An Offering for the Dead (3 page)

At that time, in front of the mirror, I did not doubt for an instant that I was alive. It was not I that was dead; it could only be that the mirror had died. I also examined it to find out. I wanted to push it away from the wall to check behind it, but I was unable to do so.

The other possibility did not occur to me — I mean that my image could have perished. And how could I have thought of it? We cannot imagine any person without his reflection, and it is questionable whether a living creature without a reflection can even be described as human. If, for example, the sky cannot be reflected in my eyes, is it then still the sky? But if not, then what is it? Perhaps something similar, but in no case that which used to be called the sky. I also believe that I occasionally noticed that whenever a flower is admired for its beauty, it really blossoms, becoming even more beautiful, until we ourselves blush, and there is no saying which of the two has been gifted. People used to think that they knew this very precisely; and now?

I had also not noticed back then that I had likewise lost my name. After all, I had no opportunity to determine this. There was no one to call me or address me, and I for my part never addressed myself by the name that others used when they wanted something from me. And I had even less reason for knowing that I owed my life purely to the fact that I had been connected so loosely with my name and my image that they could not pull me along when they perished. It was simply like a banknote that slips from your pocket unnoticed, that is all. The wind wafts it away; someone may find it and know what to do with it; or it may fall into a puddle and dissolve.

I was not so much terrified by all this as astonished. Eventually, I grew tired of thinking and I got into the bed. Yes, there was a bed in the room. I simply uncovered it, pushing aside the nightshirt underneath the blanket, and I lay down just as I was, soaked with rain and splattered with mud.

I fell asleep instantly and dreamed....

The window curtain bellied into the room with a soft breath. A bumblebee buzzed into the room, flew against the wall several times, and then found its way out again. In the garden, two children were playing under the window. One of them shouted: We have to go home. From the street came the steps of passersby and disjointed sounds of their conversation. A bit further off, a trolley jingled, and the conductor blew the departure whistle. Then the street grew noisier and noisier. Cars roared by, howled warnings at the street corners.

Somewhere freight trains rolled across a bridge. In the harbor, a steamer putting out to sea emitted three dull moans, and a tugboat responded, shrill and agitated. Eventually, the noise became so loud that one could no longer hear it all.

It was a late afternoon towards the end of June. It must have been a fairly warm day, but the room was now on the shady side. The green reflection of a sunny lawn clung to the ceiling. Somewhere, the lindens were blossoming; the sweet fragrance threatened to give me a headache. Three yellow roses stood on a small, round mahogany table. I picked up the vase to smell the roses, but then replaced it, unsatisfied. As I did so, two petals dropped off from a rose and then lay on the shiny table top like ships on a windless sea. I tried not to make a sound. Irresolute, I paced up and down the carpet, listening for life in the house. Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and I recoiled. Then someone emerged from the kitchen (I could tell by the kitchen noises reaching my ear), walked through the hall, and opened the front door. Some words were exchanged, then another door was opened, a loud tangle of voices emerged, and then the house was quiet again. The person who had opened the front door returned to the kitchen. I had been afraid that he would knock on my door or even come in; but he did not do so. After a while, I pulled myself together, left the room, and stole along the hall runner to the front of the house. The hall smelled of frying. Actually, I was planning to leave the house unnoticed; but I inadvertently clutched the knob of the door to the room from which the voices were coming. The knob was pleasantly cool, it dispelled all my qualms. I opened the door and stepped inside.

All eyes turned towards me. The conversation faltered for an endless second. Then I was loudly greeted. They had been
expecting me, which did not surprise me in the least. I
am
recounting a dream, mind you. One of the people promptly caught my eye. He called to me: "A distinguished gentleman is always the last to come." It was his intonation that made me prick up my ears. You must pay very close attention to him, I told myself, otherwise he will notice something. As I soon found out, he was considered my friend. He kept addressing me as "My friend." It was very irksome having such a watchdog next to me.

And it was he who made me aware of the lady of the house. It was not his words but his observant eyes that made me realize there was something special about her. You see, I was not the host. Coming towards me, she said . . . No, I do not think she said it; she shook my hand, and I knew that she wanted to say: "I was starting to think you would not come." This was not meant as a reproach, but it instantly made me very sad because I could not help her. I smiled embarrassedly in her direction. I avoided speaking to her and looking at her. Nor are such things necessary if one wishes to get to know a person. On the contrary, they are often merely distracting.

It is foolish of me to talk about it. But I assume you would like to know who she was and what she looked like and what sort of dress she was wearing. I would tell you if I could; I would certainly not keep it to myself Nor would I be doing her an injustice by talking about her to a friend or another woman. And why should I not have had something to do with a woman back then? Besides, one can know a man properly only by knowing how he feels about women. Without them, he is not quite tangible, and he fades away like a word that is shouted into emptiness. In short, it was, of course, the woman in whose bed I was sleeping, but there is not much more I can say about her. She was there and was present. And I was most likely dreaming and was not present. Yes, that was probably how it was. Perhaps I will succeed nevertheless in describing some small gesture to recognize her by.

When I say I was dreaming, I am not making a value judgment. People always used to warn us about dreams. They claimed: Dreams are but shadows, and only reality has substance. As if a dream that we dream has no reality. Indeed, the opposite could have been easily proved in their language. For when I awake in the morning and, because of my nightly experience, I am a different person than on the previous evening (indeed, I behave differently than I would like to; I drop an agreed-on plan or make objections, thereby inducing the people who deal with me to change their attitude towards me and behave differently), how can a dream that has such effects have no reality? How much did people even know about this reality anyway? One afternoon, when I was working in a bank, a clerk next to me abruptly sighed: "Ah, and this morning I was in such a good mood." Yet, demonstrably, nothing unpleasant had happened to him that day — at least, nothing that he himself or we others could view as a reason for his mood swing. Had there been a shift in the air pressure? The people would have preferred that explanation, but they knew quite well that it explained nothing. They were afraid of something they could not account for, and they tried to cover up this insecurity with loud proverbs. It would have been better if they had not felt so secure.

All I am saying is that for the reality of that woman, it makes no difference whether I was dreaming or waking. Incidentally, I was not married to her.

I have probably neglected to mention that there could not
have been anything striking about my clothes. They were exactly what was expected of me, and I paid them no further heed. People spoke to me, and I said yes or no, as they wished, I nodded, smiled, or listened with an earnest face. It was not the least bit difficult. For instance, one of them took me into a corner and talked away at me. He proposed some joint business venture or something of the kind. I replied: Yes, that is something we can talk about, or: Let me sleep on it. And he left me contentedly.

We were all young or, more precisely, none of us was old. Ridiculous as it sounds: it was as if we were children pretending to be grownups. We would have been more genuine had we played with dolls somewhere or played hide-and-seek, or spun tops in the street. Instead, we had gotten it into our heads to play adults, and we took the roles very seriously. To appear believable, we exaggerated what looked typical in adult behavior: say, the bows, the conduct at meals, the idioms, and what not. We had even adopted some bizarre crotchets that had struck us in an uncle or an aunt. I sense that we even played at love, because we felt it was required. Naturally, I cannot claim this with any certainty, but I suspect that a few of them thought they loved each other and probably embraced and slept together at night, because they knew that that was what grownups did. It must have been a very dangerous game; because, by playing at things for which they lacked the maturity — even though, perhaps much to their own amazement, they found the necessary skill within themselves — they stunted their own growth. In fact, people generally talked too much about love, and since they therefore made it too easy for themselves, few of them really achieved it; which always provoked great sighs.

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?