Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen (47 page)

So, I found Mme Proust’s diary partly by design but mainly by chance.

“Yes, yes, it has all been published.”

If M. Valéry thinks that the contents of File 263 have
been published, he knows the collection less well than M. Richaud. I go carefully here.

“The letters, yes, the letters have been published,” I reply. “But there are her diaries…”

“Oh, Madame’s diaries…” M. Valéry rolls his eyes heavenwards. “The natterings of a housewife—day after day of them, year after year—there’s nothing there.”

Apparently, M. Valéry has made only the most cursory reading of the material. I begin to lie.

“No, there does not seem to be much. That is to say, I have not found anything yet, but if you would permit me another renewal… I am approaching the end of the diaries. I would only need a few more days.”

“Ah.” M. Valéry thinks he understands now and smiles indulgently.
“Féministe …
a feminist.”

He has catalogued me and so dismisses me: a mystery is often more interesting than its solution. He draws towards him the form that I proffer and duly signs.

“Thank you.”

He steps out from his desk, opens the door of his office, and calls out, “Ahmed!”

The North African clerk reappears.

“Mademoiselle can renew as often as she wants. Fetch the box.”

Ahmed sighs as though he had been asked to fetch Sisyphus’s stone and carry it over to my desk in the library. He leaves the office with emphatic slowness.

“Il
a des soucis …
He has troubles,” M. Valéry explains, showing more kindness now that our transaction is over. “Immigration troubles. His visa has expired.”

Today, I held baby Suzy in my arms in the morning, went home, ate lunch alone, and in the afternoon, opened the package that had come with the first post, so that I could admire
The Bible of Amiens
. Perhaps twenty years from now Suzy will read her uncle’s translation and so Dick’s child will meet Marcel’s. A happy thought at least.

I suppose I should pity her. I have his sons, my little wolves, even if one of them has grown up and left me. I have the apartment filled with his books, his papers, his photograph in every room. I have his honours, I have his name, I have my widow’s weeds. What does she have? A few memories, a bunch of Parma violets thrown on top of a coffin as it passes.

The boys supposed that I did not notice her at the funeral, or that in pretending not to notice, I somehow achieve a state in which she makes no difference to me. I cannot say I did not know, but no more can I pretend it does not hurt.

Finally a good talk with Marie-Marguerite, in the tea pavilion in the Bois where we took refreshment after our walk. We agreed it is not that one is particularly surprised, nor that one minds that much, as long as he continues to be courteous and attentive at home and diligent in all financial matters. I had always been
aware of Adrien’s lapses; they never greatly interfered in our life. It was being forced to remember their existence on the very day of his funeral that wounded me, as though his discretion, so assured while he was living, had collapsed with his death.

Marie-Marguerite was philosophical as usual: “Some have their mistresses, others have their boys, they are men, after all. In the end, it is often much easier for the wife if they exercise their tastes outside the home rather than in the conjugal bed.” For all her bluntness, she comforts me. She urged me not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good in the realm of my memories, to cherish what I had, which was much. And we agreed that Adrien went as he would have wished, planting his cabbages, in Montaigne’s phrase, struck down by his stroke while at the Faculty.

Marie gave Marcel the most lovely gift this week—a handful of Japanese paper pellets that once submersed in water blossom into delicate little aquatic flowers. And so, a safe and kindly spring blooms in his dark room.

We have hit on an excellent idea, Marcel and me. We will ask Marie to sculpt a medallion for Adrien’s grave bearing his profile. I can think of no better way to honour him, nor a finer artist to execute the task.

Marcel says he will ask her today. She and Ruskin are his constant companions these last months, since, for the sake of his father’s memory, he took up his work again and moves ahead with
Sesame and Lilies
.
She is always a comfort, both to Marcel and to me, so delicate in her little entrées into my salon on her way in to visit him.

I read in the paper this morning that the Americans have hired Dr. Gorgas and are sending him to Panama to try and stop the yellow fever with a new vaccine. They have made slow progress in recent months, fighting against the heat, the mosquitoes, dysentery, and an outbreak of cholera, and have now been forced to halt work altogether because the fever is decimating their workers. Perhaps they are discovering for themselves why the French had such difficulty completing the canal. If Adrien were here this morning, he would be reading me a lecture on hygiene, which might have prevented the diseases in the first place. It was always medicine that took his attention. The cholera. Well, the cholera and a fine lady or two.

Marie has agreed to the medallion.

Dick and Marthe insist that I go with them to Etretat next month. We have never holidayed there, which is, I suppose, why they have picked it—no memories at all. I will acquiesce, although I am not sure I can bear a whole three weeks in a hotel with Marthe. She means well but she does fuss an awful lot, both about her own health and the baby’s. Of course, one cannot help but feel for her, what she went through with the
confinement—that day we went to visit her after Suzy was born, Marcel and I changing out of our mourning clothes in Dick’s study, so as not to give her any hint of what had transpired, we were all so worried about her fever. Being cheerful was almost more than I could bear. And her own poor mother on the day of the funeral was at a loss for words when Marthe saw the procession from her bedroom window, making its way to Saint-Philippe du Roule, and speculated that it must have been someone particularly august who had died. The subterfuge, for all that it was necessary, made me feel faint from grief, the gap between the normal cheerfulness of daily life and one’s true emotions so overwhelming it appeared as farce rather than tragedy.

Etretat was tedious and Dieppe damp. I am glad Marcel did not join me there. He would have found the rooms uncomfortable and his mother poor company. My bones ache horribly and I seem unable to get through a day without lying down several times for a nap.

