The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie

by Agota Kristof

  "Listen, Peter, I'm only here for a short time, on a thirty-day visa. I'm a foreign citizen, and as you know, foreigners are not allowed to own any property here."

  Peter says, "But you can accept the profits from the bookshop which I've been depositing in a bank every month for the last twenty years."

  "What do you live on, then?"

  "I have a government pension, and I rent out Victor's house. I only take care of the bookshop for you two. I keep careful accounts, you can check them."

  Claus says, "Thank you, Peter. I don't need the money, and I don't wish to check the accounts. I came back only to see my brother."

  "Why didn't you ever write to him?"

  "We decided to separate. It had to be a total separation. The border wasn't enough. We needed silence as well."

  "Yet you came back. Why?"

  "The test has lasted long enough. I'm tired and ill. I want to see Lucas again."

  "You know that you won't see him again."

  A woman's voice calls from the next room.

  "Is there someone there, Peter? Who is it?"

  Claus looks at Peter. "You've got a wife? You're married?"

  "No, it's Clara."

  "Clara? She isn't dead?"

  "We thought she was, yes. But she was just in prison. Shortly after Lucas disappeared she came back. She had no job and no money. She was looking for Lucas. I let her stay at my place, that is, here. She has the small room, the child's room. I take care of her. Do you want to see her?"

  "Yes, I'd like to see her."

  Peter opens the door of the room.

  "Clara, a friend has come to see us."

  Claus goes into the room. Clara is sitting in a rocking chair in front of the window, with a blanket over her knees and a shawl around her shoulders. She is holding a book, but she's not reading it. She is staring into space through the gap in the window. She is rocking.

  Claus says, "Hello, Clara."

  Clara doesn't look at him; she recites in a monotonous voice, "It's raining as usual. Fine, cold rain, falling on the houses, the trees, the graves. When they come to see me the rain trickles over their distorted faces. They look at me and the cold grows more intense. My walls no longer protect me. They never protected me. Their solidity is mere illusion, their whiteness is stained."

  Her voice changes suddenly. "I'm hungry, Peter! When do we eat? With you the meals are always late."

  Peter returns to the kitchen.

  Claus says, "It's me, Clara."

  "You?"

  She looks at Claus, holds out her arms to him. He kneels down at her feet, rests his head on her knees. Clara strokes his hair. Claus takes Clara's hand, presses it against his cheek, against his lips. A thin, wizened hand, covered with the marks of old age.

  She says, "You left me alone for a long time, too long, Thomas."

  Tears run down her face. Claus wipes them away with his handkerchief.

  "I'm not Thomas. Have you no memory of Lucas?"

  Clara closes her eyes, shakes her head, "You haven't changed, Thomas. You've aged a little, but you are still the same. Kiss me."

  She smiles, revealing her toothless gums.

  Claus draws back, stands up. He goes to the window, looks out to the street. The main square is empty and dark in the rain. Only the lighted entrance of the hotel is visible in the dark.

  Clara starts rocking again. "Go away. Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Why doesn't Peter come? I want to eat and go to bed. It's late."

  Claus leaves Clara's room, he finds Peter in the kitchen. "Clara is hungry."

  Peter carries a tray in to Clara. When he comes back he says, "She likes her food. I take her a tray three times a day. Fortunately, she sleeps a lot because of her medication."

  "She must be a burden to you."

  Peter serves up stew with some pasta. "No, not really. She doesn't bother me. She treats me as if I were her valet, but I don't mind. Eat up, Claus."

  "I'm not hungry. Does she ever go out?"

  "Clara? No. She doesn't like to, and in any case she would just get lost. She reads a lot and likes looking at the sky."

  "What about the insomniac? His house must have been opposite, there where the hotel is now."

  Peter gets up. "Yes, that's right. I'm not hungry either. Come, let's go out."

  They walk down the street. Peter points out a house. "That's where I lived at that time. On the second floor. If you're not too tired, I can show you where Clara used to live."

  "I'm not tired."

  Peter stops in front of a two-story building on Station Road.

  "This is it. This house will soon be demolished, like nearly all the houses on this street. They are too old and unsanitary."

  Claus shivers. "Let's go back. I'm frozen."

  They part in front of the hotel entrance. Claus says, "I've been to the cemetery several times, but I can't find Grandmother's grave."

  "I'll show you tomorrow. Come to the bookshop at six o'clock. It will still be light."

  In an abandoned part of the cemetery, Peter sticks his umbrella in the ground.

  "Here's the grave."

  "How can you be so sure? There's nothing here but weeds. No cross, nothing. You could be mistaken."

  "Mistaken? If only you knew how many times I came here looking for your brother Lucas. Even afterward, later, when he was no longer here. This spot has been the end of an almost daily walk for me."

  They go back into town. Peter attends to Clara, then they drink brandy in what used to be Lucas's room. The rain falls on the windowsill, drips into the room. Peter goes to get a cloth to mop up the water.

  "Tell me about yourself, Claus."

  "There's nothing to tell."

  "Over there, is life easier?"

