David Lodge - Small World (37 page)

” ‘By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.’ ” Persse quoted.

“Just so. My own belief is that the crisis was precipitated by the poet’s inability to accept his latent homosexuality… In principle I disapprove of this kind of insistence on the biographical origins of the literary text, but I was persuaded by some friends here to take in the conference on my way back from Vienna, and I must admit that the idea of acting out
The Waste Land
on the streets of Lausanne was very imaginative. Most diverting.”

“Who are the performers?” asked Persse.

“Mostly students at the University here, with the addition of a few volunteers from among the conferees, like myself—and Fulvia Morgana over there.” Michel Tardieu nodded in the direction of a tawny-haired, Roman-nosed lady in a clinging, sequin-studded black dress, sitting at a table with a small, slight, Jewish-looking man. ” ‘Belladonna, the Lady of Situations.’ The man is Professor Gootblatt of Penn. He looks as if he wishes he were elsewhere, don’t you think?”

The name “Fulvia” made Persse, for a reason he could not for the moment identify, think of Morris Zapp.

“Is Morris Zapp at this conference?”

“No. He was expected at the Vienna conference on Narrative last week, but he did not arrive. He was the subject of a narrative retardation as yet unexplained,” said Tardieu. “But you, young man, what are you doing in Lausanne, if you did not know about the conference?”

“I’m looking for a girl.”

“Ah, yes, I remember.” Tardieu sighed reminiscently. “That was the trouble with my research assistant, Albert. He was always looking for a girl. Any girl, in his case. The ungrateful boy—I had to let him go. But I miss him.”

“The girl I’m looking for must be at this conference,” said Persse. “Where is it being held? What time is the first session tomorrow?”

“
Mais, c’est finie!
” Tardieu exclaimed. “The conference is over. The street theatre was the closing event. Tomorrow we all disperse.”

“What!” Persse jumped to his feet, dismayed. “Then I must start looking for her at once. Where can I get a list of all the hotels in Lausanne?”

“But there are hundreds, my friend. You will never find her that way. What is the young lady’s name?”

“You won’t have heard of her, she’s just a graduate student. Her name is Angelica Pabst.”

“Of course, I know her well.”

“You do?” Persse sat down again.

“
Mais oui!
She attended my lectures last year at the Sorbonne.”

“And is she attending the conference?”

“Indeed she is. Tonight she was the Hyacinth Girl. You remember: You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.”

“Yes, yes,” Persse nodded impatiently. “I know the poem well. But where can I find her?”

“She was wandering about the streets, in a long white dress, with her arms full of hyacinths. Very charming, if one likes that dark, rather overripe kind of feminine beauty.”

“I do,” said Persse. “Have you any idea where she is staying?”

“Our Swiss hosts have, with characteristic efficiency, supplied a list of conferees’ accommodations,” said Tardieu, taking a folded paper from his breast pocket. He ran a long brown finger down a list. “Ah, yes, here it is. Pabst A., Mademoiselle. Pension Bellegarde, Rue de Grand-Saint-Jean.”

“Where is that?”

“I will show you,” said Tardieu, gesturing to a waiter for the bill. “It seems a modest lodging for one whose father is extremely rich.”

“Is he?”

“I understand he is executive president of one of the American airlines.”

“How well do you know Angelica?” Persse asked the French Professor, as the funicular drew them back to the town.

“Not very well. She came to the Sorbonne for a year, as an occasional postgraduate student. She used to sit in the front row at my lectures, gazing at me through thick-rimmed spectacles. She always had a notebook open and a pen in her hand, but I never saw her write anything. It piqued me, I must say. One day, as I was going out of the lecture theatre, I stopped in front of her and made a little joke. `Excuse me, mademoiselle,’ I said, ‘but this is the seventh lecture of mine that you have attended and your notebook remains blank. Have I not uttered a single word that was worth recording?’ Do you know what she said? ‘Professor Tardieu, it is not what you say that impresses me most, it is what you are silent about: ideas, morality, love, death, things… This notebook’—she fluttered its vacant pages—’is the record of your profound silences.
Vos silences profonds
.’ She speaks excellent French. I went away glowing with pride. Later I wondered whether she was mocking me. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t venture an opinion,” said Persse, recalling one of Angelica’s remarks at Rummidge: “You have to treat these professors carefully. You have to flatter them a bit.” He asked Tardieu if he had met Angelica’s sister.

