by Milan Fust
And the ploy worked, this one did. Life is extraordinary, isn't it? Sometimes the silliest ruses lead to surprising results . . .
Oh yes: I sent that ID card immediately to a friend of mine in Paris, a senior civil servant named Toffy-Ederle, and asked him to forward any mail still held at that post office. Actually, I was busy all night. In the morning I mailed the letter to Paris, express, and the following evening posted the first one, addressed to me, special delivery. I wanted to make sure it would arrive in the morning.
And later, when I knew I would be home in the afternoon, I posted one in the morning as well. I played around this way for a while. Actually, we'd be awakened early in the morning, because, as I said, I mailed most of the correspondence special delivery.
Sometimes I even mailed money to myself; I thought: why not try that too?
"You get so many letters these days," remarked my wife.
And I was again tempted to answer her: "Yes, I do; I've gone stark raving mad, you see."
Something did happen to me, that seemed fairly clear. To me, who'd always valued trust above all else. How on earth did I end up this way? Somebody had better explain it to me, and fast.
She is a sweet, gentle, lovely woman, Gregory Sanders would've probably said, had he known her. And he'd have added, I don't know what you want. She is an angel . . . What would you do, I wonder, if I proved to you that she is an angel—an angel besmirched by your sordid imagination ? Yes, what would you do? Blow your brains out maybe? The errand boy, you say. The mailman, you say. Good Lord, man, aren't you ashamed of yourself? That's what Gregory Sanders would have said, in all probability.
Let's try it, then, let's tell him everything. I couldn't be any worse off than I already was. But then out with everything, even if it kills me. Yes, the errand boy, too, and the mailman . . . And having listened to it all, and understood and appreciated it too, would he please tell me what I ought to do? Advise me for pity's sake on how to cure myself, how to restore faith in my heart? For surely, her writing "Mon cher" to some stranger, or having her mail held at a French post office will not do it.
I wanted to tell all this to her too, in a letter—I spent a whole night composing it. But when I looked at her in the morning, I tore it up, and said to myself: I can't. Not any more.
And that's where I left it.
There was nothing to be done; nothing. Two stones can't open up to each other, or two sticks of wood, or two whatevers that are no longer close.
In the meantime Toffy-Ederle answered my letter with a one-word telegram: "Rien," meaning there was nothing in that post office.
In that case we must push on. And push on I did.
One morning the mail was again delivered very early. This time my wife got very annoyed. Will they ever let her get some sleep, she fumed. Anyway, why didn't I let someone have power of attorney, or why not have my business correspondence sent to the Brighton, as I had done before.
"I had a fight with the people at the Brighton," I said rather sadly.
"Oh, you wind up fighting with everyone," she said. Frankly, I was getting tired of the whole thing myself. What's more, there was a new twist now: they didn't bother to bring up the mail, I had to go down to the office and get it myself. A further insult.
"There, you have two pieces of mail this morning," my land-lord, Mr. Horrabin Pit, explained gently. "A registered letter and a money order."
I completely forgot about the money. I had sent myself twenty-five guineas the day before yesterday. Yes, that's precisely what I did.
But then, even madness must have its limits.
"Can't you have the mail sent up?" I asked the landlord darkly.
"It's a new mailman, you see, and you must identify yourself."
That was true, too, everything was; and the mailman was a swarthy, slimy character with sidewhiskers. . . . God, was I bristling, was I ever sick of my life? For just imagine: I had to go and get those absolutely meaningless letters which I had written myself, to myself—letters which didn't interest me in the least. And the money! It came out of my pocket, for God's sake. And for this they had to wake me from my pleasant stupor. Oh, I was so very bitter. If they had tossed my heart to the dogs just then, they would have surely spat it out in disgust. And to boot, the old man stopped me, he again stood in my way.
"Who created you, may I ask?" he asked in his insufferable, childlike manner, and went as far as caressing my coat sleeve. There I stood in that beat-up office, shivering, thinking to myself, I'll end up sick, I'll catch my death of cold. And sure enough, I sneezed. (I was very cold, all I had on was my robe and my socks.) My whole being railed at this indignity.
"Who created you, then?" he asked again, almost victoriously, as if he sensed he got me this time. The man had a voice like a schoolboy, which I really hate in people.
"Was it you?" he asked sarcastically, "you created yourself?" (His reasoning must have been: If I didn't believe in higher intelligence, I didn't believe in creation, either. But then how did I get to be so smart? Just like that, by myself? Hahaha.)
"Maybe there isn't even such a thing as creation," I answered without hesitation. "There just isn't. And I'll tell you why not."
"Oh, please do," the old fool gushed.
"Just look at the hair growing in your ear," I said to him, for I had a terrific desire to insult the old man. "Or in my ear, for that matter," I added, grudgingly. "Those hairs keep sprouting, right? With age they become thicker, denser, and while they proliferate, your brain atrophies. So much for your notion of creative evolution.
"I trust you have seen ropes made out of hemp . . . Don't get me wrong, I am not alluding to rope you hang yourself with."
