The Unnamable (6 page)

victorious
, without ulterior object. Then it would be a life worth having, a life at last. My
speech-parched voice at rest would fill with spittle, I’d let it flow over and over,
happy at last, dribbling with life, my pensum ended, in the silence. I spoke, I must
have spoken, of a lesson, it was pensum I should have said, I confused pensum with
lesson. Yes, I have a pensum to discharge, before I can be free, free to dribble,
free to speak no more, listen no more, and I’ve forgotten what it is. There at last
is a fair picture of my situation. I was given a pensum, at birth perhaps, as a punishment
for having been born perhaps, or for no particular reason, because they dislike me,
and I’ve forgotten what it is. But was I ever told? Squeeze, squeeze, not too hard,
but squeeze a little longer, this is perhaps about you, and your goal at hand. After
ten thousand words? Well let us say one goal, after it there will be others. Speak,
yes, but to me, I have never spoken enough to me, never listened enough to me, never
replied enough to me, never had pity enough on me, I have spoken for my master, listened
for the words of my master never spoken, Well done, my child, well done, my son, you
may stop, you may go, you are free, you are acquitted, you are pardoned, never spoken.
My master. There is a vein I must not lose sight of. But for the moment my concern
– but before I forget, there may be more than one, a whole college of tyrants, differing
in their views as to what should be done with me, in conclave since time began or
a little later, listening to me from time to time, then breaking up for a meal or
a game of cards – my concern is with the pensum of which I think I may safely say,
without loss of face, that it is in some way related to that lesson too hastily proclaimed,
too hastily denied. For all I need say is this, that if I have a pensum to perform
it is because I could not say my lesson, and that when I have finished my pensum I
shall still
have my lesson to say, before I have the right to stay quiet in my corner, alive and
dribbling, my mouth shut, my tongue at rest, far from all disturbance, all sound,
my mind at peace, that is to say empty. But this does not get me very far. For even
should I hit upon the right pensum, somewhere in this churn of words at last, I would
still have to reconstitute the right lesson, unless of course the two are one and
the same, which obviously is not impossible either. Strange notion in any case, and
eminently open to suspicion, that of a task to be performed, before one can be at
rest. Strange task, which consists in speaking of oneself. Strange hope, turned towards
silence and peace. Possessed of nothing but my voice, the voice, it may seem natural,
once the idea of obligation has been swallowed, that I should interpret it as an obligation
to say something. But is it possible? Bereft of hands, perhaps it is my duty to clap
or, striking the palms together, to call the waiter, and of feet, to dance the Carmagnole.
But let us first suppose, in order to get on a little, then we’ll suppose something
else, in order to get on a little further, that it is in fact required of me that
I say something, something that is not to be found in all I have said up to now. That
seems a reasonable assumption. But thence to infer that the something required is
something about me suddenly strikes me as unwarranted. Might it not rather be the
praise of my master, intoned, in order to obtain his forgiveness? Or the admission
that I am Mahood after all and these stories of a being whose identity he usurps,
and whose voice he prevents from being heard, all lies from beginning to end? And
what if Mahood were my master? I’ll leave it at that, for the time being. So many
prospects in so short a time, it’s too much. Decidedly it seems impossible, at this
stage, that I should dispense with questions, as I promised myself I would. No, I
merely swore I’d stop asking them. And perhaps before long, who knows, I shall light
on the happy combination which will prevent them from ever arising again in my – let
us not be over-nice – mind. For what I am doing is not being done without a minimum
of mind. Not mine perhaps, granted, with pleasure, but I draw on it, at
least I try and look as if I did. Rich matter there, to be exploited, fatten you up,
suck it to the core, keep you going for years, tasty into the bargain, I quiver at
the thought, give you my word, spoken in jest, quiver and hurry on, all life before
me, on and forget, what I was saying, just now, something important, it’s gone, it’ll
come back, no regrets, as good as new,
unrecognisable
, let’s hope so, some day when I feel more on for high-class nuts to crack. On. The
master. I never paid him enough
attention
. No more perhapses either, that old trick is worn to a thread. I’ll forbid myself
everything, then go on as if I hadn’t. The master. A few allusions here and there,
as to a satrap, with a view to enlisting sympathy. They clothed me and gave me money,
that kind of thing, the light touch. Then no more. Or Moran’s boss, I forget his name.
