A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  Later, in the dead silence of the bedroom, I found I couldn't take this unexplained silence of his; tossing and turning I couldn't fall asleep; I went over to him and thought I'd lie down next to him if he was already sleeping.

  In the dark I asked him if he was asleep.

  No, he wasn't.

  The drawn curtains let in no light.

  The darkness was neither inviting nor forbidding; I found the edge of the sofa and sat down; he didn't move.

  He didn't seem to be breathing.

  I used my hands to take a look at his body; he was lying on his back, his arms comfortably folded on his chest.

  I placed my hand on his folded arms, nothing more, just the weight of my hand.

  Maybe you're right, he said in the dark.

  I didn't understand, or rather didn't dare understand, and pushing my voice only to the edge of audibility I asked, Right about what?

  Then he suddenly moved, pulled out his arm from under my hand, sat up, and switched on the reading lamp.

  The wall lamp with its silk shade illuminated him from above, highlighting the deep-toned, irregularly knotted Oriental rug that framed the sofa.

  He thrust his back against the rug, the blanket slid down to his belly; he again folded his arms over his chest, and with his chin lowered he seemed to be looking up, although he was looking straight at me, our eyes at the same level.

  The warm glow of the lamp shone through and whitened his unruly blond curls, stretched shadows across his face; the shadows drifted over his muscular chest, forming spots on his arms and on the white bedding.

  He looked beautiful, as beautiful as a portrait of a pensive young man who for some mysterious reason has been stripped to the waist and who is contemplating himself rather than the world around him.

  A portrait in which everything is balanced in the extreme: light is answered by lovely shadows, blond curls by dark chest hair, light skin by a dark background, the fiery colors of the background by the stark white and cool blue of the eyes, the gentle slope of the shoulder by the firm horizontals of the folded arms; it was beauty one can accept without understanding it.

  We looked at each other the way an experienced doctor might look at a patient, with a deep, calm look, checking the face for possible signs of possible symptoms but betraying no emotion in the process.

  I felt we were reaching a very deep and very dark point in our rambling exploration of each other's self; for weeks I had hovered over the most sensitive regions of his life, and now I had reached my goal; I had challenged him and he, against his better judgment, took up the challenge; but in this murky region he dug in his heels with such energy that it was as if he were plotting some terrible revenge, which is why it didn't bother me that I was sitting naked at the edge of the sofa, the awkwardness of my naked body and my defenselessness, I hoped, protecting me from a possible revenge.

  This music teacher, he said after a few moments of silence, and his voice, rising out of the deep warmth that had been meant for me a short while before, became dry, cool, and detached, as it he intended to talk about someone other than himself; on his face there was no trace of the tender inwardness with which he'd started this story only an hour before, he wasn't talking to me or to himself, it was an image that was talking, someone who could handle himself the way a scientist handles a dead but preserved insect, sticking it on a pin and placing it in his collection, in its phylogenetically and morphologically proper location, but with the pin playing a greater role in the activity than the insect itself or its taxonomic place.

  He was first violinist in the theater orchestra, just like his real, his French father, whom he knew nothing about at the time; the man was a mediocre musician and an even worse teacher, but in the local circumstances he was the best, and after the well-meaning and dignified Frau Gudrun, his previous teacher, a real relief; it was as if a magic door had opened for him and he had stepped from the den of a musical spinster into the hallowed halls of art; the teacher was a cultured, well-educated man, well-informed, sophisticated, well-traveled, almost a man of the world; he swam, played tennis, had valuable contacts which he knew how to cultivate without being at all pushy, making it seem that he was doing a favor to others, a confirmed bachelor and a famously gracious host, everyone who was anyone in town, or those who came to perform in town, considered it their pleasant duty to stop by his house, it became almost de rigueur to get a quick taste of his unselfish kindness, to bask in his bonhomie and in his sparkling wittiness, which was validated by genuine suffering; for above all, he was a good person, about the way Richard III would have been good if in those good old days of the interwar years he had decided not to be a villain but resolved instead to be infinitely, unbelievably good, for it was all the same, being good or evil; with his goodness he could tease a sweet melody out of the most horrid march.

  And Melchior did not mean this as his afterthoughts; he was trying to recall exactly how he had felt at that time.

  It was in those days that he first saw that play, most likely in a poor production; for him it seemed a monstrous, scarifying tale of evil, because they put a huge, pointy hump on Richard's back, two humps in fact, he seemed to be carrying two uneven mountain peaks under his coat; and he didn't just limp, his legs were twisted from the hip and he shoved and thrust them out in front of him, wincing with pain and yelping like a dog with every step he took; of course this was a slightly exaggerated directorial idea, for pain doesn't necessarily lead to evil, but it was effective all the same; in any case, his teacher always reminded him of that actor; his eyes seemed to play tricks on him, because he saw his teacher as a very handsome and attractive old man, though he was about forty-five at the time, slender, relatively tall, pleasant-smelling, with a dark complexion and bright dark eyes, but his long, mane-like hair, carefully swept back like an artist's, was almost completely white, the kind of white that children expect old men to have.

