The Motionless Man
- an intense, haunting short story that has remained with me since I
first read it a few years ago. I just did give it another reread and
felt it was worthy of its own review. For English readers, The Motionless Man is part of The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories edited by Joost Zwagerman and published in 2016. For those who can read Dutch, this singular tale is one of nine collected in De Hemelvaart Van Massimo: Verhalen.
The Motionless Man
is the only work of fiction by Uek De Jong currently available in
English. Drat! Perhaps more of his writing will be translated in the
future. I certainly hope so. Meanwhile, here's my write-up. Enjoy.
THE MOTIONLESS MAN
The
narrator, Kalk, informs us that he's always seen Tze as an active,
enterprising man who constantly roams the hallways with sparkling
stones, books, or small dead animals. Thus, Kalk is taken aback when he
peeks inside the tiny room where Tze sits tight against a table, head
propped on fists, bending so far forward that there is only six inches
of space between Tze's nose and the bare wall in front of him. And it's
such a tiny room – Kalk knows if he stretches his arms above his head,
he'll almost touch the ceiling; if he takes a step forward and reaches
out his arms, he'd hit the opposite wall; if he holds his arms out to
the sides, he could touch the side walls.
Without the slightest
movement, Tze asks Kalk how he occupies himself, to which Kalk replies
that he occupies himself with writing an account of himself, though
without any particular need to do so. Rather, he simply regards writing
as a pastime, something he's been doing for seven years with many
interruptions. And when Tze asks why he interrupts his work, Kalk tells
him, “I don't actually know what precisely the interruptions are: the
days when I work on my account or the days when I don't. Let's just say:
I fast for five days so I can gorge myself for two and find both
activities unimportant, but prefer fasting to eating.” This strange
exchange continues where Kalk's writing and rewriting serve as the
subject, upon which Kalk concludes, somewhat quizzically, that all that
remains after writing more than a thousand pages in all those years is
just a single sheet of paper and what is written on this one piece of
paper “encompasses but a few seconds of my life, and yet its entirety."
Tze
remains motionless except for an occasional shiver. When Tze presses
his stomach even more tightly into the edge of the table, opens his
fists, and folds them firmly around his head, Kalk goes on to tell Tze
about what's written on that one piece of paper: a dream he has that
repeats itself over and over -a dream where a man enters his room and
hands him beautiful flowers. He enjoys the flowers he's been given for a
time, but then he becomes afraid and throws them out the window.
The
conversation continues until Kalk cautiously leaves his place by the
door and moves a bit closer to Tze. At this point, to share a richer
fragrance of Oke De Jong's incredible story, here's what happens next in
the author's own words:
“But no sooner had I moved than Tze
said, 'Be so kind as to remain still. Even my own movement is unbearable
to me. I hate motion, things changing makes me ill. I used to occupy
myself with small dead animals, but they rotted away in my hands. So I
read books. Twice I would read the same page, and twice I would find
something different written there. Finally I sought my answer in stones.
But I could never see their sparkle in the same way twice.'
I
understood now that his aim was to be motionless, and that the sight of
the wall was as much as he could bear. I began to question him about his
motionlessness, but he no longer answered. The peculiar shivering in
his body slowly ceased. And no matter how keenly I watched him, I could
not detect any movement. So I left the room, without a sound.”
Kalk
lets a week elapse before visiting Tze almost daily. Tze sits
motionless in his chair. Sometimes Tze stretches his
arms and legs for a moment and with great effort as all his clothes are
exceptionally tight and close around his body.
Tze is the only
person Kalk has had contact with. Now that Kalk had finished his
account, he's brought to a dead end, one of great uncertainty. But one
evening Kalk takes the plunge: he asks Tze to leave his tiny room and
accompany him on a walk. After much hesitation, Tze agrees. Tze stands
up with difficulty. Kalk can now see Tze more fully. “For the first
time, I saw his face; it was narrow and sharply chiseled. His face
skimmed past, close to mine, then towered high above, up against the
ceiling. Tze was a giant. He must have been thirty centimeters (nearly a
foot) taller than me. His chest was almost as wide as the door, and he
could have grasped around my neck with one hand if he'd wanted to.”
What
happens when Kalk and Tze walk up a mountain will verge on the
fantastic. And then, some days later, when Kalk visits Tze for what will
be the last time, what he discovers will leave a reader breathless.
What a tale! I yearn for more Oek De Jong. 
Dutch author Oek De Jong, born 1952
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