by H. K. Bush
“She looked at me, her face blank. ‘Yes?’
“‘It has to do with the lost manuscripts.’
“‘Oh, that damned, painful subject again!’ She looked almost relieved, and spoke in a mocking, rather funny way. ‘How many times must I tell it?’
“‘It seemed a little rehearsed to me. And suddenly I went in for the coup de grace. ‘I wonder if you might comment about this letter that Pound gave to me?’ I handed her a copy of the document.
“She began reading, and very quickly her eyes became wider, and her head turned downward just slightly. Then she brightened and looked at me. ‘And so just what exactly is all this supposed to mean? That we are to take seriously the words of an old, broken down genius, who spent twelve years in an insane asylum?’
“I took a moment before responding. ‘I believe he is telling the truth, Mrs. Mowrer. There is other evidence to support his story, and so I cannot think that it is an invention. Unless you can tell me otherwise.’ She began to protest, but I kept going. ‘I should also assure you that I have promised Mr. Pound that I would never reveal any of these secrets until at least twenty years after the passing of any of the … major players in the drama, so to speak. I must tell you that I have long suspected some sort of conspiracy. It was only in recent years that I finally discovered what seemed to be a workable explanation. And so I visited Mr. Pound in order to test my explanation. He was altogether forthcoming in our conversations, and spoke as any sane, highly intelligent man of his stature should be expected to speak.’ I waited a moment. ‘And he also produced some very old manuscripts.’
“She sat motionless and rather fatigued-looking for several long moments. She consulted the copy of Pound’s letter once more, shaking her head as if she couldn’t trust her eyes to read the words on the page. I wanted to launch into another long statement, but felt it was correct to wait for her to respond.
“Finally she did. ‘He told me he would never reveal to ANYONE what we had done.’ She stamped her foot in a moment of petulance. I could see her mind working, trying to determine how to respond, what tack to take. I waited. Finally, she looked me in the eye. ‘It was all for Ernest. I wanted so much for him to be recognized as the great writer we all knew him to be. And now we can all see that greatness so plainly. Ezra was our wonderful friend, and his wise advice had already changed so many people’s lives. Tom Eliot called him the master craftsman.’ She looked at me for some kind of sympathy.
“‘Can you verify that Pound’s account is accurate?’
“She put her face into her hands, then looked up once more. ‘And is this to remain secret? Can you assure me of this? Because I simply cannot stand to be dragged once more, again and again, into the newspapers. When Ernest died, it was all just too much. Every reporter forced me to relive the tragedies over and over again. And this coming out … ’
“She covered her face with her hands, and I said, ‘Your story will be safe with me. Until at least another twenty years, or more. It is my solemn promise, Mrs. Mowrer.’ Again she peered into my eyes, I think searching for an assurance that my promise could be trusted. And I had every intention of keeping it. I believe at that moment, she understood that to be the case. So she said, ‘Yes, Professor. Ezra’s account is correct. We put together the story about the valise. I thought that he could do the same for Ernest that he had done for Tom Eliot … I believed that Ezra knew what was best … ’ And she quitted the tale. I had no need to prod her. She said little beyond what I have now told you.”
“That’s it, Sensei?” I wanted more.
“In terms of substance, yes. I already felt that I had the story, and was only there for corroboration. And I had received it, a confession of sorts. I felt pain for her at that moment, Yu-san. She was now just an amiable, slightly overweight older lady living in a farmhouse in New England, whose life had been fairly normal for a long time. And my brash inquiries served to resurrect those jarring memories of her youth, when she had found herself at the center of one of the most legendary bohemian cultures ever assembled. One day she was a pretty teenager growing up in Chicago, the next she was surrounded by the most brilliant and colorful set of intellectuals that we have perhaps ever seen in the western world. And now, in her dotage, she was alone in her farmhouse, playing an old, slightly out-of-tune piano, answering her own door, and serving iced tea to complete strangers.
