Blindly (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (40 page)

Why was that gull trembling, just because he didn’t know that he too, like everyone else, could not die? And the ones who at Tyburn or in the square in Hobart, with the noose already around their necks, acted like show-offs and sang bawdy songs in a confident voice, maybe on the contrary they were glad to be forgotten and to forget, to disappear somewhere where no one, not even they themselves, would ever hear of them again, sailors who go ashore at an unknown port, sign the register, pocket their pay and vanish forever from the rolls of all the Admiralties. The attendant knocks the chair out from under the condemned man’s feet and sets it aside for the next time, informing the public of the day and time.

The night warder announces nightfall. Comrades of the world, unite. The rising sun has fallen into a deep, black well, but if we all grab the pulley and pull hard together, the bucket will come up, like the shovelful of sand came up, from the bottom of the icy sea at Goli Otok, that we
pijeskari
had to load onto the wheelbarrows. The bucket will come up, we will wipe that sludge-encrusted sun with our red flags until it is cleansed of any blood or mud stains and rises high in the sky, free and light as a balloon escaping from a child’s hand.

The well is deep, the bucket is heavy, occasionally it slips backward, falls back down, and if you lean over to stop it you could fall with
it. Maria, Marie, Márja, Marica, Norah, down there in the putrid waste dump of the heart, to die, to rot. Black divinities of the abyss, shadowy rites of Hecate in which Medea, sorceress of the night, indulges. No, it’s my heart that’s black, which tore Medea from the night that to her is tender and welcoming, to hurl her into the light of a merciless day, of a foreign sun that burned her. I look into the black well, that slime is the reflection of my face. I am down there, I thrive in that sludge; man is an autophagic and stercoraceous insect, he enjoys devouring himself.

The bottom of the well, amenable cesspool of mystery. Everyone always prone to worship them, those mysteries, to revere the darkness of an empty room, heavy curtains drawn to hide the emptiness, to prevent us from realizing that the god of shadows is a trick, like in the tunnel of horrors at the amusement park. The sacred rites of Samothrace, the tremendous mysteries of the gods, unutterable to mortals, of which it is not lawful for us to sing. Then too, what is there to sing of. Sacred mystical orgies, initiatory rites? A maenad that copulates with a snake, the cult of Rea, the great triple goddess, a case of the hots in a brothel, old-fashioned orgies, two or three vulgar favours … The Dactyls, small naked demons, tear Zagreus to pieces, the infant god in the form of a calf—maybe a ram or a lamb, it’s all the same. There are some who fuck more enthusiastically if they see a flayed animal flinch.

At Eleusis, the initiate at the end contemplated the supreme mystery, an ear of wheat. At Samothrace there is some coupling, though they don’t say so—obscene acts of sailors on leave during a long crossing, then the Argonauts resume the voyage, perhaps without even paying the madam, but it’s not appropriate to talk about those things. Jason says nothing about his mysteries, why should he tell about the abominable thing he did to Medea. In the
black hole of the shithole, head down in
kroz stroj
, I vomited but at least I could see the rising sun, hidden at the bottom of that muck. Here, Down the Bay, in Terra Australis Incognita, upside-down again, I’m just a little dizzy, but I can’t see anything anymore …

I can’t remember when I went into the water—right away, hours later, weeks?—it came up to my knees. It was cold, but that iciness, on the bare skin of my calves, was a pleasant sensation. I gently placed the gull in the sea and it immediately assumed the normal position of a seagull floating on the waves. Its neck was even raised, the head turned directly toward the open sea, as the current carried it away from shore. After a few minutes it was already far away and you could not distinguish it from the other gulls rocking on the water. Beyond the reef you could make out the white crests of the waves. The sea was a vast deserted passageway. I looked at that passageway. It didn’t matter that the bird’s journey would soon be over. It was nice not to need a Charon to be ferried to the other side, to be able to get there on your own.

I came out of the water. I felt even more tired. The light was blinding me and, after moving the sheepskin and spreading it out on the stones again, I lay down under the prow of the ship, in the patch of shade that the prow and the figurehead cast on the beach. The fleece was soft and thick and kept you from feeling the harshness of the terrain. Lying on my back, with my eyes half-closed, I could see the figurehead above me. The roar of the sea was regular and even and after a few moments I wasn’t aware of it anymore; no sound could be distinguished in the uniform crashing of the surf. Lifting my head, I looked out across the vast bay. The basalt cliffs were a great dark fortress; in the distance, which blunted differences and corrected irregularities, the walls appeared as battlements with merlons and crenels. Staring at them at length, the gaze clouded
over, became hazy; the images blurred in that trembling air and there was an occasional flicker, some smoke, on the battlements, the fluttering of a flag on a tower. The sun had shifted; it beat down on the sheepskin, making its filthy yellow shine with a golden glow, but in the lethargy that had overcome me I didn’t even move the inch or so that would have put me back in the shade. I lay there, motionless, with the sun in my eyes.

