Portrait of a Man

by Georges Perec

  Time goes on and the masonry wobbles. In a few minutes this block – and the whole world around it, the world attached to it – will pivot and open the way. What about Rufus? Can you see him at the wheel of his Porsche screaming down the road, piercing the sky with his headlamps, the needle hovering around 120? Rufus worried, agitated, devastated …

  One more try. And then? Your future written in stone. You’ll never be a forger again. The one sure thing you require. You may live happily or unhappily, you may be rich or poor. Who cares. The world on your plate tomorrow? Just that one promise, never to lose yourself again, never to be taken in by your own game. Will you be able to keep the promise? Are you keeping it right now?

  You’ve no idea. You don’t yet have an idea. You’ve never been alive. Your hands and your eyes. The slave-smith, the Kyrgyz or Visigoth coppersmith in his cowherd’s apron. Your hands summon forth a forgotten caravan. You are dying in the midst of sightless corpses – the empty, bulging eyes of Roman statues – amidst masterpieces and trinkets, masked shamans waving painted fetishes and the resurrected enigmas of medieval sculpture. Look at them, they’re all there, they’re crowding in on you: El Greco, Caravaggio, Memling, Antonello. Silently, untouchably, inaccessibly, they are dancing all around you …

  Yes. Jérôme as well, long ago. Alone and forgotten in his little house outside Annemasse. Died of hunger or loneliness among his art books and canvases. Died on a November day. He had not seen him for more than six months. He had paid him only one brief and shameful visit, not knowing what to say, scared and in a panic at the sight of his rapid decline, his foreseeable decline, at the suddenly intolerable sight of his trembling hands and the atrocious punishment of poor sight. Jérôme was unable to work anymore. He took slow steps around his untended garden, he wandered around his stillempty living room, twiddling his thick metal-framed glasses, which in his time of glory he would only wear to inspect a detail, claiming with a degree of pride that he only used them as a magnifying glass, and which made him look like Chardin but which he now had to wear almost permanently, changing their position on his nose to glance at a book he obviously knew already, and which like all his books dealt exclusively with the aesthetics or the techniques of painting, and he would then shut it again immediately, as if such subjects had become taboo, as if everything that by force of habit had been his whole life no longer existed, and could only set off a bout of searing nostalgia that he constantly denied and yet just as constantly rekindled with fear and trembling in the awful, futile illusion of recovery.

  His wrinkled and calloused hands lay on the arm of the chair and sometimes shook a little. He would tense them abruptly, digging his nails into the upholstery. “I am very glad to see you, Gaspard. It’s been quite a time, hasn’t it?” The banality of the expression, its indifference, the mechanical way it was said. It was in Paris, the night of the party, his last time in Paris. And also the last time he’d spoken to him. Rufus was leaving next morning for Geneva and would drop him off at Annemasse …

  Now he loitered on the streets and in the empty rooms of his villa. He was sixty-two. He looked eighty. He had been a pupil of Joni Icilio. He had had a truly distinguished career. One da Vinci, seven Van Goghs, two Rubens, two Goyas, two Rembrandts and two Bellinis. Fifty-odd Corots, a dozen Renoirs, thirty or more Degas, exported in bulk to South America and Australia in 1930 and 1940, a number of Metsys and Memlings and whole cartloads of Sisleys and Jongkinds, done between 1920 and 1925 at the start of his association with Rufus and Madera. Until 1955 he had worked twelve hours a day and often more, accumulating knowledge, techniques and tricks of the trade, and with every artist achieving indisputable perfection, often with startling speed. Then he had stopped and hung around Place du Cirque, giving advice, setting things up, making bibliographies, collecting documentation, as if he were still trying at whatever cost to make himself useful, and gradually, without saying anything at first, stopping completely, and as if he could not envisage carrying on living in idleness while remaining in the very place where he had spent his working life, confessing to Rufus (who had not dared bring up the subject himself) that he wished “to end his days” in peace and quiet, and so settled with obviously simulated delight and a sad little smile on his face in the detached house that Rufus had bought him at Annemasse, only a few hundred metres from the gates of Geneva, and there, with a sour housekeeper, a decent pension and a precious library, begun to experience the appallingly slow agony of living a life that was no longer any use. Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days. Seven hundred and thirty days of boredom only too rarely relieved by a visitor or a trip. A few days in Paris, Venice or Florence, and then he was on his own once again, alone with his oddly gentle pain, a kind of vaguely nostalgic, vaguely anaesthetising comprehension of the self, among his books and paintings, alone in his sparsely furnished living room and, beyond that, a small street lined with identical houses, a silent and empty little street. All his life he had lived in the ceaseless jostle of Rue Rousseau and Place du Cirque or else in Paris, in Rue Cadet, in a small studio on the seventh floor of a block of apartments. A livid, scrawny little street. A clean little suburban street? A cramped living room that he had not summoned up the courage to organise, as if he had been convinced that it was not worth the trouble, as if he had wanted to prove every minute of the day that he was already dead and living in his grave, in these alien and altogether unknown and indifferent surroundings where he was obliged nonetheless to walk and look and see every day …

