War & War

by Krasznahorkai, László

  11.

  The two of them were in the kitchen among the boxes, the woman lying twisted and spread-eagled, her face completely beaten in, the interpreter hanging on the central heating duct but the blood all over his face showing he had been shot several times with a machine gun at close range—and he couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, as he stood in the open door, but slowly opened his mouth without any sound coming out of it, and then he wanted to go back the way he came, to get out of there but his limbs simply wouldn’t move, and when he was eventually able to move his legs they took him forward, closer to them, ever closer, and he felt a terrible pain in his head, so he stopped and stood still once again rooted to the spot and remained there for ages, standing and staring, unable to take his eyes off them, his face filled with horror, suddenly aged, and he opened his mouth again still without success, still silent, and took one more step forward but stumbled over something, the telephone, and almost fell, but instead of falling squatted down beside it and slowly punched in a number and listened a long time to the busy signal before realizing that he had dialed himself, and then he began searching in his pocket, but whatever he was looking for in an ever greater panic he couldn’t find, not for ages, and then it was there, the business card; uh, he grunted into the receiver, repeating the sound idiotically, uh, uh, uh, they’re dead, the pair of them, dead, the young lady and Mr. Sárváry, the man at the other end telling him to speak up and stop whispering, to tell him clearly what the matter was, but I’m not whispering, Korin whispered, they’ve killed them, both of them are dead, the young lady’s waist is twisted right out of shape, and Mr. Sárváry is hanging there; then get out of there as quick as you can, the man shouted into the phone; uh, and everything is smashed up, said Korin, then held the receiver away from his mouth, looked up with a terrified expression, then rushed out onto the stairs, pushed open the door of the toilet, leapt onto the seat, raised the tile and removed the money, gripping it in his hands, then rushed back into the apartment, picked up the phone and told the man that he knew, he knew at last what must have happened and started telling him about his landlord’s new job, about all his shopping, about the money in his hands, about the packets of white powder and the place where they were hidden and how he had discovered them, babbling on in ever greater confusion, ever more terrified by what he himself was saying as the man at the other end asked him again to stop whispering because he couldn’t hear him properly, but it was quite certain now, Korin continued, and he never once thought it would be Mr. Sárváry, not while he …, and he began crying, uncontrollably sobbing, so whatever he said the other man could not hear him for the sobs, sobs that shook him and went on shaking him so he couldn’t even hold the receiver, but then he picked it up again and listened and there was the man at the other end saying hello, are you still there? and when Korin replied that he was, the man told him to get out, and seeing that he had the money, hold on to it and bring it with him, definitely bring it with him and not to touch anything now but to leave the place, leave it now and come to his apartment or anywhere else he wanted to meet, can you still hear me? are you still there? the question hanging in the silent petrified air a long time but not receiving an answer because Korin had put the receiver down, screwed the money up in his coat and had started backing away, continually backing and weeping once more, finally stumbling down the stairs and out into the street, walking a couple of hundred yards and then beginning to run, to run as fast as he could, rushing on with the business card in his hand, gripping it so hard that his hand was all the time shaking with the effort.

  12.

