Reif Larsen - I Am Radar

In his darker moments, as he lay awake on his back at night, the guilt was not what lingered. Tucked beneath the guilt was a longing — a longing to feel it all again, to be enfolded in that giddy sensation of mind and body bifurcating, of himself other than himself, of watching his person strike the gypsy down with such ease it made his bones ache. This division was what he had been searching for in each one of his plays — he relied on the services of puppets and robots to perform this cheap trick of displacement — but in that moment by the river, he had needed nothing but himself. He had been the other. Puppets — glorious and profane — were no substitute for the real thing.

7. THE FORCE WITH WHICH TWO OBJECTS ATTRACT EACH OTHER IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THEIR MASS AND INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO THE SQUARE OF THE DISTANCE BY WHICH THEY ARE SEPARATED.

Work on the elephant stalled. Lacking one of its ears and a proper sheath of skin, it languished in the nave of the barn, silent and immovable. This picture of incompletion, of an animal half-realized, slipped Miroslav into despair. He feared he would never create anything again. The carcass presided over a tribunal of failure.

One day, when he felt himself on the edge of madness, he wrote a letter to Professor Darko Zunjic, in the philosophy department at the University of Belgrade, asking him if he wouldn’t mind providing a reading list of essential titles in hermeneutics and continental philosophy.

“It’s bleak out here,” wrote Miroslav. “I hope you understand. I’m primarily a puppeteer, but the puppets have stopped speaking to me. So now I’m at a loss. I’m interested in anything that deals with consciousness, reason, and/or death. Thank you very much in advance. Regards, Miroslav Danilovic.”

To his great surprise, Professor Zunjic sent him a battered box full of his personal books.

“May they change you as they have changed me,” read the note. “See you in the fall.” Professor Zunjic asked only that he return his books when he arrived in Belgrade.

Miroslav was so moved by this gesture, by the cracked binding of the books, by the wild, illegible notes in the margins, by the infectious evidence of a mind at work, that he spent his whole summer working his way through the box as his father and brother slaved away in the fields, trying to save what could not be saved. Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Derrida, an American named Richard Rorty — he did not understand all of what was in the box, but what he did understand made him hungry, and what he did not understand made him hungrier still.

“What are those books about?” Miša once asked him after coming in from a day of digging ditches. There was a palm print of mud on the left side of his neck, as if the earth itself had tried to strangle him.

“Nothing much,” said Miroslav. “You could go through life and never read Heidegger and you would still be fine. You would probably even be better off. You could just go about the act of being without worrying what that meant.”

“So then why do you read them?” Miša asked.

Miroslav thought about this. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“What is anyone afraid of, Miša?”

“I’m not afraid of anything. Spiders, maybe.”

“I’m afraid of a world without meaning.”

“Okay.”

“I’m afraid of our capacity for self-deception. I’m afraid of being without being. I’m afraid of dying alone.”

“I would never let you die alone,” said Miša.

“I love you, Miša, but we all die alone. They never tell you this in school, but this is the only truth you can depend upon. Solitary demise.”

“But then you still go to heaven. And heaven is full of people.”

Miroslav smiled. “And then you go to heaven, Miša. Full of people. It’s true. There’s always that. Although you could go to hell.”

“Lots of people there, too,” said Miša. “You’ll never be alone.”

8. AN OBJECT IN MOTION WILL STAY IN MOTION UNLESS AN UNBALANCED FORCE ACTS UPON IT.

One evening in early August, Danilo knocked three times on Miroslav’s door.

The sequence was like this: — - such that the last knock seemed like it would never come, and then it came.

There was no answer. Danilo cautiously opened the door and found Miroslav reading on his bed.

“Why didn’t you answer?” he asked.

“Why did you come in?”

Danilo had noticed a shift in his eldest son. Long ago he had given up on his being a productive participant on the farm, and he had accepted this loss because Miroslav was destined for great things — opportunities were open to him that Danilo had never had for himself. And yet he sensed something impure in his son’s heart — he no longer looked at you when he spoke, and when he did, his eyes appeared heavy and resigned, the kind of look Danilo recognized in an ailing animal.

Danilo came over and sat on the bed. He put a hand on his son’s foot.

“Tata, what is it?” said Miroslav. “I’m busy.”

“Tell me what is on your mind.”

“What do you mean?”

Danilo remained quiet. He left his hand resting on his son’s foot.

Finally Miroslav closed his book. He sat like this for a while and then looked at his father.

“I think I’ll go to Belgrade next week,” he said.

“So soon?”

“I need to leave.”

“But it might be dangerous there. They’re saying it might be dangerous.”

“I can’t be here anymore.”

Danilo picked up the book.

“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science,” he read out loud. “Immanuel Kant.” He opened to the first page and tried to read a few sentences. “So you like this?”

Miroslav shrugged. “Kant’s all right. He wrote his first book and no one understood it, so he tried again with this one. It’s better.”

“What was he saying?”

“He was trying to work out a theory that could apply to everything.”

“And did he?”

“Not really. He was wrong. I think he knew he was wrong even as he was writing it.”

“It’s easy to be wrong,” said Danilo.

“He didn’t know at the time how important he was going to be. When he was living, he wasn’t Kant. He was just another German philosopher trying to write down his ideas.”

Danilo closed the book.

“Maybe you should wait before you go. Maybe it’s better to stay until we know what will happen.”

“Well, we cannot know what will happen,” said Miroslav. “So does this mean we shouldn’t do anything?”

“I’m asking you not to go. I know I can’t tell you to stay, but I’m asking you, as your father, not to go. Just for now. Please. We need you here.”

“You don’t need me here. I don’t do anything.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Your brother needs you.”

“Have you seen him? He doesn’t need anybody.”

“It’s just for the fall. Then we can talk about all of this again.”

“Tata. I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Danilo opened the book again. “Tell me, why do you hate it here so much?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Not if you don’t give me a chance.”

“Have you ever woken up and felt like you’re being suffocated by your own lungs?”

Danilo thought about this. “God’s with you. He’s always with you, wherever you go.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“I don’t need proof. I’ve always had proof. The world is my proof.”

“I’m suffocating, Tata. I’m suffocating with each breath. Every day I’m here, I’m reminded of me.”

“But you are you.”

“So you see my problem.”