A Curable Romantic

by Joseph Skibell

  Following Monsieur Gajewski’s departure from our committee chambers, I tried to convince myself that it was utter foolishness to imagine, because of one or two irregularities during their presentation, that Gaston was Ita reborn. More, it was madness to think so! Upon what evidence could one draw such a conclusion? One need only look at the facts: demonical possessions were, as Dr. Freud steadfastly maintained, the misdiagnosed hysterias of yesteryear; Rector Boirac’s metagnomical presentation of cryptesthesia during the First Universal Congress was, by his own admission, an example of group trance; fraŭlino Zinger, I think we can all agree, was a strange woman; and university laboratories, like any buildings, occasionally burn to the ground. There was nothing mysterious in any of this nor in the boy’s return. He had obviously been sent to the collège by an anxious Gajewski to spy upon the committee in order to ascertain how Solresol’s case was proceeding before it.

  Nevertheless, I felt a strong hand had to be taken against him, that he needed to know that I, at least, would have nothing more to do with him, no matter who or what he might be.

  I slipped out of the committee chambers and into the collège courtyard. I had no thought of leaving the chambers for any length of time. Debate over the worthlessness of the Ido pamphlet, I felt certain, would fill the rest of the afternoon. It was exactly the sort of intellectual bone upon which Professor Couturat liked to gnaw. Also, I told myself, the marquis was here to defend against its proposals, and if I knew these two men, they’d be at it all day.

  “Ho! Little man!” I shouted at the boy. He was leaning against the window, his breath fogging the glass. At the sound of my voice, he jumped back and regarded me with a mixture of dread and alarm. At this distance, I couldn’t be sure he was the same child who’d assisted Monsieur Gajewski. Perhaps this boy was merely a beggar hoping to receive a coin from the illustrious men inside. Nevertheless, I called out to him: “There’s no need for you to fear me.”

  He said nothing, but standing on the balls of his feet, he flexed his small fists and glanced about nervously, preparing, I assumed, the most propitious avenue of escape.

  “Gaston?” I said. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Gaston?”

  He nodded slightly, his chest heaving beneath the fabric of his shirt.

  “Come here for a moment, boy. I merely wish to speak with you.”

  I took a step nearer, hoping neither to frighten nor to propel him into flight.

  “You’re here on Monsieur Gajewski’s behalf. Isn’t that correct?”

  He glanced at the street, his eyes cutting between me and the various gateways in the wall of the courtyard.

  “By which I mean you haven’t come here to tell me anything, have you?” I touched my chest with both hands as I said the word me. I glanced over my shoulder: there seemed to be no one but ourselves in the courtyard. “That is to say: you’re not here to see me by any chance, are you?”

  I took an additional step towards him. The child was trembling. As I drew nearer, I searched for evidence of the beating I assumed he had received following Solresol’s disastrous presentation.

  “Odd how you changed those sentences the other day. Why would you have done such a thing?” I took another step. “What happened there? You may confide in me … if there’s anything you wish to say … specifically to me?”

  The wind ruffled the cowlicks in his hair, and I began to feel inordinately foolish. Once again, I’d let my guilty imagination run wild. Ita was dead, the poor girl I knew in Szibotya was dead. The Ita I knew afterwards did not exist, nor had she ever. And the Ita I’d been hoping to meet in Paris for an amorous idyll was only a figment of my imagination. I nodded curtly at the boy, dismissing him, and was on the point of returning to the committee chambers — I’d already removed a cigar from my pocket and was lighting it — when the little fellow gave out a war whoop and bounded off. However, he ran not towards the street, as I’d expected him to, but towards me, his fists raised high, like a Red Indian, his knucklebones blanching. I couldn’t help laughing at the ridiculousness of the sight, the boy charging at me with all the ferocity of his tiny person, preparing, it seemed, a lethal strike. However, when he kicked me in the shins and pummeled me in my solar plexus, I was so caught off-guard, I lost my wind and actually toppled to the ground.

