A Treatise on Shelling Beans (50 page)

But the mouthpiece and the reed are the most critical of all. Not just because they turn your breath into music. It’s like they open up all the life that’s inside you, all the memory, even the parts that aren’t remembered, every single hope that’s in you, your grudges against people, against the world, even against God.

So you think I’d have had a chance? It’s just that saxophones are rare in the kinds of bands you’re talking about. If I’d not been restricted to only playing dance music … Or if I’d studied somewhere, gotten a piece of paper that said I could play. You know how it is. You even have to have a piece of paper to say you were born. Without it even that would be impossible. You have to have one that says you died, or you wouldn’t be able to die. That’s how the world is, I don’t need to explain it to you. We both live in it. You don’t doubt that part, do you? I mean look, we’re sitting here shelling beans, so we exist. Someone already said something along those lines, true. But that isn’t enough. Everyone’s existence has to be confirmed by something. Or someone. But while we’re shelling beans we don’t need any confirmation.

That wasn’t what I meant to say. I meant to say that existence itself is no proof of anything. Existence brings us nothing but doubts. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m speaking in general, not about you or me. I don’t know you, after
all. I may guess at this or that, but I don’t know you. We’re just shelling beans, no more. But at some point we’ll finish, you’ll drive away, and what then? I won’t remember you, and all the more you won’t remember me. What can I say, I never was the kind of person worth remembering. An electrician who played dance music. Even if you’d come to one of the clubs where I used to play, you’d likely not have thought twice about some guy in the band on the sax.

Forgive me, I don’t mean to oblige you to say anything. For politeness’ sake you might feel you have to pretend, yes, it goes without saying, how on earth would you forget, you have no doubt whatsoever, whether it was here or there, of course, here, there, absolutely, that’s right, at such-and-such a time. Here or there, at this or that time. For what?

True, sometimes when you meet someone years later and no trace remains of who they were, you have to pretend that they’re the same person as before. Or even if there is a faint vestige, what of it, when you rack your brains and you still can’t remember any such person even existing. And moments like that, sure, you have to make as if you remember them. I sometimes wonder if anyone would have existed if we didn’t pretend. If it would even be possible to have existed. Besides, what is memory if not the pretense that you remember. Though it’s our only witness to having existed. We depend on memory the way a forest depends on trees, a river on its banks. More – if you ask me, we’re created by memory. Not just us, the whole world.

So we should live as long as memory permits us. No longer. People live too long, let me tell you, though everyone thinks it’s too short. You think so? If that’s the case, what would my dogs have to say about it, or other creatures? Too long. When I think they could die before me, then it’s too long by at least that much. A person’s memory is suited to a shorter life. No one’s memory can take in such a long existence. Just as well, you say? Why’s that? You say no one could bear a memory like that? That the world would fall to pieces from it? That could be. Though whatever memory doesn’t include, it’s still lying in wait for us. And that’s why we live too long in my view. Like I said, we should live as long as our
memory allows, within the boundaries it lays down for us. Do you know of any other measure for life?

Forgive me for asking, but have you never had the feeling that your life is going on too long? That means you’re fond of living, like most people. I can understand that, especially if someone thinks they’re living in accordance with destiny. Oh yes, living in accordance with destiny is a lot easier. It’s just that I don’t believe in destiny. It’s chance, chance, all chance. That’s how the world looks, how life looks, if you were to check how things function here. So then, was it worth coming? All the more that I put you to work right away shelling beans. But you wanted to buy beans, remember? While all I had were unshelled. And as you see, I’ve been talking too long. I talked as long as memory allowed. Unless a person believes in dreams. Dreams are memory too, you know.

I might never have remembered that hat if I hadn’t dreamt about it. I should have figured out what the hat meant right when I was standing with the women around the pile of potato stalks. Except that like I told you, up till then I didn’t believe in dreams. It was only when I got rheumatism not long after. Rheumatism itself wouldn’t have been so terrible, everyone knows sicknesses are for people and you just have to put up with them. But in addition it turned out I wouldn’t be able to play anymore. And for me, playing was everything. You might say I wasn’t interested in myself, only in playing. Beyond playing it was like I didn’t exist. Who knows, maybe I actually didn’t, and it was only playing music that kind of summoned me out of non-existence and forced me to be.

