by Paul Auster
Very nice. The names are a good touch, Mr. Blank.
My brain is turning at a hundred miles an hour. Haven't felt so full of beans all day.
Old habits die hard, I suppose.
What's that supposed to mean?
Nothing. Just that you're in good form, beginning to hit your stride. What happens next?
Graf hangs around Ultima for more than a month, trying to figure out a way to cross the border into the Territories. He can't go on foot, after all. He needs a horse, a rifle, provisions, probably a donkey as well. In the meantime, with nothing else to occupy his days, he finds himself getting drawn into Ultima society—such as it is, considering that it's nothing more than a pukey little garrison town in the middle of nowhere. Of all people, it's the hypocrite De Vega who makes a great show of befriending him. He invites Graf to dinner parties—long, tedious affairs attended by military officers, town officials, members of the merchant class, along with their wives, their lady friends, and so on—takes him to the best brothels, and even goes out hunting with him a couple of times. And then there's the Colonel's mistress… Carlotta… Carlotta Hauptmann… a debauched sensualist, the proverbial horny widow, whose principal entertainments in life are fucking and playing cards. The Colonel is married, of course, married with two small children, and since he can visit Carlotta only once or twice a week, she's available for romps with other men. It isn't long before Graf enters into a liaison with her. One night, as they're lying in bed together, he questions her about Land, and Carlotta confirms the rumors. Yes, she says, Land and his men crossed into the Territories a little more than a year ago. Why does she tell him this? Her motives aren't quite clear. Perhaps she's smitten with Graf and wants to be helpful, or perhaps the Colonel has put her up to it for hidden reasons of his own. This part has to be handled delicately. The reader can never be certain if Carlotta is luring Graf into a trap or if she simply talks too much for her own good. Don't forget that this is Ultima, the dreariest outpost of the Confederation, and sex, gambling, and gossip are about the only fun to be had.
How does Graf make it across the border?
I'm not sure. Probably a bribe of some sort. It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that he gets across one night, and the second part of the story begins. We're in the desert now. Emptiness all around, a ferocious blue sky overhead, pounding light, and then, when the sun goes down, a chill to freeze the marrow in your bones. Graf rides west for several days, mounted on a chestnut horse who goes by the name of Whitey, so called because of a splash of white between the animal's eyes, and since Graf knows the terrain well from his visit twelve years before, he heads in the direction of the Gangi, the tribe with whom he got along best during his earlier travels and whom he found to be the most peaceful of all the Primitive nations. Late one morning, he finally approaches a Gangi encampment, a small village of fifteen or twenty hogans, which would suggest a population of somewhere between seventy and a hundred people. When he's approximately thirty yards from the edge of the settlement, he calls out a greeting in the local Gangi dialect to signal his arrival to the inhabitants— but no one responds. Growing alarmed now, Graf quickens the horse's pace and trots into the heart of the village, where not a single sign of human life can be seen. He dismounts, walks over to one of the hogans, and pushes aside the buffalo skin that serves as the door to the little house. The moment he enters, he's greeted by the overpowering stench of death, the sickening smell of decomposing bodies, and there, in the dim light of the hogan, he sees a dozen slaughtered Gangi—men, women, and children— all of them shot down in cold blood. He staggers out into the air, covering his nose with a handkerchief, and then one by one inspects the other hogans in the village. They're all dead, every last soul is dead, and among them Graf recognizes a number of people he befriended twelve years before. The girls who have since grown into young women, the boys who have since grown into young men, the parents who have since become grandparents, and not a single one is breathing anymore, not a single one will grow a day older for the rest of time.
Who was responsible? Was it Land and his men?
Patience, doctor. A thing like this can't be rushed. We're talking about brutality and death, the murder of the innocent, and Graf is still reeling from the shock of his discovery. He's in no shape to absorb what's happened, but even if he were, why would he think Land had anything to do with it? He's working on the assumption that his old friend is trying to start a rebellion, to form an army of Primitives that will invade the western provinces of the Confederation. An army of dead men can't fight very well, can it? The last thing Graf would conclude is that Land has killed his own future soldiers.
I'm sorry. I won't interrupt anymore.
Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. Take Land's troops, for example. They have no idea what their real mission is, no idea that Land is a double agent working for the Ministry of War. They're a bunch of well-educated dreamers, political radicals opposed to the Confederation, and when Land enlisted them to follow him into the Alien Territories, they took him at his word and assumed they were going to help the Primitives annex the western provinces.
Does Graf ever find Land?
