The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories Read online

  I noticed that his toilet articles were of exclusive quality, and I was particularly impressed by his light-blue electric toothbrush and a miniature case with the monogram A.C. on it. I unpacked my own toothbrush and the other things I had considered necessary from my ascetic point of view, laid out my pajamas on the other bunk, and asked myself if I was hungry. The thought of the likely crush in the restaurant put me off, so I decided to skip dinner and have a drink in the bar instead. The bar was pretty empty this early in the evening. I sat down on one of the high stools, propped my feet on the traditional metal railing which runs around every bar on the Continent, and lit my pipe.

  “A Black and White, please,” I said to the bartender, accepting the glass with a brief nod and making clear with my attitude that I had no inclination for conversation. I sat and pondered the Idea of Travel; that is to say, the act of traveling unfettered and with no responsibility for what one has left behind and without any opportunity to foresee what may lie ahead and prepare for it. Nothing but an enormous sense of peace.

  It occurred to me to think back over my earlier journeys, every one of them, and I realized to my astonishment that this must be the first time I had ever traveled alone. First came my trips with my mother—Majorca and the Canaries. Majorca again. After mother went away I traveled with cousin Herman to Lübeck and Hamburg. He was only interested in museums, though they depressed him; he’d never been able to study painting and he couldn’t get over it. Not a happy trip. Then the Wahlströms, who didn’t know whether to divorce or not and thought it would be easier to travel as a threesome.

  Where did we go . . . ? Oh, yes, of course, Venice. And during the mornings they quarreled. No, that wasn’t much of a journey. What next? A trip with a party to Leningrad. It was damn cold . . . And then Aunt Hilda, who needed a break but didn’t dare go by herself . . . but that was only as far as Mariehamn; we went to the Maritime Museum there, I remember. You see, when I went through all my life’s journeys in my thoughts, any fear I possibly could have had that the way I’d decided to do things might not be right disappeared. I turned to the bartender, said, “Another, please,” and looked around the bar, very much at ease. People had started coming in; happy well-fed people who ordered coffee and drinks to their tables and crowded around me at the bar.

  Normally I very much dislike crowds and do everything I can to avoid being involved with them, even on buses and trams, but that evening it felt pleasant and sociable to be one among many, almost secure. An elderly gentleman with a cigar intimated with a discreet gesture that he needed my ashtray. “Of course, don’t mention it,” I responded and was on the point of begging his pardon but remembered in time: I’d finished with all that kind of thing. In an entirely matter-of-fact way, if with a certain nonchalance, I moved the ashtray to his side and calmly studied myself in the mirror behind the bottles in the bar.

  There’s something special about a bar, don’t you think? A place for chance happenings, for possibilities to become reality, a refuge on the awkward route from should to must. But, I must confess, not the sort of place I’ve much frequented. Now, as I sat and looked in the mirror, my face suddenly seemed rather agreeable.

  I suppose I had never allowed myself time to look closely at the appearance time has given me. A thin face with somewhat surprised but frankly beautiful eyes, hair admittedly gray but luxuriant in an almost artistic manner, with a lock hanging down over my brow giving me an expression of—what shall we say—anxious watchfulness? Watchful concern? No. Just watchfulness. I emptied my glass and suddenly felt an urgent need to communicate, but held it in check. At all events, despite everything, wasn’t this precisely an occasion when, at last, I would not be forced to listen but could be allowed to talk myself, freely and recklessly? Among men, in a bar? For example, entirely in passing of course, I might let slip information about my decisive contribution at the Post Office. But no. Absolutely not. Be secretive—don’t make confidences; at most, drop hints . . .

  Sitting on my left was a young man who seemed extremely restless. He kept moving his position, turning this way and that on his stool and seemingly trying to keep an eye on everything that was happening in the room. I turned to the neighbor on my other side and said, “Very crowded this evening. Looks like we’re in for a calm crossing.” He stubbed his cigar in the ashtray and remarked that the boat was full and that our wind speed was eight meters per second, though they’d forecast it would get stronger during the night. I liked his calm matter-of-fact manner and asked myself whether he was retired and why he should be on his way to London. Let me tell you, my interest surprised myself; nothing has become so completely foreign, almost hateful to me, to be avoided at all costs, as curiosity and sympathy, any disposition to encourage in the slightest degree the surrounding world’s irresistible need to start talking about its troubles. This is something I really do know about; during a long life I’ve heard most things and I’ve brought this entirely on myself. But, as I’ve said, I was sitting in a bar on the way to my new freedom—and I was being a bit careless.

  He said, “You’re going to London? On business?”

  “No. Sea travel amuses me.”

  He nodded in appreciation. I could see his face in the mirror, a rather heavy face somewhat the worse for wear with a drooping mustache and tired eyes. He seemed elegant, expensively dressed, Continental, if you know what I mean.

  “When I was young,” he said, “I worked out that it should be possible to travel by sea all the time, without stopping, meals included, for very much less than it costs to live in a city.”

