by Paul Auster
Far off in the distance, beyond the room, beyond the building in which the room is located, Mr. Blank again hears the faint cry of a bird. Distracted by the sound, he looks up from the page in front of him, temporarily abandoning the dolorous confessions of Sigmund Graf. A sudden feeling of pressure invades his stomach, and before Mr. Blank can decide whether to call that feeling one of pain or simple discomfort, his intestinal tract bugles forth an ample, resonant fart. Ho ho, he says out loud, grunting with pleasure. Hopalong Cassidy rides again! Then he tips back in the chair, closes his eyes, and begins to rock, soon lapsing into one of those dull, trancelike states in which the mind is emptied of all thoughts, all emotions, all connection to the self. Thus trapped in his reptilian stupor, Mr. Blank is, as it were, absent, or at least momentarily cut off from his surroundings, which means that he does not hear the hand that has begun knocking on the door. Worse than that, he does not hear the door open, and therefore, even though someone has entered the room, he is still in the dark as to whether the door is locked from the outside or not. Or soon will be still in the dark, once he emerges from his trance.
Someone taps him on the shoulder, but before Mr. Blank can open his eyes and swivel around in the chair to see who it is, that person has already begun to speak. From the timbre and intonation of the voice, Mr. Blank instantly recognizes that it belongs to a man, but he is perplexed by the fact that it is talking to him in what sounds like a Cockney accent.
I'm sorry, Mr. Blank, the man says to him. I knocked and knocked, and when you didn't open the door, I thought I should come in and see if anything was wrong.
Mr. Blank now swivels around in the chair and takes a close look at his visitor. The man appears to be in his early fifties, with neatly combed hair and a small brown mustache with flecks of gray in it. Neither short nor tall, Mr. Blank says to himself, but more on the short side than the tall, and from his erect, almost ramrod posture as he stands there in his tweed suit, he looks like a military man of some kind, or perhaps a lower-level civil servant.
And you are? Mr. Blank asks.
Flood, sir. First name James. Middle name Patrick. James P. Flood. Don't you remember me?
Dimly, only dimly.
The ex-policeman.
Ah. Flood, the ex-policeman. You were going to pay me a visit, weren't you?
Yes, sir. Exactly, sir. That's why I'm here. I'm paying you the visit now.
Mr. Blank casts his eyes about the room, looking for a chair so he can offer Flood a place to sit, but apparently the only chair in the room is the one he now occupies himself.
Something wrong? Flood asks.
No, no, Mr. Blank replies. I'm just looking for another chair, that's all.
I can always sit on the bed, Flood answers, gesturing to the bed. Or, if you're feeling up to it, we could go to the park across the way. No shortage of benches there.
Mr. Blank points down at his right foot and says: I'm missing a shoe. I can't go outside with only one shoe.
Flood turns around and immediately spots the white tennis shoe on the floor below the window. There's the other one, sir. We could get it back on you in two shakes of a cat.
A cat? What are you talking about?
Just an expression, Mr. Blank. No harm intended. Flood pauses for a moment, looks back at the shoe on the floor, and then says: Well, what about it? Should we put it on or not?
Mr. Blank lets out a long, weary sigh. No, he says, with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice, I don't want to put it on. I'm sick of these goddamned shoes. If anything, I'd rather take the other one off, too.
The moment these words escape his mouth, Mr. Blank is heartened to realize that such an act falls within the realm of possibility, that in this one trifling instance he can take matters into his own hands. Without a moment's hesitation, he therefore bends down and removes the sneaker from his left foot.
Ah, that's better, he says, lifting his legs and wiggling his toes in the air. Much better. And I'm still dressed all in white, aren't I?
Of course you are, Flood says. What's so important about that?
Never mind, says Mr. Blank, waving off Flood's question as of no account. Just sit down on the bed and tell me what you want, Mr. Flood.
