I am not a spokesman for anyone else, God knows, I would like just to be a spokesman for myself! To be that, just that: a spokesman for myself, that would already be enough. What did you expect when you asked me those questions? What did you want from me, with your questions? Did you think I could answer you? Did you think I could summon myself to the edge of myself and answer you? But I cannot speak for myself, that’s what I wanted to say. I cannot even speak for myself.
My tongue is too thick, it is too big for my mouth. And there’s my stammer, remember that. I can barely squeeze a word from mouth, and when I speak – whose word is it? When it is spoken, when words are spoken from my mouth, whose are they? For they are not mine. I cannot speak, I know that – and what I say is not speaking. I will not say a word. No words – not one, not two. I am not the spokesman of myself. I speak for no one, and not even myself.
You’d like to ask me questions, I know that. There are questions to extract from me, I know that, too. It’s your job, it’s nothing personal. You bear me no particular grudge. It’s not between you and I, two people, I know that. Is that why you’re so friendly? Is that why it’s all first names and shaking hands? Nothing personal – but still, the questions. Nothing personal, but there are questions to ask, and we might as well get it over with.
I am to be assessed. For how long have I been sick? I can’t remember. For how long have I been claiming them, the benefits? That, too, I can’t remember. If you force me, I will speak. I will say something, but in so doing, I’ve said nothing, and that’s what you have to understand. I cannot speak – understand that. I cannot say a word – can you understand that? Or when I speak, those words are not mine. There is speech, but look at my eyes – look at them, imploring. Eyes which say, ignore what is being said by that, the mouth. Which say: no one can speak for me, not even myself.
I am not my own spokesman, and I will not be my advocate. I am not in my own corner as counsel or advisor. Am I a member of my own prosecution? Not even that. Nor even a case for or against. Because I cannot speak – I cannot say a word for or against. Do you understand that, you who would ask questions of me? Do you understand, interrogator? I know I’m taking too much of your time. I know you have more of us to see, other clients – that’s what they call us now. I know you’ll be gauged according to your success for getting us back to work. No promotions for you, otherwise. And perhaps you’ll not be able to keep your job. Perhaps, one day, you’ll be in the position I occupy, I who cannot speak in my own name.
Deal with me then. Fill out the form. I will give you answers, any answers, but understand they are not my answers. Understand – I do not speak for myself. Everyone speaks, they are always speaking, there is speech everywhere, but I am the one who speaks without speaking. Unless everyone is like me, unless there are no speakers, and none of speak. Unless I am the only one who sees it; I am the one to whom it falls to experience it. I have no words. I speak – but they are not mine, those words. And I have no name, I who have fallen beneath all names.
My body says no. My body refuses. My body’s is the dark word of negation. And what does your body say? In what words does it speak? Does it struggle with you? Does it struggle against you and leap up against you so you know every word you speak is a lie? Does it ever turn upon you and say: ‘I will not’, except without those words, without the ‘I – will – not’?
How old am I? I have no age. Where am I? I am everywhere; my body is joined to the body of the world. Why do they want us to speak? Why is speech demanded of us? Why must accounts be rendered and these great structures impose themselves between us? I want to say to my questioner, you have a body like mine. I want to say, our bodies are joined, do you understand that? I will say, there are no words, and these are not words, only words that undo words. Only anti-words, which uncurl themselves in the ones in your sentences. Only the weight of words, their idiom, as every sentence falls in upon its own heaviness and draws the world into it.
No words, and no silence – not even that. No words, and not even the consolation of silence. Who am I, who speaks? The same no one who is writing now. The no one who, through the mercy of strength, is able for a few moments to write of what he cannot do. Who, strong for a moment, writes words that would undo themselves as they are written. Double negation: this post would be the white snow. This post would be a twig or a wall, obdurate and thing-like, contracting upon itself and taking with it the world, the whole of the world.
They’re going to dock our money, £10 for the first interview we miss and £20 for the second. We’ll be interviewed, each one of us, up against the wall. But why don’t they know – I can barely speak of myself? Why isn’t it clear to them: I am not even my own spokesman? Idiot – that’s the word. Barbarian – that’s the word.
But there are more like me, you should know that. There are others, too, like me – know that. Each of us bears all of the others, know that. Eliminate one and the others will come. Pass us through training, process us and send us back to the world, there are always others to be trained and processed. But that doesn’t bother you, does it? Questioner, interrogator, you know you are not a member of the S.S., but part of a vast, benevolent army. There is love in your eyes; you’re thinking of me – you’re sympathetic. And in my eyes, that give onto nothing in particular? What do you know by them – my eyes?
He needs a job, you tell yourself. He needs to get off the sick, and that first of all. He needs confidence, you say to yourself. He needs to return to the world. But what do you know of my needs? What do you know of the size and the shape of my desire? For it is without contour, my desire, and without shape. We are stretched from horizon to horizon, each of us. Our bodies are taut, and stretched across the horizon. We are each the size of the world. That’s what I want to say, though I can say nothing. That’s what I’d like to say, if I could speak in my name.
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