War Read online

  The war had reached this place, too. The flat ground vibrated in the wind. Something was lurking around, something that willed people to lose their eyes, their mouth, their ears, their parcels of nerves. Emptiness had hollowed out its pocket, emptiness had thrown open its vast room, so that the girl might lose her way inside these spaces. It was as though, after so many centuries, the sea had suddenly retreated, revealing an endless beach that was stark and silent and lonely, its surface lifted skywards by the wind to form an airborne beach, so that all distinctions blurred in the swirling sand.

  Bea B. glanced around the airport, and found she could no longer think of anything else. Her mind soared above the flat ground, covering the expanse of tar like a shadow. She fell, but horizontally, skimming the ground, concentrating all her energies on speeding through the night at 200 mph; the whole of this deserted silent space was filled with the call of violent air, with openings, with all that was urging her to renounce words, to enter the great empty room.

  Series of beacons, blue, yellow, red ones, were afloat in the freezing sea. The girl looked in amazement at the luminous colours daubed on the ground, until suddenly she realized that this was the war plan. Electric light bulbs had been screwed into the asphalt to mark out the labyrinth’s paths, and it was impossible to avoid them. For the first time, perhaps, the drama was unfolding in its entirety: there was no more beginning or end; there was no more waiting or tension or fear; everything stood out clearly, comprehensively, after the manner of a diagram sketched on a sheet of paper. After the manner of a huge picture etched into the cement, showing all the gateways, all the crossroads, all the possible routes that one could take.

  Thought had ceased frittering itself away. It was no longer groping its way along, like the caterpillar that uses all its antennae and all its feet as feelers. With a single leap it had taken wing and was gliding through the sky like a sparrow-hawk. It was gliding through the cold wind, taking photographs of the earth’s history.

  It made the head swim. The girl had to grip hold of the iron handrail to save herself from falling over the edge of the balcony onto the apron below. Down there, in the distance, she could see the silhouette of Monsieur X darting along the rows of light bulbs, in the middle of the airfield. Then she suddenly understood the way that the fighting had to be carried out, this time. She ran to the other end of the terrace, and made her way down the control tower’s iron stairway. Her steps reverberated in the dark like detonations. At the bottom of the tower she found a door on which was written:

  NO ENTRY

  On the other side of the door the great tarred runway lay spread out in perfect freedom. The corridors of blue and yellow bulbs spurted their colours right ahead of her, as they rose gradually skywards. She began running with all her might, battling against the wind. She ran between the rows of bulbs, and her feet stumbled against the bits of gravel embedded in the tar. Sometimes she changed direction, and there was a new row of blue and yellow light bulbs. The wind carried with it the smells of kerosene and rubber. Perhaps she was dreaming. Death would loom up, as it always did, and this time it would have the form of a metal aeroplane cleaving space with its outstretched wings, crushing the ground under its dozens of tyres. It would bear a name, something like BOEING 727–200, or LOCKHEED SUPER CONSTELLATION L1049, or SUD-AVIATION CARAVELLE, or DAKOTA C47, or TUPOLEV 134, or perhaps CONVAIR 990 CORONADO. They were the ones that had to be fought, fought with all the rage that one could summon up. The only way was to hurl oneself upon them, shatter their fuselages with a single butt of the head, rip off their jet pods with one’s teeth. It was too late for play-acting. The war had started, and this was one of the fields of battle. Another way would be to run forward with a box full of nails, and then watch calmly as the huge tyres explode and the long duralumin cylinder tips forwards, gouging its own grave from the surface of the earth.

  Bea B. fell breathless to the ground. Monsieur X said something, but his mouth was filled with the roaring of the wind. Pointing at the yellow line painted along the strip of asphalt, he shouted:

  ‘THIS IS IT! . . .’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘THIS IS IT! . . .THIS IS WHERE THEY TAKE OFF! . . .’

