Metamorphosis

On the right were green trees occasionally flecked with color; behind them, the whiteness of buildings. Seated by the wall opposite me, Sulaiman kept looking out from the café; he was staring at the picture of the Virgin Mary holding her baby. He would ponder the way old folk, children, and simpletons behaved in front of the picture. Generous people would place a portion of the earnings from their daily labors into a slot beneath the picture at the bottom of the wall. Everyone could reach it, even children.

Sulaiman was sitting in the streaks of sunlight that made lines on the sidewalk; he had a blue suitcase under his feet. For him, home turf was dozens of kilometers away, so he felt a kind of inner peace as he sat there close to the almost empty café. Apart from him, everyone else was at work at that particular moment, but he was jobless and had no desire to sully his hands by working. Instead he enjoyed watching simple folk, dozens of people putting portions of their daily toil into the slot in the wall under the picture. He didn’t own even a tenth of the amounts that they were placing into that slot—and all with no expectation of a return. If he’d had that much, everything would have been very different. And that was the entire issue here, plain and simple.

The music was coming from the back, deep inside the café,

“Do you like music?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Can you make out what the tune is?”

“Sure, it’s ‘Georgia on My Mind.’”

He pushed the chair in front of him, and it yielded obediently. He looked again beyond the building and noticed a mountain, bare, devoid of greenery or snow. Within just a few years, he told himself, the entire top of that mountain would be covered with new buildings. The view of the town from the top would be a distant memory, a vista that once had been but was no longer there. In brief, it would be the story of something that had at the very least existed inside the mind—a prospect. . . .

The suitcase felt heavy; carrying it had worn him out. “Georgia on My Mind” was still wafting gently out of the café, a soothing presence at the core of an irksome silence.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing . . . just relaxing.”

“You’ve obviously traveled a lot?”

“Could be. I don’t recall anything from the past. . . .”

“Surely that’s not too hard, is it?”

“I don’t think you can . . . no one can remember everything he’s been through. Why don’t you listen to ‘Georgia on My Mind’ and leave me alone?”

“You seem to love music a lot.”

“Could be. . . .”

“Okay then. Everything seems to reside in the realm of the possible, so I’ll leave you alone. . . .”

People in their hundreds kept passing by on the fringes of the natural scene that presented itself in front of Sulaiman. There were also green trees, a variety of colors (and birds as well, although he couldn’t see them but only heard them chirping). No one could change the way they were—that was the secret that would remain a mystery. In front of the left-hand wing of a large office-block there were clusters of cars. Hundreds of people passed by, crossing over to the other side of the road.

He stayed where he was, staring in dead silence, pushing the chair, and resenting the portions of daily toil that were being thrown away through that slot in the wall.

“Do you like music?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Then listen to ‘Georgia on My Mind.’”

“Okay, okay . . . let me relax.”

Through the trees and buildings randomly spaced across the view, many shapes, images, and forests were visible. Distances and dimensions, too, were being violently and subjectively transformed.

All that, as well! I’m tired. That alone can justify my desire for relaxation, even for a little while. Even within the cycle of the universe itself, I believe that relaxation is necessary.

From far away Sulaiman could hear his father’s voice. He looked carefully at the changing color of his fingers.

It’s extremely exhausting to travel. After so much moving around, people really need to relax a bit.

“Listen, Sulaiman! Who killed your father?”

“No one. . . .”

“That’s impossible.”

“My father went to sleep quietly, and that’s how he passed away—quietly. That same morning I’d seen him, as quiet as love or death.”

“But there’s evidence that he was murdered, rather than dying of natural causes.”

“I don’t believe there’s any difference between death and murder.”

“Fine. Stop beating around the bush. Who tore your father’s slippers?”

“That’s how I found them.”

“And what about your mother’s?”

“They were torn, too.”

“And what about yours?”

“I don’t wear slippers, I wear shoes.”

“But who threw your father’s bedaia out the window?”

“That’s none of my business. That evening his bedaia was properly hung up. Next morning . . . well, you know the story: Hadda brought in the bedaia. ‘Sulaiman,’ she said. ‘Here’s your father’s bedaia. It fell out your window.’ I grabbed it and said that it was my father’s. No one knows who threw it out the window. Hadda knows everything. That’s all there is to it.”

