One Hundred Twenty-One Days

by Michèle Audin

  RUE DELAMBRE. Because Delambre was an astronomer. Lots of astronomers have streets named after them in this arrondissement. And the Jewish astronomer who was still working at the Observatory when M. talked to Kürz about it in June of 1942? He died at Auschwitz a year later. I must confess that at this exact moment, I can’t remember his name. It’s a tiny ripple of “the irresistible tide of forgetfulness” that the philosopher Jankélévitch spoke about. That overwhelms everything. Despite the ceremonies filled with grandeur and emotion, with brass bands, military parades, and flags, like the one for M.’s one-hundredth birthday, then, three years later, perhaps without fanfare, for his funeral at the church of Saint-Louis des Invalides, almost eighty years after his marriage at Saint-Philippe-du-Roule. The Croix de Guerre and the Grand Croix of the Légion d’Honneur, this time on the coffin, official figures, speeches, flags. The Association of the Former Students of the École Polytechnique was present, Pierre told me. Once more, M. was treated better than Gorenstein. It’s definitely too late, I’m definitely too close to my place now to get a bus. I keep walking down the boulevard.

  Now, opposite the CIMETIÈRE MONTPARNASSE. Cemetery to cemetery, poet to poet… Here rests Robert Desnos, the night watchman of the Pont-au-Change, another Robert le Diable. He died, too, “there where our century’s destiny bleeds”… How beautifully put, words again, an exquisite formulation for the unspeakable. I pass the building where Louis Klein lives, the man who told Mireille Duvivier about André Silberberg’s death in 1945, he who shared a corner of a freight car with André and who later wrote a dreadful little book, in which he simply described what happened. I had come here to see him, along with Pierre Meyer, whom I had picked up from the other side of Paris. I brought my notebook, like always. He was handsome, cheerful, and courteous. He was ninety-two years old. He showed us the pale blue number on his forearm. A bit stupidly, I wrote this number down. He told me, “Yes, André Silberberg, I remember him, of course. But is he dead?” We caused him to suffer by telling him about André Silberberg’s death and the terrible conditions in which it happened. Which we knew from his own mouth, from the book he wrote. He started singing us a song by Schumann,

  Das Lied ist aus

  Auch ich möcht mit dir sterben

  “The song is over / I would also like to die with you.” A poem by Heine, once again. Then, interrupting himself: “but what were we talking about? André Silberberg, yes, of course, I remember him very well. But is he still alive?” The irresistible tide of forgetfulness had already overwhelmed him. I closed my notebook, I stopped my recorder, and we stayed there, Pierre and I, talking with him.

  I come to the PAVILLON DE LA BARRIÈRE D’ENFER. Where the entrance to the catacombs is located. It’s already late, visiting hours are over, the usual line of tourists has dissolved.

  I read the plaque at the PLACE DU COLONEL-ROL-TANGUY. And I think about all these plaques, about Roger Connan, about the unknown member of the FFI, about Danielle Casanova, about Pierre and the liberation of Paris, about Mireille and the Hotel Lutetia, about the innumerable names who will never have a story other than that of their disappearance. And about Pierre’s great-grandson, about the children who play on the statues in the Tuileries gardens, about my daughter. In front of my house, I punch in the code, another number, I climb the six floors, I open the door. Inside, no one is waiting for me: it’s not Wednesday, it’s not spring break, and my daughter, my best beloved, is at her mother’s. I take off my shoes covered with the dust of the Tuileries paths, I sit down at my table, facing the window and Paris, I make a little space amongst my mess, I push a red binder and some blue and gray notebooks full of notes out of the way, I open a pad of lined paper, and, with “desperate but intermittent protestations of memory,” I start to write:

  Once upon a time, in a remote region of a faraway land, there lived a little boy.

  SUPERNUMERARY CHAPTER

  (PARIS-STRASBOURG, 2009-2013)

  As one of its characters rightly says, this book is a novel, a work of fiction. Its characters are imaginary. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental or due to the permanence of human behavior.

  The names of some of these characters have been taken from (or inspired by) various books, including THE LILY OF THE VALLEY (Honoré de Balzac), A GALLERY PORTRAIT and W OR THE MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD (Georges Perec), THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (Alexandre Dumas), and THE MASTER AND MARGARITA (Mikhail Bulgakov).

