In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster Read Free Book Online Page A

myself. I didn’t mix with other scavengers, made no effort to become friends with anyone. You need allies, however, especially to protect yourself against the Vultures—scavengers who make their living by stealing from other scavengers. The inspectors turn their backs on this nastiness, concentrating their attention on those who scavenge without a license. For bona fide scavengers, therefore, the job is a free-for-all, with constant attacks and counterattacks, a sense that anything can happen to you at any time. My hauls were filched on the average of about once a week, and it got so that I began to calculate these losses in advance, as though they were a normal part of the work. With friends, I might have been able to avoid some of these raids. But in the long run it did not seem worth it to me. The scavengers were a repulsive bunch—Vultures and non-Vultures alike—and it turned my stomach to listen to their schemes, their boasting, and their lies. The important thing was that I never lost my cart. Those were my early days in the city,and I was still strong enough to hold on to it, still quick enough to dart away from danger whenever I had to.
    Bear with me. I know that I sometimes stray from the point, but unless I write down things as they occur to me, I feel I will lose them for good. My mind is not quite what it used to be. It is slower now, sluggish and less nimble, and to follow even the simplest thought very far exhausts me. This is how it begins, then, in spite of my efforts. The words come only when I think I won’t be able to find them anymore, at the moment I despair of ever bringing them out again. Each day brings the same struggle, the same blankness, the same desire to forget and then not to forget. When it begins, it is never anywhere but here, never anywhere but at this limit that the pencil begins to write. The story starts and stops, goes forward and then loses itself, and between each word, what silences, what words escape and vanish, never to be seen again.
    For a long time I tried not to remember anything. By confining my thoughts to the present, I was better able to manage, better able to avoid the sulks. Memory is the great trap, you see, and I did my best to hold myself back, to make sure my thoughts did not sneak off to the old days. But lately I have been slipping, a little more each day it seems, and now there are times when I will not let go: of my parents, of William, of you. I was such a wild young thing, wasn’t I? I grew up too fast for my own good, and no one could tell me anything I didn’t already know. Now I can think only of how I hurt my parents, and how my mother cried when I told her I was leaving. It wasn’t enoughthat they had already lost William, now they were going to lose me as well. Please—if you see my parents, tell them I’m sorry. I need to know that someone will do that for me, and there’s no one to count on but you.
    Yes, there are many things I’m ashamed of. At times my life seems nothing but a series of regrets, of wrong turnings, of irreversible mistakes. That is the problem when you begin to look back. You see yourself as you were, and you are appalled. But it’s too late for apologies now, I realize that. It’s too late for anything but getting on with it. These are the words, then. Sooner or later, I will try to say everything, and it makes no difference what comes when, whether the first thing is the second thing or the second thing the last. It all swirls around in my head at once, and merely to hold on to a thing long enough to say it is a victory. If this confuses you, I’m sorry. But I don’t have much choice. I have to take it strictly as I can get it.
    I never found William, she continued. Perhaps that goes without saying. I never found him, and I never met anyone who could tell me where he was. Reason tells me he is dead, but I can’t be certain of it. There is no evidence to support even the wildest guess, and until I have some proof, I