Reif Larsen - I Am Radar

“What did people think of it here?” Radar asked.

Funes nodded, as if he knew such a question was coming. “As big as Congo is, there is only one river to the ocean. Stories started about the library, about what kind of place it was — perhaps my docents were the ones spreading these stories. It does not matter. People started to make pilgrimages. First only a couple, but then they came in streams. They came if they were sick. They thought the books held powers. . They would go inside the stacks and pray. I claimed no power, of course. I was happy for my docents to show them the books and the catalog. As long as they didn’t harm the collection. Many who came to the library claimed they had been cured. Of what I cannot be sure. I did not lead them to this conclusion, but then, I did not dissuade them from believing in it, either.

“And then came the wars. For many years, the river was impassable. . It was too dangerous, even for me, the Tatayababuku, as they now called me. Kisangani was in very bad shape. Many people died. There was fighting all around. I heard gunshots every night and the collection lay stagnant — only a few books trickled in here and there, through clandestine channels. But the library was never harmed. Even the rebels knew that they could not touch what lay inside. And after the war ended, the local people began to give me books.”

“Why? You didn’t need books.”

“I don’t claim to know the African mind. I have played along, but I have never deceived anyone. The library is part of this country’s history now. It’s a part of the world’s history. And I can tell you, I was the first to get back on the river after the war was finished. Even when the UN would not run their boats, I was there. The people knew who I was. They saw my crates. And my crates gave them hope.”

“So how big is the library now?” said Radar.

“Neither I nor anyone could say for sure. What I can say is that it is by far the largest private collection of books in the world. Over the years, we’ve built sixty-one interlinked pentagons. Each pentagon holds one hundred twenty thousand books, give or take. We’ve carved out the space from the jungle and still we don’t have room. . We must always build more. Three hundred and fifty docents are under my employ — they tend the collections, fight the collections. Knowledge is transient. We battle the insects, the humidity. . The books themselves are always expanding. They can never be happy with the space they have.”

“Do any scholars come to use your library?” asked Lars.

“If they came, we would not turn them away. Our location is not the most accessible, I admit, but a library must be open to all who wish to use it. I’m not foolish enough to believe it’s simply about preservation. It is also about use. A library dies without use.”

Fig. 5.8. “La Bibliothèque du Fleuve Congo”

From Radmanovic, R. (2013), I Am Radar, p. 705

“You’re already dead,” whispered Horeb.

“I’m sorry?” said Funes with a smile.

“I said, ‘What of the African authors?’” said Horeb. “Are they in your library too?”

“Of course,” said Funes. “Pentagon forty-eight, sections fourteen and fifteen are devoted to African literature.”

“Two sections only?”

“This is not my doing; I’m only the vessel, not the contents,” he said. “But I don’t find it a coincidence that this is the same continent that housed the great library of Alexandria, the closest we have ever come, until now, to a universal library. This continent is where knowledge was born and where it shall die.”

Radar got up, went into the container, and came out bearing a book. He handed it to Funes.

“For your library,” he said.

Funes studied the book carefully. He examined it as a doctor examines a patient, touching the cover, the spine, the tips of its pages.

“I’ve never seen this before,” he said. “It’s quite unusual to find a book I’ve never seen. Per Røed-Larsen . Who is he?”

Radar gestured at Lars. “His stepbrother.”

Lars shook his head. “I have no stepbrother,” he said.

“An author who doesn’t exist?” said Funes.

“Why do you need the author when you already have the book?” said Lars.

On the eighth morning, Radar awoke, shivering, entangled in the lingering tendrils of dream panic. In the dream, he had been seated at the dining room table with his parents. They were all very thirsty — none of them had had anything to drink for days and days. The only way to get water was from a small bird, which they passed around and squeezed, pressing their thumbs into the soft tuft of its belly. If you squeezed hard enough, a single drop of liquid would come out of the bird’s beak. It was barely enough to wet the tongue. Radar was caught between the desperation of his own thirst and not wanting to watch his parents die of dehydration. When it came to him, he squeezed the bird and nothing came out, not even a drop. He squeezed harder and harder, until he began to feel bones breaking. .

He sat up in his cot. He was thirsty. His joints ached. Like Funes, he had inherited a body sensitive to changes in weather. Perhaps a storm was coming. Or perhaps this was the first sign of malaria. Or sleeping sickness. Or any of the hundred maladies, known and unknown, that he might catch out here.

Outside, he could hear the steady throb of Horeb beating his drum. And then he heard something else: a faint beep. An unfamiliar chime. He searched through his belongings and found the source: the cell phone. A battery icon was blinking in the top left corner. The phone was dying. He realized that Lars had not given him the charger. The phone had subsisted this whole time on a single charge and was now signaling its inglorious death.

The phone beeped again.

“What is it?” he said.

He examined the pixelated screen and saw another icon blinking. An envelope. The number 4. Hands trembling, he thumbed at the buttons. The messages must have arrived in the middle of the night, in the middle of his dream.

The first two were from Ana Cristina:

• • •

609-292-4087:Radar! I thought u died or something! When i got your text i literally jumped up n down:) javi laughed at me: O how is congo???? Can’t wait 4 u to get back! My mama and her empanadas will b waiting:) xo ac

609-292-4087:Also lights came back on!!! All of a sudden like they were never off! 4 real so weird! PS what are u writing???? — ><-

He read and reread and re-reread the messages. He wanted to swallow this collection of pixelated words and live off their nutrients forever. If his life stopped here and now, he would have no complaints.

He finally flipped down to the third message. It was from a strange number.

• • •

387-33-275-312:MY SON IS BORN. RADAR RADMANOVIC. MOTHER IS FINE. BABY IS FINE. I AM FINE. KAKAV OTAC TAKAV SIN. 73, K2W9

“Tata?” he said. What the hell?

Frantically, he pressed the call button, waiting, praying that somewhere in this jungle there was a cell tower that could propel the call into the stratosphere. The long-distance connection sputtered, clicked, engaged, the heavens parting. A single ring. His cell phone went dead.

“No!” he yelled. “No!”

He cradled the device. He had not even gotten to the fourth message! The words somewhere inside this plastic shell. His father had texted him? From where? And what could this text mean? “My son is born”?