Aladdin's Problem (10 page)

During their final journey, the dead are carried along an avenue of cypresses; it ends at a gate. The gate does not bear Dante's inscription; rather, in many languages, alphabets, and ideograms, it says: "Room for every hope."

We soon realized that a single gate was not enough.

74

The further the plan was implemented, the less I participated mentally and physically. That is the fate of all Utopias — the way a Leonardo and even a Jules Verne envisioned human flight was different from the way we have made it come true. We live more strongly in dreams; this is where our strength pours forth and stops. My nihilism contributed to my bad mood.

I had conceived a necropolis on a global scale, a shore for Charon's boat, and the restoration of their dignity to the dead. Culture is based on the treatment of the dead; culture vanishes with the decay of graves — or rather: this decay announces that the end is nigh.

I still consider it a good idea to exorcise the dead and to create a site for them before progress wipes us out — and besides: such a place would make sense despite, indeed precisely because of, that destruction.

I was irked by the business that kept thriving more and more, to the delight of Jersson and Uncle Fridolin, while prompting Sigi to crack macabre jokes. He had read somewhere — in the Talmud, I believe — that on Judgment Day, the believers will awaken in their graves and head toward Zion, and he pictured the march of the dead from Terrestra. From there, it was not far to the Temple.

My complaint must have also had physical causes or affected my body. I suffered from insomnia, but daydreamed constantly at home and at the office. When I had bad headaches, I found food repugnant; I drank all the more. I felt as if I had stepped outside my own body; it was only at night, when, holding a candle in my left hand as I drunkenly gazed at my image in the mirror, that I recognized my identity. I would then feel as if I were becoming too powerful for myself.

I seldom visited Bertha; I was afraid she would hear my soliloquies. She wanted me to consult a doctor — a psychiatrist, of course. I would have been fair game for him, he would have sent me from one colleague to another all the way to the madhouse. But for that, I have no need of a Holy Helper.

75

So far, my story is a statistical matter, under the subheading: Personal success after difficulties in war and civil war. These ascents occur not only in business, but also in art and science. Like a winning lottery ticket, they presuppose an enormous number of losers.

Nor do I consider unusual that stage of nihilism in which I abide as in a waiting room, half bored, half expecting the warning bell. Individuals become passengers, and it is surprising that the waiter still takes their order? Given the sinister way in which our world is changing, almost everybody ought to be familiar with this mood, in which one begins to doubt rationality. Perhaps the whole thing is a ghostly dream.

Fear only intensifies the confusion. The individual person has always experienced that; but we are not yet familiar with titanic dimensions. When an illness becomes serious, and destruction looms, we fall prey to despair. This applies even more to mental disorders than to physical ones. What, in contrast with that, are wealth and success, such as I have gained at Terrestra? They are actually burdensome, and so is society — one seeks a hole to creep into.

Frederick III, German Emperor, King of Prussia, ruled for ninety days before succumbing to his
cancer
of the larynx. I can picture Bismarck going to the monarch's bed and submitting documents for him to sign. What are provinces, the Black Eagle, unrest in the Silesian mining districts, compared with the small knot in the throat — the kaiser no longer listens to the chancellor, he pays heed only to clearing his throat, torturously forcing the mucus through the tube. Man is alone.

76

However: madness is only part of my problem. It would be an ordinary case. As such, it would again be a statistical matter, and I would have to put up with it for better or worse. I am mulling over another possibility. It is: "Madness or more?" Bertha thinks I have to overtrump — this is in keeping with my character. Fate has set up a hurdle for me. Behind it, the abyss; perhaps I can leap across both.

I have to make sure that my notes do not crisscross, for I am traveling on two tracks: along the curves of my feverish dreams and also in reality. Collisions threaten, but perhaps the convergence will work out. After all, parallel lines supposedly meet at infinity. Could this be also possible in time — that is, in life, even if only in echoes? The dream vanquishes reality; it transforms it into poetry, into an artwork. I believe that this is how
every great turning point has been reached. It was preceded by madness. Mohammed strikes me as a good example.

