“Carmen? You all right, then?”
No reply. The young man raises his head, looks at the girl and the man, his witnesses. Worried but powerless, Terry shrugs and offers by way of explanation:
“She’s preggers.”
TUESDAY
Attack
HANS IS BEGINNING to like the man standing before him, a sort of cowboy of the vineyards who doesn’t bother with niceties in order to spare people’s feelings.
“So are you ever going to finish that jigsaw puzzle?”
It’s the second time Hans has crossed paths with this man at a wine tasting, and he has no qualms about responding in an equally direct manner.
“It seems to torment you as much as it does me.”
A pretty hostess passes again with wine. Both men take new glasses. At which point a small, inexplicable group movement occurs, and Hans wonders if the ground is not once more beginning to shake, a sensation he has found surprisingly pleasant since coming to live in California.
And yet, when he decided to come to San Francisco, Hans had not even thought about the famed San Andreas fault. He had never, in his entire life, been the least bit concerned about earthquakes. Now that he has experienced them several times, he’s taken a liking to these underground rumblings. They shake him up in a new and intensely intimate manner, as though some sort of primordial coherence was being awakened in him.
The two women are the last remaining customers in the dining area of the small restaurant.
“And how’s work?”
“Bah. They decided people want to reread Balzac, so we’re doing Balzac all over again. But we’re almost done.”
“And then what?”
“Gorky.”
The woman who’d struggled with her lettuce draws a cigarette from her pack and lights it.
“I’ve got to go after this.”
“I thought you’d quit smoking.”
The woman exhales her smoke, nodding her head in a way that signifies neither yes nor no, before adding:
“I smoke only in public.”
When he bought this second jigsaw puzzle, Hans was under the spell of a minor Tuesday psychosis: he was feeling particularly courageous, Plutonian, Chinese. He had already completed a reproduction of the Census at Bethlehem by Bruegel the Elder when he came upon this Winter Landscape by the artist’s youngest son, Jon, known as Velvet Brueghel. This one was also a three-thousand-piece puzzle; it depicted a number of small figures engaged in various activities on the outskirts of a snowy Flemish village. On a door that served as a table in a corner of his large rented room, Hans had successfully assembled the outer edge of this second jigsaw, but he had barely begun to work on the interior. Something was stopping him from going any further. It had been like that for weeks now.
“There’s something in that puzzle beckoning to you, but you won’t give in to it.”
Hans had sought among the people around him someone whom he could truly look up to as wise.
“Maybe you just don’t want to finish it. To be done with it.”
As he was paying, Hans had noticed that the skin around the woman’s fingernails had been chewed up. It made him feel strange. And yet, she had been highly recommended.
Terry and Carmen are in line to go through customs. The line they chose moves forward at more or less the same pace as the others. No one seems to have any emotions. Terry and Carmen step forward to the counter together. The official does not take kindly to this infringement of the regulations.
“One at a time.”
He gives a cursory nod towards the waiting line. Terry understands that one of them must retreat behind the line traced on the ground. This does not seem possible to him, and he attempts to explain it to the man before him.
“She’s preggers.”
The officer understands the word, but he’s not immediately sure what he is meant to apply it to. He raises his head, sees the young man’s eyes brimming with sincerity, then sees the young woman, who looks like a homesick schoolgirl. He chooses not to give himself any trouble, pretends to understand, checks their passports, returns them, and lets the couple pass without asking any questions.
Terry and Carmen pick up their luggage and make their way to the taxi stand, where yet another line awaits them. Terry did not expect things to be so organized. When it’s their turn, he pushes the bags up to the trunk of the cab and even tries to put them in. This does not appear to please the driver, who is in a less-than-cheerful mood. Terry feels compelled to explain why he is doing all the work himself, without Carmen’s help.
“On account of she’s preggers, see.”
The driver takes not the slightest notice of what’s being said, instead shoving the last of the suitcases into the trunk and muttering all the while into his moustache. The two travellers realize this is no place to dawdle; they get into the super-clean BMW. Terry pronounces as clearly as he can the name and address of the small hotel a friend recommended. Unable to understand, even after he’s made Terry repeat it several times, the driver asks to read the address scrawled on the paper, which turns out not to be all that clear either. Nevertheless, in the end, the cab does make its way into the heart of Paris.
Here, in the wing for precise suicides, they laugh at me a little. As far as they’re concerned, there’s been no mistake. I quickly realized how useless it was to try to convince them of the contrary. At first, from time to time, they listened to me — out of a kind of charitable spirit I haven’t been able to figure out — but I could see my appeal was falling on deaf ears. It was written in their postures, in their immobility. It is impossible to describe just how completely they have ceased to live.
