2666

Part 5 of 2666 tells the story of Benno von Archimboldi, the writer sought by the critics in Part 1. Benno von Archimboldi is the pseudonym of Hans Reiter, born in Prussia (modern day Germany) in 1920. Hans’s mother is blind in one eye, and his father has one leg. He is a naturally tall boy, much taller than other children his age. As a young boy, Hans is obsessed with water. He fantasizes about seaweed and diving. On two occasions, he nearly drowns. On the first occasion, a tourist named Vogel saves him from the water. On the second occasion, he is rescued by a group of fishermen. When Hans is 10, his parents have a second child. Hans’s sister is named Lotte. Hans considers Lotte to be “the best thing that [has] ever happened to him” (648). In 1933, as the Nazis take power in Germany, Hans leaves school. He tries to join a trade, but he is not very good at holding onto a job. Eventually, he becomes the servant to a young man named Hugo Halder. Hugo stays often in the large castle near Hans’s parents’ house; Hans’s mother often works in the castle and takes Lotte along with her. Hans helps Hugo steal from his uncle’s castle. Hans is not particularly interested in books, but the literary-minded Hugo encourages him to start reading. On occasions, Hans remembers the visits to the castle of Hugo’s cousin, a young girl. He considers Hans to be his “first friend.”

Hans develops an interest in books, thanks to Hugo, especially Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. They move to the city together when Hugo’s uncle shuts down his estate. Hugo helps Hans to find a job as a clerk in a stationary shop. When Hans’s roommate dies, Hans takes over his roommate’s old job as a watchman. In the city, Hugo and Hans spend time with a Japanese man named Nisa. They go out drinking and cavorting often, immersing themselves in the city’s artistic scene. Some of the artists have strange ideas, which Hans does not understand. War breaks out in 1939. Hans is drafted into the military. On the night before he joins the military, Hugo and Nisa take him to a sex worker. Hans does not sleep with her, but he returns the following night and has sex for the first time. Due to his height, he is an easy target, though he is also intimidating. He comes close to being killed on several occasions but always survives. On one occasion, he is sent with his unit to a castle in Romania. The Baroness von Zumpe—Hugo’s cousin—arrives at the castle with General Entrescu. She remembers Hans as “the long-legged boy who was always underfoot” (679). They talk about philosophy and Dracula. That night, a fellow soldier leads Hans through the secret passages in the castle. From a hidden position, Hans watches the Baroness and the General have sex. He masturbates while watching. When he gets leave from the army, Hans visits his parents. During this trip, he unsuccessfully tries to track down Hugo. Instead, he meets a young girl in the place where he last spoke to Hugo. She talks to him about storms and the Aztecs; Hans swears “by the Aztecs” that he will not forget Ingeborg (699).

When Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in 1941, Hans and his unit are sent to the Eastern Front. He nearly dies on several occasions and receives the Iron Cross medal after he is shot in the throat. He recovers physically, but he cannot speak. Along with other wounded men, he is sent to Kostekino, a village in Russia. The village inhabitants have fled, and Hans discovers the hidden writings of a Jewish man named Boris Abramovich Ansky. Unable to speak and alienated from the rest of his unit, he reads Ansky’s writing obsessively. Ansky is born in 1909 and enlists in the Red Army at the age of 14. He travels and meets a science fiction writer named Efraim Ivanov. In the Soviet Union, Efraim gained some fame after publishing a science fiction novel that was well received, much to his surprise. By the time he meets Ansky, however, he has lost his verve, and his reputation is on the wane. Efraim encourages Ansky to join the Communist Party. He is also sponsored by Margarita Afanasievna, one of Efraim’s former lovers, who warns Ansky that he will need to be tough to survive as a party member.

