He woke immediately, as if jolted by electric shock, suddenly, instantly becoming as alert as a mongoose; he looked at the TV set in disbelief, but it was still the same man who had presumably been speaking all this while, and he was still having his say, but without the sound of his voice, only the waterfall sound could be heard, he leaped from the bed, sat down on its edge, and leaning forward stared at the TV set, the man was not a priest, not some kind of evangelist, he had a dark blue suit, metal-rim glasses, low forehead, thin lips, he stood on some sort of podium, as if this were a university lecture, he stood on that podium and he kept talking and talking without a voice, only the sound of the waterfall, which was exactly the same, oh my god, he clenched his fists in his lap, it was exactly the same as the sound of the waterfall that he had never been able to identify among those three, a nightmare, he thought, and pinched himself, but he was awake, it was still the same image of the man with the glasses on the podium, yet the soundtrack was a waterfall, but that couldn’t be; he watched the TV screen panic-stricken, then less and less so, at last he calmed down, thinking that he would once again go over everything soberly, not that it would get him anywhere, he got nowhere, but all of a sudden the man with the metal-rim glasses disappeared from the screen, and the image now showed a cascading waterfall, and he slowly grasped that this was not some nightmare, it was simply that at four fifteeen a.m. in that Hong Kong TV studio no one gave a crap, they might have all fallen asleep, it was suddenly clear to him, they must have fallen asleep without switching the video and the audio was already coming on, that was it, that was the only possible explanation, there was nothing peculiar here, if you thought about it, he leaned forward even closer and watched the waterfall on the TV screen, and spoke out aloud, well then, this is it, here is that waterfall, coincidences do exist, it is not impossible that such a thing happens to you once, and now it has happened, such things can happen, he reassured himself, and then he just kept staring, staring at that waterfall on the TV set, he saw no subtitles whatsoever that could have helped to identify which one it was, the Angel, the Victoria, or possibly the Schaffhausen, all they showed was the waterfall itself, the sound was a steady roar, and inside his head, obviously still powerfully dazed by the long time he had spent listening in his sleep or half-awake to the man with the glasses, a flurry of words began to whirl again, that the Whole exists in its wholeness, the Parts in their own particularity, and the Whole and the Parts cannot be lumped together, they don’t follow from one another, since after all the waterfall for example is not composed of its individual drops, for single drops would never constitute a waterfall, but drops nonetheless do exist, and how heartrendingly beautiful they can be when they sparkle in the sunlight, indeed how long do they exist? a flash, and they are gone, but they still have time in this almost timeless flash to sparkle, and in addition there is also the Whole, and how lovely that is, how fantastically beautiful, that this Whole, the waterfall as a Oneness, can appear—if only someday he were to make his way to the Angel, if someday he were to find his way to the Victoria, if he were to get at least one chance, the words whirled on inside his head, at least to visit the Schaffhausen Falls, because this was just like his own life; a new train of thought opened for him, his life, too, included the great problem of the Whole and its Parts, meaning that the two could not be superimposed or projected upon each other, for although it was true that his life had its moments, hours, and days that existed as these moments, hours, and days—and when they became the past, they did not get there from the present—his life, too, had its own Wholeness, his life would obviously sooner or later come to an end, but it would one day reach its own fullness and not be coming from the future, and thus there was something still in store for him—parts as well as the great Whole, this great Whole of his life, that would attain its shape and form at the moment, at the sacred moment when he died, the moment of death—that was what this waterfall roared, as he stared at the TV screen, leaning as close as possible so as not to miss a single droplet, and he let it roar on, his clenched fists tightened in his lap, he let it sing that fullness exists, and it has nothing to do with the past or with the future—it even has nothing to do with what happened to him yesterday, or happens today, or will happen tomorrow; he watched each and every drop of the waterfall, feeling an unspeakable relief, and savoring the taste of a new-found freedom, he understood that his life would be a full life, a fullness that was not made of its parts, the empty fiascos and empty pleasures of minutes and hours and days, no, not at all, he shook his head, while in front of him the TV set kept roaring, this fullness of his life would be something completely different, he could not as yet know in what way, and he never would know, because the moment when this fullness of his life was born would be the moment of his death—he shut his eyes, lay back on the bed and remained awake until it was morning, when he rapidly packed his things, and checked out at the reception desk with such a radiant face that they contacted the staff on his floor to check if he had taken anything with him, how could they have possibly understood what had made him so happy, how could the cab driver or the people at the airport understand, when they were not aware that such happiness existed, just as he himself was unable to disguise this happiness, he radiated it as he passed through the security check, he glowed as he boarded the plane, his eyes sparkled as he belted himself into his seat, just like a kid who has at last received the gift he dreamed of, because he was in fact happy, except he could not speak about it, because it was impossible to speak about what he had learned in Shanghai, there was indeed nothing to do but look out through the window of the plane at the blindingly resplendent blue sky, keeping a profound silence, and it no longer mattered which waterfall it was, it no longer mattered if he didn’t see any of them, for it was all the same, it had been enough to hear that sound, and he streaked away at a speed of 900 km per hour, at an altitude of approximately ten thousand meters in a north by northwesterly direction, high above the clouds—in the blindingly blue sky toward the hope that he would die some day.
