My Year in No Man's Bay (63 page)
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y father died during the year, far off in the house on Jade Bay, found only after his death (in the otherwise spotlessly clean bathroom, snippets of whiskers on the razor blade); which of us two was David, and which Absalom?
y father died during the year, far off in the house on Jade Bay, found only after his death (in the otherwise spotlessly clean bathroom, snippets of whiskers on the razor blade); which of us two was David, and which Absalom?
And that kindhearted salesclerk in the shopping center on the plateau of Velizy, of whom I had thought for a moment that all that stood between us, not only him and me, and a new, eternal brotherhood was one blink of the eye, has not been seen since spring. And the footprint of my son, at that time still small, in the asphalt of the sidewalk, beyond the hills, in the first place we lived in, the place where from time to time I went for my oracle, was tarred over during the summer. And that ball of clay, the only impractical thing on my writing table, cracked to bits on the day I hit myself too hard on the forehead with it. And the eyrie of the mythical beast in my garden, created when I cut off the top of the spruce tree, has remained empty to this day (although on the most windless day in August a giant shadow floated over me there, and once, when a wailing sound suddenly broke out behind the house, followed by cries of pursuit, for a moment I saw something with gray stripes diving down under the cherry tree, flying low, almost brushing the grass, a falcon, as it swooped off through the underbrush, half turned onto its
back, its claws stretched out sideways, and one morning in the eyrie a wide-open beak moved, which then turned out to be the ears of a nest-robbing cat).
back, its claws stretched out sideways, and one morning in the eyrie a wide-open beak moved, which then turned out to be the ears of a nest-robbing cat).
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the beginning of the year a hare showed itself to me in the woods, far off in the sun, and since then no other. The shots in late fall, however, were aimed more at wild doves, of whom then entire rows, shot down from the sky, cloud-gray-blue, lay displayed on the butcher's marble counter. On the other hand, the foxes have multiplied, and, as I gathered from a remark made in a bar by one of the old-timers, who usually pointedly keep silent on the subject, are larger than ever before. At the beginning of winter, I myself encountered, on another midnight walk home through the wooded heights, as many as I normally encountered only as eyes peering out of the darkness, now standing boldly along the road. And from the long since depopulated foxholes along the banks of the sunken roads, the poles stuck in by children playing have disappeared, which gives the impression that they are occupied once more.
the beginning of the year a hare showed itself to me in the woods, far off in the sun, and since then no other. The shots in late fall, however, were aimed more at wild doves, of whom then entire rows, shot down from the sky, cloud-gray-blue, lay displayed on the butcher's marble counter. On the other hand, the foxes have multiplied, and, as I gathered from a remark made in a bar by one of the old-timers, who usually pointedly keep silent on the subject, are larger than ever before. At the beginning of winter, I myself encountered, on another midnight walk home through the wooded heights, as many as I normally encountered only as eyes peering out of the darkness, now standing boldly along the road. And from the long since depopulated foxholes along the banks of the sunken roads, the poles stuck in by children playing have disappeared, which gives the impression that they are occupied once more.
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he minibus, the bay's public transportation, which circles all day long and appears at the same places approximately every half hour, has been given a colorful high-gloss coating instead of its subdued white, and also dark-tinted windows. Nevertheless the heads of the passengers can still be made out, cut off at the bottom because of the low seats, as children's usually are, and the landscape thus visible on the other side through the rather slow-moving busâthe forest-edge trees, the ponds, the railway embankmentâappears, as before the reconditioning, as part of the vehicle, grown together with it. And even now it can give me a jolt whenever I catch sight of the few people waiting at one of the poles marking a bus stop that is probably obvious only to the natives; they are leaning against a lamppost, for a bumpy ride that will take them two side streets farther, and I get on with them, just like that.
he minibus, the bay's public transportation, which circles all day long and appears at the same places approximately every half hour, has been given a colorful high-gloss coating instead of its subdued white, and also dark-tinted windows. Nevertheless the heads of the passengers can still be made out, cut off at the bottom because of the low seats, as children's usually are, and the landscape thus visible on the other side through the rather slow-moving busâthe forest-edge trees, the ponds, the railway embankmentâappears, as before the reconditioning, as part of the vehicle, grown together with it. And even now it can give me a jolt whenever I catch sight of the few people waiting at one of the poles marking a bus stop that is probably obvious only to the natives; they are leaning against a lamppost, for a bumpy ride that will take them two side streets farther, and I get on with them, just like that.
