Imre Kertész: Fiasco

For that reason, then, there are no grounds at all for us to believe that these were the things being thought when the old boy was standing in front of the filing cabinet and thinking.

No, all that’s at issue is that it was midmorning (relatively — getting on for ten), and that around this time the old boy was in the habit of having a think.

That was how he ordered his life.

Every day, when ten o’clock (or thereabouts) came around, he immediately started to think.

This was an upshot of his circumstances, since before ten o’clock he would not have been able to start thinking, whereas if he only set about it later on, he would have reproached himself for the lost time (which would have only led to further loss of time, or held him back even further, if not — in extreme cases — completely obstructed him from thinking).

Thus at ten o’clock (or thereabouts), so to speak automatically and quite independently of the intensity of the thinking, or even of whether or not he thought at all (the old boy was so much into the routine of thinking that he was sometimes capable of creating the appearance of being in thought even when he was not thinking, possibly even when he himself might have imagined he was thinking), the old boy stood in front of the filing cabinet and thought.

For at ten o’clock (or thereabouts) the old boy was left alone in the flat (which for him counted as a precondition for thinking), as his wife would earlier have set off on the long journey to the bistro on the city outskirts where, as a waitress, she earned her bread (and occasionally the old boy’s as well) (if fate so willed it) (and it certainly did so will it more than once).

He had also done with his ablutions.

He had also drunk his coffee (in the armchair to the west of the tile stove) (allowing for an adequate gap).

He had also already smoked his first cigarette (pacing back and forth between the west-facing window and the closed entrance door to the east) (sidling a bit in the constricted space formed by the curtain made from an attractive print of manmade fibre covering the north wall of the hallway and the open bathroom door) (a door which was constantly open, for purposes of ventilation, since the bathroom was even more airless than the airless hallway).

These were the preliminaries, if not reasons (though most certainly preconditions), for the old boy to be standing in front of the filing cabinet and thinking at ten o’clock (or thereabouts) on this splendid, warm, slightly humid but sunny late-summer (early autumnal) morning.

The old boy had plenty of troubles and woes, so he had something to think about.

But the old boy was not thinking about what he ought to have been thinking about.

Yet we cannot assert that his most topical care — that is to say, the one he ought to have been thinking about — had not so much as entered his head.

Indeed we cannot.

“I’m just standing here in front of the filing cabinet and thinking,” the old boy was thinking, “instead of actually doing something.”

Well certainly, the truth is — not to put too fine a point on it — that he should long ago have settled down to writing a book.

For the old boy wrote books.

That was his occupation.

Or rather, to be more precise, things had so transpired that this had become his occupation (seeing as he had no other occupation).

He had already written several books as well, most notably his first one: he had worked on that book (since at the time writing books had not yet become his occupation and he had written the book for no obvious reason, just on an arbitrary whim, so to say) for a good ten years, but had subsequently seen it into print only after a fair number of vicissitudes — and the passage of a further two years; for his second book just four years had proved adequate; and with his other books (since by then writing books had become his occupation, or rather — to be more precise — things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation) he merely devoted the time that was absolutely necessary to get them written, which was essentially a function of their thickness, because (since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) he had to aim to write books that were as thick as possible, out of carefully considered self-interest, since the fee for thicker books was fatter than that for slimmer books, for which — since they were slimmer — the fee was correspondingly slim (proportionate to their slimness) (regardless of their content) (in accordance with MoE Decree No.1/20.3.1970 concerning terms and conditions for publishing contracts and authors’ royalties, as issued by the Ministry of Education with the assent of the Treasury, the Ministry of Labour, the president of the National Board of Supply and Price Control, and the National Trades Union Council).

Not that the old boy was burning with longing to write a new book.

It had simply been quite some time since a new book of his had been published.

If this were to continue, his very name would sink into oblivion.

Which, in itself, would not have concerned the old boy in the slightest.

Except that — and there was the rub — he had to be concerned about it in a certain respect.

In not so many years he would reach the age at which he might become a retired writer (in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books) (though he could do, of course, if he still had the wish to).

That, then — if he stripped away all the vague abstractions, and he was a stickler for the concrete and tangible — was the real goal of his literary labours.

But in order not to have to write any more books, he would still have to write a few more.

As many more as he could.

For if he were not to lose sight of the real goal of his literary labours (that is, that he might become a retired writer, or in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books), then it was to be feared that the degree of oblivion into which his name was falling might affect — to wit, adversely — the factors determining his pension (about which factors he had no precise information, but he reasoned, perhaps not entirely illogically, that if a bigger royalty was to be expected for a thicker book, then more books should yield a bigger pension) (which, in the absence of more precise information, as has already been indicated, was just speculation, if not entirely illogical speculation, on the old boy’s part).

So that was why the old boy had to be concerned, even if in other respects he was not in the slightest bit concerned about the fact in itself, that his very name was sinking into oblivion.

Consequently, despite not burning with any longing to write a new book, he ought to have settled down to it long ago.

Only he had no clue what. (This, incidentally, had already happened to him on other occasions, though only with any regularity since writing books had become his occupation (or rather — to be more precise — since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation).

And yet it was a just a question of a single book.

Any old book, just so long as it was a book (the old boy had long been aware that it made no difference at all what kind of book he wrote, good or bad — that had no bearing on the essence of the matter) (though as to what he meant by the essence the old boy either knew only too well or had no idea at all) (at least we are forced to this conclusion by the fact that, standing and thinking in front of the filing cabinet as he was, this thought, among others, was running through his head, though he gave not the slightest sign of wishing to clarify the essence of this notion — of the essence — if only for his own purposes).