Three Novels: Hordubal, Meteor, an Ordinary Life

by Karel Čapek

  To Kettelring it was all the same; he left the half-completed rafters standing, and had a look round Gonaiva for a time, from Gonaiva to San Domingo, he didn’t care, then perhaps to Porto Rico, and after that, quicker still from one island to another, to so many places that they didn’t seem real.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  “I’M only giving you an outline of the story of Case X, indeed, it isn’t even an outline; I couldn’t give a connected account of what happened to him from one year to the next. Besides, his life didn’t consist of events; events necessitate will, or something, at least, that isn’t indifference; but having lost his memory, Case X undoubtedly lost most of the motives that influence people. You can’t conceive what an alert force our memory is; we look at the world through eyes of previous experience, we greet things like old acquaintances, and our attention is held by what captivated it once; the greater part of our relations with everything around us is tied by the fine and invisible hands of reminiscence. A man without memory would be a man without relations; he would be surrounded by strangeness, and the sound which would reach him would not contain any answers.

  And yet we think of Mr. Kettelring wandering from place to place as if he were seeking something. Don’t be deceived by that; he was not interested enough to be after anything, and if he had been left to himself perhaps he would have stayed sitting permanently by that cracking wall at Deux Maries, gazing at the lizards, darting or motionless. He merely accepted the commercial interests of the Cuban Don as his own; and he was led on by them. Everywhere there was some step, or stump, where he could sit down; he followed the path of a drop of sweat running down his back; he listened to the dry rustling of the palms, or of the lebbek pods, and he was mildly amused to see how lazy people moved. It was like a kaleidoscope, and he turned it round to make them move quicker. Well then, you niggers, get a move on so that something is being done, that something is moving before my eyes; load the ships with coconuts, carry baskets on your heads, roll barrels with pimento rum; a bit faster so that I don’t put pepper on your tails. On the water in the harbour oil and dirt made rainbow colours, rainbow rings; what beautiful putrefaction, what phosphorescent corruption! And get a move on you black pigs, march into that sugar-cane and make it wave, make it ripple, that rustling field, and make it flash with naked loins among the tawny litter.

  And with all this a strange thing: without caring about it, doing it all just to fill out his laziness and inertia with something, he was very likely accompanied by what in business is called success; people were afraid of his indifferent eyes, his commands were definite, and not to be argued away, his reports to Camagueyno were a model of commercial reliability. He gave orders as if used to it from birth, and urged people in a way that made them submit with a dark and powerless rage. If they could have seen that he was enjoying his command, and that he was glorying in his power and superiority, it would have been, God knows, more tolerable, but fear and hatred merely setded on his broad and indifferent shoulders, always as if ready to shrug. Tear your guts out, or get out, it’s not my affair. But quite deep down, deep down below everything, a tiny and pained astonishment was stirring, a kind of eternal numbness. Perhaps I also carried loads, or rowed in a boat, scratched my back, and ate a dirty pancake in the sand; maybe I was also a sweaty storekeeper, running with papers in my hand, or I had white breeches, and a panama hat, like I have now, and I looked after men and saw that they sweated for the sake of some other Cuban. All that was equally far away and equally unreal; it was possible to look at it as if through the wrong end of a telescope—so far it was, and so ridiculous to look at; how they all struggled, the coolies, typists, storekeepers, and gentlemen in white shoes playing tennis behind the net.

  Or various gentlemen came: Camagueyno’s agents, and representatives, planters laden down with mortgages, directors of sugar factories, small and robust farmers; Hello, Mr. Kettelring, my wife would feel honoured to invite you, and, Mr. Kettelring, what about a cocktail. Soon their tongues faltered before the indifferent eyes of Mr. Kettelring; short crops, they said, bad markets, those thieves the mulattos, and such like. Mr. Kettelring didn’t even wait to let them finish, he was bored. You will do so-and-so, sir, bring me a report, I will go and look for myself. They shuffled before him from one foot to the other, perspired humbly, and convulsively, intensely hating this their lord, who, without long harangues in the Cuban’s name, put the knife to their necks. And all the time Mr. Kettelring was exploring in himself such a strange and uneasy possibility. Perhaps this was my previous, my real, self. Perhaps I was a slave-driver with a whip, a planter, or something, a man in charge of property, and therefore also of people; how could I manage them like this if it weren’t in me ? Perhaps it will come out stronger if I try it on others; perhaps it will hurt inside me sometimes when I strike a man, and I shall realize suddenly that I was like that.