  They were sitting in the three bucket chairs, the store dummy facing the TV, the man beside her and Korin beside him, and all was silent but for the hum of the television with the sound turned off and a washing machine in the bathroom grumbling, bucking and sloshing, none of them saying anything, the man having sat Korin down on his arrival and taking his place beside him but not asking anything for a very long time, just staring in front of him and thinking very hard, then eventually getting up, taking a glass of water and sitting back down again to reassure Korin that they would think of something but that first they had to clean his clothes because he couldn’t move a step dressed like that, and then he helped him strip the clothes off though it was obvious that Korin did not really know what was going on or why it was necessary which meant that it was only with the greatest difficulty the man succeeded in unbuttoning him, but eventually his garments lay in a heap at his feet, and the man gave him a bathrobe, then removed anything that remained in the clothes before taking them into the bathroom and putting the lot—coat, underwear and all—into the washing machine, starting it up, then returning to the armchair to sit there and think even harder; and so they sat there a whole hour until the washing machine in the bathroom, with one final gasp, came to the end of its cycle, and the man said he had better know, roughly at least, what had happened otherwise he couldn’t help to which Korin only answered that he had noticed the hiding place in the toilet before, but had believed one of the occupants downstairs to be responsible for it, since anyone could use the toilet on their floor, at which point the other interrupted him to ask what he meant by hiding place, and Korin simply repeated that it was a hiding place and that one day he found that the white packets in it had been replaced by money, and though the other tried to stop him asking what packet? which day? Korin went on saying he didn’t think it had anything to do with them, that it was so far from his mind in fact that he forgot to say anything about it, because suddenly there was all this chaos, a lot of people arriving at the apartment, taking everything away then returning the next day bringing things back, and this so confused the young lady that he felt he had to look after her, and he had no idea that it was the hidden stuff that was the cause of everything, and once again began to cry in the armchair, and was quite unable to answer another question the man put to him, so that he had to do everything himself, to look through his belongings, find his passport, examine it to check that it was valid at all, then spread the clothes out in the bathroom to dry and count to see how much money there was, finally working out what to do next, then sitting down beside him again, to tell him quite quietly there was only one solution, and that was that he should get out of the country as soon as possible, but Korin did not answer and just sat beside the dummy and cried.

  13.

  There was just the one bed in the bedroom, a store dummy propped by the window as if looking out and in the kitchen nothing but a bare table and four chairs, one of the chairs occupied by another store dummy raising its right hand and pointing at something on the ceiling or beyond it; which left the sitting room with its TV, three armchairs, one dummy and the man, now replaced by Korin, the rest bare, practically empty, the walls alone being covered with photographs, or rather several copies of the same photograph, as was the whole apartment, one photograph in various sizes, large, middling and vast, but everywhere the same, each of them showing the same thing, a hemispherical structure clad in broken glass, and when the man, hearing a faint rustling, opened his eyes he saw Korin, fully dressed now in his overcoat, waiting, it seemed, to go, looking at the wall, examining the photographs, bowing a little to examine each of them, deeply absorbed in their contents, whereupon Korin, having noticed that the man had woken up, quickly sat down in the armchair again, next to the store dummy and fixed his eyes on the TV, not answering when the man got out of bed and asked him through the door if he wanted a cup of coffee, but kept staring at the silent TV, so the man made coffee for just one, filled himself a cup, added sugar, stirred it and sat down with it next to Korin in the vacant armchair, surprised to find that Korin was after all addressing him, asking where the woman he loved had gone, to which he replied after a long silence simply that she had gone away; and what about her? and the one in the kitchen? and the one at the bus stop? asked Korin nodding toward the various dummies, to which he answered that they all looked like her, slurped once at his coffee, stood up and took the c
up out into the kitchen, and by the time he returned Korin seemed not to have noticed his absence and was absorbed in telling his story, describing the two children’s faces as they peered down at him threatening to call the ambulance, and how he had managed to slip away and took shelter in the subway for a while, though every part of him was aching, he said, especially his stomach, his chest and his neck, and his whole head buzzing so that he hardly had the strength to stand, but kept going somehow and got to another subway station, then to another and another, and so forth … but the man stopped him at this point to say, I don’t understand, what are you talking about, but rather than explain Korin stopped altogether and for a while all three of them were simply watching TV, cartoons and advertisements following close on each other’s heels, rapid, jerky, silent images, as if everything was under water, until the man repeated his advice that Korin should leave immediately because it was a tough city and you couldn’t hang around thinking that either someone would kill Korin or the cops would get him, which would be more or less the same thing, he said, and since he seemed to have vast amounts of money he should decide where to go and he, the man, would take care of it, but he needed to pull himself together now, he said, though he could see that Korin was still out of it and that nothing he said had got through, that he was simply frowning at the television, watching it for a long time as though it required all his concentration to keep track of the flickering images on the screen before eventually rising from the armchair, going over to the pictures on the wall, pointing to one of them and asking, and this? where is this?

  14.

