by Paul Auster
According to you, Brick says, not yet willing to give in, but knowing in his heart that Virginia is right.
Ergo, my dear Owen, this little interlude of dawdling and hide-and-seek has come to an end. Hop into the jeep. It’s time for you to talk to Frisk.
No dice, Virginia. I can’t hop, and I can’t run, and I can’t go anywhere yet. My face is bleeding, my balls are on fire, and every muscle in my stomach is torn to shreds. I have to patch myself up first. Then I’ll talk to your man. But at least let me take a goddamn bath.
For the first time since the conversation began, Virginia smiles. Poor baby, she says, simpering with compassion, but whether this new concern for him is real or false is far from clear to Brick.
Are you with me or not? he asks.
Climb in, she says, patting the door of the jeep. Of course I’m with you. I’ll take you back to my house, and we’ll fix you up there. It’s still early. Lou can wait a little while. As long as you see him before dark, we’ll be okay.
With that reassurance, Brick hobbles over to the jeep and hoists his sorry carcass into the passenger seat as Virginia slips in behind the wheel. Once she starts the engine, she launches into a long, meandering account of the civil war, no doubt feeling an obligation to fill him in on the historical background of the conflict, but the problem is that Brick is in no condition to follow what she’s saying, and as they lurch along over the potholed streets of Wellington, every jolt and bump sends a fresh attack of pain coursing through his body. To compound the trouble, the noise of the engine is so loud that it nearly swallows up Virginia’s voice, and in order to hear anything at all, Brick must strain himself to the limit of his powers, which are diminished at best, if not entirely obliterated. Clutching the bottom of the seat with his two hands, pressing the soles of his shoes onto the floor to brace himself against the next bounce of the chassis, he keeps his eyes shut throughout the twenty-minute drive, and from the ten thousand facts that come tumbling down on him between Molly’s apartment and Virginia’s house, this is what he manages to retain:
The election of 2000 . . . just after the Supreme Court decision . . . protests . . . riots in the major cities . . . a movement to abolish the Electoral College . . . defeat of the bill in Congress . . . a new movement . . . led by the mayor and borough presidents of New York City . . . secession . . . passed by the state legislature in 2003 . . . Federal troops attack . . . Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester . . . New York City bombed, eighty thousand dead . . . but the movement grows . . . in 2004, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania join New York in the Independent States of America . . . later that year, California, Oregon, and Washington break off to form their own republic, Pacifica . . . in 2005, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota join the Independent States . . . the European Union recognizes the existence of the new country . . . diplomatic relations are established . . . then Mexico . . . then the countries of Central and South America . . . Russia follows, then Japan. . . . Meanwhile, the fighting continues, often horrendous, the toll of casualties steadily mounting . . . U.N. resolutions ignored by the Federals, but until now no nuclear weapons, which would mean death to everyone on both sides. . . . Foreign policy: no meddling anywhere. . . . Domestic policy: universal health insurance, no more oil, no more cars or planes, a fourfold increase in teachers’ salaries (to attract the brightest students to the profession), strict gun control, free education and job training for the poor . . . all in the realm of fantasy for the moment, a dream of the future, since the war drags on, and the state of emergency is still in force.
The jeep slows down and gradually comes to a stop. As Virginia turns off the ignition, Brick opens his eyes and discovers that he is no longer in the heart of Wellington. They have come to a wealthy suburban street of large Tudor houses with pristine front lawns, tulip beds, forsythia and rhododendron bushes, the myriad trappings of the good life. As he climbs out of the jeep and looks down the block, however, he notices that several houses are standing in ruins: broken windows, charred walls, gaping holes in the facades, abandoned husks where people once lived. Brick assumes that the neighborhood was shelled during the war, but he doesn’t ask any questions about it. Instead, pointing to the house they are about to enter, he blandly remarks: This is quite a place, Virginia. You seem to have done pretty well for yourself.
My husband was a corporate lawyer, she says flatly, in no mood to talk about the past. He made a lot of money.
