by J. Bernlef
You should never try to put on your tie in front of the mirror. All that movement in reverse makes you dizzy. It confuses your fingers. Shut your eyes and do it by touch, let your fingers carry out the correct movements from memory. Suddenly I feel strange fingers at my neck. They fiddle with the stand-up collar of my shirt. (I am perfectly capable of doing it by myself.)
'I can do it, Mama.'
'Don't call me Mama.'
'What makes you say that, Vera?'
I turn, the sound of Vera's voice still in my ears. The little hollow in her neck is deep and sunken, almost black. How chic she looks today.
'Where are we going? We don't have to go to a birthday, do we? I hope we haven't forgotten Pop's birthday, like we did last year? That voice on the phone. I could have sunk through the floor in shame.'
'Come along, now.'
'Where are we going, Vera? Are we going out? You're all dressed up. Is it someone's birthday? If I've forgotten, you must tell me.'
Ah, a room. Outside there is snow everywhere. I don't like the winter, I clench my fist against it. As I did when I was a little boy, against the lightning. I used to crawl under the living-room table and clench my right fist against the 'heavenly force', as Pop, standing by the window, called it. I looked fearfully through the orange fringe of the tablecloth at the flashes of lightning and his dark figure, at each flash sharply outlined against the black blur of the window. I was scared, scared and yet longing to be struck.
'Come and sit down.'
'Won't you give me a kiss? I must be off in a minute.'
'You don't have to go anywhere. You're free.'
'Did they phone from IMCO? Did Leon Bähr call?'
'He called to say you could stay at home, yes.'
'No more meetings this week, I suppose. I'll get some wood from the shed.'
'William Cheever has already stacked some in the laundry room. Enough for the whole week.'
'Nice lad, that. Was Kiss here too? I didn't see him.'
'No, he'd left Kiss at home. Stay where you are now, I'll get the coffee.'
Of course, that is the smell I've been smelling all this time. It belongs to coffee. (Get up! Walk to the window!)
Two degrees above zero. We're moving in the right direction. There are already black thaw-holes in the snow. A little while longer and you'll hear the dripping of melting snow all day as if taps were running all over the house. But there's no way of telling. One year isn't like another. If you look at Pop's graphs you can see that at a glance. No question of any rule or regularity. Or perhaps there is, but we can't see it. A human being is too small for this life. What a delicious smell there is here. It is as if I have unexpectedly fallen into the day because of this smell. Or rather, as if the smell is inviting me to do so, with its sharp, scintillating message.
'Here comes the coffee-lady. We'll take a seat and enjoy the most delightful moment of the day. A lot of sugar, please.'
'Maarten, one spoonful is enough.'
'More, more. Come on, we only live once.' (To tell the truth, it's more because of the stirring, an action which I could, how shall I put it... a whirlpool appears in the coffee when you stir fast, you stare and stare into the swirling black hollow inside the cup, which at the same time moves and is still.)
'Maarten, look what you're doing!'
'I bestir myself to stir.'
How amusing, to burst into humour. (This must be where 'bursting out laughing' comes from.) Well, what does it matter if you make a bit of a mess in your old age? No harm done. Now the sugar is at the bottom again. Slowly lift the sugar on the spoon. As careful as can be. Once they were beautiful, separate, white glistening grains and now look: what muck. Like the brown slushy snow in Field Road. Everything gets filthy. You must try to remain spotlessly clean yourself.
'Don't mess about with your coffee like that, or I'll take it away.'
Nod. Yesyesyes. 'Absolutely right. Approved and signed.'
'Dear Maarten, will you listen.'
