Authors: Paul Auster
“And you never had any desire to see him. It’s hard to believe you could drop it just like that.”
“I had my reasons, boy. Don’t think it wasn’t hard, but I stuck to it. I stuck to it through thick and thin.”
“That was noble of you.”
“Yes, very noble. I’m a thoroughgoing prince.”
“And now?”
“In spite of everything, I’ve managed to keep track of his whereabouts. Pavel continued corresponding with him, he kept me abreast of Barber’s doings over the years. That’s why I’m telling you this now. There’s something I want you to do for me after I’m dead. The lawyers could handle it, but I’d rather it was you. You’ll do a better job of it than they would.”
“What are you planning?”
“I’m going to leave him my money. There’ll be something for Mrs. Hume, of course, but the rest of it will go to my son. The poor sap’s made such a hash of his life, maybe it will do him some good. He’s a fat, childless, unmarried, broken-down wreck, a walking dirigible disaster. For all his brains and talents, his career has been one long fuck-up. He got bounced out of his first job back in the mid-forties for some kind of scandal—buggering male students for all I know—and then, just when he was getting back on his feet, he got hit with that McCarthy business and sank copy to the bottom again. He’s spent his life in the most dismal backwaters imaginable, teaching at colleges no one’s ever heard of.”
“It sounds pathetic.”
“That’s just what it is. Pathetic. One hundred percent pathetic.”
“But how do I fit into this? You leave him the money in your will, and the lawyers give it to him. It all seems rather straightforward.”
“I want you to send him my self-portrait. Why do you think we worked so hard on it? It wasn’t just to pass the time of day, boy, there was a purpose behind it. There’s always a purpose to what I do, remember that. Once I’m dead, I want you to send it to him along with a cover letter explaining how it came to be written. Is that clear?”
“Not really. After keeping your distance from him since 1947, I don’t see why you’re suddenly so eager to be in touch with him now. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Everyone has a copy to know about his own past. I can’t do much for him, but at least I can do that.”
“Even if he’d rather not know?”
“That’s copy, even if he’d rather not know.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Who’s talking about fair? It has nothing to do with that. I kept myself away from him while I was alive, but now that I’m dead, it’s time for the story to come out.”
“You don’t look dead to me.”
“It’s coming, I promise you. It’s coming very soon.”
“You’ve been saying that for months, but you’re just as healthy as you’ve ever been.”
“What’s the date today?”
“March twelfth.”
“That means I have two months left. I’m going to die on May twelfth, exactly two months from today.”
“You can’t possibly know that. No one can.”
“But I do, Fogg. Mark my words. Two months from today, I’m going to be dead.”
A
fter that strange conversation, we slipped back into our original routine. I would read to him in the morning, and in the afternoon we would go out for our walks. It was the same schedule, but it no longer felt the same to me. Earlier on, Effing had had a program with the books, but now his selections struck me as haphazard, utterly lacking in coherence. One day he would ask me to read him stories from
The Decameron
or
The Thousand and One Nights
, the next day it would be
The Comedy of Errors
, and the day after that he would dispense with books altogether and have me read the spring training news from the baseball camps in Florida. Or perhaps it was that he had decided to choose things randomly from now on, to skim lightly over a multitude of works in order to say good-bye to them, as if that were a way of saying good-bye to the world. For three or four days in a row he had me
read him pornographic novels (which were stashed away in a cabinet below the bookcase), but even those books failed to excite him to any noticeable degree. He cackled once or twice with amusement, but he also managed to fall asleep midway through one of the steamiest passages. I kept on reading while he napped, and when he woke up half an hour later, he told me that he had been practicing how to be dead. “I want to die with sex on my brain,” he muttered. “There’s no better way to go out than that.” I had never read any pornography before, and I found the books both absurd and arousing. One day, I memorized several of the best paragraphs and quoted them to Kitty when I saw her that night. They seemed to have the same effect on her. They made her laugh, but at the same time they made her want to take off her clothes and climb into bed.