ONE TIME ON 381
In memory of the middle-aged Amalia Rodriques
He would go away from here, take off for the south.
There had been no wind since dawn, and there he stood among the others in the swirling clouds of marble dust.
The white protective helmet was no help, and the black goggles were no help, the kerchief tied to cover his mouth was no help, nor was the cap with earflaps, none of them was ever any help, and so he stood there with his white helmet, black goggles, kerchief covering his mouth, waiting for his turn. There were still three adults with wheelbarrows ahead of him, the line advanced slowly, always just a tiny bit, one small step at a time, then the wait until the line moved up another shuffle, and at these times he too shuffled ahead in the line, because behind him were another four or five, all adults, so they all shuffled forth in unison, he in the middle, bending forward, giving the wheelbarrow a push, straightening up, waiting, then once more the same, always the same, and while he waited he could only look on, look on at the machine working up ahead. He looked on, without a thought in his head, as did the others, for what was there to think about while looking at the machine, and what was there to look at in that machine one gave no thought to, anyway, it was enough just to be in a permanent state of dazed fatigue, just to be not thinking, only looking on, blindly, like a statue, at the machine working in the sifting marble dust, at the blade of the diamond saw cutting, with a force that was light as breath and brutally powerful at the same time, one after another, thin slabs of marble from the enormous blocks hoisted by the crane and left there in a heap. Farther away, a large rolling machine lumbered along atop the rocky cliff and its diamond saw blade was hard at work, except that it was a giant rotary cross-cut sawing machine rocking back and forth on rails—but that was truly not at all interesting to anyone, for who would be interested in seeing how it hacked its way into the wall of rock and how it hacked out the next block which would be c
onveyed by one of the cranes to somewhere in their vicinity, to be sliced into slabs in the midst of this snow-white inferno? Nobody was interested in anything here, and so there was nothing for them to look at, yet they still had to look at something lest they go mad in the din and dust, and so they looked at the machine in front of them cutting slabs as it sliced marble with a grating, screeching, agonizing siren scream, as that dreadful diamond-studded steel band revolved round and round, and advanced through the rock like a knife through butter.
He trundled the wheelbarrow a little further along and then he was once more at the head of the line. He adjusted the gloves on his hands, grabbed the slab of marble, swinging it slightly to find the necessary balance, until he could stagger back with it to his wheelbarrow, and then grasping the grooved rubber lining of the wheelbarrow’s two handles he pushed it over to where the other slabs lay—eight times nineteen rows of Estremoz Crème thinly sliced—that he and his companions, working since dawn, had stacked so far.
He would leave this place and set out for the south.
They paid four euros for loading by hand, he had been doing this for eight months without a raise in pay, four euros and ten cents, that was it, in the sweltering sun, the suffocating marble powder, for four-ten from six to eleven a.m and four to nine p.m., and it’s time for a break, he said under his breath, time for a break, and although he took his place in line again, and remained in this line for a little while, the others might have noted only that he no longer stood there, having shoved the wheelbarrow to the side, and only his back may have been visible, if at all, and then moments later his small thin figure vanished in the haze of the quarry.
The World Goes On Page 12