  “Gaston!” I cried hoarsely, as he dashed towards la rue des Écoles. “Come back, you wretched child!” He refused to obey me. “Arrêt!” I shouted from the ground. I should have let the encounter end there, but instead I dashed after him, and by the time I reached the collège gates, all I could see was the flash of his little suit as he tore around the corner of the Sorbonne.

  “Arrêtez ce garçon!”

  Though various onlookers glanced up at the sound of my command, none did as I bid him, and I had to run after the little felon myself. Naturally, he had the advantage over me. He knew the territory better than I, who knew it not at all, and thanks to his small stature, he was able to rip through the crowds and the environments I had to blunder around. At times, I had the impression I wasn’t chasing him at all, but that he was leading me. Certainly, he kept peering over his shoulder to ascertain if I was still behind him; and though he could have easily been checking whether he had lost me or not, at times he seemed to be taking especial care not to lose me. Very soon we reached a cul-de-sac, our progress halted by a wall, which the boy tried unsuccessfully to scale. Stopped short, he turned to face me, bouncing on his feet. He dashed to the left, but the way was blocked; to the right, but that way was blocked as well. With a little fancy dodgery, he could have barged past me, but I bore down upon him and soon had him snared. It was Monsieur Gajewski’s boy, after all, as I was able to confirm at closer range. He had the same underfed look, the same bruised puddles beneath his eyes, and he was wearing the same tiny suit with the same little black foulard.

  “So, it is you then!” I cried.

  “No, monsieur.”

  “Why did you come back to the collège?”

  “You’ve mistaken me for someone else, monsieur.”

  “You were standing there, looking through the windows!”

  “But it wasn’t I!”

  “Stop lying to me!”

  He drew in his cheeks and looked as though he were sucking on a bitter candy.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me!” I said.

  “I wasn’t, monsieur.”

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

  I had grabbed him by the shirt front and the collar, and I lifted him from the ground. He weighed next to nothing. I held him in midair, bracing his back against the wall. “How many times will you just show up like this and ruin my life like this, eh?”

  “Please, monsieur, you’re hurting me!”

  “How dare you! How dare you just show up whenever you feel like it!

  Oh, yes, that was very funny, wasn’t it, what you did with those sentences the other day?”

  “Monsieur! I did as well as I could!”

  I pounded his little body against the wall.

  “And how dare you call my wife a whore!”

  “I didn’t, monsieur!”

  “When you’re not even fit to lick her boot! Listen to me!” I said, pushing my face into his. “It’s over between us! Do you understand me?” I could feel his feet kicking at my stomach, his knees pedaling against my chest. It did him no good. I was enraged and consequently I had the strength of, if not one hundred men, then a hundred small boys, against whom he was powerless. “Do you hear me? That oath meant nothing! There were no witnesses! I owe you nothing and … good Lord! You’re a little boy! I mean, my God, what on earth were you thinking?”

  “Monsieur, please …” he cried.

  “What?” I shouted at him.

  “Don’t kill me!” he said.

  His body was convulsing, tears were running down his cheeks, he seemed to have wet his pants. His legs, bicycling uselessly in midair, were dripping with urine. The absurdity of the situation pierced me like a poisoned
arrow. I trembled at the murderous crime I’d been on the point of committing. What was I doing? What was I thinking? I cursed my father and the Szibotyer Rebbe! Was I never to be liberated from the ridiculous superstitions they had stuffed into my brain? I relaxed my grip on the boy and lowered him to the street. He remained nearly motionless, crouching next to the wall, stunned perhaps, unsure what I intended for him. I didn’t know myself. I ran my hand through my hair. Good Lord!

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to touch the lad’s hair, hoping to reassure him, but as I did, he sprang away. Who could blame him? I myself would have run from the madman I’d become, if only I knew how. Before he could get too far, however, Monsieur Gajewski, traveling the street with his dog, rounded the corner and caught him by the sleeve.

