The Discovery Of Slowness

To my father

Burkhard Nadolny

1905–68

J
ohn Franklin was ten years old, and he was still so slow that he couldn't catch a ball. He held the rope for others. It reached from the lowest branch of the tree to his upraised hand. He held it as firmly as the tree, and he didn't drop his arm until the end of the game. He was suited to be a rope-holder as no other child was in Spilsby, or even in all of Lincolnshire. The clerk looked over from the Town Hall. His glance seemed approving.

Perhaps there was no one in the whole of England who could stand still for over an hour holding up the end of a rope. He stood without moving, like a cross on a grave, towering like a statue. ‘Like a scarecrow,' said Tom Barker.

John couldn't keep up with the game, so he was no good as an umpire. He could never see exactly whether the ball hit the ground. He didn't know if it was really the ball that one of them had caught just then, or if the player it landed next to had just held out his hands. He watched Tom Barker. How did catching work? When Tom no longer had the ball John knew he had missed the decisive moment once again. Catching – no one could do that better than Tom. He saw it all in a single second and moved faultlessly without the slightest hesitation.

A blip streaked across John's vision. If he looked up to the hotel chimney, it perched in the uppermost window. If he fixed on the window's crossbars, it slithered down to the hotel sign. That's how it jerked farther and farther down as he lowered his glance, but up it went again with a sneer when he looked at the sky.

Tomorrow they'd go to Horncastle for the horse fair. He had already started to look forward to it. He knew that drive. When the coach left the village, the wall of the churchyard flickered
past. Then came the cottages of Ing Ming, domain of the poor. Women stood outside, without hats, wearing only headscarves. The dogs there were scrawny. One couldn't see the scrawniness on people; they had clothes on.

Sherard would stand in the door and wave. After that came the farm with the rose-covered wall and the chained dog which dragged his own doghouse behind him. Then the long hedgerow with its two ends, the gentle and the sharp one. The gentle end was some distance from the road. It came up for a long time and took a long time to go. The sharp end, close to the roadside, sliced through the picture like the blade of an axe. That's what was so astonishing: close by everything sparkled and danced – fence posts, flowers, twigs. Farther back there were cows, thatched roofs, and wooded hills, whose coming up and dropping behind had a solemn and quieting rhythm. The most distant mountains, like himself, just stood there and gazed.

He looked forward to the horses less than to the people he knew, even to the host of the Red Lion in Baumber. They usually made a stop there. Father wanted to see the innkeeper at the bar. Then came something yellow in a tall glass. Poison for Father's legs. The innkeeper passed it to him with his dreadful glance. The drink was called Luther and Calvin. John was not afraid of sinister faces if only they stayed put and didn't change their features rapidly in some inexplicable way.

Now John heard someone say the word ‘sleeping', and he recognised Tom Barker before him. Sleeping? His arm hadn't moved; the rope was taut. What was there for Tom to pick at? The game went on. John had understood nothing. Everything was too fast: the game, the others' talk, the goings-on in the street in front of the Town Hall. It was indeed a restless day. Now Lord Willoughby's hunting party whirled past – red coats, nervous horses, brown-speckled dogs with dancing tails – one big yapping. What did his lordship get out of so much commotion?

Moreover, there were at least fifteen chickens in this place, and chickens weren't pleasant. They played gross tricks on the eye. They stood about motionlessly, scratched, then pecked, froze again as though they had never pecked, brazenly pretended they
had been standing there for minutes without moving. If he looked first at the chicken, then at the church clock, then again at the chicken, he'd see it standing there as rigid as before – like a warning sign. But meanwhile it had pecked and scratched, jerked its head and twisted its neck, its eyes staring in another direction – all of it a cheat. Also the confusing arrangement of the eyes! What did a chicken see? When it looked at John with one eye, what did the other one make out? With that it began: chickens lacked the panoramic look that holds everything together, and the speedy, appropriate walk. If one got so close as to catch a chicken in a moment of undisguised change, its mask would drop. There'd be fluttering and shrieking. Chickens happened wherever there were houses. It was a nuisance.

