A Swarm of Dust Read online

  You will stay here. You won’t become part of my past. I’m returning to my past and I hope I’ll forget about you completely. You have not left any scars in my mind. You were not a cutting instrument. To use your words … I’m no longer prepared to play the guinea pig, so please let me go. Maybe you’ll find evidence for your theory through a theoretical route. Or with someone else.’

  PART THREE

  Home again! On the edge of the wood the old beech trees were rustling. Their bright young leaves shone in the afternoon sunlight. The sun’s rays permeated the thin leaves, so that they were even lighter on the underside, transparent and yellowish. The breath of air that was making them tremble was coming unevenly from the valley. And then, after some moments of stillness, something stirred among the trees, a wind arose, came to the edge, stopped, withdrew unobserved and then reappeared a hundred metres lower. He sat on the roots of an oak tree, listening. The warm waves of air flowed over him and made him feel drowsy. But this was not ordinary drowsiness, for his thoughts were flowing ever more lazily, getting caught up and then lost in the various sounds.

  He remembered that in his childhood nature had often flowed into him in just this way. Nature had always worked on him like an opiate. If he sank deeply into it, if he succumbed to its tentacles, it created in him a dangerous imbalance, in which his instincts rose to the surface and bit into his movements. He felt that the material world was defeating him; slowly flowing into him and paralysing him like a narcotic. But in this sinking he sensed a certain sweetness, for he recognised that he was losing his possibility of deciding, losing his willpower, becoming passive, and this removed from him the burden of responsibility.

  But now he could rationally define the inflow of nature, which before had not been possible. He could hold it back, if he wanted, and then let it continue a drop at a time, as if taking in a drug. And when he was almost completely groggy, he focused and pushed the air and sounds and objects to a certain distance, from where only their tentacles reached out, tickling him gently. It was a special feeling when those tentacles wrapped round him and drew him in, until nature once more possessed him, before withdrawing once more. That was how he played, letting himself fall into danger. The inflow of the outside world represented a pleasant falling, a sinking that gave him a special pleasure. He felt his body move or his hand rise, and then when the tentacles relaxed their grip a little, his body became ever number. In the end, he could no longer raise his hands, he was overcome by inertia, the outside world concentrated inside him and moved there, he no longer felt that there was a relationship between him and the world, he himself was the world, it flowed in him and with him. But at the same time, he knew that he could break this. Just a little mental effort, various combinations of thought … and the world was already withdrawing, already creeping back, the grip of its tentacles weakening.

  Whenever he sank too far, it took him quite some time to return to clarity. There was also a particular pleasure in returning, in the struggle for distinctness when he extracted himself from the writhing tentacles. What was new was that when blending with nature he was aware of it happening. If he wanted, he could withdraw at any moment. That was his strength.

  Becoming passive! That was how Daria defined it in her letter – somehow she had found his address. He had been convinced that he wouldn’t think of her at all when he finally returned to his own world, but it was not like that. He didn’t understand these feelings and drove them away. Then a letter arrived and he was pleased. Perhaps because it arrived precisely at the moment when, for the first time since his return, something fell apart and he got the feeling that there was a wall before him that he had previously not been aware of. After that he began to think of Daria often. Had she not said on the train that everything might have changed, that the old world no longer existed? For quite some time he was not even aware that it had changed, as on the outside it looked the same. Days ran along the same old tracks, people were a little older, but the same as before. Yet there was something in between, a kind of barrier.

  ‘How are you? I know you won’t answer me. But by now you’ve probably realised that time has passed. And time complicates everything, for time includes events. And when you were not there, many things happened that you don’t know about. That’s what is lacking in your attitude to the world of your past. Every absence is harmful, even though you think you’ll benefit from it. If you don’t go out in the rain you’ll stay dry, but you won’t know what rain feels like. Now you have probably looked things in the eye. When you left I was constantly thinking of you. And I came to some new conclusions. I admit I may be wrong, but that’s the danger with every conviction. I discovered that your problem with sex is a very broad one – broader than it seems. It has spread to your whole attitude to the world.

  The first idea about this arose when I spoke with my sociology professor about your exam. And when I thought about your attacks, it seemed to me that I wasn’t wrong. I’m sure that your attitude to the world so far has been completely passive. You are completely without the capacity to decide, without willpower. The whole time you have been surrendering and withdrawing. That, of course, denied the man within. When the break occurred that flung you into passivity, it caused serious damage to your mental state and nervous system, for the essence of the masculine is activity, aggression. Some great fear in childhood forced you to defend yourself, pushed you from your natural position and compelled you to adopt a defensive stance. That left the decisive scar in your mind.

