A Treatise on Shelling Beans

16

Maybe we should light candles after all? I could bring in the candlesticks. We’ve been shelling beans so long, we could have gotten to know each other well. The more so because I’m almost certain that once before … And when two people meet after they’ve not seen each other in a long time, it ought to be a special occasion, don’t you think?

I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say that up to more or less halfway through life we know more and more people, so many that it’s sometimes hard to remember them all, then in the second half there start to be fewer, till at the end you’re the only person you know. It’s not only that we outlive everyone else. Rather, it’s life’s way of indicating how much is already behind us, and how much still lies ahead. Almost all of it is behind, there’s just a little bit still to go. So when someone like you comes by, if only to buy beans, and in addition they seem to have been an old acquaintance, it only seems right to at least light a candle. At those moments any person you’ve known stands for all the people you’ve known.

If I still played, I’d play something to mark the occasion. But what can you do. It goes without saying that I’m tempted. I often am. Sometimes I even take the sax out of its case, hang it around my neck, put the mouthpiece in my mouth, place my hands around the body. But I don’t have the courage to run my fingers over the keys. For shelling beans my hands will more or less do, as you see. And for other jobs. But repainting those nameplates is torment. The saxophone is out of the question. My fingers start to feel stiff right away. I’m even afraid to blow into the mouthpiece. But I hear myself. You might not believe me — I don’t play, but I hear myself playing. And those dogs of mine hear me too. I see them lying there all ears. Their skin is calm, neither of them so much as twitches, their muzzles are stretched out, but their ears are sticking up like they don’t want to miss a note. I don’t just imagine it, I play. They hear it, I hear it. I play with my mouth, my breath, with these hands that I’m afraid to place on the keys, with my whole being. Would I not recognize my own playing? I’ve listened to myself so often, my soul has listened, how could I not recognize that it’s me?

And imagine this, it’s only now, after I haven’t played in years, that I’ve come to understand what kind of instrument the saxophone is. With that kind of playing, when only you can hear yourself, you hear more than the music alone. It’s as if you cross some boundary within yourself. Perhaps it’s the same with every instrument, but I played the saxophone and that’s all I can speak about. You supposedly know what it’s capable of, what it’s good for and what it isn’t, you know all of its parts, like you know your own hands, eyes, mouth, nose, you know which part is connected to which. But it turns out you knew almost nothing. It’s only after you stop playing …

When I was picking out a new mouthpiece I’d try endless ones, the clerk would keep bringing them to me, before I found one that satisfied me. So you might think you know everything. Once in one of the stores I even heard someone say, We get people from all kinds of bands, but I’ve never known anybody to be so picky. Though two identical mouthpieces, made from ebonite let’s say, they’ll each sound different. Not because they’re ebonite. They could be brass, silver, gilt. Identical mouthpieces, but the sound is different. And there’s no knowing what causes it. It’s the same with reeds, they have to be made of the right bamboo. But how can you say what the right bamboo is? What does it even mean to say it’s the right kind? Well, it can mean anything. What soil it grew in, what kind of year it was where it grew, whether it had too little sun, too much rain, or vice versa. Whether it was harvested properly, dried evenly on both sides. And above all whether it’s soft or hard. All of that comes out later in the sound. Even the hands of the people that made the reed are probably reflected in its sound. So every reed, I’d rub it down myself afterwards till I felt the sound was the fullest it could possibly be. Because let me tell you, the reed and the mouthpiece are the most important parts of a saxophone. Of course, every part is important, the neck, the keys, especially whether the pads are tight-fitting, the bell, each of them has its role, the cork around the mouthpiece is crucial, also what’s called the tenon that holds the reed so it vibrates along its whole length.

But the mouthpiece and the reed are the most critical of all. Not just because they turn your breath into music. It’s like they open up all the life that’s inside you, all the memory, even the parts that aren’t remembered, every single hope that’s in you, your grudges against people, against the world, even against God.

So you think I’d have had a chance? It’s just that saxophones are rare in the kinds of bands you’re talking about. If I’d not been restricted to only playing dance music … Or if I’d studied somewhere, gotten a piece of paper that said I could play. You know how it is. You even have to have a piece of paper to say you were born. Without it even that would be impossible. You have to have one that says you died, or you wouldn’t be able to die. That’s how the world is, I don’t need to explain it to you. We both live in it. You don’t doubt that part, do you? I mean look, we’re sitting here shelling beans, so we exist. Someone already said something along those lines, true. But that isn’t enough. Everyone’s existence has to be confirmed by something. Or someone. But while we’re shelling beans we don’t need any confirmation.

