The Flying Dutchman

Chapter 13

10

Seventhly, you get peckish. No matter how much food there is in the house. After some time—say, on the seventh day—you discover that an odd hotchpotch is all that remains. A tin of green Hungarian peas, say, and ‘Theatre’ toffees. Well, you simply can’t stomach that any more… And so you venture out of the house, and make a great geographical discovery; without the aid of a telescope, you find a new planet, fall under a bus or buy yourself something to eat.

Foodstuffs – they are the fruit of someone’s labours. Either man labours over nature, or nature labours over herself. Man has not yet mastered the art of producing something edible from himself. Maybe he will learn. Definitely, he will learn.

N., meanwhile, walked along the woodland path, putting some distance between himself, the house and the river, drawing closer to human habitation, and—most importantly—to the village shop. That shop sold grey white bread, rusty herring, tinned sprats in tomato sauce, coarse ground salt, bay leaves in packets with a picture of bay leaves, and an “Accord” record player with LPs of the Choir named after Verevka and the vocal-instrumental ensemble called “The Gems.” There was a sales assistant there, too, curious and rather unkempt. She began by asking:

“Who are you?”

“I live here,” N. replied, to avoid admitting he was Noone, although that was the answer the question begged.

“Ah, so it’s you who’s renting the old house by the river… And what are you doing there?”

“I’m on holiday,” N. said. “I’m thinking.”

He said that, of course, without thinking. Never tell simple folks of your ability to reason: it arouses nothing but vague surprise. Then anyone you meet or come across will already be forewarned: you are a dangerous crackpot.

“Hmm, what is there to think about here?” said the sales assistant with a shrug.

“Well, one can think about anything, not only about the place where one is at the moment… Tell me, is there a post office here?” he asked, and then thought at once: “What do I need one for? Sending letters is dangerous.”

“Yes, there is. On the next street,” answered the shop assistant. “My sister works there.”

“Alone?”

“Most of the year, yes, but a student’s helping her now. His surname’s Trampin. He’s a bit of a simpleton.”

“What do you mean?” N. asked, surprised.

“He’s always getting muddled, putting the letters in the wrong place, and my sister has to sort them all out again. They nearly threw him out of uni last winter, apparently. That’s the kind of young folk we raise out here…”

N. struggled to pack his goods into his string bag, tying the handle with twine just to be on the safe side. He could have bought the record player, too, of course, but the record selection on offer was obviously below par. If only they had Bach’s cantatas or, just for fun, Wagner’s ‘The Flying Dutchman’! Actually, he knew that opera by heart, and he’d brought the score with him, just in case.

The string bag stretched his arm, the twine handles cut into his palm, and he stopped to wrap them in a handkerchief. And while he was carrying out that operation, sergeant Vasya was standing at the police station window watching him.

“Come and look at our intellectual, Comrade Captain!”

Captain Merinos was engrossed in pulling a splinter from his fat, freckled forefinger. He swore, dug into his long-suffering finger with a needle, swore some more, pulled out the needle, thrust it into the lapel of his police jacket and finally stomped across the painted floor towards the window.

“Him?” he said in surprise. “Bit old, isn’t he? Grey. Doesn’t look dangerous. Down at heel…”

Rested, N. continued on his way. Just then, the panting shop assistant ran into the police station.

“So, did you ask him what he’s doing?” Merinos enquired as to how his instructions had been carried out, trying again to coax the splinter out with the tip of the needle.

“I did.”

“And what is he doing?”

“He’s thinking.”

And Merinos caught the splinter at last, pulling it out with a shriek of pain.

“Ffffck,” he said to the splinter, and then, after a pause, went on with the other conversation. “No, seems he’s dangerous after all.”

Meanwhile, N. had reached the boundary of his land. The border was marked by barbed wire wound three times between rough wooden posts pounded into the ground. N. could have sworn that just a few hours earlier, when he had left, the fence had been noticeably further from the house. He walked the length of the fence, but there was no sign that the posts had been moved. Was he imagining things? Or had the ring of barbed wire tightened by itself?