As she opened up the box and started searching, Perlmann leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded. She’ll never find out.
‘I don’t understand this,’ she murmured, sat down and went through the disks again, slowly, one at a time. ‘It was in here, and now it’s gone.’ She looked through everything on the desk, smiling at him awkwardly from time to time. ‘I’m not usually as scattered as this.’ Distracted and incredulous, she went through the drawers, and you could tell by the wrinkles on her nose that she was battling against irritation with herself.
Suddenly, she made a dismissive gesture. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll just copy both texts for you quickly again.’ She turned on the computer and put a new disk in the drive.
At that moment Perlmann heard Leskov’s voice behind him. ‘Are we starting on time?’ He turned round. Leskov was wearing his bilious green shirt with a brown tie and a grey waistcoat stretched over his belly.
‘Ecco!’ Maria was saying, ‘so first we’ve got the text about memory
. . . what abbreviation did I give it . . . oh, yes, that’s it.’
He doesn’t understand Italian. The sound of copying began. Perlmann looked at his watch for an unnecessarily long time. ‘Yes, we’ll have to be there in a minute,’ he said.
Leskov walked up to Maria and held out his hand.
‘Un momento,’ she smiled. ‘Now the other one. That was . . . yes, just Mestre.’ Her fingers flew over the keys. ‘Ecco!’ The sound again. Now she shook hands with Leskov, who was looking at the screen. ‘Good morning,’ she said in English.
‘Incredible how little time it takes,’ Leskov said raptly. Then he showed Maria the stack of copies that he was carrying under his arm. ‘The text from yesterday. Thank you very much, once again.’
As Leskov was leaving, Maria took the disk out of the drive and stuck a label on it.
‘Erm . . . you don’t need to do that,’ Perlmann said hastily as she reached for her pen. He slipped the disk into his jacket pocket. ‘Now you can delete the texts.’ His hoarseness and the quiver in his voice made it, he thought, the caricature of a casual remark.
‘I will at some point,’ she said and turned off the computer. ‘But there’s no rush. The computer has a huge hard drive!’ She got up and looked down at her folded hands. ‘You know, I hate erasing documents that I’ve typed up. All that work, and then one click of the keys – and poof!’ She threw her hands in the air and looked at him with a shy smile that he had never seen before. ‘I know it doesn’t make any sense really, because nothing happens to the documents in there once the people have gone . . . It’s just how I am.’
Perlmann nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and tapped his jacket pocket.
Leskov had already distributed his handwritten submission, and was now sitting at the front moving his papers back and forth. He gripped his pipe bowl with both hands as he began to speak. He had already talked about the mishap with his text, he said. His tone revealed the fact that he had firmly resolved not to start talking about it again. But then, from one second to the next, his facial expression went blank, he rubbed his pipe absently with his index finger, and you could actually feel him being sucked into the pool of his attempts at remembering.
As he had done so often in this room, Perlmann hid his face behind his clasped hands as Leskov told parts of his story again. Quickly, and even though he didn’t try fully to understand the reasons why, Perlmann’s sense of guilt turned to fury: it had been a crazy, unforgivable act of recklessness to take such an important text, a text on which Leskov’s advancement depended, on a journey without making a copy beforehand! How could he do such a thing?
Even when Leskov was already some way into his lecture, Perlmann was still quarrelling with him. Until he suddenly stopped abruptly: What would have happened if he had told me about such a copy just before the tunnel? He took his hands from his face and tried to listen.
The others, with their sleepy faces, weren’t taking the Russian seriously. The contrast between the tie cutting into Leskov’s neck and Adrian von Levetzov’s unaccustomedly open collar was so vivid that Perlmann succumbed to fury once more. But this time it was a fury on behalf of Leskov, even going so far as to defend that horrible green shirt. Millar, who had never appeared in the veranda without his blazer, was wearing a windbreaker, and there was a camera on the table in front of him. And Evelyn Mistral, who had always listened to the others with her pen at the ready, was drawing circles with her folded glasses on her unopened pad. The only curious face belonged to Giorgio Silvestri.
