Reader for Hire

by Raymond Jean

  That may be what’s eating Superintendent Beloy. He’s gone and summoned me again. Still the same look. Still the same eyebrows. Still the same wily casualness. I wonder if he’ll ask me to take out a patent this time. Or delve deep into my private life. But no. He wants to discuss that street demonstration outside La Générale’s house. It wasn’t long before word reached him. He has good informers. Very good sources of information. He feigns real dismay. What were you thinking, he says, that mad old woman stirring up the whole neighbourhood, waving red flags from her window and playing the Internationale… You were right next to her… don’t deny it… You were seen… you were even photographed… First, I retort, La Générale is not a mad old woman and, second, she can do whatever she pleases, and that has nothing to do with my work. He nods, making it clear he’s far from convinced. That’s debatable! he says, perhaps implying that he knows more about this than he’ll let on. I suggest he should make himself clearer.

  He gets up from his desk, comes over to me, takes hold of an old rush-seat chair and sits down on it, putting his knees almost against mine so that we are facing each other in a way that he presumably hopes feels confidential and intimate. Don’t you understand… Générale Dumesnil isn’t just anybody… Her husband was a major figure, an officer, a man of prestige… He left a lasting impression on our town, having chosen to retire here and to support several local charities… We can’t let all that be tarnished by the eccentricities of his widow, who, as you know, was the Countess Pázmány by birth, and who, by her own family’s admission, has completely lost her mind… and may be swayed by dubious international influences… may have been manipulated… Respect her right to a peaceful old age, by all means! Don’t shut her up in an institution, so be it! Let her have you reading to her in her own home, fine! But let her create a scene on the public highway, no! At this point, the superintendent has rather changed tone, becoming noticeably more forthright and aggressive. Oh, I say, so the countess created a scene on the public highway, did she? That’s odd… because she wasn’t actually the one demonstrating. He moves his chair closer until he really is touching my knees. Madame, he says, the Rives-Vertes neighbourhood is a nice area full of nice people, a ‘bourgeois’ neighbourhood, if that’s a word you would use. Générale Dumesnil has lived there a long time and is even one of its not insignificant jewels… Just because an aberration on the part of our town planners agreed to a factory being built nearby, that’s not enough for the unions to tramp in as if they owned the place and indulge in their farcical performances… Because it was just a performance, and the old fruitcake only whipped it up with her high jinks. These high jinks are typical of her and an embarrassment to her family and her neighbours… Forgive me, but that’s called a breach of the peace and you were party to that breach… I don’t get involved in politics, I’ll have you know, my dear, but I do do my job as a superintendent!

  I reply sweetly that I’m not his ‘dear’ and, less sweetly, that I don’t know what he’s talking about when he accuses me of causing a breach of the peace. He gets to his feet and peers down at me. I don’t like people who quibble, and you quibble too much… You know perfectly well what I mean and what I’m talking about… Reading. Reading!… Reading’s all very well, but that’s not an alibi for whatever takes your fancy… It may be a way of making a living, but we’ve seen exactly where it can end up with this whole demonstration business. Granted, it was a ridiculous business, even more outlandish than the business with the little girl and the jewellery… I’m not going to make a meal of this… I’m not going to blow these incidents out of proportion… But this does make two incidents in a very short space of time… So here it is: I’d like to ask you yet again to be careful, sensible… That’s all… You’re a big enough girl to understand that!

  I get up from my chair, stand over him and look down on him to demonstrate that I am indeed big enough. He sees me to the door of his cruddy police station and says goodbye with the assurance that, in any event and whatever he may have said, he finds me very likeable.

  I haven’t seen Roland Sora for a while. He’s been on an assignment in Brazil. He was taking part in conferences, something he does very well all over the world, running seminars and joining round-tables. On his return he is more than expansive about the country. The sambas, the candomblé, the intermingling of African, American and Latin influences, the unisex styling, there’s no stopping him. The wonderfully ‘natural’ quality Brazilian women have, so much stronger than what Stendhal claimed to find in Italian women. And the acute interest, everywhere you look, in the latest advances from this old Europe. This old Europe, it has to be said, is just the term! Since he’s been back, everything here feels cramped and devoid of energy. Devoid of youthfulness. In spite of Brazil’s economic rut and its struggles to achieve democracy, a feral sort of youthfulness reigns and a giddy excitement about the future. Although great swathes of poverty are widespread, there’s hope and joy. And the magnificent tropical summer. We’ve hardly got to the end of winter here.

