Falling Out of Time Read online

  Like a quick little animal she burrows into her nets and is gone. According to the records in my possession she has not uttered a single word for upward of nine years.

  And now, Your Highness, it is finally dawn.

  DUKE:

  Dawn!

  From within the loathsome night,

  from the theater

  of its nightmares, I once again

  extract and

  collect myself piece

  by piece, a monarch-mosaic:

  here is my hand

  outstretched for bread,

  and its fresh smell

  and warm body,

  but first, first

  my eye

  goes to the window,

  drawn to two birds in a puddle,

  to a dawn rising

  sanguine. Look,

  my lord, you are blessed:

  here on a platter

  is a newborn day,

  its teeth not yet emerged—

  But for a week now, far away

  on the hilltops, a man

  like an open razor blade walks

  and cuts, his head

  in the sky.

  WALKING MAN:

  And yet

  I shall move you,

  my rootless child,

  my cold,

  fruitless child.

  Every day it gets

  harder, every day you grow

  more hardened, more

  and more taxing.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Every time the midwife leaves the room, the cobbler jumps up to the window. His eyes dart over the hills, his lips seem to chew up insults and curses. Hammer in hand.

  He notices me in his yard now, behind an empty chicken coop. He does not come out or banish me; he doesn’t even threaten me with his hammer. I carefully show him my notebook and pen. I believe I see him nod.

  MIDWIFE:

  Opposite my bed

  on the w-w-wall

  is an ancient round

  c-c-clock.

  It is old and weak,

  with hands s-s-stuck

  on the same hour

  and the same m-m-minute

  for more than a y-y-year—

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Her voice, soft and flat, comes from the next room. The cobbler moves away from the window. He walks backward. Backward? Strange: as if sleepwalking, he probes around until his back touches the wall. Both arms slowly rise on either side. His shaved red head slams against the wall to the beat of the words from the other room.

  MIDWIFE:

  And only

  the thin s-s-second

  hand keeps fluttering

  p-p-pouncing all the time

  all the time that’s

  left, all the time

  that was given,

  p-p-pounces and lurches

  back

  unw-w-wavering,

  storming

  fighting

  to pass

  to cross

  or just

  t-t- to be,

  to be one sheer full simple second no more no less

  just that, God,

  just be.

  DUKE:

  And here, in the palace,

  in the private chamber,

  a whistling kettle and steaming

  coffee. I am serene and slow

  and limp, undoubtedly:

  an exemplary duke—

  no.

  No.

  A man not-himself

  has awoken from this night—

  all hollow bones,

  hah, the gravity

  of tragedy. (You thought

  you were safe, m’lord, you thought you were

  immune. Your troops

  cover the land, a thousand hussars

  on a thousand horses, and you in

  shattered shards.) But he rises,

  he rises to his day,

  silently puts on the slough

  of his name, inwardly

  fans the dim embers, does his best

  to convince himself that he still remembers

  what it was like to

  just

  be;

  how to stare, for example,

  how to stare? How

  does a person just stare

  innocently, how does he

  for one instant forget

  what is seared inside him

  by affliction?

  In short—

  an impostor of sorts, a sham,

  pretending to be an everyman

  whose eye

  is drawn to the open window, whose hand

  reaches simply

  for bread—

  Amid all this, I suddenly

  plummet,

  plunge,

  a mere

  shadow

  of he who walks there

  alone, of he who,

  with heavy steps,

  chisels the verdict

  on my land:

  all that is,

  all that is

  (oh, my child,

  my sweet, my lost one) —

  all that is

  will now

  echo

  what is not.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: “It’s like a murmur,” the centaur explains when I pass by his window the next evening. “A murmur, or a sort of dry rustle inside your head, and it never stops.”

  Not willingly, Your Highness, does he give his testimony. Only after I show him the royal edict with your seal and portrait does he realize that he has no choice but to collaborate.

  CENTAUR: “Veritably”? You need to know what’s going on with me? You’re telling me the duke could give two shits about what is veritably buzzing around in my head? Okay, then, gird your gonads and do some chronicling. Write down that it’s, let’s say, like dry leaves. What are you ogling at like an idiot? Leaves! But dry ones, right? Crumbling. Dead. Did you get that? And someone keeps stepping on them, over and over again … So? Is that veritable enough for you? Will the duke be pleased? Will his face glisten with delight?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: My own honor, my lord, is easily put aside. But I am absolutely unwilling to allow your representative to be humiliated this way, and so I immediately turn to leave—

  CENTAUR: What’s that? Without a kiss? Get back here right now! I believe, pencil pusher, that your edict explicitly requests “all the information required for the authorities, without omitting a single detail”! True or false? Well then, open up your little notebook right this minute and start chronicling:

