Out of Mind

by J. Bernlef

  'Hi, William,' I say. William is crouched in front of a broken window and carefully pulls a large pointed piece of glass out of the frame. 'Nice of you to call on us. Haven't you brought Kiss with you?'

  William does not reply. As usual. In a while we'll pour a few pints into him and then his tongue will loosen. You'll see.

  'It is nice of William to help us with that broken window, isn't it, Maarten?'

  'Very decent of you, William,' I say, and rub my hands together.

  Vera goes to the kitchen and returns with a brush and dustpan. Carefully, William sweeps the bits of glass into the pan. Some of the pieces are too big, they won't fit into it. I want to help him but he says it's too dangerous. The larger pieces he carries carefully out of the house between finger and thumb and puts them on the snowy flower bed, at the spot where in summer there grows a tall, untidy tuft of wild marguerites. Vera goes out into the hall. (What a lot of activity for this hour of the day. Pleasant to watch.)

  'Maarten, where is the hammer?' she calls out from the hall.

  'Where it always is. In the toolbox.'

  'It isn't there.'

  'Women and tools.' Shaking my head I go to the laundry room. On the shelf, to the far left. Hey, that's funny. Who could have removed the hammer from here? Just to make sure, I look inside the washing machine, but it isn't there. (Of course it isn't there!)

  'I don't understand it at all,' I say.

  'What a nuisance,' says Vera. 'Now William can't nail that old door in front of it, the one that's still standing in the shed.'

  But William says he'll find another solution for it. He goes to the shed in the yard and comes back with an old, colourless door and a monkey wrench. Nails he has brought himself, in a gold-coloured box with a convex lid that he takes from the pocket of his anorak. A pretty little box. But William has no eye for pretty things. At any rate, he does not reply when I make a complimentary remark about the little box.

  It is always disagreeable when someone doesn't answer you or pretends he hasn't heard you. That happens sometimes at meetings, too. The words remain hanging in the air, as it were, and the person concerned tries his utmost to conceal his embarrassment and irritation by giving a sharp twist to his speech, addressing someone who just happens to be looking in his direction.

  'At least, if you compare it with today's packaging,' I therefore continue to Vera. 'All plastic and Cellophane. They would do better to use the money they spend on advertising to make attractive packaging.'

  Now William does answer. He is crouching with his back towards me, but he has obviously been listening.

  'Packaging is packaging,' he says. 'You throw it out anyway.'

  'Except a little box like that,' I say. 'You yourself are using it for a different purpose now.'

  'It's Pop who does that,' says William, and carries on hammering with his monkey wrench.

  I fumble in my pocket and go to the desk, quick, lock the little door before he comes home and finds out that I have been rummaging around in his belongings. He'd be furious. Not even Mama ever touches those drawers. There, no one has noticed.

  'I get you,' I say. 'Just call me Maarten. Why haven't you brought Kiss? Such a nice dog.'

  William raises his eyebrows, above his pale blue, somewhat helpless eyes. He looks towards Vera as if she might be able to answer my question. And she does answer it.

  'You know what Kiss and Robert are like together.'

  'They tear each other to bits!' calls out William.

  Why does he shout so and why does he suddenly pull that relieved, almost farcical face? Sometimes people's facial expressions and the words they speak don't seem to tally quite, like in the cartoons in the Sunday paper, where the colours sometimes go outside the lines of the drawing.

  William wipes his right hand on his jeans before shaking hands with me and Vera, and lets a shiny little brass box, which I wouldn't mind having myself, slide into his pocket. Nice of him to call in. He's a pleasant, friendly lad. A bit on the quiet side, but after a pint of beer he loosens up sometimes. Vera follows him into the hall. She says I should take my coat off. What am I doing with my coat on indoors?

