A Treatise on Shelling Beans

15

Did it start from the dream or from the laughter? No, it’s no big deal, I just wonder about it sometimes. I see that surprises you. I’m not surprised you’re surprised, because I’m surprised myself — what was it for? Especially as I don’t even know what it was that supposedly started. I’m not looking for a beginning. Besides, does anything like a beginning ever actually exist? Even the fact that a person is born doesn’t mean that that’s their beginning. If anything had a beginning, it might continue in the right order. But nothing seems willing to go in the right order. One day won’t march after another in an orderly fashion, one keeps pushing in front of the other. Same with the weeks, the months, the years — they don’t follow each other one by one in single file, they charge at you in extended file as they say in the army.

No, I’m not a military man. When I was of an age to do my military service, my workplace got me out of it. The fact that I was an electrician wasn’t enough of a reason. In those days I played in the company band, like I told you. I was the only saxophonist who’d come forward. They would have brought someone else in from another building site, but they’d never come across anyone that played the sax on those sites either.

The thing is, though, that when I sometimes try and make sense of my life, and who doesn’t do that … Obviously I don’t mean my whole life, but this or that part, it goes without saying that no one is capable of grasping their entire life, even the most meager one. Not to mention that it’s always debatable whether any life is a whole. Each one is more or less broken into pieces, and often the pieces are scattered. A life like that can’t be gathered back together, and even if it could, what whole would you make out of it? It isn’t a teacup, or even some larger container. Perhaps it can be imagined as a whole after you die. But then, who’s going to be around to do that? Each person is the only one that can imagine himself to himself. Not in all things, you’re right. But as much as you can. There is no other truth.

Besides, am I really wondering about this life of mine? Why would I do that? It won’t serve any purpose, nothing will be reversed or changed. If anything, it’s life that wonders about me, I don’t feel any such need. Why wouldn’t life wonder about a person living it? It doesn’t even need our consent. Just like with dreams. You dream things even if you’d prefer not to. Sometimes you have dreams you simply don’t want to have, though they’re your own dreams. Also, you have no influence over whether someone else dreams about you. How is life different from that?

What was the dream? How can I tell you briefly … I really don’t know. It’s not important. And even though I dreamed it much, much later, it sort of opened up the memory of that laughter, it singled it out from a series of many different events, and sent other, often more important ones toward oblivion. That much would be understandable. It’s just that at the same time it was as if the laughter led to the dream I had decades later. To other things too, but for sure to that dream. Why don’t you think a mutual influence like that is possible? I mean, I did say it isn’t me wondering about my life, so it isn’t me who’s establishing a two-way symbiosis between one thing and another. It may simply establish itself. The more so because that often happens at the least appropriate moment, for instance when I’m walking through the woods looking for wild strawberries underfoot, or taking the dogs’ bowl out with their dinner. Or sitting by the window staring at the lake. There’s a swarm of people on this side, on the far shore, boats, kayaks, floating mattresses, heads in the water, like the water lilies and lotuses that used to grow in the bends of the river … That’s right, I told you about that already. Shouts, squeals, laughter. So all my attention is concentrated on the wild strawberries, or on the dogs, or making sure no one’s in trouble out in the water, no one’s calling for help. You have to admit those are not the best moments for someone to be wondering about something else. And yet …

But I’m sorry — I interrupted you. Please, do go on. You think so? No, you can never go back to the same place. The truth is, that place doesn’t exist anymore, going back there isn’t even possible. Why not? Because if you ask me, places die once they’ve been left.

It only seems that they long for us. You shouldn’t believe that. When I was living abroad, when I’d go for a walk in the woods it would be a foreign woods, with foreign trees, foreign bushes, trails, foreign birds, but I’d always feel like I was walking through these woods, along these trails, passing these trees, hearing these birds. So I stopped going for walks in the woods there. When a person’s gone, it’s no longer the same place. A person’s only place is inside themselves. Regardless of whether they’re here, there, wherever. Now or at any time. Everything that’s on the outside is only illusion, circumstance, chance, misunderstanding. A person is their own place, especially the last place.

