War & War (35 page)

4.

It wasn’t so difficult now to find the central railway station because he had made the journey once by tram and somehow he managed to remember it, but inside, once it was all made clear, once he had understood that he would have to pay for the tickets in francs, and once he actually had the tickets and had found the right platform, it had grown dark and there were hardly any other passengers on the car he had got onto, and those few there were did not answer Korin’s requirements for it was perfectly obvious that Korin needed someone having gone up and down the train two or three times sizing up people and shaking his head because none of them seemed right to him, but then, at the very last moment before they started, that is to say just before the guard at the end of the platform sounded his whistle, a highly agitated and worried-looking woman appeared in the last car, a tall, very thin woman of about forty to forty-five, who practically exploded through the door, it being obvious from the furious expression on her face that she had undergone various trials and tribulations before getting on the train, that she had lost all hope of ever doing so but had nevertheless had to try, and had, by some miracle, succeeded only at the last moment, and to make it worse her arms were laden with packages she could hardly carry so that when the train started immediately and the engine gave two mighty jerks she almost fell over, partly because of the weight of the packages and partly because of the effort of rushing, and came close to striking her head on the luggage rack, and no one came to help her, the only one in a position to do so being a young Arab man who, judging by the angle of his body, must have been fast asleep in the next seat, or that was how it looked from her position, so she could do nothing but grab hold of something to steady herself, then throw her first packages into the nearest seat, then drop into it herself, sitting there with closed eyes, gasping and sighing for several minutes, simply sitting, trying to calm down as the train cut through the suburbs—which was the point at which Korin reached the last car and glimpsed her sitting with closed eyes among her parcels, asked in English,
can I help you
, and hurried to lift her luggage onto the rack—suitcase, handbag, packages and all—then dropped into the seat opposite her and gazed deep into her eyes.

5.

To love order is to love life: love of order is therefore love of symmetry, and love of symmetry is a memory of eternal truth
, he said after a long silence then seeing how she stared at him in amazement nodded at her by way of affirmation, then stood up, studied the ever more distant station as if inspecting it to see whether his pursuers were still there, then finally sat back down again, drew his coat about him and added by way of explanation:
An hour or two, that’s all, just an hour or two now
.

6.

She didn’t understand what he was saying at first, nor could she guess what language he was speaking and it only became clearer to her, the woman explained a couple of days later after her husband had arrived at the vacation house they had rented in the Jura mountains, once they had both recovered, once the man took a piece of paper from his pocket and showed her what it said:
Mario Merz, Schaffhausen
, and imagine that, she said, quite excitedly, it had to be Merz who was a particularly close friend of hers too, though she was absolutely baffled as to what this was all about until it slowly dawned on her that the man wasn’t wanting to tell her something, wasn’t spinning some story or other, but was
asking her
where in Schaffhausen he might find Merz, and even this led to a misunderstanding, she said, quite a few amusing misunderstandings in fact, for the man thought that what he was looking for was something called Merz, and she held up both her hands and laughed now as she remembered the incident, because Merz himself, the man, she told him, was not to be found in Schaffhausen, but in Toronto because that was where Merz lived, she explained, and sometimes in New York so she couldn’t understand why someone had suggested Schaffhausen to him, but Korin just shook his head and insisted
no Toronto, no New York, Schaffhausen, Merz in Schaffhausen
, and for a long time he couldn’t think of the word he was looking for which was
sculpture, sculpture in Schaffhausen
, at which point the woman’s eyes suddenly lit up and O, she cried and laughed,
What a fool!
and shook her head, because of course there was a
sculpture
by Merz in Schaffhausen, in Schaffhausen’s
Hallen für die neue Kunst
, the museum, that’s where it was, not just one but two, and Korin cried out in delight, that’s it, the very thing, a museum, a museum and now it was all perfectly clear what he wanted, what he was looking for, where he was going and why, and he immediately told her the whole story, all in Hungarian alas, he spread his hands to apologize, since the English was beyond him and because they were on his trail and he couldn’t think of the right words, or rather only one or two came so there was nothing he could do for a while but say it all in Hungarian in case the woman managed to grasp something of it, relating the story of Kasser, Bengazza, Falke and Toót, describing them in great detail, how they appeared in Crete and in Britain, what happened in Rome and Cologne, and most naturally, how they had all grown to be so much a part of him that he could no longer part with them, because, just imagine, he told his traveling companion, he had been trying to leave them for days without success, and it was only today he properly understood, at the lake in Zürich,
the Zürich Lake
, and at the familiar words
Zürich Lake
the woman’s eyes lit up again, so Korin nodded, saying yes, there, there was where it became perfectly obvious that it couldn’t be done, he couldn’t just drop them like that, that he knew there was no way out, and so it was only today he realized he would have to take them there with him, there where he himself was going, to Schaffhausen in other words, and his face darkened and grew more serious; you mean to the
Hallen für die neue Kunst
, said the woman helping him out, and they both laughed.