It may seem somewhat contradictory to see them as entirely dead, on the one hand, and then to feel that they are laughing at me, or that they are capable of charitable feelings. And yet that’s how it is. But instead of reassuring me, these slight infringements on the rules of death only increase my feeling of solitude, my inability to join them. I never believed much in heaven and hell, but if I were to imagine them for a few moments, what I’ve just described would be pretty close to hell. There’s something unbearable about this gnawing feeling of not being where I belong. On the other hand, I can see that lots of people on earth suffer for much the same reason.
Claudia must wait almost ten hours in the airport before embarking on the second phase of her journey, which will take her to her destination. She will join her parents on their kibbutz in Israel, for an unofficial holiday — her college’s policy on holidays being rather liberal. The goal of the vacation is of course to reassure her parents of her well-being, and to help them feel right about their own choices.
These trips are nothing new to Claudia. For several years now, her parents have been unable to live without a cause. Which is what she explained to the pope-rabbi, because even though he was a bit odd, Claudia sensed that he wished her well.
“At least they’re not a pain in the butt, right?”
The pope-rabbi’s reaction made her laugh, because Claudia does indeed feel rather lucky that her parents have decided to leave the nest. And though she doesn’t mind seeing them once or twice a year, a single week at a time rather than two would be quite sufficient. She can see herself in them, but within a few days, she always ends up feeling that this particular natural resource is non-renewable.
The pope-rabbi was reassuring.
“We must be dead to one’s parents, you know. It is written thus, so don’t worry about it.”
And he turned back to his book.
The woman who smokes only in public is quietly enjoying her cigarette. Her friend, meanwhile, leapfrogs from one thought to another.
“Do you know if he’s painting at least?”
“Oh, I doubt it. I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything about it.”
“He’s wasting his talent.”
&nbs
p; The idea that talent is something someone can waste seems suddenly odd to the woman who smokes. She could debate it, but today she lacks the energy to tilt against clichés. Not all Tuesdays are alike.
Her friend switches topics.
“Someone’s moved in next door. The movers were in yesterday. There wasn’t a single piece went in that house that wasn’t gorgeous.”
And in conclusion:
“You should quit smoking. You’re racing to an early grave.”
The woman who smokes crushes her cigarette butt in the ashtray.
“Funny, I feel as though I’m calmly walking towards it.”
Terry and Carmen have piled their suitcases as efficiently as possible in the small space of their room. They have also pushed the two single beds together. Carmen is in the bathroom washing up. And talking to Terry. She’s always enjoyed talking to him like this — he in the bedroom and she in the bathroom.
“You don’t have to go telling everyone I’m pregnant. Doesn’t even show.”
It’s as though the intervening walls allow each of them to take a firmer stand.
“Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it! How else are they going to know, then?”
“They don’t need to know, do they? Makes no difference.”
Terry’s answer is not immediate.
“Well, I’m thinking it does make a difference.”
And he adds, as he struggles to open the window: “Seems to me it’s my way of being preggers along with you.”
Carmen finds the answer sweet; she can think of nothing to add. She continues applying her makeup.
“Are we Tuesday or Wednesday, then? I’m all muddled.”
“Makes no difference. Tuesday, Wednesday . . .”
When she comes out of the bathroom, Terry is stretched across the bed, trying to touch the opposite walls of the room with the tips of his fingers and toes and succeeding.
What drew Hans’s gaze to this particular puzzle was the somewhat dilapidated windmill about halfway up the painting and slightly to the left of centre. The way the mill sits on a base of pillars and piles gives the impression that the wind not only turns the vanes but rocks the whole structure. In spite of the great number of other buildings in the painting, this is the only windmill. It sits alongside a frozen river, on which people seem to be strolling quite happily. Strangely, it was as though Hans was seeing this landscape for the first time. As though he hadn’t lived all his life in the Netherlands.
Meandering along the corridors of the airport lounge, the man who’d shown no sign of reading is not surprised to find large paintings hanging on the walls. It has become general practice to hang art in this sort of place — inoffensive art, of course, but colours just the same; never entirely without effect.
The man has long ago lost the habit of pausing to admire such decorations, moving steadily along instead, though with no purpose other than to pass the time. Wandering in this way, he comes upon Claudia seated in front of a wall of windows, looking out over the landing strip, her back to a painting of intermingled blues and greens. As though by pure chance — the man who’d shown no sign of reading is forever being swept along by pure chance, in which he only half believes — Claudia turns her head at that very moment and their eyes meet. For a fraction of a second, he is gripped by how impossible it is for a man of his age to approach a young girl in this way, simply to talk to her as a man of his age. It’s as though he could draw no strength at all from all his years.
It’s a bit in Terry’s nature to be caught in between things. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, for example; beyond the aggression and tension of Tuesday, but short of Wednesday’s deliverance, short of any strict requirement.
“I mean, it’s not as though we’d been here before and knew there were things you do on Tuesday rather than Wednesday, now is it?”