  Claus shrugs his shoulders. "It's a society based on money. There is no place for questions about life. I've spent thirty years in mortal solitude."

  "Did you never have a wife, a child?"

  Claus laughs. "Women, yes. Lots of women. No children."

  After a silence he asks, "What did you do with the skeletons, Peter?"

  "I put them back in their place. Do you want to see them?"

  "We mustn't disturb Clara." "We don't need to cross the room. There's another door. Don't you remember?"

  "How could I remember?"

  "You might have noticed as you went past. It's the first door on the left as you come to the landing."

  "No, I didn't notice."

  "The door does blend in with the wallpaper."

  They enter a small space separated from Clara's room by a thick curtain. Peter switches on a flashlight, illuminating the skeletons.

  Claus whispers, "There are three of them."

  Peter says, "You don't need to whisper. Clara won't wake up. She takes strong sedatives. I forgot to tell you that Lucas dug up Mathias's body two years after the burial. He told me that it was easier for him, he was tired of spending his nights at the cemetery to keep the child company."

  Peter shines the flashlight on a mattress beneath the skeletons.

  "That's where he slept."

  Claus touches the mattress, the gray army blanket that covers it.

  "It's warm."

  "What's on your mind, Claus?"

  "I'd like to sleep here, just for one night. Do you mind, Peter?"

  "This is your home."

  Report drawn up by the authorities of the town of K. for the attention of the embassy of D.

  Re: request for the repatriation of your citizen Claus T., presently held in the prison of the town of K.

  Claus T., aged fifty, holder of a valid passport and a thirty-day tourist visa, arrived in this town on April 2 of this year. He rented a room in the only hotel in town, the Grand Hotel in the main square.

  Claus T. spent three weeks in the hotel, behaving like a tourist, walking around town, visiting historic sights, having his meals in the hotel restaurant, or in other restaurants in town.

  Claus T. often visited th
e bookshop opposite the hotel to buy paper and pencils. Conversant in the local language, he chatted readily with the bookseller, Mrs. B., and with other persons in public places.

  After three weeks, Claus T. asked Mrs. B. if she would rent him the two rooms above the bookshop on a monthly basis. As he offered a good price, Mrs. B. gave up the two-room apartment and went to stay with her daughter, who lives nearby.

  Claus T. requested an extension to his visa on three occasions, which was granted without difficulty. However, his fourth request for an extension was refused in August. Claus T. disregarded this refusal, and owing to negligence on the part of our employees, the matter rested there until the month of October. On October 30, in the course of a routine identity check, our local police established that Claus T.'s papers were no longer in order.

  At this point, Claus T. had run out of money. He owed two months' rent to Mrs. B. He was hardly eating. He went from bar to bar playing the harmonica. Drunkards bought him drinks. Mrs. B. brought him a little soup each day.

  During his interrogation, Claus T. claimed to have been born in our country, and to have spent his childhood in our town, at his grandmother's house, and declared his wish to remain here until the return of his brother Lucas T. The said Lucas does not appear in any of the records of the town of K. Neither does Claus T.

  We request you to settle the enclosed invoice (fine, administrative costs, rent for Mrs. B. ) and to repatriate Claus T. on your own responsibility.

  Signed, on behalf of the authorities of the town of K.: I.S.

  Postscript

  We have naturally, for reasons of security, examined the manuscript in the possession of Claus T. He claims that this manuscript proves the existence of his brother Lucas, who wrote the major part of it himself, Claus himself having merely added the last few pages, chapter number eight. However, the manuscript is in the same handwriting from beginning to end, and the sheets of paper show no signs of age. The entire text was written in one sequence, by the same person, over a period of time not exceeding six months, that is, by Claus T. himself during his stay in our town.

  As for the content of the text, this can only be a fiction, since neither the events described nor the characters portrayed ever existed in the town of K., with the sole exception of one person, the supposed grandmother of Claus T., whom we have traced. This woman did in fact own a house on the present site of our playing field. Deceased without heir thirty-five years ago, she appears in our records under the name Maria Z., wife of V.

  It is possible that during the war she was entrusted with the care of one or more children.

  The Third Lie

  Translated by Marc Roma

  Part one

  I am in prison in the small town of my childhood.

  It's not a real prison but a cell in the basement of the local police station, a building no different from the rest of the buildings in town. It too is a single-storied house.

  My cell must have been a laundry room at one time; its door and window look out onto the courtyard. Window bars have been installed on the inside in a way that makes it impossible to reach through and break the glass. A toilet in the corner is concealed by a curtain. Against one wall are four chairs and a table bolted to the floor; on the opposite wall are four collapsible beds. Three of them are still folded up.

  I am alone in my cell. There aren't many criminals in this town, and when there is one he is immediately brought to the neighboring town, the regional seat, twelve miles away.

  I'm not a criminal. I'm here because my papers are not in order; my visa has expired. I've also run into debt.

