My Year in No Man's Bay (3 page)
In every case it had been a single person, or a twosome. It was true that mankind had always counted for me, yet never as a belief, rather as a source of powerful emotion that could not be eliminated by any rational measures. In the meantime it has ceased to be a question of any sort of belief in mankind. It is that rational New World of which I become aware in glancing over my shoulder.
From an exchange of glances a couple of weeks ago with a cashier at the shopping center up on the plateau I learned how extraordinary it was to be fond of someone else, an unknown personâand how natural it seemed at the same time. In harmony with oneself, with a thing, with a space, with an absent person: that's fine with me. But nothing could surpass the harmony I was feeling now with the person across from me. The difference was that, in contrast to perceiving the New World in a landscape, I now went on without air in my armpits. To be sure, I viewed permanence with one person and another as the ne plus ultra, and that no longer merely moved me. It was overwhelming. But the experience tore me apart. For one side of me felt excluded from something at which quite a few apparently succeeded. I shied away from happiness in a communal setting, out of a sort of fear of annihilation. Hence also the rareness of such New World moments with my contemporaries and the lack of consequences, because they occurred not with my friends but almost
exclusively with unknown passersby? I began to wonder whether this meant that my end was near.
exclusively with unknown passersby? I began to wonder whether this meant that my end was near.
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idn't I decide to be a marginal figure in this story?
idn't I decide to be a marginal figure in this story?
The heroes were supposed to be the others, the architect, who, searching in Morioka in northern Japan for an unbuilt-up piece of land, slithers over the hummocks of ice; the singer, just now caught in a winter storm that keeps flipping over the map in his hands as he makes his way to the prehistoric stone monument in a meadow behind a farm up in the hills to the south of Inverness; my son, who just came of age, and, after his year as a volunteer with the Austrian mountain troops and after soon-interrupted university studies in history and geography, is working at odd jobs, the day before yesterday as a builder's helper, yesterday morning as a language instructor, last night as a tile layer in a Viennese café, this morning, on his first journey undertaken alone, sitting on one of the limestone blocks that line the harbor basin in Piran, Slovenia; the woman I consider my special friend, who set out a week ago, unaccompanied as usual, on an excursion that will take her on foot and by boat from bay to bay along the southern coast of Turkey; the priest from the far-off village where I was born, who still makes his rounds in that same area, a traveler only in my eyes; my friend the painter, about to shoot his first film on the
meseta,
in Spain; and that is not quite all of them.
meseta,
in Spain; and that is not quite all of them.
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n the books I have written since giving up the legal profession, the hero is more or less me myself. If I reached people that way, I was successful only because I was a character in a book.
n the books I have written since giving up the legal profession, the hero is more or less me myself. If I reached people that way, I was successful only because I was a character in a book.
Whenever I have wanted to be a protagonist in life as well, I have not managed to sustain the role. Time and again I have thought I could pull it off and made the attempt: as captain of my school team, as a speaker in the student senate, as a defense attorney in criminal court, then as the only diplomat who publicly spoke out, abroad, against his highest superior, the federal president; and likewise as a lover, at times even as a womanizer, then husband, father, builder, gardener, vineyard owner. In every case, after a more or less promising beginning, I fairly
soon fell out of character. As a hero or man of action, after the first surge of activity I became a charlatan. I stopped the play, which I had initiated with the best intentions of living life completely. I am too impulsive to be a protagonist in society. As a hero in everyday life I am a public menace. When I confront my past as an activist I see over here a house in ruins, over there a neglected plot of land, perhaps also a betrayed soul, maybe even a dead victim. In my writing, where I could shut myself off from the others, and as the hero of my books, I could act differently, above all more reliably, and there I was primarily and ultimately a danger only to myself. Interestingly enough, I often received the most positive reaction for my equanimity.
soon fell out of character. As a hero or man of action, after the first surge of activity I became a charlatan. I stopped the play, which I had initiated with the best intentions of living life completely. I am too impulsive to be a protagonist in society. As a hero in everyday life I am a public menace. When I confront my past as an activist I see over here a house in ruins, over there a neglected plot of land, perhaps also a betrayed soul, maybe even a dead victim. In my writing, where I could shut myself off from the others, and as the hero of my books, I could act differently, above all more reliably, and there I was primarily and ultimately a danger only to myself. Interestingly enough, I often received the most positive reaction for my equanimity.
