Esteemed gentlemen!
I am that person!
And the reason I promise you so little is that I have nothing to make promises with.
Behind you gentlemen stands the universe, even if it doesn’t exist. And behind me, even if I claim it exists, there is only nothing, nothing but nothing.
But I will no longer abuse your patience.
My assignment is to speak about possessions.
Please grant me your attention.
II
One autumn day, back in the time when I could freely move about on the streets without permission or escort, I had to go to the post office for some reason. I no longer recall precisely what my business was, maybe it was letters, or a few small packages, I am not sure, but I remember that both my hands were full as I turned toward the post office entrance on the main street.
Back then as you know, these types of buildings were not yet protected by security, so that anyone could pass unhindered through the entrance. One could go inside to send or collect money, buy postage stamps, pay bills, then leave, or even go back in case you forgot something, in other words people were free to do as they pleased, and that was how it was on this autumn day as well.
I entered, and once past the throng of arriving and departing people I found the service window I was looking for, which wasn’t difficult, because you chose a window marked according to the kind of business it handled: by a sign for money or a sign with an envelope on it. Since I had envelopes, or small packages, I had to stand in front of a window with an envelope sign, or rather, take my place at the end of the line, for I have neglected to mention that people were waiting in rather long lines in front of both types of windows. For the sake of a complete description of the scene—I know the circumstances of those days should be familiar to you—for some strange reason, no one was standing to the left of the entrance, where one could send large packages; and one other thing, opposite all this—opposite the section for sending large packages and the service windows with their various designations and the people standing in line—there were tables of different heights with shelves; there were counters for writing and desks with chairs, so that to simply affix a postage stamp you did not need to take a seat (ergo the countertop), whereas in order to write a letter or postcard you could sit down (ergo a desk and chair).
Well, there I was, standing in line, looking at the back of the head of the person waiting in front of me, but in reality I wasn’t looking at that head but constantly checking the distance between me and the given service window. I wasn’t watching the back of that head my eyes were absentmindedly riveted on, but was counting how many people were waiting ahead of me, one, two, three, four, five, six . . .seven, I decided, but maybe those two people there, the man and the child, were together, so it was only six, and at that moment, really quite by accident, I suddenly recalled where I was. I could see myself from up above, as if I were looking down from a cloud as I stood in line, and I was able to see how the whole thing worked, and work it did, not quite smoothly, but in fits and starts. Still, it worked; after all things were clearly demarcated at the post office, you knew what was expected of a person waiting on this side of the service window, or of the person sitting inside behind that window; it all had been arranged so that letters, small packages, amounts of money, and larger packages could move about, the function of stamps was understood as the dues paid for this traffic, in other words, all in all, this post office was working, I certainly don’t know what use a dysfunctional post office would have been. The prevailing mood was not quite merry, but neither was it dour, the postal clerk (I had quite a good view of her if I turned my eyes from the back of the head in front of me and looked through the panel of glass separating the clerk from us) was not working with alacrity (which would have made her instantly sympathetic) nor was she working at a snail’s pace (which would have made her obnoxious), and taking in the situation, on the whole, with all of us together, the way we stood there in line, one would have thought that things would remain that way.
Six, I said to myself, or if the man and child are together, five.
A ray of sunlight filtered in from the outside.
Quite a number of people came and went in and out; some just stood about, looking around before deciding on one line or another, while others practically ran from the door to the end of the line they were destined for, lest one of those standing and looking around, or possibly some later arrival, a sharp customer, should squeeze in front of them. If you stood in line, you counted, looking at the backs of the heads ahead of you, and kept recalculating the distance remaining, as I did, actually caring about one thing only: how long it would take to reach that window. Those who took their place in line kept tabs on every person standing in front, it made a difference if it was five, or six, so that for a new arrival to insolently cut in at the head of the line instead of joining the end would have been inconceivable. That would have counted as a clear-cut case, easy to condemn; there was, however, another, sneaky kind of attempt, where, ignoring the line, someone stepped up to the window, claiming not to intrude, he wasn’t there for the same reason as the others, but merely to ask a question, he just needed some information, one question and he’d be gone.
I will not continue analyzing the potentially unfriendly scenes that might ensue while one stood in line, not wishing to overdo things and let a tormenting stylistic inanity heighten the tension to the breaking point, while at the same time I do intend to give a taste of the small-minded attitudes prevailing at the scene, in part to convince you that this post-office version of existence had indeed been bleak on that day, and also to make it clear: the woman who at this point in the story suddenly stepped up to our window and thereby gave a decisive turn not only to the particular day but in a certain sense to my whole life, this woman in no way fit into this post-office version of existence.
