Only the horses’ heads are left above the surface now; the front of the carriage is buried in the sand. Mr. Oahc and Mrs. Tahabes are trying their best to stay on their feet upon the shifting ground, while Mr. Autrom has opened the carriage’s mail compartment, frantically pulling out bundles of letters and tossing them aside. He is no different from a captain trying to rid his ship of excess weight to prevent it from sinking. It is not unusual that they choose to resist despair as the sand swallows them all. Look at the acceptance in the eyes of an antelope between the jaws of a lion rather than at its fragile neck, or at the coal-black eyes of the horses sinking into the sand. A deep, mournful fortitude… The transition from existence to non-existence, a phase transition, a revolution. No animal other than humans attempts to preserve the status quo. Because all of them were aware that they existed up until that very moment, whereas mankind only realizes it exists when on the brink of perishing.
***
When the lightning shattered every particle of the dimness evolving into darkness, illuminating the room in a blinding white, it caught my attention that the upper chamber of the hourglass—which separated the books of a few Russian novelists and string theorists on the oak shelf with wrought-iron legs—was rapidly emptying. It meant Polina had felt the need to turn the hourglass over in the blink of an eye. Even though I wondered why, it was not the time to ask.
“I saw her in Makoko, sitting at the edge of a rowboat like a gondolier, her back turned, bald-headed children sitting in double rows in front of her. They must have been going to school together through the rusty tin houses driven into the water; she was drinking her coffee while making those relatively well-fed children row. At one point, she dropped the sunglasses from the top of her head over her eyes. Even though the sun couldn’t be seen due to the humidity and the surrounding tin shacks, if she was hiding behind her glasses, she must have been hungover. It’s normal. The best way to protect oneself from malaria is to keep mosquitoes away, and the best way to keep mosquitoes away is to drink copious amounts of hard liquor.”
“How did you know it was her?” asked Polina.
“It could be because of her messy bun, or the fact that she was ruthless enough to make children row the boat…”
“You’re not sure.”
“I don’t need to be. Half the world believes in ghosts, the other half in genies and vampires.”
Waving her glass, which now held only a final sip of whiskey at the bottom, toward Chao’s face, Polina cut in reproachfully: “And you believe in Sebahat…”
“I don’t believe in anything. Even if what I see is an illusion, it shapes my reflexes, my emotions, my thoughts, and ultimately, my behavior. Through this sequence, the illusion transforms into the foundation of reality. That is exactly why God exists, Polina. He exists, even if He doesn’t.”
“People are only aware of absence, Chao. People are aware of what they lack, not what they have. The sum of the effects of these absences constitutes the human being. What exists has no value at all. They say nothing can come into existence from nothingness, yet humanity does. In fact, only mankind comes into existence out of nothingness.”
Chao straightened up and turned to the window. He imagined a paper boat in the water flowing along the curb, the boat sailing all the way to the sea, and Sebahat inside it… He swiftly snapped out of this childish daydream, returned to the room, and gazed into Polina’s warm, gleaming eyes.
***
The ground shook violently from side to side. Mr. Autrom clung to the carriage with difficulty; Mrs. Tahabes and Mr. Oahc were thrown off and fell onto the sand. The tremor exposed the corpses of the horses. Even though the sand continued to pull them in, its flow rate had slowed. When Mr. Autrom reached into the mail compartment one last time, he found an envelope older than time. He brought the note upon it to his lips and touched it:
“Always you… Signed: Apsev”
A new tremor, smaller than the last, increased the sand’s pulling speed once again. By the time Mr. Autrom placed the letter into the inner pocket of his tailcoat, right over his heart, he was buried up to his knees in the sand, while Mr. Oahc and Mrs. Tahabes were being dragged toward the center of gravity.
When Mr. Autrom was buried up to his waist, he said, “It was a pleasure traveling with you, Mrs. Tahabes,” and, taking off his top hat, took a bow as best as he could. After greeting Mr. Oahc with his eyes, he disappeared from sight entirely.
***
Chao, who takes the hourglass from the shelf, gives it a brief shake, and puts it back, stares into the completely emptied upper chamber. “If only we could speed up and slow down time, Polina, but our power only extends to clocks,” he says, as Polina pours the very last of the liquor from the bottom of the whiskey bottle into her glass.
Yazan: Chaotica
Çeviri Umberto
ANARCHISTALES 