The Discovery Of Slowness. Sten Nadolny

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СКАЧАТЬ a ship? Among the black, smelly, mouldy nets, a fisherman was hammering away on the bottom of his upturned boat. John needed to think carefully how to ask his question and to try it out a little first, so the fisherman wouldn’t lose patience at once. Far in the distance he saw a ship. The sails shimmered in the morning sun with many varied reflections. The hull had already dropped below the surface of the sea. The man saw John’s glance, half closed his eyes, and examined the ship’s sails. ‘That’s a frigate, a man-o’-war.’ A somewhat surprising sentence. Then he went on hammering. John looked at him and asked his question. ‘Please, how can I get on a ship?’

      ‘In Hull,’ said the fisherman, and he pointed north with his hammer, ‘or in Skegness in the south, but only with a lot of luck.’ With one quick glance he looked John over from head to toe, with interest, holding his hammer still in mid-air. No further words escaped his mouth.

      The wind tugged and shoved. John trudged southwards. He’d certainly be lucky, so it had to be Skegness. He hardly ever took his eyes off the waves eating incessantly into the land. Now and then he rested on one of the wooden pilings set up at regular intervals to hamper the sea’s work on the sand. He looked on as new channels, pools, and holes constantly opened up, soon to be transformed back again into smooth, shining surfaces. Triumphantly the gulls screeched, ‘That’s right!’ or ‘Go to it!’ Best not to beg at all. Straight onto a ship: there’d be food there. Once they had taken him, he’d travel three times round the world before they could send him back home again. The houses of Skegness were already shimmering behind the sand dunes. He was weak but confident. He sat down, and for a while he stared at the fine-ribbed sand and his ears took in the sound of the town’s church bells.

      The landlady at the inn in Skegness saw the way John Franklin moved, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘He can’t move another inch, that one. He’s half starved.’ John found himself seated at a table with a rough cloth and a plate with a slab on it that looked like thick-sliced bread but was made up of small pieces of meat. He was allowed to keep his shilling in his pocket. It tasted cool, sour and salty, and was to the gullet what the bells were to the ears and fine-ribbed sand to the eyes. He ate with deep pleasure, smiling through his meal, unbothered by the greedy flies. The future, too, now looked rich and beckoning; he could view it all in a single glance, like a meal arranged on a plate. Already he was off to faraway continents. He would explore and learn speed. He had found a woman who had given him food. So a good ship couldn’t be far away.

      ‘What’s this called?’ he asked, pointing his fork at the plate. ‘That’s a jellied dish,’ said the landlady. ‘Brawn, made of pig’s head. It’ll give you strength.’

      Now he had his strength, but no ship was to be found. No further luck in Skegness. Brawn, yes; frigate, no. But that couldn’t deter him. Not far off should be Gibraltar Point, and many ships passed there on the way to the Wash. He’d look around there. Perhaps he could build a raft and get himself out to the shipping-lanes; they’d see him then and have to take him along. He wandered out of the village and turned south: Gibraltar Point.

      After half an hour of walking in the glistening sand, he turned to look back. The town had already become blurred again in the haze. But just in front of it a point moved, clearly recognisable. Someone was coming very fast. John watched this movement with concern. The point became more and more oblong; it hopped up and down. That was no person on foot. Hurriedly, John stumbled to hide behind the wood pilings of one of the breakwaters, crawled flat on his stomach up to the water line, and tried to burrow in the sand. Lying on his back, he scratched the ground with his heels and elbows, hoping that the sea, with a few long, licking waves, would let him sink into the sand with only his nose showing. Now he heard barking dogs coming nearer. He held his breath and stared fixedly at the sky, woodenly, as though he himself were the breakwater. When the hunting dogs yelped in his ear, he gave up. They had him. Now he saw the horses, too.

      Thomas had ridden in from Great Steeping; Father had come from Skegness with the dogs. Thomas pulled his arm; John didn’t know why. Then Father took over. The thrashing came at once, right here under the afternoon sun.

      Thirty-six hours after starting out on his escape, John was on his way home, sitting in front of his father on that ever-swaying, jolting horse, and through swollen eyes he gazed at those distant mountains riding back with him to Spilsby as if taunting him, while hedgerows, brooks and fences which had cost him hours flickered past, never to be seen again.

      Now he had no self-confidence left. He no longer wanted to wait till he was grown up. Shut in with bread and water so he’d learn something, he didn’t want to learn another thing. Motionless, he constantly stared at the same spot, unseeing. He breathed as if the air were loam. His eyelids closed only once every hour; whatever went on, he let it pass over him. Now he no longer wanted to be quick. On the contrary, he wanted to slow down until he died. Certainly it wasn’t easy to die of sorrow without help, but he’d do it. Outside the passage of time, he would force himself to be late and soon drag himself along until they’d think him dead. The others’ day would last only an hour for him, and their hour would be minutes. The sun raced across the sky, splashed into the South Seas, zoomed over China, and rolled over all of Asia like a bowling-ball. People in the villages twittered and wriggled for half an hour; that was their day. Then they fell silent and dropped with fatigue, and the moon rowed hastily across the firmament because the sun was already panting up on the other side. He would become slower and slower. The alternations of day and night would eventually become just a flickering, and at last, since, after all, they thought him dead, his funeral. John sucked in the air and held his breath.

      His illness grew more serious, with violent stomach cramps. His body cast out whatever was inside it. His mind became cloudy. The clock of St James’s – he saw it through the window – no longer told John anything. How could he still be identified with a clock? At half past ten it was still ten o’clock. Every evening was just like the evening before. If he died now, everything would be as it had been before his birth. He would never have been.

      He was feverish, as hot as an oven! They laid mustard-plasters on him, poured tea made of mullein and linseed into him. In between he gulped down barley water. The doctor ordered the other children to stay away. They were told to eat currants and bilberries; that was supposed to prevent infection. Every four hours a spoon passed across John’s lips with a powder made of Columba root, cascara rind and dried rhubarb.

      Illness wasn’t a bad way to regain one’s perspective. Visitors came to his bedside: Father, Grandfather, then Aunt Eliza, lastly Matthew the sailor. Mother was around all the time, silent and awkward, but never helpless and always peaceful, as though she knew for sure that now everything would be all right after all. They felt superior to her, but they needed her just the same. Father won, but always in vain. He constantly assumed a lofty position, especially in his talk, even when he wanted to say something kind: ‘It won’t be long before you’re at school in Louth. There you’ll learn declensions; they’ll knock those into your head, and a lot more besides.’ Protected by his illness, John could study them all with detachment. Grandfather was hard of hearing. He regarded anyone who lisped or mumbled as a provocateur. And anyone who dared to understand what a mumbler said was a traitor: ‘That’s how he gets into the habit.’ During this lecture, John was allowed to see his pocket watch. On its richly decorated face, the watch bore a Bible quotation starting with ‘Blessed are they …’ It was in a crabbed script. Meanwhile, Grandfather told him that when he was a boy he had run away from home to the seashore. He, too, had been caught. The report ended as abruptly as it had begun. Grandfather touched John’s forehead and left.

      Aunt Eliza described her journey from Theddlethorpe All Saints, where she lived, to Spilsby, a trip on which she had seen nothing. Still, her speech droned on like an unravelling kite-string. Listening to Aunt Eliza, one could learn that when people talk too fast the content becomes as superfluous as the speed. John closed his eyes. When his aunt at last noticed this she left, exaggeratedly quiet and a little hurt. Matthew came СКАЧАТЬ