THE LUTE AND THE SCARS (4 page)

The restaurant has been recently renovated, and it still smells new. Lamps with red shades and gold tassels hang in the booths. Paper tablecloths cover the plastic tables. In the vases, artificial flowers, and next to them, in a metal rack, the holy trinity of French cuisine: salt-pepper-mustard.

In one of the alcoves, the restaurant owners are dining, a heavy blonde woman with painted fingernails and a corpulent red-faced man with a little moustache. With large knives they are slicing up bloody steaks. A bottle of red wine, unlabeled, stands on the table before them; the bottle is imprinting the paper tablecloth with red half-circles.

They greet us with handshakes.

“
Ç
a va
?
”

“
Ç
a va
,
”
says Jurij Golec.

“
How
’
s Madame?
”
asks the proprietress.

“
She has died,
”
says Jurij Golec.

The owner takes a swallow of wine.

“
But it hasn
’
t even been a week since Madame was here,
”
he says.

“
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu
. Automobile accident?
”

“
Leukemia,
”
says Jurij Golec.
“
We
’
d like something to eat.
”

“
Have a seat there,
”
the owner says, pointing to a table with his knife.
“
Or there. Gaston! Bring these gentlemen a menu. Yes, such is life. It just seems as if Madame had sat here only yesterday. Right there where you are sitting now. I
’
m afraid we
’
re out of
menus d
’
hors
. It
’
s three o
’
clock. I recommend you get the roast beef. Gaston!
”

“
Chicken for me,
”
Jurij Golec says.
“
With fries. And a salad. She
’
s been dead a month already.
”

“
And what will your friend be having?
”

“
An omelet,
”
I say.
“
And a carafe of red wine.
”

“
None for me,
”
Jurij Golec says.
“
I don
’
t drink.
”

“
Madame always took such good care of herself,
”
says the proprietress.
“
Only ate healthy things. Eggs, fish, vegetables. And lots of carrots. Gaston, bring the man a fork.
”

“
In the last few years,
”
says Jurij Golec, leaning in my direction,
“
she ate only grass. Like a cow.
”

We went back to No
é
mie
’
s apartment. On the way Jurij bought himself three cartons of Rothmans
—
ten days
’
supply, at least. He paid for my cigarettes, too.

“
I also smoked Gauloises and Gitanes for years,
”
he said.
“
Until I got French citizenship. I smoked that trash so I
’
d have the same taste in my mouth they have.
”

We had no sooner returned than he started in again:

“
So then what you want is for me to hurl myself under a subway train, like miserable old Raoul. Don
’
t interrupt me, please. Is that what you all want to become of me? And I, as you can see, am not in any condition to open up my own veins. I am horrified by the sight of blood, like the hero of your novel. Especially now. For a whole month I went to be with her in the hospital every day. I greeted the dawn at her bedside. With no tobacco or alcohol. I don
’
t intend to go on and on to you about all that. About the blood, the vomit, the excrement, the pus. We were married for thirty-three years. We met in Poland, after we were released from the camps. She was on her way back from a Russian camp, I from a German one . . .
”

“
For the last twenty years we didn
’
t live under the same roof. In that length of time I slept with a lot of women; I assume she took lovers as well. How many? I don
’
t know. But there was nonetheless something that bound us together. Something elemental. Whatever it is that unites a man and a woman forever.
”

The telephone rang, and he chatted with someone else in German, quietly. Either German or Yiddish. Then he returned to his seat opposite me.
“
A month before she got sick, we went for a stroll on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. It was a clear day, like this one. At one point she stopped and took my hand.
‘
I would like to live a hundred years,
’
she said.
‘
With you.
’
And we kissed. On the lips.
”

Jurij Golec drank a swallow.
“
A splendid bottom line for an old Jewish couple,
”
he concluded.
“
After thirty-three years of shared life.
”

“
It would be a good idea for you to go away somewhere,
”
I said.
“
What
’
s the status of the will anyway?
”

“
There is the possibility that she left me nothing. I don
’
t care. I only want the paperwork to be done with. But none of that is important now. I
’
m done for. I helped a few people. Slept with ten women. Maybe it was a hundred. I wrote this and that, might as well have been writing with my finger in water. I have no strength left, and no curiosity.
”

