Magnus (17 page)

Just like the good witch in a fairy tale, Magnus says to himself. He returns her greeting, practically shouting, suspecting her of being deaf. ‘Goodday, ma’am.’

The ‘old lady’ corrects him, laughing. ‘No, son, a mere man!’ And he removes his hat, uncovering a bald spotted pate. Bees that must have been dozing on his straw hat begin to flit round his head, some settling on his forehead, his face.

‘But a sensible and happy man,’ the little fellow adds, ‘for I’ve made the best choice in the world, you see, the company of bees and the kind of freedom that is the sweetest madness, the madness of supreme love. That’s why I’m something of a woman as well. And therefore a charmed man.’ With this explanation, he nimbly gets to his feet.

He is small, very slight, with a stoop, but his body still seems as agile as that of a child. He puts his hat back on, and opens up his hands. The bees come and gather on them. He extends his bee-covered palms towards Magnus and says, ‘In the hive their queen is constantly surrounded by a very busy court of servants and workers. But for me they’re all queens, especially the workers, the foragers, the fanners, the sweepers, and the guardians of the threshold. Each has its own task, which it unfailingly fulfils, from beginning to end of its brief existence. Look at them, my little queens, my bright flares! The sun’s maids of honour…’

Magnus has not understood a great deal of what the little fellow in his muddy-coloured homespun shift has been babbling on about. His voice is thin and his rustic accent very strong. Magnus has the impression of being confronted with a clown, juggling with both tamed insects and odd utterances, or rather a scarecrow suddenly endowed with movement and the power of speech, and he wonders where the fellow comes from and what he wants. The clown flaps his hands and his insects take flight, starting to circle round him again.

‘I’m Brother Jean. Who are you?’

Magnus is taken aback by this question, simple though it is, and he gives an answer that comes as a surprise to himself. ‘I’ve forgotten.’

The clownish monk does not seem to find this reply in the least unexpected. ‘That can happen. And it’s a good a sign.’ With this serenely delivered comment he goes toddling off, a golden flurry swarming round his hat.

No matter how much thought he gives it, he cannot recall his name. This lasting forgetfulness dismays him. He does not see any good sign in it. On the contrary, he feels stricken with anonymity, as though felled by a blow, an ailment. The sickness of loss, combining in this latest attack the stealthy attrition of wastage with the anguish of despoliation. Is this the only result of that long labour of decanting conducted in the solitude of footpaths and forests, in the silence of the barn?

Nevertheless he eventually returns to the barn. Planting himself against the back wall, he summons to his aid all those people he has known and loved, but their names come to him in a jumble, overwhelmed by those of people who have been an affliction to him. He does not want to hear the detested names of Thea and Clemens Dunkeltal, along with all their pseudonyms stinking of lies and wickedness, nor those of Horst Witzel, Julius Schlack, Klaus Döhrlich, But these names grow shrill, they cling, sticking to his tongue.

Knautschke, Klautschke – these nicknames plague him, slosh round in his mouth, turn into seething verminous words,
Klasche Klapse Knalle Knaren Knacke Knülche Knauser Kleckse
…
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Verbal smacks, verbal expectorations. He sees them as big clots of blood roiling in the pink gaping gob of a yawning hippopotamus. He feels them gurgling in his throat, thickening his saliva. He starts striking the ground with his stick to silence this viscous tumult.

Shut your trap, Knautschke! He strikes harder and harder, head down, straining his brow like an animal ready to charge, jaws clenched. So cold is he, he breaks into a sweat, chill perspiration running down his back; a stalactite reaching from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

A stalagmite rising from his belly to his throat. The Knautschke orifice closes, swallowing up all those reptilian words. Then out of an undercurrent of sound emerge the familiar names, like so many handshakes, greetings, smiles that pacify him. And caresses too, painful in their lost tenderness.

They come slowly circling round, all these names, in pairs or singly. Just a murmur each time, a sigh. A sob. May, Peggy…

A procession of utterances in colourless or grey-blue voices, ocre and violet laughter, ivory and russet whispers. Each name has its own complexion, style, timbre, and a slight tremor. A quavering sometimes. Each has its own intensity, its particular resonance. Sometimes a fleeting brilliance.

And the procession goes round and round. But his own name is absent.

