17

Another entry in the transcripts.

Took pity on him because he had no place to go.

Address poste restante.

Wrote a letter and received one in turn.

Suggested a meeting place.

Corner of Rue Saint Jacques.

Thought it was a boy with very short hair.

Red and black check shirt, dungaree trousers and heavy boots badly worn.

What’s your interest in the kid?

Hair he saw refused to go with the voice he heard.

Girl’s small figure.

He knew you or sumpin’?

Gaze was so sharp he couldn’t speak for a moment.

Not so much that this man and I are friends. Rather there is a thread between us.

Looked at him with such obvious suspicion.

How do I know who you are?

What sort of man you are?

One who’s been running all over the city.

Tryin’ to catch him up.

Body straightened and with her hand she smoothed her dark hair.

So you’re a writer.

I’m not anything.

Only tell you once — she touched her nose slightly — this nose can smell a lie.

Suddenly all the fountains of the great deep were opened.

Lost all the languages he had spoken.

Fluent stream of words awakens suspicion within me.

Prefer stuttering for in stuttering I hear the friction and the disquiet.

Theft whose poem I am writing.

Trying to build something out of old stones.

Hoped by expressing them in a form that they themselves imposed to construct an order.

Told her everything.

And the boy?

Seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me — and into my thoughts.

Stood there awhile saying nothing.

Glad if these pages rescued him from oblivion, though that oblivion is his own doing.

What you wanna know?

How did you meet him?

Knit her eyebrows.

All this running you probably haven’t eaten a thing.

Go on a little trip, I’ll explain on the way.

Motioned to me to follow her.

Traffic jams at the crossroads and hurrying crowds.

Shop windows and cafes light up.

Turned down a narrow street.

Nothing for us amongst all those cars and stores.

Ceased believing in the existence of that life.

Under the railway bridge.

Believed that in the world was another agenda.

Unfettered by any sort of traditions.

Ducked through a hole in the fence.

Back of a supermarket.

Sour reek of the refuse carts.

Lifted the lids one by one.

Dustbins to overflowing with quite eatable food.

Source of a successful squatter’s wealth.

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour.

Bread and vegetables were pitched away.

Baker’s bread — what the quality eat — none of your low-down corn pone.

Strawberries and such truck.

Baloney and cheese.

Though she does not take the baloney.

Eat only vegetarian food.

Found Felix on the street one night.

Grab a loaf and run, swallowing it before they catch you.

Showed him all that could be freely obtained.

Aren’t just a thief.

Didn’t hoard food or deal on the black market.

Food was thrown away from deliberate policy, rather than that it should be given to the tramps.

Insulting you in huge wasteful piles.

Took the boy home for a meal cooked from the evening’s forage.

He should do the same.

Come back with her and share the spoils.

Wrong to write about people without living through at least a little of what they are living through.