  “Someone keeps treading on them, on the dry leaves”—write this!—“walking around and around in a circle, dragging his feet …” Now make a note of this: khrrrsss khrrrsss. Like that, yes, with three s’s at the end. I bet that little detail will clarify the situation for the duke veritably! That will get it up for him in no time! Are you getting the picture, lap-clerk? Has anyone ever told you your face looks like a waif’s?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: While I pretend to be writing down this foolish drivel, I periodically stand on my tiptoes to steal a glance at the heaps crammed into his room. I make a quick list: wooden cradle, pram, tiny bed, lots of deflated soccer balls, colorful little chairs, rocking horse, toy boat, rusty cars from an electric train, cowboy hat, Indian feather chain, endless pages of drawings and doodles … Incidentally, this whole assemblage is covered with fly droppings and cobwebs. It all seems withered and brittle, and every object looks as though it might crumble at the slightest touch, if not a mere look. The creature in the window keeps on prattling, cursing, and slandering. I persist. Gym shoes, skates and sandals, books, books everywhere, a small school desk, pencil cases, a green chamber pot, a little bicycle with training wheels … He can blather on all he wants with his filthy curses. I nod at him once in a while. Even twenty notebooks would not suffice. This place contains an entire museum of childhood—or perhaps the museum of one child. Rubber fins and swim goggles, wool teddy bears, furry lions and tigers—

  He’s stopped talking. He
peers over his glasses at me. He might suspect something. A little accordion, backpack, tin soldiers, paintbrushes, not good, I am disquieted, those bloodshot eyes. I’ll stop soon. Hey, board games! Beloved Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, decks of cards, props for the budding magician, Boy Scout uniform, goody bags from birthday parties, bow and arrow—how can you even breathe in this room?

  CENTAUR: You can’t. And now, if you value your life, hireling, get lost and don’t come back. Off you go! Pronto!

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Picture albums, masks, toy gun, pacifiers, whistles, flashlight—

  CENTAUR: Scram, you leech! Otherwise I’ll come out to you—

  WOMAN WHO STAYED AT HOME:

  Five years after my son

  died, his father went out

  to meet him.

  I did not go with him.

  I did not go. I did not go so much

  that I foundered. I sat

  cross-legged, displaced. I listened

  to a voice that reached me

  from afar: he

  walks, he walks. I did

  not go.

  I did not.

  Not

  there.

  My heart beat:

  he walks. My blood

  pounded: he walks.

  Spoons and forks clattered, mirrors

  glittered, signaled: see

  him, see him, day and night, he

  walks. I would go with him

  to the end

  of the world. Not there,

  not

  there.

  DUKE:

  … he might be an insurgent; I am

  uncertain. My scouts say

  he poses a danger:

  the coolness of the unruly, of a

  stubborn, wayward man.

  But his eyes—they report—

  shine with the pale blue light

  of a child’s gaze.

  MIDWIFE:

  You will n-n-never know,

  my d-d-daughter, that every man

  is an island,

  that you c-c-cannot know another

  from within. A son’s own

  mother cannot

  be him, even for an instant,

  cannot sustain

  him, self-sustain herself

  in him—

  TOWN CHRONICLER: The town streets are thick with fog. The midwife is at her window, her eyes on the hills, her lips almost kissing the pane as she whispers feverishly. Fragmented vapors appear on the glass like hieroglyphics and quickly vanish, sometimes before I can write them down. From my post—this time behind the crumbling well in the yard—I notice her husband sitting on his stool, watching her longingly, hammer in hand.

  MIDWIFE:

  Nor will m-m-my self adhere

  to your self any longer,

  nor will my self

  to myself adhere. It has all come apart. They say

  there are things in the world. They say things

  are c-c-connected. I look in the f-f-faces

  of those who say, and see

  holes

  and crumbs,

  specks

  of limbs.

  CENTAUR: He keeps stepping on the leaves in my mind, trampling them, day and night, always the same rhythm, never changing, fifteen years it’s been, since then, even when I sleep, when I shit, yes, write that down, it should be written somewhere, and there are whispers, too, all the time, like this: Hmmm … hmmm … And then he lunges like a swarm of wasps, buzzzzzzzz, drilling through my brain: it happened, it happened, it happened to him, it’s forever, it’s forever, and he won’t, he’ll never—

  Ummm, look, lackey, this is just inside me, right? You can’t hear it, can you?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: After I left him this evening, I turned around for another glance or two. His large, pale face in the window grew gloomier as I walked away. His long eyelashes moved with incredible slowness. A slim band of light suddenly glowed from the lakeside and quivered over the dark sky. I ran to see—

  WOMAN IN NET:

  Two human specks,

  a mother and her child,

  we glided through the world

  for six whole years,

  which were unto me

  but a few days,

  and we were

  a nursery rhyme,

  threaded with tales

  and miracles—

  Until ever so lightly,

  a breeze

  a breath

  a flutter

  a zephyr

  rustled

  the leaves—

  And sealed our fates:

  you here,

  he there,

  over and done with,

  shattered

  to pieces.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Now she notices me and falls silent. The entire pier lies between us, but she reaches out as though I were standing right beside her.

  WOMAN IN NET:

  I was cut

  with scissors

  from the picture,

  solitary ice

  of absence

  came to singe

  my limbs.