Sulaiman blew his smoke into the air. The music was still coming from the café; it had a special smell to it, like juniper trees during night rainfall. He could still smell the music, as he blew his cigarette smoke into the face of those shapes. Their daily portions were still dropping regularly into that slot in the wall right in front of him, and their supplications and prayers still rose skyward, even though not immediately answered.

“Everything in the name of Santa Maria . . .” That in itself was important. Hundreds of people kept crossing, and he—the only traveler—was feeling pretty relaxed by now. He’d come to the conclusion that he was the only one in this town, the only person, who—confronted with this catastrophe—felt that he was genuinely qualified for anything.

One morning, Sulaiman had looked at his sister’s cold face, then turned toward the front window to feel the breeze blowing into the room. That was before he had said the sharp words that needed to be said. Before his father’s death, his sister had been just a girl who knew nothing about life, but now people were saying that she was clever and certainly above average. By now, she appreciated the true significance of the full moon’s appearance once a month and the fact that women menstruated on certain days. Whether or not you could talk about such things, these were the kinds of experiences that had matured her quickly.

“Our father’s dead,” she said.

“Yes, I know. Don’t remind me. My heart can’t bear any more. His death is a tough blow for my weak heart.”

“I know that, Sulaiman. The thing I need to discuss with you is the fact that our father’s death has put an end to a number of considerations.”

“I don’t understand. Do you mean that everything changes after death?”

“Yes. Private matters are different. What I mean is that you need to change. You should make an effort to do it yourself.”

But what kind of change, I wonder.

Change only comes in one form: living according to the realities of life and death. There’s also an essential link to circumstance. My father has died, that much is true. That’s why I believe that the entire matter is clear and understandable. A person existed who could provide for me before he died because he had a small, yet sufficient, amount of money. Now I have to provide for myself. . . .

(“Georgia on My Mind” is still filling the air, smelling like juniper trees on a rainy night. People claim that those trees suffocate while absorbing chlorophyll. That may be true, but the music doesn’t choke even though it has the same scent; in fact, it perks up.)

His sister’s face looked round and white; he could recall the shape exactly. . . . What mattered was that it had a particularly serious expression. Her lips had a seductive feminine quality.

By his foot under the table he could hear the suitcase leather creaking. A group of children had been playing with a ball, and it had rolled toward him. He kicked it away gently, then stared greedily at the slender figure of Santa Maria. She looked hungry and in quest of the absolute, so her eyes seemed almost suspended, and her body appeared to be ascending rapidly toward the house and the anxiety framed in the whiteness of the buildings. The exposed heights shrouded everything else that was visible and repelled the glances of the curious and meddlesome, just as a ball thrown hard against a wall will come back with the same speed.

The birds that Sulaiman could not see were still chirping in the nearby greenery. He had the feeling that the world did not belong to anyone; every nerve in his body told him that he’d traveled far and wide in quest of change, but now he’d stopped in a small white town. His home turf was not far from here, and yet the return, that impossibility, was something he couldn’t contemplate any more. For change to come, strange and inexplicable things had to happen; in principle, change involved the occurrence of pointless things. It would all be simply hypothetical. That’s the way I look at it, pure and simple; whereas other people see it differently. Maybe the point is itself the point, and not the pointlessness of the whole thing, as I happen to believe.

Just then many tiny tracks, like the ones made by goats’ hoofs, appeared in Sulaiman’s mind. Metamorphosis is the search for the meaning of existence. . . . Not only is it that, but also an abundance of relaxation, love, and other essentials.

“Personally, I’m trying to change. . . . Doesn’t everybody feel that way sometimes, sister?”

“Yes. That’s precisely what I asked of you in the very beginning. Go and look for a job. To be frank, our father’s dead, and our mother can’t do anything.”

“I know she can’t do anything. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to get a job.”

“As far as I can see, your education should make that possible . . .”

“I know what you mean, but all the books I’ve read can’t buy me food today . . .”

“Don’t be like that. There are lots of people who don’t have your qualifications . . .”

“That’s true, but as of today I still haven’t been able to locate the job you want me to get . . .”

“One has to change. Just look at so-and-so, for example . . .”

“You’ve become far more adult and mature than necessary.”

The sun, which was at its zenith, was spinning rapidly around itself and breaking up into fragmented rainbow hues that penetrated the realms of the visible. The sunshine was like a needle pricking the body of music as it burst into the air. In front of the large office block, just a few feet away, cars started dispersing in different directions, and the sound of horns grew louder.

