Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

Like everyone else, Laura Sand was waiting for Silvestri to join in, since he was known to share Kirsten’s spontaneous opinion. But the Italian met this tense expectation with a poker face and picked more crumbs of tobacco from his tongue than were actually there. At last Laura Sand revealed with a twitch of the corners of her mouth that she had understood his refusal, and now developed her own thesis, which wasn’t so far removed from Kirsten’s feelings. At first Kirsten listened to her with excitement; but when it got technical, she leaned back inconspicuously and looked furtively at her watch.

‘I am a bit puzzled, though,’ she said to Perlmann later in the hall, though it sounded more intimidated than puzzled, ‘about how tough the debate was there. At our seminars it’s a lot… a lot looser, friendlier. Did you think it was really embarrassing when I burst out with my opinion?’

Perlmann didn’t reply, because at that point Maria walked up to them and handed him a printout of Leskov’s text, with the pages of his hand-written translation underneath.

‘ Eccolo ,’ she said. ‘It took until now because Signor Millar had some other things to write.’

For the title, printed in an exaggeratedly large, bold font, she had used a sheet of its own. Now she pointed at it and started to remark upon it. With a presence of mind that he didn’t experience deep within himself, Perlmann anticipated her and introduced Kirsten. He held the text behind his back with both hands, as he uttered words of praise about Maria which struck him as unbearably hollow. And no sooner had Maria addressed a question to Kirsten than he made an apologetic gesture, walked over to the reception desk and asked Signora Morelli to put the stack of paper in his pigeonhole.

‘I thought the text was very interesting,’ Maria said when she walked back to them. ‘Only the last third, that stuff about appropriation, I didn’t really understand that.’

‘Yes, that is a problem,’ said Perlmann, and started to turn away. ‘And many thanks for your work.’

‘You’re welcome. And… Just a moment… We’re still on for the other text on Friday?’

Perlmann felt Kirsten’s eyes on his face. When he turned round again, he had the feeling of moving a heavy, shapeless load. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘as agreed.’

He was already holding the dining-room door handle when Kirsten pointed towards the pigeonholes. ‘That’s the text for your session on Thursday, isn’t it? Something about linguistic creation. Or did I misread it? You whisked the pages away so quickly!’ she laughed.

‘Later,’ Perlmann murmured when he saw Ruge and von Levetzov coming towards them.

‘You know,’ said Kirsten when they sat down at the table, ‘I thought I might be able to take a copy of the text. To read on the journey. Do you think I could ask Maria to make another printout for me?’

‘Later,’ said Perlmann. He hadn’t managed to keep his distress and fury out of his voice. He put his hand on her arm and smiled awkwardly. ‘We’ll talk about it later. OK?’

It took her ages to freshen herself up for the journey and pack her few belongings. Perlmann looked apprehensively down at the bay, where the first dawn was breaking below the gloomy sky. She hadn’t said another word about the text. And that (he knew his daughter far too well) had nothing to do with the fact that they had all gone on sitting in the dining room until after three, laughing at the jokes of Achim Ruge, who had risen to the occasion under Kirsten’s admiring gaze.

She would never speak again about that text of her own free will. She would sooner bite off her tongue. It had always been like that when he had treated her impatiently about anything. As before, she then tended to put on that pointedly oblivious, uninterested face that conveyed a single unambiguous message: It’s nothing . Once, when someone in a specialist discussion had put forward the thesis that there was no other form of expressing negative assertions of existence apart from the linguistic, he had said, laughing, ‘You don’t know my daughter.’

Shortly after Kirsten had gone to her room, he had taken the text from his pigeonhole. He had only looked quickly at the last printed page: thirty-seven pages, it was now. Then he had put the printout in his suitcase and added the handwritten sheets to Leskov’s text in the lower clothes drawer. He had phoned Genoa Station and reserved a sleeping compartment. Five minutes later he had phoned again and changed the reservation to a couchette. No, she couldn’t tell him with the best will in the world, the irritated woman had said, what connections to Konstanz there would be at six o’clock in the morning in Zurich. Since then he had been standing by the window and, although his back hurt, that seemed to him to be the only position in which he could bear to wait.

She was wearing the black coat again, and holding her red travelling bag when she suddenly appeared at about half-past six. It was as if the question of the text had never come up. He was actually quite nice, stupid Giorgio, she said, but she really couldn’t stand his endless mockery. And she certainly knew more about Faulkner than he did. She was wearing make-up again, and the bright-red hairgrip, he thought, didn’t match the gleaming, greasy purple of her lips.

They got to the station far too early; the dimly lit platform was still deserted. There was suddenly an embarrassed silence between them. They looked shyly at one another, and then Kirsten began aimlessly rummaging in her travelling bag. Suddenly, the abandoned platform was filled with the shrill ringing that Perlmann already knew. It was a penetrating, endlessly protracted noise that sounded ghostly because it was in the night, even though not the slightest thing was happening. They both exploded simultaneously into laughter, and Kirsten put her hands over her ears. They hastily left the station and stepped out under the plane trees in front of the exit.

She asked him if he really wanted to ride with her to Genoa when silence threatened to fall once more. That was really awkward. But he insisted on it. So later on they sat opposite one another in the shabby carriage, and Perlmann felt like bursting into tears when he realized that he was searching for topics of conversation as frantically as if she were a total stranger. At last he brought the subject around to Maria’s hairdo and asked whether hairspray was the latest thing.

‘Have you been living under a rock?’ she laughed. ‘That’s been out for ages. It’s like way, way out. No one wears it any more!’

Later she lit her last Gauloise and handed him the red lighter. Before he gave it back, he studied it very precisely, glad to be able to do something to counteract the silence that was threatening to fall once more. On the delicate gold rim the word Cartier was engraved in tiny letters. He was about to ask where she had got it, when her facial expression warned him, and he put it in her hand without a word. She turned it between her fingers as she looked out into the night.

‘I’ll give it to you,’ she suddenly said, smiling with relief like someone who has just said a long overdue goodbye. ‘Here, take it.’

He hesitantly took it from her. Her lips curled mockingly, then she snapped her fingers. ‘Over.’ He glanced at it once more and slipped it into his pocket. François .

She was temporarily alone in the couchette compartment. That could change in Milan, he thought, and then asked if she had any francs with her. For breakfast in Zurich. She leaned out of the window and stretched out her arm. He took her hand. At the front of the train the conductor started to close the doors.

‘You didn’t come to breakfast very often at home, either. To Mum’s distress.’ She sniffed, and now he saw the tears. ‘Only on the first day of the holidays, then we always sat together, all morning. That was… that was wonderful.’ She let go of his hand and wiped her eyes. ‘Giorgio told me you never come to breakfast.’ The train started moving. She laughed. ‘ Gli ho detto che ti voglio bene. Giusto? ’