The Elegance Of The Hedgehog Part 6

The gentleman who has bought the Arthens apartment is j.a.panese! His name is Kakuro Ozu! That's just great; something like this would would happen right before I die. Twelve and a half years in a cultural desert and right when it's time to go and pack it in a j.a.panese gentleman arrives ... It really is too unfair. happen right before I die. Twelve and a half years in a cultural desert and right when it's time to go and pack it in a j.a.panese gentleman arrives ... It really is too unfair.

But I want see the positive side of things: at least he is here, and really here, and what's more we had a very interesting conversation yesterday. First of all, there's the fact that everyone in the building is absolutely crazy about Monsieur Ozu. My mother speaks of nothing else, my father listens to her for once, whereas usually his mind is elsewhere when she starts to go blah-blah-blah about the goings-on in the building; Colombe pinched my j.a.panese textbook and, in an unprecedented event in the annals of 7, rue de Grenelle, Madame de Broglie came to have tea chez nous chez nous. We live on the fifth floor, directly above the former Arthens apartment and lately there has been all this remodeling work going on-a gigantic amount of remodeling! It was clear that Monsieur Ozu had decided to change everything, and everyone was drooling with desire to see what he had changed. In a world full of fossils, the slightest movement of a pebble on the slope of the cliff is nearly enough to bring on a whole series of heart attacks-so you can imagine what happens when someone dynamites the whole mountain! In short, Madame de Broglie was dying to have a look at the fourth floor, so when she ran into Maman last week in the hall she wheedled an invitation out of her. And you know what her pretext was? It's really funny. Madame de Broglie is the wife of Monsieur de Broglie, the State Councilor who lives on the first floor and who joined the Council under Giscard d'Estaing-he's so conservative that he won't say h.e.l.lo to divorced people. Colombe calls him "the old fascist" because she's never read a thing about the French right wing, and Papa holds him up as a perfect example of the ossification of political ideas. His wife fits the image: posh suit, string of pearls, pinched lips and loads of grandchildren called Gregoire or Marie. Until now she would scarcely say h.e.l.lo to Maman (who is a Socialist, dyes her hair and wears pointed shoes). But last week she jumped on us as if her life depended on it. We were in the hall, we had just come back from shopping and Maman was in a very good mood because she had found an eggsh.e.l.l linen tablecloth for two hundred and forty euros. And I swear I thought I was having auditory hallucinations. After the customary "Bonjour, Madame," Madame de Broglie said to Maman, "I have something to ask you," which must have really hurt her lips. "Please, go right ahead," said Maman with a smile (thanks to the tablecloth and her anti-depressants). "Well, my little daughter-in-law, etienne's wife, is not very well these days and I think she'll have to consider therapy." "Oh?" said Maman with an even bigger smile. "Yes, uh, you see, some sort of psychoa.n.a.lysis." Madame de Broglie looked like a snail lost in the Sahara but she stood fast all the same. "Yes, I see," said Maman, "and how may I be of a.s.sistance, Madame de Broglie?" "Well, the thought occurred to me that you might have an idea ... well ... how to go about it ... so I would have liked to discuss it with you, that's all." Maman could not get over her good fortune: an eggsh.e.l.l linen tablecloth, the prospect of spouting all her knowledge about psychoa.n.a.lysis and Madame de Broglie dancing the dance of the seven veils-oh yes, a good day indeed! And she couldn't resist because she knew perfectly well what the other woman's actual intention was. My mother may be a bit of a b.u.mpkin in the intellectual subtlety category, but you still can't fool her completely. She knows perfectly well that the day the de Broglies are genuinely interested in psychoa.n.a.lysis, the Gaullists will start singing the Internationale Internationale-clearly, the name of her sudden success was "the fifth-floor landing lies directly above the fourth-floor landing." Still, she decided to act magnanimously, to prove to Madame de Broglie how kind and open-minded socialists can be-but not without a little hazing to begin with. "By all means, Madame de Broglie. Would you like me to come to your place one evening to discuss it?" she asked. The other woman looked constipated, she wasn't expecting such a suggestion, but she got hold of herself very quickly and, as a woman of the world, she said, "No, no, please, I don't want you to have to come down, I will come up to see you." Maman had already had her little moment of satisfaction so she didn't insist. "Well, I'm in this afternoon," she said, "why don't you come have a cup of tea at around five o'clock?"

