Paul Auster - Travels in the Scriptorium

Such as?

To test your reflexes, for one thing.

My reflexes? What do they have to do with it?

Mental reflexes. Emotional reflexes.

And?

What I want you to do is tell me the rest of the story. Starting at the point where you stopped reading, tell me what you think should happen now, right up to the last paragraph, the last word. You have the beginning. Now I want you to give me the middle and the end.

What is this, some kind of parlor game?

If you like. I prefer to think of it as an exercise in imaginative reasoning.

A pretty phrase, doctor. Imaginative reasoning. Since when does the imagination have anything to do with reason?

Since now, Mr. Blank. From the moment you begin to tell me the rest of the story.

All right. It's not as if I have anything better to do, is there?

That's the spirit.

Mr. Blank closes his eyes in order to concentrate on the task at hand, but blocking out the room and his immediate surroundings has the disturbing effect of summoning forth the procession of figment beings who marched through his head at earlier points in the narrative. Mr. Blank shudders at the ghastly vision, and an instant later he opens his eyes again to make it disappear.

What's wrong? Farr asks, with a look of concern on his face.

The damned specters, Mr. Blank says. They're back again.

Specters?

My victims. All the people I've made suffer over the years. They're coming after me now to take their revenge.

Just keep your eyes open, Mr. Blank, and they won't be there anymore. We have to get on with the story.

All right, all right, Mr. Blank says, letting out a long, self-pitying sigh. Give me a minute.

Why don't you tell me some of your thoughts about the Confederation. That might help get you started.

The Confederation… The Con-fed-e-ra-tion… It's all very simple, isn't it? Just another name for America. Not the United States as we know it, but a country that has evolved in another way, that has another history. But all the trees, all the mountains, and all the prairies of that country stand exactly where they do in ours. The rivers and oceans are identical. Men walk on two legs, see with two eyes, and touch with two hands. They think double thoughts and speak out of both sides of their mouths at once.

Good. Now what happens to Graf when he gets to Ultima?

He goes to see the Colonel with Joubert's letter, but De Vega acts as if he's just been handed a note from a child, since he's in on the plot with Land. Graf reminds him that an order from an official of the central government must be obeyed, but the Colonel says that he works for the Ministry of War, and they've put him under strict orders to abide by the No-Entrance Decrees. Graf mentions the rumors about Land and the hundred soldiers who have entered the Alien Territories, but De Vega pretends to know nothing about it. Graf then says he has no alternative but to write to the Ministry of War and ask for an exemption to bypass the No-Entrance Decrees. Fine, De Vega says, but it takes six weeks for a letter to travel back and forth from the capital, and what are you going to do in the meantime? Take in the sights of Ultima, Graf says, and wait for the response to come—knowing full well that the Colonel will never allow his letter to get through, that it will be intercepted the moment he tries to send it.

Why is De Vega in on the plot? From all I can gather, he appears to be a loyal officer.

He is loyal. And so is Ernesto Land with his hundred troops in the Alien Territories.

I don't follow.

The Confederation is a fragile, newly formed state composed of previously independent colonies and principalities, and in order to hold this tenuous union together, what better way to unite the people than to invent a common enemy and start a war? In this case, they've chosen the Primitives. Land is a double agent who's been sent into the Territories to stir up rebellion among the tribes there. Not so different from what we did to the Indians after the Civil War. Get the natives riled up and then slaughter them.

But how does Graf know that De Vega is in on it, too?

Because he didn't ask enough questions. He should have at least pretended to be curious. And then there's the fact that he and Land both work for the Ministry of War. Joubert and his crowd at the Bureau of Internal Affairs know nothing about the plot, of course, but that's perfectly normal. Government agencies keep secrets from one another all the time.

And then?

