Herman Koch - Dear Mr. M

Dear Mr. M,

Id like to start by telling you that Im doing better now. I do so because you probably have no idea that I was ever doing worse. Much worse, in fact, but Ill get to that later on.

In your books you often describe faces, but Id like to challenge you to describe mine. Down here, beside the front door we share, or in the elevator, you nod to me politely, but on the street and at the supermarket, and even just a few days ago, when you and your wife were having dinner at La B., you showed no sign of recognition.

I can imagine that a writers gaze is mostly directed inward, but then you shouldnt try to describe faces in your books. Descriptions of faces are quite obsolete, actually, as are descriptions of landscapes, so it all makes sense as far as that goes. Because you too are quite obsolete, and I mean that not only in terms of age a person can be old but not nearly obsolete but you are both: old and obsolete.

You and your wife had a window table. As usual. I was at the bar also as usual. I had just taken a sip of my beer when your gaze passed over my face, but you didnt recognize me. Then your wife looked in my direction and smiled, and then you leaned over and asked her something, after which you nodded to me at last, in hindsight.

Women are better at faces. Especially mens faces. Women dont have to describe faces, only remember them. They can tell at a glance whether its a strong face or a weak one; whether they, by any stretch of the imagination, would want to carry that faces child inside their body. Women watch over the fitness of the species. Your wife, too, once looked at your face that way and decided that it was strong enough that it posed no risk for the human race.

Your wifes willingness to allow a daughter to grow inside her who had, by all laws of probability, a fifty-percent chance of inheriting your face, is something you should view as a compliment. Perhaps the greatest compliment a woman can give a man.

Yes, Im doing better now. In fact, when I watched you this morning as you helped her into the taxi, I couldnt help smiling. You have a lovely wife. Lovely and young. I attach no value judgment to the difference in your ages. A writer has to have a young and lovely wife. Or perhaps its more like a writer has a right to a lovely, young wife.

A writer doesnt have to do anything, of course. All a writer has to do is write books. But a lovely, young wife can help him do that. Especially when that wife is completely self-effacing; the kind who spreads her wings over his talent like a mother hen and chases away anyone who comes too close to the nest; who tiptoes around the house when hes working in his study and only slides a cup of tea or a plate of chocolates through a crack in the doorway at fixed times; who puts up with half-mumbled replies to her questions at the dinner table; who knows that it might be better not to talk to him at all, not even when they go out to eat at the restaurant around the corner from their house, because his mind, after all, is brimming over with things that she, with her limited body of thought her limited feminine body of thought could never fathom anyway.

This morning I looked down from my balcony at you and your wife, and I couldnt help but think about these things. I examined your movements, how you held open the door of the taxi for her: gallant as always, but also overly deliberate as always, so stiff and wooden, sometimes its as though your own body is struggling against your presence. Anyone can learn the steps, but not everyone can really dance. This morning, the difference in age between you and your wife could have been expressed only in light-years. When shes around, you sometimes remind me of a reproduction of a dark and crackly seventeenth-century painting hung beside a sunny new postcard.

In fact, though, I was looking mostly at your wife. And again I noticed how pretty she is. In her white sneakers, her white T-shirt, and her blue jeans she danced before me the dance that you, at moments like that, barely seem to fathom. I looked at the sunglasses slid up on her hair the hair she had pinned up behind her ears and everything, every movement she made, spoke of her excitement at her coming departure, making her even prettier than usual.

It was as though, in the clothing shed chosen, in everything down to the slightest gesture, she was looking forward to going where she was going. And while I watched her from my balcony I also saw, for a fleeting moment, reflected in your wifes appearance, the glistening sand and the seawater in slow retreat across the shells. The next moment, she disappeared from my field of vision from our field of vision in the back of the taxi as it pulled away.

How long will she be gone? A week? Two weeks? It doesnt matter all that much. You are alone, thats what counts. A week ought to be enough.

Yes, I have certain plans for you, Mr. M. You may think youre alone, but as of today Im here too. In a certain sense, of course, Ive always been here, but now Im really here. Im here, and I wont be going away, not for a while yet.

I wish you a good night your first night alone. Im turning off the lights now, but I remain with you.

I went to the bookstore this morning. Copies are still piled up beside the register, but then you probably know that already. You seem to me like the kind of writer who goes into a bookstore and the first thing he does is look to see how many inches his own work takes up on the shelves. I imagine you might also be the kind whos bold enough to ask the clerk how sales are going. Or have you become more reticent about that in recent years?

In any case, theres still a big pile of them at the front desk. There was even a potential customer who took one and turned it over and over in his hands, as though trying to measure its importance by weight. I had a hard time not saying anything. Put it back, its not worth your time. Or: I highly recommend that one, its a masterpiece.

But I couldnt decide so quickly between such extremes, and so I said nothing at all. It probably had to do with that big pile, which already spoke volumes. Anything piled up high beside the register is, after all, either a masterpiece or anything but there is no middle ground.

While the customer was standing there with your book in his hands, I caught another glimpse of your photo on the back cover. Ive always felt that there is something obscene about that expression you wear as you look out into the world. Its the expression of someone pulling on his swim trunks with unbearable slowness on a busy beach, with no hint of shame, because he doesnt care whether people see him. Youre not looking at the reader, no, youre challenging him to look at you to keep looking at you. Its like one of those contests to see wholl avert their eyes first; a contest the reader always loses.

By the way, I still havent asked how you slept last night. And what you did with that suddenly empty space beside you in bed? Did you stay on your own side, or did you slide over a little more toward the middle?