Dying Inside

by Robert Silverberg

  The two books represent varying attempts at telling the same story, that of the existentially disengaged man who is suddenly involved in a situation from which there is no escape, and who, after making attempts to achieve the grace that will release him from his predicament, succumbs. As they exist today, The Trial is unquestionably the greater artistic success, firmly constructed and at all times under the author’s technical control. The Castle, or rather the fragment of it we have, is potentially the greater novel, however. Everything that was in The Trial would have been in The Castle, and a great deal more. But, one feels, Kafka abandoned work on The Castle because he saw he lacked the resources to carry it through. He could not handle the world of the Castle, with its sweeping background of Brueghelesque country life, with the same assurance as he did the urban world of The Trial. And there is a lack of urgency in The Castle; we are never too concerned over K’s doom because it is inevitable; Joseph K., though, is fighting more tangible forces, and until the end we have the illusion that victory is possible for him. The Castle, also, is too ponderous. Like a Mahler symphony, it collapses of its own weight. One wonders if Kafka had in mind some structure enabling him to end The Castle. Perhaps he never intended to close the novel at all, but meant to have K wander in ever-widening circles, never arriving at the tragic perception that he can never reach the Castle. Perhaps this is the reason for the comparative formlessness of the later work: Kafka’s discovery that the true tragedy of K, his archetypical hero-as-victim figure, lies not in his final perception of the impossibility of attaining grace, but in the fact that he will never reach even as much as that final perception. Here we have the tragic rhythm, a structure found throughout literature, truncated to depict more pointedly the contemporary human condition—a condition so abhorrent to Kafka. Joseph K., who actually reaches a form of grace, thereby attains true tragic stature; K, who simply sinks lower and lower, might symbolize for Kafka the contemporary individual, so crushed by the general tragedy of the times that he is incapable of any tragedy on an individual level. K is a pathetic figure, Joseph K. a tragic one. Joseph K. is a more interesting character, but perhaps it was K whom Kafka understood more deeply. And for K’s story no ending is possible, perhaps, save the pointless one of death.

  That’s not so bad. Six double-spaced typed pages. At $3.50 per, it earns me a cool $21 for less than two hours work, and it’ll earn the brawny halfback, Mr. Paul F. Bruno, a sure B+ from Prof. Schmitz. I’m confident of that because the very same paper, differing only in a few minor stylistic flourishes, got me a B from the very demanding Prof. Dupee in May, 1955. Standards are lower today, after two decades of academic inflation Bruno may even rack up an A—for the Kafka job. It’s got just the right quality of earnest intelligence, with the proper undergraduate mixture of sophisticated insight and naive dogmatism, and Dupee found the writing “clear and forceful” in ’55, according to his note in the margin. All right, now. Time out for a little chow mein, with maybe a side order of eggroll. Then I’ll tackle Odysseus as a Symbol of Society or perhaps Aeschylus and the Aristotelian Tragedy. I can’t work from my own old term papers for those, but they shouldn’t be too tough to do. Old typewriter, old humbugger, stand me now and ever in good stead.

  FIVE.

  Aldous Huxley thought that evolution has designed our brains to serve as filters, screening out a lot of stuff that’s of no real value to us in our daily struggle for bread. Visions, mystical experiences, psi phenomena such as telepathic messages from other brains—all sorts of things along these lines would forever be flooding into us were it not for the action of what Huxley called, in a little book entitled Heaven and Hell, “the cerebral reducing valve.” Thank God for the cerebral reducing valve! If we hadn’t evolved it, we’d be distracted all the time by scenes of incredible beauty, by spiritual insights of overwhelming grandeur, and by searing, utterly honest mind-to-mind contact with our fellow human beings. Luckily, the workings of the valve protect us—most of us—from such things, and we are free to go about our daily lives, buying cheap and selling dear.

  Of course, some of us seem to be born with defective valves. I mean the artists like Bosch or El Greco, whose eyes did not see the world as it appears to thee and me; I mean the visionary philosophers, the ecstatics and the nirvana-attainers; I mean the miserable freakish flukes who can read the thoughts of others. Mutants, all of us. Genetic sports.