"Of course not," he said with an obliging smile. "I know exactly what you mean, my dear captain."
"Well, then you know it's not a good idea to keep it out in the sun too long, because it rots. Creation, in short, devours its own products, just about everything it has wrought. Whatever it brings into being it also destroys. Whoever granted me life seeks also to wreck it." I was shouting by this time. But then I had always treated him as though he were deaf, that was part of my strategy.
"Or take the world of science ..." I was going to pursue my little analogy, telling him how on the one hand there are all those useful and wonderful inventions heralding progress, and on the other there's dynamite . . . But I didn't pursue it, I had to stop ... I felt a pleasant tingle in my veins . . . No, no, it was much more than that, it was rapture, I nearly swooned into his arms. I took another look at my letters, you see. They said there were two, but I was holding four letters in my hand, four, two of them for my wife, addressed, I could tell, by a male hand.
If Gregory Sanders's admonition could be applied here, then I'd have to say he had a point: it is possible to love what's mean. In fact, there is no greater pleasure in the world than wicked pleasure.
"Have you got a vacant room?" I asked the old man. And I won't deny it: I almost keeled over, my heart was pounding violently. Or was it simply fear?
"I just noticed I've got an important letter here. I want to read it first. Afterwards we can continue our Swedenborgian discussion."
And he did usher me into an unheated room filled with unused beds and chairs. I locked the door behind me and sat down to catch my breath. I was like a tiger, by God, that doesn't fall on its prey right away, but licks it first and groans with pleasure. I took another good look at the letters, and then another. Two of the four I had sent, they were all right. There was also a strange picture post card which must have got there by mistake. And then there was the real prize: a letter addressed to her. Strange.. . . How rash one can be when one is out to deceive. How careless, how bold . . . On a brand new blotter she leaves the word mon cher. And then she has her love letters delivered to our home. Such a woman I should not be able to catch redhanded? I am not crazy, my sweet. You are in league with that sanctimonious old scoundrel, and now I have proof.
The letter came from Paris and was
written with a calligrapher's hand. On top it said: "No. 19." And then:
Dear Madame (much more than dear, no matter how petite you may be),
Just to round out my letter of last week: I am done with Epictitus and with Spinoza's Tractate on the relationship between law and state power, but my exam has been postponed a day. (Paris is glutted with philosophers.) As soon as I have some news for you, I shall write. Until then, or rather, until this neglected heart still beats, I am
Yours faithfully, Maurice Tannenbaum
PS.: I meant to tell you: the slippers serve me splendidly. Not only are they lovely and faithful, the two birds on it sing to me every morning. (Consequently, my mornings are enchanted.)
A philosopher? I kept staring at the paper, dumbfounded. What was all that about exams and philosophies? If it wasn't a love letter, what was it?
I felt a bit let down, I won't deny it. Sure, it had the thing about a neglected heart and such, but still. The odd style, at once meticulous and sarcastic, the carefully formed letters—all of this made me quite anxious in the end. What's more, he numbered his letters. Was the young man a bookkeeper perchance? No, not a bookkeeper, a philosopher. I kept eyeing the letter suspiciously. Could she have started up with such young boys? Could he be the one who asked her to marry him? The one who sent her the violets from Paris? I could hardly believe it. And the business about the slippers—that was a puzzle, too. Was I to take it that when she was busy with embroidering in the Café St. Luc, right under Dedin's nose, she was doing it for someone else? Or was she embroidering slippers for two of her boyfriends at once?
* * *
Upstairs I calmed down, but only for an instant. Then, I put on my specs, threw some clothes on and got down to business once again.
What about those sweet little birds, damn it? They chirp away, do they? Why, that almost amounts to a confession of love, all that chirping in the morning.
And the relation between justice and power, what about that? Ah hell, do they really expect me to believe that all a good-for-nothing student wants to tell a beautiful young woman is how he did on some exam? He was writing allegorically, in code, why of course. What I'd have to do now is find out what the words mean. What, for instance, could the mysterious-sounding Spinoza signify for two amorous hearts?
So I gave her some money and told her to go out and do some shopping. She had been itching to go anyway. "Christmas is upon us," she kept telling me. (It wasn't, by the way.) And that London fashions were different. And besides, her friends had arrived from Paris, and they were all so smartly dressed. Fine. Let her buy herself whatever her little heart desires. A scarf, even a blouse, to make the shopping spree last longer.
And sure enough, she was all aflutter, got ready, had her makeup on, in no time.
"Wait a minute," I called after her, "while you are at it, buy yourself a raincoat, too. You've been meaning to, haven't you? My words had an astounding effect on her. She was so shocked, she didn't finish her cigarette.
"How generous you are," she said and hurried out the door.
I wasn't one bit generous. On the contrary. I waited a little, to make sure she wasn't coming back, and then got ready to do something I had always found quite abhorrent, which is going through other people's things.
But I had to. I was still hoping I'd find some fresh clue. A letter perhaps, a word even—any lead would do ... A little house search, then.