'Dear Maarten, will you listen.' Simic's method. Pronounce: Simmitch. Always works. Look how she is briefly knocked off balance. No, those Yugoslavs aren't so dumb by any means. Poor fellow. I have to swallow a couple of times to hold back my tears, grab the edge of the table and blink my eyes. How frayed this tablecloth is. In a moment Ellen and Jack Robbins will be here and we'll have this old rag on the table. I take hold of the frays and then it suddenly comes back to me just in time. Sometimes I can't get at a particular word, it lies hidden behind another word with a similar meaning. And a wrong word leads you to wrong thoughts and makes you do wrong things; words act like railroad points. These aren't called 'frays' but a 'fringe'. Deliberately sewn on. (Belongs to the tablecloth, is part of it, stupid fool!)
Let's see if this coffee is still drinkable. It's rather nice like this, so sweet. There used to be cookies that were as sweet as this, they were long and coated with sugar. Sponge fingers!
Come, I ought to talk to that woman over there. She sits there so sadly behind her cup of coffee, as if she were all on her own in a snack bar. You see them sometimes in Boston. All alone among those newly wiped, damply shiny Formica tables and chairs under a bare fluorescent tube behind a tepid cup of weak coffee. What a way to start the day!
'Do you remember what sponge fingers looked like?'
She reacts strangely. At least I think so. Maybe she doesn't want to be spoken to. She gets up and turns on a radio somewhere. As long as it isn't that German braying, I don't mind. Fortunately, we are so remote here that we haven't needed to hide our radio. The neighbours can be trusted here.
Music. Don't know it. A clever pianist, you can tell. I would need to practise for years to get that far. When you see all those black and white keys lying side by side and you listen and you know the music is hidden somewhere down there between the keys. And because you haven't practised hard enough all those possibilities will be denied you. And that isn't all yet, by any means. All the music that is still to be made can be guessed there. You look at those black and white keys as if at any moment they might begin to move.
'Have you seen my practice book anywhere?'
She must have left the room. Surely it must be lying somewhere on the piano? If I don't practise this week I'll be in trouble with Greta and I don't want that. I think she is the most beautiful girl I know. If I dared I would very carefully lay my head in her lap, close my eyes and lie very still, feeling how she breathes, how she lives, bare, underneath that lemon-coloured dress of hers.
'Here's your book. You asked for it, didn't you?'
'I think I have read this book before. Or have I only seen the movie based on it? Be that as it may ... It doesn't matter. I don't remember the movie either, actually, if I ever did see it.'
I pick up the book. Start reading. An echo rises from the sentences. As if I had seen this page before, as an image, in a flash. What do they call that feeling again, I read an article about it once. Déjà vu. A short-circuit between brain neurons. The image is registered a fraction of a second before the awareness of the image occurs, and so it seems you recognize something that you know for sure you can't ever have seen before.
'We're going to have company.'
A sentence fired at me from nowhere. A sudden turn in the conversation that must be made undone immediately.
'Our Man in Havana,' I say. 'I think I have read this book before. Or am I confusing the book with the movie?'
'Maarten, we're going to have company. A lady will come to look after you. When I have to go out for a while . . . Go shopping and so on.'
'Since when do I have to be looked after? I'm not a child, am I?'
'You're becoming so forgetful, Maarten. You keep forgetting what you are doing. It can be dangerous for you to be all alone in the house.'
I cast a quick glance at her. She means what she says, I see fear in her slightly screwed-up eyes. Dangerous in the house, it echoes in my head. It confirms my idea that there is indeed something wrong about this house s
ometimes. As if shifts occur in the interior arrangements, as in an office with movable partitions.
'She'll look after your medicine, make sure you rest at the right times.'
'I'm not having myself sent to bed. I'm as fit as a fiddle. I can still do everything. I'm going to get you some firewood from the shed.'
'It's already in the laundry room. William brought it in. There's enough for a whole week.'
'Nice lad. Except you have to pour a pint of beer into him from time to time. Taciturn, like most of the fishermen around here. At sea they don't teach you to talk, one of them said to me the other day in the tavern. You're too busy, he said. And if you have a bit of spare time once in a while there's always the sea around you that you mustn't ever take your eyes off. Shall I let Robert out?'
'Later,' she says, 'when we have company.'
