dumped the index cards in the trash.
3
The city was crowded and wet and grim, with that air of gray desperation it sometimes took on in March. Lunch had gone long and I was going to be late for my appointment with Professor Ariel.
I tried to gauge whether I had enough time to return to my room to retrieve the book he’d loaned me, but decided against it and headed straight for his office.
Reading was one of the only ways in which I allowed myself to think about the continent and country I’d left behind. Though I hadn’t told the professor anything about myself, he seemed to know I was not at home in the world, and so he lent me books—Kundera and Conrad and Levi and a host of other displaced persons. I’d read one and return to his office, where he’d wax eloquent about the authorswith such intimate detail I was convinced they were all his close friends. I’d just finished
The Emigrants
, and though most of the week’s anxieties had been UN-focused, the book hadn’t been much easier on my mind. I’d followed the wandering protagonist—at once forlorn and whimsical—all the while with an uneasy feeling that the professor somehow knew more about me than I cared to reveal.
I ran up the stairs to his office and knocked though the door was half-open. The room was small and warmly lit, with shelves covering nearly every surface. Stacks of overflow books lined the floor. Professor Ariel sat at a desk in the center, looking little and frail amid his collection.
“Come in. Sit down,” he said in his trembly way. “What did you think of the Sebald?” I moved some papers from the chair and put them on his desk. Behind him on the wall a giant poster of Wisława Szymborska, whom he’d also made me read, watched over our meetings like a chain-smoking guardian angel.
“It got to me,” I said.
“Remarkable prose, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” It was true, but that wasn’t the reason. “Not just that, though. The characters. To come face-to-face with people who never recover from their traumas. It was…”
“Disconcerting?”
I nodded.
“And yet Sebald continually points to the imperfections of memory. Not what we usually think of as the ‘searing’ ofa certain trauma into one’s mind. That haunting lucidity. What do you make of it?”
That had been what scared me most. What if my memory of my parents’ final moments was all wrong? I felt certain I had kept them fresh and protected inside me. The idea that the whim of the subconscious might corrupt what little I had left of them was too much to accept. “But, maybe it’s not that way for everyone. Maybe some people do remember,” I said.
“Certainly. But that comes with its own problems, no? Consider the character of Ambros Adelwarth.”
“His uncle?”
“Tormented by such clear images of his past—”
“He opts for electroshock therapy. To wipe out the thoughts.”
“Precisely.”
“So what am I supposed—I mean, what are we supposed to take from it?”
“Damned if you do—” He smiled a little, then turned to look out the window. He began talking about Sebald’s recent death, a car crash of questionable explanation, but I was feeling too rattled to respond. “Ana, you all right? You’re looking a bit peaked.” He said my name the Croatian way, not with the long, flat
a
’s most Americans used.
“I’m fine. Sorry,” I said. “Just a little under the weather.”
“Sebald has that effect on people. I call it the ‘spell of despair.’ ”
I tried to protest, not wanting him to think I couldn’t manage his assignments, but he turned and stared right at me and I fell silent.
“Where did you say you were from again?”
“I—well. Originally?” I had not said. I didn’t want to say. But it came out anyway. “From Croatia. Zagreb.” A strange, weightless feeling came with having spoken the truth. I gripped the side of the chair as if I really was at risk of floating away.
Professor Ariel did not seem surprised.
3
The city was crowded and wet and grim, with that air of gray desperation it sometimes took on in March. Lunch had gone long and I was going to be late for my appointment with Professor Ariel.
I tried to gauge whether I had enough time to return to my room to retrieve the book he’d loaned me, but decided against it and headed straight for his office.
Reading was one of the only ways in which I allowed myself to think about the continent and country I’d left behind. Though I hadn’t told the professor anything about myself, he seemed to know I was not at home in the world, and so he lent me books—Kundera and Conrad and Levi and a host of other displaced persons. I’d read one and return to his office, where he’d wax eloquent about the authorswith such intimate detail I was convinced they were all his close friends. I’d just finished
The Emigrants
, and though most of the week’s anxieties had been UN-focused, the book hadn’t been much easier on my mind. I’d followed the wandering protagonist—at once forlorn and whimsical—all the while with an uneasy feeling that the professor somehow knew more about me than I cared to reveal.
I ran up the stairs to his office and knocked though the door was half-open. The room was small and warmly lit, with shelves covering nearly every surface. Stacks of overflow books lined the floor. Professor Ariel sat at a desk in the center, looking little and frail amid his collection.
“Come in. Sit down,” he said in his trembly way. “What did you think of the Sebald?” I moved some papers from the chair and put them on his desk. Behind him on the wall a giant poster of Wisława Szymborska, whom he’d also made me read, watched over our meetings like a chain-smoking guardian angel.
“It got to me,” I said.
“Remarkable prose, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” It was true, but that wasn’t the reason. “Not just that, though. The characters. To come face-to-face with people who never recover from their traumas. It was…”
“Disconcerting?”
I nodded.
“And yet Sebald continually points to the imperfections of memory. Not what we usually think of as the ‘searing’ ofa certain trauma into one’s mind. That haunting lucidity. What do you make of it?”
That had been what scared me most. What if my memory of my parents’ final moments was all wrong? I felt certain I had kept them fresh and protected inside me. The idea that the whim of the subconscious might corrupt what little I had left of them was too much to accept. “But, maybe it’s not that way for everyone. Maybe some people do remember,” I said.
“Certainly. But that comes with its own problems, no? Consider the character of Ambros Adelwarth.”
“His uncle?”
“Tormented by such clear images of his past—”
“He opts for electroshock therapy. To wipe out the thoughts.”
“Precisely.”
“So what am I supposed—I mean, what are we supposed to take from it?”
“Damned if you do—” He smiled a little, then turned to look out the window. He began talking about Sebald’s recent death, a car crash of questionable explanation, but I was feeling too rattled to respond. “Ana, you all right? You’re looking a bit peaked.” He said my name the Croatian way, not with the long, flat
a
’s most Americans used.
“I’m fine. Sorry,” I said. “Just a little under the weather.”
“Sebald has that effect on people. I call it the ‘spell of despair.’ ”
I tried to protest, not wanting him to think I couldn’t manage his assignments, but he turned and stared right at me and I fell silent.
“Where did you say you were from again?”
“I—well. Originally?” I had not said. I didn’t want to say. But it came out anyway. “From Croatia. Zagreb.” A strange, weightless feeling came with having spoken the truth. I gripped the side of the chair as if I really was at risk of floating away.
Professor Ariel did not seem surprised.
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