7.

Her name was Marie, said the woman sweetly bowing her head, she looked after him, tended him, defended and helped him, in other words she’d give her life for him, she said; and his name, Korin pointed to himself, was György,
Gyuri
; ah, in that case might you be Hungarian, guessed the woman and Korin nodded, saying yes, he
Magyarország
; and the other smiled and said she had heard something about the country but knew so little of it, so perhaps he might be able to tell her something about the Hungarians, because there was some time before they would reach Schaffhausen; and Korin asked,
Magyarok?
, and the woman nodded, yes, yes, to which he answered that Hungarians did not exist,
Hungarian no exist
, they had all died,
they died out
, the process having begun about a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, he said, and though it might seem incredible the whole thing happened without anyone noticing; and the woman shook her head incredulously, Hungarian? No exist? and, yes,
they died out
, Korin insisted, the process beginning in the last century when there was a great confusion of peoples and not one Hungarian remained, only a mixture, a few Swabians, Gypsies, Slovaks, Austrians, Jews, Romanians, Croats and Serbs and so on, and chiefly combinations of all these, but Hungarians disappeared, they had all gone, Korin attempted to persuade her, only Hungary the place existed not the Hungarians,
Hungary yes, Hungarians not
, and not one genuine memorial remained to tell the world what an extraordinary, proud, irresistible nation they had been, because that’s what they were once, living according to laws that were both very fierce and very pure, a people kept awake only by the eternal necessity of performing great deeds, a barbaric people who slowly lost interest in a world that preferred lower horizons, and in this way they perished, degenerated, died out and interbred until nothing remained of them, only their language, their poetry, something little, something insignificantly small; and the woman wrinkled her brow and said, what do you mean; and he didn’t know, he said, but that was how it was, and the most interesting thing about it, not that it interested him at all, was that no one ever mentioned their degeneration and disappearance, nothing was said of the whole business, and that anything said now was a lie, an error, a misunderstanding or crass idiocy, but alas, the woman gestured, this was utterly confusing for her, so Korin left off and asked her instead to write down the precise name of the museum, then he fell silent, and only gazed at her, as her warm, sensitive eyes met his and she slowly started to tell him something trying to make him understand, but it was obvious that he didn’t understand because Korin’s mind was clearly elsewhere, that he was simply gazing at the woman’s friendly attractive face, and watching the lights of little stations as they came and went, one after another.

8.