Did I mistake your meaning? We must be talking about two different things. We’re talking about the same thing? In that case why did you appear only now? Why not back then? There were other opportunities too. I wouldn’t have had to pretend all this time. It’s true that our whole life we have to pretend in order to live. There isn’t a moment when we’re not pretending. We even pretend to ourselves. In the end, though, there comes a moment when we don’t feel like pretending anymore. We grow tired of ourselves. Not of the world, not of other people, but of ourselves. It’s just I didn’t think the moment had yet come.

I’m taking you for someone else? I don’t think so. To begin with maybe I did. You came asking for beans, so one or another of them could have come asking for beans too, who knows who could’ve come. So I was justified in suspecting that we’d met before. Why wouldn’t you be wearing an overcoat and hat? It’s fall, the weather’s chilly already. There’ll be frosts before you know it. And at this time of year, in the off-season, who else could come, all the more so just like that, as if they were paying a formal visit? Once every so often the forest ranger stops by. Or someone from the dam comes on an inspection, they may or may not drop in. Or the mailman brings me a letter with money from Mr. Robert on the first of the month, he steps in but then a moment later he’s gone. The last time he was here he said he probably wouldn’t be coming anymore because his bike’s broken, I’ll have to go to the post office myself. Other than that, I don’t think there’s anyone.

People from the cabins? Yes, they do come. But not everyone will pop in and say hello. Besides, they don’t appear that often, they know everything’s fine here. I’m not talking about the ones who bring someone here. Those ones, of course they don’t come and visit me. Quite the opposite. They try and make sure I don’t see anything or hear anything when one or another of them is here. They usually arrive in the late evening. They think I’m already asleep because my lights are off. But me, I see and hear everything, it’s just that, as I told you, I don’t stick my nose into that kind of business. But I hear the car. When it’s quiet like it is now, the slightest murmur carries all the way across the lake. When an owl hoots, and there’s no wind, it’s like a shot going off in the woods. When the wild boars come out of the woods you can hear the earth move under their feet. Plus, the dogs rush to the door right away, and I have to go out to see who’s here. I don’t get too close, just near enough to check who it is and which cabin, but so they don’t see me. It goes without saying I don’t take the dogs. When they go into their cabin I come back home. Everyone has to walk from the parking lot to their cabin, and that’s enough for me to see what I need to. I stopped allowing them to drive up to their cabins. You can imagine what that would look like. Tracks everywhere. Plus, as you saw, most of the cabins are on a slope. What if the cars started to slide down into the lake? Who would be responsible? Me, because I’m the one that takes care of everything here.

There’s only one angler who comes for a week or two at this time of year. For some reason he hasn’t been yet, but he may still show. Let’s just hope winter doesn’t set in too early, because he wouldn’t be able to get his fishing in. Though he avoids me too. I don’t know why. He bought a cabin from another guy, way down at the end there, right by the shore. He doesn’t leave his keys with me, so I don’t go in. During the season you won’t see him here, his cabin’s locked up, he only comes here to fish round about now. But I couldn’t say if he catches anything. He gets in his boat in the early morning and rows out onto the lake, sometimes to one end, sometimes the other. At the far end you can barely get to the shore, it’s overgrown with reeds, alders, blackthorn. He disappears into the reed beds and spends all day there from dawn till dusk, in his boat. In the evening he doesn’t turn on his light, I don’t know if he goes to bed right away. I never even know if he’s back from his fishing. And I mean I’m not going to go over there and ask him if he’s caught anything. If he hasn’t it’s all the worse to ask. All I can say is, I’ve never seen any catch.