  If we pay no attention to external events, he led a double life, of boredom and intoxication, and there was nothing more, nothing else; only boredom passed over to intoxication, and intoxication to boredom. Boredom which is the most dreadful and the ugliest prose; boredom which almost with satisfaction pastures on everything that is repulsive, monotonous, stale, and hopeless, which lets slip no stench, and decay, which follows the way of the bed-bug, the juice of corruption, sneaking cracks in the ceiling, and the vanity or foulness of life. And intoxication. Whether it be intoxication by rum, boredom, lust, or heat, if only it all mixes up, let the senses run into one another, let us be governed by an enraged enthusiasm; let us take it in all at once, all at once into our mouths and into our hands, so that we can gorge on it greedily, and squeeze out the juice till it runs over our chins—breasts and fruit, cooling foliage, and red-hot fire; when nothing has limits we have none, and everything that moves moves in us—in us the swaying of the palm-trees and of the hips, in us the dazzling sun, and the eternal weeping of water; out of the way, make room for the man who is so great and drunk that everything is in him. The stars, and the rustling of the tree-tops, and the open gates of the night. What landscapes are they pictured by intoxication, or boredom; dead landscapes stuck with dryness, with rotting fermentation, flies, stench, sticky dirt and decomposition, or again reeling landscapes, heaped with suns, rut, smells, and fiery tastes, sultry flowers, water, and dizziness. Listen, with boredom, and intoxication, a decent hell with all it contains can be circumscribed, so vast that even paradise is inside—paradise with all its wonder and brilliance, with all the delights, but that is the deepest hell, for it is just from there that disgust and boredom arise.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  “LET US take at random: Haiti, Porto Rico, Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Barbados, Tobago, Curacao, Trinidad, Dutch agents, British colonial cream of society, naval officers from the States, sceptical and untidy French bureaucrats; and everywhere Creoles chattering in patois, negroes, Jilles de coukur, many brutal people, more unhappy ones, and most of those who in some way or other tried to preserve their respectability against drink, prurience, and sexual mesalliances. Case X, as far as possible, preferred to stick to the trodden paths; in spite of which there were perhaps weeks and months when he lived under a straw roof, in a hut supported on beams like a dovecot, to keep away from crabs and centipedes, on the edge of a forest which creaked in the wind, or smoked after a sultry downpour: here, enthroned on the wooden steps, he had the sand lice picked out from the soles of his feet and he took steps to see that another hundred acres of virgin nature were ready to bear the pith and fruit of the plant called Prosperity. Then blessings would settle on the country in the shape of negroes, who would have to work harder than before, but still remain as miserable as ever in return, in some other part of the world, the pith and fruit of the fields would cease to pay the peasants. That is the way of things, and to Mr. Kettelring it was all the same; if sugar-cane, then sugar-cane; let the axes ring, then gnats buzz, and the negroes bray, and at the end all this will be nicely sifted, and straightened out to the clicking of the typewr
iters. No, these aren’t typewriters, they’re frogs, cicadas, it’s a bird hammering with his beak on a tree. No, it is not a bird, or rustling of stalks, it’s the sound of a typewriter, and Mr. Kettelring sat on the floor and hammered with his finger at a rusty typewriter. Only a buisness letter, Cubans, nothing else, but that miserable machine was so eaten with damp and rust—somehow Kettelring felt relieved. What is one to do, I can’t type this letter, all right, I’m coming back.

