Ferdydurke (18 page)

"Here you are," she said, "your room. The bathroom is next door. Breakfast is at seven. Your things are here—the maid has brought them in."

And before I had a chance to stammer "thank you," she was gone to her committee meeting to combat the un-European scourge of child-beggary in the capital. I was left all alone. I sat on a chair. Everything was quiet. There was buzzing in my head. I sat in these new circumstances, in my new room. After being with so many people since this morning, I suddenly found myself in total isolation, only the schoolgirl was moving about and puttering in the parlor next door. No, no, this was not solitude—this was solitude with a schoolgirl.

7 Love

And again I wanted to break out in protests and explanations. I had to do something. I could not let myself become entrenched in this situation forever. Any delay threatened to make it permanent. Rather than sorting and folding my things, which the maid had brought in on Pimko's command, I sat stiffly in my chair.

"Now," I told myself, "now is my only chance to explain myself, to clarify things, to make myself understood. Pimko has gone. Mrs. Youngblood is out. The schoolgirl is here alone. Don't delay, because time weighs heavily on everything and solidifies it, go now, go at once, explain everything, show Zuta your true colors, because tomorrow will be too late. Show her, show yourself to her,"—oh, how desperately I wanted to do just that, I was seized by a desire to show her. All well and good, but show her—what? That I'm an adult, a thirty-year-old? No, no, forever no, at this moment I had no wish to make my way out of youth and admit that I was a thirty-year-old; my world had collapsed, I no longer saw the world except as a marvelous world through the eyes of this modern schoolgirl—sports, agility, arrogance, legs, calves of legs, wantonness, dancing, boating, kayaking—these were the new pillars of my reality! Yes, yes—I wanted to appear modern! The ghost that had visited me this morning, Syphon, Kneadus, Pimko, the duel—I pushed aside everything that had happened—I was only concerned with the schoolgirl's thoughts about me, whether she had believed Pimko that I wasn't modern, and just a poser; all I had to do was go to her right now, to present myself as modern and unaffected, to make her realize that Pimko had lied about me, that in reality I was quite different, that I was like her, her contemporary in age and era, that the calves of our legs made us kith and kin ...

To appear before her, yes—but under what pretext? How was I to explain anything when I hardly knew her—a stranger to me in social terms—even though, in her mind, I was already at her beck and call? As far as I was concerned reaching her at a deeper level of reality would be extremely difficult—I could reach her only through trifling details, I could knock on her door and merely ask when supper is served. The kick she had dealt me made the task no easier—it was a parenthetical kick, delivered without the participation of her face, and in fact I felt deprived of a face that would go with it. I sat on the chair like a caged animal, like a horse on a lead held at a distance with a whip, and I rubbed my hands—how could I, under what pretext could I take things in hand with the Youngblood girl and within myself?

Suddenly the telephone rang, and I heard the schoolgirl's footsteps.

I stood up, carefully opened the door to the hallway, and looked around—no one was there, the house seemed empty, it was twilight, but I could hear her making plans with her girlfriend on the phone, for seven at the coffee shop, she would be there, also Leo and Babe (they had their nicknames, their own expressions and appellations). "You'll be there, seven sharp, sure, yeah, no, fine, my leg hurts, I've pulled a ligament, he's an idiot, a photo, oh, be sure to come, yeah, you'll come, I'll be there, it's all a lark, for sure." These words, spoken under her breath by a modern one to another modern one, into the receiver and unaware of anyone standing by, moved me deeply. "This is their own language," I thought to myself, "their own modern language!" It then occurred to me that—immobilized as she was by the telephone, her lips busy talking, her eyes roaming around—the girl would be more accessible and receptive to my designs. I could appear before her without any explanations, just show up—without any comments.

I quickly straightened my collar and tie, licked my hair flat to show off my part, because I knew that in these circumstances a straight line on the side of one's head was not devoid of meaning. The line, God knows why, was something modern. As I crossed the dining room I picked up a toothpick from the table, and I appeared before her (the phone was in an anteroom), emerging nonchalantly on the threshold, and, leaning with my shoulder against the door, I stood there. I quietly bent forward with my entire being, still chewing on the toothpick. A modern toothpick. Don't think that it was easy to stand there, a toothpick in my mouth pretending that I was at ease while everything within me was still paralyzed, to be aggressive while inwardly remaining deathly passive.

