Five Weeks at Humanitas. Manfred Jurgensen
Threats like that make anyone who’s read Kafka shiver.
As if I needed to be told why they thought I’d suffered a mental breakdown and needed ‘rest’. It had begun so innocently at an end of semester party when almost all colleagues thought my response to a question put by the Rector merely quirky and original. Knowing I was about to retire, he had politely enquired what I intended to do with the rest of my life. My answer couldn’t have been more honest and straightforward: ‘Turn into a book.’ I said it with a smile, anxious to be affable and deferential. It was considered an honour to be invited to a party by the chief executive officer of a university as distinguished as this. Accompanied by polite laughter, a half-serious discussion followed assessing the validity of my metaphorical expression. Was reading, especially among academics, really that personal, devoted and cherished? Wasn’t it rather a matter of profession, rectitude and rules, maintaining distance in the name of objectivity? For subjective reading would surely reinforce bias and be at odds with the very principle of science!
I’d listened to what was being said and knew it was little more than an academic exchange of unrelated meaningless words and concepts. Hamlet was wrong: the rest is not silence but a sanctimonious commentary of linguists, philologists and philosophers reflecting their theories of spontaneity. When I said I wanted to turn into a book I meant it, quite literally and in every other way. What I didn’t say was that this book would logically turn into my life. In other words, I was talking about writing an autobiography.
It took several weeks before my constant references to that unwritten book of my life began to irritate some colleagues. I admit I may have become obsessed with the idea because it had turned into a directional briefing for my future. A couple of colleagues mocked me, calling it structural thinking or a discourse for myself. When in a seminar of comparative cultural studies I was asked to list the literary milestones of 1940, I tersely replied: ‘Page 47’. In a lecture on Romanticism I introduced the concepts of longing and belonging by announcing: ‘Today I want to talk about the unity of separation, the correlatives of borders, the concept of home and self. Pages 89-103.’ At first it merely prompted some disquiet among students, no open revolt. When I noticed their laughter I joined in. But when I continued to quote from my as yet unwritten life the listeners grew restless and unruly. Some sitting in the front row turned around and shouted: ‘What’s he talking about?’ High up from the back rows came the reply, ‘He’s come to the wrong seminar.’ In vain I tried to regain control. After a while everybody was beginning to leave the room.
Questioned by the Dean about the incident, I listened carefully before replying: ‘Page 311, op. cit. All other quotations are the author’s.’ Puzzled, he tried another way to get to the bottom of what had occurred. Had anything happened, he wanted to know. If the recent workload had proved too much for me, an assistant would be available to take over. How was my general health, he enquired. I assured him I was perfectly well. In fact, I couldn’t recall having felt quite as energetic for a very long time. ‘You see, I’m busy turning myself into a book,’ I announced with foolish pride. The Dean gave me a long hard look before terminating the interview. With an uneasy, almost unapologetic smile he declared, ‘Thank you, Professor. That’ll be all for now.’
‘For now?’ I did not realise that, like my own comments, he’d meant it, quite literally. The intention of turning myself into a book was sufficient to have me relieved of all contact with literature, the art of letters held captive by academics in discourse and analysis. Fiction for dissection, writing that could be taught.
Suddenly various statements were attributed to me and reported to university authorities (by whom?). It was alleged I had repeatedly made disturbing remarks such as ‘I don’t open the door, I am the door’, and ‘I don’t use a pencil, I am the pencil’. I can’t recall having said that to them. To appease the university I let myself be examined by medical experts, including a staff psychiatrist who suggested my exotic behaviour was a case of autism, rather than dementia or psychosis. Things came to a head when a Faculty panel was established to interview me. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this,’ a concerned Dean had supposedly advised his colleagues. One outcome of the interview was that by agreeing I was indeed ‘not myself’ I had mocked the committee and shown disrespect to my host university. I had claimed my heavy workload resulted from a division of labour: during lectures I was professor and student, developing my thoughts as I spoke while busily taking notes. Again, I deny ever having expressed anything of the kind, but will admit it is a thought that seems perfectly sound and attractive to me. It made no difference. Discreetly and not so discreetly, everyone around me became convinced I had succumbed to insanity.
The phone is ringing. I’ll never get used to the shock of being caught unawares. It seems so intrusive, having to answer an unknown caller. Why should someone be able to demand my instant attention no matter what? Even my silent number back home fails to protect me from these invaders. There’s no more private life in the world today. And now here at Humanitas, where there’s no one I want to speak to! Haven’t I been taken here to get rest? But although I’ve lifted and replaced the receiver, the wretched thing keeps ringing. Suddenly I realise it’s not the phone but the doorbell. Hurriedly I look at the pages scribbled with illegible letters and lines. Surely I’m not expected to have finished my writing already! I feel ambushed and guilty. I rush to the door, open it and find no one’s there. The ringing still hasn’t stopped. Confused and annoyed I return to the room and discover the intercom.
Ah, you’re still here. It was nothing. A pre-recorded female voice informed me dinner would be served from seven to ten. To underline that this is a carefree kind of place her announcement was accompanied by jolly Alpine folk music.
Well, if you want me to, I can tell you a bit more. I trust you because I know you won’t use whatever I’m saying as evidence against me. The shrinks are convinced I’m mad and would think I’m talking to a ghost. Let them! I’ll just pretend you’re my reader, someone I can talk to on my own. Would you please pretend you’re reading my book? You know the expression: ‘I can read him like an open book.’ Well, I’m open, dear Ghost. To the author the reader’s always a phantom. All writers are looking for a soul mate. Well, then, please be the Ghost of Humanitas!
May I present you with some Strøtanker, a Danish word meaning ‘scattering thoughts’. Perilously close to scatterbrain, I admit. You may think the tales I tell are just wild and fantastic stories that don’t add up, but I promise you they are as true as us sharing this room. Perhaps you will find some of them interesting, even exciting, but in the end still unbelievable. But you see, that’s exactly how my life has been: compelling, dramatic and improbable. Let me begin at the beginning.
Two
Things fall into place, my father used to say. It seemed an evasive remark, an observation implying all will be well, revealing much about his temperament. Claus Jürgensen was not what you might call a decisive man of action. In fact, you could say he spent most of his energies trying hard to avoid confrontations of any kind. And he had the unnerving ability to disappear from time to time.
All was not well when sixty years after my birth I returned to the Flensburg Diaconate Hospital where I was delivered. I had been given permission to check the register of 1940 and immediately noticed that the documentation of my entry into the world had been tampered with. Listed in authoritative old-fashioned Gothic script, the child’s delivery was recorded as having occurred on 25 March, then crossed out and corrected in the same hand to 26 March. In a parallel column the time of birth was initially set down as 11.59 pm before that too was struck out and altered to 00.01 am. I remembered my mother and grandmother telling me I was in fact born on the very stroke of midnight.