“Presently our conversation ended, and I left her. But I now knew that Pound’s tale was real, and that I had in my possession a relic of mythic proportions: a unique document, composed in longhand by Ezra Pound, proving to the world that my theories were substantially correct.”
He paused, appearing triumphant. “You see, I had proven my thesis. It was the culminating achievement of my career. And yet,” he wavered a second, “until this very day, I had never told any other person about it, outside of Mika. You are the first American scholar to know these things, Yu-san. Hadley died in the early ’70s, and I have held the secret well beyond my promise. For all these years, I have been alone in my triumph, in the academic world— until now.”
He called for Omori, made a request for sake, and when it was brought, he poured two tiny porcelain cups to the brim. So we lifted glasses and toasted Sensei’s discoveries. He drained his cup of sake, then peered at me. “And what will you do with these secrets, Yu-san?”
Pause.
“I’ll just have to think about that one for a while, Sensei.” I looked down at my cup, at the exquisite craftsmanship, so delicate I could see my fingers through the fragile porcelain. “But don’t worry—the secret is safe with me.”
And I have been thinking about it—for over fifteen years. All that time, it has remained our little secret, like the details of a couple’s romantic honeymoon, high up in the mountains, surrounded by wind and trees. The story about Hemingway and Pound would also become the culmination of my intimacies with Sensei, though, of course, I could not have known it at the time. Over a year and a half of slow cultivation had climaxed with these revelations of Pound in Venice. I was certain that it couldn’t be topped, even by that great literary magician, Goto Haruki.
As it unfolded, ours was a short-lived honeymoon. Midwinter turned abruptly bone-chilling, and soon enough a moist chill began to dominate the early mornings. Cold, rainy winds came off the ocean, up the mountainside, and into my living room when I left the windows open—which I frequently did. One night, I awoke with the curtains blowing in almost horizontally, and although I had recently been let in on one of the greatest literary deceptions of modern times, my immediate concern was now a head cold from Hell. Meanwhile, Sensei left town for weeks on end, visiting the hot springs of Kyushu to escape the cold, and I stayed home on Sundays, sulking.
It should have been a momentous season for me. But the rain ushered in the dreariest and most discouraging times I had in Japan—at least, until the final days. Empty juice containers, piles of used Kleenexes, old copies of the Japan Times, and dirty dishes littered my now too tiny apartment. For almost a week I lay in my bed, reading when I felt like it, napping or just staring out at the city and ocean beyond. Occasionally, I turned on the television and dozed while listening to news on NHK, most of which I couldn’t understand.
Classes were done for the year, and my head cold gave me plenty of motivation to skip going to the office. The lines at the stores, and the crowded sidewalks of urban Japan, were no longer amusing; they were now simply annoying, as were my classroom and office duties. Worst of all, I was getting restless, and I knew it.
When my visits to Sensei resumed in March, they seemed less intriguing, less energizing. For one thing, I was seeing less and less of Mika. Each week my heart would flutter as I awaited the person who would answer the door. The difference between Mika and Omori was like the difference between the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean spreading out before me and a half-full glass of tap water down at the local bento shop. And Sensei too seemed to be changing—he seemed more despondent, and often would
send word to me canceling our next visit. Meanwhile, the talk I had had with Mika that one afternoon so many months back, unattended by Sensei, seemed to have become a distant dream. Looking back, it certainly injured my friendship with Sensei as well, though at that moment, things were destined to get much worse. For most of winter and spring of 1994, we only met a few times. But somehow the buzz was fading, and we both sensed it. Maybe the climax of our relationship had been achieved, and it would be all downhill from then on.
There was still the highly anticipated trip to France on his behalf. One week in late January, Sensei detailed the mechanics of my upcoming journey. It was certainly exciting, and would evidently require very little on my part, but there still was an air of mystery surrounding the precise nature of my “assistance.” All I knew was that I was to assist in the evaluation of “certain documents.”