  Then they lay flat on their faces, on the ground, and peered up at the runway stretching into the far distance, stretching to the other end of the world. The blue and yellow bulbs shone steadily over the greyish sea; the lights of great beacons pierced the night. For a very long time nothing happened. The only movement was that of the wind as it swept the ground. Then, after several hours, there was a sort of deep thundering noise at the other end of the runway. Very far away, framed against the sky, a dark mass approached slowly, winking coloured lights. The girl heard the noise swelling in the night like the roar of a jaguar. She pressed herself against the ground and closed her eyes. Her heart started beating very fast. There was a long pause, then suddenly she heard Monsieur X shout:

  ‘WATCH OUT! . . . IT’S COMING! . . .’

  The noise of thunder vibrated underfoot as the DOUGLAS SUPER DC8-63 began taxiing between the ground-lights. Not very fast, at first, swaying over the runway in the deep gloom. Then, at some mysterious signal from the control tower, it unleashed the full fury of its jet engines and hurled itself forward, shuddering.

  The girl heard the noise approaching, sounding exactly like ground-swell bearing down upon the cliffs, and she raised her head. What she saw transfixed her to the ground, left her incapable of movement: right in front of her, at the end of the corridor of blue light bulbs, the DOUGLAS DC8–63 was looming out of the night, devouring the asphalt with its giant wheels, its immense pale wings covering the ground. The colour of mercury, it glowed weirdly in the darkness, casting its red and green gleams alternately to left and right, and left and right . . . It hurtled towards the girl at a dizzy speed, puncturing the wind with its blind snout, sucking the cold air in through the four gaping mouths of its air-scoops. It was coming closer. The girl watched it grow bigger and bigger, spreading its colossal wings ever wider apart until they covered the whole horizon, and the noise of thunder travelled ahead of it, filling the sky, filling empty space as far as the stars, and the utterly deserted sheet of tar began undulating beneath the girl’s belly, while the platinum wings spread, spread, and the night opened around the DOUGLAS SUPER DC8–63 with a strange sparkling glow. It was coming closer, gliding along its rails, between the lines of blue ground-lights, at 25 feet a second, 30 feet a second, 65 feet a second. This was the biggest aeroplane that the world had ever seen. It stood, motionless as a skyscraper, a few feet away from the girl’s face, with its blind snout and its wings that hid the sky completely. She wanted to cry out, but her voice was absent; her voice, her thought, her life, all of her was in the screeching of the jets about to make their onslaught on the air, in the efforts that the wings made as they strove to tear the wheels away from the glutinous runway. Then everything happened in a fraction of a second: the DOUGLAS SUPER DC8–63 vanished, as an avalanche of iron and flames soared over the girl’s body. She heard a terrifying din that seemed to rupture her ear-drums. Her eyes clouded, while the fiery blast hurled her body backwards and sent it rolling over the gravelled surface.

