Ольга Токарчук - Flights

The man named Eryk donned his green uniform with the logo of the United Northern Ferry Company, ran his fingers through his beard, turned off the heating in his little dwarf-like house and set out along the asphalt. Then, as he waited in his aquarium for the ferry to be loaded and the sun to finally come out, he had a can of beer and lit his first cigarette. He waved from on high to Eliza and her little daughter, friendly, as though wanting to reward them for the fact that today they wouldn’t make it to nursery school.

After the ferry had left the shore and was already halfway between the two marinas, suddenly it stalled, then set out for open sea.

Not everyone realized what was happening at first. Some, so accustomed to the routine of the straight line, looked at the disappearing shore indifferently, numbed, which would no doubt have confirmed Eryk’s drunken theories about the fact that travelling by ferry flattens out the brain’s coils. Others realized only after a long while.

‘Eryk, what are you doing? Turn around right now,’ Alfred shouted at him, and Eliza joined in with her high-pitched, squeaky voice: ‘People will be late for work…’

Alfred tried to get up to where Eryk was, but Eryk had thought to close the gate and lock his cabin.

From above he saw everyone simultaneously take out their phones and place calls, talking indignantly into empty space, gesticulating anxiously. He could imagine what they were saying. That they’d be late to work, that they wanted to know who would cover the punitive damages in question, that drunks like Eryk shouldn’t be allowed, that they always knew things would end up like this, that they don’t have enough jobs for their own people and here they were, hiring immigrants; who knew how they learned the language so well, but in any case there was always…

Eryk couldn’t have cared less. He was pleased to see that after some time they settled down and looked out at the sky getting lighter and distributing beautiful beams of light down between the clouds. Only one thing worried him – the light blue coat of Eliza’s daughter, which (as every sea-wolf knows) was a bad omen aboard a ship. But Eryk closed his eyes and soon forgot about it. He headed for the ocean and went down to his passengers with a box of fizzy drinks and chocolate bars that he’d prepared for this occasion long ago. These refreshments did them a world of good, he saw: the kids quietened down as they gazed at the shore of the island fading into the distance, and the adults evinced increasing interest in their journey.

‘Where are we headed?’ asked the younger of the brothers T., matter-of-factly, then burping from the fizzy drink.

‘How long before we reach the open seas?’ Eliza, the nursery school teacher, wanted to know.

‘Did you make sure you have enough fuel?’ asked old S., the one with the kidney problems.

Or at least it seemed to him that they were saying these things, rather than others. He tried not to look at them and not to care. He’d already steadied his eyes on the line of the horizon, its reflection slicing straight across his pupils, the top half lighter from the sky, the bottom half darker, from the water. And his passengers were calm, now, too. They’d pressed their caps snug onto their heads, pulled their scarves around their necks a little tighter. It might be said they sailed in silence, until their peace was pierced by the helicopter’s rumble and the wail of police motorboats.

‘There are things that happen of their own accord, journeys that begin and end in dreams. And there are travellers who simply answer the chaotic call of their own unease. One of these stands before you now…’ So Eryk’s defence embarked upon his short-lived trial. Unfortunately, not even this moving defence could keep our hero from another prison sentence. I hope spending another spell inside worked out to his advantage. Life for someone like Eryk is made of inevitable highs and lows, similar to the rhythmic rocking of the waves and the sea’s inexplicable ebbs and flows.

But this is no longer our concern.

If, however, at the conclusion of this story someone wanted to ask me, wanting to dispel any last doubts regarding truth and nothing but the truth, if I were seized by the arm and shaken impatiently and shouted at: ‘Tell me, I beg you, if in keeping with your innermost conviction this story and its contents are completely true. Kindly forgive me if I press too much.’ I would forgive them, and I’d respond: ‘So help me God, I swear on my honour that the story I have told you, ladies and gentlemen, is in its contents and general terms true. I know this for a fact: it happened on our globe; I myself was on the deck of that ferry.’

I’m reminded of something that Borges was once reminded of, something he had read somewhere: apparently, in the days when the Dutch were constructing their Empire, ministers announced in Danish churches that those who took part in North Pole expeditions would be practically guaranteed salvation of their souls. When nevertheless there were few volunteers, the ministers acknowledged that the expedition was a long and arduous one, certainly not for everyone – only, in fact, for the very bravest. But still few came forward. So to avoid losing face, the ministers finally simplified their proclamation: actually, they said, any voyage could be considered an expedition to the North Pole, even a little trip, even just a ride in a public carriage.

I suppose these days even the subway would have to count.

According to travel psychology, the island represents our earliest, most primal state prior to socialization, when the ego has already individualized enough to attain a certain level of self-awareness, but without yet having entered into complete, fulfilling relationships with its surroundings. The island state is a state of remaining within one’s own boundaries, undisturbed by any external influence; it resembles a kind of narcissism or even autism. One satisfies all one’s needs on one’s own. Only the self seems real; the other is but a vague spectre, a Flying Dutchman just darting over a distant horizon. In fact, one can’t be altogether certain it was not a figment of one’s imagination, an adornment by an eye accustomed to a straight line that splits the field of view cleanly into an up and a down.

If something hurts me, I erase it from my mental map. Places where I stumbled, fell, where I was struck down, cut to the quick, where things were painful – such places are simply not there any longer.

This means I’ve got rid of several big cities and one whole province. Maybe someday I’ll eliminate a country. The maps don’t mind – in fact, otherwise they miss those blank patches, the shape of their happy childhood.

Whenever I have had to visit one of these non-existent places (I try not to bear grudges), I’ve become an eye that moves like a spectre in a ghost town. If I could fully focus, I would be able to slip my hand right inside the tightest blocks of concrete and traverse the jam-packed streets, making my way through backed-up traffic unfazed, incurring no damages, and making no fuss.

But I have not done that. I’ve played by the rules as established by the people who live there. And I’ve tried not to betray to them the phantom nature of these places where they’re still stuck, poor things, all erased. I simply smile at them and nod at everything they say. I wouldn’t want to confuse them with the knowledge that they don’t exist.

It’s hard for me to get a good night’s sleep when I stay in a place for just one night. Now the city was slowly cooling off, calming down. My hotel was one run by the airlines and included in the price of my ticket. I was supposed to wait in it until tomorrow.