  I watched him, fascinated, waiting for him to go on, but he said nothing more. Thank goodness, this was clearly not a man to make personal confidences. Meanwhile, soft music was throbbing persistently somewhere up in the ceiling and people had begun talking with increasing animation, while trays heavily laden with glasses were being carried with impressive speed and precision between the tables. I thought: ‘Here I am sitting with an experienced traveler, a man who has taken the best from life and knows what he’s talking about.’ It was then he took out his pocketbook and showed me pictures of his family and his dog. That was a warning signal. A sharp sense of disappointment pierced me—but why should I be surprised if my companion was showing signs of behaving exactly like all the others? But I’d decided not to let anything whatever upset me, so I looked at his snapshots and said all the usual nice things. His wife, children, grandchildren, and dog looked more or less just as one would expect, except that they seemed in an unusually flourishing condition.

  He sighed—of course, I couldn’t hear him sigh in all that din, but I saw his broad shoulders rise and fall. Clearly not all was as it should be at home. I know; it’s the same with them all. Even this most elegant, cigar-smoking traveler with his gold lighter and his family posing in front of his swimming pool—even him! I hurriedly began talking about the first thing that came into my head, the advantages of traveling light, and made up my mind to detach myself gradually from the man; I mean, get away as quickly as possible without seeming brusque. I dropped a hint by taking out my cabin key, laying it beside my glass, and trying to catch the bartender’s attention, naturally without success—the crush around the bar was worse than ever, increasingly impatient and loud, and the poor man was working like a maniac.

  “Two Black and Whites,” said my travel companion in a low voice but with the sort of calm, powerful authority that ensures immediate results. He fixed his heavy gaze on me and raised his glass. Now I was caught.

  “Thanks,” I said. “How nice—a little nightcap. It’s getting quite late, I think.”

  He answered, “Not at all, Mr. Melander. My name’s Connaugh.” And he laid his cabin key beside mine. “An incredible coincidence,” I exclaimed, most put out.

  “Oh no. I saw you coming out of the cabin. Your bag’s very neatly labeled.”

  Suddenly I was jostled by the young man on my left as he leaned aggressively forward across the bar to demand a Cuba Libre.
He’d now had to ask three times but, no, everyone else must come first. Typical, just what you’d expect . . . Mr. Connaugh gave the youngster a very brief and very cold glance and said, “It seems to be time to get out of this place.” But any relief I felt was destroyed by his next words: “I’ve got some whiskey in the cabin and the night is long.”

  What could I do? Say I needed something to eat? He would merely have waited for me in the cabin. Now I could see him clearly: a forceful, dominating man who radiated unshakable determination. Naturally I wanted to share the bill, but he dismissed the matter with a gesture and moved towards the door. I followed. We got into a crowded lift. The boat was teeming with people flocking around the fruit machines and sitting on the stairs. Their children were running all over the place and I was overcome by my old fear of crowds; when we finally reached the cabin I was trembling from head to foot. Mr. Connaugh moved his luggage aside and took out a bottle of whiskey, which he placed on the little table under the window. He had two silver cups as well. When he sat down the bunk creaked; it seemed altogether too puny and fragile for him. The cabin was first class, a bit of self-indulgence I’d allowed myself for this trip but which should have been reserved for me alone. It had a minibar, an elegant little arrangement which contained soft drinks, chips and salted nuts. I opened its door.

  “No,” said Mr. Connaugh, “not mineral water. Drink your whiskey with plain water like the Scots. My father came from Scotland.” I hurried to the bathroom and filled my toothmug, stumbling a little in the doorway, which had an unusually high threshold. “Ice?” I asked.

  He shook his head. When he’d poured a little water into his whiskey, he leaned back and drank. My voyage had suddenly been altered and my peace destroyed. I was sure he wouldn’t go to bed for hours. “To you,” he said. Everything repeats itself. “To you,” I said.

  “Journeys, journeys, forwards and backwards. And you know exactly where you’re going, every time. Home and away again, away and home again.”

  “Not necessarily,” I objected. “There are times—” But he interrupted me.

  I’d thought of telling him that, so far as I was concerned, I hadn’t booked any hotel and had no idea where I was going to end up. I wanted to give him a fairly adventurous picture of my new, virtually self-centered freedom, but he’d already launched into an account of his worries: wife, children, grandchildren, house, and dog, the last-named having clearly died in very distressing circumstances. I closed up completely. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I effectively managed to shut off that dreadful compassion that has given both myself and those around me such fearful trouble. I use that word deliberately: fearful. Now perhaps you can understand why I started on my journey? Perhaps you have some idea of the depth of my fatigue, of my exhaustion and nausea in the face of this constant need to feel sorry for people?

  Of course, one can’t help feeling sorry for people. Every single one of us is afflicted by some secret, insurmountable disappointment, some form of anxiety or shame, and they sniff me out in no time. I mean, they know, their sense of smell leads them to me . . . Well, that’s why I cleared off.

  As I half listened to Mr. Connaugh I felt an enormous, and for me unaccustomed, anger gradually creeping over me. I emptied my glass and brutally interrupted him by saying, “Well, what d’you expect? Clearly you’ve driven them away by spoiling them. Or by scaring them! Why not let them be free to do what they want?” Maybe it was the effect of the whiskey or whatever, but I added firmly: “Let go of them. The whole lot. And the house too!” But he was hardly listening and the photographs in his pocketbook had appeared again.

