Madame

by Antoni Libera

  I had been imprudent and had been held up to ridicule as a result. But the episode had also forced me to face facts: I, too, had fallen for Madame la Directrice. I was not immune; in refusing to admit it I had simply been deceiving myself.

  My act of self-analysis, however, failed to produce its usual salutary effect: instead of making me feel better, it made the wound fester. I would now suffer not only all the tortures that went with the disease but also the humiliation of being, in my own eyes and everyone else’s, another victim. This was too degrading a prospect to be borne.

  No, I thought as I gazed at the changing colours of the leaves in the October sun, I can’t allow this; I can’t abase myself like this. I’ve got to do something. If I don’t, I’ll soon be like all the rest of them – pathetic, oblivious to all sense of shame, stooping to anything for the slightest scrap of attention.

  I was eighteen years old – at least twelve years younger than she was. I was also her subordinate, and of the lowest rank. I knew that in these circumstances I could seek consolation only in words: to hope for anything more was ridiculous and would lead to agonies of embarrassment and humiliation. By ‘words’ I didn’t mean ‘literature’; I didn’t intend to behave in accordance with Shakespeare’s description of the third age of man and take to composing ‘woeful ballads’ or – God forbid – besieging her with love letters. What I had in mind was something else: a kind of game in which words acquired a plurality of meanings and also a new strength. A game in which words became more than just a means of communication; they became, in a sense, facts. In this game, language, within a certain domain, became reality: ephemeral sounds with conventional meanings became things of flesh and blood. It was to be a kind of fulfilment through words.

  I had already experienced the magic power of words; I knew what they could do, how much they could achieve. Not only could they change reality, they could create it and in some cases supplant it. It was through words that I had reversed, in the offices of the ASTB, a decision that had seemed without appeal; it was through words that, later, I had subdued the rabble. Words had been the true source of that unforgettable moment after the Choral Festival: it was the magic ‘No more’, that cry of ‘What you say?’ which had transformed our relief into an ecstatic Dionysian frenzy and brought catharsis.

  And weren’t words always mightier than facts, even in the underground life of school? Of the dozens of incidents engraved forever in the collective memory of our class, Roz’s notorious essay was unquestionably the one that held first place. It even beat Titch’s inspired, uncompromising siege-breaking manoeuvre, which faded somewhat over time and lost some of its sparkle.

  Not without reason was the book which proclaims that all things began, and always begin, with the Word known as the Holy Book!

  I decided to make use of what I had learnt. I would not rely on Providence for opportunities to exploit the magic power of words. I would create them. I would deliberately pave the way and prepare the ground.

  This, like the jazz ensemble and the theatrical performance, involved a certain amount of work. But this time, creating the necessary conditions for future rapture would consist mainly in amassing concrete and detailed knowledge about Madame and her life. The matter had to be approached scientifically. No more absurd fantasies, no more guesswork or wild surmise: it was time for some serious research. And the information had to be substantial, not useless facts like the shade of her lipstick. If I was to initiate the game I was planning, I needed a good hand, with a few aces. In short, an investigation was called for.

  This bold plan, if I was not to dismiss it the next morning as some ridiculous fantasy conceived in a moment of gloom, had to be quickly anchored in reality. Immediate action was required. What was there I could do at once? Of course! The telephone book! I could find out her address.

  I rose and set off with a determined step for the post office.

  It was unlikely that a school head wouldn’t have a home telephone. But that didn’t mean the number would be in the book. It might be ex-directory, or in someone else’s name; if the phone had been recently installed, it might not figure in the last edition, for a new phone book only came out every two or three years.

  My fears turned out to have been needless. Only three people with the same surname as Madame were listed, and of these only one had a woman’s first name. Furthermore, it was Madame’s. In addition, there was an academic title after the comma: ‘MA’, it said. This seemed to settle the matter: it could only be She.