  All of which means Monsieur Sora is as willing to hear the tale of my recent adventures as someone on Sirius is to take on board the latest anecdotes from Earth. I feel really uncomfortable sitting facing him in this office where he’s been good enough to grant me a few minutes, despite the number of students thronging around his door since his return. I keep my mouth shut. Luckily, he kindly asks me where I’ve got to. Where have I got to? That’s precisely the mystery. I tell him that with Dautrand the step has been taken. He’s signing papers as I talk, pretending not to listen, then waggles his head slightly, as if to say that, given the inevitability of the situation, he can but bow to it or that, because he’s still in Brazil in heart and mind and body, this sort of news has about as much impact on him as a dead leaf skimming along the ground. Is he drawing away from me? Has he had enough or even more than enough of my little incidents and confidences? That’s the impression I suddenly have, as I sit facing his desk. I feel like getting up and leaving. Or crying, which would be worse.

  But I keep talking. I tell him about my misadventure with Clorinde. And La Générale’s unruly behaviour. With that, Sora stops his signing and lends me an appreciably more attentive ear. He looks amused. Perhaps deep down he’s beginning to think, like the superintendent, that I’m on a slippery slope and I’m starting to be a breach of the peace in our delightful little town. Still, he should have the advantage over Monsieur Beloy of understanding that this is all down to the unpredictable workings of my job – surely to blame! – which consists of reading out loud things that are intended for silence. Where could that possibly end up? And if he doesn’t know, who on earth would? It’s true, now I come to think of it, that he’d rather see his books in their bookcases in his library than free to roam. He’s spent so long taming them!

  Either way, he’s indulgent with me. Probably short of time but not daring to throw me out, he gets up, comes over to me and gives me a brotherly kiss on each cheek.

  With Eric there’s a routine now. Except, it has to be said, on his birthday, when his mother absolutely insisted I take part in a little private party, as if I were family. She even made a point of telling me there would be a ‘surprise’. I came in a pretty dress, a silk dress, hoping Eric would like it and it would satisfy what I think is his taste in fabrics. And as a present I brought an anthology of contemporary French poetry which opens, as it happens, with a Francis Ponge poem called ‘Dressing Things Up’: it may be aiming a bit high for a boy his age, but ever since our conversation about Baudelaire he’s kept on amazing me or, to be more precise, delighting me with his alert, emerging sensitivity to poetry.

  A cake bristling with fifteen candles stands in the middle of the table along with a bottle of sparkling wine, some orange juice and chocolates, on a freshly ironed scallop-edged tablecloth. Eric’s hair is tidier than usual, with a distinct parting. His mother isn’t wearing an apron today, but the curlers in her hair have done their duty exceptionally well. I very
quickly grasp that the father won’t be joining the party, that he’s been held up at work; so I won’t be meeting him this time either. Some friends are coming, though. Perhaps that’s the surprise. A sad surprise. They ring the bell, they come up the stairs, the door opens: a woman comes in accompanying a blind child. I’m introduced to him: I didn’t want to tell you beforehand… This is Joël… he’s a friend of Eric’s. They were at the same clinic for a while, for very different sorts of therapy, as you can imagine, but they’ve stayed friends, very close friends. They’ve carried on seeing each other (she clearly realizes her mistake straight away, the incongruity of saying seeing each other, a flush of red colours her cheeks) and Eric, who must have mentioned him to you, wanted him to join us today, with his mother, here.