She came in through the door as if she had never been in a post office before: confused, terrified, extremely distressed, it was evident that it took tremendous effort for her to enter, and to stay cost her tremendous effort as well. Regarding her exterior, she seemed insignificant, her clothes revealed almost nothing about her (an unbuttoned light-green cotton jacket, under it a knit cardigan, a black skirt, and she wore some kind of kerchief on her head, I don’t recall its color or material, actually it could have been a knit chapeau, I really don’t recall). Only her eyes betrayed something about her, and her posture, for they instantly made it plain that this woman . . .was completely shattered.
After much hesitation in the doorway she went over to a writing desk, sat down with her back to us, put her handbag in her lap and began nervously rummaging through it. Clearly, she failed to find what she was looking for. She shut her handbag and proceeded to rummage through her coat pockets, without any success, because the object, a ballpoint pen, as it eventually turned out to be, was hiding in the left pocket of her cardigan. That’s where she pulled it out from, only to look around, with this pen in hand, still frightened and confused, and given the nonstop coming and going around her, there seemed to be precious little hope she would find a way out of her frightened confusion. Yet she did, on her own, for it seemed that little by little she began to figure out what all these various windows marked for payments and envelopes were for, and she stood up, to advance rather unsteadily, with stops and starts, to the right window designated by a sign with an envelope, and, amidst visible signs of displeasure from those standing in line, she leaned close to the window, and in a very soft voice said to the clerk, “Pardon me . . .I would like to send a telegram but can’t find one of those . . .papers.”
Across the cubicle’s glass panel we had a clear view of the clerk giving the woman a sullen look and shoving a blank telegram form at her through the opening.
The woman took the form but did not retreat from the window, she merely stepped slightly to the side. She gazed at the sheet of paper, turning it over and exami
ning it, but if she had intended, as I believed she probably did, to draw attention to herself and be given advice about how to fill out the form, it was a wasted effort, for the postal clerk refused to acknowledge it, in fact she utterly ignored her and with what amounted to ostentatious heartiness she turned to face the next patron. Those waiting in line, especially the ones closest to the window, probably felt like shoving the woman away from there, and maybe even—accidentally—treading lightly on her foot, to make her come to her senses, and stop holding up the line; on the other hand these same people waiting in line were somewhat perplexed, for it was really impossible to decide what this woman’s problem was, and I believe I was not the only one to whom it had already occurred that perhaps her problem wasn’t so much the telegram form but that nobody had told her to go away, to forget about sending that telegram, yes, I was more and more inclined toward that conclusion, while noting that only five, or perhaps four, were left ahead of me, and I would soon find out whether that man and that child were together; I had a growing suspicion that the woman was at least as much expecting to be dissuaded forthwith from sending that telegram as she was expecting to be reassured that the telegram should definitely be sent.
You may think it peculiar if I now assert that it had not occurred to me at all that, say, this was about some ongoing family or romantic drama; this whole thing might seem rather weird, and somewhat suspect, if after the event, all these years later, I tried to shift the highlights of the incident to point in a direction that was to my liking. But it is not like that, not only because any interference of that sort has for a long time now been distasteful to me, but because truly assuming to interfere with the emphases of the story would predicate quite a different one. Therefore it seems self-evident that one should not even try to guess what lay behind the woman’s unusual behavior, that is to say, the woman herself and her story became the obvious reasons for not interfering with the story’s emphases, inasmuch as it seemed to make no sense to imagine in connection with her—her of all people!—some sort of romantic or family drama.
It was equally impossible to imagine anything else there, impossible to tell what sort of background lay behind her, because her confusion had a certain indefinable ethereality, her alarmed eyes emanated a particular, perfect innocence, and in that disconsolate posture, as she lingered by the window, and then returned to the writing desk and again sat down on a chair, there was a certain kind of purity that I, and no doubt quite a few others who stood in line—precisely because of its inappropriateness to the place, its near-otherworldliness—wouldn’t have been able to explain (without embarrassment) in terms of sober, worldly considerations.
I don’t mean to claim that the woman, given all her sorrowful purity, was an angel, nor would I want to say that she was not an angel.
If nonetheless I must still say something about this, it would be best if I said that although the writing desk and chair couldn’t have been more than eight or ten meters away from me, even if I had wanted to make the attempt, I could not have bridged this gap of eight or ten meters. It would have been impossible to just walk over to her, startle her by a light touch on the shoulder, and then speak to her; one had to admit: this woman, the way she sat there with her back to us, in that cotton jacket that somehow got so rumpled or twisted around at the waist, was utterly unaccostable and unapproachable.
And she was left-handed.
I watched her as she wrote, while I noted the latest change in the line, three, I said to myself, and now concluded without the least satisfaction that the man and the child were together.
Then the woman rose from her chair and with the telegram form in hand came back to the window. She waited until the person standing there concluded his business, then she leaned toward the opening, pointed at the form, and said, “Pardon me again . . . I think I made a mess of this one . . .” The postal clerk, no longer even trying to hide how burdensome she found these repeated interruptions, as if to express her solidarity with the common cause of those standing in line, petulantly slammed down another blank form in front of the woman, who thanked her, apologized to the people in line, and returned to her desk. She took out a wad of tissue paper from her handbag, blew her nose, folded up the tissue, put it in her coat pocket, and began to write once again.
