Читать книгу A Greater Music - Bae Suah - Страница 8

Greater music, the voice said. The voice governed the whole world under the rain-streaked, cloud-wreathed sky. Dense with moisture, the air pressed in through the open car window, forming droplets on M’s right cheek and the exposed side of her hair. M and I wanted to listen to the sound of the rain falling on the fields. The rainwater trickled down M’s pale, almost ghost-like forehead, down over her eyelids, still more sunken after her recent cold, and over her slightly downward-pointing nose. When she tilted her head upward, her lips appeared unbelievably thin and delicate, tapering elegantly even when she wasn’t smiling, flushed red as though suffused by the morning sunlight. The delicate, languidly prominent scaffolding of her cheekbones, the cheekbones for which they had teased her at school, saying they were like an Eskimo’s; the muscles directly below them trembled momentarily as if in a spasm. Far over the fields, lightning flashed slowly. If books and language were the symbol of M’s absolute world, then music was her inaccessible mind, her religion, her soul. We were descending the low-lying hills on which the rain was quietly falling. On both sides of the hills lay mown fields. The edge of the black woods was receding over them, but it was impossible to tell whether these woods existed in reality or were merely a shadow cast over the ground by the rain-laden clouds. That morning I’d stopped by the government office to sort out an issue with some documents. Before that, M had gone to get her doctor’s permission to go on a short trip. Up until her death a week ago, M’s aunt had been living in the city’s outer ring, and M and I had decided to go and collect her things. M made no comment when Shostakovich came on. Greater music, said the voice on the radio. That recorded voice always reaches us after a certain lag, like the light from distant stars; the precise span of its existence in the world remained unknown. All we could do was listen, though what we heard didn’t always correspond to the absolute value—the modulus, m—of existence. Nevertheless, without music, what kind of meaning could existence have? Greater music, saying “the voice” is surely more honest, rather than endowing it with the concrete weight of a human individual. When I heard those words on the radio it never occurred to me to personify the voice as “he” or “she.” Greater, greater music, the voice said. The word “greater,” which usually describes a comparison, isn’t appropriate in this instance. The voice used “greater music” as an expression like greater beauty or greater sadness, greater distance, greater pain, greater solitude. More x-adjective music. We never say “greater death,” death being an absolute value that does not admit comparison. Like one’s hand, which can be flipped to show either the back or the palm, it’s something that can only exist as one of two possibilities. Music is absolute, just like death. Just as “greater death” or “lesser death” is a logical impossibility, so the same can be said of music, which is of the same order as the soul. A comparison cannot be made between listening to Beethoven’s Concerto no. 2 or no. 3 as if one were “lesser” and the other “greater.” Similarly, if one were to listen to a single one of Beethoven’s concertos three times in a row, or listen to three different concertos one after the other, it would make no sense to declare that one of these is greater and the other is lesser. Might it be possible to use “greater music” as a way of expressing music as it is listened to, rather than a mere list of musical works? Can a word that expresses either something still more musical, a still deeper thirst for music (persisting in spite of much contemporary dross), or simply music itself, contain within itself the possibility for the many meanings that it connotes and suggests to be further amplified, to be somehow greater? Can it permit its own territory to be ambiguous, bounded by a far horizon incapable of clear demarcation? Greater music. Where might such words come from? The voice never made any association between Beethoven’s Concerto no. 2 and no. 3. Perhaps, all things considered, “music is greater to me” might be a more appropriate expression. Greater death, greater nakedness (as opposed to an increased number of individual naked bodies), a more primordial human (but only one individual), a greater universe, the soul of greater music, a greater rarity, a greater distance from the present location, greater Mendelssohn, greater M, and that greater winter.

In the beginning there are memories. Conventional memories whose essence is either visual or aural, shifting eventually to those which, through their own agency, reclaim past scenes inside remembered soundscapes. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Strasse, immersed in the music I am oblivious to the fact that the train that I have to take has already pulled in, the passengers have already boarded and the train has whisked them away. Clara Schumann’s portrait gleaming pale above paper money, the Shostakovich corner in the LP store, a gramophone discovered in an antiques store on the craftsman’s street, a museum of musical instruments down a small side street not marked on the map, music schools. More music. Raindrops fell, and were overlaid above with more drops, and above them still more. They fell continuously, layer upon layer, and an instinctive lifting of one’s gaze sees severally existing worlds unfurl over the fields, stretching away beyond the gray barrier that marked the edge of the motorway. Air heavy with rain, overcast with clouds, churned by gusting wind, the melancholy color of a seemingly shadowed evening, earth and water and air and color. Of all the discrete chords pursuing infinite freedom each on their separate path, each in possession of their own language, a musician singled out one. That chord, which layered raindrop over raindrop, extended the domain of the original droplet throughout the world that lay beneath the massing clouds, beyond the fields and low hills and what had at one time been wilderness. On stage, at an orchestral concert I’d attended with M, an oboist mistakenly played a sharp note. It had happened at least twice by the time they were halfway through the movement, which wasn’t a particularly long one. Overall, a disappointing performance. During the break, people milled around in the hall, wineglasses full. The sound of the wine lapping against the delicate glasses differed according to whether it was white or red. People in black woolen clothes gathered there, the sounds of their conversation filling the lower part of the cavernous space like smoke dispersing at a low height, before being gradually absorbed into the walls and portraits. This was in the dead of winter. It was at M’s house that I first heard “At the Santé Prison,” the song of a condemned man awaiting death. Between one piece and another, or one movement and another movement, I would open the kitchen window a little and breathe in the crisp air, or make some fresh coffee. At first I was bored, unable to lose myself in the music. At the time I was more taken up with M than I was with Shostakovich. All the same, we listened to all fifteen of Shostakovich’s symphonies, one after another, in no particular order. Symphony no. 11, Symphony no. 7, Symphony no. 14, Opus 135, the poetry of Lorca, Apollinaire, Rilke, Küchelbecker. The solo begins, death is omnipotent, without solace, afterimage, or praise. But before the song was over I’d left La Santé, no, M’s house, and was heading home. The symphony had made an immediate impression on me. Later, I realized that it had caused me to acknowledge the omnipotence of death, the sole theme of such music. This acknowledgement hurt those close to me, and I had to endure their condemnation. The night was deep, the lamps stood unlit, and the paved road was uneven; the tram stop was some way off. Beneath the raindrops, still more raindrops were falling, not at a constant speed, but continuously. Beside them other raindrops were falling, also at unappointed intervals, and beside them still more raindrops, and beside them still more . . . thus was the world beneath the massed clouds captured and occupied. It was the empire of a mathematics which, for all its exquisite detail, was freed from the strictures of an orderly rhythm, and played extempore.

