The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (13 page)

“Who could have guessed that Cosmin Dima was Larry Two’s professor! At the same university frequented by the historian Larry One.”

Pauses, breathing, shock; Gora accumulated shocks.

“The beginning of a passionate discussion. Enlightened by the devil, Larry One suddenly proposes that I review the last volume of Dima’s memoirs. Me? Me! I’m speechless. I refuse. No, not me! He feels that he’s pressed a tender point. He’d read the TLS review that
scorches Dima. Fascist, Nazi, reactionary, hypocrite beneath the mask of a man of culture. He looks askance at Larry One and insists. I make excuses, I stammer. I find my way out: I can’t write in English. ‘No problem, we’ll find a translator.’ ‘Dima’s biography is complicated,’ I say, ‘the review needs a historian of complicated times.’ I look desperately at the historian, for his confirmation, his help, his salvation. My boss is silent. ‘My man,’ says the invalid, ‘there’s no better historian than life itself, and you have the best qualifications.’ Again he looks at Larry One, who remains silent. ‘Careful, Bedros, make sure your man sends me the review next month, not later than next month.’ Done! Liquidated!”

Gora should have muttered something, at least after this scene, something to himself, should have hummed a song, something,
anything.
Nothing.
Niente.

“And there you have it, Professor Gora; it’s a disaster. Will you save me? Will you write this review instead? It’s great for your curriculum! Larry Two’s journal is important. Plus, you know Dima’s life and work better than I do. I’ll call the journalist and tell him that I found the perfect replacement. The distinguished Professor Augustin Gora will write a better review than I could. Out-stand-ing, that’s Saint Augustin.”

Gora was looking at the lustrous table, full of papers. He rifled through the scribblings and, yes, finally found what he was looking for, pulled the document closer, inspecting it ecstatically, as if it were the transcript of the conversation he was just having with Peter.

“It’s you they asked. I can’t see why you won’t write it.”

“Yes you can; it’s impossible not to. You know the Old Man’s life better than I do. You know what I’m getting into.”

Old Man Dima had died a few years back, at a venerable age, but only Gora had used such familiarity before and after his death.

In the end, the newcomer started to prepare the review. He referred often to Gora’s acquaintances and to the bibliography that Gora recommended. Soon he would change his mind, he didn’t want to write it anymore; then, he would change it back. Gora ad-vised
him to ignore the details and periods that would provoke unpleasant reactions on the part of many, including the Ga
par family.

But this was exactly the impulse that mobilized Peter! Like a masochist, he solicited ever new information, maintaining all along that Gora was better suited to write the text, deploring his dubious caution in long, furious phrases. Even coming to America, despite real risks, seemed more cautious than remaining in the socialist underground, wasn’t that right, Professor Gora? Prudence was just an elegant term for cowardice, wasn’t it?

Ga
par knew that kind of prudence himself; he wasn’t so different among the underground socialist duplicities. And he was still the same now while experimenting with a different metabolism for survival. Evidently, he avoided conflicts with his former country. Just like Gora. Caution prevailed in Gora’s refusal to make a public statement about Dima, but also in his acknowledgement of the Old Man. Ever ready to help a compatriot, Dima had recommended him to some universities. He also couldn’t forget the Old Man’s encyclopedic culture, his books, books, books, his extraordinarily prolific intellect, his kindness. After the scholar’s death, he’d remained in contact with the widow who sanctified his memory. The unsavory episodes of his past would surely have shaken her.

He encouraged the neophyte to confront the risk, guiding him toward an accessible bibliography. Uncomfortable conversations, Peter increasingly more aggressive.

“Who’s writing this review? Am I? Am I to reveal—or rereveal, to be exact—Polichinelle’s secret? Am I to be the one who turns the distinguished deceased over to the public’s vengeance?”

He asked, really asking himself. He wasn’t waiting for an answer, but the interrogated became an accomplice to the interrogation. An indirect complicity.

“Wasn’t this what our ancestors taught us? An eye for an eye. I crucify Saint Dima, the way they crucified the Savior. You recognize this language, sir Gora, you’ve heard it so many times. Did you recoil? You did, I know it, there was a reason you were suspicious.
You’re the sinners’ and pagans’ accomplice, just as I am. Did you know? Of course you knew … what you didn’t know is that Judas, precisely Judas, understood the need for martyrdom in the beginning of any new religion! So then, the sinful Judas is a hero. Marriage outside of religion is no blessing, nor is it charitable, but you’re a Christian hero, Saint Judas. You had that nickname long before you met Lu. But I’m not interested in Judas. I’m interested in hearing you tell me why I, specifically I, should be the one to write Saint Dima’s indictment.”

