Paper Conspiracies by Susan Daitch

Author:Susan Daitch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Published: 2011-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

August 1, 1934

Dear Lille,

By making jokes Wasserbaum feels safe. Look, I’m the clown Z, he seemed to be saying, I’m Z, who by his own admission was neither a fool nor a madman. Both you and I, Lille, have often wanted what we couldn’t possibly possess. You became a martyr, but I kick at martyrdom. I have a fit on the carpet.

Even now I’m convinced that whoever refuses me must know the truth, yet rather than saying to hell with them and rallying to my own defense, I find the perpetrators of these acts of rejection and mockery seductive. Acquiring damaging truths about me is the same as acquiring tremendous attractive powers. You might say they go hand in glove, knowledge and interpretation. Can it be that I take part in my own destruction and do so with some pleasure?

Dreyfus is a symbol, like the Eiffel Tower. The only place you can’t see it is when you’re standing on it. I was in the middle of the Dreyfus affair, but I never saw him. Even the most well-entrenched symbols can be reclaimed and redefined. In a different era, Esterhazy and myself could be reconfigured; we could acquire heroic stature. If you look at the Reich over the border, that new era might have arrived. As cultural and national icons Z and I must be seduced, absorbed, reclaimed. Z desired fame, recognition, money, yet after being treated like an outcast, he would play hard to get. I, too, might pretend not to accept my medals.

I lie in bed listening to branches hitting the side of the house, turn on a light and write for a few hours. Later, looking at each part of my body, arms, legs — what I can see in the

glass — it’s as if each part belongs to someone else, some older person who made all kinds of mistakes and could make the same ones over and over again with no trouble at all.

“What was behind Esterhazy’s conspiracies? Jealousy, that’s all,” Wasserbaum said, posing and answering his own question. I had seen him idling at his desk, and true to my promise, I interrupted his work, eager to contradict what he thought he knew about his subject. I’d be sure he knew the other “eighty facts.”

“It’s been said too many times that he was a worm among worms, and maybe he was, but to give him credit, his driving force wasn’t desire for position, authority, recognition, or fame. Z desired something much simpler and more vulgar: money.”

“That wasn’t entirely true, he had wanted recognition very badly; he had wept for it while waiting on park benches, in private apartments, and public urinals.”

“No, I disagree. He was in love with Schwarzkoppen. He was jealous of Dreyfus, of everyone.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. The idea that Z was in love with his victim and jealous of him at the same time was beyond anything I could imagine. In his perverse way Wasserbaum was on the right track about a few things, but I didn’t want him to know it.

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