The Discovery Of Slowness. Sten Nadolny

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СКАЧАТЬ that was over. The sea appeared white, like boiling milk, and waves rolled in large enough for entire villages to find room in them.

      Suddenly he was seized by two fists that didn’t belong to the storm. They dispatched him below deck with a speed equivalent to that of free fall. A curse was the only comment. In the midshipmen’s berth the boatman’s bucket had tipped over after all, despite its wide bottom. John felt as sick as it smelled. ‘Still,’ he said as he reeled over along with the bucket, ‘it’s the right thing for me.’ He sucked his lungs full of air to keep out any possible dejection. He was a born sailor: he knew that for certain.

      ‘That’s the best wind one can have,’ said the Dutchman. ‘The Portuguese norther, always beautiful from aft; we’re doing better than six knots.’ If anyone else had said it, John wouldn’t have understood the new word, but the Dutchman knew that his listener understood everything when he was allowed pauses. Besides, they both had a great deal of time on their hands because the sailor had sprained his ankle during the storm.

      The weather remained sunny. Off Cape Finisterre they saw a huge mast drifting by, covered with crabs, already three years on the way if the captain was right.

      At night they were approaching a brightly lit beacon. ‘That’s Burlings,’ John heard. An island with castle and lighthouse. Then he noticed something that reminded him of Dr Orme’s theories.

      The beam rotated round the top of the tower like every single revolving light. John saw the beam wandering, but he also perceived that the light went on being visible on the right side even as the beam was again swinging back to the left, and that it was still on the left side when it turned up again on the right. Present and past – what had Dr Orme said about that? The light was most fully in the present when, flaring up, it met John’s eye directly. Whatever else he saw must have been lit up before and now shone only within his own eye – a light of the past.

      Just then the Dutchman came up. ‘Burlings, Burlings,’ he grumbled. ‘The island is called Berlengas.’ John still stared at the lighthouse. ‘I see a trace rather than a point,’ he explained, ‘and I see the present only when it flares up.’ Suddenly he had a sad suspicion: perhaps his eye was lagging behind by one whole cycle? Then the flare-up would come not from the present but from the previous rotation.

      John’s explanation took a lot of time; it became too long even for the Dutchman. ‘I see this different,’ he interjected. ‘A sailor has to trust his eyes as much as his arms, or …’ He fell silent. Then he picked up his crutches and hauled his swollen leg gingerly below deck. John stayed above. Berlengas! The first foreign shore beyond England. He was doing well again. He put his clenched fist on the plank-sheer, solemnly. Now everything would be different; a little today, all of it tomorrow.

      Gwendolyn Traill was thin, with pale arms and a white neck, and so thoroughly wrapped in billowing garments that John couldn’t make out anything specific underneath. She wore white stockings; her eyes were blue, her hair reddish. She spoke hurriedly. John noted that she didn’t like this herself but felt it was necessary. In this she resembled Tom Barker. She had freckles. John observed the hair on her neck above her lace collar. It was time for him to cohabit with a woman in order to be informed. Later, as a midshipman, he would often be teased for being late, but in this matter he wanted to have a head start. Father Traill was saying something just then; John hoped it was no question. He was talking about a grave. ‘What kind of grave?’ asked John. He wanted to pay attention at mealtimes and make a good impression, because Mr Traill would write to Father about everything.

      Gwendolyn laughed and Father Traill threw her a glance. The grave of Fielding. John answered that he didn’t know him and that altogether he didn’t know much about Portugal.

      All that burring and hissing that came out of people’s mouths here was most unpleasant. People in Lisbon talked as if they would burn their lips with every word they didn’t get out at once and they blew out a lot of air before and after each of them. At the same time, they fanned and waved with their hands. When John got lost and found himself at the aqueduct near the Alcántara, he asked to be shown the way. But instead of pointing in one direction which he could have followed without trouble to the Traills’ house, they gesticulated. He found himself in the square in front of the monastery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Of course, they were Catholic here; that was to be expected. Not expected, however, was that they would poke fun at the contrast between mighty England and helpless John. After dinner, the Traill parents retired. John was alone with Gwendolyn. She talked about Fielding. Her freckled nostrils flared; her neck reddened: he didn’t know Fielding! The great English poet! She got herself properly inflated, as though she would rise at once like a Montgolfier balloon if no one held on to her. John said: ‘I know great English sailors.’ Gwendolyn had never heard of James Cook. She laughed; one could always see her teeth, and her dress rustled because she moved around so much. John learned that Fielding had gout. How can I get her to shut up, he wondered, and how do I manage to cohabit with her? He began to prepare a question but was sidetracked because Gwendolyn never paused. He would have loved to listen to her for a long time if only she had kept silent for a single moment. She talked about someone called Tom Jones. Probably another grave. ‘Let’s go there,’ he said, and seized her arms. But that was wrong thinking again. Since he was already holding her, he should logically not have talked about going and should have kissed her instead. But he didn’t know how that worked. All that had to be planned better. He let go of her. Gwendolyn vanished with a few quick words, which were perhaps not meant to be understood. John knew only one thing: he had reflected too long. That was the disturbing effect of the echo Dr Orme had mentioned; he hung on too long both to the words he heard and to his own words. But a person who always kept on wondering about his own formulations surely couldn’t persuade a woman!

      In the afternoon he went for a walk with the Traill family through dark alleys alive with the sound of bells. They came upon a hill where they saw houses freely exposed to the light, white like the faces of brand-new clocks, roughly built and without ornaments, and the land around them not green but pale red. Mr Traill told of a great earthquake many years ago. Gwendolyn walked ahead of them, moving daintily. She got all kinds of things going inside John’s body without even looking at him.

      But time passed, and the opportunity had slipped by. ‘It’s all right to think things over,’ Father used to say, ‘but not for so long that the offer is made to somebody else.’ A man lagging behind by a full cycle commanded too narrow a present; thin was the line between land and sea. Perhaps he should try to catch the right moments like a ball: if he applied the fixed look in time, these moments would be ready to be grabbed when the opportunity arose and wouldn’t escape him. All a matter of practice!

      ‘Soon Lisbon will celebrate the Feast of St Mark,’ Mr Traill told them. ‘They’ll bring a bull to the holy altar, a Bible between his horns. If he goes wild, the city will be facing hard times; if he holds still, everything will be fine; then he’ll be butchered.’

      Gwendolyn was not completely out of reach. Sometimes she gave him a look. John sensed, beneath all the impatience she imposed on herself, also a kind of patience, perhaps a purely feminine patience he couldn’t get at. If he had been unquestionably a sailor and a courageous man, Gwendolyn would have granted him a lot of time. As if to reinforce that thought, a massive three-decker on the Foz da Tejo fired off an interminable salute, which the coastal batteries answered. Gwendolyn and the sea: so far, the two didn’t go together. They were like two chairs, and if one sat down between them one fell on one’s behind. So he should become an officer first, and defend England, and then find a woman to live with. Once Bonaparte had been defeated, there’d still be time. Gwendolyn would wait and show him everything. Before then there’d be no point in attracting attention. In any case, his ship was to leave in two days.

      ‘Well, then,’ Gwendolyn said unexpectedly after dinner, ‘let’s go to the poet’s grave.’ She СКАЧАТЬ