Authors: Rudy Wiebe
Come Back (9 page)
DAILY PLANNER
1984:
August Thursday 9
Can $1 = 1330 liras
At 10 o’clock walked from Monfalcone, Hotel Excelsior #15 to Duino, arrived 12:30. Everyone friendly—found
zimmer
across from Duino Castle, Albergo Susy #7, walked to Sustiana met Yugoslav family, invited us to their place—tried to get into Duino Castle—no luck, closed—that’s me every time
August Friday 10
Long wonderful shower—off to write some letters home here in Duino. Found out stuff on Castle, took pictures in the grey rain, the sea, the white cliffs snarled with trees,
the castle roofs and thick towers—perfect for elegy and longing. Re-write, re-copy letter to A Long after midnight, still rain.
SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
(3):
August 10, 1984
Duino, Italia
My dearest Ailsa,
As I write this letter, one of many drafts, you are still in Europe. Since I was not told your family’s exact itinerary, I can’t place your whereabouts. However, when you receive this letter in Edmonton you will obviously be at home, a place I remember very well. I helped your family move into that house when you bought it, and I put your bed together in the bedroom you chose. Remember?
I started
one, many
a number of letters;
August 3 in Nice, France, on August 7 another in Desenzano, Italy
but have mailed none. Now in Duino, a small town overlooking the Gulf of Trieste; Trieste is a city located 50 km south of Duino, I write what will hopefully be the final draft of a letter which will be mailed.
Oh, I will write you and write you, Ailsa, I will never forget you
The main problem in writing this letter
was
has been the choice of
motif
. The
mo
theme chosen has been the
declar
confession. A person can never reveal everything that is on his/her mind, especially if it is
complex, and even more so if it has to be told in a short letter.
First off I want to tell you why I came to Duino
I came to Duino, Italy, because a great German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (a male), stayed at the castle, the high grey structure on the cliff in the postcard picture enclosed, on invitation from the Princess who lived there in 1912. At the Duino Castello he started what were later called
The Duino Elegies
—his greatest poems. Here are a few lines from the 7th Elegy, translated from the German (not by me):
Nowhere, beloved, can the world exist but within us.
Our life is spent in changing. And ever lessening,
The outer world disappears.
That’s what I feel here, the world changing in me. Presently Prince Raimondo della Torre e Tasso owns the Castle, and when the flag is flying, which you can see on the tip of the tallest tower, the Prince is at home. The flag is flying as I write, so no visitors are allowed inside. My luck as usual.
I have been debating whether to include a poem here that was written in one peak of despair in a Nice hotel [August 3], selecting and changing a few words from a Holy Bible version of Song of Solomon. It’s kind of contradictory, both lament and joy, but that seems the way things are now:
Sorrow
Whither is my beloved gone,
O thou fairest among young women?
Thou hast ravished my heart, my beauty, my rose;
Thou hast ravished my heart with both of thine eyes,
and with just one of thy looks.
How fair is thy love, my beauty, my rose;
How much better thy love than wine,
and the presence of thy being beyond all others.
I will rise now, and go about the city,
and in the streets I will seek her whom my soul loves:
I sought her, but I found her not.
Whether is my beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women?
Ailsa,
I do care
I love you. You are the most beautiful young lady in the world. I would never be deliberately mean to you. I will never, never, forget you.
I’ll be back before Christmas.
I’ve been entranced with you ever since I
first noticed
first really became aware of your existence. This occurred at the 1980 church Sunday School Christmas program. You, Ailsa, were nine years old and in the children’s choir, and you were not singing. You just stood there in the front row while the other children joyfully sang, including your brother and
mine, but you with a
pained
sad face and a silent gaze into the congregation. I was enchanted. Then for one song you did begin to sing. In the song there was a pause, most likely a verse change. Well, you started singing before the rest of the choir. You immediately noticed your mistake and stopped but some children beside you looked at you and laughed and your cheeks flushed, you scuffed your arms in extreme embarrassment. And you never did sing again, not any song that entire evening.
At that moment, and at many other times in the three and a half years since, I have felt that I could see into your inner being. Perhaps it is just that as I am an extremely sensitive and shy person, and I feel other people’s pain, but esp. yours
I felt very sorry for you, a sensitive and shy person, because I too know the pain of extreme embarrassment. I also felt that I could see into your inner self
something that one does rarely with most people
which I have had a number of opportunities since then to witness
???????? Bullshit confusing !!!!!! and horrible transition
Ailsa, speaking of embarrassment—(better awkwardness—no one with any sensitivity would ever be embarrassed with you wanting to be close to them) in Germany I felt very awkward with our family members always around and so I outwardly showed little affection
for
to you. You were so very kind and tender, I didn’t mean to be mean or cold: I just didn’t know what to do, where to look. But you are so brave, you talk right out loud.