  The book cites, uses, or evokes a certain number of other works, not always explicitly mentioned, including (in alphabetical order and with the corresponding chapter numbers) AFTER A READING OF DANTE (Franz Liszt) – VII; ALMANSOR (Heinrich Heine) – X; APRIL IN PARIS (Vernon Duke & E.Y. Harburg) – XI; CHANSON DE CRAONNE (Anonymous) – II; CHANSON DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE STRASBOURG (Aragon) – VIII; COMPLAINTE DE ROBERT-LE-DIABLE (Aragon) – XI; CONVERSATIONS IN EXILE (Bertolt Brecht) – IV; DE L’UNIVERSITÉ AUX CAMPS DE CONCENTRATION – TÉMOIGNAGES STRASBOURGEOIS (collective) – VII, VIII, IX; DICHTERLIEBE (Heinrich Heine) – VIII; DOCTOR FAUSTUS (Thomas Mann) – V; FANTASIA K475 (Mozart) – IV, VIII, IX; FAUST (Goethe) – VII; FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE (Simone de Beauvoir) – XI; FOURTEENTH SONATA, QUASI UNA FANTASIA (Beethoven) – X; GRETCHEN AM SPINNRADE (Goethe) – VI; IF (Rudyard Kipling) – I, II; JOURNAL (André Gide) – II; JOURNAL DE GUERRE (Ernst Jünger) – V; JUST SO STORIES (Rudyard Kipling) – I, XI; LA CROIX DE BOIS (Paul Harel) – II; LA ROSE ET LA RÉSÉDA (Aragon) – XI; LES ÉTUDES ET LA GUERRE (Stéphane Israël) – X; LES NOMBRES REMARQUABLES (François Le Lionnais & Jean Brette) – VII, IX; ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION (W. G. Sebald) – VII, IX; PAINTING AT DORA (François Le Lionnais) – VII; PARIS DANS LA COLLABORATION (Cécile Desprairies) – V, XI; PÈRE GORIOT (Honoré de Balzac) – XI; POEMS (St. Thérèse of Lisieux) – II; ROBERT LE DIABLE (Meyerbeer) – III; SHOULD WE PARDON THEM? (Vladimir Jankélévitch) – XI; SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ (Primo Levi) – VIII; THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA (Stendhal) – VIII, IX, XI; THE DAMNATION OF FAUST (Hector Berlioz) – II; THE DIVINE COMEDY (Dante) – VII, VIII; THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED (Primo Levi) – IX; THE LIGHTS GO DOWN (Erika Mann) – VI; THE LOST ONES (Samuel Beckett) – VII; THE MASTER AND MARGARITA (Mikhail Bulgakov) – III, VI; THE NIGHT WATCHMAN OF PONT-AU-CHANGE (Robert Desnos) – VIII, XI; THE ODYSSEY (Homer) – VII; THE TWO GRENADIERS (Heinrich Heine) – I, V; THE TWO GRENADIERS (Heinrich Heine & Robert Schumann) – XI; TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (Shakespeare) – II; UN DÉPORTÉ BRISE SON SILENCE (Robert Francès) – VII, VIII, IX; UNE HISTOIRE MODÈLE (Raymond Queneau) – VII.

  Thank you to all the authors of all these works, but also to Sébastien Balibar, Anne F. Garréta, Pierre Lévy, Sylvie Roelly, Olivier Salon, Norbert Schappacher, and Simone Weiller. Thanks to their help, this book could be written. It was composed mainly in Strasbourg and Paris, from October 2009 to September 2013.

