Mr. Vertigo

by Paul Auster

  The worst part of it was that Aesop didn’t seem to care that I despised him so much. I perfected a whole repertoire of scowls and grimaces to use in his company, but whenever I shot one of those looks in his direction, he would just shake his head and smile to himself. It made me feel like an idiot. No matter how hard I tried to hurt him, he never let me get under his skin, never gave me the satisfaction of scoring a point against him. He wasn’t simply winning the war between us, he was winning every damned battle of that war, and I figured that if I couldn’t even best a black devil in a fair exchange of insults, then the whole of that Kansas prairie must have been bewitched. I’d been shanghaied to a land of bad dreams, and the more I struggled to wake up, the scarier the nightmare became.

  “You try too hard,” Aesop said to me one afternoon. “You’re so consumed with your own righteousness, it’s made you blind to the things around you. And if you can’t see what’s in front of your nose, you’ll never be able to look at yourself and know who you are.”

  “I know who I am,” I said. “There ain’t nobody can steal that from me.”

  “The master isn’t stealing anything from you. He’s giving you the gift of greatness.”

  “Look, do me a favor, will you? Don’t mention that buzzard’s name when I’m around. He gives me the creeps, that master of yours, and the less I have to think about him, the better off I’m going to be.”

  “He loves you, Walt. He believes in you with every ounce of his soul.”

  “The hell he does. That faker don’t give a rat’s ass about nothing. He’s the king of the gypsies is what he is, and if he’s got any soul at all—which I’m not saying he does—then it’s packed with evil through and through.”

  “King of the gypsies?” Aesop’s eyes bugged out in amazement. “Is that what you think?” The idea must have bopped him on the funny bone, for a moment later he grabbed his stomach and started shaking in a fit of laughter. “You sure know how to come up with some good ones,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “What on earth ever put that notion in your head?”

  “Well,” I said, feeling my cheeks blush with embarrassment, “if he ain’t no gypsy, what the hell is he, then?”

  “A Hungarian.”

  “A what?” I stammered. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone use that word, and I was so flummoxed by it that I momentarily lost the power of speech.

  “A Hungarian. He was born in Budapest and came to America as a young boy. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and both his father and grandfather were rabbis.”

  “And what’s that, some lesser form of rodent?”

  “It’s a Jewish teacher. Sort of like a minister or priest, only for Jews.”

  “Well now,” I said, “there you go. That explains everything, don’t it? He’s worse than a gypsy, old Doctor Dark Brows—he’s a kike. There ain’t nothing worse than that on the whole miserable planet.”

  “You’d better not let him hear you talking like that,” Aesop said.

  “I know m rights,” I said. “And no Jew man is going to shove me around, I swear it.”

  “Easy does it, Walt. You’re only asking for trouble.”

  “And what about that witch, Mother Sue? Is she another one of them Hebes?”

  Aesop shook his head and stared down at the ground. My voice was seething with such anger, he couldn’t bring himself to look me in the eyes. “No,” he said. “She’s an Oglala Sioux. Her grandfather was Sitting Bull’s brother, and when she was young, she was the top bareback rider in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. What I’m telling you is the pure, unvarnished truth. You’re living in the same house with a Jew, a black man, and an Indian, and the sooner you accept the facts, the happier your life is going to be.”

  I’d held on for three weeks until then, but after that conversation with Aesop I knew I couldn’t stand it anymore. I lit out of there that same night—waiting until everyone was asleep and then crawling out of the covers, sneaking down the stairs, and tiptoeing into the frigid December darkness. There was no moon overhead, not even a star to shine down on me, and the moment I crossed the threshold, I was struck by a wind so fierce that it blew me straight back against the side of the house. My bones were no stronger than cotton in that wind. The night was aroar with clamor, and the air rushed and boomed as if it carried the voice of God, howling down its wrath on any creature foolish enough to rise against it. I became that fool, and time and again I picked myself off the ground and fought my way into the teeth of the maelstrom, spinning around like a pinwheel as I inched my body into the yard. After ten or twelve tries, I was all worn out, a spent and battered hulk. I had made it as far as the pigpen, and just as I was about to scramble to my knees once more, my eyes shut on me and I lost consciousness. Hours passed. I woke at the crack of dawn and found myself encircled by four slumbering pigs. If I hadn’t landed among those swine, there’s a good chance I would have frozen to death during the night. Thinking about it now, I suppose it was a miracle, but when I opened my eyes that morning and saw where I was, the first thing I did was jump to my feet and spit, cursing my rotten luck.

