Perlmann's Silence by Pascal Mercier Page B

stationery shop, his steps were firm and confident.
    It was his first venture into the town, and for a long time it looked as if there wasn’t a single shop selling writing equipment. At last, in a dark side street, he found a scruffy little shop selling not only stationery but also magazines and trashy novels, as well as cheap toys and sweets. Still annoyed at having had to search for so long, but now also relieved, he turned the handle with brio and pushed against the locked door with his shoulder and head. Still siesta, even though it was nearly four o’clock. He stopped by the shop window and rubbed his aching forehead. After a while his eye was caught by a big book which was set up behind the dirty pane, surrounded by tinsel and paper chains, like a holy book in a shrine. It was a chronicle of the twentieth century. The front cover was divided into four fields showing world-famous photographs, icons of the century: Marilyn Monroe, standing over the ventilating shaft, holding on to her skirt as it blew up; Elvis Presley in a pale blue glittery suit, bent far back as he played; Neil Armstrong’s first footstep on the moon; Jackie Kennedy in Dallas, bending over the assassinated president in the open-topped car. Perlmann felt the pictures drawing him into their spell as if he had never seen them before. The idea of being able to read something about the subjects of these pictures, right now, electrified him, and suddenly nothing seemed more exciting, nothing more important, than to comprehend the century in which he lived from the perspective of pictures like that. Excitedly, he tore open the packet of cigarettes that he had bought on the corner. No, it wasn’t like that: it wasn’t a matter of understanding a century like a historian. What he wanted was to reappropriate his own life by imagining what had happened in the world outside while he was alive. The idea first came to him there in that dark, deserted alley, smelling a bit of fish and rotten vegetables. He was unsure whether he fully understood what he was thinking, but he was impatient to get started, whatever it might be.
    The shop’s proprietor, when she finally opened the door to him, was a fat woman with far too many rings on her plump hands. She was at first annoyed by Perlmann’s unconcealed impatience. But when he asked for the chronicle, her grumpy attitude gave way to solicitous friendliness. She was taken aback, as if she had never imagined that anyone might actually want to buy that big, unwieldy book, the centerpiece of her display; certainly not someone with an unmistakeably foreign accent, and during the dead time of the Italian siesta. She fetched the heavy volume from the shop window, dusted it down in the open door and handed it to Perlmann with a theatrical gesture: Ecco! She wouldn’t take anything for the vocabulary notebook – it was gratis. She stuffed the bundle of cash into the pocket of her apron. She was still shaking her head with surprise as she watched him leave from the doorway.
    Two streets on, Perlmann saw an unprepossessing sign: trattoria. He parted the glass-bead curtain, walked down the long, gloomy corridor and suddenly found himself in a bright, glass-roofed internal courtyard with dining tables covered by red-and-white checked tablecloths. The room was empty, and Perlmann had to call twice before the proprietor arrived wearing an apron. They themselves had just eaten, he said genially, but Perlmann could still have a minestrone and a plate of pasta. Then, when he brought the food, his wife and daughter appeared as well. Perlmann was itching to read the chronicle, but the family was curious to find out about the man with the big book who plainly lived against the grain of the daily rhythm. In return for their hospitality at such an unusual time, Perlmann told them about the research group. Investigating languages, that was interesting, they thought, and he had to tell them more and more. Sandra in particular, the