  So he was coming back to Cuba, having done well over the profit from sugar-cane on the islands; he was returning on a big-bellied boat, laden with vanilla, pimento, and cacao, mace and tangerines, angostura and ginger, on a boat full of odours, trusty like a shop with colonial goods; it was a Dutch boat puffing from one port to another like a gossipy aunt who stops in front of every shop and has too much to say. No hurry, sir, hands in your pockets, and have a look. At what ? Well, at the water, at the sea, at the track of the sun that is drawn on it; or at the islands with their blue shadows, at the clouds lined with gold, at the flying fishes as they splash about the sparkling water. Or in the evening at the stars; then the bellied captain would appear, offer a fat cigar; he also had not too much to say. After all, it would not be so bad to remain just Mr. Kettelring.

  All the time there was some kind of a storm on the horizon, at night there were broad red flashes of lightning behind a veil of rain; or the sea became iridescent with pale and bluish stripes that ran apart and suddenly faded away; and below in that black seething water something was phosphorescent all the time with its own light. Mr. Kettelring leaned against the rail and was filled with a feeling that was neither boredom nor intoxication. Yes, that at least was certain; he had sailed once before just like that, and felt just as happy and free. Now he was storing it up in himself so that he would not forget it again. To spread out his arms with longing. With that immense feeling of love, freedom, or something.

  Camagueyno welcomed him with open arms; the old pirate knew how to show acknowledgment when a vessel was returning laden with booty. He no longer sat with Mr. Kettelring in the office, but in a shady room at a table covered with damask, English glass, and jugs with heavy silver heads, he poured out red wine for him, and—apparently out of respect—he tried to talk to him in English. The room opened with slender arches and small columns into a patio inlaid with majolica; in the middle a fountain murmured, surrounded by small palms and myrtles in faience pots, like somewhere in Seville. Señor Kettelring was now a valued guest. ‘My house belongs to you,’ said the Cuban with old Spanish grandeur, and inquired after his travels and return as if they were the rambles of a nobleman just for pleasure. Mr. Kettelring, of course, had not sufficient tradition for those formalities, and he talked business. There and there it looks like this, that debtor is bad, that concern there may have a future, and is worth watching. Camagueyno nodded. ‘Very well, sir, we will talk about that again,’ and he waved his hand. ‘Well, well, there’s time enough.’ He had grown much older, more respectable, more foolish than he used to be; his bushy eyebrows run up and down on his forehead. ‘And your health, my dear Kettelring, your health.’ He giggled excitedly, ‘And what about the women, how is it there with the women ?’

  Kettelring was astonished. ‘Thanks for asking, it wasn’t so bad. With regard to that land on Trinidad, it’s a damned swamp; but if it were drained—’

  ‘Is it true,’ wheezed the Cuban. ‘Is it true that on Haiti the negresses are as if they were mad when—when those pagan fiestas of theirs are on? Eh?’

  ‘It is,’ said Kettelring. ‘Absolutely mad, sir. But the best chabines are on Guadeloupe.’

  Camagueyno bent towards him. ‘And what about the Hindoo women, what are the Hindoo women like? Are they muy lascivas ? They have, they say—some secret cults, is it true ? You must tell me everything, my dear Kettelring.’

  A girl entered the room in a white dress. The Cuban got up, raising his eyebrows impatiently almost to his hair. ‘This is my daughter, Maria Dolores, Mary; for she has been to a university in the States.’ It was as if he wanted to apologize for her; for a Spanish girl would never enter a room where there was a foreign caballero. But Mary was already shaking hands in the American fashion. ‘How do you do, Mr. Kettelring ?’ She pretended to be more bony and angular than she really was, she wanted to look English; at the same time she was pale olive, and black like pitch, her brows joined together, and there was down under her nose—a genuine and good Cuban maiden.

  ‘Well, Mary,’ said Camagueyno, to indicate that she might go; but Mary was an independent American girl, she sat down and crossed her legs, and shot at Mr. Kettelring one question after the other. What is it like on the islands ? What about the social conditions of the negroes ? How do they live, what are their children like, what of the health conditions ? Mr. Kettelring was silently amused by her schoolgirl energy, while Camagueyno raised shocked eyebrows like two huge hairy caterpillars. And Mr. Kettelring lied like a school book: Lovely islands, Miss Mary, perfect paradise; all virgin forest with colibrees fufu, vanilla grows there by itself, you have only to pick it; and as for the negroes, one can’t complain, they have a good time like children….

