Today is the birthday of the interesting Max Planck, and the
nauseating Shirley Temple. It is also the death day of Shakespeare.
Yesterday I posted here the first page or two of Kavvadias’s
piece ‘A Helmsman’s Journal’. Here is the next page or two:
I’m sleepy, so sleepy. The clock says two in the morning. Time for
my watchmate to take over the wheel, and me to stand where he was. I’ll stand
up for two hours more, and I’ll try to sleep. I’ve never tried anything worse
than sleeping standing up. Your eyes close without your knowing it and suddenly
you collapse. Then you have to grab something so as not to fall down. Then when
you’ve got your balance, your eyes close again and you fall over again.
The other helmsman, just as sleepy as I am, isn’t the same as me
because he’s expecting something, hoping for something. A letter from home. Me,
I’ve got no expectations… for me such joys don’t exist. He’s waiting to get
somewhere; when he goes ashore he’ll enjoy himself and forget tonight’s
miseries. I never go ashore in the harbours. It’s months since I went ashore…
at one time I used to wait anxiously to reach harbour. I’d watch the compass
and think of beautiful women, adventures in the dark streets of unknown cities,
and it would ease the pain… I used to play cards. In Madeira one night I won a
lot, and it’s still in my kit-bag. I’ve lost all feeling for the value of
money. There’s nothing I need to buy, and I don’t know anyone who needs it I
could send it to…
Money! Once, when I was stuck without a ship in a London thick with
fog, I went an age without seeing the colour of a shilling. I’d spend all day
in the public parks, and in the evenings I’d eat in the boarding house where I
was going to pay when I got a ship. Twenty or so of us ate in this long narrow
dining-room. There was an Indian sailor sitting near me who was so hungry he’d
forgotten his religious rules, and on my other side there was a black stoker
who made a noise like bare feet on a wet pavement when he ate. I’ve never come
across a man so serene. As soon as he’d finished eating he’d stuff his nostrils
with a mixture of tobacco and some strange powder and go to sleep, making a
noise like a train pulling in. Much later I heard they’d sent him to New Guinea
on a convict transport, because one night in the West End he’d strangled a
little girl just to get the packet of food she was carrying.
…………………………
I’ve known a lot of strange people. The strangest was one I saw on a
Dutch freighter. He was a Japanese stoker. When he was off duty he’d lie down
on his stomach, naked from the waist up, reading a book full of strange
characters. His back was all decorated with birds and trees like a Japanese
shawl. The sailors would sit round him playing on his back with a dirty old
pack of cards. He wouldn’t say a word, but whenever the game got heated and
they’d slam the cards down hard, he’d shake his shoulders and the players would
calmly carry on playing without a word.
…………………………
I remember a friend from when I was a student. He wasn’t a sailor.
He looked like a Syrian king and as he wasn’t much older than me I looked up to
him as someone better; superhuman. His eyes were always laughing and he’d talk
in a way I’ve never heard anyone else speak. When he’d stop I could never
remember anything he’d said, I’d just be drugged with the spell of a strange
dream, like someone who’s coming down from smoking opium.
‘Opium!’ I said. I’ve smoked it myself. I think I saw some beautiful
dreams. I don’t remember much, just a fine white horse galloping over the
waves, with me riding…
…………………………
Once in Haiphong I saw barefoot Chinese captains in little silk
robes smoking enormous pipes. They’d sit beside their weird reed-sailed boats
waiting for cargoes for the Pacific Islands. I heard they always sailed without
a compass, their only guide the currents that changed direction with the
seasons. They say they charm away the typhoons with pentacles, and make voyages
months long. When dawn comes they often find themselves at unknown islands,
shining in the tropical sun, and hear, without seeing anything, songs in
strange tongues.
…………………………
For some time now I’ve been troubled by a weird day-dream… to set
off alone in a little Chinese boat, a boat with no compass, no rudder, and
either disappear in some steaming maelstrom or find myself, dawn breaking,
years later, on some island shining like a diamond under the burning sun, and
stay there for ever, surrounded by naked women who’d never set eyes on any man
but me. To lie down at night on the corals and the shells, to hear invisible
ukuleles, and see the stars, always the same in all the skies.
…………………………
The ship's bell’s striking for the change of watch. And now I’m not
at all tired…
Translation © Simon
Darragh, 2014.
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