The tea party was perfect. Maman did things just as one should: she used the tea service that Mamie had given her, the one with gold leaf and b.u.t.terflies and roses; she offered macaroons from Laduree, and, all the same, brown sugar (a leftie indulgence). Madame de Broglie, who had just spent a good quarter of an hour on the landing below, looked a bit embarra.s.sed but satisfied all the same. And a bit surprised. I think our place was not as she had imagined. Maman pulled out all the stops regarding good manners and worldly conversation, including an expert commentary on where to buy good coffee, before leaning her head to one side and saying, "Well, Madame de Broglie, you are concerned about your daughter-in-law?" "Hmm, ah, yes," said the other woman, who had almost forgotten her pretext and was now struggling to find something to say. "Well yes, she's depressed," is all she came out with. So Maman s.h.i.+fted into the next gear. After all this generosity it was time to hand her neighbor the bill. Madame de Broglie was treated to an entire course on Freud, including several t.i.tillating anecdotes on the s.e.xual mores of the Messiah and his apostles (including a lurid aside on Melanie Klein), and punctuated with references to Women's Lib and secularism in French schools. The works. Madame de Broglie took it like a good Christian. She endured the onslaught with admirable stoicism, convincing herself all the while that this was a small price to pay to expiate her sin of curiosity. When they parted, both ladies were perfectly satisfied, but for different reasons, and at dinner that evening Maman said, "Madame de Broglie may be sanctimonious, but she does know how to be charming."

In short, everyone is excited about Monsieur Ozu. Olympe Saint-Nice told Colombe (who despises her and calls her "Our Holy Lady of the Pigs") that he has two cats and that she is dying to see them. Jacinthe Rosen waffles on and on about the comings and goings on the fourth floor and she goes into a trance every time. As for me, I'm excited too, but not for the same reasons. Here's what happened.

I was in the elevator with Monsieur Ozu and it got stuck between the second and third floors for ten minutes because some dolt had not closed the grate properly before deciding to walk down after all. When this happens you have to wait for someone to realize or, if it's taking too long, you have to shout your head off to alert the neighbors, but of course you must remain dignified, which isn't always easy. We didn't shout. So we had time to introduce ourselves and get acquainted. All the ladies in the building would have sold their souls to be in my place. I was just really happy because my considerable j.a.panese side was obviously delighted to speak to an authentic j.a.panese gentleman. But what I really liked, above all, was the content of our conversation. First of all, he said, "Your mother told me you were studying j.a.panese at school. What is your level?" I casually took note of the fact that Maman has been gossiping again to draw attention to herself, and then I replied in j.a.panese, "Yes, sir, I know a little j.a.panese but not very well." And he replied in j.a.panese, "Do you want me to correct your accent?" and then translated right away into French. Well, I appreciated that for a start. Lots of people would have said, "Oh, you speak so well! Bravo!" whereas I'm sure I must sound like some cow from Outer Mongolia. So I answered in j.a.panese, "Please do, sir," and he corrected one inflection and then said, still in j.a.panese, "Call me Kakuro." I replied in j.a.panese, "Yes, Kakuro-san," and we laughed. And that is when the conversation (in French) got really interesting. He said, right out, "I'm very intrigued by our concierge, Madame Michel. I would like your opinion." I know plenty of people who would try to worm the information out of me, acting all innocent. But he was up-front. "I suspect ... that she's not what we think," he added.

I've had my own suspicions on the matter for a while now too. From a distance, she's a real concierge. Close up ... well, close up ... there's something weird going on. Colombe hates her and thinks she's the dregs of humanity. Colombe, in any case, thinks that anyone who doesn't meet her cultural standard is the dregs of humanity, and for Colombe the cultural standard is social power and s.h.i.+rts from agnes b. As for Madame Michel ... how can we tell? She radiates intelligence. And yet she really makes an effort, like, you can tell she is doing everything she possibly can to act like a concierge and come across as stupid. But I've been watching her, when she would talk with Jean Arthens or when she talks to Neptune when Diane has her back turned, or when she looks at the ladies in the building who walk right by her without saying h.e.l.lo. Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary-and terribly elegant.