  On 17 November 1958, Rufus had called Dampierre: Jérôme was dying. That same evening, Otto drove him to Orly and he landed in Geneva. There was a chilly drizzle. When they reached Annemasse Jérôme was already dead. A doctor and the housekeeper were standing by his bed. An extraordinary jumble of open books, reproductions and unfolded lithographs was strewn around the bedroom, surrounding him like battle colours …

  Do you recall? You bent down and picked up a book that had fallen close by Jérôme. Do you recall? Let four captains bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;… and, for his passage, the soldiers’ music and the rites of war speak loudly for him …

  The funeral march echoes for a long time in the burdened memory. Jérôme had wandered around the corridors of his house, going from room to room like a shadow, resting his head against the windows, staring at the narrow street. That was in November. A fine drizzle was falling. He paced back and forth, went up to his bookcase, opened his portfolios, took out thousands of sketches, removed the protective tissue paper from the prints, remembering, resuscitating each story, each detail, each one of the difficulties he’d faced and overcome. Then what?

  He must have walked for a long time in the stunted little garden. Dusk had fallen. It was cold. He had gone back up to his room. He had gone back down to the living room. The housekeeper had served his dinner. He had not touched it. He had pushed his plate away with a gesture of great weariness …

  Do you recall? You left for Paris the following morning. You came back here. Jérôme was dead. He was your master. He was a forger. You were a forger and you would die as well. One day you too would rot away in a deserted house. You went down to the laboratory. Here. You drew back the canvas drape protecting the Condottiere. You’d been working on it for a year …

  Then one day you started drinking, straight from the bottle. Madera found you in the small hours, dead drunk and half strangled by your necktie. He said nothing. He did not ask any questions. He called Rufus on the telephone. Rufus came to get you. He took you to Gstaad. You spent three days with him and went skiing. You remembered Altenberg. But you couldn’t even remember what had made you so happy. You got back to Paris in the middle of the night. You called Geneviève. She didn’t answer. You went back to Dampierre … That was three days ago.

  A few more blows of the hammer. Five four three. Two? One. Five more. Cuckoo! Watch the little birdie. Open Sesame. Over and out. Solemn Overture. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Fugue. One more go, with a bit more ene
rgy, and bingo, you’ve caught the ashlar like it was just a rugby ball. So that’s that. Take a breather? You wipe your hands like a true stonemason. One stone. Another stone. And now. A hole in the wall. There’s a bit of earth in front of you, all dirty and grey. The tiniest trickle of dusky light. Very poetic. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t in a right mess. No point in thinking Otto has gone back to his usual routine, or that by some miracle he’s suddenly become as deaf as a doorpost. Therefore he has heard you. Therefore he knows roughly where the tunnel is. He is out there. If you stick your neck out you’ll see him right in front of you. He’ll tell you very sweetly, “Meester Gazpa, get ze fock pack in ze lap.” So your tunnywunnel is useless. You don’t give a damn. You’ll find another way out. One way or t’other …

  You get off your pedestal. You walk around the laboratory. Otto, my Otto, where art thou? Do you not see Milord Koenig coming down the lane? Did you get through to the aforementioned Switzerman? Did he tell you he would be with you forthwith? Are you expecting him at this very instant?