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et I now think I am finished with myself, at least as far as stories are concerned. I have hardly anything left to tell about myself, and that I consider progress. So I note the following: if you are looking for a person to assume a major role in the community, I am out of the question, and I am out of the running for the time being as the central character in my narratives. In life, the proper place for me is that of an observer, and in my writing I want to posit myself less as an actor than before and function first and foremost as a chronicler, chronicling both the year in this region here and my friends far and wide beyond the hills, and I want to preserve the chronicler's distance and tone in regard to myself as well. My decades of working with legal texts, especially the most ancient ones, like those of Roman law, will guide me and trace the line I must follow.
et I now think I am finished with myself, at least as far as stories are concerned. I have hardly anything left to tell about myself, and that I consider progress. So I note the following: if you are looking for a person to assume a major role in the community, I am out of the question, and I am out of the running for the time being as the central character in my narratives. In life, the proper place for me is that of an observer, and in my writing I want to posit myself less as an actor than before and function first and foremost as a chronicler, chronicling both the year in this region here and my friends far and wide beyond the hills, and I want to preserve the chronicler's distance and tone in regard to myself as well. My decades of working with legal texts, especially the most ancient ones, like those of Roman law, will guide me and trace the line I must follow.
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ut who knows? I really want to be decisive, yet already questions are cropping up. Wasn't it possible for observation to be a form of action as well? Something that affected what happened and even transformed it? Wasn't a certain observer also a possible hero? Hadn't I learned, either through directing my gaze at someone, or experiencing someone's gaze on me, that looking could avert an act of violence, could let the air out of a scream, bring a toy to life, turn a joke into something serious, blow away a delusion, eliminate a reason for depression? I once saw such a
gaze captured in faces painted by Giotto: narrowed, very elongated eyes, as if they were merely glancing at what was happening and at the same time intimately participating in it. Such observation would impose shape, impart rhythm, cast light.
ut who knows? I really want to be decisive, yet already questions are cropping up. Wasn't it possible for observation to be a form of action as well? Something that affected what happened and even transformed it? Wasn't a certain observer also a possible hero? Hadn't I learned, either through directing my gaze at someone, or experiencing someone's gaze on me, that looking could avert an act of violence, could let the air out of a scream, bring a toy to life, turn a joke into something serious, blow away a delusion, eliminate a reason for depression? I once saw such a
gaze captured in faces painted by Giotto: narrowed, very elongated eyes, as if they were merely glancing at what was happening and at the same time intimately participating in it. Such observation would impose shape, impart rhythm, cast light.
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nd hadn't it been known to happen that observation led to something's being created, an object, an other, a connection, even a natural law? And how far did I get recording such a thing in a reportorial style? How adequate was the language of the chronicler to capturing his own involvement or his possible initiating role? No matter how comprehensive the Latin network of codicils appeared to me, airtight and yet applicable with the lightness of air to all the vicissitudes of life: could the precepts of an imperial legal system also provide a model for my present plan of writing?
nd hadn't it been known to happen that observation led to something's being created, an object, an other, a connection, even a natural law? And how far did I get recording such a thing in a reportorial style? How adequate was the language of the chronicler to capturing his own involvement or his possible initiating role? No matter how comprehensive the Latin network of codicils appeared to me, airtight and yet applicable with the lightness of air to all the vicissitudes of life: could the precepts of an imperial legal system also provide a model for my present plan of writing?
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have already touched on this: when I glance behind me, I see a thing differently than if I were looking at it head-on. For a long time in my life this looking behind me always occurred abruptly. I hardly ever took in more than a distorted image.
have already touched on this: when I glance behind me, I see a thing differently than if I were looking at it head-on. For a long time in my life this looking behind me always occurred abruptly. I hardly ever took in more than a distorted image.
