Madame

by Antoni Libera

  I peered out from behind the kiosk.

  ‘Oh, good, you’re here,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.’

  ‘Me, stand you up? What an idea!’

  ‘You never know . . . what ideas a student will get into his head.’

  She was wearing a loose white linen jacket, and slung over her right shoulder was her bag, the one she used for school, bigger and more capacious than the bag she’d had at the Zacheta Gallery, the theatre and the Skarb Cinema. It was only now I noticed that her legs – unlike those of the other women teachers, even the older ones, and, of course, of the girls – were not bare but sheathed in thin, transparent stockings.

  As we set off I cast an involuntary glance at the school. In one window, the one where I had stood looking down a quarter of an hour ago, I saw someone’s silhouette. It was clearly male, but I couldn’t tell, during that fraction of a second, if it was Roz or Kugler, and had neither the time nor the opportunity for more prolonged observation.

  ‘So,’ she said after we had walked a dozen or so steps in silence, ‘you intend to study Romance languages?’ She spoke as if she were returning to the subject of a recently interrupted conversation.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How do I know?’ she shot back at once. ‘Don’t all university applications pass through my hands, and do I not personally comment on, or at least sign, every single one of them?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I admitted. ‘Yes, those are my plans. What of it?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re doing the right thing. You’ll get in, I’m not worried about that.’

  ‘Then what are you worried about?’ I asked, looking at the ground and seeing in my mind the image of my notebook with the essay, reposing in its plastic envelope in the shiny file on the Green-Eyed One’s desk.

  She gave a low laugh. ‘One has to watch one’s step all the time with you, can’t relax for a minute. You latch on to every word.’

  ‘I’m not latching on to anything. I’m asking.’

  ‘And then, later – what do you want to do?’ she asked, returning to the subject in a cool, offhand voice.

  ‘When, later?’ I feigned incomprehension.

  ‘After university.’

  The image of Freddy floated up in my mind. ‘You mean, what are my plans for the future?’ I said, quoting him.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ I muttered, with a note of disappointment. ‘I want to write. To be a writer.’

  ‘Ah, of course!’ She nodded, smiling again. ‘Virgo, with the goose-quill pen.’

  ‘You have a good memory.’

  ‘And that’s what you intend to live on? Your writing?’ She looked at me, raising her eyebrows slightly.

  ‘Well, you know,’ I said loftily, ‘I don’t think . . . in those terms. It’s just what I want. Whether I’ll succeed, and whether I’ll be able to make a living from it, is another matter. It’s not something I’m concerned with for the moment.’

  ‘A maximalist,’ she summed up. Her tone was one of ironic mock-respect. ‘All or nothing.’

  ‘You could say that,’ I conceded. After a moment’s hesitation I hazarded a more attacking move: ‘Actually, my name really should be Maximilian. It’s curious: even as a child I wanted to be called Max.’

  She didn’t even blink. ‘Like Robespierre,’ she said pointedly. ‘And Gorky – wasn’t his name Maxim?’

  ‘No, not like them,’ I replied. ‘You can be sure of that.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ she replied emphatically. ‘And what is it you’re so eager to write about?’

  ‘Oh, lots of things. Joanna Schopenhauer’s journey across Europe, from England to Gdansk with the future Arthur in her womb, for example. Or Hölderlin, my favourite poet, and his journey home on foot from Bordeaux, across the Alps, where he saw Dionysus in a vision. Or the wanderings of the Marquis de Custine in Russia under Tsar Nicholas.’

  ‘Well, well, quite ambitious,’ she observed with what seemed like quickening interest. ‘And you intend to write all this in Polish?’

  ‘What else should I write in?’

  ‘It would be even more ambitious to do it in French. Besides,’ she added, with a sly smile and an oblique glance in my direction, ‘I had the distinct impression that your notes, and all those quotations you’ve been gathering, were in French.’

  ‘Tell me honestly,’ I said, ‘when you took away the notebooks that day to inspect them, was it because you wanted to see what I was writing when I sat there paying no attention to the lesson?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I have taken just your notebook if that was what I wanted?’

