On the Hill of Roses

by Stefan Grabinski

  The banality of our literary conversations contradicted my host’s exceptional library, which was available to me at all hours of the day. So I spent many long hours plunged in reading, especially in the morning.

  But a peculiar thing: among the poets of the day, represented so well in the library, I wasn’t able to find anything written by Prandota, even one thin volume. Not wishing to irritate Richard, I did not bring this up to him.

  In the midst of this, I began to succumb to certain changes, which I was not able to notice at first, as they exhibited themselves externally. Richard, on the other hand, noticed that something was happening to me and, a strange thing, he noticed this with a measure of displeasure and even fear.

  Apparently he had been struck by something that concerned me. A couple of times he would carefully follow my rather lively gesticulations during an animated conversation on an absorbing topic, and then I would notice on his face an expression of amazement, coupled with a tinge of unease. He did not yet raise the matter up, however. Stimulated by curiosity, I determined to talk to him about this.

  Soon an occasion arose that made this possible.

  It was morning, after breakfast. Both of us were sitting on the veranda, dressed in casual light attire. Richard was reading a book, while I was looking out to the sea, feeling somewhat uneasy. Suddenly my attention was caught by gliding seagulls and their to and fro flight. Then, unexpectedly, a flock separated itself from the group and formed a wide white circle, through which the remaining birds began to fly in a long chain. The sight was so unusual that I interrupted Norski in his reading and motioned toward the sky with my hand.

  He did look in that direction, it is true, but despite himself he threw his eye on me at the same time and, in a strangely changed voice, asked:

  ‘What are you doing?’

  At first I didn’t understand him. In truth, I had not done anything unusual. I had just raised myself up on my toes a bit and stretched out my arm to the distance.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m pointing to the seagulls.’

  ‘Why, yes, certainly. But you are doing this in such a way that I would almost say that your gesture is foreign to you.’

  ‘Have you noticed something like this about me for the first time today?’

  Norski hesitated in responding. Finally he said, as if in indifference:

  ‘I will admit to you that for a while now I’ve been noticing a strange change in your mannerisms. I have an impression that the gestures you make are not those older ones, your gestures, with which I’m familiar, but some other ones taken from someone else, as if this person were inside you, directing them. You seem to be an actor who is mimicking splendidly another person.’

  ‘That’s odd.’

  And I turned instinctively to a mirror to examine myself.

  ‘If what you say is true, rest assured that I am making these gestures unconsciously, involuntarily.’

  ‘And yet there has to be a cause for this

  Norski searched my eyes.

  ‘No doubt,’ I replied- ‘Truthfully speaking, I’m familiar with the phenomenon that you have observed in me, which I would call ‘xenomimia.’ I have seen it in a couple of individuals at the psychiatric clinic. There are two hypotheses one can mention concerning this phenomenon. For example, xenomimia can result by simply looking at another person in an intensive manner. This form exhibits itself very frequently in children, where the sense of imitation is so strong that the gestures picked up in this manner become fixed for life. Of course, this is not possible in our situation. My altered gestures, as far as you can tell, are not mimicking you, nor Adam, and I haven’t been in close contact with anyone else around here since I’ve arrived.’

  ‘Yes, that’s obvious. In truth, these are not my gestures, nor the gestures of my son. You are exhibiting the gestures of some-one else.’

  ‘Therefore, another possibility remains.’

  Richard showed great interest. ‘And that is - ‘

  ‘Most probably what is coming into play here is telepathy.’

  ‘How so? Do you suppose that someone is influencing you in such a manner that he is causing you to make gestures that belong to a third party or even to him? Perhaps these are gestures simply thought up by him, merely of the imagination?’

  ‘Not quite, but you are not far from my hypothesis. The chief difference is that you are supposing an influence that is conscious, one that is heading toward a particular aim, while I, on the contrary, believe that we are dealing with an influence that is most probably unconscious. What's more, I am firmly convinced that my transmitter would gladly stop these unconscious experiments if he knew that they could draw forth certain consequences.’

  ‘Pardon, but I don’t understand. How’s that? I assume that in telepathy it is necessary for the transmitter to be aware of his actions, and that he is directing things through the exertion of his will or thought. The transmitter has to know whom he is influencing.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘In that case anyone can pick up this dispatch.’

  ‘Decidedly no. There is no doubt that between the two a close relationship has to have been formed through communion, feelings, similarity of thought, experiences. Because of this it is not strange that the transmitter has an easier path to carry out his operation, as a channel has been formed already between him and the receiver.'

  ‘How do you suppose this telepathy is working in this situation?’

  ‘It’s quite simple. Here a certain person thinks of someone for a long period of time in an intensive manner. This someone takes up, almost completely, this person’s thinking, so much so that he becomes indivisibly burned into this person’s psyche. His speech, gestures, physiognomy - in a word, everything about him possesses this person. Let us now suppose that this person, who wras so absolutely taken over by that someone, is known by a second person - someone who has been connected to him in closer relations - then we stand at the edge of the mysterious sphere of telepathy. The mental possession begins slowly, without the conscious contribution of the sender, moving over to the second individual and manifesting itself as in mimicking the gestures of the person the sender is thinking about.’

