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.When I woke up, I had to laugh.She was right.The overcoat of Dr.Freud, I thought, what in the world might be hidden in its inner lining, working its way out only bit by bit? Yes, Bob Rice said, I’ve wondered that too.What does it mean that I lost the magic coat? That it could be stolen from me? Did I really lock the door? And if not—which is actually impossible, but I can’t entirely rule out the possibility, per Freud himself!—what might that mean? Did I somehow want to be free of it, so that it wouldn’t hang on my door anymore and remind me every day of certain things I would rather forget?You don’t know who you’re talking to, mister, I said, I have just recently learned a thing or two about memory and forgetting that I wouldn’t have thought possible.Everything in me struggled against it but it couldn’t be put off any longer, I had to go public with it, I started to write a kind of report, as truthful as possible, and I faxed it to a newspaper in Berlin.I didn’t tell anyone about it until Peter Gutman took an article out of the fax machine in the office one morning, glanced at the headline spread across several columns, and passed it to me.This is for you.I read the headline, saw my name in large type, and understood.My files had been given to the media.Hey, listen, I said to Peter Gutman.There’s something I need to tell you.You don’t need to, Peter Gutman said, and left me standing there.He didn’t want to hear anything.But he came back again a few minutes later: I hope you haven’t forgotten that it’s my birthday tomorrow.Eight o’clock, my place.He was one of the last people I could “tell something” to, but when I could he was the person I told in the most detail, the most often.SO WHO COULD I TELL THE STORY TO—the story that now needed to be told, even though it wasn’t a story at all? The principle of chance would have to decide for me: Who would sit next to me in the lounge for afternoon tea? It was Francesco.Alone.Not bad, as random choices go.I put the faxed newspaper article on the table in front of him, the one where my name appeared in the headline in the context of two letters of the alphabet that for months now had meant in the German media the highest degree of guilt, and I started talking, I talked the whole afternoon through, no one interrupted us, it got late, the sun set, unnoticed by us, and then I finally got to the end, and Francesco said: Shit.Francesco had sat down by himself on that quiet, rainy Sunday, behind his newspaper, planning to complain again about the news from Italy.They’ve destroyed the country, he said.Our political class has destroyed the country, and we just sat and watched.That’s how it always goes, I said, and since he looked up, paid attention, and seemed interested, I could put the faxed article on the table in front of him, and since he folded his newspaper and looked inquisitively at me, I could talk.Some people found Francesco insensitive, he was inclined to angry outbursts, but he listened the right way and I told him about the week, nine months before, that for me existed outside of time.About your trip, every morning for ten days, to the part of East Berlin you knew least well.About the street that had just become famous, infamous, because it housed the offices of the agency that, of all the evils the crumbling state had stood for, was the most evil, the most demonic, contaminating everyone it touched.I tried to describe to Francesco the feeling you had when you turned into that courtyard surrounded by a square of monotonous five-story office buildings.He knew buildings like that, he said, and how could he not, as an architectural historian.The fleeting thought that this kind of agency could only be headquartered in buildings like that.Whenever you looked for a spot in the giant parking lot that was always full you were overcome with a feeling of suffocating anxiety, like you were in the wrong place.You already knew which entrance you needed to head toward, and you held your ID ready.The fact that the guard on duty gradually got to recognize you made it paradoxically easier for you to go inside.Obviously he had to write down your ID number again every time, and the different guards who had worked there before must have done the same thing, you thought as you walked upstairs, and you were well aware how much more apprehensive you would have been if you had been summoned to this building in the old days, three or four years ago before the age had “turned.” Not that you even knew if outsiders—suspects?—were ever summoned to this building, or if it was only employees of the organization who set foot here.Now its deepest secrets were spread out before almost everyone’s eyes, a national legacy—before my eyes too, insofar as they concerned me, I told Francesco.Can you understand, I asked him, what it took to force myself to go back there every morning, to sign in with the woman—a nice, modest, and unassuming woman, by the way—who managed the minuscule portion of the enormous mass of material that concerned you and G [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.When I woke up, I had to laugh.She was right.The overcoat of Dr.Freud, I thought, what in the world might be hidden in its inner lining, working its way out only bit by bit? Yes, Bob Rice said, I’ve wondered that too.What does it mean that I lost the magic coat? That it could be stolen from me? Did I really lock the door? And if not—which is actually impossible, but I can’t entirely rule out the possibility, per Freud himself!