A Treatise on Shelling Beans (48 page)

I sometimes wonder even whether next season I should add a sentence to the posted regulations: Cell phones are to be turned off or left in the cabins. Like in church, or the theater or the symphony. It’s no different here than in those places. Peace and quiet can be a church, a theater, a symphony hall just the same. Only peace and quiet, because I don’t know anything else that could be. You have no idea of its power. To just listen intently – in the off-season of course – to the sky, the lake, the early morning, the sunset, the night when there’s a full moon, to go into the woods and listen to all the trees and bushes and plants, to lie down in the moss. Or if you listen to the ants. Lean down to the anthill, carefully of course so they don’t get all over you, it’s like you’d found yourself in outer space and you were listening to the universe. Why do people feel they have to fly to other places?

Sometimes I think to myself that if someone were ever able to record silence, that that would be real music. Me? Come off it. On the saxophone? Music like that isn’t the same thing as a saxophone. Sometimes I regret not having chosen
a different instrument. The violin, for instance, like that teacher at school was pushing. But I picked the sax. That was how it began, and that was how it remained. Plus, I played in dance bands, as you know. Not to mention that it’s all moot now, because I don’t play anymore.

Though let me tell you, I do wonder if I’d have played at all if I hadn’t found myself in that works band. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone any further than what I did at school. I don’t know if things would have been better or worse for me, but at least I wouldn’t have experienced what it’s like when you can’t play any longer.

What can I say, I was young. When you’re young, how can you know what’s going to be better or worse for you? And not right away, but in some distant future. No one gives it a second thought, there’s nothing to think about. Not to mention that back then, young people were all the rage. They always are, you say. Perhaps, but not exactly in the same way. Back then, nothing could happen without young people. At every meeting, congress, celebration there had to be some youngster on the committee. Same with any deputation, it always had to include at least one young person. And one woman. About young people they’d say that they have their future ahead of them, that they would be the ones to build a new and better world, that everything was in their hands. True, everyone always talks like that, then the young folks grow old and leave the same world they inherited to the next lot of people. Yes indeed, the world isn’t as easy to change as we think.

I sometimes even ask myself whether it wasn’t for the same reason they decided it would be good to have someone young in the band. Because truth be told, I wasn’t that good in those days. Also, I didn’t think of myself as being young. I believed in a new and better world, because the old one, as you’ll be the first to admit, it was nothing but shambles from the war. And it was only after the war that we found out what the war had actually meant, what a huge defeat it had been not just for human beings but for God. It seemed humans would never pick themselves up again, that they’d gone too far, while God had
failed to prove his existence. I didn’t need to understand anything. I myself was an example of it all.

I can tell that you disagree with me about something. Then why aren’t you speaking up? Say what you want to say. Please, I’m listening. No, no. I wasn’t the only one who thought the time for God had passed. Perhaps I didn’t quite think like that, but I wasn’t able to pray any more. The only thing that happened was that sometimes, when no one could see me, I’d burst into tears for no reason. So I was ready to believe in anything, so long as I could believe in something. And what’s better to believe in than a new and better world? Especially because later, when I started working on building sites, each site was like a little part of that belief. Things got built, after all, you won’t deny that. There were delays, it took a long time, often the work was done shoddily, there were shortages of materials, of this and that, stuff got stolen. But things got built.

Anyway, I’m not going to argue with you. You’re my guest, let it be that you’re right. It doesn’t make much difference to me anymore. Wait a minute though, have I maybe seen a photograph of you before? And actually from those times, when we were young. You don’t come out on photographs? How is that possible? Not even as a shadow? Or at the very least as a trace of light wherever you were standing or sitting? Not even that? There’s nothing at all? Then I really don’t get it. In that case the dogs … Whereas they’re sleeping like babies. As you can see. Oh, they’ve woken up now. What is it, Rex? What is it, Paws? Were you having a dream? The gentleman and I have been shelling beans. Go back to sleep, go on. I’ll wake you up when it’s time.

