Was I the eldest? Am I really that old? I look at the sleepers around me, they could have been lying here for an eternity because no shepherd awoke them. I am the only one standing erect among them. If there are any eyes left in the void, they could use me as a guidepost. But I stare into the wet gray, and there is nothing I can measure by. It can be a beginning or an end. How am I to decide? It would make no sense talking of near and far.
Naturally, I know that there is something lying behind me, but it can no longer be proved. To be credible, I would have to produce remnants or shards; but there is nothing left. Only words, and words too are no longer valid. For what does it mean to say: there is something behind me. Earlier, there used to be nothing more reliable than chronology. Everything was precisely divided and could be expressed in numbers. One man was thirty years old, and another had lived a thousand years ago. The calculation was correct, no doubt, but the premise is no longer the same. Time is shattered. How can there be a yesterday? How can there be a thousand years ago? All I have to do is turn to the people who lived a thousand years ago, and I can converse with them. So what good are the numbers? For if I do not turn to those people, then they do not exist, and no number alters the situation in the least. And it is the same with you, my friend, to whom I am speaking; you exist because you are listening to me. Or am I like a newborn baby, who claims: I am already nine months old. And a lot older, since I already lived in the blood of my parents and forebears. Yes, I have been living from the very beginning. That would probably be a childish statement, and yet ...?
If ever it should again become necessary to articulate things in numbers, because otherwise people would get lost, then I will begin not with yesterday, not with my walk through the city, not with my dream; instead, we will have to reckon: so and so many hours or days or years from the moment when I was able to speak about it.
At the table, I sat next to the hostess. It was the very place that I had tried out previously, when I was alone. This happened as a matter of course, and no one objected. We were celebrating something, and the hostess was the celebrant, and so was I, since I was sitting next to her. I do not know what was being celebrated. In any case, we wanted to be happy.
If only I knew her name. And my friend's name, yes, his especially; for he was basically not what I picture as a friend. In no case was he like the friend to whom I may now be speaking. I could make up names, and everything would be fine. For example, the name Lysander would fit my friend quite nicely, I do not know why. Lysander was a general, who won a few important battles. He must have been a highly capable man, but I never met him in person. Yet who knows — I may run into him eventually. Or he may come to me on his own and take me to task when he learns that I have given his name to someone else. And what great disorder might result from that. That is why I would rather let it be.
And "hostess" — what does that mean anyway? "Friend" would be better. She receives the guest; in her home, he can cleanse himself of the grime of his wanderings, she gives him new clothes, something to eat, and a place to sleep. And when the time comes, she sends him on his way with many gifts. That used to be the custom. She most likely also gave him good advice for his journey, and it was certainly not her fault if the guest did not leave her as a wiser man. Her name — I mean the hostess, next to whom I was allowed to sit — is probably something like Iona. Perhaps a letter is missing. I know of no woman who had this name. Perhaps it is not so significant for women. The sound is more important. They wrap themselves in it, and if the color is becoming, they keep the name. Iona evokes a hilly land by the sea. There is a surf and there are also lonely desert islands. The landscape is often foggy, and if the sun ever shines, it is magical.
At dinner, she must have assumed that I knew her name. We were sitting very close together. I sensed her warmth and thereby also sensed her question: Why are you acting like that? For though I made every effort to conceal it, she must have sensed my question: Just who are you? So the two of us, while participating in the general conversation, listened closely to whatever was behind the words.
Sometimes our hands touched. I do not know what her hands were like. As for mine ...Well, you can see them for yourself On her left hand, she wore an old silver ring with an opal. I wasted a great deal of effort trying to find out whether the ring was a present from me. When could I have given it to her anyway?
I thought of a wooden arbor standing in the garden of a tenant farm. The arbor contained a real room, which, incidentally, I never entered. In front of it there was a small open terrace with a table and benches surrounded by grape leaves. Antlers and a few painted targets hung on the solid wall of the terrace. One of the targets showed a mountain cock courting precariously on a pine tree. The other picture showed a stag with a tremendous vapor issuing from its mouth. The most exciting picture showed a struggle between a forester and a poacher high in the mountains. The poacher was kneeling behind a boulder; naturally, he had a black beard while the forester was respectably clean-shaven. The poacher was also wearing an open, tattered shirt and buckskin trousers. Next to him lay a chamois kid; yes, a kid. The fiend had shot it in the chest region; to make this quite clear, the artist had not spared the red paint. However, it was not yet decided who would win this hunting-rifle duel.
The arbor stood virtually concealed in the blaze of noon. The low main house was visible through the grape vines. Wherever the wall was not camouflaged by espalier fruit, its harsh yellow-white hurt the eyes. The twigs of the currant bushes, full of red clusters, hung over the fence of the nearby vegetable garden. At first, the clattering of plates and dishes could be heard from the kitchen. But by now, everyone must have been asleep, like the yellow hound in the open front door. Or else, the farm hands, male and female, were out in the fields. The hush was occasionally broken only by the drowsy crooning and clucking of a hen. It was the hour of day that so closely resembles midnight; although one can see everything, it all blurs insensibly into light and heat, just as, in the darkness of night, things lose their familiar stance.