Ah yes, certain things, things I invented, hoping for the best, full of doubts, croaking
with fatigue, I remember certain things, not always the same. But to investigate this
matter seriously, I mean with as much futile ardour as that of the underling, which
I hoped was mine, close to mine, the road to mine, no, that never occurred to me.
And if it occurs to me now it is because I have despaired of mine. A moment of discouragement,
to strike while hot. My master then, assuming he is solitary, in my image, wishes
me well, poor devil, wishes my good, and if he does not seem to do very much in order
not to be disappointed it is because there is not very much to be done or, better
still, because there is nothing to be done, otherwise he would have done it, my great
and good master, that must be it, long ago, poor devil. Another
supposition
, he has taken the necessary steps, his will is done as far as I am concerned (for
he may have other protégés) and all is well with me without my knowing it. Cases one
and two. I’ll consider the former first, if I can. Then I’ll admire the latter, if
my eyes are still open. This sounds like one of Malone’s anecdotes. But quick, consider,
before you forget. There he is then, the
unfortunate
brute, quite miserable because of me, for whom there is nothing to be done, and he
so anxious to help, so used to giving orders and to being obeyed. There he is, ever
since I came into
the world, possibly at his instigation, I wouldn’t put it past him, commanding me
to be well, you know, in every way, no complaints at all, with as much success as
if he were shouting at a lump of inanimate matter. If he is not pleased with this
panegyric
I hope I may be – I nearly said hanged, but that I hope in any case, without restriction,
I nearly said con, that would cut my cackle. Ah for a neck! I want all to be well
with you, do you hear me, that’s what he keeps on dinning at me. To which I reply,
in a respectful attitude, I too, your Lordship. I say that to cheer him up, he sounds
so unhappy. I am good-hearted, on the surface. No, we have no conversation, never
a mum of his mouth to me. He’s out of luck, that’s certain, perhaps he didn’t choose
me. What he means by good, my good, is another problem. He is capable of wanting me
to be happy, such a thing has been known, it appears. Or to serve a purpose. Or the
two at once! A little more explicitness on his part, since the initiative belongs
to him, might be a help, as well from his point of view as from the one he attributes
to me. Let the man explain himself and have done with it. It’s none of my business
to ask him
questions
, even if I knew how to reach him. Let him inform me once and for all what exactly
it is he wants from me, for me. What he wants is my good, I know that, at least I
say it, in the hope of bringing him round to a more reasonable frame of mind, assuming
he exists and, existing, hears me. But what good, there must be more than one. The
supreme perhaps. In a word let him enlighten me, that’s all I ask, so that I may at
least have the
satisfaction
of knowing in what sense I leave to be desired. If he wants me to say something,
for my good naturally, he has only to tell me what it is and I’ll let it out with
a roar straight away. It’s true he may have already told me a hundred times. Well,
let him make it a hundred and one, this time I’ll try and pay
attention
. But perhaps I malign him unjustly, my good master, perhaps he is not solitary like
me, not free like me, but
associated
with others, equally good, equally concerned with my welfare, but differing as to
its nature. Every day, up above, I mean up above me, from one set hour to another
set hour,
everything there being set and settled except what is to be done with me, they assemble
to discuss me. Or perhaps it’s a meeting of deputies, with instructions to elaborate
a tentative
agreement
. The fact of my continuing, while they are thus engaged, to be what I have always
been is naturally preferable to a lame resolution, voted perhaps by a majority of
one, or drawn from an old hat. They too are unhappy, all this time, each one to the
best of his capacity, because all is not well with me. And now enough of that. If
that doesn’t mollify them so much the worse for me, I can still conceive of such a
thing. But one more
suggestion
before I forget and go on to serious matters. Why don’t they wash their hands of
me and set me free? That might do me good. I don’t know. Perhaps then I could go silent,
for good and all. Idle talk, idle talk, I am free, abandoned. All for nothing again.
Even Mahood has left me, I’m alone. All this business of a labour to accomplish, before
I can end, of words to say, a truth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end,
of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before
I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in the hope it
would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a
road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting
lost, but somehow in the long run making headway. All lies. I have nothing to do,
that is to say nothing in particular. I have to speak, whatever that means. Having
nothing to say, no words but the words of others, I have to speak. No one compels
me to, there is no one, it’s an accident, a fact. Nothing can ever exempt me from
it, there is nothing, nothing to discover, nothing to recover, nothing that can lessen
what remains to say, I have the ocean to drink, so there is an ocean then. Not to
have been a dupe, that will have been my best possession, my best deed, to have been
a dupe, wishing I wasn’t, thinking I wasn’t, knowing I was, not being a dupe of not
being a dupe. For any old thing, no, that doesn’t work, that should work, but it doesn’t.
