Volume I Issue 6
12 October 1999

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Bedtime Stories

by Paula K. Read

The man was alone, driving his old car along the scenic route towards his secret destination. Not exactly along the scenic route, for that would mean that what happened later wouldn't have happened at all, but on a road near the scenic route that was just as scenic, but had more curves and precipices that frightened off the faint of heart. The man was not faint of heart, and he steered his heavy black vehicle with the confidence of a skipper at the helm a ship he built with his own hands. It isn't fair to call the car old - it was vintage, a sleek classic from a different automotive era entirely, and the writer had inherited it from an uncle who had purchased it when it was new. The writer had been driving the car since he arrived in this country, which was a long time ago.

Nor was his destination secret in the true sense of the word. It was just that no one knew where he was going. He didn't have any dates, appointments or invitations for the evening, and he was out for a ride to somewhere he simply hadn't mentioned to anyone because it wasn't necessary. But anyone looking for him later would have the impression that he had crept off to a rendezvous or hideaway, since he was not to be found at any of his usual haunts later that night. People usually knew where the man was at any given time because this man happened to be famous. He was a famous writer. Not a terrific world wide star kind of famous, but famous in the literary circles of his language, and in the literary circles of other places that read his works in translations. This made him famous in twenty or thirty countries.

On this afternoon, which was quickly nearing its end and melting into early evening, the writer was driving along, enjoying the view on the road near the scenic route, which looked out over the ocean. Which ocean doesn't really matter, since no one knew where he was anyway. He had his windows rolled down, he could smell the salt air, he could hear the soft hush of waves breaking down below, and he was looking forward to arriving wherever it was he was headed. Perhaps he was even, at this very moment, being inspired to write another story that would send excited ripples through the literary circles that so treasured his work.

There was a man who was headed for a meeting in a borrowed car, and he was in a hurry because he had gotten himself hopelessly lost. He hadn't been in a hurry to begin with, since he had left himself ample time to get where he was going. At least, that's what his hosts had told him. They were the ones who had given him the car, which wasn't really borrowed, it was rented, but it had been rented by the man's hosts for his use, since he was considered ineligible by the rental firm to rent the car. His hosts were taking a chance, but they weren't really worried. They didn't worry about catastrophes that had yet to occur, and neither did the man who was driving the rented car. But now he was getting a little worried, because he had lost his way, and had left the map somewhere - perhaps at his hosts' home, or at the rest stop. It didn't matter, he didn't have it now, and he had somehow ended up on the scenic route, and then on a completely different road that seemed to be taking him and his borrowed car down toward the beach. He liked beaches, although the water, the air and the landscape here were completely different from the beaches and surroundings back home.

He knew how he had gotten lost. It didn't just happen by accident, it happened all the time to him. He would be walking or bicycling or driving somewhere (usually the former, since he didn't have a car back in his own country), and music would enter his head. It had always been this way - one moment his verbal thoughts were darting around his brain with glittery transience just like anyone else's might, the next moment they would be replaced by music, strands of melody, flotsam that melded and formed into harmonies. Then he would forget where he was or where he was going, and by the time the verbal thoughts resumed their flickering, it was to tell him that he was somewhere other than he had intended. This was not a new situation for him, but it was unsettling to have it take place in a foreign country where he couldn't speak the language.

In his home country, his name was a household word. Everyone knew his music, his lyrics. Entire towns moved to the music that had intruded upon his thoughts and gotten him lost at some point or another. He sang in small cafés, on outdoor stages, on local radio stations, at spontaneous parties. He was famous, but only among his own people, and maybe among those of the small neighboring countries. His hosts meant to change all that.

For now, he was lost, and he was running late. He had another haunting melody that would have people back home swaying back and forth with tears in their eyes (from sadness, from laughter, perhaps both), but for now, he was getting nervous. He came out of a short tunnel to a crossroads, and decided to turn left. He hoped he could find his way back to his own road before nightfall.

It didn't have to happen, but it did. The writer's vintage car and the musician's borrowed rented car collided. It wasn't a serious collision because the writer had been driving very slowly in order to better enjoy the view, and the musician had been driving very slowly in search of a road that would take him to where he was going. Only four items were damaged. Both front headlights of both vehicles. The sun was low on the horizon, the road was an untraveled, dangerous stretch of pavement not very close to the scenic route at this point, and it was unlit. Fortunately, it was a warm evening, and both men remained calm.

After all, neither had been injured, and broken headlights are a small price to pay for walking away from an auto accident on a deserted road. But the men didn't say this to one another.

