B000FBJF64 EBOK (9 page)

“I quite agree,” says the guest, and looks at the ash of his cigar.

“I’m so glad you take the same view,” says the General. “The anticipation keeps one alive. Of course, it, too, has its limits, like everything in life. If I hadn’t known that you would come back one day, I would have probably set out myself to find you, in your house near London or in the tropics or in the bowels of hell. You know I would have come looking for you. Clearly one knows everything of real importance, and—you’re right—one knows it without benefit of radio or telephone. Here in my house I have no telephone, only the steward has one down in the office, nor do I have a radio, as I have forbidden any of the stupid, sordid daily noise of the outside world in the rooms where I make my home.

“The world holds no further threat for me. Some new world order may remove the way of life into which I was born and in which I have lived, forces of aggression may foment some revolution that will take both my freedom and my life. None of it matters. What matters is that I do not make any compromises with a world that I have judged and banished from my existence. Without the aid of any modern appliances, I knew that one day you would come to me again. I waited you out, because everything that is worth waiting for has its own season and its own logic. And now the moment has come.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Konrad. “I went away, which was my right. And it might be said I also had just cause. It is true that I went away without forewarning and without farewell. But I am sure you sensed and understood that I had no choice, and that it was the right thing to do.”

“That you had no choice?” says the General, glancing up. His eyes are blade-sharp and they reduce his guest to the status of an object. “That is the heart of the matter. I have been breaking my head over it for a considerable time now. Forty-one years in fact, if I am not mistaken.”

And, because the other man remains silent, “Now that I am old, I spend a lot of time thinking about my childhood. Apparently this is normal. One remembers the beginning more clearly, the closer one comes to the end. I see faces and I hear voices. I see the moment when I introduced you to my father in the garden of the academy. Because you were my friend, he accepted you as his. He was not a man who was quick to accept someone as a friend, but once he gave his word, it was for life. Do you remember that moment? We were standing under the chestnut tree at the great entrance, and my father gave you his hand. ‘You are my son’s friend,’ he said. ‘You must both honor this friendship,’ he added earnestly. I think nothing in life was as important to him as this. Are you listening to me? . . . Thank you. I want to tell you what happened, and to make sure I get it all in the correct order. Please do not worry, the carriage is waiting and will take you back to town whenever you would care to leave. And do not be concerned that you might have to sleep here even if you don’t wish it. I could imagine that this might be uncomfortable for you. But of course if you would care to do so, you can spend the night,” he adds. And as the other makes a gesture of refusal: “As you wish. The carriage is outside. It will take you back to town and in the morning you can set off for your house near London, or the tropics, or wherever you choose. But before then I ask you to listen to me.”

“I am listening,” says the guest.

“Good,” answers the General in a lighter tone of voice. “We could also talk of other things. Two old friends on whom the sun is setting have much to remember. However, since you are here, let us speak only of the truth. So: I have begun by reminding you that my father accepted you as his friend. You know exactly what that signified to him, you knew then that any person to whom he had given his hand could count on him, no matter what blows of fate, or suffering, or need, life brought. He did not often give his hand, it is true, but once done it was without any reservation. That was how he gave you his hand in the courtyard of the academy under the chestnut trees. We were twelve years old, and it was the last moment of our childhood. Sometimes at night I see him with absolute clarity, the way I see everything really important. To my father, friendship meant the same as honor. You knew that, because you knew him. And allow me to tell you that it may have meant even more to me. Forgive me if what I am telling you makes you uncomfortable,” he says softly, almost affectionately.

“I am not uncomfortable,” says Konrad, just as softly. “Tell me.”

