Best European Fiction 2013

[GEORGIA] LASHA BUGADZE The Sins of the Wolf

“It’s taken me ages to find your number. Two days I’ve been trying to call you.”

“What can I do for you?”

Silence.

“Oh God, this is so embarrassing…”

“What was it you wanted?”

“It’s embarrassing. Should I just say it?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

Silence.

“You sound different on the phone.”

“Do I know you?”

She laughs. “No, but I know you. I’ve seen you on TV.”

I’m getting tired of this. “Right… What was it you wanted again?”

Silence.

“I really liked your book.”

“Thank you. Which one?”

(Silence again—has she forgotten the title?)

“The Sins of the Wolf. I’ve read it twice already…”

“Thank you, that’s very kind.”

“Who are you talking to?” my wife asks.

“It was just so true to life, so realistic…”

She sounds like a young girl, and I can’t work out what she wants. Does she want to be my friend? Does she want to send me something she’s written? I mean, girls are always calling me to read me their poetry.

“Thank you.”

Maybe I should hang up? Pretend we’ve been cut off?

“I feel really bad asking… Oh God, I’m sorry, but look…”

Down to business, finally!

“Yes, what is it?”

“I wouldn’t normally bother you, but I just didn’t know what else to do…”

“Who is it?” My wife pulls a face.

“Please, go on. I’m listening.”

Silence.

“It’s Bakar Tukhareli. I really need to see him. Can you put me in touch with him? Or give me his number?”

(Did I hear that right?)

“Sorry? I didn’t catch that. Whose number?”

“Bakar Tukhareli’s. You know, Bakar the Thief.”

(She’s having me on.)

“This is a joke, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not serious?”

“What? Why?”

“Well, how am I supposed to introduce you to Bakar Tukhareli?” I look toward my wife and smile. But really I’m already starting to get angry.

“Why, don’t you know him?”

“Okay, kid, you’ve had your fun. It was a good joke, very funny…”

“I wasn’t joking…”

“Good-bye,” I say and hang up. “Who was that?”

“Some kid, wanted me to hook her up with the Thief.”

“Which thief?”

“Mine, Bakar.”

“Oh boy…” She laughs.

I was working on the third part of my trilogy. I needed to kill off the Gypsy Baron as quickly as possible and get my heroes safely to the coast. One dead body should have been plenty this time. In the second part (The Sins of the Wolf) there were so many bodies I almost lost track. In the end I actually counted them: 134 deaths in a five-hundred page novel. But no, that was too few for my publisher—he pretty much asked for one per page. Talk about bloodthirsty. His motto: new page, new corpse. When I took him the manuscript for The Sins of the Wolf, he asked me—and I’m not kidding—“How many are there?”

Almost as if he was joking. But he was actually dead serious.

“How many what?”

“Don’t ‘how many what’ me. Bodies!”

“Loads.”

“What do you call loads?” He wouldn’t let it go.

And it was then that I knew that if I’d had eighty-six bodies in The Pig Skin—the first part of the trilogy—then this time I needed even more.

“Throw in another ten, some incidental ones,” he said when he’d finished reading the manuscript.

He was still smiling at me. He was worried I’d laugh at him. But we talked about it anyway (again, almost jokingly), and he seemed absolutely convinced that it was because of the eighty-six bodies that The Pig Skin was such a bestseller. What could I say? Perhaps he had a point.

This time around I had a big surprise in store—the third part of the trilogy, Children of the Sun, was going to be completely different from the first two parts. Maggie was about to write a letter to absolve the criminal… and declare her love.

There were two things I was supposed to be doing that day: writing Maggie’s letter and taking my twins to their first guitar lesson (my wife wouldn’t back down on that one).

There she was, standing by the entrance to my building, smoking a cigarette. She was dressed like a boy, in jeans and a denim jacket, a black Charlie Chaplin T-shirt underneath. She wore a silver ring on her thumb.

As we came out of the building she called over to me:

“Excuse me!”

And she ran over. She looked like an angry dyke. At first, I actually thought she was a boy. Her gait seemed strange, somehow—almost ape-like. She hunched her shoulders too, like some street-corner hoodlum bending forward in the cold.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “I phoned you the other day about Bakar…”

I realized who she was, but I asked her anyway, instinctively: “Bakar who?”

“Bakar the Thief. I asked you for his number…?”

“Oh come on, honey,” I said angrily, and shoved the twins toward the car. “Go take the piss out of somebody else.”

“I swear on my brother’s life, you’ve got it all wrong.” She stood in front of me, her arms outstretched. “You said that to me last time too. You hung up on me before I could speak…”

There was a hidden camera somewhere, surely? I looked around again.

The twins were staring at me in astonishment.

“What do you want, kid? Have you got a bet with someone? Is that it?” I had to bite my tongue to stop myself swearing at her.

“The Baron did let him go, didn’t he? He’s not in hiding anymore and—I mean, that’s what you wrote, isn’t it?”

She was insane. It suddenly hit me. Her face was deadly pale, her lips were twitching nervously. She wasn’t taking the piss; she was out of her mind.

My anger vanished. For a second I was afraid; I grabbed the twins’ hands. Then I started to feel sorry for her…

“What did I write?” I asked her, almost sympathetically.

But she laughed. “No, I mean, what I said about him needing to be in hiding, it wasn’t a question. I was just saying—I know that much at least…”

What was I supposed to do?

It was pure fantasy. Unfortunately, I had to disillusion her.

I spoke to her as a parent would a child. Tactfully. Warmly, even. “Listen, my dear. Bakar Tukhareli doesn’t exist. I made him up. He never lived with the wolves and he never stole for the Baron. I made the Baron up too; he doesn’t really exist either.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry.”

Do you know what made me say sorry? Her face. Her already ashen face had become even paler. She pulled back, as if I smelled bad. Strange as it may seem, she was looking at me with fear, irony, and compassion in her eyes, as if I was crazy—in other words, the same way I’d looked at her just a moment before, when I realized she was crazy.

And that’s how we left it. Neither of us said another word. In fact, I just walked off. She never moved from the spot.

And I thought to myself that if there were two kinds of crazy people in this world—those who were wise with it and those who were just stupid—then she was probably the second kind.

I was sure I would never see her again, but I was wrong; I saw her again the very next day and in the very same place, right outside the entrance to my building.

“You think there’s something not quite right about me, don’t you,” she said, “following you around like a spy? But I swear on everyone I know, living or dead, I really need to see him… What you said to me before—about him not existing—I’ve realized now why you said it. I’m not stupid. I’m not the first person to come to you asking for his number, am I? I bet they drive him mad… but I’m not like that… He just doesn’t know me… How can I make you understand?”

(Well, do you understand?)

What was I supposed to do now? All I could think of was:

“Have you read The Three Musketeers?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Once again she looked offended.

“Answer me. Have you read it, yes or no?”

“Yes, I think so. I don’t know.”

“What about Otar’s Widow?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you go to school?”

“Why are you making fun of me?”

“I’m not making fun of you, honestly.”

“Well, what’s that got to do with anything, then?”

“Look, did you go to school?”

“So what if I did? Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, precisely the opposite.”

“Okay, yes, I went to school. What’s your point?”

“Well, did you do Otar’s Widow? Or—I don’t know—Othello?” Silence.

“Do you think they’re real, those people? You think Giorgi actually existed?”

“Which Giorgi?”

“Giorgi, the son.”

“Whose son?”

“Otar’s.”

“What?”

“The son of Otar’s widow…”

She looked at me with a smile on her face. She seemed to be more and more convinced I was mad.

And you know what? That made me angry again. But somehow I managed to just laugh.

“How old are you?” I asked her.

“Twenty.”

(Well, that was a lie; she looked younger.)

“And do you know what it is that writers do?”

“What?”

“They make things up, don’t they? You’ve read The Sins of the Wolf, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I made it up. From start to finish. There’s not a single character in it who really exists.”

“Well then why did you write ‘This is a true story’ at the beginning?”

“It’s just what writers do, isn’t it…?”

(How could I explain?)

She smiled again. A sympathetic smile. A pitying smile.

But eventually my patience ran out. I was old enough to be her father, at the very least, and so with as much authority as I could muster I said to her in a low voice, “I swear on my own life that Bakar Tukhareli is not a real person, and may I be struck down if I’m telling a lie.”

She actually jumped. She was dumbstruck… but only for a moment. Then she squinted at me again, suddenly, suspiciously. “He should’ve played his ace. Then he wouldn’t have needed to go into hiding.”

