My Year in No Man's Bay (10 page)
No matter how citified he looked in his hat, tie, and oxfords, the teacher found no terrain too arduous. His clothes soaked by rain, his soles slipping and sliding in the clay, his glasses fogged up, he trudged along gamely. All through the war, while still a child, he had been in hiding in a cellar in the heart of Paris, and now he enjoyed life every day, especially the parts without deep significance. At certain moments while we walked, the tiered horizons of the Seine hills up ahead, even
as he stumbled alongâthis seemed to be his rhythmâhe, who was also often gripped by fear of death, preached of a sort of immortality there in the region beyond the hills; wasn't the fact that this area repeatedly promised immortality a kind of proof in itself?
as he stumbled alongâthis seemed to be his rhythmâhe, who was also often gripped by fear of death, preached of a sort of immortality there in the region beyond the hills; wasn't the fact that this area repeatedly promised immortality a kind of proof in itself?
Yet even at that time he was convinced that the end of the world was imminent, and it would come from Germany, all of whose landscapes he carried around with himâand here he would point to his chest. In response to the violent acts of the Baader-Meinhof gang, he commented, “This is the end!” and then the same when they committed suicide in prison. We were sitting that autumn evening on a quiet, well-lit square in Paris, and he stared into the darkness, which under his eyes grew denser among the trees and seemed to close in on us; he said it without a trace of smugness, filled with childlike or primitive horror.
Years later he began to mistrust me, although he continued to write interested letters about what I was doing. This change, I now thought, as I made the little stones ping over the ice of the nameless pond, had started with my asking him to do something for me. I had noticed much earlier how difficult he could become the moment you specifically requested something of him. Any schoolboy lie was good enough for him when it came to dodging others' expectations. And one time he was supposed to mail something to me in Germany, where I was spending a few weeks to be with my father (which yielded the “Writer's Tour”). I managed to persuade him, although he said he had dislocated his leg; the post office lay in the opposite direction from his school; and the air in post offices brought on asthma attacks.
He finally mailed the envelope, but because he had put it off so long, I was no longer at the address I had given him, and the item was sent back. And upon my return he suddenly burst out in a hate-filled tirade. In Germany they had looked at the return address and seen “a Jewish name,” and that was why they had sent the envelope back. “A Jew! Return to sender!” And those were my countrymen!
He calmed down, and for a while things were all right, until he wrote that he had tried to read my first book, the story of my ancestors, but all these villagers disgusted him. In his eyes they were all anti-Semites, who, if he had grown up among them, would have driven him into exile. Yet my “Drowsy Story” dealt only with rural life after the war, and the
characters were Slavic peasants, many of whose sons had been killed for a Germany that had never meant anything to them. And in our region there was not a single Jew, and I recalled a chronicle from the turn of the century according to which, since even at the village fair, the day of greatest sociability, there was no Jew among the outside vendors, one of these had to stand behind his booth dressed as a Jew, in wig and costume, to make the festival completeâwhich, however, only confirmed my acquaintance in his opinion. He continued to announce he was coming out for a walk, but when I was already expecting him he would call to say he had been detained in town. The times he did come, he would remark as he was leaving that I was probably glad to be rid of him.
characters were Slavic peasants, many of whose sons had been killed for a Germany that had never meant anything to them. And in our region there was not a single Jew, and I recalled a chronicle from the turn of the century according to which, since even at the village fair, the day of greatest sociability, there was no Jew among the outside vendors, one of these had to stand behind his booth dressed as a Jew, in wig and costume, to make the festival completeâwhich, however, only confirmed my acquaintance in his opinion. He continued to announce he was coming out for a walk, but when I was already expecting him he would call to say he had been detained in town. The times he did come, he would remark as he was leaving that I was probably glad to be rid of him.
He became most alienated from me when he stopped believing in the possibility of writing new books, or in books altogether. He, who had once been able to trumpet his opinion on a book, and books, with the best of them, now did not even mention a book, no longer asked me about any book, or refused to listen. It seems as though he has given up books, and sometimes I can sympathize with him. Only he no longer comes to see me, and so I cannot tell him that. In his old age he now walks alone, with his immortality on the horizon, and I daresay he probably never needed me for that.
And I, did I need him? Whom have I ever needed? No one, as the woman from Catalonia always reproached me.
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here would be tales to tell of several others with whom I once considered myself connected and whom I have lost in the meantime, or can no longer bring to mind. I know they exist, often hardly changed since my time with them. But whenever I try to picture them and their day from a distance as I used to, nothing comes to me. I have no associations with them; at their very names darkness closes in.
here would be tales to tell of several others with whom I once considered myself connected and whom I have lost in the meantime, or can no longer bring to mind. I know they exist, often hardly changed since my time with them. But whenever I try to picture them and their day from a distance as I used to, nothing comes to me. I have no associations with them; at their very names darkness closes in.
