The Last Tale

Actus Tragicus

— J. Chr. de Vries

The Messiah comes when he is no longer needed; he does not come on the last day, but the day after.
— Franz Kafka, Blaue Octavhefte, III

On the last Ash Wednesday of the previous century, I received a visit from an unknown young man who introduced himself as Reid Zieger. He told me that he had gotten my address from the German musicologist and publicist Taunis Haas, whom I knew well. Zieger also had the German nationality and was, at least at that time, living in Nuremberg. Zieger’s story sounded quite unbelievable to me, but out of politeness, also towards Haas, I decided to listen to he had to tell.

His story was as follows: Zieger had been in Geneva on business and had by chance met an old woman who claimed to have been the housekeeper of Jorge Luis Borges, and remained so until his death. She had been present at his deathbed. The next day, when she went back into the house to make preparations for Borges’ funeral, she found the dictaphone on which Borges spoke his texts, turned on next to his bed. This surprised her greatly, as she was convinced that the device had been turned off the previous day, actually for the whole preceding week. She turned off the device and focused on the preparations. At the end of the day, she thought again of the dictaphone. She had handled it several times to type up her employer’s texts; she spoke fluent Spanish. After quite some hesitation, she turned on the device, rewound it, and listened to what was clearly Borges’ voice. The text was a story, the ‘Last Tale’ of the master. Apparently, or seemingly, recorded one day after his death. It is undoubtedly apocryphal, but nevertheless I don’t want to withhold it.

— Bonnemort, March 2, 2022

The Last Tale

I do not know my name, yet I have many names. I lost count. The name Albino was commonly used, it was spoken to me precisely four hundred ninety times. But I was also called ‘the horned one’ (two hundred and seventy-three times), ‘the standard-bearer,’ ‘the whisperer,’ ‘the hermit,’ ‘the winged one’ (only once), ‘the nameless one,’ ‘the seer’ (fourteen times), and ‘the invisible one’ (eleven times); but never ‘the warrior,’ ‘the traveler,’ or ‘the ten bears.’


The name given to me by my mother was bestowed upon me when I did not yet possess the power of language. My mother died before my first birthday. I absorbed her gazes without being able to give them words. I spent most of my life searching for my father, of whom I had no memory. Everything I learned about my parents was based on the stories which were told to me by my guardians and mentors.
 I became obsessed with the stories; I wanted to know all the stories, so I decided to search for the only parent I hoped who might still be alive. Eventually, I believe I found my father in the vast cellars of the Imperial Library, but he did not remember anything about me. He lamented that his stories had been taken from him, his memory was plundered, his recollections turned to smoke, which is why I did not exist in his stories. I wondered if he meant this literally or if he referred to the absence of books; the library was completely empty and abandoned. There were no remnants, loose pages, or covers. Only ashes. There was no sound either.

All stories have already been told countless times. About animals, the Ape, the Bear, and the Coyote; about trees, the Dogwood, the Elm, and the Fir; about Games, Hunters, Illustrators, and Jokes; about Kettles, Leather, and Machines; Noices, Openness, Popstars, Queer People, Riddles, Stupidities, Tables, Universe, Values, and Women; about Xenos, Yin & Yang, Zeno. About the Armored Man; the Soldier who returns home; the Brother who kills his Brother; the Girlfriend who deceives her Girlfriend with her husband; about the Son who kills his Father; the Mother who kills her Children; the Man who vies with his Gods. About Commandments, Prohibitions, Good & Evil; about the Alpha and the Omega, the Aleph and the Zahir. 


I asked the man whom I believed to be my father for his name. He mumbled something incomprehensible, lifted his bowed head for the first time, and looked at me. I saw his blindness. 

‘With the theft of all 343,000 books, the light in my eyes also vanished,’ he said. ‘My name is Hsiang,’ he continued. His voice was hoarse but also crystal clear. I did not recognize that name. His head sank back onto his chest, and he remained silent for many minutes. I decided to wait until he spoke again. I studied his face. He was old, decrepit, and had weathered skin full of wrinkles. The few strands of white hair he had left hung in thin strands down to his shoulders. I looked for signs of recognition, the shape of his face, his nose, ears, and mouth, as far as it was possible in his stooped position. I saw no convincing evidence, but neither the opposite.

