by Henning Koch
There was a moment of transcendent understanding between us.
“Somehow I have to get rid of her,” I said at long last.
“You do, you really do. That’s your home!”
“Right,” I glumly agreed.
“Let’s get our asses down the pub and talk this over in detail.”
Half an hour later we were comfortably installed in a public house, nibbling at beer nuts and inhaling palls of tobacco smoke.
“I feel bad kicking her out.” I sipped at my third pint, still vaguely attracted by the unspoken notion of going home and having a cup of tea with Archie. “She’s a human being, not a thing. I can’t just get rid of her.”
“Everything’s a thing, Chuck. What the fuck are you saying? She’s an adult—an adult thing, okay? That’s the operative point. You’ve got to stick to the point! With women if you don’t stick to the point, you’re dead!” He spat out each word like a bullet. “You are not obliged to spend time with her. It’s this thing about owing people, this guilt trip you’re on, you’ve gotta work on that. That’s where a shrink could help you out. I mean in the end who are you gonna please? Yourself or everyone else?”
“Sometimes when people feel guilty it’s because they’ve actually done something wrong.”
“You sorry little Catholic!”
“Archie’s got nowhere to go.”
Jimmy shook his head confidently. “She’s got friends, contacts and money.”
“She doesn’t have a penny!”
“That’s what she tells you. The first thing you’ve got to realize is Archie’s rich. Damn sight richer than you.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I gave her a damned house that’s gotta be worth a million euro at least. She’s got no debts. She can sell that and retire. She’s got all the documentation, can go down to the bank and borrow twenty thousand bucks against that piece of property without any problem at all, then lease herself a place in like Chelsea until she’s set up. It wouldn’t take her long to find some guy with money. Okay, Chuck?” He reached out and grabbed my neck again in that good old American way of his. “Okay? We’re not all like you. We’re not all little guys running around trying to be nice to everyone. Okay?”
“Okay what, Jimmy? What’s okay? I have a woman at home that I’ve spent a hell of a lot of energy and time trying to help. She needed it. She was defenceless. I picked her up off the ground.”
He laughed. “Archie defenseless? Give me a break. She’s like a bloody quarterback.”
“Why am I even talking to you? I’m being disloyal. I’m deserting her.”
“You are, Jimmy. You are deserting her. And she deserves it.”
“I’ll miss her when she goes.”
“For a couple of weeks. Then you’ll be ecstatic to have your life back. Maybe you’ll even find a new woman.”
I thought about Archie in bed, with her pale blue bedside lamp, the cups of herbal tea teetering on the edge. I thought about Archie in her silk negligee, frowning as she lay there reading a self-help book.
“You’ve got to take the medicine, Chuck! You’ve got to stop this creepy stuff. You can’t feel guilty about kicking someone out who’s basically a parasite. You get me? What are you, some kind of saint? Find yourself a woman who brings home a nice piece of damn meat now and then and cooks you a meal, then takes off her clothes and fucks you.”
“You’re just a capitalist, Jimmy, and everything’s about what you want for yourself.”
“Just listen to yourself. You’re so scared of standing up for what you actually want! Yes, I’m a capitalist about the things I want. And to be honest, if you could just stop being the nice guy for one minute, I reckon you would be too.”
XV
Jimmy’s plan, and by inference, mine, was as follows:
I would go back to the flat, tell Archie that as a surprise I’d booked a weekend getaway at a country hotel. Once we had left, Jimmy would let himself in with the spare key and pack her things. These he would arrange to have delivered to the country hotel where, as a gesture of tax-deductible largesse, Archie would be booked in to stay for a week. According to Jimmy this was time enough for her to “figure out” where she was going next.
Meanwhile, Jimmy would arrange for a locksmith to change the front door locks. I would already have a key for the new lock. If anything went wrong and Archie bolted back to London, she wouldn’t be able to get back into the flat.
On Saturday night I would leave a note for her, explaining my reasons, and then simply drive back to London without her.
That last bit seemed cowardly but Jimmy said if I actually told her face-to-face of my decision, I would definitely fold. Archie would overpower me with her feminine wiles, and I wouldn’t be able to follow through.
I wouldn’t go back to the flat for at least two weeks. Jimmy reasoned, probably correctly, that if she came knocking on the door, I’d simply let her in.
In practice, this is how it happened:
As I walked into the flat after our lengthy drinking session, I smelt perfume and heard Edith Piaf from her bedroom. I knocked and walked in. Archie was lying in bed, reading. She smiled. “You’re drunk, naughty boy. Did you finish the manuscripts?”
“No. How was the meditation session?”
“In the end we were all too tired. We’re doing it tomorrow.”
“I can just go back to the café.” I perched on the edge of the bed, unsure about setting the plan in motion. “Archie?”
I stared at her for a while, as I actually didn’t know what to say. Then in the end I remembered there was something else I’d always wanted to ask her. “Did you really have an abortion? I need to know.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t. I don’t know why I told you that. I think I wanted you to feel sorry for me. Actually I hardly even had sex with Bertie. Only once, at the ashram, which didn’t mean very much as we were supposed to have sex with people there, particularly old ugly people we weren’t the least bit attracted to. That’s why I left.” She looked at me. “Does that answer your question?”
