The fine mist of the morning had turned to rain
and so I put on my hood and made to leave the little cemetery. Accustomed to my
stillness – I had been sitting on the only bench for nearly four hours – some
blackbirds darted out of the Linden trees, taking puffs of orange leaves with
them. I closed the cold gate behind me and then looked once more at the four
statues of human beings adorning the curb in front. The statues were life-sized
and Bronze, of bald men with bodies that were very thin, and who had faces that
looked to be crying because of the rain.
Right away I had thought them to be extremely
fine and solemn works of art. Even the pupils and the irises had been etched, even
the cuticles, even the soft brail on the foreskin and testicles – for all the
men were naked. I took the camera my wife had given me from out of my backpack
and carefully photographed each man. I then photographed the whole ensemble
from all angles, turning a front pocket of my jeans inside out so as to
periodically wipe the lens free of raindrops. The smell of the wet Bronze was
so strong that I could taste it, as though my lips were cut.
It was while taking close-up shots of their
tears that I noticed, to my dismay, that the men’s necks had all been lacerated
just below the jawbone. Crooked join marks showed where each head had been
reattached to its body; I ran my index finger along them and felt tiny specks
of metal coming away with me. I did not understand what, or who, could have
done such a thing. But my cheap parka had been soaked through and my teeth had
begun to chatter and so I started running towards the train station from whence
I had come that morning. The rain and the statues, however, had taken my
bearings from me; it was perhaps ten minutes before I realised that I was lost.
*
There had been a thrift store on the street
corner where now there was a café, and the high-fenced squat on the other side
of the street, on whose wrought iron door were the words Mynheer Peeperkorn – Herr Lebt! (odd, as I was not in Germany) had
transformed into a vacant lot thickly carpeted with leaves. The leaves looked
like maples from a distance and had turned rotten. Given that there were no
trees on the lot, I found the volume of them to be unusual and they bewitched
me as a consequence. I looked at the leaves in the lot a while before turning
around in a circle; the sidewalks were empty and it was quiet except for the
rain. Without directions I did not think I would find my way, and I was so cold
that my ear lobes were burning. I went into the café.
The green awning over the entrance and the
expensive-looking shutters had not prepared me for what was inside. Like a
hermit crab that had chosen far too large a shell, the café was in fact no more
than a kebab store, wherein the kitchen and the tables occupied perhaps a fifth
of the total space of the premises. The rest was empty except for a strange
assortment of snow mats on the white linoleum floor. The mats were so
waterlogged that I could feel my feet sinking into them with each step. The
feeling was grotesque. On the wall next to the spit there hung a larger than
life photograph of a bearded white man in robes, with a caption that read His Holiness the Mahatma Chandra Bala
Guruji, Head of the Satkumba Shanga, Great Dignitary of Spiritual Direction of
the World, previously known as the Honourable Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière, former President of the International
Federation of Scientific Societies. I took off my cheap parka and my scarf and hung them on the rack near
the door.
Oddly, the first language I heard spoken in
that café was English, laced with the distinctive accent of the locals. A young
couple were standing by the huge hydronic heater in one corner of the room; I
hurried over to it in order to warm myself, especially my hands and feet and
ear lobes. The couple shared another kiss, and spoke.
-And then? What will you do tonight?
-Well, I first I will eat.
-Then?
-I will shower.
-Then?
-I will sleep.
Then?
-I will dream.
-Then?
-I will die.
-Then?
The young man turned to me.
-You will die.
I dried off and sat down. I drank some coffee
and ate a few small pastries, dripping with a blossom-flavoured honey that I
did not like. That many-titled man on the wall seemed to be watching – and judging
– as I ate. I asked the owner, a woman of middle age who spoke enthusiastic
English and whose grey eyes and huge stomach reminded me of an old
schoolteacher of mine, if she could point me towards the closest train station.
-When you walk out of here, turn to your left.
Continue to walk until a street with lights called ‘Tolstoy’ and then turn to
your left. One, two, three blocks, and you will see some statues next to the
road. Walk for another ten minutes past the statues and there is the train
station on your right, you will see the signs.
I thanked her by adding a few extra Euros to my
bill. When the money changed hands she seized upon my ring finger and said that
I belonged to a blessed woman, which I took to mean ‘lucky’. And then I put on
my cheap parka and scarf and began walking again.
*
By the time I reached the little cemetery, it
had stopped raining. The sun, in fact, had shown itself for the first time
since I had arrived. It seemed a shame to waste sunlight that was so fleeting,
and so instead of continuing on I returned to the same bench, the same Linden
trees, and perhaps the same birds. But as I sat down I was gripped by a profound
sense of cyclical recurrence, for my cheap parka had turned to robes. It was then that I understood - or did so
again. My name was Serge Raynaud and for many years I had
lain there in that grave whose headstone had fallen and been buried under a carpet of rotten maple leaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment