We moved to Paris. We were staying in a hotel before moving into our repainted apartment, but on the second day a French painter and his Canadian wife came to see us. Philippe and Sharon were friends of friends paying us a courtesy visit, but they and my parents hit it off so instantly and famously that spontaneously, sincerely, they invited us to stay with them, an invitation my parents accepted with delight.
Two days later, in the early evening, the doorbell rang and it was a man. He was the very portrait of misery: tense, tired, embarrassed, clearly distraught. Not in French but in halting English, which Philippe understood only a little, he introduced himself: a friend of mutual German acquaintances. They had given him Philippe's name and address in Paris. The man held up the paper on which the information was written. Stammering, with the difficulty of one not used to asking for help, he asked for help, which Philippe, without hesitation, extended. He invited the man in. He offered him a seat and a glass of wine and the man began to explain himself. It came out that he was Czech, a lawyer, that his brother had just been killed in circumstances that I did not understand, that he and his family had fled Czechoslovakia in catastrophe, leaving behind their belongings, their lives, everything, that they were now lost and confused, that -- that they were now lost and confused, he said once again. And sat there, lost and confused. And shaking.
Everything that could be done on the outside to try to make the inside happy was done. While Philippe, my father and the Czech, Pavel, went to get his wife and his daughter, who were waiting at a cafe, the table was set, food was prepared, the corks from red wine bottles were drawn and bed-sheets were brought out.
I suppose that in reality she entered the house exhausted and unhappy, sticking close to her mother, dressed in a slightly dirty white dress with embroidery of bright red and purple, her hair tied in a fraying French braid. But to me she was an apparition of sudden, extravagant beauty. I neither saw nor heard Eva's contrite apologies and thank-yous in her approximate French, or Pavel's echoes of the same in his English or Sharon and Philippe's assurances that neither apologies nor thank-yous were necessary. I only paid attention to Marisa, who looked about and sensed the warmth. I don't know if I was part of that warmth, but she looked at me, then away and around, then back at me, and smiled. My chest tightened.
She gave off sunshine. She had thick, crinkly blonde hair, skin that was honey-coloured, very dark eyes and a face so clear and open that years later, when Tito and I were hiking in the Himalayas and there was a change of wind and suddenly, in an explosion of clarity that cut my breath short, we beheld the mountain Nanga Parbat in its massive, microscopically accurate entirety, the first word, the only word, that came to my lips was her long-forgotten name. She was my age, eight, and she spoke, as far as I could tell, no language known to humanity beyond the Esperanto of our first names. We looked at each other, mutually surprised at the gibberish the other was speaking. But she smiled again.
After a quick clean-up, all of us, the French, the Canadians and the Czechs, sat down to eat. The Czechs ate hungrily; I, who was beside Marisa, hardly at all.
Pavel and Eva were beginning to relax and they and my parents and Philippe and Sharon started on one of those endless conversations that adults specialize in. I don't recall any of this blah-blah-blah-blah on art, politics and life. How could I, when Marisa was next to me? After she had finished stuffing into her mouth all the food her body could possibly take, she sat back. She watched her parents for a few seconds, then shot me a side glance that transfixed me. We began -- in spite of not sharing a common tongue -- to communicate, although I'm not sure what. She whispered to me in her sweet East European Chinese and I whispered back in a French that I thought painfully clear and boring, but she seemed happy enough, for she replied right away each time, hardly letting me finish. The only word she spoke that I understood, the most powerful word in her language, was my name, which she said four or five times, each time dazing me for a few seconds.
Though we were the ones whispering and the adults the ones talking, quite energetically sometimes, to my ears it was the reverse: their intercourse was a distant muttering, near silence, while Marisa's unintelligibility came through loud and clear.
A strangled cry from Pavel abruptly ended our intimacy. His face was congested, he was biting one of his index fingers and he was staring at the table. His eyes were watery. Marisa's face lost its good cheer. In a voice several notes higher than normal, she asked a question of her father. There followed a brief exchange of Czech between father, mother and daughter. Marisa seemed on the verge of tears. I felt I had lost her.
