A Curable Romantic

by Joseph Skibell

  THINGS COULD NOT have been more different than they had been the last time the five of us stood together in Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten station. As fraŭlino Loë and I took leave of the Zamenhofs, seeing them to their rightful train, I took a moment to reflect. Though only one month had passed, our lives had all changed radically. fraŭlino Bernfeld and I were no longer bitter opponents, as we had been when we were last here. Esperanto, once the strange hobby of an odd fifteen-year-old boy, was, if not completely established, known beyond the circle of its adherents and well on its way to transforming the world. Dr. Zamenhof was world-famous. He should have been pleased, but no, he was restless instead.

  He’d realized, he told me as I escorted him between trains, that although a universal auxiliary language might ameliorate differences in speech and nationality, differences in creed remained a sticking point. “Hasn’t this been made abundantly clear by the French Esperantists’ refusal to allow me to recite the final stanza of my prayer?”

  He was right, I supposed. If most of humanity, worshipping the same God, felt free to oppress and even kill those who offered their praises to that God in an insignificantly different manner, would a common language really pour a cooling water over their raging tempers? Would it do anything other than allow one man’s murderer to explain to him, clearly and fluently, the precise theological reasons for which he was being murdered?

  “No, clearly something more is needed,” Dr. Zamenhof said, and with a certain modest pride, he revealed to me that, one night at the congress, unable to sleep, he had locked himself inside the sitting room of his suite. Dressed in his pajamas and night robe, pounding away at the typewriter he’d borrowed from the concierge, he’d composed a new pamphlet. Buoyed, no doubt, by the sheer giddy, ridiculous successes of the First Universal Congress occurring all around him, he’d invented a new scheme to further redeem humanity from the dark night of its eternal slumbers. People would scoff, he knew; they’d throw that old quotation of Kant’s at him — that nothing straight was ever built from the crooked timber of humanity — but what did he care? “If eighteen years ago, I’d listened to these scoffers, why, I’d’ve never published my grammar, and eighteen years later, I wouldn’t have been standing in front of nearly a thousand Esperantists!”

  Indeed, the language he’d authored as a “mad” boy in Białystok was now being considered for inclusion in the curricula of all French schools by the French ministers of justice and education!

  And so that night, in a burst of electric white heat, he had created Hillelism, or — more properly, in Esperanto — Hilelismo, named after Hillel, the first-century Galilian rabbi who’d been Jesus’s teacher, one of whose guiding principles was “Do not do unto others that which is hateful unto you.”

  “Just as Esperanto is a neutral universal auxiliary language,” Dr. Zamenhof explained to me, “so Hilelismo will be a neutral universal auxiliary religion!” He ducked his head. “Say what you will, call me a naïve dreamer, but that morning, as I lay my head upon my arms at the desk in my hotel suite and fell asleep, I dreamt of Hillelist temples, exalted palaces of music and light, erected in every city in the world — cities renamed according to Hillelist-Esperantan principle: Berlino, Nov-Jorko, Jerusalemo — where Hileluloj from different lands were gathering to practice a general religion for all of mankind, one that was emptied of superstition, meaningless ritual, and hate-filled dogma. Oh, Dr. Sammelsohn, in my dream, I stood in one of those green-domed temples — yes, I did! — and I listened to a mighty orator intoning (in Esperanto, of course, so that everyone might understand) the words of all the holy teachers of mankind — Moseo, Jesuo, Mohamedo kaj Budho. And there were angelic choirs singing hymns based upon the psalms, but with all the violent and ethnocentric parts excised. Impossible?”

  “Who can say?” I said, laughing.

  “Why, five years ago,” Dr. Zamenhof went on, “Boulogne would have seemed equally impossible, a mad dream, and yet we dreamt it, and — now, look! — it’s real.”

  He kissed me and fraŭlino Bernfeld good-bye, and he boarded the train, helping Klara and Lidja inside. When he turned back to us, he said, “I feel so restless.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “There’s just so much to do!”

  FRAŬLINO LOË PROVED equally restless.

