The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (19 page)

“A coffee?”

“Later. Let’s finish this first. You threw away the card.”

“What card?”

“The card with the text from the
New York Times.”

“Was it important?”

“You didn’t even look at it, and you threw it out.”

“It didn’t interest me.”

“I sorted this mail! And I kept that postcard.”

“All right, let’s see it. If I haven’t torn it.”

“You didn’t tear it. I was watching you. You merely threw it away.” Peter bends down, rifles through the pile and recuperates the postcard.

“You’re right, I didn’t look carefully. And now that I’m looking, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see. The image is too small. A hammer and sickle? I can see that. A letter to the editor.
I was amazed by the front page article of October
4,
which talks about the State Hermitage Museum’s intention to exhibit Impressionist art considered lost during World War II.
An old piece, from last October. We’re in a different year.”

“So much the more interesting. Read on to the end.”

“Okay, I will read on.
In the mid
1970s,
on a trip to Saint Petersburg, then Leningrad, I visited the Hermitage. I asked the guide if I could see the French Impressionist paintings recovered from Germany and brought to the USSR at the end of World War II.
Interesting? This seems interesting to you?”

“I thought you were going to read to the end.”

“Much to the delight of my mother…
eh, same old story. Russian mother, probably came here sixty years ago, when she was eight.
To my mother’s delight, and to the delight of the other six Americans in our group, the guide brought us to a separate room of the Hermitage. We then entered an elevator that seemed unused, which took us to the floor above. There were several rooms full of celebrated works.
You want me to go on?”

“Yes, that’s what I want, go on.”

“We were allowed to walk around and look at the paintings. I
wonder how many other foreign tourists benefited from a similar privilege while visiting the Hermitage. Neither the guide, nor the museum’s administration seemed surprised at our request.

“So, they were lucky; they were privileged; the mother will tell her neighbors all about it when she gets home. Is that all? I see there’s more. The end is in the interrogative. An admonishment addressed to the journalist.
What gave you the impression that this collection was a ‘secret of the state’?
Should I look for the article to which this refers? Male or female? Did you find it already for me, the October 4
New York Times?

“I didn’t look for it. The postcard has two sides. Text on both sides.”

The professor turns it over.

“So, then, the frontispiece of
the New York Times, Wednesday, October 12.
A collage.”

“Yes, a collage.”

“The postcard is divided by a vertical line. On the right, the address. My address,
Professor,
and so on,
College,
and so on, et cetera. On the left, the text. A direct address. First name. As though between old acquaintances who’ve never even met.
My dear so and so. Dear Peter.
That’s what the shops teach me. To dress elegantly, to buy cars, bathrobes and umbrellas, to frequent the gyms and the banks that offer loans and the magicians selling the castle I dreamed of in childhood.
Next time . . . Next time I kill you, I promise. The labyrinth made of a single straight line which is invisible and everlasting. Yours truly, D.
What’s this?”

“I don’t know.”

“A joke.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe something more?”

“I don’t know. You need to show it to the dean.”

“The dean? Nonsense like this must happen a million times a day. D? That’s how it’s signed.
D-Death?
Just like that, death?”

“Crimes are common in this country. We take jokes seriously. And you told me about a crime. It seemed like a farce, but it wasn’t.”

“That crime took place here, in America, but the cause for it was in a different place.”

“A compatriot. Another professor.”

“He actually was a professor. I’m just pretending.”

“An unsolved crime, you were saying. The victim was the author of many books and a few doctorates. He entrusted you to write the review that scandalized your former country. A scandal followed; you both knew that it would. The professor was killed, and the reviewer, the impostor, as you say, was bombarded with the press’s garbage.”

“I don’t see the connection. The assassination story was serious. Tied to the former secret police.”

“So you’ve mentioned. The former secret police and the new secret police.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“That’s what you always say. More complicated. When you talk about the past and when you talk about the present. Complicated. Here, we’re in the country of simplifications. For the masses’ consumption, that’s the rule.”