I can’t say how much time went by. My father always knew what time it was. Behind the eyelids of my closed eyes, which I squeezed tight and then relaxed, danced small globes of every colour, reds, blacks and yellows, on a continuously changing background, now flaming yellow then dark blue; the disks intertwined and overlapped, brightly coloured suns of the future in a dark or roseate sky, rosy with blood. Every now and then I opened my eyes and quickly shut them again, pressing my eyelids with my fingers; coloured shapes broke up and recomposed themselves in a kaleidoscope, a fiery light enveloped the dark castle and ignited its towers, dark giants collapsed with a fearful rumble—Christiansborg burns, for three days and three nights the Royal Palace burns, the ceiling of the solemn Hall of Knights crashes down with a roar, the tongues of flame streak toward the grand portraits of Danish noblemen and kings, wrap them in their coils, twist around the iron breastplates and ermine cloaks, the paintings peel away from the walls with a crackling sound, the figures writhe and curl up among the flames. Warriors in heavy armour and ancient lords of the sea are put to the stake after the lost battle, gold, precious fabrics and trophies burn relentlessly. The whole sky is a fiery colour, it’s a red spot under the eyelids.

But it’s late; I don’t know why or in reference to what, but it’s late. Who knows what time it is, even my father’s clocks were destroyed.
As my eyelids relax the fire retreats and a blank spot can be seen—it’s the great clock of the Hall of Knights.

I like that emptiness, I would like to create it around me and behind me; everyone tries to rescue something, I instead prefer to help the fire, toss things into the flames, see them go up in smoke—if only all this earth I have on top of me could vanish into thin air, dissolve like smoke, let me breathe.

Fire is righteous, it destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and one day it will destroy the new infernal cities. Make a clean sweep, a nice bonfire, outside and inside, in the heart and head which are always so crowded, jammed with too many things. Then there would be room for Maria as well—an open horizon, a sea traversed only by the wind, not that hold constantly filled with too heavy a load, teeming with human flesh—how could I take her with me, imprison and suffocate her in that mob …

I press my eyes again. Under my eyelids the dots, disks and globes multiply and whirl dizzily, changing their colour and shape; the ball spins and spins faster and faster, it doesn’t stop on any number, all the better, it would undoubtedly be the wrong one. Too many numbers, too many sparks, too many things. Life is a bubo always about to burst. I reopen my eyes; the haziness clears up, that pale disk reappears on the basalt walls, it’s not a clock, it’s a snowball—whiteness again at last, Iceland, the silence of frozen lakes, a white desert where there is nothing—what peace, what relief, the bucket full of water is no longer heavy because it wasn’t a real bucket, now I can see it, it was a sieve and the water drained away through the holes, now I feel empty, light, free. It’s not snow, it’s a white flag; now, thank God, we can finally raise it.

The war is coming to an end, the flames lap against the now defenceless city—Copenhagen under the guns of the English fleet
raises the signal for surrender, now Nelson will order a ceasefire and peace will begin. Men will be able to treat their wounds, the bombarded ships will be able to remain peacefully docked to have their battered hulls repaired.

I lie down on my back again, like now, a fitting position to declare yourself beaten and seek compassion. The sun, high above, is a blinding white disk. Now we’ll hear the ceasefire order. But suddenly that disk turns black, a black eye aimed at me—Nelson aims the spyglass but holds it to his blindfolded eye, he can’t see the white flag and does not call a ceasefire. This is how catastrophes occur, a defect of vision, a misunderstanding, the helmsman who doesn’t see the rocks because he’s looking someplace else; death is an old one-eyed pirate, who can’t see what’s in front of him and shouts his orders blindly.

That eye stares at me from the end of the spyglass, it comes closer and closer and grows larger—an eclipse of the sun, of the earth, the world no longer exists, it’s disappeared behind the black circle, in that black mouth of a cannon. The shot is fired and the darkness spreads, multicoloured sparks gleam at the edge of that darkness, fragments of exploded stars hurled into shadowy space where they founder and die out.

