down and stroking Castor for quite some time, and that he responded by licking my right ear clean, as he usually does.
But I venture to suggest that something deep down inside me woke up during that voyage over the Baltic Sea. Something that ought to have been left to sleep in peace. But if you insist on riding your high horses, it no doubt becomes a case of your will versus fate, your choices and motives. Needless to say I can’t find the words to pin it down more specifically, apart from what I have already said: so much was left behind in the Monkeyhouse, and that damned family home in Nynäshamn. Thirty years of hard-fought life experiences – how petty they seem on a sunny day at sea.
It took only half an hour to drive from the ferry terminal at Świnoujście to Professor Soblewski’s house. It was a large, old wooden mansion in a beech wood not far from the sea. It had been built in the thirties by some Nazi bigwig or other, and during the Communist years had served as a summer residence for party functionaries. This was explained by our host while we were drinking champagne on the terrace. He didn’t explain how he had come to acquire the property. He was in his seventies, well-mannered and quite charming. His thirty years younger wife, or perhaps partner, was called Jelena and spoke only broken English and German, and so conversation was somewhat halting. But I was used to that – two academic men talking and chuckling, two wives trying to smile.
I am not sure about the point of our visit to Professor Soblewski. Perhaps Martin had filled me in, but I wasn’t listening attentively enough. In any case he had explained at an early stage that we would take this route through Europe rather than the more obvious westerly one: Rødby-Puttgarden-Hamburg-Strasbourg . . . and so on. I know that Soblewski had been a member of the group that used to gather on Samos in the seventies, and in view of Martin’s past experiences – and what was the alleged purpose of the whole journey – I assumed that our visit had to do with Herold and Hyatt. In one way or another.
But I may be wrong. Soblewski is a big name in the literary history world, and although I had never met him before, Martin had been in frequent contact with him over the years. We have half a dozen of his books at home in Nynäshamn, one of them even in translation: Under the Surface of Words .
In any case we had a long and slightly strained dinner, just the four of us – and needless to say the strained aspect referred only to the two ladies present. The men had no difficulty at all in keeping the conversation going, and two carafes of red wine plus a few glasses of vodka helped matters along. Jelena drank vodka but not wine: the reverse was the case for me. The food and drink was served by a sombre-looking woman with a limp: Professor Soblewski informed us that she was a distant relative who had been ill-treated by life.
After the coffee, I asked permission to withdraw – which was granted. As I lay in the large double bed on the upper floor, waiting for sleep to swallow me up, I could hear the voices of Martin and Soblewski in the room down below for several hours. They were arguing and discussing, and sounded very enthusiastic, occasionally even aggressive: but I have no idea what they were talking about. Not then, and not now, seventeen days later. I think it was almost half past two when Martin tumbled into bed beside me. He was enveloped in a cloud of vodka.
11
The fifth of November. Thirteen degrees. Fog.
We went northwards on our morning walk, towards what is called the Punchbowl and Wambarrows. Wambarrows is one of the highest points on the whole moor, but visibility today was no more than thirty or forty metres and the world was hiding away. We followed a well-trodden path, which was very muddy in parts and difficult to cope with; and in order to avoid the risk of getting lost we turned round after half an hour and followed the same
But I venture to suggest that something deep down inside me woke up during that voyage over the Baltic Sea. Something that ought to have been left to sleep in peace. But if you insist on riding your high horses, it no doubt becomes a case of your will versus fate, your choices and motives. Needless to say I can’t find the words to pin it down more specifically, apart from what I have already said: so much was left behind in the Monkeyhouse, and that damned family home in Nynäshamn. Thirty years of hard-fought life experiences – how petty they seem on a sunny day at sea.
It took only half an hour to drive from the ferry terminal at Świnoujście to Professor Soblewski’s house. It was a large, old wooden mansion in a beech wood not far from the sea. It had been built in the thirties by some Nazi bigwig or other, and during the Communist years had served as a summer residence for party functionaries. This was explained by our host while we were drinking champagne on the terrace. He didn’t explain how he had come to acquire the property. He was in his seventies, well-mannered and quite charming. His thirty years younger wife, or perhaps partner, was called Jelena and spoke only broken English and German, and so conversation was somewhat halting. But I was used to that – two academic men talking and chuckling, two wives trying to smile.
I am not sure about the point of our visit to Professor Soblewski. Perhaps Martin had filled me in, but I wasn’t listening attentively enough. In any case he had explained at an early stage that we would take this route through Europe rather than the more obvious westerly one: Rødby-Puttgarden-Hamburg-Strasbourg . . . and so on. I know that Soblewski had been a member of the group that used to gather on Samos in the seventies, and in view of Martin’s past experiences – and what was the alleged purpose of the whole journey – I assumed that our visit had to do with Herold and Hyatt. In one way or another.
But I may be wrong. Soblewski is a big name in the literary history world, and although I had never met him before, Martin had been in frequent contact with him over the years. We have half a dozen of his books at home in Nynäshamn, one of them even in translation: Under the Surface of Words .
In any case we had a long and slightly strained dinner, just the four of us – and needless to say the strained aspect referred only to the two ladies present. The men had no difficulty at all in keeping the conversation going, and two carafes of red wine plus a few glasses of vodka helped matters along. Jelena drank vodka but not wine: the reverse was the case for me. The food and drink was served by a sombre-looking woman with a limp: Professor Soblewski informed us that she was a distant relative who had been ill-treated by life.
After the coffee, I asked permission to withdraw – which was granted. As I lay in the large double bed on the upper floor, waiting for sleep to swallow me up, I could hear the voices of Martin and Soblewski in the room down below for several hours. They were arguing and discussing, and sounded very enthusiastic, occasionally even aggressive: but I have no idea what they were talking about. Not then, and not now, seventeen days later. I think it was almost half past two when Martin tumbled into bed beside me. He was enveloped in a cloud of vodka.
11
The fifth of November. Thirteen degrees. Fog.
We went northwards on our morning walk, towards what is called the Punchbowl and Wambarrows. Wambarrows is one of the highest points on the whole moor, but visibility today was no more than thirty or forty metres and the world was hiding away. We followed a well-trodden path, which was very muddy in parts and difficult to cope with; and in order to avoid the risk of getting lost we turned round after half an hour and followed the same
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