Quartet for the End of Time

by Johanna Skibsrud

  Maurice Bonheur agreed and said that no doubt Alden was quite right, but either way, he said, the thing was revolutionary. Maybe not— he admitted—in the sense of its never having previously occurred, but at least in the sense that the work had begun to inhabit the very revolution according to which meaning was produced—moving as it did between sense and nonsense, then back again.

  But this did not add up, either, Alden said, after taking a minute to think on it. It was not meaning itself that moved back and forth, but their apprehension of it. Sense was, after all, not integral to the thing, but something only later applied in order that it might be apprehended at all.

  You are right again, said Maurice, because he was always agreeable; it is not any particular meaning, or any particular form through which meaning is apprehended that is revolutionary, but revolution itself. The fact, he said—by now he had become quite excited—that there is movement, and because of that a rhythm by which meaning moves, repeatedly, from sense to nonsense, then back again. We apprehend something, he said, after all, only in contrast to what, in another moment, it is not; that is to say, we attribute to it a value only to the extent we understand it as a possibility of what it not yet, or no longer, is.

  All of this may seem quite self-evident, the poet added, but I myself never considered the matter to any great extent until, by a terrific stroke of luck (though I would have hardly called it one at the time), I came to know the composer Olivier Messiaen—whose work I am sure you know, at least by reputation; he seems to be causing quite a stir in Paris these days. Indeed, the poet reflected after a pause, I do not know if I would be alive today if it were not for him. And with that, he began to tell Alden the extraordinary story of how it was that, while imprisoned in Lower Silesia over the long winter of 1940–1941, he had come to know the great composer, and witness the debut performance of his now-famous Quartet for the End of Time.

  —

  IT OFTEN HAPPENED —THE POET SAID —THAT THE COMPOSER AND I would be posted together on guard duty at night, so it was during that time, more than any other—in which we kept watch, together, over what I recall now as a nearly subterranean darkness—that we came to know each other in the end. Side by side in the middle of the night— attempting, with the ebb and flow of our voices, to keep the darkness at bay—we spoke of a great many things. Sometimes of his music; more specifically, of his Quartet—which, all that fall and into the winter, he labored to complete. These were the moments I cherished best. Perhaps, in part, because they came fewest and farther between. More often the composer spoke of his indomitable faith—which he refused, even then, to have shaken—and more often still of his wife and son back in Paris, whom he worried over constantly and greatly missed. He was always sure to inquire politely after my own troubles, as well—and these I gratefully unburdened upon him. But while he listened thoughtfully, he never offered even a single word of commiseration or advice. Then, after some time had passed between us in silence, he would himself begin to speak—on a subject that at first seemed to have very little, if anything at all, to do with our previous discussion or the subject at hand. But after a while (sometimes a whole day would pass, the poet said, sometimes more), I would realize the composer had, in the words he had spoken, provided me with an answer to a question I had not known myself, until that moment, I had posed.

  One early morning, for example, just before dawn, after I had unburdened myself to the composer and afterward we had sat in silence for some time together, watching the reflected light of the dimming moon, three-quarters full, dance across the prison yard, he told me the following story, which has often, since, been of great comfort to me.

  WHEN HE WAS A BOY, the composer said, he often visited the Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral in Paris, and looked at the light as it streamed, in bright colors, through the stained-glass windows there. One day he felt an extraordinary feeling flood through him as he stood looking at the pattern the light made on the glass, and in that moment he knew (how he knew, he could never later be sure—but he did): he was a musician.

  Perhaps it is because of this, said the composer to me then, that I still see notes as though they are color, and why it is still their color—or rather, the relationship that exists within each note of music, as between glass and light—more than their sound that I want to be able to play. He paused. Then looked at me directly. Do you think that is something I will be able to do?

  The question startled me and I did not know immediately how to reply.

  Yes, I said, after only the slightest hesitation, which I hoped he hadn’t noticed. Of course. In fact, I continued (I was not averse to flattery), I think many of your best works have already accomplished this great feat.

  The composer continued to regard me steadily, an amused half smile playing at his lips.

  Ah, he said, so you are familiar with my work?

  I nodded. Everyone in Paris—I said—is familiar with your work.

  At this the composer laughed happily and laid his hand on my shoulder. I am honored, he said, by your remark, and by your confidence in me, but—you are wrong. I cannot—it is not possible—to even come close to what I, a boy of ten, standing in front of the great windows of Sainte-Chapelle, set out to do. I know that, and you, a poet, must know it, too. But I must, I believe—as you must—at least try. At least do my best to keep in sight that very great thing with which I was confronted as a child; which inspired in me the desire—more than that, the firm belief— that I might respond in kind.

  Just then the first glow of dawn appeared at the far eastern edge of the horizon, and as if in unison, the first bird called.

  Aha! said the composer, as if it proved his point. He announces the opening pitch like a conductor. Now the rest will join in!

  Very soon, it was true: the sky erupted in song.

