Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

True, the park, girded by slender whitewashed cottages facing the sea, was quite large and had wide driveways broadening into little plazas and radiating in every direction, with whimsical little footpaths crisscrossing the green lawns, but the solitary pines had more than enough space to display their solitude, just as the white birches with their meticulous nonchalance had room to arrange themselves in tidy clusters; the seafront promenade was also part of the park, protected by a tall stone wall adorned with elongated marble urns and running straight as an arrow, separating land from sea; in a sense, even the short first section of the embankment belonged to the park, too, being a direct extension of the promenade and different from the rest of the embankment because they had used fine gravel instead of crushed stones to make a rough surface suitable for walking — I could actually sink my feet ankle-deep into this gravel — but despite these efforts to turn this short section into a walkway by using soft, pleasantly crunching gravel, it remained bare as it rose between the sea and the marsh, a reminder of its convulsive origins, when in the course of a single night many centuries ago it had been flung here by a terrible tidal wave, thus cutting off water from water and letting a once lovely bay deteriorate into a marsh; properly speaking, then, only the tree-lined lane could be said to belong to the park, but that, too, if only in a mundane sense, led away from here, since it went from the rear entrance of the spa to the railroad station, where it ended for good; from the station there was nowhere to go, one had to turn back, for it was one thing to take a walk and quite another to go on an excursion.

It is also true that my parents never decided in advance which way we would walk, this was always determined by chance or simply by the dearth of choices; it seemed quite unnecessary to ponder which of the two routes to take — whether, coming from the spa, we should turn onto the seaside promenade or proceed farther on the embankment and on the way back, sweeping around the main building, walk as far as the station— or decide whether we should while away the time in the lobby's wicker chairs until so little time was left for the actual walk that on our return, instead of taking the sensible short route, we'd choose the impractical long one; but none of this really mattered; all these afternoon walks did was make us repeat the same diverting game of choices and possibilities, though only until the pearly hue of the sky began to deepen and we, back in our rooms or on the terrace, watched it turn completely dark.

On that day, however, nightfall caught us out-of-doors, for we had begun our afternoon walk, as usual, first going down to the shore for our fresh-air cure, which we took by leaning against the stone wall, no more than fifteen minutes, and simply relaxing our muscles as much as possible and silently inhaling and exhaling through our nostrils, taking advantage of the early evening air that, in Dr. Köhler's view, owing to the temporarily high degree of humidity and the presence of those natural substances the mucous membrane of the nose could experience as some sort of fragrance, was highly effective in clearing the respiratory passages and filling the lungs, stimulating the circulation and soothing one's nerves: as the much-respected doctor liked to emphasize, this worthy goal could be achieved only if the esteemed patients were willing to follow all his instructions and did not casually keep violating the rules, for example, not leaning against walls or trees while breathing, never mind simply sitting around the lobby or the terrace chattering away, and only with a lull in the conversation starting solemnly to wheeze and sigh, and only until one had something urgent to say again; no, such ladies and gentlemen were not even worth talking about, they were doomed, as good as in the morgue already; their thoughtlessness was understandable, but those who wished to extend their sojourn on earth, however slightly, should be able to stand on their own two feet for three five-minute periods, which is the time it took to complete all the repetitions of the breathing exercise, yes, stand up, loosely and without any support; excuses and objections should not even be acknowledged, for beauty and health were inseparable, and for this reason the doctor would be very pleased if he could convince people, especially the ladies, of course, that one's good looks were not in the least threatened but, on the contrary, enhanced, albeit in a more complex manner than with girdles and facials, if in the interest of good health we did not mind contorting our faces a little — anyway, grimacing was necessary only during the first five minutes of the exercise, until all that putrid air left one's lungs — and this was to be done not inside stuffy rooms polluted by tobacco and perfume, for there we only inhale the same foulness we blow out, but right here near the water, even if other people could see us; when it comes to health, there can be no room for false modesty, we must breathe through our noses — without puffing out our chests, though, as Catholics do, so arrogantly haughty in their humility; the air must be directed downward, into the belly — after all, we are Protestants, are we not? — and can safely fill our stomachs with air, if not our heads, because everything should be in its place and in its own good time: gray matter in our heads, air in our bellies, provided we don't tighten our girdles again beyond the reasonable limit, ladies, and provided, too, that we hold in the air, deep down, to the count of ten, and then slowly let out that horrid stench that was in us, yes, in all of us, for to keep it in would be not only unnecessary but downright indecent.

The sun was going down but darkness held off for quite a while, the sun's red reflection lingering in the graying sky; then suddenly the sea turned black, the whitening crests flashed as they rose and tumbled, and the evening mist which would slowly enwrap the park already hung over the water, seagulls were flying ever higher; as we stood there, hearing not only one another's breathing but also the relaxed, crunching footsteps of strollers behind us, I felt I was experiencing the sweetest silence there was: made of the triple rhythm of the seagulls' screeching, the sea's murmuring, crackling, and rumbling sounds, and my own breathing, which I realized I was trying to adjust to this rhythm; this was the silence in which all emotions subside, become motionless, in which state rising thoughts can only ruffle the surface of emotions before falling back, unformed and unformulated, to where they came from, until — prompted by a crunching footfall, a funny wheeze, the seagulls' choral screech and sudden silence, or by some physical sensation, like feeling the evening breeze, the buckling of a knee, perhaps an itch, or by a psychological impression of a fleeting, undirected anxiety, an overwhelming cheerfulness, or a fitful longing — something would be cast up again, something that needs to be expressed, that might be the object of consideration or of a plan of action, but the power of emotions will not allow it; the sway of emotions is the force that holds everything together, enjoying its own ephemeral wholeness, for it knows no greater pleasure than the realization of non-becoming, the calming pause provided by the state of inconsonance.

I have no way of knowing what effect these silences had on others, on Mother and Father, for example, but I know that during these silences I acquired experiences far more profound than my age entitled me to; in a peculiar way, I even surmised that this permanently transitional state of inconsonance would always be both benevolent and malevolent for me, and this frightened me, because I would much rather have resembled those who, landing on either side of this border region, managed to establish a firm foothold.