Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

‘One moment, please,’ he said afterwards to the taxi driver. He set the dictionaries down on the lid of the trunk and looked up incorporating . Vkluchat’ . It seemed to him that he had read that. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said to the baffled driver.

In his room he immediately sat down at the desk. He was glad that he hadn’t stacked the books up as he had in his first room. In this way he could comfortably set out the material that needed to be translated. Above all, there was enough room for the Russian-English dictionary, which, when it was opened, occupied almost half of the desktop. The other dictionary, the one that the woman with the huge earrings had bought, he pushed into the right-hand corner at the back. He had never seen earrings that size before. He had liked the emerald green with the fine gold edge.

He started where Leskov began to speak about the idea of appropriation. For osvaivat’ he wrote both assimilate and master , with a slash between them. It was a much slower process than translating into German. On the other hand, it was much more exciting, and if he managed an English sentence easily he breathed out heavily with joy. Often, on the other hand, easiness didn’t come into it. Comprehension was also possible when there were vague edges of meaning. Then, without really noticing, one brought along the great diversity of knowledge that accompanied every word in one’s own language, and that knowledge enabled one to fill in the gaps in comprehension when confronted by unfamiliar foreign words. Translation from one foreign language into another, on the other hand, ruthlessly exposed the smallest uncertainty in one’s linguistic sensitivity. Of course, that applied particularly to Russian. But Perlmann also quickly got a sense of how great his uncertainty was with regard to certain English expressions, and there were sentences when both sides blurred, it was like an equation with two unknowns. At such points he became aware of how many things he had hitherto simply ignored.

And, nonetheless, from the start it was like a fever that he didn’t want to come to an end. He had filled almost two pages, when the word priznavat’ arrived. He was about to see if there was a translation other than to acknowledge , when he remembered dinner. He irritably slipped into his jacket and dashed down the stairs. The waiter was already clearing away the soup plates when Perlmann sat down at the table opposite Millar.

Only now, at the sight of Millar’s face, did Perlmann remember the CD. He reached into his jacket pocket and felt the cool plastic of the packaging. He had the sense of touching a relic from some past inner world that looked ridiculous in retrospect. And had Millar’s face not shown disapproval of his repeated lateness, he would have let things lie.

‘Oh, by the way, Brian,’ he began, trying to keep all sense of triumph out of his face, ‘that encore you played on Saturday isn’t number 902 in the catalogue. It’s 930; 902 is in G major.’

He had managed to say it in a relaxed, almost playful manner, and a touch of awareness of how ridiculous the whole business was had made its way into his voice. But now a silence fell upon the room, where the only person who wasn’t part of the group was John Smith, and gave the scene an ominous feeling of drama.

Millar straightened his glasses, leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. He stuck out his lower lip for a moment, shook his head barely perceptibly and said with a smile that made his eyes narrow:

‘Quite frankly, Phil, I don’t think I’m wrong there. I’m pretty familiar with the lesser-known Bach.’

Perlmann took his time. He held Millar’s challenging gaze. This one time he found it wonderfully simple. Their eyes locked onto each other. That moment compensated for much, and he savored it. After what was about to come, Millar wouldn’t dare to return to the business about his idiotic question.

He took the package containing the two CDs out of his pocket, let his eye rest upon it with theatrical elaborateness, and then pushed it slowly across the undulating tablecloth to Millar. Laconically. Very laconically .

‘You can see your mistake for yourself. It’s a very popular recording, by the way. You can have it.’ He was glad that he had said mistake and not error . It sounded more like school and would hit him harder.

Von Levetzov looked curiously across to Millar and then at Perlmann with a smile that was supposed to indicate that this time he was on his side. He’s an opportunist, a conversational optimist, who always throws in his lot with the stronger battalion .

Ruge smiled as well, but it was a smile without partisanship. He was simply amused by the matter; he who was always ready to attack in debates, and loved an exchange in which someone stood to win or lose.

Millar had opened the CD case, and shook his head with his lips pursed. ‘The label on the CD – that doesn’t mean a thing.’

‘It’s all in the booklet. In the other case.’

Millar contemptuously let the side of the booklet slide along his thumb. ‘That would mean that it’s a piece from the Klavierbüchlein ,’ he said, and the comedy of his unsuccessful attempt at an umlaut took some of the contemptuous sharpness away from his words. ‘And it isn’t one of those. I’m absolutely sure of that.’ He snapped the case firmly shut and pushed it across to Perlmann, who left it in the middle of the table, right next to the gravy boat.

‘Well, Brian,’ said Perlmann, and tilted his head to the side as Millar often did, ‘we can listen to the piece over there later on.’

‘Yes, please,’ Laura Sand joined in. ‘I love that simple tune.’

If there was anything ironic about her remark, it was only the merest hint. But Millar irritably raised his eyebrows as if someone were mocking him in the most brazen way.

‘Well, Phil,’ he said, aping Perlmann. ‘Liner notes can contain mistakes, can’t they? It does happen. Even on CBS. No, no, we would need the score.’

‘Which could also be misidentified,’ said Silvestri, blowing smoke across the table.

‘Well now , Giorgio,’ snapped Millar.

‘ Buon appetito ,’ Silvestri grinned, raising his glass.

Millar stayed out of the rest of the conversation. He stared at the plate in front of him. Only once did he glance past Perlmann into the room, but lowered his head again immediately. Evelyn Mistral giggled, and when the others turned round they saw John Smith raising his glass to Millar.

‘By the way, Phil,’ Millar said suddenly over coffee, ‘how come you happen to have a copy of the record on you?’ He rested his chin on his folded hands and looked steadily at Perlmann. ‘Sort of a fluke, huh?’

The cool, casual sentence that Perlmann had had ready was gone. There was nothing there but a void, and in it his old fear of Millar. He put another sugar lump in his coffee and stirred it. He saw the ice-cream wrapper in the gutter and the emerald-green earrings. The translation of Leskov’s text was waiting for him upstairs. Suddenly, the sentence was there again. He looked up, and it was as if he could feel the collective eyes on his face like the heat of a lamp or the faint sting of a salty breeze.

‘I happened to see it and just picked it up,’ he said. It didn’t sound worldly, more embarrassed and apologetic, and he feared Millar’s next remark. Then he heard Laura Sand’s dark, throaty laugh.

‘A trouvaille , in fact,’ she said, and gave Millar one of her ironic glances as she stubbed out her cigarette.

There was mute, helpless fury in Millar’s face as he folded his napkin. He was the first to rise from the table.