That wasn’t what I meant to say. I meant to say that existence itself is no proof of anything. Existence brings us nothing but doubts. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m speaking in general, not about you or me. I don’t know you, after all. I may guess at this or that, but I don’t know you. We’re just shelling beans, no more. But at some point we’ll finish, you’ll drive away, and what then? I won’t remember you, and all the more you won’t remember me. What can I say, I never was the kind of person worth remembering. An electrician who played dance music. Even if you’d come to one of the clubs where I used to play, you’d likely not have thought twice about some guy in the band on the sax.

Forgive me, I don’t mean to oblige you to say anything. For politeness’ sake you might feel you have to pretend, yes, it goes without saying, how on earth would you forget, you have no doubt whatsoever, whether it was here or there, of course, here, there, absolutely, that’s right, at such-and-such a time. Here or there, at this or that time. For what?

True, sometimes when you meet someone years later and no trace remains of who they were, you have to pretend that they’re the same person as before. Or even if there is a faint vestige, what of it, when you rack your brains and you still can’t remember any such person even existing. And moments like that, sure, you have to make as if you remember them. I sometimes wonder if anyone would have existed if we didn’t pretend. If it would even be possible to have existed. Besides, what is memory if not the pretense that you remember. Though it’s our only witness to having existed. We depend on memory the way a forest depends on trees, a river on its banks. More — if you ask me, we’re created by memory. Not just us, the whole world.

So we should live as long as memory permits us. No longer. People live too long, let me tell you, though everyone thinks it’s too short. You think so? If that’s the case, what would my dogs have to say about it, or other creatures? Too long. When I think they could die before me, then it’s too long by at least that much. A person’s memory is suited to a shorter life. No one’s memory can take in such a long existence. Just as well, you say? Why’s that? You say no one could bear a memory like that? That the world would fall to pieces from it? That could be. Though whatever memory doesn’t include, it’s still lying in wait for us. And that’s why we live too long in my view. Like I said, we should live as long as our memory allows, within the boundaries it lays down for us. Do you know of any other measure for life?

Forgive me for asking, but have you never had the feeling that your life is going on too long? That means you’re fond of living, like most people. I can understand that, especially if someone thinks they’re living in accordance with destiny. Oh yes, living in accordance with destiny is a lot easier. It’s just that I don’t believe in destiny. It’s chance, chance, all chance. That’s how the world looks, how life looks, if you were to check how things function here. So then, was it worth coming? All the more that I put you to work right away shelling beans. But you wanted to buy beans, remember? While all I had were unshelled. And as you see, I’ve been talking too long. I talked as long as memory allowed. Unless a person believes in dreams. Dreams are memory too, you know.

I might never have remembered that hat if I hadn’t dreamt about it. I should have figured out what the hat meant right when I was standing with the women around the pile of potato stalks. Except that like I told you, up till then I didn’t believe in dreams. It was only when I got rheumatism not long after. Rheumatism itself wouldn’t have been so terrible, everyone knows sicknesses are for people and you just have to put up with them. But in addition it turned out I wouldn’t be able to play anymore. And for me, playing was everything. You might say I wasn’t interested in myself, only in playing. Beyond playing it was like I didn’t exist. Who knows, maybe I actually didn’t, and it was only playing music that kind of summoned me out of non-existence and forced me to be.

In fact, it was because of playing that I left the country. Back in those days that wasn’t easy, as you know. But the firm I worked for got a foreign contract to build a cement works. And I never went back. I had no other reason. I could have continued to play in one company band or other. But I remembered what the warehouse keeper had said to me, that the saxophone had taken him around the world. Not to mention that I was trying to get away from my memories, which I always felt were pulling me back. I thought that the memories would stay here, while I’d be playing over there.

Then out of the blue there was this rheumatism. Everything came back with what seemed like redoubled strength. My whole life was suddenly reminding me it was there. I didn’t even know I’d been carrying it inside me. If it hadn’t been for the playing I wouldn’t have cared much whether or not I was alive, or since when. Because when it came down to it, why should I be alive? Because of some lucky chance? Except, was it so lucky? Maybe it was just mocking me? Or testing me? In what way? I couldn’t say.

Either way, my hands are better now. You saw when you came in how I was repainting those nameplates. And that’s no easy task. If your hand shakes, the brush shakes with it. Plus, the paints these days are much better quality, they’re harder to erase. Then you have to paint over the same letters, and often they’ve rubbed off, gotten rusty, you can’t see them clearly. You might get people mixed up. I can shell beans as well, like you see. It’s just that I can’t play the sax anymore. For the sax you need fingers like butterflies. They need to feel not just that they’re touching such and such a sound, but how deeply. This finger, see, it’s a little swollen, and on my left hand I can’t bend these two. They ache in the wet weather. But it’s a lot better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. Make repairs, chop wood, drive the car when I have errands or it needs the mechanic.