It went against my grain, Lord knows, but ... a seaman can never allow himself to be squeamish, and I am not, that's certain, I've done things in my time that were plenty weird, yet it surprises me still that I was willing to go through with it. And not only because it seemed so distasteful, I had another reason.
My wife was a very untidy person. I should have spoken of this sooner but couldn't. She was so very untidy, you see, I couldn't possibly do her habits justice. And now to penetrate all that clutter . . .
For instance, in one of her chest drawers, among her undergarments, I found apples; and as if that wasn't bad enough, some of them had been bitten into, and these spots turned a deep, unsightly red. And I came upon scraps of left-over cakes, also bearing her teeth marks . . . And pieces of ribbon, lace, tulle, yarn, all rolled into a tangled mass, and made even more solid by the odd pieces of sucking candy that adhered to it.
I won't deny it: my nerves got so jangled by all this, I could have easily set the place on fire.
But how utterly ridiculous one can be at a time like this. I had something major to worry about, but what made me furious were these trifles. The balls of matted yarn and silver foil, for let's not forget about the bits of silver foil—they were all over the house, too: in boxes and drawers, just stuffed in or rolled into balls. I couldn't fathom why she should want to save all that worthless silver paper. Was this, too, an expression of some childhood need? Because what I am talking about is ordinary silver foil wrapping paper.
And they tuned up in the most unlikely places: in flower vases, in between valises in the foyer. . . . Would somebody please tell me why I had to marry such a woman?
And what about the cabinets? They were packed so tight, they almost tipped over when I tried opening them. Her drawers also got stuck when I tried to force them open, and they wouldn't close either, her bunched up fineries acted as a spring. Mixed together carelessly were all kinds of expensive fabrics: silks and velvets and moire, and dainty suede handbags with scraps of crippled jewelry in them: gold brooches, broken bracelets. And a cavalcade of color everywhere: deep blues, lovely greens . . . And breadcrumbs in her purse, stockings in the sewing basket, and assorted change everywhere, Spanish and French coins, and stamps and streetcar tickets from a variety of countries, and discolored, sorry-looking bits of chocolate . . .
Was it from this . . . this chaotic mess that she rose so grandly when she went out at night? Yes, indeed. And how radiant she was in her white furs, her violet gowns. Her shoulders glistened, her face was aflush as she informed me casually, "I am off; is my skirt all right?" And after turning this way and that, she'd flutter out of the room.
(This happened not long ago. Some Frenchman had invited her, some new arrivals. And twice in a row. I didn't go with her, I wasn't in the mood. I just watched her as she left.)
Our marriage license I found in a cupboard, stuck to a bottle of cordial, so help me . . . But why go on. . . .? It's a curse to be like me. There I was casting about for a word, a sign—'-a simple sentence would have sufficed—yet at the time of the Ridolfi business, I had everything I needed in my hand, and didn't do a blessed thing ... I never did get over that. How could I be so indifferent? Or was it that I simply stopped caring?
Yes, that must be it. For indifference keeps you going, while passion pulls you down. Miss Borton had said this to me once and I realized now how right she was.
Nothing—not one letter or stray note—turned up, which might have provided me with a clue; she must have destroyed everything. I was ready to put things back in their place when I came upon two photographs, in one of her sewing baskets, stuck in an envelope. With some surprise I examined them. One showed a little girl, an attractive-looking child, and on the back of the picture, an inscription, in Spanish: recuerdo or, possibly, collecion d'oro, something like that.
The child, as I say, was quite appealing; her sad little face was framed by thick curls and her eyes radiated a dreamy sort of confidence.
"This must be her child," I said to myself right away, and stepped up to the window.
"Yes, her child," I repeated out loud. I couldn't even say that she resembled my wife all that much. And still. The hunch, the feeling was unmistakable. Quick and strong.
So strong in fact that I got all flustered. I confess I always had a soft spot for little girls.
But then I put it down and examined the other one again.
This was a picture of my wife in the company of high-spirited revelers, both men and women, with the men wearing high paper hats, looking a bit like bakers, a woman holding a live rooste
r, and all of them apparently having the time of their lives, laughing with abandon, as people do after a night of boisterous merrymaking.
And there was my wife in the middle, perched on some sort of stuffed swan, and not merely laughing but positively blazing with hilarity, with that special glow in her eyes, a glow I knew quite well. . . .
But then I put away the pictures, put them back in the box. I didn't really want to know that much about them, or about the possible connection between the two. There was an inscription on the back of the second picture, too, just one word: La nuit— another hint about its origin.
But we know all about such things. It's after a wild, champagne-filled night that one has such pictures taken in the Bois de Boulogne, as a souvenir.
I tried hard to put all of this out of my mind.
"What on earth are you doing?" my wife exclaimed when she walked in. "Why are you going through my books?"
"I'm looking for our papers, my sweet. Do you know where I found our marriage license?" I reminded her gently. "In a cupboard, stuck to a bottle."
This made her laugh.
"What do you need our papers for anyway?"
"For a job application. They want to see your travel papers, too. But you are so very untidy." And I looked into her eyes.
"I know," she replied contritely.