Well, having said that, I admit it: I'm not a clairvoyant. If nothing out of the ordinary had happened, I would still be seeing the same thing everyone sees: a concierge who, most of the time, is grumpy. But something did happen not long ago and it's odd that Monsieur Ozu's question came along just when it did. Two weeks ago, Antoine Pallieres knocked over Madame Michel's shopping bag just as she was opening her door. Antoine Pallieres is the son of Monsieur Pallieres, the industrialist on the sixth floor, a guy who lectures Papa on how France ought to be run and sells arms to international felons. The son is less dangerous because he's a real moron, but you never know: the capacity to do harm is often an item of family capital. Anyway, Antoine Pallieres knocked over Madame Michel's shopping bag. Beets, noodles, bouillon cubes and soap all fell out and as I walked past I glimpsed a book amidst all the things on the ground. I say glimpsed because Madame Michel rushed over to pick everything up, looking angrily at Antoine (he was obviously not inclined to lift a little finger), but she also looked worried. He didn't notice but I had all the time I needed to figure out what the book in Madame Michel's shopping bag was-or rather what kind of book, because there have been loads of the same type on Colombe's desk since she enrolled in philosophy. It was a book from a publisher called Vrin-ultra-specialized in philosophy books for university. What is a concierge doing with a Vrin book in her shopping bag? is the question that, unlike Antoine Pallieres, I asked myself.

"I think you're right," I said to Monsieur Ozu and we immediately progressed from being neighbors to something more, conspirators. We exchanged our impressions of Madame Michel, and Monsieur Ozu said he was willing to bet that she was a clandestine erudite princess, and we said goodbye with a promise to investigate this further.

So here is my profound thought for the day: this is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial but I think it is profound all the same. We never look beyond our a.s.sumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. When my mother offers macaroons from Chez Laduree to Madame de Broglie, she is telling herself her own life story and just nibbling at her own flavor; when Papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, as if practicing the Coue method or something; when Colombe talks about Marian's lectures, she is ranting about her own reflection; and when people walk by the concierge, all they see is a void, because she is not from their world.

As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

3. Beneath the Skin.

A few days go by. few days go by.

As on every Tuesday, Manuela comes to my loge. I just have time, before she closes the door behind her, to hear Jacinthe Rosen talking with young Madame Meurisse next to the elevator, which is taking its own sweet time to arrive.

"My son says that the Chinese are very difficult to deal with."

Madame Rosen's resident c.o.c.kroach affects her p.r.o.nunciation: she does not say Chinese, but Chanese.

I've always dreamt of visiting Chana. 'Tis far more interesting than China, after all.

"He dismissed the baroness," says Manuela. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are s.h.i.+ning. "And everyone else along with her."

I adopt the very air of innocence.

"Who did?"

"Monsieur Ozu, of course!" Manuela looks at me reproachfully.

For over a fortnight now all the talk in the building is of Monsieur Ozu moving into the apartment of the late Pierre Arthens. In this frozen place, this glacial prison of power and idleness, the arrival of a new resident and the unbelievable things that, under his orders, a whole host of professional contractors have been getting up to-their numbers so impressive that even Neptune has given up on trying to sniff each and every one-this arrival, therefore, has brought with it a wave of excitement and panic all at the same time. For the conventional aspiration to see tradition maintained and the contingent disapproval of anything that might remotely might evoke newly-acquired wealth-ostentatious interior decoration, the installation of stereo equipment, excessive use of meals delivered from the traiteur traiteur-were in open compet.i.tion with a deeper hunger, deep in the guts of all these benighted souls blinded by boredom: the hunger for novelty. Thus, for two weeks or more 7, rue de Grenelle throbbed to the rhythm of the comings and goings of painters, carpenters, plumbers, cabinet-makers, and delivery men, carrying furniture, carpets, and electronic equipment, until the grand finale, the actual movers; and all these people had clearly been hired to transform the fourth floor from top to bottom. So, needless to say, all the residents of the building were dying to see that transformation for themselves. The Josses and the Pallieres no longer took the elevator: discovering new wellsprings of vigor, they would wander at all hours across the landing of the fourth floor, which naturally they could not avoid if they were to leave and then return to their own apartments. They now attracted the envious gazes of all the other residents: Bernadette de Broglie plotted to take tea with Solange Josse-never mind that she is a socialist; and Jacinthe Rosen volunteered to drop off the package for Sabine Pallieres that had just been delivered to my loge-I was only too pleased myself to entrust her with the task, making a great hypocritical fuss over it in the process.

Because I alone, of everyone in the building, have been careful to avoid Monsieur Ozu. We met twice in the hallway but he was always accompanied and merely greeted me politely, and I did likewise. Nothing in his behavior betrayed anything other than courtesy and indifferent kindliness. But just as children can sense that beneath the skin of conventional behavior lies the true stuff of which human beings are made, my internal radar, suddenly on high alert, told me that Monsieur Ozu was watching me closely, biding his time.

