Willem Hermans - Beyond Sleep

But it doesn’t get dark here. Imagine having to live without darkness! I could try putting Arne’s sleeping bag on top of mine for extra darkness before crawling in. What’s keeping him?

I glance over my shoulder, but he’s nowhere in sight. Surely he must have discovered his error by now?

It’s childish and I hate to admit it, but the idea of Arne getting the wrong end of the stick for once is a bigger boost to my morale than I’ve had in a very long time.

‘Arne! This way!’I yell. In Dutch !

It’s the first time in weeks that a Dutch phrase has crossed my lips.

I climb to the top of a hill, no Arne. I go down the other side.

Going up a hill and then down again can easily confuse one’s sense of direction. As I am surrounded by hills on all sides, the contours of my horizon shift with each step I take. There aren’t any prominent features for me to focus on. Just boulders. But there are too many of those to be of any use for orienteering. So I stop to take another bearing with my compass.

Something very odd has happened. The declination between the needle and the direction I plotted on the map is exactly ninety degrees less than last time. In other words, if my present reading is correct, so was Arne’s, and I’m the one who’s been heading in the wrong direction.

But I can’t have been. My compass must have got wet earlier on, which is why the needle isn’t turning properly. I move the little lever up and down a few times, making the needle jiggle on the pivot. I hold the compass in the sun, but there doesn’t seem to be any moisture under the glass. I shake it a few times for good measure. Then I set it on the palm of my left hand once more and try to hold it in a horizontal position.

The needle persists in indicating an angle of ninety degrees off from the direction I’ve been taking. Idiot that I am. I must have got it all wrong. Misread my compass, and then pooh-poohed Arne’s correct reading of his! Jesus Christ! I stare at the glass in shock, and soon my eyes are drawn to the little mirror. My face is fully attuned to my emotion: mouth agape in cavernous fear, sunken cheeks beneath thin stubble — like the son of God whose name I invoked — bump from mosquito bite on left eyelid, scabs of dried blood on right-hand side of forehead.

I am standing in the middle of a round hollow hemmed in by hills. The least I can do is climb one of them. I pick the highest one and charge up the slope at speed.

From the crest I see nothing but hills on all sides. I have completely lost track of where I came from.

‘Arne!’I shout.

I shout Arne’s name in all directions, but there is no reply, not even an echo.

Standing here shouting won’t get me anywhere. He’ll probably turn up any moment now, from behind one of the hills, and then he’ll spot me here. Might as well take my bearings again, to be on the safe side.

I draw out my sodden map once more. Luckily there are three big rocks close by, about the size of piano crates. White, angular blocks of a sugary appearance with leprous patches of black lichen. Close set, as if they were once joined together. They come to my shoulder. The tops are fairly flat.

On one of them I spread out my map, which, given how wet it is, amounts to pasting it down. Now for another try with the compass. I take it out of its case, position it to the side of the map, stoop to pick up some rock chips and manoeuvre the chips until the bubble in the spirit level is centred.

My desk is so high that I have to read the compass in the flipped-up mirror.

Same angle as before: ninety degrees off from the direction I’ve been taking. My compass is fine and I’m a ninny. I still can’t believe it. Before taking any decisions, I’d better get my map aligned exactly along a north-south axis. Gingerly I lift a corner of the map — it was already quite worn before, but now it’s soaked through I’m afraid the paper will disintegrate. The map unsticks from the surface without mishaps. I spread it out again, but one of the corners is turned down. I smooth it out and in doing so brush against the compass with my sleeve.

The compass has vanished.

I come to my senses with my left thumbnail between my teeth, having received what feels like a stunning blow to the head. I begin walking around the perimeter of the blocks, trying to make out where the cracks between them are widest. I crouch down by each one to peer into the fissure, but can’t see my compass anywhere.

In desperation I try climbing on top of the rocks — my knee! my knee! The sides are too straight. Should I try putting a smaller stone against the base for me to get up on? But for a stone to serve as a step it has to be quite big — too big for me to lift. I take a run-up and hurl myself at the lowest of the three blocks, slap my arms over the top, hook my fingers round the far edge and pull. Hanging on like this could make the whole thing topple backwards. Oh, to be crushed to death and be done with it all! No such luck — it must weigh at least three tons. I swing my left leg in search of purchase for my foot, but my toecap keeps scuffing downwards. Wriggling, yelping, frantically swinging my left leg, I miraculously succeed in getting my foot over the top. Now I can easily lever myself up. I stand up straight. First I look about me for any sign of Arne. I call his name two or three times. Then I sit down and peer into the fissures between the blocks. Pitch dark. Throwing down a burning match might help. My matches are soaked. Arne’s got the extra box in his rucksack, all I have is this one box.

*

Hoping maybe to find the compass by touch, I reach into the fissures as far as my arm will go. It’s such a tight fit that I have to roll up my sleeves first, and the sharp rock grazes my skin. I explore all three cracks, hoping, no, willing that the compass didn’t fall all the way to the bottom, but is wedged within arm’s reach.

I do not find it.

If I had a long rod, or a branch, then I could have another go … Blasted mosquitoes, why can’t they leave me alone for once?

Not a single branch longer than fifty centimetres around here. It flashes across my mind that I could undertake a little expedition to some glen sheltered enough for proper birches to grow there, or spruces. But for one thing I wouldn’t know where to go looking for the nearest sheltered glen, and for another I can’t mark my current position on the map because I don’t know it.

Retrieving my compass is impossible without another compass.

Any other options?

I slither down from the rocks and look in my rucksack, although I know there’s nothing in there that could be of any use. I take out the fishing net anyway.

There are long cords attached to either end. I tie one of them around a fist-sized stone, which I can then lower into the deep by way of a dredging tool.

I dredge all three fissures, but all I turn up is black humus.

Some kind of stick is what I need, but I haven’t got one. What’s the time? Twenty to six. If Arne was so sure which way to go, he must have realised by now that I went off in the wrong direction. He must have realised that I genuinely made a mistake. Why hasn’t he come looking for me?

‘Arne!’I shout. Three more times I call his name.

Why didn’t he find me ages ago?

I try lighting a cigarette by angling my magnifying glass to the sun, but the light is hazy and the rays are too weak. Besides, the cigarettes are damp.

Slipping the packet into my left breast pocket reminds me of the measuring tape in my other pocket.

I draw it out. Two metres. Good steel measuring tape. Springs back into its case when released. Flexible. I try probing the fissures with it. Whenever it finds something in its path I can feel it buckling. I try to prevent that by waving it like a whip and making it ripple, but it’s too bendy. The sides of the fissures aren’t smooth, of course. The tape keeps getting stuck, whereupon it crackles and twists. Damn! Damn! I feel nauseous. I pound my fist against the rock, bring my nose to the ground. All three fissures are explored in like fashion: get up, go over to the next slit, sink down on one knee while keeping the other one straight — ouch, ouch — lie stomach down with my nose to the slit, sniff the odour of rotting fungi. In goes my probe. I even try stuffing the full two metres of tape inside, no longer bothering to keep it straight. With any luck it’ll bump against the compass and shunt it along until it comes out the other end.