The Sleepworker Read online

  Eleanor signals for Andy to come mingle with the guests.

  Andy approaches, mingles, Eleanor makes introductions.

  Do you know Andy?

  Until now, only by name.

  Sorry, introductions will be for later. Because John appears. What eyes he has – if they can still be called that – red myxomatosis eyes. John’s been drinking, so that nothing is different. In fact, this time it was outright encouraged. Tonight the gallery is treating, by virtue of the fact that heavy drinking makes a heavy sleeper.

  Gerard and Gerard are in place, meaning each is in a place that can only be his. One adjusts the lighting a giorno, the other tends to the camera. The guests finish their drinks, their speeches draw out, words space out, sentences rest in suspense, voices hush. It looks like it’s time, it’s starting soon.

  What were we saying? John heads to the centre of the white room, lies down on the bed, clad in a cotton spandex shirt and pants, and a pair of sneakers with three stripes. He pulls the sheet up around himself, lowers his eyelids, turns over and settles onto his side.

  A man falls asleep in a room of Museum.

  Start of the exhibition.

  Come in to this room with its white walls, high ceilings and polished floors.

  Back in the old days this room had windows, but when it changed owners, their presence was deemed unnecessary. As a result of the room’s new purpose, they were sealed off. People have forgotten that in the old days there were windows. Today the windows are invisible, assimilated by white walls. Yet it’s quite possible they will one day resurface.

  This room is the object of regular maintenance. It has recently been painted – they must have used an odourless paint because the room doesn’t smell like anything. It smells neutral, meaning nothing. You could say that the walls are clean, smooth and shiny, but you should also add that they are bare, white as can be. At the same time, the more you look at them, the more you have reason to think otherwise. And what if the walls were neither all the way white nor completely bare, what if they were a white that hints at being grey? This white-grey would be the result of successive layers of paint, filled-in holes, painted-over inscriptions, traces of what has previously been presented here and covered up in order to move on to the next thing.

  The floors are smooth like the pages of a book. Yet they’re coarse. Like the pages of a book. The space isn’t new, it’s been re-new-vated, it’s prepared to receive something. It’s sometimes white, it’s sometimes white-grey. A source of artificial light comes from the ceiling, completed by the specific lighting of the spotlight pointed at the Sleeper. The room has no shadows. The space is shaped like a cube.

  People talk and talk, and during that time the night advances in Museum’s gallery. At last, it’s obvious that the night is progressing to the extent that the guests start to yawn, some leave, others stay. And then very quickly, suddenly, automatically, it’s morning.

  The guests are sorry, but they really must get going. They would have gladly stayed at the gallery longer, but they have things to do – although they are guests here, other obligations are calling them. They aren’t unemployed. They work full-time. They themselves don’t even have time to sleep. They aren’t poets. These exhibitions with sleeping poets are fine and all, but not everyone has the option to spend his days waiting for a man to wake up. An active life awaits them. After this all-nighter, they go back to the places where they practise their professional activities. They will conduct profitable business while certain others sleep.

  Time goes by, converted into time spent sleeping for John, and for the others time spent awake and waiting around. The exhibition follows its course, the hours of sleeping add up according to the fiscal rules that govern the passing time, but in reality no one is really aware of that: they say time is passing and it’s passing brusquely. John would be well advised to wake up but that’s how it is, he’s snoozing – sorry, he’s working.

  Gerard: What are we deciding? Do we put up a sign with QUIET written in big letters? QUIET, FILMING IN PROGRESS? QUIET, A MAN IS SLEEPING? Or else do we close? DURING THE EXHIBITION, THE GALLERY IS CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC? Do we shake him? Wake him up?

  Eleanor: We don’t touch anything. The protocol is very clear: The Sleeper wakes up on his own, at the end of his night of sleeping. The gallery is committed to supporting the poet’s sleep. As long as he’s sleeping, the gallery stays open. We’re open twenty-four hours a day.

  Gerard: Sooner or later, John will open his eyes. That’s for sure.

  Andy: Tomorrow is another day.