The former inspector from Scotland Yard lowers himself onto the foot of the mattress, positioning his body in the left-hand quadrant in order to align his face with the face of the old man, who is sitting in the chair with his back to the desk, roughly six feet away. Flood clears his throat, as if searching for the appropriate words to start with, and then, in a low voice trembling with anxiety, he says: It's about the dream, sir.
The dream? Mr. Blank asks, confounded by Flood's statement. What dream?
My dream, Mr. Blank. The one you mentioned in your report on Fanshawe.
Who's Fanshawe?
You don't remember?
No, Mr. Blank declares in a loud, irritable voice. No, I don't remember Fanshawe. I can hardly remember anything.
They're pumping me full of pills, and nearly everything is gone now. Most of the time, I don't even know who I am. And if I can't remember myself, how do you expect me to remember this… this…
Fanshawe.
Fanshawe… And who, pray tell, is he?
One of your operatives, sir.
You mean someone I sent out on a mission?
An extremely perilous mission.
Did he survive?
No one is sure. But the prevailing opinion is that he's no longer with us.
Groaning softly to himself, Mr. Blank covers his face with his hands and whispers: Another one of the damned.
Excuse me, Flood interjects, I didn't catch what you said.
Nothing, Mr. Blank replies in a louder voice. I said nothing.
At that point, the conversation stops for several moments. Silence reigns, and in that silence Mr. Blank imagines that he hears the sound of wind, a powerful wind blowing through a stand of trees somewhere near, quite near, but whether that wind is real or not he cannot say. All the while, Flood's eyes remain fixed on the old man's face. When the silence has become unbearable, he at last makes a timid venture to resume the dialogue. Well? he says.
Well what? Mr. Blank replies.
The dream. Can we talk about the dream now?
How can I talk about another man's dream if I don't know what it is?
That's just the problem, Mr. Blank. I have no memory of it myself.
Then I can't do anything for you, can I? If neither one of us knows what happened in your dream, there's nothing to talk about.
It's more complicated than that.
Hardly, Mr. Flood. It's very simple.
That's only because you don't remember writing the report. If you concentrate now, I mean really focus your mind on it, maybe it will come back to you.
I doubt it.
Listen. In the report you wrote on Fanshawe, you mention that he was the author of several unpublished books. One of them was entitled Neverland. Unfortunately, except for concluding that certain events in the book were inspired by similar events in Fanshawe's life, you say nothing about the subject, nothing about the plot, nothing about the book at all. Only one brief aside—written in parentheses, I might add—which reads as follows. I quote from memory: (Montag's house in chapter seven; Flood's dream in chapter thirty). The point being, Mr. Blank, that you must have read Neverland yourself, and in that you're one of the only people in the world to have done so, I would deeply appreciate it, appreciate it from the very bottom of my miserable heart, if you would make an effort to recall the content of that dream.
From the way you talk about it, Neverland must be a novel.
Yes, sir. A work of fiction.
And Fanshawe used you as a character?
Apparently so. There's nothing strange about that. From what I understand, writers do it all the time.
Maybe they do, but I don't see why you should get so worked up about it. The dream never really happened. It's nothing but words on a page—pure inve
ntion. Forget about it, Mr. Flood. It's not important.
It's important to me, Mr. Blank. My whole life depends on it. Without that dream, I'm nothing, literally nothing.
The passion with which the normally reserved ex-policeman delivers this last remark—a passion provoked by the sting of a genuine, soul-rending despair—strikes Mr. Blank as nothing short of hilarious, and for the first time since the opening words of this account, he bursts out laughing. As one might expect, Flood takes offense, for no one enjoys having his feelings trampled upon in such a heartless manner, least of all someone as fragile as Flood is at this moment.
I resent that, Mr. Blank, he says. You have no right to laugh at me.
Maybe not, Mr. Blank says, once the spasm in his chest has subsided, but I couldn't help it. You take yourself so damned seriously, Flood. It makes you look ridiculous.