There was a time, though, when I couldn’t so much as lift a cup of coffee or tea, can you imagine it? Almost all my fingers were too stiff. And when you can’t bend your fingers, how are you supposed to play the saxophone? Here you’re blowing into the mouthpiece, and down there your fingers are afraid of the keys. No more playing. It’s out of the question. There you were, playing away, and now there’s just despair. Your whole life, and nothing left but despair. You beg your fingers, press them down, try to force them to bend, but it’s like they’re dead. You don’t mind if they hurt all they want, they can hurt so much it’s unbearable, they can throb and sting and burn, but let them bend. You can’t imagine what it’s like. All the hopes, desires, the suffering, all without meaning anymore. How can anyone come to terms with that?

Wait a moment, I’d never have expected you to say what you just said. I must have you confused with someone else. But I still have to figure out when and where we met. Something’s not quite right here. I’d never have thought. If it were someone else … No, not at all, I understood you perfectly. I even think that who knows, you could be right. After all, that is one way out. Though now it no longer holds any meaning. Because the worst thing is when there’s none at all. Yes, it’s a way out. Though it’s no longer of any importance. Maybe if it had happened back then.

The thing is, though, when something happens gradually, to begin with you don’t notice it. Then you make light of it, then after that you reassure yourself that maybe things aren’t so bad. Especially because other people also cheer you up by saying that some other person was in the same boat, or even worse, and in the end they were fine.

I came back one winter from a ski trip in the mountains and my hands started to feel strangely tired. And this finger here began to ache. Not the other fingers, the other ones just became kind of sluggish. I thought it was because of the skiing. That my hands had been overstrained by all the ski poles and ski lifts, the climbing, the falls. I was a pretty good skier. But I’d go for two or three weeks only, and not every year, and I was out of practice. It was hardly surprising it should make itself felt afterwards. But some time later my other fingers started hurting too, and getting stiff. When I was playing it would happen that I didn’t press the key down on time, or I pressed it in the wrong way. That’s not good, I thought to myself. I went to the doctor. He examined one hand, examined the other, bent my fingers this way and that, pinched them in different places and asked if it hurt.

“It does.”

“I’m sorry to say, but it’s rheumatism,” he said. “And advanced. You’ll need to get tests done. We’ll take a look, and at that point we can think about treatment. But you’ll have to spend some time at a sanatorium. Twice a year would be best.”

“But will I be able to play, doctor?” I asked.

“What do you play?”

“The saxophone.”

He gave me a sympathetic look.

“For the moment just think about your hands. Especially as it could spread further. You never know with rheumatism. Rheumatism’s one of those illnesses …”

But I was no longer listening to him describing what kind of illness it was, I was wondering how I could exist without playing. At the end of the visit he tried to cheer me up by saying that it was hard to make any predictions without tests, so perhaps I’d still be able to play. If I followed his instructions, of course.

The results of the tests weren’t particularly good, so I did what he told me to do, especially as he’d left me some room for hope. Aside from taking the medication he urged me to be patient, to keep my spirits up. And to go to a sanatorium. I subjected myself to all kinds of procedures, massages, baths. I tried to do it all as conscientiously as I could. But how effective could it be when all you’re thinking about is the fact that you’re no longer playing, and may never play again. If your thoughts are going one way and your treatment the other, you’re not going to see any effects. I even avoided getting to know anyone there, it was good morning, good morning, nothing beyond that. I never went anywhere except on walks. The only thing I did was before or after a walk, I’d sometimes stop in at a cafe for coffee or tea. Other than that I didn’t go anyplace. Not to concerts, though there were some pretty good orchestras that played there, opera singers and popular singers, often really fine ones. The spa park was large so there were plenty of places to walk. There were avenues and paths, you could easily turn off if someone was coming towards you and you wanted to avoid them. There were benches everywhere, sometimes I’d sit down, but even if someone else so much as sat down at the other end of the bench I’d walk away at once. I didn’t feel good around people. Truth be told, I didn’t feel good around myself.

It was only when the squirrels would scamper up to me for nuts that I’d forget about myself for a moment. I always carried a bag of hazelnuts. It was like they knew. The moment I sat down they’d come hopping. Can you imagine? Why were the squirrels so trusting with people? You think people in a sanatorium are different? If that’s the case, everyone should be sent to a sanatorium. Except that even there it happened that someone for example left a dog behind. There were quite a few dogs like that, wandering in search of their owner.

Not at that sanatorium but at another one a long time before — I don’t recall if I told you about my beginnings abroad? Well, so back then, at one sanatorium I picked a spot on the main avenue, put a basket next to me on the ground, and started to play. As people passed by they threw money into the basket. Sometimes they’d sit on the nearby benches to listen. Occasionally someone would request a particular tune, those kinds of people generally gave more. It wasn’t easy to begin with, not at all. But I had good luck.