'You're being very mysterious. Who could it be except Ellen and Jack Robbins? Or William Cheever? Or are the children coming? About time too.'
'They lead their own lives. But Kitty phoned the other day and said she'd soon be coming over for a while.'
'You'd better hide the radio in that case. It may seem crazy, but you can't even trust your own children these days. Before you know it they let their tongues run away with them at school and you're in for it.'
'The war has been over for a long time, Maarten. We're living in a free country, in America.'
'You don't need to tell me where I live. I live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The other day I was in the tavern and a fellow says to me, at sea they don't teach you to talk. What are you nodding your head for? You weren't there, were you?'
'Nevermind.'
'Ah, here's Robert. Shall we go for a walk, Robert?'
'In a while, Maarten, in a while. You'd better stay in now. We're going to have company in a minute.'
'Company at this hour of the day? Or is it evening already?'
'Wait quietly, now.'
'Who's coming, then?'
She does not reply.
As long as it isn't Karen. I wouldn't know what to say to her. She'd be sixty-five now, a ridiculous thought. Maybe she's dead. Imagine me sitting here thinking of someone who doesn't exist any longer. There's no way of knowing. I remember it so clearly, how I stood before her, naked and trembling like an aspen-leaf.
'Maarten.'
'Bye, Aspen-leaf. I really must be off now. Otherwise I'll be much too late for my meeting.'
'You don't have to go.'
'Did they phone, then? Did Bähr phone?'
'Yes ... he phoned.'
'Why didn't you say so before?'
'You only mentioned it yourself just now. You don't have to go to work, Maarten. Lie down on the settee for a while.'
'Yesyesyesyesyesyes.' The weapon of politeness, secret and lethal. I lie down but in my mind I am standing up. By God, I will go on fighting against those waves, against those breakers inside my head. I slowly sway this way and that on the cushion someone slides under my head, and I start singing, it happens all by itself, softly and under my breath so Mama and Pop won't hear me in the living room, I sing songs from which the words slowly slip away, I feel them slipping away from my head which turns heavily this way and that.
I hear women's voices coming from the kitchen. They are talking in English. Vera's voice and a voice I don't know, a soft, young, woman's voice. First I can distinguish only what the unfamiliar voice says, beautifully modulating the words. Patience and the correct medicines, as far as possible the same environment. Then I hear Vera.
'More than forty years I have been married to him. And then suddenly this. Usually these things happen more slowly, gradually. But with him it came all at once. I feel it has been sprung on me. It's cruel and unfair. Sometimes I get so angry and rebellious when I see him looking at me as if from another world. And then again I feel only sad and I would so much like to understand him. Or I just talk along with him and then I feel ashamed afterwards. I'm glad you're here because it really gets on top of me at times, when I just can't bear watching it any more. At least now I'll be able to get out occasionally.'
There is a moment of silence. I feel the tears running under my eyelids and down my cheeks.
'And sometimes, sometimes his face radiates perfect peace. As if he's happy. Like a child can be. Those moments are so brief I sometimes think I imagine them. But I know only too well what I see at such moments: someone who looks exactly like my husband of long ago. At your age it's difficult to understand that. But people like us live by their memories. If they no longer have those there's nothing left. I am afraid he is in the process of forgetting his whole life. And to live alone with those memories while he sits there beside me . . . empty.'
I press the palms of my hands against my ears, I don't want to hear it but I know that what is being said is true. I am being split open from inside. It is a process I cannot stop because I myself am that process. You think 'I', 'my body', 'my mind', but these are only words. They used to protect me. Before I was like this. But now there is a greater force holding sway in me, which is not to be gainsaid. I don't want to think about it any more. I had better go and do some work. Work provides distraction. I must go through some reports for tomorrow. The texts of reports reassure me, because of the inexorable peace and calm with which an unreachable undersea reality is described in figures. As if that world were immobile, as if it could be measured.