This display of adult emotion was taken to signal that it was time we children went to bed. Then fate took one of those turns that change a life for ever. Philippe and Sharon's house, while generous in its open spaces, was not especially large, and accommodating six adults and two children was a challenge. It was decided expeditiously that Marisa and I would sleep in the same bed.
Just like that, with the casualness of an afterthought -- thanks perhaps to the wine -- passion was thrust into my life.
I was ready long before her. In a minute flat, teeth and hair were brushed, clothes were etc., and I lay in bed, eagerly patient. Meanwhile, she was bathed and dried. I don't remember what I was thinking, but most probably, like adults about to make love, I was deeply content with the here and now, and not going much beyond the rapid and circular thoughts that constitute anticipation.
Looking serious and composed, she appeared at the doorstep of the bedroom, a beauty in a white nightgown at the centre of an explosion of frizz. From the foot of the bed she crawled on all fours, like a lion, to her assigned spot, and she entered the den of our sheets next to an excited, expectant gazelle -- me. Her hair overflowed her pillow. We were good-nighted and kissed by the crowd of parents. Normally I couldn't fall asleep without this ceremony, but that night I wanted it to go as fast as a baton passing in a relay sprint. Instead, it lasted like a scene in a Noh drama.
"To ale byly tri dlouhe dny, vid milacku. Ale uz to bude v poradku. Novy zacatek v nove zemi. Budes mit nove kamarady. Tak se na nas usmej. No vidis, ze to jde. Vzdyt vis, jak moc te mamc radi. Moc a moc. Zitra pujdeme na australskou ambasadu a uvidime, jak brzy budeme moci jet za tetou Vavou do Melbourne. Konecne uvidis opravdove klokany, to bude neco uplne jineho nez v zoologicke v Praze. To se ti bude libit, vid? Tak ted uz spinkej milacku, dobrou noc. Uz tady mas dokonce kamarada. Je prima, vid? Zitra se pujdeme podivat na Eifelovku, kdyz to vyjde. Treba by mohl jit s nami, co rikas? Tak dobrou." "Dors bien, cheri."
"Oui, oui."
"Demain nous irons voir la cathedrale Notre-Dame."
"Oui, oui."
"Ne derange pas Marisa."
What did that mean, ne derange pas Marisa, don't bother Marisa? I narrowed my eyes. If my parents had died that second I would have been delighted.
Finally, with the clicking of a light-switch and the snapping of a latch, they left.
I could smell her. She smelt wonderful, and I took this not as an artifice -- some soap, some shampoo -- but as a natural emanation. The fragrance of beauty. It is amazing how smells can pull one back into the past. I think that if I smelled that shampoo again today I could practically materialize Marisa in front of me.
We lay side by side, pyjamaed from head to toe, looking up at the ceiling, the darkness made limpid by the moonlight coming in from the window, and she quiet, and me, me? me! -- thrilled to my core. And quiet too, just soaking in the thrill, deliciously swept away, deliciously passive. To be this close to Marisa, within inches of certain adventurous strands of her hair -- I asked for nothing more. If we had fallen asleep at that moment, I would still have remembered that night for ever.
She rustled a little, adjusting her nightgown. She turned to me and spoke.
"Ich bin nicht mude. Und du?" "I'm not sleepy. Are you?"
German? Not that I spoke a word of the language, but in Costa Rica, two houses down from us, I had had a friend, Eckhardt, whose parent
s were German immigrants.
I replied in the language which, by virtue of being my third and last, was the most foreign to me and therefore, surely, the closest to Czech.
"Ocho anos. Casi ocho y medio." "Eight years old. Nearly eight and a half."
"Hier gefallt es mir uber-haupt nicht." "I don't like it here at all."
"Tengo calor. Pero estoy bien. Estoy contento." "I'm a little hot. But I'm fine. I'm happy."
"Ich will zuruck nach Prag. Die Leute hier sind schrecklich." "I want to go back to Prague. The people here are nasty."
"?Te gustan los helados?" "Do you like ice-cream?"
"Mit meiner Tante Vavou, wahrscheinlich. Aber die Kanguruhs interessieren mich gar nicht. Ich will zu meinen Freunden." "With my Aunt Vava, probably. But I don't care about kangaroos. I want my friends."