In the meantime Miss Youngblood was talking to her girlfriend.

"No, not necessarily, hell, sure, go with her, no, not with him, the photo, what fun, I'm sorry—wait a minute."

She put down the receiver and asked me:

"Do you want to make a phone call?"

She said this in a sociable, cool tone, quite as if it wasn't me she had kicked. I shook my head. I wanted her to realize that I was here for no other reason than: "it's just you and me, I have the right to stand in the door while you're making a phone call, I'm your comrade in modernity and your contemporary, and, do understand, Miss Youngblood, that any explanations between us are superfluous, that I can join you, standing on no ceremony, it's as simple as that." I was risking a great deal because, had she asked for any explanations, I would have been hard pressed to explain anything, and this horribly artificial situation would have immediately forced me to retreat. But what if she were to receive and accept me, to silently agree with me?— a naturalness I hardly dared dream of! And then I'd be one with her, and truly modern. "Oh, Kneadus, Kneadus," I anxiously thought to myself as I remembered his horribly contorted face after his initial smiles. It's easier with a woman though, I must admit. The otherness of our bodies created better possibilities.

But the Youngblood girl, the receiver to her ear, did not look at me, she talked for a long time (time began to threaten me again and weigh heavily), then finally she said:

"Fine, at seven sharp, for sure, the movies, bye," and hung up.

She rose and went to her room. I took the toothpick out of my mouth and went to my room. There was a little stool to one side near a closet by the wall, not for sitting, but rather to be used as a night table—I sat stiffly on this stool and rubbed my hands. She had ignored me—she didn't even jeer at me. Well and good, but having started something, I couldn't just let it go, I had to resolve it somehow while Mrs. Youngblood was still out of the house, "try again," I thought to myself, "because after your hapless performance she will truly, once and for all, take you for a poser, in any case your pose seems to be solidifying, intensifying by the minute, why are you sitting here to one side, by the wall, why are you rubbing your hands? Surely, rubbing your hands in your room, while sitting on this stool, is the antithesis of modernity, it's so old-fashioned. O God!"

I calmed down and listened to what was happening on the other side of the wall. The Youngblood girl moved about in her room like all girls do when they're at home. And while moving, she was bound to, at the same time, settle herself more and more firmly in her opinion of me as a poser. This was terrible—to feel pushed out, and to just sit while she was thinking God knows what about me—but how was I to accost her, to accost her a second time, what was I supposed to do? I had no more pretexts—and even if I had any I couldn't use them, because the whole issue had become too intimate for mere pretexts.

Meanwhile, dusk was falling, and solitude—that false solitude when one is alone and yet not alone in a painful spiritual relationship with another human being who is on the other side of the wall, yet alone enough that things like rubbing one's hands, fingers cramping and similar other symptoms, seem ridiculous—thus the dusk and that false solitude made my head spin, it blinded me and removed all vestiges of reality, plunging me into the night. Oh, how night has a way of tearing into our day! Alone in my room, sitting on the little stool, all too aimless in my activity, I couldn't bear it any longer. States which we live through and share openly with someone else are not a threat but, without a partner they become unbearable. Solitude forces one outward. Therefore, after so much torture, I opened the door again and, emerging from my solitude blind as a bat, appeared on the threshold. As I stood there I realized once more that I didn't know how to grapple with her, how to, so to speak, lay hands on her— she continued to be totally separate and closed off—what a hellish thing, that precise and clear-cut contour of the human form, that cold demarcation line—the form!