“Yes.” I squirmed. “Archie, I’ve arranged a little surprise for us. A weekend away. I found a little country house hotel in Gloucestershire. Looks lovely.”
She sat up abruptly, stared at me. “You’ve been talking to Jimmy!”
“What?”
“It would never even occur to you to pay for a weekend break.”
“What can you mean?”
“Jimmy was obsessed with country house hotels. It was practically the only thing he ever thought about. Going to Gloucestershire and ordering himself a rack of lamb and pouring fifteen Tia Marias down his throat with me as his prisoner in some god-awful Jacobean mansion!” She stopped and shuddered, glaring at me, a tiny twist of smoke (to my mind, at least) rising from her nostrils. “God Chuck, I can’t believe you’ve gone behind my back like this, talking to him! After all we’ve been through! I thought you were on my side.”
I started back-pedaling like mad. “I… he… thought… just… that you should maybe be more… give more time for me to… sort out some space issues here…” I said.
“He thought I was using you?”
“Well—”
“In a way I have been using you, Chuck, and I’m sorry. I thought you were big enough to carry me for a while. Obviously I was wrong.”
She jumped out of bed, full of energy. She wrenched off her nightgown and stood in front of me. “Take a good look,” she said, “you won’t be seeing this again.” Her weeks in London had transformed her. Why are women so good at transformation? She was wearing a pair of sheer pink knickers that hugged her buttocks deliciously. I felt a swelling, tortuous erection, the product of months of abstinence.
She stopped and looked at me. “And to think I was actually thinking of sleeping with you again.”
As cruelty goes, that one really hit the spot. I felt like I’d been shot, or rather, I wished someone would shoot me. I watched her getting
dressed, like a forlorn hitchhiker as a car speeds past and disappears.
“Archie, I’m sorry.”
“It’s too late. I know you’re sorry. Thanks for being sorry, thanks for all you’ve done for me.”
She carried on packing.
“I didn’t think. I didn’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I just felt there was something which, if it could be done, then we’d be…”
“You don’t know what you think. That’s the problem. Chuck, darling, I told you that when we first met, do you remember?”
I didn’t remember.
She continued rifling through her underwear drawer, pulling out delicious lingerie, some of which I recognized from those intoxicating weeks in Sardinia. I realized how stupid I’d been. I absolutely adored her! To think I’d even tried to convince myself I found her physically repulsive! How much self-deception was it possible for a man to load himself with? I was like a fucking donkey with a pair of tits hanging in front of my face!
“I forgive you. Don’t worry, I won’t think badly of you.” She continued packing hurriedly, and refused my help in getting the suitcase down the stairs. “I’ll send someone for the rest!” she called from below on her way out.
When the door closed there was a moment of utter silence. With ponderous steps I walked up to the door and locked it. Then I went to my hi-fi cabinet and searched through my CD collection until I found what I was looking for: Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”
I felt quite blissful as those first few haunting bars filled the room. Then, sinking onto the couch, I promptly burst into tears.
XVI
Something about that drunken afternoon in the pub and the excruciating final curtain in my flat never quite left me.
Jimmy’s words had a profound effect on me, even though I believe him to be the most wickedly misogynistic man I have ever met. It was, I believe, the first time in my whole life that I’d been genuinely changed by something said to me. Because I acted on it. That’s the operative point. Once you act, all hell breaks loose. Dithering, which is my usual way, makes other people believe they can tell you what to do. They can, and they will, if you let them.
After Archie left, I spent some time licking my wounds.
Then I woke up to my life. My autumnal life, all covered in ivy.
I took early retirement, sold my flat and emigrated. Crazy as it sounds, I moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I now live. I run a small business which never fails to turn a profit. Alongside my pension and my cash pile from selling up in London, this means that for the first time in my life I am affluent.
Every morning when I wake up I look at my wife, a bright, beautiful Brazilian in her thirties who positively bubbles with joie de vivre within minutes of waking up.
The thing I most love about her is that she has no ambition at all except to be happy. And in this respect she is my perfect mirror-image. We drink coffee, we have lunch, we go dancing. I’m learning the samba. We sit on the terrace in the evenings over tête-à-tête dinners, then we go to the cinema. In the summer, which is practically the whole year, we go to a beach house she has up the coast. We swim and throw parties for a myriad of friends, all of whom adore me (as I “adore” them) and call me Jacques because no one can say Chuck.
I don’t miss Chuck at all.
I am fifty-one, but my life has only just started. I’m conserving my energy and keeping fit. My wife wants three children.
Sometimes I wake in the night. I lie there listening to my wife’s breathing. It’s a reassuring sound. On certain nights I can also hear the surf coming in. I know I could not be a happier man. Yet I often think of Archie and her heroic madness. In spite of her confusion, it was Archie who saved me.
We need the mad people to help us break through the barriers, even though, once they disappear, they leave us tainted. Our love for them cannot be eradicated. It flourishes in the ground like wild garlic, and when the nights are still, there’s a lingering scent.