  I paused for a moment, a bit tired out by the exertion of arranging my thoughts, and glanced at Norski.

  Apparently my words had a strong effect on him, for he rested his suddenly cloudy brow on his hands and fixed a pensive gaze on the ground. After a moment of hesitation, he asked with uncertainty:

  ‘But in such a case that acceptance of a foreign personality has to have a strong tinge of emotion? Otherwise one can’t explain this intensity.’

  ‘For sure. Telepathy occurs most effectively when it enters into the sphere of feelings.’

  ‘Do you have love in mind?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I believe equally important are the thinker’s feelings of fear or danger. So, for example, certain criminals can be telepathic, I suppose. Their thoughts, circling continually around their unfortunate victim, work apparently like strong, poisonous fumes, impregnating the environment and swirling around wildly like a nest of snakes. The thoughts of a criminal are terrible! In this manner it can happen that a murderer, with his thoughts flowing telepathically onto others, will one day see in their gestures the victim of his own hands.’

  Richard, deathly pale, fixed a wild-eyed stare at me.

  ‘That would be a terrible vengeance, a hellish vengeance!’

  ‘Yes, yes... You’ve stated it well. It would be the vengeance of the dead without their personal intervention. In fact, the thoughts of the insane have to be strong and work with great power. And here, in full horror, are revealed the depths of nature, evident by the signs emerging from these unusual beings, as to how terrible is the psyche of man.’

  As I was finishing, Norski quickly advanced to the window of the veranda and pushed it out to the garden. From outside came in the salty exhalation of the sea mixed with the fragrance of flowers, refreshing our brows
.

  ‘It’s a bit stuffy in here,’ he noted. ‘Perhaps we should go down among the flowerbeds?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  We went out.

  The morning was muggy and cloudy. A grey gleam spread about the world and gave everything a vague expression of indifference.

  Our hearts were heavy. Our steps were slow, lethargic, as we took the turn down the alley of eucalyptus trees that wound around uniquely patterned flowerbeds.

  A couple of times Adam drove by with his beloved wheelbarrow, in which he carried earth and sand for play along the wide paths of the garden. I noticed a certain regularity in these travels. He began his ride from the knoll, where with the help of a shovel he dug the earth and loaded it on the wheelbarrow; then he went along the house to disappear with his burden at the opposite end of the garden among the elder bushes where the alcove stood. There, he was apparently pouring out the earth, for he soon would appear with the empty wheelbarrow to begin his expedition once again. This game occupied him greatly because he almost never bothered us, so intensely was he occupied with his work. I noticed, however, how from time to time he would follow the movements of his father, who had forbidden him to be in the arbour. As long as we had him within eyesight, he weaved along the paths, but the moment we had our backs turned toward him, he would wander off in the forbidden direction and, quickly pouring out the contents of his wheelbarrow, return among the flowerbeds.

  ‘A strange lad,’ I thought. ‘Some perverse spirit draws him to that comer.’

  But I did not mention this to his unnerved father. He, meanwhile, was still occupied with our discussion and wanted to earn it to its logical end.

  Somewhat indecisively, and trying to present an indifferent front, he observed:

  ‘What’s left to unravel is this question: Who is influencing you?’

  ‘I would rather think that it would be better to ascertain the identity of these gestures, if they are not the fantasy of the person who is operating here. It would be easier for me to figure out who is influencing me if I could find out whose gestures I am imitating. Could you help me here? As far as I can tell, the matter has occupied you to a great degree. Do my foreign gestures remind you of anyone you know?’

  Norski did not foresee that the discussion would take such a turn. The question disconcerted him. It took him a moment to answer, and he did so avoiding my eyes:

  ‘Unfortunately, I can’t be of any help to you in this matter. These gestures are completely unknown to me; I haven’t seen them in anyone.’

  ‘In that case you have to resign yourself to not getting your question answered. You will not find out who was so delighted to choose me as an instrument of his long-range experiments.’

  I purposefully spoke in a joking tone, so as not to upset him, and soon changed the subject. He likewise recognized the value of changing the subject and began to talk of something else.

  And yet that very day I found out whose gestures I had so strangely adopted.

  It happened in the evening, shortly after sunset. As usual after coffee, Richard proposed a stroll along the beach. I agreed eagerly, and while he waited on the steps of the terrace, already properly dressed, I went to my room to get a wrap, for the evening threatened to turn chilly. I soon returned, and adjusting my hat to an exaggerated tilt, I stood in the doorway and began to put on my gloves. Norski, turned toward the sea, had not yet noticed me. Several silent seconds went by.

  Then, apparently tired of waiting, he turned around, glancing upwrard to where I stood. Suddenly, as if he were before a ghost, he raised his hands to protect himself, leaning back so far that he almost fell down the stairs.

  ‘Richard! What’s wrong with you? It’s I!’

  Rushing over to him, I quickly grabbed him under the arm. He calmed down, but did not lower his wild, hellishly frightened eyes from me, as if not believing the sound of my voice.

