Promise at Dawn

  I learned in later years that there existed in her mind a very close link between a man’s kidneys and his sexual capacities. In vain did the doctors explain to her that the patient might undergo this operation and still have a normal sex life—I am convinced that the word “normal” only confirmed her in her furious opposition: a merely normal sex life was not at all what she envisaged for me. Poor Mother. I have the feeling that I have not been a good son.

  But I kept my kidney, and the German specialist took a train for home after declaring that my demise was only a matter of days. But I survived—in spite of all the German specialists with whom I have had to deal since.

  As soon as the fever left me, I was put on a stretcher and transported, in a special compartment, to Bordighera, on the Italian Riviera. It was thought that the Mediterranean sun would considerably speed up my recovery.

  My first contact with the sea was unforgettable. I had never met anything or anybody, except my mother, who had a more profound effect on me. I am unable to think of the sea as a mere “it”—for me she is the most living, animated, expressive, meaningful, living thing under the sun. I know that she carries the answer to all our questions, if only we could break her coded message, understand what she tries persistently to tell us. Nothing can really happen to me as long as I can let myself fall on some ocean shore. Its salt is like a taste of eternity to my lips, I love it deeply and completely, and it is the only love which gives me peace. Perhaps it reminds me of my mother, and if all the Freudian theories about the return to the womb are even vaguely correct, the seashore is certainly as close as I can get to her now.

  I was sleeping peacefully in my compartment when I felt upon my face something like a friendly hand. I woke up and found that it was only a breath of cool and scented air. The train had just stopped at Alassio, and my mother had lowered the window. I propped myself up on my elbows and my mother smiled as she followed the direction of my eyes. I took one glance at the world outside and suddenly, with absolute and final certitude, I knew that I had arrived. I saw a blue sea, a beach of pebbles and fishing boats drawn up on their sides. A few palms. Something peculiar—I am unable to tell what it was—happened to me at that moment, in a flash; all I know is that it was a flash of happiness. I had a feeling of infinite peace—I had come back home, at last.

  Ever since then, the sea has been for me perhaps a humble but a completely satisfying answer. I do not know how to speak of her. All I can say is that the sea frees me from all my burdens; whenever I come back to her, it is as though no one had ever died.

  While I was recovering my strength under the lemon trees and mimosas of Bordighera, my mother made a brief visit to Nice. Her idea was to sell her Vilna establishment and open a fashion house in Nice. Something must have told her that I stood very little chance of becoming a French ambassador if I went on living in a small border town of eastern Poland.

  But when, six weeks later, we found ourselves back in Vilna, it became only too obvious that her Maison Nouvelle, Grand Salon de Haute Couture de Paris, was no longer something that could be sold, or kept going. My illness had ruined us. During the two or three months it lasted, my mother had neglected her business completely, and to pay the greatest kidney specialists of Europe, whom she had summoned one after another to my bedside, she had become deeply bogged down in debt. Even before I had caused her so much trouble, and although our salon was considered the leading fashion house in town, our prestige had been far ahead of our balance sheet, and our standard of living too high for our means. We lived in the vicious circle of drafts settled by new drafts. The Russian word wechsel, draft, sounded constantly in my ears. Aside from my mother’s boundless extravagance where I was concerned, and the astonishing stud of “professors” who surrounded me, she had had to keep up, at no matter what cost, a façade of prosperity. In the capricious snobbery which brings customers to a fashion house, the reputation of success and prosperity plays an essential part. At the least hint of financial difficulties, the ladies who formed our clientele would have pursed their lips, made a face and either taken their custom elsewhere or, more likely, grabbed us by the throat, compelling us to reduce our prices more and more, thus accelerating the process of decline beyond the point of recovery. My mother knew this and fought hard to the end in an effort to preserve appearances. She was a past master in the art of giving our patrons the impression that they were chosen by her, accepted and tolerated, that we did not really need them, that, in taking their orders, we were conferring a favor. They battled among themselves for my mother’s personal attention, never argued over money, trembling at the idea that a new dress might not be ready for a ball, a first night, a gala performance. Little they knew that during all that time my mother felt at her throat the knife of the moneylenders, for she had been driven to sign more and more promissory notes in order to pay the interest on the money already borrowed. And in the midst of her distress, she had to keep up with the latest fashion, invent new and imaginative designs, put up with interminable fittings without ever letting the customers see how entirely we were at their mercy, and endure with an amused smile the suspense of their “to buy or not to buy,” never letting them guess that the issue of their hesitation waltz was, for us, a matter of life and death.

