Elena

He sat there listening to Ljubco, trying to smile at his weak witticisms, acutely aware of Elena's presence only a metre or so away, catching a glimpse of her now and then as Ljubco shifted in his seat or she leaned forward. And for a while, although he felt that bittersweet despair growing inside him, things remained more or less stable on the surface and he thought he was coping quite well. Then, suddenly, she did something – a simple but unexpected gesture – which overcame all his defences, and instinctively he raised his hand towards his eyes as if to protect them from the glare of the sun, but his hand stopped halfway.  The fact is that then and there, he could have grabbed Elena’s face and covered it with kisses. He could have dropped to his knees and spoken the tenderest words to her. The voices of the demons, muffled until then, had reached him loud and clear. There was a demon urging him to bury his head in her lap. There were other demons inside him that, given half a chance, would have compelled him to jump up and down or to start dancing about the garden, yelling, laughing, beating his chest like a gorilla or loudly praising creation like a shaman faced with a portent of nature.  He felt the urge to do all these things but did none of them, of course. Instead, he finally brought his hand up, cleared his throat, and made some trivial remark to Ljubco. He sat there for another quarter of an hour, kept Ljubco going with an occasional question so as to avoid having to say much himself. He sat there, his heart filled with the joy, the terror, of his love for her.

  

Round Noon

Round noon Avni had left the path and climbed a short distance into the forest. He'd travelled only one-third of the journey, but he was hungry and needed a break. So he’d eaten a sandwich and rested in the shade, hidden from the path. He did not care to meet anyone.
He hadn’t met anyone. Then, in the afternoon, he’d started feeling tired from the long climb uphill, and he’d also felt concerned that he might not find the hut or that Andreas was wrong after all and it had been destroyed or vandalised. The valley could only be accessed by road from the south-east, and the invading army, advancing along the main routes from the north, had not ventured far into that natural cul-de-sac made up of a maze of foothills and canyons. The path climbed steeply into the mountains, sometimes close to the water, sometimes winding away into the forest and then back along the stream. Higher up, the brush-covered slopes were uninhabited. But even if the enemy hadn’t swept the area, they might have sent a scouting party up there, a small airborne unit or men who could find their way across the passes. And everyone knew what a bunch of soldiers could do to a place unless they had a reason to respect it or to cover their tracks.

Changes

There was a breeze blowing in gusts, so that sometimes the water from the jet of the fountain fell back into the basin and sometimes, as it fell, it was carried sideways onto the stone rim and the earth beyond. When this happened, the splashing, gurgling sound of the water changed pitch as the water hit the rim or the bare ground. There were scudding clouds in the sky with the sun breaking through and the light changing every few minutes. Watching these changes, he felt a sudden sense of relief, almost a rush of joy, and he knew the worst was over. She also sensed it after a while and cast a sidelong glance at him. She could no longer hurt him as much as before. If she'd left then, he would have done nothing to stop her.

Lee-Ho

"I was admiring your boat here," he said. "Very pretty."

"Thanks." She stepped into the cockpit, started arranging her things into a locker.

"What sort of boat is it? I mean, they don't make this type anymore, do they?"

"She's an old boat – maybe forty, fifty years old. I...I restored her." She was reluctant to go into explanations, give the impression that she was boasting about her skills.

"What? By yourself?"

"It was not that difficult. I did a boat restoration course..."

"How wonderful."

She smiled without saying anything.

"Lee-Ho," he went on, looking at the name painted white on the bows. "What's that? Chinese, I suppose?"

"Well, not exactly... It's more like a pun, you see..." (Again she found herself going into explanations.) "...It is actually lee like in the lee of something or lee shore. That's the side opposite to where the wind is blowing from. Lee-ho! is a command you sometimes give when you are sailing. But it sounds Chinese, so it goes with the rig, which is a Chinese junk rig... See?"

"Junk rig, so that's what it is. You don't see many of these around, do you?"

"No, they're quite rare in this part of the world."