  ‘So as not to show me that you cared.’

  ‘And you think I cared?’

  ‘That was my impression.’

  ‘Impression! The prerogative of the artist. But to return to the subject, what will it be, Polish or French?’

  ‘I told you, Polish.’

  ‘I thought you harboured dreams of fame and international recognition,’ she said in a disappointed voice.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it? If what I write is genuinely good, sooner or later it will float out onto open waters.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ she persisted. ‘If it does, it’s liable to be later rather than sooner. Much later. Too late, perhaps?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Nothing, really. Just that before your work floats out onto open waters, as you so eloquently put it, it has to appear in the original – that is, it has to be published here first, and then translated. And that’s a long way to float.’

  ‘And you think that if I were to write it in French from the start –’

  ‘Do you remember,’ she interrupted, ‘what your friend said in a lesson one day?’

  ‘Roz?’ I laughed. ‘He said all sorts of things. Mostly I remember what he wrote in his essay about Antek in Prus’s novella.’

  ‘And what enchanting aphorism was that?’

  ‘A singular warning against the perils of overwork.’

  ‘I mean that time he ran amok in class, when he said that the only writer of Polish origin who ever made it, and is read all over the world, is the author of Lord Jim, who didn’t write in Polish. Do you know how old Conrad was when he left Poland?’

  ‘About ten, I should think.’

  ‘He was your age – a year younger than you. And he didn’t know any English.’

  ‘Have you read Victory?’ I took advantage of the opportunity to ask.

  ‘No. Victoire? Non.’ She gave a wan smile, as if smiling at her own thoughts.

  ‘Pity. Do read it.’

  ‘I will, without fail, just as soon as . . .’ She let the sentence trail off.

  ‘As soon as what?’

  ‘As soon as I get home.’ She gave me one of her innocent, wide-eyed smiles.

  We were approaching the familiar housing estate: it lay just beyond the blocks of houses ahead of us. For some moments we walked along in silence.

  What is she up to? I thought feverishly. What is she getting at? Why this interrogation? She’s never talked like this to me before – so seriously, despite all the irony. What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen now? And how? How will it come about?

  ‘If I’m not mistaken,’ she said suddenly, breaking the silence, ‘in that prize performance of yours you recited something from Endgame. Is that right, or have I mixed something up?’

  ‘No, that’s right. How do you know?’ She’d startled me again. ‘If I’m not mistaken, you weren’t there.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who knows everything,’ she replied, with a meaningful look. ‘I know a few things, too.’ She gave me that sly smile again. ‘But in this case the answer’s quite simple: my deputy, Mr . . . Mr . . . oh, what is his name?’ She snapped her fingers impatiently, feigning a temporary memory block. ‘What do you people call him?’

  ‘The Tapeworm.’

  ‘Voilà! Well, Mr T. showed me
your script.’

  ‘Ah, so it was your doing!’ I laughed bitterly. ‘You’re the one who had it stopped! Well, well. The things one learns.’

  ‘Me?’ she cried cheerfully. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with it? You just told me he showed you the script.’

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘Why would he have done that unless it was to ask you to decide?’

  ‘I did decide. In favour.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then why the refusal?’

  ‘Oh, he tried to convince me that it was too gloomy . . . not patriotic enough . . . not really the kind of thing we wanted, and so on. Defeatist, he called it.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told him, quite calmly, that if that was what he really thought, he should forbid it.’

  ‘Covering your . . . back, in other words.’

  ‘Possibly. On the other hand, sometimes it’s better to give in, especially on a minor point, in order to get your way elsewhere – about something more important.’

  ‘I wonder what that could be,’ I challenged her.

  ‘Co-operation and harmony,’ she replied with a straight face. ‘Not to mention,’ she added severely, ‘getting you out of the mess you got yourself into with that maximalism of yours, in other words your sheer stupidity with your biology teacher.’

  ‘She was offensive!’ I objected. The words came out in a hysterical sort of shriek. ‘Besides, she was insulting about you,’ I added sycophantically.