As Sulaiman reached down for his blue suitcase, fatigue was still pressing on his chest. The sun was no longer rotating at its zenith. He made his way through the city’s many alleyways. Its broad and narrow streets continued to tempt him to wander around, and so he kept walking and walking and walking. Inside his head, linked circles intertwined as he puffed nervously on his cigarette, taking deep breaths.

Sulaiman put down his leather suitcase at the foot of the bed and thought about his hand for a moment; it was aching because he had been carrying the suitcase for so long. He noticed that his fingers were gradually cramping; they already felt numb, and the veins looked frozen. As he stared at his hand, the blood inside his head was boiling. His fingers were the same color as his suitcase; and the bedposts were blue as well, a bright blue that reflected the yellowish electric light in the room. His shoes felt heavy as he dragged himself over to his suitcase. It opened with a clicking sound that he always enjoyed. He gave the clasp another push, but it didn’t make the same sound. That annoyed him, so he clenched his fist and used the air to punch the image of all the wretched souls on earth who were relentlessly procreating. Throwing himself on the bed still dressed, he tried his best to rid himself of the fatigue of the long trip. He made an effort to pull up the covers, but didn’t succeed. Staring up at the ceiling, he saw a halo created by the light around the peeling white paint. After focusing his attention on this dead, frozen image, he looked over at the window, whose wooden casing was covered by a curtain. He felt a sudden desire to get up, pull the curtain back, and look out at the face of the night beyond the room. This certainly was night itself, unchanging and unchangeable. Sulaiman got up and unlaced his black shoes, then tied them again. He now remembered that he had not closed the curtain, so he went over to the window and looked out at the night. He tried to convince himself that this night was not actually that eternal night, but then he felt he was deceiving himself. As he gazed out at the black emptiness, it did not seem any different from the other blackness that he already knew; indeed it might not be any different from the one he would come to know. With that, he grabbed the curtain, whose texture was as soft as a cat’s fur. He wondered if he was the only guest in the hotel. What should he do now, when he felt so tired?

He had spent some time looking for a hotel in the small white town, but failed to find one with four walls, a bed, and a curtain with a soft fabric whose name he did not know. But now he had found this room and could relax a bit. His legs felt tired, his shoulders were tight, and his bruised fingers were very painful. He used his left hand to rub the bruises gently. When he’d been younger, he’d wondered what the bruises on his father’s fingers meant, but now that all seemed trivial. How trivial we can all be at times! I used to think of them as bulges on old trees, but now here they are sprouting randomly on my fingers, even though I don’t do manual labor. I used to read a lot. . . .

Once he’d had his fill of the night and assured himself that it was the very night that had been stuck in his consciousness since childhood, he pulled the curtain across again and dragged his weary feet toward the bed. He heard some words in Spanish on the other side of the door, which stood there steadfast in the face of a whole world, but he couldn’t understand what they meant.

“I don’t understand Spanish,” he thought to himself. “And yet I’m alive. I eat, drink, and sleep. Then I ask for a room in a hotel like this one without knowing a single word. So why should I bother memorizing the dictionaries of the entire world?”

The wooden door looked like an iron wall confronting people who had no connection with it. Here he was, alone in a room, surrounded by four walls, and behind a door, believing he had rid himself of the many worries that would inevitably confront him as soon as he left the room and met the landlady and new lodgers. His relationship with such unwanted people might be either temporary or long-lasting. He remembered, too, that during his trip he hadn’t made any effort to contact anyone. He was a prisoner in his own private world. In this voluntary exile he’d discovered the individual truth that transcends all others: namely, that relationships with other people only succeed in tiring us. That’s why he’d found solace in his individual truth and could now observe things from the tower of his own truth. Everything he was seeing now, everything he’d seen before, was merely surface appearances. So it is that, whenever we establish a certain relationship, we’re only connecting with the surface of things.

“I myself am just a surface phenomenon,” he told himself. “Occasionally my personal truth is lost, and I find myself linked to external appearances. It is extremely difficult to escape from such a fusion.”