  In the morning my guard brings me breakfast-milk, coffee, bread. I drink some coffee and then shower. My guard finishes my breakfast and cleans my cell. The door is left open; I can go out into the courtyard if I want. The courtyard is enclosed by high walls covered with ivy and wild vines. Behind one of these walls, the one to the left as you leave my cell, is a school playground. I hear the children laughing, playing, and shouting during recess. The school was there when I was a child, as I recall, although I never went. The prison was here, on the other hand, as I also recall because I went there once.

  For one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening I walk around the courtyard, a habit I developed during my childhood, when at the age of five I had to learn how to walk again.

  This annoys my guard, because while I'm doing it I don't speak a word and don't hear the questions he asks me.

  I pace with my eyes to the ground, my hands behind my back, turning and following the line of the walls. The ground is paved, but grass grows in the gaps between the stones.

  The courtyard is almost square. Fifteen paces long, thirteen paces wide. Supposing I take three-foot strides, the courtyard's area must be 195 square yards. But my stride is probably not that long.

  In the middle of the courtyard is a round table with two garden chairs; against the back wall is a wooden bench.

  It is by sitting on that bench that I am able to see the greatest amount of my childhood sky.

  The bookseller came to visit me on the very first day, bringing my personal effects and some vegetable soup. She continues to show up every day around noon with soup. I tell her I'm well fed here, that my guard brings me a full meal twice a day from the restaurant across the street, but she keeps coming with her soup. I eat a little out of politeness and I pass the pot to my guard, who finishes it.

  I apologize to the bookseller for the mess that I left in the apartment.

  She says, "Don't mention it. My daughter and I have already cleaned everything up. Mostly there was a lot of paper. I burned every sheet that was crumpled or thrown in the wastebasket. I left the others on the table, but the police came and took them."

  I remain silent for a moment and then say, "I still owe you two months' rent."

  She laughs. "I asked you far too much for that little apartment. But if you mean it, you can pay me when you come back. Next year, maybe."

  I say, "I don't think I'll be coming back. My embassy will pay."

  She asks me if there is anything I want, and I say, "Yes, paper and pencils. But I have no money."

  She says, "I should have thought of it myself."

  I say to her, "Thank you. The embassy will reimburse you for everything."

  She says, "You're always going on about money. I wish you'd talk about something else. What are you writing, for instance?"

  "What I write is absolutely meaningless."

  She insists. "What I want to know is whether you write things that are true or things that are made up."

  I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of its very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can't—I don't have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wish they had happened.

  She says, "Yes. There are lives sadder than the saddest of books."

  I say, "Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life."

  After a silence she asks, "Your limp, is it from an accident?" "No, from an illness when I was very small."

  She adds, "You can hardly even notice it."

  I laugh.

  I have things to write with again, but I haven't got anything to drink or any cigarettes either, aside from the two or three my guard offers me after dinner. I request an interview with the chief of police, who sees me immediately. His office is upstairs. I go. I sit down in a chair across from him. He has red hair and his face is covered with red spots. A game of chess is set up on the table in front of him. The policeman looks at the board, advances a pawn, jots the move down in a notebook, and raises his pale blue eyes.

  "What do you want? The inquiry isn't over yet. It will be several weeks, a month, perhaps."

  I say, "I'm not in any hurry. I'm very comfortable here. Except that I need one or two little things."

  "Suc
h as?"

  'The embassy wouldn't mind if you added a bottle of wine and two packs of cigarettes a day to my prison tab."

  He says, "It probably wouldn't. But that would be bad for your health."

  I say, "Do you know what happens to alcoholics when they're forced to stop drinking?"

  He says, "No, and I don't give a damn."

  I say, 'There's a risk of delirium tremens. I could die at any moment."

  "No kidding."

  He turns his eyes back to the board. I tell him, "The black knight."

  He keeps staring at the board. "Why? I don't understand."

  I advance the knight. He notes it down in his book. He ponders for a long time, then picks up his rook.

  "No."

  He sets down the rook and looks at me. "You play? Well?"

  "I don't know. It's been a long time. But at any rate I'm better than you."

  He turns redder than his spots. "I only started three months ago. And without anyone to teach me. Could you give me a few lessons?"

  I say, "Gladly. But don't get angry when I win."

  He says, "I'm not interested in winning. What I want is to learn."

  I stand up. "Bring your set whenever you want. Ideally in the morning. The mind then is sharper than it is in the afternoon or evening."

  "Thank you," he says.

  He looks at the board; I wait, then cough. "What about the wine and cigarettes?"

  He says, "No problem. I'll give the orders. You'll have your cigarettes and wine."

  I leave the policeman's office. I go back downstairs and into the courtyard. I sit on the bench. The autumn is very mild this year. The sun sets and the sky takes on colors—orange, yellow, violet, red, and others for which there are no names.

  For around two hours almost every day I play chess with the policeman. The games are long; the policeman thinks a lot, notes everything down, and always loses.

  Every afternoon, after the bookseller has put away her knitting and gone off to reopen her shop, I also play cards with my guard. The card games in this country are unlike anything anywhere else. Although they are simple and there is a large element of chance to them, I always lose. We play for money, and since I don't have any my guard writes my losses down in a ledger. After every game he laughs loudly and repeats, "I'm screwed! I'm screwed!"