  The easy, swift success of my first stab at detective work had a dual effect. It evoked a shiver of excitement and strengthened my faith in my plan, but it also brought a sense of deception. For I was now back where I had started, facing a blank wall, and this in turn revived all my doubts.

  Subjecting these feelings to a thorough analysis, I concluded that they were symptoms of a subconscious fear. Instead of getting on with it, I was stalling. While I longed for the day when, armed with the necessary knowledge, I could finally begin my Great Game, I also feared it; so I looked for reasons to procrastinate, even to give up altogether.

  I’ve got to overcome this, I thought; I have to play an attacking game. And before I could change my mind I set off for the address in the phone book.

  The street – more precisely, the housing estate – to which it led me was roughly halfway between the school and my own house. When I got off the bus and plunged into the maze of paths that wound around the buildings, my heart beat faster. What if I ran into her? It could happen at any moment. Wouldn’t she think it odd? Of course, I might have any number of perfectly good reasons for being there, but still . . . What should I do if it happened? Utter a polite greeting and walk on? Or say something? Act surprised, make some comment, try to engage her in conversation?

  None of these answers was satisfactory. A chance encounter just now would upset my plans and was definitely to be avoided. I put myself on guard. As soon as I spotted her, I decided, I would change direction or turn away; if the worst came to the worst, I could pretend to be wrapped in thought and pass by as if I hadn’t seen her. As long as I was outside this presented no problem; but what if I met her at the entrance to her building, or – even worse – on the stairs? I’d have to say something then.

  Luckily, the list of tenants was displayed on the outside of the building. Having found her name, I looked at the names of her neighbours and memorised a couple of them just in case. Armed with this knowledge, and slightly relieved, I began to walk slowly towards the entrance. Now I could run into her right at the door and I had an answer ready: however surprised or suspicious she was, I could say, ‘I’m going to see Mr So-and-so,’ giving the name of one of the upstairs neighbours. ‘What’s so extraordinary about that?’

  The building had four storeys; she lived on the second floor. In front of her door I was engulfed by another wave of emotion. So it was here! This door! This doorknob! This doorframe! Having made sure that there was no spyhole in the door opposite through which someone might see me, I put my ear to the cold surface of the door. Silence. No one seemed to be in. I went upstairs and checked the names on the doors there, just in case. Then I ran downstairs and outside into the courtyard, and counted the windows.

  This wasn’t difficult, as all of them clearly gave onto the courtyard, and there were only three on each floor. The one nearest the staircase proved, after a glance at the clearly visible interior of the ground-floor flat, to be the kitchen window; the other two, a big one with four panes and a smaller one with two, belonged to a room, or perhaps two rooms – here the ground floor brought no enlightenment, for the curtains were drawn.

  I surveyed the building opposite, identical in every feature, and made for the entrance directly across from hers. There I began my observations – first from the second-floor landing and then from the third.

  Despite the short distance between the buildings, it was hard to tell whether there was an interior wall between the two main windows. I thought th
ere wasn’t, but I couldn’t be sure; and this uncertainty, in a matter apparently quite trivial, gave me no rest. For the possession of two rooms implied a great deal.

  In those days, because of the housing shortage, a certain number of square feet was assigned per person; if one had no special privileges, one was condemned to the existence of a bee in a hive. If, for one reason or another (for instance, because someone had died), there was a bit more space, the other family members lived in perpetual fear that one fine day an eviction notice would come through the letterbox and send them off to a smaller flat, since their own now exceeded the permitted norms. Every square foot of extra space also cost a fortune in rent (a means of exerting additional pressure on tenants), and few people could afford this. So it rarely happened that a single person had more than a so-called a-1 (a studio) or at best an a-2 (a kitchen-cum-bedsit).