One time one of the convalescents, a guy on crutches, took a seat by me on a bench. He listened and listened, then he got up and threw a bill into my basket. Then he asked me to play something else for him, then something else again, then he asked me to move the basket closer, because it was hard for him to bend down, and he tossed in an even bigger banknote. From that time on he came almost every day. He’d sit down, listen, request this or that, then ask me to pass him the basket, and throw in a banknote.

At some point he told me to come sit by him and he started asking me where I’d learned to play, whether I had any qualifications. No, I didn’t lie to him. I told him the whole truth, that I’d gone to such and such a school, then that I’d been taught by the warehouse keeper on the building site, and of course that I’d played in the works band. He nodded, but I had the impression he didn’t really believe me. I still didn’t know the language properly, I could barely express myself, but he seemed to understand everything.

Some time later he asked me again to sit by him. He didn’t ask me any questions, he just started complaining that the sanatoria weren’t doing much good, and it was looking like he might end up in a wheelchair. He’d been a dancer, he loved dancing. Now he owned a club. He gave the name, said where it was, and he asked if I wouldn’t be interested in playing in the band at his club. He was leaving, he’d come to say goodbye. He left me the exact address, gave me money for the ticket, and we agreed when I should come. And that was how it all began.

So you can imagine how I felt now. At one time I’d played for money thrown into a basket, but still I’d been playing. Now I was throwing money into other people’s baskets, while I myself had no hope. Plus, I could see him before me, inching along on his crutches, facing the prospect of being in a wheelchair. Yes, he was already in a wheelchair when I played in his club. Let me tell you, I felt like I was waiting for a sentence to be passed, especially since for the longest time there was no improvement. I even seemed to be worse. So you can understand that I had to forget about the saxophone. It goes without saying that I kept visiting the sanatorium just as the doctor had instructed, but by then I was afraid to drive a car, so I used to take the train.

One year I was traveling to the sanatorium, the train pulled up at some small station, and a moment later a woman appeared in the doorway. Normally it made no difference to me who sat in my compartment, but she riveted my attention from the first. I jumped up to help her put her suitcase on the shelf, though at that time, with those hands of mine that had no strength in them, I might not have managed. I myself had to get other people to help me. Luckily someone closer to the door beat me to it. She was more or less middle-aged, though as you know, that age is the hardest to pin down. She was dressed smartly and with good taste. She radiated a mature beauty that was beginning to wane. Or the impression may have come from an intensity of being that suffused her beauty and drew out its depths. Faces, even young ones, that are merely good-looking are only so on the outside as it were, till the intensity of being reveals that extra something in them. But that wasn’t what took possession of me, though it wouldn’t have been surprising if it had been that alone. The thing was, the longer I looked at her, surreptitiously of course, the more certain I was that we’d met once before. But where and when — I racked my brains. It even occurred to me that she might have been the woman in the black veil covered in tiny knots of lace like little flies, as we were standing around the pile of dry potato stalks in the dream. I spent the whole of the rest of the journey trying to remember.

She got off at the same station as me. On the platform I nodded goodbye, investing the gesture with all of my feeling of regret that we’d probably never meet again. I doubt she read it that way. She nodded back without the faintest smile. So I was all the more certain that was the last time I’d see her.

Then one day, would you believe it, I was sitting on a bench in the park smoking a cigarette, I look up and all of a sudden I see her coming towards me. She was dressed differently, more the way you do at a sanatorium, more casually, but with equally good taste. I recognized her from far off. She’d been constantly in my thoughts since the time we’d shared a compartment on the train. Often, in between procedures I found myself wondering where we could have met and when, that I should know her at once like that. She came up to the bench I was sitting on. She didn’t so much as smile to show she remembered me. She simply asked if she could sit down, because she felt like a cigarette, and she saw I was smoking.

“No one else is smoking on any of the other benches,” she said. After she finished her cigarette, as she was about to leave she said: “Thank you.”

That was all. Again I tried to figure out where I knew her from. Because by now I had no doubt it had been a long, long time before the train. In the park, in the sunshine you could see a lot more clearly, you could see as if from the most distant time. But how long ago it could have been, I strained to recall. I smoked one cigarette after another. One by one, as if looking through a photo album I went through all the women I’d ever known, but I didn’t find her. Perhaps she’d been much younger then, perhaps she’d changed a lot. Yet that intensity of being must have marked her beauty even back then, because that must have been how I remembered her.

A few days later, after my walk I stopped by a cafe. I was sitting there drinking my coffee and reading a newspaper when something made me glance up. The cafe was packed, all the tables were taken, and here I see her coming into the place the way she’d come into the compartment in the train. She took a few steps, looking around for a free table. Without thinking I followed her gaze, but it didn’t seem as if any table would be available for a while. It didn’t occur to me to invite her to sit at my table. I was probably afraid she’d say no, since on the bench in the park she hadn’t seen fit to even smile, let alone ask if we hadn’t once shared a train compartment. That’s right, I remember you, she could have said. I buried myself in my newspaper again. All at once I heard her voice right next to me:

“Would you mind if I sat at your table? All the other seats are taken. One might free up soon, so it won’t be for long.”

