Norman Manea - The Lair

It’s the end of the world, my dear old vagrant! Nero’s Rome, the Athens of the end. Prudence rules without the rule of capitalist pragmatism, the contrasts of freedom in the free world.

Instincts don’t die, however. Brutal and living impulses persist. Professor Ga par sees himself as a blind and naked recluse along the college alleyways! The male instrument shudders in the fog. An empty weapon in plain sight. A maniac escaped from the exile of the hypocrites, liberated at last from the therapy of convention. Irresponsible, just as he’d wished. The eyes of a hungry wolf, hands trembling impatiently around his prey.

Afternoon, at the library cafe, the professor no longer has the eyes of a wolf, and his hands don’t shake. He watches Tara calmly, smiling, waiting for the questions and advice.

“Did you call off the Oriental soiree? Did you have the courage to refuse hypnosis?”

The guilty party gives no response, just smiles indulgently.

“If you haven’t done it already, it will be very difficult to back out. The conciliatory supper is fatal! She’s going to anesthetize you. My delicate roommate knows what she wants and will persevere. She’ll entrance you and then will deposit you, her trophy, into her biography, under the chapter “In Case of Need.” You don’t know what a plotter she is, you don’t know her at all.”

“Why are we here? Last night we decided to meet in the city at a restaurant.”

“I have no appetite when I’m confused. I want us to clarify things. To know if you called off the interview.”

“Don’t worry. Nothing disastrous will happen.”

“You already saw her, or you’re planning on seeing her? When?”

“I’ll cancel the date. I shouldn’t have accepted. She took me by surprise, and I was curious. Curious and childish.”

“You’ve said this before. Meaning you haven’t canceled the fairy tale soiree.”

“I don’t understand why you hate her. She poisoned a few months of mine, not yours. I’m entitled to refuse her offer.”

“Entitled, yes, but you’re curious. You want to see the phantom who sent perfumed letters from the other world up close. I have no reason to be curious. I know the conniver.”

“You thought you knew her. Then your image of her was upturned and proven false. Once again, you think you know her, but maybe she’s someone else. Let’s get dinner. You have your car, I assume.”

“Yes, let’s go. After dessert we’ll escape. To the wilds of Nevada. I hope that appeals.”

“Impressive and frightening.”

“American girls are all about fair play. They announce their intentions, not like the slaves of the Orient, who surrender only to dominate.”

“American girls are more dangerous. Insufferable, in fact. They always feel entitled, vindictive. No misgivings, no melancholy. No flirting. Flirting is ambiguity, isn’t it? Unacceptable, incorrect?! Politically, morally, and religiously incorrect. The American suffragettes have very just and personal criteria, and they respond promptly when ignored or offended, or when they think they are ignored or offended.”

“Oho. . now that’s going too far. I invited you to run away to Nevada where we can live like savages for a few months. The adventure compensates for the flaws. A regimen of freedom and primitiv-ism. We’ll retreat to my little provincial hometown. Full of convention and good sense. I’ll introduce you to my aunt. My mother’s unwed sister. You’ll like her. She contradicts the cliche. She has both misgivings and melancholy. Just like I do, besides… but also a sense of fair play. Clarity, humor, vitality. Wisdom. And she’s attractive. America is offering you an American partner.”

“So then, we’re going out to eat.”

“We’re going, but first we’ll go to the bear’s den. So that I can get the scent of the betrayal. I parked the car in front of Professor Ga par’s cabin. Let’s go to the bear cave first. Just for a second, no need to stay longer. I can sniff out foreign tracks very quickly.”

The red car in front of the cabin. Ga par opens the door to the den, wide open.

“You want to come in? Come in and pick up the scent.”

Tara hesitates. Smiles and hesitates. Concentrating. You can tell by the furrow in her brow, above her nose. When thoughtfulness becomes worry, that furrow becomes visible.

The professor on the threshold, in front of the wide open door. He makes the grand gesture of a hotelier.

“No, I’m not coming in. I’m not with the police. I’m not even Professor Ga par’s student any longer. Nor the mailman. I have no entitlement, to use Sir Ga par’s term.”

The restaurant is empty, Tara is direct and full of fair play, even if not always sincere, while Peter is no Pieter, Ga par is no Mynheer Peeperkorn, doesn’t have the ease, the Dutchman’s irresponsible grace, nor the vitality to sweep away his blunders. The interbellum character multiplied himself, all around, not just in the pages of long ago, in the picturesque variations of the present: a man married for the fifth time, to a woman younger than his daughter from marriage number two, husband renewed by Viagra — the new Peeperkorn.

The quiet Italian restaurant, lit discreetly by a single candle on each table, promises a good premise for the Nevada experiment. First glass of wine. Silence, the tick-tock of thoughts, hesitations flickering in the gaze. The professor extends his hand, the student doesn’t withdraw it, nor does she yell or seem appalled at the touch. No talk of morality or Protestant Puritanism.

The professor squeezes the student’s fingers and leans toward the playful curls. He allows himself to be won over too quickly instead of becoming, through purely his presence, the possessor of the prey. Tara appears grateful for what Peter had changed in her over the course of the last few months. Natural, alive, more present and stronger than the cliches that overwhelm the vocabulary and imagination of so many of her generation, she’d learned to protect her companion with the naturalness of a comrade. A comrade who was deepening their intimacy that evening.

Tara’s car remained parked in front of Professor Gaspar’s cabin over the following weeks. Gossip was kindling and intensifying, but President Larry One impeded the indictment. He frowns wearily when Jennifer Tang informs him laconically and dutifully during the pause of a routine check-in that Professor Ga par was seen walking aimlessly and negligently around campus, his pant legs dragging on the ground, his fly down, restive and bored, and a car parked outside his house, precisely the car of the suspect tied to the letters.

At the end of year celebrations, Tara receives her graduation diploma, Deste announces that she’s transferring to another university for her last year of study. Ga par disappears from campus not long after that.

No one knows whether it’s merely a temporary leave, for the duration of the summer, or if he’s disappeared forever.

A temporary absence or gone forever? No one can answer, not Gora’s obituaries, which compete with destiny, nor the disloyal narrator, as Palade used to call me. The narrator who manipulates reality.