He has to. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any story to tell. But that doesn't happen until later, until several weeks or months down the road. About two days after Graf leaves the massacred Gangi village, he comes across one of Land's men, a delirious soldier staggering through the desert with no food, no water, no horse. Graf tries to help him, but it's already too late, and the kid hangs on for just a few more hours. Before he gives up the ghost, he raves on to Graf in a stream of incoherent babble about how everyone is dead, how they never had a chance, how the whole thing was a fraud from the start. Graf has trouble following him. Who does he mean by everyone? Land and his troops? The Gangi? Other tribes among the Primitives? The boy doesn't answer, and before the sun goes down that evening, he's dead. Graf buries the body and moves on, and a day or two after that, he comes to another Gangi settlement filled with corpses. He no longer knows what to think. What if Land is responsible, after all? What if the rumor of an insurrection is no more than a blind to cover up a far more sinister undertaking: a quiet slaughter of the Primitives that would enable the government to open their territory to white settlement, to expand the reach of the Confederation all the way to the shores of the western ocean? And yet, how can such a thing be accomplished with such a paucity of troops? One hundred men to wipe out tens of thousands? It doesn't seem possible, and yet if Land has nothing to do with it, then the only other explanation is that the Gangi were killed by another tribe, that the Primitives are at war among themselves.
Mr. Blank is about to continue, but before he can get another word out of his mouth, he and the doctor are interrupted by a knocking at the door. Engrossed as he is in elaborating the story, content as he is to be spinning out his version of far-flung, imaginary events, Mr. Blank instantly understands that this is the moment he's been waiting for: the mystery of the door is about to be solved at last. Once the knock is heard, Farr turns his head in the direction of the sound. Come in, he says, and just like that the door opens, and in walks a woman pushing a stainless steel cart, perhaps the same one Anna used earlier, perhaps one that is identical to it. For once, Mr. Blank has been paying attention, and to the best of his knowledge he heard no sound of a lock being opened—nothing that resembled the sound of a bolt or a latch or a key—which would suggest that the door was unlocked to begin with, unlocked all along. Or so Mr. Blank surmises, beginning to rejoice at the thought of his liberty to come and go as he wants, but a moment later he understands that things are possibly not quite as simple as that. It could be that Dr. Farr forgot to lock the door when he entered. Or, even more likely, that he didn't bother to lock it, knowing he would have no trouble overpowering Mr. Blank if his prisoner tried to escape. Yes, the old man says to himself, that's probably the answer. And he, who is n
othing if not pessimistic about his prospects for the future, once again resigns himself to living in a state of constant uncertainty.
Hello, Sam, the woman says. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but it's time for Mr. Blank's lunch.
Hi, Sophie, Farr says, simultaneously looking down at his watch and standing up from the bed. I hadn't realized it was so late.
What's happening? Mr. Blank asks, pounding the arm of his chair and speaking in a petulant tone of voice. I want to go on telling the story.
We've run out of time, Farr says. The consultation is over for today.
But I haven't finished! the old man shouts. I haven't come to the end!
I know, Farr replies, but we're working on a tight schedule around here, and it can't be helped. We'll go on with the story tomorrow.
Tomorrow? Mr. Blank roars, both incredulous and confused. What are you talking about? Tomorrow I won't remember a word I said today. You know that. Even I know that, and I don't know a blasted thing.
Farr walks over to Mr. Blank and pats him on the shoulder, a classic gesture of appeasement for one skilled in the subtle art of bedside manner. All right, he says, I'll see what I can do. I have to get permission first, but if you want me to come back this evening, I can probably work it out. Okay?
Okay, Mr. Blank mumbles, feeling somewhat mollified by the gentleness and concern in Fair's voice.
Well, I'm off then, the doctor announces. See you later.
Without another word, he waves good-bye to Mr. Blank and the woman called Sophie, walks to the door, opens it, steps across the threshold, and shuts the door behind him. Mr. Blank hears the click of the latch, but nothing more. No clatter of a bolt, no turning of a key, and he wonders now if the door isn't simply one of those contraptions that locks automatically the instant you close it.
All the while, the woman called Sophie has been busy wheeling the stainless steel cart alongside the bed and transferring the various dishes of Mr. Blank's lunch from the bottom shelf of the cart to the upper surface. Mr. Blank notes that there are four dishes in all and that each plate is hidden by a round metal cover with a hole in the center. Seeing those covers, he is suddenly reminded of room-service meals in hotels, which in turn provokes him to speculate on how many nights he has spent in hotels over the course of his life. Too many to count, he hears a voice within him say, a voice that is not his own, at least not a voice he recognizes as his own, and yet because it speaks with such authority and conviction, he acknowledges that it must be telling the truth. If that is the case, he thinks, then he has done a good deal of traveling in his time, moving around from place to place in cars, trains, and airplanes, and yes, he further says to himself, airplanes have taken him all over the world, to many countries on several continents, and no doubt those trips had something to do with the missions he sent all those people on, the poor people who suffered so much because of him, and that is surely why he is confined to this room now, no longer permitted to travel anywhere, stuck inside these four walls because he is being punished for the grave harm he has inflicted on others.
This fleeting reverie is cut off in mid-flow by the sound of the woman's voice. Are you ready for your lunch? she asks, and as he lifts his head to take a look at her, Mr. Blank realizes that he can no longer remember her name. She is somewhere in her late forties or early fifties, and although he finds her face both delicate and attractive, her body is too full and chunky to allow her to be classified as an ideal woman. For the record, it should be noted that her clothes are identical to the ones worn by Anna earlier in the day.