The speaker was exposing himself frenetically; one moment he directed his aggression toward Lu, then toward her parents, her former husband, the whole world.

“And why should I be the one to sympathize with him, to show tenderness toward the great Dima? Because I, too, am exiled, crucified; so I should stand by him in solidarity, no? I should understand what it means to be dispossessed of your country, right? A country like the sun in the sky, right? Or like the moon? You remember? Dima’s comrades glorified collective death. ‘Sweet deliverance,’ they cried. The nation is a compact alliance of believers and martyrs. Democracy means corruption, demagogy, decadence, impurity and disorder and disaster, you remember? Then came the Teutonic defeat, the superior race turned to shit, while their Balkan allies were living their own apocalypse. The revolution of the crooked cross started an industry of death, on the pavement and in the furnaces, underground and in water and in the air, millions of dead. Then followed exile, loneliness, the terror of the moralizers who could unmask the Master’s past. And I’m the one who’s supposed to understand all this? I understand, without effort, Professor.”

He stopped, but only to take a breath of air.

“Yes, the great scholar is worthy of admiration. The work, yes! Without the biography. Why, then, did he publish his memoirs and journals? He couldn’t put down the mirror, not even when it was cracked and dishonest. Of course, I know what the Old Man felt when his library burned. Trembling, isolated, he watched the flames
from the street. The ashes of a life about to be swept away forever. Believe me, I know what fire and ash mean, what burning and ash mean.”

He addressed his virtual audience; he couldn’t stand to be his own and only listener.

“Do you know, Professor Gora, how much I hoped to be nothing, finally? I’m a wanderer. A happy and ir-re-spon-si-ble wanderer in the land of wanderers.”

He wasn’t drunk, and there was no sign of any other distress except the frenzy of his tortured mind. He’d rifled through his memory, finding wounds he’d never shared with anyone and which, obviously, he was still sickened to share. He was sickened by the vehemence into which he’d sunk.

A whimper of powerlessness. Self-pity was the less than honorable mark of powerlessness.

It was harder and harder for Gora to accept the punishment to which he was being subjugated.

“You should meet Palade.”

“Portland? I heard he changed his name. Out of anger toward his former country as well as devotion to the new one.”

“Yes, Palade-Portland. He was close to Dima. His admirer. He came to America for him. He knows many things about his Maestro, he could tell you a few things. In fact, I think …”

Professor Gora wiped the sweat off his brow and throat with his palm.

Ga
par refused to widen the circle of listeners. After another two phone calls, however, he suddenly became obsessed with the idea of visiting the apprentice wizard. Until then, he’d known the eminent Palade only from his books.

A week of conversations, not so different from the one with Gora some years back.

“The case of Dima has implications that go beyond Dima, that’s why it’s important. Can we ask anyone to admit his own sins in public? We can’t. Especially in death and rebirth and the imposture named exile. You don’t introduce yourself in your new residence by
exposing your former filth, you want a clean start, you present yourself clean and new, isn’t that right? Is that imposture? Maybe. You own it, you embody it, until you can’t tell it apart from your former impostures or those to come in the future. It’s the routine of life itself, isn’t that right, Professor? Did you ever imagine such banality? In love and cheated, poor Palade … he can’t let go of that disenchantment. Angry and envenomed. Still, we’ve arrived at the same conclusion. Dima is merely a man, like so many men. The context, the history, the mentality that he represents, yes, it’s worthwhile to aim for this. In the past and in the present. The griping and confusion and crimes of the Nation. Nation, with a capital N. With all the letters large and black. There and anywhere. Yes, yes, he told me about the little hat, as well. About the knitting, as you say.

“Dima hadn’t spoken to Palade about his former comrades, and he couldn’t attack his Communist adversaries. He was in their hands, they could at any point pull out the old documents from the archives … The good Granny hears and sees and says nothing, Palade would say, just like you. The Old Man responded to any difficult question by cracking his boney knuckles and taking up the knitting of his little hat, that’s what your friend Palade, the unrequited lover, would say.”

Days and nights of controversy. Gora anticipated a harsh review. Would Peter Ga
par verbalize his hesitations, or the rhetoric of justice?

And what if it’s an admirable text, muttered Gora to himself. It would revive the rumors that had circulated after Peter published
Mynheer,
when people began to regard him as the author of who knew what masterpiece. That’s all we need!

That’s all we need, not just a poor story or a poor review, but a masterpiece, babbled Gora to himself, assaulted by another attack of Peter’s loquaciousness.