  I often saw her come out for a breath of fresh air from a particularly bothersome fitting, sit down in my room, and silently look at me with a smile, as though seeking to recover her strength at the very source of her courage and her life. She remained so without a word, smoking a cigarette, before getting to her feet again with a deep sigh and returning to the field of battle.

  Thus it was not at all surprising that my illness and our two months’ absence, during which Aniela had been left in charge of the firm, should have dealt the final blow to Maison Nouvelle. A few weeks after our return, in spite of her desperate efforts to refloat the sinking ship, it became only too plain that all was lost. Much to the delight of our competitors, we were declared bankrupt.

  Our furniture was seized, and I have a vivid recollection of a bald, fat Pole with a black waxed mustache nosing like a cockroach from room to room, accompanied by two acolytes who might have stepped straight from the pages of Gogol, fingering the dresses in the wardrobes, the armchairs, the sewing machines, touching pensively the breasts of the dressmakers’ dummies, and generally sticking his red, large nose everywhere. I do hope that life showed itself unclement to him.

  My mother had taken the precaution of concealing from creditors and bailiffs her one precious treasure, a complete collection of old imperial silverware which she had brought with her from Russia, rare collectors’ pieces, the value of which, according to her, was considerable. She had always refused to touch this hoard. It was valuable enough to assure our future for some years to come, after we had settled in France; its sale would then make it possible for me to “grow up, complete my studies and become truly somebody”—the last word always pronounced in a slightly mysterious, meaningful tone of voice.

  Now, for the first time, my mother openly showed her distress, and she turned to me for help and protection with a sort of defeated and disarming femininity. I was already nearly ten, and I did my best. I realized that my first duty was to appear imperturbable, manly and detached, steady as a rock. The moment had come for me to reveal myself at last in that role of cavalier for which Lieutenant Sverdlovski had been so diligently training me.

  The bailiff’s men had laid their hands on my jodhpurs and my riding crop. I was reduced to facing the world in short pants and with empty hands. I decided that it was all a matter of style.

  I moved through our quickly emptying flat under the very noses of the robbers, with an arrogant air, getting in their way, stepping on their feet, planting myself in front of them with my hands in my pockets and my stomach stuck out, whistling a tune to show my unconcern, spitting on the carpet which they were carrying away, giving the piano a push at the right moment that sent it thundering down the stairs, with considerable damage to
itself and to the wall, staring the rascals out of countenance, a real man, in short, a cavalier, offering his protection, fully capable of looking after his mother and after himself and ready to get tough at the slightest provocation.

  Needless to say, this display was not intended for the bailiff’s men, but for my mother. She must be made to see that I was there, by her side, that it was only a matter of time before I would give her back a thousand times all she was losing—the carpets, the Louis XVI chairs, the console, the splendid chandelier and all the mirrors on the wall in their golden frames. She seemed pleased and comforted as she sat in the last remaining armchair, crying only a very little and following me with a loving look.

  When the last carpet was taken away, I began to whistle a tango and on the bare floor executed with an imaginary partner some of the most intricate dance steps which Mademoiselle Gladys had taught me. I glided over the floor, closely clasping the waist of my invisible partner, holding high her invisible hand, whistling the tune “Tango Milonga, tango mych marzen i snow,” 3 while my mother, a cigarette between her fingers, beat time with her feet.