  The following day is very similar in terms of sleep and cinematographic inactivity. At any rate, it’s not exactly the same day as the one before. It’s the day after, another day. A new exhibition day is dawning, the second day in the life of the Sleeper. Filming continues.

  Andy: This exhibition is a failure, not only is it a failure it’s also a disgrace.

  The art critics show up, hordes of them coming from all over. Eleanor had no idea so many of them lived in this metropolis, for fucking fuck’s sake, how do they reproduce? The art critics enter the gallery, turn toward the welcome desk, they say Hello, Hello, says the receptionist, Thank you for coming, take an info sheet, do you know Andy? ‘We’d like to visit the exhibition first.’ Very well, then, I’ll leave you to take the tour? ‘Yes, thank you,’ the critics say, walking over to the room with small steps, arms dangling, looking curious, in the manner of art critics at work.

  The tour completed, the critics come hang around beside the welcome desk, a place where they are more or less certain to find friends or, in the absence of friends, information. So? attempts the gallerist. ‘A must-see,’ the critics say. Have a drink, explain, says the gallerist, holding her breath. ‘Well on one hand, this guy who isn’t waking up, this exhibition, which thwarts expectations, which destroys the artist’s desired protocol. No, there’s no denying, it’s a change, it’s different, it makes you wonder, it’s interesting. We don’t know how things are going to turn out. Which makes for a little suspense. No . . . great. But at the same time. . . ’ At the same time what? The gallerist quickly exhales. ‘At the same time, we aren’t sure what to think about it. And by the way, while we’re on the subject, what does the artist think about it?’

  Call Andy, Eleanor says.

  Andy?

  Andy!

  Andy: I don’t know. It’s a failure.

  Enter the collectors. There are some private collectors, there are some who work for foundations, enterprises, some are there for themselves. Some are recognizable, some have never been seen there before. The gallerist leads the tour. While she emphasizes the unique characteristics of the exhibition with gestures somewhat large and pensive, somewhat short and frank, the collectors keep their hands behind their backs. They say nothing, at least nothing intelligible, they produce grunts only they can understand, collectors’ grunts. They play with their eyeglasses, leisurely sliding them along the bridge of their noses, chins lowered, eyes raised, to make the low-angle view favoured for criticizing a piece.

  The collectors play with keys at the bottom of their pockets, approve of the gallerist’s remarks with a nod, grunt once more, cross and uncross their arms, shake friendly hands, kiss familiar cheeks, raise a hand to address surrounding greetings. Then return to the gallerist’s explanations. And that’s when they pinch their chins. ‘Hm, hm. Yes, yes. I see. Good, good.’ Do the collectors like it? ‘It’s just that. . . ’ That what? ‘This guy who’s sleeping, listen, it sure is beautiful, interesting, original, there’s no lack of interest, but think about it for two seconds, how do you want to handle the acquisition of a guy who’s sleeping?’

  The first visitors arrive. Who is this man? they ask upon discovering the bed occupied by the Sleeper. This man is a living poet. Well, he was a living poet before going to sleep, now it’s hard to say. Why is he sleeping? Because he was asked to. Why doesn’t he wake up? No one knows. Is he sick? He isn’t. Is he in a coma? He isn’t. Is he
dying? He’s in perfect health, he’s breathing, his heart’s beating. What is he thinking about? What is he dreaming about? Why this withdrawal? Is he still a poet? Is he paid to sleep? We don’t know what he’s getting out of it, why he’s sleeping, what he’s thinking about, what he’s dreaming about, if he’s still into poetry. We only know that his body is there, and indeed he is paid to sleep. To know any more, he would have to get up and tell us.

  Andy: I believe John has found a job he likes, a job he has no desire to quit.

  In the following weeks, people come to see The Sleeper alone or with friends, with or without family, at night for the vigil, in the morning in hopes of witnessing his awakening. They show up at nap time, after, before or between work hours. The visitors stay a while, bring picnics, games for the children, hot or cold drinks for the adults, they bring books and newspapers, or they come with nothing and take a break.