Peter Ga
par feels infantilized again, groping about in the unknown. A year ago, Tara was addressing him, a maladroit Martian and stranger to the lay of the land and the rhythms of the times, with ferocity and impudence. Now she was protecting him!

Peter Ga
paris quiet. He doesn’t look at his guest, he doesn’t want her to see his hands, feet, hair, lips.

“You have to give the dean that postcard.”

“The dean?”

“Yes, the sailor who conquered the oceans, became a doctor of psychology and is now the dean of a college. He trained the baseball team here, if you want to know. That’s America for you! Mr. Carey, the dean of the college, not Rosemarie Black, the dean of students. So then, Carey, P.C. for short.”

The professor listens attentively and is inattentively quiet.

“Or speak directly to Jennifer.”

“Which Jennifer?”

“Jennifer Tang, the head of security. An elegant and civilized woman.”

“How do you know?”

“I know a few things about a few things. Jennifer Tang is the widow of an extraordinary Vietnamese professor of Oriental cultures. He was wounded in the war the wonderful American forces lost. She cared for him to his death, like a nun. Then she got herself hired by the college and became the head of security. She’s worth meeting with. Elegant, delicate. Made of steel. Blonde, besides.”

“A blonde Vietnamese?”

“Dyed. Interesting, you’ll see . . . So, Jennifer Tang, J.T.” “You know too much.”

For a second, Professor Ga
par seemed animated.

“I’m not done. She likes girls. It’s known and it’s tolerated. You’ve probably noticed that there’s more tolerance now, for women and men with partners of the same sex. More than for others of us. In September, when classes start, there’s always competition among the boys and girls for the new girls. The old girls usually win. You didn’t know that.”

“No, that’s another thing I didn’t know,” the professor admits, modestly. “But I’m not going to go to the sailor, nor to the blonde Vietnamese. I don’t want to look any more ridiculous than I already do. The role I’ve been sentenced to is enough for me.”

“What role is that?”

“The refugee. The oddball. The weirdo. He connects, but he doesn’t connect. Communicates, but doesn’t communicate.”

“Not true. I know someone with whom he communicates.”

“But he doesn’t shave regularly.”

They both smile, but the mood doesn’t slacken. Peter no longer stares at his knees. He watches Tara, who understands that he doesn’t, in fact, see her.

“That’s it, we’re going to have a coffee. I’ve accomplished my mission; I sorted the mail, and I deserve a cup of coffee. If you want, I’ll check once more, after I leave. If not, I won’t. Now, coffee. Make some coffee.”

Ga
par gets up. On the way to the kitchen, he turns off the radio. Mozart is finished, and Wagner can be quiet. He could really go for a glass of wine. But he’d better not. “Be careful,” President Larry had said, “and keep your office door open.” The girls walk around with their tits hanging out. If you look too closely and you also happen to have glasses, they’ll cry rape or God knows what. Keep the door open, or you’ll get into trouble.

The cottage wasn’t his office, though. The breasts of the student were covered by a sweater that went all the way up to her neck. Should he offer her a glass of wine? Better not. He’d bought Tara’s favorite apple pie from the library cafeteria.

The professor appears with the tray, the student is flipping through a book. She doesn’t help him, as she usually would; she waits to be served. She knows he’s not too dexterous, but she doesn’t get up to help him. She watches attentively how he arranges the plates and cuts the pie.

“I could really drink a glass of wine,” she says.

Silence. The tenant of the present is silent.

“If you have any, I’d like to drink a glass of wine. You won’t be arrested. I’m over twenty-one, I’m allowed. And it’s a winter evening.”

“In that case, vodka’s better.”

“No, no hard liquor. A glass of wine, if you have any.”

“I do. Red wine.”

“Perfect.”

They resume the conversation. The Eastern European professor’s assassin; the review published nearly two years ago; the famous compatriot’s and the victim’s memoirs.

Exotic subjects. Peter Ga
par knows himself to be an exotic figure in the carnival of freedom.