Maybe he doesn’t fish? But in that case, why would he spend all day in his boat? He even stays in it when it’s raining. He wraps himself up in his raincoat, pulls the hood up over his head and sits like that in his boat, in the rain. He has a fishing pole. Sometimes he fishes out in the middle of the lake, so I’ve seen it. It sticks up out of the boat like a regular pole. From time to time he pulls it out of the water, adjusts something on the hook, then casts it back. It must be a fishing pole. But I’ve never ever seen a fish thrashing about on it when he takes it out of the water. Of course there are fish in the lake. There were fish in the Rutka, why wouldn’t there be fish in the lake? Different ones, but they’re there.

If he fished from the shore I’d go up and at least ask, Are they biting today? Or look to see if his float ever moves. It’s true, anglers don’t like it when you check their floats. It’s like looking at a card player’s hand. But he always fishes from his boat. Sometimes, when he’s opposite my windows I at least go out and sit on the shore. You can’t talk from there. Not even to ask if the fish are biting, you’d have to shout, and I wouldn’t want to scare the fish away.

I don’t know. All I know is that he’s an angler. I don’t even know if he sees me when I’m sitting on the shore and he’s out in the middle of the lake in his boat. Though I see him. What can I say, it doesn’t have to work both ways, that since you see others they see you. That’s how it is with everything. It’s another matter that an angler has to keep an eye on their float the whole time, because if a fish starts to bite …

There are times the lake covers over with mist, especially around now, in the fall, and he disappears into the mist, so sometimes I call out to him:

“Hello, are you there?” I even walk along the shore calling: “Are you there? Are you there?”

He’s never answered me. One time, just so as to hear his voice I went over there even before dawn, before he’d headed out, and I kind of told him off for not pulling his boat up onto the shore, there’d been a wind the night before and the chain of his boat was rattling so loud I hadn’t gotten a wink all night. He’d probably been asleep and hadn’t heard it. He said:

“I’m sorry.”

That was it.

You know what, as I listen to you, your voice is sort of like his. I still have a good ear. At least that much is left from playing music. I won’t argue about it. But I must have heard your voice once before. Say something more. Anything. It’s strange, we’re sitting here shelling beans, I’m listening and listening to you, but it’s only now that I’ve noticed.

I always thought I’d recognize anyone from their voice. Not their face, faces change. Most often the face ends up looking nothing like itself. You’re never sure if it’s the same person when you look at their face. But when you hear their voice, even if it’s someone from a forgotten memory you remember them. Also the face can be dressed up in all kinds of expressions, masks, grimaces. You can’t do that with the voice. It’s as though the voice were independent of the person. I can even tell over the telephone, it’s like I hear all the levels of the voice, from the highest level down to the breathing, to silence. Of course — silence is a voice. And it’s words. Though words that have lost faith in themselves, you might say. Over the phone a person speaks with his whole self. Maybe if I’d heard your voice over the phone it would have been easier for me to remember.

Yes, I have a telephone, through in the living room there, except it’s not working. I never reported the problem because I don’t really need it. Who would I speak to? I’ve no one to call. If someone has something they need to talk to me about they can come visit me here. You say I ought to have a cell phone. What for? Oh, I see what cell phones are good for, here in the season. Everyone’s got their cell phone stuck to their ear. Hardly anyone talks to anyone else the way we’re doing now, they’re all on their phones. Does that bring people closer together, do you think? People are more and more out of touch with one another. If it wasn’t for those few months in fall and winter when peace and quiet come back, I don’t know if I could bear it.

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.

More and more piles of stalks appeared as the mist cleared. At each pile there was an identical group of women, all dressed in black. I was about to tip my hat and apologize for the interruption when one of the women turned to me with her finger on her lips, indicating that I should be quiet. It only lasted a split second, but I noticed a boundless sorrow in her expression. She was wearing a black hat with a huge brim; her eyes were big and dark, and her sorrow pierced me.

The women made room and another of them, who also wore a black hat though with a somewhat narrower brim, beckoned me to stand amongst them. I thought that they must want to light the bonfire, but they didn’t have matches. Potato stalks, fall, meadows, cows, mist — everything pointed to this. Perhaps they were even planning to bake potatoes? I reached into my pocket for matches, but the woman standing closest to me stopped my arm and gave me a reproachful look.