  DOUGLAS SUPER DC8–63

  There is not that much time left, now, for getting to understand things, Monsieur X. I want to hurry because by now time is beginning to run out. Perhaps even now I won’t have time to understand. It’s sad to think that maybe one will not have understood what was going on. That’s even sadder than missing one’s train. I would have liked you to help me, but that’s not possible. I have gone too far; it is for me to understand, not for anyone else. What I mean is, this war and so on was just a bad dream, and you can’t enter my dreams. Even I can’t enter my dreams. They exist on the other side of me, in a different compartment. Still, I believe I’m right. And I’ll tell you why. I saw it written in big black letters on white paper: there is too much beauty, too much gentleness, and the world will soon explode. How ca
n one manage to go on living under such conditions? But the question does not come from within, it comes from outside. That is why it is so difficult to answer it. That is why what is happening seems like a dream. You see, if, euh, if it were a problem of glands, or some sort of maladjustment, oh I don’t know, that kind of romantic situation, anyhow, well that would be easy enough, I’d just take Lilly Add-a-Bee vitamins, or I’d go and consult a psychiatrist, or I’d go and live on Cocos Island, in any case I’m sure there would be some remedy or other for my difficulties. But it’s not like that. This is a movement that comes from outside. However hard I try to hide or get away, it always materializes. All around me there are forces that I do not understand. Shops, windows, buildings, crossroads, airports, roads, motorcycles, everything is impregnated with force, everything seeks to crush and conquer. It’s because of the words, Monsieur X. It’s true. It’s the words inside me struggling to fight against the words outside, and they are going to lose the battle. That’s why I’m in such a tremendous hurry. I want to say all my words before they have destroyed my mouth, I want to see everything before I lose my eyes. There are some people who say that basically that’s all a sham. They give a smug little smile and say ‘Bourgeois class, bourgeois problems.’ People have always got some explanation to trot out for everything, they are all so brainy. For some of them, the explanation lies in sex and obsessions and so on. For others, the explanation lies in the class struggle. For others, the explanation lies in metaphysics, Zen, the Vedas. They are all so civilized. They explain, and then they go off down the street, they drive their cars, they use their telephones to make telephone calls, they drink their whisky, or else they smoke their ganja, and they are happy. And meanwhile, all that beauty and all that force is accumulating in the machines, in the walls of the houses, slowly, and everything is trembling, about to crumble into dust. But they don’t know this. They have no inkling of what is going to happen. But I do see it all, and I am afraid the whole time. Well, not exactly afraid, no, but I get a heavy choking feeling at the bottom of my throat, something like a goitre. You know, even when I was small I used to spend my time looking at things as closely as possible. I always noticed immediately what was wrong with anything: a crack, some tiny detail, the first smut of decay. It’s the same, today. When I walk along the street and see the people’s heads with eyes protruding from them, when I see the cars and roads and bridges, I hear all sorts of odd disturbing things. A low noise, a tremor, a peculiar rustling sound as though there were termites gnawing away everywhere. I have no idea what it is.

  Monsieur X, there are powerful forces everywhere. At night they gather in the darkness and swell up. And when day comes they burst out. It is extraordinary the way everything seethes with life, even things that look dead. There can be no more peace and quiet for anyone who has begun to perceive this fact. It becomes impossible even to close one’s eyes and listen to Handel. Because that other music with its unremitting noise is far more terrible, far more beautiful. It has even become impossible to talk meaningfully. It has even become impossible to take a little blue notebook and jot down one’s thoughts, because it is as though one no longer had the time to think. Naturally one still has desires and ideas and so on, but it is as though external forces had already uttered them and realized them in anticipation, and then one feels oneself trapped by the whirlwind. How I wish I could understand the plan, you know, the pattern of things. I know it is there, somewhere, but how to see it? I know that society doesn’t just drift along, that there is a secret way of knowing everything that is going to happen. But I cannot manage to guess that secret. Without a doubt, all these mysterious forces have a direction, are working towards something. But it is like a vast labyrinth with countless false openings, countless wrong directions. You turn right, thinking that you are headed the right way, wind your way through a whole series of corridors, and eventually, when you feel sure you must be almost there, you turn yet another corner and find yourself back where you started.

  There are so many things, too, Monsieur X. So much energy everywhere. Everything is so much there, present, alive. What is the point of dreaming when there are so many things? It is a jungle of sorts, filled with millions of different leaves, millions of insects, fruits, caterpillars, roots, snakes. That is why there are so many noises. And in a jungle one can’t just wander aimlessly: one needs to be able to recognize everything around one, taste things with the tip of one’s tongue, sniff the spoors, know all the ways of the water, of fire, of the air. I want to learn to walk through the streets of the city like that: knowing that there are fatal forces everywhere, dangers and poisons everywhere.