A moment ago Sherard had looked at him with a laugh, but only a quick laugh. He had to try hard to become a good catcher. He was from Ing Ming. Five years old, he was the youngest. ‘I've got to watch like hawk,' Sherard used to say – not ‘like a hawk' but ‘like hawk', without the ‘a', and as he said that his eyes would become very serious and still, like a watchful animal's, to show what he meant. Sherard Philip Lound was little, but he was John Franklin's friend.

Now John considered the clock of St James's. Its face was painted on stone, on the side of the thick tower. It had only one hand, and that had to be pushed forward three times a day. John had overheard a remark which had connected him with this stubborn clockwork. He hadn't understood it, but he had felt ever since that the clock had something to do with him.

Inside the church, Sir Peregrine Bertie, the marble knight, had been standing for more than a century surveying the congregation, his hand on the hilt of his sword. One of his uncles had been a mariner and had discovered the northernmost part of the earth, so far away that the sun did not set and time did not run out.

They wouldn't allow John up on the tower. But surely one could hold on well to the four small points on top and those many teeth while overlooking the land. John knew his way around the churchyard. The first line on all the tombstones read ‘In memory
of'. He knew how to read, but he preferred to steep himself in the spirit of single letters. They were the durable part of writing; they would always come back. He loved them. The tombstones set themselves up during the day, this one straight up, that one aslant, to catch a bit of sun for their dead. At night they lay flat and, with great patience, collected the dew in the recesses of their inscriptions. Tombstones could also see. They took in movements which were too gradual for human eyes: the dance of clouds when the wind was still, the shadow of the tower swinging from west to east, heads of flowers turning toward the sun, even the grass growing. The church, in fact, was John Franklin's place. Only there wasn't much to do there besides praying and singing, and the singing, especially, wasn't for him.

John's arm kept holding the rope. Behind the hotel, a herd of cattle were grazing, covering the length of an ox in the course of a quarter of an hour. That little white thing was the goat; it always grazed along with them, for they say it prevents disquiet and fearfulness in the herd. A seagull swept in from the east and landed on one of the red clay pots on the hotel chimney. Something was moving on the other side, in front of the pub, the White Stag. John turned his head. His aunt Ann Chapell was walking there, accompanied by Matthew the sailor, who held her hand. They'll probably get married soon. He wore a cockade on his hat, like all naval officers on shore. The two nodded in his direction, said something to each other, and stood still. To avoid staring at them, John studied the white stag lying on top of the protruding bay window, the gold crown round its neck. How did they get it over the antlers? Surely, that again was a question nobody would want to answer. To the left of the stag one could read ‘Dinners and Teas', and to the right ‘Ales, Wines, Spirits'. Could it be that Ann and Matthew were talking about him, John Franklin? In any case, their faces seemed worried. On the outside, he still looked all right, didn't he? Perhaps they were saying, ‘He takes after his mother.' Hannah Franklin was the slowest mother far and wide.

He turned to look again at the seagull. Beyond the marshland lay the sandy beach and the sea. His brothers had already seen
it. The bay was called the Wash. In the middle of it King John had lost his crown jewels. Perhaps a man might become king if he found them again. He could hold his breath for a long time when diving. If a man owned a lot of things, other people were at once respectful and patient.

Tommy, the orphan boy in the children's book, had simply run away. After the shipwreck he came upon Hottentots and stayed alive only because he had on him a watch which ticked. The blacks thought it was a magic animal. He had tamed a lion who went hunting for him, had discovered gold, and snatched a ship going to England. He was rich when he got home, and he helped his sister Goody with her trousseau, for she was getting married just then.

As a rich man, John would study the faces of houses for days and gaze into the river. In the evenings he would lie in front of the fire from the first blaze to the final crackle, and everyone would find that this was as it should be. John Franklin, King of Spilsby. The cows were grazing, the goat helped to avert misfortune, birds were settling down, tombstones were sucking themselves full of sunlight. Clouds were dancing, peace everywhere. Chickens were prohibited.

