Fiasco (9 page)
I have had enough of my walk; I sit down. I snuggle down, nestle deep into the armchair, adopting a curled-up posture as if in some Brobdingnagian womb. Maybe I am hoping I shall never have to emerge from here, never go out into the world. Why should I? And then I am also a bit afraid of the stranger who will nevertheless struggle to his feet out
of here in the end. In a certain sense, it will be someone other than the person to whom I have grown accustomed until now. Nor can it be any other way, for he has completed his work, fulfilled his purpose: he had flopped utterly. He had transmuted my person into an object, diluted my stubborn secret into a generality, distilled my inexpressible truth into symbols—transplanting them into a novel I am unable to read; he is alien to me, in just the same way that he alienated from me that raw material—that incomparably important chunk of my own life from which he himself had originated. I shall miss it, and perhaps … why deny it, perhaps I shall also miss the person who brought it all off. Yes, as I sit in the armchair a startling feeling suddenly passes through me: a bleak and chilly feeling of some irrevocable occurrence, a bit like the feeling when the last guest has gone after a big party. I have been left alone.
Someone
has departed, leaving an almost physical void in my body, and this very instant, with a malicious smirk on his face, is waving a final farewell from the far corner of the room. I stare impotently after him, I do not have the strength to detain him. Nor do I even wish to: I harbour a feeling of mild but firm resentment toward him—let him go to hell, he tricked me …
“That he did,” said the old boy, “that he did, the numbskull!”
“Did you get any work done?”
“Of course.”
New development in the bistro: the Old Biddy (the chief administrator, to give her her official title) had made a surprise assault on the bar counter and snatched away the order chits from the spike (checking up on the old boy’s wife) (as to whether, in point of fact, she had passed through the charges for all the meals on her tray) (as if, let us say, she was not always in the habit of doing so) (in
proof of which postulate the risible) (and equally futile demonstration could end up showing nothing else than that the old boy’s wife had on this occasion) (as ever) (passed them through).
“If I really wanted to steal,” the old boy’s wife said indignantly, “she could scrabble after my orders as much as she wants. I could carry off half the kitchen under her nose without her noticing it.”
“I’m sure,” the old boy agreed. “So why don’t you do that?” he enquired almost absent-mindedly as he was spooning his soup.
“I don’t know. Because I’m stupid,” his wife said.
In any case (his wife said), that was evidently the sole result of today’s announcement (to the effect that from now onwards she too wanted to work in the evenings); and if one can perhaps also discern in it some explanation for the peculiar (yet for all that by no means logical) logic, as an outcome of her colleague, Mrs. Boda (whose first name was Ilona) recently taking, instead of greeting her, to looking the other way, for the harder (in fact, totally impossible)-to-understand reason why the Old Biddy (the chief administrator, to give her her official title) shared that grievance (unless, perhaps, the key to the mystery was to be sought in the bedlam of those wild hours when the Old Biddy would find urgent barrel-tapping and other tasks for the bartender to attend to in the cellar) (right at the height of the evening rush) (at which times, with obvious magnanimity and shrinking from no pains, she herself, in her white coat, would stand in at the bar) (like the captain of a ship at a hurricane-lashed helm) (at which times the colleague who was called Mrs. Boda was obliged, like her other colleagues, to pass through the orders for draught beverages directly to her) (if indeed she passed them through) (the only way of establishing which fact beyond a shadow of doubt would be to snatch the order chits right away from the spike) (the right to do which, however, was the sole prerogative of the Old Biddy—the chief administrator, to give her her official title).
“So that’s why there’s a deficit,” the old boy commented (shrewdly). “They’re pilfering.”
“That may well be,” his wife said.
“I’m going out for a little walk,” the old boy declared later on.
The old boy was sitting in front of the filing cabinet.
It was morning.
(Again.)
He was translating.
He was translating from German (German being the foreign language that he still did not understand the best, relatively speaking, as the old boy was in the habit of saying).
antwortete nicht
—the old boy read in the book (from which he was translating).
did not answer
—the old boy tapped onto the sheet of paper that had been inserted in his typewriter (onto which he was translating).