It was in my teens, when I got my own stereo and learned to play the piano and violin, that I found my way into the world of music. It was learning an instrument that opened this door, providing a deeper understanding than can be gained through passive listening. And yet I turned out to be utterly devoid of musical talent, even allowing for the fact that I was too old, by then, to be able to tap into that innate ear for music that children supposedly have. At the time, though, I can’t say I really felt the lack, because in those days I imagined that this thing, music, was merely incidental to the world, a kind of garnish. In other words, I considered it on-par with overly embellished old-fashioned clothes, romantic poetry, my weekly art class, an intricately crafted dessert, the occasional trip to the theater as a reward for good grades. I was painfully sensitive as a teenager, at the mercy of the emotions that roiled and raged within me. The music lessons bored me, so I quit—that was the way I used to act, and I’m genuinely ashamed to think of it now. I was far more interested in other, “popular” things—films, music, dance—whose mind-numbing, facile simplicity meant they could be enjoyed without any form of critical engagement. My parents didn’t know much about music themselves, and when I decided to drop my lessons in favor of learning a computer programming language, they agreed that this would be a more productive use of my time. After all, it wasn’t as though I was intending to go on to music school, and the lesson fees hadn’t exactly been cheap. My adolescence was marred with so much that was base and contemptible. In those days I had a Fischer-Dieskau record, ones by Maria Anderson and Maria Callas, and a Schubert collection (the name of the singer escapes me), as well as full-length aria collections like Madame Butterfly and La Traviata, etc. But I soon set aside that kind of music in favor of ABBA records, or the soundtracks of the latest popular films, which I borrowed from my classmates. At the time, the thing which dominated my life was neither films nor my father, but deference to the tastes and opinions of the group. Even then, I knew that La Traviata or Fischer-Dieskau were more beautiful than ABBA, but if I didn’t listen to ABBA then I couldn’t join in when my classmates enthused over their favorite songs. If I didn’t watch the films that were constantly on at the theater, with their slick editing and predictable plots, then when all the other kids could talk of nothing else I would have to pretend I just hadn’t gotten around to seeing it for some reason, and pay close attention while the others went on about how great it had been. Even worse would have been if I were to mention a scene from La Traviata, or praise Fischer-Dieskau’s voice; then, as instantaneously as a trap snapping shut, I would be ostracized, deliberately ignored, my very existence blanked out. Adolescence is a time of uncertainty and instability, and I couldn’t help but fear being condemned as old-fashioned, or as putting on airs. Worse, nothing that I learned at school gave me cause to suspect that there might be something more worthwhile than the simple, sentimental connection afforded by popular music. Being yourself was frowned upon, while ignorance was actively promoted. In those days, the authority of school was so absolute that neither I nor even my parents would dare to harbor thoughts that went against the grain. Such a thing would have been seen as undermining the good of the group, of which we were merely constituent parts. Of course, the teachers were ostensibly the ones who held the school under their sway, but they were merely the kings of the day, while the kings of the underground, the sovereigns of all darkness and terror, the merciless kings who dispensed with reason and logic, the brutal monarchs whose lust for fresh victims had all the hunger of a school of sharp-toothed piranhas, who would on no account allow their prey to go free until they were sated; they, the kings of night, already bearing in large part the natural disposition of the mob, and having this cultivated day by day, the anti-educators, were none other than the pupils.

Such a lot of time has gone by since then. Now, I have willingly taken upon myself the role of M’s protector. An inconceivably intense affection flooded through me for the tender, haughty being known as M. I closed the glass window, anxious about the prospect of M catching yet another cold. The sharp tang of petrol pervaded the interior of the old car. M had a serious allergy to many medicines, so she couldn’t take general fever remedies. Greater music, the voice said. Even before the final bar had ended, the voice repeated those same sounds, greater music. Like the raindrops which fell continuously, but seemingly without any fixed pattern, greater music, in an uncalculated extempore moment before the final notes were over, like the falling of the next raindrop while the lingering notes of the first still sound, falling to the ground beneath the clouds with no set beat, greater music, the next first notes joined the continuum. That continuous sound is called music. In winter.

Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano is his final work, which he completed while in the hospital. He seemed to have had a strong premonition regarding his own death. According to him: We don’t simply fear death now and then; rather, our mortal lives are far more deeply threaded with its presence. At least, that’s how it seems to me . . .

