The visitor’s attention turns immediately to higher things such as the red star above the pediment of a grey mockcolumned building opposite the hotel with its mere façade of columns that support nothing at all except MÁVIGAZGATÓSÁG in red. E allora the languages do not fraternise down the seven-terraced tower which has the structure of the Sumerian ziggurat.
Unless perhaps the seven-terraced tower sits suspended between belief and disbelief at a height of twelve thousand metres outside temperature what, minus forty-nine bumping down the steps of air its under-carriage lowered and touching ground so suddenly that the fingers fondle the medal of Saint Christopher under the blouse the distant brain way up guided by white frogs with yellow discs for eyes until it comes to a standstill and up the concrete corridor into the big hall where concrete men sit hidden in high booths and consult secret lists looking up at the change in the expected person. The plastic luggage moves along the conveyor-belt unowned unmastered then suddenly half-owned again as the concrete man searches, turns out the entire contents of the suitcase this? Rollers. For the hair. Ah. And this? A hair-piece. What? Peruka. Ah. Searching and searching for the face put on and other frustrations to the true end of marriage this? Well! Searching and searching not for intimacy or liquor cigarettes diamonds drugs but ideas in dangerous print and this? A Russian phrase-book do you mind? Ah. Du lieber Gott what an unexpected tribute to the power of literature. Lirrechur etc? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this dilapidated dining-room with galleries cupids on the corner pillars potted plants and a bulging orchestra balcony empty of perhaps balalaikas. The two thumbs press together towards the body, the fingers touch away from it forming a roof with a squat diamond-space between. So you’ve come for an East-West writers’ conference on The Writer and Communication well, how very hopeful of them. And me merely for electronics what a well-organised coincidence. And do you still communicate mein Lieb, with whom?
Did you want it for eating love?
Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty place among the potted palms a group of young men in brown nylon macintoshes accompanying girls in skirts and jumpers one in apple-green frou-frou to an adjoining room where the young men take off their nylon macintoshes and dance close to their girls pre-war slow foxtrots lieber Gott has progress retrograded to a pre-war slow foxtrot orchestra depending on what you mean by progress. How long have you stayed away lost touch got out of practice or as yet ungained any confidence heart knowledge of true love memory taking off into the blue the cloud the fog? Haben Sie Butter bitte? Excuse please? May we have some butter? Bata? Er, mas-wo. Excuse, niet. Oh. Thank you. And how goes the tennis-match?
— Oh! That. Well, one takes no notice really.
— One does? Who exactly takes no notice 00147 Roma?
— Oh, you mean Rome.
— What did you think I meant?
— Nothing.
— Well?
— Well, it just goes on. Presumably. In the meantime—
— In the meantime we make love?
— Perhaps.
Siegfried grown totally bald somewhere between Moscow and Retrograd looks Liebes! Seriously? After all these years and despite or while waiting for Defensor Vine? You’ll strike me impotent you will.
— Not you Siegfried.
— You really do want things both ways don’t you?
— Well you’ve tried hard enough to undermine what little faith remained.
— What me?
— Oh and him too. Everyone. And life. And Rome more than anyone. Your other advice found an echo anyway.
— What advice?
— To sell the cottage.
— To sell — I don’t believe it. What, il piccolo chalet, gone?
— Not quite yet, but going.
— I simply don’t believe you. How much? When? How?
— Four thousand. Someone wanted it, and approached an agent, who wrote, and, well, why not, as you said, one should save und so weiter and the rent in Paris went up to almost double after the last demand from Rome and—
— But Liebes! I never meant it seriously. Your box your refuge and all that. And without consulting me.
— Without consulting anyone. It just happened one morning, the letter came, and suddenly it all meant nothing. Why have two pieds-à-terre? Most conferences take place in Paris these days, apart of course from fringe activities like the Dante Centenary not to mention Writers and Communication.
— Du Witzling. But I don’t understand you. Have you got something up your sleeve?
— Nothing at all, just personal effects.
— And very nice too. No seriously. Have you signed it away? Has it all gone? Il piccolo chalet?
— Not quite. Next week in London. A Medical Congress on the molecules of memory, appropriately enough.
— And you’ll transfer the furniture and stuff to the rue du Four?
— Only some of it. No room as you know. The rest goes up for auction.
— Why do I feel as if I had lost a limb? You must have gone out of your mind.
— Or into it again. Paris has much to offer.
— Ah, gay Paree.
— No not that. Just living in the language of one’s childhood. Shopping in French, paying rent and taxes in French, talking to the concierge in French, walking breathing in French.
— Hmm. You can’t Persil-schein your German layers that easily meine Liebe.
— That doesn’t come into it.
— Which reminds me, breathing in French, breathes yet the old French lover?
— Man achtet nicht darauf.
— Man doesn’t?
— Oh, man. Man continues.
— Poor old thing. With no encouragement at all from la belle dame sans merci? Well, gut-gut. But I don’t believe it. Even old Bertrand would give up sooner or later. Your eyes, your emerald furry eyes cannot lie. You have answered him. Nicht wahr? You enjoy it, nicht wahr, reading all that suffering stuff, it does something to you nicht wahr nicht wahr? Oh, Liebes, such an easy prey how can you?
— Only in the most off-hand and neutral way.
— But just non-neutrally enough to keep it going nicht wahr?
— Stop prying and bullying.
— Well, I feel jealous.
— It doesn’t mean a thing.
— No?
— Nothing at all.
— Except perhaps—
— Yes?
— The language, Siegfried. The fact that all this suffering stuff as you call it pours out in French, well, it sort of turns the system inside out, it—
— I see. Yes, I do see. In that case, I can only bow out once again, gracefully I hope as before, as always.
— Oh Siegfried don’t talk like that. It means nothing.
— Hmm. Besides I’d better not attempt once more to seduce you back, not here anyway, they have the charming habit of taking photographs and sending them to one’s wife, boss und so weiter.
— Oh.
— I say that loudly enough to make the large-eared lady’s job easier at the next table. I wish they wouldn’t do it so obviously. Perhaps we should test her abilities and speak Arabic, not that that would flummax a bugged watch. Oh. Meine Liebe! You mean, you really, wanted to?
— Yes.
— As er, as a substitute?
— How can you say a thing like that? After all these years as you say of friendship and even love.
— Take care, Liebes, take care. Oh. Have you any fruit? Obst. How on earth do you say fruit in Russian? Des fruits. Excuse, niet, poodeeng?