A Treatise on Shelling Beans

8

Let me tell you, he changed my life. You know, the warehouse guy. I told you about him. The warehouse worker that turned out to be a saxophonist. I don’t know why you find it surprising. I mean, back then hardly anyone was who he was. A welder would turn out to be a priest. There were all kinds of guys working on building sites, hidden behind different occupations. But often it was only over vodka that you’d find out stuff like that. And not the first time you drank with them. Anyone who didn’t drink, or only occasionally, they weren’t trusted. It was because of that that I turned to drink. They’d ask a few questions but in only a general way. It wasn’t till later they’d start to probe into your life. Or your conscience. Especially since our consciences had turned out to be something different than before. You think a conscience is something permanent? Too bad you never worked on a building site back then. It was probably the same in other places. But I worked on building sites and that’s all I can speak about. You know, any change in the world is an assault on people’s consciences. Especially when it’s an attempt to make a new and better world.

In any case, you’d never have met such a mixture of people anywhere else. Bricklayers, concrete workers, plasterers, welders, electricians, crane operators, drivers, delivery men, all kinds, same in the offices, and it would turn out that one of them had been one thing, another had been something else, one was from here, another from there, they’d been in camps, prisons, one army or another, they’d fought in the uprising, in the woods, they had kidney problems from being beaten, they were missing teeth or fingernails, they were ageless, or still really young but already gray-haired. Every building site in those days was a true Tower of Babel, not of languages, but of what could happen to people. Though there were also folks, a good few of them, who had changed profession of their own accord so they could take part in building a better world, because they’d stopped believing in the old one.

I don’t remember now which site it was, but on one of them there was this guy that worked in the planning department. People would say, the planning guy, and everyone knew who you meant. So one time, over vodka he let on he’d been a history teacher. He couldn’t hold his liquor, he got drunk and started talking about how history had deceived him. Imagine that, history had deceived him. Like history could deceive anyone. It’s us who keep deceiving history, depending on what we want from it.

Besides, if you ask me everyone lives his own life, and every life is a separate history. The fact that we try and pour it all into a single container, into one big immensity, doesn’t lead to any truth about humanity. You can imagine a history of all the individual people that ever lived. You say that’s impossible? I know it is. But you can imagine it. Yet nothing exists in the abstract, especially people. I don’t know how you see the world. Me, like I said, I see it from one or another building site. They were always individual people, each one different from the next. They’d be called a team, the way you talk about history, but that was only at meetings.

For instance, on one site there was a philosophy student. Actually he’d completed his studies, he only had one exam to go when the war broke out. Then after the war he learned to lay parquet floors. He was even a foreman, I was friends with him a bit. He drank like the blazes. He had a strong head, and not just for philosophy. One time, when we were drinking he began talking about the studies he’d broken off, and someone asked him:

“Why didn’t you finish? You could have done it after the war. What’s one exam?”

His eyes became bloodshot, and we hadn’t drunk so much at that point.

“What the hell for? What use is philosophy to me after all that? No mind could comprehend it. Plato, Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant — none of them could have. Screw the lot of them!” He slammed his glass down on the table.

We all exchanged glances, because none of us knew who all those people were that had gotten under his skin like that. No one dared ask either, because maybe we were supposed to know. Someone just said:

“You find the same sons of bitches wherever you go, sounds like. Not just on building sites.” He poured the other guy a brimming glass. “Here you go.”

Believe me, if I hadn’t worked on building sites, and also, well, if I hadn’t been a drinker … Anyway, it was on building sites that I learned how to live. And it was thanks to all the different people I met, that I wouldn’t have run across anywhere else. I really owe them a lot. I might even say that each one of them might not have actually felt like living. They all had their reasons. But they were living. Above all I’m grateful to them because even though it often seemed a particular price was too much to pay, and there was nowhere to borrow from, still you had to keep on living. And most important of all, I realized that I myself wasn’t an exception. Or if I was then the world was filled with exceptions. But those things only came out over vodka. So how could you not drink?

For instance, one person worked in the benefits department handing out bars of soap, towels, rubber boots, work gloves, they could have been just anyone, but over vodka they turned out to be one thing or another. Someone else operated a backhoe, it seemed like other than the backhoe all he knew how to do was drink vodka, but after a bottle or two he’d recite poems from memory. With another guy, it was Cicero in Latin. And thanks to the vodka you could even enjoy listening to it.

On another site there was someone who’d been a policeman before the war. I don’t know if you’ll agree with me, but I reckon any change in the world starts with the police. He’d had to hide his past, because during the war he’d also been a policeman, the organization had ordered him to be. It goes without saying he had no certificate after the war to prove it. Who could it have been from? With an official stamp to boot? The people who could have corroborated his story were apparently dead. And how many of them could there have been anyway? Two or three at the most. So after the war he moved from place to place to cover his tracks. He’d learned a couple of trades in the meantime. On our site he was a plasterer. But he drank too much, if you ask me. And when he did, he’d tear open his shirt and pound his own chest till it rang, shouting that the organization had ordered him to. Even over vodka there were always limits as to how open you could be. Me, I never said too much at such times, at most I’d talk about how things had been on other sites. Whereas him, once he’d gotten all emotional about how the organization had ordered him to do it, he’d always swear by Our Lady of Ostra Brama, which made it all the more suspicious, because Our Lady of Ostra Brama wasn’t in Poland anymore. A policeman, yet he couldn’t keep a cool head when he was drinking.

