by Yoko Tawada
In life, we don’t have a choice, because everything we are capable of is still not very much compared with life itself, not nearly as much as we imagine. And if we don’t get this not-very-much exactly right, we will not survive. This fundamental principle can’t be terribly different even for spoiled young people in a prosperous society.
If my physical abilities, or Ivan’s prodding, or the audience’s interest had subsided even a little, all our artistry and stagecraft would have been for naught.
•
My text, which had so quickly appeared in print thanks to my publisher’s unorthodox approach to his métier, attracted the attention of readers in other countries who knew Russian. A Slavist named Eisberg who lived in Berlin translated the first installment of my autobiography into German and published it in a literary magazine. This translation was euphorically reviewed in a German newspaper of no small importance. The mailbox of the publishing house was soon filled with letters from readers asking when the next installment would come out. At the same time as the first part was published in Berlin, the second part appeared here in Moscow. The original and its translation began to play a fugue, though as far as I could see, it was more like a game of Cat and Mouse than a sublime musical form. As the mouse being pursued, I had to run faster and faster so the cat wouldn’t catch me.
It couldn’t have been Herr Eisberg who published my text illegally. Probably Sea Lion had sold Eisberg the translation rights without informing me. In this way, my text was transformed into West German currency that vanished in the depths of Sea Lion’s pocket. After my superintendent painted a picture of this scenario for me, I visited Sea Lion and demanded an explanation. He said he knew nothing about it. His skin was so thick you could never see if he was lying or not. He turned his back on me, and even allowed himself an insolent bit of commentary: “If you have enough time to manage your translation rights, you ought to be able to write more installments!”
His words forced their way into my stomach and turned it — all I wanted was to retch them out again. A cruel idea occurred to me for taking my revenge; it was heinous, but I couldn’t resist. From a phone both I called the superintendent of the building where North Star Publishing had made its nest and told him Sea Lion was hiding a large amount of foreign currency. Probably the super already knew about it, he might even have been in on the deal. But he had to consider the possibility that this anonymous phone call had come from the secret police, wanting to test his loyalty. For this reason, he couldn’t afford to ignore the call. Otherwise he would be running a large risk of winding up in a penitentiary himself. And so he first informed Sea Lion and then denounced him to the police. All of this, by the way, being speculation on my part. When the police searched Sea Lion’s office, they did not find so much as a smuggled chocolate bar, much less foreign banknotes.
Later I heard a rumor about a lady in Odessa who had purchased a snow-white Toyota from a Greek visitor to the spa. Her neighbors were surprised, wondering where she’d gotten all that Western currency. Shortly before this, Sea Lion had been spotted in Odessa. An eyewitness reported that Sea Lion had snuck into the lady’s villa, carrying a large duffle bag. Already the scenario was taking shape in my head: Sea Lion had gotten his hands on a large amount of Western currency thanks to the sale of my translation rights, and then used them to buy his concubine in Odessa a car.
It was a great misfortune for me that Herr Eisberg was a talented translator. He turned my bearish sentences into artful literature that soon was praised in a celebrated West German newspaper. Admittedly there were no literary critics lauding my autobiography for its lyricism. All the praise was based on different criteria altogether, criteria I didn’t understand.
At the time there was a protest movement in West Germany against the exploitation of circus animals. The movement’s spokespersons argued that taming wild animals for the circus violated their human rights. According to the protesters, animals in the Eastern Bloc countries were even more oppressed than those in the West. Here in the East, a book appeared with the title Tamed with Love, written by one Dr. Aikowa. Her father was a zoologist. Perhaps this was one reason why she succeeded in teaching Siberian tigers and wolves to perform onstage without the use of whips or other threats. Most of the book was made up of interviews in which the author described her loving treatment of animals. Her book provoked a number of Western journalists. “Wild animals would never take an interest in the stage if human beings did not compel them by force. Aikowa is just trying to justify her circus, which is nothing but a pseudo-artistic endeavor by which Socialism intends to keep scooping up Western cash.” This was more or less the opinion expressed by these aggrieved journalists. They discovered my autobiography as something that might be used as proof of the Socialist abuse of animals.
It wasn’t long before the bureau responsible for such matters took note of my book’s reputation in the West. One day Sea Lion informed me by telegram that my autobiography could not be continued. I was annoyed with Sea Lion, but as far as the future of my writing was concerned, I had no qualms. I would simply go on writing, even if Sea Lion didn’t want to print what I had written. Perhaps I would even find a better publisher. Enough of those poisonous, barbed words Sea Lion was always using in his attempts to extract ever more lines of text from my paw-hands. No more taking anyone else into account — it was time for me to withdraw and enjoy some one-on-one time with my pen.
My life became as quiet as a fireplace long after the flames have gone out. It used to be I couldn’t so much as go to the store for a few cans of food without being accosted by a fan. Now no one approached me. Even amid the bustle of the farmers’ market, no one met my eyes. All the eyes flew away from me like mayflies, I couldn’t catch a single one. I was delighted when the postman brought me a letter from my employer, but all it said was that I shouldn’t return to the office until the situation improved. I was being relieved of my task of overseeing the project with the Cuban musicians; someone else had been assigned to it. I also stopped receiving invitations to conferences.