‘Dozyhead!' John heard someone say. Tom Barker stood in front of him, measuring him through half-closed eyes and showing his teeth. ‘Leave him alone!' little Sherard shouted at fastmoving Tom. ‘You know you can't make him cross.' But that was just what Tom wanted to find out. John held the rope as taut as he had before and looked helplessly at Tom, who rattled off several sentences so fast that John couldn't understand a word. ‘Don't understand,' said John. Tom pointed at John's ear, and since he was already so close he grabbed it and pulled the lobe. ‘What d'you want?' asked John. Again many words. Then Tom was gone. John tried to turn round, though somebody held him. ‘Let go of the rope!' shouted Sherard. ‘Is he daft!' cried the others. Now the heavy ball hit the hollow in the back of John's knees. He keeled over like a ladder which had been put up too straight, first slowly, then with a bang. Pain spread from hip and elbow. Tom stood there again, smiling indulgently. Without taking his
eyes off John, he said something to the others under his breath – again there was the word ‘sleeping'. John got back on his feet, the rope still in his upraised hand. He would change nothing in that. If perhaps by a miracle things went back to where they'd been, what if he had allowed the rope to slip? The children giggled and laughed; they sounded like barnyard fowl. ‘Give it to him, then he'll wake up.' ‘He won't do nothin'. He just stares.' And somewhere, in the midst of it, there was always Tom Barker, watching from beneath lowered eyelids. John had to open his eyes wide to catch everything, for the other boy constantly changed his position. Comfortable this was not, but it would have been cowardly to turn tail. Also, he couldn't run at all, and, besides, he had no fear. But he couldn't hit Tom. So there was nothing left but to traipse after him. A girl shouted, ‘When will he let go of the rope?' Sherard tried to hold on to Tom, but he was too small and too weak. While John thought he was still taking this in, somebody pulled his hair from behind. How did Tom get there? Again, a piece of time had dropped out. He turned, stumbled, and all at once both of them were lying on the ground. Tom's leg was entangled in the rope, which John held tight again. Tom turned and pushed his fist into John's mouth, got free again, and ducked away. John felt a loose tooth in his upper jaw. That wasn't peace. He padded after him like a puppet on a string. He flailed his arms about ineffectually as if he didn't want to hit the enemy, just wipe him away. At one point, Tom actually held out his face to him mockingly, but John's hand stopped dead in mid-air as though paralysed, the slap petrified like a monument. ‘He's bleeding!' ‘Aw, go on home, John.' The children began to be embarrassed. Sherard, too, joined in again: ‘You see, he can't defend himself right!' John kept on going after Tom, casting about for him, but without conviction. Perhaps they weren't all against him, even though they laughed and watched, curious about how it would go on. Still, for one single moment John couldn't see why people's faces looked the way they did: teeth bared menacingly, oddly widened nostrils, eyelids clapping open and shut, and each trying to drown out the other. ‘John's like a clamp!' one of them shouted, perhaps Sherard. ‘If he grabs
a person, he holds him tight!' But no carpenter's clamp can catch someone who makes himself thin. It became boring.

Tom simply went away, dignified and not too fast, followed by John as far as the rope would reach. Then the others left. Sherard still told him consolingly, ‘Tom got scared.'

His nose was encrusted with blood and it hurt. He held the tooth between thumb and index finger while his tongue still vainly groped for it in the gap inside his mouth. His smock was covered with blood. ‘Good day, Mr Walker.' Old Walker had long since passed by when John brought that out.

Now he saw again an interesting blip in his eye. Whenever he wanted to look at it, the blip floated away. But when he glanced elsewhere, it followed him. Moving back and forth like this must be how the eye behaved normally. It leaped from point to point, but by what rules? John shut his right eye and put his finger on the lid and with his left eye explored the High Street of Spilsby. As his eye went roaming, always picking up something new, it landed at last on the father in the window. Who said, ‘There he comes, the blockhead.' Perhaps he was right: John's shirt was torn, his knee was skinned, his smock bloodied, and there he stood facing the market cross, staring and touching his eye. That was bound to offend Father: ‘To do that to your mother!' John heard, and already the thrashing had begun. ‘Hurts,' John confirmed, for the father had to know whether his efforts were successful. The father thought his youngest had to be properly thrashed so he'd wake up. People who can't fight, yet expect to be fed, will become a burden on the community. One could see that in Sherard's parents, and they weren't even slow. Perhaps he could get work spinning, perhaps field work with a bent back. Father was surely right.