Free Fiasco by Imre Kertész Page A

clear sentence: I had written a novel, and it had been rejected, presumably through ignorance and lack of courage, as well as evident spite and stupidity.
    It may be—indeed, as I now know, it is quite certain—that I made a mistake when I left …
    “Was that the doorbell?”
    The old boy loosened the pliable wax plug in one ear.
    “I already rang once before!” the old boy’s mother complained indignantly as she traversed the east-west axis of the hallway with brisk (and somehow martial) steps which belied her advanced age and, after swerving to avoid the hammered-glass door (which was now, as always, open, in view of the airlessness of the hallway), popped up in front of the filing cabinet (with due regard, naturally, to the previously described surroundings) (which it would therefore be superfluous to describe again here) (so let us merely make it clearthat when we say the old boy’s mother popped up in front of the filing cabinet, this should be taken to mean that although she was, indeed, facing the filing cabinet, she actually popped up in front of the table—or, to be more precise,
the
table, the only real table in the flat) and (exchanging her street glasses for her reading glasses in a lightning-quick movement) was reading.
    The old boy didn’t like it when other people started dipping into his manuscripts.
    “I don’t like it,” he said, “when other people start dipping into my manuscripts.”
    “Why?” the old boy’s mother asked. “Are they secret?”
    “Well as a matter of fact …” the old boy scratched his head.
    “I can see you are busy again with your private affairs,” his mother declared.
    “Yes,” the old boy conceded.
    “Did they reject your novel?” his mother enquired, no doubt more out of stringency than malice.
    “I haven’t even written it yet,” the old boy muttered.
    “But I see here that you wrote a novel and they rejected it!”
    “That was another novel. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in an armchair?” the old boy ventured.
    “And what’s this?” The old boy’s mother picked up from the edge of the grey file the likewise grey (albeit a darker grey) lump of stone that served as a paperweight, so to speak.
    “It’s a lump of stone,” said the old boy.
    “Even I can see that; I’m not senile yet, thank God. But what do you need it for?”
    “I don’t exactly need it, if it comes to that,” the old boy muttered.
    “Well then, what’s it for?”
    “I don’t know,” said the old boy, “It just is.”
    The old boy’s mother was seated in the armchair situated to the north of the tile stove, behind the 1st-class special ply contraption of1st-class sawn hardwood (child’s mini-table) (which in regard to its actual function was more a kind of tiny smoker’s table):
    “There are some things,” she said, “I could never understand with you.”
    “Would you like a coffee?” the old boy ventured.
    “Yes, I would. For instance,” his mother swept a glance around the room, from the bookcase-filing-cabinet centaur (if such a catachresis may be entertained) standing in the southwest corner, which had been created from a bookcase assembled from the base of a former linen drawer, across to the (relatively) modern sofa occupying the northeast corner, “you are capable of giving up every demand you have just to avoid having to work.”
    “But I do work,” the old boy remonstrated (though not with an entirely clear conscience) (since he should have sat down long ago to writing a book now his had become his occupation) (or rather, to be more precise, things had so transpired that that had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation).
    “That’s not what I mean,” said his mother, “But why don’t you find yourself a proper job? You could still easily go on with the writing.”
    “But I’m no good at anything; you forgot to get me trained in some well-paid profession.”
    “You always were the comedian,” his mother