  “Hoy, Gaston!” he cried, and the boy shrieked in alarm. “What are you doing here with Dr. Sammelsohn?” Monsieur Gajewski demanded, looking between us and trying to decipher what was surely, under the best of circumstances, an incomprehensible tableau.

  “Monsieur Gajewski.” I nodded towards him.

  “Answer me!” Monsieur Gajewski thundered at the child, and the dog, an Alsatian, began snarling.

  “Nothing, master,” Gaston cried, shrinking against the wall.

  “Was he bothering you, Dr. Sammelsohn?”

  “On the contrary. Not in the least, Monsieur Gajewski.”

  “Were you bothering him, Gaston?”

  “No, I wasn’t!”

  “He wasn’t,” I reiterated.

  “What did you take from him?” Monsieur Gajewski demanded. The boy shook his head. “What did you take from him, Gaston?”

  “I took nothing!”

  “He took nothing, sir!”

  “Don’t you lie to me, Gaston.”

  Monsieur Gajewski smiled into the sunlight, as though the boy’s denials were, in equal parts, amusing and embarrassing to him. Then he cracked the boy across the face with the back of his hand. The dog yowled.

  “Gajewski!” I screamed. I was horrified. The man possessed all the signs of drunkenness: his step was uncertain, he was sweating profusely, he reeked of alcohol and, to a lesser degree, of vomit, his hair was dirty, and he was on the street midday without a hat.

  “Now tell me what you took from him, Gaston?” he demanded, ignoring me. “Tell me the truth, boy.”

  “I took nothing!”

  “Liar!” Monsieur Gajewski slapped him once more.

  “Gajewski, please,” I cried. “You mustn’t harm him. He’s entirely innocent in this matter.”

  Monsieur Gajewski pushed the boy against the wall and went through his pockets, turning them out one after the other, and discovering within them a treasure trove of childish things: a pen knife, a few sous, a mandolin pick.

  “Is this yours, Dr. Sammelsohn?” With one arm flat against the little man’s chest, Monsieur Gajewski kept him pinioned against the wall; with his other hand, he offered me what I recognized immediately as my own wallet. Reflexively, I patted my own pockets and found it missing. Gaston must have taken it when he’d knocked me to the ground and pummeled me in the stomach.

  “Is it yours, sir?” Monsieur Gajewski repeated. “Identify it, if you will.”

  I had no choice but to confirm that the billfold was indeed mine. Monsieur Gajewski drew in a deep breath. He shifted his feet and pressed the enormous weight of his body more fully against the arm that kept Gaston pinned in place. The boy soiled his pants.

  “Monsieur Gajewski,” I cried, nearly hysterical myself, “calm yourself, man, and consider that no harm has actually been done.”

  “Gaston.” Monsieur Gajewski shook his head sadly. “How could you steal a wallet from a member of the Delegation Committee?”

  “I … I didn’t,” the boy said, unable to meet the gaze of his tormentor.

  “Gajewski, please.” I reached out for his shoulder, but he repelled my hand. “Stop this now. I’m insisting! As a doctor! But also as a member of the Delegation Committee.” I had no idea which title would impress him more.

  “I take you in, I give you a home, and this is how you repay me?”

  “No harm was done, Gajewski. The wallet has been returned. Perhaps he’d found it in the street and was simply bringing it to me.”

  “Do you know how long I’ve been working on behalf of Solresol, Gaston? You do know, my darling, I know, because I told you all about it. We’ve spoken of it, haven’t we? Many, many nights, haven’t we?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” the child protested.

  “Gajewski, leave him! It won’t make any difference to the outcome of the committee’s decision, I can assure you of that!”

  “And yet you decide to wreck everything with your thievery!”

  Monsieur Gajewski raised his fist like a cudgel over Gaston’s head. I saw that the skin on his knuckles was broken from where he’d already beaten him. Gaston swallowed and raised his eyes, cringing at the sight of Monsieur Gajewski’s fist hovering over his head. Then he turned his gaze on me. Locking his eyes on mine, he smiled a queer smile, almost a smirk, it seemed. His eyes flashed, and he raised one little eyebrow and one corner of his cheek in what — if only for a brief moment — appeared to be a perfect gloat of triumph.