They found that they were completely unable to communicate except by broad arm and hand gestures, and a bit of smiling and eyebrow-raising. They didn't speak one word of each others' language. But there was one thing they noticed about one another: Each man belonged to a people who had a historical habit of completely, utterly and deeply hating the other man's people. It doesn't matter whether the men were black and white respectively, or Jewish and any number of other peoples, or of different religions, or different political persuasions. It doesn't even matter how they noticed this fact, whether it was color, or dress, or eye color or haircut or nose length. Perhaps one was old and the other was young, or both were approximately the same age. They might not even have both been men - perhaps one was a woman and one was a man, or both were women. Maybe they weren't even famous.

But since they were both famous men when their cars collided, let us assume they remained famous men for what happened next. First, they both flinched, but only just a little bit, since neither were active haters of the other's people, but had been brought up learning the hate as children. So a tiny, old memory of planted hate rose up from forgotten depths, flicked its pointy little spiked tail, and they both flinched.

Then the writer smiled, and this made the musician smile.

The writer knew the road, and knew that trying to walk anywhere for help after the sun set would be pointless, and dangerous, for there were many places where the sides of the road simply dropped off into nothingness, down steep grassy grades that ended in rocks far below. He also knew that few people took this road, and that no one could be expected to come and help them any time soon, certainly not before the following day. And even as he wondered what would have happened if he had actually reached his destination, he also found himself wondering what on earth this other man was doing here, on this particular road, unable to speak the language, running his car into a car driven by someone belonging to a race of men that hated his people. A story began germinating in the writer's mind, and he smiled to himself at his incorrigible ways. Then he saw the other man smiling, and he returned the smile.

Meanwhile, the musician gave up his concern about getting to his meeting on time, and didn't even lose much thought worrying about the borrowed rented car. Headlights could be easily repaired, he was sure of that. That was a relief. He saw the writer smiling, and smiled back. Their faces were bathed in the deepening golden light of the sun, which was beginning its descent into the ocean. The musician shrugged, gestured at the two cars, and shrugged again. The writer nodded.

The writer had some blankets in the trunk of his car, the musician had a generous supply of snacks which had been provided by his hosts for his trip, even though the entire trip wasn't supposed to have lasted more than a few hours. They pulled out their provisions and sat down on a grassy spot next to the road. By this time the sun had lit up thin layers of clouds with a myriad of reds, purples, greys and blues. Clouds that had only moments before been bits of invisible high-altitude moisture became colored veils which seemed only to exist to grace the evening sky and provide the upcoming star-lit night with a suitable prelude. The ocean below glowed in ruby, gold and diamond waves. And the food was excellent.

Without the benefit of a shared language, the men could communicate little more than the most primitive expressions of basic pleasure and awe at this feast of a sunset. Although both men were so famous within their own small worlds, neither had any reason to recognize the other. The writer didn't know that the man next to him was a beloved songwriter, the voice of a small nation - worse, the writer couldn't tell the man any of his thoughts or feelings about their people's shared history, which was a central subject in his writings. The writer couldn't even tell the other man who he was or what he did.

The musician felt much the same. So much of his music and his lyrics spoke for his people for the simple reason that they expressed the pain of separation, of hatred, of love lost. So they sat next to one another, shared the musician's food and sat comfortably on the writer's blankets, and watched the sun go down.

The writer, who was a talkative fellow, began to tell a story. He had a wonderful story-telling voice, low and cadenced. He had held so many readings of his works that he had long since lost count. Actually, he was telling the musician the story of his day and his destination, but that didn't matter. It could have been any other story. What mattered was that he told it to the musician, and that it was a story which he hoped the musician would have liked, had he been able to understand it. It was an amusing story, considering its outcome, which was so completely unexpected, considering what the writer's plans had been for the evening. The musician found that although the words remained a mystery to him, the writer told his story so well that he felt he had understood it.

When the writer had finished, the musician nodded and thanked the writer for his story. Then he started to sing the melody that had been the cause of the whole episode, the melody that had caused him to lose his way, to collide with the writer's car, to find himself sitting here on the edge of a cliff, watching a fantastically bright and brilliant sunset in a foreign country on a foreign shore, over a foreign ocean. Words occurred to him, and he sang the words as they made themselves known. It could have been any other song, but it was this one. He had a voice that was so pure it could bring tears to listeners' eyes, and the writer actually found his cheeks wet.

The sun finally set, and it became very dark in spite of all the stars. The writer invited the musician to take the back seat of his car for a bed, while he took the front seat. After all, the car could comfortable seat six or more adults. They both slept well.

The next morning, sometime after dawn, a student (or a photographer, or a hiker) drove by on the deserted road and picked the men up. They continued on their separate ways, the writer to his destination, the musician to his meeting.

But those are different stories entirely.

About the Author:

Paula K. Read lives in France, where she works as a writer and translator. She has written several scripts for German television and film, Film Talk, a film dictionary, and SIX, a novel. Most recently she was awarded a screenplay grant in Germany for a story about Kosovo refugees.

 

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