The sun shines on the grain of the wooden leaf of the desk. No idea where I put those reports. Maybe they are still in my briefcase. I bend down, but my briefcase is not where it should be under the desk. Perhaps Vera put it somewhere else when she was cleaning the room.
I stand up and go to the kitchen. In the doorway I pause. My legs tremble. A white woollen polo-neck sweater over which falls long blonde hair. I wave to Vera. I put my forefinger on my lips. Then she turns and fortunately I just manage to say, 'Good morning, miss.' How could it possibly have been Karen, fool that I am, where do such thoughts come from?
She gets up. She is surprisingly tall, with broad, practical hands. No rings. A bit heavy around the hips, where her jeans stretch in tight creases.
'Phil Taylor.'
She speaks hurriedly, as if I were making her feel nervous. She wants to come and stay with us for a while, I gather. I nod amiably.
'Kitty and Fred aren't here,' I say. 'So you'll have the whole upper floor to yourself.'
'Kitty and Fred?'
'My children.'
Vera points at a carton of purchases standing on the draining-board. 'Phil has already done the shopping. We're having roast beef tonight. Your favourite meat.'
So she is called Phil. Lovely long blond hair. A high, slightly rounded forehead. Now I suddenly remember why I came into the kitchen. 'Have you seen my briefcase anywhere?'
'Not under the desk?'
'It's not there.'
'I'll look for it for you.'
'Look for what?'
'Your briefcase.'
I turn abruptly and walk straight to the front room and sit by the table with my head in my hands. Something inside me thinks and then stops half-way. Starts on a totally different track and then halts again. Like a car engine that keeps stalling.
I get up and start walking. Using the choke, you might call it. Trying to get things going again. Robert raises himself slowly and lazily and shambles along beside me, rubbing against my legs. No wonder a dog wants to go out in this fine weather. I come to a halt with my knees pressing against the ribs of the radiator.
Spring hides in those bare branches. Birds will soon be returning from far away across the sea. Behind Vera's blue Datsun stands a bright green resprayed Chevrolet with a dented left pane . . . panel . . . sheet. . . metal . . . dent. . . metal. . . fender.
'Goddammit!' I bang against the window with both fists.
'Mr Klein!'
I turn, raise my eyebrows. Who is that? How did that girl get in here?
'Kitty isn't in. Or have you come for Fred? Are you a friend of m
y son?'
'Would you like us to take the dog for a walk together?'
'What about Vera?' (How panicky my voice sounds all of a sudden.)
'Her back is troubling her a bit.'
Why am I always so timid? 'I don't even know your name,' I say. 'And isn't it rather unusual, anyway, an old horse like me walking out with a pretty young filly like you? Are you a classmate of Kitty's?'
'My name is Phil Taylor,' she says. 'I've come to stay with you and your wife for a while.'
'Oh, have you? I didn't know. But it's all right with me. I rather like having company actually.'
'Shall we go, then?'
She goes to the hall and puts on a blue quilted anorak. Then she helps me into my coat. She knows her manners. I watch her face from aside. A slightly plump nose, that's a pity. And her eyebrows are a little on the heavy side as well. Resolute chin. Usually people with resolute chins have a beautiful neck, but I cannot see that because of the high collar of her anorak.
The girl goes to the front door. She unlocks it. 'Where are we going?' I ask.
'To take Robert for a little walk. You say where.'
Robert is standing beside me on the swept porch, wagging his tail. Behind us a young girl closes the door. I gingerly walk down the steps, stamp about with my black shoes on the snow-covered gravel path. I see the sharp footprints of a squirrel. At every hop, his tail has put an exclamation mark behind them. The girl puts her arm through mine. She does it naturally, as if she were my daughter.
'It's slippery here and there,' she says. 'Where are we going?'
'To the stone man.'
'The stone man?'
'Follow me.'
She has put up the hood of her anorak. Her blonde hair is hidden under the hood. You can smell the sea quite well from here. Seagulls stay at a sensible height when they see Robert running ahead of us. I wonder where we are going.