  Grandpa used to have a whole lot of gold-coloured tin cigar boxes in his shed at the bottom of the yard. He used to keep nails and screws in them. They had medals printed on them with the effigies of kings. Under each medal, in a curve of small black letters, was the name of a foreign city and a date. There was a smell of oil in the shed. Penetrating oil, that is an expression he often used. Penetrating oil rustles through my head, penetrating oil, again and again, penetrating oil, at the front of my mouth so that I have to swallow so as not to say it to Vera, penetrating oil, who enters with a tray of rattling tea-cups and I ask: Where are the children, it's gone four, pointing at the clock and staring at the hairline on her forehead and the tiny specks of pigment just below and feeling her hand holding mine as if she were trying to shake me awake, and still all the time those words, like a neon advertisement flickering up among the other words and although I no longer know which words, they are words, I can still hear the sound, see the outline, I can even still count the letters, two words which I cannot say, my mouth wide open, while she looks at me with that patient, loving, anxious look, as if I somehow no longer come up to the mark, an old horse they leave in the stable, and asks me if I want to do the crossword.

  Shake my head resolutely!

  'No more strange words! I want to think, in short clear sentences.'

  'What of?'

  'I want to think, in short, clear sentences.'

  'Of the past?'

  'The past?'

  She takes my hand again. 'Your tea is getting cold.'

  'I'm waiting for the children.'

  'Which children?'

  I take a poor view of this conversation. As soon as I say something she seems to want to talk me into a trap. Look around. The interior. In the background fresh snowflakes flutter. I nod.

  'My peepshow. With cotton wool instead of snow and dwarfs that I had cut out of a book of fairy tales and a tiger from my zoo box. Made of lead, on a base, with yellow and black stripes. A tiger in the snow and over the top a transparent sheet of red Cellophane so that it looked as if the snow was on fire. For two cents, until the boys came, the big boys, and snatched the shoebox from my hands and knocked it flat against the rim of a garbage can.'

  'Don't cry, Maarten. It's a long time ago.'

  I rub my cheeks dry with the back of my hands. Where did those tears come from?

  'Sometimes the thoughts move so fast that I hardly have time to think them, they wash through me and then I have to cry. And then suddenly everything stands still again, rigid as a magic-lantern picture and it is as if nothing will ever be able to move again and you have to start walking in order to get things going. Just walk and walk because otherwise you can no longer feel you belong anywhere, or that time passes.'

  'I wish I could help you. I would so much like to help you. Maarten, why can't our life remain as it was? Why does this have to happen?'

  'My tea is cold.'

  'You forgot to drink it. Shall I make some more?'

  'The children won't come now, anyway. It's much too late.'

  Robert gets up from beside the radiator and stretches himself with straightened front legs. He slowly comes towards me. Without knowing it, dogs have a built-in clock. They know exactly when they have to be let out. I briefly stroke his smooth back the wrong way. 'You're right, Robert, it's time for our daily walk.'

  'You have already taken him out, Maarten.'

  Vera's face looks red and her lips are thin and tight under her sharp nose, suddenly the nose of an old woman, with a small white bloodless tip.

  'Honestly, you've forgotten, but you have already let him out.'

  I look hesitantly at the dog, but it seems Vera is right this time, for Robert nestles down again in his old place by the radiator. So she must be right. Animals can't lie. 'Aren't I forgetful.'

  'I love you the w
ay you are,' she says. 'It doesn't matter.'

  I get up because suddenly, very suddenly, I have to pee. Hot stabs in my abdomen. Where do they suddenly come from? What is it that lurks inside my body and has it in for me?

  I yawn, so loudly, my mouth so wide open, that it clicks in my ears. Try to pee in an orderly fashion now. At home you can clatter as you like, uninhibitedly, if need be with the door open.

  I enter the room, push the bolt and switch on the light. Always try the bed with your clothes on first.

  I lie on my back and look around me. This is a room with a so-called personal touch to the furnishings. I'm not too keen on that. As if just before your arrival somebody had lived in it who hurriedly grabbed his belongings together. And forgot half of them in the process, I notice. Toothbrush, shaving cream. I'll collect it all together and take it down to reception. No, give me a Holiday Inn or a Hilton any day. Close the door behind you and straight away the feeling: nobody knows where I am, nobody knows I exist. A mischievous feeling of freedom, of escape. That in principle, from now on, from this anonymous, impersonal room, you could take a totally different direction. Not that you will do so, but the feeling in itself is enough to make you rub your hands contentedly and look at yourself in the mirror with satisfaction.

