Out of Mind (18 page)

Don't understand anyone . . . only the familiar words . . . his own language from within . . . both his parents spoke Dutch . . . they are both dead now . . . everyone he knows seems to be dead ... do you know . . . you astray amid this herd . . .you are the only ray of hope.

Tucking in . . . beside . . . across . . . opposite . . . don't even know why they are being fed, the stupid hogs . . . namely to retain any weight at all . . . hence the rumpus when suddenly someone sits down to shit. . . quite understand those guards ... a) it is filthy . . . b) they would blow away on the merest breeze.

Too far removed from the wall. . . which is bad ... a body that can no longer propel itself becomes a tree . . . like that thin one over there in the snow . . . the wall ... to the wall . . . over the wall . . . that is what he means when he thinks: only in language can I still undertake anything.

Still hands but once out of sight they snap off . . . fall away . . . once out of sight they can no longer be felt either . . .how heavy I am . . . heavy nothingness.

Back into life? . . . but where has it gone? ... is there such a thing?... or was everything simply a fantasy in the head? . . . phantoms of the mind?

At least pinching still causes a slight pain ... an event. . . using the choke but where has the engine gone . . . nothing but metaphors, boy . . . nothing but metaphors.

The head rolls about on the neck all by itself without any guidance . . . must try to shrink ... at any rate this boy here must not eat any more.

Shuffle those feet down there . . . rub with those hands higher up . . . help to crush this little person in between . . . into his disappearance . . . that is what they do to all these people here . . .

Don't care for anything at all, don't care . . . grasping . . . holding . . . letting go is now done independently by this hand like a machine which he watches.

Extinguished male head . . . dribble running into the collar of his overalls . . . pink lips opening and closing as those of a fish . . . drums absently with his fingers on his flies . . . am I like that, too?

The garden wall is good . . . imitate a wall, most of the people here do that and who can blame them? . . . some of them have quite a talent for it.

Sounds do not remain constant or does the head lower its hearing at times?

A madhouse? . . . think: not mad means nothing . . . one can't check for oneself whether one is mad or not.

Far in the distance there is gunfire . . . shots . . . fine business that is, there's even a war on now . . . will it never end? . . . occupied from within . . . my liberators have occupied me, that's what it is . . . more and more censorship . . . hardly anything still gets through.

Sick . . . sick as anything . . . but can't tell whether the sickness is inside or outside this skin ... on the borderline there is not a breath of air . . . he has become a thin, transparent point in space.

Tea in metal mugs . . . warms the hands . . . lukewarm never becomes hot. . . but hot does become lukewarm . . . can this be called progress while in fact it is regression ... to a state in which everything ends up having the same temperature . . . tea can never of its own accord become colder than its surroundings . . . that is so . . . the static condition of tea for which stirring is of no further avail... let go that mug because those hands down there . . . those stiff fingers . . . serve no purpose any longer ... on the contrary . . . they freeze everything they touch.

MR
BRACKEEN
!
HOW
DELIGHTFUL
TO
SEE
YOU
!

Poor thing . . . pitiful really.

This is the best corner ... at last. . . little human traffic . . . occasionally someone accidentally strays this way and is immediately barked at. . . that one over there is a metronome . . . left . . . right ... at every turn he clicks his tongue . . . rhythmically swings back and forth in his chair like the pendulum of a clock ... of course, you could start laughing at it but it is too understandable for that (vertical wants to become horizontal. . . but all you do here is sink, boy).

Still louder music . . . two starting to dance with each other . . . bending and in stockinged feet they dance around each other. . . very carefully they hold hands ... in a moment their fingers will break off.

A woman slumps to the ground against a wall . . . slowly like treacle along the wall . . . she claps and she cries . . . tears streaming while she laughs . . . loudly and a stream of tears down her cheeks and she claps her hands harder and harder and then

SUDDENLY

as if at a signal

SHE
TURNS
TO
STONE

with a purple face that slowly becomes ashen grey . . . they can carry that one away he thinks and this is exactly what happens.

Walking dozily. . . shuffling ... his shoes are gone . . . that is why he no longer has any feeling in his feet. . . breathing is in the head now . . . has struck inside ... a rustling rising and falling.

Can it be they have found him somewhere ... a strange country and his passport lost or his memory or both ... no papers . . . that they are sorting it out. . . who he is and what his name is and where he comes from . . . only: it no longer interests me so obviously they stop their investigations and will leave me here until the end, anonymous for all time.

Eyes fill with prickly water . . . silting up? . . . cheeks are already caked with salt.

Everybody has been brought here in order to be emptied by means of medicine. . . the lost-property department is already so overfull that everything that lands on the floor is at once deposited in garbage cans . . . this does not apply to this person here who handed in all his remaining possessions at the entrance.

From the corner of the eye: a person pulling out his last tuft of hair because even that is too much for him . . . poke about a bit. . . rummage in these pockets so as not to have to see too much.

Light flickers down at me from tubes up above . . . light that wants to penetrate every hollow . . . close tightly . . . keep shut. . . lock up ... he pulls the door shut behind him for good and at the same time long white trailing curtains close off the view of the wall. . . the spindly tree in the snow.

Sit motionless and yet the feeling of forming part of a larger movement. . . not perceptible ... a mussel under the keel of a sailing ship.