(Even swearing on my own life hadn’t done it!)

And then I realized she was referring to chapter seventeen, “The Casino Affair,” where Bakar trumps Neron Pilpon’s Jack of Hearts with his joker, and the Baron beats his ace with a second joker.

And now she’d made me angry with myself; I should have just laughed in her face! There’s nothing worse than a reader with blind faith. She really would have believed anything I’d written.

Fine. If she wasn’t going to believe me, what could I do?

There was no reasoning with her, but I still had to get away somehow. There was nothing else for it—I was going to have to pretend my character did exist after all.

I needed to draw a line here. Calmly, with no fuss, no irony…

Like this:

“Okay. There’s nothing else for it. I’ll tell you everything…” I paused. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t heard from him in over a month.”

She actually sighed. Oh my God, I’ll never forget how she sighed, with such relief.

“Has he sold the car, the Opel Vectra?” she asked me, seriously, like some weary co-conspirator.

I nodded.

“Did Maggie call him?”

And then I saw it: she loved him, my Bakar Tukhareli, my thief. She was scared to ask that question more than any other, but she asked it nonetheless.

How her heart must have pounded in her chest, the poor thing!

I don’t even know how to describe what I was witnessing; she was like some terrible enigma, this teenager, full of life, standing right in front of me, jealous of the lover of a man who existed only in my novel.

It was the stuff of fiction.

I felt sorry for her. I wanted to protect her.

“No, she never called. Edishera went to western Georgia instead.”

She wasn’t exactly pleased to hear this. Edishera was no less of a threat than Maggie (in The Pig Skin, he had shot Bakar three times, because while he was alive Edishera couldn’t become a thief), but it seemed to calm her down anyway.

All she asked me was this: “So why did you swear a minute ago that he doesn’t exist?”

She was right, that had confused things: neither she nor Bakar the Thief would ever have sworn such an oath unless they were certain it was the truth. What had I done? I had committed an unforgivable sin—the Gypsy Baron would have given me a beating for that—and cheapened the very act of swearing an oath, casting doubt upon its worth…

I suspect she just couldn’t understand how Bakar had ever trusted me—such a faltering, inconsistent, and deceitful man. How could he have let someone like me write him, how could he have told me his story?

I don’t know whether it was this or something else that made her look at me with that air of disgust again, as if I smelled bad. I was starting to rattle her, and her nerves were going to pieces.

But I wasn’t about to push this child too far, was I?

I said nothing. I just smiled at her like an idiot and went on my way. Once again I was sure I would never see her again.

Some time afterward I was appearing as a guest on a radio show, talking about literature, and I recounted the story of the girl who’d believed the hero of my novel was real.

“I don’t think she was really that naïve,” speculated the presenter, who wrote novels himself. “She must have been a bit strange… a bit crazy.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but then I started to question that. There was something really unique about her. I’ve never come across a reader as gullible as her before… She was as trusting as a newborn baby.”

I spent almost the entire show trying to convince him how naïve my teenage reader really had been. Yes, I was laughing along with him, but if I’m honest I was angry: first she wouldn’t believe that Bakar didn’t exist, and now he wouldn’t believe such a naive reader did exist…

I really don’t understand how it could be so difficult to believe in the nonexistence of one or to entertain the notion of the other.

“That could only happen with someone who’s never read a book in their life,” one caller argued (there was a phone-in as part of the show). “It sounds like your novel was the first book she’d ever read.”

Well yes, it’s not impossible. But so what?

“Or maybe she was actually the ideal reader?” one woman argued. “Maybe that’s how people read the world’s very first books? So here is a pure, untarnished reader, a virgin reader if you like, and we sit here with our erudite skepticism, drunk on our own intellect, and assume she has psychiatric problems…”

And so this real-life event dragged me into a discussion about the education—or lack of education—of society at large. But regardless of how naïve or insane Bakar’s admirer was, we all agreed on one thing: there was no way you could describe this girl as a “quality reader”—we all felt it was completely impossible for a book to have an impact like that on a reader with any level of competence.

“You should write a novel about it, you know,” the presenter said to me after the show had finished.

A novel? I don’t think so.

I’d say it was more suited to a short story.

And if I do write it, I’ll finish it like this:

I see the girl again (in a crowded place, like a station, or at a demonstration, or the airport, or a sports stadium), but this time I just watch her; she doesn’t see me. Standing next to her—or is he sitting?—there’s a young man. He has black hair, a tattoo on the back of his hand, and the yellowed face of someone with hepatitis C. I can’t believe it: it’s Bakar Tukhareli. The Thief, the one and only. Exactly as I described him in my novel.

[BELGIUM: FRENCH] PAUL EMOND Grand Froid

This evening a play was performed at a little theater in suburban Brussels, one of those curious productions in which the actors mix so intimately with the audience that the latter wind up believing they’re part of the cast. Before the performance began, extras had been installed in the auditorium, scattered here and there among the seats. When the audience began to enter, usherettes dressed up in black conducted them with great ceremony to their assigned places, while around them the extras sat hunched and immobile in heavy fur coats covered with snow, or a sort of white powder that imitated it precisely. Surprised, certain members of the audience couldn’t prevent themselves from emitting a few sotto voce comments:

– See that? They look like they’re frozen.

– Like cadavers, almost.

– They keep it horribly cold in this theater.

– It’s scandalous, they could warm it up a bit.

– Look, look at that one, there’s a little icicle hanging from his nose!

– That’s not an actor, it’s a mannequin.

– No, no, it’s an actor.

– Touch him, you’ll see.

– I wouldn’t dare.

– Remind me who wrote this play?

– It’s another one by that Damploune, whose pieces are playing almost everywhere these days. They’re never very cheerful, but this one sounds promising!

– If I’d known…

– Grand Froid! You can see where he got the title!

– It’s even colder in here than outside.

– They’re saying it’s minus twenty tonight.

– Let’s hope this doesn’t last too long. My teeth are chattering already.

The lights had been lowered, but the performance failed to begin. A fine white powder, a sort of light sleet, perhaps even genuine sleet, or a feathery, almost impalpable snow, like that which covered the extras, or mannequins, had begun to sift down from the ceiling onto laps and shoulders.

– You can’t see where it’s falling from, they’ve snuffed out all the lights up there.

– It’s as cold as real snow.

– But it is real snow, I assure you.

– Let’s not exaggerate.

– My feet are already frozen.

Very quickly it became almost impossible to distinguish the extras from the spectators, unless one of the latter happened to fidget a bit, so that there slid from his lap or his shoulders a minute amount of that frozen powder, that sleet, that almost impalpable snow, which had gradually covered everything: the extras and the audience, the seats, the floor, the carpeting in the aisles, everything, all of it now veiled by a slightly glimmering layer of white, while the stage remained in darkness. Several spectators, in increasingly timid whispers, exchanged a few more words:

– We’ve got to get out of here.

– It isn’t possible.

– Yes it is, no one could stop us.

– I wouldn’t dare.

– I’m so cold, I’m going to get sick.

Finally, after what had felt like an interminable wait, there came something like an enormous silent rupture. Up front, where the stage should have been, a street appeared, a street with slightly melancholy lamps, a street covered with snow, a street where it was still snowing, where it never stopped snowing, a street empty and cold and of seemingly infinite depth; out of which there emerged, to the great stupefaction of the audience, squealing across the snow, all of its ancient metal rattling, an almost antediluvian streetcar, slowly advancing toward the auditorium: an antediluvian streetcar likewise skinned with snow.

– Do you see that old tram? It’s magnificent!

– Unbelievable: it’s a real street, not a set.

– Are you sure?

– Don’t you feel that wind?

– I can’t feel much of anything. I’m still too cold.

– In theory, there shouldn’t be wind in a theater.

– In theory…

The old streetcar looked so exhausted, it seemed to have come from the farthest of far-flung faubourgs, from those frozen and deserted suburbs where the avenues dwindle and lose themselves in almost infinite extension. It crept toward the audience, magnifying little by little, like some strange white caterpillar crawling out of the depths of time, and finally halted a scant three meters from the first row of spectators; its windows were flocked with frost, nothing of its interior could be distinguished.

The streetcar had stopped, but its doors did not open. In the auditorium and on the street that had taken the place of the stage, another long silence descended.

– It’s just like Damploune, that.

– All the same, it’s crazy!

– I don’t want to stay here. I’ve been sitting in the cold, at a show I don’t understand at all. Let’s go.