  I had no doubt that Master Yehudi was responsible for what had happened. In that early stage of our history together, I attributed all sorts of supernatural powers to him, and I was fully convinced that he had brought forth that ferocious wind for no other reason than to stop me from running away. For several weeks after that, my head filled with a multitude of wild theories and speculations. The scariest one had to do with Aesop—and my growing certainty that he had been born a white person. It was a terrible thing to contemplate, but all the evidence seemed to support my conclusion. He talked like a white person, didn’t he? He acted like a white person, he thought like a white person, he played the piano like a white person, and just because his skin was black, why should I believe my eyes when my gut told me something else? The only answer was that he had been born white. Years ago, the master had chosen him as his first student in the art of flying. He’d told Aesop to jump from the roof of the barn, and Aesop had jumped—but instead of catching the wind currents and soaring through the air, he’d fallen to the ground and broken every bone in his body. That accounted for his pitiful, lopsided frame, but then, to make matters even worse, Master Yehudi had punished him for his failure. Invoking the power of a hundred Jewish demons, he’d pointed his finger at his disciple and turned him into a ghastly nigger. Aesop’s life had been destroyed, and I had no doubt that the same fate was in store for me. Not only would I wind up with black skin and a crippled body, but I would be forced to spend the rest of my days studying books.

  I absconded for the second time in the middle of the afternoon. The night had thwarted me with its magic, so I countered with a new strategy and stole off in broad daylight, figuring that if I could see where I was going, there wouldn’t be any goblins to menace my steps. For the first hour or two, everything went according to plan. I slipped out of the barn just after lunch and headed down the road to Cibola, intent on maintaining a brisk pace and reaching town before dark. From there I was going to hitch a ride on a freight train and wend my way back east. If I didn’t mess up, in twenty-four hours I’d be strolling down the boulevards of dear old Saint Louis.

  So there I was, jogging along that flat dusty highway with the field mice and the crows, feeling more and more confident with each step I took, when all of a sudden I glanced up and saw a buckboard wagon approaching from the opposite direction. It looked surprisingly like the wagon that belonged to Master Yehudi, but since I’d just seen that one in the barn before I left, I shrugged it off as a coincidence and kept on walking. When I got to within about twelve yards of it, I glanced up again. My tongue froze to the roof of my mouth; my eyeballs dropped from their sockets and clattered at my feet. It was Master Yehudi’s wagon all right, and sitting on top of that wagon was none other than the master himself, looking down at me with a big smil
e on his face. He eased the wagon to a halt and tipped his hat to me in a casual, friendly sort of way.

  “Howdy, son. A bit nippy for a stroll this afternoon, don’t you think?”

  “The weather suits me fine,” I said. “At least a fellow can breathe out here. You stay in one place too long, you start to choke on your own exhaust.”

  “Sure, I know how it is. Every boy needs to stretch his legs. But the outing is over now, and it’s time to go home. Hoist yourself aboard, Walt, and well see if we can’t get there before the others notice we’ve been gone.”

  I didn’t have much choice, so I climbed up and sat myself beside him as he flicked the reins and got the horse going again. At least he wasn’t treating me with his customary rudeness, and burned as I was that my escape had been foiled, I wasn’t about to let him know what I’d been up to. He’d probably guessed that anyway, but rather than reveal how disappointed I was, I pretended to play along with the business about being out for a walk.

  “It ain’t good for a boy to be cooped up so much,” I said. “It makes him sad and foul-tempered, and then he don’t get down to his chores in the right spirit. If you give a guy a little fresh air, he’s that much more willing to do his work.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, chum,” the master said, “and I understand every word of it.”

  “Well, what’s it gonna be, captain? I know Cibola ain’t much of a burg, but I’ll bet they got a picture show or something. It might be nice to go there one evening. You know, a little jaunt to break the monotony. Or else maybe there’s a ball club around here, one of them minor league outfits. When spring comes, why not let’s take in a game or two? It don’t have to be no big-time stuff like the Cards. I mean, Class D is okay with me. Just as long as they use bats and balls, you won’t hear a word of complaint from this corner. You never know, sir. If you give it half a chance, you might even take a shine to it yourself.”

  “I’m sure I would. But there’s a mountain of work still in front of us, and in the meantime the family has to lie low. The more invisible we make ourselves, the safer we’re going to be. I don’t want to scare you, but things aren’t as dull in this neighborhood as they might seem. We have some powerful enemies around here, and they’re not too thrilled by our presence in their county. A lot of them wouldn’t mind if we suddenly stopped breathing, and we don’t want to provoke them by strutting our motley selves in public.”

  “As long as we mind our own business, who cares what other folks think?”

  “That’s just it. Some people think our business is their business, and I aim to keep a wide berth of those meddlers. Do you follow me, Walt?”

  I told him I did, but the truth was I didn’t follow him at all. The only thing I knew was that there were people who wanted to kill me and that I wasn’t allowed to go to any ball games. Not even the sympathetic tone in the master’s voice could make me understand that, and all during the ride home I kept telling myself to be strong and never say die. Sooner or later I’d find a way to get out of there, sooner or later I’d leave that Voodoo Man in the dust.

  My third attempt failed just as miserably as the other two. I left in the morning that time, and even though I made it to the outskirts of Cibola, Master Yehudi was waiting for me again, perched on the buckboard wagon with that same self-satisfied grin spread across his face. I was utterly disarranged by that episode. Unlike the previous time, I could no longer dismiss his being there as a matter of chance. It was as if he had known I was going to run away before I knew it myself. The bastard was inside my head, sucking out the juices of my brain, and not even my innermost thoughts could be hidden from him.

