Tainaron: Mail From Another City (17 page)

  
401

King Milinda's question - the twentieth letter

402  

My immediate neighbour, on the same floor, is an extraordinarily old person; much older than the prince. Some people claim he is already over one hundred and fifty years old, while others, like Longhorn, say that he is only one hundred and twenty-five or one hundred and thirty. But everyone who sees his frailty understands that he has lived past his own time, and it is incomprehensible and even cruel that he must continue living here in the city of Tainaron.

403  

He has a servant - or perhaps he is one of his descendants - who takes him out every morning. He is dry and light and has shrunk so small that he is carried in a kind of bag or sack. The bag is set in the sun on a park bench and its sides are turned down a little so that the old man can take the air and look at the flowers and the passers-by. There he is left, and after a couple of hours he is taken home again. In his bag he looks, with his thin limbs, like nothing but a bunch of straw, as dry as kindling.

404  

Do you think there is a place where people do not grow old? I wonder if I ever met an inhabitant of such a country when I was quite young? And will he met me again when my age is as great as that of the old man in the sack?

405  

What a shock he will get. 'My dear friend,' he will stammer. 'What dreadful thing has happened? Who has treated you so badly? Where is your thick hair? Why do you walk so slowly and with such a stoop? Tell me who is to blame, and I shall make him answer for his deeds.'

406  

Childish, ignorant person! Let him go back to where he came from!

407  

I have seen a vision that came from the sack. It looked just as if there were a mirror in it. And the straw rose to give a sign; it beckoned to me. And so of course I went, I went and sat down next to the sack, which was very humble considering that one hundred and fifty years fitted inside.

408  

The sack's voice was so weak and hoarse that I could not immediately understand it. The sack asked where I was from, and said that it had not been born in Tainaron either. And I had only sat there for a moment when I realised that the bag contained someone alive and remembering. And when I had sat there for another moment, I knew that he was not old. Old age was merely his disguise, as childhood had once been. I knew it as I once knew that a certain very small creature was right when she shrieked: 'I am not a child! I am not a child!' I knew it because I had not been a child myself, either; I knew it because I shall never be old. I knew it because I had heard King Milinda's question: 'Was he who was born the same as he who died?' and heard the answer, which was not yes or no.

409  

And now the park's trees waved the shadows of their fluttering over my years and over the years of my companion, leaves that were still fastened to their branches, but were already yellow and would soon be dead, detached, absent.

410  

I asked what had been most difficult in life, and the bag answered: 'The fact that everything recurs and must always return and that the same questions are asked again and again.'

411  

But before I could ask more of the same questions, the servant or descendant approached us with purposeful strides. Lightly he lifted his burden - its years were feathers to him - and, grinding the gravel under his feet, took him back home.

412  

I had got hot and, forgetting the old man in a moment, strolled slowly toward the harbour. There I saw the same white ship that once brought me to Tainaron; but why, I cannot remember.

413  

  
414

Not enough - the twenty-first letter

415  

How are you? How are things with you? That you are so implacable in your silence makes you gradually become more like gods or the dead. Such is your metamorphosis; and it is not entirely repugnant to me.

416  

For let me tell you what has happened to me. What has happened to me is that people are no longer enough. They are not enough, be they ever so great or beautiful or wise or complicated. They are not enough, even if their antennae were to stretch further than radar beams and their clothes were to be stronger than armour.

417  

For that reason I confess that everything I say contains the unspoken hope that it is linked with all my actions as well as to the moments when I just sit and look. Ardent hope! Incorrigible hope! That gods and the dead might hear. That gods and the dead might see. That gods and the dead might know....

418  

But there is only one who can make them hear their song. But he was one who became truly unhappy and was torn to pieces.

419  

Last night I returned to you after long years, from such a distance and over many obstacles. Barricades and brushwood fences, barbed wire obstacles and piles of stones rose up in my path. Craters, chasms and stinking trenches opened up before my feet. But my speed was so dizzying that I flew over peaks and depths and sped along the bright, frozen channel that led straight to your door.

420  

The bell rings through the house, through the darkness of the winter's day, and you open the door, the same as before. How happy we are! How we embrace each other!

421  

But at once I notice how absent-minded you are. You are expecting something completely different; yes, I am right: you listen over my head, which is pressed against your chest. And now I, too, hear footsteps approaching below in the stairwell.

422  

Then the light of a living flame spreads across your face as you ask: 'Are they coming here? Are they not close? Are they not familiar footsteps?'

423  

But I do not reply, and you would not hear what I said. Your arms have already loosened around me, and I have returned on the same road along which, just now, I sped toward you, trembling with anticipation.

  
424

Dayma - the twenty-second letter

425  

Yesterday I wished to try, for my morning drink, the Tainaronians' favourite sweet, foaming dayma or daime, which is drunk through a straw. They like it so much that they drink it at every possible opportunity, cold or hot, and in addition to dayma they have dozens of other names for it. I have heard it said that in large quantities it has curious effects and that some may see strange and even improper things after drinking it.

426  

For my part, I did not notice any such effects. But everything I see here is strange, even without drinking a drop of dayma.