Artistic creation, he said, is routine, like any job, and that was something, he believed, everyone would agree with. The writer writes, he said, just the way an official enters data into a form or certifies a form with the proper stamp; the musician transcribes parts of his symphony just the way a typesetter sets parts of a text; and the painter fills in the blank spaces on the canvas just the way a gardener pursues harmony in his flower beds. Creativity, he said, is everyday labor, nothing more — a job that may last for years, decades, and which produces, at intervals, books, paintings, sculptures, and concerts, among which there are those that are exceptionally successful, but they are all products of routine, subject to simple analysis. Only certain moments, he said, and only some of the artists, thanks to chance, leap out of the well-oiled system that manufactures, one might say, artworks like refrigerators or automobiles on an assembly line, and that is when works are created that elude all classification, he said, and become the basis for a new system. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to talk about this just then, why he wasn’t paying attention to the tormented expression of Ivan Matulić’s grandson, who clearly could find no point of contact between what Daniel Atijas was talking about and our climbing Tunnel Mountain. Our civilization, said Daniel Atijas, and each one of us as an individual, as artist or ordinary person, whatever, develops that way, he said, in leaps, from one coincidence to another, but no one can say when or whether the coincidence will happen. There are writers, he said, who write appealing, popular books their whole lives, though not a single one of the books steps outside the limits of what is already known, and they, these writers, have earned a prominent place in literature, but their impact is an impact with no genuine value: they have come into the world and left it, and nothing actually happened as a consequence.
Isn’t that how it is with all of us? I asked. Do we not all leave this world as if we had never been here, regardless of whether we lived on the plains or among mountains? Ivan Matulić’s grandson sighed loudly, the way every weary person does, and at that moment I clearly saw that my sympathies, if Daniel Atijas were to keep droning on about creative drives, might well shift over to the grandson’s side, which, I admit, surprised me so much that I felt a sort of shock, as when a source of very weak current zaps your fingers. I proposed that we leave the conversation about the meaning of creativity and the system of the world for the hike up Tunnel Mountain, or maybe for the descent, since one breathes with more difficulty while climbing, and an overabundance of words might disturb the already-jagged rhythm of breathing, while on the way down words flow like a torrent. I wasn’t sure whether Daniel Atijas would accept this; he didn’t strike me as the type who gives up easily — he looked like a person who might, on the surface, give up, but not really, on the inside — but it was too late for me to change anything. Daniel Atijas took out a map of Banff and its surroundings, pushed aside the cups and saucers, and spread it out on the table. We all leaned over the map. For a while we said nothing and looked it over while our heads almost touched. One of the three of us was breathing more hastily and jerkily than the others, but I wasn’t sure who.
Daniel Atijas placed his finger on the Art Centre and drew it along Saint Julian Road all the way to a place, roughly between Wolf and Wolverine Streets, where, he said, the trail that led to the summit of Tunnel Mountain began. Before that, however, he said, we had to make sandwiches. Ivan Matulić’s grandson already had sandwiches and a plastic bottle of water in his backpack, so it was up to me to go and get four rolls, a handful of thinly sliced Trappist cheese, and several pats of butter. While I was spreading food on the gaping halves, I remembered how we had gone the first time on Sunday a week ago to walk along the river and have a look at the hoodoos, and how Daniel Atijas had rolled their name around in his mouth as if chewing gooey caramel. I hadn’t told him then that some Native Americans believed they were actually tepees, Indian tents in which dwelt evil gods, but it suddenly occurred to me that he had been talking at that point about coincidence in nature in an entirely different way, not praising it, as he had done just now, which had also surprised me, because I had been convinced, who knows why, that Daniel Atijas possessed a remarkably firm and precise system of intellectual references, a system in which there were no errors, or at least the likelihood of any coming up was minimal. I was so caught up in these thoughts that Ivan Matulić’s grandson had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention. He was still standing by the table, and now and then, with one hand or both, he’d lean on it. He asked what I wanted to drink during our walk: water or, like Daniel Atijas, a soda? We may, I said then, possibly be overdoing it with all these preparations, since I know the trail, and all we need for our climb to the top of Tunnel Mountain is some thirty minutes, forty at the outside, certainly less than an hour.
True, said Daniel Atijas, this is not a great distance; he knew that the whole trail was about a mile and a half long and that the difference in elevation was about nine hundred feet, but his idea hadn’t been so much about the walking or hiking, and even less about the distance and the effort, as about the possibility of spending the whole day in nature having peaceful conversations the likes of which he would not be able to enjoy once he went back, so soon, to his country. I couldn’t say anything to him about that; he was leaving, after all, and I was staying; so I told Ivan Matulić’s grandson to take orange juice for me. Ivan Matulić’s grandson was a little surprised and asked me whether I was certain about the orange juice, because it always gave him indigestion, and he could drink only two or three sips, sometimes not even that much. Each of us is different, I told him, and what makes one person weak might make someone else very strong. Ivan Matulić’s grandson shrugged, turned, and walked away. Daniel Atijas called after him to remind him to wait for us out in front of the store. He himself went on wrapping sandwiches in napkins and packing them in my backpack. He did it carefully and skillfully, as if he had been doing nothing but that his entire life. I don’t remember that I had ever seen him, before that, more absorbed, given over to something extremely unimportant; and as if he had read my thoughts, he said that the beauty of life is hidden in the fullness of every moment, and that every moment should be lived as if there were nothing else. He wrapped the last sandwich, placed it with the others, downed another swig of coffee, and said it was time for us to go.
I put on my backpack and turned, then turned again to take a careful look at the surface of the table, checking to see whether we’d forgotten anything. The waiter raised his hand and waved, but when I went to wave back, he had bent over and was brushing crumbs off his pants. I hurried after Daniel Atijas, left the building, and turned the corner, and then I saw them: they were standing facing each other, eye to eye; Ivan Matulić’s grandson was speaking steadily, with no vehemence, and Daniel Atijas’s left hand rested on his right shoulder. Perhaps I should have turned around then and left, but I went on walking toward them and even pretended not to notice. Sometimes, I told Daniel Atijas not long after we’d met, walking is only a way not to stand still, and as I walked over to them I felt as if I were standing, as if I’d never get there. Ivan Matulić’s grandson was the first to notice me, and then Daniel Atijas turned. He had just been talking, he said, about how we mustn’t allow any experience to get the better of us, and how in everything we must seek something to hold on to, a handhold or a foothold, no matter how slippery the path might be or how weak the hand or foot. The whole time he wasn’t taking his hand off the grandson’s shoulder, and he was even squeezing it gently, as I could see, with his fingertips. I looked at my watch but didn’t see it. We’re running late, I nevertheless said, in an artificial and alarming tone, as if it were nearly nightfall. Daniel Atijas and Ivan Matulić’s grandson finally moved apart, and Ivan Matulić’s grandson thrust his hand into the backpack at his feet, took out the bottle of orange juice, and handed it to me.