The Elusive Substance of the Archive

Abstract

I am a writer. In other words, I am an archive amateur. My private archive is a hazy, subconscious space in which the camera of my eye has randomly stored dozens of faces, dozens of chance gestures, sounds and sentences. It is a house that does not exist, but of which I regularly dream, full of staircases, balconies, cubby-holes, cobwebs and holes in the wall through which a harsh wind blows. This archive is home to the real and imagined conversations I have had, objects and memories of objects, images, scents and books whose contents resemble the house from my recurring dream. But the thing is, I am not the one who walks this subconscious archival space picking out files: files rush out at me. They leap from the archive, jostling for my attention, pushing and shoving, hustling, all so embarrassingly promiscuous: so many things slip into bed with so many other things, and I am really not sure why. I recently visited the island of Bali. Night falls early on Bali, and the morning rises late. In the silence of the evening I would listen out for the sound of heavy leaves falling from the trees. Always one leaf after the other, never two at once. The giant ants that out of nowhere would come crawling down the computer screen, and the books grey with damp, left behind by tourists and stacked on an open shelf for anyone to read, were the triggers for the file-storm to come. (I mean, I think they were.) The hotel staff spent the day with brooms and rubbish bags in hand, diligently sweeping up every fallen leaf. They would even do so when it was windy – actually, especially then – as if they were in competition with the wind. Other staff changed the bed linen daily, and the hand towels several times a day. I would wake up at night, sit on the veranda in a wicker armchair and stare out into the muggy tropical darkness. Invisible files from my archive would fall on me like leaves and at times I thought