No, I don’t think I heard the creaking of the figurehead breaking away from the ship and I think it fell on top of me. Undoubtedly I didn’t ward it off; maybe I was asleep, on that fleece that a moment later would once again be drenched in blood. I don’t remember, the memory capacity evidently got used up here. The corroded, worm-eaten wood of the old prow figure must have succumbed to the years, the harsh weather, the abrasion of wind, rain and salt air. The sea consumes. Still it’s strange, because the
Argo
rotted of course and fell apart, from the time I consecrated it to Poseidon
and left it on the seashore, but the devotees who came to venerate it repaired it continuously, replacing one part and then another, so that the ship stood there forever, ancient yet new, intact and immortal, another yet the same, like me, like the gods. Indeed it was assumed into heaven, among the eternal constellations—it ascended up there by sliding backward, sailing in reverse toward the tail and paws of the Dog. But it’s empty, without a crew, without the Argonauts—even without the figurehead, perhaps it was jettisoned when the ship went to meet the gods, to lighten the ballast, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to rise. They say it’s up there, a constellation with almost no stars. On the beach, however, there is no longer any vessel.

At least I can’t see it, from here. You can’t see anything almost; even if I scratch away this muddy soil everything remains obscure, dim—but then is anyone looking?—that yellowish, shaggy, scrunched-up rag, it looks like a deflated balloon, the water laps at it, soon the tide will carry it away. A ball of rags, a shapeless sphere—it seems it was Nausicaa who invented the sphere, the model of the universe, after having secretly learned it from the Argonauts, to whom the centaur Chiron had taught it. Even Newton mentions it, and so … Then, with that sphere, Nausicaa went to play ball on the seashore and a kick by who knows who made it vanish among the waves, in the spray from the bora that obscures the sea like sleet. I’d like to know where that tattered ball ended up, but it’s all black, there at the bottom, and you can’t see a thing, not even if you rub the clouded glass vigorously.

Rub it, can’t see a thing, rub it some more, still in vain, in the dark hold. Rub, row, click, turn off, turn back on, make that recorder go forward and back, talk and repeat and say it again, type, record, erase, re-record, rewind fast forward rewind, replay. Especially
replay, check to make sure there are no surprises. I wouldn’t want to think that at times, instead of erasing my own questions and explanations and comments, leaving only his text, neat and orderly, I may have perhaps erased his answers without realizing it—but where is he, where is it that he’s talking, that it’s him speaking … Let’s go back … No, it’s not him, and yet earlier, just before, when I checked that same passage and listened to what he was saying, I didn’t notice that the voice wasn’t his, who knows, maybe mine, even though—it’s difficult to recognize your own voice, you don’t know how it sounds from the outside, how others hear it, it’s a different voice—this message on the screen, on the other hand, must really be his, it’s him, that brazen rascal—When you were distracted for a moment, Doctor, I pressed the button, and erased myself, I disappeared, free, still hounded but never really nabbed, free at last, my dear Dr. Ulcigrai. And the PC, the Communist Party, pardon, the Personal Computer will help you even less. A nice virus managed to destroy the data, that seemingly innocuous program that opened a window with best wishes. Tabula rasa. Farewell. But go ahead and continue listening to the tape, if you like listening to yourself—But where is it that—yes now I recognize myself, it’s my voice—let’s try rewinding, it’s still me … forward, rewind—nothing to be done, here too—

But no, keep looking, keep looking, Doctor.—Where can he be? Even the room is empty, the bed intact. How did it happen, how did he do it. Everything was planned so well, the cells were in safe custody, protected; to escape, to die was technically impossible. If we only knew how … What matters is not that someone does it right under your nose, in spite of all the security, what matters is knowing how it could have happened … Indeed, the science of prisons, concentration camps, penitentiaries, isolation wards is
precisely that, a science, well before it becomes common practice. It’s the theory that is of interest; whether one was supposed to die and doesn’t die or vice versa doesn’t matter, but you hanker to learn how he did it, by what method, based on which principles—all well and good if the murderer enters and kills his victim without forcing the door of the hermetically sealed room, or if the prisoner escapes from that hermetically sealed cell, you can even overlook the murder or the escape, but make him tell us how he did it, what the Institution’s weak link was, how one manages to escape from the Lager, from cloning that revives you even after you’re dead, from serial reproduction without end, from a safety net full of holes.