2) When I first fell into the water, although I was perfectly aware that this was all really happening, it felt as though I was still stuck inside a dream. I’m walking along the road, lifting my feet with that sluggishness found in dreams, that heaviness caused by the water sloshing inside my rain boots. Neither sadness, fear, nor despair, but gravity, endless and immense, has taken hold of me. I’m wandering between the houses, their numbers painted on white signs. I must be lost. It seemed I’d experienced brutal acts but could no longer remember them. No, I was simply struck by the sense of memory’s intangibility, torn between struggling to recall certain events as something concrete, and the instinct to leave them safely in the nebulous past. But such dreams were nothing new for me, and I didn’t need to fight against the confusion; to a certain extent I actually enjoyed it. Even as the surface of the water broke my fall, I wasn’t afraid. I saw pots of limp geraniums on a windowsill, the white drapes drawn, glass dolls with scarily large pupils, and green Christmas candles. I waved. As firecrackers snapped in the middle of the road, a yellow tram went by. Benny ran barking along the water’s edge, where early bluebells bloomed between patches of unmelted snow. Nothing’s the matter, Benny. This is only a dream. But no sound emerged from my throat. Benny was barking even louder. He ran into the wood that grew by the water, gradually speeding up so that in the end he was nothing but a blurry white ball, revolving with the world’s axis as its center. What could have happened to upset him? I wanted to comfort him. My love, everything’s alright. Just wait there and I’ll come right back. There’s a good boy, my love. But Benny couldn’t hear me and streaked away, passing beyond my sight. Then the incongruous figure of a postman dressed all in yellow joined the scene. He’d parked his bicycle by the side of the road and was pressing the doorbell, holding the letters in one hand. There’s no one home, so he’ll just stick the letters in the mailbox; just as I was thinking this, I felt the first stab of the cold water, piercing the top of my head and the nape of my neck and the rim of my ears. The next moment I felt the weight of the water pull me under, cold hands seizing me and tugging me down. The cold was lethal, and my limbs were rapidly becoming numb. I’d fallen into the water, I knew this perfectly well, yet I kept on mechanically lifting my feet up and down. I imagined that I was walking down a flight of stairs—stairs of water, which were rapidly extending downward as I placed my feet on the next step. Without needing to look behind me, I knew that they were disappearing as I descended, that the section I’d passed had already dissolved into the water. The thought suddenly came to me that “returning” is merely a word, not something referring to a real possibility. I was going to mumble that something had gone wrong, but my frozen lips wouldn’t part. Icy water had seeped in between them when I first fell in, freezing them into immobility after my initial cry of distress. Water bearing the deep chill of midwinter, water that pierces and penetrates warm winter clothes, cold enough to carry off my soul. A devil was stabbing me with an ice poker. When I broke the surface I’d felt a pain as though my lips had been gashed on sharp rocks, as though a bone had broken in my left side, so extreme that I saw fireworks flash in front of my eyes.

This is a dream, the continuation of a dream, I thought. This is a dream, and since it’s a dream there’s no need for me to struggle. Because that’s the way it is with dreams, and because it was clear that, however much I struggled, my physical strength would be negligible at best. Yet I thrashed my limbs mercilessly all the same, and a bubbling sound escaped from between my lips. Although I’d stopped sinking, I was unable to free myself from my waterlogged coat and boots, which were weighing me down. Not much time had passed since I fell in, so the water had only come up to my forehead. I tried to swim, but I couldn’t get my body to move in the way I ordered it. Fear of suffocation was rapidly paralyzing me. Convinced that my heavy boots were what was dragging me down, I made a foolish attempt to remove them and got a mouthful of water for my pains. I floundered, choking, tried to float on the surface, tried again to remove my boots, and eventually I discovered myself thinking “this is a dream,” and letting everything take its own course as my body sank weakly into the water. How could I have fallen in? I mean, how could I be unwittingly wearing a warm coat with two sweaters and a hat, woolen socks, jeans and rain boots? It hadn’t even been a minute since I’d fallen in, but it felt so much longer. My strength had faded, there was absolutely nothing I could do any more. I didn’t even have the strength to move my little finger. That was when the word death first came into my mind, as did the thought that I was lucky not to have been sentenced to death; somewhat incongruous given that, as far as I could remember, I’d never committed a crime that would warrant such a punishment. The mere mention of capital punishment was enough to send a shiver through me, as though I were undergoing some terrible humiliation. To me, capital punishment, administered in full accordance with an established legal system, seemed even more humiliating than a public flogging. Being murdered had always seemed immensely preferable to the ordeal of capital punishment. Death; until now it had always been something to do with other, far-away people, but now it was all too intimate. Although I tried to tell myself that it was something I just had to accept, that after all this was only a dream, it was all too evident that I was suffocating. Confusion slowly changed into humiliation as I realized that I was going to experience both a basic agony and an inexhaustible humiliation.

To M as much as to me, it simply wasn’t possible that I would die first of the two of us. Such thoughts had even escaped her lips, and on more than one occasion. This assumption was hardly unreasonable considering the parade of illnesses, both major and minor, that had been M’s adolescence, the three operations she’d had so far, and the hereditary allergy which threatened to flare up whenever she strayed too far from her familiar environment. It was so much a part of her life that she barely even noticed it any more, living hemmed in by the many medicines which she had to take, the doctors’ addresses, the phone calls to book appointments. M’s allergy caused her unimaginable suffering, so much so that, she told me, she’d once decided to kill herself rather than bear it any longer. The doctors were all of the opinion that M’s other disorders of the nervous system were triggered by this allergy. Even though these weren’t life-threatening, whenever I thought of death it had become a habit to think of it connection with M. M knew this perfectly well. But how foolish I’d been to think that way—now M would have no reason to hate or envy me any more, as she was going to outlive me. But there was no way she’d ever be able to learn the details of my death. She would never know about the humiliation, and this was all that was needed to set my mind at ease.