People set off in life expecting bright, breathless dawns, followed by reflective, calm sunsets. They shouldn’t expect things to run smooth. They shouldn’t expect their hearts to be spared. Why? My conclusion may seem simplistic, but nonetheless, here it is:
Love doesn’t work!
My Gift, My Dictation
* * *
LIFE IS A RARE MYSTERY. When we look beyond our lives, we see only darkness. If we could turn time on its head and go back to the time before we were born, we would see a commensurate darkness there too. Beginnings hold an even greater mystery than endings, for death can only exist when preceded by life. Yet surely the first and the last darkness is the same?
For that reason, whenever I go to a funeral, I spare a thought for all those who have never been born, those who—whether by coincidence or misfortune—will never win the lottery of birth.
I should also add that the only thing of any importance is the short flash of light in which we, the momentary owners of an ordered mass of atomic substance, are free to express ourselves through language. Life is like a planet, an island, an albatross riding its fixed trade winds. On this speck of rock lives a people besieged by its own lack of understanding, a people of brutish sensibility, a people of thunderous ignorance. Surrounded by an army of mistaken notions, we skulk in our citadel and wage our lonely struggles against insanity and starvation.
As a young man I found a marked tendency in the humanoid species to talk nonsense and do ridiculous things. Therefore at the age of thirty-eight I decided to take control of the world and impose systematic reform. Now that I am approaching a grand old age of ninety and face my own journey into darkness, I will set out some thoughts so that those who follow in my enormous footsteps may understand my reasoning in all that I have done.
What follows are some brief notes on the fifty years that I have held the human race under the sway of my dictatorship.
The instrument of my mastery, if you will, was that I invented a way of atomizing anyone who resisted me. When I say invented, I mean that I discovered an inner capability that effectively rendered me a god. What human could ever defeat a world leader who, on the merest whim, could disband the atoms in any given body and turn it to vapor?
Furthermore, I was capable of reading people’s minds. Hence conspirators were rooted out as a matter of course.
My rise to power was inexorable. I quickly removed a host of figures invoking liberty and democracy and raising armies to fight me in the name of high ideals. It took me no more than a morning’s work to rid the world of my opponents.
It may seem sadistic to admit to these things, but I remember rather enjoying the unceremonious removal of the world’s political leaders. I particularly enjoyed breaking up a veritable legion of freemasons and other morbid, secret societies, whose members often included some of the most powerful and the most childish people in the world.
I recall many impassioned speeches by these rhetorical hooligans. I made a habit of visiting parliaments and civic halls in every country. There I would sit in the speaker’s chair and listen as orators stood up and spoke about the torch of liberty passing from one generation to the next. I wanted to give them a chance to absolve themselves. As a philosophical ruler, I always had to understand the arguments of my opponents.
Afterwards, I patiently explained to them that they must not fear the darkness that I would soon impose upon them. Life is an utter illusion, and whether we face the darkness today or in thirty years makes precious little difference.
Oh, but how pitiful the arguments were. Societies in those days were ruled by high principles, while practical day-to-day life was brutish and deeply immoral. Presidents and prime ministers excused themselves from true responsibility by declaring themselves mere custodians of their positions of power. They were not free to act outside the rule of law. The judiciaries of these same societies would similarly declare that they were not empowered to change the law unless so instructed by higher powers.
The main thing going wrong in those ti
mes was the notion that individuals were entitled to things, anything they could buy. This was known as economic liberalism. People worked so that they could buy things they wanted: houses, cars, clothes, holidays, jewelry and other fripperies. Among the less intelligent, and by that I mean the vast majority, rich men attracted beautiful women, and vice-versa. The yardstick of human worth for a woman was beauty, and for a man, wealth.
I took the opposite view. It seemed to me that people were not entitled to anything. They had to learn to be grateful for anything they had, particularly consciousness, which is a marvelous gift.
People’s desires had begun to transcend the world itself. Millions of tiny proles were driving about in filthy cars, spewing out various gases that began to throw the planetary climate system into imbalance. The universities were full to bursting with ignorant youths. Every year these sickly little shoots were released to proliferate like noxious weeds. And before long half of them were dreaming of sitting at tables with sea-views in Monte Carlo, while their super-yachts weltered on the waves below. In the poorer parts of the world, meanwhile, people wanted exactly the same things. They struggled to send their children to the very same universities, so that they would also be able to buy the useless plastic electronic junk that their wealthy northern brethren so coveted.
Then there were some smaller groups of native peoples who still clung on to decent beliefs. But they, along with what remained of the planet’s stock of wild animals, had mostly been wiped out, stuffed and exhibited in ethnography museums. Their land had been turned over to something hideous, a process which in those days went by the name of development.
As soon as I took power, I abolished a number of things that seemed to me unhelpful to the future world order I had in mind. These included cars, aircraft, cameras, refrigerators, computers, radios, fixed line and mobile telephony, and so on. Small numbers of these same objects were still manufactured, but I stipulated that at least fifty percent of their components had to be handmade. This had two immediate effects: an enormous upsurge in craftsmanship, and huge price increases, making such consumer articles unaffordable to more or less everyone. Human health improved enormously, as people took to walking, cycling and riding horses.