A loss of individuality may be an additional factor. Doctors have a special term for that. I have not yet mentioned my grandmother, who died long ago, but who visits me in dreams. It is chiefly to her that I owe my intimate knowledge of our family history, which goes back all the way to legendary times, and whose figures are so fully merged with mine that I sometimes sense as awake: that was not I, that was my father or grandfather, perhaps even an anonymous forebear.

77

Something wishes to alight — an eagle, a nutcracker, a wren, a jester? Why me of all people? Perhaps a vulture — I have liver problems now too.

There are transitions in which dream and reality fuse — as a rule, shortly before one falls asleep, and also before one awakens.

Now I have to keep a cool head like a captain whose ship has gone offcourse. The ship is my world. The control room is still safe even if water has penetrated one of the watertight compartments or fire has broken out in it. I can still make decisions, which, as in a will, are valid and effective even after death.

My complaint is not housed in my brain. It is lodged in my body and, beyond that, in society — the cause of my illness. I can do something about it only when I have isolated myself from society. Perhaps society itself will help by casting me out. Perhaps I will soon be interned. I am still cautious, even with Bertha. I also have to pay heed to my soliloquies — when I recently said, "But I want to enter a prison, not a sanatorium," she was momentarily taken aback.

In a cell, I could keep elaborating, working on the material without disruptions from the outside. Whether or not this effort will produce results is beside the point; I watch over and preserve the treasure in the cave, in solitude — all by myself. Then I could step forth like an anchorite from his fantastic world. However, my reclusion would be closer to fiction, to poetry, and stronger than actual events.

Let the world go under; it is mine, I destroy it in myself. As the skipper, I could steer the ship into the reef — this would not mean awakening, it would mean sinking to a new depth of dreaming. The cargo would then be all mine. Even Alexander was more powerful in his dreams than at Issus — India was not enough for him.

Something flies up, riches pour in. I have to decide how to cope with them. But it shall not be in Aladdin's manner.

78

Headaches, seizures, visions, strange voices, unexpected encounters, voluntary or forced isolation. Madhouses are the monasteries of our world. Whatever happens in laboratories is the work of the lay brothers and nothing more.

The lay brothers carry out orders; they know not what they do. Even in the realm of great politics, where millions of lives are at stake, the wretchedness of the actors is obvious. By what principles are they selected?

Aladdin was the son of a tailor in one of the countless cities of China, a playful boy — but only he could dig out the treasure. How was it that the Mauretanian, a man of profound knowledge, could hit upon this dreamer? He employed magical writings, the sandbox, mantic and astrological skills.

I do not regard Phares as a magus. I am unsettled by him, but I do not feel damaged. Naturally, we become suspicious when someone walks in and offers us a blank check. This is a major theme in fairy tales, legends, and religion. The issue is the decision between mental and physical, between spiritual and concrete power — in a word, the issue is salvation.

Perhaps it was an ordeal for which Phares led me into his grotto. It bordered on the Terrestra territory; the walk or the vision must have occurred at the time that the business with the dead left me extremely dissatisfied. Incidentally, our treasure chambers cannot be compared to Aladdin's — they are bursting with energy. Aladdin's lamp was made ofpewter or copper, perhaps merely clay. Galland's text reports nothing about this matter — all we learn is that the lamp hung from a grotto ceiling. It was not lit, but rubbed, to make the genie appear. He could put up palaces or wipe out cities overnight, whatever the master of the lamp commanded. The lamp guaranteed dominion as far as the frontiers of the traveled world from China to Mauritania. Aladdin preferred the life of a minor despot. Our lamp is made ofuranium. It establishes the same problem: power streaming toward us titanically.

79

So Phares is no magus? Then what is he? Perhaps a suggester of extraordinary power? He shows a pebble and transforms it into gold. Yet does not every pebble contain gold just as every woman contains Helen of Troy? All we have to do is advance to the godhead.