Bending over, her foot resting on a stool, she was polishing her shoe with a soft suede cloth. There was something classical about it, and it seemed to me that the girl was not so much interested in the shine of her shoe as in trying, with the use of her leg and her calf, to secretly perfect her type and to keep up that solid, modern style. This encouraged me because I thought that the modern one, caught in the act with her leg, would be more gracious and less formal. I went toward her—I stood near her, no more than one or two steps away, and, not looking at her, drawing back my gaze, I silently placed myself at her disposal—to this day I remember perfectly—I walk toward her, I stand a step away, right on the border of her space, I withdraw all my senses so that I can come even closer, and I wait. What for? To avoid surprising her. This time no toothpick, no particular pose. Let her accept me or reject me, I tried to be totally passive, neutral.

She removed her leg from the stool and straightened herself up ...

"You have some . . . business with me?" she asked hesitantly, looking askance, like a human being who is being crowded by another human being for no good reason; and now that she stood up, the tension between us rose. I sensed that she would have preferred to move away. But she couldn't because I stood too close to her.

Did I have any business with her?

"No," I answered softly.

She let her arms drop by her side. She frowned.

"You're posing then?" she said defensively, just in case.

"No," I persisted, whispering, "no."

There was a small table next to me. Further on—a radiator. A brush and a penknife lay on the table. Dusk was falling—the evanescent light between night and day gradually blurred all boundaries, as well as that ominous demarcation line between us, and, thus shrouded in the veil of dusk, I felt sincere, sincere to my utmost, eager and ready for the schoolgirl.

I wasn't faking. If she had realized that I wasn't faking now, it would have meant that it was my affected behavior in Pimko's presence that was the fake. Why did I think that a young woman isn't supposed to refuse a man who insists on her consent? Did I think that the schoolgirl would, under the cover of darkness, succumb to the temptation of considering me useful? And why not opt for my being friendly and useful? Why wouldn't she rather host an American-style colleague than an old-fashioned, soured, and disgruntled faker? Why not play her melody upon me now, at this hour of dusk—I'm here, I'm offering myself—oh, play, play your melody upon me, that modern melody that everyone is humming in cafés, on beaches, and in dance halls, the pure melody of universal youth dressed in tennis pants. Strum upon me the modernity of those tennis pants. Won't you?

Surprised by my being so close to her, the Youngblood girl sat on the table, and, with a kind of bodily whimsy she pressed her hands against the edge—her face, vacillating between surprise and amusement, emerged from the dusk—and I thought that she had seated herself as if to play... That's how American girls are wont to sit and dangle their legs over the side of a boat. And the mere fact that she sat down made me tingle all over, her behavior indicated at least a tacit agreement to prolong the situation. She seemed to have settled herself for the duration, come what may. My heart pounding, I watched her set in motion some of her charms. She cocked her cute little head—she impatiently wiggled her little leg—she pouted her little mouth—while her large eyes, her modern-girl eyes, turned cautiously aside, toward the dining room, to check whether the housemaid was there. Because what would the housemaid say if she saw us, almost total strangers, in this odd configuration? Would she think us too affected? Or too natural?

But this is the kind of risk that girls like to take, those girls of the dusky hour who show what they can do only under the cloak of dusk. I sensed that I had conquered the schoolgirl with affectation's wild naturalness. I stuck my hands into my jacket pockets. Straining toward her, taking in her every breath, I was totally with her, quietly yet fervently, with all my might—I was so amiable, oh, so amiable ... Time was now on my side. Every second, while intensifying the affectation, intensified the naturalness. I expected her to suddenly say something to me, as if we had known each other for ages, something about her leg, that it was hurting her because she had pulled a ligament:

"My leg hurts, I've pulled a ligament. . . You drink whisky, don't you, Annabelle ..."

She was just about to say it, her lips began to move—when suddenly she came up with something completely different, almost in spite of herself—and in a formal tone she asked:

"What can I do for you?"

I took a step back while she—tickled pink by what she had just said, yet losing none of the dash and style of a young, modern girl sitting on a table and dangling her legs, indeed, looking even more stylish—she repeated with emphasis, her interest was cold and formal:

"What can I do for you?"

And, sensing that those words detracted nothing from her own self—on the contrary, they imparted to her a sharpness, an unsentimental matter-of-factness, even added to the general effect—she looked at me as if I were a madman and asked again: