But the mouthpiece and the reed are the most critical of all. Not just because they turn your breath into music. It’s like they open up all the life that’s inside you, all the memory, even the parts that aren’t remembered, every single hope that’s in you, your grudges against people, against the world, even against God.
So you think I’d have had a chance? It’s just that saxophones are rare in the kinds of bands you’re talking about. If I’d not been restricted to only playing dance music … Or if I’d studied somewhere, gotten a piece of paper that said I could play. You know how it is. You even have to have a piece of paper to say you were born. Without it even that would be impossible. You have to have one that says you died, or you wouldn’t be able to die. That’s how the world is, I don’t need to explain it to you. We both live in it. You don’t doubt that part, do you? I mean look, we’re sitting here shelling beans, so we exist. Someone already said something along those lines, true. But that isn’t enough. Everyone’s existence has to be confirmed by something. Or someone. But while we’re shelling beans we don’t need any confirmation.
That wasn’t what I meant to say. I meant to say that existence itself is no proof of anything. Existence brings us nothing but doubts. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m speaking in general, not about you or me. I don’t know you, after all. I may guess at this or that, but I don’t know you. We’re just shelling beans, no more. But at some point we’ll finish, you’ll drive away, and what then? I won’t remember you, and all the more you won’t remember me. What can I say, I never was the kind of person worth remembering. An electrician who played dance music. Even if you’d come to one of the clubs where I used to play, you’d likely not have thought twice about some guy in the band on the sax.
Forgive me, I don’t mean to oblige you to say anything. For politeness’ sake you might feel you have to pretend, yes, it goes without saying, how on earth would you forget, you have no doubt whatsoever, whether it was here or there, of course, here, there, absolutely, that’s right, at such-and-such a time. Here or there, at this or that time. For what?
True, sometimes when you meet someone years later and no trace remains of who they were, you have to pretend that they’re the same person as before. Or even if there is a faint vestige, what of it, when you rack your brains and you still can’t remember any such person even existing. And moments like that, sure, you have to make as if you remember them. I sometimes wonder if anyone would have existed if we didn’t pretend. If it would even be possible to have existed. Besides, what is memory if not the pretense that you remember. Though it’s our only witness to having existed. We depend on memory the way a forest depends on trees, a river on its banks. More — if you ask me, we’re created by memory. Not just us, the whole world.
So we should live as long as memory permits us. No longer. People live too long, let me tell you, though everyone thinks it’s too short. You think so? If that’s the case, what would my dogs have to say about it, or other creatures? Too long. When I think they could die before me, then it’s too long by at least that much. A person’s memory is suited to a shorter life. No one’s memory can take in such a long existence. Just as well, you say? Why’s that? You say no one could bear a memory like that? That the world would fall to pieces from it? That could be. Though whatever memory doesn’t include, it’s still lying in wait for us. And that’s why we live too long in my view. Like I said, we should live as long as our memory allows, within the boundaries it lays down for us. Do you know of any other measure for life?
Forgive me for asking, but have you never had the feeling that your life is going on too long? That means you’re fond of living, like most people. I can understand that, especially if someone thinks they’re living in accordance with destiny. Oh yes, living in accordance with destiny is a lot easier. It’s just that I don’t believe in destiny. It’s chance, chance, all chance. That’s how the world looks, how life looks, if you were to check how things function here. So then, was it worth coming? All the more that I put you to work right away shelling beans. But you wanted to buy beans, remember? While all I had were unshelled. And as you see, I’ve been talking too long. I talked as long as memory allowed. Unless a person believes in dreams. Dreams are memory too, you know.
I might never have remembered that hat if I hadn’t dreamt about it. I should have figured out what the hat meant right when I was standing with the women around the pile of potato stalks. Except that like I told you, up till then I didn’t believe in dreams. It was only when I got rheumatism not long after. Rheumatism itself wouldn’t have been so terrible, everyone knows sicknesses are for people and you just have to put up with them. But in addition it turned out I wouldn’t be able to play anymore. And for me, playing was everything. You might say I wasn’t interested in myself, only in playing. Beyond playing it was like I didn’t exist. Who knows, maybe I actually didn’t, and it was only playing music that kind of summoned me out of non-existence and forced me to be.
In fact, it was because of playing that I left the country. Back in those days that wasn’t easy, as you know. But the firm I worked for got a foreign contract to build a cement works. And I never went back. I had no other reason. I could have continued to play in one company band or other. But I remembered what the warehouse keeper had said to me, that the saxophone had taken him around the world. Not to mention that I was trying to get away from my memories, which I always felt were pulling me back. I thought that the memories would stay here, while I’d be playing over there.
Then out of the blue there was this rheumatism. Everything came back with what seemed like redoubled strength. My whole life was suddenly reminding me it was there. I didn’t even know I’d been carrying it inside me. If it hadn’t been for the playing I wouldn’t have cared much whether or not I was alive, or since when. Because when it came down to it, why should I be alive? Because of some lucky chance? Except, was it so lucky? Maybe it was just mocking me? Or testing me? In what way? I couldn’t say.
Either way, my hands are better now. You saw when you came in how I was repainting those nameplates. And that’s no easy task. If your hand shakes, the brush shakes with it. Plus, the paints these days are much better quality, they’re harder to erase. Then you have to paint over the same letters, and often they’ve rubbed off, gotten rusty, you can’t see them clearly. You might get people mixed up. I can shell beans as well, like you see. It’s just that I can’t play the sax anymore. For the sax you need fingers like butterflies. They need to feel not just that they’re touching such and such a sound, but how deeply. This finger, see, it’s a little swollen, and on my left hand I can’t bend these two. They ache in the wet weather. But it’s a lot better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. Make repairs, chop wood, drive the car when I have errands or it needs the mechanic.