All around you the last remnants of humanity are being played out... a grin on a stubbly old man's mug returns every other second . . . don't look at this human clockface any longer . . . better stroll about for a bit but they have weighted down his legs . . . for your own good . . . we no longer weigh anything here.

A woman grinding coffee at a table with a begonia on it . . . she does not have the use of a coffee grinder but her movements are so lifelike that you can smell the coffee . . . people only imitate here . . . they cling to their last remembered remnants . . . but why so many sit waving to each other (to each other?) is a mystery to me . . . don't join in this game of false identities . . . one must have sunk or strayed very far if one raises every random stranger to friend just so as not to be so alone here,

YOU
'
RE
THE
NEW
ONE
?

in so far as you can still speak of new here . . . oh, are we going to the canteen . . . didn't know there was one here.

Large colour photographs hang in wooden frames ... a beach with wild breakers . . . palm trees with a row of canoes underneath . . . New York at night. . . made to sit down at one of the Formica tables . . . they have a lot of canteen staff here . . . the coffee turns up without delay.

Everyone is given pills in round plastic cups . . . the coffee lady peers at a list for a long time.

I
'
M
THE
NEW
ONE

you shouldn't have said that ... a woman with a horribly scraggy neck and a child's bolero made of remnants of wool wants to know your name now ... he shakes his head but the hag insists with her high shrill voice ... a bald gentleman in a crookedly buttoned cardigan tries to be helpful with pen and paper but he does not concede his identity and as he stubbornly goes on stirring his coffee he thinks: better forget that too . . . then your alibi will be altogether watertight.

Singing here and there . . . worn voices trying to follow a piano on a stage playing much too fast... he is clearly the only one to register that no one is playing on it. . . the price one pays these days for a bit of social life! . . . the utterly moronic community singing to which the fat canteen boss sweating in his white shirt on the stage tries in a loud voice to incite the dozy company before him.

Get up, you ... go and inspect that piano from close by . . . he walks to the little steps by the side of the stage . . . toilingly clambers up . . . keys that go up and down all by themselves . . . now in the middle register then in a rapidly ascending run in the descant. . . perhaps they can help your fingers . . . teach them perhaps to play again ... to play from memory again . . . that blissful feeling that your body is playing you . . . that you yourself have become music ... he sits down on the chair in front of the piano and feels the keys knocking against his fingers . . . they push you away . . . rebuff you . . . won't have anything more to do with you and the canteen boss with his grinning face pulls you off the chair and wants you to help drill those grey old people at those tables down below to the beat of the shrill automatic piano behind you which strikes up 'Home on the Range' and he sees the childlike abandonment on all those singing, wide-open faces that are so happy at being allowed to do the same thing together on the orders of the music machine.

Run away then . . . away from here and you grope your way among the thick folds of a back curtain . . . with the laughter from the hall in your ears you fumble . . . grab hold of the folds . . . clawing along the curtain until you have found the way out and stand panting in the darkness where you can still hear the piano but more muffled and also the singing feebler and poorer ... he is searching for the exit. . . that's what I like to see . . . and ends up by the steps again down which you climb or stumble, it isn't certain which, and then you see light burning at the end of a corridor with a freestone floor and tall, barred windows and past a row of toilets without doors . . . then he enters a space with washstands and taps . . . the drinking troughs . . . here is water at last. . . drink ... go on drinking . . . rinse . . . rinse . . . rinse . . . stream ... I must stream ... lie under water and stream along . . . stream away . . . why do those guards remove this body from its fountainhead and dry it and lead it away from the water?

They take it to a space where there are beds . . . they make it sit on the edge of a bed . . . they undress it. . . they put pyjamas on it that look like the pyjamas of those other men with their big, staring, half-bald heads on the tall, white pillows and all turned towards him . . . they push a pill into his throat. . . they pour water through it as if he were a funnel . . . they lay him in the bed . . . they walk past the row of beds together . . . they are silent until they reach the door and call out together good night
GOOD
NIGHT
they call and then it is dark.

There is breathing everywhere . . . they have all come here to sleep for the last time together . . . who with whom no longer matters ... no more names ... no more faces . . . only breathing . . . sighing ... all of them known to him when they were still alive . . . each one of them . . . name and surname . . . she is among them somewhere . . . seek her . . . her hand we must seek . . . this takes time ... a whole lifetime it takes . . . breathing out and sighing and groaning and wailing and whimpering and snoring . . . her hand will come to you . . . here . . . first take that hand that gropes aimlessly in the dark . . . take it gently . . . calm him . . . now you no longer need to hold anything yourself . . . she will do that from now on . . . she carries
you ...
I carry you . . . little boy of mine . . . the whole long frightening night I will carry you until it is light again.

When it is already light and
GOOD
MORNING
and someone says . . . whispers . . . the voice of a woman and you listen . . . you listen with closed eyes . . . listen only to her voice whispering . . . that the window has been repaired . . . that where first that old door had been nailed . . . there is glass again . . . glass you can see through . . . outside . . . into the woods and the spring that is almost beginning . . . she says . . . she whispers . . . the spring which is about to begin . . .

J. Bernlef was born in 1937. He has worked as a bookseller and translator. Since 1962 he has lived as a freelance writer in Amsterdam. He has won prizes for his fiction, most recently the prestigious
AKO
Literatuurprijs.
Out of Mind
is his first novel to appear in English.