Is Ubiquity Possible After All?
Science confirms for us that at a given moment an individual or object can occupy only a single position in space. Only Christ, whom certain witnesses of the time swear to have seen simultaneously in various places, possessed the miraculous gift of ubiquity. Only Christ? That might be about to change …
For on the night of June 21, the summer solstice, the celebrated Parisian publisher Maurice-Edgar Prote held a large reception in his mansion in the Latin Quarter. He was celebrating his fifteen years as a discoverer of young literary talent. Numerous important people, whose good faith cannot be doubted, confirm that M.-E. Prote did not leave his mansion for the entire reception, meaning between 6:30 pm and 11:50 pm. However, it turns out that at the same time, witnesses who are just as credible claim to have met Maurice-Edgar Prote in the Odéon theater, where the sublime American actress Dolores Haze, a very close friend of the celebrated publisher according to reliable sources, was celebrating the hundredth performance of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, the play that introduced her to the Parisian public.
How the editor could be in his mansion and at the Odéon theater at the same time is a mystery that today we have asked him to explain over the telephone. “I am like everyone else,” Prote answered humorously. “I cannot be in two places at once. Ubiquity exceeds my modest talents. Nevertheless, in my fifteen years of publishing, I have learned one thing: it is important to be at the right place at the right time.” Asked about this sibylline statement, M.-E. Prote then gave us this enigmatic response: “I am often where people don’t see me coming. But I never make people wait when I promise to come see them.”
The reader will surely appreciate his response …
Why did Abel Prote, the son of Maurice-Edgar, slide this press clipping into a biography of E.T. A. Hoffmann? David Grey wonders. A vague memory comes back to him: didn’t the German writer and composer live in a strange apartment with a door that opened directly onto an opera balcony box? Like the eardrum in the cranium, that thin wooden partition separated his private universe from the great baroque hall echoing with singers’ voices, orchestral music, the audience’s applause. But, reflects David, Prote’s mansion is more than one hundred yards from the Odéon theater. So it wouldn’t be a secret door in this case, but an underground tunnel, a long secret passage.
Continuing with his indiscreet investigations, David takes the next book from the pile on the desk: New Impressions of Africa by Raymond Roussel. The red back cover displays a sort of sun or white star casting its rays toward the four corners of the book. David opens the slim volume in which all the pages on the left are entirely blank and, that’s luck for you, falls immediately on page 25, marked with an envelope bearing the name Abel Prote. After a moment of hesitation, curiosity overtakes him. With a nervous hand, David opens the envelope, takes out the letter, and reads:
Bravo, my dear David, and shame on you.
You have arrived at the last volume in my pile of books, not on my bedside, but on my desk. (For the first time, David blushes.)
I hope that this passage by Raymond Roussel will help you to translate my Rousselien Note at the beginning of (N.d.T.) without too many hiccups. (Indeed, I had a hell of a time with those rubbish lines.)
I am a mediocre chess player, nevertheless I know to anticipate a few basic moves of my opponent. You’re almost done with this room, my office.
Simply look up.
See you soon.
Faithfully yours,
Abel Prote
P. S. Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, king of England and Ireland between 1901 and 1910, “was especially interested in foreign policy and initiated the Entente Cordiale with France,” we learn from the Petit Larousse (100th edition, 2005). What the prude dictionary does not say is that at the beginning of the last century, the English king often came to Paris incognito. He would arrive at Gare du Nord by private train. Once he had disembarked from his car, he would take an aboveground walkway personally reserved for him that allowed the gallivanting king not only to escape from potential attacks, but most importantly to discreetly arrive at a luxury brothel where he was probably the only client during his very private visits. No doubt wearing a disguise, he would thus fortify certain carnal aspects of the famous “Entente Cordiale” by joining in himself, if I may say so.
Why, David, am I sharing this historical anecdote with you? Because of the trip, the anonymity, the disguise, the implicit eroticism. Because as a translator, you are interested, like Edward VII, in “foreign policy,” you are striving for your own entente cordiale … Because traveling, the unknown, disguises—and perhaps even implicit eroticism—fit you like a glove, all you translators.
