of the earth and your own body? But then, was there any afterlife? Could he even conceive of such a thing? And if there was, wasn’t it possible that it would be no better? That you might only exchange one form of misery and pain for another, and indeed for one from which there wasn’t even the dream-possibility of release? To pass through that door and find that you have only entered another cell, with a palet bed and barred windows, and would hear the gaoler turn the key behind you?”
It was some days since he had written that and it rang horrifyingly true. What was it Erika had said? “If you can’t write as you wish to, it’s because by your own actions you have made it impossible to do so.” But perhaps she was wrong; he was wrong too and he still could. And if so, then it was what he had made of himself, even his degeneration, that would make this novel what he intended it to be, even if for so much of the time the prose advanced haltingly like a man with his feet shackled by chains.
There was another dream he had often in which he took a cleaver and with one blow cut off his right hand. And was left with a dilemma. How then to strike off the other one?
He had come close once in New York at the Bedford. (“After all, this is your home now, Mr Mann?”) He had had a quarrel with a boy called Johnny, a deserter from the American army, who had yelled reproaches and banged out in a temper. Then Tomski had telephoned to fix a rendezvous for the next morning, and Klaus said, “Swell idea, but goodnight for now.” He ran a bath, hot enough to fill the room with steam, and lay in it with a little knife in his hand. He tried to open the artery on his right wrist, but the slash wasn’t deep enough, there was blood but it didn’t gush out, and then the knife seemed dirty as well as blunt and the enterprise the same, even stupid. He was bleeding but couldn’t bring himself to cut again for a moment – afraid perhaps, shamefully afraid. He was nerving himself to make a second attempt when the telephone rang again and this time it was Chris saying, “Come out for a drink, Klaus, I’ll come and fetch you.” So he dried himself and tied a handkerchief round his wrist till it was red through, and then another till the bleeding stopped. In a bar off Times Square, Chris remarked the wound and said, “You mustn’t be stupid, Klaus. You and me, we’re not made for this sort of nonsense. We’ve a long time to live and suffer and besides we have work to do.” So they got drunk together and Chris paid for everything. Klaus lifted the glass of whisky to him now, across the ocean and the Great Plains and in comfort in California. And the next afternoon he and Tomski had indulged in wild laughter and they hadn’t quarrelled and Tomski had been affectionate as in their first days.
In bleak years of exile the Magician had called work, the Joseph novels, “his rod and his staff”. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…”
“Julian knew himself to be diminished when he thought of Anna in the concentration camp, for he was certain that she had never, even in das Arschloch des Welt , surrendered the will to live. And it was all the more remarkable because in the ordinary events of daily existence she had been inclined to melancholy, subject indeed to a profound depression, in which, as she had once said to him, I sit and stare at the wall and feel rats chewing at my heart. That was the way she talked, exaggeratedly, in a way which had embarrassed him, as an American, he now thought. For he had been reared with his gaze fixed on a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. That was the American way, the future theirs to command, the Frontier with all its possibilities open to him. So how could he be so certain that Anna had defied death, refusing to hearken to its siren call, that she had willed herself simply to go on and never surrendered that will until the moment when life
It was some days since he had written that and it rang horrifyingly true. What was it Erika had said? “If you can’t write as you wish to, it’s because by your own actions you have made it impossible to do so.” But perhaps she was wrong; he was wrong too and he still could. And if so, then it was what he had made of himself, even his degeneration, that would make this novel what he intended it to be, even if for so much of the time the prose advanced haltingly like a man with his feet shackled by chains.
There was another dream he had often in which he took a cleaver and with one blow cut off his right hand. And was left with a dilemma. How then to strike off the other one?
He had come close once in New York at the Bedford. (“After all, this is your home now, Mr Mann?”) He had had a quarrel with a boy called Johnny, a deserter from the American army, who had yelled reproaches and banged out in a temper. Then Tomski had telephoned to fix a rendezvous for the next morning, and Klaus said, “Swell idea, but goodnight for now.” He ran a bath, hot enough to fill the room with steam, and lay in it with a little knife in his hand. He tried to open the artery on his right wrist, but the slash wasn’t deep enough, there was blood but it didn’t gush out, and then the knife seemed dirty as well as blunt and the enterprise the same, even stupid. He was bleeding but couldn’t bring himself to cut again for a moment – afraid perhaps, shamefully afraid. He was nerving himself to make a second attempt when the telephone rang again and this time it was Chris saying, “Come out for a drink, Klaus, I’ll come and fetch you.” So he dried himself and tied a handkerchief round his wrist till it was red through, and then another till the bleeding stopped. In a bar off Times Square, Chris remarked the wound and said, “You mustn’t be stupid, Klaus. You and me, we’re not made for this sort of nonsense. We’ve a long time to live and suffer and besides we have work to do.” So they got drunk together and Chris paid for everything. Klaus lifted the glass of whisky to him now, across the ocean and the Great Plains and in comfort in California. And the next afternoon he and Tomski had indulged in wild laughter and they hadn’t quarrelled and Tomski had been affectionate as in their first days.
In bleak years of exile the Magician had called work, the Joseph novels, “his rod and his staff”. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…”
“Julian knew himself to be diminished when he thought of Anna in the concentration camp, for he was certain that she had never, even in das Arschloch des Welt , surrendered the will to live. And it was all the more remarkable because in the ordinary events of daily existence she had been inclined to melancholy, subject indeed to a profound depression, in which, as she had once said to him, I sit and stare at the wall and feel rats chewing at my heart. That was the way she talked, exaggeratedly, in a way which had embarrassed him, as an American, he now thought. For he had been reared with his gaze fixed on a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. That was the American way, the future theirs to command, the Frontier with all its possibilities open to him. So how could he be so certain that Anna had defied death, refusing to hearken to its siren call, that she had willed herself simply to go on and never surrendered that will until the moment when life
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