In those difficult times — on top of which came the reduction of her husband’s salary — Margha Walser tried to maintain some sense of stability. Hygiene and nourishment were the two foundations of any home, and Margha Walser didn’t tolerate failures in either of these areas. She and her husband had never lacked a robust meal at lunchtime; there were no major luxuries in their household, but nothing essential was ever left out. On top of all her other expenses, she always set aside a small amount that represented two months’ worth of future expenditures, and this was a point of pride for her, since it constituted something like a guarantee that they would stay alive, the two of them, she and her husband (at least for the next two months), since they had enough saved to buy food. Her logic could be summed up succinctly in the following formula: “How could we possibly die while we have food?” As if there were no other reason for human death than a lack of food.
2
It was a weekday, Thursday, and after a peaceful dinner at his wife’s side, Joseph Walser had, for a few minutes already, been sitting alone at the table, reading his newspaper. Margha Walser appeared at the entryway to the dining room; the sound of her high-heeled shoes disturbed Joseph, and he raised his head. Margha was now standing a few yards away. Wearing makeup, and a skirt she rarely wears.
“Joseph,” she said, “may I go out?”
Walser folded his newspaper and stood up from his chair, moving rapidly. He turned his back on his wife, without looking at her, and walked over to the drawer where he kept the key to the study. He took it, opened the door, and entered the study. The sound of the key locking the door from inside was heard.
Inside the study, everything was in its proper place, as always. He pulled out the chair with his right hand and sat down. The empty space that his index finger once occupied no longer disturbed his view in the least. It was as if his hand had been born like that, born together with him.
He opened his notebook and leafed through the few pages of new entries with his right hand. The most recent addition to his collection was a small metal ring, about 1.2 inches across, that he had requested from a woman who was about to put it in the trash.
“What do you want this for? It’s useless,” the woman had said.
“I’m conducting research,” Walser had replied.
The woman’s incredulous expression in response to his claim of “research” had no effect on his actions. “I thank you,” he had said, “this is a very important piece for me.” That piece was now on the desk in his study, right in front of him.
Walser felt a certain perplexity with regard to the piece of metal. He had already recorded all of its dimensions, he’d already made a precise drawing of it, and also recorded the place and the circumstances in which he had “found” it, but something essential was lacking: What mechanism did that piece belong to? At the time, he had asked the woman and she didn’t know the answer: “It was left in the doorway of our building. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe from the war.”
The metal ring didn’t look like it belonged to any domestic object. In fact, it could be a part of a weapon or some sort of military device.
For Walser, the most fascinating parts of this work were those moments when he felt like he was doing “research.” Where did this piece come from? What mechanism had made it function? Or, to pose that question another way: what mechanism no longer functioned as a result of missing this piece, which had been abandoned in front of a building? Yes, there was no doubt about it: this piece of metal had belonged to a weapon.
Walser took great pleasure in this idea. If that piece belonged to a weapon, be it large or small, it would no longer be able to function now, since the piece in question was right there, in front of him, on his desk, just inches from his hands.
Looking down again at the piece of metal, he felt that he was interfering in the war. There’s a weapon that can’t fire because I have one of its parts right here! For the first time, he felt like he was a part of something: he was participating. Furthermore: he felt that it — the war — had finally become important to him. He, Joseph Walser, was touching, with his undamaged left hand and his right hand with its missing finger — the index finger — a weapon; he possessed, at that moment, in his very hands, an indispensable part of the conflict. He had interrupted the war.
An absurd thought even popped into his head, that he should start stealing a piece, albeit a tiny one, from each weapon in the city, and thus, through almost imperceptible means, put an end to all the bother. “A one-man conspiracy,” said Walser, and he couldn’t stop smiling at how ridiculous the idea was.
But he really was interrupting the war, there was no doubt about it in his mind. By recording the data from that piece of metal, by adding it to his collection, he was removing it from the world, removing it from the reach of other men’s actions. And a question subsequently arose: which side did the weapon — the one that he had interrupted, so to speak — belong to? Which side? The army of the occupation? The guerrillas? And, ultimately, what did it matter?
He finally understood his precise position in relation to the formidable events taking place in the city: What did it matter who the weapon belonged to? The answer wasn’t relevant. He had merely acquired a new specimen for his collection.
Meanwhile, he heard a noise. It was the front door. Margha had just left.
Joseph Walser slid the ruler across the desk with his right hand. He had to confirm the width of the piece of metal, but his right hand was shaking.
CHAPTER XVI
1
Having just finished his shift a few minutes earlier, Joseph Walser was gathering his things before he went home when he received a visit from Klober, the foreman, with whom he hadn’t crossed paths for a number of weeks.
“Joseph Walser, it’s good to see you!”
The two men shook hands, with Klober, as usual, being the more forceful of the two.
“I can see that it’s getting better, it’s not so red anymore,” said Klober, looking at Walser’s hand. “The body gets accustomed to things, doesn’t it?”
Joseph said nothing.
“My dear Walser, I came here specifically to see you. I’m paying you a visit, if that’s what you’d like to call it. I’m fond of you, it’s undeniable. And even the distance that our different positions have created between us hasn’t extinguished my fondness for you. How can I explain it? There are a number of reasons, some of which aren’t very concrete or logical, but there are others that you know quite well.
“I want you to know that I was dismayed by your accident. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it changed my life, you know me well enough to know that neither hypocrisy nor feigned concern is really my style. My dear Walser, we’re both men, and my life, obviously, has to go on.
“You might think that I took pleasure in your accident, but when we shook hands just moments before, I felt a very strong connection between the two substances involved: my hand and yours. It seems strange, but that’s life: strangeness; until the very last instant: strangeness.
“But let’s move on: Walser, I have a certain fondness for you — let me repeat — a certain irrational fondness for you, so much so that it puts me at risk. That’s why I want to tell you quickly what I came here to say. I have important information. I advise you to forget about the dice game tomorrow night at your good friend Fluzst’s house. Certain friendships are problematic, my dear Walser, but it’s our heart that decides who we’ll be friends with — as our beloved Romantics would say — not us. Well then, it’s time to put some other organs to use, if I may put it that way. It’s not the time for intuitive gut feelings to take responsibility for our actions. The head, Walser, we live in a time when the head is the most important organ, so to speak. We must keep it raised higher than the rest of one’s organism, you see? Higher. In tumultuous times, hierarchies should be preserved at all cost: the head, as you, my good sir, have certainly already noticed, was placed in a privileged position, if we can call it that, upon the human organism. On top, you see? Right up top. Of course, sometimes it would almost be better if our brains were located in some other part of our organism, some place that’s better protected. I just came in from the street, Walser, and I saw a body, the body of a man — now hardly a man at all, I would say — with his head disfigured, a soldier whose head had been disfigured by two bullets. And it’s at moments like those when you realize that our intelligence should be better protected, it should have been placed somewhere down low, not up top, where it’s so visible. But, as you can plainly see: there’s no solution.