  Various places are mentioned (in alphabetical order): Africa, Aix-la-Chapelle, Alexandria, Alsace, Ardennes, Athens, Atlantic (ocean), Auschwitz, Bangor, Belgium, Berlin, Boston, Brittany, Buchenwald, Cambridge, Canaries (islands), Chartres, Chatou, Chemin des Dames, Clermont-Ferrand (Place de Jaude), Cologne, Digne, Dora, Douaumont, Drancy, Dresden, Europe, France, Fribourg, Germany, Hamburg, Holland, Istanbul, Italy, Kursk, Le Chesnay, Lodi, London, Lyon, Marseilles, Mediterranean (sea), Metz, Mexico, Midwest (American), Milan, Monowitz, Montluçon, Morocco, Moscow, Munich, N. (Goethestrasse, Humboldtstrasse, Marienfriedhof, Marktplatz, Schillerstrasse, the university), Nevers, Normandy, Oxford, Padua, Paris (Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, Rue d’Artois, Rue du Bac, Rue Blanche, Rue Caulaincourt, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Pont au Change, Lycée Chaptal, Rue de Chateaudun, Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, Rue Claude-Bernard, Boulevard de Clichy, Place du Colonel-Rol-Tanguy, Avenue de la Croix, Rue Danielle-Casanova, Rue Dante, Rue Delambre, Square d’Estienne-d’Orves, Avenue Dubuisson, Place de l’Étoile, Avenue Foch, Avenue du Général-Lemonnier, Boulevard Haussmann, Avenue Hector-Berlioz, Invalides, Ave
nue d’Italie, Rue Lagrange, Lycée Louis-le-Grand, the arches of the Louvre, Hotel Lutetia, Jardin du Luxembourg, Gare de Lyon, Hotel Majestic, Rue de Médicis, Rue de Ménilmontant, Rue Meyerbeer, Montmartre Cemetery, Montparnasse Cemetery, Gare Montparnasse, Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Avenue de l’Opéra, Palais-Royal, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Rue Pierre-Curie, Avenue Principale, Rue des Pyramides, Avenue Rachel, Hotel Raphael, Boulevard Raspail, Rue du Rohan, Pont Royal, Rue Saint-Dominique, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Rue Saint-Jacques, Boulevard Saint-Michel, Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Place Saint-Sulpice, Place de la Sorbonne, Rue Soufflot, Les Tourelles camp, Trocadéro, Jardin des Tuileries, Impasse de Valmy, Carrefour Vavin, Rue Véron, Rue du Vieux-Colombier), Petrograd, Poelkapelle, Poland, Russia, Saint-Maurice, Saint-Nazaire, Senegal, Sigmaringen, Spain, Strasbourg (Palais Universitaire, Vauban Stadium), Switzerland, Troy, United States, Upper Silesia, Vallorbe, Verdun, Vichy, Vienna, Warsaw, Weimar, Wölfersheim, Ypres.

  INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

  AAlexander: 146

  André, see Silberberg (André)

  Apfeldorf (Ernst von): 83-84, 91, 93, 135-137

  Apfeldorf (Frau von): 84, 135-136

  Aragon (Louis): 102, 147

  BBach (Johann Sebastian): 114

  Balzac (Honoré de): 153

  Bamberger (Simone): 114, 117

  Beauvoir (Simone de): 153

  Beckett (Samuel): 94, 120-121

  Beethoven (Ludwig van): 69, 122, 135, 137

  Bergamotte (Doctor): 34, 36

  Berry (Jules): 93

  Besson (Berthe): 142

  Besson (Christiane), see Mallet (Christiane)

  Besson (Jean): 142

  Besson (Marie): 39, 72-75, 142

  Besson (Marie-Claude): 142

  Billotte-Yersin (Catherine): 63, 144

  Blank (Leutnant Doktor): 64-65

  Bonaparte (Napoleon): 122, 146, 149

  Bonnard (Abel): 70

  Breker (Arno): 70

  Brisson (Major de): 16, 19, 23-24, 29

  Brueghel (Pieter): 94

  Bunsen (Robert): 82

  Busoni (Doctor): 100, 112

  CC. (Georges): 70-71, 78, 152

  Caesar: 146

  Carabosse (fairy): 23

  Carmo: 46

  Casanova (Danielle): 149, 155

  Céline (Louis-Ferdinand): 152

  Christian, see M. (Christian)

  Churchill (Winston): 101

  Clara, see Silberberg (Clara)

  Cocteau (Jean): 70

  Connan (Roger): 151, 155

  DDanglars (André), see Silberberg (André)

  Daniel (Andrée): 129, 142, 145

  Dante: 24, 59, 67, 93-94, 101, 111, 116, 118, 120

  Debalme (Doctor): 18-19

  Delambre (Jean-Baptiste): 153

  Desnos (Robert): 101, 114, 154

  Dreyfus (Alfred): 25, 152

  Dubois (Anne): 39, 72-73, 142

  Dubois (Patrick): 142

  Dubois (Pierre-Marie): 142

  Durenberger (Françoise), see M. (Françoise)