  So if the flat I was now straining to glimpse, mentally and visually, from the third-floor landing of the building opposite had two rooms, its tenant either shared it with someone, or enjoyed special privileges, or paid a king’s ransom in rent. Of these three possibilities I would have preferred the second, which also seemed the likeliest; and I wouldn’t have minded the third. The first, although perfectly possible, was more disturbing. But why should it be? After all, if she lived with someone and I found out, sooner or later, who that someone was (a family member? a male friend?), I would have some good material for my ‘siege’.

  Then, in one moment, all this conjecture was dispelled, for dusk was falling; it fell early in the autumn. A light came on in the flat above hers, and it lit up the entire space behind the two windows, clearly showing that there was no wall between them. This was further confirmed when the tall figure of a man appeared at one window to draw the curtains and reappeared to perform the same action at the other literally no more than a second after disappearing from view at the first.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. So it was one room after all! A large one, certainly, but only one. Such a humble, unobtrusive little detail, but so uplifting! It improved her reputation (she may still have privileges, but more modest ones); it eliminated once and for all the possibility of a flatmate; and it radically reduced the rent she paid for extra space, or perhaps cancelled it altogether.

  In my excitement I forgot all about the debacle with the Viper and the prospect, looming darkly on the horizon and bristling with traps for the unwary, of being grilled about the anatomy of the rabbit. Ebullient, I walked along the dark streets and summed up my achievements for the day.

  Although there was nothing very remarkable about the knowledge I had acquired, it brought things into sharper focus. Within less than two hours I had reduced the distance between us by light-years. From a tiny point, flickering somewhere in the vastness of the cosmos with a mysterious, pale-blue light, she had become a solar disc seen from a nearby planet. I was no longer just one among dozens of her pupils, kept at a businesslike distance; I had become a singular kind of acquaintance. I knew where and how she lived; I could phone her; I could send her a letter, and on the envelope, after her name, I could put the academic title I had found in the phone book.

  And then the significance of that title, or rather of its presence in the phone book, hit me. Of course, it was there as an additional distinguishing feature, in case someone else shared both her names. But the possessor of such a title must be able to produce the document establishing his right to use it – in this case an MA certificate. Which meant she had been to university and had finished her degree. It seemed so simple, and yet it had taken me so long to think of it.

  Today’s Subject: All Saints’ Day

  The conversations with which Madame began her lessons were always on some topic of current interest: a headline event, something to do with the life of the school, the approaching holidays, things of that kind. It turned out, accordingly, that the topic of our next lesson was All Saints’ Day, which was drawing near. The conversation was funereal: tombstones, coffins, wreaths, candles, obituaries and gravediggers – the point being, as always, to familiarise us with some of the vocabulary connected with a given subject.

  This was inconvenient for me. Nevertheless, when my turn came I stuck to my plan, and began as follows: ‘Quant à moi, je n’ai pas encore de morts dans ma famille, no one in my own family has died. But,’ I continued, ‘I still intend to go to the cemetery with a group of other pupils, to tend to the neglected graves of some university professors.’

  ‘C’est bien louable,’ she observed. Commendable. But instead of elaborating on her compliment or at least asking me about my plans, which is what I’d been counting on to help with the next step in my vertiginous climb, she said, ‘The graves are mossy, and ivy covers the crosses.’

  One could only agree with this observation. It did not, however, get me very far. I made another attempt. ‘Oui, en effet,’ I conceded, a tinge of melancholy in my voice. ‘Unfortunately it also covers the names on the gravestones. That’s why we’re going to clear it away.’

  She seemed quite indifferent to this. ‘Les tombeaux où rampent les lierres sont souvent beaux,’ she went on. ‘Ivy-covered gravestones have a certain beauty. You must make sure you don’t spoil anything.’

  What extraordinary taste the woman had! The dubious beauty of a grave was more important to her than the person buried there. She was inhuman.

  ‘Naturally,’ I agreed and then, not wanting to get stuck on this shoal, rushed on: ‘But perhaps you know of some neglected grave we could tend? We’d be glad to do it.’