I watched her writing.
She gripped the pen spasmodically, holding it all the way down near the tip. She limned each letter slowly, and after each word she paused to think it over. At times she raised her head as if to look out through the window, or rather as if she were contemplating the sunbeams streaming through the window of the post office, bemused, seeking after something in the incoming light. Then she bent over the form again, very close to the paper, and resumed writing.
Only two more, I noted in the line, and saw the man and the child leaving together as they pulled the door shut behind them.
Then the woman rose again and came to the service window for the third time. “Please forgive me for disturbing you again . . .,” she began, anxiously. “I’m done . . . Except . . . I’d like to add something. I don’t know if it’s all right like this . . .” She handed the telegram form through the opening. “I would like to add one more word . . . But I don’t know . . . Do I have to write the whole thing over?”
For a while the postal clerk said nothing, she just stared straight ahead with a severe look on her face. You could tell that she detested this woman. Then, like one who has counted to ten and calmed down somewhat, she spread her arms helplessly, cast a conspiratorial, chummy glance at the next in line, a young soldier, and making a face that said “What can I do?” took the telegram and bent over it. “You tell me. What is the word? I will write it in. Let’s get this over with.”
The woman replied in a barely audible voice.
“I would like to add here, ‘useless.’”
And she pointed out on the telegram form exactly where.
The postal clerk raised her eyebrows, nodded, and wrote the word in the desired place, counted up the syllables, quickly added it all up, took the money, returned the change, and kept her eyes on the woman while the latter, practically on the run, left the premises, and the door closed behind her.
Then she spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I just can’t take these loonies. I’ve had it up to here with them. If I see one more . . . Just take a look at this!” she turned to the young soldier, and in her disgust pounded her palm down on the telegram. “Now what am I supposed to do with this?!”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” the young man asked.
With an infuriated gesture the clerk held out the telegram to him and crumpled it up in her fist.
“There is no addressee.”
Esteemed gentlemen!
III
I think at this point we may take a breather.
Every train of thought has its own tempo, including my own, and I have to confess that at times I cannot even keep up with my own, much less with others’. Think of it as when some vigilante street patrol, maybe the Hajnoczy patrol (it doesn’t matter which one of many), is pursuing somebody with authorization to kill, or capture, it really makes no difference now, and the hunted man quite simply runs out of breath, and the patrol lags behind as well, and both parties maintain that the manhunt is still on even though it is not, this is actually the moment for taking a deep breath, seeking to regain the tempo in a doorway or in a backyard among oil drums, just for the duration of this shortness of breath, panting, regaining our tempo, for that is what the hot pursuit is actually about, regaining that tempo that both parties—the pursuer and the pursued—had lost at the same time. Well, that’s how I, too, find myself now, forced to interrupt my lecture. You know what comes next during this interim, in a suitable doorway or backyard among oil drums where one can catch his breath; however, I promise you that this is the last time, there will be no further so-called interruptions, or
detours, that is to say, just this final one, and then from here on, trust me, all will go smoothly, like a well-oiled machine, unhindered, making a beeline to the finish, never stopping until the final sentence—where not only this lecture but my entire engagement will come to its definite conclusion—at which point I too once and for all can retire from the spotlight of your attention, that has been all along so ambiguous and is now perhaps becoming rather ominous.
Yes, we pause here for a moment, and meanwhile, to make the panting less audible while this “I” inside me regains its proper pace, let me return to the mundane locale of my sojourn in your sub-basement, and beside reminding you not to forget the additions to my daily allowance of walks, let me bring up another matter that I have been meaning to mention.
Because of some decisive turn in the prevailing situation that’s been kept hidden from me, your designating this lecture as my valediction, I fear, does not necessarily guarantee that my final appearance here will be the first step toward my liberation. That is, it looks very much as if I might have to stay here, possibly exempt from being the focus of your attention but not from the protective custody you have decreed for me. If that’s how matters stand, I can count on a prolonged stay here, but you must understand that such a sojourn is the same for me as embarking on the Titanic, meaning that my requirements become radically altered, the rational ones are reduced to just about zero, whereas my irrational needs, the ones that kick in, now become all-important, I might say vitally important, so that one day this past week, as I lay on my bed flicking back and forth among TV channels (those indicators of business as usual), one day this past week I suddenly realized that something was off about these TV channels, ah but of course, I realized what I was watching was nothing but so-called canned material, indicating that outside, in the real world, something had radically altered, something irrevocable had occurred, that impelled one, gentlemen, to a desperate decision to settle in for a lengthy siege, and now I would remain your special captive for the duration of this siege. It became clear to me that quite possibly I would never leave this fortress, your splendid but lethal domain. I suddenly understood that—if I may put it tersely—here we go once again, here we go aboard the Titanic.
The World Goes On Page 7