The same thing happens to me with my previous publisher, whom I once pictured as showered with happiness when he was reading a manuscript; for entire summers I swam next to him in the icy waters of mountain lakes, heading for the snow on the opposite bank; we were of one mind about our books, past and future. He has long since sold all his book rights to a magazine publishing conglomerate and commutes
between his faith healer in Scheveningen, the Institute for Thalasso-therapy in San Sebastian, the Rheumatism Center on the Plattensee, the sulfur baths of Saturnia, the Clinic for Zero Diet in the Caucasus, and his guest cell in the monastery on Mount Athos. I know where he is at any given moment; we are not estrangedâit is simply that I no longer see him anywhere. That the rights to everything I had done over the years did not belong to me: that was wrong.
between his faith healer in Scheveningen, the Institute for Thalasso-therapy in San Sebastian, the Rheumatism Center on the Plattensee, the sulfur baths of Saturnia, the Clinic for Zero Diet in the Caucasus, and his guest cell in the monastery on Mount Athos. I know where he is at any given moment; we are not estrangedâit is simply that I no longer see him anywhere. That the rights to everything I had done over the years did not belong to me: that was wrong.
And it is the same with the woman whom I could view from a distance during one period in my life as my Muse. I knew her from her letters, but at that time it was enough to think of her for a moment across the continent and the ocean, and she would be there. Once, when I was sitting at a loss for words at my writing table, waiting since morning for a first sentence, which kept announcing its imminent arrival yet had not come by nightfall, I felt her draw near and silently write the sentence out for me, and then the next sentences, down the entire page. And once, when I was flat on my backâand never again would I be able to get aroundâshe came to be with me and rolled, pulled, rubbed, stroked, pushed, licked, seasoned, breathed, kneaded, and rendered me mobile for a long time, at least well past Easter, which was then approaching.
For decades that woman, whose appearance I cannot even describe, remained in charge of me. From a distance I would turn to her and try out questions on her that were perhaps being asked for the first time since the world began, and she would answer without delay. I included in my books not a few of her letters, always written without corrections. Yet I did not want to know what she was doing; pictured her as having children, going to work, tending her house and garden.
In the meantime she no longer answers, has fallen silent for good. Even before that she gave me to understand that she was disappointed in me. Then she suddenly turned against me, in a letter of pure hatred. She severed all connection. I was not the person she had taken me for. This happened, I told myself, because I always went on as though nothing were wrong. To keep her respect, I would have had to perish. I would have had to go to hell, and instead I took refuge in my writing. I would have had to go smash at a certain moment. I would not have been allowed to have a wife or child or an everyday life. I was supposed to suffer, or at least not hide my suffering, experience martyrdom many
times over, and die a terrible and at the same time pitiful death. Only thus could I have remained true to myself and to her.
times over, and die a terrible and at the same time pitiful death. Only thus could I have remained true to myself and to her.
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uring the last days of winter I walked and walked in the cold wind through the woods, and pondered whether it was not I after all who had been forgotten by the others, who had been given up for lost by them. Perhaps I am the one who no longer counts for them, who holds no more surprises for them, who appears in neither their daydreams nor their night dreams?
uring the last days of winter I walked and walked in the cold wind through the woods, and pondered whether it was not I after all who had been forgotten by the others, who had been given up for lost by them. Perhaps I am the one who no longer counts for them, who holds no more surprises for them, who appears in neither their daydreams nor their night dreams?
What, for instance, about the one who of late has been most powerfully present for me in my thoughts as I walked, Filip Kobal from Rinkenberg, the next village over from Rinkolach, whom I once viewed as my successor in writing, more flexible than I, more generous, more warmhearted, more colorful? Yet at one time we often said to each other that it should actually be the other way around, since I came from the village on the sunny side, and he, a few years younger, from the village on the shady side, beyond the hill, which was much steeper there.
We first met as adults, he a lawyer as well; I already had a book to my name, and he at the time was nowhere near that. He did become my successor, at any rate in the legal affairs bureau of the Southern Railway, as a tenant of the house in Sievering, and in other respects, too. Although he was bigger and broader than I, had a more powerful voice, lighter skin and eyes, many mistook him for me. Then, at a distance, I read his first texts and talked him out of all the guilt and self-flagellation he had put into them: “From the shadow of Rinkenberg into the light of Rinkolach!” He, who had previously groaned at the thought of having to go down to the garden gate, learned from me to go walking. Likewise he, who at one time had to clear his throat before every sentence and even then remained almost impossible to understand, became a sought-after reader and panelist, from the heart of Switzerland to Schleswig-Holstein. When he told me, his confidant, that he secretly felt superior to all those around him, that he spent entire evenings sitting alone as if enthroned, with the lights out and the entire world at his feet, I encouraged him to go ahead and let people see that from time to time; it was appropriate for him and his writing, within limits, and since then, whenever he stands up and reads, out comes a mighty voice that drowns
out any contradiction, a most remarkable contrast to the diffidence, mumbling, and word-swallowing he still displays in everyday situations. Perhaps he has become an authority even more with his voice than with his books, and at the same time a folksy figure; wherever he appears, he is immediately invited to sing along, to play cards, to go bowling, which is probably unique for our Austria and a homegrown writer, especially nowadays. Yet he still dreads the physical work I recommended to him, partly for waking and schooling his imagination; he recoils at the thought of it, as if this were asking too much of him; a quiver of revulsion runs through him if he has to so much as pick up a trash can. True, he has moved from the shade to the sun of Rinkolach, his house is open to allânatives, refugees, readersâbut his elder sister does everything for him, from polishing his shoes to chopping wood and mowing the lawn; with her there, he hardly lifts a finger.