  When he got carried away while holding forth on some of his theories, his hair would part in the middle and fall into his face, and then he'd smooth it back with artistic little gestures of his hand, for he could never get so carried away as to give up creating the impression that everything was just fine, and why wouldn't it be? these theoretical discussions, often lasting for hours, were fascinating, farsighted, passionate; the critical products of an analytical mind are always moving and inspiring, but when the time came for actual exercises, when something he knew had to be conveyed, when he actually had to show how to play something, to point out what was right or what was wrong, then, behind his magnanimous wisdom there appeared envy, an inexplicable animal selfishness, a fit of possessiveness, and even more than that: mockery, gloating, a miserly grin, as if he had possessed one of life's treasures so rare that its essence couldn't be penetrated; and he wouldn't part with it, he savored it, and he took pleasure in watching his pupil's frustration; moreover, he rationalized his behavior by stating flatly that there was no such thing as technique, he didn't have one, nobody did! and whoever said he did was no artist but merely a technician, so there was no point trying so hard; one had to teach oneself to develop one's own particular technique, though that, provided this self-education was successful, was no longer mere technique but a sense of existence wrested from and projected back into matter itself; it was the very essence of things, the utmost essence, the instinct of sheer self-preservation.

  In his struggle with matter, the artist touched secret layers of his own being he didn't know existed; the revelation might be shameful, he'd much rather hide it from curious eyes; but if art was not an act of initiation into the most searing secrets, it wasn't worth a damn; he often yelled, almost going out of his mind, that he and his pupil were marking time in the antechamber of art, implying there was a certain place, like a great hall, they should eventually enter.

  He couldn't say he liked this man, though he was attracted to him, yet for all his attraction he remained suspicious, at the same time reproaching himself for being suspicious; neve
rtheless he felt he saw something, knew something about him no one else did: he saw that the man was corrupt to the core, a liar, a cynic, an infinitely bitter man; yet he believed the man wished him well, and he not only did not dare reject this kindness but tried very hard to measure up to it, be worthy of it, while all along his ears kept telling him that all that talk about the antechamber and the halls of art was false, it had to be, if only because the man himself never gained admission, never got anywhere; he was full of longing, yes, and in this pathetic longing there was enough bitterness, and the credibility of sadness and despair, to make the things he said not complete nonsense, although Melchior also felt that this longing was not for music, not even for a career, the man had given up on that long ago, he didn't really know what he longed for, maybe just wanted to sound profound, mysterious, satanic, disturbing, and at the same time benevolent, decent, wise, and understanding, and in the end Melchior became the object of this longing, of this painful and pitiful struggle.

  After each lesson he fled his teacher's house in complete defeat; during the four years he was his student, the demon of art, metaphorically speaking, inhabited his soul; he grew gaunt, he looked wasted, which didn't seem unusual, because in those years everybody was hungry and looked harried and worn-out.

  He became humble and stubborn, he practiced compulsively and learned many things on his own for which he was grateful to his teacher, everything that was good had to originate with him; he was developing nicely, realizing his artistic potential, as people like to say, and his teacher acknowledged this, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes with furious emotional outbursts, which Melchior dreaded more than the annihilating criticism; now and then the teacher allowed him to perform in public, indeed organized some of the appearances himself, introduced Melchior to musical notables, had him perform before select audiences, and the result each time was overwhelming success; they simply loved him, they ate him up, he brought tears to their eyes, even though in those postwar years people were very reluctant to give way to tears.

  But even at such moments, in the midst of the warmest ovation, his teacher let him know that while all this was well and good, we shall put it behind us, not dwell on it or let ourselves be carried away; and when they were left alone he proceeded to dissect the performance so mercilessly that Melchior was forced to concede that he couldn't make it, didn't know what heights he was supposed to reach but was sure he couldn't reach them, and his teacher was almost always right, about almost everything, and the only reason he was suspicious and ungrateful, the reason he could never be worthy of all that goodness, was that deep down he felt he didn't have the least bit of talent.

  When alone with these feelings he was racked by anxiety attacks; for days he would huddle in a corner, stay home from school, and keep thinking that one day his complete lack of talent would be discovered; he thought he couldn't hide it anymore, everyone would see that he had no talent at all, and then his teacher would mercilessly give him the boot.

  Sometimes he found himself hoping to see that day, though his mother would be very disappointed.

  Maybe the reason he wasn't completely destroyed by all this, why he kept hoping his teacher might still be wrong, was that in the final analysis one is incapable of total self-annihilation, either mental or physical, not even after having taken cyanide, for even then it's the poison, or the rope, or the water, or the bullet that does the job; oh, how he would have loved to jump into the river, how he longed for the current swirling around the exposed pillars of that collapsed bridge! but then, even doing away with oneself came down to making an everyday decision: to pick the means to do the job for you; and mental suicide always left a little back door open: the sky is still blue, life can go on, and what is that if not hope?

  The reason he thought of cyanide was that a few years later—he was already at the university—this poor man got hold of a dose large enough to kill a horse; it was summertime, no performances at the theater, no one looked for him in the evenings, a very hot summer it was, and then the neighbors were alarmed by this frightful, sickening smell coming from his apartment.

