Doctor Criminale

Certainly Criminale was power in the land; but which land? Well, no one land in particular, it seemed. He knew everybody, everybody knew him; he was Doctor Criminale. But ask where he came from, who paid him, how he lived so well, which institution he was attached to, and things grew more obscure. He was just that vague and placeless creature, the European intellectual. Take the question of his origins, for instance. Different reference books gave him different dates of birth: 1921, 1926, 1929, depending which you checked. According to one source (The Dictionary of Modern Thought), he came from Lithuania; look at another (Ramparts magazine) and he came from Moldavia. As for his present citizenship, he was Hungarian, German, Austrian, Bulgarian, even American. There were other basic disagreements. For instance, good old Modern Hermeneutics had him down as a hardline Marxist, but Critical Practice described him as a dissident and revisionist who had spent time in prison (but where?). His books appeared in a confusion of places: Budapest, Moscow, Stuttgart, New York. If you found one day he had been writing an article in Novy Mir on socialist realism, you’d also find that in the very same week he’d written an article for the New York Times on nouvelle cuisine. In short, Criminale grew ever more obscure the more you thought you were getting to know him.

When I rang his London publisher, I learned no more. I asked their publicity girl (Fiona, of course) about their world-famous author, and source of many of their profits; she gave me nothing. She described Criminale as an unknown quantity, like Salinger or Pynchon, and quoted an office joke (‘What is the difference between God and Bazlo Criminale?’ ‘God is everywhere, Criminale is everywhere but here’) which did not strike me as fu

According to Professor Codicil, who claimed to have received some assistance from his subject (even though his study was, he said, a critical interpretation), Criminale was born neither in Lithuania nor Moldavia. In fact he was in 1927 in Veliko Turnovo geboren. Some extra research with atlas and gazetteer established what and where Veliko Turnovo was – the ancient capital of Bulgaria, famous for its old university and monasteries, its storks and its frescos, its castle and its ancient Arabesque merchants’ houses. It lay not too far from the River Danube on the old trade routes that had run from East to West and, of course, vice versa, and was an important place of learning. The birthdate given, 1927, was also interesting, because that made Criminale of university age just around the rime the Second World War finished. At that time Bulgaria was, as the saying had it, ‘liberated to the Russians’ by Georgy Dimitrov, whose mausoleum was a place of pilgrimage in Sofia’s main square over the dark Cold War years. (Now, I gather, since the winds of change blew, his resting place has been gutted and is up for commercial development, probably by McDonald’s Hamburgers.) This probably meant that Bulgaria, land of attar of roses, fine frescos and also poisoned umbrellas, was not, at the time, the ideal place for a free and inquiring spirit. At any rate, it seemed that, around the time that Stalin i walked in, Criminale smartly stepped out – though it was not at all clear how far.

Certainly, according to Codicil, over the next years Criminale studiert, a great deal, and none of it at home. He had in Berlin (Philosophie) studiert, though in which Berlin (there were then two, of course) he did not say. He had in Vie

Things, I thought, might look a little clearer when I got to the years of Criminale’s rising fame. Unfortunately, you couldn’t say they did. Criminale was now elected to various academies; he ran a great many congresses, in various fields ranging from world peace to experimental film; he joined the committee of various international writers’ associations linked with ‘progressive’ views. He became a regular trav­eller, came to know Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, met Castro and Madame Mao. Various international prizes came his way – for philosophy, economics, fiction. From time to time, in several different countries, he was offered political posts and even, once, ministerial office; he always refused. Apparently he preferred to concentrate on his articles and books, some of which were refused publication here, but managed to appear there. Codicil’s book, which predated by four years the coming down of the Berlin Wall, still talked about some of his books being held in reserve for ‘better times’. Attacked for his progressive attitudes in the West, he had also fallen foul of various bitter disputes in the Marxist citadel; yet all the while his reputation grew. His lectures drew large crowds, and foreign universities began to summon him. He spoke at Bologna, lectured at Yale, attracted large audiences in Brazil, received an honorary degree in Tokyo. He commented freely on political regimes. He also advised Walter Ulbricht on human rights and Nicolae Ceauseşcu on architecture – two items in his dossier that must have embarrassed him considerably.

So came the years of international fame, when he, and his books, appeared everywhere. His sales were said to rival Lenin’s in Russia, Confucius’s in China, Jacqueline Susa