  The situation strikes me as odd, but I say how pleased I am to meet them, and shake their proffered hands. I sit at the table in this peculiar gathering comprising the two mothers and their two incapacitated children. I suddenly feel excluded from proceedings, alien, and I wonder yet again what I’m doing here. But the cake is a triumph and everyone looks happy. In Eric’s case, it’s hard to be completely sure. In Joël’s, how would you know? His face is infinitely gentle, and yet so inexpressive in its gentleness that it’s difficult to imagine any emotion being written on it. He seems to me genuinely impossible to reach. His mother, on the other hand, is far from inexpressive. She’s as pushy as the other one, but not in the same way. With a lot more composure and authority. And the moment she starts talking I get it. You’re very well known among the blind, she tells me. You may not have realized it… but that’s the way it is… It’s probably because Eric has spoken so highly of you to Joël… he admires you so much… and Joël has told his friends about you… They’d really like you to come to the institute to read to them… They’ve already asked the director… There’s nothing more valuable than reading to the young visually impaired, you must know that… There’s nothing more valuable, particularly because a reader… if she has your qualities and talents… Wouldn’t you say, Eric? Don’t you think, Joël?… They have their own books, of course… they have their Braille alphabet… and nowadays they have records and tapes… but what could ever replace the warmth of a living voice like yours?… You really ought to be an angel and accept this offer… They’re expecting you!

  She’s almost begging now. I don’t know what to say. Joël is still lost in his blank gentleness. Eric’s looking away. No one says anything. I have the peculiar feeling that there really is an angel among us in person. Perhaps it’s one of the children – but which one? It’s hovering, it’s between us, above us, an insubstantial presence and yet it’s an astonishing physical reality, a ruffling feeling, a sound of wings, impalpable and silky, in my ear, against my neck, on my skin, and a thin beam of light shining, quivering among us. Perhaps it’s just the candles on the cake that Eric’s mother has just lit. They’re left to burn for a moment, then he has to blow them out, respecting the traditional ritual. Nothing’s spared. His wheelchair is pushed right up to the table and Eric has to lean forward, with some difficulty it seems to me, to extinguish the little flames. Joël smiles slightly, his face turned towards the flickering glow as if he can make it out through his veiled pupils. Glasses are clinked together, big slices of cake passed round on plates, compliments exchanged, and best wishes, there’s a pretence of laughter. I now feel exactly as if I’m in a painting done by goodness knows what sort of Bruegel, except that in the objects I can see and feel around me there’s none of the rich texture of paint, or its colour, its warmth, its brilliance. No, I’m just in a peculiar place in an oddly constructed composition, I’m wandering around the picture like the foreign guest or the generous patron who’s been deliberately shoehorned into a family scene. But there’s nothing beautiful, except perhaps for Joël’s absent eyes and Eric’s sickly body. The picture is just of a pitiful little interior, with tatty furniture, things made of plastic or Formica, junk-shop glasses and plates, and glimpses of oilcloth through the openwork of the table-cloth. If it could at least turn itself into a Chagall, if I could fly, swim through space, be airborne, find myself hovering head-down under the ceiling!

  The little birthday party reaches a sort of climax when Eric’s mother tells me, without asking how I feel about it at all, that I’m now going to move through into the next room and read to the two boys, who can’t wait, she claims, for this wonderful treat. She’s got it all planned, all decided. The other mother nods in agreement with an inane smile and a no less emphatic air of determination. Besides, the two women seem to want to stay alone to chat. They want to relegate me to my job while at the same time entrusting me to a duty that they themselves could never fulfil, even though, through their children, it has acquired a remarkable aura of prestige.

  So here I am in Eric’s bedroom with the two boys. Well, I won’t be making any concessions! I came with this book that opens with ‘A Dress for Everything’, so ‘A Dress for Everything’ it shall be. Mind you, I think or perhaps someone implied that Joël is younger than Eric and probably not so mature in matters of the arts. And what of Eric himself, lit up as his heart and mind may be by his fifteen birthday candles, is he ready for such subtleties? Either way, he’s proud of this inaugural reading from a book I’ve just given him. I begin:

  If objects ever lose their appeal for you, then you should take a stance and watch the insidious alterations effected on their surfaces by the sensational events of light and wind which depend on the scudding of the clouds, and on whether this or that collection of daytime light bulbs goes out or comes on, the constant shimmering of layers, the vibrations, smokiness, exhalations…

  I look up. I’ve lost track of where I am. I’ve lost track of where these light bulbs are, or the layers, the sensational events of light. Back there, behind that door, on the table where the candle flames guttered in the fragile exhalation of a very young man, in all that counterfeit jollity? Or somewhere else, outside, out in a sun and a wind unfamiliar and inaccessible to either of these teenagers? Should I go on? Eric says I should with a nod of his head.