I might be ridiculous, Flood says, with anger rising in his voice, but you, Mr. Blank… you're cruel… cruel and indifferent to the pain of others. You play with people's lives and take no responsibility for what you've done. I'm not going to sit here and bore you with my troubles, but I blame you for what's happened to me. I most sincerely blame you, and I despise you for it.
Troubles? Mr. Blank says, suddenly softening his tone, doing his best to show some sympathy. What kind of troubles?
The headaches, for one thing. Being forced into early retirement for another. Bankruptcy for yet another. And then there's the business with my wife, or rather my ex-wife, not to speak of my children, who no longer want anything to do with me. My life is in ruins, Mr. Blank. I walk around the world like a ghost, and sometimes I question whether I even exist. Whether I've ever existed at all.
And you think learning about that dream is going to solve all this? It's highly doubtful, you know.
The dream is my only chance. It's like a missing part of me, and until I find it, I'll never really be myself again.
I don't remember Fanshawe. I don't remember reading his novel. I don't remember writing the report. I wish I could help you, Flood, but the treatment they're giving me has turned my brain into a lump of rusty iron.
Try to remember. That's all I ask of you. Try.
As Mr. Blank looks into the eyes of the shattered ex-policeman, he notices that tears have begun to roll down his cheeks. Poor devil, Mr. Blank says to himself. For a moment or two he considers whether to ask Flood to help him locate the closet, for he remembers now that Flood was the one who mentioned it on the phone earlier that morning, but in the end, after weighing the pros and cons of making such a request, he decides against it. Instead he says: Please forgive me, Mr. Flood. I'm sorry I laughed at you.
Now Flood is gone, and once again Mr. Blank is alone in the room. In the aftermath of their disturbing encounter, the old man feels grumpy and out of sorts, wounded by the unjust and belligerent accusations he was subjected to. Still, not wanting to squander any opportunity to increase his knowledge of his present circumstances, he swivels around in the chair until he is facing the desk, then reaches out for the pad and the ballpoint pen. He understands enough at this point to know that unless he writes it down at once, the name will soon fly out of his head, and he doesn't want to run the risk of forgetting it. He therefore opens the pad to the first page, picks up the pen, and adds another entry to his list:
James P. Flood
Anna
David Zimmer
Peter Stillman, Jr.
Peter Stillman, Sr.
Fanshawe
In writing Fanshawe's name, it occurs to him that a second name was mentioned during Flood's visit as well, a name he heard in association with the reference to Flood's dream in chapter thirty of the book, but grapple as he does to recall what it was, he cannot come up with the answer. Something to do with chapter seven, he says to himself, something to do with a house, but the rest is a blank in Mr. Blank's mind. Galled by his own inadequacy, he nevertheless decides to put down something, hoping the name will come back to him at some future moment. The list now reads as follows:
James P. Flood
Anna
David Zimmer
Peter Stillman, Jr.
Peter Stillman, Sr.
Fanshawe
Man with house
As Mr. Blank puts down the pen, a word begins resounding in his head, and for several moments after that, as the word continues to echo within him, he senses that he is on the brink of a serious breakthrough, a crucial turning point that will help clarify something about what the future has in store for him. The word is park. He remembers now that shortly after entering the room, Flood suggested they hold their conversation in the park across the way. If nothing else, that would seem to contradict Mr. Blank's previous assertion that he is being held captive, confined to the space in which these four walls surround him, blocked forever from sallying forth into the world. He is somewhat encouraged by this thought, but he also knows that even if he is allowed to visit the park, that does not necessarily prove he is free. Perhaps such visits are possible only under strict supervision, and once Mr. Blank has savored a welcome dose of sunlight and fresh air, he is promptly led back to the room, whereupon he is again held prisoner against his will. He finds it a pity that he did not have the presence of mind to question Flood about the park—in order to determine whether it is a public park, for example, or merely some wooded or grassy area that belongs to the building or institution or asylum in which he is now living. More important, he realizes for what must be the umpteenth time in the past several hours that it all comes down to the nature of the door, and whether it is locked from the outside or not. He closes his eyes and strains to recall the sounds he heard after Flood left the room. Was it the sound of a bolt sliding shut, the sound of a key turning in a cylinder plug, or simply the click of a latch? Mr. Blank cannot remember. By the time the conversation with Flood came to an end, he was so agitated by that disagreeable little man and his whining recriminations that he was too distracted to be paying attention to such petty concerns as locks and bolts and doors.
