The hidden meaning (English text)

This was written in May 2021. The severe restrictions of the pandemic were being eased. Our children had been at school for over six months. It was hard to make friends during this time. 

Monday. Late afternoon. Covid has closed the school for a week. We wander the town, my daughter ad-libbing a spy game with roles for us both. 

   Come on! Run! The whole town’s gonna blow!

   We’ve gotta find where he’s hidden the bomb.

   Get down! He’ll see us.

My additions to the dialogue are not taken up. That’s ok. I like the blend of physical action and mental passivity. I can play along. 

We’re near the museum when there’s a heavy rain shower. What about the ancient coins? I say. He’ll try to get them. 

This time I’ve got it right: that’s exactly what our arch-enemy would do. My daughter leads the way into the museum foyer. The woman on reception smiles and opens the electrical cupboard to switch on the lights in the three galleries. Next she busies herself bringing to life all of the soundtracks, touch screens and educational films. We’re the first visitors since lunch, maybe the first all day. 

One gallery has a soundtrack of a galloping horse. Another has some pre-historic grunting. We look at the beautifully presented selection of jewellery, knives and surgical implements from the Roman era. The rust and damage makes what remains more precious. My daughter points at a bracelet: I like that. The spy game has slipped away.

When a museum’s busy, you can feel the artefacts doing duty, receiving the attention of the visitors, offering starting points and prompts, being subject to the continual reassessment necessary to culture. The meaning of the artefact may be different for every person, but the launch point is the same – the object, its size and texture, the sequence of events that brought it into being and kept it in human ownership. 

But today there’s no-one alongside us. Our looking is accompanied by no-one else’s looking. We are alone with the artefacts and they sit with resonant importance. As if this display is just for us. As if it’s assembled to pass on something urgent and specific, a message we should understand and take away. We leave quickly before the message is revealed.