The clock at Schaffhausen station showed eleven thirty-seven and Korin stood beneath the clock, the platform quite deserted now, just a single railway man carrying a timetable, his job being to signal the train’s arrival and departure, glimpsed for a second then gone so that by the time Korin had decided to address him he had disappeared together with his timetable behind the door of a room reserved for staff, and everything was silent but for the clock ticking above his head and a sudden gust of wind that swept down the platform, so Korin walked out but found no one there either and made his way down toward the town until he spotted a taxi in front of a hotel, the driver sleeping, slumped over the steering wheel, and tapped on the windshield to wake him, which he did eventually and opened the door so that Korin could give him the piece of paper with the museum’s name written on it, the driver nodding morosely, telling him to get in, it was all right, he’d take him, and so it was that barely ten minutes after his arrival Korin was standing in front of a large, dark, silent building, looking for the entrance, checking that the name on the board tallied with the one on his sheet, turning first left and returning to the entrance, then right, down to the corner where the taxi had dropped him, returning again, finally circumambulating the entire building as if sizing it up, rubbing his neck the whole time and never taking his eyes off the windows, gazing and gazing at them, seeking some light, some shadow, some subtle change, some flickering, anything that might indicate a living presence, returning to the entrance, giving the door a good shake, beating and beating at it without result, and the security guard in his hut swore this all had happened precisely at midnight, his pocket radio having just bleeped twelve on the table, which seemed to be the cue for the rattling to start, not that he would claim to have known what to do right away, the noise startled him a little because no one had ever rattled the door like that at midnight or after that, not as long as he had been working nights here, so what was this about, he wondered, somebody at the door at this hour, what can it mean, and all this ran through his mind before he went to the door, opened it a crack, and what happened next, he explained the next morning on his way home from the hearing, so surprised him he really didn’t know what to do, because the easiest way, he explained, would have been, as he knew full well, to chase the man off, send him on his way, just like that, but the few words he understood of what he was saying, something about
sculpture
and
Hungarian
and
Mister Director
and
New York
confused him, because it suddenly struck him what this might be about, that they might have forgotten to say something to him, that maybe he was to expect this person at such a time, and what would happen, he asked himself, slurping his milky coffee, if he chased him away, treated him like some tramp and then in the morning it turned out that he’d done something wrong, because for all he knew the man might have been a famous artist, someone they had been waiting for, who had arrived late, and suddenly there he was, without accommodation, without even a telephone number to ring, because, he might have lost it, just as he might have lost his luggage on the flight, the flight that was late, the luggage containing all his possessions, because it wouldn’t have been the first time this had happened with these artists, the security guard waved at his mother in worldly wisdom, so he closed the door, he said, and thought for a moment, deciding the best thing was neither to send him away nor let him into the museum, but he couldn’t ring up the director now, after midnight, so what could he do, what should he do, he pondered, and had just returned to his post, when he remembered one of the attendants, Mr. Kalotaszegi, who could possibly be called, midnight or no midnight, and he would certainly call him, he decided, and was already looking up his number in the employment book, because, in the first place, Mr. Kalotaszegi was of Hungarian extraction and would therefore understand what this person was babbling about, so if he was called out he could talk to the man and they could decide together what to do with him, and he was extremely sorry, he said on the phone, extremely sorry to disturb Mr. Kalotaszegi, but this man had turned up, probably a Hungarian artist, he said, but no one had told him anything about it, and until someone talked to him he wouldn’t know what to do because he couldn’t understand a word he said, only that he might be some kind of sculptor, that he might have arrived from New York and that he was probably Hungarian, and he was constantly repeating Mister Director, Mister Director, so he couldn’t handle this alone, though he’d happily have sent him to hell, the attendant told the director the next morning, because he needed pills to sleep, it was the only way he could sleep, and once he does fall asleep and then someone wakes him he can’t sleep a wink the rest of the night, but there’s this security man ringing him at midnight, asking him to come over to the museum, and what the hell is this, was his first thought, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere, because it really is scandalous that he, an acute insomniac, should be rung up after midnight, but then the security guard mentions the director’s name and tells him that this weirdo keeps asking for the director, so he thought best not take a chance in case some ballyhoo