“You’re welcome to,” I said, perhaps a little too stiffly. It was just that I resented the fact that back then, on the bench, she hadn’t recognized me as the person she’d shared a compartment with. Now it would have been easier to start a conversation. Yet I couldn’t for the life of me think of anything to talk about with her, while it would have been wrong to continue reading my paper. As you know, though, women have a preternatural gift for seeing through things, even when you hide it deep down. Before sitting she hesitated and asked:

“Or perhaps you’re expecting someone? If that’s the case …”

“You’re welcome to sit,” I repeated, much more warmly this time. And in the way of the few words one has to utter at such moments, and which as it happened she’d already put in my mouth, once she took her seat I added half-jokingly: “Though the truth is, we may always be expecting someone, even if we’re not always fully aware of it.”

She was visibly embarrassed.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.” She was all set to jump up again.

“Please, sit here,” I said to stop her. “I was just talking in generalities.”

“In that case, I’ll have some cake and be going,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t help myself, though I shouldn’t,” she added apologetically.

In order to set her completely at ease, I said:

“In any case please don’t pay any attention to what I said, because you might not enjoy the cake, and I wouldn’t want that to be my doing. I was just talking.”

“That’s how I took it,” she said.

She still seemed uneasy, though. It showed in the nervous way she looked for the waitress, who a moment ago had disappeared into the back.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be out any minute.”

“I’m not worried,” she replied abruptly. “Why would I be …”

I had the feeling I’d touched a nerve, though I’d only meant to talk about the waitress. It may have been in an effort to make up for my faux pas, or for some other reason, that I said:

“Though we can never be sure in any situation that chance isn’t making use of us.”

“What do you mean, chance?” she asked with a start.

“For example, the fact that when you came into the cafe there weren’t any free places. Thanks to which, we’re sitting together at the same table.”

“Chance?” she repeated, as if pondering.

“Years ago, another man and I nodded to each other on the street by mistake, he took me for someone he knew and I did the same, but it turned out we didn’t know one another. I apologized to him, saying it had just been by chance. But he disagreed, and invited me to have a coffee with him.”

“Can it be that cafes turn chance into destiny? Is that what you mean?” Her tone was bantering.

“It’s possible,” I replied, giving my own voice a hint of irony, though I had no intention of being ironic. “It all depends on what we take things to be. So why should we not take it that you came here because I was expecting you.”

“Really?” She feigned surprise, but a certain wariness had appeared in her eyes.

“Would that be so impossible? So much against common sense? All the more since we actually already know one another.”

“Really?” Her eyes widened. I thought she’d burst out laughing. Yet instead she quieted down a little, as if she were thinking about it. “You must have me confused with someone else,” she said after a moment. “I don’t remember you at all.”

“Surely you must. We traveled together in the same train, in the same compartment. You got on, wait a moment, what station was that …”

“That can’t be. I came here by car.”

“By car?” I wasn’t exactly surprised so much as troubled. “But you were sitting opposite me, in the seat next to the door. You had a large black suitcase. I was going to help you put it up on the shelf, but somebody else got there first.”

“I’m sorry. I never travel by train. I can’t stand trains. Coming here by train would have been too much for me. That hopeless space rushing past outside the window. Besides, I have unpleasant associations with trains.”

She had shaken my confidence a little. Yet I didn’t believe her. I sensed that she recognized me, that she was sure it was me. Perhaps she was only playing a game, the rules of which I didn’t know. Or protecting herself from something. What, though?

“But you remember that a few days ago I was sitting on a bench in the park smoking a cigarette. You came up and asked if you could join me because you also felt like smoking.”

She burst out laughing:

“I don’t smoke! Never did. You really do have me mixed up with someone else.”

“What? You mean you don’t remember?” I refused to give up. “You said that no one else on any of the benches was smoking. As you left you thanked me.”

“Perhaps after all you’d be so kind as to ask the waitress to come over,” she said with a hint of impatience. “I’d like to have my cake, then take myself off your hands.”

She gave me no hope. I wondered if I shouldn’t turn the whole thing into a joke, say, I’m sorry, I was just kidding. Sometimes I like to see how someone will react in certain situations. But there was no doubt in my mind that it was her. I beckoned the waitress, who had just reappeared. She came up to the table.

“We’d like to see what cakes you have.”

She returned a moment later with a tray of cakes. As she held it in front of us, I asked:

“Which one would you like?”