“For Chrissakes …!” the old boy stretched out his hand, half-rising from his seat, toward the filing cabinet.
“… That hairy ape of a tree-dwelling Neanderthal and all its misbegotten breed,” he (the old boy) said, stuffing the carefully formed plugs into his ears.
“I ought to change these ear plugs,” the old boy mused.
“They’re old,” he (the old boy) continued his musing.
“Dried out,” he mused further.
“They’re pressing too tight in my ear.” He fiddled with the plug in one ear.
“But then if it doesn’t press tight enough I hear everything,” he chafed.
“There, that’s it, perhaps …” the old boy stopped his fiddling.
The old boy was sitting in front of the filing cabinet and listening out for whether he could hear anything.
He couldn’t. (Relatively speaking.)
“Wonderful.” His face beamed.
“Come on now, this is no way to make a living.” His face darkened.
The money for translations might not be a lot, but at least it was dependable (the old boy was in the habit of saying).
By doing the translation he could kill two birds with one stone: he would earn some money (maybe not a lot, but at least dependable) and also he wouldn’t have to write a book. (For the time being.)
Besides which, the old boy did not have so much as a glimmer of an idea, little as that may be, for the book he needed to write.
…
antwortete nicht
.
…
did not reply
.
“That’s it,’ said the old boy approvingly.
He had not looked at his papers for days now. Nor did he have any wish to look at them.
He had tucked them away at the very bottom of the filing cabinet in order to avoid any chance of catching sight of them.
Sein Blick hing an den Daumen, wie festgesogen
.
“Festgesogen,” the old boysaid, scratching his head.
Der Blutfleck unter dem Daumnagel hatte sich jetzt deutlich vorwärts bewegt. Er war von Nagelbett abgelöst, ein schmaler Streifen sauberes neues Nagelhorn hatte sich hinterdreingeschoben
.
“What on earth is ‘Nagelhorn’?” The old boy would have reached for the dictionary (if he had known for which dictionary he should reach, as he had two of them) (or to be more accurate, three of them) (namely, the
Concise Dictionary
, at hand to the right of the typewriter, for which he scarcely ever had to reach) (but then it usually did not contain the word he happened to be after) (as well as the
Unabridged Dictionary
, in which he usually managed to find it in the end) (and thus pure considerations of economy would have
advocated his reaching straight away for the latter) (except that this required him to perform an awkward twist of the upper part of his body, given that, alongside the book that was to be translated, the piles of blank as well as already typed paper, the typewriter, and the
Concise Dictionary
, there being no space left for the two volumes of this dictionary colossus, together weighing at least ten lbs., on the table) (to be more precise,
the
table, the only real table in the flat) (they found a place on the 1st-class special ply contraption of 1st-class sawn hardwood from the southeast corner of the room, which, its actual function being thus modified during periods of translating work, stood beside the old boy’s chair) (for which reason, when searching for a word, the old boy usually consulted both dictionaries) (if not all three volumes) (as he did on this occasion, when, having tried to find “Nagelhorn” first of all, hopefully, in the
Concise Dictionary
, then, more exasperatedly, in the first, A–L volume of the
Unabridged Dictionary
, he finally, and thoroughly incensed, picked up the second, M–Z volume—incidentally, without coming across it in any of them, after all, let it be noted) (which may have infuriated the old boy but did not succeed in embittering him, since the meaning of the word was perfectly obvious) (if he thought a little bit about it) (but until it was left as a last resort that did not enter into the old boy’s head) (most especially when he was in the middle of translating).
Sein Blick hing
…—the old boy read.
His gaze
—the old boy tapped—
was fixed on his thumb as if
“Festgesogen,” the old boy said, scratching his head.
it were incapable of moving away
.
“Hardly inspired,” the old boy said, scratching his head.
“And anyway not even accurate.” He kept on scratching.