It was his secretary who saw to all the tasks requiring any contact with me. I am also willing to wager that Paul Nguyen has something to do with the fascination Monsieur Ozu's coming has been exerting on the residents. He is a strikingly handsome young man. From Asia and his Vietnamese father, he has acquired distinguished manners and a mysterious serenity. From Europe and his mother (a White Russian), he has inherited height and Slavic cheekbones, as well as the light shade of his slightly almond-shaped eyes. He is both manly and delicate, a perfect synthesis of masculine good looks and Asian gentleness.

I learned about his background one afternoon when there was a great commotion all around, and I could see he was very busy: he rang at my loge to apprise me of the arrival early the next morning of a new crew of delivery men, and I offered him a cup of tea; he accepted without ado. We conversed in an exquisitely nonchalant manner. Who would ever have imagined that such a handsome and competent young man-for he was most competent, I'd swear by all the G.o.ds, we all could tell by the way he organized the work and never seemed overwhelmed or tired, getting everything done in a calm manner-would also be so utterly devoid of any form of sn.o.bbery? When he took his leave, thanking me warmly, I realized that in his presence I had forgotten even the very notion of trying to hide who I was.

But back to the news of the day.

"He dismissed the baroness, and everyone else."

Manuela is elated, and cannot hide it. Anna Arthens, upon leaving Paris, had solemnly promised Violette Grelier that she would commend her to the new owner. Monsieur Ozu, wis.h.i.+ng to honor the request of the widow from whom he was buying the property (and consequently breaking her heart), had agreed to receive her former servants and talk to them. The Greliers, with Anna Arthens as their sponsor, could have found a desirable position in any good household, but Violette was nurturing the insane hope that she might be able to stay on in the same place where, in her own words, she had spent the best years of her life.

"Leaving here would be like dying," she had said to Manuela. "Well, I'm not talking about you, my dear. You'll just have to get used to the idea."

"Get used to the idea, fiddle-dee-dee," says Manuela who, since she followed my advice and watched Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind, has been taking herself for the Scarlett of Argenteuil. "She's leaving, and I'm staying!"

"Monsieur Ozu is hiring you?"

"You'll never guess, he's taken me on for twelve hours, and I'll be paid like a princess!"

"Twelve hours! How will you manage?"

"I'm going to drop Madame Pallieres," she replies, on the verge of ecstasy, "I'm going to drop Madame Pallieres."

And because one really should over-indulge in things that are this good: "Yes," she says again, "I'm going to drop Madame Pallieres."

We savor a moment of silence to honor this profusion of blessings.

"I'll make the tea," I say, interrupting our state of bliss. "White tea, to celebrate."

"Oh, I forgot, I brought something."

She removes a little pouch in ivory tissue paper from her shopping bag.

I set about untying the blue velvet ribbon. Inside, dark chocolate florentines glisten like black diamonds.

"He's going to pay me twenty-two euros an hour," says Manuela, putting the cups on the table then sitting down again, after courteously enjoining Leo to set off and discover the world. "Twenty-two euros! Can you believe it? The others pay me eight, ten, eleven! That pretensiosa pretensiosa Pallieres woman, she pays me eight euros and leaves her filthy underpants under the bed." Pallieres woman, she pays me eight euros and leaves her filthy underpants under the bed."

"Perhaps Monsieur Ozu will leave his filthy underpants under the bed," I say, smiling.

"Oh, he's not the type!" She grows thoughtful. "I hope I'll know what to do, in any case. Because he has a lot of strange stuff up there, you know. And he's got all these bonzes bonzes to water and spray." to water and spray."

Manuela means Monsieur Ozu's bonsai. These are tall and slender ones, and do not have the typical tortured shape that can often leave a forbidding impression; to me, on their way through the hall to their new home, they evoked another era, and the faint whisper of their foliage suggested the fugitive vision of a distant forest.

"Who would have thought the decorators would do all this," continues Manuela. "Knock everything down and redo it!"

For Manuela, a decorator is an ethereal being who places cus.h.i.+ons on expensive sofas and takes a step back to admire the effect.

"They're knocking the walls down with sledgehammers," she had told me a week earlier, breathless after trying to climb the stairs four at a time with a huge broom in her hand. Now she continued, "You know ... it's really lovely now. I wish you could see it."

"What are his cats called?" I ask, to distract her and remove this dangerous, hare-brained idea from her mind.

"Oh, they're gorgeous!" she says, looking at Leo with consternation. "They're ever so thin and move around without a sound, like this."

With her hand she draws strange undulations in the air.