Still stretched across the bed, Terry is examining the room’s ceiling and discovering nothing in particular there.
“I suppose we might go out and walk, or just to bed. Aren’t you a bit weary, then?”
“Even if I was weary, I couldn’t sleep, could I? I’m too wound up, is what it is. I wouldn’t mind a coffee, though.”
Terry springs to his feet, happy to proclaim his fine mood.
“If it’s a coffee you’re wanting, sweetie, a coffee is what you’ll get.”
With that, he pulls his toiletries bag from under the bed — having found no space in the bathroom for it — and takes his turn in the tiny washroom. Nor does Carmen despise talking to him this way, from the bedroom to the washroom.
“We should go to the Marais.”
“Marais, as in ‘swamp’?”
“It’s a neighbourhood full of artists. With real narrow streets.”
“And what’s so swampy about that that they have to call it the Marais?”
“Don’t know, do I? It must have been a swamp before.”
“Before what?”
“Before before. Can’t you hurry up? I’m dying to get out.”
Terry finishes brushing his teeth and emerges from the bathroom.
“I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you too. Now get moving, will you.”
The man who’d shown no sign of reading feels that the airport is a sort of universal place, so, not wishing to appear out of place, he attempts a universal approach. He selects a seat not too far from the young girl, making sure to offer a discreet greeting. Claudia returns his nod politely. He does not see how he might do more. Should he barge right in? He wishes he knew a way to proceed that wasn’t too awkward. He can think of nothing. Then:
“You’re not a musician, by any chance?”
Claudia takes some pleasure in the man’s addressing her as an adult. The pope-rabbi had done the same, and that had pleased her too.
“No.”
Not easy. She barely smiled.
“Nor am I.”
The man who’d shown no sign of reading believes all is lost. Something is just not going to happen; he can feel it.
“It’s odd the way sometimes something simply doesn’t happen.”
Claudia hears the words, but she’s completely at a loss. It’s the sort of phrase that either clicks or immediately turns the other person off.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you hungry? We could have a bite to eat together.”
To his astonishment, the girl gets up and grabs her bag.
“Okay.”
“You don’t play a wind instrument? How odd. I was sure you did.”
Hans tried not to be put off by the psychotherapist’s New Age approach.
“Many people come to California because they can’t think of any other place to go. It can be an act of hope, or of desperation. A successful completion, or a last ram-part. It’s something typically American. You’re not an American?”
Without waiting for a reply, the woman turned to the large window overlooking the bay and the cities on the opposite shore.
“San Franciscans believe they invented the bay window. They spell ‘Bay window’ with a capital B. They also dislike Oakland a great deal. What about your dislikes?”
This woman was on the verge of creating one, but Hans resisted the temptation to tell her so.
“The end of the continent gives them a sense of freedom, lightness, renewal. Invisibility too, sometimes. Disappearance. Are you attracted to the San Andreas fault?”
The woman slipped in her questions now and then, in the midst of her monologue, without leaving time for answers. Hans decided it had to be a kind of general presentation of the themes to which they would be returning in more depth later, as they went along.
“You’re not answering my questions. Are they too brutal?”
The woman looked him squarely in the eye.
&n
bsp; “The trams here travel at nine miles an hour, and San Franciscans are all in agreement to keep them. The 1906 earthquake came crashing in at more than seven thousand miles an hour and destroyed everything. Which means that slowness has its advantages. But beware! Speed can strike blindly. The line between serenity and indifference is a thin one.”
FRIDAY
Love
TODAY CLAUDIA HAS all the time in the world to explore the area. During the first few days of her visit, she was mostly busy catching up and chatting with her parents. All three now seem sated as far as that activity is concerned, an activity that consists of reassuring one another that everything is fine and that everybody can continue living their lives as they please. She’ll take advantage of this free day to mail the letter given her by the man who’d shown no sign of reading.
“I wonder if I might ask you for a small favour?”
No objection from Claudia.
“I’d like to send word to a woman. I too planned to go to Israel today, but I’ve just now changed my mind. Nevertheless, I would like her to think I was in Israel.”
This idea struck Claudia as rather odd, even worthy of suspicion. A number of questions came to mind.
“I know it seems bizarre. But I love this woman, and I would never do anything to harm her.”
Claudia decided she had no cause for restraint.
“You love this woman, and you’re lying to her?”
“I’m not lying to her. I’m providing dreams for her.”
“Ah, it’s you. I didn’t expect you to come back.”
Indeed, Hans had considered putting a stop to the therapy.
“Let’s talk about the fault, if you like.”
But Hans immediately knows that she will do most of the talking. He’s not mistaken.
“You know, of course, that couples can drift apart much as continents do.”
She stares at him intensely. Hans wonders if she expects him to comment. Nothing occurs to him.
“Have you ever been in love?”
A Fine Passage Page 2