The reconditioned bus is missing that display space on the back intended for the community's barely leaflet-sized posters announcing events, perhaps because films are no longer shown anywhere here, not
even slides of the Amazon or other places. Even though the display frame passed me empty for a long time, I still see there the weekly classics announced in the bay's movie theater:
Vera Cruzâ
a man sentenced to death flees,
Rio Grande
. Perhaps I shall become a moviegoer again soon.
even slides of the Amazon or other places. Even though the display frame passed me empty for a long time, I still see there the weekly classics announced in the bay's movie theater:
Vera Cruzâ
a man sentenced to death flees,
Rio Grande
. Perhaps I shall become a moviegoer again soon.
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f I ask myself what happened all year on the long, hilly, yet perfectly straight street that for me constitutes the main street here, this is what comes to mind: the many moving vans, some with Cyrillic writing, others with Greek lettering on them; the flight attendant waiting, long before midday in the otherwise empty landscape, in front of the sandstone school, for the children to be let out; the young women in a hurry, coming from where?, in the morning, with the infants, who, taken in hand by older children at the door, likewise disappeared as quickly into the houses as the mothers into their cars; and of the few pedestrians, the one ordinary original resident, recognizable from the window of my study, no matter how far away he was, through the spyhole I had cut in the hedge, by the white of his cigarette, always at an angle, flaring up for a moment in front of a dark garage door, and along with it his barking cough, each time linked with the sight of his wife in their cottage around the corner by the edge of the forest, scrubbing wash outdoors behind the house, on a board with a drainage hole, though only her husband's handkerchiefs, because his smoker's-cough mucus would otherwise stain all the other things in the washing machine. And one time on that long, straight, hummocky stretch an old woman was walking alone with a shopping bag over her bent arm, and the next time I looked she had dissolved into the water-gray asphalt.
f I ask myself what happened all year on the long, hilly, yet perfectly straight street that for me constitutes the main street here, this is what comes to mind: the many moving vans, some with Cyrillic writing, others with Greek lettering on them; the flight attendant waiting, long before midday in the otherwise empty landscape, in front of the sandstone school, for the children to be let out; the young women in a hurry, coming from where?, in the morning, with the infants, who, taken in hand by older children at the door, likewise disappeared as quickly into the houses as the mothers into their cars; and of the few pedestrians, the one ordinary original resident, recognizable from the window of my study, no matter how far away he was, through the spyhole I had cut in the hedge, by the white of his cigarette, always at an angle, flaring up for a moment in front of a dark garage door, and along with it his barking cough, each time linked with the sight of his wife in their cottage around the corner by the edge of the forest, scrubbing wash outdoors behind the house, on a board with a drainage hole, though only her husband's handkerchiefs, because his smoker's-cough mucus would otherwise stain all the other things in the washing machine. And one time on that long, straight, hummocky stretch an old woman was walking alone with a shopping bag over her bent arm, and the next time I looked she had dissolved into the water-gray asphalt.
The market, set up as an experiment, with barely three or four stands, once a week, along the main street by the athletic fields, from which balls were constantly crashing against the wire fence, right behind the meat, fruit, and cheese, was given up again in the course of the year; the one on the station square was sufficient for the bay?
And what kind of main street is it, almost without stores, with only a single café, the street's middle section bordered by a forest, with king boletes right there on the bank every year, and, at its end, going uphill into a sunken road roofed over by bushes?âI saw it as such, again and again.
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ne of my noise neighbors, the most indefatigable of all, had an accident later in the year when one of his mini-machines slipped (achieving all the more racket production and power output), and he bored his way home with it. Or was he torn apart by his noise-sensitive German shepherd? Only subsequently did I hear that he was a philosopher and teacher, much in demand, author of a story with the title “The Legend of the Holy Noisemaker,” of a book called
Zen and the Art of Loudness,
and of the brochure “How Can I Kill My Garden?”; a man like me; a colleague.
ne of my noise neighbors, the most indefatigable of all, had an accident later in the year when one of his mini-machines slipped (achieving all the more racket production and power output), and he bored his way home with it. Or was he torn apart by his noise-sensitive German shepherd? Only subsequently did I hear that he was a philosopher and teacher, much in demand, author of a story with the title “The Legend of the Holy Noisemaker,” of a book called
Zen and the Art of Loudness,
and of the brochure “How Can I Kill My Garden?”; a man like me; a colleague.
A couple of his neighbors in turn moved, or pitched their tents somewhere else. In their place came, from the civil-war-torn regions, refugees, the kind of people for whom the bay had always been more than a mere reception camp.
They settled in, here and there around my house, as if forever. They have been very quiet, at least until today, and I have already caught myself asking in the morning at my table, “Where has all the noise gone?” as though I needed it now for getting to work.
