It goes without saying that I didn’t take his money. How could I have? He was going to buy his own saxophone back from me? He died about a year and a half after that. Construction was still going on. Someone went to get something from the warehouse, he wrote them a chit and all he needed to do was sign it, when his head tipped forward. And that was that. But he didn’t drop the pencil, can you imagine. As if he’d meant to sign off on his own death, one death, check.
A signature is an important thing, let me tell you. Especially when you sign off on your own death. Why shouldn’t a person sign for his own death? You sign for all kinds of trivial things all your life. Whether you need to or not. Most of the time it’s not even needed. Imagine counting up all the times someone’s signed their name in the course of their life. As if they kept having to vouch for the fact that it really is them, not someone else in their place. As if there even could be anyone taking your place, say, or mine. So why shouldn’t he have signed off on his own death? It was his, after all. If you ask me, death shouldn’t have stopped his hand. Death itself should have needed him to sign.
You say that people are born without signing to say they want to be born. That’s understandable. There are very few people who’d want it, if it depended on their signature. Death is a different matter entirely. You should at least be free in the face of death. In any case, what difference would it have made to wait a short moment. What was a moment like that for death. You’re talking as if I were only referring to appearances. Let me tell you that even if that were so, appearances shouldn’t be scorned. When the truth turns against us, thank goodness there are still appearances. There are times when after a whole life, appearances are the only record of a person’s life.
For that year and a half I took lessons from him. It was as if one day we were practicing together, then the next day he died. I tried much harder than before. Almost every day, if only they didn’t keep us back at the site, right after work I’d quickly wash, change, eat something or not, and go to him. He’d always be waiting for me, sometimes dozing with his head resting on the desk. But the moment I walked in he’d start up.
“Oh, it’s you. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come today, and every day counts.”
He took a piece of chalk and drew a circle on the floor that I had to stand inside when I played. He made another one for himself, at a suitable distance, in which he sat on a chair.
“I measured it out, this is the best distance for sound quality. I’ll be able to hear you best from here. This warehouse is no concert hall. Or club. I get consignments of piping, sheet metal, wiring, tires, all kinds of stuff. Every time the sound changes.”
He brought more sheet music this time. And he made me a stand for the music. When I arrived the stand would already be waiting in my circle with the music lying open on it.
“Let’s begin with what you have in front of you there,” he would say, to stop me from changing the order of the sheets. Then he’d put his chair in his circle, and have me take my place in mine. “Stand up straight though. Not like in that band of yours, where you all slouch.”
He always had to run down the band. I guessed it must be his new way of weaning me off them. He did it kind of casually, in a mild way, because he’d stopped telling me to quit the band.
Often my legs would be shaking under me, after all I’d been working on my feet all day long on the site, but he never let me sit down even for a minute. There was another chair in the warehouse, when he was writing out a chit he’d offer you a seat. But whenever I came for my lesson, the other chair would always be put aside at the far end of the warehouse.
“You need to be on your feet,” he’d repeat. “When you’re standing your diaphragm works better, you take more air into your lungs. Breathing is really important with the saxophone. You, your breathing is too shallow, and so you’re not blowing the instrument properly. Plus, a saxophonist has to have strong legs, a strong back, the whole spine has to be strong, then it’s easier to play. When you end up having to play all night because the party’s still going on, you won’t have to say your legs hurt.”
And let me tell you, my legs never feel tired. Sometimes here I have to walk and walk. Especially now, in the off-season. Like I said, during the day I’m obliged to make three rounds of all the cabins on both sides of the lake. And at least one in the night. When I walk around I know I’m really keeping a good eye on the place.
Excuse me, I have to get a drink of water, my throat’s dry. When you shell beans there’s always dust, that’s why. Would you like a drink too? It’s good water, from my well. No, it was here already. I just had it deepened and cleaned out. I had a pump put in, and they piped it up to my place. See, all I need to do is turn on the tap. Perhaps you’ll try some after all? Here, you’re welcome. It’s good, right? Spring water. They tapped into a spring. Let me tell you, nothing quenches your thirst like this stuff. Even when I’m drinking coffee or tea, I have to have a glass of water to go with it.
When they were going to sink the well, father brought in a dowser. I don’t know where he found him, he brought him back in the wagon. The guy searched and searched, his rod kept getting pulled down toward the ground, but he wasn’t satisfied. Finally he said that he’d felt the cold, they should sink the shaft here.
Lots of people from the cabins come and get water from me. They can’t say enough about it, It’s so good, it’s so good. Whoever went around praising water back in the day, you tell me that. The most you might say is that it was hard or soft. Spring water’s always hard. For washing hair or bathing we’d collect rainwater. The animals were watered in the Rutka. Laundry was done in the Rutka too. River water is soft. When they’re leaving for home, they bring canisters here so they’ll at least have water to make coffee or tea. A few canisters each. A line forms at the well and I have to go out and keep order so no one pushes in, and everyone gets an equal amount. Because some people even take it as a gift for their neighbors in the city. What are things coming to, giving water as a gift. Regular water. Would you ever have thought something like that would happen with water? Let me tell you, that’s the clearest measure of what’s wrong with the world. At times I have to limit them to two or three canisters each, the well isn’t bottomless. If the pump starts sucking up dirt it has to be cleaned afterwards. Then it takes at least twenty-four hours for the spring to fill up again.
You have to admit it’s good water. Another glass maybe? I’ll join you. Here where I’m standing there were always buckets of water, and on the wall over them was an embroidered motto that read, “Good water means good health.” More or less where you’re sitting, that was where he sat in his circle, and where I’m standing, that’s where I stood in mine. Let me tell you, I wasn’t convinced by those circles, I thought it was just some nonsense of his, and one day I told him so.