Mr. Blank wonders if the moment hasn't finally come to investigate the matter for himself. Afraid though he might be, would it not be better to learn the truth once and for all instead of living in a state of perpetual uncertainty? Perhaps, he says to himself. And then again, perhaps not. Before Mr. Blank can decide whether he has the courage to travel over to the door at last, a new and more urgent problem suddenly asserts itself—what might most accurately be called an urgent urge. Pressure has once again begun to build in Mr. Blank's body. Unlike the earlier episode, which was situated in the general area of his stomach, this one appears in a spot several inches lower, in the southernmost region of Mr. Blank's belly. From long experience with such matters, the old man understands that he has to pee. He considers traveling over to the bathroom in the chair, but knowing that the chair will not fit through the bathroom doorway, and further knowing that he cannot execute the pee while sitting in the chair, that a moment will inevitably come when he will have to stand up (if only to sit down again on the toilet seat if he is attacked by another rush of dizziness), he decides to make the journey on foot. He therefore rises from the chair, pleased to note as he does so that his equilibrium is steady, with no signs of the vertigo that plagued him earlier. What Mr. Blank has forgotten, however, is that he is no longer wearing the white tennis shoes, not to speak of no longer wearing the black slippers, and that there is nothing on his feet anymore but the white nylon socks. In that the material of those socks is exceedingly thin, and in that the wooden floor is exceedingly smooth, Mr. Blank discovers after the first step that it is possible to slide his way forward—not with the rasping shuffle of the slippers, but as if he were moving along on ice skates.
A new form of pleasure has become available to him, and after two or three experimental glides between the desk and the bed, he concludes that it is no less enjoyable than rocking back and forth and spinning around in the chair—perhaps even more so. The pressure in his bladder is mounti
ng, but Mr. Blank delays his trip to the bathroom in order to prolong his turn on the imaginary ice by a few moments, and as he skates around the room, now lifting one foot into the air, now the other, or else floating along with both feet on the floor, he again returns to the distant past, not as far back as the era of Whitey the rocking horse or the mornings when he would sit in his mother's lap as she dressed him on the bed, but a long while ago just the same: Mr. Blank in his high middle boyhood, roughly ten years old, perhaps eleven, but on no account as advanced as twelve. It's a cold Saturday afternoon in January or February. The pond in the little town where he grew up has frozen over, and there is the young Mr. Blank, who was then referred to as Master Blank, skating hand in hand with his first love, a girl with green eyes and reddish brown hair, long reddish brown hair (tousled by the wind, her cheeks red from the cold, her name now forgotten, but beginning with the letter 5, Mr. Blank says to himself, he is certain of that, perhaps Susie, he thinks, or Samantha or Sally or Serena, but no, none of those, and yet no matter, for in that it was the first time he ever held a girl's hand, what he remembers most keenly now is the sensation of having entered a new world, a world in which holding a girl's hand was a good to be desired above all others, and such was his ardor for this young creature whose name began with the letter S that once they stopped skating and sat down on a tree stump at the edge of the pond, Master Blank was bold enough to lean forward and kiss her on the lips. For reasons that both baffled and wounded him at the time, Miss S. burst out laughing, turned away her head, and rebuked him with a sentence that has stayed with him ever since—even now, in his present abject circumstances, when all is not right in his head and so many other things have vanished: Don't be silly. For the object of his affections understood nothing of such matters, being but ten or eleven years old and not yet ripened to the point where amorous advances from a member of the opposite sex would have any meaning for her. And so, rather than respond to Master Blank's kiss with a kiss of her own, she laughed.