– Impossible, how can you want to leave?

– I’m afraid.

– That’s absurd, there’s no reason.

Then, approaching the front of the stage at a slow trot—at a pace so dragging, so seemingly fatigued, that one might have imagined they too were emerging from the depths of time—there came a group of men dressed in heavy fur coats identical to those worn by the extras in the audience, coats whitened by snow, or that white powder that so perfectly imitated snow. At irregular intervals, and according to some quite unguessable logic, each of these men would stop for a moment, draw a revolver from the pocket of his coat, aim with an extended arm, fire in the direction of the old streetcar, and then resume the chase.

When the first of these pursuers had arrived within about ten meters of the vehicle, they stopped; they were soon rejoined by their fellows, and a few moments later stood side by side, forming a line which blocked the whole breadth of the street, each of them motionless in his heavy fur coat covered with snow, or white powder. Once more a silence invaded the street and the theater, a deathly silence, descending on utter immobility.

– Do you think this is going to last long? Nothing’s happening.

– I don’t know what they’re waiting for.

– That’s enough. This time it’s certain, I’m going.

– How are you going to do it?

– I don’t see how they can stop me from leaving the theater. I’m going, that’s all there is to it.

– Me, I wouldn’t dare.

– Your mistake. Bonsoir.

The audience member had risen, was requesting with a gesture that his left-hand seatmate shift a bit to let him pass, when an echoing voice rang out from behind him:

– Halt! Where are you going?

It was the extra seated to his right, who had risen as well, causing some of the white powder or snow that covered him to fall. He’d drawn a revolver from his pocket and was threatening the fugitive, who, at the sound of his voice, had stopped cold.

– Where are you off to? Answer!

– But… Monsieur…

Again, there was a murmuring some three rows up: –

They’ve hidden actors among the audience as well.

– The runaway? No, no, I know that fellow, he isn’t an actor, he’s a tax official.

– Are you sure… ?

– Yes, yes, I’m telling you.

The whole theater had turned toward the man attempting to leave, and the one who was threatening him—not just the audience but, even more surprisingly, the extras in their fur coats as well, who had risen to their feet as one a few moments after their colleague, letting a bit of the snow or white powder that covered them sift to the floor. Each of them held a revolver, also pointed in the fugitive’s direction. The extra with the echoing voice repeated:

– I told you to answer.

– I wanted to leave… the other began in a hesitant tone. But he did not continue.

For at that precise instant the sound of a violin became audible—a marvelous music, an air of such exquisite purity that it seemed to be emerging from another world. Two steps from the old streetcar there appeared to the spectators a young woman dressed in a superb white fur coat, followed by a violinist playing as he walked. Perhaps they’d stepped from one of the tall houses lining the street, whose gray façades gleamed softly in the cold. They advanced toward the audience; then, leaving the street, they entered the theater, finally reaching the row where the man who had wanted to leave, and the one who’d prevented him, were still standing. The violin’s tone quavered like a magic crystal in the frosty air of the theater.

– You desire, Monsieur, to leave our show, said the young woman in a slightly histrionic tone. It’s possible, of course—but you should know that it will entail certain risks, certain dangers. Follow me, if you will.

– Listen, I…

– Since you’ve expressed the wish to leave our show, follow me. I’m here to attempt to satisfy you.

– It’s so cold, and I thought…

– Your reasons don’t matter, Monsieur. Your name, please?

– Traumont, Michel Traumont.

– You want to leave our show. Very well—follow us, Monsieur Michel Traumont. I beg you, my friends, put your weapons away and sit down again, she added, addressing the extras, who immediately obeyed: Monsieur Traumont will follow us without your assistance, I’m certain of that.

– But I mean, I…

– Follow us, Monsieur Traumont. This way.

Accompanied by the violinist, who hadn’t ceased his playing for a moment, and followed by Michel Traumont, who didn’t dare protest, the woman once again traversed the theater, stepped back into the street, and approached the old streetcar.

– Halt! Where are you going?

This time the violinist’s bow stopped short, and that sudden cessation of music ran like a shock through the audience. One of the streetcar’s pursuers had left the line formed by his companions, and advanced a few steps. He brandished his revolver at Traumont.

The young woman stepped between them:

– Monsieur Michel Traumont has expressed the desire to leave our show. It’s my role to show the exit to whoever does so.

A burst of applause rang out from the extras in the theater, and the pursuer holstered his pistol, took his place once again in the line.

– This play is truly curious.

– And you’re sure Traumont isn’t an actor?

– Impossible.

– My nose is going to freeze.

– Cold blood—you would’ve done better to stay at home. Much warmer.

– You don’t find all of this a touch unsettling?

In the first row of the audience, a man, still young but with a severe expression, rose with evident haste, as if propelled by too stiff a spring. One might have imagined he’d only just realized what role he had to play—unless, of course, it was all just a part of the show. In a voice marked by emotion—unless, of course, it was merely a sign of that nervousness that attends a first performance, and particularly a performance for which one hasn’t prepared—he delivered his line:

– It is my role, this evening, to administer the exit exam. Take the violin, Monsieur Traumont.

Traumont looked down at him with an indecisive air. Then he glanced at the young woman, who waited, still smiling. Then at the musician, who was offering him the violin. Then, once more, at the man who had called out from the first row. He addressed himself to the latter:

– Look, this whole thing is completely insane. I was cold, I just wanted to go home…

– Cher Monsieur, the young woman broke in, I told you, your reasons don’t matter at all. Don’t speak anymore, don’t say a single thing, you can be sure that nobody here is interested.

And as if to emphasize these last words she gently shook her head, communicating as she did a particularly graceful motion to her long black hair, which cascaded down upon the brilliant white of her fur coat.

– I told you to take the violin, repeated the man in the first row, in a slightly more confident voice.

– But I don’t know how to play, stuttered Traumont.

– Go on, it’s not so hard, added the violinist, smiling and pressing the instrument on him a little more insistently. A bit of good will and the job is half done.

– Take it and play: those are the rules, said the man from the first row, who seemed more and more at ease.

– And if I refuse?

– I’d advise you not to refuse, Monsieur Traumont. I wouldn’t advise that at all.

The extras in the auditorium seemed to titter in unison. The spectators whispered to each other:

– But why are they laughing?

– I don’t see anything funny about it, myself.

– Well, you know Damploune’s sense of humor…

The young woman took a step in Traumont’s direction, smiling at him with an almost angelic expression:

– If you don’t take the violin, you won’t leave, believe me, Monsieur Traumont.

Traumont raised his hand to take the violin, then snatched it back.

– What a fantastic actor! Look, he seems more and more indecisive.

– But I’m telling you, I know that Traumont isn’t an actor. He’s the one who audited my brother’s tax returns last year. Made him pay through the nose, the swine!

– He doesn’t look like a bad guy.

– Sure, but just wait till he gets his claws into you.

The man from the first row had stepped into the street, and now seemed perfectly at ease. In an almost threatening tone, he once again repeated:

– Play, Monsieur Traumont. I’m telling you to play.

– But I’ve explained, I don’t know how. This whole thing’s absurd. Besides, it’s too cold, my fingers are completely numb.

– Play!

– Well… since you insist…

With a resigned, a timid gesture, Michel Traumont took hold of the violin and bow offered by their owner. He placed the instrument against his left shoulder, imitating as best he could the standard pose, and then, with his right hand, lowered the bow toward the strings. But he paused, and lifted his head again, looking around with a grimace, as if to say: No, this is too stupid, don’t ask me to do what I don’t know how to do.

– Come on, Monsieur Traumont, play!

This time it was the young woman who insisted. With elegance and vivacity, she indicated the theater, to make him understand that everyone was waiting. Whether he liked the idea or not, he was part of the show now, wasn’t he?

So he played. Or rather, produced a frightful screech, as anyone would who was scraping a bow across the strings of a violin for the very first time in his life. All the extras seated in the auditorium burst out laughing, and then loudly booed, before once again ceasing abruptly in unison. As if an invisible conductor had given the signal.

– That wasn’t brilliant, said the man from the first row.

– But I told you, stuttered Traumont.

– Make a bit of an effort, insisted the young woman in the fur coat, her smile still seraphic.

– But what do you want? responded Traumont, in a despairing voice. I’ve never played, I never learned how.

– Come, come, just a little effort, Monsieur Traumont, repeated the young woman. We aren’t asking the impossible.