  It’s not so bad in an art gallery, it feels nice, it smells nice, it’s peaceful – take a spot on a bed of cushions, stay as long as you want, no one asks for anything, you can meet people if you want to meet people, time passes, the session is unlimited, nothing happens, a guy is sleeping, it’s all out there, no one expects anything else, time goes by, no one sees the time go by.

  The Sleeper: final days!

  In a week, the next opening comes to Museum.

  Collectors call the gallerist. They announce their great interest in the piece, even if they wish to take some time to think about it. They suggest that the gallerist stay in touch and out of goodwill she urges them to visit Museum, so that they can talk specifics. The collectors hang up and seek advice from more informed people: critics, curators, artists, institutional directors. They use all of their capacity for abstraction to visualize the piece among the other pieces in their collections. They call the gallerist again to inform her of their continued consideration.

  All of a sudden, a collector is ready to purchase The Sleeper.

  What? He’s buying it as it is, he’s buying it now, he’s buying it alive, he’s ready to bring in a mover at once so they can wrap it and bring it to the stockroom where his private collection sleeps. A collector makes it clear he has money to spend, other collectors do too – they can find nothing better to do than compete with each other, which raises the starting price. But that collector is still ready to pay the highest price. He seems to bestow a lot of importance on The Sleeper entering his collection. He’s very determined and very well-off.

  The time to finalize the sale is now or never. Eleanor and Andy had originally thought about selling the film. But how do you sell a film that’s in the process of being filmed? The exhibition is in its sixth week, the Sleeper is still sleeping, and it is imperative that it be taken down in less than twenty-four hours. In twenty-four hours someone will come to clean and paint a coat of white on the walls. And so begins the hanging of the next exhibition. After thinking about it, Eleanor decides to sell the piece in its state, John in the act of sleeping and being filmed. And Andy, what does he say about it?

  Eleanor: Andy hasn’t said anything, you know him, we broke the news of our idea to him, he just went hm hm, that’s all he was inspired to say, and to us hm means yes, and yes means we sell, so we’re selling.

  And The Sleeper is sold.

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  Cyrille Martinez is a poet and novelist living in Paris. He has performed at public readings in France and abroad on stereotypes of modern language, slang, slogans, jargon and the like. His other novels include Chansons de france, L’enlèvement de Bill Clinton and Musique rapide et lente.

  Joseph Patrick Stancil has studied French and translation at UNC-Chapel Hill and New York University. This is his third translation to be published. He lives and works in New York New York.

  The print edition of this book is set in Scotch Modern, a typeface family designed by Nick Shinn in 2008 that embodies the aesthetic and functional qualities of types first appearing during the early 19th century from the hands of Scottish type engravers it was named for. The very first typefaces of this style surfaced around 1810 in Edinburgh from the type foundry Miller & Richard. The style flourished during the Victorian era and maintained its popularity for the 19th and early 20th centuries. These Scotch faces were influenced significantly by the types of Giambatista Bodoni and Firmin Didot, as well as Baskerville’s letterforms.

   Shinn took his reference from a scientific manual of 1834 that used a ten-point Scotch face for its text. Without using scans, he revived the type by eye on the screen, which resulted in a very true re-creation of the original face.

  Printed at the old Coach House on bpNichol Lane in Toronto, Ontario, on Zephyr Antique Laid paper, which was manufactured, acid-free, in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, from second-growth forests. This book was printed with vegetable-based ink on a 1965 Heidelberg KORD offset litho press. Its pages were folded on a Baumfolder, gathered by hand, bound on a Sulby Auto-Minabinda and trimmed on a Polar single-knife cutter.

  Translated by Joseph Patrick Stancil

  Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox

  Cover by Ingrid Paulson

  Photo of Cyrille Martinez by Pauline Abascal

  Photo of Joseph Patrick Stancil by Guy Smith

  Coach House Books

  80 bpNichol Lane

  Toronto ON M5S 3J4

  Canada

  416 979 2217

  800 367 6360

  [email protected]

  www.chbooks.com