The New York Trilogy

by Paul Auster

  Strange things happened to me after that. I returned to Paris, but once there I found myself with nothing to do. I didn’t want to look up any of the people I had seen before, and I didn’t have the courage to go back to New York. I became inert, a thing that could not move, and little by little I lost track of myself. If I am able to say anything about this period at all, it is only because I have certain documentary evidence to help me. The visa stamps in my passport, for example; my airplane ticket, my hotel bill, and so on. These things prove to me that I remained in Paris for more than a month. But that is very different from remembering, and in spite of what I know, I still find it impossible. I see things that happened, I encounter images of myself in various places, but only at a distance, as though I were watching someone else. None of it feels like memory, which is always anchored within; it’s out there beyond what I can feel or touch, beyond anything that has to do with me. I have lost a month from my life, and even now it is a difficult thing for me to confess, a thing that fills me with shame.

  A month is a long time, more than enough time for a man to come apart. Those days come back to me in fragments when they come at all, bits and pieces that refuse to add up. I see myself falling down drunk on the street one night, standing up, staggering towards a lamppost, and then vomiting all over my shoes. I see myself sitting in a movie theater with the lights on and watching a crowd of people file out around me, unable to remember the film I had just seen. I see myself prowling the rue Saint-Denis at night, picking out prostitutes to sleep with, my head burning with the thought of bodies, an endless jumble of naked breasts, naked thighs, naked buttocks. I see my cock being sucked, I see myself on a bed with two girls kissing each other, I see an enormous black woman spreading her legs on a bidet and washing her cunt. I will not try to say that these things are not real, that they did not happen. It’s just that I can’t account for them. I was fucking the brains out of my head, drinking myself into another world. But if the point was to obliterate Fanshawe, then my binge was a success. He was gone—and I was gone along with him.

  The end, however, is clear to me. I have not forgotten it, and I feel lucky to have kept that much. The entire story comes down to what happened at the end, and without that end inside me now, I could not have started this book. The same holds for the two books that come before it, City of Glass and Ghosts. These three stories are finally the same story, but each one represents a different stage in my awareness of what it is about. I don’t claim to have solved any problems. I am merely suggesting that a moment came when it no longer frightened me to look at what had happened. If words followed, it was only because I had no choice but to accept them, to take them upon myself and go where they wanted me to go. But that does not necessarily make the words important. I have been struggling to say goodbye to something for a long time now, and this struggle is all that really matters. The story is not in the words; it’s in the struggle.

  One night, I found myself in a bar near the Place Pigalle. Found is the term I wish to use, for I have no idea of how I got there, no memory of entering the place at all. It was one of those clip joints that are common in the neighborhood: six or eight girls at the bar, the chance to sit at a table with one of them and buy an exorbitantly priced bottle of champagne, and then, if one is so inclined, the possibility of coming to a certain financial agreement and retiring to the privacy of a room in the hotel next door. The scene begins for me as I’m sitting at one of the tables with a girl, just having received the bucket of champagne. The girl was Tahitian, I remember, and she was beautiful: no more than nineteen or twenty, very small, and wearing a dress of white netting with nothing underneath, a crisscross of cables over her smooth brown skin. The effect was superbly erotic. I remember her round breasts visible in the diamondshaped openings, the overwhelming softness of her neck when I leaned over and kissed it. She told me her name, but I insisted on calling her Fayaway, telling her that she was an exile from Typee and that I was Herman Melville, an American sailor who had come all the way from New York to rescue her. She hadn’t the vaguest idea of what I was talking about, but she continued to smile, no doubt thinking me crazy as I rambled on in my sputtering French, unperturbed, laughing when I laughed, allowing me to kiss her wherever I liked.

  We were sitting in an alcove in the corner, and from my seat I was able to take in the rest of the room. Men came and went, some popping their heads through the door and leaving, some staying for a drink at the bar, one or two going to a table as I had done. After about fifteen minutes, a young man came in who was obviously American. He seemed nervous to me, as if he had never been in such a place before, but his French was surprisingly good, and as he fluently ordered a whiskey at the bar and started talking to one of the girls, I saw that he meant to stay for a while. I studied him from my little nook, continuing to run my hand along Fayaway’s leg and to nuzzle her with my face, but the longer he stood there, the more distracted I became. He was tall, athletically built, with sandy hair and an open, somewhat boyish manner. I guessed his age at twenty-six or twenty-seven—a graduate student, perhaps, or else a young lawyer working for an American firm in Paris. I had never seen this man before, and yet there was something familiar about him, something that stopped me from turning away: a brief scald, a weird synapse of recognition. I tried out various names on him, shunted him through the past, unravelled the spool of associations—but nothing happened. He’s no one, I said to myself, finally giving up. And then, out of the blue, by some muddled chain of reasoning, I finished the thought by adding: and if he’s no one, then he must be Fanshawe. I laughed out loud at my joke. Ever on the alert, Fayaway laughed with me. I knew that nothing could be more absurd, but I said it again: Fanshawe. And then again: Fanshawe. And the more I said it, the more it pleased me to say it. Each time the word came out of my mouth, another burst of laughter followed. I was intoxicated by the sound of it; it drove me to a pitch of raucousness, and little by little Fayaway seemed to grow confused. She had probably thought I was referring to some sexual practice, making some joke she couldn’t understand, but my repetitions had gradually robbed the word of its meaning, and she began to hear it as a threat. I looked at the man across the room and spoke the word again. My happiness was immeasurable. I exulted in the sheer falsity of my assertion, celebrating the new power I had just bestowed upon myself. I was the sublime alchemist who could change the world at will. This man was Fanshawe because I said he was Fanshawe, and that was all there was to it. Nothing could stop me anymore. Without even pausing to think, I whispered into Fayaway’s ear that I would be right back, disengaged myself from her wonderful arms, and sauntered over to the pseudo-Fanshawe at the bar. In my best imitation of an Oxford accent, I said:

  “Well, old man, fancy that. We meet again.”

  He turned around and looked at me carefully. The smile that had been forming on his face slowly diminished into a frown. “Do I know you?” he finally asked.

  “Of course you do,” I said, all bluster and good humor. “The name’s Melville. Herman Melville. Perhaps you’ve read some of my books.”

  He didn’t know whether to treat me as a jovial drunk or a dangerous psychopath, and the confusion showed on his face. It was a splendid confusion, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

  “Well,” he said at last, forcing out a little smile, “I might have read one or two.”

  “The one about the whale, no doubt.”

  “Yes. The one about the whale.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, nodding pleasantly, and then put my arm around his shoulder. “And so, Fanshawe,” I said, “what brings you to Paris this time of year?”

  The confusion returned to his face. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t catch that name.”

  “Fanshawe.”

  “Fanshawe?”

  “Fanshawe. F-A-N-S-H-A-W-E.”

  “Well,” he said, relaxing into a broad grin, suddenly sure of himself again, “that’s the problem right there. You’ve mixed me up with someone else.
My name isn’t Fanshawe. It’s Stillman. Peter Stillman.”

  “No problem,” I answered, giving him a little squeeze. “If you want to call yourself Stillman, that’s fine with me. Names aren’t important, after all. What matters is that I know who you really are. You’re Fanshawe. I knew it the moment you walked in. ‘There’s the old devil himself,’ I said. ‘I wonder what he’s doing in a place like this?’ “

  He was beginning to lose patience with me now. He removed my arm from his shoulder and backed off. “That’s enough,” he said. “You’ve made a mistake, and let’s leave it at that. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  “Too late,” I said. “Your secret’s out, my friend. There’s no way to hide from me now.”

  “Leave me alone,” he said, showing anger for the first time. “I don’t talk to lunatics. Leave me alone, or there’ll be trouble.”

  The other people in the bar couldn’t understand what we were saying, but the tension had become obvious, and I could feel myself being watched, could feel the mood shift around me. Stillman suddenly seemed to panic. He shot a glance at the woman behind the bar, looked apprehensively at the girl beside him, and then made an impulsive decision to leave. He pushed me out of his way and started for the door. I could have let it go at that, but I didn’t. I was just getting warmed up, and I didn’t want my inspiration to be wasted. I went back to where Fayaway was sitting and put a few hundred francs on the table. She feigned a pout in response. “C’est mon frère,” I said. “Il est fou. Je dois le poursuivre.” And then, as she reached for the money, I blew her a kiss, turned around, and left.

  Stillman was twenty or thirty yards ahead of me, walking quickly down the street. I kept pace with him, hanging back to avoid being noticed, but not letting him move out of sight. Every now and then he looked back over his shoulder, as though expecting me to be there, but I don’t think he saw me until we were well out of the neighborhood, away from the crowds and commotion, slicing through the quiet, darkened core of the Right Bank. The encounter had spooked him, and he behaved like a man running for his life. But that was not difficult to understand. I was the thing we all fear most: the belligerent stranger who steps out from the shadows, the knife that stabs us in the back, the speeding car that crushes us to death. He was right to be running, but his fear only egged me on, goaded me to pursue him, made me rabid with determination. I had no plan, no idea of what I was going to do, but I followed him without the slightest doubt, knowing that my whole life hinged on it. It is important to stress that by now I was completely lucid—no wobbling, no drunkenness, utterly clear in my head. I realized that I was acting outrageously. Stillman was not Fanshawe—I knew that. He was an arbitrary choice, totally innocent and blank. But that was the thing that thrilled me— the randomness of it, the vertigo of pure chance. It made no sense, and because of that, it made all the sense in the world.