– But that’s precisely what you’re doing! protested Traumont. Stop this nasty joke! Let me go home.

Once more, as if with a single breath, the laughter of the extras rang out, and cut off.

– Do you want to try one more time? asked the man from the first row, who now seemed to have his role by heart.

– It’s no use, you can see that.

– Is that your last word?

Traumont acquiesced with a nod of the head.

– Pity. We would have loved to see you board the tram without our assistance. Bon voyage all the same, Monsieur Traumont!

A gunshot rang out, causing a number of audience members to jump. It was impossible to say straight off just where the report had come from, for, apart from Traumont, who crumpled to the ground, everyone in the auditorium, everyone in the street, remained perfectly still. A moment afterward the applause crackled out, then stopped dead, replaced all at once by the music of the violin. But it wasn’t the musician who was playing anymore: they could all see Traumont stretched out impassive on the ground, his left hand still clutching the instrument’s neck. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, this music, from the depths of the theater, from the receding walls of the houses in the street.

– It’s impossible…

– I don’t understand this business at all.

– To be forced to play an instrument you don’t know! To be shot right down!

– Wait! You don’t actually believe… They’re actors! They’ve shot him with a blank!

– You’re saying he isn’t dead?

– He’ll get up to bow at the end.

– But I’m telling you, I know him. He isn’t a professional actor, he’s a tax official…

– He plays his part so well, it’s obvious he’s a professional…

– Believe me, he works for the fisc—

– Whatever you say. For my part, I prefer to wait till the end of the show to leave.

It had stopped snowing. Above the street the sky had cleared, and the scene was now lit by the brilliant silver of the moon. The fur-clad man who had shot Michel Traumont slipped his pistol into his pocket and stood motionless. Two of his comrades stepped forward and scooped up the corpse. The old streetcar’s front door accordioned open. The two men stepped into the vehicle, deposited their burden there with a bit of difficulty, and exited again. They had barely descended when the door slid shut and the ancient streetcar, rattling all of its antediluvian metal, began to move off, to roll slowly away. The men who’d pursued it as far as the theater now followed it off at a run, each of them stopping an instant, at irregular intervals, according to some unguessable logic, to draw their pistols from their pockets, aim in its direction, and fire, before continuing the chase. When the streetcar was so far away that one could no longer distinguish its pursuers or even hear their shots, the young woman turned to the auditorium and saluted with an elegance out of another century. After a few moments the music stopped. The extras in the theater broke into violent applause, and then, as a single man, laid their hands in their laps.

None of the spectators dared to move. A leaden silence descended on the theater, and all sat motionless in the cold.

[ARMENIA] KRIKOR BELEDIAN The Name under My Tongue

The laser spot kept appearing, disappearing, flickering, leaping from place to place, skipping, beaming in short, quick blinks, returning to its point of departure, suddenly calming down, almost sweeping across the illuminated surface, to the left, where it would rest; the tip of the long, thin plastic pointer would stop for a second, quivering in the dust that slowly turned into a half shadow, then caught by a sudden fever—a growing, dancing tongue of flame—it would blaze from one side of the map to the other, withdraw all at once, then move forward again as if exploring something, now more hesitant, cautious, it would seem that it had disappeared, but it would reappear, flying like an arsonist setting fire to a field, or like erupting gunfire, exploring the void, the shadow, or more precisely—the light layer of the shadow;

the woman standing at the podium went on playing with the pointing stick with one hand, while she leaned against the table with the other, resting her body, her torso outlined in the half dark, her widely opened collar showing yellow alabaster skin where soon a bead of sweat would appear, the muscles of her neck and throat, taut with tension, kept straining then relaxing, reaching up to the restless chin and its complex working machine;

meanwhile the staccato voice, zigzagging, rising suddenly, forcing itself into higher notes, was pushing out words that were barely separable, that didn’t fit into one sentence, but became an open slope, a surface, a plateau, unraveling around a panting breath that tried to say everything at once; it wound around itself layers of details, digressing from the main path, it expanded, extending into episodes, then with a thrust of the tongue muscle, hitting the hollow of the mouth, it returned, finding again its previous force and depth, a kind of subtlety in its sharpness, it would bend the medium, exposing the sullen, hermetic amphitheater to something jolting, something disturbing for a moment; but without lessening its vehemence, it suddenly stopped; an unexpected caesura, while the echo was still reverberating in the distance;

as someone who has stepped onto a dangerous ledge and automatically draws back from a head-spinning precipice, I woke from my doze; it was a late afternoon relaxation, a numbness or stupefaction that would allow my mind to err, to wander aimlessly from one image to the other, involuntarily jumping from one scene to the next; the more I focused the more I exhausted myself, falling into utter helplessness, it seemed as if I were taking refuge behind a neutral, invisible screen, and the more or less fragmented segments of reality passed, along with the inevitable voids that separated them;

I was half reclining, my legs stretched underneath the chair in front of me, perplexed, having lost the sense of place and time—was I searching for something that wasn’t there, but that seemed to be there nonetheless? my writing journal was still on my knees, open, the first page was scrunched, a little dirty, marred with ink, and there were even a few sentences illegibly scribbled on it… just as, when I went on a plane trip, after putting away my handbag and camera in the compartment above the seat, I would settle in with the calmness and contentment of someone who occupies his seat without paying a slight attention to the flight attendant, and with the enthusiasm of someone about to do something very important, I would take out my journal with the intention of writing down a random thought that had just crossed my mind, start by jotting down the date and place, as if that in itself would mark the entrance into a new world, but then gradually the sound of the engine, and the time that failed to pass, would diminish my excitement, I would slowly drift into a restless drowse filled with noise, following the panting sound of a fireplace that spread its radiating glow and warmth in the distance, while the ghostly images forming on the walls would turn, disappear;

they had been speaking for a while in dull, monotonous tones despite the diversity of languages, people with thunderous names; I had heard about them from the papers, announcement leaflets, anecdotes circulating among the intellectuals; they would get up from the big long table that was nearly as wide as the blackboard, place their notes on the podium, leaf through the pages, sometimes turn left toward the Chair of the panel who was sitting at the other end of the table, a man with a slightly ragged, dirty beard, his head resting on his hand, deep in thought or perhaps already half asleep, who made hand or eyebrow gestures to this or that person—there was still time, the speaker could continue with his paper, twenty minutes, five minutes, after which, predictably, the Chair would have to interrupt—

nearing his conclusion, the speaker would raise his voice, take a deep breath, look at the audience, immediately accelerate, utter the last sentence or what seemed to be the last sentence in one breath, the dynamic young woman sitting next to me, who was either busy with her notes or with the recording machine, would occasionally glance up from beneath her eyelashes, as if somewhat indifferent, while the wave of fragrance from her loose hair and armpits diffused into the air, conquering, discomforting even, I would feel I had to write down the final conclusive statement: there is a history… memory, historical truth, duty to memory, free interpretation of historical events, what is history without memory? everything could have been razed to the ground, lost, disappeared, etc., etc., something along those lines, generalizations that sounded more like aphorisms, descriptive, elementary maxims, capitalized words that, with their luminous aureole, would define, concretize, deepen a vague, undefined, unstable reality;

all the speakers had tried to gain the fluctuating attention of the audience; sometimes they would depart from the paper’s main topic in the last part of their speech, they would try wearing memorable clothes, apparently they entrusted the role of impressing the crowd, of keeping their audience awake, to the outfit, noting the inevitable finale, at which their voice, having reached a certain pinnacle, would bow down; this was followed by several more or less sparse rounds of applause, erupting, then ceasing;

each speaker would leave the podium and sit down behind the long table, pour some mineral water from the plastic bottle into a paper cup, raise it to his mouth, clear his throat; he would watch the audience from the distance of his half closed eyes as people moved, dared to change the position of their bodies, cough, whisper a few words to their neighbors, sneeze, smile, shake their heads or simply stand up and leave the room, go to the bathroom or out for a cigarette break, disturbing the others, saying hello to acquaintances, friends, sometimes distant relatives whom they would meet only at such places,

ah, you’re here too, isn’t it interesting?