  However, Huxley believed that the efficiency of the cerebral reducing valve could be impaired by various artificial means, thus giving ordinary mortals access to the extrasensory data customarily seen only by the chosen few. The psychedelic drugs, he thought, have this effect. Mescaline, he suggested, interferes with the enzyme system that regulates cerebral function, and by so doing “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing mind on the problems of life on the surface of our planet. This…seems to permit the entry into consciousness of certain classes of mental events, which are normally excluded, because they possess no survival value. Similar intrusions of biologically useless, but aesthetically and sometimes spiritually valuable, material may occur as the result of illness or fatigue; or they may be induced by fasting, or a period of confinement in a place of darkness and complete silence.”

  Speaking for himself, David Selig can say very little about the psychedelic drugs. He had only one experience with them, and it wasn’t a happy one. That was in the summer of 1968, when he was living with Toni.

  Though Huxley thought highly of the psychedelics, he didn’t see them as the only gateway to visionary experience. Fasting and physical mortification could get you there also. He wrote of mystics who “regularly used upon themselves the whip of knotted leather or even of iron wire. These beatings were the equivalent of fairly extensive surgery without anaesthetics, and their effects on the body chemistry of the penitent were considerable. Large quantities of histamine and adrenalin were released while the whip was actually being plied; and when the resulting wounds began to fester (as wounds practically always did before the age of soap), various toxic substances, produced by the decomposition of protein, found their way into the bloodstream. But histamine produces shock, and shock affects the mind no less profoundly than the body. Moreover, large quantities of adrenalin may cause hallucinations, and some of the products of its decomposition are known to induce symptoms resembling those of schizophrenia. As for toxins from wounds—these upset the enzyme systems regulating the brain, and lower its efficiency as an instrument for getting on in a world where the biologically fittest survive. This may explain why the Curé d’Ars used to say that, in the days when he was free to flagellate himself without mercy, God would refuse him nothing. In other words, when remorse, self-loathing, and the fear of hell release adrenalin, when self-inflicted surgery releases adrenalin and histamine, and when infected wounds release decomposed protein into the blood, the efficiency of the cerebral reducing valve is lowered and unfamiliar aspects of Mind-at-Large (including psi phenomena, visions, and, if he is philosophically and ethically prepared for it, mystical experiences) will flow into the ascetic’s consciousness.”

  Remorse, self-loathing, and the fear of hell. Fasting and prayer. Whips and chains. Festering wounds. Everybody to his own trip, I suppose, and welcome to it. As the power fades in me, as the sacred gift dies, I toy with the idea of trying to revive it by artificial means. Acid, mescaline, psilocybin? I don’t think I’d care to go there again. Mortification of the flesh? That seems obsolete to me, like marching off to the Crusades or wearing spats: something that simply isn’t appropriate for 1976. I doubt that I could get very deep into flagellation, anyway. What does that leave? Fasting and prayer? I could fast, I suppose. Prayer? To whom? To what? I’d feel like a fool. Dear God, give me my power again. Dear Moses, please help me. Crap on that. Jews don’t pray for favors, because they know nobody will answer. What’s left, then? Remorse, self-loathing, and the fear of hell? I have those three already, and they do me no good. We must try some other way of goading the pow
er back to life. Invent something new. Flagellation of the mind, perhaps? Yes. I’ll try that. I’ll get out the metaphorical cudgels and let myself have it. Flagellation of the aching, weakening, throbbing, dissolving mind. The treacherous, hateful mind.

  SIX.

  But why does David Selig want his power to come back? Why not let it fade? It’s always been a curse to him, hasn’t it? It’s cut him off from his fellow men and doomed him to a loveless life. Leave well enough alone, Duvid. Let it fade. Let it fade. On the other hand, without the power, what are you? Without that one faltering unpredictable unsatisfactory means of contact with them, how will you be able to touch them at all? Your power joins you to mankind, for better or for worse, in the only joining you have: you can’t bear to surrender it. Admit it. You love it and you despise it, this gift of yours. You dread losing it despite all it’s done to you. You’ll fight to cling to the last shreds of it, even though you know the struggle’s hopeless. Fight on, then. Read Huxley again. Try acid, if you dare. Try flagellation. Try fasting, at least. All right, fasting. I’ll skip the chow mein. I’ll skip the eggroll. Let’s slide a fresh sheet into the typewriter and think about Odysseus as a symbol of society.

  SEVEN.

