by Milan Fust
"Well, I never! You are an amazing man, Captain. Aren't you curious at all? I've been saving this letter for you for four years and now you don't even look at it."
"Listen, if you held on to it for so long, it can't be that urgent."
"I guess you are right. I'm beginning to see how you operate. It's the way to amass a fortune."
"Why don't you try it sometime," I said with a laugh.
The fact of the matter was that when I left I did not leave a forwarding address. Only one or two people knew where I was going, the rest didn't bother with me after that. In short, I cut all ties, eliminated even the possibility of further contact.
And now I should read this letter? When I knew the second I saw it that it was my wife's letter?
It was quite obvious, for though the address on the envelope was typed, it bore a Barcelona postmark. And since I had no one in Spain (and since I heard from various sources that that's where she went and settled somewhere near Madrid), I could be quite sure the letter came from her.
She always talked about Barcelona and said how much she liked that city.
But I wasn't going to read another letter from her. I knew well enough, of course, that she would write, but there was no reason for me to write back, there was no unfinished business between us. Let us just say I ceased to exist and anything having to do with us ceased, too. As if death itself tore us asunder, utterly and irreversibly.
And that's why I tossed it in my briefcase, without any hesitation. I'll burn it upstairs, I thought—it couldn't be sent back, there was no return address on it. I noticed that, too, right away. But to tear it up before this bloke's eyes? No, no, he'd love that too much.
He was much too interested in my affairs as it was.
"Well, did you get married over there?"
"What do you mean get married? I am married, my friend."
"Married? How is that?"
"Nohow; never mind."
And then, finally, he got offended. He puffed a little and got up.
People do keep track of your affairs, it seems. He knew I got divorced. What is more, wherever I went people were after her; almost automatically, and just about everywhere, they would have me produce her, though many of them didn't know who she was and I certainly never talked about her.
As strange as it sounds, that is exactly what happened. And as soon as I set foot in Europe.
And it went on, too. I had hardly arrived in Paris, and it was her again I had to deal with. One day my attorney rang me up and told me there was some money deposited in my name at one of the banks, credited to me, it seems, in connection with some shipping transaction. "Shipping transaction?" I asked. He had no idea what it could be.
I didn't, either; I had no recollection of ever being involved in any such transaction. And though the next day I got a note from the bank saying I had money there earning interest, I was none the wiser for it. But the fact is I always liked to have a clear picture of all my business affairs, and I don't allow even unimportant matters to slide.
I remember the incident quite well; it was early in the morning, about a month after my arrival in Paris; I was still living in a hotel then. Sitting on my bed, I kept staring at the letter with the feeling that again something has surfaced from the past. But what, what could it be? I never had anything to do with a public auction, not in Paris, at any rate, though that, too, was mentioned in the letter.
Naturally, one never thinks of the simplest solution.
"Why don't you give a call to the firm that we referred to in our letter? You have the paper in front of you, just read off the name." This is what an insolent officer told me when I telephoned the bank. (The French can be quite arrogant, especially with foreigners.) And you can imagine my surprise when I called up the firm and a voice said this to me, these very precise words:
"Hello, Tannenbaum here; who is this and how can I help you?"
I almost fell off my bed.
"You don't say," I said. "The young Monsieur Tannenbaum, in person, really?"
It's when you are embarrassed that you ask such dumb questions. But he replied with the same flawless composure as before.
"Who else would I be? What a question. I can only be me, in my own person. What can I do for you, sir?"
A philospher, why of course. After these words there could be no doubt.
But how did he get here; how did he just walk into my brain? I never did want him there. If, by chance, I ever did think of him, I began whistling. Him I never paid any attention to. And now, all of a sudden, he was here. What for, I wondered.
But as long as we were in this thing, let's see what happens. I tried to present my little problem to him, and interestingly enough, I didn't have to explain much, he knew right away what I was getting at. As it turned out, the young man remembered us very well.
"Ah, that petite woman," he cried cheerfully, "the one who first went to London, and from there to Spain, right?"
On and on he went, but the gist of the matter was this: to cover the storage charge, he was forced to auction off my belongings, the furniture we had stored with them before we moved to London.
"It was quite simple, sir," he explained: "the storage fee was not paid, there was no one to notify, so the proceeds from the auction were used to settle the account . . ." Or rather, the remaining modest balance was deposited in a bank, and I can collect that money now—that's what the letter was referring to.
"To Madame's odds and ends," the young man averred, who in the intervening years had apparently become fully engaged in the shipping business. But what interested me now was that word, that phrase. Not only because he was so high-handed about the affair, degrading my one-time property to odds and ends, but because he automatically assumed that they were my wife's odds and ends. This made me sit up and take notice.
"And you had the heart to auction off your lover's things?" I asked quietly, still in my most affable manner. This startled him somewhat, naturally, and his voice took on an altogether different tone.
"What was that you said, sir?"
"Look here," I said, "let's just stop pretending, I am getting a little tired of this. You were my former wife's lover, that much we all know. Still, you could not bring yourself to hold on a little longer to her few sticks of furniture, the pitiful 'odds and ends,' as you so chivalrously put it.
