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A Novel
by Cees Nooteboom
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The hills are still covered in snow, which gives the landscape
a very graphic feel: leafless trees etched on white paper.
Sometimes that is all you need to convey an idea. She does
not look at the view for long, but she picks up her book
and reads the inscription again, as impatiently as the first
time. I try to imagine what might have prompted the gift
– that’s my job, after all – but I don’t get very far. A man
trying to make amends for something? You’ve got to be
careful with books. If you give someone the wrong book or
the wrong writer, you will very soon find yourself in the
doghouse.
She flicks through it, occasionally pausing to take a
longer look at a particular page. For so short a book, it certainly
has a lot of chapters. That means a new beginning
each time, for which you ought to have a good reason. Any
writer who botches the beginning or the end of a book has
failed to grasp the basics, and the same goes for chapters.
Whoever the author of that book is, he has taken considerable
risks. She has put down the book again, this time
with the title right side up, but because of the glare from
the overhead light, I cannot make out the words. I would
have to stand to get a proper look.
‘Cruising altitude.’ I have always loved that expression.
I expect to see skiers, since we are flying above clouds with
glorious slopes. I never tire of looking at them. At this
altitude the world has only blank pages, which you can fill
in as you see fit. But she is not looking out of the window,
she has picked up the in-flight magazine and has started
reading it at the end. She races through São Paulo, lingers
by a big green park, then stares at the Aboriginal paintings.
From time to time she brings the magazine up close to her
face, and once her long fingers even trace the strange figure
of a serpent in one of the paintings. Then she closes the
magazine and promptly falls asleep. Some people are able
do that – sleep peacefully on a plane. She has one hand on
her book and one behind her neck, beneath her reddish
hair. The riddle that other people represent has occupied
me all my life. I know there is a story here, and at the same
time I know that I will never find out what it is. This book
will remain closed, like the one on the seat. By the time
we get ready for the landing at Tempelhof, a little over an
hour later, I have written a quarter of an introduction to
a book of photographs about cemetery angels. Below us are
the anonymous high-rises of Berlin, along with the great
historical fissure that still runs through the city. She combs
her hair and picks up the wrapping paper. Before she
rewraps the book, however, she smoothes the crimson
paper across her thigh. I don’t know why I find that so
moving. Then, for a moment, she at last holds the book
up high enough for me to read the two words of the title.
It’s this book, a book out of which she is about to disappear,
along with me. As I wait in the baggage-claim
area, I see her walk rapidly through the exit doors, where
there is a man waiting for her. She kisses him casually –
as casually as she scanned the book, since the only part
she actually read was the handwritten inscription that I
did not read and did not write.
The bags arrive in no time. As I reach the upper level,
she gets into a taxi with the man and then speeds away out
of sight, leaving me, as always, behind with a few words.
And with the city, which closes around me like a trap.
PART ONE
. . . and from the other Hill
To thir fixt Station, all in bright array
The Cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding metéorous, as Ev’ning Mist
Ris’n from a River o’re the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the Labourer’s heel
Homeward returning. High in Front advanc’t,
Lost Paradise © 2004 by Cees Nooteboom, English Translation copyright © 2007 by Susan Massotty, and reprinted with permission of Grove Press, and imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
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