Death, being unaware that one is no longer living. Strangely enough, after that thought surfaced in my mind, the pain seemed gradually to lessen in intensity. Like so many other things that get forgotten in this world, the feeling as though my lungs were bursting slowly lost its original character, becoming “pain” only in name, a pain that was “mine” yet felt strangely disconnected. I was lying on the water. I wasn’t floating perfectly, though; I was lying on my side facing the riverbank, repeatedly sinking beneath the surface only to float up again a few moments later. I could gulp down a quick breath if I twisted my head when I floated up, but this was getting progressively more difficult. I knew I had to tilt my head up so I could breathe, but I was so weak that I frequently just sank straight back down again. My legs were starting to weigh me down, dragging me back under. The pain in my side remained constant all the while, but it now felt less like pain and more like evidence of some irreversible severing or fatal decision in the midst of this slow death. I was conscious of the sensation that we call “pain,” but it wasn’t the least bit painful any more. Eventually, like my inability to breathe, it became both the sole thing left to define me and my final farewell to this world, the total sum of my existence.

3) We’d arranged to go to Joachim’s house on Christmas Eve. His mother’s house, to be precise. I was also planning to attend a midnight church service, though for architectural rather than religious reasons. The area where his mother lived was nothing special but, according to Joachim, it had a particularly beautiful church. His family was Protestant, but Joachim hadn’t been to church for a very long time. It wasn’t snowing on the morning of Christmas Eve, but the snow that had fallen the night before hadn’t completely melted, leaving the roads churned with dirty slush and snow still piled up on the pavements. The wind was so strong it swept up snow from the unmelted piles and scattered it into the air. Joachim had been in a bad mood all day, perhaps because of the imminent family gathering. In fact, he’d wanted to skip the whole thing, catch a bus straight from the airport to the train station, then jump on the first train to Schleswig-Holstein. But I didn’t have the money for yet another trip, and besides, several years ago I’d gone on holiday to East Asia over Christmas, so I knew what a bad idea it was to travel at that time of year. All the tourist attractions are closed, and the only thing haunting the deserted streets is your own solitary shadow. In the mornings, while you spread subway tickets out on the table at the guesthouse, after breakfast and coffee; while reading the information boards in a woodland park that seems once to have been a mountaintop castle, strewn with the wreckage of broken armaments or the detritus of some bygone aristocratic hunt; while browsing the Christmas market in the square; at all times, and in all places, your thoughts revolve solely around deciding where to visit next. But then, I’d known in advance that it would be like that, that everything would be desolate and I would end up wandering around on foot, shivering in the cold. In fact, I came to realize that the 1,500 kilometers I’d traveled had only served to further the distance between myself and my original goal. It was a goal that simply could not be attained. I struggled to explain to Joachim about that holiday to the East. That holiday of which I had never spoken to anyone, when I took the night train far away with heavy bags and a heavier heart, yet was ultimately unable to break free from myself. But Joachim just couldn’t grasp what I was trying to say. “What on earth is that supposed to mean? ‘Break free from myself,’ you mean like dying or going crazy? So your holiday was pointless, I can’t understand what that has to do with Christmas. And besides, Schleswig-Holstein isn’t exactly East Asia, is it?” This wasn’t entirely unreasonable; right up until our last goodbye, I’d been dreaming of traveling to the north. But not now. After breakfast we take our dog Benny for a walk. The sun is shining through a gap in the clouds though, as usual, the cold wind makes our skin feel tight. We walk in silence, along the same route we always take. Sometimes Benny stops to have a sniff around, and if he catches a scent or just absent-mindedly flops down on the ground, we stop walking too, and stare at the wood of denuded larches, their outlines stark and bare. In the wood there is a small lake, completely frozen over at this time of year. People go there to skate. We walk over the frozen lake. Benny barks nervously as soon as we step out onto the ice, perhaps disliking the cold, slippery sensation beneath his feet, and speeds off to the far bank. Heeding Benny’s distrust of the ice, we decide against crossing the lake and stroll around the edge instead, watching the skaters. Joachim doesn’t have a jacket, so is wrapped up in two sweaters, a hat and a black muffler. At times he looks more like a “Peter” than a “Joachim.” My love. Joachim calls Benny in a low voice. My love, stay. We’re coming right back. Good boy, my love.

We walked up and down, having assured ourselves that the lake ice was solid and not likely to break. Snow had erased the contours of the paths through the wood, rendering them indistinguishable from the surroundings, but the footprints of people and their dogs were outlined sharp against the whiteness. Wild rose bushes hung with small, hard, red fruit formed a low hedge, and every time the wind blew the high, snow-laden branches quivered and creaked ominously. Hulking crows perched on ice-covered branches that glittered silver when struck by the low, slanting rays of the winter sun. Soon, though, swiftly gathering clouds obscured all traces of its presence in the sky. It looked as though it would snow again that evening. Joachim was walking about three or four paces ahead of me. He said that if he’d known how to skate he would have borrowed a pair and gone out onto the ice right now. I’d learned how to skate when I was eleven, I told him, but that it was so long ago that I wasn’t sure whether I would remember how, and besides, it was so cold right now that I wasn’t thinking about anything at all. We resumed our silent walk. We felt the cold stab of the air entering our lungs as a physical impact, and if we coughed the steam of our breath came out white. I asked Joachim if he was cold without a coat, but he just shrugged in reply. When we came up to the lake caretaker’s hut, a humble shack made of yellow bricks and wood, he suggested that we’d walked for long enough now and might as well head home. We found Benny waiting for us at the hut, fixing us with his faithful stare, almost as if he feared that we might disappear if he didn’t keep us in sight. The return trip was colder than the way out. I was all but running. We decided that it was too cold to walk all the way, and took the tram. Benny’s dislike of the tram was plain, but he flattened his body to lie obediently under the seat when Joachim told him to. Every time Benny jerked his head up, clearly ill at ease, Joachim produced a dog biscuit from his pocket and held it out to him. Benny would then settle down again, bury his face under the seat and chew his biscuit. The thought only then occurring to me, I asked Joachim if he’d bought a present for his parents. “A book and some perfume,” he replied briefly, adding that he hadn’t bought anything for his brother.

