Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

Perlmann spoke Italian with her, and he spoke more quickly than his ability actually allowed him to. After the conversation by the pool the Spanish words sometimes came to him rather than the Italian, but he went on and on talking, even when the question of the room had long been resolved, so that Signora Morelli looked embarrassedly across to Adrian von Levetzov, who was irritably waggling a hotel prospectus. She couldn’t tell that Perlmann’s talking was a demonstration, a show for this man in the dark blue, almost black suit with the waistcoat and the gold watch chain. Whatever may happen over the next few weeks, I can do that better than he can.

‘I didn’t know your command of Italian was so good,’ von Levetzov said acidly, immediately changing the subject by pointing out of the door to the bay, where the light was already starting to break, producing a reddish glow. ‘I myself prefer the Anglo-Saxon to the Latin world, and, in fact, I prefer English parklands to Mediterranean idylls. But I am forced to admit that it is quite charming here. I am also, of course, looking forward to my academic dispute with you, my dear Perlmann. Recently, sad to say, I have not got around to pursuing your latest works. The last thing I heard was your report at our conference a year ago. My book created quite a considerable stir, discussion forums, lectures, you know all that. But in the coming weeks I can catch up on my Perlmann reading. You know how highly I esteem you, even if we have opposing views. I’m very excited to hear your latest ideas. I shall take my time and I will be all ears.’

It sounded like a threat to Perlmann, and he froze. For someone like him, who carried a facade around with him, and trembled behind it, waiting to be unmasked, this elegant man with the smooth black hair and the rimless glasses was a great danger. The biggest, leaving Millar aside. He talked like a character out of Thomas Mann, and the first time students heard him there were grins and giggles. But only at the outset. He was feared as an obsessive worker who couldn’t understand that other people needed a break from time to time. When he talked, as he had just been doing, about himself, it sounded like clumsy boasting. But although he was vain and mannered, he was by no means snobbish, but rather a man who lived in a modest apartment full of books and was entirely absorbed in his subject, to which he contributed more than most of the others. From time to time he was seen at the Hamburg Opera, only ever at Mozart and always alone. There were rumours about a brief liaison with an actress, and about alcohol. No one knew anything precise.

Evelyn Mistral’s hair was tousled from rubbing when she entered the lobby with her swimming towel around her shoulders. For Perlmann, the radiant presence of her laughter had disappeared into the far distance. The presence of Adrian von Levetzov, and his last words above all, had interposed themselves between him and that laughter like frosted glass. The hour by the pool was by now nothing but a lovely deception, a Fata Morgana. He was relieved that she had rolled up Leskov’s text and passed the dictionary up to him with its reverse side up. He took both of them in one hand, which he then hid behind his back.

Tall von Levetzov bowed down to little Evelyn Mistral, took her hand as if to kiss it and said in exaggerated Oxford English that he very much regretted the fact that her teacher hadn’t been able to come as he was, of course, irreplaceable. He seemed not to notice that her narrow mouth twitched at his tactlessness, and announced with a glance at the clock that he had to make a few phone calls, while his colleagues in Germany were still in the office. Then he hurried upstairs, always taking two steps at a time; as he did so his watch chain bounced up and down, emphasizing the grotesque contrast between the forced youthfulness of his movements and his old-fashioned appearance.

When Evelyn Mistral had disappeared in the elevator, Perlmann stood motionless for a while and stared at the bright stripe that the afternoon sun cast on the marble floor of the lobby. She was more than twenty years younger than him, and yet the face with which she had watched von Levetzov’s departure had expressed a confidence and an effortless detachment of which he could only dream. It’s unfair , he thought repeatedly, as he hobbled back to his lounger to fetch his cigarettes. And every time that sentence was swamped by a wave of diffuse and directionless resentment, he rejected it as ludicrous nonsense.

Laura Sand was not due to arrive before five o’clock. Perlmann went up to the room. When he slumped on the bed, he felt as if the whole supply of solitude that he had brought here with him had already been completely used up by these two encounters, and he was assailed by a feeling of defenselessness.

What bothered him most when he visualized what had happened was the way he had rushed all the way along the terrace to the reception to greet von Levetzov. He could see himself: a gaunt man in a dark blue polo shirt and light-colored trousers, with short, black hair and a pale face behind his black horn-rimmed glasses, a man hurrying to be of service. And alongside that image, another image of solicitude appeared: the memory of his father when he was called to the telephone. It was the picture of a harmless, banal situation, and yet one of the worst mental images that he had brought from home. His father walked with oppressive haste and a facial expression that suggested it was a matter of life and death. On no account could anyone address him when he was walking like this; he walked in a way that caused one involuntarily to catch one’s breath. His face always seemed to have turned red, and to be covered with a film of sweat, glistening. He walked bent forward, at the service of everyone who paid him the honor of calling him on the telephone. The caller must not be kept waiting. By the very fact of calling, this caller had acquired the right to have him, his father, entirely at his command. As the callee, at that moment his father had no life of his own, no time of his own and no needs of his own that a caller would have had to take into account. He was unconditionally available, all the time, on call.

It had taken Perlmann some time to work out that for ages this image had shaped his relationship with the outside world, the world of other people. You had to be at the service of that world, you depended on the mercy of its acknowledgement. But at the same time neither he nor his father could have been described as submissive characters. No, that wasn’t it. It was the pure anxiety that this solicitude provoked; a constant fear of the consequences it might have if you let others feel that one had desires of one’s own, which were in contact with theirs, even if it only meant that the others had to wait for a while. The idea of these serious consequences was far from clear; the closer you looked, the more their content evaporated. But that didn’t change anything about the choking, suffocating power that that anxiety held over you. Once Perlmann had heard a doctor making a phone call during hospital hours. He had come out with some quite unremarkable sentences: ‘No, that’s impossible right now. I’m busy… I understand. Then you’ll just have to call again later on.’ The doctor had said these sentences in a friendly but firm tone that clearly delineated him from the person at the other end, and he had said them with an effortless self-evidence that had practically hypnotized Perlmann. It had been like a revelation: saying sentences like that in that tone – that was what you had to be able to do. You had to be able to say them without your heart thumping, without any inner agitation or even just stress, quite calmly and without having to think about them any further. On that occasion, when the door of the hospital had closed behind him and he had gone out into the street, he had known that a lack of solicitude would henceforth be the most important ideal of his life.