These immigrants resembled the original inhabitants, now long since in the minority, except that they were much younger, and even shyer or more timid. They clearly did not wish to be seen, and I sometimes used the child Vladimir, as I walked along side streets holding his hand, to get a good look, so to speak, at the new arrivals. Because it was natural for the child to keep stopping, they could not become suspicious when I imitated him and then perhaps simply followed his gaze.
It was even easier with their possessions, in front gardens and courtyards, or the changes, never major ones, and additions they allowed themselves with their houses. Astonishing that they decorated the exteriors far more with this or that from their new place of residence, the bay, than with things brought along and mementos from their own countries. More than one created a pattern of low miniature beds on the bit of ground between the street and his tiny house, surrounded with wooden posts cut from branches in the local forests, filled up with soil also from there, and planted at regular intervals with local tree seedlings, with plants that no one else, not even I any longer, would have noticed, and which in this region were generally considered weeds.
All this seemed remarkable to the refugees, and feathery mountain ash seedlings as well as the mullein, fox grapes as well as cattails, were given stakes, and tied, often with proper sailor's knots.
It made me realize that my own ways of doing things are still determined by my once having been a refugee, and not only during those few weeks in my childhood right after the Second World War when my mother and I, leaving my father in Wilhelmshaven, made our way back and forth across the forbidden zones in Germany to equally forbidden Austria, our only papers consisting of a letter from my grandfather: in his house, with both of his sons killed in action, a downstairs room was available, and there was work in plenty. Even years after our arrival in Rinkolach, although the local people who had survived the war showed me almost nothing but kindness, it was still as though I had no right to be in the country, and a large part of that feeling had to do with the fact that on all my report cards, from elementary school to graduation, the space designated for “citizenship” was filled in in different hands with “stateless.”
And in observing my new neighbors I also recognized that my own occasional skittishness (quite unlike my mother, who soon after her return home was pretty cocky again) does not stem from the way I was later transferred so abruptly from my village to the boarding school, but rather from the twisted sense of being a refugee and illegal that had grown into me. And a difference between me and these new arrivals also became clear, in the form of a play on words, and why not, for a change?: they, the immigrants, and I, the emigrant.
And sometimes I simply stood there in the sun in front of the property of these newcomers, holding the child Vladimir by the hand, my mind blank; imitated the child's quiet, wonderful waiting and watching in the sun or just in the daylight; lost myself happily in the music of his various expressions, or in the sight of his hands held behind him as if to take a running start, as if to fly.
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y year in the no-man's-bay was almost at an end when a new or previous publisher invited me to a discussion of the manuscript, wherever I pleased, in Venice, Granada, Andorra, Potsdam, in any case in “a beautiful place.”
y year in the no-man's-bay was almost at an end when a new or previous publisher invited me to a discussion of the manuscript, wherever I pleased, in Venice, Granada, Andorra, Potsdam, in any case in “a beautiful place.”
I invited him to meet me at a pub by the Pont Mirabeau in Paris, from which I could see the little square with that delicate iron and milk-glass pissoir. I brought him a couple of pages, photocopied at the only bookstore in the bay, also a toy store, having selected the pages chiefly for the names of beautiful places that occurred on them.
As far as the title was concerned, the publisher asked me to consider that the word “no-man,” like “threshold” or “flight,” on a book jacket had a negative and off-putting effect, and that it was old-fashioned to situate the main plotâhe had seen through meâin a remote suburb; a contemporary story had to take place in an urban center; yet the book might find readers in spite of thatâbecause it was me. And then he unexpectedly put on a scholarly air, noting that my text's way of turning verbs into nounsâinstead of “I stood,” “my standing,” instead of “the sky turns blue,” “the blueing of the sky”âcorresponded precisely to what had happened to Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire, during the Middle Ages.
Once, after glancing at a couple of lines, he did sayâand I noticed for the first time that this man sitting across from me had beautiful eyes now âthat despite my declaration in writing, I was still not finished with myself. And afterward on the bridge he offered this to me in parting, to take back to the forest bay: “Both of us know what to think of each other.” What did he mean by that? I brooded, alone in the nocturnal commuter train. And later I thought he probably had the decisive qualification for a book, intuition; but since his life was elsewhere, he despised this.