Ansky spends his life writing, studying, and working with magazines. Efraim publishes a widely praised novel. The following novels, however, are not well received, and Efraim is expelled from the Communist Party. Later, he is arrested. He attends the funeral of the famous writer Gorky, who once praised his novel, but his presence is unwelcome. Efraim rants about “filthy beasts” when he learns that Ansky has had sex with a woman named Nadja Turenieva, who he later finds at the University of Moscow. When Efraim is arrested, he befriends a rat in his prison cell and names it Nikita. He believes that the rat can talk to him. Efraim is killed in prison. Ansky’s writings become “chaotic jottings,” but it is in these writings that Hans learns about the painter Arcimboldo. He often returns to mentioning the painter when he is caught in moments of despair. The notes end abruptly with Ansky’s plans to join the “guerillas.” Hans concludes that the house with the hiding place was built by Ansky’s father as a way for Jewish people to hide for a short amount of time. He believes Ansky hid there. In his nightmares, he fears that he shot Ansky. When Hans is sent back to his unit, he develops a habit of inspecting each dead person. He carries Ansky’s notes with him at all times. During his travels, he finds himself back in Kostekino and stays the night in the farmhouse where Ansky once lived. For the first time in his life, he feels “free.” In his dreams, the Russians are taking over the village. After returning Ansky’s notes to their hiding place, Hans sets off again. He comes across a group of Romanian soldiers who have crucified their general while planning to desert. Hans recognizes the crucified man as General Entrescu. On his return to Germany, Hans surrenders himself to American troops. In the prison camp, he meets a man named Zeller. As the Americans interrogate the prisoners who they suspect of “being war criminals” (750), the worried Zeller tells his story. He was the administrator of a town, and, by bureaucratic mistake, he sent a group of 500 Jewish people who “should have unloaded in Auschwitz” (758). Not knowing what to do with them, he arranged for many of them to be shot. He could not follow through on his desire to kill all the Jews, however, as the work was “too much.” Later, Zeller is found strangled in part of the camp. No one claims responsibility.

After leaving the camp, Hans goes to Cologne. In the city, he works security at a bar and spends most of his time reading and writing. There, he encounters the girl whom he swore on the Aztecs that he would not forget. At first, he does not remember her. Ingeborg Bauer introduces herself, reminding him of his previous promise. She updates him on everything that has happened to her since they last met. Very quickly, she moves into the small apartment in the ruined building where Hans is living. Hans continues to work in the bar. He occasionally has sex with other women, but he begins a sexual relationship with Ingeborg. They spend all the time they can together, enjoying themselves. Hans confesses to Ingeborg that he killed Zeller but insists that he “never killed a woman” (776). He also tells her about an encounter with a fortune teller who suggested that he should change his name and “never return to the scene of the crime” (778). The same old woman also gave him a leather coat which, she claimed, belonged to several famous people. When Ingeborg gets sick, Hans takes her to the doctor. The doctor warns that she may die soon, but he is distracted by the leather coat, and claims to have a very similar one.

Hans dedicates his time to Ingeborg, reading anything he can about possible treatments. When her family comes to visit, Ingeborg insists that she and Hans should continue having sex: She does not care that her mother can hear her. Grete, Ingeborg’s younger sister, is very affectionate toward Hans. She warns Hans about her sister’s past. Eventually, the family departs from Cologne. Ingeborg and Hans are alone together again. When Ingeborg recovers, she works as a seamstress. Hans writes. He rents a typewriter to type up his first novel. While renting the typewriter, he invents a pseudonym. He calls himself Benno von Archimboldi and listens to the rants of the old man who owns the typewriter. As he writes up the novel, he meets people from his recent past. They are still living in dire poverty. When the novel is finished, Hans tries to send it to publishers. He has no success with the first two publishers and, while visiting one publishing house, he is hired for an illegal job. Hans takes the money but, while sharing a drink with the others afterward, he makes an unwelcome comment and is told to leave.

