When he thinks about fountain pens, Parsifal often thinks about ink windows — those clear sections of the body of a pen that enable a user to see how much ink remains. Not all pens have them — most do not — but of those that do, there are basically three types (other than those “demonstrator” pens, which are clear plastic in order to demonstrate the pen’s working mechanism). The first kind of window is a thin, transparent ring about an inch away from the base of the nib. It’s efficient and easy to use. The second is a transparent stripe, or several stripes, running along the barrel of the pen that alternates clear with colored strips. The third has transparent spots scattered about the length of the pen. With all three, a person can hold the pen up to a light and instantly tell how much ink remains. The disadvantage of an ink window is that it interrupts the design, most noticeably with the ring-type window, unless, of course, you consider the ring a part of the pattern. The advantage of ink windows is that a person knows when he is going to run out of ink, so before embarking on any extended sequence of thoughts he does not wish to have interrupted by jumping up and taking a trip to “Mister Bottle,” he can fill his pen before he starts. Knowing when the ink will run out seems a little like knowing the date of your death. Some people want that information. Others, like Parsifal, would prefer to be surprised.
Homecoming.
In the forest, Parsifal and Pearl played a kind of game. His mother would send him out of their little house, ordering him to leave a trail of pebbles or small, hard pieces of bread — whichever Pearl happened to have handy — so that he might find his way back. “Walk somewhere for several hours,” she would tell him, “but don’t forget to leave behind some markers so you can find your way home again.”
When at last Parsifal would return (although sometimes it would take a day or two) she would hug him and laugh. “Mein kleiner Hansel,” she would say, rubbing her fingers through his hair.
Hansel?
The loneliness of being alone.
And did Pearl ever learn that Parsifal sometimes tricked her? That instead of making a trail, he had only walked to the nearest hollow tree, a few yards away, and then curled up and slept inside of it for six or seven hours?
Now it’s too late to ask.
If pressed on the subject of the cup, Parsifal will admit that he could have taken Fenjewla with him, but — he never fails to add — because he was in the midst of a crisis situation, he considers having left the cup behind forgivable.
“It happened like this,” Parsifal explained during one of his therapy sessions with Joe. “I had gone out one afternoon in search of food, because my father, Conrad, was delayed from arriving with supplies. This was not uncommon, nor was it unusual that I found myself too far away to walk back home again by nightfall. It was always dangerous to walk in the forest at night, so I built a small campfire, and then, in the morning, left it safely confined within its ring of stones to burn out by itself, because — and here is the single place where I differ with the book on woodcraft my father left with me — if you are properly trained in woodcraft and are certain the fire is unable to spread, there is absolutely no danger in leaving it that way. Also, if a person needs to return quickly to his campsite, he can find it fast by following the wisp of smoke.”
“Then,” Parsifal continued, “I hurried home, and it was a good thing I did, because by the time I arrived my mother was waiting.
“‘You know,’ Pearl said, ‘with my heightened sense of smell, I believe I can smell a fire. It’s far away right now, but I think it’s coming closer, and a person can’t be too careful firewise. Maybe this is exactly the right time for you to take a trip to the city and see if you can track down your father. I’ll stay here and take care of things. Don’t worry about me. You go. I’ll be all right.’”
A condition of Parsifal’s release from jail by the court was that he make regular visits to Joe.
What is the sound of sadness creeping into his heart?
And Pearl was right: the fire, from wherever it began, had moved quickly. Within half an hour it was nearly at their house. “There was only time enough to throw a few items into a burlap sack,” Parsifal said to Joe, “and not time enough to look around for every little thing I might want to take, such as my foolish metal cup named Fenjewla.”
“My mother,” he added, “was wearing her ordinary outfit: a leather apron attached at her sides by strings of animal sinew. Around her shoulders was a stole made out of a couple of fox skins she had sewn together, and beneath that, a fancy black lace bra that Conrad had brought her from the city. As usual,” he said, “my mother wore no shoes or socks. (The soles of her feet were incredibly tough, and she would frequently challenge me to try to pierce them with a sharp stick, but I never succeeded.) On her head was the kind of hat she liked to wear, fashioned out of an abandoned bird’s nest—‘Just for fun,’ she used to say.”
Pearl insisted on accompanying him to the edge of the forest even though Parsifal had said there was no need. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “I know this forest well, and the fire will never get here. It’s just that you are long overdue to leave, and as hard as it is for me to imagine a life here without fixing your scrapes and bruises, and mending your clothes, too — today, with this fire, is as good a day as any for you to start your journey.”
“And, Joe,” Parsifal said, “I was just about to kiss her good-bye, but that moment she coughed and picked up a damp handkerchief to hold against her face, so in the end I just walked down the road, thinking I would come back again and tell her all about my adventures.
“‘Have a good life in the city,’ she told me. ‘And if you see your father, Conrad, give him my best. Au revoir. That’s French for so long,’ my mother added.”
Au revoir, Parsifal said he called back, his last sight of her standing with her foot on a stump at the forest’s edge, the air smoky with good-byes. Au revoir.
“Fenjewla?” Joe said, looking confused.
On some days Parsifal seems to exist even to himself as only a soundtrack: there is no person to be seen, just the sounds of his footsteps crossing the floor, the sounds of water running, stopping, more footsteps, the sounds of a door creaking open, then swinging shut, the sigh of a cushion being sat on. How much better this is, he thinks, than the constant oppression of sight, the constant bracketing of his life by everything around him: vases, tables, trees, the mirrors in barber shops. On such days there are only sounds and Parsifal — equals in their invisibility. Thinking of this, for the first time he begins to envy those familiar cane-tapping, hard-walking, blind individuals.
Not that Parsifal ever thought less of Joe for having been appointed by the courts.
His second attempt to set out for the forest took more preparation than the first, which, after all, did not go so very far. Instead of five sandwiches Parsifal took sixteen, a candle, matches, a sleeping bag, and four pairs of socks. He carried a canteen full of water, a pocket comb, a pocketknife, and, of course, the map he had purchased from the map store. His plan was this: First he would walk to the bus station, where he would buy a ticket for a bus that would take him to the forest. Next he would spend one night (maybe two) in the forest searching for the cup and then, if he hadn’t found it, return by bus.