"Don't act innocent with me," I continued peremptorily, "I am fully informed. I know you were a philosopher, I knew you two exchanged letters. Just stop prattling. The slippers, the birdies—I know all about them, too. My wife confessed everything in the end."
"Wha . . . what?" he flared up. And I felt he was about to tear into the receiver.
But then he burst out laughing.
"How interesting . . . Really. Would you mind telling me exactly what your wife confessed?"
I said nothing. He kept guffawing.
"Too bad I didn't hear that confession . . . There must be some confusion here, my dear sir, a case of mistaken identity, I am afraid. Fact is I would have loved to seduce your wife but couldn't . . . She didn't let me . . .
"Are you still there?" he yelled after a short pause.
"Go on," I said impassively.
"Will you refresh her memory, then, if it has indeed become that feeble, and write to her in Spain that she has me confused with another man; she did not deceive you with me—I am someone else. I am the one who was in love with her, who was mad about her, and whom she kept leading by the nose. For she was a nervy little woman, you can tell her I said so, tell her I used that very word . . . That's my message to her. Am I glad I have nothing more to do with your wife ... I would have wrung her neck if I had the chance—why shouldn't I have auctioned off her furniture?
"I tutored her, for free; should I also watch her furniture for her?
"And if you find all this offensive, sir" he concluded, "I shall have to meet your challenge—I am entirely at your command. Good day, sir." And with that elaborate flourish he hung up.
Should I have actually gone out and fought a duel with the man? Over someone who's gotten so far away from both of us? He didn't have his way with her, the poor chap. . . . One of the few who didn't. And for that I should bash in his head or he mine?
Yet all of this was besides the point. The real question was what to do with all that free time.
While I was still in South America, my plan for a long time was to have my friend Gregory Sanders move in with me in Paris. We would live quietly, like two devoted brothers, I thought. It was an agreeable plan, for I really liked the old man. Perhaps he was the only one about whom I can say this without uncertainty. . . . But life is so very strange: I realized this only after we parted ways, when I no longer saw him. Though the realization may have been due to something else as well: it was then that the old man's bad luck began to multiply.
What a life that was . . . Yet it was he who consoled me in his letters. There he was utterly alone in his old age; his son squandered much of his fortune and then ran off with some woman. And he himself was quite ill to boot. So I thought, why not bring him over to Paris—we'll have a chance to chat, he and I. This, at any rate, was my plan. And the following thoughts and recollections tumbled through my mind:
He once sent this letter to me in South America: "City of Hastings, July. Today a wasp flew into my room and headed straight for the electric fan you sent me earlier this summer. It got caught in the blade which then whirled it about, depositing it near my hand, on a book I happened to be reading. I took a real good look because something about the insect interested me. It was still alive, it was moving its feelers, it wanted to sting me still.
"But there was no resentment in the insect, none whatever. It did not berate itself or curse its fate, saying: why did I have to fly in through this window? It seemed the tiny creature did not distinguish between necessary and chance happenings . . . Thus, it did not torment itself with the futile conclusion that this or that happened through a fault of its own. For whatever did happen had to happen. In short, this creature judged even accidental occurrences to be inevitable . . . And this is what we must learn from it, because, apparently, this if how our world is run. We must somehow find our way back to this truth: we must learn to be more humble, my friend, learn to bow our head even deeper, lower it for good. It would do you, and me, a great deal of good to heed this lesson."
His words had such a profound effect on me, they assuaged my feelings of guilt and self-reproach to such extent, that it was at that moment I decided I was going to have him brought to me. And I won't deny it: I was rather pleased with myself for choosing, instead of some far more grandiose plan, this simple one. I was happy to know that I came this far: I knew now what I needed and what I was really after.
He wrote me yet another significant letter, right before his death, and for that I am even more thankful. This is what the letter said:
"What's so singular in all this is that no creature until now has come to the realization that I inhabit it . . . No one ever felt my life (the life of one Gregory Sanders, that is) to be his. The world has been around a long long time, yet never before has this happened. Then, at one point in the middle of the last century, it suddenly did. I was shocked into an awareness that not only am I here but I am he, no one else is. For this, you see, is the heart of the matter, this feeling of separateness and isolation. No one ever mistook himself for me, and never did I make such a mistake myself, although we are all alike in so many ways. In this one thing, however, we are not and never were—not in the beginning, not in the end. In this we were always utterly, fatally alone . . . and shall remain so forever. And that, my friend, is nature's great consolation. It's what Oriental societies immerse themselves in, and consider more desirable than the light of the sun. It's what they've been proclaiming and explaining for thousands of years. The insight is simple: Energy doesn't dissipate, life-forms keep recurring, except for that intimate feeling I have about me, the feeling that I am me—that is a unique, one-time thing. Only now can I appreciate the reverence in which they hold this insight. I know I couldn't come up with anything more profound myself."
There was one more thing: he asked not to berate his son, it would do no good; he himself no longer had an opinion about the boy, nor about anything else; people, things—it was all the same to him now. He'd suspended all judgment.
