IHAVE NOT AS YET SPOKEN of my madmen: Like my father in Sighet, I seem to attract them. Aren’t we all a little mad, each of us in his own way? Mad to wish to live and to refuse to live, mad to believe in the future and also to negate it, mad to think that we have eluded death and the dead?
The ones that pursue me belong to a different species. Not all are Jewish. There are among them Christians, Buddhists, agnostics; former musicians and future geniuses; authors of works not yet written and as-yet-unrevealed saviors. In truth I don’t really dislike meeting with them. I would even say that their imagination enriches mine. However, the problem is that one does not choose them, and some of them are burdensome and difficult to shake. Each has something “urgent” to communicate to you, a solution to offer. You speak to them for an hour, and they will come back ten times. And don’t try to avoid them; they will find the trail that leads to you. Don’t bother to hide; they will outsmart you.
A man calls me and insults me: Every obscenity in the English language pours out. “But who are you?” I ask. His name is Marx, “like Karl.” “Do I know you, dear Mr. Marx?” Yes. No. Another avalanche of insults and curses follows. I hang up. He calls back. I hang up again. The next day it starts all over. When I’m away he leaves messages: “Mr. Marx called.” How to get rid of him? The police claim to be helpless. Never mind. As a matter of fact, he stops calling. Three days and three nights of respite. But on the fourth day, he is back: “Aha, you thought you could escape?” And he spills out his dose of horrors. Oddly, he appears to be informed of all my activities; he “knows” with whom I dined the night before, what play I’ve seen. One afternoon I have a visitor, a woman friend from Paris. The telephone rings. It is he: “I don’t know her,” says Mr. Marx. “Who is she?” I feel as though I’m going mad myself.
A few months later I leave for Europe. When I return, no more Mr. Marx. No letter, no message. A great relief. Could he have disappeared for good?
Of course he reappears. But I have learned my lesson. I shout: “Mr. Marx, whatever happened to you? Were you sick? I was worried about you. What can I do to help you?” Taken aback, he chokes with annoyance. Then he unleashes on me a last stream of obscenities and goes on to look for more vulnerable, more nervous victims, before returning, perhaps, to his insane asylum.
A “romantic” persecution: A young waitress from New Jersey gravely informs me that I am her husband. She knows it, even if I don’t. She knows that I married her, evidently in another life. Hence her solemn warning: If she sees me with another woman, she’ll make me pay dearly. She has connections, she tells me, in the most influential circles. In other words, I would be well advised to be careful, to behave like a faithful husband. Otherwise … Once again the police refuse to intervene. “Let her kill you first and we’ll be right there to arrest her,” is what I am told by a police officer with a macabre sense of humor.
This “romance” goes on for months. Day after day I receive interminable letters. She tells me what she does with her free time, her dreams, and even her infidelities with famous actors, infamous billionaires, mafiosi….
You never know with crazies of her kind. And you don’t play with the Mafia. So I return to the police station, and there is the same police officer. I confess my fears and ask his advice. A psychologist in his spare time, he shrugs his shoulders: “Good grief,” says he “why don’t you ‘divorce’ her?” Fortunately the waitress has a father who is aware of her illness and makes sure she returns to her psychiatrist.
And then there is the doctor who calls me from Canada: He must come to speak to me at once; it is urgent. Very urgent. A matter of life and death. Who and what is this about? It’s about the whole world. Could he be more specific? I try to make him talk. In vain. “Not on the telephone,” he says, “it’s too risky.” The slightest leak could make the project fail. “You understand, don’t you? All this is confidential. Top secret.” Suspicious, I lower my voice: “Are you sure it’s me that …?” He gets angry: “I know what I’m doing.” I ask him to call me back that afternoon: time enough to cancel a few appointments. And, of course, to call Canadian friends, have them check if this fellow really is a doctor. Yes, he is. His name is in the directory. All right, let him come.
That particular Sunday it snows. The airports are paralyzed, the train stations deserted, the streets empty. I’m optimistic: He won’t come. But here he is. The doorman calls to announce him. Curious, I welcome him. He hands me his calling card. Impressive titles. I invite him to sit down; I offer him coffee; he refuses. “Time is short; you must accompany me,” he says resolutely. Where to? Canada? “To Nepal,” he replies unblinking. I ask him to please say that again. “Yes, to Nepal. I have prepared everything; it is all arranged. Look.” He hands me an airline ticket for that very evening and a sum of money. I stammer like an idiot: “But today is Sunday. What am I going to do in Nepal on a Sunday?” He does not flinch: “We’ll arrive tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday.” I continue my inane interrogation: “And what would you have me do in Nepal on a Monday?” His answer is instantaneous: “Meditate.” I don’t understand: He must be mad, but he doesn’t look it. I ask him: “Meditate? On what?” He replies: “The world is in danger. To save it we must go to Nepal. I don’t know how we’ll do it, but once we are there we’ll know.” I insist: “Why there? Why not here?” He says: “It’s not the same. There we will be heard.” “By whom?” I ask. “I don’t know. There we will know.”
I observe him carefully. He looks normal, sincere, and gentle. How can I send him away without offending him? “I have no visa,” I say, trying to look sorry. Never mind, he says, a visa is waiting for us at our destination. He has answers to everything, this Canadian savior. I come back to the weather: There is no car to take us to the airport, and, anyway, no planes are taking off. I show him, through the window, the empty and icy avenue. He is stubborn: If the weather is bad, then it’s because of me, because of my skepticism. As soon as I accept his invitation, the sun will shine over New York. The weather will be perfect and we will leave. How does he know? He knows because in Nepal the weather is very beautiful. Where does he get this knowledge of world weather? “Easy,” he says. “I close my eyes and I see.” “See what?” I ask. “Nepal.” Now I’ve got him. “But then, since you can see Nepal by closing your eyes, why must we go there?” His answer is simple: “I can, but you can’t.”