In fact, it was because of playing that I left the country. Back in those days that wasn’t easy, as you know. But the firm I worked for got a foreign contract to build a cement works. And I never went back. I had no other reason. I could have continued to play in one company band or other. But I remembered what the warehouse keeper had said to me, that the saxophone had taken him around the world. Not to mention that I was trying to get away from my memories, which I always felt were pulling me back. I thought that the memories would stay here, while I’d be playing over there.

Then out of the blue there was this rheumatism. Everything came back with what seemed like redoubled strength. My whole life was suddenly reminding me it was there. I didn’t even know I’d been carrying it inside me. If it hadn’t been for the playing I wouldn’t have cared much whether or not I was alive, or since when. Because when it came down to it, why should I be alive? Because of some lucky chance? Except, was it so lucky? Maybe it was just mocking me? Or testing me? In what way? I couldn’t say.

Either way, my hands are better now. You saw when you came in how I was repainting those nameplates. And that’s no easy task. If your hand shakes, the brush shakes with it. Plus, the paints these days are much better quality, they’re harder to erase. Then you have to paint over the same letters, and often they’ve rubbed off, gotten rusty, you can’t see them clearly. You might get people mixed up. I can shell beans as well, like you see. It’s just that I can’t play the sax anymore. For the sax you need fingers like butterflies. They need to feel not just that they’re touching such and such a sound, but how deeply. This finger, see, it’s a little swollen, and on my left hand I can’t bend these two. They ache in the wet weather. But it’s a lot better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. Make repairs, chop wood, drive the car when I have errands or it needs the mechanic.

There was a time, though, when I couldn’t so much as lift a cup of coffee or tea, can you imagine it? Almost all my fingers were too stiff. And when you can’t bend your fingers, how are you supposed to play the saxophone? Here you’re blowing into the mouthpiece, and down there your fingers are afraid of the keys. No more playing. It’s out of the question. There you were, playing away, and now there’s just despair. Your whole life, and nothing left but despair. You beg your fingers, press them down, try to force them to bend, but it’s like they’re dead. You don’t mind if they hurt all they want, they can hurt so much it’s unbearable, they can throb and sting and burn, but let them bend. You can’t imagine what it’s like. All the hopes, desires, the suffering, all without meaning anymore. How can anyone come to terms with that?

Wait a moment, I’d never have expected you to say what you just said. I
must have you confused with someone else. But I still have to figure out when and where we met. Something’s not quite right here. I’d never have thought. If it were someone else … No, not at all, I understood you perfectly. I even think that who knows, you could be right. After all, that is one way out. Though now it no longer holds any meaning. Because the worst thing is when there’s none at all. Yes, it’s a way out. Though it’s no longer of any importance. Maybe if it had happened back then.

The thing is, though, when something happens gradually, to begin with you don’t notice it. Then you make light of it, then after that you reassure yourself that maybe things aren’t so bad. Especially because other people also cheer you up by saying that some other person was in the same boat, or even worse, and in the end they were fine.

I came back one winter from a ski trip in the mountains and my hands started to feel strangely tired. And this finger here began to ache. Not the other fingers, the other ones just became kind of sluggish. I thought it was because of the skiing. That my hands had been overstrained by all the ski poles and ski lifts, the climbing, the falls. I was a pretty good skier. But I’d go for two or three weeks only, and not every year, and I was out of practice. It was hardly surprising it should make itself felt afterwards. But some time later my other fingers started hurting too, and getting stiff. When I was playing it would happen that I didn’t press the key down on time, or I pressed it in the wrong way. That’s not good, I thought to myself. I went to the doctor. He examined one hand, examined the other, bent my fingers this way and that, pinched them in different places and asked if it hurt.