  I was touched,

  I was blighted

  by the frost

  of randomness.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: She forcibly shuts her mouth with both hands. Her great black eyes fill with terror. If you ask me, Your Highness, the poor woman has not the slightest comprehension of the words that leave her lips! Incidentally, I think she truly believes that if I only came and touched her, this false spell would be lifted. But it has been almost thirteen years since I touched another person. Now I must hurry, Your Honor: it is almost midnight, and I cannot be late for my wife.

  TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

  A clear corpuscle

  glowed inside me, a golden

  granule gleamed. I knew that

  it was me, my soul,

  my core, it was the purpose

  of my being. Born

  with me, I thought, and so

  would die with me—

  I did not know that I might live

  long after it, that I would be

  diaspora,

  deciduous.

  A liar, too—

  the kind who easily,

  no eyelid batted,

  dared to speak of:

  me.

  WOMAN WHO STAYED AT HOME:

  I sank my teeth

  into my flesh. I did not

  go. I dwindled

  like a candle.

  Only he still lay

  awake in me: now seeing,

  now remembering, now crossing

  through a hell. Now quiet

  with his son. Or

  laughing. Tasting

  crumbs of happiness

  with him—

  Do not breathe,

  or think

  of what he sees, what he recalls,

  what ails

  his heart—wounded inside him.

  Inside me

  an extinguished eye lit up,

  the eye of a half-devoured beast

  in its predator’s mouth.

  What does he see

  there, I asked, I screamed, I slammed

  my head against the wall, and how

  swept up, how peeled away, and how

  far has he gone

  toward the darkness?

  WALKING MAN:

  I seem to understand

  only things

  inside time. People,

  for example, or thoughts, or sorrow,

  joy, horses, dogs,

  words, love. Things that grow

  old, that renew,

  that change. The way I miss you

  is trapped in time as well. Grief

  ages with the years, and there are days

  when it is new, fresh.

  So, too, the fury at all that was robbed

  from you. But you are

  no longer.

  You are outside

  of time.

  How
can I explain

  to you, for even the reason is

  captured in time. A man from far away

  once told me that in his language

  they say of one who dies in war,

  he “fell.”

  And that is you: fallen

  out of time,

  while the time

  in which I abide

  passes you by:

  a figure

  on a pier,

  alone,

  on a night

  whose blackness

  has seeped wholly out.

  I see you

  but I do not touch.

  I do not feel you

  with my probes of time.

  CENTAUR: Take you, for example, Town Chronicler, or whatever it is you call yourself. You’re a real sight for sore eyes, you are. Get a load of that bowler hat, boss! And the tie, and the satchel, and the pencil mustache—mwah! It’s just a shame you look so bedraggled and filthy, like some kind of tramp. And also—I’m sorry—but you reek like a fresh pile of droppings. Other than that, though—

  All right, all right, no need to get in a huff! What are you talking about? Insulting a civil servant? Hah! Lighten up, pencil pusher, I’m just joking around. Besides, you should know that it’s all from jealousy. Yes, write that down in the biggest letters you can make: The centaur is jealous of the clerk!

  No, you tell me: Isn’t it incredibly fortunate that you, as part of your job, and undoubtedly in return for a handsome salary, can spend as much time as you want peering into other people’s hells, without dipping so much as your pale little pinkie inside them? Think about it! What could be more titillating than someone else’s hell? And besides, I’m sure you’ll agree that secondhand pain is far better than firsthand. Healthier for the user and also more “artistic” in the sublime—I mean, the castrated—sense of the word. Take you, for example: it’s been at least a week now since you’ve been coming here, just by chance, walking past my window three or four times a day—yesterday it was five, but who’s counting—hurrying about your business, lost in thought, when suddenly: Bam! A screeching halt! A surprised blink! What do we have here? Why, it’s a centaur! And a bereaved one, at that! Two for the price of one! I’d better quickly put on an expression of tender sorrow and commiseration, and in a flash I’ll dip my silver-plated quill in its black ink, and one-two-three, I’ll ask about the son, ask about the son, ask about the son! And if the subject’s answers are not satisfactory, I won’t give up, no, I won’t give up, I’ll come back in an hour or two, and tomorrow morning again, and I’ll ask about the son again, and I won’t relent even if the subject grits his teeth and bites his tongue until it hurts, and please tell me what he was like as a baby, what he liked to eat, what he built with Legos, which lullabies you sang to him … Well, listen up, you black-inked tick: even the inquisition’s tax assessors didn’t torture people like this! And then all of a sudden, psshh! The town clock strikes, ding-dong, see you later, thank you very much, it’s been a pleasure, the quill goes back in its case, the notebook in its folder, and the pencil pusher is on his way home, open parenthesis, what does he care that I’m sitting here bleeding, ripped apart, slaughtered to pieces, close parenthesis, clerko hums a happy tune and ponders the leg of lamb waiting for him in the oven, and probably the legs of some lady or other … What? Hey? Did I grab you by the what’s-it or didn’t I?