So, on a balmy day in March 1994, I boarded a Japan Airlines flight bound for Paris. Sensei had it all arranged for me, months in advance. He had purchased a business class upgrade, which I learned was the only way to fly. Once I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport and exited customs, I was greeted by a wordless and nameless person in a black suit and cap who held a cardboard sign saying “Professor Springs,” and who ushered me to a black metallic limo and whisked me into the center of old Paris. Sensei had also arranged for me to stay in a seventeenth-century building of cold limestone, with much glass and marble inside. It was situated a stone’s throw away from the Closerie de Lilas, the old nightclub in Montparnasse where Hemingway and his friends reigned like princes in the glory days of 1920s Paris.
My silent driver carried my things up to the second floor—or, rather, the third floor; this aspect of European thought eluded my American instincts. The landlady spoke to me busily in a sort of French that did not sound much like the courses I had taken years before. Her hands moved franticly, like frightened birds. I understood about twenty percent of what she said, though I got the impression that she was very happy to have me, and that Sensei was someone of very great importance in her world.
Her name was Madame Clairaux, and she wore thick glasses, a crocheted shawl of bright red, and extremely strong perfume of some sort. She insisted I sit with her in her dusty nineteenth-century-style parlor and have tea. My head was shaky from the long flight and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I smiled broadly and ate a tiny Parisian pastry of some sort as she chattered on in her incomprehensible French. My nods only encouraged her further. Finally, teacups drained, she escorted me up the stairs to my rooms, and showed me how to use the door keys—one for the front entrance on the boulevard, and another for my apartment. She patiently took me around the flat to show me how various things worked, and in ten minutes was on her way.
It was late in the afternoon, and I was alone in a fairly extravagant apartment in the City of Lights. My flight back was eight days later, so I had plenty of time to explore. I only had one duty to attend to—to meet with one of Sensei’s agents, as he called him, a Monsieur Gluckstein. Sensei had assured me that I could easily examine the documents in question in less than an hour, and then advise him about their authenticity. I did not know of their approximate value at that time, and on that first day in Paris I had not even known what they were or who had written them. What I did know was, that if it all worked out as he planned it, Sensei would green light the exchange, and would have funds wired into this agent’s bank account. Then, I would receive the documents and hand carry them back to Japan. I was on a need to know basis, like a scene out of a Robert Ludlum novel, so it seemed very intriguing and romantic.
There were also a few other dealers whose offices Sensei asked me to visit, but the main purpose of the trip was evidently the rendezvous with Gluckstein, which was to be later in the week. So I had five days to deal with the jet lag and to get accustomed to my temporary residence.
I spent most of my time aimlessly wandering up and down the hypnotic streets of central Paris. It was cold but dry, and with a heavy coat and a wool cap, the days were perfect for serious walking. The streets themselves were the loveliest I had ever encountered—endless cafes with finely-dressed patrons sipping coffee and reading newspapers, stunning vistas of old churches, villas, and perfectly symmetrical bridges, and the raging root beer foam of the river Seine, stampeding its way to the sea. Octagenarians of both sexes, dressed up like models in glossy fashion magazines, walked slowly through the alleyways or along the river, with tiny dogs on leashes. I visited museums, sat for long silences in countless churches, and took lengthy breaks in those same cafes, substituting wine for coffee as the afternoons lengthened into evening. It was one of the great weeks of my lifetime, and I swore I would come back again and again. But I never did.
In due course, I met with Gluckstein in another of those omnipresent cafes. The meeting had been set up at a rather grand venue on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Saint Paul metro stop. Sensei insisted upon this location, claiming it had some of the best pastries and croissants in the world, of all things. He delighted in such details, always insisting on “the best.”
I arrived first, about ten o’clock on a promising Parisian morning, and took a seat, one of only three other people at the cafe. The pastry and coffee were, as promised, splendid. As I waited, I read a Newsweek International that someone had left on a nearby table. Twenty minutes later Gluckstein bustled into the café and came directly to my table, as if from some sort of intuition.
“Ah, professeur, I am late once again!” He smiled as he said this, and I was immediately at ease with him. Gluckstein was short, squat, wearing thick black spectacles on the bridge of his prodigious nose, a heavy wool suit and a cape, of all things. He was overfed, and thus overweight in the least offensive way, and he made the most of his God-given natural appearance by smiling and winking a lot, as if he were in constant touch with the frailty and ridiculousness of human culture and society. He carried with him a polished leather satchel and a blue and red checked umbrella, though the sky was fair and there was no sign of rain. He also had in his front lapel a bright red rose. Gluckstein was a charmer, from first impressions, but Sensei had told me to be on guard for this aspect of his character—as a businessman, he was a killer.
We sat for some minutes, and he asked me my impressions of his “adopted” city. He informed me that he was originally from southern Italy (“Oui, my name does not sound Italian, n’est-ce pas?”), and that he had come from a long line of collectors and dealers of curiosities and art, including paintings, prints, sculpture, stained glass, jewelry, antique books, and other curiosities. For over thirty years, he said, he had maintained a reputation as one of Paris’s premiere dealers, out of a tiny shop he operated in the Rue des Rosiers in the Marais. His family business back in Ravello, on a mountaintop high above the Amalfi Coast, was now run by his brother and nephew, and continued to be one of his chief suppliers of his curiosities. “They are worth far more up here in Paris,” he winked.
He leaned in slightly. “Perhaps there is something I might be able to locate for you, Professor Springs?” He peered into my face, quizzically. “I have an extensive network, and also deal with civil authorities and private investigators, if your request might involve anything of a more confidential nature.” His eye widened slightly as he moved just a bit closer toward me.
“Well, no, I can’t think of anything for the moment. But thanks just the same.”
This seemed to disappoint him just slightly. He looked away, fanning himself with his handkerchief. “Yes, well then, alors …” Gluckstein rambled on a moment longer, then suddenly and decisively snatched the satchel up off of the chair next to him and unclasped it. He pulled from it a manila folder thick with what looked like old papers. And just like that, he handed the folder across the table to me.
“These are the documents that Professor Goto is interested in. I am sure he has explained it all to you already.”
I didn’t have the heart to correct him—I actually had no idea what was under consideration.
All I really knew was that it must be something I had particular knowledge of, to be commissioned to come so far at such a great expense. Or at least that was my understanding on the morning of my meeting with Gluckstein. I eagerly opened the folder and began reading the document on top, an autograph letter:
Hartford. July 15. 1900
Dear old Mark,
Now you must know that I love you for I have let you alone a whole month—and more. And that for a man hunted from pillar to post by all creation as you are, is worthy to be credited as an act of grace and mercy. You are yourself to blame for waking me up now. Your midnight report of the dinner with the “Red Robin of London” was a sheer delight. Her mistaken conception of “what Americans all believe” deserved all the abuse you could muster, and I cannot criticize your befuddlement a bit (nor your irritation). I earnestly hope sometime to appear in person in a gathering of that illustrious clan somewhere, and to listen in rapt attention as you indicate to this robin the weaknesses of her views, and the misery with which you are forced to hear them. It would be a most memorable occasion.
So you are to summer in England. After then, what? Will you be coming home to America, at long last?
We are booked for the short-term at Judy’s new cottage on Long Island, near Easthampton. Part of us are already there and the rest are going in a few days… .
I skipped ahead. The letter went on for several pages, and ended:
With love to Livy and the girls,
And yours affectionately, Joe
I turned the next page to see the following:
London
August 3, 1900
Dear Joe,
I am raging this afternoon, having just read more news about the nonsense being rained down upon the poor Filipinos, all in the name of God, progress, civilization, and so on. Why it is that the Americans consider it their right to pontificate to the world how clearly they perceive the will of an inscrutable God, I cannot say—but they do so as regularly as the sun sets, and generally do it without a shameful second thought, or even the tiniest trace of a grin on their faces. Airing their smug pieties is one thing, but to do so in the service of exploiting the poor Filipinos—well, Joe, it’s an act of the Christian imagination that must make a solid man of the cloth like yourself blush in shame.