Sulaiman walked over to his blue suitcase, took the small, shiny key, and opened it. What else could he do? Sometimes the deed itself precedes our decision to do it, and yet we still question it. Once, when Sulaiman was still in his own country, he’d had a quarrel with someone he did not know and had hit the person without even thinking about it. Yet in the end he’d been held responsible for his actions and had paid a fine in court. So now here he was, opening the suitcase without knowing why. His hand reached for his clothes, which were mostly dirty, and began to fumble through them nervously. Finally, he found some shaving cream and immediately felt his stubbled face, but put it back and closed the suitcase again. He went over to the window to look outside and tried to make out the sky’s face, but it was hidden behind a pitch darkness in the infinite beyond. Even so, he kept looking and looking. A fresh evening breeze toyed with his face and blew the curtain hanging from the wooden window-frame. Clutching the frame tightly, he breathed in the gentle breeze. His facial features contracted, then relaxed. As he let himself feel the softness of the evening breeze, he had the sensation of entering a different psychological phase. His nerves had been on edge all day, but now his weary head was gradually beginning to feel lighter. Looking over at the bed, he noticed the commode. A nice round ashtray kept inviting him to fill it with cigarette butts.

His sister’s face remained buried in the ashtray. By now, her face had lost its passion, and its round shape had turned to something else. It wasn’t spherical, round, or oval any longer. Instead, it had turned gray with traces of smallpox. Even all the genealogists in the world would not be able to tell that she was actually his sister by the same father and mother. Everything was now gray and disfigured.

Sulaiman wasn’t a heavy smoker. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and searched for the lighter in another pocket. Lighting the cigarette mechanically, he started blowing the smoke out of his nose into the room. He was taking rapid, deep puffs; the smoke cloud in front of him looked like a weird animal he’d never seen before and might never see again. He walked over to the ashtray and buried the fag-end of the cheap black tobacco cigarette in it. Now he rushed out of the room as though he was having an attack of nerves, but then he remembered that he hadn’t closed the door or taken the key. After putting the light off and turning the key slowly in the lock, he grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door to make sure it was properly closed. He went down the stone stairs calmly, reached the door, and hung the room-key on the black board with the room-numbers—twenty of them. There were three keys on the board. With that, he left the hotel.

He looked as if he were drugged. Fumbling in his pocket, he found a few pesetas and told himself he could get a drink at the nearest place. As he went into a bar, his elbow knocked a short fat man who was obviously drunk; he was trying to put his hat on as he left the place. Sulaiman’s glare confronted a pair of stupid eyes, looking completely blank. Walking over to the counter where bar-stools were arranged like so many guards, he sat down on one of them. The effeminate-looking barman came over.

“Señor?” he asked provocatively.

“Something cold,” Sulaiman responded listlessly.

The barman went away. In the mirror, Sulaiman’s face assumed a different guise. Before, it had looked round, but now it was turning rectangular. The mirror was foggy because of the atmosphere inside the bar, but even so, the image of his disfigured face scared him. Even in his own lonely world he felt alienated. He turned and looked at one of the other customers, his face, eyes, nose, and lips.

“I must give him a smile,” he thought.

His own cold smile was met by an equally listless smile back; the other man had drunk a lot and was plastered. Even so, the other man’s smile was warm and humane; it seemed to come from some other world, one whose reality was unfamiliar to Sulaiman. The stranger now put his arm under Sulaiman’s arm, and some coarse phrases gurgled in his throat. Behind them the café was silent and the night had completely shrouded everything outside.

So what, precisely, did this man want? A short while ago when they were exchanging smiles, Sulaiman had talked briefly and concisely about his life.

“Are you Greek?” the man had asked.

“No, Moroccan.”

“You must be a student.”

“No. . . .”

“Worker?”

“No. . . .”

“So who are you then?”

“Nothing. . . .”

Sulaiman had refused to be more precise. He had scratched his nose, which had been trying to avoid a truly disgusting smell. This chance meeting made him happy.

“Are you from here?” he asked the other man, trying to change the subject.

“Yes.”

“You work here?”

“Here and there, as circumstances demand.”

“What do you do?”

“Everything. . . . You said you weren’t a student or laborer. Do you want to work with us?”

“Sure.”

“We had an Algerian working for us before you. I think you have the same temperament. But that’s not important.”

The stranger put his arms around Sulaiman’s shoulder and gave him a warm hug. The stench of sardines and bread was escaping from his intestines as he led Sulaiman out of the café. Now here they were, walking along the street that led to the east side of the city. The man told Sulaiman that he’d explain everything to him.