ensues on account of him not helping, so he thought a bit and forgot his anger though he had every right to be angry it being past midnight, got dressed and went over to the museum, and it was good, very good indeed, in fact he didn’t know how to tell the director how good it was, all that happened, because as the director knows he is not a man of many words, but what followed was one of the most extraordinary nights of his life and the events he happened to witness between half past twelve and the present time had such an effect on him that he still couldn’t think of them calmly and reasonably, and because he was still recovering from the effects of these experiences, these great, quite mysterious experiences, it was perfectly possible that he might not find the right words at once, for which he asked to be excused in advance, but he really was shaken, very shaken, not quite himself, the only excuse for his condition being that he hadn’t had any time, not a second, to try to get events into some kind of perspective, in fact, to be honest, even as they were sitting down here in the director’s office he felt as though whatever happened wasn’t entirely over and that it could start all over again from the point of his arrival a little after half past twelve when he knocked at the door and the security man came out and explained it all again to him, while the person in question, the person, as the security guard referred to him, was waiting at a point some fifteen meters from the entrance watching the upstairs windows, so he went over, introduced himself and the person was so delighted to be addressed in Hungarian that, without saying a word, he embraced him, which of course greatly surprised him, for having lived for decades in Schaffhausen, he had quite forgotten these characteristically passionate, over-excited displays of emotion, and pushed the person away, telling him his name and office, and that he’d like to help if he could, in answer to which the person introduced himself as Dr. György Korin then explained that he had arrived at the last stop in an inordinately long journey, and that he could hardly contain himself in his happiness that he could share the problems of this, for him, fateful night with a fellow Hungarian, in Hungarian, and confided to him that he was an archivist in a small Hungarian town, and that his mission, which far outweighed his position in life, had taken him to New York from where he had but recently arrived following a terrifying pursuit, because his destination was Schaffhausen, the
Hallen für die neue Kunst
to be precise, and within that building it was specifically the world-famous sculpture by Mario Merz that he desired to see, for he had been informed the work was there, said the person pointing to the building, and yes, he said, we have two works by Merz on the first floor, but by that time he could see that the person was shaking from head to foot, having presumably gotten chilled while he was waiting, so he called the security guard and suggested they continue the interview inside, for the wind was very strong, and the guard agreed, so they went inside, closed the door of the hut behind them, sat down at the table and Korin began his story, a story that started a long way back—please, the director interrupted him, do try to make your account as concise as possible—yes, the attendant nodded, he would try to make it as concise as possible but the story was so complicated, and what was more so fresh in his mind, that it was hard to tell what was important and what wasn’t, and at the same time he had felt sure, said the attendant glancing up at the director, that as soon as they sat down at the table in the hut, once he had had a chance to look the person over—a tall, thin, middle-aged person with a small, bald head, feverishly burning eyes and enormous protruding ears—that he was crazy, but if he was the mystery remained of how he succeeded in winning them over in just a few minutes, because he did win them over, in fact he completely swept them off their feet, and it was plain even if he was crazy that what he was babbling was not sheer nonsense, that one had to listen to him properly, because there was a peculiar drift to his story and every word in it was of some significance, of quite dramatic significance in fact, for he felt himself to be part of the drama, an actor in it—but please, the director interrupted him again, Herr Kalotaszegi, we both have work to do, try to keep the story as short as you can—oh of course, said the attendant, nodding and conscious of his error, well, in other words he told us the story from its origins in a small Hungarian town and how one day at the office he discovered a mysterious manuscript among the archives, how he took this manuscript with him to New York, having, Herr Director, sold up and got rid of everything, left it all behind, his home, his work, his language, his house, everything, and went off to die in New York, Herr Director, all this with lots of incredible twists and turns and with one terrible unnamed incident about which he was unwilling to speak, and how he was led here by chance, he emphasized this, having heard
something
about some sculpture, or to be precise, a sculpture that he had seen in a photograph and decided he must see in the flesh because he had fallen in love with it, Herr Director, having fallen literally in love, said the attendant, with Mario Merz’s piece and
wanted to spend an hour inside it
, at which point the director leaned incredulously forward asking,
what did he want?
and the attendant repeated