He is no longer striking the ground with his stick, he is walking across the barn, pacing the emptiness. He follows after the names in the procession, begging for his own. His mouth is dry, his lips blue with cold. Darkness has long since fallen, but so profuse are the stars that a diffused pale luminescence tempers the darkness.

He lurches, leaning on his stick, still seeking his name. The starlight has faded. It is close to daybreak. The barn is now steeped in ashen gloom. The procession of beloved names dissolves in the silence. He is left on his own. He collapses with exhaustion, falls to his knees. But in falling, his mind fractures and his name suddenly resurfaces. Magnus.

Magnus laughs, on his knees in the dust. ‘Magnus!’ he exclaims in a breathless voice, and repeats his name as if calling out to himself. He is so happy to have recovered it he writes it in the dust with the tip of his index finger. At that moment as the sun rises the sky is filled with a milky brightness, and this dawn radiance steals between the slats of the barn, concentrating in an oblique beam that touches his finger.

A ray of white light. A lactation. And his finger does not write the letters of Magnus but those of another name, totally unknown to him.

He gazes at this name and quietly lies down beside it. He falls asleep immediately, dazed with tiredness and incomprehension.

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  Claps slaps smacks rattles crackles misers blotches

Lothar and Hannelore, call my name.

Else and Erika, call my name.

Peggy Bell, call my name.

Mary and Terence Gleanerstones, call my name.

Terence and Scott, my brothers, call my name.

May, my lover of such vitality, call my name.

Lothar and Hannelore, call my name.

Else, call my name.

Peggy, my sister my love, call my name.

Lothar, my friend my father, call my name.

Myriam, young girl, call my name.

Peggy, my most beautiful my sweet, call my name.

Peggy, my Schneewittchen my lost one, call my name.

You, who were sacrificed, forgive me.

From the unknown, deliver me.

From this silence, deliver me.

From this oblivion, deliver me.

From disintegration, deliver me.

From my absence, deliver me.

I being nameless, in your mercy, name me!

From this perdition, in your mercy, save me!

In your mercy, listen to me!

Hear me …

Do you hear me?

May, do you hear me?

Lothar, are you listening to me?

Peggy, do you forgive me?

And you, my mother consumed by fire and the fire that consumes me, do you hear me?

Where are you? What do you say ?

Do you hear me?

When he wakes up it is already very late in the morning. Another hot August day. The atmosphere is close, laden with the smells of earth, of flowers. His head is strangely heavy, as if filled with mist, with white dew. He feels giddy. To get to his feet, he uses the ground to support his weight, but in doing so his hands erase the name dictated to him by tiredness, the name he had written in the dust at daybreak in the milky flow of light. By the time that moment resurfaces in his mind it is too late, the writing is illegible. He can only distinguish one letter: an l. So it was not a dream, he had actually written down some other unsuspected name: there is no l in Magnus. But examine the ground as he might, he cannot decipher anything more.

He pushes open the door. The direct sunlight blinds him. ‘Good morning, my son! Did you sleep well?’ The little old monk wearing his mobile beehive has returned, as buzzingly cheerful as the previous day. Over by the lime tree that shades the yard, he is busying himself round a table he has improvised with a wooden plank resting on some logs taken from the pile in the shed. He acts as if he is at home here, indeed like a host about to welcome a guest. For that is what he is preparing: lunch.

On the board are a jug of water, a bottle of wine, three glasses, fruit, saucisson, cheese, a pot of honey and some bread, and even a posy of golden clover and agrimony.

‘You must be hungry,’ he says. ‘If it’s all right with you, we’ll have lunch straightaway. It’s already midday. The meal may be frugal but it’s none the less festive. Because today is the fifteenth, the day of Mary’s Assumption. In honour of which I’ve brought a bottle of wine, a very good wine, a Pouilly Fumé. And you know what? It’s also my birthday. I was born on the night of the fifteenth of August, but so long ago I can’t remember the exact year any more. It was towards the end of the last century. It was a tradition, or rather a blessing, in my family: all the children were born on the fifteenth of August. And I had a lot of siblings – nine boys, would you believe? Who all came into the world under the protection of the Virgin. So this birthday isn’t just mine, it’s also that of my eight brothers. All of them have died now, gone to pay their respects to the Immaculate Mother of God. Soon it will be my turn. Ah, what a beautiful day!’

