What, by the way, was your fatherland, dear Mr. Jacob G. Brodny? Geographically, in any event, Europe centrale? Am I right? Just like mine, incidentally. One of those countries that were born with the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Trianon and finally Versailles (and so about the same time as me). Back then, in the Käthe-Kollwitz-horror after the first blood-and-filth-and-iron chaos known as a world war, our continent was as fecund in giving birth to new fatherlands as darkest Africa is today.

Incidentally, both of them enjoying American midwifery in their difficult hour. Granted to them out of the loftiest moral principles, of course. Memorializing principles: the American notion of freedom and similar human rights tolerates no empires, hence no colonies either, whether black or white and no matter what continent they’re on. Understandably so. If we are to believe Nagel (and why shouldn’t we? He’s a writer of international renown, a best-selling author, the sincerest bard of German domestic probity, Scherping’s house star, the nail in Schwab’s coffin, and presumably the supplier of some of your fattest commissions)—I say: if we share his opinion, arms should be given only to sovereign states.

Well, in adjusting the demand to this supply, I have stumbled into an embarras du choix (more poetic in German: die Qual der Wahl). For me, there are too many fatherlands, too many for me to opt for any single one.

Lack of character, I know. Like my stance in the war as a sort of draft dodger, not honorably mutilated, like Nagel. But mind you, I thought it gave me my only chance to achieve the dignity of a Nobel Prize (in literature, of course).

For doesn’t this practice of anointing individuals with a knack for writing—systematically selected from just about every one of today’s fatherlands, from Iceland to Ghana—doesn’t it constitute a clear testimonial that each of the chosen nations has attained the cultural level that would permit it to fly national colors in full self-assurance and have an army equipped with automatic weapons? A few of them have even got the prize several times, and this so clearly a result of confusion that one suspects that once everybody had had his turn, they wouldn’t know what to do next. Yet never has the Nobel Prize been awarded to a stateless writer. I thought it was about time. But I had to admit to an error, at least where I was concerned: the prize is never awarded for books that have not been written. Too bad. In certain cases it would come into more deserving hands.

But let us say no more. Nagel will get the prize. Hail to him in victor’s crown! Had Schwab not been cremated, he would be turning over in his casket like Saint Lawrence on the grill.

Incidentally, this brings me to something I should have thought of earlier. Schwab, as Scherping’s editor for so many years, must have crossed paths with you; after all, you’re a great—what am I saying?—the greatest, or anyway the shrewdest of international literary agents. I’d give a lot to know what your meeting was like. As abortive as ours? Odd that he never mentioned it to me (but then, he was so tight-lipped). I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to set down the absurd story of our encounter. With the aim, naturally, of telling the whole world about it.