Promise at Dawn Page 12
They offer success, money, the applause of the mob. But if you have had the misfortune to be born a genius, if you are Michelangelo, Goya, Mozart, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky or Malraux, you are destined to die with the feeling that all you have ever done was sell peanuts.
Having got that off my chest, let me say that I still go on practicing.
Every morning, I step out of my house on the hill above San Francisco and there, in the bright sunlight, into the face of the sky, I juggle defiantly and masterfully with three oranges, which is now as far as I can go.
It is no arrogance on my part, but a simple affirmation of human dignity. I shall never stop trying.
I should not like anyone to conclude from a certain tone of sadness that might occasionally creep into my voice that I have been an unhappy man. That would be a most regrettable error.
I have known in my life, and still know, great moments of happiness. Ever since childhood, for instance, I have always loved pickled cucumbers, either the Russian, the Polish or the Jewish kosher type, which we call in France cucumbers à la russe. I often buy a pound at a time, then settle down somewhere in the sun, preferably on the ocean shore, or on the pavement, no matter where, and munch my cucumbers. Those are my only moments of bliss and I truly feel that the great Persian poet Chaim Zyskind did not lie, and that man is indeed the champion of the world, and that everything on this earth belongs to him. If the landscape is beautiful, so much the better: while I look at it, eating my pickled cucumber, I feel that I am eating it too. It is a good way of taking possession of the world. Artistically speaking, I have never been able to possess anything to my heart’s content or even truly to bite into it—no mortal has achieved this, not even the greatest poets or painters—and in that desperate hunger for the absolute and for some total fulfillment which the sight of beauty stirs in me, I am somehow reduced to the humble expedient of eating or making love. Give me a pound of kosher cucumbers, called malosolny in Russian, and I know that life is worth living, that happiness is attainable: it is a matter of loving something worth while with all your heart and giving oneself to it completely, without reserve.
My mother watched my efforts to help with gratitude. When she came home dragging some faded old carpet under her arm, or a secondhand lamp, which she proposed to resell, and found me juggling in my room, she well knew that this was a labor of love. She would sit down, watch me, and then say with a smile: “I don’t think you will have very much practical sense. But you are going to be a great artist. Your mother is always right.”
Her prediction very nearly came true. My class at school had got up a play and, after the elimination of other possible male leads, the principal role in Mickiewicz’s dramatic poem Konrad Wallenrod was entrusted to me despite the strong Russian accent with which I spoke Polish. It was not by chance that I came through the preliminary heats with flying colors and was given the part.
Every evening, when she had finished her rounds and got our supper ready, my mother spent an hour or two rehearsing with me. She had learned every word of the text and started the proceedings by giving me her own interpretation; then I was told to go through the text again, closely copying her gestures, her poses and her intonations. It was a very dramatic part, and at about eleven o’clock our exhausted neighbors could stand no more and clamored for silence. But my mother was infuriated by such lack of respect for art, and there were many memorable scenes in the corridors during which, her heart still throbbing with the inspiration of truly great poetry, she surpassed herself in invective, defiance and flaming tirades. We did not have long to wait before we were asked to do our declaiming somewhere else, and went to live with one of my mother’s relatives in a flat occupied by a lawyer and his sister, who was a dentist. At first, we slept in the waiting room, but later moved to the lawyer’s office. Every morning we had to clear up before the arrival of clients and patients.
At long last, the performance took place and, on that evening, I enjoyed my first success upon the boards. When all was over, my mother, still dazed from the applause and with tears of joy still running down her cheeks, took me to eat cakes at Lardelli’s, the most chic confectioner in town. She had never got over the habit of holding my hand when we were walking in the street and I, being by then eleven and a half, felt most embarrassed. I always tried, on some plausible pretext, politely to disengage my hand and then conveniently forget to give it back to her, but my mother never failed to grasp it once more firmly in her own.