In the discussion, Leskov was spared at first, and a patronizing benevolence was apparent. But by now Leskov had shed his self-consciousness, and surprised everyone with his doggedness. He stood by what he had said, and to Perlmann’s alarm he quickly went on the attack. There was nothing now of the anxiety with which he had sat facing Perlmann in his room the previous evening, like a student before his first presentation. Leskov’s attacks, in spite of their factual harshness, were prevented from being insulting or wounding, largely because his flawed English had a unique charm. Many of his turns of phrase, which weren’t quite accurate, had an involuntary comedy about them, which he only noticed when he saw himself reflected in the faces of the others. Then he laughed loudest of all. The victims of his attacks were often uncertain: had he meant it seriously? Or did he perhaps not know exactly what he had just said? Above all Achim Ruge, who seemed to have no sense of humor at all today, seemed bothered by this uncertainty, and when he took out a pack of aspirin, Laura Sand burst out laughing.
Leskov noticed the hesitancy on the part of the others more and more often, and more and more quickly. Then he repeated his reservation in different words, and in most cases the variation in expression showed that he actually had meant exactly what he had said. After some time the doubts of the others fled. His initial phrasing was taken seriously and the fact that linguistic expression as a theme in its own right had disappeared made the discussion more tart and direct. Evelyn Mistral was writing now, and Millar hung his camera over the back of his chair. The sickly sweet tobacco smell filled the whole veranda. Von Levetzov opened a window.
He, Philipp Perlmann, had been prepared, in cold blood, to murder that person up there at the front, who was now, brazenly and without the slightest vanity, keeping to the point. As he scribbled on the back of Leskov’s submission by way of self-disguise, Perlmann desperately sought a posture – an internal maneuver – that might save him from being totally suffocated by the feelings of shame and guilt that engulfed everything else. He tried to see Leskov only externally, as just a body, so to speak, and to concentrate on the things that repelled him: the sweat on his bald head, the bulges of his bull’s neck, his sausage fingers. It was a cheap, vulgar trick, and afterwards Perlmann’s shame was all the greater for it.
He, too, had to say something. And he couldn’t wait much longer. He shivered. The draught from the open window was suddenly icy. An athlete, he thought, must feel rather like that at his first competition after an injury. Over the bay the sun seemed to be falling against the low, milky cloud. The morning light grew softer. John Smith stood irresolutely at the edge of the pool. Millar pulled a mocking face at the sight of him.
What had happened in the empty dining room had left behind a sensation of something crucial and definitive; the impression of a release of tension. The feeling of liberation that he had longed for, however, had not arrived. Perhaps it was only a matter of time. His decision was only about an hour old, after all. But, basically, Perlmann knew better. It was quite different from the time when, coming out of the director’s office, he had stepped into the street outside the Conservatoire. In spite of the rain he had walked through the city for a long time, without an umbrella, his briefcase full of the things from his emptied drawer. Then he had driven to the sea. That time the defining feeling had been one of great liberation. He knew that behind it, still temporarily concealed, there lurked other feelings, more complicated and less ple
asant. But for the moment he enjoyed being released from the iron discipline of practising. It was a relief that his battle with self-doubt had come to an end, and at the age of just twenty-one he felt incredibly grown up. Admittedly, a feeling of emptiness had set in soon afterwards, after getting up he didn’t know quite what to do with all the time ahead of him, and was glad that his term at Hamburg University would soon be beginning. But he was left with a mood of liberating insight, of finishing one thing and emerging into something new. Now, a good thirty years later, it was also an insight that guided him. At any rate he hoped so. But it was embedded in a different, darker experience: in alienation, weariness and guilt. The only thing missing was anxiety. He would find something. Something or other. Kirsten is taken care of. Perlmann was amazed that there was no anxiety. He barely dared to trust that perception. Something had changed within him. A development had been set in motion. All of a sudden he felt light, almost cheerful.
