“Little Leme, listen carefully to me, you’ll do as I tell you,” curse me, it was another voice, I think it was burning away at him. “Little one, now you’ll have to close your eyes,” that was an order.
He said all of this with such a voice that I was not allowed to question. Quietly I complied with each one of his orders. I put my palms over my eyes, I closed my eyes.
“Okay,” I answered, “my eyes are closed.”
The son of Kejtin was silent, like he was thinking for one hour, he left the impression of a man facing a big decision. With that same voice he said:
“Believe me, Leme,” he said softly, as though he tore the words from his own soul, “believe me, little one, you must remain on that spot for a whole century. Be a man, Leme. That’s nothing.” Curse me, “just a century.”
I received all of it with the pure and deep love you have for a friend and comrade. But other than that, the way he did everything appealed to me immeasurably. The son of Kejtin was one of those devilish old men who can see a thousand kilometres before them, as though the whole distance was gathered in his eyes. Once, it was already late night, far into the night he saw a pale light, a distant light. He said “That’s a star falling, Leme, it is going out, it’s dying.” He saw all of that before the star fell and that’s why, from then on, I had to believe the son of Kejtin could see like God. What could he see now, where was he taking me with my eyes closed, a hundred times a second those questions came to me.
I don’t believe all of that lasted that many endless centuries, but when he put his hands on my face and when he took mine in his, when at last I opened my eyes, I almost screeched. Before my eyes as in the most beautiful dream was exposed the whole surface of a lake. A big lake. Curse me, it was the Big Water. The Big Water was again so close, I swear, she was in us. I hugged her to me like the dearest thing in life. And she came all the more closely, with bright colours, with thousands of voices, with centuries of mournful wailing. You had to get centuries older to keep hold of childhood.
“Kejtin,” I whispered, I wanted to announce all my grief, but it wasn’t necessary, he was inside my thoughts, he knew all of my heart, each one of my thoughts. It was as if he was my twin, as if we had been together for the whole of our lives. Curse me, a lifetime.
“Be a man, little Leme,” he said to me, “be a man, control yourself, we’re no longer alone,” he gestured toward the Big Water.
“Be a man, little Leme,” the Big Water repeated his words, “be a man little Leme and restrain your heart. Be quiet.”
“Forgive me,” I said to my friend. “Forgive me, son of Kejtin, Big Water,” I said wiping the tears away. I felt free of my wretched name Lem, I felt how the Senterlev Mountain is born, how I am going after it, how I am climbing and how it isn’t madness. Curse me, I believed. The son of Kejtin, understanding my thoughts, said:
“Listen, Leme, listen little fool,” he rebuked me, “nobody knows this place except for you and no-one is allowed to have it until he earns it. Listen little fellow,” he added, “now only you and I know this place and don’t you give it away. This place has to be deserved, Leme,” he said very seriously, giving me a warning.
“What does it mean,” I asked, “for someone to deserve something?”
“Yes,” he said, like he knew before I said anything what I was going to ask, “you don’t understand that, Leme, but one day you will understand. One day, after a thousand centuries, everything will be known.”
“After how many centuries?” I said as if I had not heard him. “After how many centuries will everything be known?”
“Don’t make me laugh, Leme,” said the son of Kejtin, “don’t make yourself smarter than you are, don’t make out you can know everything.” He thought a little to himself and, taking his hand from his pointy chin (his hand was always stuck to his chin), waved it turning himself toward the Big Water and, with a happy voice, said “I bet, little one, you don’t know why you deserve this place. Do you, Leme?” he said and he looked at me with his beautiful bright eyes.
“No,” I answered him sincerely, but surely I do deserve it, a thousand times over I must have deserved it, I wanted to say to him, but I kept silent so I wouldn’t make him laugh.
“I liked you, little Leme,” he said, wanting to speak himself, “I liked you, from the time you fell on the ground,” a bitter smile briefly distorted his face, “when you were in the dust, I mean when you lifted your head from the dust and said to the dear Headmaster “What for are you beating us, we were at the Big Water”, curse me, that was brave, little one. I haven’t seen that sort of bravery before, maybe you were muttering but it was brave. No-one else could’ve thought up such a thing to say. That kept me on my feet, little one. But it’s not that, Leme, it’s not that, friend. No! Oh you are a devil, Leme, the biggest devil!” Then he scratched his tousled, red hair, wild like a kid goat’s and, smiling, said “You deserve this place because of something else, Leme. You deserve it for all of the days you spent, looking for that hole from where you could see a little toward the water. I think there isn’t a spot on that horrible wall where your eyes haven’t looked. And what were you looking for little Leme?” he said putting his hand on my shoulder. “You were looking for this place and, there you are, now it’s yours, be happy. You have earned the right to have it, Leme. It’s yours,” he said and like a demon he slipped away through the ceiling cavity, leaving me alone in that place. As if just then, he turned into part of the water, plunged in the night.
It was one of the happiest centuries in the Home. Curse me, that was the happiest hour in my life. I acknowledge that neither then nor since did I ever again have such a happy century. After such a moment I could endure any punishment. From that day, my life in the Home was totally changed, the threatening fear totally left me, the fear which was settled in every part in the Home, again I could think of the Senterlev mountain, of that mountain where the sun is born. Curse me, that was happiness.
The nights spent in the ceiling were the most beautiful hours in the Home. Here, in freedom, among a thousand sounds, colours and wishes. You felt it, you drank it in and, from a crawling black snail, all at once you become something great, wondrous, alive. In your frightened little heart, a giant wave stirred up. You would see the wall falling down, a happy feeling would be imprinted on your soul, a feeling that wishes would be fulfilled. It shouts in you, your thin chest opens up and from it a wondrous bird with gold feathers flies toward the sky. For hours afterwards, without anyone able to stop you, you fly above the water. Your wings are as strong as those of a dove born in the warm nest of the old cliffs. The frightening boom of the waves, the powerful storm the night you came into the world, big fear, uncertainty, all are lost moment by moment when your shiny, light wing touches the spell-binding endlessness of the surface. You fly without getting tired, without end. Madly. You are enticed by unseen, secret landscapes, one more beautiful, brighter than the other. Until then, your eyes have seen nothing similar. Like a magnet they pull you toward something even more beautiful, brighter. Eternal. Curse me, eternal. Rushing, you meet death. You hear one of the children in its dream, in the silent, deaf night, utters a scream like someone had put a knife to his throat. You see bulging faces on the stinking mattresses, in confusion even in their sleep. In a fever. Then, like a mad man I ran in that space in the ceiling. I asked myself, dragging myself through the great cobwebs, “Where is that mountain, that cursed mountain which one of the children called Senterlev?”