J. Bernlef - Out of Mind

'Of the past?'

'The past?'

She takes my hand again. 'Your tea is getting cold.'

'I'm waiting for the children.'

'Which children?'

I take a poor view of this conversation. As soon as I say something she seems to want to talk me into a trap. Look around. The interior. In the background fresh snowflakes flutter. I nod.

'My peepshow. With cotton wool instead of snow and dwarfs that I had cut out of a book of fairy tales and a tiger from my zoo box. Made of lead, on a base, with yellow and black stripes. A tiger in the snow and over the top a transparent sheet of red Cellophane so that it looked as if the snow was on fire. For two cents, until the boys came, the big boys, and snatched the shoebox from my hands and knocked it flat against the rim of a garbage can.'

'Don't cry, Maarten. It's a long time ago.'

I rub my cheeks dry with the back of my hands. Where did those tears come from?

'Sometimes the thoughts move so fast that I hardly have time to think them, they wash through me and then I have to cry. And then suddenly everything stands still again, rigid as a magic-lantern picture and it is as if nothing will ever be able to move again and you have to start walking in order to get things going. Just walk and walk because otherwise you can no longer feel you belong anywhere, or that time passes.'

'I wish I could help you. I would so much like to help you. Maarten, why can't our life remain as it was? Why does this have to happen?'

'My tea is cold.'

'You forgot to drink it. Shall I make some more?'

'The children won't come now, anyway. It's much too late.'

Robert gets up from beside the radiator and stretches himself with straightened front legs. He slowly comes towards me. Without knowing it, dogs have a built-in clock. They know exactly when they have to be let out. I briefly stroke his smooth back the wrong way. 'You're right, Robert, it's time for our daily walk.'

'You have already taken him out, Maarten.'

Vera's face looks red and her lips are thin and tight under her sharp nose, suddenly the nose of an old woman, with a small white bloodless tip.

'Honestly, you've forgotten, but you have already let him out.'

I look hesitantly at the dog, but it seems Vera is right this time, for Robert nestles down again in his old place by the radiator. So she must be right. Animals can't lie. 'Aren't I forgetful.'

'I love you the way you are,' she says. 'It doesn't matter.'

I get up because suddenly, very suddenly, I have to pee. Hot stabs in my abdomen. Where do they suddenly come from? What is it that lurks inside my body and has it in for me?

I yawn, so loudly, my mouth so wide open, that it clicks in my ears. Try to pee in an orderly fashion now. At home you can clatter as you like, uninhibitedly, if need be with the door open.

I enter the room, push the bolt and switch on the light. Always try the bed with your clothes on first.

I lie on my back and look around me. This is a room with a so-called personal touch to the furnishings. I'm not too keen on that. As if just before your arrival somebody had lived in it who hurriedly grabbed his belongings together. And forgot half of them in the process, I notice. Toothbrush, shaving cream. I'll collect it all together and take it down to reception. No, give me a Holiday Inn or a Hilton any day. Close the door behind you and straight away the feeling: nobody knows where I am, nobody knows I exist. A mischievous feeling of freedom, of escape. That in principle, from now on, from this anonymous, impersonal room, you could take a totally different direction. Not that you will do so, but the feeling in itself is enough to make you rub your hands contentedly and look at yourself in the mirror with satisfaction.

I undress, throw my clothes — as always when staying in a hotel — on the floor, and climb into bed. I leave the light on. I always do. Should there be a fire, every second matters. Make sure you get to the emergency exit before panic breaks out and people trample each other.

There is a knock on the door. Perhaps an urgent message, a telegram. 'Just a minute!' I get up, pull my pants on and unlock the door.

'It's you, is it?' I say to Vera. 'There's nothing wrong with the children is there?'

'Get dressed, quickly,' she says. 'The doctor is here.'

Fear thumps in my throat. There must be something wrong with Fred again. How many times have I sat in the casualty department of some hospital or other with that boy?

In my agitation I can't manage my necktie. And there's no time for shoelaces either.

I blink against all the light around me. A man sits on the two-seater, fairly young-looking. That must be the doctor. I walk towards him and half stumble, so that he rises hastily and just manages to stop me from falling. Shamefacedly I look at the laces that hang loosely over my shoes. 'Please excuse me. I was in a hurry. I hope there's nothing seriously wrong with Fred?'

The smile on the doctor's face reassures me.

'There's nothing wrong at all, Mr Klein. I've only come for a chat.'

'Do you have time for that as a doctor?'

'I do these days. People in Gloucester aren't sick very often.'

Gloucester? Gloucester? Yes, I see. Businesslike approach, Maarten. This man wants something from you. They always start amiably, just a touch too cordially. That gives them away at once. It always indicates ulterior motives. In such cases Simic's method must be employed. Simic explained it to me once after work. We were sitting in the cocktail lounge where Karl always went after work before taking the subway home. A smart, somewhat dark establishment divided into dark purple velvet-upholstered booths with those chalice- shaped milky glass table lamps from the twenties. Simic, Karl Simic. A Yugoslav name, I believe. Pronounce: Simmitch. He used to go there and drink a couple of whiskies every day. Yes, he knew how to hit the bottle at times, old Karl.

'Are you thirsty?' asks Vera. 'You're smacking your lips so.'

'Whisky on the rocks.'

There's a man sitting in the room with a square, rustic face, baggy cheeks, large earlobes and a rough, blond crewcut. He's there. He laughs. He knows nothing about Simic's method. On his lap lies a photo album of which he is turning the pages. He examines one particular photograph closely and then hands me the open album.

A wedding photograph of all things. I'm not in the mood for that at all. But Simic would say: Rule number one: repeat your interlocutor's words with a polite smile while nodding your head amiably in support. Gaining time is everything, especially at the beginning of a conversation.

'Is that a photograph of your wedding?' asks the man.

'Is that a photograph of your wedding?'

Look up at a slant, between the two of them, and keep nodding your head. Then I say six times in quick succession, 'Yes.' This is Simic's second rule: raise politeness to ritual heights. Even when you don't agree with anything, start by confirming everything, but belie by frequent repetition the affirmative nature of your statements.

'Yesyesyesyesyesyes.'

I put the album, wham, back on the settee. Must get up, walk around, and begin to gesticulate with my hands in anticipation of the words I feel coming.

'Let us try to tackle the problem first in general terms. They are people who are destined for each other, aren't they, hand in hand, he in black, she in white. But have you noticed those bystanders, those groups of people on the lawn? All of them potential candidates for this marriage! In other words: man pretends to himself he is leading a life, a meaningful existence. There is little to be said against this notion, although I must say it has no foundation, a mere illusion, shifting sands. If we look at it more globally, universally, we come to the conclusion that we are particles, female and male particles, moving around in society and sometimes accidentally meeting and fusing and then we talk of a marriage while all other possibilities continue to be present in the background. The erotic background chorus, Mr. .'