The cloth covering the table on the arbor terrace had an old-fashioned blue cross-stitch pattern. A vase containing bell flowers stood on it. And two young people, almost children, were sitting there. The boy was reading poetry aloud, and the girl had folded her hands in the lap of her white dress and was listening attentively. You must not laugh. When I see that picture, sentimental words come to my lips, such as: Happiness! And youth! And fullness! And yet it is nonsense! Where would I have taken the money back then to give the girl such a valuable ring, which a priest must have worn in ancient times.
Turning away, I walk across the crowded square of a metropolis. I do not consider it impossible that this is the same city to which I then returned later on. It is a filthy winter morning, but I do not notice it, for it fits me so nicely. Very many cars drive past, preventing me from crossing the street. So for a while, together with other people, I have to wait by a monument in the middle of the square. A green man sits there on a ruddy marble pedestal. He clutches a scroll. His hand is half covered with a lace cuff that falls out of his sleeve. He has a braid. But his forehead and his shoulders are soiled with white stripes by the sparrows. At last, I can hurry across the roadway and I charge straight towards a mailbox. Then, something occurs to me, and I reach into my left coat pocket.
You see, early in the morning, I took a girl to an ocean liner. So the story I am narrating must have happened in a port. Perhaps she was no longer a girl, I do not know. I accompanied her to customs, they had checked her papers and opened the valise that I was carrying for her. The burgundy taffeta silk dress that she had worn on the previous evening lay on top. We had been with the people she was living with. I believe we also danced. After we were done with customs, we stood on the swaying pontoon, waiting for the harbor ferry, which was supposed to take us to the other side. Dock workers were sailing with us. We did not say a word. It was damp and hazy. We were freezing. The ferry crushed and ground the white ice floes. On the
opposite shore, we had to walk for a time amid bleak warehouses and across the desolate pavement of the docks until we found the steamer. I gave her the valise, and we shook hands. We did not embrace, no. Then she went up the gangway. How tiny she looked against the high wall of the ship. And I too stood down below, small and lost. She glanced back a few times. On deck, she was greeted by a crewman. That was the last I saw of her. I returned home without a thought my mind. At the letter box, I remembered that she had given me a postcard to mail. I pulled it out and read: "Dear Grandmother, On my last day at home ..." I read no further. I quickly thrust the card into the letter box. The lid slammed shut. I had to control myself to keep from bursting into tears. So many people were passing back and forth, all of them had something to do and somewhere to go. Why had this girl left her homeland? Hold on, I know. She did not care to wait.
But she sailed very far away, and the woman sitting next to me could never have worn a burgundy frock.
And again my eyes alight on the opal. It is the dead of night. A man stands at the second-story window of a cheap house. He stands in the dark. He can be seen only when the night wind pushes the foliage of the trees slightly aside, so that the moonlight falls upon his figure. He thinks: "Yes, I want to suggest it to her." But it is already too late for the suggestion; he should have come with it an hour earlier. At that time, two people, like thousands of other pairs of lovers in the same city, stood leaning in the shade of a house, and the world around them was an indifferent hubbub. Across the street, a construction site was fenced off with raw planks. A circus had glued its posters on the boards. There, in the glow of the street light, one could see a number of elephants involved in all sorts of mischief; each elephant's trunk held on to the next one's little tail.
That was when he should have made the suggestion to her that he was now pondering: "Why do we not die together? For there is nothing beyond this but death."
Yet her hands were much too hard for such a heavy ring to suit her.
Suddenly, I forgot all that. Without a sound of lament, the hostess at my side vanished from my thoughts.
At the other end of the table, a conversation had begun, forcing me to concentrate my entire being on it. They were discussing an event that had occurred at noon and was on everyone's mind. I too was familiar with it.
At precisely twelve noon, two huge, unknown birds from the west had appeared above the city. Flying slowly, almost without moving their wings, and at not too high an altitude, they floated, seeking, across the houses, circled the tower of the city hall three times, and then vanished in the direction from which they had come. When it was over, people exchanged uncertain glances, wondering if they had fallen prey to a hallucination; and ever since, they had been talking and arguing about nothing else. Indeed, there were no two consistent statements about the event. The dimensions ascribed to the birds were nonsensical; their color was now white, now black; and extremely clever people maintained that the tops of the wings were white and the bottoms black. It was not even certain how long the whole incident had lasted. Everyone claimed to have held his breath for an eternity; but in reality, clocks had barely advanced. When they calculated it afterwards, not even a single minute was missing — either in the daily schedules of individual people or in the timetables of public transportation.