"Tienen buenos helados aqui. Berthillon. Tomamos helado ayer. Vainilla con miel y nueces; mi favorito." "They have good ice-cream here. Berthillon. We had some yesterday. Honey vanilla with nuts is my favourite."
"Ich bin ja gar nicht froh. Und der arme Onkel Tomas." "I'm not happy. And poor Uncle Tomas."
"?A lo mejor tomamos manana?" "Maybe we could have some tomorrow?"
I said this nervously, amazed at my boldness. I would ask my father to get her a double, one scoop of honey vanilla with nuts and another of white chocolate. She was on her side with her head propped up. A few strands of hair fell across her face. She tossed them back.
"Ach, die Hitze. Es ist hier viel zu warm. Wir konnen mal unsere Schlafanzuge ausziehen." "Oh, it's so hot underneath all these blankets. Let's take our pyjamas off."
She sat up and to my amazement began to gather up her nightgown in her hands, and then pulled it off over her head. Her hair cascaded down.
"Mir geht's jetzt besser. Zieh doch den Schlafanzug aus." "That's better. Take yours off"
Her hands reached for my pyjama top. I sat up and she helped me take it off. We remained sitting for a few moments, looking at each other. I suppose she had a chest very much like mine: flat, with two pale round nipples. Except that hers was a touch golden. She smiled.
We lay down and she turned me around so that I had my back to her. Her arm came up and around me. She held me plainly and openly, our bodies tightly fitted to each other, our skins touching, hers very warm, my head resting in her soft, rebellious hair. My eyes were open, but I was more aware of smell and touch than of vision. I felt dizzy.
"Kehr dich mal um." "Turn around."
Her hands made her meaning clear. I turned slowly, ever so slowly, like the planet Earth turning towards daylight. When she spoke, when she breathed, I could feel it against my face. We continued to whisper sweet Hispano-Teutonic nothings.
At a pause, she closed her eyes, covered three inches of space and kissed me on the lips.
It has only happened to me twice in my life: I could hardly see her for the fish in my eyes. At that moment I wanted time to stop, I wanted the night never to end, I wanted the sun to be gutted.
"Gracias, Marisa." "Thank you, Marisa."
I was so blissfully happy, so wide-eyed and glowing with it, that I fell asleep. I awoke in the morning with the conviction that love is an insomnia that wakes us from the sleep of life. I had been asleep before, but never again. I vowed to be awake like this for the rest of my life, a full awakeness, a clear one-litre glass bottle with one litre of water in it.
My mother entered and right away I asked the question.
"Est-ce qu'ils vont rester a Paris?" "Are they going to stay in Paris?"
"Non, ils veulent s'etablir en Australie." "No, they want to settle in Australia."
The answer echoed in my head. Non, ils veulent s'etablir en Australie. Non, ils veulent s'etablir en Australie. Non, non, non. I was at the end of the bed, mostly dressed. She was bringing me a clean shirt.
Will I be understood when I say that sometimes numbness can hurt? That you don't want to feel because what you feel will be pain, so you try not to feel, and just sit there, immobile, numb, in pain?
That day, we, the three nations, visited Notre-Dame, a big, cold place except when Marisa and I stood on the hot air vents. I stuck close to her. She made me feel much the way the cathedral did: draughts of warmth amidst draughts of cold. I kept thinking, "She's here -- but not for long, she's here -- but not for long, she's here -- but not for long."
We returned to the hotel for one night, and then moved into our new apartment. I saw Marisa many times after that, but never in the same circumstances. She was becoming happy, reconciling herself with fate, thinking of Australia, already speaking her first words of English -- "boat", "bed", "dictionary". The last time I saw her, for the goodbyes, she came up to me and publicly kissed me on the left cheek, on the right cheek, on the left cheek, and then, once, on the lips. I felt my life was over.