There were other guys that even when they were dead drunk, they could have been drowning in misery and their hearts bursting with revelations, but still they wouldn’t say a word more than they wanted to. Someone who has a calling to drink, who doesn’t just drink from one opportunity to the next, they know ways to say a lot while saying nothing, how to laugh when inside the last thing you feel like doing is laughing, how to believe in something when you don’t believe in anything, even in a new and better world.

I don’t know what happened to the policeman, because soon after that I moved to another site. Not for any particular reason. Maybe I thought that on a different site I’d drink less, or stop altogether. In general, whenever I’d worked on one site for too long I got the feeling it was winding itself around me, sucking me in. I couldn’t stand it, and I’d move to another site. You probably think I was impatient, like any young person. It wasn’t that. I just couldn’t get attached to any one place. Actually, the thought of getting attached scared me.

No, I didn’t have any problems with that. I was a good electrician. They always assigned me to the toughest jobs. When it came to hooking up new machinery or equipment, it was always me. There wasn’t a problem I couldn’t fix. I got complimented the whole time, they gave me all kinds of certificates. I never missed a bonus. Or even when something needed mending in the apartment of one of the directors, they’d always bring me in, at the request of the director or his wife. Anyone could have done it, it was only the iron or the hot plate, or just a light bulb that had burned out, but I was the one they asked for.

Did you change jobs often? Never? How is that possible? You liked it so much in one place? What job did you have, if you don’t mind my asking? Did you not want to get ahead? That I don’t understand. Everyone wants to move forward, if only to the next level. For most people that’s the goal in life. So it was all the same to you? I don’t get it. What kind of institution or firm was it? You’re not at liberty to say? I understand. I’m sorry for having asked.

For me, it was never better somewhere else. Not in that sense, because the pay got better and better. Maybe I was driven a bit by the thought that where I was going things would at least be different. But everywhere it was the same. There was drinking just like at the previous site. In the end I turned to drink completely. It was only on the site where I played in the band, and I met that warehouse guy, that I worked till the construction was finished. Though it dragged on forever.

On one site, which one was it again? Actually, it makes no difference. Anyway, there was this one guy that worked there, well, you couldn’t really call it work, he kept the overtime records. We didn’t know the first thing about him. He didn’t even make you curious about who he was. Because what kind of job is that, keeping overtime records. He rarely drank vodka, except when we invited him when it turned out he’d done a good job of recording our overtime.

Then one day two civilians and one military guy showed up in a car and asked him if he was him. He was. They twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. Then they manhandled him into the car and sped off. He never came back. And we never found out who he was. He kept the overtime records, that was all.

True, we might have wondered, he always went around nicely dressed, coat and tie, pants with a crease in them, always freshly shaven and smelling of cologne. When he greeted women, whether it was the cleaning lady or the head accountant, he’d always kiss their hand. And he always referred to women as the fair sex. The fair sex, gentlemen. With the fair sex. He never got on first name terms with anyone. Maybe if he’d drunk more often with us. But we only invited him because we wanted to thank him for the overtime. Though he knew how to behave. He was our guest, but still he’d always bring a bottle at least.

Oh, I just remembered one other detail. He’d never take a piece of sausage or pickled cucumber from the tray with his fingers, like all of us would do. He’d always use a fork. He’d bring one whenever we invited him over, it would be wrapped in a napkin. If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I’ll use a fork, that’s just my way. And he never ate the sausage with the skin on, he’d always peel it. I sometimes think to myself, maybe if it hadn’t been for that fork. Maybe if he would’ve just used his fingers, like the rest of us, and not peeled the sausage. Sometimes there’ll be a little thing, but it leaves marks like a trail in the snow.

And then there was the warehouse man. I think I mentioned that we were building a glassworks. In the middle of the countryside. The grain was almost ripe, but they weren’t letting people mow it. We even volunteered to help with the mowing, it was a pity to see so much grain go to waste, how much bread would be lost, when there were often shortages of bread. But it was no, because the plan was behind schedule. Construction was supposed to have started the previous year, then it was supposed to have begun in the spring. They were always urging us to get a move on, faster and faster, high days and holidays, extra hours, overtime, working all hours of the night. The cities were waiting for windowpanes, the villages were waiting, factories, schools, hospitals, government offices, as if everything was to be built out of glass. While here they still hadn’t delivered this thing or supplied that, something was wanting and the work kept getting held up.

So anyway, on that site there was a clerk in the warehouse. He didn’t look like a warehouse keeper, let me tell you. If you’d seen him, you wouldn’t believe that’s what he did. He stooped, he had trouble turning his head on his neck. When he walked it was more like he was shuffling his feet than taking steps. People said it was from the war, from being interrogated. Though apparently he never gave anyone up, never admitted to anything. I don’t know if that was true or not. I never asked him about it, and he didn’t say anything either. In those times people didn’t like to reveal things. Also, his left arm was partially paralyzed, in rainy weather he’d often rub it. He never explained that either, though that particular thing looked like rheumatism. When someone asked him, he’d say it was nothing. His right arm wasn’t all that good either. When he wrote you a chit, he’d press his indelible pencil down with all the strength in his arm to stop it from shaking. The pencil itself was no more than a stub, you could barely see it between his fingers.

He’d always cut a new pencil into four, and use little short ones all the time. Not out of thriftiness. If you have a whole pencil sticking out of your hand, however hard you press down it’s still going to give you away. You could see the shakiness on the chit, even if all he’d written was something like, Screw: one count.