“In that case I guess I can get something for him.”

Joachim assured me there was no need, although I suggested that going empty handed to a Christmas dinner made me feel uncomfortable.

“Besides, you can’t,” he grinned. “All the shops will be closed now, you know. I mean, where are you going to get a present from?”

In that case there was nothing to be done. We went home, Joachim ironed a shirt to wear that evening, and I made a simple Chinese noodle dish for lunch. After I boiled the water for the noodles according to the instructions, scooped them out with a sieve and drained them, I fried them in the big wok together with a jar of bean sprouts. According to Joachim the wok had been a real bargain, something he’d gotten off his friend’s Vietnamese neighbor. Once the noodles heated through, I dished them up and finished them off with a sprinkle of salt, some garlic, and Thai chili sauce. The radio was playing Christmas songs back to back, many of them with practically the same melody, so we switched over to a news program, made some jasmine tea, and ate lunch. The tram rattled by outside. On the news we heard that the snow had caused many accidents on the motorways, and that there were floods in southern Germany. Once he’d finished the dishes, Joachim flopped down on the sofa, yawning, and began to browse one of his many train magazines—he couldn’t get enough of them—while I flicked through the television channels. The Christmas-themed programming was ubiquitous—Christmas carols, Christmas films, Christmas Mass, Christmas cooking, Christmas plays, Christmas discussions, etc. On the table there was a silver box of chocolates with some left over, and a book Joachim had been reading, General Physics Theory with Mathematical Proofs. He’d already passed the basic physics exam in his first term, but had apparently forgotten almost all of it and so was looking over it again. Benny was lying by Joachim’s side; Joachim had the magazine in one hand and held Benny by the scruff of the neck with the other. The small, snow-covered road that ran through the backyard was visible through the high glass window. Lined with individual gardens known as “small gardens,” it led to the local cemetery. The winter landscape was unchanging, and would remain so at least until the Christmas and New Year holidays were over. Every morning after breakfast we read a book, prepared something simple to eat, and watched some monotonous TV program; at night we listened to the radio, and three times a day we took Benny out for a short walk. In between that, we passed the time by doing the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and taking the tram into town if there was something we needed to buy. Switching over to MTV, I stretched out on the bed, a wave of drowsiness surging over me. I’d barely gotten any sleep the previous night, having arrived at Joachim’s in the early hours of dawn after a six-hour train journey. I’d flown into an airport outside Berlin, which meant two train changes with all my luggage, though Joachim had met me at the airport and helped carry the heavy bags. Arriving back in the city after a three-year absence, the first thing I saw was the night bus-stop near the station, in the falling snow. I sat on a suitcase while we waited for the bus; they came every half hour. The snow was falling heavily, too heavy for an umbrella or hat to be of much use. The roads had completely iced over because of the sudden drop in temperature. The train had been delayed by around two hours and after catching the bus we had to change again to take the tram. It was the Christmas holidays, and on top of it being late at night the snow was really coming down, so there were barely any passing cars even on the main road. The first thing that struck me was how unimaginably cold the bus stop was. That infinite, embalmed silence, the frozen torpor of the season, compounded by the extreme cold, pincered the heart in a viselike grip. Snow, rain, agonizing cold, the blank sky, the air heavy as if weighted down. Even when we got back to Joachim’s and got into bed the cold still did not completely dissipate. The sound of the wind continued until morning, and until the sun trembled over the rim of the horizon, rising as cold as the thin layer of ice that rimmed the outside of the window, I couldn’t shake myself free from the memory of the airplane’s narrow seat, the continuous roaring of the engine, the vibration of the train as it rattled over the tracks. And so of course I was incredibly tired, and just as I was thinking to myself how tired I was, I fell asleep.

When I woke from sleep I was at a loss to say where I was. The room was so dark I assumed it was the middle of the night. It was completely silent, the curtains were drawn, and there was no sign of either Joachim or Benny. It had been a dreamless sleep. The only source of illumination was the light from the TV, showing a live broadcast of a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic. Karajan’s face appeared on the screen. Only when I looked at the hands of the clock on the bedside table did I realize that I’d only slept for three hours. It was unusually dark for daytime; when I opened the curtains I saw that the whole city lay overshadowed by black clouds, from which the snow had slowly started to fall. The Berlin Phil was doing Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Perhaps Joachim had changed the channel and left it on when he went out. Unfortunately, it was almost at the final movement, and after a brief commercial the program continued with Ravel’s Boléro. I wasn’t fond of the Boléro. It was a shame I hadn’t woken up a little earlier, when the William Tell Overture was still on. I must have slept in an awkward position, because my right arm and my entire torso were tingling. I lay there in the bed and stared at the old ceiling. Originally there’d been an electric bulb suspended from it, but now all that was left was a short wire. Joachim had thought the light made the room too bright, so he’d pulled it out. As a replacement, he’d put a desk lamp on the small table that could be used for reading and writing, and there was a stand by the bed. The bookcase was filled with magazines and dictionaries, along with several volumes on physics and art theory—no different from when I first came here three years ago. Several old magazines had disappeared and been replaced by new ones, and the collection seemed to be missing several Baedeker guidebooks, plus two or three books on maths or physics which I remembered from before, but apart from that almost nothing had changed. Novels were represented solely by the English-language versions of the Harry Potter Series and American Psycho. Those were inside the wardrobe, where we’d put my suitcase yesterday. I opened it, took out my books, and put them on the bookshelves. I’d brought some translations of Dostoevsky with me, but I wouldn’t be reading them here. I’d read them before, for one thing, though this had been some time ago, and had realized that reading them again would be tedious. I tried reading one on the plane, but had to put it aside. Joachim had more than enough magazines, so I tossed some into the wastepaper basket to make room for my books. After Christmas I would have to go into the city center to buy some more. Cookbooks or animal photo albums; classics which I’d read a long time ago but had forgotten both the plot and the significance, in fact everything but the title; twentieth-century contemporary history; postwar history; war crimes trials; or essays about the deaths of musicians. I’d always liked reading, but over the past few years I’d thrown myself into it with increasing gusto. One reason was that I’d begun to spend the vast majority of my time alone. I went into the kitchen to make coffee. The small fridge was packed, as Joachim had said. He’d stocked up on all sorts of groceries just before the start of the Christmas shopping wars. Two bags of coffee, an easy-bake Christmas cake and a bottle of milk, frozen spinach and other vegetables, honey and butter, bread and eggs, apples and red cabbage for cooking in pig fat, a jar of bean sprouts and a packet of Chinese noodles. The kitchen window looked out directly onto the road to the cemetery. At the entrance to the road, affixed to the wall of the building directly beneath the kitchen, a lamp gave off a yellow glow. Snowflakes swirled and streamed, glittering like shards of glass in that light.

