The Symmetry Teacher (38 page)

My writing was good, but my
ideas
were even better. Take
Disappearing Objects
, for example. I never got past the title … There may have been an epigraph, I recall … I’m not sure. Can’t remember. Perhaps lines from Edgar Poe: “All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.”

Perhaps something from a Japanese (or Chinese?) ancient? It doesn’t matter. What matters is, where is my typewriter? It’s gone, too. Could the court Thief have taken it and left that unwieldy Underwood in its place? The other one was so compact, so dear to me … an Adler. How much writing I was able to get done on that one! It occurred to him that he might have left it behind in America. Maybe he had. In that case he was again wrongfully accusing his Thief. He thought about him again with fondness: all in all, he had loved the same things as his sovereign. How skillfully the Thief had taken advantage of his absentmindedness! Two rules sufficed for him to be able to trick his simpleton of a master: that “it’s not written all over his face,” and that “he’s not a thief until he’s caught.” It isn’t right to insult an honest man with unjust suspicions, is it?

How could he demand something back that he had given away himself?

Likewise, wasn’t he giving his life away to this journalist? The thought set off another bout of panic, and he glanced with renewed horror at the button: he had only to press it and the journalist would enter.

Maybe the button opened up a hole into the invisible room?

No, he wouldn’t press it! Let him wait for the elevator, Urbino thought spitefully, imagining the interviewer in the lobby, shuffling his feet and smelling of eau de cologne
,
and carrying a book in his armpit to be autographed.

Maybe there
is
an invisible room, though? To press, or not? He stroked the ivory surface of the button again with tender caution. It’s his call. How could he not see that what attracted him to this game was not the ball, so like a frontal bone, not the green, roulette-table cloth, not the attempts to pocket the ball in the table’s scrotum, but choice! Choosing the right stroke. That’s what it was.

The dream, however, was not about that.

He was in a motorboat, accompanied by two lanky young naval officers—a captain and a lieutenant. He was seeing them for the first time
in his life.
It seemed that they were seeing him for the first time, too. In any case, the captain seemed to be scrutinizing him. The motorboat was full of other people, too—ordinary middle-aged men and women. They were traveling as a group of extras in the dream, a crowd, like a new shift at a sanatorium or a resort. He and the naval officers were the only ones who were seated; everyone else was standing.

To what did he owe this honor? Was he under arrest? Suddenly it became clear that the captain was a doctor, and that they were taking him somewhere for treatment. The captain asked no questions, however, and Urbino, too, remained silently submissive. Now and then the captain and the lieutenant talked among themselves. The captain even took the lieutenant by the hand, and, mutely and tenderly, kept hold of it, as though they had agreed on something. Just then the motorboat docked at a pier, and the lieutenant hopped out.

“He is so sweet.” The captain was speaking to Urbino for the first time.

“Yes, indeed,” Urbino was quick to agree.

“I’m always glad to see him.”

Urbino grew indignant.

“What about me?”

“No need to worry. Everything you have is
your own
. The toothache will go away by itself.”

The
toothache
? Meanwhile, the passengers were leaving, climbing the ladder one by one. Only the two of them were left.

“But you didn’t even examine me!”

“Yes I did. I have my own X-ray machine,” he explained.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Not a thing. You’re here on the recommendation of Galina L., aren’t you? You’re one of our
own
.”

Your own, my own, our own … But what does Galina L. have to do with it?

Urbino was baffled. How did they know? Although these days, more than any of the others, he thought of the woman who had moved in parallel to his life, his wives, his children, his passions … As though she had been waiting for him all along—but it turned out she had overtaken him and fled past. Who had fled past whom?

The only thing left to do was to ascend the ladder.

“Where do I go now?”

“Take a cab. Or a rickshaw. It’s very close. I must go to a reception.”

Urbino still hesitated.

“Everything you have is your own and will go away by itself,” the captain said again as he climbed out.

It was clear that the conversation was over.