sure, indeed, certainly… certainly…

meanwhile, the Chair was inviting the next speaker, standing ceremoniously behind the podium with the orderliness of a pontiff whose main mission is to guard the economy of time, making a few appropriate, polite remarks about the previous presentation, noting that it was indeed a truly important work in the context of the conference, leaning toward the audience with the feigned intimacy of a salesman, as if conversing with each individual person,

everyone in the audience certainly agrees with me, bon, without exaggerating… we can say, very… important claims… we are most… grateful to the Professor… or esteemed Counselor,

there were variations in his tone, a few minor observations, which could have been easily dismissed despite the obvious effort to complicate the speech; he would slightly raise his neck with the persistence of someone who has valiantly agreed to carry a heavy burden, gesticulate a greeting with his hand to someone familiar, smile indulgently, the solemn smile of a national benefactor,

hey, là bas,

there is a crack of alcohol, a greasy hiccup in his voice,

please, turn off your… cell phones!

he would raise his right hand, tired as if from repeating, pointing to the greenish board, wasn’t it written there, please turn off your cell phones? some people would lower their heads, their hands searching for their phones, checking the settings, while the Chair addressed the group of people who had been crowding in front of the door at the back of the auditorium, those who were standing, helping them find seats, over there, to the right, come near, come closer, proposing that some of them go up to the mezzanine, there’s lots of room, there are seats, always the same old confining seats made of oak with backs that have faded, lost their varnish;

we were required to follow the analysis for several years, one or two hours per week, happiness, according to… , creation and its forms—thought and space, the happiness, hic et nunc, that, which every… will refer to,

the scholar sat in the dark cell, partly illuminated by the light coming from the narrow window, his head bowed, thoughtful, while the winding staircase next to him spiraled up, as he continued his meditation, heading to new places, the screen would turn into a mental stage that widened as we learned how to connect, moving beyond all the axioms, pieces of evidence, proofs, conclusions, in order to enter another world, completely different from the one that I had entered when I heard, for the first time, the sound of the metro in the labyrinths of an underground station;

and there was still the end of History, after which everything returned to the beginning, a kind of recorded fairy tale, which every living person would read, and the events? they were more or less colorful incidents,

the bald man was elucidating it, coloring it with contemporary hues; a system of sound beneath the city—the endless, continuous process that had its own course and that had undergone a gradual inflection, a thesis, an antithesis that had been repeated in the previous century, had drowned already; he was collecting his papers, the unopened books that he had produced from his worn satchel, rare, heavy books that made an impression, as would a hermetic Hegelian sentence; as soon as the noise erupted, the almost invisible door at the front, to the right, would open and the custodian in his white apron would appear, examining those who were present through his myopic glasses, moving back and letting the professor disappear with thundering footsteps in the hallway; then we would hurry, a few of us would fall behind—tying a tie, filling a tobacco pipe—we would all head to another hall just like this one, but slightly different, a colonnade with a row of statues of forgotten philosophers at the entrance, windows that opened into collateral yards but that were always shut tight, an idyllic fresco on the ceiling above the pushing and jostling crowd, the same smell of mice, of antiseptic, of knowledge, the smell of a place that has been kept locked, a thick, oily smell that lingers on in every corner and that goes deep into the crevices of the same seats and stairwell, the wide, amphitheater-style stage, on which one day a student—an imposter—would jump and make noise with his feet, friends..! a heavy smoker’s cough, a fist banging on the table asking for attention, comrades..!

according to an unprecedented decision made…

the girls on their feet had taken off their coats a long time ago, they were whispering, beautiful, sometimes really beautiful girls, with very little makeup on; an imbecile who was wasting a seat, emptying his pockets, taking out a small notepad and throwing it on the table, people crowding in,

the banging fist,

…by the Ministry of Education…

the same banging again,

…the University… is closed, the Student Council… has organized a demonstration, the situation… is serious,

he would come down and start disseminating leaflets, black on white, big black flags, explosive slogans…

GENERAL STRIKE / REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION / POLITICS / IS IN THE STREETS

now, a few people, following the proposition, were going obediently up along the narrow, spiraling stairwell, looking like medieval pupils ascending the stairs; it was very different from our wooden, terribly slanted stairwell that went up to the roof, the steps of which were mostly dislocated and cracked, rotten from rain and dampness, ready to collapse under anyone who dared step on them, but still working with a strange durability, and with the agility of a tightrope walker I would step on the most stable parts, at times leaning over the banister to peek into the window of Set Janet, who would yell curses in Arabic as if frightened, while I’d jump two stairs at a time, playing with my anxiety, flying up to watch the neighborhood from above;

the street branched off from the main avenue into a small triangular square, or more exactly a place that for a moment belonged to no one, as the people who had paved the street had left it open by mutual agreement, where the slanting shadow, like an umbrella, stretched up on the hill, here—the roof of Arev’s house, the pergola, the strings of pepper, dried eggplant, and across, under the eastern white pine, Mr. Garbis who sewed trousers, a headscarf tied around his head like some Arab woman, was tying the vines to reed stakes so that they’d climb up to Simon’s clothesline, a little lower Nano was sitting on the edge of the balcony, the eucalyptus that shimmered under the sun right in front of her would extend, as it were, and touch the olive trees and the empty houses on the hill across from her, partially covering the gardens on the river bank, the sea in the distance, and in the evenings, when the sky turned a deep azure blue, when the last airplanes descended into the city from the east, on the far mountains, the embers in the ashes would slowly grow into flames;

the banisters, two of them, formed a helicoid labyrinth, they turned, as if you were approaching an inaccessible place, an open area, a vaulted sky, and here were women with small handbags, men out of breath who emerged at the entrance of the mezzanine, moving to its edges and conquering the hall for a moment, above its confusion and noise, catching their breath, wiping their foreheads and temples with handkerchiefs, scanning the audience below;

from there, from the front row, leaning sometimes against the low banister, sometimes against the seated people, moving, as if we were walking along a dangerous mountain path, we would head toward the center where now a young man with a moustache had arranged his tripod, focusing the lens of the camera on the stage, one eye closed—a black spot, the other—a pink circle, like a director who was pleased with his film, and was following the recording from another screen, which, with an automatic regulation, seemed to be progressing independently, while next to him, behind him, to his right and to his left, on the top seats of the mezzanine—men, women, old and young, chins resting against hands, hands resting on knees, were listening, or perhaps merely trying to listen, periodically moving their heads, listening to the presentations as if without comprehending, following with eyes that expressed complete boredom or total loss, immobile, detached like the empty eye-sockets of Greek statues, as if following the speech but surrendering to its tumble, its rhythm, being carried away, I suppose, to a different place where events were occurring that were not apparent here in this hall, but which formed a muffled, omnipresent noise, an unconscious tumult like that of a city’s unremitting, underground breath; a leaflet would spiral down from one of the upper rows, someone had written Je vois aime on it, captivated we would clap and smoke, spellbound by the new word that belonged to no one, to no one side! it had no owner, you’d get up from your seat, stand up and like a lover in the night, it would be yours for a second, and we, like the Renault strikers, were the actors of history who had been called to change life…

the Chair was now inviting the last presenter of the panel, whose works were familiar to everyone,

he was holding the watch in his palm, weighing it, as it were— what was time? it was gold, no, it was nothing! nothing, but sand, nonexistence, and there were things that never passed, things that were eternal, everlasting, he was scratching his beard, smoothing it with his fingers, and turning to the woman sitting at the very end of the table, protected from the semidarkness,

so… you are this panel’s last presenter, ahem, bon, bon,

gesturing with his right hand—

shall we start?

his voice would all of a sudden rise, now he was trying to make a joke, as if it were necessary to bring some sort of merriment to the atmosphere, he not only had to preside over the panel as a small, local tyrant, giving it a more invigorating air, but also had to make it lively, favorable, effectively making use of the breaks, the indefinite moments between presentations, et c’est pas facile, one had to maintain the seriousness, the circumstances of the material and place, avoiding at the same time the boredom that such materials, such analyses might cause, proceeding as traditional narratives do, long, winding, weaving into each other, as if the same mood had been recurring in different forms and voices from the beginning of civilization, and laughter introduced a personal note, conjuring up a noble, intimate atmosphere, as a few minutes ago, during the break, in that interstice of time when the Chair approached the woman, took her hand, but then kissed her on the cheeks, whispered a few words in her ear, then kissed the hand of the other woman standing next to her, a proof of my respect, in a loud, ironic voice, stepping away, smiling, showing his red gums and a row of uneven teeth,

so… we’ll see you in a little bit… ahem!.. you look very nice today… but…

almost grunting, as if to thwart, to kill his eager exclamations, yet at the same time asserting them,

try… to speak, briefly… ahem!.. you’ll be more effective…

there is an affirmation in his emphasis, an order, that perhaps registered in my mind only later,

agreed?.. I beg of you,

he had already said everything, there shouldn’t be any surprises, everything was set right from the beginning;

we were descending, hanging on to each other, the noise, the laughter, the slogan of the day was rising from the front rows, beaming, splitting into fractions, like pigeons excreting on everything, bouncing off the screens, the red and black letters of the dancing, exhausted, crumpled, reforming sentence

