The Discovery Of Slowness. Sten Nadolny

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      In the covered passage next to the Franklin house all noise was forbidden. The shouting brought Mother Hannah to the scene, for she was worried about Father’s mood. John’s enemies noted that she walked and talked just like John. She, too, couldn’t get angry and so let her opponents become insolent. Mother demanded the ball back and they threw it to her but so violently that she couldn’t catch it. The boys had grown big; they didn’t obey a grown-up when she was slow. Now came Father Franklin. Whom did he scold? Mother. Whom did he thrash? John. He told an astonished Sherard never to let himself be seen there again. That’s how it went.

      The fixed look was well suited to reflection. At first John saw only the market cross. Then more was added round the centre: steps, houses, carriages; he surveyed them all without letting his eye leap or race. At the same time, a vast vision about all misfortune formed inside his head, composing itself like a painting, with steps and houses and the horizon forming the background.

      In this place they knew him and were aware of how hard he had to strain. He would rather be among strangers who might possibly be more like himself. There had to be such people – perhaps far, far away. And there he might be able to learn more easily how to be fast. Besides, he very much wanted to see the ocean. Here he would make nothing of himself. John was determined: that very night. Mother couldn’t protect him, nor could he protect her, and he just brought her grief. ‘Nothing about me is simple,’ John whispered. ‘I’ll change and then everything will be different.’ He had to get away, to go east, to the shore where the wind came from. He was already beginning to look forward to it.

      Someday he’d come back like Tommy in the book, quick and lissome and clothed in rich garments. He’d enter the church and shout loudly ‘Stop!’ in the middle of the service. All those who had hurt him or his mother would leave the village on their own, and Father would crash down and lose his head.

      Towards morning, he sneaked out of the house. He didn’t walk through the square past the market cross but cut between the stables, heading straight into the fields. They would search for him, so he had to remember to cover his tracks. He passed Ing Ming. He didn’t want to wake Sherard, for he was poor and would want to come along, yet he was too small to be taken on a ship. John reached the stables of Hundleby. It was still damp and cool, and the light was dim. He was eager to know about the strange world beyond, and his plans were well thought out.

      In a narrow drainage ditch he waded as far as the stream Lymn. They’d think he had gone in the direction of Horncastle and not of the sea. He then wandered northwards in a wide arc round Spilsby. When the sun came up he groped through a ford across the River Steeping, shoes in hand. Now he was already far east of the village. Possibly he might still meet the shepherd in the hill country, but the man slept into the late morning, true to his view that dawn belonged to the beasts of the forest. The shepherd had time and he thought a great deal, mostly with clenched fists. John liked him, but today it would be better not to run into him. Perhaps he’d mix in. A grown-up would always have different views about running away than a child, even if he was only a shepherd, a slugabed, and a rebel.

      Laboriously, John trudged through woods and fields, avoiding every road, crawling through fences and hedgerows. When he had wandered in the dark woods and had got out of the forest through the undergrowth, the sun seized him, first with its light, then with its warmth, ever more strongly. Thorns scratched his legs. He was happy as never before because he was now all on his own. Far away, gunshots from a hunting party resounded among the tree trunks. He swung in an arc through the meadowland, for he didn’t want to become their target.

      John was in search of a place where nobody would find him too slow. Such a place could still be far away, however.

      He owned one single shilling, a present from Matthew the sailor. In case of need, he could buy some roast meat and greens with it. For a shilling one could also ride for a few miles in the mail-coach, if one sat outside on the roof. But up there he wouldn’t be able to hold on too well or duck his head in time when they got to low archways. In any case, best of all was the sea and a ship.

      Perhaps he could be used as a helmsman, but then the others would have to have confidence in him. A few months ago they had got lost on a ramble through the woods. Only he, John, had observed the gradual changes, the position of the sun, the rising of the ground – he knew how to get back. He scratched a drawing on the forest ground, but they didn’t even want to look at it. They made hasty decisions which they overturned just as quickly. John couldn’t get back on his own, for they wouldn’t have let him go. Worried, he slunk behind the little kings of the schoolyard, who owed their standing to their speediness and now didn’t know how to go on. If it hadn’t been for the Scotsman driving his cattle, they would have had to spend the night outdoors.

      Now the sun was at its height. In the distance, a flock of sheep dotted the north side of a hill. The ditches became more and more frequent, the forests thinner. He looked far out into the fens and discerned windmills, tree-lined avenues, and manor houses. The wind freshened, the flocks of seagulls became larger. With slow deliberation, he vaulted fence after fence. Cows came up to look him over, nodding and swaying.

      He lay down behind a hedgerow. Under his closed lids the sun filled his eyes with a red fire. Sherard, he thought, will feel cheated. He opened his eyes to keep from becoming sad.

      If he could just stay there and gaze upon the land like a stone, for century after century, while grassy plains became forests and swamps turned into villages or tilled land. Nobody would ask him a question. He’d be recognised as human only when he stirred.

      Here behind the hedgerow nothing could be heard of the earth’s population except the sound of chickens and dogs in the distance, and now and then a gunshot. Perhaps he’d meet a robber in the forest. Then his shilling would be gone.

      John got up and walked through the marshy meadows. The sun was already dropping toward the horizon, far behind him above Spilsby. His feet hurt; his tongue was sticky. He circled round a village. The ditches to be waded across or jumped over became ever wider, and John was a poor jumper. At the same time, there were no more hedges. He followed a road, although it led toward a village whose church looked just like St James’s. The picture of his parents’ home, and of supper, was easily shoved aside. Despite his hunger, he thought with amusement that they’d now sit and wait, they who couldn’t wait, collecting remarks for his ears which they now couldn’t get rid of.

      The village was called Ingoldmells. The sun had set. A girl with a bundle on her head disappeared into a house without noticing him. Then, beyond the village, John saw what he had been looking for.

      A leaden-gray, immensely extended plain lay there, dirty and foggy, like rolled-out dough, a bit menacing, the way a faraway star would look when seen up close. John breathed deeply. His feet fell into a stumbling trot, and he ran toward that rolled-out thing as fast as he could. Now he had found the place that was all his own. The sea was his friend. He sensed that, even if at the moment it didn’t look very pretty.

      It grew dark. John searched for the water. He found only mud and sand and thin rivulets; he had to wait. Stretched out behind a boat-shed, he stared at the blackish horizon until he fell asleep. During the night he woke up, wrapped in fog, chilled and hungry. Now the sea had come; he heard it. He walked towards it and, bending over, dipped his face into it a few fingers from the line where the land merged with the sea. But where that line was could not be precisely made out. Sometimes he’d be sitting in the sea, sometimes on land. That was food for thought. Where did that much sand come from? Where did the sea disappear to at low tide? He was happy and his teeth were chattering. Then he went back to the shed and tried to sleep.

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