Urbino woke up in dismay, only to see the damned button again. Now it resembled a tooth. A healthy one, it appeared. How could there be something wrong with it? Why do we always want to press and probe a sore tooth? And Urbino tried to fall asleep again, only to dream another more noble but no less queer dream.

His mother the Duchess, and his late wife, a beauty in an Indian sari, were baking a pie together.

“Well, I agree. Let him have his own study there,” said the mother-wife in chorus, both smiling radiantly.

He had always suspected there was a little door under the table. A toolshed in the attic, in the corner, under the eaves of the roof. A storage for stray pieces of lumber and castoff children’s toys—wasn’t that an apt description of prose?

Then, suddenly, it grew bright. The space around him was clean and empty. The light seemed to come out of nowhere. In the middle of the space was a desk and a chair—not a chair, but a stool; and on the desk was the missing typewriter and a stack of paper. This contrived setup exasperated him, like inappropriate concern about an unfinished novel. Urbino glanced about angrily. The whole room was empty except for a large heap in one corner, as though the room’s contents had all been carefully swept into it like garbage. It was a veritable scree, the detritus in a rag-and-bone man’s attic. What a hodgepodge of items!

Sweaters and jackets, umbrellas and canes, scarves and caps, berets and gloves, pens and notepads, watches and eyeglasses, wallets (empty) and change purses (with coins from various countries), bracelets and amulets, cigarette cases and lighters, knives and penknives, rosaries and chains, charms and signet rings, and several favorite books … everything he had ever lost or been robbed of was found here again. He had never realized he was such a hoarder. There was enough there to supply a flea market in a small town. Every object inspired a recollection of loss, and nothing really took him by surprise until he dug to the bottom of this sweet scrapheap and found his father’s razor. It was wrapped in a necktie. A necktie, of all things!

He took it apart and blew on it—it made a sad sound like some Eastern musical instrument. Yes, he had heard it in Greece, in a little Armenian restaurant he had gone to with Dika. She was thrilled about some Eastern garb she had bought for a song (and her song was priceless—that was why he had dreamed of her in the sari today). The tie was Dika’s last gift to him. Handmade, covered with a design of round spectacles. The round earpieces looked especially dapper … He had forgotten it at Dika’s in the heat of their last quarrel, just before she perished at the zoo. He had missed it sorely.

But he was unable to go back to pick it up. It was after the funeral, a soft pink spring morning. Children were playing kick the can in the drying, already dusty, vacant lot. They had thrown off their brightly colored jackets, and birds were wheeling above, making a din and racket as though they were rooting for them. The wind was blowing. Wind, and dust, and children, and birds … On a fence, someone had written
BIRDY
in sweeping, bold black letters. A misspelled golf term? In which case it should have been
BIRDIE
. A “little bird,” or “birdlike”? Or “full of birds” (by analogy with “windy”: “windy and birdy” …)? There was no such word, though. Perhaps it was the nickname of someone’s beloved? He had called his beloved Dika … But Dika didn’t exist anymore, either. All that was left were little rhymes and ditties …

*   *   *

Back then I had wanted to write dozens of stories in all possible tenses of the English language!

He felt chilly, as though a draft had crept in. There was no place it could have come from, however—there were no windows in the room. The walls were as smooth as a bald head. He snuggled down into his favorite Icelandic sweater that he had forgotten at one time in a hotel, its windows looking out over a beautiful view of the Strasbourg Cathedral. He put on the signet ring that Dika had given him, and that had gone missing in a pub in some port city. Then he grabbed the necktie and a random book from the heap, and went over to the desk. He sat down.

In the typewriter there was already a piece of paper with a title in capital letters:

DISAPPEARING OBJECTS

It became repugnant to him that for so long—his whole life—he hadn’t written it, this novel. Well, there it was over there, piled up in a heap in the corner—write all you want! Just jot down the history of every object, how it was acquired, how it was lost … Don’t try to arrange anything chronologically. On the contrary, that would be even better—memories out of sequence … What, the sun peeped out? Some snow fell? A horse went by? Little bells jangled? When did that happen?