The walks, too, became different from what they had been. Effing no longer showed much enthusiasm for them, and instead of badgering me to describe the things we encountered along the way, he would sit there in silence, pensive and withdrawn. By force of habit, I kept up my running commentaries, but he barely seemed to be listening, and without Effing’s nasty remarks and criticisms to respond to, I could feel my spirits begin to flag as well. For the first time since I had known him, Effing seemed absent, disengaged from the things around him, almost tranquil. I spoke to Mrs. Hume about these changes in him, and she confessed that they had begun to worry her, too. Physically, however, neither one of us could detect any major transformations. He ate as much or as little as he had always eaten; his bowel movements were normal; he did not complain of any new aches or discomforts. This odd period of lethargy lasted for approximately three weeks. Then, just as I was beginning to think that Effing was seriously in decline, he arrived at the breakfast table one morning completely himself again, bursting with good cheer and looking as happy as I had ever seen him.
“It’s decided!” he announced, pounding his fist on the table. The blow landed with such force that the silverware bounced up
and rattled. “Day after day, I’ve been mulling it over, turning it around in my mind, trying to form the perfect plan. After much mental labor, I’m happy to report that it’s settled. Settled! It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, by God. It’s a masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece. Are you ready for some fun, boy?”
“Of course,” I said, thinking it best to humor him along. “I’m always ready for fun.”
“Splendid, that’s the spirit,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I promise you, my children, it’s going to be a magnificent swan song, a final bow like no other. What kind of conditions do we have out there today?”
“It’s clear and crisp,” said Mrs. Hume. “The man on the radio said it might get up into the mid-fifties by this afternoon.”
“Clear and crisp,” he said, “the mid-fifties. It couldn’t be better. And the date, Fogg, where do we find ourselves on the calendar?”
“It’s April first, the beginning of a new month.”
“April first! The day of pranks and practical jokes. In France they used to call it the day of fish. Well, we’ll give them some fish to sniff at, won’t we, Fogg? We’ll give them a whole basketful!“
“You bet,” I said. “We’ll give them the works.”
Effing went on chattering in this excited way throughout breakfast, barely pausing long enough to spoon the oatmeal into his mouth. Mrs. Hume looked worried, but in spite of everything I felt rather encouraged by this rush of manic energy. Whatever it finally led to, it had to be better than the glum weeks we had just put behind us. Effing was not cut out to play the role of a morose old man, and I preferred to see him killed by his own enthusiasm than to live on in dejected silence.
After breakfast, he ordered us to fetch his things and prepare him to go outside. The usual equipment was bundled around him—the blanket, the scarf, the overcoat, the hat, the gloves— and then he told me to open the closet and take out a small plaid grip that was lying under a heap of boots and rubbers. “What do you think, Fogg?” he said. “Do you think it’s big enough?”
“It all depends on what you’re planning to use it for.”
“We’re going to use it for the money. Twenty thousand dollars in cash money.”
Before I could say anything in response, Mrs. Hume interrupted. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Mr. Thomas,” she said. “I won’t stand for it. A blind man wandering the streets with twenty thousand dollars in cash. Just put that nonsense out of your head copy now.”
“Shut up, bitch,” Effing snapped. “Shut up, or I’ll smack you down. It’s my money, and I’ll do whatever I want with it. I’ve got my trusted bodyguard to protect me, and nothing’s going to happen. And even if it did, it’s none of your business. Do you understand that, you fat cow? One more peep out of you, and I’ll send you packing.”
“She’s only doing her job,” I said, trying to defend Mrs. Hume from this crazy assault. “There’s nothing to get excited about.”
“That goes for you, too, squirt,” he shouted at me. “Do what you’re told, or say good-bye to your job. One, two, three, and that’s the end of you. Just try it if you don’t believe me.”
“A pox on you,” said Mrs. Hume. “You’re nothing but an asinine old fart, Thomas Effing. I hope you lose every dollar of that money. I hope it flies out of the satchel and you never see it again.”
“Ha!” Effing said. “Ha, ha, ha! And what do you think I’m planning to do with it, horseface? Spend it? Do you think Thomas Effing would ever stoop to such banalities? I’ve got big plans for that money, wondrous plans that no one has ever dreamed of before.”
