Dusk

Dusk

                                                                                     for Simone Weil

Do you believe in God?

This question was put to me by a Commissioner. I will save you the description of the good man and his premises. He was in office. He reminded me of our old schoolmaster, who looked at you during an examination, although question and answer were indifferent to him.

Yes, I believe in the absence of God.

I believed, when you, brother, died, during yet another famine. Did you know that grief about the death of a loved one can assault a human being?

Yes, I believe in the presence of God. Only recently. 

In the early hours we, you remember Olga, Olga, with her black teeth, when she opened her mouth you did not expect her to be able to speak, and you remember Aleksandra, you always pulled her braids, well we were on our way to the factory, it now has three chimneys and the smoke that rises out of it has the colour of honey but does not smell so sweet,. I believed because the earth breathed and the first rays of sunshine made you smell the dewy grass.

God has never hindered me in my actions. I doubt him. I can doubt him.

Do you know doubt? Do you know how comforting scepsis is?

The Commissioner did not look up. While I was so eager to see his eyes. Eyes, with a colour, not like the eyes I draw on the walls of my cell. He expected a confirmation, and the first 'yes' I gave him, met with indifference.  He looked at the form,  the beautiful  regularity of it eluded him, and filled in 'yes'.

I remember exactly what happened in the forest.  If someone is as alone  as I am now, and his memory connects him to a similar state,  then the memory is often precise.

I walked out of the house. I thought I could ward off your death by leaving. I dug a hole in the ground, next to a tree, and put my head in it and swept the hole with sand.

When I woke up, I lay in the dark. I wondered where this darkness could be located. With both hands I touched around me.  I'm not lying in our bed because if that were  the case I'd feel your  body  tossing and turning next to  me.  Moreover,  I would then be able to distinguish the door of the room and the wardrobe.  Mother still keeps your clothes. The other day I put on your trousers.  Mother's eyes got wet when she saw my bare calves.

Am I somewhere in the forest? Do I hear the chiffchaff's song there? Is it the wind that rattles the windows?

Now that I realize that I cannot imagine the location of this darkness, I still have one question: am I a human being? Am I a human being, I say it out loud.  I am hoping for laughter. My body would react with laughter. 

So I have reasons to assume that as soon as darkness rises, darkness comes from above, like avalanches of a mountain, have I summoned the night?, I will be something else. A tree? I don't mind being a tree. I lie, that is a certainty. I know: with one stroke of the axe you can fell this tree. Birds do not sing in felled trees.

I open my eyes. Brother, remember, when darkness turns you, open your eyes.

You see, I hear the chiffchaff's song. A spider crawls over my breasts. I look up along the trunk. A winding path that leads past the shaded leaves to the sun-drenched. I get up. I embrace the tree. I squeeze it between my thighs. I stroke and kiss his trunk.

I love this untouchable tree. His thinking resembles mine. His expectations are high. His movement does not take place.

Dusk had fallen when I went home.  It was quiet in the forest. So quiet that I heard  the heavenly trumpets welcoming someone. Before I took the path that leads to the village, I looked back for a moment. A birch tree at night.

A lot has happened since then, brother. Vladislav came and talked about the proletariat. 

Do you remember Sasha? I like him, despite everything. He probably is still wiping his dirty hands on his work coat. He walks cautiously, like a predator. He only trusts his machines.

Vladislav, grandmother always called him "ginger"", because of his red hair, was arrested with me.

He had hands like coal shovels.

The eyes of the poets froze.

The harvests failed.

I foresee a time when someone sets fire to himself out of despair. I shudder when I think of the years beyond that time when such a gesture is no longer felt and shared.

Brother, it is pitch-dark in my cell. I have measured the space with my steps. When I stretch out my arms I do not touch the ceiling. Not even when I stand on my toes.

 My tongue is dry. I hope I won't tire you too much with my talk.

From time to time I rub my body warm. Do you know when the shivers stop? When the freezing starts?

Remember how surprised we were when we walked out one morning? Never before had we seen such white sheep. Night frost had covered them with a beautiful dress.

Do you remember, grandfather, who called me 'his melancholic girl' and then put his wrinkled index finder on the tip of my nose?

The children laughed at me. They didn't mean any harm with it.

My face, do you  remember my face? My nose crawling to my mouth like a snail.  It seems as if I silently laugh at myself.

As a child I was convinced that my voice lived in my throat. I was afraid I would accidentally swallow it. 

Did God invent these lies?

Once the old schoolmaster read us from a heavy book. He spelled out the words of the story. Probably he didn't understand it.

 Do you remember?  Do you remember Amphion? With his play on the lyre  he managed to move the stones so they built a fortress for him.