War & War

by Krasznahorkai, László

  17.

  It might be the first time this has happened in the USA but I haven’t come to start a new life, Korin protested right at the beginning, and not being able to decide whether his companion, who, having consumed his beer, had slumped heavily across the table, had heard him at all or was fast asleep, he put down his glass, leaned over and put his hand on the man’s shoulder, carefully looking around him and adding rather more quietly: I would rather like to finish the old one.

  18.

  He paid for everything: the hot meal at the Chinese, the vast amounts of beer they consumed, the cigarettes that followed, and even for the taxi that took them to the Upper West Side, absolutely everything, and, what’s more, with a joyful equanimity that was the sign of an inexpressible lightening of spirit, for, as he kept saying, he had seen no light at the end of the tunnel, the ground beneath his feet had begun remorselessly to shift, until the interpreter reappeared, and he could only thank him, and thank him again, for minutes on end, which made the whole thing even more intolerable, said the interpreter in the kitchen, for after that the words started pouring from his mouth and he told him everything in the smallest detail from A through to Z, from the point of leaving the airport, in such fine detail he practically described every step, the way he put one foot in front of the other, and the mind-blowing tedium! that was no exaggeration, he said, it really did take hours, because he started with the guy who allegedly knocked him flat before he had even reached the arrivals hall, then how he failed to find a bus that would have taken him downtown, but how he had found a taxi instead and who the driver was, and how his hand was on his groin all the way into Manhattan, and then some strange business about something he should have seen through the window on the journey but didn’t, and so they proceeded, no joking, yard by yard, missing nothing on the way, into Manhattan, and then what it was like at the hotel, seriously, going through each item of furniture and every little thing he did through the days he spent there, how he didn’t dare leave the room though he eventually did so in order to buy some bananas, and that’s no joke either, laughed the interpreter leaning on the kitchen table, though it sounds like a joke, but believe me, it wasn’t, that’s the kind of guy this guy really was, and he managed to find his way into some kind of prison too, telling me about iron bars, and how he escaped from there, in other words he is utterly screwed up, his head’s screwed up, you can see it in his eyes, he’s some kind of word nut, an absolute blabbermouth, and, what’s more, he has a constant theme, to which he keeps returning, that he has come here to die, and because of this, he says, though it’s an innocent enough matter, he has started to feel a bit uncomfortable with it, because though this spiel about dying is probably part shit, it is, in the end, not altogether to be ignored, because even though the guy looks innocent you have to take such things seriously, so that even she, he said pointing to his lover across the table, has to keep her eyes on him all the time, which is not to say there is any cause for anxiety for if there were he wouldn’t have allowed the guy in, no, there isn’t, for this guy was simply—and he would, said the interpreter, swear on it if he had to—talking out of his ass and you couldn’t take anything he said seriously, though one could never be too careful, there’s always that chance in a thousand, and what happens then, what if the guy happens to do it here at his place, the interpreter sucked his teeth, that wouldn’t be nice, but what the fuck else was he to do, for just this morning everything had looked hopeless, he couldn’t get a hundred together for the evening, and now, if you please, it’s not even three o’clock yet and here are six sweet hundred-dollar bills, a full Chinese meal, plus fifteen beers, a pack of Marlboros, not at all bad going given his black mood that morning, seeing that it had all dropped into his lap, just like that, this guy with his six hundred, this little moneybags, grinned the interpreter, that’s six hundred dollars a month, which is nothing to sneeze at, not a sum you can just say No to, because, after all, what’s the situation, the guy crashes here, said the interpreter, giving a wide yawn and leaning back in his chair, and it’ll be all right, he’ll survive, and this guy, Korin, is not going to get under his feet, since his needs seemed to be minimal, meaning a table to work at, a chair, a bed to sleep on, a sink, and a few common household items, that was all he wanted, no more, and he knows he has been provided with all these things, and he can’t thank him enough for them, or stop telling him how he has relieved him of a great burden, and you can have enough of this shit, he said, he had no wish to hear it all again, so he had left Korin in the back room, which is where he had stayed, alone, running his eyes over and over the place, this back room, his room, he had said aloud, but not too loud, not so that Mr. Sárváry and his partner should hear him, for, really, he didn’t want to be a nuisance to anyone, nor would he, he decided, be a nuisance, then sat down on the bed, got up again, went over to the window, then sat back down on the bed once more, before getting up again, and so it went on for several minutes, since the feeling of joy continued welling up in him, overwhelming him, so time and again he had to sit down or stand up and eventually achieved complete happiness by pulling the table ever so gently over to the window, turning it so the light should fall fully on it, drew up the chair, then sat on the bed and stared at the table, at the arrangement of it, stared and stared, gauging whether the light was falling on it in the best possible way, then turning the chair a little so that it was at a different angle to the table, so it should fit better, staring at that now, and it was plain that the happiness was almost too much for him, for he now had somewhere to live, a place with a table and a chair, because he was happy that Mr. Sárváry existed in the first place, and that he should have this apartment on the top floor of 547 West 159th Street, right next to the stairs to the attic, and without the resident’s name on the door.