Oh, and also he couldn’t really see out of one eye. To cover it up he’d look at you with the eye that didn’t see properly, and half-close his good eye. Or he’d take turns, first one eye then the other, which hid it even more. And he was a grumbler, he complained all the time. When you went to the warehouse for some item you’d get a virtual inquisition, why do you need it, what’s it for, where’s it for, before he’d scribble the chit and give you the thing. And all the time he’d be going on and on about how we damaged everything he gave us, you could have built a whole other glassworks with the materials we’d spoiled, plus we were probably pinching stuff. He knew, he knew full well. Maybe not you, kid. But they all steal. They reckon that what they’re stealing isn’t theirs.

On the other hand, there wasn’t the slightest thing wrong with his hearing, let me tell you. Maybe it was because of his hearing that they made him a warehouse keeper. You’d be standing in front of him while he filled out the chit and he’d ask without looking up:

“Why are you creaking like that?”

“What do you mean, creaking? I’m just standing here.”

“You’re creaking, I can hear it.”

Or:

“You have asthma or something?” The guy would be healthy as you like. “Keep drinking and smoking and you’ll run out of breath before you die.”

Or whenever he gave out a part, he’d always have to hold it to his ear. If it was something heavy, he’d bend over it. And he’d say, It’s good, or, I’ll give you another one.

You know, hearing means a lot in a warehouse, maybe even more than sight. The warehouse took up an entire hut, he’d have had to always be walking around and checking up. As it was, he just sat at his desk and he could hear the whole place from one end to the other. He would have heard a mouse, let alone someone trying to remove a window pane at the other end of the warehouse.

No one on the site knew that he’d been a saxophonist. He never let on. He hadn’t actually played in a long while. But sometimes, when you went into the warehouse without warning, it seemed like he’d been wrapped up in listening to something. Because as he used to say, you can hear music even in a rock.

No one would have found out either. But they decided to form a band at the site. A directive had come down from above that if there was more than x number of people working at a given site, and the project was a long-term one, then there ought to be some musical ensemble or a dance troupe or choir, or at least a drama club, since working people needed entertainment. So they started asking around the site about who could play an instrument. I told them I played the sax. True, I’d not played since school, it had been a few years. And I thought I’d never play again. Though I won’t deny I felt the urge. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep I’d imagine I was playing. I heard myself play. I could taste the mouthpiece between my lips. Oh yes, every mouthpiece has its own taste. Well, actually the reed. I even felt the fingering, I sensed the keys against my fingertips. I felt the instrument weighing from the strap around my neck, maybe even more than a real saxophone would have weighed. Sometimes I could even see a firehouse full of people, I could see them dancing as I played for them, because I’d never known any other venue than firehouses.

But that was mostly when I couldn’t get to sleep. During the day there was never time to imagine anything. Or you were so exhausted by work that vodka, vodka alone, was the only thing that could give you back the will to live. They were pushing us so hard, often it would be nighttime by the time you got off work, because like I said, the job was behind schedule the whole time, and at those moments only vodka would do the trick.

I didn’t think they’d accept me. But I thought, I’ll give it a go. Because I’d tried everything. I’d tried reading, I’d tried drinking, I’d tried believing in a new and better world, I’d tried falling in love. Maybe that would have been the best option. But to fall in love, you can’t work from morning to night, because after that all you want to do is sleep. You have to go to dances. But to go to dances you need to know how to dance. And me, I couldn’t even dance. No, they never organized dances at our school, and we weren’t allowed to go to dances anywhere else. One time the older kids had gone to one on the sly, they’d gotten into a fight with some local boys, there was a whole investigation, then after that they started checking up on us even in the night, to make sure we were asleep.

Sometimes we’d have a pretend dance on a Sunday evening, in the rec room. In fall and winter the evenings were long, there were no classes, on Sundays we didn’t go to work. We’d decorate the rec room and put up a poster saying there was a dance. A few kids were chosen to be in the band, the younger ones were made the girls, the older boys were the gentlemen. But what kind of dance could it be when we didn’t know how to dance — how could we have? Maybe one or two of us knew this or that, but most of us just stepped on each other’s toes. There was constant cursing and name-calling. You so-and-so, you trod on my big toe, you trod on this, on that. You stepped on me with your whole boot, goddammit! The hell with girls like you. The worst words were thrown about. Get off my toes and dance, you son of a b …, and so on. Pardon my language, I’m just repeating what was said.

Though how could you step on their toes when everyone was wearing hobnailed boots? We wore them for dancing too — we didn’t have anything else to change into. We wore them summer and winter. The most you could do was dance barefoot. We tried that, but you got splinters in the soles of your feet because the floorboards were rough and jagged, they were all torn up from the nails in our boots. When someone got an accidental kick on the ankle from one of the boots, it made them howl. They sometimes whopped you if it was the girl who’d kicked them, or if one of the younger ones had kicked an older boy.

And when the band played a faster number, it wasn’t just your dance partner, the whole room stepped on everyone’s feet, people bumped against each other deliberately it seemed, some of them knocked other ones down. At those moments the insults and curses erupted like volcanoes, there were scuffles, sometimes someone even pulled a knife. Plus, can it really be a dance when no one throws their arms around anyone, no one whispers tender words in anyone’s ear? At most one of the gentlemen would say to the girl he was dancing with, hold me tighter, you little shit.

