Norman Manea - The Black Envelope

“Come on, don’t exaggerate. It seems he’s already written to you.”

“Of course, of course, I’ve had nothing but delights. Correspondence! Abroad! Capitalist countries! Military-fascist dictatorships! Relatives who were drawn from the country by the mirage of money and an easy life, and who send us their convertible charity at Easter and Christmas. I’m just a substitute, Comrade Gafton! A relic of the past dressed up as a scapegoat. That’s the word they used in the political seminars, wasn’t it? But who knows? You might offer me some compensation that leads to a job. A paid hobby. Not paid like your new occupation, which is really unpaid heart-searching. What do you say? Will you take me on?”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand a thing.”

“So you don’t understand. Well, if someone doesn’t understand, it has to be explained to them, right? Do you remember the ‘great tragedy’?”

Gafton remained silent. He shifted his weight from the left to the right side of his body.

“The family tragedy! Death, sir, that’s the only type of tragedy there is. Death. The Great Scriptwriter hired us for that, didn’t he? So, death. . You do remember the funeral? I mean, what happened with Father — then?”

“Yes, of course I do,” the guest quickly broke in.

“Goo-ood, so you remember. What was it: suicide, murder, accident? Or don’t you remember anymore? Maybe you don’t. You had a different name — everything had a different name.”

“How’s that? What do you mean?”

“How’s that, how’s that! Look, surely you’re not going to tell me your name was Gafton in those days. Or am I wrong? Well anyway, let’s skip the details. So now you’re a journalist working from home.”

“From where did you—” The journalist blushed, paled, reddened, all of a sudden.

“No harm done, panie , nothing to be ashamed of. Some will-o’the-wisps can be nice and innocent; they’re not all mean and vile. Your recent one, like the first, is humanitarian enough. It’s just more congenial, because it’s useless and unpaid. So now you write as a correspondent of the masses. Goo-ood. Letters instead of articles, right? Right. Like those Latin American policemen who decide to form their own gangs to have a crack at the villains — but as private individuals using police expertise. Good. Only you also have other passions. I was going to say manias — excuse me. So you investigate! You examine the past to forget the present, or to understand it better. Of course, it’s not my business. But it is also, or could also become, mine. I mean, why don’t we concern ourselves with the same period, for different purposes? Only I’d be paid for it. What do you say?”

“No. I don’t understand what you’re after.”

“What I’m after? To get excited about something, that’s what. To find a conjuring act. A game, a hobby, as they say in the capitalist paradise. Not to be bored any longer! Even death is not a greater tragedy than boredom. The Old Scriptwriter likes us to amuse him, doesn’t he? After all, that’s why he created us.

“So, could I take part in your great work? I’m drawing up my family tree and also looking into the mysterious chapter in its story. What do you say? Others don’t know what I’m like, but when I think of the hearth back home, of my childhood years, I’m ready to start writing the memoirs of my decimated family! Will you pay for my help, then? How about it?”

It became quiet again. As the silence continued to grow, the professor felt he had probably gone rather too far.

“Let me make you another coffee, sir. I haven’t anything else to offer. You don’t drink or smoke, I know, and I can’t offer you one of my ladies, as they’ve got the day off today. But a genuine coffee — in our times that’s a real provocation, believe me. Almost an attack on social harmony. Just think: a kilo of coffee on the black market costs a whole month’s wages.”

The other man did not reply. The window was darkening as evening fell. His movements grew slower, his voice less distinct.

“No.” The voice could be heard at last. “It’s late and I don’t sleep well anyway. Let’s talk about your job, rather.”

“Pah, what is there to talk about? I understand that you can’t help me. You’re not the official journalist you once used to be, so you can’t work shoulder to shoulder again with mad Marga, the loonies’ doctor, to save me and take me away to the famous capital to work in the sought-after post of receptionist at the Hotel Cunty. I’m sorry, I know you’re not so keen on slang. Let’s say Hotel Pussy — that’s the popular expression.”

“Yes. It won’t be easy to find you a job. But that’s not the most difficult problem.”

“Well, if there’s a more difficult one, we’re really in for it! In fact, I’m just starting to correspond with Argentina.”

“It’s the business with that hotel. But you know what things are like there. The staff, the various connections and obligations.”

“Ah! So you know the network, I see. You must have worked in that branch as well! After all, you’ve practiced all the trades, including that of professional revolutionary, haven’t you? Isn’t that so? Tell me, isn’t that so?”

“Stop playing the fool. No one will believe you were a receptionist who knew of nothing but work and wages, day shift and night shift, for a fortnight at a stretch. A receptionist at that hotel is not the best of recommendations. Or only if you want to be taken on as a flunky. You know what I mean.”

“Sure I do. It means we can’t go on discussing in the dark, comrade. They mustn’t think there’s a conspiracy, Comrade Gafton — that we’re taking advantage of the dark.”

Suddenly the light came on, another one of Tolea’s tricks. A candle-thin bulb, held by a metal clasp attached to the table leg. A weak light, just enough to outline the Roman-consul face of the receptionist. Perfectly shaven, almost too pale.

“Now that you mention it, m’sieur, you’re going to end up in really hot water with those freelance journalists’ letters. A petitioner for the good of humanity! I didn’t understand that business with your name, either. Why should you be doing good under a changed name? After all, my ancestors or yours changed their name for quite different reasons, didn’t they, eh? Aliens that we are, isn’t that so?”

No answer could be heard, not even a whimper.

“Was it all for effect that you took your wife’s name? Precisely after the war? Because she’d had one of those brothers, a Heil Heil man, but she herself was innocent? And in the fifties you risked your spotless record as an apostle just to defend the principle of objectivity! Is that how you justified it to yourself? Like that, Herr Gafton?”

Nothing from Herr Gafton, not a word. Or rather yes, there did come a whisper. “I thought you might try some translating for a while. You can still find a connection at one of those cooperatives that do technical translations. Or even at a publisher’s. It would help out until something else comes along.”

“A translator, goo-ood! Traduttore traditore , or however it goes. We all translate, it’s become the law of survival, hasn’t it? Good. We’re all replacements and translators, no?

“But what about the translator’s file? His curriculum vitae , his police record? His mother, father, brothers, and sisters, political affiliations — kept particularly for special cases! Argentina’s a special case, isn’t it? The Argentine circus: generals who are continually visiting this country because we’re sister Latins and sister menageries, isn’t that so? And then, gospodin , what do you know about the post of receptionist at the temple of fornicators? There’s no way you can know, panie . For the time being we are killed by messengers, by intermediaries, not by the Chief Star and his Saints. Petty auxiliaries, substitutes — even me. A substitute, sir, you know what I mean only too well. It’s a world of substitutes, this circus of ours. Any tenant on the flattened planet knows it already. Anyone knows it, my dear sir. Even you do, I’m sure.”