Her eyes filled with an almost childlike delight at the sight of the cakes.

“Which do you recommend?”

I suggested the one that I usually took.

“You won’t hold it against me if I pick a different one?”

And she did. So I asked for the same one she selected. At that point she seemed to get it, a moment of musing flashed in her eyes. She smiled, though her smile seemed artificial. With a similarly artificial nonchalance, as she ate her cake with relish, she said casually:

“I’m so grateful you let me sit at your table. I had such a craving for cake today.”

“And that particular kind,” I added.

“How did you know? You couldn’t know, since you suggested a different one.”

“Out of contrariness,” I said. “Just like out of contrariness you refuse to remember that we shared a train compartment, that you sat down next to me on a bench in the park to have a cigarette. And wherever else we might have met before, you’d deny it, I know. Even if I told you you’d appeared to me in a dream, you’d deny that too, you’d say it wasn’t possible.”

“Now that, that’s possible, though it’s corny.”

“But how is it possible, since you claim we’ve never met before?”

“Maybe that’s the only way you could have remembered me.” She looked at me with a fixed gaze, as if the life had suddenly gone out of her eyes. For a moment we stared at one another in this way, till her smile began to return.

“You know, I think that today of all days I’ll allow myself another cake.” She signaled to the waitress. When the latter came back with the tray of cakes, she first had me choose. Then she asked for the same kind that I picked. “You see what a pig I’m being?” she said. “I really shouldn’t. I never let myself have more than one … It’s all because of you. You’re awful. If only I’d known …” She glared at me in a mock sulk, and I saw something like a hint of alarm in her eyes. But she immediately said: “Whenever I can’t resist something, I always regret it later. I’ll have to punish myself for the second cake.”

“Punish yourself? What will your punishment be?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll think of something. Oh, I know. If I come here again I’ll just order tea or coffee, I won’t have any cake at all. I’ll teach myself a lesson so I remember in the future.” She began almost savoring her self-imposed punishment. “Or no, I won’t have tea or coffee either. I’ll have them bring me a glass of water. Or I’ll be even harsher. I’ll order a cake, but I won’t eat it. I’ll leave it. Or two cakes. Yes, that’s it, two cakes, as if I were expecting someone else. And since the other person won’t come, I’ll leave both cakes uneaten.” She started to laugh, as if the punishment she was going to inflict on herself amused her greatly. “I mean, you yourself said a moment ago that we’re always expecting someone, we just don’t always know it. This way I’ll at least know. Two cakes, and I’ll leave both of them.”

I was on the point of telling her that she shouldn’t punish herself at all, what was one extra cake, it wasn’t going to hurt her. She was slim. When she came into the cafe and was standing there looking for a free table, it even struck me that she looked like an Easter palm branch. But I realized she might not know what an Easter palm branch is, and I asked if she wouldn’t like some tea or coffee, apologizing for not having thought of it before.

“No, no thank you,” she said, still laughing. “It’d spoil the taste of the cake. I never drink tea or coffee with cake, not ever.” Laughing all the time, she reached for a paper napkin. As she did so, the sleeve of her blouse pulled back and under the hem of her cuff, above the wrist, about here or a bit higher, I caught a glimpse of numbers written on her skin as if in ink or indelible pencil. It lasted a split second. She snatched a napkin from the stand on the table and pulled down her sleeve before she put the napkin to her lips.

I ought not to have noticed it, because you shouldn’t notice everything, especially a man looking at a woman. Even in themselves people don’t always like everything. There are many things we’d like to change in ourselves. We’re at odds with many things in ourselves. We’d like to improve things in ourselves, as we would in others. But since that isn’t possible, you must admit that at least it’s less troublesome when we don’t notice it. But she evidently saw that I’d noticed, and felt obliged to say:

“Oh, that’s from when I was just a child.” She was embarrassed, or perhaps unsettled, because her eyes turned away to look around the cafe. Only after a moment did she return to her cake, taking a tiny piece on the tip of her spoon. “You know what I used to dream of most often as a child?” she said, holding the spoon at her mouth. “Of one day eating my fill of cake.”

I laughed. It must have seemed insincere, because no shadow of a smile appeared on her face.

“I never imagined that when my dream could come true, I’d have to deny myself the pleasure.” Once again her eyes drifted away to the cafe, she stared at something or other, and when she went back to eating her cake, or rather picking at it, her gaze seemed buried in her plate. All at once she livened up and, clearly looking for a fight, she declared: “I have to say the first cake, the one I chose, was better.”

We began to argue about which was the better cake, the one she’d selected or my one. And you know what it means to argue about cake. It was like we were debating something of the utmost importance. Like it was ourselves we were submitting to a test, not just some cake. In this way we got onto the topic of the best cake we’d ever eaten in our lives. It was mostly her who remembered which cake and when and where, and each one was the most delicious. Even though the previous one had been the most delicious, the next one was even better, and the one after that was so delicious it canceled out all the preceding ones. I even tried to picture her as the child whose dream was being fulfilled, because she was thoroughly engrossed in remembering all those best cakes.

