Grieving For A Ghost

Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt, German edition

In 2026, the months of February and March had exactly the same dates on exactly the same days: February 28 fell on a Saturday, and so did March 28, with the difference that in March the 29th followed on the 28th. Because of this fact I almost missed the reading that Siri Hustvedt was about to give in Munich in the big aula of Ludwig-Maximilians University, an event put together by Literaturhaus München. I had the wrong date in my calendar, and also a hotel room booked for exactly one month too early. And, what surprised me the most, the book Ms. Hustvedt was supposed to read of had not even come out in the US… would I be able to get a copy signed by her? It was a curious mood that I was in when I finally set out to find my seat in the enormous neoclassical auditorium.

Paul Auster, Hustvedt’s husband, and the topic of her book, was one of the few authors I’ve always come back to during my adult life. His New York Trilogy opened my eyes towards an to me heretofore unknown city, and that right before I happened to move there. His characters, especially those who he named after himself, could be as melancholic as any moody, eye-rolling 15-year-old. At the same time, Auster made it abundantly clear that postmodernism and detective fiction can really be a totally entertaining match, and definitely not only a guilty-pleasure-read for intellectuals.

Siri Hustvedt came on stage with Susanne Becker and Maria Furtwängler who would moderate and read from the recently-published German edition of the book “Ghost Stories”, respectively. Apparently her following in Germany is indeed so sizeable that her work appears in German even ahead of the American release date! I was very surprised about that, and in awe of a market power I had not anticipated. For someone like me who forgoes her mother tongue and intends to continue publishing in English this is definitely something I will keep in the back of my mind.

Part memoir, part diary, and definitely part account of a great love, the book roughly covers the last two years of Paul Auster’s life: his cancer first went into remission and then returned in full force, he published his final book “Baumgartner”, and Siri’s and Paul’s grandson Miles by their daughter Sophie was born. The narrative does not end with Auster’s death on April 30th, 2024, his widow describes the funeral and also the memorial that was held some months later in New York, to celebrate the life of the great author. But mostly she writes about something else that did not survive: the “and”, she calls it, the connection that made up “Paul & Siri” or “Siri & Paul”. She is left alone in their house in Brooklyn, contemplating what it means to be a widow, to mourn, to feel that someone who was always there is now gone, while his memory lingers on.

Paul and Siri were a couple for 43 years, sharing family life as well as their profession as writers. They were also each others first readers, and would make dates to meet in the living room of their house in Brooklyn, to sit together in green chairs, and read aloud their respective texts. They spent their lives together, raised their daughter, and worked in unison. It’s easy to see why Siri calls Paul her “Lebensmensch”, the most important person in her life, the one she shared everything with. During the reading, she used the German expression for the most important person in one’s life, explaining that there is no equivalent in the English language.

I, too, have a Lebensmensch.

David

Our story is not one of a couple, there was never this “and” Siri Hustvedt describes in relation to her marriage, but if there was ever somebody who changed my life, and who I credit with being an inspiration to me both in my thinking and my writing, it is him. David.

I remember the very first time I heard his name. The friends who would eventually introduce us had found out about a roof top pool in the 19th district that we might be able to sneak into. It was a warm night in early June, we were all too shy for skinny dipping, so we jumped into the dark water in our underwear. We swam and dived, careful not to make too much noise in our exhilaration or splash around too vigorously, and dried us up afterwards with one girl’s sweater that we shared for this purpose. Afterwards, we all stood in the breeze along the railing, smoking and looking over the city’s sights that glistened beneath our feet. This was the early 90s.

„You will like him“, a girl said. “Who again?” I had not paid attention to the party she had been describing, and where she and her boyfriend had apparently met somebody they found hilarious. “David. He’s American. He’s… different. And he’s a lot of fun”.

About a week or so later I was walking next to a truck at the Techno Parade (yes, this was the 90s), when my friends from the pool night dragged this boy along. His hair was curly (“like pubic hair”, I would later joke, and he wasn’t offended in the least), his blue eyes a little bulging, general small build. There was a slight resemblance to 80s pop icon Martin Gore, which only added to me liking him instantly. And boy did he have charisma, and when he smiled one could not but smile back.

He must have shaken my hand. Probably asked for a second time how to pronounce my name. This moment was really our beginning.

Siri Hustvedt met her future husband on 23 February 1981, at a poetry reading. “I saw a beautiful man in a black leather jacket,” she writes in Ghost Stories. “My attraction to him felt like a blow to the back of my neck”. Their attraction proved to be mutual, and they ended up spending the night together in her Manhattan apartment, talking almost until the sun came up again.

I don’t remember when David and I met again, but our friendship soared like a whirlwind romance, exactly like Siri’s and Paul’s. It was so clear from the very beginning that we were meant to be close, that there was an invisible bond between us. We both felt that we were different from others, but never really defined what that meant and why we were so sure about it. He once said, “You never judge me”, and this was enough of a reason for him to love me, and have me in his life. Needless to say I loved him, too. During this time in Vienna, we shared everything: friends, crushes, secrets. It was a wild ride, and when I think back to that time it is us in my car, an old Volkswagen Käfer, smoking, driving through the night to yet the next crazy party.