L’IMAGINATION PREND LE POUVOIR!

it hung across the façade of the grand theater, from the huge columns, art is dead, and death is counter-revolutionary, really, why should one die? idiot! keep walking!

hand radios were blasting in the distance, people were whistling from the front rows, there were small red and black flags, young, always beautiful girls in the back rows, then a huge slab of stone would hit a police van, bombs, tear gas, sobbing, red swollen eyes, the long and winding siren of an ambulance,

but the crowds kept moving forward, merde!, they kept walking, with steady pace, confident, the smell of gas was everywhere, spreading underneath the trees, the sound of the spiraling helicopters, we would stop, close our mouths and noses, the photographer was taking photographs when the baton hit his head, I saw those batons, he says, but I was sure, this was France, they wouldn’t dare, he was rolling on his back, getting kicked in the face, they were rolling shutters down over the display windows, the shops were being emptied out, the batons were coming down fast, I was suffocating from the smell of gas mixed with the smoke of burning plastic and tires, we were running, people were running behind us, they kept pushing, groaning, we were going through the entrance of some building, while up above, the eternal good-for-nothings, the pensioners, the philistine officials, watched from behind their curtains, shaking their fists at us occasionally, you’ll see! tomorrow you’ll see! they were waiting for all of this to end, they’d had enough, the riots had to be crushed; leaflets were being dropped in the police station, people were being hand-cuffed, they were being thrown into dark cells, others were being beaten, punched in the stomach, in the back, in the ass, a little blood from the nose

imbeciles! assholes! castrates! freaks!… youth thus… repulsed… young people who dreamed of changing life… heh! words that would kill and curse life… me or chaos! reforms now! yes… a new program! end to injustices! no more masquerades!…

the woman got up from her place, smoothed her dark-colored skirt, touched the scarf around her neck that came down to her chest, she was thin but had wide hips, promising calves, she walked toward the podium in her red summer stiletto shoes and her toenails were painted bright red, her shins were savagely white, she tried to raise the microphone, which seemed to have the tendency to slide down the stand: every speaker had to do it, draw his or her mouth close to the microphone to check the volume, then withdraw, look right, left, toward the Chair, to whom everyone was obliged to smile a fake, automatic smile;

the woman glanced in that direction too, questioning, frowning a bit, looking behind the Chair, into the dark booth where a lamp shone and where the head of the interpreter moved in a regular cadence; after every twenty or twenty-five minutes, as the speaker changed, the door of the booth would open, a man or a woman would emerge, there were two of them, the entering and exiting persons would exchange a few words with one another, the exiting person would cover his mouth with his hand making a smoking sign, since smoking was prohibited and a nonsmoking sign with bold red letters hung on both sides of the stage

that’s what they had tried to change years ago, the revolution was dislodging cobblestones, hurling them into the air in its final throes, weaving barricades, the radios were blasting, roaring, three thousand, three hundred thousand people in the streets, the law was retreating, abandoning the square, passions were spilling over, flowing, blossoming, burning, squandered, May was marching off the avenues, love was flirting from the sidewalks, people were unanimously revolting, rebelling in a tide, overflowing their shores, putting an end to the chewing of watered-down words, to smoking opium, getting fucked over, no ringleaders, no slogans, we were on top of the wave, loose, free, completely free, dancing, clapping, a Gitanes in her mouth, a masculine girl was writing on the blackboard as if in a calligraphy class—

IT IS FORBIDDEN TO FORBID

the hall was rumbling, thundering, roaring, the coils of smoke were everywhere, ascending, infiltrating the air, forming a thick misty dome, while the Chair, red, raging, as reported in the press, was trying to institute silence, so his colleagues could speak, one of them had Mao’s Little Red Book in his hand, another held Lenin’s tract: put an END to police brutality! END to civilization! SOON, SOON, the flames will materialize THE FUTURE!—and we only wanted to live, we wanted to unlearn everything that we had learned, the green or red or blue or black night, while the mezzanine was gradually emptying out, everyone was descending from the top rows, joining people in the front, coughing, wanting to speak, wanting to piss, the hall too would soon be empty, the footsteps would die out, dust, the smell of cigarettes, soon everything would be in ruins, and so everything is a question of language, of cultural revolution… raising the stipends… until the Pentecost, until the victory of law,

when gasoline opened the way to vacation

and Paris threw off its mask of fear

the rats descended back into the cellars;

a woman was going into the interpreter’s booth, the people in the audience had barely had time to take off their earphones when the light, metallic whisper recommenced, the head of the interpreter kept moving like that of a cow being herded uphill, with stooping shoulders, she was trying to follow the speaker’s rhythm, stopping, waiting for the sentence to end, after which she would start forming the same sentence in a different language;

the woman standing at the podium was holding the pointing stick tightly in her hand in the half shadow, with the other she kept adjusting the projector, searching for the right position; she was coquettish, slightly pale even before reaching the podium,

I have some transparencies… maps,

meaning that after so many long, boring, abstract presentations there would be images, concrete things projected on the screen,

finally!

she was smiling at the Chair, while the technician was fussing with the projector in the back of the stage, going back and forth, trying to operate the machine, checking the electric cords, switching on the light, switching off the auditorium lights; the atmosphere in the room would suddenly become familiar, safe, almost unreal, the classroom slowly descended into the evening darkness, allowing the dream to emerge, like at the beginning of those “sword-and-sandal” films that I used to like so much with hundreds of actors and expensive sets showing military action, wars, easing into the story with a simple pipe melody, history framed by a bucolic setting, as though every detail had its place there, every voice its command, every person his calling and his role, and it was possible to flirt with melancholy then;

her hand kept turning on the overhead projector, as if outlining two invisible intersecting circles, her fingers or, more precisely, the enlarged shadows of her fingers were projected on the screen, turning on one another, weaving into each other, inventing a jostle, a tumult of luster and shadow, a devouring mass, that would suddenly become clear when she removed her hand from the glass surface, leaving the transparency lightly trembling, with various tedious details, which nonetheless would be so important later;

did she cough, clear her throat, smile coyly? but I noticed immediately that her voice was heading toward the distant mountains, on the border of which the flame kept flickering endlessly, there should have been a mountain range in the north, a rough mottle of lines, circles of waves that doubtlessly marked the sides or the planes; her voice oscillated, she couldn’t find the right words, while her left hand moved to join the right hand on the pointing stick, then abandoned it; the mountain range formed the border of a historical province,

yes, an almost impenetrable natural barrier, that’s what all the historians and the travelers had said,

at the same time, the flame followed another invented, winding direction marked by a bold dashed line, as an upward path on the ribs of the mountain, excavating those inaccessible lands, one of the images of which was drawn from memory by someone who had once lived in those places and was fond of that geography and had published it in some book,

that’s that,

the professor would say, a heavy-set man, he would take off his jacket and put it on the chair, roll up his sleeves, light up a cigar, his squint eye would switch from presence to absence in a dialectical shift, with the drive of someone in a continuous monologue with himself—

I think that… we…

he would try to visualize the words, puff out smoke, clear his throat,

we can’t not be part of… the movement, it’s absolutely necessary that the intellectuals… help the workers and unite the students, we need… a general front,

he would place the cigar on the edge of the table,

…our action showed that the people’s… outburst had its place in the social movement…

he was evidently waiting for his words to sink in, expecting perhaps to leave an impression on his audience, but a voice from the back, it could have been any one of us, neutral, arrogant, ironic, almost spelling out each letter—

you’re so well-read…

he was shaking his head in silence, blowing out smoke,

…and such a bad politician,

the man was leaning against the table,

comrades!

get back into your hole… you philistine!