The streets in the vicinity of the Poznanska were, from afternoon on, much patronized by prostitutes. There were, quite literally, swarms of them in the rue Chmielna, and my mother and I very soon became a familiar sight to these kind young women. When we walked past them, hand in hand, they always respectfully made way for us and complimented my mother on my good looks. When I was alone, they frequently stopped me to question me about my mother, asking why she had never remarried, giving me sweets, and one of them, a thin little redhead with bandy legs, always kissed me on the cheek, after which she would ask me for my handkerchief and carefully rub the place where her lips had touched my skin. I do not know how the news that I was to play an important part in the school production of Konrad Wallenrod had spread to the street but, on our way to the confectioner’s, the girls surrounded us and anxiously inquired what sort of reception I had had. My mother informed them of my triumph without any foolish modesty and, throughout the ensuing days, presents were rained upon me whenever I walked down the rue Chmielna—little crosses, sacred medals, rosaries, pen knives, slabs of chocolate and statuettes of the Virgin. I was more than once taken by the girls into a small delicatessen nearby, and there, under their admiring glances, I stuffed myself with dill pickles and halva.
At Lardelli’s, after my fifth cake, as I began to relax, my mother briefly described her plans for the future. At last we had solid ground under our feet. There was no doubt about my talent, the road was marked out and we had only to stride ahead. I would become a great actor, I would make many lovely women unhappy, I would have an immense open yellow car, I would have a contract with the UFA. . . . This time, it was all within our reach: we had made it Another cake for me, another glass of tea for her. She must have drunk between fifteen and twenty glasses of tea a day. I listened—how shall I put it?—I listened prudently. I can say without boasting that I had not lost my head. I was only eleven and a half, but I had already made up my mind to be the calm, the restraining, the logical French influence in the family. For the moment, the only concrete fact which I saw in all this was the plateful of cakes, of which I left not one. That was wise of me because my great stage and screen career never materialized. It certainly was not for want of trying. For several months, my mother never stopped sending my photo to every theatrical management in Warsaw as well as Berlin, and to the UFA, with a long description of the terrific success I had had in the principal part of Konrad Wallenrod. She even got the director of the Polski Theatre to give me an audition. He was a distinguished and cultured gentleman who listened attentively while, one foot forward and one arm raised in the attitude of Rouget de Lisle singing the “Marseillaise,” I fervently declaimed on his office floor, with a strong Russian accent, the immortal verses of the Polish bard. I had terrible stage fright, which I tried to conceal by shouting more and more loudly. There were several people in the office who stared hard at me and seemed greatly struck, but I cannot have been at my best in this far from encouraging atmosphere, since the fabulous contract was never offered to me. All the same, the manager heard me through to the end and when, having swallowed poison as the text demanded, I collapsed on the floor, twisting in appalling convulsions while my mother looked with an air of triumph at the audience, he helped me to my feet and, after making sure that I had not hurt myself, vanished so quickly that I still wonder how he did it and through what door he fled.
I never appeared upon the boards again until sixteen years later before a very different public, of which General de Gaulle was the most interest
ing member. It happened in the heart of Equatorial Africa, at Bangui in the Oubangui-Chari in 1941. I had been there for some while in charge of the three Blenheims of my squadron when we were told that General de Gaulle was coming to inspect us. We decided to honor the leader of Free France with a theatrical performance and at once set to work. An extremely witty revue—according to its authors—was put together on the spot. The text was very light, very gay and sparkling with humor, for those were the days of the great military disasters of 1941, and we were determined to show our leader an unshakable morale and a tremendous optimism.
We gave a tryout performance before the General’s arrival, so as to get everything running smoothly, and our success on that occasion was encouraging. The audience applauded loudly, and though an occasional mango dropped from a tree onto the head of one or another of the spectators, the whole thing went off very well. The General turned up next morning and, that same evening, was present at the show with the military Governor and several high political personalities of his entourage: it was a disaster. I swore to myself that never, no matter what dramatic hours my country might be passing through, never again would I act, dance and sing before General de Gaulle. France may ask anything of me, but not that.