It was different when women turned their heads sometimes, on a street. Women glanced over their shoulder so naturally; it seemed to suit them. Their beauty became accessible as a result. What emanated from their glance was not so much a provocation as serenity, or a line traced in the air.
Twice a story resulted. The first one came about on the great drawbridge in Maribor, with the woman who in the meantime is my special friend from afar; the other during my time in America on a windy street in El Paso with the woman who then became my wife, whom our son calls “your woman from Catalonia,” and whom I, wherever she may be at the moment, consider (under certain circumstances) my enemy. The woman from Catalonia continued to glance behind her long after we had ceased to be strangersâon many streets, bridges, landings, wood roads. And when her glance fell on me, I always swore anew to take it as the measure of all things, not to let myself be dissuaded from considering it
the only one that counted in all our other moments. This woman's glance behind her seemed so joyful to me, so kind, so innocent, so original, so refreshing.
the only one that counted in all our other moments. This woman's glance behind her seemed so joyful to me, so kind, so innocent, so original, so refreshing.
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n the meantime I myself am the only one looking over his shoulder. Starting with the period when I renounced a life of action, I even cultivated this habit, and I now practice it purposefully. A glance to the side glides into a turn to the rear hemisphere. From a certain degree on, my head-turning is feigned, but so unobtrusively that if bystanders happen to be looking they miss it.
n the meantime I myself am the only one looking over his shoulder. Starting with the period when I renounced a life of action, I even cultivated this habit, and I now practice it purposefully. A glance to the side glides into a turn to the rear hemisphere. From a certain degree on, my head-turning is feigned, but so unobtrusively that if bystanders happen to be looking they miss it.
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ith moments like this I hope to achieve something, and when my excessive consciousness does not spoil the game for me, I do succeed. First of all, so long as it is peacetime, objects light up as they never would if viewed frontally. It is an inner light that provides shape and focus. In this way I impose a pattern on clutter, whether of underbrush or buildings. And the pattern is set in motion. Along with the pattern I derive a theatrical spectacle from this behind-the-back world.
ith moments like this I hope to achieve something, and when my excessive consciousness does not spoil the game for me, I do succeed. First of all, so long as it is peacetime, objects light up as they never would if viewed frontally. It is an inner light that provides shape and focus. In this way I impose a pattern on clutter, whether of underbrush or buildings. And the pattern is set in motion. Along with the pattern I derive a theatrical spectacle from this behind-the-back world.
Time and again I find myself surprised by the richness that exists in places where there is very little to see, or nothing but air. The spectacle fills me with amazement; “Oh!” is often my only thought about something seemingly not worth mentioning in the countryside behind me. Or I think, as I become aware of a group of trees, a cluster of roofsâthese things seem to have gathered in as close as if they had crept up on me and were waiting to take me by surpriseâlike an athletic coach: “So: you're all here. Come on, guys, let's move it!”
Since I began to deny myself any social life, this has become a feature of my activity, a part of my day.
Yet not every world landscape lends itself to this kind of observation, adopted with the intention of setting something in motion, not by a long stretch. My landscape here, which I have known now for twenty years, nestled between the heights of the Seine, separated from Paris by a wooded chain of hills, is suitable, I would assert. Whenever I glance
back at its features, what emanates from them I always see anew as the “glow of the reverse colors.”
back at its features, what emanates from them I always see anew as the “glow of the reverse colors.”
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espite my familiarity with this countryside, acquired in the course of daylong walksâdreaming and walking, my mottoâfrom suburb to suburb, over hill and dale, across highways and railroad tracks, I still know hardly anyone, still have no friend in the
département,
which stretches in the form of a half-moon around the western half of Paris, from Bourg-la-Reine and Fontenay-aux-Roses in the south all the way up to Asnières and Clichy in the northâexcept perhaps for the so-called petty prophet of Versailles-Porchefontaine, who sometimes provides my rest stop behind the next chain of hills.
espite my familiarity with this countryside, acquired in the course of daylong walksâdreaming and walking, my mottoâfrom suburb to suburb, over hill and dale, across highways and railroad tracks, I still know hardly anyone, still have no friend in the
département,
which stretches in the form of a half-moon around the western half of Paris, from Bourg-la-Reine and Fontenay-aux-Roses in the south all the way up to Asnières and Clichy in the northâexcept perhaps for the so-called petty prophet of Versailles-Porchefontaine, who sometimes provides my rest stop behind the next chain of hills.
To give a sense of the effect of such a glance, no longer that of a participant but that of an observer, on people, on strangers, I must move from my Roman-law generalizations to narration. This has been waiting inside me, in my fingers, my knees, my shoulders, from the beginning, and has already begun tuning up now and then.
A few weeks ago, after just such a day of walking, I took the local bus home; it goes from Jouy-en-Josas in the Bièvre Valley across the plateau of Vélizy to the upper valley here.
In my younger days I was a friend to strangers, to passersby, to cross-country travelers. I felt I belonged among them; I was in love with them, with their faces, their bodies, their silhouettes. In the meantime I have to fight my inclination to find any and all strangers ugly and repulsive at first sight, even children. There is no longer any ideal that guides me, and yet I miss having one, as if without it my activity cast no light, and if my publisher had not talked me out of it, my last book would have had “loss of images” on the title page. Especially in late afternoon on my long days, an hour arrives when, dizzy from all the paths and places, I see the faces of others approaching like the masks of automatons, and my own face matches theirs. Even our outlines and shadows appear utterly shapeless. Only a dead, stillborn mankind appears to me, wretches who provide no sense of a path to follow.
On that evening bus trip when, on the plateau of Vélizy, in accordance with my daily observation practice, I almost unconsciously turned toward the people behind me, I finally managed to see people as distinct again.
In turning my head I got away from judging and condemning. My era, my enemy: this thought, which had been solidifying in my mind with the passing years, lost its content. At that moment no era mattered, or only all eras together: through the faces behind me I gazed into a primeval time, and simultaneously into a new time. Even though nothing connected the passengers to each other, my glancing back created unity among them. Although none of them seemed conscious of it, it was no fantasy. It would have faded into one if I had approached them now with these tidings of joy. (My friend the singer repeatedly did something of the sort during one period of his life: he would appear before a random gathering of people to sing them awake, and as a rule each one would stare all the more fixedly into his corner, and a certain Pentecostal spirit would arise only if he broke off his song and pelted them with curses.) I certainly felt a wave of feeling sweeping me toward those people, but at the same time some instinct kept me at a distance. “That's it!” I merely thought, and then: “That's how it is.” And further: “You should not try to do anything with it, just go off to your corner now and tell about it, andâsince oral narration has never worked for youâin writing.” And further: “The faces of strangers, the most reliable source of pleasure.”
In turning my head I got away from judging and condemning. My era, my enemy: this thought, which had been solidifying in my mind with the passing years, lost its content. At that moment no era mattered, or only all eras together: through the faces behind me I gazed into a primeval time, and simultaneously into a new time. Even though nothing connected the passengers to each other, my glancing back created unity among them. Although none of them seemed conscious of it, it was no fantasy. It would have faded into one if I had approached them now with these tidings of joy. (My friend the singer repeatedly did something of the sort during one period of his life: he would appear before a random gathering of people to sing them awake, and as a rule each one would stare all the more fixedly into his corner, and a certain Pentecostal spirit would arise only if he broke off his song and pelted them with curses.) I certainly felt a wave of feeling sweeping me toward those people, but at the same time some instinct kept me at a distance. “That's it!” I merely thought, and then: “That's how it is.” And further: “You should not try to do anything with it, just go off to your corner now and tell about it, andâsince oral narration has never worked for youâin writing.” And further: “The faces of strangers, the most reliable source of pleasure.”
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