Virginia opens the door with a key, and they walk into the house . . .
A warm bath, lying in water up to his neck for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, inert, tranquil, alone. After which he puts on the white terry-cloth robe of Virginia’s dead husband, walks into the bedroom, and sits down in a chair as Virginia patiently applies an antibacterial astringent to the gash on his cheek and then covers the wound with a small bandage. Brick is beginning to feel somewhat better. The wonders of water, he says to himself, realizing that the pain in his stomach and nether parts has all but vanished. His cheek still smarts, but eventually that discomfort will abate as well. As for the broken tooth, there is nothing to be done until he can visit a dentist and have a cap put on it, but he doubts that will happen anytime soon. For now (as confirmed when he studied his face in the bathroom mirror), the effect is altogether repulsive. A few centimeters of missing enamel and he looks like a brokendown bum, a pea-brained yokel. Fortunately, the gap is visible only when he smiles, and in Brick’s present state, the last thing he wants to do is smile. Unless the nightmare ends, he thinks, there’s a good chance he’ll never smile again for the rest of his life.
Twenty minutes later, now dressed and sitting in the kitchen with Virginia—who has prepared him toast and coffee, the same minimal breakfast that nearly cost him his life earlier that morning—Brick is answering the tenth question she has asked him about Flora. He finds her curiosity puzzling. If she is the person responsible for bringing him to this place, then it would seem likely that she already knows everything about him, including his marriage to Flora. But Virginia is insatiable, and now Brick begins to wonder if all this questioning isn’t simply a ploy to hold him in the house, to make him lose track of the time so that he won’t try to run off again before Frisk shows up. He wants to run, that’s certain, but after the long soak in the tub and the terry-cloth robe and the gentleness of her fingers as she put the bandage on his face, something in him has begun to soften toward Virginia, and he can feel the old flames of his adolescence slowly igniting again.
I met her in Manhattan, he says. About three and a half years ago. A fancy birthday party for a kid on the Upper East Side. I was the magician, and she was one of the caterers.
Is she beautiful, Owen?
To me she is. Not beautiful in the way you are, Virginia, with your incredible face and long body. Flora’s little, not even five-four, just a slip of a thing, really, but she has these big burning eyes and all this tangly dark hair and the best laugh I’ve ever heard.
Do you love her?
Of course.
And she loves you?
Yes. Most of the time, anyway. Flora has a huge temper, and she can fly off into these maniacal tirades. Whenever we fight, I begin to think the only reason she married me was because she wanted her American citizenship. But it doesn’t happen very often. Nine days out of ten, we’re good together. We really are.
What about babies?
They’re on the agenda. We started trying a couple of months ago.
Don’t give up. That was my mistake. I waited too long, and now look at me. No husband, no children, nothing.
You’re still young. You’re still the prettiest girl on the block. Someone else will come along, I’m sure of it.
Before Virginia can answer him, the doorbell rings. She stands up, muttering Shit under her breath as if she means it, as if she honestly resents the intrusion, but Brick knows that he’s cornered now, and any chance of escape is gone. Before leaving th
e kitchen, Virginia turns to him and says: I called while you were taking your bath. I told him to come between four and five, but I guess he couldn’t wait. I’m sorry, Owen. I wanted to have those hours with you and charm your pants off. I really did. I wanted to fuck your brains out. Just remember that when you go back.
Back? You mean I’m going back?
Lou will explain. That’s his job. I’m just a personnel officer, a little cog in a big machine.
Lou Frisk turns out to be a dour-looking man in his early fifties, somewhat on the short side, with narrow shoulders, wire-rimmed glasses, and the marred skin of someone who once suffered from acne. He’s dressed in a green V-neck sweater with a white shirt and plaid tie, and in his left hand he’s carrying a black satchel that resembles a doctor’s bag. The moment he enters the kitchen, he puts down the bag and says: You’ve been avoiding me, Corporal.