There was a moment’s silence. Perlmann gave a start. ‘So that’s my train of thought,’ said Leskov and reached for another pipe.
When Perlmann took the floor he had no idea what he was going to say. He had been far too preoccupied with himself to listen to Leskov elucidating his paper again. Just to have something to talk about, he started by explaining how he had worked out Leskov’s train of thought over all. They listened to him with emphatically benevolent attention. Their determination not to condemn him for Tuesday, and to go on taking him seriously in spite of everything, to be scrupulously fair – he thought he could almost physically hear it, as a particularly intense kind of silence that fell when he started speaking. He deliberately chose sober, plain phrases, and used components of the academic rhetoric that he despised. Just to show that he could do that, too. At first he gave a start when he noticed that he was moving through his translation, section by section. He came close to breaking off and simply falling silent. But he was no longer in control. The text, which he knew almost off by heart from the effort of translating it twice, pulled him along with it and, all of a sudden, he realized that he was enjoying the danger like a gambler. His presentation, which had already extended far beyond the length of a contribution to a discussion, became ever more sophisticated, fluent and engaged. He closed gaps in Leskov’s train of thought, produced additional references, identified possible misunderstandings and swept them aside. Evelyn Mistral’s feet played with her red shoes as she wrote down what he said. Laura Sand slowly rubbed her forehead. Ruge and Millar picked up their pens almost instantaneously. I’m rehabilitated. Thanks to Leskov’s text.
It would have appeared unnatural – revealing, in fact – if he had not looked several times in Leskov’s direction. He helped himself by staring at the ridiculous tassels fixed to the wall, which lay at eye level. As he did so, the image of Kirsten appeared in front of him, tugging on the tassels and laughing at the clouds of dust. He started to falter and only found his thread after he had closed his eyes with a grimace and opened them again, which must have looked to the others like an epileptic twitch. Sometimes, when he couldn’t do anything else, he did look at Leskov, but to a certain extent removed himself from his gaze and soon turned his head away again. Only after Perlmann had finished did he turn to face him and look at him quizzically.
All the while, Leskov had sat leaning back in the armchair, his massive thighs crossed. At regular intervals, little clouds of smoke had escaped from the corners of his mouth. Now, when he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, his face bore an expression that alternated between joy and disbelief. He thanked Perlmann extravagantly for his summary. It was more or less precisely – no, precisely – the way his ideas had originally developed. He paused, looked thoughtfully at Perlmann, and then let his eye linger on the table for a moment as he tamped down the tobacco with his thumb. He’s sure I’ve read the text. Completely sure. But he will never be able to prove it. Meanwhile, of course, his considerations had developed further, he said and pointed to his paper. And he ran through the new points once again, checking that Perlmann, who was taking notes, could keep up with him.
As he drew a thick line under his earlier scribbles, Perlmann started thinking. He was working. It was as if something had just come crashing in; something that had been left unused for a long time and had, in its uselessness, created nothing but friction. He hadn’t been so alert for ages. He and Leskov were the only people in the room. He asked questions, recapitulated, suggested additions, to test his understanding. From the corner of his eye he saw writing hands and surprised, curious faces. They hadn’t seen him like this before. He enjoyed his concentration, his synoptic view and his presence of mind, and every now and again, when he was able to pay attention to himself because Leskov was speaking, Perlmann thought he sensed that now, slowly and inconspicuously, an inner liberation was starting to gleam through, and that his new alertness, so unlike Monday night’s, wasn’t overwrought in the slightest and was connected to that morning’s decision.
And then, when Leskov’s new train of thought was quite clear to him, he started defending the earlier Leskov against the later one. It could have been a game, and at first he suspected himself of playing games, as if he had taken leave of his senses. But soon he worked out that he actually believed what he was defending. In which case there would, in fact, have been no plagiarism. He started getting carried away by his own words. Leskov smiled to himself like someone who is only too familiar with these reflections. From time to time he hesitated, frowned, took his pipe out of his mouth and wrote something down. Evelyn Mistral’s face revealed how pleased she was that Perlmann had obviously recovered. She nodded often, and for the first time Perlmann ceased to be afraid of her glasses.