to spend an hour inside
it, a request an attendant could by no means grant of course, and he had tried to explain to him that it wasn’t up to him to give such permission, in other words he rejected the request, but he did listen through his story, a story, as Herr Director could plainly see now, had quite carried him away, that overcame any resistance, even the very idea of protesting, because, he confessed, after listening to it awhile he felt his heart would break, because he felt certain that the person wasn’t merely spinning stories but had genuinely come to Schaffhausen to end his life, a Hungarian like himself, a little unfortunate creature who was obsessed with the notion that the manuscript he discovered in Hungary was of such importance that he was obliged to preserve it for eternity, to
transmit
it, do you see Herr Director, the attendant asked him, and that was why the person went to New York, because he considered it to be the center of the world, and it was in the center of the world he wished to conclude the business, that is to say the
transmitting
of the manuscript as he expressed it to the attendant, to eternity, and so he got hold of a computer and typed up the entire manuscript so it should find its place on the Internet, and having done so his work was over, because the Internet, or so the person had persuaded them a few hours ago while sitting at the table in the security guard’s hut, was the surest way into eternity, and he was convinced, the attendant bowed his head, that he absolutely had to die since life no longer had any meaning for him and he was most insistent on this point—the attendant raised his eyes to meet the director’s—constantly emphasizing and repeating that it was for him and for him alone that life had become meaningless, and that was
crystal clear
to him, but as he had taken the characters in the manuscript so much to his heart, too much to heart, the person explained, the only thing not
crystal clear
to him was what he should do with these characters now, since they had not loosened their hold on him, and it was as if they were determined to go with him, something like that, but he couldn’t be more precise, Herr Director, and the man did not explain clearly what it was he was preparing to do, except he kept asking to see the work by Herr Merz, a request he, the attendant, had to resist, constantly telling him to wait till morning, attempting to calm him down, to which Korin replied that there was no morning, and then he grasped his hand, looked into his eyes and said,
Kalotaszegi
úr, I have only two requests, first that I speak with the director and the director at some stage speak to Herr Merz and insist on his telling him how much his sculpture had helped him, because at the very moment the man felt he had nowhere to go to he realized he
had
, and he wanted to thank Herr Merz most warmly, from the bottom of his heart, for that, for he, György Korin, would forever think of him as
dear Herr Men
, and this was his first request; the second being, the reason that he was in fact sitting here now, the attendant pointed to himself, that someone should put a plaque on his behalf, on the wall of Herr Merz’s museum somewhere—and at this point he passed over a great heap of money, said the attendant, asking that it be used for that purpose—a plaque screwed to the wall, with a single sentence engraved on it telling his story, and he wrote that sentence down on a piece of paper, said the attendant, and slipped it across to him, telling him that he was doing so in order that he might remain in the vicinity of Herr Merz in spirit, Korin explained, he and the others, as close to Herr Merz as possible, that was how he explained the plaque, Herr Director, and here’s the money and here’s the piece of paper, and he put them both on the table, though the director was still terribly confused by what Kalotaszegi had told him, as he told his wife who had arrived in the office at the same time as the police, but at the same time he found so touching, so genuinely tragic that he had asked the attendant more questions, going over the whole story again, trying to piece together the broken pieces of Kalotaszegi’s account, the last part of which was Korin saying good-bye to the attendant and going out, and he had succeeded in assembling the story after a fashion, the story being extraordinary and deeply moving, he admitted, though he swore that what finally convinced him was when he turned on the computer, checked AltaVista, a name often mentioned in the story, and saw with his own eyes that the manuscript really existed under the English title of War and War, and asked Kalotaszegi to translate the first few sentences of it for him, and even in that rough and ready translation he found the text so beautiful, so compulsive, that by the time of her arrival, he pointed to his wife, he had made his mind up, and had decided what to do, for why was he the director of this museum if he couldn’t make a decision after a night like this, and that having finished his business with the police, he would see to it immediately with the help of the attendant and would choose an appropriate spot on the wall outside, for what he had decided, he declared, is that there would be a plaque on the wall, a simple plaque, to tell the visitor what happened to György Korin in his last hours and it would say precisely what it said on the piece of paper, because the man deserved to find peace in the text of such a plaque, a man, the director lowered his voice, for whom the end was to be found in Schaffhausen,