That was how it was every time. So I decided I wouldn’t wake up anymore when she came back. But one time when she returned, and I was pretending to be asleep, she lay down and all of a sudden I heard her crying.
“I know you’re not asleep,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore. It’s so hard for them. But I can’t take it any longer.”
11
Lost yourself in thought there, did you? What were you thinking about, if I may ask? True, there’s a lot to think about. And there doesn’t have to be any particular reason. There’s just lots of things to think about in general. In one country I once saw a sculpture. This man lost in thought. You’ve seen it too? There you go. I stood in front of it and began to wonder. I really wanted to ask what he was thinking about. But how can you ask a sculpture? If a person really decided to think about themselves so hard, they’d probably become a sculpture too. But in that case, tell me, is it only sculptures and paintings and books and music that can think about themselves, while we can’t?
I don’t mean anything in particular. I was just asking you, as if I were asking that sculpture. Of course I know I won’t get an answer either from you or from the sculpture. Sometimes people ask a question without expecting an answer. You have to agree there are questions that are sufficient in themselves. Especially as no answer would satisfy them anyway. And if you ask me, it has nothing to do with what we’re asking about. It’s a matter of who is asking who. Even when we’re asking ourselves, there’s always one who’s asking and one who’s being asked. It only seems like the person doing the asking is the same one giving the answer. If you think about it though, it’s always a different person asking and a different person answering. Or not answering, because maybe for instance they’re lost in thought. Every question selects an appropriate someone inside us. Even the most trivial question chooses a different person. Not just the person who’s supposed to answer it, but also the one who’s supposed to ask it. And with each question both the one and the other will be different people. After all, inside us there’s a child, and an old man, and a young man, and someone who’s going to die, and someone who doubts, and someone who has hope, and someone who no longer has any. And so on, and so forth.
If things were otherwise, no one would ever have to ask themselves anything, or have to answer anything. Yet no one can say of themselves that that’s me, that’s the way I was and the way I’m going to be in the future. No person can draw the boundaries of their self or establish themselves as themselves. That’s why we keep having to ask ourselves questions, first from one self, then from that one, then from another one still, and ask first one person, then another, then a third person, even though none of the questions is going to be answered anyway.
See — we’re sitting here shelling beans, you could say you’re here, I’m here, and between our hands we feel every pod, and every bean that we shell from it. Yet what’s more important still is how you and I imagine one another, how I imagine myself in relation to you, and how you imagine yourself in relation to me. The fact that we can see each other shelling beans doesn’t prove anything. If all we were doing was shelling beans, that wouldn’t be enough to experience the shelling. It’s only our imaginings of one another that fill out the fact that we’re shelling beans. Just like they fill out everything. Honestly, I even think it’s only what’s imagined that’s actually real.
Why does that surprise you? Then I don’t understand why it was me you came to for beans. I mean, you couldn’t have known I grow them. A few, just enough for myself, like I said. So all the more you couldn’t have expected me to have any to sell. And at this time of year who would come and visit me here? At the most someone from the dead. So I couldn’t have expected you either. Besides, I was going to go to bed soon. I would just have done my rounds of the cabins. I usually go to bed about this time. It’s early, because nightfall’s getting earlier these days. Though I read in bed a bit, listen to music, before I fall asleep, or don’t fall asleep, it varies. If I do get to sleep I’ll wake up after an hour or two, read some more, listen to music again, till I drop back off. Then when I wake again I’ll get up and do the rounds. Sometimes, though, there’ll be a night that’s like daytime, I go to bed but I know I won’t fall asleep. On nights like those I get up and repaint some nameplates. It takes me a long time, as you saw, but I hope to get them all done. If I had the hands I used to have, when I played …
Here there was a knock at the door, and I wondered, who could it be? It was you, and you were asking about beans. I’d understand if you’d been asking for directions, how to get out of here, which way to go. Or which cabin is Mr. Robert’s, because you want to stay there, then I would have shown you, it’s that one over there, and told you where the key is. But you must admit, the fact that you wanted to buy beans from me could have made me suspicious. What if I hadn’t had any? Besides, you were convinced I wouldn’t. You didn’t think you’d be at my place long. Don’t deny it. I even wondered, do I have any or not, because maybe this much life would have been enough. It was just that I’d noticed how you remind me of someone. Especially in that overcoat and hat, we must have met before, even if only by chance. Do I have any or not, yes or no, I started scouring my memory. But memory is like a well, the deeper you go, the darker it gets.
Forgive me for asking, but how would you define chance? Why do I ask? Because one time, when I was living abroad I was on my way to rehearsal one afternoon, and I see someone coming toward me who actually looked a little like you, now that I’ve gotten a good look at you. We hadn’t yet crossed, there were still a few yards between us. I might not have noticed him at all, but all of a sudden he tipped his hat and nodded to me. Or maybe I was the first one to nod, because I’d seen him smile at me and raise his hand to his hat to tip it, and I wanted to beat him to it. Besides, it makes no difference whether it was him or me. And like that, him raising his hat over his head, me raising mine, and smiling at one another in the conviction that we knew each other, we passed.
But the moment we crossed, I turned around to look at him and I saw he was staring at me also. Where we’d met and when, I couldn’t recall. Nor could he, because why would he have looked back at me if he’d remembered when and where. I walked on a few steps and turned again. Believe it or not, he had also turned back again. I decided to go up and ask where we knew each other from. At that exact moment he also started towards me, with the same intention as it transpired. We walked up to one another, raised our hats again, but I see he’s a little embarrassed, and I’m disappointed, because we can both see we don’t know one another.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I said. “I don’t believe we know each other.”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember you,” he replied.
“Oh well, just an unfortunate chance. It happens. Once again I’m very sorry.” I raised my hat again and was about to walk away. But he held me back.
“It isn’t chance, my dear sir,” he said. “There’s no such thing as chance. After all, what is chance? No more than a justification for what we’re unable to understand. So we shouldn’t part like this. Let’s at least go get coffee. On me. See, we’re even standing outside a cafe. They have good coffee here. I stop by sometimes.”
The coffee was indeed good. But the conversation never took off. Especially at the beginning. I barely said anything, I mean, what was I supposed to talk about with a person I’d mistaken for someone else. So I gazed around the cafe, though there wasn’t much to look at. It was just a regular cafe. Not that big, a dozen or so tables, rather dimly lit. I don’t like dark cafes. The lower half of the walls had dark wood paneling, the top half was wallpapered in dark gold. The tables seemed too bulky for a cafe. The backs of the chairs were almost as high as your head, and the chairs themselves weren’t especially comfortable. The only thing I liked were the wall lamps and the chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Each wall lamp was in the form of two female figures holding candlesticks in their outstretched hands, and there was a candle in each one, as if there were no electricity. Each lamp had women from a different historical period. The chandelier also was not electrified, it was filled with real candles and decorated richly with cut glass in different shapes.