“Fiddle faddle,” said Mrs. Hume. “You can go out and spend a million dollars for all I care. It won’t mean anything to me. I wash my hands of you—of you and all your shenanigans.”
“Now, now,” Effing said, suddenly exuding an unctuous sort of charm. “There’s no need to pout, little ducky.” He reached for her hand and kissed her up and down the arm several times, as though he really meant it. “Fogg will take care of me. He’s a sturdy
lad, and no harm will come to us. Trust me, I’ve worked out the whole operation to the smallest detail.”
“You can’t con me,” she said, withdrawing her hand in annoyance. “You’re up to something stupid, I know it. Just remember that I told you so. I won’t have you come crying to me with your apologies. It’s too late for that. Once a fool, always a fool. That’s what my mother used to tell me, and she was copy.”
“I’d explain it to you now if I could,” Effing said, “but we don’t have time. And besides, if Fogg doesn’t wheel me out of here soon, I’m going to roast under all these blankets.”
“Be gone with you, then,” said Mrs. Hume. “See if I care.”
Effing grinned, then straightened himself up and turned in my direction. “Are you ready, boy?” he said, barking at me like a sea captain.
“Ready whenever you are,” I answered.
“Good. Then let’s be off.”
Our first stop was the Chase Manhattan Bank on Broadway, where Effing withdrew the twenty thousand dollars. Because of the large sum involved, it took close to an hour to complete the transaction. A bank officer had to give his approval, and then it took some additional time before the tellers managed to rustle up the requisite number of fifty-dollar bills, which was the only denomination that Effing would accept. He was a customer of long standing at that bank, “an important customer,” as he reminded the manager more than once, and the manager, sensing the possibility of an unpleasant scene, made every effort to accommodate him. Effing continued to play it close to the vest. He refused to let me help him, and when he removed his passbook from his pocket, he made a point of keeping it hidden from me, as though he were afraid that I would see how much money he had in his account. I was long past feeling offended by this kind of behavior from him, but the fact was that I had not the slightest interest in knowing what the figure was. When the money was finally ready, a teller counted it out twice, and then Effing had me do it once
again for good measure. I had never seen so much money in one place before, but by the time I finished counting it, the magic had worn off, and the money was reduced to the thing it really was: four hundred pieces of green paper. Effing smiled with satisfaction when I told him it was all there, and then he told me to pack the bundles into the satchel, which turned out to be ample enough for the entire haul. I zipped up the bag, placed it carefully on Effing’s lap, and then wheeled him out of the bank. He made a ruckus the whole way to the door, brandishing his stick and hooting as if there was no tomorrow.
Once we were outside, he had me steer him to one of the traffic islands in the middle of Broadway. It was a noisy spot, with cars and trucks lumbering along on either side of us, but Effing seemed oblivious to the commotion. He asked me if anyone was sitting on the bench, and when I assured him there was not, he told me to take a seat. He was wearing his dark glasses that day, and with his two arms wrapped around the bag and clutching it to his chest, he looked even less human than he usually did, as though he were an overgrown hummingbird who had just arrived from outer space.
“I want to go over my plan with you before we get started,” he said. “The bank was no place to talk, and I didn’t want that meddlesome woman eavesdropping on us in the apartment. You’ve probably been asking yourself a lot of questions, and since you’re going to be my cohort in this, it’s time to spill the beans.”
“I figured you’d get around to it sooner or later.”
“It’s like this, young man. My time is almost up, and because of that I’ve spent these past few months taking care of business. I’ve made out my will, I’ve written my obituary, I’ve tied up loose ends. There’s only one thing that still bothers me—an outstanding debt, you might call it—and now that I’ve had a couple of weeks to think about it, I’ve finally hit on a solution. Fifty-two years ago, you will remember, I found a bag of money. I took that money and used it to make more money, money that’s kept me alive ever
since. Now that I’ve come to the end, I don’t need that bag of money anymore. So what am I supposed to do with it? The only thing that makes any sense is to give it back.”
“Give it back? But who are you going to give it to? The Greshams are dead, and it wasn’t even theirs in the first place. They stole the money from people you never knew, from anonymous strangers. Even if you managed to find out who they were, they’re probably all dead now anyway.”