  “Gaston?” I said. And then: “Gajewski, no!”

  “You miserable orphan! You … you ruined my life!” Monsieur Gajewski cried, raining his fist down upon the boy.

  The Alsatian went wild with snarling. Gaston’s neck snapped under the first blow. His legs went slack. His eyes were instantly glassy. Heedlessly, Monsieur Gajewski kept battering away at him, holding his little body in place, gripping his collar and his little foulard in one hand, punishing him with the other.

  I cried — Help! Police! Help! Murder! — before I realized I was speaking in Yiddish. I found the first policeman I could and directed him back to the alleyway, and then I ran — there was no help for the boy, I knew that — stopping only once to double over and vomit in the street.

  BY THE TIME I returned to the committee chambers, most of the committeemen had left. In fact, only Professor Leau remained, seated at the table, jotting something down in his cahier.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  Professor Leau gave me an odd look. I’m certain I looked a shambles.

  “Gone,” he said simply.

  “Gone?”

  “Everyone left after the voting, of course?”

  “The voting?”

  Professor Leau squinted up at me over the ovals of his reading glasses. “Weren’t you here?”

  “Certainly I wasn’t, no.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s right,” he said. “I thought I saw you leaving. Well, not long after that, Professor Couturat declared that the committee’s theoretical discussions had reached their natural conclusion, and that it was time to put the matter to a vote.” He searched through the pages of his cahier. “As you can see, it’s noted here that the president of the Esperanto Language Committee abstained.”

  “Abstained?”

  He shrugged good-naturedly in that handsome way of his. “You were Rector Boirac’s second, weren’t you?”

  “And … and what language was ultimately voted on?” I said.

  “Oh.” He smiled. “I’m pleased to report that Idiom Neutral finally met its defeat.”

  “Ah. Very good.”

  “Yes, even Professor Jespersen abandoned his support of it. Many of its forms, he conceded at last, are ungraceful.”

  “And so then, that means … ?”

  “Esperanto won the day.”

  “Thank God!”

  “After which, Professor Couturat called for another vote.”

  “Another vote?”

  “This one proposing that certain reforms be adopted into it — ”

  “Certain reforms!”

  “ — along the lines of those proposed by Monsieur Ido in his pamphlet, which the marquis, acting as Dr. Zamenhof’s representative, accepted and approved.
”

  “The marquis … endorsed the reforms? But he wasn’t even entitled to vote!”

  “Naturally not. Nevertheless, his opinion on the matter carried great weight with the members of the committee, and in light of this, the measure passed by a majority,” Professor Leau said, reading from his notes, “with the president of the Esperanto Language Committee once again noted as abstaining.”

  “But I didn’t even vote!”

  “Which” — Professor Leau pointed to his cahier — “is why I noted your abstention.”

  “But these abstentions do not accurately reflect the will of either Rector Boirac or myself!”

  “Oh.” His handsome face crumbled into a sympathetic scowl. “Well, that is unfortunate.”

  “You must allow me to change my vote.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Sammelsohn. After the voting, the committee was dissolved, again by unanimous consent, minus your abstention, and I can’t very well put into the minutes observations of events that didn’t occur.”

  My legs buckled, and I fell into a chair.

  I looked out the room’s tall windows at the murky October sky. Throughout the committee meetings, as I’d been instructed to do by Rector Boirac, I had given a daily report, via telephone, to general Sébert, but each day, by a means unknown to me, the general seemed to have already obtained a detailed précis of the day’s events, which, at some point in the afternoon, he must have shared with Loë — since our arrival in Paris, the two had become fast friends — as there was nothing I could tell either of them — to Sébert via telephone; or to Loë, upon meeting her later for dinner — that they didn’t already seem to know.

  (The general, after a long career of military strategizing, had obviously thought to make one of the collège’s secretaries, or perhaps one of our waiters, his spy.)