  ‘Yes, it’s you, that’s true. What a damnable hallucination. But your gesture, your wretched gesture and the way your hat is slanted reminded me so much of...’

  ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Prandota,’ he stammered out, as if offended at the same time with the sound of the name, which in the last couple of weeks had been omitted in all our discussions.

  Then we went out to the beach.

  The next day I was scheduled to leave. My stay at Norski’s was apparently getting more torturous for him with each passing day. When I informed him of my intention to depart, sudden joy flashed in his eyes. He breathed out a sigh of relief. I myself was leaving the villa with relief in my heart. For a while now, it had been too stifling for me here; the atmosphere was poisonous. Each hour spent with Richard affected me badly and distanced me more and more from this strange person.

  And he had undergone a considerable change. His face had paled and taken on a yellow tinge, and he became older by a dozen or so years. These couple of months that we had spent together had transformed this energetic, hard-as-steel person into someone unrecognisable. If he hadn't parted with me earlier, he did it, I suppose, from some kind of terrible, tragic curiosity about whatever was crushing him, and in a spirit of contrariness. It was as if he wanted to fight a duel with me without a challenge, without words. His proud, manly character, seeing that I could be dangerous to him in some way, determined to take a stand and endure everything to the end.

  But he had to yield, after all, and with poorly concealed joy, he waited for my impending departure. Because the game was beyond human endurance, because incomprehensible elements had intruded, elusive in their nature and, because of this, unpredictable. So, in a state of terror, he began to retreat.

  He bid his farewell in a courtly manner, full of elegance and good taste. He was always an aesthetic person and a gentleman.

  Our final afternoon dinner was splendid. The table literally bent under the weight of pastries, fowls, sorbets, meats. The stylish cutlery betrayed sophisticated taste and a beautiful deep culture. The entire artistic work was supplemented by flowers decorating the table, all of which created a picture dazzling in its richness and originality.

  For me the crown of the feast was a preparation of lampreys that I loved. Oddly, I had never eaten lampreys at Norski’s, though he had once been an ardent connoisseur of them. Before my departure, I wanted to desperately treat myself to this exquisite meat, particularly as an occasion arose to do so, for a fresh transport had arrived at the port, and in the town they were being snatched up like hot cakes. Not saying anything about this to Richard, and in the belief that I would give him a pleasant surprise, I bought a couple of pieces and instructed the kitchen to prepare the dish. But much to my amazement Norski, sighting my beloved dish on a serving plate, turned to the servant with the question of who had ordered the dish prepared. I explained the situation immediately, apologizing for my wilful intrusion into the domain of the master of the house.

  ‘As I remember, you once were a connoisseur of lampreys?’

  ‘Yes, yes... that’s true. But for a certain time, thanks to some idiosyncrasy, I can’t stand the sight of them. But, please, don’t worry yourself about this. All you had to do was to tell me what you would have liked for dinner, and I myself would have given the appropriate instructions. As for me, I will stay with my lobsters.’

  And with his white feminine hand he deftly grabbed the pincers of a magnificent lobster.

  A little confused, I started on the lampreys. They had been seasoned splendidly, full of exquisite spices.

  For a while silence ensued.

  Before long, Richard finished, drank down his sparkling Madera, and, wiping his lips, lit a cigarette.

  Though I was occupied with taking off the delicate skin of the fish, I felt his strong gaze on me: he was observing me. Not raising my eyes, I placed a new piece of fish into my mouth, and at the moment, turning pale, I placed it back on my plate.

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?’

  Richard now stood near me, handing me a glass of wine.r />
  ‘Drink!’

  ‘Thank you. You know, I had a peculiar sensation at that moment: I thought that the fish was poisoned.’

  Norski dug his fingernails into my arm so hard that I cried out in pain.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he asked, thoroughly shaken.

  ‘I understand perfectly that this is just a simple impression and nothing more; such sensations arrive sometimes from neither here, nor there. Besides, the lampreys are excellent; I was taking a second portion.

  It was just a passing impression. I’m ready to continue eating.’

  ‘No! I will not allow’ it. But to satisfy you, I will try them myself.’

  And taking the other half of the fish from my plate, he began to eat. Embarrassed, I tried to protest:

  ‘But I believe you, Richard. Don’t be a child.’

  But Norski ate the fish to the end; then he relit his cigarette, apologized and proceeded to withdraw to his bedroom.

  ‘Pardon me,’ he threw out in farewell, as he was leaving, ‘I am a bit on edge. You offended me. Adam, you will remain with this gentleman.’

  In truth, he looked very pale.

  I remained alone with the child.

  It was stuffy in the dining room. The mixture of food smells and the intoxicating scent of flowers created a heavy and wearisome atmosphere. I took Adam by the hand and we went over to the library.

  Wishing to be alone with my mind, where I could arrange the thoughts that were forcefully rising to the surface, I took several illustrated books from the top shelf and gave them to the boy to look over. He quickly became engrossed in them. I sat down on the sofa, opposite the door, and sank into thought: I began to analyse the impression I had toward the end of the meal.