  I’m frightened, Monsieur X, and yet I love it all. I am no longer alone. I am surrounded by friends and enemies. They lie in wait for me, spy upon me all the time. I must learn how to make their acquaintance, and then perhaps I will know what is going on. I must learn to recognize every category of screw and bolt, every category of nail. Sheets of tin-plate, sheets of cast steel, sheets of cast iron, sheets of zinc. I love plastics: some are smooth, and cold as water, some are the colour of chocolate. I often go to look at the nylon fabrics that they sell in shops: some of them are like gossamer, with designs of fruits and flowers on them, while others are opaque and heavy, like soft glass. Every category of cement, concrete, stone. There are new materials invented by man, transuranic elements: neptunium (Z=93), plutonium (Z= 94), americium (Z=95), curium (Z=96), berkelium (Z=97), californium (Z=98), einsteinium (Z=99), fermium (Z=100), mendelevium (Z=101), nobelium (Z=102). There is the white steel that glitters on automobiles and on railway carriages. There are strange liquids fizzing inside bottles, which all have to be sampled in turn. In supermarkets I have seen thousands of identical little pasteboard pots containing thick cream or yoghourt or cream cheese. That whole scene is really extraordinary, you know. And, and what’s more, I have seen thousands of tin cans containing different kinds of meat, or vegetable, or fruit in syrup. Yesterday I bought one which had written on it:

  Libby’s

  Fruit Cocktail (Cherries artificially coloured red)

  in heavy syrup

  And all those tons of paper. And all those ballpoint pens that write in red, and black, and blue, and green, and violet, with tiny tungsten balls that leave a thin dribble behind them as they roll round and round. And all those cigarettes in their little pasteboard boxes, all identical, containing yellow tobacco and black tobacco, with filters made from cotton and coal and toilet paper.

  There are so many things that vibrate, that talk, that move. There are so many machines everywhere. Electric razors, electric billiard games, electric mixers, fans, refrigerators, electronic calculating machines. There are so many engines. SAVIEM, SOGIC. The power of engines. Heat, aluminium. Pistons, camshafts, valves, spark-plugs, carburettors, jets, selector switches. Enclosed in gleaming bonnets, snarling with their 105 genuine hp, pressing down upon the wheels. So many tyres and wheels. The other day, I saw a very beautiful wheel. I looked at it for a long while, so that I would never forget it. It was a very high, very wide wheel belonging to a lorry, and it was surrounded by a fat tyre of black sculpted rubber around which was written UNIROYAL, 6 50 R 20, 10 PLYRATING. But the really magnificent thing about this wheel was its centre: a six-branched star radiating from the hub. In the centre of the star, a circle fastened by ten bolts. Each ray was fixed to the wheel-rim by a big square-headed bolt. So I stood for a long while looking at this sort of six-branched star, and I saw that each of its arms was swelling with strength and energy, that it was pressing against the rim as though with a hand. What I’m trying to say is that this star of steel embodied such perfection, such real beauty and power, that it almost seemed to be the centre of the world, the nucleus. The wheel was motionless, pressing down upon the roadway with the lorry’s whole weight, and its six arms opening out like a star shone with force and calm violence. I shall never forget it. That beautiful peaceful wheel, dominating space, indestructible. Ever since that moment I keep on tryin
g to see it again in the street. But the lorry has vanished. Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps this wheel might teach me something, an attitude, an idea. Perhaps it was the magic word which stops wars:

  WHEEL

  That’s what I am seeking, Monsieur X. I am seeking words and signs capable of helping me survive. In the matted forest I am seeking friendly plants, and boulders, and snakes, and friendly birds. I want to rediscover the ancient legends and tell them to you, so that you in turn can tell them to others.

  For example:

  LEGEND OF THE FIRST CIGARETTE

  In olden days, men were not acquainted with fire. They lived in shadow, and they resembled bats. During that time, there was a very beautiful woman called Pall Mall. She was afraid, because everything was dark, and there were not even any stars. So one day she took a sheet of newspaper and filled it with dust and smoked it. But it was no good. So she tried with dog’s hairs, but that was no good either. And then, one day, she had the idea of rolling her own long tresses in the paper, and she began to smoke that. And the smoke was so smooth and gentle, and it spread so much warmth and light, that the rest of mankind wanted to do the same. But since all women did not have golden tresses like Pall Mall, all sorts of different cigarettes resulted. There were some with black hair, others with red hair, others again with grey hair. It is since that time that men are no longer afraid at night, and that they take pleasure in inhaling the smoke of cigarettes in which their women’s hair is smouldering.

  Or else:

  THE MYTH OF THE BLACK SEDAN