“Sister? No, is there a sister?”

“I’m pretty sure that there is.”

“This is the street.”

As they turned the corner, Persse suddenly panicked at the realization that he did not know what he was going to say to Angelica. That he loved her, of course—but she knew that already. That he had misjudged her? But she knew that as well, though he hoped she hadn’t guessed how grievously. In all the excitement of pursuing her, or her double, across Europe, he had never thought to prepare himself with an appropriate speech for the moment of meeting. He almost hoped that she was still on the streets of Lausanne with her arms full of hyacinths, so that he would have time to sit in the pension’s lounge and prepare himself before she returned.

Tardieu halted in front of a house with a small painted sign under a light over the door, “Pension Bellegarde”. “Here you are,” he said. “I wish you goodnight—and success.”

“You won’t come in?” Persse found himself absurdly nervous of meeting Angelica alone.

“No, no, my presence would be superfluous,” said Tardieu. “I have performed my narrative function for tonight.”

“You’ve been most helpful,” said Persse.

Tardieu smiled and shrugged. “If one is not a subject or an object, one must be a helper or an opponent. You I help. Professor Zapp I oppose.”

“Why do you oppose him?”

“You have perhaps heard of a UNESCO chair in literary criticism?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.
Au revoir
.”

They shook hands, and Persse felt a small pellet-like object pressed into his palm. As the other walked away, Persse tilted his hand towards a streetlamp and discovered a solitary currant adhering to it. He nibbled the currant, turned, took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell of the pension.

A middle-aged woman in a neat, dark dress opened the door. “
Oui monsieur?
”

“
Fe cherche une jeune femme
,” Persse stammered. “Miss Papps. I mean, Miss Pabst. I understand that she is staying here.”

“Ah! Mademoiselle Pabst!” The woman smiled, then frowned. “Alas, she has departed.”

“Oh, no!” Persse groaned. “You mean she’s gone for good?”

“Pardon?”

“She has checked out—left Lausanne?”

“
Oui, m’sieu
.”

“When did she leave?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“She asked about trains to Geneve.”

“Thanks.” Persse turned and sprinted back down the street.

He ran all the way to the station, using the middle of the road, since the pavements were still crowded, cheered on by onlookers who evidently thought he was part of the street theatre, though he couldn’t recall anyone actually running in
The Waste Land
—it was a rather ambulatory poem. He used such thoughts to distract himself from the stitch in his side and his chagrin at having missed Angelica by so small a margin. He dashed into the station and yelled at the first person he saw an interrogative “Geneve?” The man pointed towards a staircase and Persse leapt down the stairs three at a time. But he had been misled, or mistaken: the train was drawn up beside the opposite platform, separated from him by another line. He heard doors slamming and a whistle shrilled. There was no time to retrace his steps—his only chance of catching the train was to cross the tracks and board it from this side. He glanced up and down the line to check that it was clear, but as he made to step down, a pair of uniformed arms closed around him and dragged him back from the brink.

“
Non non, m’sieu! C’est defendu de traverser!
”

Persse struggled momentarily, then, as the train moved smoothly out of the station, desisted. In one of the compartments he glimpsed the back of a girl’s dark head that might have been Angelica. “Angelica!” he yelled despairingly, and futilely. The official released his grip on Persse and regarded him disapprovingly.

“When is the next train to Geneva?” Persse asked. “
quelle heure le train prochain pour Geneve?
”

“
Demain
,” said the man with righteous satisfaction. “
A six heures et demi
.”

As Persse came out into the station colonnade, a taxi driver cocked an interrogative eyebrow. This time he accepted the ride. “Pension Bellegarde,” he said, and slumped back, exhausted, in the back seat.

The light over the front door of the pension was out, and the landlady took longer to answer Persse’s ring. She looked surprised to see him back again.

“I’d like a room for the night, please.”

