Shhh

by Raymond Federman

  33. Describe how one day my father packed his little Polish suitcase and said he was going to Spain to fight with the republicans against Franco, and when my mother started crying and screaming my father screamed even louder than her, and how we the children were so scared because they were screaming so loud, we hid in the kitchen, and how when my aunt Marie heard the screaming she came up to our apartment to see what was going on, and when my mother explained while still sobbing that my father wanted to go to Spain to fight against Franco, my aunt Marie started screaming at my father that he was a salopard, that he had no right to abandon his wife and children, that he was a stupid Communist, and that he would die before reaching Spain because of his tuberculosis, and how my father threw his little Polish suitcase against the wall and walked out of our apartment slamming the door and cursing aunt Marie, and we even heard him arguing with my uncle Leon in the staircase, and how my father finally came home three days later, and nobody ever talked about that scene again.

  Well, good enough. I’ll stop this list here. I’m sure there’ll be other scenes to describe. But perhaps I’ve already said enough about some of these, I won’t have to say more.

  Federman, that would be a good place for you to tell the story of the savings account booklet.

  Yes, why not, even though the funny part happened after my childhood.

  At the end of each school year prizes were distributed. I don’t recall how old I was, but one year I won the first prize. I don’t know if it was because of the good work I had done or if it was just for my good behavior. In class, I always conducted myself well. I didn’t talk with the other boys, I listened to the teacher attentively when she gave us dictations. I always turned my homework in on time. And above all I learned by heart all the poems we had to recite in class. I loved poetry.

  I still remember some of these poems I had to memorize in school. Sometimes I recite to myself these crumbs of poetry.

  There was one poem that I particularly liked, and that I still recite sometimes. Well, the few lines that I remember. It’s a poem by Victor Hugo called “Oceano Nox.”

  I liked the title even though I didn’t know what it meant before the teacher explained it to the class.

  Here are some of the lines I remember. I quote them in French since I memorized them in French.

  Oh! Combien de marins, combien capitaines

  Qui sont partis joyeux pour des courses lointaines,

  Dans ce morne horizon se sont évanouis!

  Combien ont disparu, dure et triste fortune!

  Dans une mer sans fond, par une nuit sans lune,

  Sous l’aveugle océan à jamais enfouis!

  I suppose I should attempt to translate that for those readers who may not know French. But I won’t bother with the rhymes.

  Oh, how many sailors, how many captains

  Who left joyfully for far away places

  Have vanished beyond the bleak horizon!

  How many have disappeared, hard and sad destiny,

  In a bottomless sea, during a moonless night

  Buried forever under the blind ocean

  That’s the best I can do for now. Ah, Victor Hugo, hélas!

  I have forgotten the rest of the poem, except for two more lines.

  On s’entretient de vous parfois dans les veillées,

  Tandis que vous dormez dans les goémons verts!

  I loved that word goémons, even though I never knew what a goémon was. In fact, I had to look it up in my French-English dictionary in order to be able to translate it.

  Sometimes during evening gatherings we speak of you

  While you are asleep amongst the green seaweed.

  That’s good enough.

  Back then, as a boy, I wanted to be a sailor who would sail joyfully to far away places. A deck-boy on a big ship. Perhaps even on a pirate ship.

  To fall asleep amidst the green seaweeds.

  Here I am, again entangled in a dreamy digression.

  I was saying in school I always did my work well. Perhaps I was not as dumb as I was made to believe, even if my uncle Leon and my cousin Salomon always called me petit con because I never had much to say.

  Often at the end of the school week I would come home with bons points. In my school you would get bons points for good behavior. They looked like little stickers.

  They had no value, except that they made my mother happy when I brought them home. And me, I was proud to get these bons points. I kept them in a small box.

  As I said, it was probably more for good behavior than for my good grades that I was awarded the first prize that year. Good behavior in my school counted more than good work.

  In any case, the day of la remise des prix my mother was very proud of me. She came to the ceremony with my two sisters. My father was not there.

  When one of the teachers called my name I had to get my prize from the principal. I was very nervous and all flushed. The principal was seated behind a table on the stage of the auditorium with all the prizes in front of him. Seated next to him there was a man from La Caisse d’Éparge de Montrouge. He was wearing a black suit and a bow tie. In front of him, on the table, there was a big green register in which he asked me to sign my name.

  I carefully signed, making beautiful curls to the R of Raymond and the F of Federman, the way I had learned to do in class when we wrote compositions. And I was very careful not to make ink spots while writing my name because I was so nervous. In those days we still wrote with a porteplume that we dipped into an ink well.

  After that the principal shook my hand and congratulated me as he handed me a savings account booklet and a beautiful book bound in leather with the title on the cover inscribed in gold letters. It was Les lettrres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet.

  The parents who had come to the ceremony applauded. I was really proud when I went back to sit next to my mother who kissed me on the cheek. She was so proud of me, even though the other boys were looking at me enviously.