Joachim came home. In the hallway he brushed off the snow that was stuck to Benny’s fur, and took off his jacket. He didn’t much like that old, threadbare jacket, and would only put it on if he thought it was going to be extremely cold. He sat at the small kitchen table and I poured him some of the coffee I’d made. After that we began to wrap the presents he’d bought. He’d bought a cookbook for his mother and an eau de cologne for his father. He apologized that he hadn’t been able to get anything for me, but that was only to be expected, since I’d only told him I was coming a couple of days ago. The day was now as dark as the depths of night, and the sound of the gusting wind could be heard through the shuddering windows. The falling snow swirled through the air, practically a blizzard. Joachim said we’d best wear scarves and gloves. And hats too, I added. He took a chocolate from the box he’d carried into the room, gave it to Benny, and took another for himself. When he’d finished eating it, chewing slowly like a man deep in thought, he picked out another piece. I asked if he wanted me to make him some bread and honey, but he shook his head and fetched a big tub of Nutella from the cupboard, which he’d bought on sale. He got out a knife and a plate and began to slather the chocolate on the bread I’d given him. Benny watched this process with a look of great interest, wagging his tail all the while. The kitchen only had one small light, fixed directly above the dishwasher. Yellow light from the wall lamp further down the side of the building streamed up and illuminated the whirling snowstorm outside the window. After taking a sip of coffee Joachim opened his mouth wide and bit off a chunk of the chocolate-covered bread. He didn’t give any to Benny, who waited patiently nonetheless. “Did you bring boots?” Joachim asked. “If you didn’t, your feet’ll get soaked. That’s how bad this snow is.” I’d only brought one pair of shoes with me; rain boots, as luck would have it. I took off Joachim’s pajamas, which I’d slept in, and found a pair of jeans to put on. I put a sweater on over my T-shirt, pulled on some thick woolen socks and went into the bathroom to comb my hair. The kitchen door stood open and through it I could see Joachim polishing off the rest of the bread, muttering to himself all the while. When our eyes met he raised his eyebrows as if to say, what’s the hurry?, and carried on slowly chewing the bread, staring up at the ceiling with his body stretched out in the chair. I stood beside the front door and waited quietly until he’d finished getting ready. Benny saw the clothes Joachim was wearing and gave a short, sharp bark, angry at being left behind. But there was nothing to be done. My love. Joachim put his arms around Benny’s neck and soothed him, kissing him again and again. My love, you have to stay here quietly. You wait here and I’ll be back before you know it. Good boy, my love.

When we left the house the blizzard had abated somewhat, but the wind was as strong as ever. It was already completely dark. We began to walk silently along the snow-covered road toward the light at the tram stop. Joachim walked in front, carrying a blue backpack into which he’d stuffed the presents. It was the selfsame backpack I remembered from three years ago, and even back then it had already been pretty old. Now it had holes in the bottom, big enough to be instantly noticeable. I was a little surprised that he was still using it. I could see that the snow had soaked through the tops of his thin sneakers, and his feet were getting wet. His thin, light-colored jeans flapped around his skinny shins as he hurried along. When we arrived at the tram stop we brushed ourselves off and checked the timetable.

“We’ll have to wait twenty minutes or so. What shitty luck,” Joachim grumbled. We were the only people waiting there. On the opposite platform there were two young children and one woman, standing stock-still and bundled up in bulky winter clothes like an Inuit family. In an attempt to ward off the tedium and the cold, I turned my attention to the various notices pinned up on the board and gave them a thorough examination. There was an ad for beer that made my teeth chatter just looking at it. Except for a family play, an exhibition of paintings, an exhibition of ancient relics classified by cultural-anthropological periods, and large business ads, they were all advertising New Year’s fireworks parties. There was also something about writers giving a public reading at the town’s only café. Joachim tapped his finger on the place where it said “free admission.”

“Want to go?”

I said I wasn’t sure. A cup of coffee would set me back at least two euros, and I couldn’t make a single cup last for over two hours, but then if we ordered beer or something that would make it too expensive. Plus, there would be a fee for the brochure. But, more than anything else, I really didn’t feel like going out anywhere, not while the weather was still like this. It was just too cold.

“I think I’d rather just stay home and read a book.”

“Sure, whatever you want,” Joachim said. “When the weather gets better you should go to the library and use my card. That’s free, after all. And maybe we’ll get to go to a party for New Year’s, have some wine. Also, when you said you were coming I booked us tickets for the Philharmonic’s New Year concert. Lucky there were still some seats left.”

“Wasn’t it expensive?”

“A bit. And I wasn’t sure if it’s the kind of thing you like. It’s choral music, you see. Probably Mozart and Beethoven’s masses.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Do you have any dress clothes? If not, you can always call one of your girlfriends and ask to borrow something.”