  Hark to the silvery jangle of the telephone. The hour is late. Who calls? Is it Aldous Huxley from beyond the grave, urging me to have courage? Dr. Hittner, with some important questions about making pee-pee? Toni, to tell me she’s in the neighborhood with a thousand mikes of dynamite acid and is it okay to come up? Sure. Sure. I stare at the telephone, clueless. My power even at its height was never equal to the task of penetrating the consciousness of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Sighing, I pick up the receiver on the fifth ring and hear the sweet contralto voice of my sister Judith.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Typical Judith opening.

  “A quiet night at home. I’m ghosting a term paper on The Odyssey. Got any bright ideas for me, Jude?”

  “You haven’t called in two weeks.”

  “I was broke. After that scene the last time I didn’t want to bring up the subject of money, and lately it’s been the only subject I can think of talking about, so I didn’t call.”

  “Shit,” she says, “I wasn’t angry at you.”

  “You sounded mad as hell.”

  “I didn’t mean any of that stuff. Why did you think I was serious? Just because I was yelling? Do you really believe that I regard you as—as—what did I call you?”

  “A shiftless sponger, I think.”

  “A shiftless sponger. Shit. I was tense that night, Duv; I had personal problems, and my period was coming on besides. I lost control. I was just shouting the first dumb crap that came into my head, but why did you believe I meant it? You of all people shouldn’t have thought I was serious. Since when do you take what people say with their mouths at face value?”

  “You were saying it with your head too, Jude.”

  “I was?” Her voice is suddenly small and contrite. “Are you sure?”

  “It came through loud and clear.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Duv, have a heart! In the heat of the moment I could have been thinking anything. But underneath the anger—underneath, Duv—you must have seen that I didn’t mean it. That I love you, that I don’t want to drive you away from me. You’re all I’ve got, Duv, you and the baby.”

  Her love is unpalatable to me, and her sentimentality is even less to my taste. I say, “I don’t read much of what’s underneath any more, Jude. Not much comes through these days. Anyway, look, it isn’t worth hassling over. I am a shiftless sponger, and I have borrowed more from you than you can afford to give. The black sheep big brother feels enough guilt as it is. I’m damned if I’m ever going to ask for money from you again.”

  “Guilt? You talk about guilt, when I—”

  “No,” I warn her, “don’t you go on a guilt trip now, Jude. Not now.” Her remorse for her past coldness toward me has a flavor even more stinking than her newfound love. “I don’t feel up to assigning the ratio of blames and guilts tonight.”

  “All right. All right. Are you okay now for money, though?”

  “I told you, I’m ghosting term papers. I’m getting by.”

  “Do you want to come over here for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “I think I’d better work instead. I’ve got a lot of papers to write, Jude. It’s the busy season.”

  “It would be just the two of us. And the kid, of course, but I’ll put him to sleep early. Just you and me. We could talk. We’ve got so much to talk about. Why don’t you come over, Duv? You don’t need to work all day and all night. I’ll cook up something you like. I’ll do the spaghetti and hot sauce. Anything. You name it.” She is pleading with me, this icy sister who gave me nothing but hatred for twenty-five years. Come over and I’ll be a mama for you, Duv. Come let me be loving, brother.

  “Maybe the night after next. I’ll call you.”

  “No chance for tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. There is silence. She doesn’t want to beg me. Into the sudden screeching silence I say, “What have you been doing with yourself, Judith? Seeing anyone interesting?”

  “Not seeing anyone at all.” A flinty edge to her voice. She is two and a half years into her divorce; she sleeps around a good deal; juices are souring in her soul. She is 31 years old. “I’m between men right now. Maybe I’m off men altogether. I don’t care if I never do any screwing again ever.”

  I throttle a somber laugh. “What happened to that travel agent you were seeing? Mickey?”

  “Marty. That was just a gimmick. He got me all over Europe for 10% of the fare. Otherwise I couldn’t have afforded to go. I was using him.”

  “So?”

  “I felt shitty about it. Last month I broke off. I wasn’t in love with him. I don’t think I even liked him.”

  “But you played around with him long enough to get a trip to Europe, first.”

  “It didn’t cost him anything, Duv. I had to go to bed with him; all he had to do was fill out a form. What are you saying, anyway? That I’m a whore?”

