by Paul Auster
After this dispiriting talk with Margot, he returns to his room at the hotel and mopes around for a few hours, unable to summon the energy to begin working at his desk, unable to concentrate on the book he is trying to read (Georges Perec’s Les Choses: Une Histoire des années soixante), and before long he is thinking about Cécile again, remembering that today is her first day of school and that not far from where he is sitting she is in a classroom at the Lycée Fénelon, listening to one of her teachers expound on Molière’s prosody as she fiddles with her bag of newly sharpened pencils. He will avoid her for the time being, he says to himself, and when his own classes begin in eight days (the exact day of Margot’s return), he will have a legitimate excuse for seeing her less often, and as the time they spend together diminishes, perhaps her infatuation with him will diminish as well.
For the next three days, he steadfastly adheres to this regimen of silence. He sees no one, talks to no one, and bit by bit he begins to feel somewhat stronger in his loneliness, as if the stringencies he has forced upon himself have ennobled him in some way, reacquainting him with the person he once imagined himself to be. He writes two short poems that might actually have something to them (never nothing but the dream of nothing / never anything but the dream of all), spends an entire afternoon setting down his thoughts about the resurrection scene in Dreyer’s film, and composes a long, lushly rhapsodic letter to Gwyn about the vagaries of the Paris sky as seen through the windows of his room: To live here is to become a connoisseur of clouds, a meteorologist of whims. Then, early on the fourth day, just after he has woken up, as he is taking his first sips of the bitter instant coffee he prepares each morning with water boiled on the electric hot plate beside his bed, there is a knock on the door.
Still blurred, still dopey from the warmth of the bed, the tousled, undressed Walker slips into a pair of pants and heads for the door, tiptoeing gingerly on his bare feet, not wanting to pick up any splinters from the crumbling planks. Again he assumes it is Maurice, and again his assumption is wrong, but thinking that it must be Maurice, he doesn’t bother to ask who is there.
Cécile is standing in front of him. She is tense, she is biting her lower lip, and she is trembling, as if small electric currents were passing through her body, as if she were about to rise up into the air and levitate.
Walker says: Aren’t you supposed to be in school?
Don’t worry about school, she answers, stepping across the threshold before he can invite her in. This is more important than school.
All right, it’s more important than school. In what way?
You haven’t called me since the night of the dinner. What’s happened to you?
Nothing. I’ve been busy, that’s all. And I figured you were busy, too. You just started your classes this week, and you must be drowning in homework. I wanted to give you a few days to settle in.
That’s not it. That’s not it at all. My mother talked to you, that’s what happened. My stupid mother talked to you and scared you off. Well, just for your information, my mother doesn’t know anything about me. I can take care of myself just fine, thank you.
Slow down, Cécile, Walker says, raising his right arm and thrusting it toward her with an open palm—the pose of a cop directing traffic. I woke up about three minutes ago, he continues, and I’m still trying to shake the cobwebs out of my head. Coffee. That’s what I was doing. I was drinking coffee. You wouldn’t want some, would you?
I don’t like coffee. You know that.
Tea?
No thank you.
All right. No coffee, no tea. But please sit down. You’re making me nervous.
He gestures to the chair behind the desk, then approaches the desk to pull out the chair for her, and as Cécile walks toward it, he retrieves his bowl of coffee and carries it over to the bed. He sits down on the sagging, U-shaped mattress at the same instant she sits down on the creaking chair. For some reason, he finds the effect comical. He takes a sip of the no longer hot coffee and smiles at her, hoping their simultaneous touchdown was as funny to her as it was to him, but nothing is funny to Cécile just now, and she does not smile back.
Your mother, he says. Yes, she talked to me. It happened when you left the room after playing the piano, and the conversation lasted for all of fifteen or twenty seconds. She talked and I listened, but she didn’t scare me off.
No?
Of course not.
Are you sure?
Positively.
Then why have you disappeared?
I haven’t disappeared. I was planning to call you on Saturday or Sunday.
For real?
Yes, for real. Stop it now. No more questions, all right? No more doubts. I’m your friend, and I want to stay your friend.
It’s just—
Enough. I want to stay your friend, Cécile, but I can’t do that unless you begin to trust me.
Trust you? What are you talking about? Of course I trust you.
Not really. We’ve spent a lot of time together lately, and in that time we’ve talked about all sorts of things—books and philosophers, art and music, films, politics, even shoes and hats—but you’ve never once opened up to me about yourself. You don’t have to hide. I know what trouble is. I know what happens to families when things go wrong. The other day, when I told you about what happened to my brother, Andy, I thought that might get you talking, but you never said a word. I know about your father’s accident, Cécile, I know about the hell you and your mother have been living in, I know about the divorce, I know about your mother’s marriage plans. Why don’t you ever mention these things to me? That’s what friends are for. To share each other’s pains, to help each other out.
It’s too hard, she says, lowering her eyes and looking at her hands as she speaks. That’s why I’m so happy when I’m with you. Because I don’t have to think about those things, because I can forget how rotten and terrible the world is . . .
