1948

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Whether or not it happened, one way or another, no memory has a country, no country has a memory. I can remember or invent a memory, and at the same time invent a country or think that in the past it was different. There is no country that can be different if it was first not different.

Most important of all is whether it is true that the confused man at the hospital did actually tell me, from the depths of his bitter weeping and without me asking, that everything in life and perhaps in death too (even though he admitted that he hadn’t yet been there) is based on three fundamentals: vengeance, betrayal, and envy. I asked him what about love, and he replied, Love — only when it’s betrayed or in fun. Love comes after betrayal, but with you it will come beforehand.

I thought I’d write a book quite the reverse of a laudable one and call it “The Funniest Thing that Happened to Me in the War.” In the end I wrote it under this other name, 1948, which isn’t at all funny, because I truly wanted to write about the funniest thing that happened to me in the war.

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