She shook her head. “I am sorry,_m’sieu_ , we are full.”

“But you can’t be!” Persse protested. “Miss Pabst has only just left. Can’t I have the room she vacated?”

The woman pointed to her wristwatch. “It is late m’sieu. The room must be cleaned, the linen changed. That cannot be done tonight.”

“Madame,” said Persse fervently, “let me have the room exactly as it is, and I’ll pay you double.”

The landlady was clearly suspicious of this offer from a luggage-less, wild-eyed, scruffy-looking foreigner, but when he explained that the young lady who had occupied the room was the object of his sentimental attachment, she smiled rosily and said he could have the room as it stood for half-price.

The room was under the steep eaves of the house, with a small dormer window that afforded a glimpse of the lake far below. The window was shut and the air inside the room heavy with the scent of a large bunch of hyacinths, crushed and wilting in the waste basket. The room showed all the signs of a recent hasty departure. Persse picked up a still-damp towel from the floor beneath the washbasin and held it to his cheek. He swallowed the dregs of water at the bottom of a glass tumbler as reverently as if it were communion wine. He carefully unfolded a crumpled paper tissue left on the dressing table, uncovering at its core the faint impression of a pair of red lips, to which he pressed his own. He slept naked between sheets that were still creased and wrinkled from contact with Angelica’s lovely limbs, and inhaled from the pillow under his head the lingering fragrance of her shampoo. He fell asleep in a delirium of sweet sensation and poignant regret and physical exhaustion.

On waking the next morning, he made two precious discoveries underneath the hyacinths in the waste basket: a pair of nylon tights with a hole in one knee, which he tucked away into an inside pocket next to his heart, and a scrap of paper with a telephone number and “TAA 426 Dep .22.50 arr 06.20” written on it in a neat italic hand, which he took immediately to the payphone in the hail downstairs. He dialled the number and was answered by a female voice. “Transamerican Airways.”

“Can you tell me the destination of your flight 426 that left Geneva at 22.50 last night?”

“Yes sir, flight 426 to New York and Los Angeles should have left at that time last night. But due to a technical problem the flight was postponed till this morning. We had to charter another plane.”

“When did it leave?”

“It departs in one hour from now, at 09.30 hours, sir.”

“Is there a vacant seat?”

“Plenty, sir, but you’d better hurry.”

Persse thrust a generous quantity of francs into the hand of his bewildered landlady and ran down the hill to the taxi-rank in front of the station.

“Geneva airport,” he gasped, collapsing into the back seat. “As fast as you can.”

The route to the airport was mostly motorway, and the taxi passed everything on it. They arrived at the International Departures terminal at nine o’clock precisely. Persse gave all his remaining francs to the driver, who seemed well satisfied. He ran headlong at the automatic doors, which opened just in time to prevent him from crashing through their plate glass. Two Transamerican employees, a man and a girl, chatting idly behind the deserted checkin desk, looked up in surprise as Persse charged up to the counter.

“Do you have a passenger Pabst on Flight 426?” he demanded. “Miss Angelica Pabst?”

The man tapped on his computer terminal and confirmed that Miss Pabst had indeed checked in for the flight and was booked through to Los Angeles.

“Give me a ticket to Los Angeles, please, and a seat as near to Miss Pabst as possible.”

Though the flight had technically closed, and the passengers were already boarding, the man got permission to issue Persse with a ticket—it helped that Persse had no luggage. The pair responded eagerly to the urgency of the transaction: while the man filled out the ticket and credit-card slip, the girl allocated him a seat. “You’re in luck, sir,” she said, studying her computer screen. “There’s an empty seat right next to Miss Pabst.”

“That’s grand!” said Persse. He had a vision of himself, the last to board the plane, walking up the aisle and slipping into the seat next to Angelica while her head was turned to look out of the window, saying, quietly—saying what? “Hallo. Long time no see. Going far? Did you [holding up the laddered tights] forget these?” Or better still, saying nothing, just waiting to see how long it would take before she looked down and recognized his scuffed shoes, or the back of his hand on the seat arm between them, or simply felt the vibrations of excitement and expectancy flowing from his heart, and turned to look at him.