"Do you know their names?" I ask again.

"The female is Kitty, but I didn't catch the male's name."

A bead of cold sweat races down my spine.

"Levin?" I venture.

"Yes, that's it. Levin. How did you know?" She frowns. "Not that revolutionary guy is it?"

"No, the revolutionary was Lenin. Levin is the hero of a great Russian novel. Kitty is the woman he is in love with."

"He has had all the doors changed." Manuela is only moderately interested in Russian novels. "They slide now. And would you believe it, it's much more practical. I wonder why we don't do the same. You save a lot of room, and it's not as noisy."

How true. Once again, Manuela brilliantly sums up the situation, and earns my admiration. But her innocent remark also brings on a delicious sensation for other reasons.

4. Break and Continuity.

Two reasons, to be exact, both related to Ozu's films.

The first has to do with the sliding doors themselves. From the very first film I saw, Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, I was fascinated by the way the j.a.panese use s.p.a.ce in their lives, and by these doors that slide and move quietly along invisible rails, refusing to offend s.p.a.ce. For when we push open a door, we transform a place in a very insidious way. We offend its full extension, and introduce a disruptive and poorly proportioned obstacle. If you think about it carefully, there is nothing uglier than an open door. An open door introduces a break in the room, a sort of provincial interference, destroying the unity of s.p.a.ce. In the adjoining room it creates a depression, an absolutely pointless gaping hole adrift in a section of wall that would have preferred to remain whole. In either case a door disrupts continuity, without offering anything in exchange other than freedom of movement, which could easily be ensured by another means. Sliding doors avoid such pitfalls and enhance s.p.a.ce. Without affecting the balance of the room, they allow it to be transformed. When a sliding door is open, two areas communicate without offending each other. When it is closed, each regains its integrity. Sharing and reunion can occur without intrusion. Life becomes a quiet stroll-whereas our life, in the homes we have, seems like nothing so much as a long series of intrusions.

"How true," I say to Manuela, "it's more practical and less abrupt."

The second reason has to do with an a.s.sociation of ideas which led me from sliding doors to women's feet. In Ozu's films, I don't know how many shots I have seen where the actors slide open the front door, come into the hall and remove their shoes. The women, above all, are particularly gifted at this sequence of gestures. They come in, slide the door along the wall, and take two quick steps that lead them to the foot of the raised area where the family rooms are located; without bending over they remove their laceless shoes from their feet and with a supple, gracious motion of their legs pivot upon themselves as they climb, back first, onto the platform. Their skirts puff out slightly; the way they bend their knees in order to climb up is energetic and precise, and their bodies easily follow the slight pirouette of their feet, which leads to a curiously broken and casual series of steps, as if their ankles were hobbled. But while such hindrance in one's gestures generally evokes some sort of constraint, the lively little steps with their incomprehensible fits and starts confer onto the feet of these walking women the seal of a work of art.

When we Westerners walk, our culture dictates that we must, through the continuity of a movement we envision as smooth and seamless, try to restore what we take to be the very essence of life: efficiency without obstacles, a fluid performance that, being free of interruption, will represent the vital elan thanks to which all will be realized. For us the standard is the cheetah in action: all his movements fuse together harmoniously, one cannot be distinguished from the next, and the swift pa.s.sage of the great wild animal seems like one long continuous movement symbolizing the deep perfection of life. When a j.a.panese woman disrupts the powerful sequence of natural movement with her jerky little steps, we ought to experience the disquiet that troubles our soul whenever nature is violated in this way, but in fact we are filled with a unfamiliar blissfulness, as if disruption could lead to a sort of ecstasy, and a grain of sand to beauty. What we discover in this affront to the sacred rhythm of life, this defiant movement of little feet, this excellence born of constraint, is a paradigm of Art.

When movement has been banished from a nature that seeks its continuity, when it becomes renegade and remarkable by virtue of its very discontinuity, it attains the level of esthetic creation.

Because art is life, playing to other rhythms.

Profound Thought No. 10.

Grammar A stratum of consciousness Leading to beauty.

