Paul Auster - Invisible

It’s impossible not to worry about that girl. That’s my job, Adam. I worry about Cécile. I’ve been worrying about her all her life.

[After the word life , there is a break in Walker’s manuscript, and the conversation abruptly comes to an end. Until this point, the notes have been continuous, an uninterrupted march of densely packed, single-spaced paragraphs, but now there is a blank that covers approximately a quarter of a page, and when the text resumes below this white rectangle, the tone of the writing is different. There isn’t much left to tell (we are on page 28 by now, which means there are just three pages to go), but Walker abandons the meticulous, step-by-step approach he has taken so far and rapidly summarizes the final events of the narrative. I can only assume that he was in the middle of the conversation with Hélène when he stopped writing for the day, and when he woke up the next morning (if he slept at all), his condition had taken a turn for the worse. These were the last days of his life, remember, and he must have felt too ravaged, too depleted, too frail to go on as before. Even earlier, over the course of the first twenty-eight pages, I had noticed a slow but ineluctable dwindling of strength, a loss of attention to detail, but now he is too incapacitated to put in anything but the bedrock essentials. He begins Fall with a fairly elaborate description of the Hôtel du Sud, he mentions what Born is wearing during their first encounter at the café, but little by little his descriptions begin to have less to do with the physical world than with inner states. He stops talking about clothes (Margot, Cécile, Hélène-not one word about how they are dressed), and only when it seems crucial to his purpose does he bother to depict his surroundings (a few sentences about the atmosphere in Vagenende, a few sentences about the Juin apartment), but mostly the story consists of thought and dialogue, what people are thinking and what people are saying. By the last three pages, the collapse is nearly total. Walker is vanishing from the world, he can feel the life ebbing out of his body, and yet he forges on as best he can, sitting down at his computer one last time to bring the story to an end.]

H. and W. at the kitchen table. Coffee, bread and butter, a pot of yogurt. There is little left to talk about concerning C. Before it is too late, he must push H. in a new direction, get her to start talking about her husband, about Born. Must confirm that facts are correct before diving in. Born mentioned the marriage to him last spring, M. has echoed this with added information about the divorce, C. has not contradicted this, but H. has yet to broach the subject with him. How to proceed? He begins by mentioning Rudolf , describes their meeting in New York back in April, never hints they are anything to each other but warm friends, then tells about Born’s return from Paris in May and how excited he was when he announced that he was marrying her . Is it true? H. nods. Yes, it’s true. Then she says it is the most wrenching decision she has ever made. In a flood, she begins to talk about her husband, to tell him about the car accident in the Pyrenees, the hairpin turn and the crash down the side of the mountain, the hospital, the anguish of the past six and a half years, the devastation wrought on C.-a flood of words, and then a flood of tears. W. barely has the heart to go on. The tears abate. She is embarrassed, apologetic. How strange that she should be confiding in him, she says, a young boy from New York scarcely older than her daughter, a person she scarcely knows. But Rudolf thinks the world of you, and you’ve been so kind to C.-maybe that’s the reason.

He is ready to abandon the whole business. Keep your mouth shut, he says to himself, leave the poor woman alone. But he can’t. His anger is simply too great, and so he jumps off the cliff and begins talking about Cedric Williams and Riverside Drive-regretting it, hating himself with every word he speaks, but unable to stop. H. listens in stunned silence. His words are a sharpened axe, and he is chopping off her head, he is killing her.

There is no question that she believes him. He can see from the way she looks at him that she knows he is telling the truth. But it makes no difference. He is demolishing her life, and she has no alternative but to defend herself. How dare you make these hideous accusations-with no proof, with nothing to support what you’re saying?

I was there, he says. The proof is in my eyes, in what I saw.

But she will not accept this. Rudolf is a distinguished professor, an intellectual, a man from one of the finest families, etc. He is her friend, he has rescued her from years of misery, he is like no other man in the world.

Hard face. No more tears, no more self-pity. Furious in her self-righteousness.

W. stands up to go. There is nothing more to say to her. Only this, which he delivers just before he walks out of the apartment: I thought it was my duty to tell you. Step back from it for a moment, and you’ll understand that I have no possible reason to lie to you. I want you and Cécile to be happy-that’s all-and I think you’re about to make a terrible mistake. If you don’t believe me, then do yourself a favor and ask Rudolf why he carries around a switchblade in his pocket.

Sunday morning. A knock on the door. The bleary-eyed, unshaven Maurice, still recovering from his Saturday night binge. A telephone call for you, jeune homme .

W. walks downstairs to the reception desk and picks up the phone. Born’s voice says to him: I hear you’ve been saying bad things about me, Walker. I thought we had an understanding, and now you turn around and stab me in the back. Just like a Jew. Just like the stinking Jew you are, with your bogus Anglo-Saxon name and your filthy little mouth. There are laws against this kind of thing, you know. Slander, defamation of character, spreading lies about people. Why don’t you go home? Pack up and leave Paris. Quit the program and get out of here. If you stay around, you’ll regret it, Walker, I promise you. Your ass will be so cooked, you won’t be able to sit down again for the rest of your life.

Monday afternoon. He parks himself in front of the Lycée Fénelon, waiting for Cécile to emerge from the building. When she finally comes out, encircled by a throng of other students, she looks him in the eye and turns her head away. She begins walking toward the rue Saint-André des Arts. W. runs to catch up with her. He grabs her by the elbow, but she shrugs him off. He grabs her again, forcing her to stop. What’s wrong? he says. Why won’t you talk to me?

How could you? she answers, barking at him in a loud, strident voice. Saying all those monstrous things to my mother. You’re sick, Adam. You’re no good. Your tongue should be ripped out of your mouth.

He tries to calm her down, to make her listen to him.

I never want to see you again .

He makes one last effort to reason with her.

She begins to cry. Then she spits in his face and walks off. Monday night. The voluminous, gum-chewing whore on the rue Saint-Denis. It is his first experience with a prostitute. The room smells of insecticide, sweat, and traces of vomit.

Tuesday. He spends the entire day walking through Paris. He sees a priest playing cricket with a gang of schoolboys in the Luxembourg Gardens. He gives ten francs to a clochard on the rue Monge. The late-September sky darkens around him, turning from metallic blue to the deepest shade of indigo. He has run out of ideas.

Tuesday night. At 3 A.M., a loud noise just outside his room. He is fast asleep, exhausted from his marathon trek through the city. Someone is knocking. No, not someone, several someones. An army of fists is pounding on his door.