  Sometimes all manifestations of human anxiety seem very similar to me—at least, the everyday matters that people continue to worry about when, so to speak, rain is no longer coming in through the roof, there is no shortage of food, and no one is being physically threatened—if you understand what I mean. Over and above factual catastrophes, miseries of one sort or another seem to repeat themselves with rather monotonous regularity so far as I’ve noticed: he or she is unfaithful or bored, someone’s no longer enjoying their work, ambitions or dreams have gone out of shape, time’s rapidly getting shorter, one’s family is behaving in an incomprehensible and frightening way, a friendship has been totally poisoned by something trivial. One is frantically busy with inessentials, while what is important and irreparable goes from bad to worse, duty and blame nibble away at us and the whole syndrome is vaguely labeled angst, a spiritual malaise one seldom succeeds in defining or even tries to define. I know. One’s opportunities for feeling ill at ease in life are countless and I recognize them; they constantly return, each affliction in its own little compartment. I should be familiar with this state of affairs and by now I should have found the right answer to the problem, but I haven’t. There is no practical answer, is there? So we just listen. And anyway, it seems no one is really interested in practical solutions; they just go on talking, they come back and talk about the same thing again and again, they won’t let you go. And here I was now sitting with Mr. Connaugh, desperately trying not to feel sorry for him. It was going to be rather a long journey. At that particular moment he was holding forth about his misunderstood childhood.

  The boat had begun to roll, but not too badly. I never get seasick, but I announced very clearly, “Mr. Connaugh, I don’t feel very well.”

  “Not Mr. Connaugh,” he said. “Albert. Didn’t I say you should call me Albert? Well, that angst I was talking about—”

  “Albert, I’m afraid I’m going to have to go up on deck. I need a little air; I’m not feeling well.”

  “No problem,” he said. “What you need is a straight whiskey now—instantly. And you can have all the air you want.” He attacked our window—you know, the sort of cabin window they screw down firmly with goodness knows what kind of screw apparatus—but he got it open and a violent and extremely wet rush of ice-cold air took my breath away and blew the curtains horizontal while my glass fell to the floor. “Not bad,” he said, much revived himself. “I’ve fixed it. Did you know I once dreamed of being a boxer? Now you’ll feel better.”

  I reached for my overcoat.

  “Albert,” I said, “what is it you actually do?”

  “Business,” he answered shortly. My question had clearly depressed him again. There was a long silence. We raised our glasses to each other. Every now and then, salt spray drenched the table. I tried to say something funny about getting extra water in our drinks but it fell flat. To my horror I noticed Mr. Connaugh’s eyes were full of tears and his face was distorted. “You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know how it feels . . .”

  It’s when they start crying that I’m done for. I promise them anything—my friendship for life, money (though naturally not in this case), my bed—to undertake the most disagreeable tasks, and if it’s a big strong man who’s weeping . . . I get desperate. I leaped up and proposed God knows what—the nightclub, the swimming pool, anything—but the boat rolled, making me lose my balance so that I was flung violently against Mr. Connaugh. He grabbed me like a drowning man and leaned his great head on my shoulder. It was terrible. From many points of view my position was extremely awkward. I’ve never known anything like it. Luckily the boat gave an enormous lurch at that moment and a lot of water came in through the window. Moving with lightning speed, Mr. Connaugh rescued his bottle and set about screwing down the window as best he could. I rushed out into the corridor and escaped in blind flight through the bewildering open spaces of the boat.

  When I eventually stopped, utterly exhausted, I was almost alone and it was completely silent. I looked in through an open door. Deck-places. Of course, a large room full of low chairs, most of them already tipped backwards for the night. A large number of deck passengers lying asleep rolled in blankets. I went in, very carefully picked up a spare blanket, and chose a chair as far off as possible, against the wall. Wonderful. To be able to sleep and sink into silence, oblivious of everything . . . I’d develo
ped a terrible headache and I was very wet, but that was nothing, nothing at all. I pulled the blanket over my head and vanished into a total disinterested peace.

  When I woke I had no idea where I was. Someone was trying to pull the blanket off me and kept saying that it was her chair, it was number thirty-one and it was her chair and she had a ticket to prove it . . . I sat up, dazed and confused, and began saying, “Excuse me. I mean, it was a misunderstanding and the lighting’s so bad, I really am very sorry . . .”

  “Don’t mention it,” said the woman sourly. “I’m used to misunderstandings, that’s exactly what they’re always called.”

  My headache had got even worse and I was freezing cold. As far as I could see, nearly all the chairs were already occupied by sleeping people, so I just sat down on the floor and tried to massage my neck. “Haven’t you got a ticket?” asked the woman severely.

  “No.”

  “Have you lost it? This part of the boat’s full, too.”

  I said nothing. Perhaps they’d let me sleep on the floor.

  “Why are you wet?” she asked. “You smell of whiskey. My son Herbert drinks whiskey. Once he fell in the lake.”