He looked at the boat appreciatively: "I like the green colour. It's a sort of Owl and the Pussycat boat – pea green..."

She chuckled, climbing out of the boat again.

"I think I might enjoy sailing," he said. "Never done it before, never had the time to learn, but I think it might be just the right thing for me," he added, still looking at the boat. Then suddenly looking up at her, meeting her eyes for a second: "I mean...I don't mean to..." he trailed off.

She looked away: "Yeah, it can be a lot of fun," she said.

At the Clubhouse

The clubhouse was a low, thatched building, unremarkable on the outside except for the presence of a rather battered-looking windsock flying briskly from a pole. In response to a remark from one of us, Stapeko explained that it had been given him, as a kind of auspicious gift, by a visitor who wished the islanders well in their endeavours to secure the construction of an airstrip. "No airstrip yet," he added, "but you could say it's a beginning."

The interior of the clubhouse was decorated with a large number of stamps framed under glass, and the usual profusion of kitschy, bizarre objects.

"I wish someone could explain to me, gentlemen, why God should have created such an awesome eating machine," said Stapeko at one point, referring to a large set of shark jaws, which hung from one of the walls close to our table. "Yes, yes, of course, the balance of nature and all that, but personally, if it were at all possible, I should like to see that particular kind of shark replaced with a less painful link in the ecological chain."

Jack smiled politely, but declined to pursue this existential line of conversation. He was concerned about the safety of his boat.

"What do you make of the weather, Mr Stapeko?" he asked. "Have you experienced this sort of thing before?"

"The weather. We have all sorts of weather here. No snow, of course, ha, ha. But plenty of rain. The rain is on its way, sir, as you no doubt know. Masses of it. But our little harbour is safe. No vessel ever came to harm in it, under normal circumstances, that is. Meaning, sir, that if we get a tropical revolving storm, as the handbooks call it, or some other such catastrophic event, no vessel is safe, is it? Not even our little island is safe, ha, ha. But why be pessimistic? We already had a pretty bad hurricane here only a year ago. Two years in a row is unlikely, isn't it? Not mathematically, perhaps, but you know what I mean – ha, ha, ha. Seriously now, sir, no revolving event is forecast, is it? So we may infer we are safe."

"What about this greenish colour of the water? Is it often like this round here?"

"The ocean varies in colour considerably. Yes, sometimes it takes on this green sheen, God alone knows why. Today, admittedly, it is intensely green. But I daresay the colour of the sea, as such, would not imperil your boat. I believe you are reasonably safe, captain."

Every Corner of the World

One late-summer evening, we stopped at a place overlooking the sea, where the stone balustrade was covered with lovers' graffiti, some older, some more recent, all fading away unremittingly. Had we been foolish enough to inscribe our own names, they, too, would be fading away. And it strikes me that just as every corner of the world has at some time witnessed birth and at some time witnessed death, so every corner of the world has at some time heard the words of lovers, seen their smiles, their hands clasped and their lips touching. There is in every corner of the world an invisible detritus of bygone smiles, dying echoes of words, dreams unfulfilled. Everywhere around us are phantoms with lips grown cold, hands yearning to hold, clutching at emptiness. And the eyes that once stared long into yours, there by the sea, now stare out into the rain of a winter afternoon.

Otra página del diario de Graham Jones

24 de julio

Yo no creo, como Nietzsche, que las relaciones entre los sexos se fundamenten en un odio recóndito y visceral entre los mismos, ni que el “amor” sea esencialmente, en sus métodos, una guerra, con sus batallas, sus victorias, sus condiciones impuestas al vencido, sus treguas. Pero qué duda cabe de que, al menos para la mayoría de la gente, es un juego en el que cada uno conquista o agarra o aferra o cultiva o idealiza lo que puede y lo que le convenga, en función de sus circunstancias. Un juego de equilibrios más o menos inestables, de malentendidos, de brumosos ideales; con pocas reglas fijas, o en el que a menudo hay que inventarse las reglas sobre la marcha. Eso sí, siempre o casi siempre uno tiene que pagar un precio por lo que consigue, y a cada uno le corresponde saber si puede o debe o está dispuesto a pagarlo. ¡Allá tú! ¡Apáñatelas como puedas! Decide lo que te convenga.