Admittedly, the idea of performing a naughty little revue before the man who stood alone in the storm of History, facing at the same time a ruthless enemy and scheming Allies, was not the best invention that could have sprouted in our youthful brains. But I never would have thought that one single man could have such a magical effect upon an audience.
General de Gaulle, in white tropical uniform, sat in the front row, very stiff, his arms crossed and his képi on his knees. He did not budge, twitch or show the slightest reaction of any kind from start to finish of our performance. I do seem to remember, however, one fleeting moment when I was doing a lot of high kicking, dancing the can-can, while a fellow actor screamed, as the part demanded, “Je suis cocu!”—I do seem to remember that I just caught, out of the corner of my eye, a very slight quiver of the mustache on the face of the leader of Free France. But perhaps I only imagined it. There he sat, very erect, with his arms crossed, and looked at us with a sort of merciless concentration.
The eye was in the audience and it looked on Cain.1
But the most astonishing thing of all was the behavior of the two hundred other spectators. Whereas on the previous evening the whole house had roared with laughter, applauded loudly and showed that they were thoroughly enjoying the fun, we did not, on this occasion, get so much as a smile. And yet the General was sitting in the front row and it was almost impossible for the rest of the audience to see his face. Let those who maintain that General de Gaulle is incapable of making contact with crowds or of communicating his feelings think this over.
Some time after the end of the war, Louis Jouvet staged a production of Don Juan. I was present at rehearsal. In the scene in which the statue of the Commander arrives punctually at the rendezvous and carries the libertine off to hell, I suddenly felt that I had seen it all before, somewhere, and, in a flash, recalled Bangui in 1941 and General de Gaulle looking me straight in the eyes. I hope he has forgiven me.
1 Reference to Hugo’s verse: “The eye was in the tomb and it looked on Cain.”
CHAPTER 18
And so, my stage triumph in Konrad Wallenrod turned out to be merely ephemeral and failed, to our great surprise, to solve any of the material problems we were facing. Our last penny was gone. My mother spent every day walking the streets in search of business, and came home late, looking exhausted and scared. But I was never cold or hungry, and she always kept assuring me that a terrific, lucrative deal was just around the corner—there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
I did all I could to help her. I literally surpassed myself in my efforts to fly to her rescue. I wrote poems which I recited to her—they were to bring us fame, fortune and the adulation of applauding crowds. I worked for five or six hours a day polishing my verses and filled many exercise books with stanzas, alexandrines and sonnets. I even embarked upon a tragedy in five acts, a prologue and an epilogue, entitled Alcymine. Each time my mother came back empty-handed from one of her expeditions, and sank down on a chair—the first marks of age were beginning to show in her face—I read aloud the immortal lines which were to bring the world to her feet. She always listened with the greatest attention. Little by little, her face grew brighter, the traces of fatigue vanished and she exclaimed with absolute conviction: “Lord Byron! Victor Hugo! Pushkin!”
I also went in for greco-roman wrestling in the firm hope of one day becoming a champion of the world, and soon was known at school as “Gentleman Jim.” I was far from being stronger than anybody else, but I excelled in striking noble and elegant poses, which gave the impression of quiet power and dignity. I had style. I was almost always floored.
M. Dieuleveut-Caulec gave his kind encouragement to my poetic creations. For it goes without saying that I composed neither in Russian nor in Polish. French was my language. Warsaw was no more than a temporary camping ground on the journey to my true country, and there could be no question of my shirking my duty. I had the greatest admiration for Pushkin, who wrote in Russian, and for Mickiewicz, who wrote in Polish, but I could never really understand why they had not used French in the creation of their masterpieces: it seemed to me rather unpatriotic of them.
I made no attempt to conceal from my young Polish friends the fact that I was one of them only temporarily, that we were planning to “go home” at the first opportunity. Such artless pigheadedness on my part did not make life at school any easier for me. During the breaks, when I wandered about the corridors with a self-important air, a little group of older boys would sometimes gather around me. They looked at me with solemn eyes. Then, one of them would step forward and, addressing me in the third person, as is customary in Poland, would ask me in a tone of deep respect: “Am I right in thinking that Kolega1 has put off his journey to France?”