  Still, I didn’t give up. I was just going to have to be more clever, more methodical in the way I went about it. After ample reflection, I concluded that the primary cause of my troubles was the farm itself. I couldn’t get out of there because the place was so well-organized, so thoroughly self-sufficient. We had milk and butter from the cows, eggs from the chickens, meat from the pigs, vegetables from the root cellar, abundant stores of flour, salt, sugar, and cloth, and it was unnecessary for anyone to go to town to stock up on supplies. But what if we ran out of something, I told myself, what if there was a sudden shortage of some vital something we couldn’t live without? The master would have to go off for more, wouldn’t he? And as soon as he was gone, I’d sneak out of there and make my escape.

  It was all so simple, I nearly gagged for joy when this idea came to me. It must have been February by then, and for the next month or so I thought of little else but sabotage. My mind churned with countless plots and schemes, conjuring up acts of untold terror and devastation. I figured I would start small—slashing a bag of flour or two, maybe pissing into the sugar barrel—but if those things failed to produce the desired result, I wasn’t averse to more grandiose forms of vandalism: releasing the chickens from their coop, for example, or slitting the throats of the pigs. There wasn’t anything I wasn’t willing to do to get out of there, and if push came to shove, I was even prepared to set the straw on fire and bum down the barn.

  None of it worked out as I imagined it would. I had my opportunities, but each time I was about to put a plan into operation, my nerve mysteriously failed me. Fear would well up in my lungs, my heart would begin to flutter, and just as my hand was poised to commit the deed, an invisible force would rob me of my strength. Nothing like that had ever happened before. I had always been a mischief-maker through and through, in full command of my impulses and desires. If I wanted to do something, I just went ahead and did it, plunging in with the recklessness of a born outlaw. Now I was stymied, blocked by a strange paralysis of will, and I despised myself for acting like such a coward, could not comprehend how a truant of my caliber could have sunk so low. Master Yehudi had beaten me to the punch again. He’d turned me into a puppet, and the more I struggled to defeat him, the tighter he pulled the strings.

  I went through a month of hell before I found the courage to give it another shot. This time, luck seemed to be with me. Not ten minutes after hitting the road, I was picked up by a passing motorist, and he drove me all the way to Wichita. He was about the nicest fellow I’d ever met, a college boy on his way to see his fiancée, and we got along from the word go, regaling each other with stories for the whole two and a half hours. I wish I could remember his name. He was a sandy-haired lummox with freckles around his nose and a nifty little leather cap. For some reason, I remember that his girlfriend’s name was Francine, but that must have been because he talked about her so much, going on at length about the rosy nipples on her breasts and the lacy frills attached to her undies. Leather Cap had a shiny new Ford roadster, and he sped down that empty highway as if there was no tomorrow. I got the giggles I felt so free and happy, and the more we yacked about one thing and another, the freer and happier I felt. I’d really done it this time, I told myself. I’d really busted out of there, and from now on there’d be no stopping me.

  I can’t say precisely what I was expecting from Wichita, but it certainly wasn’t the dreary little cow town I discovered that afternoon in 1925. The place was Podunk City, a pimple of yawns on a bare white butt. Where were the saloons and the gunslingers and the professional card sharks? Where was Wyatt Earp? Whatever Wichita had been in the past, its present incarnation was a sober, joyless muddle of shops and houses, a town built so low to the ground that your elbow knocked against the sky whenever you paused to scratch your head. I’d figured I’d get some scam going for myself, hang around for a few days while I built up my nest egg, and then travel back to Saint Louis in style. A quick tour of the streets convinced me to bag that notion, and half an hour after I’d arrived, I was already looking for a train to get me out of there.

  I felt so glum and dejected, I didn’t even notice that it had started to snow. March was the worst season for storms in that country, but the day had dawned so bright and clear, it hadn’t even occurred to me to think the weather might change. It began with a small flurry, a few
sprinkles of whiteness slithering through the clouds, but as I continued my walk across town in search of the rail depot, the flakes grew thicker and more intense, and when I stopped to check my bearings five or ten minutes later, I was already up to my ankles in the stuff. Snow was falling by the bucketful. Before I could say the word blizzard, the wind kicked up and started whirling the snow around in all directions at once. It was uncanny how fast it happened. One minute, I’d been walking through the streets of downtown Wichita, and the next minute I was lost, stumbling blindly through a white tempest. I had no clue as to where I was anymore. I was shivering under my wet clothes, the wind was in a frenzy, and I was smack in the middle of it, turning around in circles.

  I’m not sure how long I blundered through that glop. No less than three hours, I would think, perhaps as many as five or six. I had reached town in the late afternoon, and I was still on my feet after’ nightfall, pushing my way through the mountainous drifts, hemmed in up to my knees, then up to my waist, then up to my neck, frantically looking for shelter before the snow swallowed my entire body. I had to keep moving. The slightest pause would bury me, and before I could fight my way out, I’d either freeze to death or suffocate. So I kept on struggling forward, even though I knew it was hopeless, even though I knew that each step was carrying me closer to my end. Where are the lights? I kept asking myself. I was wandering farther and farther away from town, out into the countryside where no one lived, and yet every time I shifted course, I found myself in the same darkness, surrounded by unbroken night and cold.