In Search of Klingsor. Jorge Volpi
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an electron or an entire universe in motion, unwittingly completes what Schrödinger called a “wave packet” released by all objects under observation. When subject and object make contact, what emerges is a jumbled mixture of the two, which then leads us to the none-too-surprising conclusion that, in practice, each mind is a world unto itself.
COROLLARY II
The ramifications of the previous statement must seem as transparent as a drop of morning dew; in fact, it’s the oldest excuse in the book. The truth, it claims, is my truth, and that is that. The quantum wave functions that I complete with my act of observation are unique and immutable—and this is supported by a litany of theories I don’t particularly wish to elaborate on right now (the uncertainty principle, the theory of complementarity, the exclusion principle, among others). In essence, they state that no one has the authority to declare his truth as superior to that of someone else. I am telling you this, I repeat, as a way of laying my cards out on the table. If this comes across as unbearable, deceitful, or even manipulative, please know that it is not my intention but rather the consequence of a physical law I cannot help but obey. As such, I feel no need to apologize for this.
LAW III: All narrators possess a motive for narrating
The problem with axioms is that they always seem so tediously obvious that many people think they could easily be mathematicians themselves. It’s inevitable. But to recapitulate: If we agree with Laws I and II, that all texts must have an author, and that said author possesses a single, exclusive truth, then the next declaration will seem even more tedious. It states that if things do not appear from nowhere, it is because someone has specifically intended for it to be that way. I realize that this axiom does not apply to the world itself—at least, it seems highly unlikely that we will soon understand why someone chose to create the world as we know it—but I am not responsible for the uncertainties that exist outside these pages. We must banish the terrible theological temptation by which literary critics and scientists declare ordinary texts to be modern-day version of the Bible. No author is God, or anything like God—believe me—and no single page comes close to being even the worst imitation of the Tablets of the Law or the Gospel. And obviously, men of flesh and blood have little in common with the men we read of in books. Our metaphorical tendencies can sometimes get us into very big trouble. Here, then, is the real mystery of all mysteries: Unlike what occurs in the natural universe, books are always written with a motive, and these motives can often be quite petty indeed.
COROLLARY III
Don’t assume, however, that it will be so easy to discern my motives. Scientific research, the kind that I performed for years—the kind that you will soon undertake—is much more complicated than baking a cake from an old family recipe. I only wish it were that simple! So don’t get unduly excited: I have no intention of revealing my reasons in one fell swoop. I may be aware of them myself, but even I don’t know if I have fully made sense of them. With a bit of patience, perhaps you will be the ones to disentangle them. Remember what Schrödinger said: For a true act of recognition to occur, an interaction must take place between observer and observed, and now I find myself in the latter (and somewhat less comfortable) category. I hope that you enjoy studying these incidents and hypothesizing upon their possible causes—a task that I have realized so many times in the past, though under very different conditions. In the world of science, this is the key to success. I could make your work easier by saying that I shall present my version of the facts and my conclusions to the world, that I will tell my own, personal truth. But at this stage of my life—I am over eighty—I am still not fully convinced by my own reasons. If you had asked me forty or even twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have wasted a second in subscribing to the above-mentioned theories. No, now it is different: I see how my old, sinister friend lies in wait for me. I see how every breath requires a superhuman effort, and I see how the most trivial of human activities for you—eating, bathing, defecating—have become nothing less than minor miracles for me. And so I don’t quite know if my beliefs have remained the same, either. If you are willing to accept the challenge—how pompous; let’s call it a game instead—you can be the one to decide whether I am right or wrong.
When Lieutenant Francis P. Bacon, former agent of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, and scientific adviser to the U.S. forces stationed in Germany, arrived at the Nuremberg train station at 8 A.M. on October 15, 1946, nobody was there to greet him. Gunther Sadel, officer of the counterintelligence unit attached to Brigadier General Leroy H. Watson, chief of the North American forces, was to have picked up Bacon and taken him to the gallows where the Nazi war criminals were to be executed. But when Bacon alighted from the train, Sadel was nowhere to be found. The train station was virtually empty.
Bacon waited for a few moments but quickly lost patience and asked two military policemen guarding the train depot what was going on. Nobody knew. A sudden silence fell upon them. Aside from a few railway workers—mainly POWs—whose job was to keep the train tracks in working condition, nobody there seemed to move an inch. In the distance, Bacon spotted a couple of officers and, a bit farther on, the railway station manager, but he figured they wouldn’t be much help. His only option was to walk to the Palace of Justice.
Bacon was furious. The autumn wind blasted against his face. The streets remained deserted as ever, as if people were still expecting air raids. Offended and annoyed, Bacon didn’t even bother to gaze at what remained of the city. At one time, it may have been the cradle of the great Meistersänger and, until recently, the proud home of the Nazi headquarters, but the war (and eleven Allied bombing raids) had reduced it to a city in ruins. Little piles of stones now lay where churches once stood; houses and buildings were now nothing more than minor, annoying obstacles in Bacon’s path—all these things well-deserved losses that were hardly worth mourning. Not far off—though it hardly even crossed his mind—was the museum that had once been Germany’s most important, as well as the house where Albrecht Dürer lived until his death in 1528. Now, of course, both were reduced to ashes and rubble.
As far as Bacon saw it, Nuremberg was nothing more than one of the hateful Nazi havens where thousands of young people had flaunted their gray shirts, waved their banners emblazoned with eagles, and brandished their giant torches with pride. There, they had paid homage to Hitler and venerated the swastikas which, just like prehistoric spiders perched upon their little eggs, crawled along the red ribbons that hung down from the public buildings of Germany. Every September, Nuremberg had been host to the Nazi party’s annual festival, and in 1935 the Führer chose this city as the site from which he would enact his anti-Semitic laws. Nuremberg, in addition, was also the repository of the Reichskleinodien and the Reichsheiligtümer, the ancient imperial heirlooms—and symbols of Nazi power—that he had stolen from the Hofburg in Vienna after the annexation of Austria. The celebrated Lance of Longines was among these treasures, all of which eventually became emblems of Aryan authority. As far as Bacon (and the International Military Court) was concerned, tears of sorrow and shame should be shed over the Jews who perished in Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps—not the justified punishment of one of the bastions of the Third Reich.
Bacon was on the verge of turning twenty-seven, but from the moment he arrived in Europe, in February of 1943, he had made a concerted effort to appear older, stronger, and more imposing than he was. He wanted to wipe the slate clean of all the weakness that had tortured him so in the past and which, to some degree, had forced him out of the United States. He could no longer even try to be the same respectable, reasonable, sincere man he had been before. By accepting this mission—and giving up his job as a scientist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton—he could not only exercise his desire for vengeance but also prove to himself that he was now a new man. He was determined to prove that he was on the side of the winners, and so he exhibited not even the slightest morsel of compassion for the defeated.
From a distance,