Mother Night Part 16

I SAT WRETCHEDLY SAT WRETCHEDLY on a packing case. "With a few well-chosen words," I said, "you've wiped me out. How much poorer I am in this minute than I was in the minute before! on a packing case. "With a few well-chosen words," I said, "you've wiped me out. How much poorer I am in this minute than I was in the minute before!

"Friend, dream, and mistress-" I said, "alles kaput." "alles kaput."

"You've still got a friend," said Wirtanen.

"What do you mean by that?" I said.

"He's like you," said Wirtanen. "He can be many things at once-all sincerely." He smiled. "It's a gift."

"What was he planning for me?" I said.

"He wanted to uproot you from this country, get you to another one, where you could be kidnapped with fewer international complications. He tipped off Jones as to where and who you were, got O'Hare and other patriots all stirred up about you again-all as part of a scheme to pull up your roots."

"Mexico-that was the dream he gave me," I said.

"I know," said Wirtanen. "There's a plane waiting for you in Mexico City right now. If you were to fly down there, you wouldn't spend more than two minutes on the ground. Off you'd go again, bound for Moscow in the latest jet, all expenses paid."

"Dr. Jones is in on this, too?" I said.

"No," said Wirtanen. "He's got your best interests at heart. He's one of the few men you can trust."

"Why should they want me in Moscow?" I said. "What do the Russians want with me-with such a moldy old piece of surplus from World War Two?"

"They want to exhibit you to the world as a prime example of the sort of Fascist war criminal this country shelters," said Wirtanen. "They also hope that you will confess to all sorts of collusion between Americans and n.a.z.is at the start of the n.a.z.i regime."

"Why would I confess such a thing?" I said. "What did they plan to threaten me with?"

"That's simple," said Wirtanen. "That's obvious."

"Torture?" I said.

"Probably not," said Wirtanen. "Just death."

"I don't fear it," I said.

"Oh, it wouldn't be for you," said Wirtanen.

"For whom, then?" I said.

"For the girl you love, for the girl who loves you-" said Wirtanen. "The death, in case you were uncooperative, would be for little Resi Noth."

35.

FORTY RUBLES EXTRA ...

"HER MISSION was to make me love her?" I said. was to make me love her?" I said.

"Yes," said Wirtanen.

"She did it very well," I said sadly, "not that it was hard to do."

"Sorry to have such news for you," said Wirtanen.

"It clears up some mysteries-not that I wanted them cleared up," I said. "Do you know what she had in her suitcase?"

"Your collected works?" he said.

"You knew about that, too? To think they would go to such pains-to give her props like those! How did they know where to look for those ma.n.u.scripts?"

"They weren't in Berlin. They were neatly stored in Moscow," said Wirtanen.

"How did they get there?" I said.

"They were the main evidence in the trial of Ste-pan Bodovskov," he said.

"Who?" I said.

"Stepan Bodovskov was a corporal, an interpreter, with the first Russian troops to enter Berlin," said Wirtanen. "He found the trunk containing your writings in a theater loft. He took the trunk for booty."

"Some booty," I said.

"It turned out to be remarkably fine booty," said Wirtanen. "Bodovskov was fluent in German. He went through the contents of the trunk, and he decided that he had a trunkful of instant career.

"He started modestly, translating a few of your poems into Russian, and sending them off to a literary magazine. They were published and praised.

"Bodovskov next tried a play," said Wirtanen.

"Which one?" I said.

"'The Goblet,'" said Wirtanen. "Bodovskov translated that into Russian, and he had himself a villa on the Black Sea practically before they'd taken the sandbags down from the windows of the Kremlin."

"It was produced?" I said.

"Not only was it produced," said Wirtanen, "it continues to be produced all over Russia by both amateurs and professionals. 'The Goblet' is the 'Charley's Aunt' of contemporary Russian theater. You're more alive than you thought, Campbell."

"My truth goes marching on," I murmured.

"What?" said Wirtanen.

"I can't even tell you what the plot of 'The Goblet' is," I said.

So Wirtanen told it to me. "A blindingly pure young maiden," he said, "guards the Holy Grail. She will surrender it only to a knight who is as pure as herself. Such a knight comes along, and is pure enough to win the Grail.

"By winning it, he causes the girl to fall in love with him, and he falls in love with her," said Wirtanen. "Do I really have to tell you, the author, the rest?"

"It-it's as though Bodovskov really did write it-" I said, "as though I'm hearing it for the first time."

"The knight and the girl-" said Wirtanen, continuing the tale, "they begin to have impure thoughts about each other, tending, involuntarily, to disqualify themselves from any a.s.sociation with the Grail. The heroine urges the hero to flee with the Grail, before he becomes unworthy of it. The hero vows to flee without the Grail, leaving the heroine worthy of continuing to guard it.

"The hero makes their decision for them," said Wirtanen, "since they have both become impure in thought. The Holy Grail disappears. And, stunned by this unanswerable proof of their depravity, the two lovers confirm what they firmly believe to be their d.a.m.nation with a tender night of love.