  Very funny. Side-splitting. You look at your watch. It’s a quarter to seven. There’s still no reason why Rufus should be at his hotel at this time. Otto must have left a message … All you can do is carry on with your gamble. If Otto is on his own when you are completely ready to emerge, then you should be able to get away with it. For instance, if he’s waiting for you at the exit from the tunnel, you could escape via the door. Clever. But like the man says it’s not that clever. If Otto’s waiting at the hole in the ground, he’ll already have barricaded the door. And how will you know whether he’s here or there? See? You’ll put your mind to that later. At the moment what matters is finishing your tunnel. But Mr Otto Schnabel must not see it, otherwise he’ll set a trap to catch you. So?

  Your imagination is soaring, is it, dear sir? So let’s have a look. Deeds follow words. Take a sufficiently wide and long plank, easily found among the panels used as try-outs for the Condottiere. Scrabble around until you find two large nails. They are found. Drive them into the masonry with the mallet you see before you, set just a little further apart than the width of the plank. Bend aforementioned nails. Slide plank between them. Push. The plank hits the soil, the nails hold it in place like pegs. Dig out the soil that’s just underneath. As you dig, the plank advances. And the tunnel, thanks to man’s genius, is now sheltered by just a thin layer of soil – as long as you’ve reckoned it right – supported by the plank. Otto sees nothing. And when you’ve decided it’s time to emerge, you retract the plank. The soil collapses. An ocean of light floods into the room. A gaping hole appears.

  An hour will go by. And in an hour’s time? Mr Gaspard Winckler, you are free. A feeling he will never have known, something unlike anything else … He’ll be lost in his freedom. He’ll drown in it. He’ll walk the roads. He’ll be a vagrant. He’ll be totally bewildered …

  What do you look like as you do it? You raise your arm, you bring it down, you drag a small amount of soil and a bit of mud towards you, you push the plank forward an inch, you slide along, you wriggle about like an earthworm, like a snake in the grass. What do you look like, half naked, with something like a cake-slicer in your hand, making mud pies like a boy on a beach. An uncomfortable position. It’s hot. You must be very dirty. What a busy day you’ve had! Do you remember Jérôme? Do you remember Rufus? Do you remember Madera? Do you remember Geneviève? Mila? Nicolas? Do you remember Split, Geneva, Paris? Do you remember Giottino, Memling, Cranach, Botticelli, Antonello? Do you remember the Three Magi, the Madonnas and Child, the Christ the Kings, the Resurrections, Donors, Princes, Princesses, Fools and Retinue, the Bremen Burghers, the Knights of the Sepulchre, the Déjeuners sur L’Herbe, the Bridges near Blois, the Three Peaches on a Table, the Boats at Saint-Omer? Do you remember the Masonic chests, the totems, the Upper Volta wood carvings, the Jamaican Three Pence Brown, or the sesterces of Diocletian? Do you remember Gstaad and Altenberg? Do you remember your life?

  His hands and his eyes. Anything by anybody from any period. All his own work. All of it, but nothing else. Gaspard the forger. Italian specialities. That dead crowd that had been robbed and betrayed. Cleaned out. Gaspard the forger. Roll up, roll up, the whole world is on show. Admire. The man who knows it all. The only person who managed to copy the Mona Lisa’s smile, to unravel the secrets of the Incas, to learn the forgotten techniques of Aurignacian man. Come and see the history of art in one volume. Gaspard the forger. Gaspard Winckler. Period media and backing. Works on commission …

  The rest would be lost in a guffaw. Forger. Faussaire. Fausse ère: wrong period. Bad times. Storm on the way. A forger’s forger. Necrophagist …

  Any answer? Anything certain? Anything obvious? No. Not yet. Not even an acceptable fact. Not quite a done deal. It’s as if having been a prisoner for years in an underground cell far from light and life – in the cellars of Split and Sarajevo, and the studio at Dampierre – he’d been getting ready for his escape for months, years, centuries, ages, by means of a tunnel, a passage through the earth, and that the coming moment would be the drawn-out unfolding of his own body in damp clay, dirt, fatigue, discouragement, obstinacy, and cramp. Then a hoarse breathing sound. Despair. For hours and hours perhaps. Then a layer of sod collapses, the sky appears, grass, wind, night …

  Something that will not necessarily be called freedom, just something alive, a tiny bit more alive; something that will not quite be courage, but will no longer be cowardice. Potential at a stroke, because at a stroke age-old barriers will fall. Something that would be his, and only his, that would come only from him and would be his business and nobody else’s. Himself, without the others: no more Jérôme, no more Rufus, no more Madera …