  In this savings account booklet there was the sum of one hundred francs. Old francs of that period. The man from the bank explained when he handed me the booklet that I was the only one authorized to collect this money, but not before I became majeur. That is to say before I was twenty-one years old.

  My mother put that booklet in the cardboard box with the family papers and photos she kept in the little closet next to her bed. And that’s where I found it after the war when I returned to Montrouge from the farm.

  I took these old papers and photos with me when I left for America, and also the savings account booklet thinking that it would be a nice souvenir from my school days in Montrouge.

  It didn’t occur to me then, in 1947, to try and collect that money.

  Eleven years later, when I returned to France for the first time, thinking that perhaps I would remain there, and never go back to America, I took all the old papers and photos with me, as well as the savings account booklet.

  I had not done very well in America. I was almost thirty years old and still a student. I wanted to finish my studies, but especially the novel I had started writing. A novel that has remained unfinished and which will never be published. Une oeuvre de jeunessse, even if I was no longer a young man when I was writing it. The book was called And I Followed my Shadow. I wrote it in English. I was relating in a sentimental and disorganized fashion what had happened to me during the

  war. But to tell the truth, I had no idea as to how one writes a novel. Still, I wanted to finish it, and I thought that if I returned to France I could perhaps recall better what had happened.

  So, before leaving Los Angeles where I was studying at UCLA, I sold all my things, my bicycle, most of my books, my jazz records, even some of my clothes, and I bought a plane ticket.

  With my knowledge of the English language I was sure that I would be able to get some kind of job in Paris where I would finish my novel.

  Well, no need to go on with what happened, and why I went back to Los Angeles after a fe
w months. That return to France was a total disaster. I told all that in Aunt Rachel’s Fur.

  But I must tell you the story of the saving’s account. I am in Paris for three weeks already, but no job. Nothing. No one wants to hire me. I am told that knowledge of English does not suffice. One must have experience. And me, I had no experience, except as a factory worker, or a waiter, or a dishwasher, and a dozen other pitiful jobs which I had done before being called into the army and sent to Korea to fight the war for America. So here I am, totally broke, and not the right kind of experience.

  It was then that I remembered that savings account booklet. Why not try to collect the money, I told myself. After more than twenty years these hundred old francs must have accumulated some interest. And besides, now I am majeur.

  So I go to the Montrouge Savings Bank. I show the booklet to the lady at the information desk. She looks puzzled. Finally she says to me, Well, you know Sir, this booklet dates back to before the war. I don’t think it’s still valid. In any case, all the archives of those years are now in the main office of the Paris Savings Bank, Rue Vaugirard in the Quinzième Arrondissement. Perhaps if you go there, they might be able to help you.

  So, I said to myself, why not try? What do I have to lose?

  Here I am at the main office of the Paris Savings Bank. I show my booklet to the lady at the information desk. The same puzzled look.

  After examining the booklet from all sides, she tells me with a motion of the head that seems to indicate that there isn’t much hope for me to collect this money, that I must go up to the archives on the third floor, and that perhaps there I can find out if I can be payed.

  I am now on the third floor in a large somber and dusty hall. An older man wearing a grey tablier, with a pencil over his ear, and a number of other pencils sticking out of the chest pocket of his long jacket-like-apron, greets me. He looks like the typical rond-de-cuir. The perfect bureaucrat. After I explain why I am here, he examines the booklet suspiciously. He shrugs his shoulders as if to say, What can I do?

  Finally he asks, How old were you when you received this booklet?

  Oh, I cannot really remember, I reply. Isn’t there a date in the booklet?

  Once again he examines the booklet. And with his finger he shows me a date. 1937.

  1937! Then I must have been eight years old. Yes, that’s how old I was.

  He tells me to wait and disappears at the end of the hall. A few minutes later he comes back with a huge green dusty register. I seem to recognize the register as the one into which I inscribed my name the day of the award of the school prizes.

  He places it on a table, opens it slowly, and starts turning the yellowed pages. He licks his finger each time he turns a page. He does it very carefully as if afraid that the pages will disintegrate.

  The names on the pages are in alphabetical order. He pronounces the first letter of each name as he turns the pages. He arrives at the letter F. And with his finger he follows on the page the names that begin with the letter F.

  Féderman, he asks, with one N or two? The way he pronounces my name, he makes it sound at if there is an accent over the first E.

  One N only, I tell him. And no accent.

  Ah, there it is! His finger has stopped on my name. I lean over his shoulder to look where his finger is pointing. Yes, that’s my name. Raymond Federman. That’s the signature I made more than twenty years ago. The one with the beautiful curls.

  Yes, that’s my signature, I tell him. I remember when I did it. It was during la distribution des prix à l’école de Montrouge. But the old man doesn’t seem to be listening to me.

  May I see your carte d’identité, to verify your signature and make sure you are Raymond Federman, the old man says with a certain authority in his voice.

  When I returned to France in 1958, I didn’t have a French identity card. I had an American passport. I was an American citizen.

