Danilo Kiš - The Lute and the Scars

“You have helped so many people,” Jurij Golec blurted out. “It’s just me you won’t help.”

“Take two at bedtime,” Dr. Wildgans said and set a little bottle of pills on the table. “These are more effective.”

After the two women had left, it felt as if a heavy layer of fog had once more settled over the room. The muted hum of the city was audible; music from one of the neighbors’ flats seeped through the walls. Somebody was stubbornly practicing chromatic scales on the saxophone; now and again the notes merged with the howling of ambulance sirens.

“You can talk freely in his presence,” Jurij Golec said, turning to Dr. Wildgans.

“You can’t demand it of me. I am a physician.”

“That’s precisely why. You are a physician, and I require an effective treatment. Cyanide. Or a pistol.”

“These pills will help you.”

“All right,” Jurij Golec said. “So you two want me to hurl myself from a fifth-floor window. To end up a cripple. Like miserable Raoul. You know Raoul. Or slice open my jugular. ‘My loved ones and friends shied away, seeing my wounds, and my fellow men are remote.’”

Suddenly he arose and picked up the ashtray in order to empty it. He left the bathroom door open as if he feared we might conspire against him. I heard him urinate and then flush the toilet.

“I don’t have it in me to open my veins or hang myself,” he said, as he returned with the now gleaming ashtray. “I can’t imagine myself with my face all swollen and blue, and my tongue stretched out. I’ve seen enough scenes like that in my life already. Let me assure you: a hanged man is not a pretty sight, not in the least. Even the fact that I could have one final ejaculation doesn’t much thrill me. If it’s even true that one ejaculates from the gallows. Can I take these with alcohol?”

He was holding the little bottle in his hand.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Dr. Wildgans.

The next day I called him again.

“You’ve reached 325-26-80, Madame Golec, or Noémie Dastre. Be so kind as to leave a message and your telephone number. Good-bye, and thank you.”

It was Noémie’s voice. It was coming either from heaven or from hell; it doesn’t matter which.

On Friday I went to Lille to teach my classes. I had about ten students; my classes were on “one of the languages that make up the great family of Slavic languages, along with Russian and Polish. ” I tried to make use of Mme Yourcenar’s sensational acceptance to the Académie française in order to introduce the students to the Serbian folk poetry that Mme Yourcenar held in high esteem, as her book Oriental Tales demonstrated. The students had not read Yourcenar. So I tried using love poems. In sonnet form. But they didn’t know what a sonnet was. I tried it in alexandrines, like Racine. (No doubt just some bourgeois scam.) So I switched to palatalization and the death of yat . Apparently that held some interest for them. They wrote it all down in their notebooks. Therefore I myself had to bone up during the train ride on palatalization and the death of yat .

Saturday I called up Ursula Randelis.

“Noémie’s voice is on the answering machine,” I said. “I felt like I was talking with the Hereafter.”

“He shocked me with that message, too,” she said.

“He demanded that I get him a pistol.”

“He asked me for that too. Don’t worry. You weren’t the only one. He always had a sense of drama. I know him well. I’ve known him for thirty years or so. My God, how time flies. Noémie’s death rattled him. I can understand that. It came so unexpectedly. The doctors themselves weren’t completely certain. She always just had this temperature, and you see? In less than a month. I don’t know how much you know, but they’d lived apart for twenty years. May she rest in peace. But she had a bad temper. And no understanding for him. Why should he only sleep with one woman his entire life? He’s not a rabbi, after all! She couldn’t stand me, either. It was no secret: I had been his lover. Back when I left the convent. Twenty years ago. Twenty-five. Since then we’ve been friends. The best of friends. I don’t understand what in hell this voice on the answering machine means. Sorry, but someone’s at the door.”

After a brief pause:

“My son. He’s learning Spanish. Blood is thicker than water. I won’t hold his hand through it. Just so you don’t do drugs, I tell him. Jurij Golec is like a child. He’s incapable of paying his telephone bill. Lord only knows how many times they’ve cut his phone off. Then Ursula swoops in to set things right. It’s the same with the power, and with the rent. With everything. And do you think Noémie ever lifted a finger? Never. He needs a mother. Or a sister. ‘How are you doing, Jurij?’ I ask him. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he’ll reply. ‘Just fine.’ ‘But I can tell that something’s not right,’ I say. ‘The inability of the human being to adapt to existence,’ he says. ‘That’s all it is.’ And now he has this inheritance on his shoulders. It is a torment for him. How is that going? I have no idea. Apparently the will hasn’t even been read yet. So that’s why he hasn’t budged from the apartment. I told him he should give the key to that little Japanese woman. There’s a Japanese woman living next door. A student. I wonder if he’s slept with her. Of course Noémie couldn’t stand her. At any rate he should get out of that apartment as soon as possible. And stop being so dramatic. What’s with the pistol? Between you and me, it is possible that she left him nothing. Not so much as a cent. She was certainly capable of doing that to him. He’ll have told you about it. So, fine, it’s her money. She earned it herself, and it’s hers to dispose of as she wishes. Jewish folklore or African sculpture — it makes no difference to me. Just let things get settled already. At any event, people should give him some peace and quiet now. You were right to tell him that: a year from now everything will be all right. As if I hadn’t been through crises myself. Show me a normal human being who hasn’t experienced a crisis. When Angel Asturias abandoned me, don’t you think I had a crisis then? Oh, I had one, and how! I drank, I took pills, the works. Excuse me, the doorbell again. It’s a madhouse here. I-am-com-ing! Call me again in the next day or two. I’m snowed under with work. Translating Cortázar right now. Don’t know if it’ll amount to anything. Whenever you want. One minute! I’m coming! You can also call late at night. Till one. Or two. Or even later. I’m coming! Mierda !”

On Sunday I was invited to Madame d’Orsetti’s. Since her divorce from a Parisian gallery owner, she lived by herself in her large apartment close to the Parc Monceau, and she threw dinner parties for a group of intimate friends. She was wrapped up in astrology, all kinds of collecting, and fashion, which, according to Baudelaire, is included among the arts. She devoured horror novels and put away large quantities of sleeping pills and white wine. She was a good friend of Queneau and Perec, and she knew de Chirico, René Char, and Dado. As her guest, one drank tequila, whisky, vodka, and white wine originating in her own vineyards. She spoke of herself in the third person: “D’Orsetti went jogging at six o’clock in the morning in the Parc Monceau; d’Orsetti has a fever of thirty-eight degrees Celsius; d’Orsetti is going to London tomorrow; d’Orsetti is inviting Armani to dinner.”

I was surprised to see that she had designated a place at the head of the table for me, since the widow of Prince S., who had been a literary critic and translator, was also invited to this dinner, along with the famous fashion designer Armani. Considering this an instance of her deliberate lack of conventionality (“d’Orsetti hates conventions”), I sat down at the place to which they ushered me; I didn’t want to stand out as someone who paid too much attention to formalities.