Labyrinthine torment that can’t be grasped, or limited, or felt, or suffered, no,
not even suffered, I
suffer all wrong too, even that I do all wrong too, like an old turkey-hen dying on
her feet, her back covered with chickens and the rats spying on her. Next instalment,
quick. No cries, above all no cries, be urbane, a credit to the art and code of dying,
while the others cackle, I can hear them from here, like the crackling of thorns,
no, I forgot, it’s impossible, it’s myself I hear, howling behind my dissertation.
So not any old thing. Even Mahood’s stories are not any old thing, though no less
foreign, to what, to that unfamiliar native land of mine, as
unfamiliar
as that other where men come and go, and feel at home, on tracks they have made themselves,
in order to visit one another with the maximum of convenience and dispatch, in the
light of a choice of luminaries pissing on the darkness turn about, so that it is
never dark, never deserted, that must be
terrible.
So be it. Not any old thing, but as near as no matter. Mahood. Before him there were
others, taking themselves for me, it must be a sinecure handed down from generation
to generation, to judge by their family air. Mahood is no worse than his predecessors.
But before executing his portrait, full length on his surviving leg, let me note that
my next vice-exister will be a billy in the bowl, that’s final, with his bowl on his
head and his arse in the dust, plump down on thousand-breasted Tellus, it’ll be softer
for him. Faith that’s an idea, yet another, mutilate, mutilate, and perhaps some day,
fifteen generations hence, you’ll succeed in beginning to look like yourself, among
the passers-by. In the meantime it’s Mahood, this caricature is he. What if we were
one and the same after all, as he affirms, and I deny? And I been in the places where
he says I have been, instead of having stayed on here, trying to take advantage of
his absence to unravel my tangle? Here, in my domain, what is Mahood doing in my domain,
and how does he get here? There I am launched again on the same old hopeless business,
there we are face to face, Mahood and I, if we are twain, as I say we are. I never
saw him, I don’t see him, he has told me what he is like, what I am like, they have
all told me that, it must be one of their principal functions. It isn’t enough that
I should know
what I’m doing, I must also know what I’m looking like. This time I am short of a
leg. And yet it appears I have rejuvenated. That’s part of the programme. Having brought
me to death’s door, senile gangrene, they whip off a leg and yip off I go again, like
a young one, scouring the earth for a hole to hide in. A single leg and other distinctive
stigmata to go with it, human to be sure, but not exaggeratedly, lest I take fright
and refuse to nibble. He’ll resign himself in the end, he’ll own up in the end, that’s
the watchword. Let’s try him this time with a hairless wedge-head, he might fancy
that, that kind of talk. With the
solitary
leg in the middle, that might appeal to him. The poor bastards. They could clap an
artificial anus in the hollow of my hand and still I wouldn’t be there, alive with
their life, not far short of a man, just barely a man, sufficiently a man to have
hopes one day of being one, my avatars behind me. And yet sometimes it seems to me
I am there, among the incriminated scenes, tottering under the attributes peculiar
to the lords of creation, dumb with howling to be put out of my misery, and all round
me the spinach blue rustling with satisfaction. Yes, more than once I almost took
myself for the other, all but suffered after his fashion, the space of an instant.
Then they uncorked the champagne. One of us at last! Green with anguish! A real little
terrestrial! Choking in the chlorophyll! Hugging the slaughterhouse walls! Paltry
priests of the irrepressible ephemeral, how they must hate me. Come, my lambkin, join
in our gambols, it’s soon over, you’ll see, just time to frolic with a lambkinette,
that’s jam. Love, there’s a carrot never fails, I always had to thread some old bodkin.
And that’s the kind of jakes in which I sometimes dreamt I dwelt, and even let down
my trousers. Mahood himself nearly codded me more than once. I’ve been he an instant,
hobbling through a nature which, it is only fair to say, was on the barren side and,
what is more, it is only just to add, tolerably deserted to begin with. After each
thrust of my crutches I stopped, to devour a narcotic and measure the distance gone,
the distance yet to go. My head is there too, broad at the base, its slopes denuded,
culminating in