The dances were mostly about the older boys, which is to say the gentlemen, taking it out on us, which is to say the girls. They took it out on us every day anyway, but at the dances they went the whole hog. The teachers? They didn’t do a thing. Once in a while one of them would show up, watch for a bit, then leave. At those times, we’d just happen to be dancing nicely. No one trod on anyone’s toes, you never heard a single cuss word. But the moment the teacher left, you can imagine what happened. It was total pandemonium, sometimes they even turned off the lights. And what went on when the lights were out, well, it’s best not to say.

Oh yes, of course there was a master of ceremonies. This kid that was one of the oldest ones. It was always him, at every dance. He’d pin a bundle of ribbons on his lapel. He could actually dance a bit. He was a smooth talker, though he also had a mouth on him. But he always took the side of the older boys. He might have been the worst of the lot. He was pleasant, never swore, never called people names, when you stepped on his toe he’d just make you apologize. But before the number was over he’d lead his girl outside, supposedly to go take a walk, and there he did what he liked with her. Often he beat her till she bled. Complain to who? It would have cost you dearly afterwards.

He called circles, baskets, pair by pair, swap partners, and white tango. For the white tango, us girls had to ask the older boys, that is, the gentlemen. As master of ceremonies he decided everything, he’d say, you go with him, you go with so-and-so. If anyone tried to object, he’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him across the room, now ask him and bow to him, get on with it before I kick you in the pants. And you could feel his hand gripping the back of your neck.

Let me tell you, for a long time after that I was afraid to dance. I was put off by the idea of dancing, which sort of goes against the nature of the thing, because after all dancing is supposed to attract people. Maybe because all through school it was as if I was the girl, and that makes you look at everything entirely differently, experience it all differently, it’s hard to even trust to the dance. It was only when I began playing in the worksite band that I finally started to like dancing. A band has to know how to dance, not just how to play music for dancing. Especially a saxophonist.

They chose seven of the guys who’d put their names forward. An instructor came, brought instruments, listened to us play. And he said, We’ll practice, we’ll learn to play together and we’ll make a decent band. No, it wasn’t till the next time that he brought a saxophone, he auditioned me separately. He even asked where I’d learned to play, seeing I was so young. Had I been in a band before? A school band, I told him. It must have been a really good school. You must have had excellent teachers. Yes, I said, one of them in particular was.

On each instrument they painted an identification number to show it was official property. Just like they had on all the desks, office machines, telephones, equipment, towels, everything that was company property. Each of us had to sign a list to say we’d been given such and such an instrument to use, and that we’d be responsible for it. They also bought us company outfits so we’d all look the same: gray suits, white nylon shirts, neck-ties all the same color and the same pattern. The outfits were kept in a closet in the social department, we had to sign them out whenever we had a show. The only things of our own we had were our shoes and socks.

After that, for several months the instructor came and we rehearsed with him two, sometimes three times a week. After work, it goes without saying, because they only let us off overtime. And so we wouldn’t lose out, they added two extra hours each day for the rehearsal. To tell the truth, after a couple of rehearsals we didn’t really need the instructor, each of us knew more than he did. There was a cement mason, a welder, a tile layer, a crane operator, an office worker, and another electrician, and aside from me they’d all played before in various bands. One had been in a military band, another one had played at a spa resort, one had been a street musician during the war, or before the war. One of them had studied for a time at a conservatory, one was an organist, and one of them had a father who played fiddle at the opera, and his father had taught him to play even better than him, he said.

They chose me because I was the only one who’d come forward as a saxophonist. You know, in those days the sax wasn’t a regular instrument. You didn’t often see one in a band. Elsewhere in the world sure, but not here, not in company bands, especially from a building site. Though it was precisely the saxophone that made us so successful. Those guys have a saxophone — it gave us an advantage over other bands. Pretty soon we started getting invited to play here and there, on other sites, factories, army units. And not just for dances, but other things too, we were asked to perform at celebrations, anniversaries, holiday events.

Let me tell you, our band often did more for the site than management. So you don’t think I’m just saying that, one time we did a special event at a cement works. Maybe you know how things were with cement in those days. With everything else too, it’s true. But on a building site, without cement you couldn’t do a thing. You’d sometimes have to beg for every ton of it, organize parties for the cement works management or their workers’ board, remember the name days of this or that person, which people were important and who made the decisions, bring gifts. Or send telegrams, call. And when nothing helped, who to call higher up, though that was always the least help of all. The site would grind to a halt and stay that way.

They asked me to perform solo on the saxophone especially for the wife of the director of the works, because it happened to be her name day or maybe birthday that day. And they announced that I’d play solo for her, the rest of the band was only going to do backup. I didn’t want to do it, I told them I’d never appeared solo before. But then I thought to myself, when it comes down to it it’s a challenge. She was sitting in the front row, next to the director, she was a decent-looking woman, a brunette I remember. I started playing, I saw she was beaming, so I went all the way. I finished my solo, and the place was dead, there wasn’t even the faintest applause. It was only when she jumped to her feet in the front row and started clapping without looking around that the whole room burst into applause, some of them clapping even louder than her. After that there weren’t any more problems with cement. At most the delivery would be a day or two late. And the whole band got bonuses.

That was later, after he and I had gone our separate ways. You know, the warehouse keeper. It happened because there was a performance at our site, it was some holiday or other, a few people got medals, a bunch of certificates were handed out. The next day I went by the warehouse for some item, and as he was writing out the chit he said in a kind of hurt voice:

“You were all over the map. You’ll never be a real band. You don’t play well together, you’re not that good.”