  19.

  In his childhood, Korin began in the kitchen the next morning while the interpreter’s lover was busily working at the gas burner with her back to him, he had always found himself taking the loser’s side, though that was not quite right, he shook his head, for to put it more precisely, it was the story of his entire childhood he was talking about: being with losers, spending all his time with losers, not being able to deal with anyone else, only with unfortunates, the failures, the mistreated and the exploited, they being the only ones he sought out, the only group to whom he felt drawn, the only people he felt he understood, and so he strove to follow them in everything, even in his school textbooks as Korin recalled now, sitting on the edge of the chair by the door, recalling how even in literature classes it was only the tragic poets that moved him, or, to put this more precisely, the tragic ends of the poets themselves, the way they were neglected, abandoned, humiliated, their life-blood ebbing away along with their secret personal knowledge of life and death, or that, at least, was the way he visualized them while reading the textbooks, having, as he did, an inborn antipathy to life’s winners so that he could never be part of any celebration or feel the intoxication of triumph, for it just wasn’t in him to identify with such things only with defeat, and that identification was immediate, instinctive, and ran to anyone at all who had been condemned to suffer loss; and so that’s that, said Korin, as he rose uncertainly from the chair, addressing the immobile back of the woman, though this condition, the pain he felt at such times, had about it a peculiar sweetness that he experienced as a warm sensation running right through him, irradiating his entire being, whereas when he met with victory or with victors, it would always be a cold feeling, an icy-cold feeling of repulsion that seized him, that spread through his entire being, not hatred as such, nor quite contempt, but more a kind of incomprehension, meaning that he could not understand victory or victors, the joy experienced by the triumphant not being joy to him, nor was the occasional defeat suffered by a natural victor truly a defeat, because it was only those who had been unjustly cast out by society, heartlessly rejected—how should he put it?—people condemned to solitude and ill fortune, it was to them only that hi
s heart went out and, given such a childhood, it was no wonder that he himself had constantly been swept to the side of events, grown reserved, timid and weak, nor should it be surprising that as an adult, having been easily swept aside, having grown reserved, timid and weak, he had become the personification of defeat, a great hulking defeat on two legs, although, said Korin taking a step toward the door, it wasn’t simply that he recognized himself in others similarly fated, that wasn’t the only reason things had turned out as they did, despite such a self-centered and infinitely repulsive beginning: no, his personal lot could not entirely be regarded as particularly harsh, for after all he did actually have a father, a mother, a family and a childhood, and his deep attraction to those who had been ruined and defeated, the full depth of it, had been determined not by himself, far from it, but by some power beyond him, some firm knowledge according to which the psychological condition he had experienced in childhood, which sprang out of empathy, generosity and unconditional trust, was absolutely and unreservedly right, although, he sighed, trying to get the woman to pay minimal attention as he stood in the doorway, this might be a somewhat tortuous and superfluous attempt at explanation, since, there might be nothing more at the bottom of all this than the fact, to put it crudely, that there are sad children and happy children, said Korin, that he was a sad little child, one of those who throughout his life is slowly, steadily consumed by sadness, that was his personal feeling, and perhaps, who knows, that is all there is to know, and in any case, he said as he quietly turned the handle of the door, he did not want to burden the young lady with his problems, it was time he got on with things back in his room, and this whole account of sadness and defeat just sort of came out, and he didn’t quite understand why it should have done so, what had got hold of him, which was ridiculous, he knew, but he hoped he hadn’t intruded on her time, and that she could happily carry on cooking and so, he added by way of farewell to the woman still standing with her back to him by the burner, he was off now, and so … goodbye.

  20.