  When at last she had to get up from the armchair and abandon it to the rabble, she did so almost gaily and without taking her eyes off me, joining me in my game of defiance while I continued my skillful movements on the dusty floor, just to show her how tough and unconcerned I was, and to remind her that her most valuable possession had not been taken from her.

  A little later we held a long conference to decide what to do next, where to turn. We spoke French so that the Polish rabble couldn’t understand what we were saying. The rooms were empty now, and the chandelier, the very symbol of our past splendor, was being lowered from the ceiling.

  There was no question of our staying on in Vilna, where my mother’s best customers, those who had cajoled and courted her once, now turned up their noses and looked away when they passed us in the street, a behavior that was due not so much to snobbery as to the simple fact that many of them still owed us money: they were thus able to kill two birds with one stone.

  I no longer, unfortunately, remember the names of these noble and human creatures, but I sincerely hope that they are still alive, that they have not had time to take their fat behinds out of Lithuania, and that the Communist regime has taught them a lesson or two. I am not vindictive by nature, and I will say no more.

  I sometimes visit the premises of the great Paris couturiers and sit in a comer watching the show. Almost all my friends imagine that I haunt these places to indulge in my favorite pastime, which is looking at pretty girls. They are wrong. I go there to think of the directrice of Maison Nouvelle.

  There was not enough money left to enable us to settle in Nice, and my mother refused to sell her precious silver, on which my whole future depended.

  With a few hundred zlotys, which we had managed to save from the shipwreck, we decided to go first to Warsaw—it was, after all, a step west, that is, in the right direction. My mother had friends and relatives there, and besides, there was one decisive argument in favor of this plan: “There is a French lycée in Warsaw,” she announced, with a sniff of satisfaction.

  There was no more to be said. We had only to pack our bags—à façon de parler, since our luggage had gone the way of everything else. The silver being secretly stored in a secure hiding place, we gathered the rest of our belongings into a bundle, in the best tradition of all fairy tales.

  Aniela did not go with us. She was to join her fiancé, who worked for the railroad and who lived in a discarded railroad car with the wheels taken off. It was there that we parted from her, after a heart-rending scene, in which we all sobbed desperately, flinging ourselves into one another’s arms, tearing ourselves away, only to return for yet another embrace. I have never howled so much since.

  I tried more than once to get news of Aniela, but a discarded railway carriage, even without wheels, is not a very pleasant address, particularly when the whole world is being turned upside down. I should have dearly liked to reassure her, to tell her that I have never as yet fallen victim to tuberculosis, which is what she always feared most for me. She was a handsome young woman, with a well-filled figure, large brown eyes and long black hair but, of course, it was all more than thirty years ago.

  We left Vilna without regret. I took with me, in our bundle, the fables of La Fontaine, a volume of Arsène Lupin and my Lives of Illustrious Frenchmen. Aniela had managed to save from our disaster the Tcherkesse uniform which I had once worn at the fancy-dress ball, and that, too, we took in our bundle. It was already too small for me and I have never since had occasion to wear a Tcherkesse uniform and probably never will.

  1 The hero of sensational novels by Gaston Leroux.

  2 D’Artagnan’s famous exploit in Dumas’s Trots Mousquetaires.

  3 Tango Milonga—tango of fancies and dreams.

  CHAPTER 17

  In Warsaw we lived in a succession of furnished rooms. Someone from abroad came to my mother’s rescue, sending her sums of money at irregular intervals which just enabled us to keep alive. I went to school, where every morning, at the ten o’clock recess, my mother arrived with chocolate in a Thermos flask and slices of bread and butter. She turned her hand to a hundred and one things in order to keep us afloat. She acted as a go-between in the precious-stones market, bought and sold furs and antiques, and was, I believe, the first person to think up a new kind of business which turned out to be modestly lucrative. Through advertisements in the press she informed the public that she was prepared to buy teeth—for lack of a better term, I can only call them second-hand teeth—containing some proportion of gold or some proportion of platinum, which she then sold at a good profit. She examined the teeth under a magnifying glass, after first soaking them in a special acid to make sure that the filling or the crown was truly of precious metal. She also acted as scout for a real-estate firm, sold advertising space and took on several other jobs the precise nature of which I no longer remember. What I do remember is that every morning, at ten, she turned up punctually with her Thermos flask of hot chocolate, and her bread and butter.

