The world is so simple, he thought.
CHAPTER XIII
1
The city calmed down in under a week. No one had been arrested in connection with the bombing, but investigations were still underway. Around the city it was said that at any moment “the culprits will be arrested” and subsequently put before the firing squad.
Joseph Walser had returned to work. Unfortunately, given the result of the accident, he couldn’t return to his old post. The amputation of the index finger on his right hand eliminated any possibility of safely operating the machine that he had worked with for years. As such, it wasn’t a question of psychology; Walser would have liked to go back to his machine, but a solid, concrete thing stood in his way: a simple missing finger. He didn’t press the issue overmuch. Klober had said, “My dear Walser, if you had an accident while you still had five fingers on your right hand, how can you possibly want to keep working with the same machine now?”
Klober’s observation wasn’t just an expression of his indifference toward what had happened, it was chiefly the effect of a calculating mind that never rested, a rationality that seemed like it was never allowed a break. The only way we can be permanently rational is by forcing our emotions to remain steady in any and all situations.
“Like the oil inside a machine,” joked Klober, “which has to remain within certain defined areas in order to be effective!”
And then, “Four fingers on your right hand aren’t enough to tame this beast,” said Klober to Joseph on the day he returned to work.
Walser accepted these statements without animosity; Klober’s observation was sensible: the machine was difficult to operate, and in his condition he wasn’t fit for the task.
He was transferred to another part of the factory, to a building that didn’t have any machines. He was no longer involved in the direct production of materials and took over the duties of a clerk.
In less than three weeks he attained the ability to write smoothly without his index finger. He felt encouraged by this quick and easy progress.
Only once after the accident had he returned to the building where he used to work, to watch “his machine” in motion, now operated by some other man. At that moment, Walser felt something inside him that one could objectively call jealously, but apparently not the usual, irrational variety of this form of affect. No, the jealousy that Walser felt was a jealousy of efficiency, a rational jealousy.
At first it was a feeling of guilt. He was the one who had abandoned the machine; or, to put it another way: he was the one who had failed, and he was no longer capable of performing the necessary movements. He had betrayed the machine by losing a finger.
Of course, Walser’s sadness too wasn’t the same sensation as is referred to under ordinary circumstances, when we employ that word: shedding a tear in this situation would have been absurd. Walser’s sadness was — we are obliged to repeat — logical and rational; it was something that we might describe as: melancholy filtered through the sensibility of competence. Walser had the lingering sensation that he’d been expelled from an entire world, the world of machines, and that his presence would no longer be tolerated. Having lost a finger, he had also lost the abilities that commanded respect in this other universe.
Like a member of a completely different species, Walser did something on that day that he never dared to do again: when the machine was resting, with its motor turned off, he walked over to it and, with his right hand, the hand that was now deformed and reduced in size, he touched the side of the machine, touched its metal lightly, and as he touched it he felt, strangely, something like the reconstitution of the finger that had been amputated — and he smiled.
“It’s still hot,” he said.
CHAPTER XIV
1
The five men were seated around the table, and Fluzst had just rolled. It was Joseph Walser’s turn.
Walser again grabbed the dice. He started to shake them in his hand.
“You look ridiculous rolling the dice with your left hand.”
Joseph Walser raised his eyes to his colleague. Stumm was one of the new additions to the group, which had continued to meet at Fluzst’s house. He had started working at the factory less than a year ago.
“It’s no surprise that your wife’s sleeping with another man,” said Stumm, something nobody expected to hear.
The room became silent. Joseph Walser stared at his colleague for a few moments, while all the other men kept quiet. However, he then lowered his eyes and switched the dice over to his right hand.
“There you go!” said Fluzst.
Normaas, one of the other players, muttered, “Let’s just play. We came here to play.”
Normaas was the peacemaker of the group. He smoked constantly.
“You can’t take this stuff too seriously. We’re all just here to make some money,” he said, letting loose a short chuckle.
The atmosphere in the room improved after this intervention. The men waited for Walser to roll.
His right hand was shaking, everyone was looking at him; and, obscenely, Stumm wouldn’t take his eyes off of Walser’s fingers.
“That hand of yours will bring you luck yet,” he said.
Fluzst brusquely told Stumm to shut up.
“Let’s play,” said Fluzst, “we’re all tired of waiting. Walser, please roll the dice.”
2
All interruptions were prohibited. Nobody, not a single person on the entire continent had permission to rest; there was no place to hide from existence; a true, restful break has yet to be invented.
Three months had passed since the day Joseph Walser had his accident; the same day as the bombing. Having overcome their obstacles, these two lives — Walser’s and the city’s — had returned to their usual routines, so much so that what had happened to them no longer seemed important. Joseph Walser merely missed “his” machine. It was the absence of daily contact with its mechanisms that reminded him of the fact that he’d undergone an amputation. It was as though these two losses were two equivalent substances: the absence of his machine was the absence of his finger.
The Saturday night dice games continued, and it could be said, objectively, that Joseph Walser’s luck changed for the better after his accident. He wasn’t, however, winning big pots: he’d return home each Saturday night with a little more money than he’d had when he left, but the quantities were paltry; there was no noticeable change in the family budget. Along these lines, however, the following should be noted: two months after his accident, the people at the factory had taken away the hazard pay that he used to receive for working with the machine. Since he was now doing clerical work, it would be ridiculous to keep giving him “hazard pay.” “Writing isn’t hazardous,” someone had said. Thus, objectively, even after receiving compensation for his accident, Walser made less money now. And his slight change of luck in the dice game didn’t make up the difference.
3
With the dice in his right hand, Walser held his breath. Nothing substantial was at stake in these movements, but this only became obvious after the dice were rolled and their effects became visible; effects that were significant at that moment, to be sure, but not very relevant over a longer span of time: they were insignificant from the vantage point of a week of Walser’s life, and almost nonexistent when one considered an entire year. Nonetheless, at the moment before the dice were released back into the exterior world, when they were still in Walser’s hand, at the moment when everything was still possible — within the limits, of course, of the dots that were inscribed on each side — at that moment, at that very second, each roll of the dice seemed as if it were able to attain a decisive density in Walser’s existence. An instant before the dice left his hand, there was the feeling that “everything can change.” But the dice flew from his hand and nothing changed concretely, and after the momentary jubilation or disappointment relative to whatever sides of the dice were facing upward, “nothing’s changed” was what Walser’s thoughts would have read, if they had suddenly become visible.