Joubert has given Graf the names of three men, spies who work for the Bureau in Ultima. None of them is aware of the others' existence, but collectively they've been the source of Joubert's information about Land. After his conversation with the Colonel, Graf goes out to look for them. But one by one he discovers that all three, as the saying goes, have been dispatched to other parts. Let's find some names for them. It's always more interesting when a character has a name. Captain… hmmm… Lieutenant Major Jacques Dupin was transferred to a post in the high central mountains two months earlier. Dr. Carlos… Woburn… left town in June to volunteer his services after an outbreak of smallpox in the north. And Declan Bray, Ultima's most prosperous barber, died from food poisoning in early August. Whether by accident or design it's impossible to know, but there's poor Graf, completely cut off from the Bureau now, without a single ally or confidant, all alone in that bleak, godforsaken corner of the earth.

Very nice. The names are a good touch, Mr. Blank.

My brain is turning at a hundred miles an hour. Haven't felt so full of beans all day.

Old habits die hard, I suppose.

What's that supposed to mean?

Nothing. Just that you're in good form, beginning to hit your stride. What happens next?

Graf hangs around Ultima for more than a month, trying to figure out a way to cross the border into the Territories. He can't go on foot, after all. He needs a horse, a rifle, provisions, probably a donkey as well. In the meantime, with nothing else to occupy his days, he finds himself getting drawn into Ultima society—such as it is, considering that it's nothing more than a pukey little garrison town in the middle of nowhere. Of all people, it's the hypocrite De Vega who makes a great show of befriending him. He invites Graf to dinner parties—long, tedious affairs attended by military officers, town officials, members of the merchant class, along with their wives, their lady friends, and so on—takes him to the best brothels, and even goes out hunting with him a couple of times. And then there's the Colonel's mistress… Carlotta… Carlotta Hauptmann… a debauched sensualist, the proverbial horny widow, whose principal entertainments in life are fucking and playing cards. The Colonel is married, of course, married with two small children, and since he can visit Carlotta only once or twice a week, she's available for romps with other men. It isn't long before Graf enters into a liaison with her. One night, as they're lying in bed together, he questions her about Land, and Carlotta confirms the rumors. Yes, she says, Land and his men crossed into the Territories a little more than a year ago. Why does she tell him this? Her motives aren't quite clear. Perhaps she's smitten with Graf and wants to be helpful, or perhaps the Colonel has put her up to it for hidden reasons of his own. This part has to be handled delicately. The reader can never be certain if Carlotta is luring Graf into a trap or if she simply talks too much for her own good. Don't forget that this is Ultima, the dreariest outpost of the Confederation, and sex, gambling, and gossip are about the only fun to be had.

How does Graf make it across the border?

I'm not sure. Probably a bribe of some sort. It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that he gets across one night, and the second part of the story begins. We're in the desert now. Emptiness all around, a ferocious blue sky overhead, pounding light, and then, when the sun goes down, a chill to freeze the marrow in your bones. Graf rides west for several days, mounted on a chestnut horse who goes by the name of Whitey, so called because of a splash of white between the animal's eyes, and since Graf knows the terrain well from his visit twelve years before, he heads in the direction of the Gangi, the tribe with whom he got along best during his earlier travels and whom he found to be the most peaceful of all the Primitive nations. Late one morning, he finally approaches a Gangi encampment, a small village of fifteen or twenty hogans, which would suggest a population of somewhere between seventy and a hundred people. When he's approximately thirty yards from the edge of the settlement, he calls out a greeting in the local Gangi dialect to signal his arrival to the inhabitants— but no one responds. Growing alarmed now, Graf quickens the horse's pace and trots into the heart of the village, where not a single sign of human life can be seen. He dismounts, walks over to one of the hogans, and pushes aside the buffalo skin that serves as the door to the little house. The moment he enters, he's greeted by the overpowering stench of death, the sickening smell of decomposing bodies, and there, in the dim light of the hogan, he sees a dozen slaughtered Gangi—men, women, and children— all of them shot down in cold blood. He staggers out into the air, covering his nose with a handkerchief, and then one by one inspects the other hogans in the village. They're all dead, every last soul is dead, and among them Graf recognizes a number of people he befriended twelve years before. The girls who have since grown into young women, the boys who have since grown into young men, the parents who have since become grandparents, and not a single one is breathing anymore, not a single one will grow a day older for the rest of time.