Where's my Anna? Mr. Blank asks. I thought she was the one who takes care of me.
She does, the woman says. But she had some last-minute errands to do, and she asked me to fill in for her.
That's terrible, Mr. Blank says, in a mournful tone of voice. Nothing against you, of course, whoever you might be, but I've been waiting for hours to see her again. That woman is everything to me. I can't live without her.
I know that, the woman says. We all know that. But—and here she gives him a friendly little smile—what can I do about it? I'm afraid you're stuck with me.
Alas, Mr. Blank sighs. I'm sure you mean well, but I'm not going to pretend I'm not disappointed.
You don't have to pretend. You have the right to feel what you feel, Mr. Blank. It's not your fault.
As long as we're stuck with each other, as you put it, I suppose you should tell me who you are.
Sophie.
Ah. That's right. Sophie … A very pretty name. And it begins with the letter S, doesn't it?
It would seem so.
Think back, Sophie. Are you the little girl I kissed at the pond when I was ten years old? We had just finished ice skating, and then we sat down on a tree stump, and I kissed you. Unfortunately, you didn't kiss me back. You laughed.
It couldn't have been me. When you were ten, I hadn't even been born.
Am I that old?
Not old, exactly. But a lot older than I am.
All right. If you're not that Sophie, which Sophie are you?
Instead of answering him, the Sophie who was not the girl Mr. Blank kissed when he was ten walks over to the desk, retrieves one of the photographs from the pile, and holds it up in the air. That's me, she says. Me as I was about twenty-five years ago.
Come closer, Mr. Blank says. You're too far away.
Several seconds later, Mr. Blank is holding the picture in his hands. It turns out to be the photograph he lingered over so attentively earlier in the day—the one of the young woman who has just opened the door of what appears to be a New York apartment.
You were much thinner then, he says.
Middle age, Mr. Blank. It tends to do funny things to a girl's figure.
Tell me, Mr. Blank says, tapping the photo with his index finger. What's going on here? Who's the person standing in the hallway, and why do you look like that? Apprehensive, somehow, but at the same time pleased. If not, you wouldn't be smiling.
Sophie crouches down beside Mr. Blank, who is still sitting in the chair, and studies the photo in silence for several moments.
It's my second husband, she says, and I think it's the second time he came to see me. The first time, I was holding my baby in my arms when I opened the door, I remember that distinctly—so this must be the second time.
Why so apprehensive?
Because I wasn't sure how he felt about me.
And the smile?
I'm smiling because I was happy to see him.
Your second husband, you say. And what about the first? Who was he?
A man named Fanshawe.
Fanshawe… Fanshawe…, Mr. Blank mutters to himself. I think we're finally getting somewhere.
With Sophie still crouching beside him, with the black-and-white photograph of her younger self still on his lap, Mr. Blank abruptly begins to waddle forward in the chair, moving as quickly as he can in the direction of the desk. Once he arrives, he tosses the picture of Sophie on top of Anna's portrait, reaches for the small pad, and opens it to the first page. Running his finger down the list of names, he stops when he comes to Fanshawe and then swivels around in the chair to face Sophie, who has climbed to her feet by now and is slowly walking toward him.
Aha, Mr. Blank says, tapping the pad with his finger. I knew it. Fanshawe is implicated in all this, isn't he?
I don't know what you mean, Sophie says, stopping at the foot of the bed and then sitting down in more or less the same spot occupied earlier by James P. Flood. Of course he's implicated. We're all implicated in this, Mr. Blank. I thought you understood that.
Confused by her response, the old man nevertheless struggles to stick to his train of thought. Have you ever heard of someone called Flood? James P. Flood. English fellow. Ex-policeman. Talks with a Cockney accent.
Wouldn't you rather eat your lunch now? Sophie asks. The food is getting cold.
In a minute, Mr. Blank snaps back at her, peeved that she has changed the subject. Just
give me a minute. Before we talk about eating, I want you to tell me everything you know about Flood.
I don't know anything. I heard he was around here this morning, but I've never met him.
But your husband… your first husband, I mean… this Fanshawe… He wrote books, didn't he? In one of them, one of them called… damn it… I can't remember the title. Never… Never-something…
Neverland.
That's it. Neverland. He used Flood as one of the characters in that book, and in chapter… chapter thirty I think it was, or maybe it was chapter seven, Flood has a dream.
I don't remember, Mr. Blank.
Are you saying that you didn't read your husband's novel?
No, I read it. But it was such a long time ago, and I haven't looked at it since. You probably won't understand, but for my own peace of mind I've made a conscious decision not to think about Fanshawe and his work.
What ended the marriage? Did he die? Were you divorced?
I married him when I was very young. We lived together for a few years, I got pregnant, and then he vanished.
Did something happen, or did he leave you on purpose?
On purpose.
The man must have been insane. Walking out on a beautiful young thing like you.
Fanshawe was an extremely troubled person. So many good qualities, so many fine things in him, but at bottom he wanted to destroy himself, and in the end he managed to do it. He turned against me, he turned against his work, and then he walked out of his life and disappeared.