The last item in J.G. Ballard’s 1990 collection War Fever is a story in the shape of an index, purportedly the index to the unpublished autobiography of one Henry Rhodes Hamilton, an enigmatic Zelig who gallivanted around the 20th century rubbing shoulders with dozens of influential figures:

Harriman, Averell, 432
Harry’s Bar, Venice, 256
Hayworth, Rita, 311
Hemingway, Ernest, first African safari with HRH, 234; at Battle of the Ebro with HRH, 244; introduces HRH to James Joyce, 256; portrays HRH in The Old Man and the Sea, 453
Hiroshima, HRH observes atomic cloud, 258
Hitler, Adolf, invites HRH to Berchtesgaden, 166; divulges Russia invasion plans, 172; impresses HRH, 179; disappoints HRH, 181

What does it add up to? “Is the suppressed autobiography itself a disguised roman à clef, in which the fictional hero exposes the secret identities of his historical contemporaries?” asks Ballard in an editor’s note. “Perhaps the entire compilation is nothing more than a figment of the over-wrought imagination of some deranged lexicographer.” Any clues must be hiding in the piece itself.