history had turned a page, on the walls, side streets, statues, pedestals in red letters, the crowd kept walking, taking over the alleyways, sidewalks, the square, it would erect barricades, red and black flags, and “The Internationale” thundered along the entire length of the avenue again and again: FREE THE PRISONERS / CHAOS IS THE LAW / GASOLINE IS FREE / WHY DIE, STUPID? KEEP WALKING / FUCK THE PAST / THE OPERA BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE, the banner was hanging on the building’s façade, swelling from the warm spring breeze, bit by bit tearing and draping over the statues of Haydn, Rossini, cursing them… THE MORE YOU PHILANDER, THE MORE YOU REVOLUTIONIZE, THE MORE YOU REVOLUTIONIZE, THE MORE… / YOU WANT TO LOVE / HAPPINESS HERE AND NOW…

here and now… I was at the starting point again, in the same place or almost there, as if it had all returned, I too had come full circle and could watch the marches over and again, in front of a box of old photographs, like mother’s bundle, where all the unnamed were revealed, here and now or nowhere

[RUSSIA] KIRILL KOBRIN Last Summer in Marienbad

He was waiting for his wife by a mineral water spring. She was late but that didn’t cause him any aggravation. It had been a few years since he had stopped being aggravated by her late arrivals, her vulgar manners—befitting the common Berliner—and her pragmatic Zionism. He stayed calm even as she dug her enormous teeth into a steak with a succulent chomp. During the last couple of years, acting with a doctor of law’s carefulness and consistency, he’d removed her from himself, installing her in a special room at the far end of the corridor of his life. There she stayed, never sticking so much as her nose outside; his body would occasionally sink into hers with reluctance, but even during those shameful moments his thoughts would remain elsewhere, sometimes at yet another labor litigation committee, sometimes in one of his recent dreams: painful narratives, long and disgusting as worms. True, he respected and valued her: she had, after all, saved his life by making him marry her—he’d been coughing up blood by then—and then curing him, one could say nursing him to health in that magic Swiss sanatorium. Indeed, she had spent six months sitting next to him, holding his hand, on that balcony—he would never forget those tartan plaids and wooden chaise lounges, those ostensibly cheerful voices coming from the consumptive maidens in the dining room, those coffins carried out of the hospital building in secret, under the cover of darkness. Or he might forget them—what does it matter. He had already forgotten many things, including those that had constituted his whole life for years and years; his officious friends; his writing, compulsive, pathetic; even his long-established habits, such as his silent walks to the green hill crowned by a squat copy of the Eiffel Tower. Now there was little left but dreams. They weren’t exactly gone—on the contrary, they would unravel their infinite threads nightly, entangling his mind, which was tormented, half-deaf, half-blind by now, and in the morning he would resurface, exhausted and breathless, in their huge conjugal bed, his wife’s large head resting next to him, birds making a lively noise outside, the maid already rattling crockery in the kitchen, well, time to get up, have tea, go to work. In the office, while dictating a letter to his secretary detailing an industrial accident in Nymburk, he would close his eyes and slip into the images of the most recent dream retained by his memory: there he is, being dragged by some businesslike men through a four-story house in Vinohrady; as they pass the second floor his arms are ripped off; by the time they reach the basement the assailants have only his head in their hands, yet he’s talking to his torturers in an animated manner, even apologizing for splattering their gray suits with his blood. That’s fine, they tell him, we’ve worn our aprons for the occasion. Very well, he says to them, closing his eyes and slipping into the next dream, where he is conscripted into the army and, being the most educated, is made to write letters home for illiterate soldiers. He zealously throws himself into this work but is faced with an insurmountable problem: his battalion consists of Croatians, Hungarians, and Poles, and he doesn’t speak their languages. He offers to write in German and have the letters translated afterward; an elderly lieutenant with a moustache, who looks like the late Emperor Franz Joseph, commends his resourcefulness and appoints him the head of a special correspondence unit. He spends every day composing letters, while several privates sitting next to him diligently translate these into the many languages spoken by the Empire’s subjects; his subordinates work so fast he can’t keep up with them, so instead of writing up his messages he starts simply dictating them. Then he opens his eyes and finds himself in his director’s chair, the office flooded by the spring sun, the secretary drumming away on her typewriter; it’s May 1923, the Empire hasn’t been at war with anyone for fifty-five years, he’s about to finish his dictation and head to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. Tonight he is going to the opera with his wife.

Still no sign of her. He shifted his position and looked around. This summer, Marienbad isn’t as crowded as the previous year: there are fewer Germans, fewer Russians, the rich Istanbul merchants in their red fezzes nearly gone. Political squabbles proving stronger than people’s desire to be rid of their physical ailments, the Russians are now taking the liver-curing waters at their German allies’ resorts, while rumor has it that the Turks, with their radiculitis and gout, have flooded the Caucasian spas. As for the Germans, they need no medical treatment at all—the Germans, according to their Kaiser’s recent statement, are made of steel. Instead, the French are here in record numbers, cocking their bowlers and soft American hats (the latest fashion, that), drinking a lot, and not mineral water either, curling their theatrical moustaches, threatening to give a good beating to the Boche, the Cossacks, or the Turks if they should lay a finger on “la belle Autriche,” “the land of the divine Beethoven and the sublime Rilke.” Swashbuckling show-offs. Smug nonentities. They only mention Beethoven to refer to their own Napoleon, while Rilke once had the good fortune to serve as a secretary to their pompous Rodin, if you please. And where is he now, anyway, our Rilke? Not in Paris, you can be sure of that. He recalled visiting that city, so foul and full of bad food, with Max some ten years ago. Max himself was foul too, flopping on his companion’s bed in the morning just as he was, in his dirty clothes, waking him up, urging him to forgo his ablutions, to hurry. Where to? What was so very special about Paris? Still, the two of them would stroll grandly, take in various new sights, having agreed to write a novel together; they would pay diligent visits to cafés, the Opéra-Comique, parks, the Louvre, the brothel. That is, The brothel he liked best of all. Even though the way that big-mouthed blonde manipulated his body was fairly routine, the order that reigned in the place, that solemn and rational order, almost redeemed all the chaos of Paris. The French were classed as the enemy back then, so Max with his usual fussiness even printed a little article in Prager Tagblatt, titled “Militant Paris”—one wonders if he remembers about that now? One wonders, indeed, what he’s even up to these days? He’d come across Max’s articles in newspapers recently, something along the lines of the goals of world Jewry in the Triune Monarchy. He hadn’t read them, cautious not to read anything at all that might remind him of his past life and all its paraphernalia: Max, their bachelor trips to Paris and Weimar, Wolf the publisher, Löwy the actor, Zionist leaflets, Greta, all that writing, the dull headaches, the insomnia. These days, thank God, he slept every night.

