Authors: Mordecai Richler

The Acrobats (26 page)

BOOK: The Acrobats

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I asked Mordecai about the source of the title, and he told me it came from Rilke – or was it Lorca? In any case, the metaphor, as it applies to the book’s precariously balanced characters, is perfect.

Although
The Acrobats
was Mordecai’s first published novel, it was not his first novel – something I discovered in the early sixties. Mordecai and I shared a flat in Swiss Cottage, London, in the late fifties, when he was writing
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
. Sitting in the living room was a half-size metal steamer trunk perpetually covered with magazines and boxes. It belonged to Mordecai, and so I never inquired about its contents. Mordecai moved out to live with Florence, and then I left for a more commodious flat for myself and Sylvia Kay, who was soon to become my wife. Shortly afterwards, the house was demolished to make way for a swimming bath.

Some years later, Mordecai came to me and asked where that steamer trunk was. The University of Calgary was buying all his papers and correspondence and the trunk had his first novel in it and some early short stories. “It would be worth a tidy sum – you know, juvenilia.” I said, “I thought you took it.” He said, “I thought you kept it.” We searched our premises and our memories, but what happened to it was a total mystery – a mystery that was never solved. After reproaching him for never telling me what was in it, I asked him what the novel was about, but he said it was not worth talking about, dismissing it as a poor adolescent effort. The only inkling I got was once, when we came out of seeing Fellini’s
I Vitelloni
, we were discussing its merits and Mordecai said that the film was like the obligatory first novel that every writer feels compelled to do – “how I suffered in the oppressive, stultifying atmosphere of a provincial city and finally discovered the courage to leave for the big city.” In the way that he said it, I suddenly had a flash that he was referring to that lost novel, but I
have no real evidence, only that unsubstantiated intuition. Mordecai never mentioned it again.

I began this piece asserting that
The Acrobats
was responsible for
two
close friendships of mine. The second one was Florence. At the time
The Acrobats
was published, she was married to the writer Stanley Mann; they were part of the Canadian contingent in London. At the nuptial party thrown by Ted and Kate Allan for Mordecai the day before his marriage to Cathy Boudreau, Mordecai could not keep his eyes off Florence. He was mesmerized by her beauty, her intelligence, her dignity. Florence took great exception to his brazen manner, and when he came over to her and inquired whether she had read
The Acrobats
and her reaction to it, Florence, in a very haughty and frosty manner, replied, “Yes. I’ve read it. I liked it, but not enough to want to meet its author.” Of course, far from deterring Mordecai, this only inflamed him.

Somewhat later, he and I left another social occasion where Florence was present, and Mordecai said, “She’s mine. I want her.” “Mordecai, she’s married, you’re married. Are you crazy?” “I don’t care. I want her and I’m going to take her.” When both their marriages ruptured, Florence let him do so, and she came into my life as well – the best friend one could ask for.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Messrs. Faber & Faber Limited, London, for permission to quote translations, by Usa Barea, from the poems of F. García Lorca and Antonio Machado
(Lorca
, by Arturo Barea, 1946): and Messrs. Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, London, for permission to quote a translation, by M. Friedlander, Ph.D.; from Moses Maimonides
(The Guide for the Perplexed
, 1947).

I would also like the thank Cathy Boudreau, Joyce Weiner, Bill Weintraub, and Michael Sayers, for the generous help and encouragement they gave me in the preparation of this novel.

M.R.

BY MORDECAI RICHLER

ESSAYS
Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports
(1968)
Shovelling Trouble
(1972)
Notes on an Endangered Species and Others
(1974)
The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays
(1978)
Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album
(1984)
Broadsides: Reviews and Opinions
(1990)
Belling the Cat: Essays, Reports, and Opinions
(1998)

FICTION
The Acrobats
(1954)
Son of a Smaller Hero
(1955)
A Choice of Enemies
(1957)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
(1959)
The Incomparable Atuk
(1963)
Cocksure
(1968)
The Street
(1969)
St. Urbain’s Horseman
(1971)
Joshua Then and Now
(1980)
Solomon Gursky Was Here
(1989)
Barney’s Version
(1997)