I invariably played into his hands. “Yes. It is not worth while arriving in the middle of the school year,” I would explain. “One must be there at the beginning.”
My baiter would nod agreement, then add: “I trust he has warned them of his intention: otherwise they might be worried.” They nudged one another and I knew that they were making fun of me. But I was far beyond the reach of their insults. My dream was more important to me than my wounded pride and, somehow, their baiting helped to strengthen my belief and my illusions. I stood up to them and very calmly answered their questions. Did I think that the school curriculum in France was more difficult than in Poland? Yes, much more difficult. Sport, too, played a great part in it and I intended to specialize in fencing and greco-roman wrestling. Was uniform obligatory in French schools? Yes. What was it like? It was blue with gilt buttons and a sky-blue képi. On Sundays, one wore red trousers and a white plume in the képi. Did one wear a sword? Only on Sundays and on the last day of the year. Did one sing the “Marseillaise” before the day’s work started? Yes, naturally, one sang the “Marseillaise” every morning. Would I mind singing the “Marseillaise” for them? God forgive me, but there and then I advanced one foot, put one hand on my heart, raised high a clenched fist and gave a rendering of my national anthem in tones of burning enthusiasm. Yes, I played into their hands but I wasn’t taken in. I could see their grinning faces and the way they turned aside to give vent to their guffaws. But oddly enough, I didn’t care. There I stood in the middle of a group of banderilleros, feeling completely indifferent. Conscious that I had a great country behind me, I was impervious to their sarcasm and their gibes. This game might have gone on indefinitely had not my tormentors suddenly touched me on the raw. The routine had begun in its usual way when five or six of the older boys pressed around me, with a thoughtful look on their faces: “So, our friend is still with us? We thought that he had left for France, where he is so eagerly awaited.”
I was about to embark upon my usual explanations when
the eldest of the group broke in upon me: “They are not very keen about admitting ex-cocottes, I suppose.”
I no longer remember who the boy was and I certainly do not know where he had picked up this curious piece of information. Need I say that nothing in my mother’s past justified such a slanderous statement? She may not, perhaps, have been the “great dramatic artist” of her imagination but, still, she had played in very good Moscow theatres, and those who knew her at that time always described her to me as a proud woman whose exceptional beauty had never turned her head nor led her astray.
But so great was my surprise on this occasion that it took the appearance of cowardice. My heart suddenly sank into a hole, my eyes filled with tears and, for the first and last time in my life, I turned my back on my enemies.
I have never, since then, turned my back on anything or anybody, but on that black day I did, and there is no use denying it. For a moment I was put out of countenance.
When my mother came home, I ran to her and blurted out the whole story. I expected her to fling her arms wide and console me as she knew so well how to do. But what actually happened was staggering. All of a sudden, every vestige of love and tenderness left her face. She did not, as I had been anticipating, let a flood of compassion and affection flow over me. She said nothing and looked at me for a long time, almost coldly. Then she moved away from me, took a cigarette from the table and lit it She went into the kitchen, which we shared with the owner of the flat, and busied herself about my supper. Her face looked as though it were made of wood, utterly indifferent, and from time to time she turned on me a pair of eyes that were almost hostile. I could not understand what had happened and was filled with a great surge of self-pity. I felt indignant, betrayed, abandoned. She made my bed, still without uttering a word. She did not so much as lie down all that night, and when I woke in the morning, she was still sitting in the same old armchair of pale-green leather, facing the window with a cigarette between her fingers. The floor was covered with stubs—she never cared where she dropped them. Her face was quite expressionless, and she turned her eyes away from me to the window. I believe, today, that I know what she was thinking—at least I imagine that I do. She must have been wondering whether I was worth bothering about, whether there was any meaning in her sacrifices, her efforts and her hopes, whether I was not going to turn out like men all the world over, whether I would not end by treating her as another man had once treated her.