Homo Faber: Simile Game

Twenty-four hours ago (it seemed to me like a memory from my youth!) Sabeth and I were still sitting at Acrocorinthus waiting for the sunrise. I shall never forget it. We had come from Patras and got out at Corinth to see the seven pillars of a temple, then we had supper at a nearby guesthouse. Apart from this, Corinth is little more than a hamlet. By the time we discovered there were no rooms free it was already getting dark; Sabeth thought it a wonderful idea of mine just to wander on into the night and sleep under a fig tree. Actually I had only meant it as a joke, but since Sabeth thought it a wonderful idea we really set off across country in search of a fig tree. Then we heard the barking of sheep dogs, uproar all around us, the flocks in the night; there must have been quite a number of the beasts, to judge by their yapping, and in the heights to which they drove us there were no fig trees, but only thistles and wind. Sleep was out of the question. I never thought night in Greece would be so cold, a night in June, downright wet. And on top of that we had no idea where it would take us, a bridle path leading upward between rocks, stony, dusty, and hence as white as gypsum in the moonlight. Sabeth thought it like snow. We both agreed it was like yogurt! And above us the black rocks. Like coal, I thought. But again Sabeth compared them to something else; and so we chatted as we followed the path that led higher and higher. We heard the whinny of a donkey in the night. Like someone learning to play the cello, thought Sabeth. It reminded me of unoiled brakes. Apart from this there was a deathly hush; the dogs had fallen silent at last, now that they could no longer hear our footsteps. We saw the white huts of Corinth—as though somebody had emptied a bowl of lump sugar. I thought of something else, just to go on with the game. Then we came to a black cypress. Like an exclamation mark, thought Sabeth. I contradicted: exclamation marks have the pointed end at the bottom, not at the top. We roamed all night long. Without meeting a single human being. Once we were frightened by the tinkling of a goat, then silence returned to the slopes that smelled of peppermint, a silence accompanied by beating hearts and thirst, nothing but wind in the dry grass—like tearing silk, thought Sabeth. I had to think hard, and very often nothing occurred to me, then it was a point for Sabeth, according to the rules of the game. Sabeth almost always thought of something. The towers and crenellations of a medieval bastion—like the scenery at the Opéra! We passed through doorway after doorway, nowhere any sound of water, we heard our footsteps echoing against the Turkish walls, otherwise silence the moment we stood still. Our shadows cast by the moon—like paper cutouts, thought Sabeth. We always played to twenty-one points, as in ping-pong, then we began a new game, until suddenly, while it was still the middle of the night, we were standing on the mountaintop. Our comet was no longer visible. In the distance lay the sea—like a sheet of aluminum, I said; Sabeth said it was cold, but nevertheless a wonderful idea not to spend the night in a hotel for a change. It was her first night out of doors. As we waited for the sunrise, Sabeth trembled in my arms. It is coldest just before sunrise. Then we smoked our last cigarette together; we didn’t say a word about the coming day, which for Sabeth meant the return home. The first light of dawn appeared around five o’clock—like porcelain. It grew brighter every minute, the sea and the sky, not the earth; we could see where Athens must lie, the black islands in the light bays, water and land were parted, a few small morning clouds hung overhead—like tassels sprinkled with pink powder, thought Sabeth; I couldn’t think of anything and lost another point. Nineteen to nine in Sabeth’s favor! The air at this time of the morning—like autumn crocuses. I thought, like cellophane with nothing behind it. Then we found we could make out the surf on the seashore. Like beer froth. Sabeth thought, like a frilled collar! I took back my beer froth and said, like fiberglass. But Sabeth didn’t know what fiberglass was. Then came the first rays of the sun over the sea: like a sheaf, like spears, like cracks in a glass, like a monstrance, like photos of electron bombardment. But there was only one point for each round; it was no use producing half a dozen similes. Soon after this the sun rose, dazzling. Like metal spurting out of a furnace, I thought: Sabeth said nothing and lost a point . . . I shall never forget how she sat on that rock, her eyes closed, silent, letting the sun shine down on her. She was happy, she said, and I shall never forget the way the sea grew visibly darker, the Gulf of Corinth, and the other sea, the Gulf of Aegina, the red color of the plowed fields, the olives, like verdigris, their long morning shadows on the red earth, the first warmth and Sabeth, who embraced me, as though I had given her all this, the sea and the sun and everything, and I shall never forget how Sabeth sang!