“Don’t worry about it, I brought something with me.”

All I’d brought was a jacket with a stiff collar and some woolen trousers that were slightly stretched at the knees, but I figured they would be good enough. We stood there shivering in silence until the tram pulled in. The snow, which had somehow found its way in through our hats and scarves, formed droplets of icy water and trickled down to the napes of our necks. It was a Christmas of freezing temperatures and driving snow. Identical rectangular houses lined both sides of the road, impassive as soldiers on a midwinter battlefield. The tram passed along the tracks between them, between those houses where curtains hung in the windows and Christmas decorations glittered on candlelit balconies. Three years ago I often got lost here, as there was no way to tell the buildings apart unless you checked the house numbers. On top of that, the area was completely devoid of any kind of landmark, even so much as a shop with a sign. But I didn’t lose heart even when I realized I was lost, just continued to walk along the same road. Turning to the left, there’s a vacant lot that the locals use as a dump. Large iron bins stand beside flowerbeds. Even in that vacant patch of ground, yellow wildflowers bloom in the spring. Continuing on, the quiet road comes to a sudden end and a very different scene unfolds: a large T-junction appears with trams running along the crisscrossing tracks, each going in different directions. On the corner is a Turkish kebab shop; in the summer, when the weather is good, the shop is given a fresh coat of paint, dazzlingly white, and tables and chairs are set out on the tiny patch of grass that forms the yard, and they sell beer and lamb skewers. I’ve never gone into the shop, even though I’ve walked down this road many times from summer to late autumn, but I always notice it standing there, gleaming like something seen in a dream. Of course, now that it’s winter the shop is closed. On the opposite side of the road is the path leading to the lake, where Joachim takes Benny for walks. If you turn right again, white signposts stand in rows, bearing the house numbers of the identical military buildings, themselves a light green color like soldiers in summer uniform. On both sides of the road the scene that presents itself is so orderly, so repetitive, that it’s almost uncanny. Somewhere among this order is a narrow road leading behind the buildings, adorned with small rectangular gardens. Now, the apple trees and western pear trees, the small artificial lotus ponds, and the brick flower beds all lie under a thick covering of snow. If you follow those small gardens the road leads to the cemetery. Joachim lives on the second floor of the corner building. The first time I came to his house it was around dusk, and the darkness had a reddish tinge as if the landscape had rusted. Alighting from the tram, he’d gestured toward the strange, silent, red-tinted road and said “Welcome to the ghetto.”

When we arrived they were already sitting gathered in front of the television in the living room, with the window open, sipping cappuccinos while watching a Christmas special. Joachim’s mother Agnes and her boyfriend Bjorn, and Joachim’s twin brother Peter. Joachim headed into the living room and slumped down into a spare place on the sofa, without so much as a single word of greeting. As soon he sat down he opened the TV listings magazine, a double edition for Christmas, and started to go through it. Agnes and Bjorn said hello to me. When I’d visited Agnes briefly three years ago, she’d had a different boyfriend. And I’d never met Peter before. Joachim had never even spoken all that much about him. I’d thought they might be identical twins, but I could see now that they weren’t.

“Cappuccino?” Agnes asked, getting up from her seat. I nodded and thanked her. “How was your trip?” Bjorn asked, turning to look at me.

“It was okay. But the constant rain meant we couldn’t go outside much.”

“Oh, it rained? Here we’ve just had snow.”

When he laughed he let his mouth open wide. Peter’s gaze was fixed on the television screen as if there was something gluing it there. He greeted me only briefly, his hello stiff and formal. He didn’t look at Joachim and Joachim didn’t look at him, but then Joachim didn’t look at anything—he just sat there selecting chocolates from a glass dish on the side table, peeling off the silver paper and popping them into his mouth one at a time, with his face buried in the TV guide. A violinist appeared on the television and began to run through a series of popular Christmas pieces, his features arranged in an expression of generic happiness.

“André Rieu, there’s really no one like him,” Agnes sighed, gazing at the television while she settled back down on the sofa. “Don’t you agree?” she asked me. “He’s so attractive, and the music is just wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked. I hadn’t quite caught the name. “Who are you talking about?”

“André Rieu, the violinist. He has his own orchestra. He’s Dutch.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

The violinist was clearly putting a lot of effort into his facial expression and body language; no matter what he was playing, that happy smile never left his face. While he played he moved elegantly about the stage, making sure to hold the violin at a graceful angle. His long curly hair was pulled back with a stylish purple hair-tie, and each of his on-stage gestures were carefully calculated for a specific effect, like those of a gifted actor. Agnes gestured toward a shelf of books.

“I’ve got an André Rieu album—photos, you know.”

“Oh?” I tried to sound polite rather than genuinely enthusiastic in case she suggested I have a look through the album, which I’d spotted next to a large, thick volume entitled Princess Diana: Her Glory and Myth. But then my gaze landed on something else, on the same shelf as the books: a black and white photograph in a small, finely carved wooden frame. It was a waist-up photograph of a young woman; it appeared to be quite an old picture, and the woman to be around fifteen. She was wearing a dark dress, probably black, and her blonde hair was tied back; it gave the impression of having been taken to mark a special occasion. A handful of pale-cultured roses were clutched to her chest, and her lips were curved into a smile that was both delicate and sharp, matching the contours of her face. The girl was standing in front of what looked like the door to a building. Her face looked pale and drawn for one so young. Overall, the impression was of a strange combination of cunning and freshness, of time flowing past in water. There was no question about it—this was Agnes, a long time ago. All the same I asked Joachim:

“Is this a photo of Agnes?”

“How would I know?” he responded brusquely, without even glancing at the photograph.

After the meal, when Agnes had finished the dishes and came to join the rest of us in the living room, I pointed out the photograph on the shelf and asked if it was a photo of her.