  BEFORE LONG, HOW EVER, THE conversation would come around again, as it always naturally seemed to do, to the composer’s wife, Claire, and his son, Pascal, a boy of only three. His wife was not well, you see, and had not been for some time—ever since, in the early years of their marriage, she had suffered several miscarriages. Her sadness and anxiety—the composer said—only increased with each loss. Soon it became so severe that not even the eventual birth of their son could abate it. To the contrary. So strange and unknowable are the pathways of the human heart, Claire’s sadness seemed only to deepen after the child arrived. She hardly slept at night. She became distracted and irritable; she no longer desired the composer’s touch—would even flinch away from him when, at night, in an attempt to comfort both her and himself, he drew near. Soon the composer began to worry not only over the safety of his wife, but of his child as well. Once, the composer recalled, Claire had even returned home without their son; she had simply forgotten him. Left him alone in his pram while out for a walk in a nearby garden. She had stood in the doorway, clutching her purse as though her life depended on it, and meanwhile her own son had been abandoned several blocks away!

  When the composer realized what had happened, he fled down three flights of stairs and out into the street. His heart pounded as though it were a separate thing in his chest, having nothing to do with him. In fact, those few moments—before he arrived at the park and saw the carriage, standing just as his wife had left it, his son still sleeping inside—he hardly remembered at all. It was not until he had collapsed beside the carriage, his head resting heavily on the body of his son, his own body wracked with violent sobs, that he became aware again of where he was, and what had occurred—as well as what could have, but had not. All the possibilities of the things that could and could not happen to a person in their life—all the various joys and sufferings, and the sufferings that were contingent on the joys, and the joys that were contingent on the sufferings, and so on—came crashing down on him. It was under the weight of this sudden burden that the composer sobbed. His son stirred and woke then, and when he did, he, too, began to cry, and many minutes must have passed that way—the two of them sobbing to
gether—before the composer finally lifted his head and returned home with his child.

  It was not until much later that he was visited by anger. It was an unfamiliar emotion, and it surprised him when it came, later that evening, in a sudden wave.

  What were you thinking? he asked, turning toward his wife—his hand raised suddenly, as if of its own accord, ready to strike. It did not come to rest on her, or on anything at all—it only remained suspended in the air, confused suddenly by the force of its own, conflicted desire.

  That is not only your son, he shouted. He is not a burden that is yours alone—to carry or abandon according to wish and whim!

  His wife said nothing—but shuddered, as though the composer’s hand had indeed descended and shaken her roughly. When he saw that, the composer, too, was shaken; he dropped his hand and looked at it as though it belonged to someone else. Everything, it seemed, belonged to someone or something else, and was only connected to him by the most haphazard of strings. How was one to act upon these things? How was one to believe, not only in the things themselves but in the way they were connected—not only to him, but to God? To a greater rhythm—outside his immediate comprehension, but that he knew to exist nevertheless? Yes, of this much he was sure. He had, unmistakably, heard it himself. But these moments, he had to admit, were rare. In any case, he made a solemn promise to himself in that moment that he would never again allow himself to be visited by anger, and he stuck to this promise.

  Instead, a constant, invasive worry began to infect him—an anxiety he could not rid himself of, even when he was in the same room with Claire and the child. Even when Claire was in one of her rare moods in which it seemed she had not been altered by her troubles at all; that she was the same woman he had married, and for whom he had written many of his best pieces, which she had once played passionately for him herself on the violin.

  WHEN THE WAR CAME, the composer was deployed to the front, but— on account of his poor eyesight—was excused from combat. He worked as a machinist instead. But he was as poor a machinist as he would have been a soldier, and finally he was relieved of his duties and reassigned to Verdun—this time as an orderly. It was there, at Verdun—just before the war broke out in earnest: May 8, 1940—that he first made the acquaintance of the cellist Étienne Pasquier (one of the famous Pasquier brothers’ trio, you know, the poet said), the company commander, and Henri Akoka, a clarinetist from the Orchestre National de la Radio.

  How the whole world was with us then! the composer had exclaimed one night, as—continued the poet—we sat, shivering together, outside. Do you remember it? How everyone thought, then, that—with only a little help from the Brits—the war would soon be won? Or (he chuckled softly to himself) almost everyone, that is. Some of us knew better. Henri, of course, was one of these. Hitler will never negotiate, he told us—even then. We’ve been wasting our time—and now, when he’s prepared for a real fight, we’ve got nothing to give. If France had only listened—

  But here another soldier had cut in. To whom? he asked, his voice thick with scorn. To Trotsky? (It was well known among the men stationed at Verdun that the clarinetist was a Communist, as well as a Jew.) What makes you think if your hero rose up like Hitler and took over France the situation would be any different than it is for us now?

  Yes, there is the matter of religious freedom, the composer said— though he rarely involved himself in political concerns.

  Religion again! the clarinetist replied. Just—even for a moment— think on it! “Blessed are the poor,” “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Is this not, the clarinetist asked, addressing the small crowd that by then had gathered, evidently the most blatant propaganda, employed only in order to keep us from thinking and acting for ourselves? He took a deep breath and turned to the composer: The entire structure of your religion, he said, more slowly now, is designed specifically to render you complicit in your own subjugation by those who could not dream of asking any more of you than what you yourself have willingly submitted to. That you should wait until you are dead for your reward! It’s a preposterous proposal. I, for one, am not willing to wait that long!