  “Jude—”

  “Okay, I’m a whore. At least I’m trying to go straight for a while. Lots of fresh orange juice and plenty of serious reading. I’m reading Proust now, would you believe that? I just finished Swann’s Way and tomorrow—”

  “I’ve still got some work to do tonight, Jude.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Will you come for dinner this week?”

  “I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.”

  “Why do you hate me so much, Duv?”

  “I don’t hate you. And we were about to get off the phone, I think.”

  “Don’t forget to call,” she says. Clutching at straws.

  EIGHT.

  Toni. I should tell you about Toni now.

  I lived with Toni for seven weeks, one summer eight years ago. That’s as long as I’ve ever lived with anybody, except my parents and my sister, whom I got away from as soon as I decently could, and myself, whom I can’t get away from at all. Toni was one of the two great loves of my life, the other being Kitty. I’ll tell you about Kitty some other time.

  Can I reconstruct Toni? Let’s try it in a few swift strokes. She was 24 that year. A tall coltish girl, five feet six, five feet seven. Slender. Agile and awkward, both at once. Long legs, long arms, thin wrists, thin ankles. Glossy black hair, very straight, cascading to her shoulders. Warm, quick brown eyes, alert and quizzical. A witty, shrewd girl, not really well educated but extraordinarily wise. The face by no means conventionally pretty—too much mouth, too much nose, the cheekbones too high—but yet producing a sexy and highly attractive effect, sufficient to make a lot of heads turn when she enters a room. Full, heavy breasts. I dig busty women: I often need a soft place to rest my tired head. So often so tired. My mother was built 32-A, no cozy pillows there. She couldn’t have nursed me if she’d wanted to, which she didn’t. (Will I ever forgive her for lett
ing me escape from the womb? Ah, now, Selig, show some filial piety, for God’s sake!)

  I never looked into Toni’s mind except twice, once on the day I met her and once a couple of weeks after that, plus a third time on the day we broke up. The third time was a sheer disastrous accident. The second was more or less an accident too, not quite. Only the first was a deliberate probe. After I realized I loved her I took care never to spy on her head. He who peeps through a hole may see what will vex him. A lesson I learned very young. Besides, I didn’t want Toni to suspect anything about my power. My curse. I was afraid it might frighten her away.

  That summer I was working as an $85-a-week researcher, latest in my infinite series of odd jobs, for a well-known professional writer who was doing an immense book on the political machinations involved in the founding of the State of Israel. Eight hours a day I went through old newspaper files for him in the bowels of the Columbia library. Toni was a junior editor for the publishing house that was bringing out his book. I met her one afternoon in late spring at his posh apartment on East End Avenue. I went over there to deliver a bundle of notes on Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign speeches and she happened to be there, discussing some cuts to be made in the early chapters. Her beauty stung me. I hadn’t been with a woman in months. I automatically assumed she was the writer’s mistress—screwing editors, I’m told, is standard practice on certain high levels of the literary profession—but my old peeping-tom instincts quickly gave me the true scoop. I tossed a fast probe at him and found that his mind was a cesspool of frustrated longings for her. He ached for her and she had no yen for him at all, evidently. Next I poked into her mind. I sank in, deep, finding myself in warm, rich loam. Quickly got oriented. Stray fragments of autobiography bombarded me, incoherent, non-linear: a divorce, some good sex and some bad sex, college days, a trip to the Caribbean, all swimming around in the usual chaotic way. I got past that fast and checked out what I was after. No, she wasn’t sleeping with the writer. Physically he registered absolute zero for her. (Odd. To me he seemed attractive, a romantic and appealing figure, so far as a drearily heterosexual soul like me is able to judge such things.) She didn’t even like his writing, I learned. Then, still rummaging around, I learned something else, much more surprising: I seemed to be turning her on. Forth from her came the explicit line: I wonder if he’s free tonight. She looked upon the aging researcher, a venerable 33 and already going thin on top, and did not find him repellent. I was so shaken by that—her dark-eyed glamour, her leggy sexiness, aimed at me—that I got the hell out of her head, fast. “Here’s the Truman stuff,” I said to my employer. “There’s more coming in from the Truman Library in Missouri.” We talked a few minutes about the next assignment he had for me, and then I made as though to leave. A quick guarded look at her.