Dazed by the chatter of this tiresome votary of the Virgin, Magnus is not sure whether the beautiful day he has just referred to is this one, or that of his forthcoming death. But he does not care either way, and the presence of the talkative monk irritates him. Yet he dare not drive him away. He politely beats a retreat, pleading tiredness in order to seek refuge inside the house where, he hopes, the intruder will not, after all, have the gall to follow him. But the fellow is not to be put off, and resumes his chatter with exasperating cheek.

‘Sorry, my son, but I haven’t got time to wait any longer. So you think I came on a whim, do you? I’ve been watching you for a long time, since the day you moved into this isolated house, nearly three years ago. And not a day’s gone by that I haven’t seen you, passing here or there … But you’ve never noticed my presence, although I live mostly nearby. The number of times I’ve slept in the stable beside the barn where you spend hours shut up inside! There is still straw in the mangers, and I like to come and lie down in it, it’s warm and smells goods. The animals have left behind a little of their warmth, their gentleness, their wisdom … Anyway, you prefer the barn. Why not? But enough’s enough. Haven’t you had your fill of emptiness in that barn of yours?’

‘Mind your own business,’ replies Magnus, annoyed to discover that he has been spied on by this old busybody. ‘Leave me in peace!’

Brother Jean does not give up. He returns to the fray. ‘Peace! It’s not by isolating yourself that you’ll find peace. For that’s what you are: isolated, not a recluse. Lonely, not a loner. I know what I’m talking about, I’ve been living as a hermit for some thirty years, close to my monastery. I’d never have been able to keep going if I had a heart as bleak as yours. The heart of a sequestered man.’

‘Sequestered?’ echoes Magnus, who does not know this word.

‘Confined, detained, imprisoned, walled up …’ explains the monk, and immediately continues with what he was saying. ‘I keep bees. My hives are not far from here. I take the honey to the monastery, and receive food and clothing in exchange. I need very litte. Less and less. Soon I shan’t be needing anything at all. That time is near, which is why I’ve come to you.’ Then abruptly changing the subject, he asks, ‘So what about your name, did you remember it?’

‘Magnus.’

‘Ah? Are you sure?’ says Brother Jean with a dubious look, as if he already knew the answer and the one he had been given was incorrect.

This response once again disconcerts Magnus, who is well aware he has a borrowed name shared with a teddy bear, and that this very morning he obliterated another name, which might have been his.

‘Why do you doubt my name?’ he asks.

Evading the question, his interlocuter says, ‘Names! Bah! People sometimes change them in the course of their life, as if the one they were given at birth wasn’t the right one. I had to give up mine when I entered the monastery, and I wasn’t given any choice. My name used to be Blaise. It was taken away from me. You’ll be called Brother Jean, they said. So Jean it was. Like the Baptist who fed on locusts and honey, or the Evangelist. Now there’s someone who was enlightened by a visit from the Angel of mystery! The Angel of the Word … Yes, the Angel of the Word, who made him eat up the little book of fire. In my opinion, that book was a beehive comb dripping with honey. I’m just a very insignificant Jean, and the Angel of the Word split my lip by sealing my mouth with his secret … But for some time now I have had the feeling this secret is stirring … yes, it’s stirring in my mouth, on my split lip … it’s like a taste of wind…’

‘What are you talking about? What secret?’

‘As if I knew! Who is familiar with the gift of God?’

‘Certainly not me!’ exclaims Magnus. ‘And it’s no concern of mine. I’m not a believer.’

‘So much the better,’ retorts Brother Jean, who takes everything in his stride. ‘That makes you freer. Free to be surprised by what I, on my own, have not yet been able to experience. That’s why I need you.’

The gift of God! A charming fantasy. Magnus can make no sense of Brother Jean’s vatic utterances, but his irritation has subsided. He no longer has any desire to argue with this innocent whose persistence is matched by his eccentricity. All he wants is to rest and have something to eat, hunger suddenly overtaking his tiredness. They sit down side by side in the shade of the lime tree. A small cloud of bees swirls round them. They empty the bottle of Pouilly, sharing the contents of the third glass that Brother Jean had filled with the Angel of the Word in mind, or any other visitor who might turn up. More talkative and more crazy than ever, he draws a parallel between the ingenious system devised by Vauban for beseiging a fortified town, using zigzag trenches, and the delicate labyrinth of paths leading the soul towards God. Then he elaborates another parallel between the ripening of fruit by the effect of heat and the bringing to maturity of his death by the effect of time, a process he feels is about to reach completion.