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omething to which I also paid particular attention during this year here was the time thresholdsâless the accustomed sequence of plum, cherry, and other blossoms than those that had previously gone unnoticed. Thus it occurred to me once in passing: “Now is the time for the hazelnuts' neck ruffs to have grown over their heads,” or “It is already summer, but still too early even for the early apples,” or “These are the autumn days when the acorns in the forest are no longer falling singly, but en masse, constantly, and it is advisable to stay away from the forest with children,” or “Yesterday was a pre-winter day, since the ash in the yard dropped all its leaves in the course of an hour.”
omething to which I also paid particular attention during this year here was the time thresholdsâless the accustomed sequence of plum, cherry, and other blossoms than those that had previously gone unnoticed. Thus it occurred to me once in passing: “Now is the time for the hazelnuts' neck ruffs to have grown over their heads,” or “It is already summer, but still too early even for the early apples,” or “These are the autumn days when the acorns in the forest are no longer falling singly, but en masse, constantly, and it is advisable to stay away from the forest with children,” or “Yesterday was a pre-winter day, since the ash in the yard dropped all its leaves in the course of an hour.”
It was also such a time threshold when on the main street a skylight that had always been wide open during the day, long after summer, with
a giant mirror on the back wall in which nothing but the sky was reflected, was now, in the November rain, more and more often closed, and one morning remained closed entirely, as if sealed up, and that to this day; or the late-fall period at my sitting place by the Nameless Pond, when, under the edible chestnut tree, I had to hold my writing portfolio over my head to protect myself from the periodic pounding, as if of stones, of the tree's fruits raining down on me, announced in advance by the sound of the husks splitting, while my other hand continued to hold my pencil, and my ears picked out the difference between the drumming on the cardboard and the melodic plunging of the chestnuts, like the plucking of a musical string, deep into the water at my feet, whereupon days followed on which nothing more happened there than the clouding over of the surface and the rising of cold from the bottom of the pond, more and more aggressively. And likewise All Souls' Day sticks in my memory as such a threshold, when until evening it remained unprecedentedly quiet around the house, and I imagined that even the most incorrigible noisemakers were now visiting their dead in the cemeteries.
a giant mirror on the back wall in which nothing but the sky was reflected, was now, in the November rain, more and more often closed, and one morning remained closed entirely, as if sealed up, and that to this day; or the late-fall period at my sitting place by the Nameless Pond, when, under the edible chestnut tree, I had to hold my writing portfolio over my head to protect myself from the periodic pounding, as if of stones, of the tree's fruits raining down on me, announced in advance by the sound of the husks splitting, while my other hand continued to hold my pencil, and my ears picked out the difference between the drumming on the cardboard and the melodic plunging of the chestnuts, like the plucking of a musical string, deep into the water at my feet, whereupon days followed on which nothing more happened there than the clouding over of the surface and the rising of cold from the bottom of the pond, more and more aggressively. And likewise All Souls' Day sticks in my memory as such a threshold, when until evening it remained unprecedentedly quiet around the house, and I imagined that even the most incorrigible noisemakers were now visiting their dead in the cemeteries.
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y contrast, eternal sameness was embodied for me in the bay by the seasonless palm trees (although they bloomed like other trees, were trimmed, and carried their array of fruit, their dates), perhaps also because they were so sparse, and furthermore usually hidden.
y contrast, eternal sameness was embodied for me in the bay by the seasonless palm trees (although they bloomed like other trees, were trimmed, and carried their array of fruit, their dates), perhaps also because they were so sparse, and furthermore usually hidden.
To the palms I always went to find the present anew, nothing but the present. And then it seemed to me as if these took on, from the fundamental material of light, even that of night, material or physical form, through their many-fingered fronds, layered over each other, and became rhythmic, not only from an air current but simply with the constant double image on my retina and the layering of the fronds, from which the entire tree, even in the absence of wind, flickered frenetically: “Jazz tree,” I thought one time.
And only now, in winter, thanks to the child Vladimir, who suddenly opened his eyes wide, did I discover a previously overlooked palm tree, now the eighth in the bay, in a gap allowing a glimpse into a backyard, and yet an object as obvious as any other; since which moment that part of town has borne for me the name “behind the temple,” even if the site of the nonexistent temple occupies the place of the cottager-like Street
of the Emigrants, with the uneven wooden electrical poles and tangles of wires dangling high and low in confusion, depending on the uneven heights of the houses here.
of the Emigrants, with the uneven wooden electrical poles and tangles of wires dangling high and low in confusion, depending on the uneven heights of the houses here.
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worked less in the yard than in previous years, in recognition of the fact that, contrary to the view that gardening was relaxing, it actually induced in me that very state of agitation I wanted to avoid for my main task.
worked less in the yard than in previous years, in recognition of the fact that, contrary to the view that gardening was relaxing, it actually induced in me that very state of agitation I wanted to avoid for my main task.
Of the cherries, I harvested only those that fell past the blackbirds' and ravens' beaks, and on the pear tree, which throughout its time threshold had displayed a single white blossom, without a leaf in sight, there was then, without a frost, only heavy rain lasting for days, not one fruit.