  ‘So, my knight in shining armour had to stand on his honour!’

  ‘Such is his custom,’ I replied, mentally flinging my cloak over my shoulder.

  ‘That means he hasn’t read Lancelot carefully enough.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘I wanted to read it with you.’

  ‘Now there was a knight who knew when to swallow his pride. Well, but that isn’t what I want to talk about now. Do you remember the play?’

  ‘Endgame? A bit.’

  ‘Did you read it in the original?’

  ‘No, only in translation.’

  ‘Yes, I see . . .’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning that you can’t know it – even if you know it by heart.’

  ‘That’s rather extreme. Is the translation really so bad?’

  ‘Pour en dire le moins, to put it mildly.’

  ‘Well, anyway, what about it?’

  ‘I wonder if you remember any of the words spoken by . . . the only female character in it.’

  ‘You mean Nell?’

  ‘Very good! You know her name, at least. What about her lines, do you remember anything of them?’

  I exerted my prodigious memory. It yielded nothing. Not a word.

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said, breaking it finally. ‘Of course! Who would remember the prattling of a woman, a crippled old woman at that! You only remember what the men say, don’t you? Naturally – everyone does.’

  ‘What about Phaedra?’

  ‘It’s generally agreed that Phaedra is really a man,’ she replied with a dismissive smile. ‘She wants the impossible. Just like Virgo in your Zodiac.’ She glanced at me. ‘But Nell – Nell is a woman. Not just nominally. Completely.’

  Finally something did float up to the surface of my memory. ‘What is it, my pet? Time for love?’ I recited.

  The look of derision on her face gave way to one of pity.

  ‘Did I get it wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it was fine. Perfect,’ she said ironically. ‘And that’s it, isn’t it? That’s all you remember?’

  ‘I think I must have remembered it because it’s the first thing she says,’ I tried to explain, ‘and because it’s funny.’

  ‘Rien n’est plus drôle que le malheur – there’s nothing so funny as unhappiness,’ she said slowly, looking into my eyes, as if she meant to suggest that the words applied to me, that my unhappiness was somehow comic.

  ‘I’m sorry, was that supposed to be about me?’

  ‘Of course not!’ she protested. ‘Just another quotation.’

  ‘Is that the one you meant?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

  There was another moment of silence.

  I felt a growing tension. By now we had entered the housing estate; a few short paths were all that separated us from the goal. Thoughtlessly, involuntarily, I quickened my pace.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she asked, halting at a point where several paths diverged. I had automatically taken the one that led most directly to her building.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I stammered, ‘I’ve really no idea . . . absentmindedness, I suppose. I was trying to remember the words and . . . I just walked on without thinking.’

  She studied me intently for a moment, then set off down the path that led straight ahead. I followed.

  ‘Now there,’ she resumed, again as if she were returning to the subject of an interrupted conversation, ‘there you have another writer who chose a foreign language.’

  ‘Who?’ Still not quite recovered from my slip, I was momentarily lost.

  ‘Who! The author of Endgame, of course.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, what of it?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just telling you.’ She shrugged. ‘You asked me for extra coaching . . . for what the physics teacher gives Roz Goltz. So I’m fulfilling your request. I’m giving you a special lesson. In the theory of relativity – of languages.’

  ‘Well, here we are,’ she announced with a smile. (Her house was another hundred yards away.) ‘Thank you, my knight. And here’s a cadeau from Madame le professeur.’ She opened her bag and delved inside.

  My eye was immediately drawn to something green protruding from an inner pocket, a small booklet with the words ‘Special Passport’ on it.

  Madame’s hand, meanwhile, had emerged from the bag holding a small book with a white cover which she handed to me.

  The title, printed in light blue under the author’s name, was arranged in a sort of pyramid:

  FIN DE PARTIE

  suivi de

  Acte sans paroles*

  On the bottom it said ‘Les Editions de Minuit’ and in between was a five-pointed star intertwined with a lowercase m.

