Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling

Author:Sara Houghteling
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction:Historical
ISBN: 9780307266859
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

WHEN I WROTE NEXT TO MONSIEUR LETHEZ, I received a reply in a feminine hand that he was now well enough to see me. So it was that I climbed a battered staircase in the Ninth arrondissement to visit another man my father had inscribed in his book of addresses. Despair clung to this building and to the modest apartments. Lethez's sister greeted me again, wordlessly with her finger pressed to her lips. Her movements were fluid and soundless, in the way that a nurse is always aware of the sleeping invalid nearby.

I followed her through a series of rooms without carpets or curtains, the walls of which were streaked with water stains but lined with vitrines of pre-Columbian art: flat golden heads and other works of metallurgy, three-dimensional figures in jade, humans with bird feet or fangs, jaguars, copulating men and women—dozens upon dozens, most no bigger than my thumb, marching in neat rows.

We passed the kitchen and the drone of the radio and the smell of vegetables boiling. The sister rapped on the door frame of the last room, and we entered it. Inside, a small man creaked back and forth in a rocking chair, his fingers worrying the white bandage on his head. He wore a crimson tie neatly knotted, which suggested the sister's hand in his careful attire. A youthful face ill-matched his widow's peak and, above it, the shock of white hair. He was pale and handsome and frail. He eyed his sister warily and did not look at me.

“This is Max Berenzon, Léon,” she said. “You remember,” and then closed the door behind her.

I looked back with alarm—why did she close the door? I did not want to be left alone with him. This thought struck me separately: I, who had nearly been a doctor, was still afraid of the sick. Staring at the door before I could catch myself doing so, I saw a pair of pajamas hanging on a hook. Their sight touched me distinctly, though I could not explain why.

I turned to Monsieur Lethez and saw him gazing at me, his hand still over the bandage, which was just larger than his palm. There was a plate of cookies on the table.

“Try these,” Lethez said. “They are delicious.”

They immediately crumbled all over my pants and the floor and stuck to my fingers. Lethez ate neatly.

“Wonderful,” I agreed. He gestured for me to take another, which I dutifully ate. “I've made a mess,” I said.

“Have one more,” he said. I did not want it, but I ate anyway. My crunching and chewing seemed coarse in the quiet room. “Now, tell me, why you are here?”

My mind flipped through diagnoses—it looked as if a section of his skull had been removed—as I searched for the ailment and the operation.

I stammered and babbled, the man unnerved me so, thinking of one thing and saying another, and eventually formed the idea that I wanted to learn how he had survived the war and what had been the fate of his collection.

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