  Duvivier (Claude): 38, 40, 42, 98, 106, 116

  Duvivier (Mireille): 40, 42, 46, 59, 98-120, 122, 126, 129, 132-134, 147, 151-152, 154-155

  Duvivier (Nicole): 32, 35-36, 38, 40, 42, 46, 98-101, 112, 115, 120, 134

  EEpting (Karl): 70

  Estienne d’Orves (Honoré d’): 147

  Euler (Leonhardt): 119

  FFaust: 135

  Feinstein (Madeleine): 114, 117

  FFI, unknown member of: 151, 155

  Fried (Maurice): 67, 153

  Friedrich (Doctor): 83, 92

  GGambetta (Léon): 38

  Gaulle (Charles de): 101, 103

  Gauss (Carl-Friedrich): 82

  Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von): 37, 58, 94, 101

  Goldbach (conjecture of): 47

  Goldstein (Roger), see Gorenstein (Robert)

  God: 13-14, 28, 129

  Gorenstein (Cécile): 32-33, 35, 42, 49

  Gorenstein (constant of): 44, 120

  Gorenstein (Monsieur): 35

  Gorenstein (Madame): 35

  Gorenstein (Nicole), see Duvivier (Nicole)

  Gorenstein (Robert): 14-16, 19, 24-25, 27, 31-38, 42-44, 46-49, 65, 77-78, 100, 112, 115, 119-120, 123, 126, 133, 147-148, 154

  Gorenstein (theorem of): 44

  Göring (Hermann): 131

  Gustav August (prince): 84

  Guynemer (Georges): 32, 121

  HH. (Monsieur): 32-33, 35, 42

  H. (Madame): 31-33, 35, 42, 122

  Heine (Heinrich): 8, 70, 101, 103-104, 119, 122-123, 140, 145, 155

  Hermann (Bernhardt): 61, 140–141

  Hermann (Charlotte): 61, 75, 83-84, 134-135, 137, 141

  Hermann (Wilhelm): 91, 134-136, 141

  Hitler (Adolf): 47, 53-54, 71, 105

  Homer: 94

  Humboldt (Alexander von): 82

  JJankélévitch (Vladimir): 153

  Janvier (Albert): 16, 20, 24-25, 27, 30, 73

  Janvier (Alphonse): 29

  Janvier (Madeleine): 14, 16-18, 21, 24-25, 28, 30, 73

  Janvier (Marguerite), see M. (Marguerite)

  Janvier (Thérèse): 17-18, 25, 28-29, 34

  Jaurès (Jean): 40, 43

  Jesus: 24, 28

  Jünger (Ernst): 62, 65, 77

  KKant (Immanuel): 82

  Karajan (Herbert von): 74

  Kerensky (Alexander): 33

  Kipling (Rudyard): 20

  Klein (Louis): 112-113, 121, 130, 144, 154

  Köchel (Ludwig von): 122

  Kristoff (Kirill): 85

  Kürz (Charlotte), see Hermann (Charlotte)

  Kürz (Frau): 61, 84, 135, 137

  Kürz (Heinrich): 55-59, 61-64, 66, 69-70, 74, 76, 79, 83-84, 86, 90-91, 93, 120-121, 125, 134-137, 141, 144, 146, 148-149, 152-153

  LLagrange (Joseph-Louis): 67

  La Martinière (Father de): 15, 29

  Langlois (Guy): 72, 142

  Langlois (Jean): 142

  Langlois (Luc): 142

  Langlois (Marc): 142

  Langlois (Mathieu): 72, 128, 142

  Langlois (Paul): 142

  Langlois (Pierre): 142

  Langlois (Thérèse): 34, 39, 72, 74, 128, 142

  Leclerc de Hauteclocque (Philippe): 97

  Legendre (Adrien-Marie): 86

  Le Lionnais (François): 75, 94

  Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich): 33

  Liszt (Ferenc): 94

  Lotte, see Kürz (Charlotte)

  Lubin (Germaine): 74

  MM. (Anne), see Dubois (Anne)

  M. (Antoine): 142

  M. (Bernadette), see Meyer (Bernadette)

  M. (Christian): 5-11, 18-30, 39, 45-46, 51, 55-56, 63-75, 77-78, 85-86, 89-93, 106-107, 119-121, 123, 125-129, 138, 141-144, 147-148, 150, 153-155

