The Naming

story fifty-six · figures 166–168

The story →

THE NAMING · TWENTY-NINE NAMES OFFERED, AND WHAT HAPPENS TO EACH — counted as every personal name the clerk offers · R-73 excluded, the page says it is not a name THE NAMING · TWENTY-NINE NAMES OFFERED, AND WHAT HAPPENS TO EACH counted as every personal name the clerk offers · R-73 excluded, the page says it is not a name the boy Emin → Tomas → ARON and leave him there before the eighth candle the man on the hill flat Yusuf → Ilya → PETAR Ilya is too soft for a man who has changed nothing the mother in the third bed Nadia → Roza → HALIDE Roza is my grandmother · call her the third bed the clerk of effects JOSEF · STAYS the only one who signed his own the man with the chair Marek → Selim → nothing at all goodnight through doors, and no name at all the woman with the ledger DORA · STAYS she is exactly a Dora · leave her the crane man ESEN · STAYS Esen is good the one who carries vinyl Lena → the crate → the fourteenth expected somewhere · AND SHE IS EXPECTED NOWHERE the corrector Klara → Ruth → the ninth along too clean for a woman who marks a stone twice the Secretary CALL HER NOTHING the joke is hers · naming her would tell the room the one who finishes sentences Mira → Anka → withdrawn Anka is a name for a woman who waits the woman with the boxes Nesrin → Dilek → THE SEVENTH STATEMENT she could not read it if I wrote it down the one who put the Thursdays up Branka → Hana → SIXTY-ONE VIEWS the schedule gives the number and not the reason the one on the first Tuesdays MILENA · LEFT STANDING improving all the way down the one at the back of the hall Irma → Katarin → remarks verbatim the only one who asked for something for somebody else the man at the rail R-73 not a name · IT IS WHAT HE ANSWERS TO NOW the widow of the errata EMINE · ENTERED, STRUCK, ENTERED AGAIN three women or one · the file has no field for that the one at the window seat Ferit · STRUCK, STRIKE LEGIBLE no time at all · and nothing else here came easily the two in the queue CALL THEM NOTHING AT ALL they have had enough of being written down the cat NO NAME · FOUR ATTEMPTS the pen goes down every time · nothing to attach to THE ONLY PIECE WHERE THE BOOK’S CENTRAL LAW IS PERFORMED RATHER THAN OBEYED — by a clerk who cannot stop trying, losing live, in real time, and not putting the pen down. THREE NAMES ARE KEPT — Josef, Dora, Esen. FOUR ARE LEFT STANDING — Aron, Petar, Halide, Milena. "THERE ARE MORE OF THEM THAN THERE WERE WHEN I STARTED THIS PAGE AND THE PAGE HAS NOT GOT ANY LONGER."
166 · The Naming
THE NAMING · THE ONE HE PUTS AT THE END — where the ones you cannot do go THE NAMING · THE ONE HE PUTS AT THE END where the ones you cannot do go THE CAT HAS NO NAME I will come back to the cat I am putting the cat at the end where the ones you cannot do go gray and in the market and remembering for nothing and playing back as a patch of clean sound I HAVE TRIED FOUR TIMES AND THE PEN GOES DOWN EVERY TIME THERE IS NOTHING TO ATTACH TO why the naming fails a name attaches a person to a record · SHE HAS NO RECORD TO ATTACH IT TO what the market says she belongs to nobody and is fed by everybody what the recordings do come back as room tone · the city cannot hold a speaker it cannot file and the verification room asks her name too, and persons and machines now answer identically THE LAST LINE OF THE STORY IS ALSO THE REASON THE STORY EXISTS. Every other figure on the page fails to be named · a name would be violence. The cat fails to be named for want of a surface to put one on — which is the only freedom in this city that cannot be revoked. FOUR ATTEMPTS. FOUR TIMES THE PEN GOES DOWN.
167 · The Naming
THE NAMING · FOUR REFUSALS, AND WHO MAKES THEM — the clerk is not the only one declining a name on this page THE NAMING · FOUR REFUSALS, AND WHO MAKES THEM the clerk is not the only one declining a name on this page THE SECRETARY the clerk declines FOR her naming her would tell the room · the joke is hers THE TWO IN THE QUEUE they decline for themselves THEY HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF BEING WRITTEN DOWN R-73 he answers to a ticket that is not a name and IT IS WHAT HE ANSWERS TO NOW · the board has a field for standing up and none for him THE CAT the page itself declines there is nothing to attach to AND FERIT the clerk names a machine — easily — and strikes it and LEAVES THE STRIKE LEGIBLE, which is the Secretary’s own move, used on himself THE PAGE THAT TRIES HARDEST TO NAME PEOPLE IS THE ONE THAT PROVES THE BOOK’S RULE IS NOT A STYLE. A machine takes a name in no time at all. A person takes eleven years and does not get one. And the clerk, noticing that, strikes the machine’s name and leaves the strike where it can be read. NOBODY HAS ASKED HIM FOR A SECOND PAGE.
168 · The Naming

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