Myself, I didn’t really have much to recall as far as cake was concerned. At any rate I couldn’t have said which was the best one I ever ate. In response to all those best cakes of hers, I said that at Eastertime my grandmother used to make a babka that to this day I could taste in my mouth. Though I couldn’t say if it was actually the best cake I’d ever had. That didn’t matter. Sometimes I buy a babka for Easter, in one cake shop then in another for comparison, but so far I’ve never found one that tasted the same as my grandmother’s. Not to mention that babkas from the store go dry after two or three days, whereas the ones my grandmother baked could sit there for months, then when you cut it it would still be moist with butter. Plus, they were so plump. Have you ever had a babka like that? Then you’ve missed out on one of the best things there is. You should have come at Eastertime. Or right after, or even a few days later. We used to take the babka up to the attic and leave it there. We wouldn’t eat more than a slice each a day. You could have tried it.

When I was married my wife decided to find a recipe for babka like that, because at Easter she was sick of hearing about how my grandmother baked babkas and all that. She even wrote to some well-known pastry chef. He actually sent her a recipe and she made it, but it wasn’t the same. Grandmother would usually make a dozen or more babkas at a time. The kneading trough would be brimming with dough. She’d fill the earthenware baking dishes about half full, then when the cakes rose, they virtually bubbled. They looked like mushrooms. We’d usually each have a piece for afternoon tea. Grandmother would divide it up so it lasted as long as possible. Thanks to that, it felt like Easter went on and on.

No, she hadn’t had Eastertime babka. She asked me to tell her about it. But how can you tell someone about babka. You can describe the shape, say that it had notches in it from the earthenware dishes it was baked in, that it was broader at the top and narrower at the bottom. But none of that amounts to anything. It’s the taste that matters, not the shape. And how can you describe a taste? You tell me. Any taste. Let’s say, something sweet. What does sweet mean? There can be a million kinds of sweetness. As many kinds as there are people. One person puts a spoonful of sugar in their coffee and it’s already sweet enough for them, someone else needs two or three spoonfuls for it to be sweet. During the war for example there was no sugar, so people would boil up a syrup out of sugar beets, you’d have been disgusted if you’d tried it, but everyone found it sweet like before the war. There’s sweet and sweet, no two sweetnesses are alike. Sweet today, sweet once upon a time, sweet here or there — each one is a different kind of sweetness.

So I told her it was made of flour and eggs and cream, because that was all I knew, the rest my grandmother took with her to the grave. She may have taken the whole mystery of those babkas with her. All that remained was the fact that they melted in your mouth.

She grew sad when I told her that. To cheer her up I said that all the cakes she’d told me about were for sure the best. I asked if she’d like to have one more. I’d give her a free pass. She smiled through her sadness and said the only thing she would have been tempted by would be a piece of the Eastertime babka. In that case, perhaps she’d have a glass of wine, I asked. She said yes at once. As we were drinking our wine, lifting the glass to our lips over and again, she gave me a look as if she finally remembered me. For myself, I no longer had any doubts that it was her. I don’t mean from the train, or the park bench, or anywhere in particular. By then, none of that was of any significance.

You probably think that you have to meet a person first to be able to remember them later. Have you ever thought that sometimes it’s the opposite? So you think it all depends on the memory, yes? In other words, first something has to happen, and then, even if it’s years later, memory can bring it all back? If you ask me, though, there are things that it’s best for memory not to meddle with. I agree with you that in the cases you’re talking about, that’s how it is. But we don’t always need help from our memory. There are times when our greater need is to forget. It’d be hard to live perpetually in thrall to memory. So sometimes we have to mislead it, trick it, run away from it. I mean, when it comes down to it we don’t even need to remember the fact that we’re here on this earth. Despite what you think, not everything has to happen according to how it’s organized by memory.

Why was it that when she came into the cafe and looked around for a free place, I was certain that even if someone had vacated a table at that moment, she still would have come up to mine and asked:

“Would you mind if I sat at your table? All the other seats are taken.”

“You’re welcome to,” I would have said, as I actually did say.

And the rest you know. I’m not hiding anything. Why would I? I’ve not brought happiness to women. I don’t know a whole lot more than that. Besides, you can read a book, watch a film and it’d be the same. It’s always the same. There aren’t any words that would make it different. Yes, if you ask me, everything depends on words. Words determine things, events, thoughts, imaginings, dreams, everything that’s hidden deepest inside a person. If the words are second-rate the person is second-rate, and the world, even God is second-rate.