Sea Lion’s journal couldn’t possibly have held some sort of national literary monopoly, but for some reason no other magazine contacted me. The entire literary establishment had decided to give me the cold shoulder. My gall rose at this thought, and I slammed my fist down on the desk. It was a spontaneous reaction, but afterward I noticed I’d been holding a ballpoint pen. Too late.
The pen’s neck was broken, its head lodged in the wooden flesh of my desk, while its body remained behind in my hand.
Formerly, symbolic acts had just seemed silly to me, for instance I couldn’t have cared less about a two-legged author snapping his fountain pen in half to protest censorship. But now I myself had destroyed my pen. I would have expected a writing implement to lend me security in times of crisis, but in the end it proved just as fragile as a newborn’s arm.
•
One day I received a letter from a domestic organization calling itself Alliance for the Promotion of International Communication. It was an odd-sounding request: “Wouldn’t you like to participate in a project to plant orange trees in Siberia? It’s very important for us to have a celebrity like you associated with this undertaking. This will help us draw a great deal of public attention to our work.” Me? A celebrity? The words were like rose petals agreeably tickling the inside of my ear. Without hesitation I agreed to participate.
That same day, a few hours later, I wanted to take out the trash, and when I opened my apartment door, I saw the superintendent standing right in front of me. She asked how I was. It sounded like an excuse, but I had no idea what she might be hiding. “I’m planning to work in Siberia,” I replied proudly and told her about the flattering invitation. The superintendent’s eyebrows twisted with pity. “The point of this project is to grow orange trees in the cold,” I added, wanting to eliminate any possible misunderstanding. My words brought her nearly to tears. She clutched her shopping b
ag firmly to her chest and excused herself, saying she unfortunately had to go now, since she had an urgent errand.
I was naïve and optimistic enough to believe that oranges could grow in Siberia. After all, they harvest kiwis and tomatoes in the Israeli desert. So why not oranges in Siberia? Besides, if anyone was a good fit for Siberia, it was me. Cold weather was my passion.
From then on, the super avoided me. Every time I came out of my apartment, she would quickly leave the stairwell and hide behind her apartment door. Glancing up from the sidewalk in front of our building, I observed her on several occasions watching me from between her curtains. Once, when I needed something from her and knocked on her door, she pretended not to be home.
Mold started to grow in my ears because no one ever spoke to me. The tongue is not only for speaking; you can also use it to eat with. Ears, on the other hand, exist only for the purpose of hearing voices and sounds. All my ears ever heard was the screech of the streetcar, so they began to rust like the wheels of a neglected tram. I missed human voices. Then it occurred to me to buy a radio, so I went to an electronics shop. But the salesman told me that all the radios in the country were sold out. I was almost happy to hear this, out of defiance. Even if I’d been able to purchase a radio, it would probably have been of such poor quality that I would scarcely have been able to distinguish its sounds from those of the screeching streetcar. On the way home, I stopped at a stationery shop to pick up some letter paper. I told the owner about the oranges-in-Siberia project, and was treated to this reaction: “I’m so sorry to hear that. But surely there’s a way to get out of it.” Perhaps I really should have been concerned. When I was about to go back upstairs to my apartment, the super slid out of her apartment and without a word handed me a slip of paper bearing the name and address of a man I didn’t know. At once I understood that this man was my salvation, but swift action is not my forte. Another week passed without my doing anything at all.
A new week began. A postman arrived panting, his cheeks bright red, to deliver a registered letter. It was an invitation to an international conference that was to take place in West Berlin. The letter was written in a cold, acerbic style, which made me all the more astonished to learn that the organizers were offering an honorarium of ten thousand dollars for my participation. I must have misunderstood, I thought, and read the letter a second time, but the exact same thing was written there in black and white: “ten thousand dollars” and “West Berlin.” Why were they paying so much? It was also strange that the money was to be sent not to me personally but to the Writers’ Union in my country. Later it slowly began to make sense to me. Without the offer of money, I couldn’t receive a permit to travel abroad. It took me less than two weeks to assemble all my documents, including an airplane ticket from Moscow to Berlin-Schönefeld.
•
I hardly had any luggage with me, as it was to be such a short trip. The airplane smelled of melting plastic, and sitting in it didn’t make me feel any calmer, as the seat was built along narrow lines. The plane landed at Berlin-Schönefeld, and I was met by policemen who appeared to have been waiting for me the entire time. They got into a van with me and took me to a train station, where they deposited me in a dainty little train headed for West Berlin. When the border guard came through, I showed him all the paperwork I’d been given. The train was strangely empty, and landscapes empty of human beings flew by outside. They were deformed by the thick glass of the window. A fly bumped against my forehead, or wait, not a fly, a sentence: “I am going into exile.” Suddenly I grasped my situation. Someone had devised this escape for me, to save me from a danger I hadn’t known existed. Red plastic spectacles appeared before my eyes, it was a woman, still young, perhaps twenty or so. She asked me something, and I answered in Russian: “I don’t understand.” Then the spectacles asked in shaky Russian if I was Russian. Of course not, but how was I supposed to explain to her what I am. While I was hunting for the words, she said: “Oh, I see, you’re a member of an ethnic minority, is that it? I wrote a term paper about the human rights of ethnic minorities, and it’s the first time I got a good grade. It was a really wonderful experience. Long live minorities!” The plastic spectacles sat down next to me while I was still wrestling with the confusion in my head. Was my clan part of an ethnic minority? It’s certainly possible that we are fewer in number than the Russians, at least in the cities, but high up in the North, many more of our sort exist in Nature than Russians. “Minorities are fabulous!” the spectacles exclaimed, apparently having skidded into some sort of manic state. She wouldn’t leave me alone, kept bombarding me with questions, such as where I was going and whether I had any friends in West Berlin. I chose not to answer these questions so typical of a spy.