  In any case, it was in such circumstances that he began to notice the girl in the window across the street; they were preparing for a very important competition; it was spring, he recalled, all the windows in the teacher's apartment were open; the stakes were high, the top three finalists would be automatically admitted to the conservatory; in his teacher's judgment the competition would be stiff, and he mentioned some of his colleagues and their capable students; but the difference between a talented and an untalented person, he went on, was that the talented one is inspired by his rivals, and since Melchior's rivals were very strong, his chances were very good.

  He placed the music stand in front of the window so that each time he looked up, which he would make seem accidental, he could see the girl.

  His teacher sat in a commodious armchair in the dark depths of the room, whence he issued his occasional instructions.

  Interestingly enough, the tension thus created did not distract him from his work; it meant added pressure, of course, but the odd feeling that he was doing a balancing act with his violin on the borderline of two glances issuing from two very different, contrasting, and possibly even antagonistic individuals, that he was moving between a delicious secret and a dark betrayal, increased his concentration to an intensity he had never experienced before.

  He wasn't trying to impress the girl or his teacher or himself; he was there, at once inside all three of them and outside the entire event; in a word, he was playing the violin.

  Whenever it was raining or cold and the window had to be closed, the girl resorted to crazy stunts; with outstretched arms she'd lean so far out the window it really looked as if she might fall, or she would close the window and act very annoyed, pressing her nose, her mouth, and her tongue to the glass, making idiotic faces and mimicking him sawing away on his violin, or she would breathe on the glass and write letters in the mist, spelling out "I love you," would thumb her nose at him, tear at her blouse over her breast, implying that if she couldn't listen to that sweet music she'd go mad, stick out her tongue and blow tiny kisses from her palm; but if they ran into each other at school, they both pretended that none of that had meant anything, that none of that had ever even happened.

  His teacher responded to the sudden qualitative improvement with pleasant self-satisfaction; he didn't praise him, but from the dim depths of the room he was radiating love, guiding his playing with angry, enthusiastic, and emotional interjections; and Melchior was overjoyed that after four years of hopeless suffering he had finally managed to deceive this seemingly wise and all-knowing man.

  The game went on for about two weeks before the teacher got wise to them, though true to his cruel self he did not let on even then, slyly letting their story unfold and expand so that at the right moment he could pounce on them and wipe them away like so much snot; Melchior sensed this cruel anticipation, knew a catastrophe was imminent; but there was also the girl, who had no inkling of the impending disaster, who went on with her antics, swinging out the window, and he couldn't help watching and even laughing out loud at times, while keeping up his guard; he wanted both to protect himself and to annoy his teacher, and that—looking back now he was quite sure—made him even more seductive in the teacher's eye.

  And in the meantime, he had to listen to long parables, colorfully told, spiced with exciting illustrations, all of them dripping with kindness, about the virtues of an ascetic way of life, about the psychological engine of aesthetics, the drawbacks of hedonism, the brakes, gears, and pistons of the human soul, and about those practical safety valves through which excess steam may and should be released from the body's power plant; the tales were filled with metaphors, figures, and verbal flourishes, yet when it became clear that these hints and allusions had no effect, Melchior had to pick himself up and with his music stand move deep into the room while his teacher took his place by the window.

  The
story might have ended there, because Melchior raised no objections: on the contrary, deep down he approved, he understood his teacher or thought he did, and considered the simple, physical regulation of human weaknesses to be the best, most helpful solution to the problem; he was innocent to the point of idiocy, an imbecile couldn't have been more innocent; not only did he have not the slightest notion of how babies were born, but he was also ignorant of the difference between the sexes, or more correctly, everything he was preoccupied with then moved in such a different dimension that even the things he did know he didn't truly grasp.

  But the girl wouldn't give up so easily; she'd wait for him downstairs, and at that point all the clowning and mimicking came to an end, and a terrific struggle began among the three of them, a struggle in which Melchior could take part only with his senses—no, not even that, with his instincts—not realizing that it was a struggle, and that he was struggling for life.

  And he could scarcely have had any idea of the agonies this man had to endure, the terrible struggle he had to wage with himself, yet he did know, for he was blackmailing the man all along.

  He knew because on several occasions he overheard vague and embarrassed whispers about his teacher being a returnee from one of the concentration camps, Sachsenhausen perhaps, he didn't remember exactly, and about how in the camp his teacher wore not a yellow, not even a red, but a pink triangle, which meant he had to be queer; but as often happens, another story was also making the rounds, according to which he had to wear the pink triangle because of his liberal views—that charge was serious enough to have the accuser land in jail after the war—but what seemed to contradict this theory was the rumor that the teacher was in fact an outspoken member of the Nazi Party and had been active in the de-Judaization of German music; whatever the real story was, for Melchior it was all a bunch of empty words, they stuck in his mind, but he didn't connect them to anything, at most he concluded that for the grownups the war apparently hadn't been enough, they kept on squabbling even now, or that society had always viewed the artist as the carrier of some contagion, but sensible people paid no heed.