“His gaze held fast to his thumb as if transfixed to it,” the old boy deliberated. “That might be more accurate.”
“The image is mixed up,” he deliberated further. “On the other
hand, it’s more expressive—” he hesitated—“but then it’s rather forced,” he decided.
“Anyway, I’ve written it down now.”
“I ought to erase it and type over.”
“Not worth it.”
Der Blutfleck
…
The blotch of extravasated blood had visibly moved further forwards. By now it had separated from the nail bed and in its stead afresh, narrow crescent of clean nail was emerging from the root
.
“That’ll do,” the old boy deliberated.
“A little more long-winded than the original,” he deliberated further.
“But that’s the compactness of the German language for you,” he continued his deliberation.
“And anyway they pay by the word,” the old boy concluded his deliberations.
Die Natur. Etwas von mir, repariert sich. Langsames Wachstum, unbeirrbar. Löst sich ab, wie die Zeit, wie Nichtmehrwissen. Was vorher wichtig war—schon wider vergessen. Ebenso: leere Zukunft—das auch. Zukunft: was niemand sich vorstellen kann (wie mit dem Wetter) und was doch kommt
.
“At least this bit is easy,” the old boy cheered up. “I don’t need a dictionary here,” he determined (almost gloatingly).
Nature
—he tapped out briskly—
Something of me, a part of me, is restored again. A slow, unwavering advance. It works itself loose like time, like forgetting,
no-longer-knowing. What was important previously—already forgotten. Just like the empty future—that too. The future: the thing that nobody can envisage (as with the weather) but which comes to pass all the same
.
“Not a bad text at that,” the old boy enthused.
“The novel too.”
“A professional job,” he thought enviously.
“That’s the way to write novels,” he carried on enviously, “with secondhand material, objective formulation, a well-honed technique, three steps back, no autobiography, nothing personal, the author might as well not exist.”
“An issue of general interest, a guaranteed moneymaker.” His envy intensified.
Just like the empty future
that nobody can envisage
comes to pass all the same
.
The old boy’s gaze held fast to text as if transfixed.
“Hang on a second!” The old boy leapt up from his place without any apparent (that is to say, external) reason (unless it was something inapparent) (that is to say, internal) (that impelled him to do this) (such as something which suddenly sprung to his mind), and he snatched off the bookshelf on the wall above the sofa occupying the northeast corner of the room a not overly bulky volume in a green half-cloth binding (the very same as the one that in recent days) (as we have already had occasion to recount in the proper place) (the old boy had been leafing through frequently, and to great advantage, in which the old boy evidenced especially appreciative relish for certain lines on page 259 of the volume) (which we have likewise not passed up the opportunity of quoting in the proper place, so that repetition
would be superfluous) (all the more so because at this point in our story the old boy) (leafing like greased lightning) (was evidently searching for something else in it, evidently on some other page) (though which one evidently he himself did not know).
“
And even today writing comes hard to me because I have already had to write a lot of letters so that my hand is tired
,” the old boy read.
“
The future stands firm, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space
.”
“That’s it,” the old boy enthused.
“
As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet mistaken about the motion of that which is to come
,” the old boy read on further (or, to be more exact, further back) (since the latter line stood before the previous one).
“
it must only just then have entered into them, for they swear
,” the old boy read on further (or, to be more exact, further back)
“
in their bewildered fright
”
“
It is necessary
.”
“Here we are,” the old boy said.
“
It is necessary—and toward this our development will move gradually—that nothing strange should befall us, but only that which has long belonged to us. We have already had to rethink so many of our concepts of motion, we will also gradually learn to realize that that which we call fate goes forth from within people, not from without into them. Only because so many have not absorbed their fates and transmuted them within themselves while they were living in them have they not recognized what has gone forth out of them; it was so strange to them that, in their bewildered fright, they thought it must only just then have entered into them, for they swear never before to have found anything like it in themselves. As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet
mistaken about the motion of that which is to come. The future stands firm, dear Mr.. Kappus, but we move in infinite space
.”