The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (44 page)

I stammer because usually I have no right to print personal texts.

"They're mine. They're my poems. I print them up after work."

"You mean to say that you're Klaus Lucas, the author of these poems?"

"Yes."

He asks, "When did you write them?"

I say, "Over the past couple of years. I wrote many others, before, when I was young."

He says, "Bring me everything you have. Come to my office tomorrow morning with everything you've written."

The next morning I go to the director's office with my poems. They add up to several hundred pages, maybe a thousand.

The director hefts the package.

"All this? You've never tried to publish them?"

I say, "I never gave it a thought. I wrote for myself, to pass the time, to amuse myself."

The director laughs. 'To amuse yourself? Your poems aren't what you might call amusing, exactly. Not the ones I've read, anyway. But maybe you were more lighthearted when you were young."

I say, "When I was young, certainly not."

He says, 'True. There wasn't much to be lighthearted about in those days. But a lot of things have changed since the revolution."

I say, "Not for me. Nothing has changed for me."

He says, "At least now we can publish your poems."

I say, "If you think it's a good idea, publish them. But I beg you not to give my address or tell my real name to anyone."

Lucas
came back and left again. I sent him away. He left me his unfinished manuscript. I am trying to complete it.

The man from the embassy didn't announce he was coming. Two days after my brother's visit he rings my doorbell at nine in the evening. Luckily Mother has already gone to bed. The man has curly hair and he is thin and pale. I usher him into my study.

He says, "I don't speak your language very well, so forgive me for being blunt. Your brother, that is to say your alleged brother,
Claus T.,
committed suicide today. He threw himself under a train at East Station at two-fifteen this afternoon, just as he was being repatriated. He left a letter for you at our embassy."

The man hands me an envelope on which is written, 'To the attention of Klaus T."

I open the envelope. On a postcard I read: "I would like to be buried beside our parents."

I hand the card to the man from the embassy.

"He wants to be buried here."

The man reads the card and asks, "Why did he sign it Lucas? Was he really your brother?"

I say, "No. But he believed it so much that I can't refuse him this."

The man says, "How strange. Two days ago, after his visit with you, we asked him if he had found anyone from his family. He said no."

I say, "It's the truth. We weren't related at all."

The man says, "But you'll still permit him to be buried beside your parents?"

I say, "Yes. Beside my father. He's the only one in my family who's dead."

We follow the hearse, the man from the embassy and I. It's snowing. I'm carrying a bouquet of white carnations and another of red. I bought them at a florist. There are no more carnations in our garden, even in summer. Mother plants all sorts of flowers, but not carnations.

A new grave is dug next to my father's. My brother's coffin is lowered into it, and a cross with a different spelling of my name is erected over it.

I come to the cemetery every day. I look at the cross inscribed with Claus's name and I wonder if I shouldn't replace it with another bearing the name of Lucas.

I also think that the four of us will soon be reunited. Once Mother is dead there will be no reason for me to go on. Not a bad idea, the train.

About the Author

Born in Hungary, Agota Kristof left her homeland during the revolution of
1956
to settle in Switzerland. She still resides there, where she also writes for the theater.