It got to me, because who was he to say things like that. Some warehouse keeper. The room had rung with applause, it was even louder than after the director’s speech, everyone congratulated us, people kept shaking my hand, and here was this warehouse guy. I thought, I’ll just get the part I need and I’ll say something to him as I’m leaving. But all of a sudden he softened up.

“You, you have something. But with the saxophone, don’t go getting any ideas. You’ll be wasted in a band like that. They’ll clap for you, sure they will, because who ever heard a saxophone out here in the countryside.”

I did a double take. Where had he heard a saxophone? It was then he let on that he’d been a saxophonist, he’d played for many years before the war, and in lots of different bands. I was dumbfounded, because on the surface you wouldn’t have given ten cents for the guy, as the saying goes. I forgot that I’d come for the part, and honestly, to this day I can’t remember what it was. I just wondered, should I believe him or not?

Words didn’t come easily to him, you could see he had to force them out. Two or three of them, then a break, with big gaps in between, as if he had trouble joining them together. Or maybe that was just my own impression, because I couldn’t get over the idea that the chit was being signed not by some warehouse keeper but by a saxophonist. From what he said, he’d played every kind of sax, though most often an alto. Then when he started listing the places he’d performed, I have to say I thought I was dreaming. Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and those were just the capitals, he’d worked in all kinds of other cities. He’d traveled in any number of countries. He started naming the venues he’d played, and I thought he must be making them up. The Paradise, the Eldorado, the Scheherezade, the Arcadia, the Eden, the Hades, the Imperial. I wanted to ask him what all the names meant, but I was too shy. Because he might think, And you want to be a sax player? Oh yes, he also performed on a passenger ship sailing to America. I stopped wondering whether he was telling me the truth or not, because the very fact that the saxophone can take you all over the world like that was making me think differently about it.

Once again I got the idea of maybe beginning to put money aside from my wages on the first of the month, or at least a part of what I spent on vodka. I couldn’t play a company saxophone for the rest of my life, after all. And what if I moved to another site and there was no band there? One day I was back in the warehouse to pick up something or other, and as he leaned over the chit he asked:

“Do you have your own sax?”

“No, just the company one. I saved for one once, but then the currency change happened. I was thinking about starting to save up again.”

“Don’t bother,” he said. He finished writing the chit, and didn’t utter another word.

I thought, probably he reckons there’s no point, because there might be another change of currency. And a currency change is like death, you always end up not having enough time. He must know life.

A couple of weeks went by, then one day I was passing the warehouse when he shuffles out and calls me:

“Come over here!”

“I don’t have time now. I’ll swing by later.” I really was in a hurry.

“No, now. Later’s usually too late.”

“Is it something urgent?” I could see there was a case lying on his desk.

“Look inside,” he said.

I opened the case, my heart pounding, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“A saxophone,” I said, though it was like I still didn’t quite believe it.

“A saxophone,” he said. “I went home Sunday and brought it back. Why should it go to waste?”

“It’s golden,” I said. I felt I was trembling.

“Yes it is,” he said. “An alto. It’s seen a good deal of the world with me.”

“How much would you want for it?” I finally got up the courage to ask, while in my mind I’d already begun to borrow from everyone I knew on the site, in the offices, in benefits and loans. Where else could I try, where else. My thoughts were racing like a hunting dog, because I was certain all the money I’d be able to borrow would not be enough. He also seemed to be wondering what he should ask:

“How much? How much? How do you know I want to sell it? Things like this aren’t for sale. Sometimes all that’s left of your whole life is what you didn’t sell.”

And he said to me that if I wanted, after work or on Sundays I could come by, to his warehouse, and we could play. Or rather I would play, he would listen. It’d be better for me than vodka or cards. Especially as I couldn’t play that much yet, and a saxophone has as many secrets as a person. Some of them he’d show me, others I’d have to discover on my own — not that he was trying to keep anything from me, it’s just that he himself hadn’t managed to unearth them.

“How much would that cost a month?” I asked.

“It won’t cost anything. You’ll play and I’ll listen. I can’t play myself, as you can see. I’m barely up to this job. It’s only thanks to good people, a few still exist. I’m not well, I don’t have long.”

And that was how it began. First he hammered it into me that the saxophone isn’t just a tool for playing music. You won’t get anything out of it by being angry or mad at it, or by sulking. It needs patience and hard work. Conscientious hard work. If you want the saxophone to join with you like a soul with a body, you yourself have to open up to it. If you don’t hide anything from it, it won’t hide anything from you. But at every deceit of yours it’ll dig its heels in and not give an inch. It won’t go any higher or lower, however much you blow your lungs out. Actually, your lungs won’t be enough, you’ll be playing but it will be lifeless. You have to play with your whole self, including your pain, your tears, your laughter, your hopes, your dreams, everything that’s inside you, with your whole life. Because all that is music. The saxophone isn’t the music, you are. But I’d have to try, really try, he kept repeating to me, if I wanted to hear myself in the saxophone. Because only then would it be music.

I have to tell you, I was even afraid of that thing. What kind of saxophone was it, I wondered. I played the company instrument, that was a saxophone too, but I didn’t feel any of what he was talking about. And to begin with I played much worse on his sax than on the company one. Actually, you couldn’t really call it playing, we mostly just practiced scales. That is, he told me what to do, I practiced. On and on, nothing but scales, up and down the whole range of the saxophone. It made me mad, but what could I do. Then he brought some sheet music and we started doing exercises and short extracts. He never let me play any piece of music in its entirety, I only practiced separate parts over and over, and it wasn’t till later that he let me put the parts together. Also, often he’d make me play one sound till I ran out of breath, then he’d have me repeat it time and time again till he’d say, Good enough.