  I undress, throw my clothes - as always when staying in a hotel - on the floor, and climb into bed. I leave the light on. I always do. Should there be a fire, every second matters. Make sure you get to the emergency exit before panic breaks out and people trample each other.

  There is a knock on the door. Perhaps an urgent message, a telegram. 'Just a minute!' I get up, pull my pants on and unlock the door.

  'It's you, is it?' I say to Vera. 'There's nothing wrong with the children is there?'

  'Get dressed, quickly,' she says. 'The doctor is here.'

  Fear thumps in my throat. There must be something wrong with Fred again. How many times have I sat in the casualty department of some hospital or other with that boy?

  In my agitation I can't manage my necktie. And there's no time for shoelaces either.

  I blink against all the light around me. A man sits on the two-seater, fairly young-looking. That must be the doctor. I walk towards him and half stumble, so that he rises hastily and just manages to stop me from falling. Shamefacedly I look at the laces that hang loosely over my shoes. 'Please excuse me. I was in a hurry. I hope there's nothing seriously wrong with Fred?'

  The smile on the doctor's face reassures me.

  'There's nothing wrong at all, Mr Klein. I've only come for a chat.'

  'Do you have time for that as a doctor?'

  'I do these days. People in Gloucester aren't sick very often.'

  Gloucester? Gloucester? Yes, I see. Businesslike approach, Maarten. This man wants something from you. They always start amiably, just a touch too cordially. That gives them away at once. It always indicates ulterior motives. In such cases Simic's method must be employed. Simic explained it to me once after work. We were sitting in the cocktail lounge where Karl always went after work before taking the subway home. A smart, somewhat dark establishment divided into dark purple velvet-upholstered booths with those chalice- shaped milky glass table lamps from the twenties. Simic, Karl Simic. A Yugoslav name, I believe. Pronounce: Simmitch. He used to go there and drink a couple of whiskies every day. Yes, he knew how to hit the bottle at times, old Karl.

  'Are you thirsty?' asks Vera. 'You're smacking your lips so.'

  'Whisky on the rocks.'

  There's a man sitting in the room with a square, rustic face, baggy cheeks, large earlobes and a rough, blond crewcut. He's there. He laughs. He knows nothing about Simic's method. On his lap lies a photo album of which he is turning the pages. He examines one particular photograph closely and then hands me the open album.

  A wedding photograph of all things. I'm not in the mood for that at all. But Simic would say: Rule number one: repeat your interlocutor's words with a polite smile while nodding your head amiably in support. Gaining time is everything, especially at the beginning of a conversation.

  'Is that a photograph of your wedding?' asks the man.

  'Is that a photograph of your wedding?'

  Look up at a slant, between the two of them, and keep nodding your head. Then I say six times in quick succession, 'Yes.' This is Simic's second rule: raise politeness to ritual heights. Even when you don't agree with anything, start by confirming everything, but belie by frequent repetition the affirmative nature of your statements.

  'Yesyesyesyesyesyes.'

  I put the album, wham, back on the settee. Must get up, walk around, and begin to gesticulate with my hands in anticipation of the words I feel coming.

  'Let us try to tackle the problem first in general terms. They are people who are destined for each other, aren't they, hand in hand, he in black, she in white. But have you noticed those bystanders, those groups of people on the lawn? All of them potential candidates for this marriage! In other words: man pretends to himself he is leading a life, a meaningful existence. There is little to be said against this notion, although I must say it has no foundation, a mere illusion, shifting sands. If we look at it more globally, universally, we come to the conclusion that we are particles, female and male particles, moving around in society and sometimes accidentally meeting and fusing and then we talk of a marriage while all other possibilities continue to be present in the background. The erotic background chorus, Mr . . .'

  'Doctor, Dr Eardly.'

  'Look, Eardly, the temperature is rising. Two and a bit degrees. Before you know where you are, everything is in bud, the birds are twittering everywhere. The whole gigantic mating machine gets into motion again. Without visiting cards, name plates or address lists.'