In the end, I show him my calendar: “I have important engagements this week. I cannot possibly cancel them.” At that he goes into a cold fury: “The world is lost, or almost, and all you can think of is your cursed calendar.” To calm him I suggest that he leave for Nepal before me to prepare everything; I shall come later.
He flew off the next day. Evidently he managed without me. The proof: He did not come back. And the world is still around.
As I evoke the mystical madmen, or the common variety madmen, how could I omit the visionary perturber from Colorado? Right in the middle of a lecture I am delivering at a university in Denver, someone begins to howl like a wounded beast. The security guards scrutinize the rows unsuccessfully. Vaguely anxious, I pick up the thread of my talk. And it happens again: a long sharp cry. But who is it? And what can he possibly want? I make a new effort to concentrate. I shorten my talk. As soon as it is over, ignoring the students waiting for me, the security guards surround me and push me into their car, which has been waiting at a side door, and we take off for the airport, where I am to take the midnight flight to New York. On the way they explain that they have been caught unprepared; nothing like this has ever happened to them. Better to be careful. “What about the students? They’ll be disappointed.” Never mind, answer my guardian angels. Better they be angry with you alive than that they mourn your death. Their logic is irrefutable. I have no further comment. Times being what they are, it is unwise to disobey fellows who are so sure of themselves. I receive enough threatening letters to be aware of that; anti-Semites, pro-Palestinians, deniers: Surely they don’t wish me well. And so the word “security” deserves respect and silence.
At the ticket counter all is quiet. There are few passengers. I shall have a good seat. I’ll be able to nap on the plane. I thank my escorts, so concerned with my well-being, and enter the long twisting corridor leading to the boarding gate. I sigh; at last I am alone. But suddenly a young man emerges from the shadows and whispers under his breath: “Forgive me for screaming. You understand? When God orders me to scream, I have no right to remain silent.” I glimpse a telephone booth; in a panic I jump into it. My heart beats wildly. I feign to be dialing a number, to have a conversation, to be interested in what my imaginary interlocutor has to say. The young man waits patiently for me to finish. I leave the booth only when other passengers appear. Then I follow them, with the young messenger from the Lord in hot pursuit. Thank God he does not have a ticket. “Take this,” he says as he hands me a small notebook. “You’ll read it on the plane. You’ll understand many things.” In his message he claims to be the Savior, the real one, the last, the only one; he is but waiting for the prophet Elijah to announce his coming. If he yells, it is to be heard by the prophet, so that he may know that the Savior has come and is waiting for him. Feeling sorry for the prophet, I fall asleep.
Many months later, I stumble upon humanity’s Savior; he is waiting for me at the entrance to my office at Boston University. What else does he want from me? He has no problem letting me know: “Be my associate. My messenger. Together we shall save the planet and its inhabitants.” I explain to him that while waiting for the Messiah I must teach Kafka and the Epic of Gilgamesh to my students. The following week, there he is again. Skinny, head buried between his shoulders, he dares not look at me but shyly drops this question: “Would you have some time for me today?” I tell him: “I have my class. You know that.” “Whom are you going to speak about this morning?” “The prophet Jeremiah.” Looking disappointed, he says: “What a pity. I am waiting for the prophet Elijah.”
For weeks on end he comes to my office. How does he live in Boston? Where does he sleep? Nobody knows. Cindy Margulies, a student who works in my office, has a good idea: She advises him to go to Israel. Since he wishes to bring deliverance to the world, he should be in Jerusalem: “If the Messenger is waiting for you somewhere, surely that’s where he is.”
I never saw him again, and I wonder where he is, this young mad visionary from Colorado who lived so intensely in the expectation of a stranger.
And the others, where are they? Each had a solution to insoluble problems, a key to unfathomable mysteries, a message from a heavenly angel. It was my practice to answer every letter; I was curious to meet people. It became a problem when they answered my answer and subsequently demanded appointments or, at the least, answers to their answers. The problem was time—there never is enough time. I often think of Nikos Kazantzakis, who wished to stand outside churches to ask the faithful: “In lieu of alms, give me the time you are not using.”
And then there are the madmen of Hollywood: They wish, at all costs, to “discover” me; not as a star, thank God, but as a screenwriter. In the face of my bewilderment, they admonish me: Do I realize that William Faulkner practiced that very craft? Did I know that the world’s greatest novelists work for the movie moguls? I know, I don’t know, what does it matter? At more or less regular intervals ever since the sixties, a person connected to Hollywood appears, seeking to seduce me. But then as soon as I am almost ready to succumb, he disappears.
Someone wants to make a film of Night. I refuse: There are topics around which one may not create spectacles. I receive a proposal from the great Orson Welles. I answer that I am flattered but … He finally takes an option, which he renews again and again. Eric Rohmer likes The Accident. Samy Halfon fancies The Gates of the Forest. Several directors wish to acquire the rights to A Beggar in Jerusalem. Eventually, film adaptations of Dawn and The Testament are made. I feel sorry for the directors; neither was received favorably by the public.
My idiom remains the word, not the image.