  A moment came when the only sounds in the street were our footsteps. Stillman looked back again and finally saw me. He began moving faster, breaking into a trot. I called after him: “Fanshawe.” I called after him again: “It’s too late. I know who you are, Fanshawe.” And then, on the next street: “It’s all over, Fanshawe. You’ll never get away.” Stillman said nothing in response, did not even bother to turn around. I wanted to keep talking to him, but by now he was running, and if I tried to talk, it would only have slowed me down. I abandoned my taunts and went after him. I have no idea how long we ran, but it seemed to go on for hours. He was younger than I was, younger and stronger, and I almost lost him, almost didn’t make it. I pushed myself down the dark street, passing the point of exhaustion, of sickness, frantically hurtling toward him, not allowing myself to stop. Long before I reached him, long before I even knew I was going to reach him, I felt as though I was no longer inside myself. I can think of no other way to express it. I couldn’t feel myself anymore. The sensation of life had dribbled out of me, and in its place there was a miraculous euphoria, a sweet poison rushing through my blood, the undeniable odor of nothingness. This is the moment of my death, I said to myself, this is when I die. A second later, I caught up to Stillman and tackled him from behind. We went crashing to the pavement, the two of us grunting on impact. I had used up all my strength, and by now I was too short of breath to defend myself, too drained to struggle. Not a word was said. For several seconds we grappled on the sidewalk, but then he managed to break free of my grip, and after that there was nothing I could do. He started pounding me with his fists, kicking me with the points of his shoes, pummelling me all over. I remember trying to protect my face with my hands; I remember the pain and how it stunned me, how much it hurt and how desperately I wanted not to feel it anymore. But it couldn’t have lasted very long, for nothing else comes back to me. Stillman tore me apart, and by the time he was finished, I was out cold. I can remember waking up on the sidewalk and being surprised that it was still night, but that’s the extent of it. Everything else is gone.

  For the next three days I didn’t move from my hotel room. The shock was not so much that I was in pain, but that it would not be strong enough to kill me. I realized this by the second or third day. At a certain moment, lying there on the bed and looking at the slats of the closed shutters, I understood that I had lived through it. It felt strange to be alive, almost incomprehensible. One of my fingers was broken; both temples were gashed; it ached even to breathe. But that was somehow beside the point. I was alive, and the more I thought about it, the less I understood. It did not seem possible that I had been spared.

  Later that same night, I wired Sophie that I was coming home.

  9

  I am nearly at the end now. There is one thing left, but that did not happen until later, until three more years had passed. In the meantime, there were many difficulties, many dramas, but I do not think they belong to the story I am trying to tell. After my return to New York, Sophie and I lived apart for almost a year. She had given up on me, and there were months of confusion before I finally won her back. From the vantage point of this moment (May 1984), that is the only thing that matters. Beside it, the facts of my life are purely incidental.

  On February 23, 1981, Ben’s baby brother was born. We named him Paul, in memory of Sophie’s grandfather. Several months later (in July) we moved across the river, renting the top two floors of a brownstone house in Brooklyn. In September, Ben started kindergarten. We all went to Minnesota for Christmas, and by the time we got back, Paul was walking on his own. Ben, who had gradually taken him under his wing, claimed full credit for the development.

  As for Fanshawe, Sophie and I never talked about him. This was our silent pact, and the longer we said nothing, the more we proved our loyalty to each other. After I returned the advance money to Stuart Green and officially stopped writing the biography, we mentioned him only once. That came on the day we decided to live together again, and it was couched in strictly practical terms. Fanshawe’s books and plays had continued to produce a good income. If we were going to stay married, Sophie said, then using the money for ourselves was out of the question. I agreed with her. We found other ways to earn what we had to and placed the royalty money in trust for Ben—and subsequently for Paul as well. As a final step, we hired a literary agent to manage the business of Fanshawe’s work: requests to perform plays, reprint negotiations, contracts, whatever needed to be done. To the extent that we were able to act, we did. If Fanshawe still had the power to destroy us, it would only be because we wanted him to, because we wanted to destroy ourselves. That was why I never bothered to tell Sophie the truth—not because it frightened me, but because the truth was no longer important. Our strength was in our silence, and I had no intention of breaking it.

  Still, I knew that the story wasn’t over. My last month in Paris had taught me that, and little by little I learned to accept it. It was only a matter of time before the next thing happened. This seemed inevitable to me, and rather than deny it anymore, rather than delude myself with the thought that I coul
d ever get rid of Fanshawe, I tried to prepare myself for it, tried to make myself ready for anything. It is the power of this anything, I believe, that has made the story so difficult to tell. For when anything can happen—that is the precise moment when words begin to fail. To the degree that Fanshawe became inevitable, that was the degree to which he was no longer there. I learned to accept this. I learned to live with him in the same way I lived with the thought of my own death. Fanshawe himself was not death—but he was like death, and he functioned as a trope for death inside me. If not for my breakdown in Paris, I never would have understood this. I did not die there, but I came close, and there was a moment, perhaps there were several moments, when I tasted death, when I saw myself dead. There is no cure for such an encounter. Once it happens, it goes on happening; you live with it for the rest of your life.