  I pause in front of the open photo album. 'Some of them are dead. Others are still alive. You can estimate it but you can't see it.'

  'What was your wedding day like? Do you remember what your wife looked like on that day?'

  'May I ask you what is the meaning of this impertinent question?' I say, and walk out of the room without further ado. The last move in Simic's method. A slow, friendly opening, a moderate middle game and then an endgame that bags the loot quickly and aggressively. You simply leave for a leisurely pee and then re-enter the arena in which your opponent has been left in utter confusion.

  A bit over the side, it runs across the floor. Jesus, that's bad, but I can't hold it now. Robert comes to my aid, he licks it up. A dog is ever a trusted friend. He looks at me briefly with his yellowish eyes, beside the stone jar in which the umbrellas are kept.

  'Come, we're going for a little walk, Robert.'

  Then someone puts an arm around my shoulders from behind and pushes me into the room, in the direction of a piano (perhaps wants me to play something for him? Or do I have to practise?), I sit down and start playing Mozart's adagio, but he is standing beside me with a hypodermic syringe. Behind my back I hear someone crying, a woman.

  'We know that from the war,' I hiss, and knock the syringe out of his hand. The man bends to pick it up and I use the opportunity to sit down quickly at the table, opposite Vera.

  'Don't cry,' I say, 'I'm in complete control of the situation.'

  I see how the man lets his syringe slide into a soft black leather doctor's bag.

  'I am not a hero,' I say, 'but betray someone, never. The Nazis will lose the war, that is beyond question. The greater part of the country has already been liberated. The Queen has arrived in Eindhoven, they say. We must persevere, no matter how hungry we are.'

  The man is holding a soft leather bag in front of his stomach with both hands. Looks just like a doctor's bag. He is listening but I can tell he doesn't understand me. He looks at me almost timidly.

  'It's war. People do the craziest things. In the long run you don't find anything crazy any longer. But only among ourselves, you mustn't talk about it outside, they're still prowling around, walls have ears. You can stay the night here. You're still in enemy territo
ry, after all. It's dangerous outside. Shall I show you the guest room upstairs?

  'Just as you please. There are a few collaborators living near here, so it really is dangerous.'

  The American still does not react.

  'What are you sitting there for, Vera? Get the man something to eat. Maybe he hasn't had any food for days.'

  'Nick,' she says to the man, in a choking, imploring voice. He nods briefly in her direction, opens a black leather bag and takes out a hypodermic syringe. He disappears into the kitchen with it. I hear water running.

  'Have we any food left? Or has it all gone?'

  'Push up your sleeve,' says Vera and unbuttons one of my shirt cuffs.

  'I didn't realize I was in such a bad state,' I said.

  The man enters the room and before I realize it the needle is in my arm.

  'Liquid food,' I mutter. 'I was in bad need of it. I can feel it already. My stomach is filling up. Thank you, thank you both very much.'

  Wash . . . wash . . . wash ... A woman is standing behind me. I can see her in the mirror. A chocolate-coloured blouse printed with leaf-green French lilies, a black skirt. Her face doesn't go with the rest of her appearance, I think, it seems to be detached from it. She is holding a beige bath towel in her outstretched, trembling hands. Wash... wash . . . wash . . . wash.

  'That's enough now, Maarten.'

  Turn around and take the towel from Vera. Rub. Nice, that rough towelling against your bare shoulders. Rub. And then I have lost the towel. She is holding it in her hands.

  'Give it to me!'

  'You must get dressed now, Maarten.'

  'I am not tired. As far as that is concerned you are right in what you say.' (What a cumbersome manner of speaking.)

  Skin that is beginning to feel thick and numb again. Can no longer feel the shirt (as if I am not really wearing it).

  Behind me in the doorway stands a woman. Her brown hair falls in a lock towards the right across her forehead. Remarkably smooth cheeks in an otherwise old face that seems to move away ever further and comes closer again only after I have briefly looked away from the mirror to the wall beside it. She is keeping an eye on me. (Could she have been assigned to me? By whom?) Tie, where is my tie?