I couldn’t say how many of them were standing around the pile. I wasn’t counting. Besides, you know how it is in dreams. Dreams don’t like numbers. Most of the women were elegantly dressed in black overcoats, black furs, black hats and shawls and gloves. And the black of each woman’s outfit was different from that of any of the others.

One of them had a black veil wound around her hat. Another wore a huge hat decorated with black roses — I think she was the one who had turned to me with her finger to her lips to stop me from speaking. I just hadn’t noticed the roses at the time. Another had a tiny little hat, but with a black pearl the size of a poppy head pinned to the front. I know there are no pearls like that, but in dreams there are, evidently. One had no hat, only a black veil over her head, dark glasses in gilt frames, and a black fur that glistened with droplets of mist. Yet another wore a hat with a veil so thick that nothing of her face could be seen. That woman’s sorrow seemed the most painful of all to me.

Among them were some country women. Muffled in shawls, in sleeveless jackets, wearing thin worn overcoats and crooked shoes, they hunched over, whether from sadness or from the drudgery of life. It must have been colder than it seemed to me, because they were blowing on their stiff blue hands. It occurred to me that perhaps the women in the elegant outfits were their daughters, daughters-in-law, cousins, who had come back from where they lived out in the world for the baking of potatoes. What could fine ladies like that be wanting for, if not the taste of potatoes baked in a bonfire.

“Have the potatoes been put into the bonfires yet?” I asked in a half-whisper.

“What potatoes?” asked the woman with the pearl the size of a poppy head, indignant at my question.

“Then what is it?”

“They’re dying,” said one of the country women in a voice filled with grief, as she blew on her hands.

“Who? Where?” I didn’t understand.

“The old farmers here, in these piles, they’re dying,” the women in the hat with the black roses said softly in my ear.

“Lord in heaven,” sighed one of the country women. Tears prevented her from saying any more.

“What do you mean, they’re dying?” It was still a mystery to me.

The one in the dark glasses chided me:

“Please stop talking. Show some respect.”

All the same I leaned over the pile of stalks, thinking I might recognize someone from our village. But there was only the narrowest of gaps, no bigger than a final sigh, and I couldn’t see a thing. I was about to widen the crack a little, but I heard someone murmur above me:

“Please don’t do that.”

I looked to see who had spoken, and I realized I didn’t know a single one of the women, either the fine ladies or the country women. Well, the one in the veil I might have noticed in passing at some point. But how could I see through her veil to check. The veil was dark as night, plus it was densely patterned with knots, they looked like little flies. I thought to myself that if I kept my eyes on her, at some moment she might need to wipe her tears, then she’d have to lift the veil. All at once a voice reached me from under the veil:

“Please don’t look at me like that. Especially because this isn’t me, despite what you think.”

“Ah, the priest’s here at last,” said one of the country women.

I did in fact see a priest. He had risen from his knees at a nearby pile and was headed toward us. He wore a surplice, had a stole around his neck, and carried a Bible. I was about to shout:

“Hey, Priest! Remember me?”

I knew him right away. But when he came close, it turned out that it wasn’t the welder from the building site, but a photographer. Without even asking, right away he took our picture. I’m standing with the group of women around a pile of dry potato stalks, in the brown felt hat. Can you imagine, I had so many hats in my life, but in the picture I’m wearing the brown felt one.

He clicked the shutter and took the picture out of the camera on the spot. It was in color, of course. My hat is brown, the meadow is green, the pile of stalks we’re standing around is grayish, and the black of each woman’s outfit is different. I believe he said which magazine he was from, but I don’t remember. He said he’d just learned that here, on the meadows, in the piles of stalks old farmers were dying, and he’d come.

“The issue’s going to sell like hotcakes,” he said, crowing with anticipation. All he had to do was get into the middle of the pile.