  You are on the defensive the whole time, constantly withdrawing. And that offers a logical explanation for all your behaviour: your ‘alienation’ from the masses, as you call it, your fear of the ‘pointlessness’ of the future, your revolt against exams, your attitude towards the city, the world in general and particularly women. In every circumstance you felt something that was unclear to you, filled you with fear and made you passive. It’s pretty obvious that you were made passive by your mother, that she is responsible for your defensiveness. She’s the one that ‘taught’ you, in the same way as she would bind a wound that was bleeding. In her you saw protection, the main sexual actor, so that all the initiative for sex remained with her. Even at the very beginning, your attitude to sexuality was the wrong way round, you remained passive. Since you got to know women in a very violent but also fearful way, that became the foundation of your mental development. Your will was always dormant. You were not an actor. You often told me how much of an influence nature had on you, how you succumbed to it, with pleasure even, as if in that way you would evade responsibility. You have always avoided making decisions! Or you didn’t even avoid them, as you were simply incapable of making a decision. You were not living, you were being lived by nature, by events, chance. You simply did not recognise action as a consequence of the will. You recognised it only theoretically. That you stayed so long in the city was a barely discernible revolt against your male nature, which was still inside you, I’m sure about that. Your ‘attacks’ show that. I don’t actually know why your desire for action came to the surface in such unusual forms, but it’s probably because they were created by the circumstances in which you found yourself when the desire arose. It’s clear that you didn’t understand why this was happening. You said it might be sadism, but I’m sure it isn’t. These are attacks of a suppressed organism seeking action.

  That, it seems to me, is your problem. And there’s only one solution. In your relationships with women you must become an actor. In that way you will help your suppressed male nature to free itself. I’m convinced that you will be transformed. You must create the feeling that you are the one with a woman at your disposal – that you are a man who has his own strength and will. Then you will acquire agency in your actions, as well as in your relation to the world. The difficulty is that you have to do all this yourself, no one else can do it for you. It’s your decision. Your first decision. If your first decision is a rational one, under compulsion, it doesn’t mean that the second
won’t be emotional …’

  The inflow of nature: as if evading responsibility. Maybe he had indeed taken refuge in nature whenever he was afraid to make a decision. Taking new steps, yes, it was true, he had always feared that most of all. Emma, for instance … Each new woman meant a new step, a break with the well-trodden path. And he always sank into the material world before events that unfolded without his will. Hadn’t even his mother sensed that? ‘Haven’t you found a woman yet? You should do … I’m old and … you were still young then … You really must find a woman … you should marry … Yes, you really must find one!’

  His mother had said the same as Daria, only in different words. His mother sensed something was wrong. Their relationship changed. Not in essence, but it took on a new form. Their actions contained an unusual coldness that disturbed them both greatly, but which they were powerless to change. He felt that there was some kind of mistrust between them, a hidden shame. He was no longer a child, but a young man. He was constantly aware that he was living with his mother, he knew it was incest, and he was assailed by guilt. They both remained on the border of cold reason, they didn’t dare to go further. His mother did not relax, she left the initiative to him, while he was not bothered by her passivity. He dared not even think about beating her now. And he was suddenly bothered by her unwashed body, which had a distinctive smell that disturbed him and was unpleasant to him. The whole time he was troubled by the fact that he had been born from the vagina that then became the object of his enjoyment. They both felt something was being destroyed and there was no way back. So the mistrust grew from one day to the next, the coldness permeated their relationship and they could no longer look each other in the eye. They began to fear their sexual bonding, but they still could not forego a single night – as if hoping that everything would somehow be resolved.

  Such were these moments of his. A desperate struggle to dig out fragments of the past that had compelled him to return. And yet … He felt it was no longer there, that everything was different, that time had come in between … In his heart there arose a confused feeling that he had never experienced before. He felt as if he had done something reckless … Was that remorse? Yes, it was, he told himself. Maybe the real path was in the city, through the city. Certainly not a withdrawal into emptiness. For now it was clear! Daria had finally identified it. Passivity. Now he felt that his mother was the source … Did he still have any desire for her, had he imagined that he longed for the past, wasn’t it just an excuse for his inability to decide and take action? For this coldness in bed with his mother: was that not repulsive, or only a desperate attempt to dig his way into the past and thus excuse his flight from the future? The act was no longer authentic, it must stop. There was mistake here, a dead point and Daria had said … become an actor, achieve the feeling that you have the will to take a woman, that you are the aggressor, that you are a man, that you don’t withdraw! For only then would a flight from responsibility be impossible, and everything would change. How could someone rationally decide to do something that he otherwise would not consider? ‘If your first decision is a rational one, it doesn’t mean that the second won’t be emotional,’ wrote Daria. ‘It all lies in the awareness that you can do it.’

  Perhaps he did the right thing when he decided to wait in the beech wood for Polonka, the priest’s niece. Perhaps the feeling of hopelessness would have remained if he hadn’t seen her at the mass he had attended for reasons he did not understand. Daria’s letter was the deciding factor, but with Polonka the possibility came nearer, became real.

  She came along the path, carrying a large basket with two cans of milk and looking at the ground. She seemed to him plumper than a few days earlier, when he saw her at Geder’s, perhaps because her short sleeves revealed much more of her arms. She was also wearing a different dress and looked more curvaceous and bulky. He sat back down on a tree root. She did not notice him until she saw his shadow falling on the path. Then she raised her eyes and gave a startled look. But her face immediately relaxed into a smile of relief:

  ‘Oh, it’s you! You gave me such a fright!’