  The murmur of the crowd, which had been growing while the clarinetist spoke, reached its peak just before he broke off, so that in another moment (because it was, in fact, only a single word that passed among them) it could be clearly heard.

  Jew, said the crowd, as the clarinetist concluded his appeal.

  After that, there was only a long note of silence.

  Well, isn’t that right? a young man said, finally. Aren’t you a Jew? It was not an accusation—his face was blank and unconcerned.

  I’m a Communist, Akoka said—and I’m a Jew. I have no country— and yet, at the same time, this—he lit a cigarette and spread his arm wide, gesturing with the burning end past the barbed wire and low barracks that stretched off into the distance—is my country, and my people are all people. They are you, he said—looking up pointedly at the men still assembled before him—and you, and you.

  But the attention of the crowd had shifted, and soon they began to disperse.

  You shouldn’t smoke, the composer said, finally.

  Akoka shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

  Anyway, what am I saying? he asked, winking at Pasquier, who had been listening to all of this with amusement nearby. I have forgotten with whom I am speaking. Here is a real radical, he said. The musician— Olivier Messiaen!

  The composer didn’t smile—but you could tell he was pleased. You know I have never advocated revolution, Henri, he said.

  That’s ridiculous! the clarinetist replied. Have you listened to your own music? Every note of it calls for revolution!

  They both laughed. But then the composer cleared his throat and looked seriously at the younger man. Truly, he said. You shouldn’t smoke. Save your cigarette rations and trade them for food; you’ll last longer.

  THAT EVENING, HENRI BROUGHT out his clarinet and began to play. As usual, everyone who heard him—including the composer—was instantly transfixed. They sat listening—unmoving—as around them the light dimmed and darkness began, in ever-lengthening shadows, to throw itself at their feet.

  By the time the clarinetist put down his instrument, it had become quite dark.

  You know, the composer said, as they made their way together across the short yard to the barracks that night, I am writing a piece especially for you—for the solo clarinet. You have inspired me.

  BUT THE NEXT DAY the war was upon them in earnest. It began with a warning—the same warning they had been given for each of the countless drills they’d performed during the long months of their training. Then the bombs rained down—their sirens curiously discordant with the sound of their explosions. From time to time, they could hear Pasquier shouting at his scattered forces from what seemed like very far away.

  Fire! Men, fire! he roared. Get those guns in the air! Get those bastards out of the sky! But there was nothing to shoot at. There was nothing to do but dive for cover, and the composer did.

  Where’s our air force? someone yelled.

  Alone, kneeling on the ground, his face dug into the mud, the composer imagined he was dying. He wondered at how different it was than he’d thought. He’d always imagined it would be peaceful—that the discordance he had for some time now sought to convey in his music had to do with the discordance of life interrupted by death, by time, not by its absence. But here, in the absence of everything, there was still only discordance and noise.

  Finally, the smoke from the bombs cleared. In the space of less than an hour, the world around them had been utterly transformed. The sounds and smells of death were everywhere. Men staggered alone or in groups of two or three, leaning against one another on the roads and in the fields, some carrying their own limbs with them as they went. The composer’s first thought—after he realized that he himself had survived—was to go in search of the young Henri. He found him: looking out across the devastated landscape, and clutching in o
ne hand, not his gun (which had been lost somewhere, irrecoverably, in the debris), but his clarinet.

  PASQUIER CALLED FOR HIS men to regroup. Their company, they soon saw, had been reduced by roughly half. There was nothing to do, Pasquier informed them—his voice, usually brisk and confident, now suddenly tight with fear—except to try to recover what they had.

  The composer groped over the bodies of the men in the field and carried those not already past saving into the makeshift hospital. He distributed iodine, bandages, and morphine to some, and to others, in the grip of a pain so absolute he knew without thinking that it would be impossible to deliver them from it, he made only the sign of the cross.

  At night they crouched together. Men covered the ends of their cigarettes with their hands to avoid detection from the air. The worst, they felt, as they waited for the combat to erupt again, was still to come. Belgium had already fallen. At Dunkirk, the British abandoned their weapons and withdrew. The Germans easily broke through the Maginot Line; they had taken Ardennes, and were at that very moment moving north toward Verdun. Everywhere the skies were German.

  We are beaten, said the clarinetist, still gripping his clarinet.

  Pasquier only nodded.

  There is nothing left to bomb; the British have gone home. It’s over.

  ON SUNDAY, THE CHURCH bells—as ignorant to the plight of man as the sound of the birds—rang; as usual, the composer went to mass alone. When he approached the church, he saw that a bomb had ripped off a portion of its roof. Though at first he was horrified to see the damage, standing there among the congregation in the open air he found he felt even closer to God. The destruction with which they had been visited had, he saw, also made room for light to pour, suddenly, in.