‘What is your name, and what is the purpose of your visit?’ he suddenly asked. 

‘I do not know my name, and I suspect you are my father,’ I replied. 

The man seemed to have dozed off; I heard a light snore, his head gently swaying on his chest. Just as I was about to tell him once again what had led me to him, he spoke again: 

‘I do not know your name, and I know nothing of a son either.’ He raised his head again. ‘But nothing is impossible.’ 


I told him about the stories that had been told to me about my past and how they had brought me to him. I said that I hoped to find the all-explaining story: both my name, and my history. 

‘You want to know a history that has not yet been told, the last tale,’ spoke the man whom I hoped was my father. He stood up, walking in small, unsteady circles, and began to speak. Sometimes in clear sentences, but more often in unintelligible or rambling mutterings. From his discourse, I gathered that there are seemingly infinite stories that are ultimately variations of a few archetypes. I had already come to that conclusion myself, but I decided not to point it out to him, hoping that he would eventually say something I did not yet know. During one of his lucid moments, he said that to know the Last Tale, I had to start at the beginning, with the First Tale. ‘Both stories,’ he said, ‘are inseparably connected; one cannot exist without the other.’ Afterward, he spoke again in unintelligible, incoherent fragments.

It seemed to me that he sometimes spoke in other, different languages, perhaps dead languages. I sensed a structure, a grammar, but the words and sentences did not resemble any language I knew. From his discourse, which I understood, I gathered the following: The First Tale is written in the language of the Fourteen Seasons. These seasons should not be thought of in terms of time spans, not as periods; they seemed to be more like experiences, states, but not static. A continuous flow with fourteen perspectives, or even faces, yet simultaneously uninterrupted. The language in which this history was written consisted of all combinations of the alphabet, resulting in an infinite quantity since each letter could be used multiple times. ‘JFILBA’ was a word, but ‘JJFILBA’ was a word as well. And also for instance ‘AABBBFIIJJJJJL’. After the time of the Fourteen Seasons, the world fell into chaos. To bring order, the Gods fundamentally changed the language. The language was delineated into Commandments, Prohibitions, Duties, Rights, Love, Death, Good, and Evil. This is the time of infinitely varying stories, of laughter and tears, of happiness and sadness. It is the time of the withdrawing Gods, because humor is foreign to them. 


When I asked him why the Gods were not able to laugh, something like a smile formed on his face, a compassionate smile. ‘Gods who laugh,’ he said, ‘are Gods who die. Gods are immortal.’ 

‘But Gods are omnipotent; they can do as they please,’ I tried to refute. 

‘That is true,’ he said, ‘but they do not need to do everything within their power. Gods do not desire to die.’

The man, whom I now firmly believed to be my father, had grown tired. He sat back down on the ground, leaning against one of the grand pillars, his head drooping onto his chest as he fell asleep. 

I, too, had apparently dozed off. When I woke up, I had no idea how long we had slept. My father – I decided to consider him as such now – was gone. I went in search of him and found him in what must have once been the grand central hall of the library. He sat on a wooden bench, his hands resting on his knees. I sat down next to him and waited for him to speak. 


‘The First Tale,’ he eventually said, ‘has two possible forms.’ He turned his vacant eyes in my direction. ‘On the one hand, it consists of all combinations of the alphabet, but on the other hand, as the scholars from the South believe, it is a blank book.’ He must have sensed my astonishment, for I had not yet said anything. ‘Yes,’ he said in a tone that sounded surprisingly familiar to me, ‘it is all or nothing.’ 


After that, he spoke about the Last Tale. ‘This story, never told, has no audience. It cannot be told because it is unique to each person. It is the story of the final, tragic act.’ 

‘The story of Death?’ I asked. ‘But there are countless stories about that.’ 

‘No, it is the story of Dying. Dying is something you do alone, and you cannot report on it.’ After a few minutes, he continued, ‘And your name is the same as mine.’

— JFILBA, Genève, June 15, 1986