Stop that! said the commandant. He turned to the baby-faced guard. Stop him!
The baby-faced guard struggled with me as I beat not only my fists against my forehead, but my head against the wall. Finally, the commissar and the commandant themselves had to help him tie me down again. Only the commissar understood that I had to beat myself. I was so stupid! How could I forget that every truth meant at least two things, that slogans were empty suits draped on the corpse of an idea? The suits depended on how one wore them, and this suit was now worn out. I was mad but not insane, although I was not going to disabuse the commandant. He saw only one meaning in nothing — the negative, the absence, as in there’s nothing there. The positive meaning eluded him, the paradoxical fact that nothing is, indeed, something. Our commandant was a man who didn’t get the joke, and people who do not get the joke are dangerous people indeed. They are the ones who say nothing with great piousness, who ask everyone else to die for nothing, who revere nothing. Such a man could not tolerate someone who laughed at nothing. Satisfied? he asked the commissar, both of them looking down on me, sobbing, weeping, and laughing all at the same time. Now we have to call in the doctor again.
Call him in, then, said the commissar. The hard part’s done.
The doctor moved me back to my old isolation cell, although now the chamber was unlocked and I was not shackled. I was free to go as I pleased but was reluctant to do so, sometimes needing the baby-faced guard to coax me out of the corners. Even on those rare occasions when I emerged voluntarily, it was never into sunlight, but only the night, a conjunctivitis having rendered my eyes sensitive to the solarized world. The doctor prescribed an improved diet, sunlight, and exercise, but all I wanted was to sleep, and when I was not sleeping, I was somnambulent and silent, except for when the commandant came. Is he still not saying anything? the commandant asked whenever he dropped by, to which I said, Nothing, nothing, nothing, a grinning simpleton huddled in the corner. Poor fellow, said the doctor. He is a little, how shall we say, discombobulated after his experiences.
Well, do something about it! cried the commandant.
I’ll do my best, but it’s all in his mind, the doctor said, pointing at my bruised forehead. The doctor was only half right. It was certainly all in my mind, but which one? Eventually, however, the doctor did hit on the treatment that put me on the slow road to recovery, its end the reunification of me with myself. Perhaps, he said one day, sitting on a chair next to me as I huddled in the corner, arms folded and head resting on them, a familiar activity might help you. I peered at him with one eye. Before your examination began, your days were occupied by writing your confession. Your state of mind is such that I don’t think you can write anything now, but perhaps just going through the motions may help. I peered at him with both eyes. From his briefcase, he extracted a thick stack of paper. Does this look familiar? Cautiously, I unfolded my arms and took the stack. I looked at the first page, then the second, and the third, slowly thumbing my way through the numbered sheaf of 295 pages. What do you think that is? said the doctor. My confession, I muttered. Exactly, dear fellow! Very good! Now what I want you to do is to copy this confession. Out came another stack of paper from his briefcase, as well as a handful of pens. Word for word. Can you do that for me?
I nodded slowly. He left me alone with my two stacks of paper, and for a very long time — it must have been hours — I stared at the first blank page, pen in trembling hand. And then I began, my tongue between my lips. At first I could copy only a few words an hour, then a page an hour, and then a few pages an hour. My drool dotted the pages as I saw my entire life unfold over the months it took to copy the confession. Gradually, as my bruised forehead healed, and as I absorbed my own words, I developed a growing sympathy for the man in these pages, the intelligence operative of doubtful intelligence. Was he a fool or too smart for his own good? Had he chosen the right side or the wrong side of history? And were not these the questions we should all ask ourselves? Or was it only me and myself who should be so concerned?
By the time I finished copying my confession, enough of my senses had returned for me to understand that the answers were not to be found in those pages. When the doctor next came to examine me, I asked for a favor. What is it, dear fellow? More paper, Doctor. More paper! I explained that I wanted to write the story of those events that had happened after my confession, in the interminable time of my examination. So he brought me more paper, and I wrote new pages about what had been done to me in the examination room. I felt very sorry for the man with two minds, as would be expected. He had not realized that such a man best belonged in a low-budget movie, a Hollywood film or perhaps a Japanese one about a military-grade science experiment gone terribly awry. How dare a man with two minds think he could represent himself much less anyone else, including his own recalcitrant people? They would never, in the end, be representable at all, regardless of what their representatives claimed. But as the pages mounted, I felt something else that surprised me: sympathy for the man who did those things to me. Would he, my friend, not also be tortured by the things he had done to me? I was certain he would be by the time I finished writing, by the time I concluded with me screaming that one awful word into the bright, shining light. All that remained after the certainty was to ask the doctor to let me see the commissar once more.
That is a very good idea, the doctor said, patting the pages of my manuscript and nodding with satisfaction. You are nearly done, my boy. You are nearly done.
I had not seen the commissar since the examination’s conclusion. He had left me alone to begin my recovery, and I can only think that it was because he, too, was conflicted over what he had done to me, even though what was done to me had to be done, for I had to come to the answer myself. No one could tell me the solution to his riddle, not even him. All he could do was speed up my reeducation through the regrettable method of pain. Having used such a method, he was reluctant to see me again, reasonably expecting my hatred. Meeting him in his quarters for our next and last meeting, I could see that he was uneasy, offering me tea, tapping his fingers on his knees, studying the new pages I had written. What do a torturer and the tortured say to each other after their climax has passed? I did not know, but as I sat watching him from my bamboo chair, still bisected into myself and another, I detected a similar division in him, in the horrible void where a face had been. He was the commissar but he was also Man; he was my interrogator but also my only confidant; he was the fiend who had tortured me but also my friend. Some might say I was seeing things, but the true optical illusion was in seeing others and oneself as undivided and whole, as if being in focus was more real than being out of focus. We thought our reflection in the mirror was who we truly were, when how we saw ourselves and how others saw us was often not the same. Likewise, we often deceived overselves when we thought we saw ourselves most clearly. And how did I know that I was not deluding myself as I heard my friend speak? I do not. I could only try to understand whether he was fooling me as he skipped the pleasantries of inquiring about my dubious health, physical and mental, and announced that Bon and I were leaving both camp and country. I had assumed that I would die here, and the finality of what he was saying startled me. Leave? I said. How?