Imre Kertész - Fiasco

“After all, a memento is a memento,” he continued to fume.

“And this piece of wood is the only thing that’s left of it all,” he carried on fuming.

“It was rather embarrassing,” his face suddenly brightened (as if touched by some memory) (a memory which was evidently bound to the humorous) (yet rather embarrassing) (though the two are by no means mutually exclusive) (indeed their simultaneous presence is the spice of all genuinely funny episodes) (assuming one is capable of valuing the funny side of a rather embarrassing episode) (as when it turns out, for instance, that one actually has no objective proof of any kind for an event that one has held to be so decisive in one’s life, and thus it exists purely in one’s unverifiable memories) (so in short, the brightening of the old boy’s face was evidently bound up with this episode which was simultaneously humorous and rather embarrassing).

For in point of fact, years later — and now years (many years) before the present moment — the idea had struck the old boy that his wife should in any event (and here the word should be understood in the strict sense, which is to say an event that may be pure supposition, but it does no harm to be prepared for it) (if it holds logical water to be prepared for something we haven’t the faintest idea about), so in any event should apply to get her name cleared (as is only right and proper) (if we do not wish that the mere fact of our having been punished is to be held against us as a crime that we have committed).

They were visited by a detective.

He introduced himself.

He sat down (not in one of the armchairs placed to the north and west of the tile stove) (since those armchairs did not yet exist at that time) (but presumably in the rush-bottomed chair, the rush strands of which were severed at the wooden frame, which, along with two backless seats with similarly severed rush bottoms and a stripped-wood colonial table, two sofas) (one of them padded out with books at its centre, where the spring had gone) (and two blankets, as carpeting on the floor, constituted the apartment’s furnishings at that time).

He asked to see the release paper.

This was when the abovementioned simultaneously humorous and rather embarrassing episode ensued, which was characterized by the helpless glances of the old boy (who was not yet old at that time) and his wife, a hasty pulling out of drawers, an agitated rummaging under bed linen until it was discovered that the sole authentic proof of release (and above all the committal to detention which had preceded it) — namely, the release paper — had, every sign indicated, been mislaid in one subtenancy or another (or perhaps along one of the routes from one subtenancy to another).

No problem, said the detective (a burly but kindly chap in a raincoat), he would look into the matter and track down the files.

A few days later he (the burly but kindly chap in the raincoat) duly turned up: he had found the files.

He sat down.

He was troubled.

“Madam,” he said, “it looks like you were innocent.”

“Of course,” the (as yet not old) old boy’s wife agreed.

“There isn’t even a record of any interrogation,” the detective continued, “only of regular extensions of the period on remand. They never laid charges against you.”

“No,” the (as yet not old) old boy’s wife agreed.

“Not even, if I may put it this way … well, not even false charges.”

“No.”

“To say nothing of any sentencing.”

“No.”

“But that’s where we have a problem, madam,” fretted the detective (a burly but kindly chap in a raincoat). “Because … how can I put it?… We can only clear someone’s name if a trial, sentencing or at least a preferment of charges has taken place. But in your case … please try to understand what I am saying … in your files there is no trace of any of that, you aren’t suffering any consequences, you don’t carry a criminal record … in other words, there is simply nothing to be cleared.”

“And what about that one year?” the (as yet not old) old boy’s wife asked.

The detective spread his arms and lowered his gaze: it was evident that he took the issue as a matter of conscience.

He sat for a short while longer on the rush-bottomed chair with the rush strands severed at the wooden frame.

“We had trouble consoling him,” the old boy cheered up (mentally) at the memory.

… so simply — as one that, in point of fact, can be summarized in a single clear sentence: I had written a novel, and it had been rejected, presumably through ignorance and lack of courage, as well as evident spite and stupidity.

It may be — indeed, as I now know, it is quite certain — that I made a mistake when I left the assessment at that. I should have pushed on further to a final conclusion which brooked no going back. If I had grasped and embraced the role inherent in the situation, I would never have got to where I am today. For a writer there is no more ornate crown than the blindness that his age displays toward him; and it carries yet one more gem if that blindness is coupled with being silenced. But then, although I had written a novel, and meanwhile would have been unable to entertain the idea of my having any other occupation, in reality I never thought of it as my occupation. Even though that novel was a greater necessity for me than anything else, I never succeeded in persuading myself that I was necessary. It seems I am incapable of going beyond the bounds of my nature, and my nature is temperate, like the climatic zone I inhabit. My feelings recoiled from the precarious glory of failure. All the more because that place was already occupied by something else, a feeling which proved a good deal more determined than any enthusiasm of a purely abstract kind: the guilt I felt when I also showed the letter to my wife.

“Perhaps that bit ought not …” the old boy winced.

… This shift was so unexpected that even I was surprised. I couldn’t decide where it came from. Did I have a guilty conscience because my novel had been rejected, or because I had written a novel in the first place? In other words, to be more precise, would I still have had a guilty conscience if the publisher had happened to inform me that my novel had been accepted? I don’t know, and now I never shall find out; but I was taken aback that subversive processes were under way in some deep recess of my brain, as if battle positions were being drawn up behind which ramifying arguments were being concentrated in order to swing onto the attack at a designated point in time. But my wife, with wordless self-control … I know that little, silent smile of hers … No whisper of an assuaging reproach that … I felt the importance of every novel and publisher in the world, as well as my own self-justification, fading away. I was deeply offended; dinner was consumed sullenly.

It could be that already then I suspected what I had lost. Now, with the benefit of a wider perspective, I can measure more precisely not just how right I was, but my comfort too. As I say, it all depended on whether I would grasp or repudiate the role inherent in the state of affairs. To repudiate it would have been at once to repudiate destiny by opening the door to time and ceaseless wonderment. While my destiny was with me — which is to say, while I was writing my novel — I had no experience of these kinds of concerns. Anyone living under the spell of destiny is liberated from time. Time still marches on, of course, but its duration is irrelevant: its purpose is solely to accomplish that destiny. One is not left with much chance: all that’s needed is to know how to be ruined and to wait. And I knew. Once I had received the letter, it should just have become even easier for me: my time was up — if you like, there was nothing further for me to do. Destiny — since that’s its nature — would have robbed me of any future which was definitive and thus could be contemplated. It would have bogged me down in the moment, dipped me in failure as in a cauldron of pitch: whether I would be cooked in it or petrified hardly matters. I was not circumspect enough, however. All that happened was that an idea was shattered; that idea — myself as a product of my creative imagination, if I may put it that way — no longer exists, that’s all there is to it.