Imre Kertész - Fiasco

It is not me, then, who is the spoilsport: it is you. You, who disown me, who wish to hear no word about a tacit agreement existing between us, and fastidiously turn up your noses just on hearing about that possibility; when you now wish to see my fate, which we have transformed into what it has become, by common consent, merely an excessively wild individual, which has nothing to do with what is in common, and which it would be best to be rid as soon as possible, and then, after the obligatory shuddering, quickly forget all about.

You will have to realize that it’s my duty to protest against a bogus solution like that — my duty, for one thing, out of self-awakening, philanthropic unsparingness, for another, in the interests of preserving my dignity, which cannot tolerate being cheated so treacherously for the sake of cheap peace of mind.

If you are inclined to look more deeply into yourselves, you will understand me. Because, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have been hopelessly locked up together with one another in this world in miserable camaraderie; everything which happens carries such significance that we can no longer disperse it, nullify it, deny it from each other. We have to accept one another and our stories, and, even in the most extreme case, we have no other choice than to weigh up how, in the given situation, we can get away with even the mildest of our past deeds. And if everything that I shall relate to you further on is perceived by you in this way, then both parties, yourselves and I, will be able to get something out of it, although in the final analysis I truly do not know, in this respect, who will have the simpler task: you, who will be living on under the burden of my fate, or I, whom, through my likely removal from your midst, you will charitably excuse from further life. At all events, I draw my composure from the thought that my educationally-intended autobiography has in this way taken sweet vengeance for my fate on a world which allowed, tolerated, and thus wished for, this fate — sweet vengeance, I say, and ultimately I have striven to prepare your minds so carefully in order to make them sensitive to that vengeance.

Having let the final sheet of paper drop onto the table, Berg looked up at Köves, who now shifted position on the creaking and uncomfortable seat (he had not dared bat an eyelid during the reading), and asked in a tense, eager tone:

“And then?…,” like someone who was not looking for a breather but rather expecting it to go straight on.

Berg, however, spread his hands slightly:

“That’s it,” he smiled.

“What do you mean?!” Köves spluttered. “You didn’t even get started!”

“To be precise, you heard the preface,” Berg informed him. “That’s as far as I have got. The rest has yet to come.”

“All of it, in other words!” Köves seemed disappointed, if not actually annoyed. “All I’ve heard so far is preaching, a pile of assertions that I can either believe in or not, because …,” Köves searched for the right word, and, it seems, he had not graduated from the hard school of Sziklai’s tuition for nothing, “… because there is no plot underpinning it!” was how he finally phrased his stricture, which was not exactly tactful, and Berg’s brow appeared to darken for a moment, but then he perhaps realized that Köves’s impatience, at root, must have been fed by approbation, or at least involvement.

“At least give me an idea what happens over the course of the plot,” Köves grumbled. “Who is that fellow, anyway? Who did he take as his model?”

“Who would I take it from if he were foreign to me?” Berg responded to the question with a question.

“You mean to say,” Köves was incredulous, “you are that fellow?”

“Let’s just say that’s one of the possibilities,” Berg replied. “One possible path to grace.”

“And what other paths might be possible?” Köves wanted to know.

“That of the victim,” came the answer.

“And then?…,” Köves pestered further.

To this, however, Berg responded:

“Only two paths are offered here.” A short pause ensued, with Berg groping like a blind man in the direction of the petits-fours, alighting upon the green one, grasping it, then putting it back and instead raising the chocolate-coloured one, but promptly dropping that too, hastily, resolutely, as if he were responding to a pledge that had been resuscitated from forgetfulness.

“And writing?” Köves piped up again. “Isn’t writing grace?”

“No,” Berg’s high voice snapped back as a curt yelp.

“Well what, then?”

“Deferment. Ducking. Dodging,” Berg itemized. “The postponement — impossible of course — of the election of grace.”

“In other words,” Köves asked, “you are either executioner or victim?”

“Both,” Berg answered in a slightly impatient tone, like someone who is required to provide information on matters that have long been known. His glance skimmed over the table until it stopped on a slip of paper, which he now lifted up from amongst his papers. ‘ “It might perhaps be pleasant,’ ” he read off it, “ ‘to be alternately victim and executioner.” ’ Berg put the slip down and again glanced at Köves. “That’s what the writing says, and I am its realizer,” he said.

“What writing is that?” Köves inquired. “Did you write it?”

“No,” Berg replied. “When it was written the time had not yet come. The time,” his clear voice chimed out as if he were not speaking but singing, “is here now.”

He fell silent, leaned back against the tile stove and, perhaps to stop them from being able to move, folded his arms on his chest and bowed his head. A little bit later he spoke the same way again, head bowed, as if he were not speaking to Köves, just as he had done in the South Seas when they had got to know each other:

“For a long time man was superfluous, but free. It was up to him to beg for what was necessary, or in other words, for grace — as I have already said, they are the same thing. Now, though,” he raised his voice, “man is just superfluous, and he can only redeem his superfluousness by service.”

“What sort of service?” Köves asked after the passage of what he judged to be a decent pause.

“The service of order.” Berg again raised his discomfitting gaze.

“What sort of order?” Köves was a rather timid about putting a further question, fearing that Berg might get sick of the conversation before it was time, but he could not miss out on a chance to possibly learn something.

An answer came back, however, even if it bore a noticeable touch of irritation:

“That’s a matter of indifference; it’s enough for it to be order.” Berg again hunted, and this time he took hold of a scribbled sheet. “Here we are,” he said in doing so, “a few words that were left out of the preface but will definitely have to be fitted into the work somewhere else,” and then started reading: “Because, Ladies and Gentlemen, if things go on like they are, life’s demands will soon exceed the bounds of man’s moral capacity, and believe me: man will only be redeemed by order, by setting those demands into an enthralling system …”

It seemed it was now Köves’s turn to lose his patience:

“You’re constantly using words that,” he didn’t even wait for Berg to stop speaking, “that I never hear anyone else using. ‘Moral capacity’!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean by ‘moral’?”

“Sensitivity to crime,” Berg replied.

“Crime!” Köves fumed on. “And what’s a crime?”

“Man,” said Berg with a short, cool smile.

“Man!” Köves reiterated. “And what is man’s crime?”