“It would be good to know,” the General says, as if debating with himself, “whether such a thing as friendship actually exists. I do not mean the opportunistic pleasure that two people experience in encountering each other when they think the same way about certain things at certain moments of their lives, when they share the same tasks or the same needs. None of that is friendship. Sometimes I almost believe it is the most powerful bond in life and consequently the rarest. What is its basis? Sympathy? A hollow, empty word, too weak to express the idea that in the worst times two people will stand up for each other. Or perhaps it’s something else . . . perhaps buried deep in every relationship between two people is some tiny spark of erotic attraction. Here alone in the forest, trying to make sense of life, I thought about that now and then. Friendship, of course, is quite different from the affairs of those driven by morbid impulses to satisfy themselves in some fashion with others of the same sex. The eros of friendship has no need of the body. . . . That would be more of a disturbance than an arousal. And yet, it is eros all the same. Eros is present in love just as it is present in every mutual relationship. You know, I have done a great deal of reading,” he says, as if to excuse himself. “These days such things are written about much more freely. But I have also repeatedlyre-read Plato, because in school I wasn’t yet ready to understand him. Friendship, I thought—and you who have seen the world certainly know this better than I do alone here in my village—is the noblest relationship that can exist between human beings. And it is interesting that it also exists among animals. Animals are capable of friendship, selflessness, and the desire to help others.

“A Russian prince—I’ve forgotten his name—has written about it. Lions, grouse, all sorts of creatures of every species have apparently come to the aid of others of their breed in trouble, and I’ve seen this for myself even when the animals are completely unrelated. Did you ever witness something of the kind on your travels? . . . Friendship out there must surely be different, more advanced, more contemporary than it is here in our backward world. Kindred species organize mutual assistance. . . . Occasionally they have to struggle desperately against the obstacles they encounter, but there are always strong members in every community, well disposed to help. The animal world has shown me hundreds of such examples. Not so the human world. I have seen sympathy build between people, but it has always foundered in a morass of vanity and egoism. Sometimes camaraderie and fellowship look like friendship; common interests can bring about relationships akin to friendship, and in an attempt to escape loneliness, people are only too happy to involve themselves in confidences that they will later regret, but that temporarily may appear to be a variety of friendship. None of it is genuine. It is far more the case—my father knew it to be so—that friendship is a duty.

“Like the lover, the friend expects no reward for his feelings. He does not wish the performance of any duty in return, he does not view the person he has chosen as his friend with any illusion, he sees his faults and accepts him with all their consequences. Such is the ideal. And without such an ideal, would there be any point to life? And if a friend fails, because he is not a true friend, is one allowed to attack his character and his weaknesses? What is the value of a friendship in which one person loves the other for his virtue, his loyalty, his steadfastness? What is the value of a love that expects loyalty? Isn’t it our duty to accept the faithless friend as we do the faithful one who sacrifices himself? Is disinterest not the essence of every human relationship? That the more we give, the less we expect? And if a man gives someone his trust through all the years of his youth and stands ready to make sacrifices for him in manhood because of that blind, unconditional devotion, which is the highest thing any one person can offer another, only then to witness the faithlessness and base behavior of his friend, is he permitted to rise up in protest and demand vengeance? And if he does rise up and demand vengeance, having been deceived and abandoned, what does that say about the validity of his friendship in the first place? You see, these are the kinds of theoretical questions that have occupied me since I have been alone. Of course, solitude did not provide me with any answers. Nor, in any complete sense, did books, neither the ancient texts of Chinese, Jewish, and classical thinkers, nor contemporary tracts that spell everything out, absolutely bluntly, while all they’re giving you is words and more words and not any articulation of the truth. Is there, in fact, anyone who has ever given words to the truth, and set them on paper? I thought about this a great deal after I began my reading and self-questioning. Time went by and life around me seemed somehow to darken, and the books and my memories started to mass together and pile up. And for every crumb of truth in any individual book, my memories provided a corresponding retort that human beings may learn everything they want about the true nature of relationships, but this knowledge will make them not one whit the wiser. And that is why we have no right to demand unconditional honor and loyalty from a friend, even when events have shown us that this friend was faithless.”

“Are you quite certain,” asks the guest, “that this friend was faithless?”

There is a long moment of silence. In the deep shadows of the room and the uneasy flickering of the candlelight, they seem small: two wizened old men looking at each other, almost invisible in the darkness.