And then also because, if the king of England formerly had the run of his private aboveground walkway, the subordinates like you, me, and so many others instead have the tendency to creep beneath the earth to quench our desire. You will understand soon enough.
The tour continues, follow the guide …
Agitated, under the disagreeable impression of having been hoodwinked and taken for a ride ever since the owner’s departure from his home, of having been led to the chessboard by a stronger player, David nevertheless obeys Prote’s instruction and looks up. The corkboard above the writer’s desk, between two windows, displays a mass of photos, postcards, press clippings, invitation cards, reminders—“call Doris,” “write to Doris,” “gift for D.”, “don’t back down on anything with Gris”—and, in the middle of this clutter, the neon green rectangle of a Post-it on which David, drawing closer, reads this quotation, copied down by Prote’s meticulous hand: “The translator will have to put it into one of those footnotes that are the rogue’s galleries of words.” Nabokov, Pale Fire. The murderous quotation is followed by this venomous commentary by the French writer: “Translator’s Night. I see from here my valiant D.G. add to the bottom of the page a fastidious ‘Untranslatable play on words’ before getting tangled up in one of his depressing explanations.” David then understands that the apparent disorder of the corkboard, that shelf of various scraps of paper, seemingly through pure accident, is the result of a meticulous staging. What was that earlier about an entente cordiale?
Furious, vexed, he turns his back to the desk, to the corkboard and its multicolored patchwork, then takes off in big strides toward the hallway plunged into darkness. The entire apartment suddenly feels like a trap, filled with snares, as if Prote, the great chess player, had anticipated the every move of his American tenant. David briefly considers leaving to take refuge in a nearby hotel, but despite his mounting unease, the temptation to stay and continue his exploration is too strong, no matter the cost to his pride.
For example, that large armoire, which seems to be installed purposefully in the middle of the hallway to keep people from moving. Hideous opulent-looking piece of furniture, also in dark wood, covered in overly ornate spirals and slightly ajar as if purposefully to provoke curiosity. But before taking a closer look, David goes back to the bar in the living room, opens the glass doors, takes out a bottle of port, and serves himself a large glass. He then notices the label depicts a man wearing a large cape and a big black hat that plunges his face into shadow, like Aristide Bruant. The brand is Sandeman, like “l’homme au sable.” The translator drains his glass in one go and turns back to the armoire obstructing the hallway. He pushes opens the heavy doors, then examines what’s inside by the dim light of the only weak light bulb illuminating the hallway.
For just a moment, David raises his eyes towards the glimmering filament and, fascinated, discovers something he did not notice during his recent tour of the apartment, under Prote’s guidance: opposite the sinister armoire, the entire wall is covered in a fresco painted in a trompe l’oeil style, divided in two equal parts by a horizontal line at eye level. Beneath the horizon, the green, immobile waves of a marine landscape unfurl toward the ground; above and up to the ceiling stretches a stormy sky where a single bird is flying, perhaps a seag
ull or an albatross, which seems to be moving away as fast as it can. And in the middle of the hallway, just opposite him, right next to a tower covered in foliage, a dislocated puppet with a black braid protruding diagonally toward the lower left corner of the fresco seems to be flying toward the clouds or falling toward the sea. Suddenly dizzy, David turns back toward the gaping doors of the armoire.
In the shadows of the nearly empty shelves, he thinks he hears Prote’s voice:
“Easter is quickly approaching. I rather like that primarily Anglo-Saxon tradition of hiding painted eggs in the corners of an apartment or of a garden to excite the curiosity of children. I know you’re there. Now keep searching. There are still several eggs for you to discover.”
David takes a step forward, then opens the wooden panels. Their interior is entirely covered in smooth purple velvet. An altarpiece, he thinks, it looks like an altarpiece. Ties striped with somber colors and patterns are lined up on the left panel, bowties are hanging from a horizontal string pinned up on the right side. These two parentheses, striped on the left, sprinkled with multicolored polka dots to the right, encase a few dark wooden shelves, which at first glance are nearly empty.