  The American girl listened, holding her knees, and never took her eyes away from that man who had come straight from paradise.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  “IN the evening Camagueyno soon excused himself, tormented by pain in his gall-bladder; he really looked miserable, and his eyes sank deep with pain. Mr. Kettelring went out into the garden to smoke a cigar; there was a smell of nutmeg, acacias, and vol-cameria, and big moths fluttered as if they were drunk. A white girl was sitting on a majolica seat breathing the unbearably sweet air through her half-closed lips. Mr. Kettelring avoided her in a respectable curve, he knew what was seemly. And suddenly the cigar flew into a thicket of oleanders. ‘Señorita,’ said Kettelring quickly, and almost roughly, ‘I am ashamed of myself; I was lying to you, it is like hell down there, and don’t let them make you believe that a man can remain a man there.’

  ‘And you will go back?’ she inquired in a low voice; night softens the voice.

  ‘Yes. Where else should I go ?’ She made room for him beside her. ‘Perhaps you know that I have … no home anywhere. I have nowhere to go back to unless it is there.’ He waved his hand. ‘I’m sorry to have spoiled your picture of a paradise. But no, it is not so bad.’ He tried to think of something beautiful. Once I saw a Morphos butterfly; just a yard in front of me, he was fluttering with those blue wings of his, he was a beauty. He was sitting on a dead rat, full of maggots.’

  The university girl straightened herself up severely. ‘Mr. Kettelring—’

  ‘I am not Mr. Kettelring. Why, why should I always lie, I’m nobody. I think that a man who has no name has no soul either. That’s why I could stand it there, sabe?9

  And suddenly it wasn’t a university girl, but a small Cuban, blinking her long lashes in pity. Ay de mi, what to say to him, what can I say nice to him? Best run home, for he’s so strange; cross myself and get up—No, an American girl can’t do that, an American girl would be his comrade; didn’t we study psychology. I can help him to find his lost memory, to bring out his suppressed notions; but first I must win his confidence—In a friendly manner the American girl held his hand. ‘Mr. Kettelring—or what shall I call you ?’

  ‘I don’t know, I am that man.’

  She squeezed his hand to give him a lead. ‘Try, try to think of your childhood. You MUST remember something—at least your mother, don’t you. You are remembering, aren’t you ?’

  ‘Once I… I had a fever. That was on Barbuda. An old negress treated me with compresses of black pepper cooked with pimento. She put my head on her lap, and hunted for lice. Her hand was as wrinkled as a monkey’s. I had the feeling then that she was like my mother.’

  The little Cuban felt like tearing her fingers away from his. He had such a warm hand; but that perhaps wouldn’t be right, it was dreadful how uncertain one was about such things.
‘So you do remember your mother!”

  ‘No, I don’t know. I think I never had one.’

  The American girl was firmly determined to help him. ‘You must try a bit more. Remember something about when you were a boy. Some games, friends, any little thing—’

  He shook his head doubtfully. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Something at least,’ she urged. ‘Children have such strong impressions!’

  He tried to do as she said. ‘Always when I look at the horizon it seems to me that there must be something beautiful beyond it. That’s a childish idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘You thought of that at home?’

  ‘No, here on the islands. But at the time I felt… as if I were a boy.’

  He held her by the hand, and ventured further. ‘Listen, I have … stolen a ball.’

  ‘What ball?’

  ‘… A child’s,’ he mumbled in confusion. ‘It was in Port of Spain, in the harbour. It rolled under my feet…. A red and green ball. As a child I must have had one like it. Ever since then I’ve carried it about with me—’

  Tears came into her eyes. God how stupid I am! ‘So you see, Mr…. Mr. Kettelring/she breathed excitedly, ‘it will come, you’ll see. Close your eyes and think, will you ? Try to remember terribly hard—but you must close your eyes to concentrate.’

  Obediently he closed his eyes, and sat motionless as if he had even been told to do that. And there was silence, only the hum of drunken moths could be heard, and in the distance the squeal of a mulatto.