This letter of his, as I say, had a decisive influence on me during the years of silence. The main portion, too, but that postscript in particular. For what a relief it is to be free of a cherished conviction, especially if, at the same time, one would like to hold on to it to the bitter end. In time it can become an unbearable burden. For what is one to do with one's conviction. . . ? Finally I did tell him about my plan; I heard he was beginning to get better, and I, too, was getting ready for my return trip. But then, a few days later, on October fifth, he suddenly died.
It's as if my own ill-fated life story were making the selfsame point—that from now on I must live alone. Why, he himself told me as much in his letter: "This is your fate, it seems," he wrote. "Learn to live alone then." And he even added: "Totally, unrelievedly alone."
But what hurts me still is that I spent so little time with him while he was alive—him of all people I neglected. You spend your life troubling yourself with all kinds of riff-raff, and when it comes to the deserving few, you've run out of time. But perhaps that's the way it should be . . . It, too, is part of the overall scheme.
I just had to learn how to lead an idle life, that's all. But where was I going to find the thing that would fill out my days? That's when I started writing these notes, but they are a bother, too . . . Words are a burden, and for that reason alone I can't express myself decently. In short, it isn't easy not having to earn a living or worry about the future . . . especially when you no longer have a future to look forward to. . . . An antiquarian offered me a set of fine old telescopes and suggested that I gaze at the stars; another wanted to sell me a litter of Angora cats, assuring me that they were very quiet pets, virtually voiceless—ideal as companions. Both men had to be gotten rid of, though the star-gazer made me remember something. I always liked chemistry, had even studied it at one time; what is more, I began my second career down south with a small chemical firm. So in place of the telescopes I set up a well-equipped laboratory in my new home, in one of the small upstairs rooms. I had seen something like this once near Naples, in the house of some aristocrat, except I furnished mine much more cleverly, to suit my very own need. And before long I was in there, working.
It seemed right . . . perfect, in fact. Yes, being occupied is wonderful; and being like a student is even more splendid. To drift through time with not a care in the world; to be wrapped up in the tiniest tasks . . . But how very strange: it was as if it had only been yesterday that I put down my spoon at the table—as soon as lunch was over, I used to rush back to my room, to do nothing; I said I had to study but instead sneaked a smoke and just whiled away the time. And now it seemed as if I'd always done just that, as if I had idled away my whole life this way. It was surely gone—much of it, anyway.
No matter, I thought to myself, I'll pick up where I left off. That I was born to become a scholar I no longer doubted, it became more self-evident than ever. To be sure, I always knew it, but a wicked little fiend invariably distracted me: first there were all those dreams, then the harsh reality. But now, at last, it was different; studying gave me real pleasure, and everything connected with it: the solitary early-morning hours, that hard but rewarding, self-reliant solitude, when you know beforehand what work lies ahead, and when the time comes, that is precisely what you concentrate on, dismissing everything else. ... In short, things began to look up, but then I was stricken again. It was the same illness that gave me so much trouble down in South America: a chronic respiratory condition, the miserable legacy of my last sea voyage. I had a bad case of it this time, it wore me down completely—there were times I coughed the whole night through. So the same thing happened aga
in, the same wicked devil stepped in: you'd better chuck the whole thing. I really had to; fumes and such were bad for my lungs. But what my esteemed doctors wanted was not to my liking, either. I caught my sickness on the sea; should I now go to the Riviera? Anyway, I don't like to be out on a promenade early in the morning, clutching a walking stick.
But then one of the younger physicians had an excellent idea. Why didn't I visit the country now and then? I was my own man, after all, with all that free time on my hands. I could go anywhere, stay if I so desired or return and go someplace else; I could seek out the very best places. The man was absolutely right. Why shouldn't I roam the world a little? It would do me so much good: new surroundings for my disposition, a change of air for my lungs. And that's just what happened. I woke up one morning and realized I was breathing free again. The little doctor was proven right, what do you know . . . But sometimes the assistant does outshine the professor, such things do happen.
As far as my spirits were concerned, I felt renewed. All the more as I'd never before had the luxury of traveling about without set plans or schedules. I had always been in a hurry, always full of anxieties; and whatever I did want to see, I had to squeeze in quickly. Not this time, though. I had nothing particular in mind. Whatever came my way I looked at, what didn't, I left without regret. And I dare say this was like being buffeted and bathed by the spring wind.
When I arrived in a new place I didn't hit the streets, as before, or the market where there is always such a racket. I went up to my room to rest a bit, that's how I started now, or ensconsed myself in tiny out-of-the-way inns, hiding behind dark glass partitions or plants, preferring places high up from where I could take in the whole town. And sit motionless, like a statue. And what caught my attention at such times? Mere nothings, most probably. The wind or the rain; a trayful of cheese cake put in a window to cool; a man who may be the mayor; a bunch of girls . . . All these goings-on never did seem as strange as now. As if I had just tumbled down from a distant star. And couldn't stop laughing.