I’d go to him after work, and not leave till night had fallen over the site. Afterwards I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I’d be playing things over in my mind, then often I’d dream about them. One time he told me I was holding the mouthpiece wrong, and it was making me blow more than I needed to. My lips weren’t in the right place, I was pressing them too hard to the mouthpiece and air was escaping out the sides of my mouth. We have to change that. Another time it was that I was fingering too heavily, my fingers were too stiff, they needed to be loose, I should only touch the keys with the very tips of my fingers. And my fingertips should be so sensitive that they’d feel a sunbeam if it touched them. Because when I played, I wasn’t supposed to touch the keys, I was supposed to touch the music. Those hands of yours are like turtles, your joints are clumsy. Keep practicing. See here, at the end they need to bend at a right angle. Practice at work as well. Though it was from work that my fingers were that way, because electricians don’t much need to move their hands.

Sometimes I used to doubt whether he really had been a saxophonist, or whether he just sat in that warehouse of his and out of boredom imagined that he’d played the sax, like he could have imagined that he was anything other than a warehouse keeper. Maybe he did play a bit at one time, hence the saxophone, but all the rest was wishful thinking. Someone like that can put themselves through hell, then try and drag other people into their hell with them.

He never once took the saxophone in his hands to show me how one thing or another should be played, since I was doing it wrong.

“I would show you, but how?” he would say. “With one hand? I can barely write chits. As you can see.”

But in that case, how could he know something was wrong? Not like that, play it again. Oh, he knew, he did. It was only years later that I came to understand.

I went to him every day for maybe eight months, then I got sick of it. I started coming every other day or so, though he would stay back in the warehouse every evening, waiting for me. Why didn’t you come yesterday, why didn’t you come the day before yesterday. It’s been four days. You haven’t been since last week, and I keep waiting here for you.

I would explain that there’d been an emergency, that we were having big problems with a repair, it’d be another few days yet. Or that they’d kept us later than usual on the site because of something or other. That the previous week we’d been doing contract work, because we were behind schedule. I made up excuses, and he seemed to understand.

“Yeah, that’s how things are on a building site. That’s how things are.” He would just ask a while later: “So, is the work back on schedule?”

“Not exactly,” I’d mumble.

“Your work might be, but getting yourself back on schedule won’t be so easy,” he’d say, a note of reproach in his voice.

Then one time, though I’d only skipped a single day, he said:

“Evidently I was mistaken.”

That stung, and I was on the verge of saying I wouldn’t be coming anymore when he spoke again:

“There’ll come a moment when you won’t be able to play and work on a building site at the same time. Not just yet, but at some point you’re going to have to make a choice. For now, just drop out of the band. At least let them stop ruining you.”

“What do you mean, drop out?” He’d actually made me jump.

He leaped up and started clumping around the warehouse. I’d never seen him so worked up.

“In that case, play all you want with them. Some people can’t see further than the tip of their nose. Play all you want. You all love the applause, that’s the fact of it, whoever’s doing the applauding and why. Plus you get overtime.”

That really needled me. I told you they gave us two hours of overtime each day. But that wasn’t why I was in the band. That wasn’t why I’d put in more effort than almost any other kid when I was in school. That wasn’t why I’d saved up for a saxophone, taking food out of my own mouth. He’d really touched a nerve. And I stopped going to him at all. I thought to myself, how long do I have to listen to him saying, Not like that, not like that. You’re not doing it right, not doing it right. Play it again, play it again. If he’d at least have praised me just one time. And on top of everything else he wants me to drop out of the band.

I left without a word, but let me tell you, I was clenching my fists so hard my hands bled. For several days nothing went right at work. I burned a transformer — myself, an electrician. He wants me to drop out of the band, kept running through my head. Drop out of the band. When that band was my only hope. Not to mention that we were more and more successful. Not long before, we’d been shifted half time to the band, we only worked half time on the site. Plus, in a few weeks we were supposed to play at a masked ball for some bigwigs. They chose us over who knew how many other bands. We all thought it was something to be proud of. Not just for the band but the whole site, management, and all that.

In preparation for our appearance the management got us new suits, dark, with a pinstripe, new shirts and ties, they even thought about having us wear bow ties, opinions were divided. This time everyone got black shoes, black socks, and a handkerchief. We heard they’d wanted to buy us matching overcoats as well, since it was autumn, but they ran out of funds. You have no idea how much we were looking forward to that ball. We were counting down the days. The night before they were going to pick us up I barely slept at all.

It was a Saturday. They sent a truck covered with a tarpaulin, but with benches along the sides. When we got in they told us not to look out from under the tarpaulin. In fact there were holes in it, but since we’d been told not to look, no one even dared so much as to peep through the holes. Besides, there were two soldiers sitting at the back watching us the whole time. They’d lowered the tarpaulin the moment we set off, and it was like riding in a dark box.