  I told in Smiles on Washington Square how I became an American citizen in Tokyo during the Korean war. So I’m not going to repeat that story, though it was a very funny event.

  When the old man sees my American passport he looks at me like some kind of eccentric. For a moment he stands there totally baffled. Then he tells me to wait here and he goes out of the hall of archives with the green register under his arm and my passport in his hand.

  This time I wait for quite a while. I am starting to find the situation amusing.

  Finally the old man returns, but this time together with half a dozen people. Curious employees of the bank who wanted to see this American who came to claim money from the Savings Bank.

  The old man explains that we must go to the office of the director of the bank on the sixth floor. So here we are all going up the grand staircase of this institution. The old man leading the way, me following behind, and behind me a long file of bank employees. The rumor had now circulated throughout the entire building that an American was here claiming that the Bank owed him money. I even heard someone whisper, It’s like the Marshall Plan in reverse.

  We are now in the office of the director. The old man explains the matter. The director examines the register and my passport with his thick eyeglasses at the tip of his nose. He looks at me. Tells me to approach. Again he examines the register and my passport with a perplexed look.

  I should mention that on that day I was properly dressed. I had put on a jacket, the only one I owned, and even a tie. So I assume I gave the impression that I was not a beggar.

  You are Monsieur Raymond Federman? The director asks.

  Yes. Yes, I am.

  And it is you who signed this register of the Montrouge Savings Bank.

  Yes, it was me. In 1937, when I was a kid ... a school boy.

  Well, I suppose we have to pay you your money then since you are the same Raymond Federman who signed that register when you were a school boy.

  I approve with a nod of the head, and thank him.

  But, the director says, I have to ask you to sign a receipt. And he slides a sheet of paper before me on his desk and shows me where to sign.

  I sign.

  He examines my signature. He examines the signature in the old register. He goes back and forth between the two.

  You know, he tells me, the signature you just made is not the same as the one in this book.

  The old man leans over the director’s desk to look at the signature I just made.

  Yes, it’s true, he exclaims. This is not the same signature.

  I am on the verge of bursting into laughter but I hold back, and explain to the director and the old archivist and to all the curious bank employees who also leaned over the desk to examine the two signatures that twenty years had passed between these two signatures. I was just a boy when I made this one, I say, pointing to the signature in the register. It’s a school boy signature. A childish signature. I am now an adult, and of course my way of signing has changed. It’s normal.

  The director seems to approve but says, Still, it’s curious.

  Yes, it’s true, he finally says, signatures do change with age. He takes out a sheet of paper from the drawer of his desk and scribbles something on it, and gives it to the old archivist. This is my authorization, he says, you can take Monsieur to the cashier, I believe he has a right to collect his money.

  We are now at the cashier with the curious people still mumbling around me.

  The chubby lady inside the cashier’s cage looks at me with a kind of angry look. She must think I am a thief. She counts each bill with a scornful look as if it were her own money she was giving me. All in all she gives me 183 francs and some small coins. My hundred pre-war francs had almost doubled.

  I couldn’t resist, and said to her, Merci madame, merci beaucoup de votre générosité et celle de la France.

  Thank you madame for your generosity and that of France.

  I shoved the money into my pocket, and as I left, I felt behind me the confused and peevish look of the bank employees. Once outside I burst
into laughter. The people in the street looked at me as though I was crazy. An old lady even asked me if I was okay because I was laughing so loud I started coughing. I reassured her that I was fine.

  After that I took the subway to Montparnasse. I had decided to go and have a good lunch at the famous brasserie La Coupole, where I had never dared go before. It was famous for being the restaurant where all the Parisian intellectuals and artists congregated.

  I ordered a dozen oysters, a steak tartare with frites, an endive salad, a delicious goat cheese, and for dessert une crème caramel. And with that half a bottle of Saint-Emilion. The whole thing cost me more than half of what I had collected, but it was well worth it.

  Especially because, seated just across from my table, there were Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Boris Vian. Really, it’s true. They were there, having lunch at La Coupole. I wanted to go over to talk to them. To tell them how much I admired them. Tell them that when I left for America after the war, I thought of myself as an Existentialist, and that I had only two books with me: La nausée by Sartre, and J’irai cracher sur vos tombes de Vernon Sullivan. I didn’t know at the time that Vernon Sullivan was Boris Vian. That’s what I would have liked to tell them. But I didn’t dare.

  In any case, that day, I ate well, and had a good laugh, and...

  Federman, you’re such a liar.

  No, I’m not. It’s truth. Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Vian were there. But maybe it was not that day I saw them there. During the time I spent in Paris that year, I often walked past La Coupole. I couldn’t afford to go in again, but perhaps that’s when I saw them. What’s the difference?

  OK, I go back to my childhood.

  Now I want to finish telling about my father. How sometimes he didn’t come home for several nights. According to what I heard my aunts saying, he was sleeping with his mistress. But my mother would tell them, it’s not true. That he was working.