A model Super Constellation sits in the middle of the top shelf. David picks up the thin fuselage carefully, squeezing the plastic tube interspersed with windows, just as at low tide one might catch a crab between the rocks: you have to close your thumb and index finger in a horseshoe shape just behind the pinchers to evade the crustacean’s hostility. The wings of the model come a bit unstuck, David handles it with caution. Like a connoisseur, he admires the silhouette of the machine, then, from front to back, the oval shape of the nose, the contours of the cabin, the roundness of the windows, the curve of the fragile wings, the ovular twin tail. Easter eggs. Hiding places. When he points the Super Constellation to the ground, a small hard object clinks around inside the long slender tube. Then David points the plane’s nose toward the ceiling, as if to make it take off at a twenty-degree angle, and the same invisible object rolls inside again, this time toward the tailplane. A hidden treasure? A chocolate egg several decades old? A clue of more things to discover? No. To chase away the thought, he blows on the model, which is immediately surrounded by a halo of thick dust, as if the 50s long-haul plane had crossed a thick layer of clouds above the Atlantic and was about to be swallowed up by those of the opposite wall. While sneezing, he thinks of Doris, who, at this hour, must be somewhere between New York and Paris, aboard a much less enticing plane.
David sets the plane back on its tiny wooden runway, then next to the model he notices a worn but lavish hat, at the bottom of which he reads the initials M.-E. P., stitched on the midnight blue silk lining.
He decides to explore the other shelves. At the very bottom of the armoire, pairs of shoes shine softly, arranged as though at a starting line. David imagines them dashing into the hallway and running through the apartment, moved by a hundred invisible men desperately searching for the exit or for their bandages. Incidentally, on the shelf immediately above the shoes, the presence of several Velpeau bandages lends itself to that fantasy.
Higher up, on the next shelf, David finds a large painted egg, which sends a shiver down his spine, constricts his stomach. The egg is covered in a continuous pattern, an uneven border strip on a violet background tracing a labyrinth of black and crimson curls. The egg seems to be made for his palm and as, astonished, he separates the two strictly identical halves, David is surprised to find on the inside another egg identical to the first, apart from its size. Separating this one into two halves that are also interchangeable, he notices at the bottom of a half-shell a shiny silver key, which he pockets without hesitating, his heart racing.
On the second to last shelf, just below the dusty Super Constellation, David discovers a small crown of violets that has been withering for a long time and, attached to the shriveled and brittle stems by a thin metallic thread twisted around them several times, a note written in faded violet ink: “To my beloved Dolores, with all the love from the lover of words. For your hundredth. Maurice.”
David places this token of affection back on the shelf, then goes to the living room to serve himself another glass of port. He feels like he’s jumped seventy years into the past, to the strange summer solstice evoked by that love letter and by the article he just read from Paris-Soir. Ubiquity. Like father, like son. Same tricks. Same fondness for manipulation. Back in front of the armoire with the open panels covered in things he never wears—ties and bow ties—in the middle of that sparse display case, next to the crown of violets that’s been withering for several decades, David notices a book with the title Fragments épars. Since these two words mean nothing to him, he sets the book back down right away and then notices a musty odor, a cave-like humidity. He moves closer to the armoire, almost steps inside, feeling vaguely ridiculous; he examines the bottom, riddled with large dark cracks, where these deleterious emanations seem to be coming from.
He has an idea. Taking off his jacket, he tries to jiggle the shelves on their brackets. First he puts the objects on the ground, then he takes down the shelves one after another and leans them against the wall. Excited, he finds himself in front of a large white perforated panel that resists his pressure. In the shadow of the armoire, a gleaming keyhole catches his eye. David thinks immediately of the silver key that he recently pocketed. He takes it, slides it into the small opening, watches it go in without much effort. Then, like a door, the panel at the bottom of the armoire pivots on its hinges and opens onto a dark space. He needs a candle, a lamp, a lighter … David goes into the kitchen, opens cupboards and drawers, finally finds a flashlight that seems to be working. Just in case, he also grabs a few candles and matches, which he finds above the old-fashioned stove.