Marienbad was, indeed, full of Russians only last year. Army types, their hair close-cropped, accompanied by ladies; lawyers’ families with children so numerous he shuddered at the thought of the amount of energy and money required to bring them all up; authors dressed in a true liberal fashion, in French-style jackets; girls not wearing bustles, holding books in their hands, sweet, dreamy Russian girls. When it came to Russian girls he was knowledgeable, having read a lot about them in his time, in books by the severe Tolstoy, the gentle Turgenev, the terrible Dostoyevsky. The year he met Felice he also discovered that famous Russian revolutionary with a German-sounding name. Herzen, that’s right. Missing a beat momentarily, his heart resumed its normal rhythm. Oh yes, it was Herzen he happened to strike up a conversation about, with a young Russian lady, here in Marienbad, last summer, on a bench by the white, fretted gallery, white hats and umbrellas all around them. He was here alone, his wife having gone to Berlin to deal with some family affairs. The already familiar marital routine broken, he came back, quite unexpectedly, to what he used to enjoy so much, all that wandering around and staring at things. There was a time when he cultivated that stupid habit, telling himself that a writer, above all else, must be an observer. Now that his writing was reduced to business papers, he took to it again out of sheer boredom. After his medicinal water and breakfast, he would walk to the gallery, sit on a bench, open a newspaper, and, while skimming through the usual exchange of cantankerous notes between Petersburg and Paris, Vienna and Berlin, Belgrade and Istanbul, he would glance at passing saunterers, taking in their awkward stances and comic gestures, and listen hard to their multi-tongued conversations, trying to grasp their meanings. So he sat there for days, watching the Turks complain to the Russians, the Russians demand explanations of the Austrians, the Austrians ask the French for support, and the latter shake their republican fist at Emperor Nicholas and his cousin Willy, while agreeable bourgeois strolled around, emboldened by the half-century-long continental armistice, reassured just enough to start spending their leisure time and substantial amounts of money on cures for gallstones and gastritis. Once he noticed a girl on the bench opposite; for some reason her features reminded him of his wife, so he rose to leave. As he was getting up, he caught her intent stare. He walked up to the Kurhaus and back again, hoping to find her gone. But she was still sitting on the same bench, spying on passersby over the red cover of her open book. He strolled past, noting her clothes, the same as Felice’s in that memorable photograph, a white blouse and a dark skirt. He also noticed that the only resemblance between her and his wife was in the large nose; the rest—her lips, the shape of her eyes, the hue of her skin—being different. She kept watching him, which made him angry. He decided to say something biting to her, in German, hoping that the Russian wouldn’t understand and he would be able to retreat safely, his revenge exacted and no harm done. How did he know immediately that she was Russian? It was because of the book—he recognized Cyrillic letters on the cover. There was a time when he used to think about Russia often, to the point of dizziness; he would dream of the sentiments he found in Dostoyevsky and Herzen, even imagine himself living in some Russian backwater, in a hut by railway tracks going nowhere. After that unfortunate Serb killed the Archduke, a war with Russia seemed unavoidable, and he had been terribly worried, tormented by his desire to join the army in order to put an end to the hell his life had become, to finish it all in one swoop. He started reading French memoirs about Napoleon’s Moscow campaign, savoring the idea of the most powerful army in the world being swallowed by huge, snow-covered Russian plains. Perhaps that was why he wanted to go into the army, to march upon Moscow and vanish forever on the outskirts of Asia. He could no longer remember the exact reason. However, Rasputin persuaded the Czar not to declare war, and the Serbs, very bitter at Russia, accepted Austria’s ultimatum and so changed patrons yet again. He remembered his distress, shortly afterward, at the news of Austrian sleuths looking for conspirators in Belgrade. Back then, in the summer of 1914, everything seemed lost to him: he had been sentenced by Felice, a conviction she herself was to quash later, as it turned out, and his plan to take Napoleon’s route to Russia failed. Nailed to himself, he began to write a novel but never got past the first sentence. “Someone must have slandered him, for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” He had memorized this phrase, the only one he could now remember from his writings, having given all the papers, notes, and diaries to Max after the wedding, telling him to burn everything. The treacherous Max asked, acting innocent, why he didn’t destroy them himself. What could he say? He said nothing. A few days later, Max telephoned to inform him that he had fed his scribblings to a bonfire at his friend’s allotment in Nusle. The choice of the place was ideal: he used to work on that allotment himself, trying to harden his soul-tortured body. He never saw Max again.

He managed to make out the lettering on the girl’s book, having learnt the Russian alphabet eight years ago. The cover had the name “Herzen” on it. Approaching the girl, he faltered: “I could hardly stay here with your spying on me. So there.” With that, he turned around and, already starting to walk away, heard a reply, in immaculate German, “You started spying on me first!” He stopped, turning back. She was looking at him, cheerful and composed. “I thought you were too busy with your Herzen to notice.” It was time for her to be surprised then, but she gave nothing away, retorting, “And I thought you were too occupied with your paper.” “Not at all—I was just contemplating what that misanthropic Socialist might have said were he to witness a parliament emerging in Russia, with the government led by that liberal Mr. Nabokoff.” “Do you think he would have been pleased?” “Unlikely.” “I think you’re right.” They laughed. They introduced themselves. She was proud of her Greek name, Lydia; she was proud and independent all around; she studied at Marburg, where her teachers were serious philosophers; she appreciated Marx; she was translating into Russian a French novelist who had, she told him, undertaken an epic work to eclipse Balzac. Although her parents, who still lived in a seaside town in Russia, supported her financially, she saw her dependent status as a burden and wanted to stay on in Germany, to teach. He felt a pang of envy—cupidity, even—in the presence of her young vitality, her posture never bent by a six-hour workday in an office, her carefree attitude to geography, her seriousness. Despite being seventeen years younger than him, she was more knowledgeable and talked with more confidence. She even saw her Jewish origins differently; when he recalled seeing a famous Chasidic Rebbe from Beltsov here in Marienbad six years ago, she listened to his story and remained indifferent, apparently having little idea of who that was, and when he asked her if she was going to Palestine she replied with an ironic smile that she preferred to be a subject of a Russian emperor than a Turkish sultan. And so the conversation went on, he telling her about Werfel and Meyrink, the “Falcons” and Kaiser Karl; she telling him about Rasputin and Plekhanov, Gumilev and Kuzmin. Ah yes, of course, it’s all coming back to him now, he read that novella once, in his previous life, it was by a Russian author, what was his name again, about Alexander the Great. Of course it was, there were crocodiles in it, whose urine was capable of burning a hole in a piece of wood. He caught himself too late, one doesn’t talk about such things with young ladies. “What, about crocodiles?” “No, no, I didn’t mean those, I’m sorry.” They chatted about everything and anything, even politics—she was well-versed in international affairs, suggesting at one point that when it came to the Aegean problem, Russia would always stay on the side of its ally, Turkey. “Then you and I will be in opposite camps,” he offered sadly. “It may be for the best,” she replied, somewhat awkwardly.

They finally parted in the evening, after dinner, as she hurried home to translate her French author, having agreed to meet the next day by the gallery; he, too, went home, to write a letter to his wife, finish reading his paper, calm his suddenly rebellious heart. Around ten, already in his pajamas, he went to bed intending to browse through Goethe’s travel diaries before falling sleep, the only book from his previous life he still allowed himself to touch. Outside it was a stormy night, the weather so inclement it would be best to stay indoors, yet for some reason he leapt out of bed, dressed quickly, and went outside. There, in the street leading to the town center, dark and empty, he experienced a feeling of loneliness, so unusual for Europe that one couldn’t help but call this feeling Russian. The town center was still smoldering with the usual resort activity, but he wanted no noise or light, so turned into the very first side street instead. Walking past low houses, he kept looking in their windows, as was his old habit. Although most of them were shuttered, he could still see through some: in one of them there was a woman sitting with her sewing in a yellow circle of light; in another a fat man in braces, reading a newspaper, looking somewhat aggrieved; in a third a chambermaid making a bed. The street was a cul-de-sac. He stopped, caught his breath, and went back. Drawing level with another window, he peered inside through the partially drawn curtains. He saw a girl at a desk with her back to him, writing something. Or rather, not so much writing as copying something from a book, and not just copying whole pages—she was being somewhat selective, from time to time leafing through a huge volume fixed vertically on a special stand. For a moment he imagined that the girl must be writing a commentary, perhaps to some Talmudic text, but he drove that absurd thought away. Next to the books on the desk he noticed a photograph of a young man with large sad eyes, his head resting on his left hand, the index finger sunk into his cheek. The young man looked Italian or French, but could just as well be Jewish. He came closer to the window and stood there for a while. She kept working with great concentration until another girl came into the room, probably German, a petite blonde with an amazingly large bosom. The scribe, as he dubbed her, dropped her pen, annoyed, and turned around. As he recognized Lydia it dawned on him that she was neither copying nor commenting but translating the very Frenchman she had mentioned. Perhaps it was the novelist himself in the photograph. He thought it apt; let the translator’s labors be blessed by the author’s presence, his benevolent gaze. Meanwhile Lydia must have said something very harsh to her friend, who became weepy and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. He would never forget what happened next. Lydia went up to the blonde and kissed the neckline of her dress. The blonde looked up and embraced her. It was a long embrace, long enough for him to realize he was awake. The lovers were kissing, whispering something to each other, then finally Lydia waved the blonde aside, went back to the desk, put the finished pages in order, closed the dictionary, and stole a glance at the portrait before going to the window, very quickly, giving him just enough time to step back. He was already walking away at a brisk pace when the screech of the drawn shutters scraped through his hearing. Early the next morning he packed his suitcase and took the first train to Prague. The day after that he was standing in his office, dictating to his secretary a letter to Phoenix Bohemian Insurance Company.

Still his wife did not come. The crowd around him was getting thinner, time to go, to have tea and talk to the other guests sitting at their table-d’hôte. He shook away the memory, so reminiscent of one of his dreams, and made a few circles around the pavilion with the mineral water spring. The relentless August sun burning through his dandyish light-colored suit made him take refuge in the shade again. And then he saw his wife at the end of the alley. She was walking fast, nearly running, her long bony face full of dismay and extreme anxiety, her large mouth askew, some terrible word she had to deliver struggling to come out of it, so he started toward her, a little frightened, her ugly face and awkward figure causing a wave of forgotten pity and tenderness in him, and as he grasped her hand with a thumbed newspaper tightly gripped in it—my God, what’s the matter with you, Felice my dear, what’s happened—she looked at him, her eyes full of fear, and said: “It’s war, Franz.”