  Foolishly I’d imagined our engagement would distract her from her desire to be married, that an engagement, like a new toy for a child, would be sufficiently interesting in itself. This wasn’t the case. On the contrary, the engagement proved a thing of no value. It was like a pair of trousers delivered by the tailor before the rest of the ensemble: there’s nothing one can do with it but lay it aside and wait for the jacket and vest to arrive. I couldn’t even distract fraŭlino Loë’s attention with the purchasing of rings, as her father, following Dr. Freud’s instruction not to stand in our way, had given her her mother’s band to use. A furious impatience seemed to propel fraŭlino Loë. If I had a heller for every time she said, “Darling, please, don’t you agree it’s time we set a date,” I’d have had no need of a dowry.

  As for me, it’s no exaggeration to suggest that the prospect of a wedding filled me with terror. I tried to explain this reaction to myself by using Dr. Freud’s new methods of self-inquiry. Given my history, it was clear that a wedding, specifically my own, should be a source of anxiety. After all, when had I not been emotionally brutalized at a wedding?

  But these were only the lies I used to justify my reluctance. Had I revealed them to Dr. Freud or to any one of his acolytes, a growing number of whom were now working as psychoanalysts in Vienna, I’ve no doubt that he (or they) would have believed them. At times, I actually believed them myself. But at other times, I couldn’t conceal the truth from myself. As much as I loved fraŭlino Bernfeld, I could never flee the hectoring voice that hounded me, crying, Wait, Yankl! Don’t do anything rash. You pledged yourself to me and it’s only a matter of years before I am reborn!

  That voice belonged to Ita, of course, though I’d last heard it issuing from the throat of Émile Boirac, Dr. Zamenhof’s great friend and the newly appointed president of the Esperanto Language Committee.

  RECTOR OF THE Universities of Grenoble and Dijon, and a philosopher of no small renown, Émile Boirac was an ardent, if amateur paranormalist. In addition to his work on behalf of Esperanto, Rector Boirac’s contributions to world culture include coining the term déjà vu. He was also the first man to define metagnomy, knowledge acquired through cryptesthesia, later known as ESP.

  Late one evening at the congress, fraŭlino Loë and I stumbled across his demonstration of psychic conductibility by accident. Having spent the greater part of the night ravishing each other, we thought to slink down to the hotel kitchens to beg (if the staff were on duty) or to steal (if they were not) a plate of food. In a parlor off the main lobby, we noticed a rather large crowd of samideanoj seated across from a long table and, intrigued, we slipped in among them, unnoticed.

  Rector Boirac stood at one end of the table, his great shock of electric white hair looking at once distinguished and mad. He wore a sturdy brown suit, a brown bow tie, and a brown vest. Near him was an empty kitchen glass stationed upon a saucer and a pitcher filled with what looked to be ordinary water.

  On the other end of the long table sat a woman, the upper part of her face concealed by a black handkerchief knotted at the back of her head.

  One could make out the small triangular tip of her nose and the dimpled point of her chin, but little else. Her hands rested, palms downward, on her knees.

  The crowd breathed in an air of silent expectation.

  Having concluded his preparations, Rector Boirac addressed us now, clapping his hands together. “Estimataj gesinjoroj,” he said. “Will a volunteer kindly determine that fraŭlino Zinger cannot see through the cloth I have draped about her eyes?”

  A young man, standing up, gave an abashed nod of greeting to the audience from which he’d only just separated himself. Obeying Rector Boirac’s instr
uctions, he waved his hand before the blindfolded face of fraŭlino Zinger, an attractive Polish Esperantist whom I’d noticed, glancingly, before fraŭlino Loë and I had reconciled.

  “That’s hardly sufficient, Sinjoro Diderot.”

  Sinjoro Diderot nodded unhappily.

