the afternoon, now we are resting. I see that I’ve made a good decision when I divided the whole journey into four stages. The village chief and the other gentlemen don’t like to exert themselves needlessly either, and when we are sitting together in the evening, they are more talkative than last time.
A day later.
We continue in a westerly direction. I think we are following the beach at a relatively short distance. I ask the guide. He says: Yes, the beach is very close. The forest does not resemble my Northwood in anything. It is much denser, including the ground cover. We walk along a worn path, worn by my predecessors, worn by Peartree, worn by his predecessors, on assiduous journeys with gin at the end.
The settlement we arrive at towards the end of the afternoon betrays Peartree’s presence. There is a guest house with all kinds of handyman’s touches, such as chairs with ashtrays on the armrests, or kobolds by the washbasin holding a stick between them to hang a towel from. A lamp in a corner is again a kobold on a table holding a lantern high. But why should this be Peartree’s work? It could just as well be the work of a teetotal predecessor, which is really far more likely. A calm, level-headed person, who puts ashtrays on armrests and who doesn’t smoke. He puts a lamp together as if for a joint but he doesn’t drink. It is a pretty gloomy place.
I have to meet a settlement chief here I have never met before. This is the third one, a replica of the fat oily host of my overnight stay on the first journey. So here you can still find rest-houses with your typical innkeeper.
We have to have a smoke again, although I’m not quite up to it, I’m not up for anything and I go to bed early.
A day later.
Today, at the end of the day’s march, we will spend the night in the forest. I get up early and drink coffee. The village chief comes to ask if I might want to leave already. I say: Fine, and we’re on our way. The forest is the same as yesterday but in the afternoon we are walking among palm trees. I ask how that is possible. The palm forest is much wider here than by us, the village chief says. But we are close to the sea, I say. Yes, we are very close to the sea. And how far from the big village? Yes, we aren’t that far from the big village any more.
I keep up appearances and nod carelessly, and then we walk another two hours under those damned palms and then we are at Peartree’s. I am dead tired and Peartree is loud and jovial.
Go on, he says, freshen up a bit. I was right when I thought that you’d need three days.
I enter his house. I notice that I am putty in the hands of the village chief; that’s the way it’ll have to be. Peartree’s house is bigger and painted darker than mine, brown, rather sombre, but it is divided the same way. It is near a kind of square and the whole place makes a martial impression. Peartree had a square section of forest chopped down, and the soil was turned over, but it’s full of weeds now. Among those weeds, right in front of the house, are two chairs and a table with glasses and bottles. A beer, Peartree says. Ha-ha, a beer. He’s ahead of me. I sit down, stretch my legs, and take a deep breath. The sun shines low over the trees at the edge of the square. I say: You’ve got it pretty good here, and I wave at the open space before me.
What? he asks. The forest? And he begins to laugh out loud. I say: No, what I really mean is, that you cut down quite a piece of it. Oh, it was already there when he came here, he says.
You’ve been here half a year now, right? Half a year, he says, half a year and then another half a year and then we go. Go.
The tour of duty’s a year, then? I ask. Peartree scrutinizes me. A year? he mutters to himself. Yes, of course, a year. Just imagine, for Chrissake, if it was more than a year.
I tell Peartree about my experiences with the village chief. Of course, he says, they can’t stand long marches, but they’ll always manage to get out of sleeping in the forest.
Who put up the guest house where I slept last night? I ask. Don’t know, Peartree says. Was there already. For that matter, I also had one put up in the north-west corner of my section.
How do you do that? I ask. What? Peartree asks. Have a house built like that? You give orders, Peartree says. So I give orders. Ah, life isn’t all that complicated. The lamp is brought outside. So they bring the lamp outside here too, but damn it, I’d really like something to eat. I’m starving. Peartree thinks eating is ridiculous, but all right, all right, he will have them get something.
But how
can it be so quiet here? Yes, quiet, when the lamp swings back and forth, there are no tree shadows to swing along with it. The lamp swings in a void.
The ship will be back in two weeks, Peartree says, and then five more ships, and I’m on my way. But it’s really not so bad around here, right? Visiting each other every two weeks, imagine, every two weeks you have people visit you in your little parlour, it makes you want to swear a blue streak.
A man could damn well take it, if Peartree kept his trap shut. There are even some stars in the sky. Stars flicker and shine. Peartree shuts up. It’s not so bad at all if Peartree talks. Let him talk. I ask him: Peartree, that wood you cut here? I didn’t, Peartree says. I say, that wood, in short, and I wave with my hands, could it be used for lumber? He doesn’t know, he says. I want to cut some, I say. Chop down the whole goddam forest, Peartree yells, beat the hell out of that entire forest! Can it be used for carpentry? I ask. I don’t know, Peartree says.
A day later.
But it is still beautiful this morning, that empty piece of land before me, bordered by straight tall trees. Behind me I hear Peartree stumbling around in the house. He comes outside, grumbles when I say good morning, and flops down in a chair. At first he doesn’t say anything; we are both quiet, because I don’t feel so great myself. It is amazing to see the sun come up and not as at my place, where green light keeps on becoming a brighter green.
Have you been on tour already? Peartree asks. I fill him in on the adventures of my two-day journey to the north-west. That’s all? he snarls. There are two other settlements, I say, half helpfully, half guiltily. Peartree sniffs contemptuously. And the other way? he asks. There’s another one of those half-deserted places. Didn’t you go to take a look? The village chief doesn’t seem to feel like it very much, I say as carelessly as possible, but it sounds rather weak. And I feel weak, also confused. My secret plan to make the Northwood a fairy-tale sanctuary for myself is being roughly exposed. Are you such a jerk that you let some village chief boss you around? Peartree asks. I say: No. I still wouldn’t mind going there. I’d do that damn soon, Peartree says. You’re gonna get into trouble.
The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 17