Paul Auster - Invisible

Proceeding cautiously, he does not ask her any direct questions about Born. He wants to know what she thinks of him, wants to know how she feels about her mother’s impending marriage to this old family friend , but there is ample time in front of him, the divorce will not go through until the spring, and he prefers to wait until their friendship has firmly taken root before delving into such private matters. Nevertheless, her silence is instructive, he believes, for if she were especially fond of Born, or if she were enthusiastic about the marriage, she would inevitably talk about those things every now and then, but Cécile says nothing, and therefore he concludes that she has misgivings about her mother’s decision. Perhaps she looks on it as a betrayal of her father, he thinks, but that is far too delicate a subject for him to bring up with her, and until Cécile mentions it herself, he will continue to pretend he knows nothing about the man in the hospital, the all but dead father who will never wake again.

On the fifth day of their daily rambles, Cécile tells him that her mother would like to know if he is free to come to their apartment for dinner the following night, the last night before the new term at the lycée begins. Walker’s first impulse is to decline the invitation, since he fears Born will be included in the company, but it turns out that Born is in London on family business (family business?) and that it will just be the three of them, Hélène, Cécile, and himself. Of course, he says, he will be happy to go to such a small dinner. Large gatherings make him uncomfortable, but a quiet evening with mother and daughter Juin sounds terrific. When he says the word terrific ( formidable ), Cécile’s face lights up with an expression of blazing, untempered joy. In that instant, Walker suddenly understands that the invitation has not come from Hélène but from Cécile, that she has put her mother up to asking him to their apartment and in all likelihood has been badgering her about it for days. Until now, Cécile has been rather guarded in his presence, holding back from any spontaneous outbursts of emotion, and this look of joy spreading across her face is a deeply worrying sign. The last thing he wants is for her to start developing a crush on him.

They live on the rue de Verneuil in the seventh arrondissement, a street that runs parallel to the rue de l’Université, but unlike the palatial residence of Margot’s family, the Juins’ apartment is small and simply furnished, no doubt a reflection of Hélène’s reduced financial circumstances following her husband’s accident. But the place is extremely well cared for, Walker notices, everything is where it should be, immaculate, tidy, trim, from the spotless glass coffee table to the waxed and gleaming parquet floors, as if this will for order is an attempt to keep the chaos and unpredictability of the world at arm’s length. Who can blame Hélène for such fanatical diligence? Walker thinks. She is trying to hold herself together. She is trying to hold both herself and Cécile together, and with the heavy burden she has to bear, who knows if this isn’t why she is planning to divorce her husband and marry Born: to get out from under, to be able to breathe again?

With Born missing from the equation, Walker finds Hélène to be somewhat softer and more congenial than the woman he met at the restaurant several days ago. She is still reserved, still enveloped in an air of rectitude and propriety, but when she greets him at the door and shakes his hand, he is startled by how warmly she looks into his eyes, as if she is genuinely glad that he has turned up. Maybe he was wrong about Cécile having to twist her arm to get him invited to the house. When all is said and done, maybe it was Hélène who proposed the idea herself: What about this odd American boy you’ve been palling around with, Cécile? Why don’t you ask him to dinner so I can learn something more about him?

Again, Cécile has chosen to dispense with her glasses for the evening, but contrary to what happened at the dinner in the restaurant, she is not squinting. Walker assumes that she has started wearing contact lenses, but he refrains from asking her about it on the off chance that such a question will embarrass her. She seems more quiet than usual, he thinks, more poised and in control of herself, but he can’t tell if it’s because she is making a conscious effort to act in a certain way or because she feels more inhibited with him in front of her mother. Course by course, the food is brought to the table: pâté with cornichons to start with, a pot-au-feu, an endive salad, three different cheeses, and crème caramel for dessert. Walker compliments Hélène on each dish, and while he honestly enjoys every morsel that enters his mouth, he knows that her cooking is not in the same league as Margot’s. Innumerable matters of no importance are discussed. School and work, the weather, the differences between the subway systems in Paris and New York. The conversation brightens considerably when he and Cécile begin to talk about music, and when the meal is over he finally persuades her (after how many truculent refusals?) to play something for him, something for him and her mother. There is a small upright piano in the room-which serves as a combination living room-dining room-and as Cécile stands up from the table and begins walking toward the instrument, she asks: Anything in particular? Bach, he says, without hesitation. A two-part invention by Bach.

She plays well, she hits all the notes of the piece with dogged precision, her dynamics are steady, and if her phrasing is a bit mechanical, if she doesn’t quite attain the fluency of a seasoned professional, who can fault her for being anything other than what she is? She is not a professional. She is an eighteen-year-old high school student who plays the piano for her own pleasure, and she renders the Bach efficiently, dexterously, and with much feeling. Walker remembers his own fumbling attempts to learn the piano when he was a boy and how disappointed he was to discover that he had no aptitude for it whatsoever. He therefore applauds Cécile’s performance with great enthusiasm, praising her efforts and telling her how good he thinks she is. Not really good, she says, with that annoying modesty of hers. So-so. But even as she denigrates herself, Walker can see her mouth tugging downward, see her struggling to suppress a smile, and he understands how much his compliments have meant to her.

A moment later, she excuses herself and marches off down the hall (no doubt to visit the bathroom), and for the first time all evening, Walker is alone with her mother. Since Hélène knows it will not be long before Cécile returns, she gets right to the point, not wanting to waste a second.

Be careful with her, Mr. Walker, she says. She’s a complex, fragile person, and she has no experience with men.

I like Cécile very much, he says, but not in the way you seem to be suggesting. I enjoy being with her, that’s all. As a friend.

Yes, I’m sure you like her. But you don’t love her, and the problem is that she’s fallen in love with you.

Has she told you that?

She doesn’t have to tell me. All I have to do is look.

She can’t be in love with me. I’ve only known her for a week.

A year, a week, what difference does it make? These things happen, and I don’t want her to get hurt. Please be careful. I beg of you.

Dread has become fact. Innocence has turned into guilt, and hope is a word that rhymes with despair. In every part of Paris, people are jumping out of windows. The metro is flooded with human excrement. The dead are crawling from their graves. End of Act II. Curtain.

Act III. As Walker leaves the Juin apartment and staggers out into the chilly September night, there is no doubt in his mind that Hélène has told him the truth. He already suspected it himself, and now that these suspicions have been confirmed, he understands that he will have to come up with a new strategy. To begin with, there will be no more daily jaunts with Cécile. Fond as he has become of her, he must be careful (yes, Hélène was right), he must be very careful not to do anything that will hurt her. But what does careful mean? Cutting off relations with her strikes him as unnecessarily cruel, and yet if he goes on seeing her, would she not then interpret his continued interest in her as a sign of encouragement? There is no simple solution to this dilemma. For the fact is that he must see her, perhaps not as often as before, perhaps not for so many hours at a stretch, but he must see her because she is the person he has decided to unburden himself to, the one who is going to be told about the killing of Cedric Williams. Cécile will believe the story. If he goes to her mother instead, there is a good chance that Hélène will not. But if Cécile believes the story, then his chances with Hélène will improve, since it is more than likely that she will believe what her daughter tells her.