  “Of course, do not harm her,” Rector Boirac said, whereupon Sinjoro Diderot swung his arm across his own chest, as though it were a tennis racquet, and volleyed the back of his open hand towards fraŭlino Zinger’s face, stopping an inch away from it, in reaction to which fraŭlino Zinger flinched not at all. “Any doubts?” Rector Boirac asked his audience, leaning on the table with both arms. “No then?” Not a word from any one of us. “Multajn dankojn, Sinjoro Diderot. You may return to your seat.”

  Sinjoro Diderot bowed towards the rector and towards fraŭlino Zinger (though she of course couldn’t see him) before melting back into the crowd.

  The rector turned to the masked woman. “All is well, fraŭlino?”

  “All is well, Sinjoro Rektoro.”

  It was nearly three in the morning, but fraŭlino Loë and I exchanged glances, eager to see what might happen next. Rector Boirac cleared his throat. “May I trouble one of you to send to the front, wrapped in a kerchief as an added precaution, a smallish object of negligible value?”

  The crowd drew its attention in towards itself murmuringly, various ones half-standing and peering over various other one’s shoulders, until a man in the center elected himself our volunteer. Concealing something in a silk kerchief, which he’d knotted into a small bag, he passed the item to a woman in front of him who did the same to a woman in front of her, et cetera, et cetera, until a diminutive man in the front row delivered the little wandering rucksack into Rector Boirac’s hands.

  “Now!” Rector Boirac ran his fingers through his white hair, ruffling it further. “I shall, as a further precaution, stand well behind fraŭlino Zinger, far from her on this side of the table. I shall turn my back to the room and untie the kerchief, and then I shall place the item, which is inside it, into my mouth, at which point, fraŭlino Zinger, as I am now asking her to do, will identify it and, if she can, describe its particulars to us in detail.”

  As promised, Rector Boirac turned his back on us. His shoulders juddered as he untied the cloth. He flung the handkerchief across his shoulder for safekeeping. His hands moved to his mouth, and when he turned to us again, it was filled, it seemed uncomfortably so, with the object in question. His snowy eyebrows raised as high as imperial flags, he rolled the object across his tongue as though he were sampling a new wine.

  Fraŭlino Zinger hesitated. “Is it … ?” she said.

  “Mmjes?” Rector Boirac answered, keeping his mouth tightly closed.

  “… a ruby-encrusted tie clasp?”

  Rector Boirac’s face brightened with a look of triumph.

  “With …” the fraŭlino stuttered, her brow knotted beneath the black kerchief, “I don’t know why I want to say this, but …”

  “Mm? Mm-hm?” Rector Boirac nodded.

  “… an inscription on the back that reads … oh my, but that’s very strange.” fraŭlino Zinger seemed to strain behind the black blindfold, leaning forward as though peering into a difficult text. “‘Festina lente’?” she said slowly.

  Rector Boirac spat the object from his mouth like a man spitting out an ill-fitting set of dentures and held it up for all to see. It was indeed a tie clasp with a red line of stones set into it. “Sinjorino, mi petas,” he said, holding the little stick before the eyes of a woman seated in the first row, “would you kindly read to the assembly the inscription on the back of this tie clasp?”

  The woman made a great show of finding her glasses inside her reticule before settling them onto the bridge of her nose. Growing impatient, Rector Boirac smiled over her head towards the rest of us. Finally, the woman read the words in a plumy English accent: “Festina lente,” she confirmed. She translated: “Hurry slowly. Or in Esperanto: Rapidu malrapide.”

  Rector Boirac quickly removed the object from before her eyes. “Sinjorinoj kaj sinjoroj!” he said, holding the tie clasp up to the sound of applause. He returned to the table, doused the tie clasp into the water glass, in order, I assumed, to rinse it of his saliva, and placed it on the kerchief in which it had been wrapped. He stood with his arms behind his back, his broad belly pushing forward, rocking on his heels. He reminded me of a happy schoolboy, having successfully concluded a science report. “I will now demonstrate the conductibility of psychic force,” he said. “May I trouble one of the ladies for an ordinary hat pin?”

  His request was immediately fulfilled, the pin passed from hand to hand until it reached the rector’s own. “Please note,” he said, silencing us by pointing a finger towards the ceiling. “Fraŭlino Zinger, have we discussed what I am about to do?”