Nadie ha inventado el instinto sexual, las necesidades y complejidades psicológicas, la atracción ardiente por la belleza, como creo que dice Roberto Arlt…pero todo el mundo tiene que vérselas con esas cosas: buscar sus equilibrios, resolver o construir los malentendidos, perseguir sus brumosos ideales. En todo caso, para mí no tiene sentido mentirse a sí mismo. Más vale ser fiel al instinto que a un ideal brumoso, a unas reglas impuestas desde fuera, contaminadas por la ideología, por el miedo a la desaprobación social o a la soledad. ¿Qué culpa tengo yo de que me guste más de una mujer, de que pueda amar a varias…o a muchas? Harían falta mil vidas para casarse con mil mujeres y vivir cien años con cada una de ellas[1].

¡Tonterías! Si vivieras mil vidas, serías infiel en todas ellas y dirías que te hacen falta cien mil.

Pero en una, aunque sólo fuera en una de las cien mil, tal vez viviría ese amor altruista, desinteresado, leal, que Fromm preconiza y del que Nietzsche se ríe a carcajadas.

[…]

Madrid, 26 de agosto

De pronto mi rostro cobra la expresión de su rostro. Mi mirada es su mirada. Su boca es mi boca. Ella vive en mí. Soy ella. Hay un nivel en que todo se confunde. Ante el amor, ante la muerte, ante nuestra verdad más profunda, buscamos convertirnos en el otro, negamos la individualidad.

Se trata, tal vez, como afirmaría Schopenhauer, de una estrategia para sobrevivir: afirmación de la voluntad, de la vida, de lo que hay en nosotros de común, de compartido. Negación del yo, intento de asimilar, de ser el otro. Regreso a la totalidad, a la fuente primordial, única, de la existencia.

Según bajamos hacia el ojo del Maelstrom.

Escribo esta líneas en un cuaderno nuevo. No quiero ya utilizar el que tuvieron en sus manos Oliveira y Sancho Panza, el que sobaron en busca de indicios, con su mirada obscena, sin duda lamiéndose los dedos para pasar las páginas.

[1] Hay añadida aquí, en el margen, una anotación posterior, un tanto enigmática: Es lo que ocurre en realidad. No miles, sino millones. ¿Importa realmente que seas tú y no otro? ¿Qué es “tú”? ¿Qué es “otro”? N.d.R.

If Andreas Came With Fresh Supplies

He turned away from the water, his mind again in turmoil. If Andreas came with fresh supplies next week, there would be no need for fish. He needn’t kill, not even those cold-blooded, suspicious, greedy creatures which – he reckoned – had less developed nervous systems than other animals hunted or slaughtered for food. When he’d told Andreas that he had become a vegetarian and explained (half-jokingly, realising how odd it sounded) about the less developed nervous systems, the old man hadn’t quite shaken his head but had shot a look at him as though he were a mental case.
‘You shouldn’t push things too far, Avni,’ he’d said after a second or two. ‘How are you going to survive up there without hunting or fishing?’
  

The Souls of Those You Love

During those first few months he’d told himself that people are their souls and a soul cannot be taken from you. The soul of someone you love is forever with you and grows with you. It is not something fossilised and static but you can actually talk with people who are not physically there and they actually reply and react to situations. They laugh and cry with you and can talk to you reassuringly and even praise you or scold you. Or forgive you. He now knew that this is very true, but there is also pain in remembering and it is not always easy or possible to remember, and even when you can remember, it is not enough and you cannot talk with those who are not actually there with you as if they were there, physically present. It is a recipe for madness. But tonight it wasn’t like that. For he no longer spoke to her or tried to conjure up her presence beside him. He uttered no words, not even in his mind, but just felt her like something softly glowing within himself, something tenderly aglow inside himself.

