One Man`s Bible

59

You are in the military port of Toulon on the Mediterranean coast, a place you had learned about in geography lessons in middle school.

You're sitting in a big tent erected on the harbor for the book fair.

Like the hundred or so invited writers seated behind rows of bookstalls, you're next to your own book, holding a pen and waiting for book buyers who want a signature. But all the people passing by are looking at the books and don't notice the writers whose names are hanging there on the placards. For writers, it's not the same as with singing stars. Hysterical fans queuing for autographs mob Johnny Hallyday when he gets off the helicopter, and his bodyguards and the police have to yell and shove to keep order. You are beyond the pairs of roving eyes, and people look but don't see you. They pass right in front of you, sometimes stopping to leaf through the books with your name printed on the cover. But what does your name signify? People inevitably seek self-identification in books, the light from their eyes is refracted from the book to a person's heart.

Luckily, you don't have anything to do, and have time to amuse yourself by taking in all these pairs of worried, or blank, searching eyes. A good-looking young woman is moving in the crowd, her chestnut hair casually swept into a bun, but there is a deep frown on her forehead and a startling sadness in her face. Her big eyelids droop wearily, probably from a sleepless night. Maybe she couldn't get the man she was in bed with to stay, but, in the case of such a fine-looking woman, it was more likely that the man wasn't able to get her to stay. Otherwise, she would not be on her own, wandering at the book fair early on Sunday morning. She eventually comes over to your stall, but picks up a book by someone else alongside, then, without looking at the introduction on the back cover, puts it down, then leafs through another book. She is not thinking of buying a book, maybe she doesn't know what she wants to do. She puts down the book and picks up your book, but she is looking somewhere else. Her eyes eventually return to your book, the book in her hand, and turn to the back cover, but, without reading more than a couple of sentences of the brief back-cover blurb, she puts it down, not noticing that the author is right next to her. She is right in front of you, the deep frown still on her forehead. The sad expression delicately roaming her face is wonderful to look at, and is more alive than any book.

What sort of people would read your book? When you wrote it, you couldn't have imagined that you would one day be sitting at this seaside book fair, facing potential readers. These people don't need to be concerned about, or go to the extent of buying, your perplexities. Luckily, the person selling the books is the owner of the stall, and you are merely a live decoration. Having lost your vanity too early, you are too much of a bystander, you are just an idler. Anyway, there are so many books in the world, and they are still being mass-produced, so whether there is one more or one less is not important.

You don't rely on selling your books for a living, and it is because you don't make a living from it that you wrote it. Still, this is a book you had to write.

You clip the pen in the top pocket of your jacket, get from the proprietor a few sheets of writing paper, which you stuff into your coat pocket, then set off for a stroll around the harbor. The bright sunshine in Toulon seems to resonate, yet the cafes, bars, restaurants, and outside seafood stalls along the little street by the old port are virtually empty. However, this Sunday, on a main street into town, there are crowds at the morning market where they are selling all sorts of everyday items ranging from fruit and vegetables to clothing. There are large numbers of Arab vendors, and also a Chinese take-out kitchen. These people do good business, and this probably annoys the extreme-right National Front municipal government. In the center of town, they, too, have a book fair, and it is having a slugging match with the book fair organized by the leftist regional government that has invited you. You can't escape politics, can't escape it anywhere. Suddenly, you sense Margarethe's anxiety, it is as palpable as the bright resonating sunshine, and you can feel it by snapping your fingers.

You have no intention of going to see what new things they have at their book fair. The stereotypical tunes of nationalism are the same everywhere, so you go back to the harbor and sit in a cafe to write something.

Humans are frail, but what is so bad about being frail? And yours is precisely a frail life. The Superman aspires to replace God, and is fiercely arrogant in his ignorance, so you may as well be a frail, ordinary person. The almighty God created a world such as this without properly planning for the future. You do not plan anything, do not rack your brains thinking about futile things, but simply live in the present, not knowing how it will be from this instant to the next.

But aren't these instant-by-instant transformations beautiful? Nobody can escape death, and death provides an end, otherwise you would become an old fogy who, devoid of compassion or shame, would perpetrate heinous deeds. Death is an end that can't be resisted, but the wonder of being human lies before that end, so squirm as you transform.

You are not Buddha or a reincarnated bodhisattva possessing three bodies and six faces, and capable of going through seventy-two transformations. Music, mathematics, and Buddha are all existences born of nonexistence. The concept of numbers, the organization of music, and the variations in scale, pitch, and beat, Buddha or God, and beauty are all abstractions drawn from nature's myriad phenomena that defy description. All of these are intangible in their natural form. This self of yours, too, is an existence born of nonexistence.

Saying that it exists brings it into existence, and saying that it doesn't exist turns it back into a mass of inchoate nebula. Is this self that you are striving to create so very unique? Or, in other words, do you have a self? You squirm in limitless karma, but where is all this karma? Karma, just like frustration, is your creation. So, there's no need for you to busy yourself with creating this self, and even less to give birth to existence from nonexistence just in order to identify with that self. You may as well return to the source of life: this instant that is full of life. What is eternal is this instant. You perceive, and, therefore, you exist, otherwise you are nebulous unconsciousness. So, live in this instant and feel this gentle midautumn sunlight!

The leaves in the park are turning yellow, and, looking down from your window, you see the ground covered in fallen leaves that have become dry but have not yet rotted. You are getting old, but wouldn't want to return to childhood times; the noisy children you see down below in the parking lot have no idea of what they want to do. Youth is precious, but by the time those children know what they want, they will also be old. You do not want to go through all the torment a second time, of struggling against vanity, anxiety, uncertainty, and chaos. You do not envy them, but you envy the freshness of their lives. However, the freshness of life of childhood ignorance is lacking in that limpidity of consciousness and self-awareness, and you deeply appreciate this instant in time and this solitude that is free of all sham. This limpidity, like the bright shapes reflected in a murmuring autumn stream, evokes a calm in your inner mind. You will not again charge forth to judge or to establish anything. Waves ripple, and leaves tremble on trees, then fall, so, for you, death should be a natural occurrence. You are heading toward it, but before you come right up to it, there is time enough to stage a play for a duel with Death. You have plenty of time to enjoy to the full this bit of life that remains to you, your body is still capable of feeling, and you still have lust. You want a woman, a woman whose thinking is as lucid as yours, a woman who is free of the bondage of the world. You want a woman who rejects the ties of a home, and does not bear children, a woman who does not follow vanity and fashion, a natural and totally wanton woman. You want a woman who does not want to appropriate anything from your person, a woman who will, at this instant of time, enjoy with you the joys of being a fish in water. But where is such a woman to be found? A woman as solitary as you, yet contented with being solitary like you, will fuse your solitude with hers in sexual gratification; it will fuse in caresses and one another's looks, while you are examining and exploring one another. Where is such a woman to be found?