  ‘It’s like a description of the scene with Paolo and Francesca,’ I said in an undertone, staring at the cover.

  ‘With whom?’ She snapped the bag shut.

  ‘I told you about them once. They’re the ones who were reading about Lancelot, and then they stopped reading and . . . “read no more”.’

  ‘That’s what usually happens,’ she said, spreading her hands as if to say, That’s how it is! C’est la vie!

  ‘Would you inscribe it for me?’ I asked, searching desperately for a move that would prolong the game, even if only for a moment. ‘A book without an inscription . . .’

  ‘Who said there wasn’t an inscription? It’s there; everything is as it should be.’

  I peeked inside the cover. On the title page were four pencilled lines:

  See page thirty-two, Nell’s last word.

  An adjective? or a verb in the imperative?

  Your French studies are ended; this is the last question.

  Pour mon meilleur disciple.

  24 June.

  ‘In pencil? And unsigned?’ I looked up at her.

  ‘Is there anyone else who could have written that to you?’ she asked flirtatiously.

  ‘No – I suppose not.’

  ‘Well, then. And it’s in pencil because . . . well, who knows? You might want to erase it one day.’

  ‘The form of this inscription,’ I began enigmatically, ‘even its rhythm’ – I paused, maintaining the suspense – ‘seems somehow familiar.’

  ‘How so?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

  ‘I read a similar inscription written to someone by’ – here I paused and looked into her eyes, bu
t at the last minute swerved from my course and finished calmly – ‘Joanna Schopenhauer.’

  ‘I assure you I don’t know it.’ She held up her hand in oath.

  I leafed through the book, looking for page thirty-two.

  ‘Not now,’ she said, with a restraining touch of her hand on my arm. ‘Later. When you get home.’

  Now! said the voice in my head. Not later, now! Now is the time to swallow your pride!

  I took hold of her hand and looked into her eyes again.

  ‘We’ve had the Fin de partie,’ I began. My heart was pounding. ‘And now it’s time for Acte sans paroles.’ And slowly, in the way I had seen it done in countless films, I approached her lips with mine.

  ‘Non,’ she said, and stopped me, literally at the last moment. ‘That would be terribly kitsch. And you don’t like kitsch.’

  I swallowed nervously and hung my head. So it’s not to be, after all, I thought.

  Then she said, ‘Non . . . pas cette fois . . . pas encore. Et pas ici, bien sûr.’ After a pause she added, ‘Un jour . . . ailleurs . . . peut-être. Quand ton oeuvre sera finie.’*

  I raised my eyes to her face. She ruffled my hair affectionately. Then she turned and walked briskly away. She reached another fork in the paths, turned down one of them and disappeared from view around the side of the building.

  I raised the book to my eyes and found page thirty-two, and on it Nell’s last word.

  The word was: ‘Déserte.’

  L’âge viril

  There is surely no need to describe my feelings after the events of that Midsummer’s Eve – my ‘Walpurgisnacht’, as I thought of it. Sleep was out of the question. And the following day a kind of choking weight oppressed me. All the questions and anxieties that had plagued me for the past months resurfaced with renewed urgency.

  What did it mean? What did she know about me – and about what I knew about her? What did she really want? How was I to read her, with her oscillations between extremes, her ‘ice’ and her ‘fire’: one moment treating me with disdain or behaving as if I simply wasn’t there, and the next bestowing those special attentions, and sometimes those suggestive, disturbing expressions of affection? And that final meeting: the dance, the memento, the inscription. Regardless of its message, it was very like the one her mother had written for Constant in the Gdansk edition of Joanna Schopenhauer’s memoirs. Did she know of it? Did she know anything at all? If she did, why should she want to play these games with me? And those last words of hers, those words she’d spoken in French when, ‘plummetting from the heights’, I’d lowered my eyes and bent my head – had they been serious or in jest? Spoken in good faith or just carelessly thrown out? Did they express a kind of hope, and a desire to keep it alive, or were they just words – meaningless phrases, cheap, stale clichés snatched at random from the standard repertoire of casual flirtation?