They told us it would take about two hours. It couldn’t have been all that far, but the road went up hill and down dale, we bounced in our seats, the benches kept sliding into the middle of the truck, and we had to keep a tight grip on our instruments. So when we got there it was already completely dark. I don’t know what kind of building it was. It was a big sprawling place, and it was in the woods, maybe a park. You couldn’t see any more. Besides, after we got out of the truck they didn’t let us look around. They hurried us to a kind of corridor in the left-hand wing, then from the corridor into a small hall. Here one of the soldiers who’d brought us reported to another soldier with two stars on his epaulette that the band had arrived and was ready to play. The second soldier told us to take off our overcoats and hats and hang them on pegs. I had a beret instead of a hat. I’d intended to buy a hat, and in fact I did. With those first wages, like I said, on the first building site I’d worked on after the electrification of the villages. But now I was working on maybe my fourth site, and I wore a beret.

We took off our hats and coats like he asked. Right away two civilians came through from the next room, one of them carrying a list. The one with the list checked our ID cards and marked them off on the list. The other guy went over to our hats and coats and he started feeling them, looking inside every hat, squeezing my beret in his hands. Then they patted us down to check we didn’t have anything. Exactly what I don’t know, they didn’t say. But the clarinetist had a pocket knife, a regular pocket knife. You know what a pocket knife looks like. It’s not a real knife, you can fit the whole thing in the palm of your hand. Two folding blades, one longer, one shorter, a folding corkscrew, a can opener, maybe a nail file, though I don’t recall whether pocket knives had nail files back then. They told him to leave the pocket knife, that he’d get it back after the ball.

Then my heart nearly stopped, because one of the civilians asked the other:

“Was there supposed to be a saxophone?”

The other one immediately went through into the next room. He stayed there for a really long time, or so it seemed to me. True, when it’s fear measuring time instead of a clock, even a moment can drag on forever. He came back and nodded, but I didn’t feel the slightest relief, I was bathed in sweat. They examined all the instruments closely. They shook the violin to see if anything rattled inside it, tapped on the drums to make sure the sound was clean, looked into the bell of my saxophone. Then they asked if we’d brought a list of the tunes we were going to play. Of course we had, since beforehand they’d required us to bring a list. We gave it to them. Had we brought the music to go with the tunes? Did any of it have words? We hadn’t been told that anyone would be singing, so we were taken aback. They explained that that wasn’t what they meant. Of course we had the music with us, though we knew by heart all the pieces we played regularly. We always had the sheet music with us anyway, since it looks more serious when a band plays from sheet music.

They spent more time on the sheet music than on anything else. One of them went through it all, then handed it over to another guy. The other guy, it looked like he knew music because he studied each page in turn, and from his eyes you could tell he was reading everything from top to bottom. He even took out two or three pages and held them between his fingers, after which he went into the next room again and stayed there for a long while. This time it really was long. We thought there must be something they didn’t like, though we’d only chosen tunes that we’d played before at all kinds of parties and functions.

Finally he came back. He handed the music over. He said, It’s fine. It turned out he hadn’t held on to any of the tunes. But when we checked to make sure he hadn’t put things in the wrong order, we saw that at the top of every page there was a handwritten note saying, Approved, and an illegible signature.

The soldier with the stars said, Let’s go. He led us down one corridor then another one, to the ballroom. At the doors he told us to wait, while he went in first. I don’t know why. Perhaps he had to report to someone that the band was at the doors. They were reporting to each other at every step. You couldn’t move unless one of them reported to another one that you were there.

When we’d been getting in the truck to go there, one of the soldiers that later sat in the back to watch over us had first made us line up, after which he reported to another soldier sitting in the cab next to the driver that the band was ready for departure. Only after that did he drop the tailgate and tell us to climb in.

The one that had gone into the ballroom came out again and arranged us in a line according to our instruments, violin, viola, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, percussion, and me, saxophone. I didn’t know if it was because I was the youngest, or because of the saxophone.

We were supposed to play something as we entered, then only after that make our way to the place for the band. Imagine walking into a huge, brightly lit room, there are streamers, balloons, but you don’t see any people, there’s nothing but masks. Someone called out:

“Bravo, the band is here!”

There were a few more bravos, and someone added a double one:

“Bravo! Bravo!”

It came out that we were late. Though not through any fault of our own, of course. Let me tell you, I didn’t know what to think of it all. Here the people who were supposed to be enjoying themselves were waiting for us, while the other guys were checking us over like they didn’t give a hoot about the first lot. I thought to myself, could it be that the second ones are more important than the first ones? It was because of the second ones we were late, they’d kept us back for such a long time. Maybe that was why they weren’t wearing masks, while the first lot had masks on.

The ball was nothing special. It wouldn’t have been any different from a regular dance if it hadn’t been for the masks. Some people were dancing, others were going through to an adjoining room where there must have been food and drink. We couldn’t actually see, there was a civilian standing by the door and he closed it every time someone went through. But when they came back, virtually every one of them was unsteady on their legs. They alternately danced and went out. Whether they kept their masks on to eat and drink, that I couldn’t tell you. They didn’t even let us through there for supper. They took us to a different room where again they reported that we’d come for supper, seven count. And they brought seven portions.

It was the first time I’d seen a party with masks. I couldn’t get over it. Plus, all the masks were the same, like they’d all been given one, the men and the women alike. They covered their faces from forehead to chin, with holes for eyes and nose and mouth, as if instead of faces they only had those holes.

Later on, abroad, I played at many a masked ball, but there everyone’s mask was different. Even in a mask each person was trying to stand out. Not to mention that every mask glittered with various colors, silver and gold. And there were all kinds of shapes, stars, moons, hearts. Some were so narrow they only covered the eyes, others revealed the eyes and nose and mouth while the whole of the rest of the face was hidden. Also, everyone’s costume was different. Here everyone was dressed the same, or in any case the differences were small. And all the masks were black.