“I’ll lose my way back to the hotel. All my things are still there.”

“I know the hotel.”

His arm was still under Sulaiman’s. He still looked drunk, because actually Sulaiman was dragging him along like a dead body discovered in a riverbed. The man tripped and fell slowly into a round hole on the sidewalk. Sulaiman pulled him out.

“You can stop now,” the stranger said.

So Sulaiman stopped.

“Why? Are you tired?”

“Yes. I need to catch my breath.”

“Take it easy.”

The stranger gave Sulaiman’s sad, stubbled face a fixed stare. Just a few minutes earlier, they had been complete strangers, but now here they were, friends.

“Are we done?” Sulaiman asked his new friend.

“Yes. . . .”

“Where to?”

“Take slow, deep breaths. You’ll come up, won’t you? Do you like the evening?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then there is no need to wait here.”

“Okay then,” Sulaiman said unhurriedly. “Let’s go up.”

By now the wine had penetrated deep into the other man’s brain-cells and had dispersed throughout the various wires and fibers inside his head. He was feeling an excessive, feverish heat.

“Listen” he asked as he belched up a sickening smell. “Can you really work with us?”

“Yes, possibly. It all depends on the type of job.”

“Okay, take your time. Can you help me up the stairs? It’s the second floor.”

Sulaiman heaved the stranger up the stairs, one step at a time. After awhile they were standing like two demons in the middle of a small, filthy room with a window looking out on a remote, nocturnal expanse. Sulaiman gazed out into the nothingness.

“Is this where you live?” he asked.

“Yes. . . .”

“Alone?”

“Alone or with my friend. It depends. Look. . . .”

Sulaiman looked slowly at the stranger’s hands. They were holding a gold-like box that shone in the dim light coming from somewhere on the side.

“Is that gold?” he asked gleefully.

“It isn’t important. It’s from over there. We’ll explain everything to you.”

Now the wine smell was coming out of his bluish nose.

He put the box away again inside his suit pocket, then staggered over to the only bed in the room, laid his head on the dirty pillow, and glanced at the leg of the chair in the corner.

“Listen,” he said, “get some rest now. My friend will be coming, he doesn’t have a key. If you hear someone knocking, open the door for him.”

“Okay.”

The stranger fell asleep, leaving Sulaiman to get whatever sleep he could on the chair opposite the bed. He woke up with a jolt, not believing what his eyes were telling him, and lit a cigarette. Walking over to the bed, he tried waking the stranger (who was snoring like a pig), but in vain. He went over to the window and looked out at the night sky and the dim lights visible in the distance through the heavy fog and humid air. He was feeling hungry and was fed up with sitting in the chair; as far as he was concerned, it was all too tiring. He tried again to wake up the stranger, but without success. He moved away from the bed and looked at his dusty shoes. Feeling lonely, he opened the door, and went downstairs without closing it. The pig-like sound of the man’s noisy snoring followed him down.

He really needed to get some sleep, because the day before had been extremely exhausting, so he decided to walk back to the hotel so he could get a good night’s sleep. He would leave it till tomorrow to get his senses back so he could discuss the work issue with the strange man with the bluish nose.

The day before, his vision had not been able to make anything out, whether high up or low down. The foggy gloom and distant electric lights only revealed a world resembling that of the night. Today, however, he had had those dreams or nightmares about yesterday’s strange man. He paced around the hotel room. Now its outlines were much clearer: there was the whiteness, for sure, but also darkness and light blue sky. Outside the window was a profound, heavenly visage. Yes indeed, everything was different from yesterday.

Dragging himself to the window, he let his upper body feel the morning air. He felt the cut under his chin that a razor had made a while ago when he was shaving; it felt deep and bloody, but actually it was just a light scratch and certainly not worth the attention Sulaiman was paying to it.

“That man will get me a job,” he thought to himself.

“That’s true. . . .”

“Yesterday he was certainly drunk enough.”

“That was an amazing gold box he had!”

“He was a decent human being.”

“I’m just dreaming,” he added. “Just dreaming. . . .”