out any contradiction, a most remarkable contrast to the diffidence, mumbling, and word-swallowing he still displays in everyday situations. Perhaps he has become an authority even more with his voice than with his books, and at the same time a folksy figure; wherever he appears, he is immediately invited to sing along, to play cards, to go bowling, which is probably unique for our Austria and a homegrown writer, especially nowadays. Yet he still dreads the physical work I recommended to him, partly for waking and schooling his imagination; he recoils at the thought of it, as if this were asking too much of him; a quiver of revulsion runs through him if he has to so much as pick up a trash can. True, he has moved from the shade to the sun of Rinkolach, his house is open to allânatives, refugees, readersâbut his elder sister does everything for him, from polishing his shoes to chopping wood and mowing the lawn; with her there, he hardly lifts a finger.
And this Filip Kobal, who could count on being understood by me in a way that a person probably experiences only once in a lifetime, has, I think, turned his back on me forever.
The last straw was his visit to me here in the bay over a year ago. Since then he has sent me not a single sign of life, not even a card from the places where he gives readings, whereas previously I would receive big fat letters from him in his enormous sign painter's handwriting, for which I once praised him, like so much else. A reason for his silence toward me may perhaps lie in the country once so dear to both our hearts, Yugoslavia, which he, as he puts it in an article, has unmasked as his “own personal illusion” and has “smoked out of himself,” and which still shines on before me as a reality. But I know that one hour of double-voiced storytelling about that country would suffice, and Kobal and I would be reduced to completely unanimous weeping and cursing, weeping, laughing, and cursing.
No, Filip Kobal has written me off because I settled in a faraway country, rather than where he is convinced I belong. He disapproves, as he told me at the end, of my obstinate, and, according to him, arbitrary, abandonment of my place of origin for something that in no respect seemed necessary, certainly not essential as an “exile” (which, to be sure, I have never in my life asserted a need for). It did no good that on that last visit he roamed for days at my side through the hills and valleys of
the Seine, dropped in with me on hundreds of bars, churches, hermitages, houseboats, transmitters, and local radio stations.
the Seine, dropped in with me on hundreds of bars, churches, hermitages, houseboats, transmitters, and local radio stations.
I took him to the wintry birds' sleeping tree by the railroad station, even had my opera glasses with me, so that my nearsighted friend could distinguish the massive branches in the plane tree's crown from the motionless sparrow-balls. I shared with him the minutes of the last session of the town council, filled him in on the proportional assignment of seats to the various parties, from community to community within the
département,
with its population in the millions, gave a scintillating account of the early history of the region, from the days of the Romans and the Middle Ages to the liberation in 1944 by the division commanded by General Leclerc. In the church in Sevres he found himself standing with me by the tiny spiral staircase from the twelfth century that began high above our heads in the wallâthere was no other staircase, not even a ladderâand ended who knows where; in Ville d'Avray, as the wind feathered the water, I showed him the ponds painted by Corot; on Mont St.-Valérien near Suresnes we breathed the air in the former Gestapo death cells; in La Defense we stood together, buffeted by the night wind, in the ghostly light of the Grande Arche.
département,
with its population in the millions, gave a scintillating account of the early history of the region, from the days of the Romans and the Middle Ages to the liberation in 1944 by the division commanded by General Leclerc. In the church in Sevres he found himself standing with me by the tiny spiral staircase from the twelfth century that began high above our heads in the wallâthere was no other staircase, not even a ladderâand ended who knows where; in Ville d'Avray, as the wind feathered the water, I showed him the ponds painted by Corot; on Mont St.-Valérien near Suresnes we breathed the air in the former Gestapo death cells; in La Defense we stood together, buffeted by the night wind, in the ghostly light of the Grande Arche.
In the forests we crouched side by side over the secret springs from which I had scraped away the leaves for him, whereupon they began to pulse before our eyes. I slipped with him into the underbrush to find the foxes' lair, climbed down with him into the ditch of the giant toad, pointed out to him in passing the rivulet flowing around a menhir, bought apples and milk with him on a farm on the plateau of Saclay, sniffed at his side the great mill of Versailles, passed with him four forest rangers' lodges in a single afternoon, approached with him, without saying a word, as we made our way uphill on the path taken by Jean Racine and Pascal through the meadows along Rhodon Brook, the barns of Port-Royal, of which I hoped to hear my Filip Kobal say that he had never, not even in our Jaunfeld region, seen such noble threshing-floor roofs, soaring so high toward the heavens, mirroring the centuries.
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