The Mighty Angel

Chapter 12. All the Washing Machines in the World

THE ETERNALLY POSTPONED notion of repairing my old washing machine or buying a new one eventually perished of its own accord, to a large extent independently of my foibles. In my life I’ve drunk away a vast amount of money, I’ve spent a fortune on vodka, but the reprehensible moment of drinking away a sum set aside for the repair of my washing machine has never occurred. I make this confession not with pride in my heart but with a sense of abasement. For the fact that I never drank away a sum of money set aside for the repair of my washing machine arises from the fact that I never set aside any sum of money for the repair of my washing machine in the first place. Before I ever managed to set aside a particular sum for the repair of the washing machine, I drank it away along with all the other sums of money not yet set aside for any special purpose. I drank away the money before I’d had time to set it aside for something else; therefore I can say, seemingly contradicting myself (yet only seemingly, for in the former case there was only a small quantifier, while in this case there is a large one), I can say then that in fact I did drink away the money for the repair of the washing machine. I drank away the money for a whole series of repairs, I drank away the money for all possible repairs. What am I saying, repairs? I drank away the money for an entire new washing machine, I drank away a whole series of new washing machines, I drank away a thousand new washing machines, I drank away a million new automatic washing machines, I drank away a billion state-of-the-art washing machines. I drank away all the washing machines in the world.

What kind of soul does a man have when he knows he has drunk away all the washing machines in the world? My answer is this: He has a winged soul, and his mind spins like the rotating drum in the final stages of the spin cycle. When you sense upon your heart the burden of a thousand drunk-away washing machines, it is unbearable. But when you lift your tormented gaze and see flocks of white-winged washing machines soaring across the watery heavens like squadrons of papal helicopters, you understand that you have been given more than others. You have been given an uncommon gift, and if you manage to survive, if you do not perish beforehand, you can begin a voyage in search of all the lost washing machines, and even — yes indeed — in search of all lost objects in general.

The gates of worldliness may open wide before you, yet if they do you must pay special attention, you must concentrate hard, because the gates of worldliness may open for good. They will not slam shut behind you, but if you are weak, if your step is unsteady and if sleep is upon you, you will be neither willing nor able to return. Often, after the hundredth drunk-away washing machine, or in the case of frailer individuals even the tenth, one loses for good one’s interest and pleasure in worldly matters. And things of the mind that have been completely freed from the bonds of worldliness are nothing but pure graphomania. Drinking away all the washing machines in the world leads inexorably to a complete neglect of worldliness; in writing, a complete neglect of worldliness leads to graphomania, and so anyone who writes and drinks is in a tough situation. I drank and I did not neglect writing, and now, with a drunkard’s tear in my eye, I am writing about a washing machine that has been neglected through drink. Oh, if I had found within myself not so much a curiosity about the worldly fault in its workings, but if I had simply found a free moment, a moment of free will, then naturally I would have had the appropriate person repair the washing machine. But I found within myself neither the one thing nor the other. Neither our, nor daily, nor bread, nor amen. My first wife eventually got used to the permanently unrepaired washing machine and stopped nagging me, and she left me without nagging. My second wife left before she had gotten used to it and before she started to nag.