Tell me, Mr. N. says, what kind of shirts did I wear, what shoes, did I grin or grit my teeth in a frown, did I look down as I walked, was I hunched over . . . was I happy? he finally blurts out. This startles the agent, he can say everything there is to say about the shirts, jackets, overcoats, cigarettes, beer and vodka that the target ordered, but . . .
There’s no one else who remembers these details, even mistresses and wives forget after a time. Only the secret agent knows the details. Let’s try to put ourselves in his shoes. He has to sit there and watch, to describe what he sees. And what he sees is woefully insignificant. Indeed, what could really happen in the day of a man of fifty at that time? He goes out. He walks down the sidewalk. He stops. He takes out a match, cups his hand, lights up a cigarette. What kind of cigarettes does he smoke? Stewardess, of course. What is he wearing? A gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, pants, shoes, well, lookee here! The shoes are Italian, expensive, with pointy toes, that needs to be noted. What’s more, he’s wearing a Borsalino. Not many people wear Borsalinos. That gets noted, too. If anyone took the effort to read as literature all those thousands of pages written during the ’50s/’60s/’70s/’80s by all the eavesdropping and note-scribbling agents, it would surely turn out to be the great unwritten Bulgarian novel of that era. Every bit as mediocre and inept as the era itself.
17.
Notes on the Impossible Epic
In all ancient epics, there is one strong enemy you battle—the Bull of Heaven and Gilgamesh, the monster Grendel, his mother, and finally the Dragon, which fatally wounds the already aged Beowulf, all the monsters, bulls, etc., in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Cyclops in the Odyssey, and so on . . . In modern-day novels these monsters have disappeared, the heroes are gone, too. When there are no monsters, there are no heroes, either.
Monsters still do exist, however. There is one monster that stalks every one of us. Death, you’ll say, yes, of course, death is his brother, but old age is the monster. This is the true (and doomed) battle, with no flashiness, no fireworks, no swords inlaid with the tooth of Saint Peter, with no magical armor and unexpected allies, without hope that bards will sing songs about you, with no rituals . . .
An epic battle with no epos.
Long lonely maneuvers, waiting, more like trench warfare, lying in wait, hiding out, quick sorties, prowling the battlefield “between the clock and the bed,” as one of the elderly Munch’s final self-portraits is called. Between the Clock and the Bed. Who will sing praises of such a death and such an old age?
18.
Mr. N.
(continued)
Mr. A. recalls how difficult it was for him to make up nonsense to write in his reports. To a certain extent he was not immune to writer’s block. He had expected more from his profession, like in the movies or detective novels, car chases, mysterious visitors, for the person he was following to jump out the window in the middle of the night. He needed a plot, without knowing the word. But there was no plot. And therein lies the deep anti-cinematographic-ness of life. Nothing but leaving home, coming back. Even the target’s closest friends had stopped visiting him, so as to spare themselves unpleasantness. Yes, the mistress on Thursday was a promising exception. That was documented, of course. But even that wasn’t much of an adventure. Besides, it’s a part of everyday life, who doesn’t have a mistress (or a lover)?
Sometimes I wondered what to write, Mr. A. admits, because nothing interesting happened. Mr. N. feels anxious that he has caused him trouble, he feels awkward that he lived such a boring life, about which nothing could be written. He should have done something more, you know, daring, he should have shot himself in front of the agent, that would have filled up two pages easily. On the other hand, Mr. N. is interested (or I’m projecting this onto him because I am interested) precisely in the nothingness of everyday life, in life in all its details. This is exactly what he wants to remember. He has systematically erased every exceptionality, if that is the right word, with which he could describe the arrest, the beatings in the basement of Moscow 5, the wretchedness and the stench of urine in the crowded cell of the Pazardzhik prison, the petering out of his visits, the cessation of the letters coming from the outside. All of that has been ripped out. But alongside that it seems something else has disappeared, the normal things, that which we are made of. All of his documented everyday life before prison was confiscated during the searches, then returned, but since then he hasn’t touched it. Two black-and-white photographs as a child, one from his army days, a small photo album from his wedding (he ended up with it after the divorce), again black-and-white, some photo of him walking along the boulevard, caught mid-stride, his overcoat blowing in the wind, he’s laughing and making some gesture toward the person taking the picture. And that’s it. There is no photograph of the woman who visited on Thursdays, of course.
One day Mr. A. arrives with several letters—Mr. N.’s letters to the woman. How did you get these? he asks. Mr. A. merely raises his eyebrows, surprised at that naïve question. Mr. N. opens the letters and finds they are short. He reads them and realizes that he does not remember them at all. He reads with genuine curiosity, as if he were not the author. And he must admit that he is impressed. They are well written, he’d found the right words, he was romantic without going overboard. Quite persistent and bold in certain suggestions. This is something new. He would have described himself as timid and bashful. The final letter ends with a warning that it would be better for her not to come anymore, since they were surely watching him and some shrimpy stooge in a scally cap was loafing around the café across the street all day. At that point Mr. N. lifts his eyes apologetically from the letter. Don’t worry about it, I’m over it, says Mr. A.
Mr. N. leaves the letters on the middle of the table. He doesn’t know whether he can keep them or whether he has to give them back. Understanding his question, Mr. A. nods in encouragement, Yes, they’re for you. They continue to speak in the polite “vous” form, even though neither one of them has anyone closer than the man across from him now.
Over time the woman from those Thursdays starts dominating Mr. N.’s thoughts more and more. But this, for some reason, scares him more than anything. Her image starts to float up from the nothingness, like photos out of the chemical bath of a darkroom. She wears her hair in a ponytail and has a silver streak in her bangs. Even though this is precisely what he wanted in the beginning, now her appearance starts to seem frightening. The reason for this is simple—he suspects that this woman could crack the dike that he has carefully built up over the years, freeing everything he has managed to keep out. He is not sure he could stand it. On the other hand, if there had been someone who loved him, this meant that he had existed after all, even if he doesn’t remember much of himself.
If there had been someone whom he had loved, this could also count as proof of his own presence. But what then?
On his next visit, Mr. A. has yet another surprise for him. He takes a carefully wrapped photograph out of his leather satchel. He hands it to Mr. N. It is a black-and-white photo, strongly contrasted, a deserted street can be seen, and on the sidewalk in the shade of a tree stand Mr. N. and a woman who is leaning toward him, perhaps she wants to whisper something in his ear or to kiss him, it’s hard to tell. The shadows of the leaves are falling on her dress.