She is still talking, but he is no longer listening to her, no longer paying close attention because a sudden thought has taken hold of him, and he is wondering if this might not be the moment to tell her the story, the story of Born and Cedric Williams, the killing of Cedric Williams, the right moment because of the reassurances he has just given her, his declarations of friendship, which might make her receptive enough to listen to him in a state of relative calm, to absorb the brutal account of what Born did to that boy without causing irreparable damage to her, this fragile person, as her mother put it, this trembling, nail-biting person, the vulnerable Cécile who nevertheless spent the summer translating a poem of such excessive violence, such nightmarish horror, that he himself was shocked by Cassandra’s howling monologue about ripping apart she-dog monsters and burning down cities and slaughtering one’s own children, and yet all that is in the realm of myth, imaginary violence from long ago, whereas Born is a real person, a living, breathing person whom she has known all her life, the man who intends to marry her mother, and whether she is for or against that marriage, what will it do to her when she learns what this man is capable of, when he tells her about the murderous attack he witnessed with his own eyes, and even as he thinks that now is the time to talk to her about that night in New York last spring, he hesitates, he cannot bring himself to do it, he mustn’t do it, he will not do it, and come what may he will not enlist Cécile as an intermediary to carry the news to her mother, he will go directly to Hélène himself, that is the proper solution, the only decent solution, and even if he fails to win her over, he must not and will not involve Cécile in this ugly business.
Is everything all right, Adam?
The spell is finally broken. Walker looks up, nods his head, and gives her a brief, apologetic smile. I’m sorry, he says. I was thinking about something.
Something important?
No, not at all. I was remembering the dream I had last night. You know how it is when you wake up. Your body springs into action, but your mind is still in bed.
You’re not ang
ry with me for coming here, are you?
Not in the least. I’m glad you came.
You do like me a little bit, don’t you?
What kind of question is that?
Do you think I’m ugly or repulsive?
Don’t be absurd.
I know I’m not pretty, but I’m not too disgusting to look at, am I?
You have a lovely face, Cécile. A delicate face with beautiful, intelligent eyes.
Then why don’t you ever touch me or try to kiss me?
What?
You heard what I said.
Why? I don’t know. Because I haven’t wanted to take advantage of you, I suppose.
You think I’m a virgin, don’t you?
To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it one way or the other.
Well, I’m not. Just so you know. I’m not a virgin anymore, and I never will be again.
Congratulations.
It happened last month in Brittany. The boy’s name was Jean-Marc, and we did it three times. He’s a good person, Jean-Marc, but I’m not in love with him. Do you understand what I’m saying?
I think so.
And?
You have to give me time.
What does that mean?
It means that I’m deeply in love with someone in New York. She broke up with me just before I left for Paris, and I’m still suffering, still trying to regain my balance. I’m not ready for anything new right now.
I understand.
Good. That makes things a lot simpler.
Not simpler—more complicated. But that won’t change anything in the end.
Oh?
Once you get to know me better, you’ll see that I have one very special quality, something that sets me apart from everyone else.
And what quality is that?
Patience, Adam. I’m the most patient person in the world.
It has to be a Saturday, he decides. Hélène is off from work, Cécile has a half day of school, and therefore Saturday is the only day of the week when he can go to the Juin apartment with the certainty that he will be alone with Hélène. And he wants to act now, to talk to her while Born is still in London, since that is the only way he can eliminate the risk of having Born walk in on them in the middle of their conversation. He calls Hélène at the clinic. He says he has something important to discuss with her about Cécile. No, nothing catastrophic, he replies, in fact quite the opposite, but he needs to talk to her, and it would be best for all concerned if they can meet at a time when Cécile will not be present. It is Hélène herself who suggests that he come to the apartment on Saturday morning. Cécile will be at the lycée then, and if he shows up at around nine o’clock, they will be able to finish their talk before Cécile comes home. What does he prefer? she asks. Coffee or tea? Croissants, brioches, or tartines beurrées? Coffee and tartines, he says. Yogurt? Yes, yogurt would be very nice. It’s settled, then. He will come for breakfast on Saturday morning. Hélène’s voice on the phone is so accommodating, so full of kindness and playful complicity that Walker has no choice but to revise his opinion of her after they hang up. She is awkward with strangers, perhaps, but once she gets to know someone a little bit, she relaxes her guard and begins to show her true colors. Those colors have become more and more attractive to him. Hélène clearly likes him, and the fact of the matter is, he likes her too. All the more motivation to remove Born from the premises as quickly as possible. If it can be done. If he has the wherewithal to make her believe him.
The rue de Verneuil, Saturday morning. For the first half hour, Walker concentrates on Cécile, doing what he can to put Hélène’s mind at rest about her daughter’s feelings for him and prove that the situation is not as dire as she thought it was. He tells her about his conversation with Cécile on Thursday (neglecting to mention that it took place in the morning, when she was supposed to have been at school) and says that everything is out in the open now. Cécile knows that he is unavailable to her, that he has just been through a shattering breakup with someone in New York and is in no condition to begin a romance with her or anyone else.
Is that true, Hélène asks, or were you just making it up to protect her?
I wasn’t making it up, Walker says.
Poor boy. You must be having a hard time of it.
I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to.
