He has his usual problem. His bathroom is in the hall. The words to this famous melody I sing in my basso profundo. . . . Tannh Leib is carrying a copy of Hustler magazine. His physician has prescribed an annual ejaculation to keep his prostate healthy.
Today is the appointed day.
His mental trajectory is always toward the past, to an earlier reality, or what we suppose is reality, for often it is hard to tell. What he remembers, what he thinks he remembers, what we assume must be true are hard to distinguish. His attempts to stop the Holocaust are easy enough to recognize as fantasy. Yet it's impossible to imagine Leib as simply a liar. We too have a stake in his inventions.