Once when Leskov said something to defend his new thought, Perlmann forgot himself. ‘But here your earlier argument is much more convincing!’ he explained.
Adrian von Levetzov pushed his glasses back along his nose with his index finger and gave him a questioning look. At first Leskov smiled understandingly, before he suddenly jerked his head and looked at him with his eyes narrowed. He meant the argument they had discussed in St Petersburg, Perlmann said after a second of terror, and assumed an expression that felt opaque and impregnable. For a while Leskov stared, blinking, into the void. Then he started nodding. His face bore a look of astonishment. Never before had anyone remembered something he had said after such a long time. His thought had never been so important to anyone. He almost seemed to be embarrassed in front of the others. Perlmann looked for signs of suspicion. It was impossible to decide whether something was shimmering there, or whether it was only incredulous astonishment that gave Leskov’s face that expression.
Having grown impatient, the others began to express their doubts about Leskov’s method. Perlmann thought that Leskov didn’t put up a good defense on this point. For the first time he became aware that during the weeks that he had spent translating, he had anticipated all of these reservations and even a large number of others, and come up with possible defenses for them. Which means that I have been working the whole time. Then I’m still on top of things after all. He intervened in the discussion. As he did so he argued with a calm lack of agitation, and at one point he even managed an ironic remark. And then, as he coolly – one might even have said icily – fired off a series of rhetorical questions, looking at all the others in turn, the whole liberating effect of his decision finally unfolded. It happened with the momentum of a physically perceptible thrust. Last of all he looked at Silvestri. The unshaven Italian responded with an expression of clinical curiosity. That expression, Perlmann thought, was the only thing he didn’t like about the man.
One thing he hadn’t touched upon, said Leskov, was the idea that one can appropriate one’s past through narrative memory. For someone like him – who liked to stress the inventing, creating character of memory – that was, of course, a problematic thought. And there wasn’t time for more than a hint in that direction. He cast a glance at Perlmann: ‘Above all, one m
ust clearly understand that the narrating self is none other than the narrated stories. Apart from the stories there is nothing. Or rather, no one.’ He smiled. ‘Most people find that a shocking assertion. I’ve never understood why. I find it quite pleasant that that’s how it is. Somehow . . . liberating.’
‘One question, Vassily,’ said Millar. ‘Do you really mean creating and inventing when you talk about remembering? I assume you mean creative and inventive. I could go along with that.’
Leskov looked over at Perlmann. ‘What would be the difference in German?’
‘Erschaffend and erdichtend as opposed to schöpferisch and erfinderisch,’ said Perlmann.
Leskov smiled. ‘I see. No, Brian, I’m afraid I mean the former.’
Millar looked at his watch. Ruge gathered his papers together and started playing with his pencil. But Laura Sand had another question. Did he mean in the end that that which we take to be an actually experienced past is merely an invention?
Leskov pursed his lips and nodded, his eyes laughing. One of the subheadings of his new text was: Neizbezhno vydumannoe proshloe, the inevitably invented past, he said.
‘One moment.’ Ruge jutted his bottom lip and leaned far over the table on both elbows. ‘In that case is there such a thing as a true story about the experienced past?’
Silvestri audibly inhaled his smoke. Laura Sand playfully pulled a strand of hair over her face. You could see that Leskov would have loved to capture this moment for ever. Never, it appeared, had this man enjoyed a moment so much. Perlmann wouldn’t have thought him capable of that face. It was the unbuttoned face of someone who has shed all anxiety and is now entirely at home with himself. Perlmann liked it.
‘No, there is no such thing as a true story about the experienced past,’ said Leskov with the stem of his pipe to his lips. ‘Of course not. Klim Samgin.’ His grey eyes were very bright and very clear, and their challenge consisted entirely in that brightness and clarity.
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