I was more apt to continue cutting, raking, hauling in my lane, because of the few original inhabitants passing by there, to whom my activity, like my walking elsewhere with the child Vladimir, was intended to demonstrate my harmlessness. And we actually fell into conversation, always thus: “Good day.”â“Good day.”â“Hard work.” â“But enjoyable.”â“Good day.”
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o many pencils have I used up in this one year that the drawer is already having trouble closing from all the stubs stuffed into it, and from each I have taken leave, on another sheet of paper, in writing: “Thank you, Spanish pencil! Thank you, Yugoslavian pencil! Thank you, white pencil from the honeymoon hotel in Nara, Japan! Thank you, twenty-second black Cumberland pencil! Thank you, pencil from Freilassing in Germany, even if that is perhaps not a beautiful place! Thank you, pencil from the bookstore in the bay, even if your lead kept breaking during sharpening!”
o many pencils have I used up in this one year that the drawer is already having trouble closing from all the stubs stuffed into it, and from each I have taken leave, on another sheet of paper, in writing: “Thank you, Spanish pencil! Thank you, Yugoslavian pencil! Thank you, white pencil from the honeymoon hotel in Nara, Japan! Thank you, twenty-second black Cumberland pencil! Thank you, pencil from Freilassing in Germany, even if that is perhaps not a beautiful place! Thank you, pencil from the bookstore in the bay, even if your lead kept breaking during sharpening!”
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he path deep within the forest, with the thick white sand and the lizards along the bank, where the stonemason from the turn of the era sat on a tree trunk, was graveled and tamped down in the course of the year, and the story of the stonemason, although I wanted to trace it like those of my friends, I left lying somewhere.
he path deep within the forest, with the thick white sand and the lizards along the bank, where the stonemason from the turn of the era sat on a tree trunk, was graveled and tamped down in the course of the year, and the story of the stonemason, although I wanted to trace it like those of my friends, I left lying somewhere.
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f the boat, no, the skiff, in the middle of the Nameless Pond, already in spring half sunk, but still clear in outline, there now sticks out, like the remains of a pile dwelling, only a piece of the once-lacquered hull, without the earlier blue of Istria or Wyoming.
f the boat, no, the skiff, in the middle of the Nameless Pond, already in spring half sunk, but still clear in outline, there now sticks out, like the remains of a pile dwelling, only a piece of the once-lacquered hull, without the earlier blue of Istria or Wyoming.
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rom the one hundred-year-old façade in the bay, the four deck-of-cards emblems in the corners of the half-timbering, the painted diamond, spade, heart, and club, have fallen away along with the mortar.
rom the one hundred-year-old façade in the bay, the four deck-of-cards emblems in the corners of the half-timbering, the painted diamond, spade, heart, and club, have fallen away along with the mortar.
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he vegetable bed, in the middle of one of the bay's cemeteries, by the warden's house, bursting in summertime with tomatoes, pole beans, squash, arugula, and separated from the bare field of headstones by a row of arborvitae, seems to have been leveled, and not merely for the fallow months; yesterday a lone bean pod, blackened, still hung by its stem, scimitarlike.
he vegetable bed, in the middle of one of the bay's cemeteries, by the warden's house, bursting in summertime with tomatoes, pole beans, squash, arugula, and separated from the bare field of headstones by a row of arborvitae, seems to have been leveled, and not merely for the fallow months; yesterday a lone bean pod, blackened, still hung by its stem, scimitarlike.
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lthough now almost an entire year has passed, I still do not see this as “a time,” and simultaneously something within me resists saying
I
to the person who was sitting at this table here in January.
lthough now almost an entire year has passed, I still do not see this as “a time,” and simultaneously something within me resists saying
I
to the person who was sitting at this table here in January.
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, that was back then, like today, the one who time and again lay in his bed at night lost to the world, and who, having gone too long without friends, was overcome by fear of death. Walking, looking, reading, writing were not enough for me; I needed talking, for reinforcement.
, that was back then, like today, the one who time and again lay in his bed at night lost to the world, and who, having gone too long without friends, was overcome by fear of death. Walking, looking, reading, writing were not enough for me; I needed talking, for reinforcement.
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sparrow is running just now right along a gable across the main street, up, down, back: now he knows, as well as our Pythagoras ever did, what a triangle is.
sparrow is running just now right along a gable across the main street, up, down, back: now he knows, as well as our Pythagoras ever did, what a triangle is.
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still get lost here; and I find that all right for this region of mine.
still get lost here; and I find that all right for this region of mine.
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