Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

And silent.

As if the wind had halted and turned back over the embankment, stopped blowing there.

Was it covered with reeds or sedge, or, disguising itself as plain soil, did plain grass grow over it?

There was a time when the possibility of seeing ghosts gave me a thrill; now the thought that only nothingness was out there seemed far more terrifying.

Back then, years earlier — and much as I'd like to avoid it I shall speak about this at greater length later — if a shadow, a movement, or a noise unexpectedly materialized in something palpable and called me by name from behind my back, spoke to me or seemed to be listening to me, I knew it to be the very embodiment of my fears; now, whatever this was, it just lay over that moor, made no movement, emitted no sound, cast no shadow.

It merely kept watch.

Hung there over the marsh, an empty shell, an alien thing watching scornfully whoever strayed this way, and this scorn was disconcerting.

I wouldn't say it was frightening, more like chastening; its power lay in reining in my overwrought imagination, which wanted to gallop freely and invent its own story; it scorned all such ambition and gave me to understand that it was responsible for confounding my sense of time; it created the gaps through which I could peer into my soul, and in return for the playful doubling of my self, all it asked me was that I not forget it, which meant that I should not believe my own self-serving stories; and if I had neither the courage nor the good sense to do away with myself, I should at least be aware of as of a pain, and know that it was here, outside me but able any time to reach inside and touch my so-called vital organs, of which — no matter how cleverly I try to manipulate things, to become independent of it —I had no more than one or two; my existence could not be replaced by my imagination; I should not be too sure of myself, should not delude myself that a setting such as this, a moonlit night by the sea, could make me free, let alone happy.

I was standing up by then, and like one who has just completed his compulsory daily devotion, I reached down and with an involuntary movement dusted off my pants.

Much as I would have liked to excuse this little movement as a telltale sign of instilled orderliness, it made me feel again just how ridiculous I was, how fraudulent, and I quickly turned around and wondered if it might not be a good idea to go back, since after all, I could buy cigarettes in the restaurant, where I had had a pleasant meal earlier on, sitting in a comfortably furnished room set off by a glass door; I could even get a cup of tea there, the place stayed open until ten; the wind kept howling, and I would have loved to howl along with it and throw myself on the rocks, but by now I had got quite far from Heiligendamm, I hadn't even noticed how far, and seemed to be on higher ground, too, because somewhere below, on the line dividing land and water, the twinkling of a few tiny stars suggested the presence of houses, and I would have been at least as ashamed of taking flight as I was disturbed by the vacuous stare of the marsh at my back.

I thought about how to continue.

I could not walk without part of my body, mostly my back, coming into contact with it, but what if I turned down to the beach?

When this idea occurred to me — quite uselessly, since by now I could clearly see the surf exploding in the yellow moonlight, pounding away at the foot of the embankment, and one part of my splintered self found it amusing that the other was seeking shelter at the embankment, hoping to avoid what inevitably he would have to accept — when this idea occurred, it was accompanied by a figure, not a ghost, but a simple notion of a young man walking through the glass door of that pleasant restaurant; he looked around, our eyes met, and the room was flooded with sunshine.

I made myself turn around once more and continued toward Nienhagen.

This is getting to be quite amusing, I thought to myself.

For there I was — and at the same time I imagined myself not there— and walking with me was this elderly gentleman whom I would one day become, and he brought along his own youth; the elderly gentleman at the seaside, reminiscing about his youth, perfectly suited my own purposes, now transformed into strictly literary ones, and so did that room with its comfortable chairs, the white damask tablecloth, the coffee cup he had just raised to his lips; and the young man who joined us, with his hand on the back of a chair bidding a courteous good morning to the group breakfasting at the table; to get a better look at him, for he was the one I was most interested in, I could send him back to the door where he had first appeared, because I felt that he was completely mine, since he did not exist; and there was someone else besides us, the one who was watching and who let me have this blond youth in exchange for allowing myself to become a helpless instrument of his power.

This had to be the moment when I finally concluded the silent pact that had been in preparation for years: for if today, much sadder and wiser, in full knowledge of all the consequences, I imagine the impossible and ponder what would have happened if, giving in to my fears, I had turned back and not pushed on toward Nienhagen, and like any sensible mortal in similar circumstances had taken cover in my boringly ordinary hotel room, then most probably my story would have remained within the bounds of the conventional, and those twists and deviations that have marked my life thus far would have indicated only which path not to follow, and with a good dose of sober and wholesome revulsion, I might have stifled the pleasure afforded by the beauty of my anomalous nature.

When I had arrived in Heiligendamm late in the afternoon of the day before, I'd been too tired to change and take part in the communal meal; I had my supper brought to my room, and putting off introducing myself until the morning, I retired early.

But I had trouble falling asleep.

It was as if I were curled up inside a large, dark, warm, soft cocoon besieged on all sides by the sea, and though I felt protected, water swept over the cocoon whenever I was about to unwind into my own softness, just above my head, the foam hitting me below the eyes.

The building was silent.

I thought I heard the wind blow, but the spiky crowns of the pine trees barely moved.

I closed my eyes and pressed my lids tight so as not to see at all, but when I didn't, I was there again, lying inside that dim cocoon where it would have been completely dark but for the images forming and dissolving before me, images of myself that would not let me rest, showing me scenes of myself that I thought I had forgotten because I had wanted to forget: on the bed where I lie now my father was sleeping, on his back, though I knew he slept not on this bed but on the narrow sofa in the living room; his shoes on the floor looked so forlorn without his feet; he spread his huge thighs shamelessly, and he was snoring; through the slats of the drawn shutters, sunlight fell into the room in stripes, intersecting those of the parquet floor, and in the depth of my sleep I felt my body convulse at the sight, I could not bear to look on, I wanted air and light; Father's breathing body made the past seem too near, too painfully present — but then I sank into darkness again and saw myself suddenly appear in the halo of a gas lamp, and then disappear again, and I was walking toward myself on a familiar wet street that may have been Schönhauser Allee, deserted on the night before my departure, a little after midnight, on my way home from my old friend Natalya Kasatkina; but on the corner of Senefelder Platz in front of the public lavatory I stopped to wait for myself, and while my footsteps were clattering toward me, the unlighted little structure at the center of the bare bushes on the square seemed to be making noises, as if panting, the wind was battering at its door, opening and closing it to the rhythm of my own breathing, and when it was open, I could see inside: a tall man was standing, facing the wall shining with tar, and when I finally got there he grinned at me and offered me a rose.