  Nevertheless, there again we suffered a bitter disappointment. I was unable to enter the French lycée. The fees were high—far and away beyond our means. So, for two years, I had to make do with the Polish school, and I can still speak and write Polish fluently. It is a beautiful language, Mickiewicz has remained one of my favorite poets, and, like all true Frenchmen, I have a tender spot in my heart for Poland.

  Five days a week I took a tram to the house of an excellent man, Monsieur Lucien Dieuleveut-Caulec, who taught me my maternal tongue.

  Here, I think, I should make a confession. I do not often indulge in lying, because, for me, a lie has a sickly flavor of impotence: it leaves me too far away from the mark. But when I am asked where I pursued my studies in Warsaw, I always answer, at the French lycée. It is a question of principle. My mother had done her best, and I don’t see why I should deprive her of the fruit of her labors.

  I should not like anybody to think that I watched her struggles without trying to help. After having failed in so many fields, I was beginning to feel that I had at last found a hidden bonanza of talent in myself. I had begun juggling in the old Valentine days, in the hope of finding favor in her eyes, and now I was once more devoting myself to that noble art, with a new fire, with my mother in mind.

  I juggled with five, six oranges, burning with a mad ambition of eventually achieving seven, and perhaps even eight, or even nine, like the great Rastelli, and so going on to become the greatest juggler of all time, a true champion of the world. My mother deserved that, it would mean the end of all her financial worries, and I spent all my time practicing, practicing.

  I juggled with oranges, with plates, with bottles, with brooms, with anything, in fact, that came my way. My passion for art, for perfection, my confused longing for some staggering and unique exploit that would raise us above our vulnerability and perhaps even above mortality itself found
suddenly in juggling a naive but genuine expression, and I flung myself into it heart and soul. Assailed on all sides by poverty, insecurity and fear, I was dreaming of some supreme prowess, a dazzling display of mastery that would astonish the world. I juggled in school, in the streets, I climbed our stairs and entered our room still juggling. I was juggling in my dreams, and whenever I caught sight of a look of deep worry on my mother’s exhausted face, I would grab my oranges, or balls, and throw them in the air and stand before her, juggling as gracefully as I could, a silent proclamation of mastery, a promise of even greater deeds to come.

  But there again, in spite of all my efforts, in spite of my devouring craving for mastery, the masterpiece always eluded me: I could never get beyond the fifth ball. God knows I tried hard: at times I juggled for seven or eight hours a day. But no matter what I did, the sixth and last ball remained beyond my reach. The masterpiece kept eluding me. I have spent a lifetime trying. It was only when I was approaching my fortieth year that gradually the awful truth dawned on me, and I realized that the last ball did not exist.

  It is a sad truth, and it should not be told to children; that is why this book must not be allowed to fall into their hands.

  When I see Malraux, the greatest of us all, juggling as few men have ever juggled before him, my heart bleeds at the tragedy whose traces are so clearly visible on his face. In the midst of his most brilliant performances, the last ball remains beyond his reach, and all his work bears the mark of that agonizing certitude.

  I also feel it is time that the truth about Faust be made known. Everyone has lied before, Goethe worse than anyone; he has lied with genius. I know that I should not say what I am going to say, for if there is one thing I hate doing, it is depriving men of their hope. But there it is: the tragedy of Faust is not at all that he sold his soul to the devil. The real tragedy is that there is no devil to buy your soul. There is no “taker.” No one will help you to catch the last ball, no matter what price you are willing to pay. There is, of course, a gang of smart phonies, who give themselves airs and claim they are prepared to make a deal, and I don’t say that one cannot come to terms with them with a certain amount of profit. One can.