The Discovery Of Slowness. Sten Nadolny

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СКАЧАТЬ were growing on Fielding’s grave, as on the graves of all people who had amounted to something in life. That this was so John knew from the shepherd in Spilsby.

      He looked at Gwendolyn, determined to prove that he could do this in all freedom without stammering or his ears turning red. Suddenly he found himself putting his arms round her neck and felt his nose being tickled by a strand of hair. Again, clearly, an entire piece of the act was missing. Gwendolyn’s eyes grew anxious, and she pushed her hands between his breast and hers. The situation was somewhat confused. However it was, he felt caught in an opportunity and so decided to ask his much-rehearsed question: ‘Would you agree to sleep with me?’

      ‘No!’ said Gwendolyn, and she slipped out of his arms.

      So he had been wrong. John was relieved. He had asked his question. The answer was negative; that was all right. He took it to be a hint that now he really had to decide in favour of the sea. Now he wanted ocean and war.

      On the way back, Gwendolyn looked suddenly strange, her face flattish, her forehead wide, her nostrils clearly marked. Once again John reflected on why the human face had to look the way it did at all and not completely different.

      He had also learned from the shepherd in Spilsby that in this world women wanted something quite different from men.

      Seen from the harbour wall, Lisbon shone like a new Jerusalem. This harbour – it was truly the world! By contrast, Hull on the Humber was only a threadbare landing-place for sloops in need of help. All kinds of ships were here, three-decked, with golden names on their forecastles. Through such artful slanted windows John would one day scan the horizon as a captain.

      Their own ship was small. But it floated by itself like all the others and had a captain just like the largest ships. The sailors came on board late, rowed to the ship by natives. Some of them were so drunk that they had to be heaved over the rail by the winch. Father had now and then taken a glass too many, Stopford a few more, but what these sailors did to themselves had to be called by a different name. They fell into their bunks and didn’t emerge again until after the anchors had been weighed. Earlier, one of them, who was less drunk than the others, showed John his back: the brown skin was furrowed, criss-crossed by white scars carved out by a belt; they looked like craters and cliffs, so many pieces of skin had been torn off and grown back wrong. The hair on his back, originally of even density, had adjusted itself to the landscape and formed small groves and clearings.

      The proprietor of the exhibit said, ‘This is the navy. For every little shit you get the whip.’ Could one die of this punishment? ‘And how!’ said the sailor.

      John now knew that there was something worse than storms. Moreover, there was alcohol, and one had to keep up with that – it was all part of bravery. They already passed him a glass: ‘Try it! We call this wind.’ It was a thin, fluid, sticky sauce, red and poisonous. With strenuous nonchalance John got down two swallows, then listened within himself. He determined that earlier he had been in a somewhat dejected mood. He drained the glass. Now things looked different.

      The stories he was hearing about the navy were surely not for the brave!

      They travelled more than two hundred nautical miles west, out into the Atlantic, to keep from having to run against the Portuguese norther. Besides, this allowed them to evade the British men-o’-war lurking along the coast, eager to replenish their crews with men from presumably oversupplied merchant ships. A few on board had already been through that; they had been captured like wild animals, had gone through battles, and had escaped again at the first opportunity. They were simply afraid, John thought.

      Ten more days and they were again in the English Channel. John was now permitted to eat with the captain, who, besides this honour, gave him grapes and oranges. John also learned from him that every ship had a maximum speed which it could not exceed even with the most favourable wind, even if it were equipped with a thousand sails.

      John watched the work on the ship very closely. He let himself be taught how to tie knots. He noted a difference: in training, the name of the game was how fast one could get the knot tied; in real situations, how firmly it held. John watched the sails closely to see which manoeuvres actually required speed. In tacking, it was clear: the ship’s loss of momentum was greater the longer its sails stood against the wind, and so work on the braces had to be fast. There were more such situations. John decided to memorise them in the course of time, like the tree from below.

      Now it was up to Father. He had to write to Captain Lawford and see to it that his son would get a place as a volunteer. That he would do this was not very likely. There was still a second possibility: that Matthew would show up after all and take John along.

      John was home again. Matthew continued to be lost. Nobody liked to talk about it, and did so only to dissuade John from going to sea. Just before the end of the summer holidays, the Franklins assembled round the large dining-room table. Father allowed the family to contribute to some decisions. He himself said the most important things, and the others said only as much as was required, giving the impression that they had said nothing.

      ‘To sea? Once and never again,’ Grandfather said in a firm voice. Of course, he had to be reminded that he had never gone to sea.

      But John needed no support, because something unexpected had happened: Father had changed his mind. Suddenly – as the only one in the family – he was most enthusiastic about a maritime career for John and went over to his side. It also seemed that John didn’t have to convince Mother any longer. She looked so encouraging and cheerful; perhaps Father’s change of mind had been her work. She didn’t have to speak, anyway, not even in a family council. John was too confused for a time to be able to feel pleasure.

      Thomas said nothing; he only smiled slyly. And his little sister Isabella wept loudly, why nobody knew. With that the matter was settled.

      ‘If you don’t understand an order at sea’ – Thomas spoke slowly – ‘then simply say, “Aye aye, sir,” and jump overboard. It would definitely not be wrong.’ John concluded that he didn’t have to think about such remarks.

      He wanted to tell the news to Sherard. Sherard would be pleased about it, he knew that, but he couldn’t find him. The estate manager said he was working in the fields with his parents and other people from Ing Ming. He didn’t want to say where. He didn’t want any interruptions during working hours.

      It had grown late. The coach was waiting.

      Just one more year of school. For someone like John that was almost as good as nothing.

       5

       Copenhagen, 1801

      ‘John’s eyes and ears,’ Dr Orme wrote to the captain, ‘retain every impression for a peculiarly long time. His apparent slowness of mind and his inertia are nothing but the result of exaggerated care taken by his brain in contemplating every kind of detail. His enormous patience …’ He crossed out the last phrase.

      ‘John is dependable with figures and knows how to overcome obstacles with unorthodox planning.’

      The navy, thought Dr Orme, will be torture for John. But he didn’t write that down. After all, the navy was the addressee.

      John knows no self-pity, he thought.

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