2666

Like his uncle, Hans Reiter, Klaus Haas appears across several parts of the novel. He is a unifying thread but in a very different way. Whereas the work of Archimboldi and the life of Hans Reiter are generally positive, the existence of Klaus Haas is broadly negative. Though he physically resembles his uncle, he possesses none of his uncle’s artistic sensibilities or emotional sensitivities. Whereas Hans embraces his anonymity, Klaus embraces his notoriety. He calls press conferences to discuss the murders in Santa Teresa; he delights in speaking about and witnessing violence in prison. Whereas Hans craves anonymity to the point that he creates an entirely new identity for himself, Klaus embraces his status as a public figure. He uses his pulpit to level unfounded accusations against the Mexican elite. Since his trial is constantly postponed, his actual guilt is uncertain. He is incarcerated for most of the novel, yet the murders continue. In effect, Klaus’s guilt is irrelevant. As Sergio suggests when leaving a meeting with Klaus, his general aura of evil suggests that he is certainly guilty of something. He has a long history of sex offenses across many countries. As such, Klaus and Hans exist as natural counterpoints to one another. They represent the nuanced complexities of a dichotomy like good and evil. They are public and private, famous and anonymous, guilty and innocent.

Klaus and Hans may be diametrically opposed, but Klaus is as much a product of the old-world evil as his uncle. Hans came into being during the rise to power of the Nazis. He fought for the Nazis, even if he ultimately rejected their ideology. Klaus is born and raised in the postwar world, a society in which the fate of the Nazis has already been determined and German society is relearning itself. Hans does not fit into this rebuilding process. He leaves Germany at the first available opportunity and—in another parallel to the life of his uncle—he loses himself in a new country, losing contact with his old friends and family. In America, Klaus finds a more fitting environment. He becomes an American citizen, bureaucratically and legally aligning himself with the New World. He commits crimes, then crosses the border into Mexico where (at least according to the authorities) he is responsible for many murders. Klaus represents the Hidden Evil Within Society. This evil is not limited to a time, a place, or a single country. Klaus eludes narrative interrogation in the novel; his words are always slippery and artificial, to the point where the reader (like the Mexican authorities) can never be truly sure of his guilt. In this way, Klaus represents the ubiquitous and hidden evil of the world.

Despite his general aura of evil, however, Klaus is responsible for one of the novel’s most positive moments of reconciliation. After a long separation from her son, Lotte learns that he is alive in a Mexican prison. She makes annual trips to Mexico, learning Spanish to better understand her son’s fate. On her travels, she happens to pick up a book by Archimboldi and, as a result, she is reunited with her long-lost brother. Quite accidentally, Klaus’s crimes have caused the reunion of brother and sister. They meet again when they are very old, by which time decades have been spent apart. This fleeting reunion, depicted across a few paragraphs in the closing pages of the novel, is a positive counterpoint to the depiction of violence, war, and suffering. Ironically, the killer Klaus has brought happiness back into his mother’s life. Klaus’s role in the reunion alludes to the general chaotic unpredictability of society, as depicted in the novel. Even from something as destructive and as evil as Klaus, something positive can emerge.

Oscar Fate is one of the few American characters in 2666. More specifically, he is a Black American man. Fate’s identity as a Black man in America informs everything he does. He works for a magazine that is written for Black men in America and, as his editor reminds him, the stories he writes should appeal to Black Americans. Over the course of his part of the novel, Fate’s identity is continually challenged. His story begins with the death of his mother, severing the only apart family tie he has, leaving him with the ghostly memory of his ancestors which gradually fades from relevancy. Next, he interviews someone with a much firmer and much more active racial identity. The interview with Barry Seaman prompts Fate to think about how he sees himself as a Black American man and whether he is any more or less Black than the subjects of his stories. Then, he is asked to temporarily become a sports journalist. In the space of a few days, Fate has his family, racial, and professional identities challenged. He crosses the border into Mexico amid an identity crisis, though still clinging to his identity as a Black American journalist.

In Mexico, Fate finds that he is someone else. In America, he is seen by other people as a Black American. He understands himself in a racial context, to the point where other people’s treatment of him due to his ethnicity informs his behavior and his identity. To Mexicans, however, he is just an American. Though his skin is still Black, a defining element of his identity on the other side of the border, Fate is allowed to simply be an American for the first time. In a different society, he is seen as someone else. He is still an outsider since he is an American in Mexico, but he is not an outsider in his own country. He is not an outsider due to the color of his skin. For Fate, this prompts a confusing disintegration of identity. He asks himself who he really is and what he is really doing, all as he continues to perform the role of sports journalist that he has been assigned. As a Black American man in Mexico, Fate struggles to simply be an American for the first time in his life.

Fate gradually wrestles control of the shifting, unreliable nature of reality in Mexico. Beyond the border, in a world where he does not speak the local language, where his actions are affected by alcohol misuse and the proximity of murder and violence, Fate begins to perform. He is not a sports journalist, but he plays the role. As he begins to question his status as a Black American man, he begins to play the role expected of him. He realizes that many Mexicans’ idea of American culture is informed by movies, particularly Charley Cruz’s library of DVDs and VHS tapes. When he decides to rescue Rosa, Fate embraces the shifting nature of identity in this strange land. He adopts the persona of a Black man, as informed by the movies in Cruz’s collection. He rescues Rosa from the potentially dangerous situation and, after meeting her father, he is entrusted with taking her across the border. Ironically, Fate’s loss of identity leads to the creation of a new identity. He performs the role of a hero, and, through his performance, he turns himself into a heroic figure. Fate’s fate is to illustrate the complicated relationship between reality, identity, and performance, where nothing is quite certain beyond the immediate actions of the present.