Fiasco

by Imre Kertész

  Thus at ten o’clock (or thereabouts), so to speak automatically and quite independently of the intensity of the thinking, or even of whether or not he thought at all (the old boy was so much into the routine of thinking that he was sometimes capable of creating the appearance of being in thought even when he was not thinking, possibly even when he himself might have imagined he was thinking), the old boy stood in front of the filing cabinet and thought.

  For at ten o’clock (or thereabouts) the old boy was left alone in the flat (which for him counted as a precondition for thinking), as his wife would earlier have set off on the long journey to the bistro on the city outskirts where, as a waitress, she earned her bread (and occasionally the old boy’s as well) (if fate so willed it) (and it certainly did so will it more than once).

  He had also done with his ablutions.

  He had also drunk his coffee (in the armchair to the west of the tile stove) (allowing for an adequate gap).

  He had also already smoked his first cigarette (pacing back and forth between the west-facing window and the closed entrance door to the east) (sidling a bit in the constricted space formed by the curtain made from an attractive print of manmade fibre covering the north wall of the hallway and the open bathroom door) (a door which was constantly open, for purposes of ventilation, since the bathroom was even more airless than the airless hallway).

  These were the preliminaries, if not reasons (though most certainly preconditions), for the old boy to be standing in front of the filing cabinet and thinking at ten o’clock (or thereabouts) on this splendid, warm, slightly humid but sunny late-summer (early autumnal) morning.

  The old boy had plenty of troubles and woes, so he had something to think about.

  But the old boy was not thinking about what he ought to have been thinking about.

  Yet we cannot assert that his most topical care—that is to say, the one he ought to have been thinking about—had not so much as entered his head.

  Indeed we cannot.

  “I’m just standing here in front of the filing cabinet and thinking,” the old boy was thinking, “instead of actually doing something.”

  Well certainly, the truth is—not to put too fine a point on it—that he should long ago have settled down to writing a book.

  For the old boy wrote books.

  That was his occupation.

  Or rather, to be more precise, things had so transpired that this had become his occupation (seeing as he had no other occupation).

  He had already written several books as well, most notably his first one: he had worked on that book (since at the time writing books had not yet become his occupation and he had written the book for no obvious reason, just on an arbitrary whim, so to say) for a good ten years, but had subsequently seen it into print only after a fair number of vicissitudes—and the passage of a further two years; for his second book just four years had proved adequate; and with his other books (since by then writing books had become his occupation, or rather—to be more precise—things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation) he merely devoted the time that was absolutely necessary to get them written, which was essentially a function of their thickness, because (since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) he had to aim to write books that were as thick as possible, out of carefully considered self-interest, since the fee for thicker books was fatter than that for slimmer books, for which—since they were slimmer—the fee was correspondingly slim (proportionate to their slimness) (regardless of their content) (in accordance with MoE Decree No.1/20.3.1970 concerning terms and conditions for publishing contracts and authors’ royalties, as issued by the Ministry of Education with the assent of the Treasury, the Ministry of Labour, the president of the National Board of Supply and Price Control, and the National Trades Union Council).

  Not that the old boy was burning with longing to write a new book.

  It had simply been quite some time since a new book of his had been published.

  If this were to continue, his very name would sink into oblivion.

  Which, in itself, would not have concerned the old boy in the slightest.

  Except that—and there was the rub—he had to be concerned about it in a certain respect.

  In not so many years he would reach the age at which he might become a retired writer (in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books) (though he could do, of course, if he still had the wish to).

  That, then—if he stripped away all the vague abstractions, and he was a stickler for the concrete and tangible—was the real goal of his literary labours.

  But in order not to have to write any more books, he would still have to write a few more.

  As many more as he could.

  For if he were not to lose sight of the real goal of his literary labours (that is, that he might become a retired writer, or in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books), then it was to be feared that the degree of oblivion into which his name was falling might affect—to wit, adversely—the factors determining his pension (about which factors he had no precise information, but he reasoned, perhaps not entirely illogically, that if a bigger royalty was to be expected for a thicker book, then more books should yield a bigger pension) (which, in the absence of more precise information, as has already been indicated, was just speculation, if not entirely illogical speculation, on the old boy’s part).

  So that was why the old boy had to be concerned, even if in other respects he was not in the slightest bit concerned about the fact in itself, that his very name was sinking into oblivion.

  Consequently, despite not burning with any longing to write a new book, he ought to have settled down to it long ago.

  Only he had no clue what. (This, incidentally, had already happened to him on other occasions, though only with any regularity since writing books had become his occupation (or rather—to be more precise—since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation).

  And yet it was a just a question of a single book.

  Any old book, just so long as it was a book (the old boy had long been aware that it made no difference at all what kind of book he wrote, good or bad—that had no bearing on the essence of the matter) (though as to what he meant by the essence the old boy either knew only too well or had no idea at all) (at least we are forced to this conclusion by the fact that, standing and thinking in front of the filing cabinet as he was, this thought, among others, was running through his head, though he gave not the slightest sign of wishing to clarify the essence of this notion—of the essence—if only for his own purposes).

