Imre Kertész - Fiasco

“I’ll be glad to be at your disposal another time,” and with that Köves, to his undeniable relief, was once more outside, first in the stairwell, then down below in the street. He set off homewards on foot — the fresh air could do no harm, then back at home he could finally have a good sleep: if he had been sacked, he would at least enjoy the advantages of his regained freedom — and it seems his mind must have still been on the conversation with Berg, because on getting close to the house he noticed merely that he had landed in the middle of an excited crowd. He had to push his way though mostly old people, women, and sick people — idle or retired people with time to spare — in order to reach the front door, registering only as much of the words which were flying about around him as were absolutely inescapable: “from the chandelier,” “the end of a rope,” “had to smash the door in,” “monstrous,” “by his own hand,” and “they telephoned her at the office,” he heard while, coming to the house, he noticed that a dark, angular automobile with its doors closed was parked in front. Then two men in caps and some indeterminable uniform stepped out of the house, and on the stretcher that they slid into the load space through the rear door, and swathed from head to toe in some sort of sheet, lay a figure which seemed, from the size of the shape protruding from beneath the linen, to be the body of an adolescent boy. At that moment, an almost implausibly sharp, irregularly broken scream shattered the hush which had suddenly descended just beforehand, almost as if by magic, before Mrs. Weigand appeared in the entranceway, though to Köves — of course, it was just his tiredness, to say nothing of his astonishment which must have shown her in that absurd complexion — it seemed it was not Mrs. Weigand herself, but rather someone or something else who was screaming out of her throat and waving her head and arms about, a foreign being that had taken up residence in her and to which she was completely surrendering herself in her shocked and uncomprehending defencelessness: inconceivable pain.

One fine day, Köves turned up again at the South Seas; he had not been there for a long time, he had been in the army, because the same post as the dismissal letter from the ministry had also brought a demand that he immediately discharge his deferred military service, at which the army had sniffed him in and swallowed him up, until the day came when even it could stomach him no longer and one morning — it happened to be during the solemn moments when general orders are read out — he dropped full length on the floor, almost knocking over a chair and two fellow squaddies in the process, then showed no inclination to return to his senses, despite being disciplined, punished, taken to task, and pilloried, so he was finally carted off to hospital, where he was surrounded by suspicious doctors who cross-questioned him, took samples of his blood, tapped his limbs, thrust a needle into his spine, and — just at the point when he was fearing he would be unmasked, with the attendant, none too promising consequences — abruptly and most unceremoniously, so he barely had time even to be surprised, though there was plenty of reason for that, he was discharged, because one of the checks had shown that one of his thighs was an inch thinner than the other and, even though Köves was unaware of it, he was probably suffering from muscular dystrophy. Sziklai’s face split into a thousand pieces from laughter when Köves told him the whole story:

“They could hardly wait to get rid of you, old chap!” he slapped Köves on the thigh in question and put the fortunate outcome of the affair “solely down to the changes.”

“What changes?” Köves was amazed, being up to date on nothing since he had been recently preoccupied with rather different matters.

Yet Sziklai did not appear to be much better informed than him:

“Can anyone know?!” he almost reproached Köves for his tactlessness, and it had been so long since Köves had heard the question that, for the first time since he had been discharged from hospital and the army, he was almost seized by a feeling of having found his way back home.

“In any event, one can sense winds of change,” Sziklai went on, half rising from his seat to scan round the coffeehouse, as though searching for someone. “Just look over there.” He nodded before long toward one of the distant tables. “Do you know the gentleman who is ensconced at the head of the table?” The aging, stout man with the prominent chin and vigorous nose whom Köves glimpsed in the direction indicated, and whom, under other circumstances, might have struck Köves as imperious, was very likely someone he had seen before somewhere; nevertheless he had to wait until Sziklai enlightened him:

“Don’t tell me you no longer recognize our all-powerful editor in chief?” At which, suddenly cottoning on, Köves was veritably flooded with grievances which had by now melted into distant, as good as forgivably sunny memories of a long, long bygone age, and now he fancied he also recognized the two thickset, balding men seated on either side of the editor in chief: they seemed to be identical people from the factory, though he was far from certain about that and, with the table standing so far away in a gloomy room, there was every chance he was mistaken.

“He was sacked,” Sziklai grinned.

“Sacked?…,” Köves was astonished.

“No kidding: times are like that now.” Sziklai again settled comfortably on his chair. They had even sought him out, he related, offering him a job back on the newspaper, as a columnist at that, because it turned out that what they had done to him was not just against the law but flew in the face of common sense, as Sziklai had been one of the most outstanding people they had.

“They woke up to it a little too late,” Sziklai said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’d be crazy to go back to being a reporter when I’ve settled down so brilliantly with the fire brigade.” But no doubt they would take Köves back, he hastened to add; he had already put out feelers along those lines, and …

Köves, though, writhed on his seat as if he had been suddenly stabbed:

“I’m not going back to the paper!” he protested as though tormented by bad dreams.

“So you already have a job, then?” Sziklai enquired.

“I’m not going to get a job!” Köves declared so adamantly and, with such a cold repugnance, that it was as if he were not speaking for himself but maybe on behalf of someone else with far more important, far more pressing things to attend to than to fritter away his irreplaceable time in any mere job.

“And what do you intend to live off of?” Sziklai was curious.

“I don’t know,” Köves declared, this time in a tone of grave concern: he appeared only now to have woken up to his hard and seemingly extreme decision, as if he had not taken it himself but rather had been impelled by some external force, and at that moment one had the impression that he himself was, perhaps, even less prepared for the implications of this than was Sziklai, who assessed these things from a practical standpoint and considered that Köves could make a living without having a job. In his opinion, they would just be happy that Köves did not “come forward with any claims against them,” in return for which they would clearly offer — Sziklai “would have a thing or two to say about that too”—to take him on as a special correspondent: if Köves was smart and industrious, he might be able to “place an article with them” every week.

“Besides which,” Sziklai smiled, “the Firefighters’ Platform is naturally waiting for you with open arms, old chap,” and he related to a happily dumbfounded Köves that while Köves had been away in the army, he, Sziklai, had not been “loafing about” either. It may have taken time, and it was not without its difficulties, but he had managed to get “the managers” to understand that rather than using their own amateur-dramatic society, the job of gaining the fire brigade mass appeal would be done much more effectively and successfully by well-known professional actors who were beloved by all, insofar as he could persuade them to place their talents in the service of the fire brigade, at least for one night. Now, one could not expect professional actors “to play any old role,” so that meant professional writers needed to be won over, like the actors, to the idea of placing their skills at the fire brigade’s disposal and each put together an evening of entertainment which, at a professional level, skilfully and effectively blending tragedy and comedy, was drawn from the subject matter of firefighting, or at least somehow touching on it. Consequently, since they were talking about professionals, it would not do to forget about the customary fees which would be owed them; indeed, it would do no harm — given that they had to be won over to a line of duties which was out of the ordinary, not to say special — to offer something a touch over the customary. That was how the Firefighters’ Platform had come into existence: a small touring company which played in towns and villages alike, and every other month presented a new programme, generally consisting of a compering role and “sketches.”