  A temporary bed had been made up for him behind the armchairs in the living room, but though he lay down and pulled the covers over him Korin did not sleep, waiting instead for the man in the bedroom to breathe evenly and start snoring, then he got up, went to the bathroom, touched all the clothes drying there and gazed at the pictures on the wall again, leaning very close since they were just a faint glow in the murk, but by leaning so close he succeeded in examining every one, moving from one to the other, giving each one careful thought before moving on, and that is all he did that night, working his way through the apartment, moving from the bathroom through to the bedroom, then into the living room, returning frequently to the bathroom to check how dry the clothes were, touching them, adjusting them on the radiator, but then, quick as a shot out to examine the photographs again, admiring the strange, airy dome with its arches made of simple steel tubes bent to define a large hemisphere in space, staring at the large uneven glass panes—roughly half a meter or a meter in size—with which the hemisphere was covered, studying the fixing of the joints and trying to make out some text written in bright neon tubes, pressing his head ever closer to the pictures, straining his eyes, concentrating ever more intensely on them, until, it seemed, he had solved something and was in any case finding it easier to make out details that showed a completely empty space surrounded by white walls, and inside it a remarkably light-looking, delicate contraption, a bubble of air, possibly a dwelling of some sort, he said to himself as he moved from one image on to the next, a version of a prehistoric structure, the man later explained to him, yes, a dwelling, the skeleton made of aluminum tubes filled in with broken, irregular panes of glass, something like an igloo; and where was it? asked Korin, the man replying that it was in Schafhausen, and where was Schafhausen? in Switzerland, came the answer, near Zürich, at the point where the Rhine divides the Jura mountains, and is that far? asked Korin, is it far, this Schaffhausen, and if so, how far?

  15.

  He had called the taxi for two o’clock and the taxi arrived right on the dot so he advised Korin to go now but first he checked the overcoat, regretting the fact that it was still a little damp, and looked in the pockets to see that the passport and ticket were there before giving him some final advice on how to get around JFK, then they were both on their way down to the ground floor, both silent, and so they left the house, the man embracing him before ushering him into the taxi which set off for Brooklyn and the expressway, leaving the man standing in front of the house to raise his hand and wave uncertainly for a while, though Korin was unaware of him for he never turned his head, not even to look through the side windows but sat quite bent over in the back seat, his eyes staring at the road over the driver’s shoulder, it being transparently clear that he was not in the least interested in the view but only in what lay ahead, meaning in what lay ahead over the driver’s shoulder.

  VIII • THEY’VE BEEN TO AMERICA

  1.

  There are four of them in it, said Korin, turning to the elderly man in the rabbit-fur hat sitting next to him on the bench beside the lake at Zurich, four people most dear to his heart, and they have been traveling with him, so they’ve been to America but have now returned, not precisely where they had set out from, it was true, but not too far away, and now before their pursuers caught up with them, because they were being constantly pursued, he said, he was seeking a place—a place, he said in English—that was just right, some specific point, so that they should not have to keep running for ever and ever, because they could not accompany him where he was going since he was going on to Schaffhausen, but had to go alone, so the others had to get off, and in any case he felt it was possible for them to get off now, while he went on to Schaffhausen—at which the old gentleman’s face brightened and, ah, he said, having understood barely a word of what Korin had been saying, ah, he twisted his moustache, now he understood, and using his walking stick he drew two symbols in the slushy snow at their feet and pointed to one, saying America, then, smiling broadly, began to draw a line between it and the other symbol, saying, und Schaffhausen, prodding the other symbol, then, signaling that all was clear at last, pointed to Korin and moved his stick between the two marks in the snow, pronouncing with great satisfaction, Sie-Amerika-Schaffhausen, this is wonderful and Grüβ Gott, yes, nodded Korin, from America to Schaffhausen but what to do with the four of them, where to leave them, because this is where he should leave them, then he glanced up at the lake, and stared at it with a sudden intensity, shouting, ah, perhaps the Lake, in English, delighted to have found a solution, and was immediately on his feet, leaving the startled old gentleman who gazed for a while uncomprehendingly at the two points by his feet in the slushy snow then scratched them away with his stick, stood up, cleared his throat and putting a cheerful face on again strolled off between the trees toward the bridge, looking now right and now left.

