My hands still smelled of smoked whitefish. An intense smell when you’ve just woken up, greasy and intimate. My feelings crawled through me like insects or crustaceans. My hands had an obscene smell, as if I’d done something during the night I shouldn’t have done. I tried to tell myself I had to get up and go to the lake and wash; I’d looked forward to greeting the morning down by the water. But the night weighed heavy on me. I couldn’t push it away. Instead, I had to follow the crooked paths toward it again, return to the dream images and the mirages. Everything had to be clear and certain inside me, those crustaceans had to stop crawling through me before I could get up. Without deluding myself, I also wanted to be able to feel that I’d come to Mervas for my own sake, and not to see Kosti.
I hadn’t dreamt only about Kosti during the night, I’d had other dreams too. One of them was about the boy, a nightmare. I recognized it; I’d had it before. It was one of those nightmares with different variations on the same theme. The most common dream was about animals, various animals that I’d neglected, that I’d forgotten to take care of.
This one had been about the boy. I’d completely forgotten that he existed and suddenly I realized with painful clarity that he was inside the decrepit shed outside and that no one had been in there for months. I knew I had to hurry, that I had to go out there at once, but different things kept interceding. People showed up, I had to go away on trips, and time kept passing while my awareness of his being out there became more and more impossible to endure. Finally, I stood before the crooked door where tall, sharp-toothed nettles grew. I had to take a big step over the nettles to push the door open. It was dark inside. The small aperture barely let in any light. The dirt floor was black and cold, and I knew it was a death room. The boy was tucked inside an old wood trunk attached to the wall, and it was utterly incomprehensible that I’d let myself forget about him. The last time I’d been there, I’d made the bed nicely and fed him. The room had been entirely different then. The whole winter had gone by and I hadn’t even thought about him, about his existence.
The lid of the trunk was open and I leaned into its darkness. There was still something inside it, I could see that. But if it was still the boy, he had become incredibly small, almost like a bird. He showed vague signs of life, a scent, a breath. He seemed to be disintegrating, and I didn’t dare touch him. I couldn’t; everything was revolting and disgusting. I didn’t understand how I could do this to him and felt afraid of what people would say if they knew. The only thing I knew was that I quickly had to find him some milk, that I had to feed him milk through a small tube.
When I came home again to fetch the milk, and perhaps a medicine dropper if I could find one, things, people, events blocked my way, and after a while, I’d forgotten what I was supposed to do. A long time passed and when I once again remembered the boy in the old trunk out there, all I wanted to do was press my hands against my eyes and ears and not know about it, I didn’t want to be part of it any longer. Shameful notions of “removing him” from there, of getting rid of him, burned through me, licked at me like tongues of fire.
As if walking against a hard headwind, I made my way to the shed, which was now even more decrepit. Part of the roof had collapsed, and daylight fell through the hole like through a large, ragged wound. The trunk was closed. I opened it slowly and immediately noticed something among the rags on the bottom, but this time it was barely moving.
June 18
I am always walking in my own shadow. My shadow falls on everything I see and everything I touch. My shadow is heavy with my presence, the way a rain cloud is heavy with water. I don’t understand how other people do it, how they manage to be human.
Yesterday it started raining, and that was just as well. I couldn’t do anything but stay on the sleeping pad in the car and stare out the window while the drops beat against the roof and my thoughts dug their paths and tunnels through me. I’m walking around with a longing in a constant state of alert, an impatient, chafing state of waiting. It is a longing for love and I don’t know what it wants with me, I don’t see how it could be useful. It is digging a hole through me, digging a hole to give my emptiness room to grow. I know my life cannot be shared by anyone; to burden another person with my issues would double the guilt and pain for me. If I can’t even be close to myself, how could anyone else? And still, this voice inside me is alive, this ripping longing for love so strong I’m beginning to think it’s bigger than me, bigger than my own life.
Today I emerged from my torpor and went outside. In the morning, I followed a path leading to the village. The path opened onto a small beach, which was clearly man-made with its gravel, sand, and pebbles. The natural shores around the lake consisted of bogs and impenetrable swampy areas. The lake was small, perhaps a hundred yards wide. But there’s something about water that makes you feel good just by looking at it. When I stepped out on the little beach and stood there looking at the surface, I suddenly felt moved. It is difficult for me to describe why, but small lakes like this one in the middle of the woods, they lie there like a caress, a soft caress. There’s something open and forgiving about them; they possess a quiet healing quality.
The surface of the water was so still that the cloudy sky was reflected in it. It was as if the lake were calling me. Come inside, it said. Let me surround you. I took off my boots and my pants and took a few steps out into the water. It was icy cold; nevertheless I stood still in it and let the cold push and pull at my feet and shins. I rinsed my hands and wet my face, then I quickly ran out of the water and pulled off the rest of my clothes. Naked, I stepped into the water again and it was as if I were meeting someone in it, as if I were seeing a lover. The water had awakened a desire in me; I washed my armpits, my crotch, I rinsed my face again and again, pulling my wet fingers through my hair: I pulled and pulled so it felt like dull plow blades against my scalp. The water was so cold it hurt, but I had been seized by a thirst for it, I couldn’t get enough of it; the cold, soft water would make me come alive. It would awaken me, rinse the dirt off me. I would emerge hard and clean, shining like a pebble by the edge of the water. I stood there scooping up the water, splashing it over me, thinking that water really was the origin of life, everything was made from it, and I wanted every pore in my skin to drink and be full.
When I finally got out, both my arms and legs were numb from the cold and my fingers ached. But the depths of me felt remarkably warm, delighted in being alive. Something had begun stirring inside me, a desire to be part of the world.
But the euphoria I had felt by the lake in the morning quickly dissipated. I guess I can’t handle that much happiness. Little by little, the day filled me with gloom; darkness arose in me like an endless, gray December dusk. I walked around aimlessly searching for the cabin. It hadn’t been visible from the lake as I’d expected, but I knew it had to be somewhere close to the water west of the beach where I’d been.
In the birch forest I had seen when I came to Mervas were plenty of paths leading here and there, a tangle of tracks among the rubble and the ruins. This was where the outdoor dance floor had been; the little kiosk was still standing, its windows broken, garbage visible inside. Fifty years ago, Lilldolly had danced here with Arnold and the men from the bachelors’ barracks; it wasn’t difficult to see where the stage and the dance floor had been. It was as if the forest wanted to hold on to the memory; grass grew here, budding buttercups and red campion.