Paul Auster - Invisible

Good. Then you’ll come to our apartment for dinner. A celebration is in order, don’t you think?

I’m not sure. What are we celebrating?

The Stylus , my friend. The beginning of what I hope will turn out to be a long and fruitful partnership.

You want to go ahead with it?

Do I have to repeat myself?

You’re saying you liked the prospectus?

Don’t be so dense, boy. Why would I want to celebrate if I hadn’t liked it?

I remember dithering over what present to give them-flowers or a bottle of wine-and opting in the end for flowers. I couldn’t afford a good enough bottle to make a serious impression, and as I thought the matter through, I realized how presumptuous it would have been to offer wine to a couple of French people anyway. If I made the wrong choice-which was more than likely to happen-then I would only be exposing my ignorance, and I didn’t want to start off the evening by embarrassing myself. Flowers on the other hand would be a more direct way of expressing my gratitude to Margot, since flowers were always given to the woman of the house, and if Margot was a woman who liked flowers (which was by no means certain), then she would understand that I was thanking her for having pushed Born to act on my behalf. My telephone conversation with him the previous afternoon had left me in a state of semishock, and even as I walked to their place on the night of the dinner, I was still feeling overwhelmed by the altogether improbable good luck that had fallen down on me. I remember putting on a jacket and tie for the occasion. It was the first time I had dressed up in months, and there I was, Mr. Important himself, walking across the Columbia campus with an enormous bouquet of flowers in my right hand, on my way to eat and talk business with my publisher .

He had sublet an apartment from a professor on a year long sabbatical, a large but decidedly stuffy, overfurnished place in a building on Morningside Drive, just off 116th Street. I believe it was on the third floor, and from the French windows that lined the eastern wall of the living room there was a view of the full, downward expanse of Morningside Park and the lights of Spanish Harlem beyond. Margot answered the door when I knocked, and although I can still see her face and the smile that darted across her lips when I presented her with the flowers, I have no memory of what she was wearing. It could have been black again, but I tend to think not, since I have a vague recollection of surprise, which would suggest there was something different about her from the first time we had met. As we were standing on the threshold together, before she even invited me into the apartment, Margot announced in a low voice that Rudolf was in a foul temper. There was a crisis of some sort back home, and he was going to have to leave for Paris tomorrow and wouldn’t return until next week at the earliest. He was in the bedroom now, she added, on the telephone with Air France arranging his flight, so he probably wouldn’t be out for another few minutes.

As I entered the apartment, I was immediately hit by the smell of food cooking in the kitchen-a sublimely delicious smell, I found, as tempting and aromatic as any vapor I had ever breathed. The kitchen happened to be where we headed first-to hunt down a vase for the flowers-and when I glanced at the stove, I saw the large covered pot that was the source of that extraordinary fragrance.

I have no idea what’s in there, I said, gesturing to the pot, but if my nose knows anything, three people are going to be very happy tonight.

Rudolf tells me you like lamb, Margot said, so I decided to make a navarin -a lamb stew with potatoes and navets .

Turnips.

I can never remember that word. It’s an ugly word, I think, and it hurts my mouth to say it.

All right, then. We’ll banish it from the English language.

Margot seemed to enjoy my little remark-enough to give me another brief smile, at any rate-and then she began to busy herself with the flowers: putting them in the sink, removing the white paper wrapper, taking down a vase from the cupboard, trimming the stems with a pair of scissors, putting the flowers in the vase, and then filling the vase with water. Neither one of us said a word as she went about these minimal tasks, but I watched her closely, marveling at how slowly and methodically she worked, as if putting flowers in a vase of water were a highly delicate procedure that called for one’s utmost care and concentration.

Eventually, we wound up in the living room with drinks in our hands, sitting side by side on the sofa as we smoked cigarettes and looked out at the sky through the French windows. Dusk ebbed into darkness, and Born was still nowhere to be seen, but the ever-placid Margot betrayed no concern over his absence. When we’d met at the party ten or twelve days earlier, I had been rather unnerved by her long silences and oddly disconnected manner, but now that I knew what to expect, and now that I knew she liked me and thought I was too good for this world , I felt a bit more at ease in her company. What did we talk about in the minutes before her man finally joined us? New York (which she found to be dirty and depressing); her ambition to become a painter (she was attending a class at the School of the Arts but thought she had no talent and was too lazy to improve); how long she had known Rudolf (all her life); and what she thought of the magazine (she was crossing her fingers). When I tried to thank her for her help, however, she merely shook her head and told me not to exaggerate: she’d had nothing to do with it.

Before I could ask her what that meant, Born entered the room. Again the rumpled white pants, again the unruly shock of hair, but no jacket this time, and yet another colored shirt-pale green, if I remember correctly-and the stump of an extinguished cigar clamped between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, although he seemed not to be aware that he was holding it. My new benefactor was angry, seething with irritation over whatever crisis was forcing him to travel to Paris tomorrow, and without even bothering to say hello to me, utterly ignoring his duties as host of our little celebration, he flew into a tirade that wasn’t addressed to Margot or myself so much as to the furniture in the room, the walls around him, the world at large.

Stupid bunglers, he said. Sniveling incompetents. Slow-witted functionaries with mashed potatoes for brains. The whole universe is on fire, and all they do is wring their hands and watch it burn.

Unruffled, perhaps even vaguely amused, Margot said: That’s why they need you, my love. Because you’re the king.

Rudolf the First, Born replied, the bright boy with the big dick. All I have to do is pull it out of my pants, piss on the fire, and the problem is solved.

Exactly, Margot said, cracking the largest smile I’d yet seen from her.

I’m getting sick of it, Born muttered, as he headed for the liquor cabinet, put down his cigar, and poured himself a full tumbler of straight gin. How many years have I given them? he asked, taking a sip of his drink. You do it because you believe in certain principles, but no one else seems to give a damn. We’re losing the battle, my friends. The ship is going down.

This was a different Born from the one I had come to know so far-the brittle, mocking jester who exulted in his own witticisms, the displaced dandy who blithely went about founding magazines and asking twenty-year-old students to his house for dinner. Something was raging inside him, and now that this other person had been revealed to me, I felt myself recoil from him, understanding that he was the kind of man who could erupt at any moment, that he was someone who actually enjoyed his own anger. He swigged down a second belt of gin and then turned his eyes in my direction, acknowledging my presence for the first time. I don’t know what he saw in my face-astonishment? confusion? distress?-but whatever it was, he was sufficiently alarmed by it to switch off the thermostat and immediately lower the temperature. Don’t worry, Mr. Walker, he said, doing his best to produce a smile. I’m just letting off a little steam.