We must also ponder whether we are dealing with auto-suggestion. A deep desire projects its dream image into the world. It intensifies, supplants, concentrates reality. For the people around you, you become a pathological case, unless you convince them. They even desire this.

Genesis must be based on very ancient lore. Reading it is like looking at a new building constructed on the ruins, and with the rubble, of a pre-Babylonian palace. We can leave Jehovah aside. But the rib that could not
have been made up. Adam is the perfect human being, neither male nor female, but androgynous like the angels — he had the female branch off from him as a dream image. Our desire is merely the perception of loss — a shadow of that first desire, which bore fruit.

80

A nebulous yearning for other worlds is as ancient as man himself. Today it has technological features; our expectations of alien guests and their landing have been haunting our imaginations for some time now. We must take this seriously, firstly as a symptom.

Bizarre aircraft are depicted, challenged, exposed as mirages. They serve as a bait and a mechanism for the imagination; on the other hand, they indicate wishful thinking. The automatic apparatus is consistent with the spirit of the times. The end of the world, a vision at every millennium, likewise presents itself as a technological catastrophe.

How bizarre that alien guests are expected now of all times, when astronomical investigations seem to have demonstrated that the stars not only are not, but cannot be, inhabited. This simply indicates the depth of our yearning. People feel more and more strongly that pure power and the enjoyment of technology leave them unsatisfied. They miss what used to be angels and what angels gave them.

A propos, I do not think that technology contradicts the great change. It will lead to the wall of time and it will be intrinsically transformed. Rockets are not destined for alien worlds, their purpose is to shake the old faith; its hereafter has been shown wanting.

81

My encounter with Phares was preceded by a growing disquiet or agitation. The disturbances were both optical and acoustic. We must distinguish between the external and the internal images that we regard as mirages; yet they can assume shapes that ultimately convince. In the deserts, the transition was produced by mortification of the flesh. In my case, it was involuntary; I had lost my appetite long ago. For years, I have been convinced that we are living in a desert, with technology contributing more and more to its size and monotony. And, incidentally, that the imagination is provoked by monotony.

Whenever I was writing, at the Terrestra office or, even better, at home, and I closed my eyes, the afterimage of the page and its letters appeared to my mind's eye. This is a universal experience; the script becomes illegible, it looks ornamental.

However, the sentences that appeared to me were legible, yet they did not correspond to my text — communications virtually dictated in automatic writing. They were mostly unpleasant. "Your hands are dirty" or: "The dogs are calling you." Also: "Think of Liegnitz" and: "You misunderstood Bertha." Often I could not tell whether I was hearing or reading these things.

It was the same with the visions: they followed a mental clouding that turned into daydreams. Gradually, everyday life became less persuasive and dreams more so.

I sensed a world to which Phares would lead me, and I heard his voice: "Soon you will learn what you do not know yet."

82

Why did he address me of all people? Were there contacts? I recall the Liegnitz park and my basic nihilistic mood. Nihilism must not be followed by any new idealism — it would be doomed from the very outset or it would lead, at best, into a romantic cul-de-sac. The break must be radical.

And then the world of graves. I have noticed that constant dealings with the dead lend a spiritualistic aura to even the lower forms ofwork. This aura has concentrated, perhaps partly because Terrestra succeeded as something more than simply an extension of Pietas. Graves are the beginning of humanity and not just of culture.

Be that as it may, my encounter with Phares must have been prepared, albeit in a dreamlike way. As we exchanged greetings, I already had a strong sense of déja-vu.

83

Happiness is imparted to us only fleetingly. In euphoria, time passes us without a trace; it is annihilated by high degrees of pleasure and knowledge. On the other hand, pain and time are inseparably blended. This touches on the imperfectness of Creation; the religions have recognized this. A few blame the gods, others mankind, still others fate. We live in a world without peace.