Ignoring this cryptic remark, Hélène pushes on: And what did she say when you told her about your . . . situation?
She said she understood.
That’s all? She didn’t make a scene?
No scene. She was very calm.
I’m surprised. That isn’t like her.
I know she’s high-strung, Madame Juin, I know she isn’t terribly stable, but she’s also a remarkable person, and my feeling is that she’s a lot stronger than you think she is.
That’s a matter of opinion, of course, but let’s hope you’re right.
Also, and this will interest you, you were wrong when you told me she has no experience with men.
Well, well. And where did she acquire this experience?
I’ve already said enough. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask Cécile herself. I’m not a spy, after all.
How tactless of me. You’re absolutely right. Forgive me for asking the question.
My only point is that Cécile is growing up, and maybe it’s time to let her go. You don’t have to worry about her so much anymore.
It’s impossible not to worry about that girl. That’s my job, Adam. I worry about Cécile. I’ve been worrying about her all her life.
[After the word life, there is a break in Walker’s manuscript, and the conversation abruptly comes to an end. Until this point, the notes have been continuous, an uninterrupted march of densely packed, single-spaced paragraphs, but now there is a blank that covers approximately a quarter of a page, and when the text resumes below this white rectangle, the tone of the writing is different. There isn’t much left to tell (we are on page 28 by now, which means there are just three pages to go), but Walker abandons the meticulous, step-by-step approach he has taken so far and rapidly summarizes the final events of the narrative. I can only assume that he was in the middle of the conversation with Hélène when he stopped writing for the day, and when he woke up the next morning (if he slept at all), his condition had taken a turn for the worse. These were the last days of his life, remember, and he must have felt too ravaged, too depleted, too frail to go on as before. Even earlier, over the course of the first twenty-eight pages, I had noticed a slow but ineluctable dwindling of strength, a loss of attention to detail, but now he is too incapacitated to put in anything but the bedrock essentials. He begins Fall with a fairly elaborate description of the Hôtel du Sud, he mentions what Born is wearing during their first encounter at the café, but little by little his descriptions begin to have less to do with the physical world than with inner states. He stops talking about clothes (Margot, Cécile, Hélène—not one word about how they are dressed), and only when it seems crucial to his purpose does he bother to depict his surroundings (a few sentences about the atmosphere in Vagenende, a few sentences about the Juin apartment), but mostly the story consists of thought and dialogue, what people are thinking and what people are saying. By the last three pages, the collapse is nearly total. Walker is vanishing from the world, he can feel the life ebbing out of his body, and yet he forges on as best he can, sitting down at his computer one last time to bring the story to an end.]
H. and W. at the kitchen table. Coffee, bread and butter, a pot of yogurt. There is little left to talk about concerning C. Before it is too late, he must push H. in a new direction, get her to start talking about her husband, about Born. Must confirm that facts are correct before diving in. Born mentioned the marriage to him last spring, M. has echoed this with added information about the divorce, C. has not contradicted this, but H. has yet to broach the subject with him. How to proceed? He begins by mentioning Rudolf, describes their meeting in New York ba
ck in April, never hints they are anything to each other but warm friends, then tells about Born’s return from Paris in May and how excited he was when he announced that he was marrying her. Is it true? H. nods. Yes, it’s true. Then she says it is the most wrenching decision she has ever made. In a flood, she begins to talk about her husband, to tell him about the car accident in the Pyrenees, the hairpin turn and the crash down the side of the mountain, the hospital, the anguish of the past six and a half years, the devastation wrought on C.—a flood of words, and then a flood of tears. W. barely has the heart to go on. The tears abate. She is embarrassed, apologetic. How strange that she should be confiding in him, she says, a young boy from New York scarcely older than her daughter, a person she scarcely knows. But Rudolf thinks the world of you, and you’ve been so kind to C.—maybe that’s the reason.
He is ready to abandon the whole business. Keep your mouth shut, he says to himself, leave the poor woman alone. But he can’t. His anger is simply too great, and so he jumps off the cliff and begins talking about Cedric Williams and Riverside Drive—regretting it, hating himself with every word he speaks, but unable to stop. H. listens in stunned silence. His words are a sharpened axe, and he is chopping off her head, he is killing her.
There is no question that she believes him. He can see from the way she looks at him that she knows he is telling the truth. But it makes no difference. He is demolishing her life, and she has no alternative but to defend herself. How dare you make these hideous accusations—with no proof, with nothing to support what you’re saying?
I was there, he says. The proof is in my eyes, in what I saw.
But she will not accept this. Rudolf is a distinguished professor, an intellectual, a man from one of the finest families, etc. He is her friend, he has rescued her from years of misery, he is like no other man in the world.
Hard face. No more tears, no more self-pity. Furious in her self-righteousness.
W. stands up to go. There is nothing more to say to her. Only this, which he delivers just before he walks out of the apartment: I thought it was my duty to tell you. Step back from it for a moment, and you’ll understand that I have no possible reason to lie to you. I want you and Cécile to be happy—that’s all—and I think you’re about to make a terrible mistake. If you don’t believe me, then do yourself a favor and ask Rudolf why he carries around a switchblade in his pocket.
