Authors: Alessandro Baricco
Ocean Sea (18 page)
So
I shall keep
this black cassock
and these hills
lightsome hills
in my eyes
And upon me.
In saecula saeculorum
this is my place.
It’s all
simpler
now.
Now
all is
simple.
I shall be able to do
what remains to do
by myself.
If you need anything,
you know where to find
Pluche,
who owes you his life.
And may this prayer
slip away
with the strength of words
beyond the world’s prison
to who knows where.
Amen.
CHAPTER 3
Ann Deverià
Dear André, my beloved of a thousand years ago,
the little girl who has given you this letter is called Dira. I have told her to have you read it, as soon as you arrive at the inn, before letting you come up to my room. Right to the last
line. Don’t try to lie to her. You cannot lie to that little girl.
Sit down, then. And listen to me.
I don’t know how you managed to find me. This is a place that almost does not exist. And if you ask for the Almayer Inn, people look at you in surprise, and do not know. If my husband was
looking for an inaccessible corner of the world for my cure, he has found it. God knows how you managed to find it, too.
I have received your letters, and they were not easy reading. They open with pain the wounds of memory. If I had continued here, desiring and waiting for you, those letters would have been a
dazzling joy. But this is a strange place. Reality fades away and everything becomes memory. Even you, little by little, ceased to be a desire and became a memory. Your letters reached me like
messengers from a world that no longer exists.
I have loved you, André, and I cannot not imagine how one could love any more. I had a life, which made me happy, and I let it fall to pieces just to stay with you. I did not love you out
of boredom or loneliness or caprice. I loved you because the desire for you was stronger than any happiness. And I also knew that life wasn’t big enough to hold together all of desire’s
imaginings. But I didn’t try to stop myself, or to stop you. I knew that life would have done it. And it did. Suddenly it all blew apart. There were shards everywhere and they cut like
blades.
Then I came here. And this is not easy to explain. My husband thought it was a place where one might recover. But
recover
is too small a word for what happens here. And too simple. This
is a place where you take leave of yourself. What you are slips away from you, bit by bit. And you leave it behind you, step by step, on this shore that does not know time and lives only one day,
always the same one. The present vanishes and you become memory. You slip away from everything, fears, feelings, desires: you keep them, like cast-off clothes, in the wardrobe of an unknown wisdom,
and an unhoped-for peace. Can you understand me? Can you understand how all this—is beautiful?
Believe me, it’s not just a way, only an easier one, to die. I have never felt more alive than I do now. But it’s different. What I am has already happened; and here, and now, it
lives in me like a footprint on a trail, like a sound in an echo, and like a riddle in its answer. Not that it dies, no, not that. It slips to the other side of life. With a lightness that seems a
dance.
It’s a way of losing everything, in order to find everything.
If you can manage to understand all this, you will believe me when I tell you that it is impossible to think of the future. The future is an idea that has detached itself from me. It isn’t
important. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. I have no eyes to see it with anymore. You speak of it so often, in your letters. I struggle to remember what it means. Future. Mine is already
all here, and now. My future shall be the repose of a motionless time, moments collected and placed one upon the other, as if they were only one. From here to my death, there will be that moment,
and that’s all.
I shall not follow you, André. I shall not make any new life for myself, because I have just learned how to be the dwelling place of what has been my life. And I like it. I do not want
anything else. I understand your distant islands, and I understand your dreams, your plans. But the road that can take me there no longer exists. And you cannot invent it for me, in a world that
isn’t there. Forgive me, my beloved, but your future will not be mine.
There is a man, in this inn, who has a funny name and studies where the sea ends. In these last few days, while I was waiting for you, I told him about us and how I was afraid of your coming and
at the same time how I wanted you to come. He is a good, patient man. He sat and listened to me. And one day he said: “Write to him.” He says that writing to someone is the only way to
wait for him without hurting oneself. And I have written to you. I have put into this letter all I hold inside me. The man with the funny name says you will understand. He says that you will read
it, then you will go out onto the beach and, walking along the seashore, you will think again about everything and you will understand. It will last an hour or a day, it doesn’t matter. But
in the end you will return to the inn. He says that you will climb the stairs, you will open my door, and without a word you will take me in your arms and kiss me.
I know it seems silly. But I would be glad if it really happened. Losing oneself in another’s arms is a fine way to lose oneself.
Nothing can steal from me the memory of when, with all of me, I was
your Ann.
