Paul Auster - Travels in the Scriptorium

—Everything used to be theirs. Then the ships arrived, bringing settlers from Iberia and Gaul, from Albion, Germania, and the Tartar kingdoms, and little by little the Primitives were pushed off their lands. We slaughtered them and enslaved them and then we herded them together in the parched and barren territories beyond the western provinces. You must have encountered much bitterness and resentment during your travels.

—Less than you would think. After four hundred years of conflict, most of the nations were glad to be at peace.

—That was more than ten years ago. Perhaps they've rethought their position by now. If I were in their place, I'd be sorely tempted to reconquer the western provinces. The ground is fertile there. The forests are full of game. It would give them a better, easier life.

—You're forgetting that all the Primitive nations endorsed the No-Entrance Decrees. Now that the fighting has stopped, they would prefer to live in their own separate world, with no interference from the Confederation.

—I hope you're right, Graf, but it's my duty to protect the welfare of the Confederation. Whether they prove groundless or not, the reports about Land must be investigated. You know him, you've spent time in the Territories, and of all the members of the Bureau, I can think of no one better qualified to handle the job. I'm not ordering you to go, but I would be deeply grateful if you accepted. The future of the Confederation could depend on it.

—I feel honored by your confidence in me, sir. But what if I'm not allowed to cross the border?

—You'll be carrying a personal letter from me to Colonel De Vega, the officer in charge of the garrison. He won't be pleased about it, but he'll have no choice. An order from the central government must be obeyed.

—But if what you say is true, and Land is in the Alien Territories with a hundred men, it raises a perplexing question, doesn't it?

—A question?

—How did he manage to get there? From what I'm told, there are troops stationed along the entire frontier. I can imagine one man slipping past them, but not a hundred men. If Land got through, then he must have done it with Colonel De Vega's knowledge.

—Possibly. Possibly not. That's one of the mysteries you'll be entrusted to solve.

—When do you want me to leave?

—As soon as you can. A carriage from the Ministry will be at your disposal. We'll furnish you with supplies and make all the necessary arrangements. The only things you'll need to carry with you are the letter and the clothes on your back.

—Tomorrow morning, then. I've just finished writing my semi-annual report, and my desk is clear.

—Come to the Ministry at nine o'clock for the letter. I'll be waiting for you in my office.

—Very good, sir. Tomorrow morning at nine.

The moment he comes to the end of the conversation between Graf and Joubert, the telephone starts to ring, and once again Mr. Blank is forced to interrupt his reading of the typescript. Cursing under his breath as he extricates himself from the chair, he hobbles slowly across the room toward the bedside table, moving with difficulty because of his recent injuries, and so plodding is his progress that he doesn't pick up the receiver until the seventh ring, whereas he was nimble enough to answer the previous call from Flood on the fourth.

What do you want? Mr. Blank says harshly, as he sits down on the bed, suddenly feeling a flutter of the old dizziness whirling around inside him.

I want to know if you've finished the story, a man's voice calmly answers.

Story? What story is that?

The one you've been reading. The story about the Confederation.

I didn't know it was a story. It sounds more like a report, like something that really happened.

It's make-believe, Mr. Blank. A work of fiction.

Ah. That explains why I've never heard of that place. I know my mind isn't working too well today, but I thought Graf's manuscript must have been found by someone years after he wrote it and then copied out by a typist.

An honest mistake.

A stupid mistake.

Don't worry about it. The only thing I need to know is whether you've finished it or not.

Almost. Just a few more pages to go. If you hadn't interrupted me with this goddamned call, I'd probably be at the end by now.

Good. I'll come round in fifteen or twenty minutes, and we can begin the consultation.

Consultation? What are you talking about?

I'm your doctor, Mr. Blank. I come to see you every day.

I don't remember having a doctor.

Of course not. That's because the treatment is beginning to take effect.

Does my doctor have a name?

Farr. Samuel Farr.

Farr… Hmm… Yes, Samuel Farr… You wouldn't happen to know a woman named Anna, would you?

We'll talk about that later. For now, the only thing you have to do is finish the story.

All right, I'll finish the story. But when you come to my room, how will I know it's you? What if it's someone else pretending to be you?

There's a picture of me on your desk. The twelfth one in from the top of the pile. Take a good look at it, and when I show up, you won't have any trouble recognizing me.

