A Voyage I Never Made (I)

It was at a vaguely autumnal twilight hour that I set out on the voyage I never made.

The sky, as I impossibly remember, was tinged by a purplish remnant of sad gold, and the clear, agonizing line of the hills was wrapped by a deathly-coloured glow that penetrated and softened the accuracy of its contours. On the other side of the ship (the night was colder and farther advanced under that side of the deck awning) lay the open ocean, trembling all the way out to where the eastern horizon was growing sad and where a darker air, placing shadows of early night on the obscure liquid line of the sea’s visible limit, hovered like haze on a hot day.

The sea, I remember, had shadowy hues mixed in with wavy patches of faint light – and it was all mysterious like a sad idea in a happy hour, portending I don’t know what.

I didn’t set out from any port I knew. Even today I don’t know what port it was, for I’ve still never been there. And besides, the ritual purpose of my journey was to go in search of non-existent ports – ports that would be merely a putting-in at ports; forgotten inlets of rivers, straits running through irreproachably unreal cities. You will doubtless think, on reading me, that my words are absurd. That’s because you’ve never journeyed like I have. I set out? I wouldn’t swear to you that I set out. I found myself in other lands, in other ports, and I passed through cities that were not the one I started from, which, like all the others, was no city at all. I can’t swear to you that it was I who set out and not the landscape, that it was I who visited other lands and not they that visited me. Not knowing what life is, nor if I’m the one living it rather than it living me (whatever the hollow verb ‘live’ may mean), I’m not about to swear anything.

I made a voyage. I presume it’s not necessary to explain that my voyage didn’t last for months or for days or for any other quantity of measurable time. I journeyed in time, to be sure, but not on this side of time, which we count by hours, days and months. My voyage took place on the other side of time, where it cannot be counted or measured but where it nevertheless flows, and it would seem to be faster than the time that has lived us. You are no doubt asking me, within yourselves, what meaning these sentences have. Don’t make that mistake. Say goodbye to the childish error of asking words and things what they mean. Nothing means anything.

On what ship did I make this voyage? On the steamer Whichever. You laugh. Me too, and perhaps at you. How do you (or even I) know that I’m not writing symbols for the gods alone to understand?

No matter. I set out at twilight. In my ears I can still hear the clanging iron of the anchor being pulled up. In the corner of my memory’s eye I can still see the arms of the crane – which some hours before sailing had tortured my vision with countless crates and barrels – slowly moving until at last they enter their position of rest. These crates and barrels, secured by a chain, would suddenly appear over the gunwale, after first hitting against it and making a scraping sound; then, swaying, they were pushed along to the hatchway, where they abruptly descended....., until with a dull wooden, crashing thud they arrived at some invisible place in the hold. From below came the sound of them being untied, and then the chain would rise up by itself, jingling, and everything would start over in seeming futility.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s absurd to be telling you this, after having said I would talk about my voyages.

I visited New Europes and was greeted by different Constantinoples as I sailed into the ports of pseudo-Bosporuses. It baffles you that I sailed in? You read me right. The steamer in which I set out came into port as a sailboat […]. That’s impossible, you say. That’s why it happened to me.

Other steamboats brought us news of imaginary wars in impossible Indias. And when we heard about those lands, we felt an annoying nostalgia for our own land, but only, of course, because it was no land at all.*