CHAPTER 4
Plasson
P
ROVISIONAL CATALOG OF THE PICTORIAL WORKS OF THE PAINTER MICHEL PLASSON
,
ORDERED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
STARTING FROM THE SAID PLASSON
’
S STAY AT THE ALMAYER INN
(
BY QUARTEL
)
UNTIL THE DEATH OF THE SAID PLASSON
.
Compiled, for the benefit of posterity, by Professor Ismael Adelante Ismael Bartleboom, on the basis of his own personal experience and other reliable testimony.
Dedicated to Madame Ann Deverià.
1.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 15 x 21.6 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white.
2.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 80.4 x 110.5 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white.
3.
Ocean sea,
watercolor, 35 x 50.5 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
White with a vague hint of ochre on the upper part.
4.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 44.2 x 100.8 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white. The signature is in red.
5.
Ocean sea,
drawing, pencil on paper, 12 x 10 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Two dots, very close to each other, are visible in the center of the sheet. The rest is white. (On the right-hand margin, a stain: grease?)
6.
Ocean sea,
watercolor, 31.2 x 26 cm
The Bartleboom Collection. At present, and quite temporarily, in the care of Mrs. Maria Luigia Severina Hohenheith.
Description:
Completely white.
When he gave this work to me, the artist’s words were, and I quote verbatim: “It’s the best I have done so far.” The tone was of profound
satisfaction.
7.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 120.4 x 80.5 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Two blobs of color can be seen: one, ochre, on the upper part of the canvas, and the other, black, on the lower part. The rest, white. (On the back, a handwritten note:
Storm.
And below:
tatatum tatatum tatatum
.)
8.
Ocean sea,
pastel on paper, 19 x 31.2 cm
The Bartleboom Collection.
Description:
In the center of the sheet, located slightly to the left, a small blue sail. The rest, white.
9.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 340.8 x 220.5 cm
The Quartel District Museum. Catalog number: 87
Description:
On the right, a dark cliff emerges from the water. Very high waves, breaking against the rocks, foam spectacularly. Amid the storm, two ships can be seen as they succumb to
the sea. Four longboats are suspended on the edge of a whirlpool. The shipwrecked are packed aboard the longboats. Some of them, having fallen into the sea, are going under. But this is a high
sea, much higher down there toward the horizon than it is close by, and it hides the horizon from view, against all logic, it seems to be rising as if the whole world were rising and we were
sinking, here where we are, in the womb of the earth, while an ever more majestic comber looms over us and, horrified, the night falls on this monster. (Dubious attribution. Almost certainly a
forgery.)
10.
Ocean sea,
watercolor, 20.8 x 16 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white.
11.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 66.7 x 81 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white. (Badly damaged. Probably fallen in water.)
12.
Portrait of Ismael Adelante Ismael Bartleboom,
pencil on paper, 41.5 x 41.5 cm
Description:
Completely white. In the center, in italic script, the word
Bartleb
13.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 46.2 x 51.9 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white. In this case, however, the expression should be understood literally: the canvas is completely covered by thick brushstrokes of white paint.
14.
At the Almayer Inn,
oil on canvas, 50 x 42 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A portrait of an angel in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. The face is devoid of lineaments. The wings display a meaningful richness of color. Gold background.
15.
Ocean sea,
watercolor, 118 x 80.6 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Three small blobs of blue paint on the top left (sails?). The rest, white. On the back, a handwritten note:
Pajamas and socks.
16.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 28 x 31.7 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Eighteen sails, of diverse dimensions, scattered about without any precise order. In the lower left-hand corner, a small sketch of a three-master, clearly the work of another
hand, probably that of a child (Dol?).
17.
Portrait of Madame Ann Deverià,
oil on canvas, 52.8 x 30 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A woman’s hand of the palest color, the fingers marvelously tapering. White background.
18, 19, 20, 21.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 12 x 12 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A series of four sketches, all apparently absolutely identical. A simple horizontal line crosses them from left to right (but also from right to left, if you will) more or
less midway up the canvas. In reality, Plasson maintained that these were four profoundly different images. He said, and I quote, “They are four profoundly different images.” My own
highly personal impression is that they represent the same view at four successive different times of the day. When I expressed this opinion of mine to the artist, he occasioned to reply, and I
quote verbatim, “Do you think so?”