He goes back into the hallway, walks along the seaside fresco with the dislocated puppet, then turns to face the rigged armoire. The bottom is now wide open. Stepping over the impeccably arranged shoes (it is indeed a starting line, but David crosses it in the wrong direction, as if at the last minute he renounced the competition, preferring invisibility, solitude, and anonymity to the gregarious glory of sports competitions), he takes a step into the forbidden zone, nevertheless with the confused and disgruntled feeling that someone has whispered the path to him, that he’s following in the footsteps of another.
He turns on the flashlight; the meek beam illuminates a staircase descending into darkness. The cold air smells like the humidity of caves, must, decomposition. Placing a hand on the oozing mossy wall, David cautiously begins the descent down the stairs that he imagines are slippery. He turns around and suddenly freezes, discovering, perfectly framed in the rectangle of the still-open doorway, illuminated by the bare bulb, the dislocated puppet who seems to levitate above the horizon and the green waves. David feels then that he is wading beneath the sea, a reluctant pearl fisherman, or else a criminal thrown into the water with his feet ballasted in a basin of cement, or else a puppet launched toward the ocean by a capricious child or a tired puppeteer.
Turning on his heels, he chases these troubling images from his mind and continues down the staircase that leads below the city.
Edward VII, the lustful English king, his interest piqued by the erotic exterior, the Entente Cordiale with the Parisian prostitutes, and above all the famous private walkway of the Gare du Nord, comes back to David’s memory: the disguised king moved above ground, a solitary star captured in the splendid entanglement of iron beams. To the contrary, but symmetrically, David Grey, the American translator, strolls underground among gray clay, limestone, engravings, geological strata, like a disoriented miner, lagging behind his faster coworkers, soon lost in the sinister network of tunnels.
At the bottom of the last step, his shoes squeak on the fine gravel that covers the dirt and dust of the floor. The uneven ceiling sometimes forces the translator to walk with his neck bent forward or his spine arched. Spiderwebs glimmer in the beam of his flashlight. No unexpected tunnels m
eet the secret passage, and he advances on a slightly sloping ground, as if his destination were more elevated than his starting point. He perceives noises muffled by what he thinks is the uneven thickness of the walls: at first it’s a faint rumble that grows little by little to the intensity of an earthquake before receding, disappearing completely, then coming back almost immediately, rattling the underground walls once again. Terror stops David from thinking, he already sees himself lost, buried beneath tons of earth, when suddenly he thinks of the Métro, the lurching, deafening passage of the trains through their tunnels. A few seconds later, he hears the loud and intensifying whirring of what sounds like a huge machine. He approaches, and he senses a new heat through the compact earth of the walls.
After a bend and a noticeable shrinking of the passage that obliges him to get down on all fours to keep moving, David, suffocating with fear, suddenly finds himself face-to-face with a decapitated head whose deathly pallor is accentuated by the pale beam of the flashlight. Petrified, submerged in panic, after a few seconds David recognizes the round helmet decorated with two wings, and its grotesque name comes to his memory astonishingly quickly: it’s a petasos, the bust of Mercury, the god of travelers, the guide of souls to hell. How did it get here? Is this some kind of dumb joke? Is Prote responsible? Did time or excavations reconstruct the underground landscape? Did thieves abandon a piece of their booty while in flight? David remembers then that a stone’s throw away from Prote’s apartment is a very old publishing house, Le Mercure de France, if memory serves. The petasos, that round winged helmet, is its logo and appears on the cover of all the books they’ve published. But almost immediately he remembers something else, infinitely more poetic:
As a child, when his age still numbered in the single digits, he would often fill the boredom of idle afternoons with a ritual that amazed him each time. He would call it “the black room.” In the middle or in a corner of his vast bedroom he would push together a trunk, two or three chairs, and cushions to build a sort of cramped fort, stretching a quilt or a few sheets over the top.
Revenge of the Translator Page 6
