On the Motorway to Hof
by Sue Sullivan
Excuse me, but my heart’s a bit shaky.
I know it doesn’t look like it,
but my heart’s a bit shaky.
I don’t exactly know
if a four-and-a-half-hour journey
actually lasts
four-and-a-half hours.
I don’t know exactly if
what is, is.
Yes, my heart’s a bit shaky.
I can’t store data very well.
For me, things flicker a bit.
Sometimes I seem hard, or very capable, or strong
and I’ll make it, I’ll get through,
only my heart’s a bit shaky.
I’m 41, I don’t always know what’s right,
whether I’ve done that right,
or done it well.
Or what I’ve done wrong.
I wonder, if it’s having trouble
deciding
what something is, what something
actually is.
Coz although I know
what something is,
it might be something
else as well.
In actual fact, things didn’t go quite right for me,
I mean, right at the beginning there.
Yes, shortly after the starting point actually,
it got a bit confused,
it’s a bit mixed up
there.
There where there’s
still fog.
I still can’t actually see too clearly,
can’t see.
But there, at the beginning, there was
a bit of confusion.
I mean, a brother is a brother
and a little sister is a little sister
isn’t that right?
And what he did to me
that’s not important, is it?
That’s right, isn’t it?
Or what is right?
Or what
is?
What am
I?
What was I?
A four-and-a-half-hour journey
doesn’t last four-and-a-half hours, does it?
I mean, I’ll get by.
I’ve already made my career–
well, now and then.
Sometimes I couldn’t anymore.
Then there was a period of relaxation,
so to speak. I was
put out to grass,
so to speak.
Even so,
how long does a four-and-a-half-hour journey last?
Because if four-and-a-half hours
actually
are four-and-a-half hours,
then isn’t a brother a brother?
And isn’t a sister a sister?
And from a brother
don’t you expect
shelter, or warmth, or feeling
or at least being-there, support?
What if I say to you that a four-and-a-half-hour journey
— — can last three hours?
Can it sometimes
— — last longer?
or shorter?
I mean, if you start out straight away?
I mean, if I have five dollars
are you sure that couldn’t be 5000?
or…not?
I mean,
green is green,
isn’t it?
And
a brother
is really a brother,
isn’t he?
Can that be true?
How long is it going to go on?
With this IQ –
150 or thereabouts they said –
that
can’t even see
five dollars
as five dollars.
Doesn’t know how long
the journey lasts,
has to fight all the time
against other ideas.
I’m always so uncertain –
is a brother
a journey
of 4 1/2 hours?
Does that mean, if I see
40
that I have to drive 40?
Does it also mean, you can
actually drive 80 or 40?
Does 40 really mean 40?
What’s pressing on my heart?
That I hear
and don’t hear.
I can tell you,
I’m feeling better now.
A year’s therapy.
Now and again I can see something
new.
I can do things
I can imagine
Making plans — for me.
Instead of that in less up and down all over the place.
One moment here, the next somewhere else.
I have to sit down. And work.
I can’t. I have to.
What do I have to do?
Where do I have to go?
Have to go and see someone.
Who then?
Her? Or her?
Will I find something perhaps?
What am I trying to find?
I’m trying to find the answer
to why I never know the answer.
Can never understand
why it takes so much energy
to accept that four-and-a-half hours
is four-and-a-half hours.
That five dollars
is five dollars.
I have to fight.
I have to say
‘That thing is what it is.’
Of course there are other things I can’t even
make a start on.
I think
I can.
I’ve always managed to.
I’m going to keep on
managing to.
If green is
green
does that mean
that time is time
and not longer?
Then I have to say
I’m not important.
What’s inside me, moves around,
bodily, beneath my consciousness
there where I can’t see,
that means,
it’s not true.
There’s no uneasiness,
there is, after all these years,
no cry
no fight
but actually
–– –– there is.
Otherwise I wouldn’t have trouble
with
four-and-a-half hours
would I?
Or with brother?
Or with touching?
Otherwise I wouldn’t grin at you
so nervously.
And then laugh like a child
and try
to please.
I can’t see how deep this well is.
It’s dark, I can’t see the bottom.
I only know that there’s a weight on top.
Other people laugh.
Even my friends say
oh her, she’s always late.
Late?
Why am I always working?
After a whole day’s work
why do I have to sit down and work some more?
Why shouldn’t I actually pull up a chair,
pick up some book or other?
Oh no – get to work,
prepare something, prepare yourself, take notes,
write it down, write it down.
And you know something?
That’s exactly what I do.
I never come home and say
hey, you did all right today.
Take a seat, take a break.
Do something you like.
Well … a break.
What does a woman do
in the break?
Does she listen?
Relax?
Can this woman afford to relax?
Can she allow
nothing to happen?
Because if nothing happens,
what happens then?
These strange feelings in my stomach,
whatever’s in me,
perhaps something will come out of them.
In the break.
For instance.
Maybe I won’t take a break.
That’d be better.
And in any case –
who do you think you are?
Take a break?
You haven’t worked well enough,
not good enough.
You haven’t done everything,
you haven’t looked at every possible book,
haven’t done every possible exercise,
to be sure once you’ve covered everything a 1000%
that you can choose the very best out of them.
You know, you haven’t been thorough enough.
You haven’t done everything.
You’ve gotta keep working.
You haven’t done things very well today,
you’ve been a bit slack.
You haven’t been perfect!
Yes, how dare you sit down?
You! You don’t know anything
you can’t achieve anything
you can’t get anything done. You’re lazy.
Don’t you dare sit yourself down
to rest.
Don’t you pick up some book that you might enjoy.
You’re not fit for that.
You’re not born for it.
You don’t exist!
I can tell you,
sometimes it’s more than I can stand.
Nana’s holding me in her arms.
It’s quiet. It’s safe. One can rest.
Will Nana believe me?
She never asks me things.
When I was 14, I could take refuge
at her place. She never asked why.
But she was there when I was 4, too.
And 6 and 8.
And nobody asked.
Why I’d withdrawn, gone inside myself,
gone away.
My mother once said to me,
when I was in the psyche-clinic,
‘When you were 5 you sort of went
inside yourself. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t do
anything about it.’ I could’ve said:
Why didn’t you ask?
It was your own daughter, after all.
But she couldn’t handle feelings.
Why should I sit down and relax?
There’s still a lot to be done.
Somehow
I must get to understand
that four-and-a-half hours
are four-and-a-half hours.
That what is,
is.
But surely
it isn’t,
is it?
It can’t be,
what it is.
There aren’t any nasty people in the world,
are there?
Only misunderstood ones?
What is,
isn’t.
I’m not,
right?
Sisters are for that,
aren’t they?
Sisters don’t have rights,
do they?
They’re not allowed to say anything.
They have to be still.
They have to accept things, let them happen.
It’s not a question of
allow. Coz nobody asked.
He came like a bulldozer.
And ran over me.
I was not there.
I did not exist or
I was nothing.
I was worth nothing.
I have no feelings.
I wasn’t his sister,
was I?
I can tell you proudly,
how long I’ve been overseas.
Me – well when I was –
at 16 or 17, I’d already left my own country.
Gone away from
my own country,
that I so dearly loved
from the green fields
from the bush
from the hushing sea.
The waves, the eternal waves,
the puzzling, mysterious waves.
The sky so far and wide,
the mountains that changed
hour by hour, minute by minute, every day.
Homesick.
Yes at 17 I left home.
Had courage, eh?
Actually it never occurred to me
that a woman needed courage
to go away from home
to live half a world away
from
friends, aunts, mother, cousins.
I’ve done it lots of times.
First for one year.
Then for three.
Yes, I’ve lived in France.
Yes I’ve lived in England. Yes I live in Germany.
And every time
I accidentally
hear the voice of a man
who has exactly the same accent
as he has.
Then my stomach tightens up
and the black fear steps out
without warning, unaware, unwanted
and invincible.
Once it happened that I accidentally met a man in Munich
with whom I exchanged a couple of words–
first in German then in English.
Then I said real quick
Do you come from my country?
Because my heart had started
to beat faster
and in my belly
black sharp waves rose up.
My belly knew before I did –
isn’t that funny?
And you know what?
I only hear this accent
once every two years,
maximum.
I only have to experience something like that
once every two years.
Or in my sleep.
Or when I’m too tired
to keep the memories out.
Is it possible
that a woman would go 19,000 kilometres away,
in order not to have to hear an accent?
Away from her own beloved land?
Don’t ask me.
I don’t know the answer.
I’m busy
with four-and-a-half hours,
with five dollars,
whether it’s true that
what is,
really is.
Sue–
I remember meeting Heather McPherson and Marian Evans at the Commonwealth Literature conference in Laufen, back in 1987, and being impressed by their earthy authenticity. I had come because for the first time in my life I had written a ‘letter to the editor’ because of my outrage at the disparaging remarks made in Time magazine about the Spiral Collective’s reception of the Booker award in Keri Hulme’s place. And there were two Spiral women, inspiring awe and not a little nervousness that they dispelled by their friendliness and by Heather’s committed intellectual and organic fervour for her work.
Sometimes it seems there are attributes that burn fiercely and bravely as artists that we don’t possess in our everyday self. Almost like a mirroring of some original self, without bits knocked off or damaged by early ‘nurture’ events. I think of Heather as fierce and uncompromising about her poetry; whatever she writes comes under an eye she possesses as a writer, unflinching in requiring the word to do what she wants. When I first encountered her work it was to me highly intellectual and at once had a kind of tentativeness, as if she was reaching into new places (which she was), new parts of the brain and culture. She drew some exquisite pearls out of those places and still does that.
Sue Sullivan teaches English as a foreign language. Her speechstream system responds to the listening difficulties adult Asian learners meet when they seek to communicate in English.