For Marcel’s sake, I must not give in to despair and lassitude but I feel, like Malherbe, that “I am vanquished by time and cede to its outrages.”

I managed a trip to the Louvre yesterday, with the Comtesse de Martel for my companion and encouragement. We spent some time admiring the
Italians. Ruskin has certainly sharpened my eye and we pursued a careful examination of light and colour in the Venetians. On leaving we passed the Caravaggios, and I remembered how I used to think that Marcel resembled the
Fortune Teller’s
gay client. Yet now he is so sallow and pale, with none of the pink-cheeked ebullience of the figure in the painting. He looks like an old man these days, although he is only thirty-two. At times, his illness angers me, for I feel he throws away all hope of a normal life in his pursuit of an extravagant invalidism. And then I chastise myself for not sympathizing with what he cannot help.

Marthe says Suzy can now pull herself up onto her own feet and will surely walk by Christmas. I wish I could find more solace in her small presence, so cheerfully greeting life, as I sadly take my leave of it.

Marcel is determined to reform his schedule by the new year. I doubt he will do it.

Sesame and Lilies
is going well and Marie has been a faithful editor and visitor. The medallion is magnificent—she has followed our instructions so accurately, and created a strong likeness from all the photographs I lent her. Marcel says we must install it at Père Lachaise on the first anniversary next month. Marie does not look happy, however, and I only hope she has not misunderstood Marcel’s need for her.

Marcel has been giving much solace to the beautiful Mlle de Mornand these days. She visits regularly to cry on his shoulder, for d’Albufera’s engagement to the Princess was finally announced last week. I suppose every mistress believes she is so cherished that she will surely be the exception, the one who successfully makes the move from demimonde to beau monde. Well, we all believe our own loves are unique and are loath to see they are simply repeating predictable patterns.

Marie worked all afternoon with Marcel yesterday, and just as I was seeing her out, she crossed Mlle de Mornand in the hallway. Dear Marie looked stricken. I can hardly take her aside and tell her there is no reason to be jealous.

No more can I tell Mlle de Mornand that if she waits until six months after the society wedding, she will find that her lover will probably take her back, albeit under circumstances that will require more discretion. They say d’Albufera paid for her carriage and pair, although perhaps today the greatest proof of love would be the gift of an automobile.

I
BELIEVE THIS
is as close as I will come to an answer: Mme Proust knew much, but did not speak. There is only one more notebook in the document box, the journal for 1905, and skimming it, I find that the entries are sparse. I will be finished soon, and should go to the Air Canada office to book a flight home. It’s just past three o’clock: if I pack up now, I will make it there before closing.

I take File 263 back up to the reserve desk, and pass the
box across the counter to Ahmed. I am still tempted to study his face, to look for comparisons, and I must be staring, for he snaps at me: “What?” I look shamefacedly away.

It is an old habit this, sometimes conscious, sometimes not, to find the one who is missing in the throng, to read a beloved face in the profile of a total stranger. Max and I lost touch after he moved back to Toronto. At first, he phoned from time to time; I didn’t answer or didn’t return the messages and soon enough he stopped. But I still would see him often, a few rows ahead at a concert or play, rounding the next bend in the subway corridor, or crossing the street and hurrying away from me before I have time to really examine his face. Most of all, I see him in the lecture halls, hearing rooms, and conference centres where I work. I will slip into the translator’s booth, hang my purse over the back of my chair, put on the headphones, and ready my microphone, preparing to speak into it my version, in the other language, of the day’s speeches, papers, and disputations. And then I will look out at the room and catch sight of a head amongst those busying themselves with notepads, pencils, and briefcases as they wait for talk to begin. It is his head, I am sure of it. I recognize the curly hair, the way it follows the back of the scalp tightly but then bursts into a tangle of ringlets that sit thickly an inch or two above the collar.

My stomach tightens. It is always fear I feel now when I see Max. The hurt is done, if not forgotten, an encounter would at worst be uncomfortable, yet I flinch at the thought of it the way an animal once kicked will forever cower. He is the past but I think only of how to run. I shrink in my chair, desperate that he should not look up and back, yet staring so hard at him to ascertain that it is actually him, that he will surely feel my eyes on him with that sixth sense
one has in public places. Indeed, he turns in his chair to adjust the coat he has been sitting up against and so doing glances upwards. I cannot always recall Max’s features in my mind’s eye, sometimes they are far from me, but these are not his. This is some other dark-haired man, and relief eases into me.

Often my mistake is ludicrous. This man is far too tall, that one much lighter complexioned. Why would Max, a Toronto doctor, be sitting in the crowd at a Montreal colloquium for urban planners? Why would Max, a Jew, be bent over a hymn book at the Christmas carol service at Notre-Dame-des-Douleurs? What would Max be doing here, shelving boxes in the Bibliothèque Nationale?

Once recognizing my mistake, I take to comparing the difference, to see if I can still remember Max’s face readily enough to know why this is not his, using what is absent to conjure something into the present, attempting to turn what is not into what is. This face is larger, the nose longer, the cheeks flatter. This hair is thinner, the brow higher. This face is more conventionally handsome and the wearer knows it, his eyes are shallower, self-conscious of his body rather than his soul. He is more present yet less alive.

Sometimes, it is simply a single feature that I recognize in others. I am sitting on a train, travelling to Ottawa to visit old friends from school who now work as parliamentary translators there, and I see Max’s nose. The bearer is utterly different, but it’s the same nose, a delicate little isosceles triangle inserted high on the face. Or I notice that the aerobics instructor in the gym I sometimes visit blushes in exactly the same way, involuntarily flustered at the least excitement, so that you quickly forgive him his evident self-absorption.