They may suppress all they want outside of the estate, but within its boundaries Richie announced all cultural dogma ‘non grata’.
From time to time Rick had an urge to step ‘besides himself’, to become unlike his recognizable self. He often felt bored with being himself for a long time, and while observing the debates he frequently wanted to take one side one minute, or another one at another. Sometimes he even wanted to become a stranger to those who took him for their own kind, and see if the attitudes would change. He wondered if they would act surprised, outraged, if they would curse him, or if by any chance they could accept him in the way that they had not known him before. Rick was neither curious to know more than he saw. To him a man became so boring once his past was revealed! This is why every time he saw his friends he wanted to meet them as if anew.
A macabre castle of the Blockheads, Urquhart, on the shores of Loch Ness
He often asked himself, what was it that would not let him be different, what was it that made his remain the same in the eyes of the world. Should he have been born in another time, he would have been different! He always came to the conclusion that it was a habit of not wanting to upset the loved ones, but mainly anonymity and a fear of loneliness. Lately he did not seek recognition at all because once recognised, he often felt like a target.
Like a billiard ball he hit another ball, ran away so that he could collide again and fly away again; away from his known self. So that nobody could say: ‘We know him! This is…’ He is not ‘this’! All that others knew of him was nothing more than traces of him touching the world around, moreso because his angle of collision had never been in symmetry with anything; whatever he happened to hit hither and thither he would roll. Where? That would depend on what he thought while that was happening.
And why wouldn’t he become different?!
He often heard in his surroundings that a human being should define himself, or establish an identity: political, religious, national, sexual, or in some other way… But he had decided firmly that he would not identify himself with anything else for a long time. Then he would be bound by obligation, but that existence would not be human anymore, it would be an imitation of a thing with features programmed in by someone else. For only those are free, who did not become part of another.
But he was particularly bemused and apprehensive that every connection, every life situation in the world was ready to set up his destiny. And there was nothing to hint at which destiny was really his, and if he was doing his own thing. And what would that mean?! Does it simply mean that a human being is a resilient creature and can adjust to anything?! Or was that to mean that one can only quit the old and begin something new? Evidently that was the reason why Rick avoided being managed by any idea for a long time, so that he would not turn into a ‘distance runner’ who does not notice much around him while he runs. He appreciated going where he felt the pull, where he wanted to go, since he thought that life is nothing but a continuous explanation of thyself to thyself.
Many locals had heard about Blockhead’s feat in Riga from the newspapers, and his unexpected arrival to their parts. Some, especially curious countrymen tried to call on him and moor the boats from the mainland to the island, but as soon as they approached close enough some unknown force pulled them back. Quite often the rowers found their oars broken, and the motor-boaters found their propellers bitten off, so they frequently had trouble making it back.
And sometimes the boats were even turned upside down. They started gossiping that Rick had secured a personal contact with Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster and she sometimes visited him, and it was her controlling access to Blockhead. But the daredevils who were willing to undertake certain risks in order to see yet another monster were always plentiful, and some even managed to reach the island unnoticed by swimming. ‘But he is just an alligator in the person’s skin,’ said those lucky enough to have returned. And that excited the minds of the locals even more.
As soon as the new master appeared the lake has started to make huge bubbles in places. They separated from the surface of the lake, floated into the air and burst with deafening noise in the skies. Many thought that it was the Loch Ness monster who passed these gasses, and it was her way of giving signals that she was preparing for the meeting and soon would be en route to Richard’s castle. At any time of year the lake had always attracted crowds of tourists, but now it was turning into a stampede. People from all over the world came to see two monsters at once, the Loch Ness monster and the Peeing Briton.
Chekhov on the Island
Meanwhile Richard found himself rather engaged with the history of the island, and as he sorted through old documents in the castle’s library[74] he found the pages of an unknown biography of the famous writer Anton Chekhov. In the dusty honorary visitors book, Richard read the entry that evidenced one Russian, Mr Tczechov visited there in the 1890’s. He came to the healing springs to cure consumption. Then he met Richie’s great-grandfather who had just returned from England, having caught their ideas of re-formation hither and thither. Mr Blockhead Senior met Chekhov by accident, on the springs where he was treating his gout and other ailments. When he found out that a famous writer and a coughing doctor from Russia was using the springs right next to him, he persuaded him to visit his estate so that he could have a chat with an overseas guest about the diseases and the fate of the humankind.
Richie found out that Anton Chekhov did not appear on the island out of the blue. When he had travelled to Sakhalin, the ‘convicts’ island’, he had heard an ancient Ainu legend that on the other side of the world, in the far-away Scotland there is a blooming ‘freedom island’, called the ‘Sakura Island’, that is governed by the kind Yewdo the Wonder.[75]
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