“It does.”

“I’m sorry to say, but it’s rheumatism,” he said. “And advanced. You’ll need to get tests done. We’ll take a look, and at that point we can think about treatment. But you’ll have to spend some time at a sanatorium. Twice a year would be best.”

“But will I be able to play, doctor?” I asked.

“What do you play?”

“The saxophone.”

He gave me a sympathetic look.

“For the moment just think about your hands. Especially as it could spread further. You never know with rheumatism. Rheumatism’s one of those illnesses …”

But I was no longer listening to him describing what kind of illness it was, I was wondering how I could exist without playing. At the end of the visit he tried to cheer me up by saying that it was hard to make any predictions without tests, so perhaps I’d still be able to play. If I followed his instructions, of course.

The results of the tests weren’t particularly good, so I did what he told me to do, especially as he’d left me some room for hope. Aside from taking the medication he urged me to be patient, to keep my spirits up. And to go to a sanatorium. I subjected myself to all kinds of procedures, massages, baths. I tried to do it all as conscientiously as I could. But how effective could it be when all you’re thinking about is the fact that you’re no longer playing, and may never play again. If your thoughts are going one way and your treatment the other, you’re not going to see any effects. I even avoided getting to know anyone there, it was good morning, good morning, nothing beyond that. I never went anywhere except on walks. The only thing I did was before or after a walk, I’d sometimes stop in at a cafe for coffee or tea. Other than that I didn’t go anyplace. Not to concerts, though there were some pretty good orchestras that played there, opera singers and popular singers, often really fine ones. The spa park was large so there were plenty of places to walk. There were avenues and paths, you could easily turn off if someone was coming towards you and you wanted to avoid them. There were benches everywhere, sometimes I’d sit down, but even if someone else so much as sat down at the other end of the bench I’d walk away at once. I didn’t feel good around people. Truth be told, I didn’t feel good around myself.

It was only when the squirrels would scamper up to me for nuts that I’d forget about myself for a moment. I always carried a bag of hazelnuts. It was like they knew. The moment I sat down they’d come hopping. Can you imagine? Why
were the squirrels so trusting with people? You think people in a sanatorium are different? If that’s the case, everyone should be sent to a sanatorium. Except that even there it happened that someone for example left a dog behind. There were quite a few dogs like that, wandering in search of their owner.

Not at that sanatorium but at another one a long time before – I don’t recall if I told you about my beginnings abroad? Well, so back then, at one sanatorium I picked a spot on the main avenue, put a basket next to me on the ground, and started to play. As people passed by they threw money into the basket. Sometimes they’d sit on the nearby benches to listen. Occasionally someone would request a particular tune, those kinds of people generally gave more. It wasn’t easy to begin with, not at all. But I had good luck.

One time one of the convalescents, a guy on crutches, took a seat by me on a bench. He listened and listened, then he got up and threw a bill into my basket. Then he asked me to play something else for him, then something else again, then he asked me to move the basket closer, because it was hard for him to bend down, and he tossed in an even bigger banknote. From that time on he came almost every day. He’d sit down, listen, request this or that, then ask me to pass him the basket, and throw in a banknote.

At some point he told me to come sit by him and he started asking me where I’d learned to play, whether I had any qualifications. No, I didn’t lie to him. I told him the whole truth, that I’d gone to such and such a school, then that I’d been taught by the warehouse keeper on the building site, and of course that I’d played in the works band. He nodded, but I had the impression he didn’t really believe me. I still didn’t know the language properly, I could barely express myself, but he seemed to understand everything.

Some time later he asked me again to sit by him. He didn’t ask me any questions, he just started complaining that the sanatoria weren’t doing much good, and it was looking like he might end up in a wheelchair. He’d been a dancer, he loved dancing. Now he owned a club. He gave the name, said where it was, and he asked if I wouldn’t be interested in playing in the band at his club. He was
leaving, he’d come to say goodbye. He left me the exact address, gave me money for the ticket, and we agreed when I should come. And that was how it all began.