I do have one picture. But I don’t remember if you’re in it. I’ll show you later. What is it of? I mentioned that dream. I did, I really did. You were surprised I have nothing better to think about. It was when I was still living abroad. I rarely dreamed. Still don’t, as it happens. When I was playing, I’d often get home in the middle of the night, I’d be so exhausted I wouldn’t have the strength to dream. And even if I did dream something, when I woke up in the morning
I’d never remember it. Then one night I had a dream, and it was like my dream was being projected on a screen. I don’t really remember, but I think it may still have been going on when I suddenly jerked upright and sat on the edge of the bed. I admit I wasn’t sleeping alone, and she woke up too. She was concerned, she asked me what was wrong.

“I had a dream,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

But what was I supposed to tell her when I wasn’t even sure whether I was dreaming I was sitting on the edge of the bed, and the dream was my waking life, or vice versa.

“You weren’t in it, in any case,” I said to reassure her. “Go back to sleep, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Were there other women?”

“Yes.”

“You men always dream of other women.” She fell asleep again right away.

I stayed on the edge of the bed, wrestling with my thoughts, trying to figure out if it had been my dream. And wondering if I could believe it was someone else’s.

It was autumn, like now, I was walking through meadows, wearing a hat. You won’t believe it, but it was the brown felt hat I’d left on the train. So many years had gone by since then, I could have sworn I’d forgotten all about it. No, quite the opposite, after that I always wore hats. My whole life I’ve worn hats. I couldn’t imagine wearing anything else on my head. I even had a kind of respect for hats. Someone wearing a hat usually aroused my curiosity, in any case more so than with any other kind of headwear. Not to mention women. The women I best remember are the ones who wore hats. Myself, I always felt best in a hat. It was like I was someone else, someone beyond myself, someone for whom everything else fell into the background. Not that I was proud that way. Not at all. I was afraid to live. I felt like I’d only just emerged from a shell, and I still found everything painful. For a long time I was afraid to live. You’ll find this
hard to believe, but wearing a hat actually helped a lot. I began looking people in the eye, and not accepting things at face value. When I wore a hat, memory would somehow torment me less.

And another thing, I liked to greet people with my hat. That was a true pleasure for me. The fact is, there’s no fuller way of greeting a person than by tipping your hat. And you can’t imagine how I enjoyed it when a gust of wind would try and lift the hat off my head. I’d experience almost a sense of oneness with it as I held it by the brim. More, it felt like
I
was staying in place by holding on to the hat, often with both hands. Even if it was a howling gale, I knew I couldn’t let it snatch my hat away.

Yes, I’ve had lots of hats through the course of my life, in all sorts of different colors, styles, various kinds and makes. I never scrimped on buying hats. Or regretted the time it took. I could spend hours in shops and department stores, trying things on till I finally found the right one. But I never wore any of them very long. I didn’t just change them when the fashion changed. And I never threw any away. Life had taught me that everything comes full circle, the way the Earth does. Fashion’s no different. What was unfashionable would later become the in thing.

That’s true. But I never cared whether the fashion was for hats or for other kinds of headwear. Besides, it’s never been the case that hats are completely out of fashion. Even these days you see women and men in hats. Hats may be the only thing left that testifies to stability in the world. Wouldn’t you say so? Think how many things have disappeared and how many new ones have come along, but hats have stuck around.

My whole apartment was littered with hats. There was no more room for them in the closet. They lay on the bookshelves, on the books themselves, on the chest of drawers, on the windowsills, everywhere. I had this antique cast iron coat stand in the hallway which had spreading hooks like antlers at the top, ending in brass knobs. It was festooned with hats.

Yes, I made good money. Not right away, of course. Generally speaking dance
bands pay well. Depending on the establishment, naturally. As you know, not that many people like classical music, but everyone dances. And I’ll tell you something else, dancing isn’t just dancing like you might expect. It’s only in the dance that you can truly see who’s who. Not in conversation, in dance. Not at a dinner table. Not on the street. Not even at war. In dance. If I hadn’t played dance music I wouldn’t have gotten to understand people so well.