  2.

  The town was smaller, much smaller than the one he had left, yet it was the problem of finding his way around it that worried him most, for despite his anxiety to prevent his pursuers catching up with him he had got lost time and again at the airport, and then, after some kind people had helped him onto the express for Zürich, he had got off the train two stops too early, and so it went on, constantly going the wrong way, getting lost, having to ask people, and the citizens of Zürich were on the whole perfectly prepared to answer his queries, insofar as they understood what he wanted, but even after having arrived by tram at central Bellevue Platz he kept asking passersby where the city center was, and when they replied, go no further, this is the city center, he clearly did not believe them but went round and round in a high state of tension, rubbing his neck, turning his head this way and that, unable to decide on a direction, before finally taking the plunge and choosing one direction, constantly looking back over his shoulder to see if there was anyone following him, then ducked into a park, confronting people and asking them, where gun? where center? most of them not understanding the first enquiry but putting him right as regards the second, saying, this is it, right here, in answer to which Korin would give an irritated wave and walk on, until at the end of the park he spotted a a few figures wearing ragged clothes who were looking at him rather darkly, and seeing them he clearly relaxed, thinking yes, perhaps it’s them, quickly made his way over, stopped and said in English, I want to buy a revolver, to which they made no answer for a good while but
examined him uncertainly, until eventually one shrugged, saying OK, OK and gestured for him to follow, but he was so nervous and walked so quickly that Korin found it hard to keep up, though he kept repeating come, come, practically running before him, then eventually stopped at a bench among some hedges where two people were sitting, or rather sitting on its back with their feet up on the seat, one of them about twenty, the other about thirty years of age, the pair of them wearing identical leather jackets, leather trousers, boots and earrings, looking for all the earth like twins, both of them extraordinarily nervous, their feet constantly tapping on the seat of the bench and their fingers constantly drumming on their knees, the pair of them discusssing something in German of which Korin did not understand a word, until eventually the younger one turned to him and said very slowly, in English, two hours here again, pointing at the bench, Korin repeating in English, two hours? here?, and OK, he said, it’s OK, aber cash, said the elder one leaning into his face, dollar, OK? and Korin took a step back while the other grinned, three hundred dollar, you get it, three hundred dollar, and Korin nodded to say that was all right, it’s all right, in two hours, here, and he too pointed at the bench, then left them and set off back through the park, soon to be joined by the man who had escorted him so far, constantly whispering pot, pot, pot, pot into his ear and drawing some mysterious diagram on his palm with his finger until they reached the end of the park where the escort gave up and left him, Korin still repeating to himself, two hours, as he walked down to the Bellevue Platz where, with great difficulty, he persuaded a vendor to sell him a sandwich and a cola for U.S. dollars, and he ate and drank and waited for a while, watching the trams as they arrived over the bridge, turned down a narrow side street and, still clanking and ringing, disappeared; so Korin set off along the bridge to the lake, walking for ages, occasionally looking back over his shoulder, the water on one side of him with a single boat on it, a row of trees on the other and behind them the houses of Bellerivestrasse as he read on a sign, though he came across fewer and fewer people as he walked out of town, arriving eventually at a kind of carnival full of colorful booths, tents, and a Big Wheel, but the place was closed up, so he turned back and retraced his steps, the water with the single boat on it now on his other side, and then again the trees, the houses and ever more people, and ever stronger gusts of wind as he neared Bellevue Platz, and soon he was back in the park receiving the gun and some ammunition packed into a plastic bag, and was shown how to load up, to operate the safety catch and to pull the trigger, and this brief course of instruction being completed the elder man grinned at him once, put the money away and the pair of them vanished as if by magic, as if the ground had swallowed them, thought Korin as he continued to Bellevue Platz, crossed the bridge and found a sheltered place on the other side of the lake where he sat down, feeling quite drained, as he told the elderly gentleman sitting at the other end of the bench, for he had no strength left in him, but he had to be strong because the four of them were still with him, he said, and he could not go on like this, while the old gentleman nodded and hummed to himself and gazed at the solitary boat on the lake directly opposite their bench with a cheerful expression on his face.