What was important was how one’s nostrils expanded from the smell of the horse! Why aren’t you writing, you old fool?… It’s too late now. Too late.

Here Urbino tapped on the thick stack of clean paper, then yanked the page from the mute typewriter. The page grinned with a crease left from years of sitting idly in the typewriter.

The page grinned in its search for words,

With the mockery of an epigraph above.

O youth, where are those hopes

That the text was so simple you could step inside it?

“In the beginning was the word.” Easy to say—

But if it were first, where is it now?

“Frost and sun”—they’re good for the health,

But they teach hard lessons, lest one forget.

Urbino dashed off the poem, then crossed it out. He had only to describe the history of each newly regained object. But which of them would be first? His father’s razor? No, too soon. It would be too potent, too intense if it was about his father … The sweater, then. He opened the book he had grabbed from the pile. As if to spite him, it was
Robinson Crusoe
, the copy from his childhood. A first edition. He knew only too well which passage he would want to reread: the part where he salvages all the needful items from the sinking ship. It happened that in his life there had been a shipwreck … Urbino had spent a good deal of time aboard the ship, if memory served … He didn’t even want to think about it, much less remember. The charm of Robinson striking it rich didn’t appeal to Urbino, as he stared at the pile of belongings that he had acquired so suddenly. From a distance it looked like a scale model of Gaudí’s unfinished cathedral.

Urbino glanced at the other corner and saw a tiny mound there, too.

He didn’t know why, but it aroused in him a sudden horror; but it was easier to overcome this horror than it was to strike the dusty keys. Urbino stood up resolutely and walked over to the murky corner …

Two fountain pens were lying there, the kind with a piston, a curious design … He had taken them from his father’s study. Their inner workings were already outmoded, and they no longer functioned properly. A bottle with spirits … Something he had nicked from his aunt for his older brother, who was already taking an interest in alcohol. (His aunt hadn’t had much need for it—she used it once a year to light the Christmas cake.) His aunt searched for it high and low, and naughty little Urbino “found” it, the missing bottle, much to everyone’s delight. Several old banknotes, interesting now only to a collector: two of them he definitely remembered, because he had filched them from that same older brother. But these other two, later, issues? How loathe Urbino was to remember them! They were from some poor girl who had wanted to help him out when he had lost at gambling. She had given him all she had, all she earned. He promised to repay her, then went out of his way to avoid meeting her again. What a disgrace! Somehow he had managed to forget the incident all this time … How he wished he could compensate her now a hundredfold! But even a hundredfold was too paltry; for she had loved him … to the very end.

As though on cue, in the same little pile under the banknotes he found a revolver belonging to his uncle, Count Varazi, who had arrived at his estate on furlough from some war or other. Little Urbino had rummaged through his suitcase when no one was home. The suitcase was almost empty: it contained only some suspenders, hairbrushes (his uncle was bald), an epaulette (only one, for some reason), and a rather heavy, rather compact parcel. Wrapped in a clean puttee was the revolver! Urbino had been especially intrigued by the small bronze circles with a little button in the middle. He aimed at his reflection in the mirror, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The revolver didn’t fire. He released something, freed the barrel, and began to turn it, listening to the clicking with particular pleasure. The revolver was loaded. Only one chamber in the cylinder was empty. That was the first time in my life that I played Russian roulette, Urbino the old man thought. But back then, the naughty little Urbino couldn’t resist boasting about the weapon to his classmates. At that time, too, his guardian angel was present: he didn’t shoot anyone. What an ungrateful swine I am, the old Urbino thought. I came to fear buttons … He recalled how terrified Count Varazi was when he discovered the revolver was missing and thought he had mislaid it himself. It caused an even greater commotion than the spirits had. And again the
resourceful
Urbino left the revolver in a place where Uncle Varazi found it
himself
.

Base acts. But that was all he had stolen
himself
throughout his long life. Or was it? Not much to boast about, if he were a thief. The tiny pile outbalanced the big one. Especially the two banknotes from the girl. Suddenly he remembered her eyes—small, shining eyes, dark and velvety, like two pansies looking out at him.