Now Mr. Blank is sitting in the chair again, hunched over the desk. Rather than look for Samuel Farr's picture in the pile of photographs as he was instructed to do, he reaches for the pad and ballpoint pen and adds another name to his list:

James P. Flood

Anna

David Zimmer

Peter Stillman, Jr.

Peter Stillman, Sr.

Fanshawe

Man with house

Samuel Farr

Pushing aside the pad and pen, he immediately picks up the typescript of the story, forgetting all about his intention to look for Samuel Farr's photograph, in the same way that he has long since forgotten about looking for the closet that is supposedly in the room. The last pages of the text read as follows:

The long journey to Ultima gave me ample time to reflect upon the nature of my mission. A series of coachmen took over the reins at two-hundred-mile intervals, and with nothing for me to do but sit in the carriage and stare out at the landscape, I felt a growing sense of dread as I neared my destination. Ernesto Land had been my comrade and intimate friend, and I had the greatest trouble accepting Joubert's verdict that he had turned traitor to a cause he had defended all his life. He had remained in the military after the Consolidations of Year 31, continuing his work as an intelligence officer under the aegis of the Ministry of War, and whenever he had dined with us at our house or I had met with him for an afternoon meal at one of the taverns near the Ministry Esplanade, he had talked with enthusiasm about the inevitable victory of the Confederation, confident that all we had dreamed of and fought for since our earliest youth would finally come to pass. Now, according to Joubert's agents in Ultima, not only had Land escaped death during the cholera epidemic, he had in fact falsified his death in order to disappear into the wilderness with a small army of anti-Confederationists to foment rebellion among the Primitives. Judging from all I knew about him, this seemed an absurd and preposterous accusation.

Land had grown up in the northwestern farming region of Tierra Vieja Province, the same part of the world where my wife, Beatrice, was born. They had been playmates as small children, and for many years it was taken for granted by their two families that they would eventually marry. Beatrice once confessed to me that Ernesto had been her first love, and when he later turned his back on her and was betrothed to Hortense Chatterton, the daughter of a wealthy shipping family from Mont Sublime, she felt as if her life had ended. But Beatrice was a strong girl, too proud to share her suffering with anyone, and in a demonstration of remarkable courage and dignity, she accompanied her parents and two brothers to the lavish wedding festival at the Chatterton estate. That was where we were introduced. I lost my heart to her that first evening, but it was only after a prolonged courtship of eighteen months that she finally accepted my proposal of marriage. I knew that in her eyes I was no match for Land. I was neither as handsome nor as brilliant as he was, and it took some time before she understood that my steadiness of character and fierce devotion to her were no less important qualities on which to build a lifelong union. Much as I admired Land, I was also aware of his flaws. There had always been something wild and obstreperous about him, a headstrong assurance in his superiority to others, and despite his charm and persuasiveness, that inborn power to draw attention to himself wherever he happened to be, one also sensed an incurable vanity lurking just below the surface. His marriage to Hortense Chatterton proved to be an unhappy one. He was unfaithful to her almost from the start, and when she died in childbirth four years later, he recovered quickly from his loss. He went through all the rituals of mourning and public sorrow, but at bottom I felt he was more relieved than brokenhearted. We saw quite a bit of him after that, much more than had been the case in the early years of our marriage. To his credit, Land became deeply attached to our little daughter, Marta, always bringing presents when he visited the house and showering her with such affection that she came to regard him as a heroic figure, the greatest man who walked the earth. He behaved with utmost decorum whenever he was among us, and yet who could fault me if I sometimes questioned whether the fires that had once burned in my wife's soul for him had been fully extinguished? Nothing untoward ever happened—no words or glances between them that could have aroused my jealousy—but in the aftermath of the cholera epidemic that had supposedly killed them both, what was I to make of the fact that Land was now reported to be alive and that in spite of my assiduous efforts to learn something about Beatrice's fate, I hadn't uncovered a single witness who had seen her in the capital during the scourge? If not for my disastrous run-in with Giles McNaughton, which had been set off by ugly innuendos concerning my wife, it seemed doubtful that I would have tormented myself with such dark suspicions on my way to Ultima. But what if Beatrice and Marta had run off with Land while I was traveling through the Independent Communities of Tierra Blanca Province? It seemed impossible, but as Joubert had said to me the night before my departure, nothing was impossible, and of all the people in the world, I was the one who should know that best.