I’m not a corporal, Brick answers. You know that. I’ve never been a soldier in my life.
Not in your world, Frisk says, but in this world you’re a corporal in the Massachusetts Seventh, a member of the armed forces of the Independent States of America.
Putting his head in his hands, Brick groans softly as another element of the dream comes back to him: Worcester, Massachusetts. He looks up, watches Frisk settle into a chair across from him at the table, and says: I’m in Massachusetts, then. Is that what you’re telling me?
Wellington, Massachusetts, Frisk nods. Formerly known as Worcester.
Brick pounds his fist on the table, finally giving vent to the rage that has been building inside him. I don’t like this! he shouts. Someone’s inside my head. Not even my dreams belong to me. My whole life has been stolen. Then, turning to Frisk and looking him directly in the eye, he yells at the top of his voice: Who’s doing this to me?
Take it easy, Frisk says, patting Brick on the hand. You have every right to be confused. That’s why I’m here. I’m the one who explains it to you, who sets things straight. We don’t want you to suffer. If you’d come to me when you were supposed to, you never would have had that dream. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?
Not really, Brick says, in a more subdued voice.
Through the walls of the house, he catches the faint sound of the jeep’s engine being turned on, and then the distant squeal of shifting gears as Virginia drives away.
Virginia? he asks.
What about her?
She just left, didn’t she?
She has a lot of work to do, and our business doesn’t concern her.
She didn’t even say good-bye, Brick adds, reluctant to drop the matter. There is hurt in his voice, as if he can’t quite believe that she would ditch him in such an offhanded way.
Forget Virginia, Frisk says. We have more important things to talk about.
She said I was going back. Is that true?
Yes. But first I have to tell you why. Listen carefully, Brick, and then give me an honest answer. Putting his arms on the table, Frisk leans forward and says: Are we in the real world or not?
How should I know? Everything looks real. Everything sounds real. I’m sitting here in my own body, but at the same time I can’t be here, can I? I belong somewhere else.
You’re here, all right. And you belong somewhere else.
It can’t be both. It has to be one or the other.
Is the name Giordano Bruno familiar to you?
No. Never heard of him.
A sixteenth-century Italian philosopher. He argued that if God is infinite, and if the powers of God are infinite, then there must be an infinite number of worlds.
I suppose that makes sense. Assuming you believe in God.
He was burned at the stake for that idea. But that doesn’t mean he was wrong, does it?
Why ask me? I don’t know the first thing about any of this. How can I have an opinion about something I don’t understand?
Until you woke up in that hole the other day, your entire life had been spent in one world. But how could you be sure it was the only world?
Because . . . because it was the only world I ever knew.
But now you know another world. What does that suggest to you, Brick?
I don’t follow.
There’s no single reality, Corporal. There are many realities. There’s no single world. There are many worlds, and they all run parallel to one another, worlds and anti-worlds, worlds and shadow-worlds, and each world is dreamed or imagined or written by someone in another world. Each world is the creation of a mind.
You’re beginning to sound like Tobak. He said the war was in one man’s head, and if that man was eliminated, the war would stop. That’s about the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.
Tobak might not be the brightest soldier in the army, but he was telling you the truth.
If you want me to believe a crazy thing like that, you’ll have to prove it to me first.
All right, Frisk says, slapping his palms on the table, what about this? Without another word, he reaches under his sweater with his right hand and pulls out a three-by-five photograph from his shirt pocket. This is the culprit, he says, sliding the photo across the table to Brick.
Brick does no more than glance at the picture. It’s a color snapshot of a man in his late sixties or early seventies sitting in a wheelchair in front of a white country house. A perfectly sympathetic-looking man, Brick notes, with spiky gray hair and a weathered face.
This doesn’t prove anything, he says, thrusting the photo back at Frisk. It’s just a man. Any man. For all I know, he could be your uncle.
His name is August Brill, Frisk begins, but Brick cuts him off before he can say anything else.
Not according to Tobak. He said his name was Blake.
Blank.