The plane trees that just a moment before had been jogging through the landscape with impressive speed now tottered like rickety old invalids with canes. The train crept into a gigantic cathedral, gave a screech, and stopped.
The station was a huge circus tent. A few doves were sitting on high perches, cooing. I knew these doves had emerged from a magician’s bowler. An iron donkey loaded up with suitcases passed close beside me. A blinking magic slate kept announcing new circus numbers. Now a colorfully dressed woman appeared, her thighs exposed. The microphone announced the names of the stars to the audience. Someone whistled behind my back, and a proud dog dressed like a human being made his entrance. On the counter lay a pile of sugar cubes — the classic reward for stage artists.
My nose, which had been straying through the air, disoriented, suddenly had a bouquet of flowers pressed to it, there was a smell of nectar, and a word of greeting reached me through the flowers: “Welcome!” A number of hands were thrust in my direction: a swollen hand, a bony hand, a thin hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand. I shook hands like a politician, giving each of these unfamiliar hands a self-important squeeze.
I had never before seen such a lavish bouquet. What was it for? It wasn’t as if I’d just displayed any particular artistry. Was exile like a sort of tightrope walking, a feat worthy of reward? Admittedly it was a challenge to pull off such a stunt without rehearsal or support, but I wasn’t finding it so terribly difficult. The woman with dyed red hair who’d handed me the bouquet probably wanted to say something to me, her mouth was moving as if in speech. But no words came out. In her place, a young man with appetizing baby fat said: “I apologize, but I’m the only one who speaks Russian. My name is Wolfgang. A pleasure to meet you.” Beside him stood a sweaty man grasping a banner in his right hand and a plump valise in the left. The banner read: Citizens Initiative KAOS — Keeping Authors Out of Siberia. All of them were wearing neatly ironed jeans and well-polished leather shoes, no doubt a sort of uniform for this initiative.
I had no clue what they were discussing among themselves. One of them took his leave, then another departed as well, there were ever fewer of them, and in the end only Wolfgang and I remained. “Time to go.”
To the left and right, buildings towered up in various heights, much smaller than the ones in Moscow. Some of the buildings reminded me of tastefully decorated cakes. The cars gleamed in the sunlight, I could even see my shape mirrored in their metal surfaces. Male and female legs in this city were clad in blue jeans. The wind offered me charred mammal flesh, coal, and sweet perfume.
Wolfgang stopped in front of a building and walked up the stairs. This freshly painted building, I thought at once, must contain my apartment. When I opened the refrigerator, a heavenly landscape of pink salmon appeared, cut into paper-thin slices and sealed in transparent plastic. I tried a slice right away, and it wasn’t bad, though it had a smoky aftertaste. Perhaps the fisherman smoked too many cigarettes while he was working. It took a while before this smoky flavor started to taste good to me. Wolfgang looked around and said: “Beautiful apartment, no?”
The apartment didn’t interest me particularly. All I wanted to do was crawl into the refrigerator and stay there. Wolfgang not
iced that I couldn’t take my eyes off the salmon, and laughed. “As you see, we did some serious shopping for you. That’ll have to last you for the time being.” As soon as he left, I quickly devoured the entire supply of salmon.
I stood at the open door of the empty refrigerator, enjoying the cold air. I pulled out a drawer in the bottom section. It was filled with attractive little ice cubes. I put them in my mouth and gnawed on them.
The kitchen soon began to bore me; I went into the next room, which had a television and a chair. I placed my rump carefully on the chair, gradually shifting my weight onto it, and right away there was a cracking sound. The chair lost a leg. Beyond this room was the bathroom, just as small as in the changing room of the traveling circus. I took an ice-cold shower and strolled out of the bathroom without drying myself off. At once, a large puddle appeared in the hall. I shook the water from my body, lay down in the bed, and suddenly had to laugh as a fairy tale popped into my head: Three bears cook some buckwheat porridge and go out for a walk. While they’re gone, a little girl who’s lost her way comes into the house, eats all the porridge, breaks a chair, lies down in bed, and falls asleep. The three bears come home, find the empty pot, the broken chair, and a sound-asleep girl. The girl wakes up, jumps out of bed in fright, and runs away. The three bears stand there, indignant and speechless. I was now in this girl’s position. What was I to do when the three bears returned from their walk?