  But 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.

  Despite having done truly everything in his power as far as he was concerned (for, as we have seen, at this very moment he was standing in front of the filing cabinet and thinking).

  In recent days he had already gone through every one of his old, older, or still older ideas, sketches and fragments, which he kept in a folder furnished with the title “Ideas, sketches, fragments,” but either they had proved unusable or else he had understood not a word of them (even though he himself had been the one who noted them down some time before, or some time before that, or still further back in time).

  He had even undertaken lengthy walks in the Buda hills (contemplative walks, as the old boy called them).

  All to no avail.

  Now, with his ideas, sketches, fragments, and walks (contemplative walks, as the old boy called them) in turn, one after the other, all having come to nought, all that was left was his papers.

  It had been a long time since he had seen his papers.

  Not that he wished to see them.

  He had even hidden them in the farthest depths of the filing cabinet in order to avoid somehow catching sight of
them.

  So the old boy had to be in a very tight spot indeed to be driven, for once, to place his ultimate trust—if previously it had been on a stroke of good fortune (which, for known reasons, we might better amend to the virtually impossible), then on the his ideas, sketches, fragments and his contemplative walks—in his papers.

  But at this juncture it is to be feared that if we do not break away a bit from the old boy’s train of thought, we shall never get to see in the clear light that is indispensable to what follows the subtle, but not inconsequential, difference between ideas, sketches, and fragments, on the one hand, and papers, on the other.

  It may be that we shall not be forced into too lengthy an explanation.

  Specifically, ideas, sketches, and fragments are only produced by someone who is driven to those resorts by imperative and pressing reasons; someone—like the old boy, for instance—whose occupation happens to be writing books (or rather, to be more precise, for whom things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation).

  Papers, on the other hand, everybody has. If not a number of them, then certainly one: a scrap of paper on which one noted down something at some time, presumably something important that was not to be forgotten and was carefully put away—and then forgotten about.

  Papers which preserve adolescent poems.

  Papers through which one sought a way out at a critical period.

  Possibly an entire diary.

  A house plan.

  A budget for a difficult year ahead. A letter one started to write.

  A message—“Back soon”—that may later have proved to be portentous.

  At the very least a bill, or the washing instructions torn off some undergarment, on the reverse side of which we discover minute, faded, unfamiliar and by now illegible lettering—our own handwriting.

  The old boy had a whole file of such papers.

  As we have perhaps already mentioned, he kept them in the farthest depths of the filing cabinet in order to avoid somehow catching sight of them.

  Now that he wanted the exact opposite—namely, to catch sight of them—he first had to lift out of the filing cabinet his typewriter, several files—among them one labelled “Ideas, sketches, fragments”—as well as two cardboard boxes which held a miscellany of objects (both necessary and unnecessary) (at all events only the occasion of the particular moment could assign a firm ascription to those designations) (as a result of which the old boy could never know for sure which of these objects were necessary and which unnecessary) (a distinction that became all the more unclear, as years might go by without his opening the lids of the two cardboard boxes and so casting even a single glance over the variety of objects, necessary and unnecessary alike).

  This, then, was his way of ensuring that he caught sight of the ordinary, grey, standard-sized (HS 5617) box file containing his papers.

  On the grey file, as a paperweight, so to say, squatted (or swaggered) (or sphered) (depending on the angle from which one looked at it) a likewise grey, albeit a darker grey, stone lump; in other words, a stone lump of irregular shape about which there is nothing reassuring that we might say (for instance, that it was a polygonal parallelepiped) (anything, in fact, that can soothingly reconcile the human soul to the world of objects, without its ever truly comprehending them, insofar as they at least match a familiar construct, thus allowing the matter to be left at that), seeing that this particular lump of stone, by virtue of its still extant or already worn-down edges, corners, roundings, bumps, grooves, fissures, projections, and indentations was as irregular as any lump of stone can be about which one cannot tell whether it is a mass from which a smaller lump has been broken off or, conversely, the remnant small lump of a larger stone mass, which in its turn—like a cliff face to a mountain—was in all certainty part of a still larger stone mass (but then every lump of stone instantly entices one into prehistoric deliberations) (which are not our aim) (difficult though they are to resist) (most especially when we happen to be dealing with a lump of stone which diverts our failing imagination toward ulterior) (or rather primordial) (beginnings, ends, masses and unities, so that in the end we retreat to our hopeless) (though it is at least invested with the alleged dignity of knowledge) (ignorance regarding which, for this lump of stone as for so many other things, one cannot tell whether it is a small lump broken off from a larger stone mass or, conversely, the remnant small lump of a larger stone mass).

