Imre Kertész - Kaddish for an Unborn Child

“No!” something bellows, howls, within me, I don’t wish to remember, to dunk let’s say ladyfingers instead of petites madeleines (unknown, even as unprocurable articles, in this benighted part of the world) into my cup of Garzon tea mixture, though of course I do wish to remember, willingly or not, I can do nothing else: if I write, I remember, I have to remember, though I don’t know why I have to remember, obviously for the sake of knowing, remembering is knowing, we live in order to remember what we know, because we cannot forget what we know, don’t worry, children, not out of some kind of “moral duty,” no, come off it, it’s simply not at our discretion , we are not able , to forget, that is the way we are created, we live in order to know and to remember, and perhaps, indeed probably, indeed with almost total certainty, the reason why we know and remember is in order that somebody should feel shame on our account if he has gone so far as to create us, yes, we remember for the one who either is or isn’t, it doesn’t matter, because either he is or he isn’t: in the end it comes down to the same thing, the essential point is that we should remember, know and remember, that somebody — anybody — should feel shame on our account and (possibly) for us. Because as far as I am concerned, if I were to set off from my privileged, my ceremonial, I nearly said my sanctified memories, but then, I don’t mind, if we are going to use grand words, then so be it: from my memories, sanctified and, indeed, consecrated at the black mass of humanity, then gas would start to leak, guttural voices would croak Der springt noch auf , the final Sh’ma Yisroel from A Survivor from Warsaw would be whimpered, and the tumult of world collapse would raise its din… And after that a gentle drizzle of surprise, daily renewed that, would you believe it, I leapt up and so to say concealed again after all, ich sprang doch auf , indeed I’m still here, though I don’t why, unless it was pure chance, the way I was born, I’m just as much an accomplice to my sticking around as I was to my coming into this world — all right, I concede, a grain more shame attaches to hanging around, especially if one has done one’s utmost to hang around, but that’s all, nothing more: I wasn’t willing to be taken in like other suckers by the general passion and breast-beating clap-trap about sticking around, God help us! and in any case you’re always partly to blame , that’s all there is to it, I have stuck around and therefore I am, I thought; no, I didn’t even think, I just was , simple as that, like a Survivor from Warsaw, like a hanger-on from Budapest who sets no store on his hanging on, who feels no need to justify his sticking around, to attach notions of purpose to his having hung on, yes, to turn his having hung on into a triumph, however quiet, however discreet and intimate, yet essentially still the only genuine , the only possible triumph, as the prolonged and propagated perpetuation of this hung-on-to existence, namely my own self, in descendants — in a descendant: you — would be (would have been); no, I didn’t think about that, I didn’t think that I needed to think about that until this night overtook me, that all-illuminating yet pitch-black night, and the question arose before me (or, to be more precise, behind me, behind my long spent life, since, thank God, it’s too late and will now always be too late), the question, yes — as to whether you would be a brown-eyed little girl, with the pale specks of your freckles scattered around your tiny nose? Or else a headstrong boy, your eyes bright and hard as greyish-blue pebbles? — yes, contemplating my life as the potentiality of your being, contemplating it at all, strictly, sadly, without anger or hope, as one contemplates an object. As I said, I didn’t think of anything, even though, as I said, I ought to have. Because surreptitiously some kind of mole work was going on here, a grubbing and a machinating that I ought to have known about and, of course, did know about, I just took it to be something other than it really was, though what exactly, I don’t know— perhaps some kind of reassuring movement, I suspect, much as a blind old man might suppose the ringing, scraping noise of diggers is the earth-mastering work of sewer laying whereas what they are digging there is a grave, and what is more, a grave specifically for him. In short, I suddenly caught myself writing because I had to write, even though I did not know why I had to, the fact is I noticed that I was working incessantly, one might say with an insane diligence, always working, driven not solely by the need to make ends meet, because even if I did not work I would still exist , and if I were existing then I don’t know what that would drive me to do, and it is better that I don’t know, even if my bones, my guts, have an inkling, to be sure, for the reason why I work incessantly is that while I am working I am, and if I did not work, who knows if I would be, therefore I have to take it seriously because the most deadly serious associations subsist between my continued subsistence and my work, that much is blatantly obvious and not in the least normal, even if there happen to be others, even a fair number of them, who likewise write because they have to write, though not everyone who writes has to write, but in my case there was no getting away from the fact that I had to, I don’t know why, but it seems this was the only solution open to me, even if it solves nothing, on the other hand at least it does not leave me in a position of — how shall I put it? — unsolvedness that would compel me to regard it as unsolved even in its unsolvedness and consequently torment me not only by virtue of unsolvedness but also by the shortcomings of this unsolvedness and dissatisfaction over that. In hindsight, I may perhaps have considered writing was an escape (and not entirely groundlessly: at worst I supposed I was escaping in another direction, towards a goal other than the one towards which I was actually escaping and even now increasingly escape), an escape, indeed a salvation, a salvation and absolutely indispensable demonstration of myself and, through myself, of my material and moreover, to use grand words, mental world to the one — anyone — who will feel shame on one’s account and (possibly) for one; and that night had to ensue for me to see at last in the darkness, to see among other things the nature of my work, which in its essence was nothing more than digging, the continued digging of the grave that others had begun to dig for me in the air and then, simply because they did not have time to finish, hastily and without so much as a hint of diabolical mockery (far from it: just like that, casually, without so much as a look around), they thrust the tool in my hand and left me standing there to finish, as best I could, the work that they had begun. And so all my flashes of recognition were merely recognitions leading towards this recognition, and whatever I did, it all became just a recognition within me that led to this recognition — my marriage, just as much as the fact that I said

“No!” instantly and at once, without hesitation and virtually instinctively, yes, still instinctively, for the time being merely instinctively, albeit with instincts that ran counter to my natural instincts, which, however gradually, would (did) become my natural instincts and indeed my very nature; so this “no” was not a decision in which I might (might have), let’s say, decided freely between a “yes” and a “no”; no, this “no,” the decision, was a recognition, but not a decision that I reached or could have reached, rather a decision about myself , or not even a decision but a recognition of my verdict, a decision that could be regarded as such only insofar as I did not decide against the decision, which would undoubtedly have been the wrong decision, for how could a person make a decision against his fate, if I may use this pretentious expression, by which (fate, that is to say) one usually takes to mean what one least understands, which is to say oneself, this treacherous, this unknown, this perpetually countervailing factor that in this form, strange and estranged, as it were bowing in disgust before its power, one nevertheless finds simplest to call one’s fate. And if I wish to see my life as more than just a series of arbitrary accidents succeeding the arbitrary accident of my birth, which would be — how shall I put it? — a rather unworthy view of life after all, but rather as a series of recognitions in which my pride, at least my pride, can find gratification, then the question that assumed an outline in Dr. Obláth’s presence, I might even say with Dr. Obláth’s assistance—