Norman Manea - The Lair

The second coming of the Savior, Armageddon, the appearance of the Antichrist, the exit of the planet from its orbit, the return of the Imam, the First and Last, nuclear war. The asteroid of Damnation had hit, the meteor, the Cathedral of Planetary Transactions, where mystics, usurers and alchemists murmur, on their knees, every four minutes and fifty — three seconds, their eyes on the monetary diagrams, the same laconic and lewd prayer: money — money — money — money.

The professor sits down again in front of the flaming screen, takes out the immaculate, white folder. On the cover, large letters in blood: THE OBITUARY OF THE PLANETa.

8:45 A.M.:

Flight controllers in Boston intercept a voice in the cabin of Flight 11. “We have plans,” the voice announces in an uncertain but intelligible English. “Remain calm and you’ll be okay.” The plane turns and changes course for the Devil’s Metropolis.

8:46 A.M.:

An unidentified plane, with ninety — two passengers on board, slams into the grandiose edifice of globalization, the World Trade Center. The floors burn and the gasworks of the heating system explodes. Smoke fills the sky and covers the ground; the ants run, dazed, along the streets below.

9:05 A.M.:

The FBI is alerted. A second plane, with sixty — four passengers on board, slams into the World Trade Center, exploding on impact.

9:37 A.M.:

A Boeing 757 (American Airlines 77) penetrates three of the five concentric circles of the Pentagon, the Fortress of Power. The offices of the Martian God are in flames.

10:00 A.M.:

The North Tower of Babel collapses. One hundred ten floors.

10:10 A.M.:

The airports of the New World close. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denies its implication in the Massacre of the Infidels.

10:12 A.M.:

A new explosion at the Pentagon, the most secure building in the world.

10:15 A.M.:

The evacuation of the White House.

10:24 A.M.:

The South Tower of Babel collapses.

10:25 A.M.:

In Lebanon, Palestinians celebrate their victory over the Yankees.

10:35 A.M.:

Air Force One, carrying the president of the Satanic Superpower, makes a course for the presidential bunker, escorted by fifty fighter jets.

Five hours since Professor Gora had begun the first day of the rest of his life. He stared at the bookshelves, the white gloves on the table, the thick, red lips of the newscaster. Channels CNN, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, the cartoon networks, the sports channels, music and porn stations all transmit the same spectacle of the band Hero — stratus. The anthem of Purification, with lyrics by Yussuma — Osama Ben Laden.

The Babel Tower of Transaction, the Fortress of the Pentagon, the White House for the White Clown … is that all? And the Library?

Gora felt insulted. The planetary explosion in which he’d had the privilege of participating insulted him: he couldn’t stand being associated with the symbols of Money and Power. The band of nineteen daggers, the Herostratus Band, wasn’t worthy of the Great Ending! The knifemen didn’t know the Qur’an, and the fanatics didn’t speak the magnificent language of the Library.

Illiterates! The Library holds everything. The memories and projects of the world, the genius and madness of the loyal and the infidels, the Bible of the Jewish prophets and the Qur’an of your own Prophet, and the Testament of the crucified prophet, and Mein Kampf of the fool prophet and the Manifesto of the Marxist prophet. The decrees of the Inquisition and the Proclamation of the Rights of Man, the games of the child Mozart, and of the earless Van Gogh, Homer and Krishna and Confucius, Madame Bovary and Karenina and Mother Teresa, Cassius Clay and the Bucharest phone book of 1936. Everything, everything, even a volume of verses written by the adored Ben Laden, translated into the language of the adored William Shakespeare, the verses of Iosif Visarionovich Djugasvili and his rival Mao Zedong.

Everything comes from the Library, not from the Transnational Commerce Brothel, nor from the Citadel of Missiles or the Presidential Ranch.

Irritated, Gora shut off communication with the Apocalypse.

The planet’s necrologist needed Mynheer. He pulled from a drawer the sheets of paper where he’d jotted down notes about Peter’s meeting with Officer Murphy.

“Dima maintained that we live in a desanctified world,” Ga ssssss par answered. The potbellied Patrick jumped out of his seat. “Oh, world where nothing is sacred, but the sacred hides in the profane,” continued Ga ssssss par. “The world is full of churches, mosques, and synagogues. And I go to church,” the policeman murmured. “The religious state wants us all. There’s the rub. The rub becomes a bomb. The bomb will scatter us and make us sacred.”

He’d found the connection! He had to relate it urgently to the young ladies on the TV screen: the END. He waited with his red pencil in hand, he’d grabbed it again, to write in the margins of the page: Too simple, Peter! Old Man Dima was referring to transcendence, not just to God.

The band of sacred knives jubilated in the gong of the crime. Herostratus was the name of the unforgettable destroyer of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the name of whose builder no one remembers! No one. Only the name of the destroyer lingers for centuries in the smeared memory of mortals. The Herostratus Band learned to pilot and destroy the plane, but they wouldn’t have known how to build it. Destruction, yes, is intoxication and exaltation and the great anthem sung by the troubadours of The End.

Gora noted, conscientiously, for posterity, the Chronology of The End.

10:43 A.M.:

A plane crashes in the industrial park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

10:56 A.M.:

Yasser Arafat declares that his organization bears no responsibility in the disastrous events of this historic day.

11:14 A.M.:

The United Nations building is evacuated, and the Statue of Liberty hides in the smoke of explosions.

11:30 A.M.:

General Wesley Clark announces that the criminal action had been planned by the poet Ben Laden.

11:48 A.M.:

The Centers for Disease Control take precautionary measures in anticipation of a biological attack.

11:57 A.M.:

An anonymous phone call to the American consulate in Porto, threatening the explosion of the entire planet.

12:17 p.m.:

Disneyland closes its gates.

12:20 p.m.:

An unidentified individual claims responsibility, in the name of the Japanese Red Army, for the aerial attacks, revenge on the part of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, on the phone line of the nationalist weekly

Al Wahdej,

a voice claims — in Arabic, with a Russian accent — the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.

12:25 p.m.:

The price of oil rises by two dollars per barrel on the world market.

12:26 p.m.:

Over the telephone, Mark Whening, the spokesman for the American embassy in Bucharest, thanks the Romanian authorities and citizens for their solidarity and excuses himself for not appearing in front of reporters, fearing an attempt on his life.

Professor Gora interrupts his transcription of the news at 12:27 P.M. He pours himself a glass of milk and, with the renewed thirst of the survivor, contemplates the white and refreshing liquid of genesis.