  If we ignored the toilet that was next to the steps leading up to the attic in the stairwell, the apartment consisted of three adjoining rooms plus a kitchen, a shower and a small store-cupboard of some sort, that is to say three plus one plus one plus one, in other words six spaces, but Korin only poked his nose round the other doors when the occupiers went out in the evening and when he would finally have the opportunity of examining his surroundings, to see where he had wound up a little more closely, but he hesitated here, he hesitated there, at every threshold and was content merely to cast a desultory glance inside, because, no, he wasn’t interested in the dreary furniture, the torn wallpaper with its patches of damp, the empty wardrobe and the four or five collapsed shelves hanging off the walls, nor was he curious about the ancient suitcase employed as a nightstand, or the rusty, headless shower, the bare light-bulbs and the security lock on the front door with its four-figure combination, because, rather than drawing conclusions from such evidence, he preferred to concentrate on his only real concern which was the question of how he should screw up courage and talk to the owners on their return, addressing them to some such effect as, please, Mr. Sárváry, if you would be so kind as to spare a little time for me tomorrow, and it was clear from all that followed that this was the only reason he stumped round the apartment for hours, this being the only thing he wanted, and the only thing he was preparing himself for, practicing for, so when they came home at about one in the morning he should be able to appear and present his latest, and, as he now promised, his really last request, pleading, Mr. Sárváry …, which he practiced aloud, and finally succeeded in actually saying at about one in the morning, appearing in front of them as soon as they entered and starting, Please, Mr. Sárváry, asking him if he would be so kind as to escort him to a store the next day, a store where he could purchase the items necessary for his work, since his English wasn’t, as they knew, quite good enough yet, and while he could somehow piece together a sentence in his head he’d never be able to understand the answer, for all he needed was a computer, a simple computer to help him with his work, he stuttered while fixing him with his haunted eyes, and this would entail, he imagined, an insignificant investment in time to Mr. Sárváry, but to him, said Korin, grabbing hold of his arm while the woman averted her head and went off into one of the rooms without a word, it would be of enormous benefit, since he didn’t only have this ongoing problem with English but knew nothing at all about computers either, though he had seen them at the records office, of course, back home, he explained, but how they worked he was sorry to say he had no idea, and was equally clueless as to what kind of computer he should buy, being certain only of what he wanted to do with it, which was what it depended on, retorted the interpreter who was obviously ready for bed, but Korin felt it natural to check that it depended on what he wanted to do, to which the interpreter could only reply: yes, on what you want to do, what, I, enquired Korin, on what I want to do? and spread his arms wide, well, if the interpreter had a moment he would quickly explain, at which point the interpreter pulled a long-suffering face, nodded toward the kitchen, and went through with Korin close behind him, taking the seat opposite him at the table, the interpreter waiting while Korin cleared his throat once, said nothing, then cleared his throat again and once again said nothing but kept clearing his throat for an entire minute or so, like someone who had got into a muddle and didn’t know how to get out of it again, because Korin simply didn’t know where to start, nothing came, no first sentence, and though he would dearly have loved to begin something kept stopping him, the something that got him into the muddle that he did not know how to get out of, while the interpreter kept sitting there, sleepy and nervous, wondering why, for God’s sake, he could not get started, all the while stroking his snow-white hair, running his finger down his center parting, checking whether this line that ran from his crown to his forehead was properly straight or not.

  21.

  He stood in the middle of the records office, or rather he had advanced into the more powerfully lit area having emerged from among the shelves, with no one around, everyone having gone home since it was after four, or possibly even half past four, advancing into the light clutching a family file, or to be more accurate, the sub-file or fascicile containing the historical documents of the Wlassich family, stopped under the big lamp, unpacked the sheaf of papers, separated them out, riffled through them, examined the material revealed with the intention of getting the files into some order if that were necessary, for after all they had lain undisturbed for many decades, but going through the various leaves from journals, letters, accounts and copies of wills, somewhere between the miscellanea and other official documents, he discovered a pallium or binder, under the reference number IV. 3 / 10 / 1941 -42 that, as he immediately noted, did not seem to fit, that is to say to fit the official description “family documents” because it wasn’t a journal entry or a letter, not the estimate of a financial estate, not a copy of a will, nor any kind of certificate, but something he immediately recognized, as soon as he picked it up, as altogether different, and though he knew this as soon as he set eyes on it he did nothing at first, just looked at it as a whole, casually leafing through, to and fro, observing the year of entry, picking out names of individuals or institutions, and riffling through again to get some handle on the kind of document it was so that he might be able to conduct further work on it and so recommend an appropriate course of action, this entailing a search for some number or name or anything that might help him place it in the right category, though this proved fruitless since the one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty pages, or so he calculated, carried no accompanying note, no name, no date, no clue in the form of a postscript as to who had written it or where, in fact not a thing, nothing, as Korin observed with furrowed brow as he sat at the big table in the records office, so what on earth is it, he wondered as he set to examining the quality and nature of the paper, the competence and idiosyncraci
es of the typing and the style of the layout, but what he found did not match anything that related to other material either in the fascicule or the various palliums, in fact it was clearly unrelated, distinct from anything else, and this being the case he realized it required a different approach, so he actually decided to read the text, taking the whole thing and starting at the beginning, sitting himself down first, then, slowly, carefully, making sure the chair did not slip from under him, sat and read while the clock above the entrance showed first five, then six, then seven, and while he did not once look up, proceeding to eight, nine, ten, eleven o’clock already, and still he sat in exactly the same place in exactly the same way, until he did glance up and saw that it was seven minutes past eleven, even remarking loudly on the fact, saying, what the heck, eleven-o-seven already, then quickly packing the things away, tying up the string once more, leaving that which had remained unidentified or could not be identified in another file bound up with string, putting it under his arm, then going round, still holding the package, turning off the lights and locking the glazed entrance door behind him with the idea that he would continue his reading at home, starting all over again from the beginning.