Spaces, places

Is it possible to imagine that this batik had its origins in a sleigh racing over snow through a frost-laced forest, tinkling bells to the music of Tchaikovsky? Bearing a happy couple bundled in furs, each peering from under their snug chapkas at the wondrous wintry kingdom fleeting by? Somewhere along the way, an elephant from Mughal India crept underneath my hand, and the snows melted away to reveal flowers of a tropical jungle.

But perhaps I have confused the beginnings of this balmy promenade with another dream, now that autumn is here once more, and winter is not far away.

The room is veiled in silence, folds of saris the colors of pandan leaves and conch shell lips. Tendrils of interwoven golden threads climb a trellis of emerald silk, glimmering dimly in crystal drops scattered about like morning dew. A young Tahitian woman’s gaze captured by Gauguin’s brush is reflected in the mirror. Her fragrance has wafted across oceans. Noa noa, a lovely word.

The door opens out into the morning air. A heavy fog the color of bones has enveloped the entire city. From the balcony, one can barely make out the jeweled dome of the Parliament on the other side of the river. A few minutes pass and Parliament disappears. And then go the two spirals of St Anne. And the cylinder that is Hotel Budapest. And the brick chimney of a hospital. The city is a paper screen, darkened now and again by the stroke of a wet brush, before reassuming its unblemished opacity. The city is a paper screen for my shadow theatre.

I’m floating in the Jugendstilbad, eyes lifted toward the vaulted ceiling and painted walls. As steadily as the fountain trickles, they expand and fall away, revealing the misty hills of Lake Garda. Waves lap gently against the wooden pier, where two young girls await the return of a pleasure boat. The boat is rocking like a cradle in the middle of Lake Balaton. A child bravely jumps into the water, buoyed by a bright orange life vest. Orange, the color of hope, like the coat of the royal Bengal tiger hiding under the boat’s tarpaulin, stranded at sea with a boy from Pondicherry. A bigger cousin of the feline now stretched up against the heater, its ginger coat rising and falling ever so softly.

Spaces, places confound, conspire, in the unfathomable depths of an autumn canvas.

A Romantic Idea of Village and Country Life

«Romantic village life» 2012

In the winter, you could see its fairytale tower puffing out a ribbon of smoke from its little chimney. The last leaves fallen away from the surrounding trees, its faux half-timber façade stood visible upon a mound further up the street. It was the one house that appealed most to the romantic idea of a provincial life.

Some abodes in the village have wooden shutters painted pastel, not common in these parts; still others have rounded rosy roofs or roofs that slope steeply downward and then gently flare with charm; but this is no Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and the vast majority of homes here are an unremarkable collection of modern-day constructions one can find in any German suburbia.

So when evening falls, and the meadow is enveloped in shadow, I can peer out the window at the tower’s moonlit silhouette, and life in a village takes on sweet and poetic notes, like horses grazing under apple trees, like yoga in a farmhouse, like a one-track train station platform, like the only café in the village that doubles as tailor’s and delivery service and closes shop at noon on Saturdays. Like the bird sanctuary trail winding along the hill, the ringing church bells, the stream running behind the village hall.

But I won’t shed a tear leaving. That isn’t to say I have given up entirely on village life. Some villages have grannies who sit on public benches on the main square watching the world go by. Some have a warm summer street where all the dogs go for siestas. Some have cottages with bunches of hanging herbs. Some have old stone walls covered in brier. This village had none of those. Something important was lacking, but I won’t wait to find out what.

Onwards with the tramontane life and spring cleaning.

Spring alights on my shoulder

«Yumeji's camellias» batik 2011

After a winter that was not really winter, a flurry of snow one day or two, green is timidly burgeoning, the smell of fresh grass in the air, the warble of thrush in the hedges.

Proljeće na moje rame slijeće
Đurđevak zeleni

Spring alights on my shoulder
Lily of the Valley is flowering

We had fun imagining ourselves traversing a Siberian winter, shut up in the living room in the after hours, poring over tales of provincial life in a village near Dikanka. One misty morning, we ventured out for a stroll, reaching the great clearing that gave Lichtwiese its name, Meadow of Light. From the other end of the mud path, a man with silvery hair approached on his rickety bicycle. We inquired about the way. He put one foot down, pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed his nose, then pointed us down the road he came. But before he set off, he made a sweeping motion with his hand towards the clearing, and asked us whether we knew the poem by Matthias Claudius. “It was at this very spot that he was inspired to compose it.” Before we had time to answer, he recited this poem:

Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
die goldnen Sternlein prangen
am Himmel hell und klar;
der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
und aus den Wiesen steiget
der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

Wie ist die Welt so stille
und in der Dämmrung Hülle
so traulich und so hold!
Als eine stille Kammer,
wo ihr des Tages Jammer
verschlafen und vergessen sollt.

Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen?
Er ist nur halb zu sehen
und ist doch rund und schön!
So sind wohl manche Sachen,
die wir getrost belachen,
weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.

Wir stolze Menschenkinder
sind eitel arme Sünder
und wissen gar nicht viel;
wir spinnen Luftgespinste
und suchen viele Künste
und kommen weiter von dem Ziel


— Matthias Claudius,
Abendlied (1778)

The moon has slowly risen,
The golden starlets glisten
In the heavens, bright and clear;
The forest stands dark and silent
And from the meadow rises
A white mist most wonderful

How still is the world,
And in the veil of twilight
So intimate, so fair!
As if it were a quiet chamber,
Where the sorrows of the days
Shall be forgot and slept away

Do you see the moon up there?
There is only half of it to see,
And yet it is round and fair.
So it is with many things
That we laugh at with good cheer
For our eyes see them not.

We proud human beings
Are only poor sinners
And ignorant too;
We spin webs of air
Casting about for many an art
Moving further away from the mark

«Lichtwiese» March 2012

Idylle en Bohême II

She used to dance more often back then, nearly every other night. A way to live out the city, traverse its cobblestones after all the shops had closed. When she saw that fragment of a film, it spoke to her about her own life.

Zrodil se za horou pramének málu
pospíchal dolů a spěchal vždy dál
když potom opustil své rodné scaly
klidnou a moudrou on řekou se stal


Řeka, ta zná a nepoví
jaký je sladký ten čas
když plyne soumrak medový
když loďka unáší nás

Břehy se ztrácejí ve tmách
v srdcích to šumí jak proud

Řeka, to zná a nepoví
že chceme do lásky plout



— Valčík from the film
La Libertée surveillée (1958)

Newly sprung from the mountain,
the little stream
Dashed down and coursed ever further
Leaving behind its native rocks,
A calm and wise river it became.

The river knows and does not tell
How sweet is the hour
When honey twilight falls
When the boat carries us away

The river shores are lost in the darkness
In the flowing murmur of our hearts

The river knows and does not tell
How we want to sail upon
the river of Love


— translation adapted from R.H.