He fixed a long lens on his camera. He knelt down by the pile and inserted the lens into the gap the size of a final sigh. He clicked and clicked, all excited, exclaiming: Excellent, fantastic, even better. Except that when he was done, it was like someone began to pull him into the pile. He struggled and struggled, calling out, Help me, someone, till in the end he had to let go of his camera. And that’s how he lost possession of it.

You know, often when I look at that photograph, I’m tempted to take a peek inside the pile and see who’s dying in there. One day I will. I’ll have to. The only thing holding me back are the women standing nearby, even though I don’t know any of them. Especially the one in the hat with the black roses. I don’t suppose you know what black roses mean? Maybe the meaning of the whole dream could be made clear? I didn’t mention that when she stopped my hand as I was about to take the matches from my pocket, and she looked at me with reproach, one of the roses came loose from her hat and fell at my feet. I was about to bend down and pick it up, but my hat warned me that if I leaned over it would fall off too.

Black roses must mean something, you don’t find roses like that in gardens. One time when I was abroad I went to a rose show. Let me tell you, I was dazzled by all the shapes and colors. There must have been every kind of rose in the world, but there weren’t any black ones.

Do you believe in dreams? I didn’t until I had that one. I never thought twice about them. Whereas now, when I sometimes look at the photograph, I have the impression that I’ve simply dreamed myself from that dream into this world, and I’m here, I have to live here. I wonder if you’ll recognize me. I’m a little younger, but not much. Maybe you’ll recognize some of the women too. You may turn out to know one or another of them well.

What do you say, shall we have some tea? Or maybe you prefer coffee. Do you like green tea or regular? Me, I only drink green tea. Do you take sugar? Hang on, the sugar bowl should be around here somewhere. I don’t use sugar myself. I only drink unsweetened green tea. I rarely have sugar at all. Ah, here it is. I’ll put this stool between us if you’ve no objection, we can put our drinks on it. Yes, the sugar bowl is silver. I bought it in the same shop where I got the candlesticks. That was the time I was best off, it was my golden period. I was playing in a five-star hotel. We wore white tuxedos with green lapels, I remember it clearly. Well, not every evening. We had different outfits. And we’d play different instruments according to the evening and the clientele. Sometimes we’d change outfits in the same evening, depending on what we were playing. But the sax was always there, at most I’d change from an alto to a tenor or a soprano.

Here’s the tea. We can drink it in these teacups. You like them? I’m glad. They were a birthday present from the band. Only two are left from the set. It’s like they knew that one day you’d come and we’d drink tea in them. I never use them when I’m alone. Whether I’m having tea or coffee, I use a mug, like I do for milk. And before now I somehow never had the opportunity to serve tea to anyone. I’ve got two others like these, but smaller, for coffee. If you’d asked for coffee, instead of sugar I’d have given you honey. You could have tried it with honey. Have you ever had coffee with honey? I’ll make some later and you can see what it’s like. I only ever have honey with my coffee. Coffee with honey is totally different than coffee with sugar. You don’t lose the taste of the coffee, but it’s even smoother than with cream. Unfortunately I don’t have any cream even if you’d wanted it. It’s too late now, otherwise I could have gotten some at the store. The store’s a couple of miles away, but in the car it’s a hop and a skip. Like walking from here to the other side of the lake, no longer.

If I’d known you were coming I’d have made sure to have cream. I’d have been prepared. Too bad you didn’t let me know in advance. You called? And what, there was no dial tone? Don’t be offended, but I’ll tell you honestly that it’s a good job you didn’t get through, because over the phone I’d have told you I don’t have any beans. I’d have thought someone was pulling my leg. Or that they were mending my phone and checking to see if it works. Even if you’d introduced yourself, over the phone I wouldn’t have believed you. I’d have thought you were pretending to be someone else. This way, at least when I see you I can be sure of one thing — that we must have met once before. Though where and when? We couldn’t have just gone through life like that and never have met.