Whatever.
Tobak isn’t up on the latest intelligence reports. For a long time, Blank was our leading suspect, but then we crossed him off the list. Brill is the one. We’re sure of that now.
Then show me the story. Reach into that bag of yours and pull out his manuscript and point to a sentence where my name is mentioned.
That’s the problem. Brill doesn’t write anything down. He’s telling himself the story in his head.
How can you possibly know that?
A military secret. But we know, Corporal. Trust me.
Bullshit.
You want to go back, don’t you? Well, this is the only way. If you don’t accept the job, you’ll be stuck here forever.
All right. Just for the sake of argument, imagine I shoot this man . . . this Brill. Then what happens? If he created your world, then the moment he’s dead, you won’t exist anymore.
He didn’t invent this world. He only invented the war. And he invented you, Brick. Don’t you understand that? This is your story, not ours. The old man invented you in order to kill him.
So now it’s a suicide.
In a roundabout way, yes.
Once again, Brick puts his head in his hands and begins to moan. It’s all too much for him, and after struggling to hold his ground against Frisk’s demented assertions, he can feel his mind dissolving, whirling madly through a universe of disconnected thoughts and amorphous dreads. Only one thing is clear to him: he wants to go back. He wants to be with Flora again and return to his old life. In order to do that, he must accept a command to murder someone he has never met, a total stranger. He will have to accept, but once he gets to the other side, what is to prevent him from refusing to carry out the job?
Still looking down at the table, he forces the words out of his mouth: Tell me something about the man.
Ah, that’s better, Frisk says. Coming to our senses at last.
Don’t patronize me, Frisk. Just tell me what I need to know.
A retired book critic, seventy-two years old, living outside Brattleboro, Vermont, with his forty-seven-year-old daughter and twenty-three-year-old granddaughter. His wife died last year. The daughter’s husband left her five years ago. The granddaughter’s boyfriend was ki
lled. It’s a house of grieving, wounded souls, and every night Brill lies awake in the dark, trying not to think about his past, making up stories about other worlds.
Why is he in a wheelchair?
A car accident. His left leg was shattered. They nearly had to amputate.
And if I agree to kill this man, you’ll send me back.
That’s the bargain. But don’t try to wriggle out of it, Brick. If you break your promise, we’ll come after you. Two bullets. One for you and one for Flora. Bang, bang. No more you. No more her.
But if you get rid of me, the war goes on.
Not necessarily. It’s still just a hypothesis at this point, but some of us think that getting rid of you would produce the same result as eliminating Brill. The story would end, and the war would be over. Don’t think we wouldn’t be willing to take the risk.
How do I get back?
In your sleep.
But I’ve already gone to sleep here. Twice. And both times I woke up in the same place.
That’s normal sleep. What I’m talking about is pharmacologically induced sleep. You’ll be given an injection. The effect is similar to anesthesia—when they put a person under before surgery. The black void of oblivion, a nothingness as deep and dark as death.
Sounds like fun, Brick says, so unnerved by what is facing him that he can’t help cracking a feeble joke.
Are you willing to give it a shot, Corporal?
Do I have a choice?
I feel a cough gathering in my chest, a faint rattle of phlegm buried deep in my bronchia, and before I can suppress it, the detonation comes blasting through my throat. Hack it up, propel the gunk northward, dislodge the slimy leftovers trapped in the tubes, but one try isn’t enough, nor two, nor three, and here I am in a full-blown spasm, my whole body convulsing from the onslaught. It’s my own fault. I stopped smoking fifteen years ago, but now that Katya is in the house with her ubiquitous American Spirits, I’ve begun to lapse into the old, dirty pleasures, cadging butts off her while we plunge through the entire corpus of world cinema, side by side on the sofa, blowing smoke in tandem, two locomotives chugging away from the loathsome, intolerable world, but without regret, I might add, without a second thought or single pang of remorse. It’s the companionship that counts, the conspiratorial bond, the fuckyou solidarity of the damned.