The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (12 page)

This was the start of Professor Gora’s gradual dedication to a laborious project.

The file on Peter Ga
par RA 0298 didn’t begin immediately following the conversation with Avakian. Gora preferred small deferments: if in two weeks Peter is still alive, then, yes, he will be honored with the yellow folder that he very much deserved.

The first notes were older accounts, then the conversation with the historian Avakian. There was also, already, the copy of the letter of recommendation that he sent to Avakian.

It didn’t suffice to say that Peter Ga
par had been, in a superrealist country, the author of a minor work (because it was a parody) and an unknown masterpiece (because he never wrote it) adored by a gallery of admirers. The work existed while the literary cafe intelligentsia said it existed, but couldn’t be proven to exist, and perhaps this wasn’t even necessary. Ga
par’s bylines about sports and shows and philatelic exhibits and horseraces were worth mentioning only in the obituary, but not in the letter. Gora underscored Peter’s lucidity in hard times and even slipped in a wave of sympathy for Ludmila’s bewildered cousin, referring to that first encounter when
the chauffeur had attempted to bring Avakian to the Other World instead of to John F. Kennedy airport. He didn’t forget to include a paragraph about Gaspar’s parents, survivors of the most infamous of all the Nazi concentration camps, a chapter that the son—a survivor of socialism—refused to discuss. As president of the Conference on the Armenian Genocide, Avakian was certain to be sensitive to such a detail. He mentioned, finally, the intellectual and pedagogic potential of the immigrant.

Once out of the hospital, Peter found himself unemployed. He inspected the business card of his partner in the race of death. There was no point in calling, he wouldn’t be able to access the celebrity. He consulted the train timetables; he’d arrived in the idyllic mountain setting and the college run by the ancient European historian.

While he waited to be received, the secretary informed him that the president wasn’t just a historian but also an authority called to testify in scandalous human rights violations cases, and a translator of ancient Greek.

“America!” Peter bumbled ecstatically. Universities hidden in the woods, like in the Middle Ages. University professors ready for adventure! Historians who plead in famous cases, musician chemists, psychologist bankers, athlete film directors, mathematicians blocking the mise-en-scene, actors turned senators, governors, presidents.

“The baroque? The baroque was your thesis? The baroque and the Dadaist derivation, you say?
Fine, just fine.
I’d like to hire you on this subject. But I can’t. Be a little more modest. Something else. Something else?”

The candidate was silent; his imagination balked.

“Something else. Something more exotic. Less academic. We have a lot of American literature doctors. As historians, I admit. Something more exotic, another subject?”

The candidate was silent; he couldn’t think of what might be exotic enough for such an exotic country.

“Communism? Could you talk about Communism?”

“No. Not exactly. But if there’s no other way …”

“The Holocaust?”

After the letter from Augustin Gora, President Avakian wasn’t surprised that Ga
par wasn’t answering the question.

“You know what this is about. You come from damaged territory. You have a lot to say, I imagine.”

“I don’t. I prefer not to. No.”

Larry gave him a long look and shrugged, dejected.

“Anything else? Another subject. Something unusual.”

“Circus,” muttered Peter to himself, considering the meeting in which he was participating.

“The circus, you say? Did you run a circus?” Gaspar’s former passenger became more animated.

“Not exactly. Somehow, out of curiosity. I’ve read a lot. I was passionate about the subject. I planned a scholarly work, but I never finished it.”

“The history of the circus? The baroque in the circus, the Dada-ism of the circus! Bread and circuses? That’s what the ancients said, right?
Panem et circenses.
The people need bread and circuses. We’re a popular democracy, we need circus, too, not just bread. And we have it. Circus after circus. Maybe you have another idea.”

Larry hired Peter Ga
paras a visiting assistant professor after evaluating the needs of the college and establishing the subject of the new colleague’s first course.

Peter Ga
par responded to the prospect of his picaresque American debut without too much astonishment. He expected such unexpected adventures. For those who knew him in his faraway country, the indulgence with which he received the extraordinary and the detachment with which he assimilated intermittent shocks were not at all surprising.

Still, Gora suspected something irregular in this fatalistic submission to chance. Was this the irresponsibility to which he aspired? He’d also dreamed of a similar emancipation, more than once. To be able to be anything, to simulate anything. The freedom of improvisation,
metamorphosis and availability. At a certain age, and with an Eastern European background, it seems preferable to confront just about anything, rather than have nothing else happen to you ever again.

Peter reappeared at unexpected moments. Long monologues followed by long absences. Gora’s silences didn’t discourage him. He didn’t limit himself to practical questions—quite natural for a newcomer—he offered intimate and sometimes embarrassing details.

Exile brings together people who previously moved in different circles; Gora was well aware of this state of emergency and indulgence; now it seemed like a substitution, the progressions and surprises of which he measured with some embarrassment.

Reasonably social in his home country, a good comrade and friend in a time of need, Peter seemed to codify his exuberance in small, incidental passages. Some thought him brash. Now he was punishing the listener through aggressive questions and revelations. Was it a suicidal vitality? A kind of trance that defies the normality; it was hard to know anymore whether it was benign or malignant. Was he finally experimenting now, in the American wilderness, with his own narration? Was he accepting his reeducation, the simplifications called for by the pragmatism of his new residence?

“Peter on the phone. I hope the name still means something to you.”

And voila, the ghost returned. Urgency granted it a victorious and superior air.

“Larry was lying in bed. He’d fractured his leg. His apartment was relatively banal, but in the wealthy neighborhood. A long body, in a long bed, the harsh face of a martyr. White plaits, tied in the back like a rat’s tail.”

“You said that Larry was short, with bristly hair, a mustache and exotic goatee.”

“Ah, no, that’s Larry One. We’re talking about the newsman Larry Two. Larry One brought me to Larry Two. A real celebrity, this man! I had no idea. I was seeing him for the first time, and his name didn’t mean anything to me yet.”

Enchanted by what he had to share, Peter allowed himself vast pauses in between sentences, mastering the rhythm of provocation.

“Friday. I was at Dr. Koch’s office again. I was hoping, of course, to run into Lu. And, of course, in vain.”

There was no need for a pause. It was enough that he’d mentioned Lu, their game of cat and mouse, or dog and cat. No, there was no need for such an aggressive silence, no need at all. The silence only emphasized the aggression with which he assaulted the husband.

“On the street, I ran head to head into Larry. Larry One, the president, the historian. I’m used to it. Coincidences hunt me here; they could never find me in my former life. And so, then, Larry, Larry One, the president, the client from the taxi. ‘How are you? Where are you headed? How are things? I haven’t seen you in ages. Are you busy? On your way to meet someone?’ ‘No,’ I say. ‘Come with me, I’m going to see a friend who’s bedridden.’ We arrive. It’s Larry Two. The famous newsman. The famous intellectual. ‘The Phosphorescent,’ as Avakian calls him.”

Silence. He was waiting for a reaction from Gora, who savored his silences.

“I had the
Times Literary Supplement
in my hand. I still bother with this nonsense; I haven’t found a cure yet. In the paper, a review of our great Dima.”

This didn’t elicit amazement, either; Gora just gazed at the folder in front of him, the computer and the white gloves on the edge of the table.