  She considered this for a moment. ‘Non, rien ne me vient à l’esprit.’

  Nothing occurred to her?

  ‘Tous vos professeurs sont toujours en vie?’ I hazarded, unable to keep the disappointment from my voice. Surely all her teachers couldn’t still be alive?

  ‘A vrai dire, je n’en sais rien; I’ve no idea,’ she replied coldly, impenetrable as a slab of granite.

  I looked about desperately for some crack in this smooth surface, anything that would give me a handhold, for I felt in danger of falling off at any moment. ‘Well, then, perhaps you remember some names, at least? Maybe some of the older ones?’ I blurted out. ‘We could check where their graves are, or try to find them.’

  This wasn’t the most felicitous of remarks, and I wasn’t surprised when she riposted by dismissing my enthusiasm as morbid. ‘Tout cet intérêt pour les morts me paraît quelque peu exagéré.’

  Exaggerated? ‘Mais pas du tout!’ I said indignantly. Feeling this was my last chance, I launched a frontal attack: ‘It’s for my friends. They asked me to find out, so that’s what I’m doing. It occurred to me that you might know.’

  ‘Me?’ She shrugged in puzzled inquiry. ‘Why should I know anything about it?’

  But her position was now hopeless: ‘Didn’t you get your degree at Warsaw University?’

  ‘Si, bien sûr. Where else?’ She had given up a pawn – she had said what I wanted to hear. And yet her voice still vibrated with a kind of regal petulance.

  ‘Well then!’ Emboldened by my triumph, I plunged on: ‘C’était quand, si je peux me permettre?’

  But asking what year she had earned her degree was of course too much, and she let me know it at once. ‘Je crois que tu veux en savoir un peu trop,’ she pronounced grandly. ‘And anyway, what difference does it make?’

  ‘Oh, none at all,’ I said, backing off – and immediately regretted it. The move had been thoughtless; I had lost a good strategic position. I compounded the error by adding, even more foolishly, ‘C’était seulement une question pour entretenir la . . . dialogue.’

  She could not let such an advantage slip away. ‘Pas la dialogue,’ she corrected immediately, ‘mais le dialogue; dialogue est masculin. In this case, however, you should have said conversation, not dialogue. That’s one point. And the other is that the subject today is cemeteries and gravestones, not higher education, and particularly not mine.’

  It was a classic move. Whenever
anyone exceeded some limit, especially if they began asking questions, she would first tell them off for bad grammar and then put them firmly in their place.

  But this time her thrust hardly touched me. I had what I wanted, and the mess I’d made of my bold, indeed frankly insolent, last charge – after all, asking when she got her degree was tantamount to asking her age – left scarcely a scratch. The only bothersome thing was the way I’d bungled it; that stung a little, and to appease the sting I decided to turn it all into a joke. ‘If I used the word dialogue instead of conversation,’ I said, ‘it was just to avoid the rhyme.’

  ‘Comment? What rhyme?’ Her face twisted with regal displeasure. I pursued calmly, ‘Si j’avais dit: “c’était seulement une question pour entretenir la conversation,” ça ferait des vers. Can’t you hear it?’

  ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est que ces bêtises!’ she said impatiently and, waving me away, told me to sit down.

  Material for the Report

  That same day, straight after school, I presented myself at the Department of Romance Languages at Warsaw University. There I said that I was a pupil in my final year at a school that the Ministry of Education, in its wisdom, had decided to transform into a bold experiment with French as the language of instruction, and that I had been delegated to approach the department with a certain request. The circumstances of this request I explained as follows.

  I had been entrusted with the task of writing a report about the study of Romance languages at the university. It was to be mainly about the entrance exams and programme of study for each year, but was also to contain a so-called historical sketch – this had been stressed – outlining the department’s work over the years and supplying brief portraits of its most distinguished figures, including some of its former students who had excelled in some way or gone on to interesting careers.