© Copyright 2004 Allan Riger-Brown

First Glimpse of Blue

It was always a joy to come in, to pass the headland and see the house in the distance. She loved that stretch of coast and she loved the house. Some other places made her feel she was on the fringes of the world and there were places that made her feel she was in the middle of nowhere, and places – like this one – that made her feel she was at the centre of the universe. In great cities she had felt in the middle of nowhere but she reckoned that if she ever went to the North Pole or Tierra del Fuego she would at least feel she was somewhere. Of course whether or not you like a place depends on so many things – what it looks like and its atmosphere and the people and so on – but in her case she believed there was something more besides: some atavistic need or instinct, something to do with her sense of orientation perhaps – her position in relation to the Earth's magnetic field or something of the sort – or perhaps some unconscious memory of the past, of a place once known and loved, and then forgotten. At any rate she liked it where she was now and knew how lucky she was to be there. She had loved the place ever since the first day when, arriving by coach from inland, she had seen the pine forest and suddenly she was in under the trees, and even in the coach it was cooler and the scent of the pines came in through the windows and mingled with the smell of the exhaust fumes. When you got off the coach, it was a ten-minute walk through the pine forest with the sea-breeze blowing in gentle puffs through the trees and then came the first glimpse of deep blue and then you came out onto the beach. Turning to the right you saw the house ahead, about half a mile away and just in the right place, not too close to the water, not too far, not on the centreline of the bay but slightly to one side, on a spot which probably marked the golden section of the arc of the bay.
She loved to walk up to the house, to its weathered timbers painted light blue and white on the outside – and up the five front steps and into the interior, which always smelled faintly of sea and sun and pitch, like an old wooden boat. It sounded like a boat, too, creaking in the wind, its deck-like floor booming underfoot and, like a boat, the house had its foibles and weaknesses in the shape of numerous draughts, leaks in bad weather, and faulty plumbing. But she wouldn't have swapped that place for anywhere else in the world.

Sandstone

For the knowledge of the self-apart-from-God
is an abyss down which the soul can slip
writhing and twisting in all the revolutions
of the unfinished plunge
of self-awareness…
D. H. Lawrence, Only Man

Of all the horror in the universe, some had come his way. It was, in a sense, quite simple – natural, even. Why should he be spared? Yet he didn’t know what chain of events, what actions or mistakes of his had led him to the present situation – to this ghastly and nevertheless perfectly real, inescapable moment in time. Was it only by chance that he had ended up there? He couldn't help feeling there was something more to it – some subtly ironical, implacable force or necessity behind things. The place itself had a familiar air about it, as though he'd seen it or been there long ago – in his childhood or in a forgotten dream. But he couldn't tell what the place was exactly, what it had been originally, before they had put it to this use. A natural canyon? A crater? Some sort of quarry? Perhaps a huge dig, a colossal pit awaiting the foundations of a building? He vaguely remembered having walked (on his way there?) across a vast, sandy plain, and seen scattered heaps of rubble and abandoned-looking construction materials, broken, jagged pieces of masonry and timber, and also what might have been remnants of bones, and somewhere on the steep walls of the pit he'd seen dark openings like caves. Was it, then, some sort of building site? A man-made thing? He couldn't tell. He had no clear recollection of his arrival there, and from his present position he couldn’t see much: in front of him – barely an inch from his eyes – the grainy, terribly real texture of the stone, reddish, made up of thin laminations, interbedded with darker, glassy fragments of rock. If he rolled his eyes upwards, he could see the wall of the pit stretching above him towards the white-hot, dazzling sky; and even without looking, he could sense that same wall dropping down below him into the abyss.