“
I understand how you feel. I leaned out over the edge of this abyss recently too. People don
’
t know what advice to give, and God, if you don
’
t mind my saying, doesn
’
t know His way around in such matters. At that time I started searching for books that would give me strength to keep on living. And I arrived at the tragic conclusion that all the books I had devoured over the decades were of no use to me in that decisive hour. I
’
ll omit the holy books and the sages of old; I wasn
’
t receptive to them, because I lacked the basic prerequisite of a belief in God, which you yourself have. I read the widest variety of authors and works: Gnostics and gnostic commentaries,
Surviving and Other Essays
by Bruno Bettelheim, Linden
’
s
Autogenic Training
,
Les destins du plaisir
by a certain Aulagnier, Goethe
’
s
Elective Affinities
,
La nuit, le jour
by Braunschweig, Herbert Rosenfeld
’
s
Psychotic States
, the novels of Philip Roth, and even Hjalmar Bergman
’
s
Marionettspel
, because I myself resemble a puppet whose strings are controlled by fate. The only thing I got from all this reading was the realization that books provide no answers to burning questions. That we are directed by our genes, the devil, or God, and that our will plays no role at critical moments, that we are simply knocked this way and that by our various passions. As when someone is swimming hard and the shore not only recedes but actually seems to gape wide, as the current
—
for you are swimming upstream
—
carries you in the opposite direction. But, fortunately, passions, like misfortunes, are transient; like all plants and animals too . . .
”

I sensed that my words were coming across as hollow and bookish; it
’
s not easy to respond to a person whose question is
“
Why should I be alive?
”
I was acting with the best of intentions: drawing on my own experiences, I wanted to make clear to him the beneficial effects of time, and to sketch the future out for him, his future: sitting somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, warming his bones in the spring sun, drinking cappuccino and patting the young waitresses on their rear ends.

“
When all is said and done, you have to live, because this is the only life there is.
”

He waved his hand dismissively.

“
Don
’
t forget that I believe in God,
”
he said.
“
And He
’
ll forgive me.
”

This trying conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Jurij Golec introduced his guests to me by name and added:
“
My
proteg
é
es
.
”

He indicated to them that we were old friends and I was a writer.

“
He wrote the foreword to my last book,
”
I said, in order to conceal my embarrassment.

They were two pretty young women, with luxurious hair, pronounced cheekbones, and slightly tilted Tatar-like eyes.

“
Oh, Jura, why didn
’
t you tell us?
”
Nata
š
a said.

“
You see?
”
Dola continued. (She owed her name to Dolores Ibarruri.)
“
You at least have other people to live for! What vile things you
’
ve been saying! What do you mean, a pistol?
Boh s tob
ó
j
!
”
She then turned to me:
“
If Jurij wrote a foreword to your book, then it must be good.
”

I promised to send them copies of my books; the one with the foreword by Jurij Golec and, of course, the one about the camps. (They were the daughters of a Soviet general who had perished in the purges.)

“
Cheers!
”
Nata
š
a said after pouring everyone a drink.

“
To your health,
”
Jurij Golec responded absentmindedly.

“
There are,
”
Dola said,
“
so many beautiful things in this life. Friendship, for example. And, you see, we all need you. If you didn
’
t exist, where would we two have taken refuge when we got to Paris? You can
’
t even imagine what all Jura has done for us. His apartment is a veritable embassy for refugees from all over the East. For Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Estonians. For everyone. How long have you known Jura?
”

“
For at least ten years,
”
I said.

“
We met at a reception, a long time ago,
”
said Jurij Golec.
“
When his first book came out in French.
”

Note
: This reception had been organized by Mme Ursula Randelis, a patron of South American writers. In addition to those writers, authors from other countries passed through the side door, so to speak. The cocktail party took place on the occasion of a book launch, for a Portuguese, a Spaniard, and me; the books came out in a series devoted primarily to Latin American writers. I knew no one and didn
’
t dare to eat anything, because I didn
’
t know how to break open and eat crabs and shellfish; so I sat there the entire evening with a canap
é
and drank. At three o
’
clock in the morning a young woman suggested driving me to her place, and I threw up in her bathroom, lying there on the floor, half-dead. Fortunately, people forget things that are earmarked for oblivion. Over the course of the years the memory of that hapless reception had evaporated, and an insuperable obscurity would have descended upon it if Jurij Golec hadn
’
t brought it up again two or three months ago. He asked me whether Marie La Coste had written anything about my new book. I told him I didn
’
t know who that was.
“
Chivalry is an attractive personality trait to have, my dear friend, but you know you slept with her. This is an open secret. At that reception chez Ursula Randelis, you kissed her hand under her husband
’
s nose. And toward daybreak the two of you ducked out.
”

“
I thought she was one of Mme Randelis
’
s domestics,
”
I said.
“
I was actually amazed myself at how large her bathroom was. With pink tiles and a bidet.
”

To steer the conversation to other topics, I stated:

“
I think that you two should persuade him not to go on living in this apartment.
”

“
You see, Jura? Everybody agrees that it
’
s not a good idea for you to live in her apartment,
”
said Nata
š
a.
“
We
’
ve told him that a hundred times.
”

“
Just until the formalities are complete,
”
Jurij Golec said.

“
So, in the meantime let
’
s get to work,
”
said Dolores-Dola, and the two women stood up simultaneously.
“
The sculptures are gone. That
’
s good. Never mind the ashtrays, Jura; I
’
ll empty them. What do we do with this?
”

We were standing in the next room, where No
é
mie
’
s library was housed. The books were arranged over an entire wall, stretching all the way up to the ceiling.