The Man Who Didn't Want to Know Anything Anymore
by Peter Bichsel
translated by Travis Johnson
"I don't want to know anything anymore," said the man who didn't want to know anything anymore.
The man who didn't want to know anything anymore said, "I don't want to know anything anymore."
That's easy to say.
That's easy to say.
And right then the phone rang.
And instead of ripping the cord out of the wall (which is what he should have done, because he didn't want to know anything anymore) he picked up the receiver and said his name.
"Hello," said the other person.
And the man also said, "Hello."
"The weather's nice today," said the other person.
And the man didn't say, "I don't want to know that," but said, "Indeed, the weather is very nice today."
And then the other person said some more things.
And then the man said some more things. And then he put the phone back down, and he was very upset, because now he knew that the weather was nice.
And at this point he ripped the cord out of the wall and shouted, "I don't want to know that, and I want to forget it!"
That's easy to say.
That's easy to say.
For the sun was shining through the window, and when the sun shines through the window, you know that the weather is nice.
The man closed the shutters, but then the sun shone through the cracks.
The man got paper and sealed up the windowpanes and sat in darkness.
And so he sat until his wife came and saw the sealed window and was taken aback.
She asked, "What's this supposed to mean?"
"That's supposed to block the sun," said the man.
"Then you won't have any light," said the wife.
"That is a disadvantage," said the man, "but it's better that way, because if I don't have any sun, I won't have any light, but at least I won't know that the weather is nice."
"What do you have against nice weather?" said the wife, "Nice weather makes you happy."
"I have nothing against nice weather," said the man, "I have nothing against any kind of weather at all. I just don't want to know how it is."
"Then at least turn the light on," said the wife, and she tried to turn it on, but the man ripped the lamp from the ceiling and said, "I also don't want to know that. I don't know want to know that you can turn on the light."
Then his wife started crying.
And the man said, "I basically don't want to know anything at all anymore."
And because the wife couldn't understand this, she stopped crying and left her husband in the darkness.
And there he stayed for a very long time.
And the people who came to visit asked the wife about her husband, and the wife explained to them, "The way it is, basically, is he basically sits in darkness and basically doesn't want to know anything anymore."
"What does he not want to know?" asked the people, and the wife said:
"Nothing, he wants to know nothing at all anymore.
"He basically doesn't want to know what he sees - namely, how the weather is.
"He basically doesn't want to know what he hears - namely, what people are saying.
"And he basically doesn't want to know what he knows - namely, how you turn a light on.
"So that's the way it is, basically," said the wife.
"Ah, so that's the way it is!" said the people, and they didn't come to visit anymore.
And the man sat in darkness.
And his wife brought him food.
And she asked, "What do you not know anymore?"
And he said, "I still know everything," and he was very sad, because he still knew everything.
Then his wife tried to cheer him up and said, "But you don't know how the weather is."
"I don't know how it is," said the man, "but I continue to know how it can be. I still remember rainy days, and I remember sunny days."
"You'll forget it," said the wife.
And the man said:
"That's easy to say.
"That's easy to say."
And he stayed in the darkness, and his wife brought him food every day, and the man looked at the plate and said, "I know that those are potatoes, I know that that's meat, and I recognize the cauliflower; and it's no use, I will always know everything. And I know every word that I say."
And the next time, when his wife asked him, "What do you still know?" he responded, "I know much more than before. I know not just what nice weather and bad weather are like, I now know what it's like to have no weather. And I know that when it's very dark, it's still not dark enough."
"But there are things that you don't know," said his wife and attempted to leave, and as he held her back she said, "You don't know how to say 'nice weather' in Chinese," and she left and closed the door behind her.
At this point the man who didn't want to know anything anymore began to think. He really didn't know any Chinese, and it wasn't any use to say, "I also don't want to know that," because he already did not know it.
"I first need to know what I don't want to know!" shouted the man and ripped the window open and opened the shutters. On the other side of the window it was raining, and he looked at the rain.
Then he went into the city in order to buy books about Chinese, and he came back and sat for weeks behind these books and drew Chinese characters on paper.
And when people came to visit and asked the wife about her husband, she said, "The way it is, basically, is that he's basically learning Chinese, so that's the way it is, basically."
And the people didn't come to visit anymore.
However, it takes months and years in order to know Chinese, and when he finally knew it, he said:
"But I still don't know enough.
"I must know everything. Then I can actually say that I don't want to know everything anymore.
"I must know how wine tastes, how the bad tastes and how the good tastes.
"And when I eat potatoes, I must know how they are planted.
"I must know what the moon looks like, because though I see it, I am far from knowing what it looks like, and I must know how it can be reached.
"And I need to know the names of the animals and what they look like and what they do and where they live."
And he bought himself a book about rabbits and a book about chickens and a book about animals of the forest and one about insects.
And then he bought a book about the rhinoceros.
And he liked the rhinoceros.
He went to the zoo and found it there. It stood in a large enclosure, not moving.
And the man saw how the rhinoceros tried to think and tried to know something, and the man saw how much this troubled the rhinoceros.
And every time a thought appeared, it started running for joy, turning two, three laps in the enclosure, thus forgetting the thought. Then it stood still for a long time - one hour, two hours - and when a thought occurred to it again, it started running again.
And because it always started running a little bit too soon, a thought never truly appeared.
"I would like to be a rhinoceros," said the man, "but it's too late for that."
Then he went back home and thought about his rhinoceros.
And he could speak of nothing else.
"My rhinoceros," he said, "thinks too slow and starts running too soon, and that's the way it should be." And with that, he forgot all the things he wanted to know in order not to know them anymore.
And he lived his life like he had before.
Except now he knew Chinese.