  The situation pertaining at the start of our story, to which we have consistently adhered all along—not at all out of obstinacy, merely due to the ponderousness of the old boy’s decision-making process—has now been modified as follows:

  The old boy was standing in front of a wide-open filing cabinet, in whose half-emptied upper drawer only a grey box file, upon which, as a paperweight, so to say, a likewise grey, albeit a darker grey, lump of stone is visible, and was thinking:

  “I’m afraid,” he thought, “I’m finally going to have to get my papers out.”

  Which, by the way, is what he proceeded to do.

  And then, out of orderliness (for what other reason might we discern) (unless we take the shortage of space into consideration) (or perhaps as a way of setting a seal on the irrevocability of the decision), he tidied the typewriter, several files—among them one labelled “Ideas, sketches, fragments”—as well as the two cardboard boxes back into the upper drawer of the filing cabinet.

  It may be found to be more than sheer prolixity if we were now to report, as briefly as we can, on a further modification to the situation pertaining at the start of our story, already modified as it is:

  The old boy was standing in front of the filing cabinet and reading.

  “August 1973

  What has happened, has happened; I can do nothing about it now. I can do as little to alter my past as the future implacably ensuing from it, with which I am as yet unacquainted …”

  “Good God!” the old boy uttered aloud.

  “… Yet I move just as aimlessly within the narrow confines of my present as in the past or the time which is to come.

  How I got to this position, I don’t know. I simply frittered away my childhood. There are no doubt deep psychological explanations for why I should have been such a poor student in the lower classes at grammar school. (“You don’t even have the excuse of being dumb, because you have a brain, if only you would use it,” as my father often stressed.) Later, when I was fourteen and a half, through a conjunction of infinitely inane circumstances, I found myself looking down the barrel of a loaded machine gun for half an hour. It is practically impossible to describe those circumstances in normal language. Suffice it to say that I was standing in a crowd which was sweating fear, and who knows what scraps of thoughts, in the narrow courtyard of a police barracks, the one thing which all the individuals had in common being that we were all Jews. It was a crystal-clear, flower-scented summer evening, a full moon beaming up above us. The air was filled with a steady, low throbbing: obviously Royal Air Force formations flying from their Italian bases and headed for unknown targets, and the danger which threatened us was that if they should chance to drop a bomb on the barracks or its environs, the gendarmes would mow us down, as they phrased it. The ludicrous connections and imbecilic reasons on which that rested were, I felt then and also since then, absolutely negligible. The machine gun was mounted on a stand rather like the tripod of a cine camera. Standing behind it, on some sort of platform, was a gendarme with drooping Turanian moustache and impassively narrowed eyes. Fitted onto the end of the barrel was a ridiculous conical component, rather like the one on my grandmother’s coffee grinder. We waited. The drone’s rumbling grew louder and then again faded to a low buzz, only for each quiet interval to give way to a renewed intensification of the rumbling. Would it drop or wouldn’t it, that was the question. Gradually the gendarmes let the deranged good humour of gamblers take control of them. Is there any way I can describe the unforeseen good spirits
that, after I had got over my initial surprise, coursed through me as well? All I had to do to be able to enjoy the game, in a certain fashion, was to recognize the triviality of the stake. I grasped the simple secret of the universe that had been disclosed to me: I could be gunned down anywhere, at any time. It may be that this …”

  “For fuck’s sake” the old boy suddenly broke off his reading at this point as he lifted himself partway from his seat to reach over to the filing cabinet.

  The reason for this curious development lay in an event that, although it had not been anticipated, could not be categorized as unexpected (because it occurred regularly, practically every single day), but even the frequent repetition of the event had not robbed it, as we have seen, of its original, elemental impact on the old boy (indeed, quite the opposite, one might say).

  Obviously, it would be wrong for us to hold back on providing a satisfactory explanation.

  Still, this obligation undeniably puts us somewhat at a loss.

  It hardly serves as sufficient explanation for the words which erupted from the old boy’s mouth, for the mild cramps which constricted his stomach, or for the ever-so-slight nausea that shot up with a hurtling and a dizzying jolt, like some kind of elevator, through his chest and throat to slam against the back of his neck, for us merely to say—sticking to the bare facts—that a radio had been switched on above his head.

  It is not without purpose (indeed, we are admittedly thinking of easing our task as narrator) that we now leave the old boy’s papers where they are and, in their stead, open a not overly bulky book with a green half-cloth binding that the old boy had been leafing through frequently, and to great advantage, in recent days, evidencing especially appreciative relish for the following lines (on page 259 of the volume) (at which page, incidentally, the green half-bound volume fell open, almost as if by pre-arrangement, once the old boy had lifted it down from the bookshelf occupying the northeast corner of the room) (although, as a further safeguard to unerring location, the yellow bookmarking ribbon of artificial silk had also been inserted at the same page) (on which page the following lines) (for which the old boy evidenced especially appreciative relish) (may now be read by us too, bending over his shoulder, so to speak):