22. Untitled, pencil on paper, 20.8 x 13.5 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A young man, on the shore, draws near the sea, carrying in his arms the abandoned body of an unclothed woman. Moon in the sky and reflections on the water. In consideration of
the time that has now passed since the dramatic events with which it is connected, I am now making public this sketch, long kept secret by the artist’s express wish.
23.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 71.6 x 38.4 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A deep dark red slash cuts the canvas from left to right. The rest, white.
24.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas, 127 x 108.6 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Completely white. This is the last work executed during the stay at the Almayer Inn, by Quartel. The artist presented it to the inn, expressing the wish that it might be shown
on a wall facing the sea. Subsequently, and through channels that I have never quite managed to determine, it came into my possession. I am looking after it, keeping it at the disposal of anyone
able to claim ownership.
25. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Untitled, oil on canvas, various dimensions
The Museum of St. Jacques de Granee
Description:
Eight portraits of sailors, stylistically traceable to Plasson in his early manner. Abbot Ferrand, who was kind enough to inform me of their existence, affirms that the artist
executed them gratis, as a token of his affection for some people with whom he had struck up a sincere friendship during his stay at St. Jacques. With engaging candor, the abbot confessed to me
that he had asked the painter if he might have his portrait painted by him, but had met with a firm yet courteous refusal. It seems that the exact words pronounced by Plasson in the circumstances
were, “Unfortunately you are not a sailor, and therefore your face has no sea in it. You see, these days I only know how to paint the sea.”
33.
Ocean sea,
oil on canvas (dimensions uncertain)
(Lost)
Description:
Completely white. Here, too, Abbot Ferrand provided extremely valuable testimony. He had the frankness to admit that, owing to an inexplicable misunderstanding, the canvas,
found in the painter’s lodgings the day following his departure, had been considered a simple blank canvas and not a completed work of considerable value. As such, it was carried off by
persons unknown and has not been found to this day.
34, 35, 36. Untitled, oil on canvas, 68.8 x 82 cm
The Gallen-Martendorf Museum, Helleborg
Description:
These are three very accurate, almost identical, copies of a painting by Hans van Dyke,
The Harbor at Skalen.
The Gallen-Martendorf Museum has cataloged them as works
by van Dyke himself, thus perpetrating a deplorable misunderstanding. As I have many times pointed out to the curator of the abovementioned museum, Prof. Broderfons, the three canvases not only
bear on the back the clear annotation “van Plasson,” but also display a detail that makes Plasson’s authorship evident: in all three the painter depicted at work on the harbor
mole, at the bottom left, has an easel in front of him bearing a completely white canvas. In the original by van Dyke, the canvas is painted normally. Professor Broderfons, while admitting the
correctness of my observation, accounts it of no particular significance. Professor Broderfons is, besides, an incompetent scholar and an absolutely unbearable man.
37.
Lake Constance,
watercolor, 27 x 31.9 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
A painting of accurate and very elegant execution, portraying the celebrated Lake Constance at sunset. The colors are warm and smoky. No human figures appear. But the water
and the shores are rendered with great poetry and intensity. Plasson sent me this canvas accompanied by a brief note, the text of which I report here verbatim: “It’s weariness, my
friend, Beautiful weariness. Adieu.”
38.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 26 x 13.4 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
The drawing depicts, with accuracy and precision, Plasson’s left hand. Plasson, I am obliged to add, was left-handed.
39.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 26 x 13.4 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Plasson’s left hand. Without shading.
40.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 26 x 13.4 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Plasson’s left hand. Few lines, barely sketched in.
41.
Ocean sea,
pencil on paper, 26 x 13.4 cm
The Bartleboom Collection
Description:
Plasson’s left hand. Three lines and some light shading. Note: This drawing was presented to me, along with the three preceding works, by Dr. Monnier, the doctor who
looked after Plasson during the brief and painful course of his last illness (pneumonia). According to his testimony, which I have no reason to doubt, these were the last four works by Plasson,
bedridden by that time and getting weaker every day. Still, according to the same witness, Plasson died in serene solitude and with his soul in peace. A few minutes before expiring, he uttered
the following phrase: “It’s not a question of colors, it’s a question of music, do you understand? It took me such a long time, but now” (stop)
He was a generous man and certainly one gifted with an enormous artistic talent. He was my friend. And I loved him.
Now he is at rest, by his express wish, in the cemetery of Quartel. The tombstone, over his grave, is in simple stone. Completely white.