—what might that mean? Did I somehow want to be free of it, so that it wouldn’t hang on my door anymore and remind me every day of certain things I would rather forget?You don’t know who you’re talking to, mister, I said, I have just recently learned a thing or two about memory and forgetting that I wouldn’t have thought possible.Everything in me struggled against it but it couldn’t be put off any longer, I had to go public with it, I started to write a kind of report, as truthful as possible, and I faxed it to a newspaper in Berlin.I didn’t tell anyone about it until Peter Gutman took an article out of the fax machine in the office one morning, glanced at the headline spread across several columns, and passed it to me.This is for you.I read the headline, saw my name in large type, and understood.My files had been given to the media.Hey, listen, I said to Peter Gutman.There’s something I need to tell you.You don’t need to, Peter Gutman said, and left me standing there.He didn’t want to hear anything.But he came back again a few minutes later: I hope you haven’t forgotten that it’s my birthday tomorrow.Eight o’clock, my place.He was one of the last people I could “tell something” to, but when I could he was the person I told in the most detail, the most often.SO WHO COULD I TELL THE STORY TO—the story that now needed to be told, even though it wasn’t a story at all? The principle of chance would have to decide for me: Who would sit next to me in the lounge for afternoon tea? It was Francesco.Alone.Not bad, as random choices go.I put the faxed newspaper article on the table in front of him, the one where my name appeared in the headline in the context of two letters of the alphabet that for months now had meant in the German media the highest degree of guilt, and I started talking, I talked the whole afternoon through, no one interrupted us, it got late, the sun set, unnoticed by us, and then I finally got to the end, and Francesco said: Shit.Francesco had sat down by himself on that quiet, rainy Sunday, behind his newspaper, planning to complain again about the news from Italy.They’ve destroyed the country, he said.Our political class has destroyed the country, and we just sat and watched.That’s how it always goes, I said, and since he looked up, paid attention, and seemed interested, I could put the faxed article on the table in front of him, and since he folded his newspaper and looked inquisitively at me, I could talk.Some people found Francesco insensitive, he was inclined to angry outbursts, but he listened the right way and I told him about the week, nine months before, that for me existed outside of time.About your trip, every morning for ten days, to the part of East Berlin you knew least well.About the street that had just become famous, infamous, because it housed the offices of the agency that, of all the evils the crumbling state had stood for, was the most evil, the most demonic, contaminating everyone it touched.I tried to describe to Francesco the feeling you had when you turned into that courtyard surrounded by a square of monotonous five-story office buildings.He knew buildings like that, he said, and how could he not, as an architectural historian.The fleeting thought that this kind of agency could only be headquartered in buildings like that.Whenever you looked for a spot in the giant parking lot that was always full you were overcome with a feeling of suffocating anxiety, like you were in the wrong place.You already knew which entrance you needed to head toward, and you held your ID ready.The fact that the guard on duty gradually got to recognize you made it paradoxically easier for you to go inside.Obviously he had to write down your ID number again every time, and the different guards who had worked there before must have done the same thing, you thought as you walked upstairs, and you were well aware how much more apprehensive you would have been if you had been summoned to this building in the old days, three or four years ago before the age had “turned.” Not that you even knew if outsiders—suspects?—were ever summoned to this building, or if it was only employees of the organization who set foot here.Now its deepest secrets were spread out before almost everyone’s eyes, a national legacy—before my eyes too, insofar as they concerned me, I told Francesco.Can you understand, I asked him, what it took to force myself to go back there every morning, to sign in with the woman—a nice, modest, and unassuming woman, by the way—who managed the minuscule portion of the enormous mass of material that concerned you and G [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]