"The next morning, confident of h.e.l.l-fire, they promise to give each other so much joy in life that h.e.l.l-fire will be a very cheap price to pay. The Holy Grail thereupon appears to them, signifying that Heaven does not despise love like theirs. And then the Grail goes away again, forever, leaving the hero and the heroine to live happily ever after."

"My G.o.d-I did did write that, didn't I?" I said. write that, didn't I?" I said.

"Stalin was crazy about it," said Wirtanen.

"And the other plays-?" I said.

"All produced, all well-received," said Wirtanen.

"But 'The Goblet' was Bodovskov's big hit?" I said.

"The book was the biggest hit of all," said Wirtanen.

"Bodovskov wrote a book?" I said.

"You wrote a book," said Wirtanen.

"I never did," I said.

"Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova?" said Wirtanen. said Wirtanen.

"It was unprintable!" I said.

"A publishing house in Budapest will be amazed to hear that," said Wirtanen. "I'd guess they've printed something like a half-million copies."

"The communists let a book like that be published openly?" I said.

"Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova is a curious little chapter in Russian history," said Wirtanen. "It could hardly be published with official approval in Russia-and yet, it was such an attractive, strangely moral piece of p.o.r.nography, so ideal for a nation suffering from shortages of everything but men and women, that presses in Budapest were somehow encouraged to start printing it-and those presses have, somehow, never been ordered to stop." Wirtanen winked at me. "One of the few sly, playful, harmless crimes a Russian can commit at no risk to himself is smuggling home a copy of is a curious little chapter in Russian history," said Wirtanen. "It could hardly be published with official approval in Russia-and yet, it was such an attractive, strangely moral piece of p.o.r.nography, so ideal for a nation suffering from shortages of everything but men and women, that presses in Budapest were somehow encouraged to start printing it-and those presses have, somehow, never been ordered to stop." Wirtanen winked at me. "One of the few sly, playful, harmless crimes a Russian can commit at no risk to himself is smuggling home a copy of Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova. And for whom does he smuggle it? To whom is he going to show this hot stuff? To that salty old crony, his wife.

"For years," said Wirtanen, "there was only a Russian edition. But now, it is available in Hungarian, Rumanian, Latvian, Estonian, and, most marvelous of all, German again."

"Bodovskov gets credit as the author?" I said.

"It's common knowledge that Bodovskov wrote it, though the book carries no credits-publisher, author, and ill.u.s.trator supposedly unknown."

"Ill.u.s.trator?" I said, harrowed by the idea of pictures of Helga and me cavorting in the nude.

"Fourteen plates in lifelike color-" said Wirtanen, "forty rubles extra."

36.

EVERYTHING BUT.

THE SQUEALS ...

"IF ONLY it weren't ill.u.s.trated!" I said to Wirtanen angrily. it weren't ill.u.s.trated!" I said to Wirtanen angrily.

"That makes a difference?" he said.

"It's a mutilation!" I said. "The pictures are bound to mutilate the words. Those words weren't meant to have pictures with them! With pictures, they aren't the same words!"

He shrugged. "It's pretty much out of your control, I'm afraid," he said, "unless you want to declare war on Russia."

I closed my eyes wincingly. "What is it they say in the Chicago Stockyards about what they do to a pig?"

"I don't know," said Wirtanen.

"They boast that they find a use for everything about a pig but his squeal," I said.

"So?" said Wirtanen.

"That's how I feel right now-" I said, "like a pig that's been taken apart, who's had experts find a use for every part. By G.o.d-I think they even found a use for my squeal! The part of me that wanted to tell the truth got turned into an expert liar! The lover in me got turned into a p.o.r.nographer! The artist in me got turned into ugliness such as the world has rarely seen before.

"Even my most cherished memories have now been converted into catfood, glue and liverwurst!" I said.

"Which memories are those?" said Wirtanen.

"Of Helga-my Helga." I said, and I wept. "Resi killed those, in the interests of the Soviet Union. She made me faithless to those memories, and they can never be the same again."

I opened my eyes. "F-all," I said quietly. "I suppose the pigs and I should feel honored by those who proved our usefulness. I'm glad about one thing-"

"Oh?" said Wirtanen.

"I'm glad about Bodovskov," I said. "I'm glad somebody got to live like an artist with what I once had. You said he was arrested and tried?"

"And shot," said Wirtanen.

"For plagiarism?" I said.

"For originality," said Wirtanen. "Plagiarism is the silliest of misdemeanors. What harm is there in writing what's already been written? Real originality is a capital crime, often calling for cruel and unusual punishment in advance of the coup de grace." coup de grace."

"I don't understand," I said.

"Your friend, Kraft-Potapov, realized that you were the author of a lot of things Bodovskov claimed to have written," said Wirtanen. "He reported the facts to Moscow. Bodovskov's villa was raided. The magic trunk containing your writings was discovered under straw in the loft in his stable."