I wondered how they could dance in those masks. You couldn’t smile at the other person, or show surprise, or make a face, through the holes. Maybe they could talk, but when a voice came through a hole like that you couldn’t even tell whose voice it might be. And when you’re dancing, your faces are next to each other.

Maybe that was why they went out more and more often to the room where the food and drink was. And they were increasingly wobbly when they came back. Some of them were staggering even. At times there were barely two or three pairs on the dance floor, most of them were eating and drinking in the other room. More and more noise came from there, while we played for the two or three pairs. There were moments when no one at all was dancing, but we kept on playing.

During one of the last breaks, I think it was, I went to the bathroom. I heard someone in the next stall. It wouldn’t have been at all unusual, except that I heard what sounded like someone talking to someone else. I listened closely, whoever it was was speaking indistinctly, mumbling, I figured they must be well oiled. I was only surprised that the other person wasn’t saying anything. The partitions of the stalls didn’t reach the ground, so I bent down and got an even bigger shock, because I only saw one pair of shoes. Not patent leather shoes, just regular lace-ups.

“So, are we going to build a new and better world, what do you think?”

Who on earth was he talking to? True, sometimes you might say to yourself, What do you think. You’re right, people like to talk with themselves more than with anyone else. If you ask me, even when you’re talking with someone else, when it comes down to it you’re really talking with yourself.

In any case, I could barely breathe from curiosity. Especially because he was talking about a new and better world, something I believed in too. All at once he raised his voice, he almost shouted:

“It’s nonsense! Not us, not them. It’s all nonsense, pal.”

I climbed up onto the toilet, grabbed hold of the top of the partition, pulled myself up carefully till my chin was over the top, and what did I see? Someone was standing at the toilet, but alone. His mask was pulled away from his face onto the top of his head, so from above all I could see was the mask. All the more so because he was stooping over and rocking, with one hand on his fly, looking downward, and muttering downward so it seemed:

“Socialism, capitalism, none of it’s worth a damn thing. You’re the power. The world stands on you. Though what are you? Well, what are you? You sit there inside our pants. Nice cozy place. A refuge, you might say. Many a time people would hide there themselves if they could. And there’s plenty to hide from, that’s the truth. Relax now, otherwise I won’t be able to piss.”

Pardon me, but it’s just us men talking. I’d never say that in front of a woman. I wanted to see his face but he never once looked up. Actually he seemed to lean over even further. True, I wouldn’t have recognized his face either. I didn’t even know where we were, where we were playing, who for, who all those people were, they were all wearing masks. On top of that, they’d brought us there under a tarpaulin and forbidden us to look out.

My hands started to hurt from holding on to the top of the partition, and my arms were getting tired. I let myself down, as carefully as before, first onto the toilet, then from there I stepped down quiet as anything to the floor. I wondered if I should flush the toilet, let him know someone was in the next stall. But my curiosity held me back. You know how hard it is to know even about yourself, what you’d do in a situation like that. I decided I’d just give a cough. So I coughed, but it didn’t have any effect. He even kind of raised his voice a little:

“You sure have a nice life. Your only worry is which pants leg to be in. And even when you get old and decrepit, no one’s going to throw you out. We should all be so lucky — I won’t say who the luck should come from. Me, you know, I can’t even be sure of tomorrow. I can’t be sure of anyone’s words. Everyone’s wearing a mask, how can you tell whose words are whose. Which ones mean one thing or another. Which ones are good wishes and which ones are judging you. You have to beware of every mask. What, are you looking at something? The future maybe? You don’t have eyes. You’d like to see me? It’s not worth the trouble. I’m standing at the toilet and because of you I can’t take a piss. Let me tell you, people have to do too much thinking. You don’t know everything, if only you did. There are times a person doesn’t feel like living. But what do you care about that. You only have one thing on your mind. Though supposedly it’s actually my mind. But truth be told, what does it mean to say ‘mine’? Eh? That it’s in my head? That doesn’t prove it’s mine. I mean, I’ve got you in my pants, but are you mine? I’ve never felt that way. More like I’m yours. I’m attached to you so there’s someone to carry you, move you here and there, take you out, hold you up, put you back and so on. Maybe it’d be better if we were separate. What do you think? If we were only occasionally together. Maybe if that were the case I’d want something more. Because being a man from morning till night isn’t as enjoyable as you think. Maybe for you. But what do you know. You squirt your load and you’re happy, whereas me, I have to do everything else, it all comes down to me. Not to mention that I have other responsibilities. Conferences, meetings, consultations, councils. Going from one to another, all day long, sometimes even into the night. To the point that I even forget you’re there, that’s what my life is like. A walking contradiction, you might say. Do you know what a walking contradiction is? The idea that you and I are one. That’s a load of baloney. If the new and better world is supposed to be that way too, I’m out of there. Or maybe I’m already long gone from it, what do you think? So what if I’m pissing? That’s no proof of existence. And as you see, without your say-so I can’t even do that. Just relax. Oh, you … I know what you’re after. I even understand you. But get real. With a mask? Do you know who might be behind the mask? You don’t. And neither do I. Do without for now. We’ll have to get through this ball somehow or other.”

In the end I flushed and left the stall. He came out right after me, but his mask was already on.