  “No, Sinjoro Rektoro.”

  “You have no idea what I am about to do?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  She spoke with a calm I found unnerving. She swallowed, and I watched her throat move. It felt odd watching someone who couldn’t watch you back; and apropos of nothing, I have to say, she possessed a not unattractive bosom.

  “Good, good,” Rector Boirac said. “Now fraŭlino Zinger, you can hear by the sound of my voice that I am standing far away from you, yes?”

  “Yes, Sinjoro Rektoro.”

  “You can feel that there is no one else near you?”

  “Correct.”

  “Your hands are placed palms downward on your lap?”

  “They are.”

  “Very good. Excellent.” Rector Boirac then pricked his hand with the hat pin.

  “Ho!” fraŭlino Zinger cried out, clutching at her own hand.

  “Please show your hand to the audience, my dear.”

  Fraŭlino Zinger obeyed, and the audience gasped: her hand was bleeding from a small puncture wound. With exquisite care, Rector Boirac approached her and settled a clean handkerchief into her hand.

  “You’re bleeding, my dear,” he said to her quietly. “It will soon stop, and there is no need to worry.”

  “Impossible,” fraŭlino Loë murmured, leaning into me. Her fingers laced inside mine, she pressed her shoulder against my shoulder.

  “Now ladies and gentlemen,” Rector Boirac roared, “watch closely.” He filled the glass on the table with water from his pitcher. “As you can probably hear, fraŭlino Zinger, I have filled a glass with ordinary water from the kitchen.” She nodded. “I ask you to concentrate as fiercely as you’re able and to project your sensibility, your mental or psychic sensibility — if you’re understanding me — into this glass of water.”

  “My mental or psychic sensibility? Into the glass of water?”

  “That is precisely what I’m asking you to do, my dear.”

  “I hope I’m doing what you ask correctly.”

  “Well, we shall soon find out, won’t we?”

  Like a skilled magician, Rector Boirac silently drew our attention, with one hand, to the hat pin, which he held high in the air with the other. Transferring it to the other hand, he used it to prick the surface of the water in the glass, and each time he did so, fraŭlino Zinger gave out a little jump. “Oh! — Oh! — Oh!”

  Rector Boirac filled a second glass with water and placed it on the side of the table nearer fraŭlino Zinger. He inserted the ends of a single copper wire into each glass. “Behold!” he finally said. Each time he plunged his finger into the glass nearer him, fraŭlino Zinger shrieked, as though he had poked her in the ribs. When he swished a pencil in the air above the glass, she ducked her head, covering it with her hands, as though to avoid a blow. After Professor Boirac silently removed the wire from his glass, these same movements had no effect upon the woman at all.

  “Hah?” fraŭlino Loë cried, grasping my hand.

  “And now,” Professor Boirac began another demonstration, but fraŭlino Zinger interrupted him.

  “Why is she saying those things, Si
njoro Rektoro?”

  “I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” he said. “But why is who saying what?”

  By the look transfiguring his face and also by his dropping into French, Rector Boirac made it seem as though this was not part of his scheduled routine.

  “Do you not hear it?”

  “No, mademoiselle,” Rector Boirac said, turning towards the crowd, “we hear nothing.”

  Fraŭlino Zinger nodded patiently as though listening to an invisible someone whispering into her ear. “I’ll ask him, but I’ve no idea if he’ll agree.”

  Leaning both hands against the table, Rector Boirac looked into the eyes of the crowd with as much astonishment as we were projecting towards him, I’m sure.

  “Professor Boirac, forgive the intrusion,” fraŭlino Zinger said, “but a poor soul asks permission of the great philosopher and scientist to speak.”

  “Ho, he’s gotten more than he’s bargained for tonight, old Boirac,” fraŭlino Loë murmured, squirming happily at my side.

  “It’s all part of the charade,” I told her. “These two are clearly in cahoots.”

  “You think so?” fraŭlino Loë said.