When his visa was up, David had to move back to the US, and ended up finding a job in Boston. I was probably the one who brought him to the airport on his final day in Austria, but I don’t remember a lot - I must have been in tears throughout. Another one of his friends also came along  and I remember this guy brandishing his diplomatic passport, trying to convince the ground personnel that he should be allowed to accompany David right up to the gate. Those were of course the days before 9/11, but still, he was not successful. I turned around and went home to grieve as soon as David had vanished through the sliding doors, on his way to the security check point. How I made the drive home in my blurred, teary-eyed vision is still beyond me.

When Paul Auster was given his terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he began writing letters to Miles, his new-born grandson. He wanted him to have something to remember his “papa” by, an account of how much the little boy was loved, and stories about his family on both sides. Auster suggests that Miles should read these letters when he is between 15 and 18 years - as they are printed in his wife’s book we as readers get to know about what Auster felt important to leave as his legacy already now.

David’s phone calls usually came in the middle of the night (and not only due to the time difference). He liked his job, had found an apartment in a brownstone, and was already gathering people around him: of course, hardly anybody could escape his charm. I filled him in on all the gossip of our circle in Vienna, told him about the classes I was taking at university, and that my dating life had become a bit boring. He kept repeating one question: “When will you visit me?” I had never been to the US, and actually had no intention of ever traveling there, but not seeing him, not speaking with him on a constant basis, like we had before, sharing laughs, it all became pretty unbearable for me.

And then, finally there was a plan: I would come to visit over Labor Day weekend in 1997. I would be flying British Airlines via London, and was actually on the last plane to leave London and travel over the Atlantic without knowledge that Diana, Princess of Wales, had been in a car accident in Paris, and died. In the air, oblivious of the tragedy, I was trying to keep myself from grinning uncontrollably as we sped towards the Eastern Seaboard. And there he was: David was waiting at the airport for me, with flowers, a big hug and that huge smile of his. A whirlwind week of catching up, sightseeing, and (yet again, wild) parties followed. Upon meeting his friends, the topic of the British monarchy was inevitable, andI had to upskill them all in European royal history.

At first, in early 2023, Auster’s doctors had thought there was a chance to treat the cancer: he was given an assortment of pills, and surgery was scheduled. He did radiation and chemotherapy, and waited for the tumor to shrink. His grandson was born in January 2024. Auster’s lungs got infected. The tumor metastasized. Cancer’s a bitch.

Paul Benjamin Auster died on April 30, 2024.

Boston - united again

The years passed, our wild lives mostly settled. David moved to San Francisco, where I visited him once over Halloween, and where memories were made that I still hold deeply in my heart (crossing Golden Gate Bridge in a convertible! Trying my first oyster! Hell Ball! OMG, Hell Ball… ok, more wild parties). Then, we saw less of each other,  hardly in touch over many years. Still thinking about each other though - does that count? He got married, and so did I.  Definitely he received an invitation to the wedding, but he could not make it for some reason or another. There would still be time to catch up at some other possibility, surely we would be together soon. Whenever our schedules allowed, we promised each other.

Then, one very early morning, it was still dark out and the city was quiet, I took the tram to work. I didn‘t do that often because the subway brought me much quicker to my office, but it was more convenient in terms of fewer changes. The tram was mostly empty, I was sitting down in a corer, and pulled out my phone. When I checked my Facebook account I simply was not prepared for what I was reading: his husband announced that David had passed, he was inconsolable, no reason stated.

The rest of the trip on the tram I was in tears. I got to the office distraught, and ran into a empathetic colleague who offered tissues and a hug. My best friend had died. The person who I had for years thought of as my best friend... who I had always hoped to meet again but then never had made any real effort to actually see. We had thought that we would have time! How unthinkable that he was gone. What a waste of the positive energy David was always radiating - I would never bask in his glow anymore, and neither would anybody else.

Siri Hustvedt wrote about her loss, about what it means to be a widow, and how Paul Auster had said, three days before his death and already accepting the inevitable, that he wanted to return as a ghost. She wrote that sometimes she could smell the smoke of his cigar in his study, and that she was sure he (his ghost?) visited her in their bedroom shortly after the funeral. Just a presence, a form of energy. It makes Hustvedt happy to know that he is still looking out for her, caring about her wellbeing, making sure she is ok, even without him.

David is dead now five years. Last fall, I found out about Griefyards, a Viennese initiative, where you could write a letter to a dear person who’s deceased, hand it in, and if you were lucky, your text would be selected by one of their artists, and turned into an artwork of yet another type, eg a painting. All over the city, they had put up mailboxes where letters could be deposited, and then collated, or you could send your words via email. In exhibitions and performances, a space would be created for grief and thus for collective remembrances.

It only took me a split second to decide on the person I was going to write about. My text was finished on the anniversary of his passing, November 26th. As I hit send, tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I used to say to Paul, You’re the heart of my heart,” writes Hustvedt near the close of her book. “He was and he is.” I have nothing to add.