Fiasco

by Imre Kertész

  “I’m not going to get myself banged up just for the sake of becoming a five-day wonder where you live!” I said.

  “Some hope!” Sas gave speedy reassurance. “These days it’s not so easy to get slammed into prison for a book.”

  “Whereas in the good old days!” Mijnheer Gruyn chortled in relief. “Do you remember when …”

  “Nowadays they deal with those matters in a much more civilized manner here,” Sas carried on unruffled.

  “Yes, so I hear everyone say,” the Mijnheer butted in. “Things are going very well here. The shop window displays are attractive, the people well-dressed … but where are all those classy Budapest women there were in the old days?”

  “They’re still here,” said Sas, “it’s just you who doesn’t notice them. You’re not the dashing hussar of seventeen years ago either, old fellow …”

  In short, the matter of my novel was finally drawing to a close, like a boring record. Sas offered a few more pieces of advice: I should write short stories and try to get a foothold in the literary magazines; that way they would grow used to me and might even start mentioning my name. Then I should join some literary group or other; it didn’t matter which one, he said, because those things were always unpredictable.

  “A literary group,” he patiently instructed me, “is like a wave: now cresting, then crashing down, but it always carries the alluvium with it, whether on the swell or in the trough, and in the end washes it up in some harbour.” He referred to the examples of several authors who had come safely to port that way, some quickly, others more slowly. Some had dropped out of the queue in the meantime, becoming suicides or giving up or ending up in a psychiatric home; but others had made it and, after thirty or forty years, it transpired that they were great writers and, what is more, precisely on account of works to which nobody had paid the slightest attention. From then on, if they were still alive, it was all nicknames, celebrations, and pampering, and there was as little they could do to alter that as they had been able to do about their previous neglect.

  “Or else,” he continued, “you have to hit the jackpot. In other words,” he said, “you have to keep an eye open for the issue, which is, so to say, just breaking the surface at the time. In that case it can happen that a previously unknown writer comes into vogue, because,” Sas said, “your book comes along at just the right time for someone, or somebodies, and they can make use of it either pro or contra, as a whipping-boy or a banner.”

  The Mijnheer related that it was not much different in the West, although there was no question that the market gave a free run to success. But then the tricks one had to devise in order to get it to surrender to “the besiegers.” One person had stripped naked at a reception for the queen, others set new speed records, or they were constantly divorcing and then remarrying, or they joined suspicious sects, or had themselves carted off to hospital with a drug overdose—all just to get their names into the newspapers. He himself, Mijnheer Van de Gruyn, was fed up with funny stories and with constantly having to repeat himself. He had a subject for a serious novel and had even announced it to his agent. The agent had not raised a single word of objection but had simply placed two contracts before him. One was for the usual humorous pieces, except that the fee was one-third higher than usual; the other was for a novel, for starvation wages, and with the additional rider that the agent retained the right, on being shown the first half of the finished manuscript, to break even this miserable contract.

  “I’m not saying that I won’t sign one day, but right now I can’t afford it.”

  “That’s the way it is,” Árpád Sas noted, “One can’t always do what one would like.”

  “Or else you have to pay the price,” added the Mijnheer. They had stopped speaking to me long ago. The two clever and worldly-wise men communed agreeably over the head of the mug sitting between them.

  By then I was no longer paying much attention to them either. The restaurant terrace had filled up, the autumn sunlight seemed just as languid and distraught as my straying concentration. Other scraps of sound began to mingle with the blur of conversation from Sas and Gerendás. Plates clattered, outside on the street a bus roared past now and again. On my left an elderly fellow with a d’Artagnan moustache and a resolutely bright-patterned necktie was sitting opposite a well-preserved lady with a ready smile.

  “I like some pictures,” the bloke said with a deeply meaningful glance, a sausage sandwich in his hand.

  “Ai laik djor myusik,” said the lady in fractured English with a smile that went far beyond the content of her utterance.

  “As I recall, two parcels were packed together,” a yapping voice came to my ears. It belonged to a diminutive old man in a circle of primped-up old ladies: with his enormous ears, his withered face, and the thin strands of hair twined into a crest on the crown of his head he resembled an irate hussar monkey.

  Meanwhile I overheard just in passing that Sas had invited himself to Amsterdam for the coming spring.

  “That may be precisely when I shan’t be at home,” said the Mijnheer. “Some time in the spring I have to fly to America. But of course one of the guest rooms …”

  The d’Artagnan moustache was taking a dip in the foaming white bubble bath of a glass of beer.

  A shrill cackling rose up at the old ladies’ table:

  “You always know best!” one of them shrieked, her faced flushed and trembling with indignation.

  “Indeed I do, I’m precisely informed about everything!” yelped the aged head male. The old crones suddenly settled down and fell silent. The old codger snorted loudly as he looked around at them, his lower row of dentures popping up threateningly before finding its place again.