Yes, he’d known this place – the red stone, the white-hot sky, the gigantic pit. He’d been here or somehow seen these surroundings before, possibly a long time ago. And those soldiers who at some point must have escorted him across the sandy plain, and who were now pacing the crest above the pit as they would a rampart, he had known them long ago, too. He knew their closed, hard faces, their eyes shaded by helmets, the evil they radiated from a distance. He recognised the place and knew his guards like someone might recognise the place and the faces and the moment to which he has been ultimately led by fate, step by step, with the logic of his whole life pushing, propelling him forward, and now relentlessly pulling, sucking him down into the void.

Una página del diario de Graham Jones

16 de mayo de 198...

El taxi, un viejo Seat ruidoso y destartalado, corre veloz por una calle que tiene algo de Londres, pero que más bien parece estar en Madrid. Es el atardecer. Por la ventanilla veo pasar las fachadas de las casas – grises, pardas, tristes – casas de principios de siglo, de varios pisos, desgastadas por la intemperie: ventanas sombrías, balcones de hierro forjado, cornisas y tejados que se destacan contra un cielo invernal de un gris apenas más claro; la copa de algún que otro árbol de ramas despojadas, negras.

No hay transeúntes. No veo tiendas ni escaparates ni anuncios.

No sé adónde voy pero sé que tengo prisa. Tengo que llegar a tiempo, tengo que llegar rápido, porque se trata de algo importante.

El taxista también debe de saber que el tiempo apremia, porque conduce a toda velocidad. Desde donde estoy sentado, no logro ver su rostro, ni siquiera de perfil, y ello me preocupa. Intentando adivinar su aspecto, busco sus ojos reflejados en el espejo retrovisor, me fijo en el pelo canoso y las orejas salientes, que asoman debajo de la gorra, una vieja gorra de chófer, como solían llevar antaño los taxistas… Si lograra ver su cara, tal vez recordaría cuándo me subí a ese taxi, quién me está esperando con impaciencia o qué tengo que hacer sin demora. No lo sé, pero todas mis ansias están en recuperar el retraso, en llegar a tiempo. O, mejor dicho, me doy cuenta de que debería hacer todo lo posible por llegar a tiempo. Y sé que, para conseguirlo, tengo que sobreponerme a la inercia, a la melancolía, a la terrible sensación de inutilidad, de impotencia, que de pronto me produce la vista de esa calle al atardecer.

Sin embargo esa sensación no dura. De alguna manera la angustia, la inercia, se disipan, dan paso a un sentimiento de expectativa, de ir hacia algo hermoso, de poder colmar un deseo.

De pronto el coche se detiene y el taxista se da la vuelta. Es un hombre viejo, arrugado, pero de aspecto simpático, paternal. “Es aquí”, me dice. “Dése prisa.” Al oír esas palabras, vuelvo a sentir inquietud. Mirando fuera, veo una casa de dos pisos, más bien un chalet, rodeado de un pequeño jardín.

Pero mi desconcierto sólo dura un instante. Pago el taxi con todo lo que llevo en el bolsillo (enormes puñados de calderilla que vacío atropelladamente en las manos del viejo) y, bajándome del coche, corro hacia la casa. Corro atravesando el jardín y ahora sé por qué tengo prisa: voy a ver a Pilar Henares, es ella quien me espera, y siento una gran alegría.

La puerta está entreabierta. En el interior hay multitud de gente: antiguos conocidos, compañeros de colegio, amigos de la infancia. No han envejecido, tienen el mismo aspecto que hace quince o veinte años, pero hay en sus gestos, en su comportamiento, una madurez, una amabilidad, un aplomo insólitos.

Me miran amistosamente, me sonríen; varios de ellos me saludan como si hubieran estado esperándome, pero con naturalidad, sin dar demasiada importancia a mi llegada.

Siento ganas de hablar con mis amigos, de detenerme a charlar y reírme un rato con ellos, pero lo más importante, lo inaplazable, es ver a Pilar.