On the viewpoint over Heidelberg when you asked me what was on my mind, what I was thinking was our being together would not last. So silly! I’ve been longing for you to enjoy my company, and here you were showing great tenderness and I due to shyness
apprehension the future the others
could not respond. The sadness I felt was that my chance to show you how much I do care for you was being wasted, just like that poor girl curled together on the street that evening. The whole world walking those cobblestones after our beautiful meal was suddenly so helpless, so sad.
Why did I waste that moment? Always apprehensive, about what’s coming
Ailsa, this is my confession today: I love you. How this will be experienced in the future, just as how this letter works, I don’t know. Please forgive me for seeming cold and silent in the near past, it was not meant against you. Better—think of the Chagall blue heavens in Mainz, and I’ll think of his Nice paintings: of the great ladder going up into blue heaven and those winged people like flying flowers everywhere. That’s a way we can hope together.
I am presently with Fred and his friend Karen O, and we are hostelling/camping our way to Athens, Greece. I intend to be in Greece till the end of August, maybe a week longer. Please answer, mail your letter to me at the Canadian Embassy, Athens, Greece, address on the back of this letter. Please—answer.
With all my love, Gabriel Thomas Wiens
DAILY PLANNER
1984:
August Saturday 11
Parents/Denn back in Canada today **
mailed
recopied letter to A
**
mailed postcard to parents from Duino, did laundry Venice tomorrow, @ 4 hrs.
SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
(3):
August 10, 1984
Panorama Di Duino (Trieste)
Dear family,
I’ve been staying in Duino since Thursday noon, we will be leaving Sunday morning for Trieste and perhaps a short day trip into Yugoslavia. The Castello (centre of picture) is still owned by relatives of the Princess who invited Rilke to stay here in 1912 and he worked on his Elegies. Presently Prince Raimondo lives there, and it is strictly a private place and nobody can get in to see the rooms where Rilke stayed when he’s home. Right now as I write it is raining quite heavily, and my laundry which I hung out to dry is getting a second rinse. I plan to be in Italy/Greece for the rest of August.
Love you all—Gabe (X marks my hotel room)
DAILY PLANNER
1984:
August Monday 13
Spent 3:00 a.m.–7:00 a.m. Fred, Karen, I stuck in Florence train station yuk ABC #5 tiny inner courtyard. Phoned home, Mom answered, they got home and all fine as
usual. 2 minutes, can’t ask anything re A and she of course says nothing.1,500 lire.
SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
(3):
August 13, 1984
Started with $1400, now $930 / 25 days $470 spent / enough to end of Sept?
Firenze, San Lorenzo, Tombo in Marmo per Berta Moltke di Giovanni Dupre (1817–82) Young lady on left side of marble mausoleum with a little boy in front of her. Muscular yet finely feminine arms, long, straight nose, smallish mouth and exposed breast. When looked at from the side you see this perfectly shaped breast, truly marvellous: with the young Lady’s sad, melancholic stare into nowhere. She stares year after year, for a century, always down and away. Lady of marble, why am I … you aren’t even alive. This shape of female, not seemingly obscure but—what is the object of desire? I’m a foolish person, can’t touch
What the hell’s my problem, I continue to look, even walking away I grab one more look. What is this, obsession? Do I really like it or does it control me. I just can’t seem to help it, my mind and gut take over my spine. Too much passion. Always the same type too, so obvious. Some very young girl—this one is a bit older good grief pathetic person to the nth degree
always that obscure Object of Desire
| Obscure | - | dark, indistinct, not easily understood |
| Object | - | something solid that can be touched |
| Desire | - | feeling one would get pleasure, satisfaction from (touching?) |
… Walked streets alone. People everywhere sitting together at café tables, beautiful. Laughing as if they were happy.
… In front of the Uffizi Gallery near the river (where our family went 8 years ago and little (then) Denn saw a dog in a painting and yapped about getting one the rest of the trip) I’m thinking how useless all the pictures I have taken today are. When 20,000 people go around and basically take the same pictures as you, I feel so cynical, so stupidly average. Thousands of cameras have taken this view, right where I sit. What does taking it too give me. Proof I was here—so? Luckily I’m off to see an art lecture tonight so I can get my mind onto something else. The question is whether I actually do
have
a mind. Hnnnn
DAILY PLANNER
1984:
August Wednesday 15
Slept in late, everything closed, holiday in Italy. Karen gave me a haircut, feels good Mass at St. Salvatore in Ognissanti—Amerigo Vespucci tomb, name oddly attached to all the Americas Midnight walk to Ponte Vecchio Karen said pure obsession, and said that’s okay, that’s okay
So you said something about your feelings to Karen? Gabe, that’s good—very good—how much did you dare say? A warm, sympathetic, non-threatening listener. Did Fred mind? Did he know? Surely there was a world of understanding
possible, especially for travelling young people, sitting around, waiting for the next bus, train—talk, impulse talk.
DAILY PLANNER
1984:
August Thursday 16
(We 3 now 13 days together) Uffizi Gallery Young lady tomb again You could stand and stare at it forever, remains the same, stone, constant Karen followed her plan, left for Naples south today (hnnnn) we guys on train east, Florence to Rome/Tagliacozzo evening walk with Fred town people