Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

Leskov was silent as they drove on, and when Perlmann at one point glanced at him his eyes were closed. The silent figure in the dark struck him as the embodiment of suspicion. No, he’s not suspicious. Because he doesn’t know the motive. In as little as an hour that could be different. Perlmann would park at the gas station near the hotel, and perhaps have to answer a question about the damaged car, then up the steps, the veranda on the left, greeting from Signora Morelli, who would hand the text to Leskov. Leskov would rest for a bit, then Perlmann would have to introduce him at dinner. There would be the usual ritual greetings, the clichés, the conventional smiles, elegant, smooth words from Angelini, and then, back in the room, Leskov would make his discovery. He would reach into the outside pocket of his suitcase to confirm the monstrous discovery – horror – and then, once the first paralysis was past, it would dawn on him and he would know everything. Or else Leskov would be too tired this evening; then it would happen tomorrow morning when he, Perlmann, was sitting at the front on the veranda. Or else Leskov would be so curious that in spite of the long journey he would start reading immediately, perhaps even in the elevator. They would step towards one another under the chandeliers in the elegant dining room, and then… At that point Perlmann’s imagination failed. The images collapsed, and inside him it turned grey, dark grey, but above all opaque, impenetrable and gloomy, numbingly gloomy.

He knew he didn’t have the strength to endure it. Pian dei Ratti . It ran through his head. Pianezza , Piana , Pian dei Ratti . Those names, black text on a white ground, were bound up with trepidation and haste, and they echoed within him a thousand times over. There was no one at the slate works at that time of day, and in the dark the people were no longer leaning in the windows. And it wouldn’t matter if there were people up in the house by the bend. He hesitated. It was very questionable whether another truck would come along. It was twenty past six by now. But that wasn’t it. Perlmann felt that he no longer had the strength to try again. He could no longer summon the will, and if he tried to force himself to believe that he had it, it felt like a will that was hollow inside and could at any moment, at the slightest resistance, collapse in on itself.

They were now past Lumarzo, and soon the first of the two roads would branch off, leading straight down to the coast and skipping yesterday’s route to Chiávari. Perlmann slowed down when the sign came into view.

‘So has your own contribution been discussed already?’ asked Leskov when Perlmann had turned on the indicator.

At first Perlmann couldn’t find his voice. ‘No,’ he finally managed to say, and it was almost a croak. He slowed down still further until they were rolling only very gently.

‘Oh, then I’m lucky.’

Right by the turn-off, in the middle of the opposite lane, Perlmann tapped on the brake, and for the duration of a breath they stood quite still. Then he turned off the indicator, put his foot on the accelerator and drove on towards Chiávari. He didn’t reply to Leskov’s question. He could assume that Perlmann hadn’t heard it, because he was dealing with the turn-off, or that he was wondering how to describe his subject as simply as possible.

‘Is it something formal, technical?’ Leskov asked.

‘No,’ Perlmann said quietly.

‘I’m glad of that. At least I’m looking forward to it. When’s the session?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘It’s as if you’d just been waiting for me,’ Leskov laughed.

I’ve got to tell him. Now. Here. Perlmann had no idea how Leskov would react to this confession. There was this almost paternal relationship that he had with this man, who was practically his own age. Would those feelings come into it? Of course, the information would shock him. But perhaps he’ll be able to see it as self-defense if I explain to him how it came to this. And clearly he hadn’t forgotten the misfortune with Agnes. What had prompted a blind, intoxicating fury was now suddenly a hope, a straw that Perlmann clung to. Perhaps Leskov could see the deception as the deed of a person who had completely lost his equilibrium as the result of overwhelming grief and was no longer himself.

Perhaps, though, and this was far more likely, Leskov would be so dismayed that Perlmann couldn’t possibly ask him to keep the matter quiet. He would need time to grasp the full significance of the confession; only gradually would it become clear to him how monstrous Perlmann’s revelation was. Perlmann, the one who had issued the invitation, had shamelessly exploited the refusal of an exit permit, Leskov’s lack of political freedom, and his connection with his mother, which was a moral obligation. Perlmann had also exploited his trust, which had led Leskov to hand over his first draft, an unfinished and, to that extent, intimate text, unprotected. His colleagues were now holding in their hands that provisional, rough text, which was unorthodox and might scandalize. It was awkward enough appearing with such a text. Leskov would feel unmasked, even if he conceded to Perlmann’s request and didn’t come forward as the author.

‘Has a time been fixed for the session with my contribution?’ asked Leskov.

‘Thursday,’ said Perlmann, and that day seemed to him to be infinitely far away. It was a day he could no longer imagine reaching, a day that might have appeared on the calendar and might exist theoretically, so to speak, but an unreal day without morning, noon and evening, a day that he would never experience.

Perlmann’s request would mean asking Leskov to stand up and say that he had no lecture to deliver – the clueless Russian who had been invited out of sympathy with his political situation, as development aid. It meant, Leskov would say, that the second version in the trunk, the one he had brought with him, was useless. He couldn’t either. Generally speaking, he couldn’t present any of his ideas, nothing of the whole of his recent work. Otherwise it would seem as if he were the one who was copying Perlmann and simply hanging on to his theme. It would at least be screamingly obvious that the two men were writing about similar questions in a very similar, unorthodox way. Suspicion would be inevitable and, of course, the question of originality would be resolved to the disadvantage of him, the obscure Russian. It wouldn’t occur to anyone that it was the other way round, particularly since Perlmann, as it appeared at the time, was able to present a proper text, while Leskov would at best be able to quote verbally from his work.

‘You know, I’ve got this idea that you can appropriate your own past through narration,’ Leskov said out of the middle of his thoughts. ‘In the new version, this idea in particular has become much clearer. It took me a long time. And at the same time, in fact, I want to say that remembering is in a sense inventing.’ He laughed. ‘That must sound a little bit crazy to you, hearing it out of the blue like this. But in the text I develop it step by step. And just assume, hypothetically, that there’s something in it: then, of course, I’m immediately left with the question of what appropriation could mean with reference to one’s own inventions. In the first version, the one that you have, that’s still quite unclear. But now I think I have the solution. It’s rather a complicated story, and I’m glad that I managed to capture it on paper before I set off.’

Osvaivat’. Appropriation. So that’s true. The thought ran through Perlmann’s head without his intervention. It felt strange, and cut off from everything else. Or rather it didn’t feel like anything at all. It wasn’t really present as a thought of his own. It was more as if he were thinking someone else’s thought. As if someone else were now thinking that thought.