  Because failure was born one day in acute and precise selfawareness from overweening ambition, because the Condottiere turned out to be nothing more than a bounder, a disarmed horseman, a sad country squire lacking all strength, the world had suddenly lost all meaning. What had he been expecting? What had he been trying to do? Had he never been free? Had he had to go through Jérôme dying and Geneviève leaving, had he had to see the Condottiere turn into a failure and see Madera die before he noticed? Did he know that? Could he see that? What had begun? What was more important? Did his conscience remember only to protect itself …

  One by one your memories are wasting away. What? Who started it? Who joined in the game? Who put his head in the sand so as not to see what was going on?

  The failure of the Condottiere, the death of Madera. Same thing? The same outpouring of hatred and madness …

  He has reached the end of his plank. Everything is ready. One shove, and the earth will fall in. The way will be clear …

  But Otto will be standing there, a few centimetres or a few metres away from you, and he’ll be ready to fire, not to kill you, for sure, but to stop you getting away. You wonder what to do. If Otto is somewhere near the tunnel exit, he is sure to have secured all the doors. He can’t not be at the tunnel exit, since he can’t not have heard you digging. If you dig a tunnel it’s to get away through it, so he’ll be standing guard outside it. But as he’s by no means so stupid as not to imagine there might be a trap, he will have bolted the door of Madera’s study, at the top of the stairs. Suppose you went up to that door, taking down the barricade you’ve set up to secure the lower door, and made as much noise as possible in doing so? He’ll come back in. And while he’s on his way back inside the house, whoosh! You go back down at top speed, pull out the plank and off you go. No? No. There’s not enough time. It’s not precise enough. Let’s think it through again. Point one: Otto is at the tunnel exit, or rather, because he doesn’t know exactly where it is he’s relied on the sound and having worked out that the tunnel is being dug under this wall has taken up position a few metres away so as to be able to watch the whole length of the wall. Otto must be near the tunnel. You have to bet that Otto is near the tunnel. Point two: Otto’s looking out for you. He’s expecting you to emerge from the tunnel, he’
s shut off the other exits, and he won’t budge for all the gold in Peru. Point three: you have to make him budge. It all boils down to that. You have to get Otto to budge. You’ve reached the age of thirty-three and the only issue on your plate – and if anything is a crucial issue, this is it – is to cause the man known as Otto Schnabel, age fifty, weight 80 kg, indeterminate nationality, formerly butler to Anatole Madera, to change his position for a few seconds, but a few minutes would be better. Yes. But how. You could call him. But he wouldn’t respond. You could put a white sheet over your head and emerge and he might think it was a ghost, you’d go hoo! hoo! he’d panic and take to his heels and you’d been home and dry. But you’re way off there. How? Come on. You can batter down the first door. But what if he’s blockaded the garden gate? He’ll hear you, he’ll rush in and shoot you in the legs. He’ll get you …

  Can you feel the seconds ticking away, the minutes trickling past? Have you got your mind on it properly, Gaspard Winckler? You’ve got your grey matter up to speed, haven’t you? Dura mater, pia mater, etcetera. Have you got the answer? You’ve got it. It’s very simple …

  Let’s go over it again. Let’s keep it short and logical. Order, precision, method. You are about to carry off your greatest coup.

  What’s the one thing that would make Otto shift himself? Rufus. Rufus, obviously. Rufus is not here. But Otto is expecting Rufus. Let’s suppose Rufus goes back to his hotel. The concierge will certainly tell him that someone called Otto Schnabel has called several times. And left a message. Come to Dampierre fast. Obviously Otto hasn’t said: Madera has just been murdered. That’s not the kind of thing you say out loud. What does Rufus do? He calls Otto. What’s Otto doing now? He’s keeping watch on you while waiting for Rufus to call back. So? So you take the phone and set it up on the workbench. Then you get a travelling bag and stuff into it the keys to your apartment, money, your electric shaver, a shirt, tie and sweater. You place it all on the workbench. You take the bag with you; as soon as you’re out you’ll clean off the dust and mud that’ll be more or less all over you. Do you remember the route? Is everything clear in your mind? What have you forgotten? Check. Your papers? Cigarettes? Matches? You go back down. You go back up. You take a long deep breath. Are you in a panic? You are not in a panic …