Quartet for the End of Time (52 page)

As the months passed, however, this secondary code—by which he disguised the first—became so increasingly complicated that Alden began to regret that more and more of his time was spent only further codifying the already coded information he found, rather than getting any nearer to deciphering it. But in any case, because the effort—as the weeks and then the months passed—began increasingly to consume him, it gave him great pleasure to share his “poems,” on the few occasions he did, with Maurice Bonheur.

Once or twice (though he was careful never to divulge the true nature or potential import of the work, and always presented them as though he himself were their single author) he even intimated that they had been made up, at least in part, of rearranged code. The poems, he lied, were constructed out of
British
code words, which Alden had implemented according to their original, rather than their intended, meaning—rearranging them in order that they made sense on the page in a very different—indeed, far more obvious—way than they had within the context of their original form (the significance of which Abwehr had, by that time, already revealed).

Alden was onto something, Maurice said. Something potentially— he raised an eloquent left eyebrow—
revolutionary.
Had not the world, from the beginning of time, seemed set on a path of further and further fragmentation, so that soon meaning would exist only in the most minute and unassimilable parts? Just think of it, he said: the priests and politicians; the scientists—even the poets—everyone intent on moving away from any direct adherence between meaning and form; from the singular, pronounceable, literal word … And here Alden was doing the opposite!

Alden was flattered, and said so, but really, he said, he had achieved his results only by respecting the inherent sense of the code itself— which, he reminded his friend, was, by necessity, constrained by much stricter rules even than spoken language. It was only by breaking these rules, Alden explained, that he was able to reintroduce to the language
of the code some sort of recognizable meaning. Though it might appear, therefore, at first glance (as Maurice had suggested) that he was translating nonsensical code into sensible language, in fact he was, in many respects, doing just the opposite. It was only a matter—as usual—of the way that you looked at the thing.

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.

—

I
T 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.

W
HEN 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.

B
EFORE 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 together—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.

W
HEN 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?