Me abro paso entre la gente y pregunto varias veces en voz alta: “¿Está Pilar? ¿Habéis visto a Pilar Henares?” No tengo ningún reparo en mostrar mis ganas de verla. Mi voz suena firme, me siento seguro de mí mismo: nadie puede poner en duda mi derecho a ver a Pilar, a preguntar por ella. Y, en efecto, nadie parece sorprenderse. Más bien lo contrario: por todas partes veo miradas acogedoras, sonrisas llenas de simpatía. Según avanzo entre la muchedumbre, me dan palmaditas en la espalda, oigo palabras de felicitación. Es como si todos supieran que he venido a buscar a Pilar, a unirme con ella, y a todos les pareciera lo más natural del mundo. Es casi como una boda.

Carlos, mi antiguo compañero de banco, me rodea los hombros con el brazo y me dice: “Sí, te está esperando. Es por allí” y me indica otra habitación que hay al fondo.

Entro en la habitación y de pronto Pilar está ante mí. Sus manos buscan las mías, su mirada, serena, llena de confianza, me acaricia.

Durante un largo instante, veo de nuevo su rostro, como un paisaje o un cielo hermoso, como el más hermoso de todos los paisajes y todos los cielos: sus ojos castaños, su sonrisa.

Soy consciente de que, a nuestro alrededor, la gente también sonríe, como compartiendo nuestra felicidad, sin envidia, sin afectación, con auténtica benevolencia.

Extiendo mi mano hacia su rostro, hacia la piel tersa de sus mejillas, sus pómulos sonrosados de niña, la alegría de su sonrisa.

Pilar está a punto de hablar, de decirme algo que tengo ansias de oír, que necesito escuchar más que cualquier otra palabra…algo más melodioso que cualquier música. Pero antes de que pueda decir nada, su imagen, sus labios ya entreabiertos, se desvanecen. Y me despierto.

¿Cuántos hombres habrán soñado algo parecido? Miles, sin duda, millones. Leopardi, para empezar, y Milton...

Millones de sueños que en el fondo son un mismo sueño: el de la persona amada que vuelve, que está al alcance de la mano, que nos habla o – peor aún, como en mi caso – que está a punto de hablar…

La persona amada que desaparece cuando nos despertamos.

Lo raro es que llevaba años sin pensar en ella.

© Copyright Allan Riger-Brown

On the Beach

A red moon was out and we sat on the beach and watched the waves coming in, breaking first here and there, unevenly, where their foot caught in the shoals or where the crests were fullest, then all along the crests as the patches of surf expanded and raced towards each other sideways to the forward motion of the waves, the surf merging into a continuous ribbon till the entire wave finally plunged and crashed and died, and I thought those bright lines of racing surf resembled the wakes of speedboats or the trails of rockets and I told you to look how they rushed towards each other and kissed with a sort of smack as they met at some point midway between them. And you smiled vaguely in the dusk, sitting there beside me on the sand, and whispered 'Yes', as if to say 'I see'.

Portrait of a Lady

[From an entry in my diary, dated 9 December 1991:]

Essentially conformist except, as Marx said of Germans [e.g. his critique of Hegel], in the realm of ideas; atheistic, in a sort of down-to-earth, uncouth way, like many who rebel (superficially) against their Catholic upbringing; instinctively a liar, that is to say, someone who lies quickly, spontaneously, automatically - perhaps without even realizing it - a perfect artist in this sphere; someone for whom friendship is having people who think you are the cat's whiskers, and for whose sake you do things only to the extent that this will increase their admiration; mildly cruel, sadistic (someone who derives pleasure from the contemplation of inferiority, whether real or perceived), in a sort of petty, fashionable, very 'Parisian' way; essentially un- and even anti-poetic; essentially promiscuous; convinced of her own superiority, yet ever willing to lick the system's arse, for 'superiority' she can only conceive of in terms of the hierarchy imposed by the status quo (and what a status quo, I might add! - for, after all, even 'statuses quo' are to some extent a matter of choice); passive, narcissistic in lovemaking...