She was a new teacher at my new school, the English School of Paris. It was my first day. A boy sitting at the back was making things difficult for her. He was being very insolent. At a climax of tension between him and her, she lost control and slapped the first boy within reach -- which happened to be me. Did I make a comment? A wisecrack? Something that would have been a specious excuse? If I did, any memory of it was instantly erased by this full slap in the face. I did not cry -- pride -- only stared down, red in the face. But as soon as I got off the school bus and was greeted by my parents, hours later, I burst into great, choking tears. My schoolmates surrounded us and in their shrill voices, one over the other, they recounted what had happened. In truth, the teacher had not really meant to slap me, and even before the school principal received an irate and flushed visit the next morning from two young Canadian diplomats, who meant to get to the bottom of why their much-loved little boy was being physically abused -- something never, ever done by them, they emphasized -- and unjustly abused on top of it, even before this, she received a visit from the young woman (with her boyfriend), who, immediately after the class, had gone to the bathroom to cry and had spent a sleepless night and whose eyes were still red and who was obviously remorseful about the incident. The rest of the year she was extra nice to me, and I received a final mark of 94, though I can't even remember what the subject was. This slap was one of my few direct contacts with violence during my early childhood. The others came through art.
I would like to move quickly through this episode. It is a mistake from my childhood, regret for which still nags me. What I would give to undo it! I see it as one of the forks in the river of my early life, one of those moments that begin the tracing of a pattern. The details annoy me and bore me, I have gone over them so often, but still I must relate them. What comes through loud and clear to me is the fact that I learned nothing from Marisa.
Ten years old, same school, same class, a little shorter than I, a smile like -- no metaphors, quickly: I was in love with Mary Ann. I would set eyes on her -- and what a difference one person can make! I would look at all the other people in my life -- my parents, my classmates, my teachers, strangers in the street -- and nothing would happen, so many bottles moving along in a bottle factory. But I could never get enough of looking at Mary Ann. There was something about her that was beyond my understanding. I would gaze at her in circles, from her hair to her forehead to her eyes to her nose to her smile to her whole face and then back again to the details, circle after circle. Mary Ann and I were friends. We played together all the time, and on the bus I sat beside her, or near her, regularly. And she came to my home at least once. It's engraved in my memory.
Kelly was there, Mary Ann's younger sister. We were playing submarine in the modular furniture of my bedroom. Kelly, who was running the engines and operating the missile silos, was below, at the desk, while above her on the bed, out of sight, lay Mary Ann and I, commanders of the sub. We talked, we whispered, we gave orders, we laughed, we looked into each other's eyes -- it was there in the air, to be had. I only needed to lean forward and do it. Instead I fell back as if exhausted, and gave Kelly her final order, "Surface," an
d the spell was broken.
One day I will be old and if you push me, if you prod me, I'll spill this trivial incident of a ten-year-old boy who failed to kiss a ten-year-old girl. I will be bitter about it.
It was after the submarine, on the bus on the way back from school. Mary Ann was sitting with Diane in the seat in front of me. They had placed their coats over their heads and were whispering secrets to each other. But I could hear them. Through the cleft between their seats, I could hear them. Mary Ann asked Diane whom she liked, what boy, and there was giggling and some answer and I didn't care. Then Diane asked Mary Ann whom she liked, what boy, and immediately, without a pause, there was an answer, some Paul, some Henry, that I so little wanted to hear that I momentarily went deaf. I sat back in my seat and looked out the window and managed not to cry until I was in the bathroom at home.
That summer I spent two weeks in Canada with my paternal grandmother. She lived in a small village on the St. Lawrence and I spent most of my time fishing off a pier. It amused the city boy I was to be doing that, to be capturing wild fish from the wild, wild seaway -- thirty-five kilometres wide at the level of my grandmother's village -- and it meant that I could be alone, for she never came with me; alone with the wind, the seaway and the sun. But something had to be done with my catch. It was a fish called the loach, whose taste my grandmother did not like. The garden, she said. So it was that for two early summer weeks I fished alone every day off a pier and returned to my grandmother's small house to fertilize her garden with fresh fish. I dug small trenches and into these I laid my loaches, one by one, head touching tail, quickly burying them before they could flip-flop out of position. Some nonetheless swam up to the surface of the garden and I had to dig a deeper trench and step on the soil over them to make it compact. I wouldn't have tolerated this nonsense except that television and the rest of my upbringing had taught me the many ways in which a man or a woman can be killed, but not a loach. As I buried the fish, I said to myself over and over, to the point of stupefaction, "There is no love, there is no love, there is no love, there is no love." With a vengeance, in the cool, dark soil, I meant to bury the fish in my eyes.