As I have said, I too had seen the birds. I was standing at the staircase window in a large office building. It may also have been a government building or a bank. Incidentally, I must have had a steady job in this edifice, for I recall that I often stood at this window. It gave onto a canal and bridges, and the green tower of the city hall was visible in the background. In summertime, the canal was crowded with barges and tugboats; in cold winters, its entangled ice floes made it look like a glacier landscape. On a chain that was drawn straight across the canal in order to hold the lantern, gulls perched like a string of pearls, restlessly gaping around to see if any food had been thrown out for them. Then, all at once, they shrieked as they left their perches, gliding off and disappearing. The water in the canal was usually dirty and unpleasant; the houses directly lining it were of ugly red bricks. This made the color of the water even uglier. But sometimes, in spring and autumn, the water reflected the green of the city hall tower together with the soft azure sky, and then everything was virtually enchanted.
The stairwell was always crowded. Apprentices dashed down the steps, taking several at a time. Visitors arrived, others said goodbye, and something was called out to them over the banisters. Employees emerged from the offices to grab a smoke in the halls or exchange a few words with a girl. But suddenly, it was all gone. One felt all alone in the world.
I watched the birds and had the impression that they were looking for me. Perhaps, incidentally, everyone else thought the same about themselves. Curious, neither stirring nor hiding, I waited to see if they would find me. When they were gone, I almost regretted that I had not cried out: Here I am! There was an indescribable hush during that timeless pause. Wherever one of these birds cast its shadow, all life cringed. Now, afterwards, I know that it was as hushed as I so painfully felt it later on, during my lonesome walk through the city. Naturally, there were many people who had not seen the birds because they were occupied in closed rooms. But strikingly enough, they too had the impression that something extraordinary had happened, and that they, as they stated afterwards, had not dared to move for an endlessly long time. We noticed the same thing about the dogs, and some people claimed that the heads of the flowers had drooped, only to perk up again right away. This alone must have been very terrifying.
No sooner was it over than an enormous chattering rose in the city. I myself spoke to nobody, I quite deliberately avoided it. Something of the hush of that moment was still around me, so that I could not be reached by questions or even by the looks of the bewildered people. I stepped outdoors immediately and, without even reflecting, I headed in the direction of the birds, towards the unknown. I do not mean to boast, I am only saying that it was not an escape.
Now, I probably look like a miserable refugee. I have no name and no mirror image. I find it impossible to state what I used to be considered among people. I am in no way distinguished from the ones lying around me. I have scrutinized their faces to glean what has preserved them from the fate of other human beings. I would like to get to know the law governing us all. But their faces are utterly blank, they seem to have no past. One can look through their eyes, there is nothing to hold on to. Yes, the wind blows through; behind them lies the same bleak immensity as in front of them.
As for me, I can only say this much: Whatever that past may have been, I left it like a prison. I had to control myself in the streets to keep from jubilantly shouting: At last! Although I knew that now the hardest part was beginning.
However, I want to return to my dream. At the table, they were talking about that event. They were surprised that no one had had enough presence of mind to photograph the birds. Or shoot them down. Or have them pursued in airplanes. They railed against the government that permitted such a thing, and they were amazed that something like this could have happened in the first place. Yet uncertainty was blatant in everything they said. Even if a person uttered something that was meant to be superior and sarcastic, it was more of a concealed question, and many glasses of wine were drunk, virtually to wash down a bad taste. Finally, someone put an end to the whole thing by asking: "What do the evening papers say?"
In the past, people did not rely on their own judgment. They had suitable people who were supposed to report on everything and express an opinion that seemed the most appropriate for the majority. In the evening, one could read it punctually, and then, if one spoke to a neighbor before going to bed, one discovered that he was of the same mind. Thus everything was in order, and worrisome enigmas could not emerge.
I know that this handful of people who have been driven together here by chance are waiting only for someone to tell them what to think. Perhaps that is the only reason why th
ey are sleeping so long, although I must admit that it can also be due to exhaustion and hunger. I also believe that they are already counting on my being the one to come up with an opinion for them. I found this out before returning to the city. There was a man whom I thought younger and livelier than the others. I leaned over him and asked him something. Perhaps I asked him whether he wanted to accompany me. I virtually blew into the ashes, surmising that there was a spark left underneath. It would be more agreeable if I knew of someone who could stand at my side. But it was no use badgering him. He was not accustomed to being questioned. Yes, I now recall what I asked him: Did he think that the city and everything else were still the same as before, and that it might be we who had changed? Indeed, to be perfectly clear, I also asked him whether he believed that we were dead. But he did not understand me. There was only a touch of poignant willingness in his tired face — willingness to receive something from me, an order, an idea, but absolutely no question. If I had told him: We are dead! he would have been satisfied. He addressed me in the polite form, while I used the familiar.
Shall I now make up something that they can believe in? And why? I myself do not need these people. After walking alone through the city and returning, I know that I can live quite well on a depopulated earth without dying of loneliness. I will live with my words, with the ones I have left. Some of them may perhaps take root, and this will give them a certain power over me, to which I must acquiesce. That is not so bad; it is a law to which I gladly submit. But these people around me will, at most, disturb me in the process; for I will have power over them, and heaven help me if I refrain from exercising it. They would kill me. Nothing makes people more unfree than having power, and only slaves love being powerful.
An Offering for the Dead Page 3