Hans receives positive news from a publishing house in Hamburg. The company is run by Mr. Bubis, an eccentric German Jew who has returned to his home country after the war to revitalize the literary scene. Mr. Bubis sees promise in Hans’s manuscript and, with Han’s acceptance, sends a small advance. Hans visits Mr. Bubis in Hamburg. He refuses to reveal his real name to Mr. Bubis, insisting that he be known only as Benno von Archimboldi for “his safety,” despite the publisher’s insistence that this is an absurd name. During the trip, Hans is introduced to Mrs. Bubis. He is surprised to learn that this is Baroness von Zumpe. They reunite and, during a sexual liaison, Hans tells her about his experiences with General Entrescu. Mr. Bubis is encouraged by his wife to “protect” Archimboldi. Mr. Bubis accepts his wife’s advice. Hans returns to Cologne and continues to write. Each of his novels is published by Mr. Bubis without hesitation. The advances get bigger each time, even though Archimboldi’s novels are not particularly popular. When Hans mentions his desire to own his own typewriter, Mr. Bubis sends him one for free. Archimboldi accompanies Mr. Bubis on a cultural tour of Cologne. They meet a critic named Lothar Junge, who refuses to tell Mr. Bubis whether he actually likes Archimboldi’s work. He believes that Archimboldi does not write like a German or a European. Back in Cologne, Ingeborg develops a pulmonary condition. She does not tell Hans about her issue, but it is revealed when she begins coughing up blood. They travel often in search of a healing climate and, during a trip to Kempten, she wanders off into the mountains. Hans finds her and takes her to the hospital. The owner of the cabin where they are staying, Fritz Leube, visits in hospital. He tells Hans to tell Ingeborg that she was right to suspect him of killing his wife, as the local rumors suggest.

When Ingeborg’s fever clears, they return to Cologne. In the following months, they travel more, and Archimboldi continues to write. Mrs. Bubis meets up with Archimboldi in Italy, where Ingeborg dies. When Mrs. Bubis asks the locals, she is told that the German woman “drowned and her body was never found” (837). From this point on, Archimboldi becomes difficult to contact. He loses touch with most people, only sending intermittent manuscripts to Mr. Bubis, who publishes these novels with no hesitation. The novels become “cult objects, a caprice of university students” (837). When he is concerned about Archimboldi, he sends his wife to check in on the author, but little is known about these encounters. After the publication of a series of novels, often sent from addresses across Italy and Greece, Mr. Bubis dies. Mrs. Bubis takes over the publishing firm, much to everyone’s surprise. She continues to publish Archimboldi’s novels while entrusting the running of the publishing house to professionals. Around this time, Archimboldi purchases a computer and uses the internet to look up people from his past. During a stay in France, a writer encourages him to check into a facility that supposedly caters to artists. Realizing that this is a mental healthcare facility, however, Archimboldi slips away. His only regular point of contact is Mrs. Bubis, who travels across the world on many amorous adventures. They meet for the last time when she is an old woman who talks to him about the Nobel Prize and “vanished writers.”

The narrative focus switches to Lotte, Archimboldi’s younger sister. She has a string of romantic encounters as a young woman before eventually settling down with a man named Werner Haas. Though she turns down his first proposal and briefly dates another man, she eventually marries Werner. They have a baby together—Klaus Haas. During the pregnancy, she tries and fails to locate her long-lost brother. As a child, Klaus is wayward and uninterested in studying. He gets in trouble with the law on several occasions. As a teenager, he decides to travel to America. His letters to his parents become increasingly intermittent until he seems “lost forever.” Eventually, in 1995, Lotte receives a message telling her that Klaus has been arrested in Mexico. By this time, Werner is dead. Lotte has taken over his small business and runs it successfully. She hires a young woman named Ingrid to help her with Spanish and English, then travels to Mexico to help her son. Klaus is very tall and blond, much like his uncle, Hans; he is immediately recognizable as Lotte’s son. His trial is continually delayed, but Lotte returns to Santa Teresa often. When she is back in Germany, she studies Spanish so that, eventually, she no longer requires the services of Ingrid. During one visit in 2001, she purchases a novel by an author named Archimboldi. She immediately recognizes scenes in the novel as “part of her childhood” (887). She tries to contact Archimboldi, eventually reaching out to Mrs. Bubis. Mrs. Bubis remembers Lotte, who accompanied her mother when she “came to work at the house” (889). Archimboldi travels to Germany to visit his sister. Hearing about her son’s problems, he decides to go to Mexico to “take care of it all” (891). He walks through Hamburg before departing Germany, where he sits down and eats a Fürst Pückler ice cream. A man sitting beside him introduces himself, asks about the ice cream, and claims that his forebearer invented the Fürst Pückler ice cream. They discuss the ice cream and the “mysterious legacy” of the multi-talented man before Archimboldi departs.