Free Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster Page A

– at a formal banquet held by the Bureau to celebrate his appointment. Under ordinary circumstances, a man in my position would have little direct contact with the Minister, and I found it odd to have been invited to his house, especially at such short notice. From all I had heard about him so far, he was neither an impulsive nor a flamboyant administrator, and he did not flaunt his power in an arbitrary or unreasonable way. I doubted that I had been summoned to this private meeting because he was planning to criticize my work, but at the same time, judging from the urgency of his message, it was clear that this was to be more than just a social visit.
    For a person who had attained such an exalted rank, Joubert did not cut an impressive figure. Just short of his sixtieth birthday, he was a squat and diminutive man with bad eyesight and a bulbous nose who continually adjusted and readjusted his pince-nez throughout our conversation. A servant led me down the central corridor to a small library on the ground floor of the Minister’s residence, and when Joubert rose to welcome me, dressed in an out-of-fashion brown frock coat and a ruffled white cravat, I had the feeling that I was shaking hands with an assistant law clerk rather than one of the most important men in the Confederation. Once we began to speak, however, that illusion was quickly dispelled. He had a clear and attentive mind, and each one of his remarks was delivered with authority and conviction. After he had apologized for calling me to his house at such an inopportune moment, he gestured to the gilded leather chair on the opposite side of his desk, and I sat down.
    –I take it you’ve heard of Ernesto Land, he said, wasting no more time on empty formalities.
    –He was one of my closest friends, I replied. We fought together in the Southeast Border Wars and then worked as colleagues in the same intelligence division. After the Consolidation Treaty of the Fourth of March, he introduced me to the woman I eventually married – my late wife, Beatrice. A man of exceptional courage and ability. His death during the cholera epidemic was a great loss to me.
    –That’s the official story. A death certificate is on file at the Municipal Hall of Records, but Land’s name has cropped up again recently on several occasions. If these reports are true, it would appear he’s still alive.
    –That’s excellent news, sir. It makes me very glad.
    –For the past several months, rumors have been drifting back to us from the garrison at Ultima. Nothing has been confirmed, but according to these stories, Land crossed over the border into the Alien Territories some time after the cholera epidemic ended. It’s a three-week journey from the capital to Ultima. That would mean Land departed just after the outbreak of the scourge. Not dead, then – simply missing.
    –The Alien Territories are off limits. Everyone knows that. The No-Entrance Decrees have been in force for ten years now.
    –Nevertheless, Land is there. If the intelligence reports are correct, he was traveling with an army of more than a hundred men.
    –I don’t understand.
    –We think he’s stirring up discontent among the Primitives, preparing to lead them in an insurrection against the western provinces.
    –That’s impossible.
    –Nothing is impossible, Graf. You of all people should know that.
    –No one believes in the principles of the Confederation more fervently than he does. Ernesto Land is a patriot.
    –Men sometimes change their views.
    –You must be mistaken. An uprising is impossible. Military action would require unity among the Primitives, and that has never happened and never will. They are as various and divided as we are. Their social customs, their languages, and their religious beliefs have kept them at odds for centuries. The Tackamen in the east bury their dead, just as we do. The Gangi in the west put their dead on elevated platforms and leave the corpses to rot in the sun. The