If I tell you that I loved her, it still won’t tell you anything, because it doesn’t tell me anything. Today I only know as much as I knew back then. Or rather, it’d be better to say that I don’t know now just as much as I didn’t know then. Because what does it mean to love? Please, tell me if you know. And since I loved her like I loved no one else on earth, why didn’t we know how to be with one another? Actually, to say I loved her isn’t enough. I sometimes felt that she was the one who had finally given me life. As if it wasn’t that she was made from my rib but that I was made from her rib, the opposite of how it is in the Bible. When I’m dying I’ll see her coming into the cafe, looking around for a free table, then coming up to mine and asking:

“Would you mind …?”

“You’re welcome to.”

She sits down, but we don’t feel like talking anymore. Not even about cakes. Not because we’ve said everything already to each other, since we’ve hardly said anything. We’d have needed an eternity to say everything to one another, not just the short moment we’ve lived through. I don’t know, maybe by now we’re afraid of words, even words about cake. Maybe there are no more words for us. And without words there’s no telling what any of the cakes were like, and all the more which one was the best.

We weren’t good together the way you might have expected. But we were even worse without each other. We split up, came back together, split up again, came back together again. Each time we swore we’d never part. After which it was the same thing. Then when we got back together, every time it was like we were back in the cafe that first day.

I can’t remember if I told you that one time I happened to go back to the same sanatorium, and after taking a walk one day I dropped by the cafe. I was sitting there drinking my coffee and reading the newspaper. At a certain moment I look up over the paper and I see her coming in. By then we’d separated for good. There were free tables, but she came up to me and asked:

“Would you mind …?”

“You’re welcome to.”

“Oh no, your hands don’t look good.”

“How’s your heart?”

And once again we decided never to part. But soon we did. Tell me, was that love? If you ask me, love is an unsatisfied hunger for existence. Whereas the two of us had been hurt by existence. Neither of us was young anymore. She was a few years younger than me, it’s true, but it was a long time since she’d been young. I often had to ask her not to be ashamed of her body. She’d always look over anxiously to check I wasn’t watching when she undressed. It was always:

“Turn the light off.”

“Why?”

“Please, turn it off.”

“But why?”

“Don’t you get it?”

I didn’t get it. She probably never suspected that as I watched her undressing I had the feeling I was being enriched by all her hurt, all her pain, by the way time was passing her by. I’d lived through a great deal myself, but it wasn’t as important to me as what she had been marked by. No, it wasn’t that I felt sympathy for her. Besides, does love require sympathy? What I’m trying to say is that I experienced her existence as my own existence. You ask what that means? It’s like you desire to take the entire burden of someone else’s existence upon yourself. As if you wished to relieve that person entirely of the necessity of existing. As if you wanted to die in their place too, so they wouldn’t have to experience their own dying. That’s something different than sympathy the way it’s usually understood. At the very possibility of such a thing, even if I was only imagining it, I felt a renewed desire for life. You say that isn’t possible. It’s possible that it isn’t possible. But in that case, what should be the measure of love? If you and I understand the same thing by this word that has no meaning? In accordance with what do we supposedly experience it? The appetites of the flesh? The flesh has its limits, and they’re reached much, much sooner than death.

Do you know if she’s still alive? Did I take you by surprise? Who on earth else other than you could tell me? I thought I’d at least learn that much from you. Because if I knew she was no longer alive, I’d not want to live anymore either.

Sometimes I think to myself that maybe if I could still have played. Or perhaps I was afraid to involve her in my life. Or I no longer had the strength to take on that love on top of everything else. You have no idea what it means to love when you’re not young anymore. It’s the hardest challenge. When you’re young, ceasing to exist doesn’t seem so terrifying. But you see, me, I always lived on the boundary between existing and not existing. Even when I seemed to be there, it was like I was only passing through, only there for a short while, visiting someone, though I don’t know who, because I have no one.

You think that’s why I came back here? But this isn’t my place either. So what if you came to buy beans? You could have gone anywhere, and not necessarily for beans. If you hadn’t found me you’d always have found someone. What difference does it make? For you none at all, I don’t think. I’m not mixing you up with someone else. Though for a long time I kept thinking about where and when it had been. At one point, right at the beginning, I even wondered if you might be him. Oh, no one. It just occurred to me. But no. If you’d been him, you wouldn’t have come to me for beans. How would you have known that someone like me exists.

What time is it? Ah, I have to be getting along. I’ve got to make my rounds of the cabins. Like I told you, I always go around at least once every night, often twice when I can’t sleep. See, the dogs are awake too. What is it, Rex? Eh, Paws? Sit! You’ve already sniffed the gentleman. No, they’re not hungry. They ate earlier in the evening. Maybe they had a dream. I’ll leave them with you. Don’t be afraid of them. Just keep shelling the beans.