  At our table, in the meantime, the discussion had passed on to Sas’s English minicar, which very likely needed some spare part or other. In the ensuing conversation the suggestion came up that he would try to translate one of Gerendás’ non-political humorous volumes and find a publisher for it:

  “At least I’ll learn some Dutch: I’ve already done translations from Norwegian. If I get stuck, you can help me,” he declared merrily.

  I looked about. Everything around me was seething and bubbling, a chirping twitter of voices from all sides, as if carried by invisible telegraph wires on invisible telegraph poles; ideas, offers, plans, and hopes jumped across like flashing electric discharges from one head to another. Yes, somehow I had been left out of this vast global metabolism of mass production and consumption, and at that moment I grasped that this was what had decided my fate. I am not a consumer, and I am not consumable.

  “I have to go,” I stood up.

  They did not try too hard to detain me.

  “Now I sit here at home.”

  “The end,” the old boy registered surprise.

  “There’s nothing more.”

  “And yet they did publish me in the end.”

  “Two years after that.”

  “4,900 copies.”

  “18,000 forints.”

  “Did you get any work done?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you make any progress?”

  “I pushed on a bit.”

  “What do you want for dinner?”

  “I don’t know. What’s the choice?”

  His wife told him.

  “All the same to me,” the old boy decided.

  Dénouement at the bistro: the guessing is going on as to who will go and who will stay, the old boy’s wife related.

  The stocktaking was over now: there was a surplus rather than a shortage (which was generally praiseworthy, except when the surplus went beyond a certain surplus which was grounds for a reprimand at the very least) (since a surplus of that magnitude could not come about from anything other than practising systematic fraud on consumers over a protracted period).

  The Old Biddy—or the ex-chief administrator, to give her her official title—had already put in an urgent request for what was in any case a long-overdue r
etirement, which the Company had immediately accepted (in a spirit of general equity) (and also in the hope of suppressing wider publicity) (which—the wider publicity, that is—would undoubtedly be more damaging for the Company than any surplus over and above a certain surplus) (which—the surplus, that is—was a profit after all) (it just had to be entered into the accounts) (of course).

  Now the regular consequence of the not exactly rare cases of this kind (when a chief administrator falls, that is to say) was that the staff too were transferred to other business concerns, usually to worse ones, occasionally to similar ones, and exceptionally to better ones (even though the majority of the staff) (as is clearly stated in labour law as enacted) (bore no responsibility for the inventory; indeed, were not supposed to have any knowledge of what it comprised) (nevertheless the long shadow of crime is cast on everybody) (most especially on those who have committed none).

  And so it was no more of a surprise than it was a secret that the tall, impassive, tight-lipped, blonde lady—the new chief administrator, to give her her official title—enveloped in scented clouds of perfume subtly blended with cherry brandy, a cigarette constantly dangling loosely from the corner of her mouth, was already preparing a blacklist in the office; and it was all the less a secret since she herself had declared in the presence of others, including the old boy’s wife, that she was “not going to work together with a bunch of thieving employees,” on account of which everything was uncertain, the only certainty being that the colleague known as Mrs. Boda (Ilona by first name) would be staying, whether thanks to the unpredictability of personal sympathies or to some more predictable factor (for instance, foresight on the part of the—by official title—new chief administrator for a time when fate might decree that she) (the—by official title—new chief administrator) (might likewise accumulate a surplus, in which case) (just possibly at the very height of the evening rush) (she too might take over in a white coat at the beer taps) (in the spirit of that way of the world—but by no means an unconditional necessity, let it be noted—that the earlier-cited highly dubious mind called eternal recurrence) (which naturally) (we must hope at least) (life always belies).

  “So now I’ll have to look out for where I’m going to end up,” the old boy’s wife closed her words (in conclusion, so to speak).

  “Oh yes,” the old boy said later on, “my mother telephoned.”

  “What did she want?” his wife asked.

  The old boy outlined the situation.

  “So we no longer have any hope of eventually exchanging apartments,” his wife said.

  “Not much, that’s for sure,” the old boy said, “For the time being,” he added (hastily).

  “We are going to live our entire life in this hole,” said his wife.

  “What can I do about it?” the old boy said. “I’m going out for a bit of a walk,” he also said besides that (later on).

  The next morning, the old boy’s wife was sitting tousle-haired, in her night-dress and slippers, on the sofa occupying the northwest corner of the room and, with a look that was still somewhat unsteady from an abrupt awakening, made the following statement:

  “I had an odd dream.”

  “Not that I remember it precisely in every detail,” she continued.

  “The main thing was that I was working in a huge catering complex. It was six storeys high and built of red brick, like a—hang on … like a prison. Yes, of course. Music was blaring out on every floor, mainly gypsy music. I was assigned to the roof terrace. It was packed. I was carrying dishes, those heavy Pyrex ones, I couldn’t get the twelve bottles of beer off my tray. The kitchen was on the ground floor; everything had to be carried up from there, and there were hardly any staff. We were behind with the orders, the people at the tables were bawling their demands, the ashtrays were full of cigarette butts, a lot of drink had been spilled on the grease-spattered tablecloths and was dripping onto the floor. There was such a peculiar reddish light, like you sometimes see at twilight in the summer. I was rushing from one customer to another, sweat was pouring off me, but at the same time I had the feeling that somehow none of it had anything to do with me.