“I am not quite certain,” says the General. “That is also why you’re here. It’s what we are discussing.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms calmly and with military precision. He says, “There is such a thing as factual truth. This and this happened. These things happened in this and this fashion and at this and this time. It isn’t hard to establish these things. The facts speak for themselves, as the saying goes; in the last years of our lives, facts confess themselves in ways that scream more loudly than a victim being tortured on the rack. By the end, everything has happened and the sum total is clear. And yet, sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences, because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our acts. Everything turns on our intentions. The great, ancient systems of religious law I have studied all know and preach this. A man may commit a disloyal or base act, even the worst, even murder, and yet remain blameless. The act does not constitute the whole truth, it is always and only a consequence, and if one day any of us has to become a judge and pronounce sentence, it is not enough for us to content ourselves with the facts in the police report, we also have to acquaint ourselves with motive. The fact of your flight is easy to establish. But not your motive. Believe me, I have spent the last forty-one years turning over every possible reason for your incomprehensible act. No single examination of it led me to an answer. Only the truth can do that now.”

“You said ‘flight,’ ” says Konrad. “That’s a strong word. In the final analysis, I owed nobody an accounting—I had resigned my commission in the proper fashion, I left behind no messy debts, I had made no promise to anyone which I failed to fulfill. Flight, that’s a strong word.” His voice is grave as he straightens a little in his chair, but it also betrays a tremor that seems to suggest that the force of this declaration is not entirely sincere.

“Perhaps the word is too strong.” The General nods. “But when you look at what happened from a certain distance, you must admit that it’s not easy to find a less harsh one. You say you didn’t owe anyone anything. That is, and is not, true. Of course you didn’t owe anything to your tailor or to the moneylenders in town. Nor did you owe me money or the fulfillment of any promise. And still, that July—you see, I remember everything, even the day, it was a Wednesday—when you left town, you knew that you were leaving behind a debt. That evening, I went to your apartment, because I had heard that you had gone away. I heard it at dusk, under peculiar circumstances. We can talk about those, too, sometime, if you would care to. I went to your apartment, where the only person to receive me was your manservant. I asked him to leave me alone in the room where you lived those last years when you were serving in the city.” He falls silent, leans back and puts a hand over his eyes, as if looking back into the past. Then, calmly, in an even tone, he continues. “Of course, the manservant did as asked—what else could he do? I was alone in the room where you had lived. I took a good look at everything—you must excuse this tactless curiosity, but somehow I was incapable of accepting the fact, just could not believe that the person with whom I had spent the greater and the best part of my life, twenty-four years from childhood through youth and into adulthood, had simply bolted. I tried to justify it. I thought: Maybe he’s seriously ill. Then I hoped perhaps you had temporarily lost your mind, or maybe someone had come after you because you had lost at cards or done something against the regiment, or the flag, or you’d broken your word or betrayed your honor. That sort of thing. You should not be surprised that any of these things struck me as less of a transgression than what you had actually done. Any of them would have had some justification, some explanation, even the betrayal of the ideals that shaped our world. Only one thing was incomprehensible: that you had committed a sin against me. You ran away like a swindler or a thief, you ran a matter of hours after leaving the castle where you had been with Krisztina and me, the three of us spending our days together, sometimes long into the night, as we had done for years, in mutual friendship and the brotherly trust that only twins can share, because they are sports of nature, bound together in life and death, aware, even when they are grown up and separated by great distances, of everything about each other. It doesn’t matter if one lives in London and the other in a foreign country, both will fall ill at the same moment, and of the same disease. They don’t talk to each other, they don’t write, they live in different circumstances, they eat different foods, they are thousands of miles apart, and yet when they are thirty or forty years old they suffer the same affliction, be it in the gallbladder or the appendix, and their chances of survival will be the same. Their two bodies are as organically linked as they were in the womb. And they love or hate the same people. It is a phenomenon of nature, not that common, but then again, not as rare as is usually thought.