  ‘Do I look frightening?’

  ‘I didn’t imagine it was you. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  She blanched. She didn’t know how to interpret his words.

  He noticed the change and was confused. He looked at the ground and poked at the moss with a piece of wood. If he moved too quickly it would all be over. She already sensed that something wasn’t quite right.

  ‘It’s like this … When I was a child things happened that … had a negative influence on me … that put me in a strange position … ’

  ‘Ah … ’ she said with relief, as if the tension had passed.

  ‘You know, my mother … I was very attached to her. And I was afraid of women, apart from her. I was afraid of them!’

  She stared at him in surprise.

  ‘Now I’ve discovered that it’s all because of my passivity, my fear of making decisions. And now I need to decide. That I’m the one with power. The one that takes a woman. Do you understand?’

  She was trembling.

  ‘I’d like to … you know!’

  It looked as if she was about to flee, so he jumped at her, knocked her over and grabbed her around the waist.

  ‘You’re a woman, aren’t you? All women like to do it!’

  She hit him in the face, grabbed his hair and pulled as hard as she could.

  ‘I’ll scream, I’ll scream! I’ll tell my uncle … ’

  ‘Be quiet, calm down!’

  ‘No! I’ll bite you … Help!’

  He put his hand across her mouth. Her shout echoed through the woods, he froze. There was a path nearby, a field. If someone came … He pulled a knife from his pocket and waved the blade in front of her face. She turned to stone. When he saw she was overcome with horror he shuddered with the sense of his own power.

  ‘If you move, I’ll stick a knife in your throat! I once killed some puppies, the blood spurted everywhere!’

  When he heard his own words he shuddered once more. Something was unleashed, a wave of associations, as if he had fallen from a cliff and slipped into the depths.

  ‘And often I’ve wanted to grab hold of someone and smash them and beat them to death. In the city I beat a police officer to a pulp. That’s action! Will! My will! I have strength!’

  She was trembling, staring at him wide-eyed. When he waved the knife in front of her she followed it with her eyes. Her body shook in great spasms.

  There were beads of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘Now undress … ’

  She shook her head violently.

  ‘Strip!’ he hissed.

  Tears ran from her eyes. He felt she was in his power, that she was succumbing to his will, his strength: he could do with her whatever he wanted. He became engorged, he grew, he felt proud and inflated. The blood pounded in his veins, he sensed the closeness of the act.

  Then it all happened quickly, eagerly. Fear at his sudden transformation so disabled her that she acted mechanically, almost as if she were not present, she only trembled and shook in spasms. Whenever she showed too much daring or made a suspicious movement, he waved the knife at her and she turned to stone. He folded up her skirt to her breasts. She squeezed her legs together and did not want to open them. He flashed the knife and she went limp.

  He saw that she had passed out.

  He was alarmed. ‘Polonka! … Polonka! … Don’t do that!’

  He shook her like a bunch of straw and slapped her cheeks. Then he sighed helplessly and kneeled over her. He saw that she had her eyes open and was moving. She was staring at his face.

  He didn’t get up, he was thrown to his feet. Crashing from tree to tree, he fell on the moss, picked himself up and staggered on. At the lower edge of the wood he lay down. On the road in the valley the evening bus was already running. Dusk was approaching, with small shadows that lay on the orchards and field
s.

  The church clock on the hill struck the hour. He failed to register how many times it struck …

  Dusk finally came; it was dark, but there were a few stars and the moon was rising above the plain. Cold crept into his body. It got him moving, carrying him blindly across the fields towards the valley. Several times he tripped and fell, but he was carried forward relentlessly. Again the church clock struck the hour.

  And again he was unaware how many times it struck. The stronger the feeling of guilt inside him, the more he felt the urge to move forward. A kind of silent scream, shock at what he had done and his own strength drove him on. He stopped by the vineyards and looked into the valley. Then he was overcome. A spasm of laughter burst from him, but was quickly torn. Again, he was driven across the fields. He felt in his pocket and found a lighter. Once again a hoarse laugh burst from his mouth.

  Then he saw a house in front of him. It stood alone on the edge of the village, an orchard above it bounded by a hedge. He leaped forward, he was in the uncut grass, he was drawn downwards … There was the dung heap … There was no light in the yard … nor any dog dragging its chain … He felt compelled to go behind the house … the light was shining through the window among the plum trees … There the grass had been cut … He pulled out a lighter, flicked it on, moved closer … Flames burst forth. He was already running upwards through the orchard. He jumped over the hedge and then crossed the ploughed field to the right, towards the hill … His heart was pounding, he was gasping for breath, his lungs felt as if they might explode. He turned round. The flame was rushing across the dry straw, it moved above the house, flew along the ridge, slipped along the margins. Then it spread across the roof and burst into the air. It began to crackle. He heard someone shout: