His own breath and this other one refused to synchronize, they remained two separate entities. High above him, someone was breathing in and out. With his next attempt, he fell to the right, then again to the left. He raised his right arm high and immediately fell over to the left. The prisoner already knew he couldn’t climb the steep wooden wall, but nonetheless he found it impossible to keep still. High walls made of wood were covered with a strange pattern of streamlines and circles. This was the wool blanket that lacked all character and let itself be shaped into ever different forms. The white world disappeared, and a hirsute, languid green rose up around him. But how to go on breathing if he could no longer climb back out? Surely it would feel pleasant to slide into these cold depths. When the dreamer placed all his weight on one foot, he saw circular waves expanding in the blue water. With every step, the crack widened, and blue water showed through beneath the ice crust. The white, icy ground was full of cracks. He watched the miniature flakes floating, they danced, liberated from gravity, yet still went on falling: falling ever farther until at last they alighted on the frozen earth and disappeared.

How can you fend off the desire for sleep when you’re wrapped in a wool blanket beside this soft companion, being gently squeezed?Īs soon as he entered the sleepers’ realm, the air around him grew sharply colder, with glittering silvery particles of light falling all around him.

All at once a floppy cloth animal sat beside him. Soon he understood that he was not surrounded by walls but instead lay in a crate. Thinking was too much of an exertion, it cast him back into slumberous depths. A strange animal, or perhaps two animals, on a sheet of paper. What is it? There were two black noses and four eyes, otherwise everything was white, snow white. He thought he could reach it, but it was hung too high. He looked up and noticed a small white piece of paper attached to the upper edge of a wall. Each time he woke, he was surrounded by four unfamiliar walls. Drinking, he forgot all else, and when his belly was full, sleep overcame him. There were two arms with hair on them, milk flowed from one, while the other held the drinker’s body in an advantageous position. His ears picked out one voice amid a chorus of sounds. His belly grew ever rounder, his shoulders lost their strength, and his four limbs hung heavy.

Was the warm liquid running down his chin milk or saliva? He collected all his strength in his lips, swallowed, and felt the luke-warm sensation descend, landing in his stomach.

While his mouth relented and opened, his nose twitched three times. There was a seductively sweet odor, his brain could melt in it. He turned his head away, but the nipple came with it as if glued to his mouth. Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky

Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yōko Tawada