He licked his lower lip with his red tongue, which was divided into two by a small trench in the middle. He left it dangling for a while. When he retracted it, it was feeling a bit cool. His jaws were aching as though he’d been chewing on a piece of rubber for four hours. Never mind, he thought. But then, never mind what? Nothing. He didn’t know. Beneath the window were plants of different heights and a garden alongside the hotel with white-painted chairs in a corner. Amid the greenery they looked like tiny rabbits nibbling the grass. He thought about going downstairs and having his breakfast there; he hadn’t had enough to eat the day before.

“There’s not enough money, but what am I supposed to do?”

“Seize the moment, and worry later about what to do next.”

“That makes sense.”

For the hundredth time that morning he felt the cut on his chin and told himself that here, he was simply a passer-by. It had never even occurred to him to stop and settle down. He went down to the small garden and basked in the warm sunshine. His clothes didn’t look very attractive; actually, they were dirty. Despite that, he realized that one can substitute one set of clothes for another. The real and essential change is the one that is not at anyone else’s disposal. As he told himself that, he started avidly chewing a piece of bread that lay crucified in front of him; under a layer of cheese, it looked somewhat inviting. Once he’d finished, he needed a smoke. Fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette, he failed to find one. Changing his mind, he started drinking his café au lait with unusual relish.

Two other people came down to the garden, talking loudly, and sat at a table far away from where he was sitting. He pulled off a leaf that had been dangling over his head, rubbed it, and smelled its scent. He was still feeling lonely and alienated. It worried him that his appearance might attract the attention of the other two people in the garden. But they did not seem interested; perhaps they were used to such things, or else they had more important things to worry about. He took another leaf, rubbed it, and smelled its pungent scent.

All of a sudden, the image of the strange man loomed before him, and he soon recalled the way he would need to go: from here . . . to there . . . then this street . . . then that one . . . and after that, the building, and the second floor. The scent of the leaves was filling his nostrils. He lifted the coffee cup to his mouth, but it was empty; he’d already drunk it all. Staring at his knee, he noticed black streaks on his pants, black oily streaks. Standing up, he turned around and looked at the center of the sun’s disk, just like a Greek God. But his defiant posture collapsed in sudden defeat, so he turned around once more before sneaking out to the street through the small door. He took deep breaths, absorbing things that by now were completely awake. Scratching his nose, he watched two children at play. Before the scene ended, he leaped up the stairs like a squirrel and lit a cigarette.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning when he reached the door. Sulaiman pushed the doorbell and heard it ring in the other room. The door was immediately opened by an old lady of medium height.

“Yes, Sir?” she asked.

“Is the señor here?” Sulaiman asked in confusion.

“Yes, he is.”

Whereupon she disappeared, leaving the door ajar.

Sulaiman felt he was in some kind of dream. Who was this strange woman? Could she be the strange man’s girlfriend?

Sulaiman was now staring at the strange man. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said. “I left because you fell asleep early.”

“Excuse me Sir,” the man asked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Yesterday. . . .”

“Yesterday? I don’t understand. . . .”

“Of course, you don’t. You fell asleep and left me on my own.”

“Maybe you’re mistaken,” the man replied, sounding even more surprised. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“I’m your friend from yesterday. Didn’t you promise to get me a job?”

“Sir, I don’t understand. Maybe it was my neighbor; he’s alone and single.”

With that, the strange man tried closing the door in Sulaiman’s face, but Sulaiman pushed it back open.

“Why are you behaving this way with a friend?”

“Sir,” the man replied. “You’re not a friend of mine. I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

This time he closed the door hard in Sulaiman’s face. Sulaiman retreated downstairs to the ground floor and then to the street. The two children were still playing. By now the scene was complete in his mind. Actually, he had gone the wrong way to the street, the room, and the man himself. After trampling over dozens of cigarette butts with his dusty shoes, he started smoking. He decided to try his luck in a different direction. He’d come here the day before, and now here he was, leaving the way he’d come. His head was in a jumble; in his mind was a concept he called change. The dirt clung stubbornly to his shoes, and he was feeling painfully tired. Even so, he refused to give in because he was convinced first of all that winds blew in different directions and then that he would be willing to walk in one of those directions, whatever the cost might be.

“You live on illusions,” his sister had told him.

“Do you really believe that?”

“I know you very well and understand your temperament.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“At least I know a bit about your temperament. Take your suitcase and go look for a job somewhere. You’re bound to find someone who’ll help you. There are lots of nice people around who’ll never give up on their principles.”