  And so learn simply to contemplate the daylight – above the earth and its objects, that is – those thousands of light bulbs or phials hanging from a firmament, but at every height and in every position, so that, instead of showing it, they hide it…

  I’m not sure I should go any further. I’d really like to have a reaction, a sign of approval perhaps. Eric’s eyes are pinned on me. Is it beautiful? I ask simply, anxiously. And then he gives me an answer: Yes, it’s very beautiful, but he can’t know that because he can’t see you.

  Passion. It was predictable. Michel Dautrand has convinced himself he’s crazy about me and is adamant he wants to take me with him to Zimbabwe, where he’s been given an opportunity to put his company back on its feet thanks to exceptional circumstances. New mines have been dug there. He’s going anyway. If it’s to be with me, then he’ll be happy, his life can come together again. If it’s without me, it would mean being buried in oblivion in the depths of Africa: he’ll go down to the bottom of those mines and never come back out, drowning himself in his work as others might in drink.

  That’s what he says as he sips his pure malt whisky. I’m next to him on the divan, half naked. He strokes my shoulder and every now and then tries to get me to take a few drops of the precious spirit: I only have to sniff it; I prefer the smell to the taste. I haven’t kept the promises I made myself, I realize that. I’ve recapitulated, rebedded. But it’s less out of weakness than consideration of this departure for Africa. I believe he truly will put the plan into action. He doesn’t really have a choice, I think. Sooner or later, then, he’ll disappear from my sight. His passion will fade, as all passions do. So I can carry on for a while with this agreeable little connection between us. We’re both, it seems to me, benefiting from it. Besides, he has a cooler head than he wants to let on. He knows full well I won’t be going to Africa. At the moment, though, he’s doing everything he can to
persuade me. His business will go well. The money will come pouring in. I’d have a lavish residence. As many houseboys as I wanted. The discreet charms of colonial life would be recreated for me, within the fairer modern framework of cooperation and free enterprise. I’d be loved, bejewelled, spoilt, feted. I’d be happy. Much happier than in a misfit’s job in a loser’s town with a husband who couldn’t give a damn about me.

  Here I strike back energetically. I sing Philippe’s praises. I say that I’ve never entertained the tiniest thought of leaving him, that, in my opinion, Philippe’s worth a thousand managing directors like him. I ask him to take that as read. He doesn’t seem to understand, looks completely distraught. I think sometimes he hates me.

  I need to make the most of moments like this to get back to our reading. My relationship with him has done nothing to sideline my educative concerns. Quite the opposite. It is a form of education. If he wants to make love with me, he first has to agree to read. Not necessarily to listen to me. To read himself, from his mouth, with his voice, if that suits him better. What matters is for him to fine-tune this knowledge which he himself claimed he so needed for his social life. Then I will have fulfilled my remit and been paid for my lovemaking troubles. Which, as luck would have it, are lovemaking pleasures. He seems to understand this, to comply with it. Each time he wants me to perform a particular favour, reading has to have its moment beforehand. For example, he sometimes indulges an aberrant desire to kiss my buttocks with cannibalistic frenzy. I insist that first he uses them as a lectern for a book from which he must read out loud for at least a few minutes. I’m currently lying on my stomach, naked, on the carpet in the large living room, close to the fire crackling in the fireplace. The book is where I’ve just said and Michel is lying on my thighs with his arms crossed, his chin up and his neck raised, and is reading diligently. The text I’ve chosen, because I feel sure we can’t spend all our time on the moderns and that a managing director’s education should embrace the ancients and the meditations of humanists on fate and chance, is a letter from Pietro Aretino to Pope Clement VII: