Jan Slauerhoff - The Forbidden Kingdom

And the day came when Camões, without companions, but with a little water and food left, sat in front of one of the stones he had helped to erect on the outward journey. He now had the whole expanse of heaven and earth to himself alone, not a soul came to disturb or torment him. Lisbon and Macao seemed as distant as burnt-out stars, and equally far in the past.

And yet this was another kind of imprisonment.

Yet he didn’t worry, but remained calmly sitting with his back against the stone. When at noon the sun became too fierce and too dangerous, he dragged himself towards a bamboo grove. From there he ambushed a passing peasant, beat him unconscious, robbed him of his supply of food and water and put on his clothes. All this he did calmly. He had come to China as a soldier, but it did not worry him that his first action there was that of a footpad. In a daze he made his way south. As dawn broke he glanced back; the bamboo grave and the stone seemed to be still close. He quickened his step, no longer looked round, but had the feeling that someone could soon take his place there by the stone, and that he himself would be lost in the desert.

THIS LIFE CONTINUED FOR YEARS, and I scarcely went ashore any more; I lost touch with the earth, like so many who go to sea. Now and then I picked up messages: war between Bolivia and Paraguay; a receiver embezzles £ 10,000 from a council’s coffers; the third daughter of the Earl of Middlesbrough and the third son of Lord Leverhulme marry. Do you think these reports made me feel any attachment to that life over there? The others, however, loved reading them and talked about them for hours.

There were still two places where I occasionally went ashore. Near Taishan a yellow beach stretched for hours along the sea shore; a vertical slate cliff hid the hinterland. Here along this shore I walked for hours, just to exhaust myself, so that for days afterwards I could find some comfort in lying on the narrow bunk in the cabin. And then there was Dingshan, a peninsula where, unlike everywhere else in China, the trees had not been uprooted. Those there had reached an advanced age and shed mild light and shadow on the gardens far below. I walked the deserted paths there, and as I passed the heavy trunks and great funeral urns met no one; I forgot my life and penetrated an ancient China, well protected by its walls, where no ships had yet brought strangers from afar.

In the garden of Tsung El, at the water’s edge, I felt good soil beneath my feet, and in that of Ho Kam Yong I forgot the sea; I must have been in that of Jou Shuan Wang, in the middle of the island, before, because I never lost my way in the labyrinth there, and all the paths were familiar to me.

Yes, it was in that garden that I was first overtaken by the feeling of having been here before, when once, instead of walking towards the house, I took a side path, and past huddled bushes came round the back way and stopped at a summerhouse, the windows of which were covered in a green film. One pane was broken, but this did not make it any lighter inside. I stopped. I need take only one more step, and time would split in two, I would become someone else, with a different face, different hands, eyes, blood, still myself, but having forgotten myself. I was seized by fear, like becoming dizzy and jumping off a tower onto the ground which receded as you fell; I shrank back and walked along the path, as if across the deck of a sinking ship. I fled from the garden, went straight to the landing, had them row me aboard and only came to myself back in my cabin. Strange that I had to have taken leave of the world in order to feel sure of myself again.

Myself. I’m not old, and I’ve already forgotten how to live. I wanted to remain in solitude and I have come into contact with all the filth the world produces.

I feel grey and clammy, and can never wash the sediment off me. Will I ever again be able to drink of life without disgust, in a wind not infected by the miasma of a rotting ship or a people-spawning city, coming from the pure atmosphere, and feel it brush my skin like a caress? And walk through a pinewood, accompanied only by my shadow? To let a cold brook flow round me, let myself be instructed by flowers…

Never again. I have become contaminated by contact with many people who have allowed their lives to become sullied and have also besmirched mine. I can only save myself in a different life. It is waiting, it is as shapeless as a robe long unworn, it is waiting to receive me and make me invisible to my contemporaries. But I do not dare let go of this old torn one. There is one other person in this present life who can save me. But she is unattainable for me. When I arrive in a harbour she leaves, when I walk round this island and turn round in order to meet her, she also turns round, and if I cross the centre of the island she evades me. Let me jump into the boat, row away and live as I have become, no longer as I was. And think only that she lives there in the distance, imperishable and unattainable!

But the next morning everything was back to normal: I lay in my narrow bunk that was too short for me, tired out from the hot night, drowsy from the previous day, and drank the lukewarm coffee the boy brought me.

A FEW MONTHS LATER we were again moored off Dungshan. An oppressive heat hung over the harbour, the sea and the land, a heat so overwhelming as can only persist in China. Yet men were working at all the hatches and everyone (there were not many crew on this ship) was involved with the cargo. I was the only one who did nothing, since recently I have made repeated mistakes in tallying and they preferred to do without me, as I had been informed scornfully. I did not regret this, but on this occasion I would rather have helped and tired myself out standing by the hatch. Like this it was unbearable on board. Heat, noise, stench and idleness drove me from the ship: I did not want to go ashore, but the urge was too strong.

I landed on the island and started walking. I should have liked to sit very quietly somewhere against a wall. But when I sat I could feel the ground blazing under my body and my body catching fire. I had to walk and went where I did not want to go. And so it happened.

I stood quietly resting in front of the stone summerhouse, since there was a little coolness there. Gradually it became fresher, cooler, chillier, darker and within it lightened to yellow twilight. Apart from that it was empty inside, I thought, until I saw a man sitting there; I could not see his face, and his clothes were the kind worn centuries ago. He was sitting writing, and on a tall black chest lay rolls of parchment, which sometimes moved to and fro, like scraps of birch bark or wood shavings when there is a breath of wind in a deserted corner of the wood, or a neglected workshop. For the man writing the world seemed no longer to exist. I only saw him occasionally clench his fist and seemingly shiver with pain; he paused for a moment and then went on writing. What concern was the writing man of mine? Come on, I must be going, but I noticed that I was no longer myself. I had disappeared. I was no longer standing there or on my way to the beach. Where was I then? Surely I wasn’t that writing man, not that! I wanted to shout, drive him away, like an animal that leaps across our path at night, but I had no tongue and no limbs. Yet the sweat kept dripping on the ground — but wasn’t it my blood, colourless with extreme old age? Wasn’t I standing there catching up with the backlog of dying, wouldn’t I soon be a little pile of dust in a narrow-necked urn? Rather that than be him, who in a fate, in a fate…

He rose and came very slowly over to the window, very close to it; I couldn’t see his face, but in a moment he would touch the green glass and I would see him, then he would withdraw and I would be him . The glass tinkled and I stared down at my bloody hand. Inside, beyond the broken pane it was dark, there was only a hand moving up and down over grey parchment, another that hung down limply, an eye that stared at that hand, and next to it a hollow cash box with red edges. I was able to escape; my body dragged itself through the garden; it was as if the landing stage had been reached in a bound… Fearfully slowly, the rescuing sampan rowed nearer, picked me up and took me aboard. I saw the black, filthy ship lying in the water as the only safe place on earth, the same ship that — for how long? a few hours? — I had fled in disgust. A jump onto the gangplank, a dollar in an astonished hand, and the escape had been successful!