Julie Orringer - The InvisibleBridge

“That wasn’t what it was to me.”

She tilted her head at him and smiled again, that terrible all-knowing smile. “I’m afraid I’m the wrong person to dispense advice about love. Unless you’d like to be disabused of your romantic notions.”

“You’ll excuse me, then, if I leave you to your packing.”

“My dear boy, no excuse needed.” She rose, kissed him on both cheeks, and turned him out into the hall. There was no choice for him but to go back to his work; he did it in mute consternation, wishing he had never confided in her.

There was one great source of relief, one astonishing piece of news that had arrived in a telegram from Budapest: Tibor was coming to visit. His classes in Modena would start at the end of January, but before he went to Italy he would come to Paris for a week. When the telegram arrived, Andras had shouted the news aloud into the stairwell of the building, at a volume that had brought the concierge out into the hall to reprimand him for disturbing the other tenants. He silenced her by kissing her on the brow and showing her the telegram: Tibor was coming! Tibor, his older brother. The concierge voiced the hope that this older brother would beat some manners into Andras, and left him in the hall to experience his delight alone. Andras hadn’t mentioned Klara in his letters to Tibor, but he felt as if Tibor knew-as if Tibor had sensed that Andras was in distress and had decided to come for that reason.

The anticipation of the visit-three weeks away, then two, then one-got him from home to school, and from school to work. Now that The Mother was finished and Madame Gérard gone, afternoons at the Sarah-Bernhardt passed at a maddening crawl. He had arranged everything so well backstage that there was little to do while the actors rehearsed; he paced behind the curtain, subject to an increasing fear that Monsieur Novak would discover his superfluity. One afternoon, after he’d overseen the delivery of a load of lumber for the set of Fuente Ovejuna, he approached the head carpenter and offered his services as a set builder. The head carpenter put him to work. During the afternoon hours Andras banged flats together; after hours he studied the design of the new sets. This was a different kind of architecture, all about illusion and impression: perspective flattened to make spaces look deeper, hidden doors through which actors might materialize or disappear, pieces that could be turned backward or inside out to create new tableaux. He began to mull over the design in bed at night, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Klara. The false fronts that represented the Spanish town might be put on wheels and rotated, he thought; their opposite sides could be painted to represent the building interiors. He made a set of sketches showing how it might be done, and later he redrew the sketches as plans. His second week as assistant set builder he went to the head carpenter and showed him the work. The carpenter asked him if he thought he had a budget of a million francs. Andras told him it would cost less than building the two sets of flats that would be required to make separate exteriors and interiors. The head carpenter scratched his head and said he’d consult the set designer. The set designer, a tall round-shouldered man with an ill-trimmed moustache and a monocle, scrutinized the plans and asked Andras why he was still working as a gofer. Did he want a job that would pay three times what he was making now? The set designer had an independent shop on the rue des Lombards and generally employed an assistant, but his most recent one had just finished his coursework at the Beaux-Arts and had taken a position outside the capital.

Andras did want the job. But Zoltán Novak had saved his life; he couldn’t very well walk out on the Sarah-Bernhardt. He accepted the man’s business card and stared at it all that night, wondering what to do.

The next afternoon he went to Novak’s office to lay the situation before him. There was a long silence after he knocked, then the sound of male voices in argument; the door flew open to reveal a pair of men in pinstriped suits, briefcases in hand, their faces flushed as though Novak had been insulting them in the vilest terms. The men clapped hats onto their heads and walked out past Andras without a nod or glance. Inside the office Novak stood at his desk with his hands on the blotter, watching the men recede down the hallway. When they’d disappeared, he came out from behind the desk and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey from the decanter on the sideboard. He looked over his shoulder at Andras and pointed to a glass. Andras raised a hand and shook his head.

“Please,” Novak said. “I insist.” He poured whiskey and added water.

Andras had never seen Novak drinking before dusk. He accepted the tumbler and sat down in one of the ancient leather chairs.

“Egészségedre,” Novak said. He lifted his glass, drained it, set it down on the blotter. “Can you guess who that was, leaving?”

“No,” Andras said. “But they looked rather grim.”

“They’re our money men. The people who’ve always managed to persuade the city to let us keep our doors open.”

“And?”

Novak sat back in his chair and laced his hands into a mountain. “Fifty-seven people,” he said. “That’s how many I have to fire today, according to those men. Including myself, and you.”

“But that’s everyone,” Andras said.

“Precisely,” he said. “They’re closing us down. We’re finished until next season, at least. They can’t support us any longer, even though we’ve posted profits all fall. The Mother did better than any other show in Paris, you know. But it wasn’t enough. This place is a money-sink. Do you know what it costs to heat five stories of open space?”

Andras took a swallow of whiskey and felt the false warmth of it move through his chest. “What will you do?” he said.

“What will you do?” Novak said. “And what will the actors do? And Madame Courbet? And Claudel, and Pély, and all the others? It’s a disaster. We’re not the only ones, either. They’re closing four theaters.” He sat back in his chair and stroked his moustache with one finger, his eyes moving over the bookshelves. “The fact is, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Madame Novak is in a delicate condition, as they say. She’s been pining for her parents in Budapest. I’m sure she’ll take this as a sign that we should return home.”

“But you’d rather stay,” Andras said.

Novak released a sigh from the broad bellows of his chest. “I understand how Edith feels. This isn’t our home. We’ve scratched out our little corner here, but none of it belongs to us. We’re Hungarians, in the end, not French.”

“When I met you in Vienna, I thought no man could look more Parisian.”

“Now you see how green you were,” Novak said, and smiled sadly. “But what about you? I know you’ve got your school fees to pay.”

Andras told him about the offer of an assistantship with the set designer, Monsieur Forestier, and how he’d just been coming to ask Novak’s advice on the matter.

Novak brought his hands together, a single beat of applause. “It would have been a terrible shame to lose you,” he said. “But it’s an excellent chance, and well timed. You’ve got to do it, of course.”

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done,” Andras said.

“You’re a good young man. You’ve worked hard here. I’ve never regretted taking you on.” He drained the rest of his drink and pushed the empty glass across the desk. “Now, would you fill that again for me? I’ve got to go break the news to the others. You’ll come to work tomorrow, I hope. There’ll be a great deal to do, getting this place closed down. You’ll have to tell Forestier I can’t release you until the end of the month.”