“Yes, that’s right. It’s a photo of the old days.”

“Agnes, you were really pretty.”

“There’s no need to lie,” Joachim said, without looking at me.

“It’s not a lie, it’s true. How old were you?”

“I was thirteen. 1963. The day of my First Communion. That’s an important day in the Protestant church, you know.”

“So that’s why you were wearing those fancy clothes? The black dress?”

“That’s why I wore the black dress, yes. And the roses were a gift.”

“Were they white?”

“Hmm, no, they weren’t white. I can’t remember all that well. Were they yellow, maybe? Just a minute.”

She disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a big cardboard box. Joachim tossed aside the magazine he’d been reading with an expression of annoyance, and Peter stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, keeping his eyes on the television. From the box, Agnes produced a headband that looked as though it hadn’t been worn for years. “The very same,” she said, indicating the one in the photograph. The box also contained a thick, black album, the photos glued to its thin white pages. They were all scenes from weddings. On the first page was a young Agnes, dressed in a pale two-piece and wearing cat-eye glasses. The man standing at her side was a little shorter than her, had clear, pale skin, and hair styled into the same shape as a sailor’s cap. Agnes explained that this was in the government office, right after the wedding ceremony. “That was my first wedding,” she added, reaching out to take the glass of spirits Bjorn was offering her. Compared to the previous photograph, this Agnes had cheeks that could almost be called plump. It wasn’t just her cheeks—her shoulders too, in fact her whole body was filled out nicely. She and the other women, who I guessed were her sisters, all had bouffant hairstyles and glasses of the same distinct shape, and were wearing two-pieces cut to the same pattern. I recognized the style, having seen similar things in photos of my mother when she was young. It was the style adopted by Jacqueline Kennedy when she was the wife of the American president. It was all very evocative of a certain distinct period, which I suppose must have been one of those historical moments where young women the world over got married in similar clothes. The wedding reception had been attended by Agnes’s sisters, their husbands, and her older brothers, the men all in suits. They were young, every one of them, and incomparably beautiful; there was even something brave in their youth and their beauty. They were like flowers daring to bloom amid the ruins of a city devastated by war. Moreover, this was a city that seemed to have been a humble place of woods, lakes, and simple, unembellished houses. These women had nothing to obscure the bright freshness of their youth; no makeup, no accessories, not even any coquetry. The square in the city center was truly vast, and the wide, straight road looked as though it might well stretch all the way to distant Poland. On this road, flanked by a seemingly endless forest, people from all walks of life stood holding hands and smiling brightly. It was as if I could hear their laughter and their song.

“I was seventeen then. He became ill, afterward, and died.”

“Do your siblings still live around here?”

“I’m not sure. We haven’t seen each other for, oh, decades, now.”

I wasn’t sure how many times Agnes had been married, but in any case I was certain that the short man with the sailor-style hair, whom Agnes had married at seventeen, wasn’t Joachim and Peter’s father. Later, when simple curiosity prompted me to ask Joachim how many times his mother had been married, he picked a train magazine up off the sofa and tossed it swiftly over the side, snapping “thirty-three times.” In the photographs of her first wedding, Agnes had been like a budding flower, swelling with fresh, ripe fullness. She no longer resembled the girl who, at thirteen, had posed for her First Communion photograph with a shy, wavering smile. Similarly, the image of Agnes at her first wedding, in a dress and thick-framed glasses, held no premonition as to what the future would hold—of the alcoholic who can’t get to sleep unless she’s had a drink at the local pub; of being constantly unemployed and with no hope of this changing, searching for neighborhoods where the rent is cheap; of the loneliness of the matchmaking party at the singles’ club every weekend, desperate to find a man worth living with.

The night had grown late when Joachim and I got up to leave. We walked to the church, which may well have displayed surpassing architectural beauty, but as there was no source of light anywhere in the immediate vicinity I wasn’t able to confirm this. Before we went in, Joachim asked if I had any money to put in the collection plate. Some loose change, I told him, but he said that wouldn’t do; with it being Christmas, it had be a note of some kind. He opened his wallet and pulled out his last five-euro bill. The notice board listed the organ music that was to be used during the service. The church was packed with people, most of them elderly, although there were also plenty of families with children, including one young couple carrying a tiny baby in a small wicker basket. The organist had already started playing, the notes echoing loudly throughout the vaulted, stone-ceilinged space. At the entrance to the church was a model reproduction of the Bethlehem manger, fronted by countless glowing candles that made the scene bright and warm. In between the organ pieces were hymns for the congregation to sing, though I wouldn’t have called it singing because they all seemed to be mumbling the words. As soon as Joachim entered the church and slid into the back pew he closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest; he didn’t answer when I spoke to him, and I guessed he must have fallen asleep. His blue backpack slid off and came to rest under the seat, between his legs. Someone behind me handed me a songbook, so I turned and thanked them. After the last notes from the organ had faded away, a man—presumably the priest—spoke into the microphone; I couldn’t tell what he was saying over the screeching feedback. As soon as the congregation resumed their singing, Joachim’s eyes snapped open. So he hadn’t been asleep after all. And he hadn’t been crying. Whatever he’d been doing, he’d been perfectly alert and listening to everything.

“Let’s head off now, we’ve seen enough.” He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“You want to leave right now, while everyone’s singing?”

“Yes, right now.”

Entirely indifferent to the stares he was eliciting, Joachim stood up and headed quickly toward the exit. Emerging into the freezing night air, he opened his wallet with a triumphant flourish and drew out the same five-euro bill again. “I got to see the service, and I didn’t even have to put this in the plate! If we’d waited until that song was over they would have sent the plate around and there’d have been no getting out of it then. That’s what that guy up there said, with the microphone.”