  M. (Françoise): 142

  M. (Georges): 142

  M. (Ignace): 39, 72-74, 127-129, 142, 145

  M. (Jean-Baptiste Ignace): 6-7, 9, 29, 39

  M. (Marguerite): 13-30, 34, 39, 45, 72-75, 119-121, 126, 129, 147-149, 152-153

  M. (Marie), see Besson (Marie)

  M. (Marthe): 39, 72-75, 127, 129, 142-143

  M. (Thérèse), see Langlois (Thérèse)

  M. (father): 5-7, 9, 23, 29, 127-128

  M. (mother): 5-7, 9, 23, 29, 127-128

  Madeiros (Celestino): 41

  Mallet (Christiane): 142

  Marguerite, see M. (Marguerite)

  Mary (Virgin): 17, 29

  Meyer (Andrée), see Daniel (Andrée)

  Meyer (Bernadette): 34, 39, 45, 72-74, 126-129, 138, 142, 148

  Meyer (Nathalie), see Meyer-Lemaire (Nathalie)

  Meyer (Pierre): 34, 39, 45-46, 49, 51, 125-127, 129-130, 132, 134, 138, 142, 144-148, 150-152, 154-155

  Meyerbeer (Doctor): 35, 42-43, 46-48, 100, 110, 112-114, 120, 130, 148

  Meyerbeer (Giacomo): 148

  Meyer-Lemaire (Nathalie): 129, 142, 145-146

  Mises (Richard von): 48

  Monod (René),
see Gorenstein (Robert)

  Mortsauf, Mortaufs, Motfraus, Morstauf, Morfaust, Mortfaus, see M.

  Mozart (Wolfgang Amadeus): 52, 114, 116, 122

  Müller (Lieutenant): 78–79

  NNadault (Émile): 66

  Nadault (Hélène): 66

  OOllier (François): 70-71, 131

  Our Lady of Lourdes: 29

  PPainlevé (Paul): 47

  Pariset (Henri): 51-52, 54-57, 76, 106-109, 113-114, 126, 132, 134

  Pariset (Louis): 114

  Pershing (John): 31

  Pétain (Philippe): 105, 112

  Petrarch (Francesco): 101

  Pierre, see Meyer (Pierre)

  QQueneau (Raymond): 94

  Quesnay (Pierre): 75-76

  Quesnay (René): 75-76

  RRaffke (Hermann): 61, 141

  Ranvier (Gabriel): 75-77

  Reisky (Samuel): 132-133

  Riemann (Bernhard): 82

  Robert, see Gorenstein (Robert)

  Rodin (Auguste): 153

  Rol-Tanguy (Henri): 97

  Roth (Daniel): 57-59, 93, 105, 111, 113-114, 116

  SSacco (Nicola): 41, 120

  Saint Christopher: 26

  Saint John of the Cross: 23

  Saint Marguerite: 152

  Saint Theresa of Avila: 23

  Saint-Bonnet (Jacques de): 19, 22

  Saint-Bonnet (Paul de): 21-22, 25-26, 29-30

  Schiller (Friedrich von): 82, 101

  Schlag (Frau): 137

  Schmitt (Marcel): 58, 93, 105, 111, 114

  Schreiber (Emil): 85, 91, 149

  Schumann (Robert): 154

  Shelley (Percy Bysshe): 24

  Silberberg (André): 46, 49, 51-59, 65, 76-78, 91, 102-122, 125-126, 130, 132-133, 144, 149, 152, 154-155

  Silberberg (Clara): 51-53, 102, 104-105, 107-108, 113-115

  Silberberg (father): 51-53, 102, 104-105, 107, 111, 113

  Silberberg (mother): 51-53, 102, 104-105, 107, 111, 113

  Slawek (Stefan): 91

  Smith (Barbara): 134

  Smith (Harold): 91, 134, 136-137, 140

  Sonntag (Doctor): 53-54, 58, 109-113, 121, 130

  Spankerfel (Karl Ludwig): 82, 85-86, 139

  Stefi: 83, 85

  Stendhal: 146, 153

  TTiedemann (Frau): 86, 91-92, 135, 137, 149

  Tiedemann (Gustav): 68, 84-85, 91-92, 128, 135-136, 149