William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— I thought you didn't believe me.

— I don't… He came down stiff on the heels of the boots, picking short steps past the roll of the tent, the heaped magazines, back scanning the rows of books. — Maybe they'd turned Klinger. Maybe they thought we'd doubled him so they dropped him in that alley. They'd turned Seiko… he was pushing books aside on the shelf, peering in at the wall behind them. — Seiko brought you in, you knew that… He reached in tapping the wall there, pushed more books aside and tapped again. — You're not that important, you know that? Just a piece in the puzzle, a little piece in the big puzzle… He stood picking paint from a moulding with his thumbnail, — how much are you holding out for, ten?

— If it's not that imp…

— Ten thousand dollars, did you hear me? Because we don't like surprises. Because Cruikshank thinks there might be something to that story about the strike you made thirty years ago when you first went out there, that strike up above the Limpopo when nobody would believe you, when the…

— Then why should he believe me now. That bloodless bastard why should he trust me now any more than I trust him. He's still trying to recolonize the whole continent? take it back a hundred years when Europe cut it up like a pie and they all took a piece?

— I said cash, McCandless. Ten thousand cash you don't have to trust anybody, sitting here in this mess pretending you don't know what's going on over there? Look at it, it's a nightmare, twenty years of independence and the whole continent's a nightmare, they've wiped out everything it took a hundred years to put together. Everything's gone backwards, more than a million of them killed by their own governments, the rest can't even feed themselves. Ninety five percent of those countrief. used to grow their own food now every one of them imports it, seven or eight hundred different languages they can't even talk to each other, one in a hundred of them's a refugee, sleeping sickness, river blindness, starvation, madness, anywhere you go there's madness, people going staring mad is that any better? is that what you want?

— Good God no Lester, far be it from me. Better off with your missionaries back there in good old King Leopold's Congo, the Belgians using them for pistol practice, chopping off their hands, stringing them on fences, burning their…

— Will you stop it? It's just your, you know what it is? It's cheap. It's like your book there it's cheap, it's the same cheap, condescending, twisting things around like this having business with the Bible and all the rest of your cheap…

— Nothing cheap about it Lester, a trillion dollars' worth of weaponry and your evangelicals in there warming things up with don't fool yourselves thinking I come to send peace on earth, I come not to send peace but a sword. Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! Sing them a few bars of that? The Son of God goes forth to war A kingly crown to gain; His blood red banner streams afar…

— Whose evangelicals do you want then! Whose fundamentalists do you want, talk about your little taste of Georgia how about a little taste of Islam? You think your Georgia judge there sounds any different from an ayatollah? You talk about chopping off hands, you want them sitting you out there in a public square with the Moslem Brotherhood piling in shouting Allah Akbar while they, where's your insurance policy, actual severance through or above the wrist and you run in to collect your five thousand from Bai Sim convenient offices everywhere? Whose jihad do you want, McCandless! They've been at it for a thousand years, they've been at it since ten ninety when Hasan brought his cutthroats out of Qum, cut your throat and they're guaranteed a seat in paradise. Talk about having business with the Bible how about having business with the Koran, if you think…

— That's a generous offer, how about having business with neither damned one of them. I don't quite follow what you're trying to…

— You could end up on the wrong side, you know that? You know that, McCandless?

— I'll tell you one thing I know. I'll tell you…

— Because maybe they turned you. Maybe people think they turned you. It's the same thing.

— I'll tell you one thing, people don't think. You're up there picking through my books why don't you look for the…

— Don't, no don't start that again, look for the second book of the Republic take it with you and read it, it's good clean fun we've been over all that, don't…

— No no no, no it's the Crito, Lester. Where it doesn't matter what the many think because they can't make you wise or a fool, it's Crito you're looking for, right up there next to the encyclopae…

— It's not what I'm looking for! I'm not talking about what the many think, I'm not talking about what I think, I'm talking about what Cruikshank thinks. If you won't take ten thousand for this work you did for Klinger he thinks you've been turned, you've already handed it over, you've been sold out for nothing… He'd come sharply away from the bookcases, back toward the table, tripping on a heap oí magazines, catching balance to give them a kick, — I'll tell you what I think. If that work you did for Klinger is here in this mess someplace you couldn't find it if you wanted to. You came up here to clean it up and you can't clean it up, you know why McCandless? You can't clean it up because you're part of it. You've got no more money than what's in your pocket, you haven't even got carfare to Luanda where they might take you in… He'd come close enough, waving away the smoke, to reach down for — your thousand shilling note here, get back to Kampala this will get you a bed for the night if they don't put out your eyes and leave you in a ditch first. Here. Here's your Survival Handbook just in case you miss our picnic in the clouds and if anybody's going to miss it you are. Keep handy for future reference says it right on the cover, you're going to need it. Here's your timetable, all it was good for was so you'd know how late the trains were, now they've all run off the tracks and you're left sitting here with the timetable smoking your, wait, wait don't make another one here, smoke one of these… he'd seized the tin of State Express, — talk about stupidity and you sit here smoking yourself to death here, smoke all of them… he shook them loose over the table there, — smoke them all they're as dead and dried up as you are, your Frank Kinkead raving about scratching the surface of reason and there's this void right under it aching to believe anything absurd, where he wants to give out free chess sets like they give out free Bibles for endless cheap entertainment, anything to fill the emptiness any invention to make them part of some grand design anything, the more absurd the better, magic, drugs, psychedelics, Pan Koo and the Tibetans' prayer wheels, the assumption of the Virgin and the three secrets of Fatima, Moroni's golden tablets or just God, God, God… Suddenly he had the bottle by the throat — here, have a drink. Where's your euthanasia contract sign it, I'll witness it for when you're physically or mentally disabled and can't make your own decisions maybe it's here, maybe the time's here have two drinks, have five… he thrust the upended bottle's neck into the glass, — have twenty…

— What in hell are you doing!

The bottle was wrenched away and he backed off, holding his hand down to look at it like something alien, stroking his smarting wrist at the joint with a healing care looking for something to wipe away the splash of whisky, the smell of it, — sixteen, McCandless. That's the last offer. That's their limit, I didn't set it they did, that's what I'm authorized… he stood wiping his hand on the back of his trousers, — cash. Any currency you want, anyplace you want it delivered and a one way ticket to get there, if you want a cover we'll provide you a cover, show up in Kinshasa selling snow-shoes and we'll provide it. Sixteen thousand.