  “Mrs. Boda dashed by me in some Hungarian costume—red waistcoat, a cap on her head, a skirt in the national colours over that enormous backside she has. The tray she was carrying was so big that she was almost collapsing under the weight. ‘So how do you manage all this with a winter snowstorm chucking it down?’ she pants. ‘That’s your problem,’ I tell her. Only then do I notice that her cap has slipped almost down to her ears, sweat is pouring out beneath it and has washed the rouge and mascara from her face. I started laughing so hard that I had to put my tray on the floor and sit down. I unlaced my shoes—I was wearing my usual high-cut work pumps—because something was pressing hard into my feet. Well if it wasn’t a ten-forint coin which must somehow have slipped into the shoe in the commotion. A fellow then starts bawling at me: ‘Just you wait, I’ll get some order around here. I’m going to put your name down in the complaint book!’ I knew that he was a deputy commander but not what sort of commander he was a deputy for. I say to him: ‘You would be doing me a favour, sir. I’ve already been given my death sentence,’ and show him the paper. He takes it and reads it, but while he is reading it his eyes start to boggle in a really odd way, as if they were going to drop out. ‘That’s different!,’ he said. He suddenly sprang to his feet, clicked his heels and seemed about to salute but instead gave a resigned wave of his hand. While he was doing this, he even winked at me, though it was somehow more in sadness.

  “At that point the new, blond chief administrator popped up from somewhere, her face white as chalk, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, and she hissed in my ear ‘You can’t resign! I have no staff and you have to keep going to the end of the day!’ I could even smell the stench of cherry brandy on her breath, just like in real life. I say to her: ‘And you can do me exactly the same favour. I’m free now, I already have my sentence!’ I took my apron off and hurled it at her feet along with the money that was rattling in the pocket. I was aware that this meant the ball was over. I had never in my life felt as light as I did then. I stepped over to the guardrail. I could see a vast crowd of people swarming down below, all wanting to get in to eat and drink. They were streaming along in long black lines, like ants, even in the far distance. It was already getting dark. The whole building was bustling and humming like a beehive; music was playing, people eating and drinking, and here and there some were already tight and warbling drunkenly. The staff was running ragged among them, slapping down the food and the drinks and then quickly disappearing down the stairs into the invisible kitchen. The food was flowing out from there faster and faster, and the oddest thing about it was that I knew all along that there were no staff in the kitchen, and it would only carry on until the bosses had cooked all the surplus …

  “I can’t tell it the way I would like to …

  “I’ve already forgotten many of the details …

  “I have to get dressed or I’m going to be late after all that …

  “It was actually a bad dream, but not as bad as having to wake up,” the old boy’s wife closed her words (in conclusion, so to speak).

  A little later the old boy was standing in front of his filing cabinet and thinking that today he would not think.

  In order to accomplish this plan (if, indeed, one may speak about a negative intention as a plan, and its occurrence as an accomplishment) (and what is more an intention which did not require any particular exertion on the old boy’s part since) (as we may already have mentioned)

  (he had acquired such a routine of having a think that at these times he was sometimes capable of creating the impression of being in thought even when he was not thinking, and even when he himself might have imagined that he was thinking) he produced from the back right—northwest—corner of the lower drawer of the filing cabinet a small box of sorts, a case with a beige-coloured, pockmarked surface, seemingly of pigs
kin.

  On an outer (undoubtedly at one and the same time also the upper) surface of the small, beige-coloured (pockmarked) box, in the middle of a round, embossed, stylized seal, in a beige darker than beige (one could say brown), the letter cluster MEDICOR could be made out (possibly the expedient abbreviation for a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals or medical instruments) (if we may place any reliance on pure logic, though) (in the absence of a more appropriate point of reference) (since the old boy himself had not the slightest idea when, why, or how it had come into his possession) (we can hardly do anything else), while its two inner compartments each contained a pack of regular playing cards (one blue and one red pack, each pack of fifty-two) (thus a total of one hundred and four) (red or blue playing cards) (each playing card bearing on its back surface a round, stylized seal, in a darker blue or red than that blue or red, in the middle of which was the letter cluster MEDICOR) (invariably in the matching colour) (it goes without saying).

  The old boy took out the blue pack (since that had been used less).

  After a brief shuffling the old boy laid out four sets of thirteen (thus a total of fifty-two) playing cards—dealing them singly and always right to left—before him on the table (to be more precise, the table, the only real table in the flat).

  This activity intimated, however surprising it may seem, that he was preparing to play bridge.

  For to play bridge one needs four people (no more and no less).

  Bridge is an English mental exercise, the old boy was in the habit of saying (for the sake of weaker spirits).

  Its essence (one might say, its specific feature) is that two partners sitting across from each other play against two other partners who also sit across from each other (which is why the English call it bridge) (though this altogether too simple explanation) (along with the English origin of the game) (has been placed in question) (by recent investigations in Hungary) (in accord with others abroad).