Paul Auster - Invisible

The following morning, he is sitting at his wobbly desk with a pen in his hand, looking over a recent poem and becoming more and more disenchanted with it, wondering if he should forge on with his efforts, put the manuscript aside for later reflection, or simply chuck it into the wastebasket. He lifts his head for a peek out the windows: gray and overcast, a mountain of clouds bulking up to the west, yet another shift in the ever-shifting Paris sky. He finds the gloom indoors rather pleasant-a soothing gloom, as it were, a companionable gloom, a gloom one could converse with for hours. He puts down his pen, scratches his head, exhales. Unbidden, a forgotten verse from Ecclesiastes comes roaring into his consciousness. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly … As he jots down the words in the right-hand margin of his poem, he wonders if this isn’t the truest thing he has written about himself in months. The words might not be his own, but he feels that they belong to him.

Ten-thirty, eleven o’clock. The yellowish glow of the electric bulb radiating from the wine-bottle lamp on the desk. The dripping faucet, the peeling wallpaper, the scratching of his pen. He hears the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Someone is approaching, slowly mounting the circular staircase toward his floor, the top floor, and at first he assumes it is Maurice, the semi-inebriated hotel manager, coming to deliver a telegram or the morning mail, affable Maurice Petillon, man of a thousand stories about nothing at all, but no, it can’t be Maurice, for now Walker detects the clicking sound of high heels, and therefore it must be a woman, and if it’s a woman, who else can it be but Margot? Walker is glad, inordinately glad, positively stupid with happiness at the prospect of seeing her again. He jumps out of his chair and rushes to open the door before she has time to knock.

She is holding a small, wax-coated patisserie bag filled with freshly baked croissants. Under normal circumstances, a person who shows up bearing gifts is a person in a happy frame of mind, but Margot looks peeved and out of sorts today, and she barely manages a smile as she plants a frosty, perfunctory kiss on Walker’s mouth. When Walker puts his arms around her, she wriggles out of his grasp and strides into the room, tossing the bag onto the desk and then sitting down on the unmade bed. Walker closes the door behind him, advances as far as the desk, and stops.

What’s wrong? he says.

There’s nothing wrong with me, Margot replies. I want to know what’s wrong with you.

With me? Why should anything be wrong with me? What are you talking about?

Last night, I happened to be walking with a friend down the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was about eight-thirty or nine o’clock. We passed that restaurant, you know the one I’m talking about, the old brasserie, Vagenende, and for no particular reason, giant idiot that I am, or maybe because I used to go there with my parents when I was a little girl, I looked through the window. And who do you think I saw?

Ah, Walker says, feeling as if he has just been slapped across the face. You don’t have to tell me. I already know the answer.

What are you up to, Adam? What kind of warped game are you involved in now?

Walker lowers himself onto the chair behind the desk. There is no air left in his lungs; his head is about to detach itself from his body. He looks away from Margot, whose eyes never leave him, and begins fiddling with the bag of croissants.

Well? she says. Aren’t you going to talk?

I want to, he says at last. I want to tell you everything.

Then why don’t you?

Because I don’t know if I can trust you. You can’t breathe a word about this to anyone, do you understand? You have to promise me that.

Who do you think I am?

I don’t know. Someone who disappointed me. Someone I like very much. Someone I want to be friends with.

But you don’t think I can keep a secret.

Can you?

No one ever asked me before. How can I know unless I try?

Well, at least that’s honest.

You decide. I’m not going to force you to talk when you don’t want to talk. But if you don’t talk, Adam, I’m going to stand up and leave this room, and you’ll never see me again.

That’s blackmail.

No it’s not. It’s the simple truth, that’s all.

Walker lets out a prolonged sigh of defeat, then stands up from the chair and begins pacing back and forth in front of Margot, who watches him in silence from the bed. Ten minutes go by, and in those minutes he tells her the story of the past several days: the accidental meeting with Born, which he now suspects was not an accident, Born’s spurious denials about the murder of Cedric Williams, the invitation to meet Hélène and Cécile, the business card he almost tore up, hatching the plan to block Born’s marriage to Hélène, the contrite telephone call to set the plan in motion, the dinner at Vagenende, his upcoming date with Cécile at four o’clock this afternoon. When Margot has heard him out, she pats the bed with her left hand and asks Walker to sit down beside her. Walker sits, and the moment his body touches the mattress, Margot grabs hold of his two shoulders with her two hands, turns him toward her, brings her face to within inches of his, and says in a low voice filled with determination: Give it up, Adam. You don’t have a chance. He’ll slice you into little pieces.

It’s too late, Walker says. I’ve already started now, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve seen it through to the end.

You talk about trust. What makes you think you can trust Hélène Juin? You’ve only just met her.

I know. It’s going to take a while before I’m sure. But my first impression of her is a good one. She strikes me as a solid, honest person, and I don’t think she really cares that much about Born. She’s grateful to him, he’s been kind to her, but she’s not in love with him.

The minute you tell her about what happened in New York, she’ll turn around and go straight to Rudolf. I promise you.

Maybe. But even if she does, what can happen to me?

All kinds of things.

Born might try to punch me in the face, but he’s not going to come after me with his knife.

I’m not talking about the knife. Rudolf has connections, a hundred powerful connections, and before you start to mess with him, you should know who you’re dealing with. He’s not just anyone.

Connections?

With the police, with the military, with the government. I can’t prove anything, but I’ve always felt he’s something more than just a university professor.

Such as?

I don’t know. Secret intelligence, espionage, dirty work of some kind or another.

And why on earth do you suspect that?

Telephone calls in the middle of the night… mysterious, unexplained absences… the people he knows. Cabinet ministers, army generals. How many young professors go out to dinner with top government officials? Rudolf is on the inside, and that makes him a dangerous person for you to know. Especially here in Paris.

It sounds rather flimsy to me.

Do you remember the dinner at our apartment in New York last spring?

Vividly. How could I forget it?

He was on the phone when I let you into the apartment. Then he came out-furious, breathing fire, hysterical. How many years have I given them? What did he mean by that? Principles! Battles! The ship is going down! There was a problem in Paris, and I can tell you now that it had nothing to do with academic business or his father’s estate. It was connected to the government, to his secret life in whatever agency he works for. That’s why he got so worked up when you started talking about the CIA. Don’t you remember? He told you all those things about your family, and you were shocked, you couldn’t believe how much information he’d managed to dig up about you. You said he must be an agent of some kind. You were right, Adam. You sniffed out something about him, and he started laughing at you, he tried to turn it into a joke. That’s when I knew I was right.