I often wore a hat when I played in one band or another. For a saxophonist it’s the right thing. There’s even a certain style to it. The rest of the band would be bare-headed, I was the only one in a hat. Though sometimes the entire band wore hats. I forget which band it was, but we had a poster with all of us wearing hats. So it was at that time I had the dream about the brown felt hat that I’d only had on my head in the store when I tried it on. How can you explain that? No, it was definitely the brown felt one, it slipped down over my ears the same way.

From far off you could tell it was too big. Because as I was walking along it was like at the same time I was watching myself walking, from some undefined point. That happens in dreams. Though not only there. It was visibly rocking on my head with every step I took across the uneven meadows. When you’re watching yourself like that, and you’re also aware of it, you see it even more vividly than you feel it on your head. I was wearing an overcoat like yours. Underneath I had on a suit, and I think a necktie, though I don’t remember the color or pattern. Besides, it was hidden under a scarf that also looked like yours. Whereas my shoes were tied together by the shoelaces and slung over my shoulder, and I was barefoot. Why barefoot? That’s what I can’t explain. I was doing well for myself, after all. My pant legs were rolled up past my ankles, but that didn’t seem to be enough, when I looked down I saw my pants were wet from the dew all the way up to the knees. The grass was tall, it hadn’t been mown in a long while. Also, there was a mist so dense that I would see myself then vanish again, I even lost the sense of whether it was me crossing the meadows,
passing through the mist. It was only the hat that showed me it couldn’t be anyone else. Especially since I could feel a biting cold on my bare feet, as if the grass was just thawing after a night frost.

I was walking rather briskly, though I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere. The mist kept blurring the image, the painful awareness that it was me was still beyond me. If such a feeling is even possible. I seemed more like a hint of myself, as I watched from that unidentified point and saw myself moving through the mist, across the meadow. It was only the hat that was visible to me, perhaps because it was the brown felt one and it was too big. I had the moist cold taste of the mist in my mouth, I felt I was permeated with it.

At a certain moment I paused, wiped the mist off my forehead with my handkerchief, then I leaned down to roll my pant legs further up, and that exact second the hat fell off my head. I started looking for it in the grass and at that point I might have woken up, because without my hat I felt like I had one foot in the waking world. That would have been best for me, I wouldn’t have had to keep on walking through the mist, across the meadows, I wouldn’t have had to remember the dream after I woke up. It was just a dream, just meadows, just mist, they weren’t worth bringing into my waking life.

All of a sudden the sun peeked out, because up till then it had been hidden behind the mist. The mist covered a wide area, but it also extended high into the air. There are mists like that. It was then I saw my hat, a few feet away in the grass. And next to the hat was the muzzle of a cow, as if it was sniffing at the hat. I reached down, carefully took the hat from under the cow’s muzzle, then the whole cow emerged from the mist. At the same instant other cows began to appear on all sides, as if from the wall of mist. The sun was thinning out the mist almost as I watched, the meadows stretched into the distance and more and more cows had come, like someone had driven them out of the mist toward me. Some of them were raising their heads and staring, evidently startled by my presence. Some came closer till I could see their large mute eyes.

I was overcome by fear of them. I hurried away, and kept glancing back to see if they were following me. Though cows are the gentlest creatures under the sun. Of all creatures that exist, including humans. I used to graze them, I know. They weren’t moving, they were standing there watching, as if they couldn’t understand why I was running away from them. I tripped over a molehill and almost fell. I thought that maybe my grandfather was waiting for the mole with a spade. But no. It was because I’d looked around yet again to see if the cows were following me.

Glancing back constantly, I came upon a small group of women standing around a pile of dried potato stalks. You know what potato stalks are, right? The plants that are left after you dig up the potatoes. You make a bonfire of the dried stalks, you bake potatoes in it, there’s always smoke everywhere. When you’re driving in the fall, but earlier than now, you can see plumes of smoke from the fires rising here and there in the fields.