Ilija Trojanow - The Lamentations of Zeno

How did you do it, Carstens, how did you manage to get our colleague on board the hijacked ship, you’re a genius. If it doesn’t help it doesn’t hurt, am I some kind of ornithologist, an ordinary pigeon, it tried to land, the floor’s just been mopped, she’s slipping and sliding across the floor, yes that’s all, nothing more, well, since you asked why I was so distracted, the idea of an empty purse causes people more anxiety than the idea of their own demise. Would you consider yourself a misanthrope? In a positive sense of the word. Do you prefer birds to people? Ask my children. Don’t you think that an excessive love of nature leads to violence, including towards humans? On the contrary, insufficient love of nature leads to violence, also towards humans. Are you putting animals and humans on the same level? They’re worth the same aren’t they? Aren’t humans a higher being? Not to my knowledge. Let’s not ruin the mood, two deer at the edge of town, the vehicles come to a stop, the deer trot across the field, the glass is either half empty or overflowing, if you hear the Klabautermann knocking it means he’ll stay if you hear him working he’ll go away. We have the passenger list, it’s amazing how many little VIPs come together when you send a ship to the Antarctic, I want to know everything about every one of them, especially this coal mine king from West Virginia that demolished entire mountainsides before selling his business to Patriot Coal, also about that super-birder who in real life is a porn producer and the news announcer that was fired when he lost his voice, those are the stories we need, Carstens. Of course I don’t rummage through the trash, it was the bin for recycled paper, I looked out the window and saw him dumping books, I was curious, I drove over even though it’s just around the corner, as if I had sensed what I would find, the nicest things, first editions and autographed copies, they were lying in the bin next to pizza packages and advertising leaflets, I had to save the books, I don’t rummage through trash BREAKING NEWS RESCUED PASSENGERS SAFELY HOME BREAKING NEWS RESCUED PASSENGERS SAFELY HOME that came off marvelously

LAST NIGHT, FOR the first time in years, since the hottest summer ever, which followed other hot summers, since the summer when our June climate report was obsolete as early as August, for the first time ever, since the lie I was living daily was operated out of me and my glacier died, there was no looming nightmare. I slept without second sight. When I wake up I feel revived, as though I’ve undergone a live cell therapy treatment. I lie in bed, a timid light slips under the curtain. One more day, and what a day. Paulina is stretching. Outside our door a passenger goes stomping past on his morning rounds. Paulina’s face becomes visible in the light over the nightstand. “Who are you?” I ask. A bewitched maiden, she answers, who has to change into the first creature she sees when she wakes up.

“What a horrible curse!”

“Yes, imagine it could be the head chef. But I’m lucky because I saw you.”

“You call that luck? Now you’re going to turn into an old man, an ugly old man.”

“I’ll turn into you, into Zeno. But listen, there’s more to it, because you’ve also been put under a spell, by the same spirit.”

“What kind of spirit is that?”

“It’s a spirit who’s all mixed up, you have to turn into me.”

“I’m getting the better deal.”

“Then we’ll really be together, in our memories as Zeno and Paulina and now as Paulina and Zeno.”

She stretches her arm across the gap between the two beds, our fingers interlace, I know of no more binding gesture. I begin massaging her fingers. “Are you afraid of hell?” she asks all of a sudden, while we’re still under the covers, turned toward each other. I can’t answer right away, I’m focusing on her fingers with the narrowest nails, trying to shake off the thought that this is the last time we’ll ever wake up together. With my forefinger I brush her fingertips, one by one, without knowing if her skin will retain these touches. If I were safe inside her fairytale and had one more wish it would be that the river Lethe would flow between the icy continent and Brabant Island.

“Hell is not a place,” I finally answer. “It’s the sum of all our lapses and failures.”

She looks at me confused, her fingers dig into the back of my hand, she presses her thumb so hard into the flesh below my thumb it hurts.

“The realization, much much too late that you didn’t do anything when you still could, when you still should have, that is hell. And there’s no escape.”

“I see,” she says, “you’re trying to reassure me. She loosens her grip. In your own weird way you’re trying to tell me you’re not going to hell.”

Dan Quentin is standing on a pile of stones, holding a megaphone and directing the red-wrapped extras swarming below him on the ice. Make a mental picture of what the SOS looks like, he blares through the megaphone, in the middle is the circle, the symbol of that which is indestructible, the circle of life, and next to it are two snakes. Why do I say snakes and why do I say there are two? Because there are two basic states, and keep this in mind when you form the S, it’s very important, there is the state of contamination and there is the state of purification, there is the poison and there is the cure, are you with me? Dan Quentin puts down his megaphone and surveys his rising work of art: three hundred people awaiting his orders. He appears cheerful, content. In countless interviews he will describe how well it all turned out. And when he’s done saying everything he wants to, the announcer will lower her voice and ask how he managed to cope with the drama that came right on the heels of his greatest artistic success. And in a solemn voice Dan Quentin will explain … Now, all together, give me an S (red arms reach up high), give me an O (red arms reach up high), give me an S (red arms reach up high) and now, long and loud and proud, give me an S-O-S! (all arms reach up high), it’s a funfair, Octoberfest in the southernmost latitudes, voices rise like wisps of smoke, linguistic differences in red, black, white and gray, I’m standing nearby, his face is straining with emotion, the deckhands correct a few bulges in the curves, on this trip the Filipinos take care of everything, even to the point of ironing all angles out of an SOS. The Zodiacs bring further crewmembers ashore, who storm the small rise like straggling soldiers so as not to miss the spectacle.

“That’s enough,” Quentin calls out to me. “We have enough people already.”

“They want to be part of it.”

“We don’t need them.”

“It’s too late.”

“They should go back, they’ll just mess everything up.”

“It’s too late, the crew also wants to be part of the SOS.”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“The more the merrier, that’s what you said.”

“I meant the passengers,” Quentin shouts down from his rock pile, then squawks through his megaphone, “Faster, faster.” The manager and his adjutants insert the waitresses, cooks, technicians, cabin stewards, launderers into the growing S snake consisting of notaries, executive consultants, general managers and financial analysts, Paulina is there as well, for a second I can make out her face, Ricardo is behind her, he’s placed his hands on her shoulders, then I lose sight of her, all of a sudden sunlight floods into our icy party, this is it, Quentin hurries over, tosses me the megaphone, it’s now or never, he’s ready to seize the moment, a Napoleon of the arts, he rushes to the helicopter with sweeping strides, that’s my cue, I radio Jeremy to tell him I’m heading back to the ship, El Albatros has set off to find a breeding site of blue-eyed cormorants that’s supposed to be nearby, Beate has found a place in a bend of the second S, the helicopter lifts off, all hands wave, Quentin’s manager rushes from one deckhand to the next, probably to remind them to get out of the picture, they are the scaffold that must be dismantled as quickly as possible so that a pure SOS can shine, I ask one of the waiting boatmen to run me back to the Hansen , which he is reluctant to do because he doesn’t want to miss the spectacle, but his mood improves when I tell him he can go right back, and that he should take everyone still on board, even the receptionist, it’s all been arranged with the captain, it’s a great day today, a real holiday. The fewer people left on the ship, the easier it will be for me.