In the morning, as a rule, I always take a moment to listen to music in my room. Music plays a huge role in my life. It is music that helps me to endure ... well ... everything there is to endure: my sister, my mother, school, Achille Grand-Fernet, and so on. Music is not merely a pleasure to the ears the way that gastronomy is to the palate or painting to the eyes. There's nothing terribly original about the fact that I put music on in the morning, just that it sets the tone for the rest of the day. It's very simple but also sort of complicated to explain: I believe that we can choose our moods: because we are aware that there are several mood-strata and we have the means to gain access to them. For example, to write a profound thought, I have to put myself onto a very special stratum, otherwise the ideas and words just don't come. I have to forget myself and at the same time be superconcentrated. But it's not a question of "the will," it's a mechanism I can set in motion or not, like scratching my nose or doing a backward roll. And to activate the mechanism there's nothing better than a little music. For example, to relax, I put on something that takes me into a sort of faraway mood, where things can't really reach me, where I can look at them as if I were watching a film: a "detached" stratum of consciousness. In general, for that particular stratum, I resort to jazz or, more effective overall but longer to take effect: Dire Straits (long live my mp3 player).

So, this morning I listened to Glenn Miller before leaving for school. I guess it didn't last long enough. When the incident occurred, I lost all my detachment. It was during French cla.s.s with Madame Fine (who is a living antonym because she has a repository of spare tires around her midriff). What's more, she wears pink. I love pink, I think it's a color that's had a bad rap, it's made out to be a thing for babies or women who wear too much makeup, but pink is really a subtle and delicate color, and it figures a lot in j.a.panese poetry. But pink and Madame Fine are a bit like jam and pigs. Anyway, this morning I had French cla.s.s with her. That in itself is already a ch.o.r.e. French with Madame Fine is reduced to a long series of technical exercises, whether we're doing grammar or reading texts. With her it's as if a text was written so that we can identify the characters, the narrator, the setting, the plot, the time of the story, and so on. I don't think it has ever occurred to her that a text is written above all to be read and to arouse emotions in the reader. Can you imagine, she has never even asked us the question: "Did you like this text/this book?" And yet that is the only question that could give meaning to the narrative points of view or the construction of the story ... Never mind the fact that the minds of younger kids are, I think, more open to literature than say the minds of high school or college students. Let me explain: at my age, all you need is to talk to us about something with some pa.s.sion, pluck the right strings (love, rebellion, thirst for novelty, etc.) and you have every chance of succeeding. Our history teacher, Monsieur Lermit, had us hooked by the end of the second cla.s.s by showing us photos of these guys who'd had their hand or their lips cut off under Sharia law, because they'd been stealing or smoking. But he didn't do it as if he were showing us a gory film or something. It was enthralling, and we listened attentively throughout the cla.s.s, the point of which was to warn us against the foolishness of mankind, and not Islam specifically. So if Madame Fine had taken the trouble to read a few verses of Racine to us, with a tremor in her voice, (Que le jour recommence et que le jour finisse / Sans que jamais t.i.tus puisse voir Berenice) she would have discovered that the average adolescent is fully ripe for the tragedy of love. By high school it's harder: adulthood is around the corner, kids already have an intuitive idea of how grown-ups behave, and they begin to wonder what role and what place they are going to inherit on stage, and anyway by then something has been spoiled, and the goldfish bowl is no longer very far away.

It is bad enough to have to put up with the usual grind of a cla.s.s in literature without literature and a cla.s.s in language without cognizance of language, so this morning when I felt something snap inside me, I just couldn't contain myself. Madame Fine was making a point about the use of qualifying adjectives as epithets, on the pretext that our compositions were completely barren of said grammatical grace notes, "whereas really, it's the sort of thing you learn in third grade." She went on: "Am I to honestly believe there are students who are this incompetent in grammar," and she looked right at Achille Grand-Fernet. I don't like Achille Grand-Fernet but in this case I agreed with him when he asked his question. I feel it was long overdue. Moreover, when a lit teacher uses a split infinitive like that, I'm really shocked. It's like someone sweeping the floor and forgetting the dust bunnies. "What's the point of grammar?" asked Achille Grand-Fernet. "You ought to know by now," replied Madame Never-mind-that-I-am-paid-to-teach-you. "Well I don't," replied Achille, sincerely for once, "no one ever bothered to explain it to us." Madame Fine let out a long sigh, of the "do I really have to put up with such stupid questions" variety, and said, "The point is to make us speak and write well."

I thought I would have a heart attack there and then. I have never heard anything so grossly inept. And by that, I don't mean it's wrong wrong, just that it is grossly inept grossly inept. To tell a group of adolescents who already know how to speak and write that that is the purpose of grammar is like telling someone that they need to read a history of toilets through the ages in order to pee and p.o.o.p. It is utterly devoid of meaning! If she had shown us some concrete examples of things we need to know about language in order to use it properly, well, okay, why not, that would be a start. She could tell us, for example, that knowing how to conjugate a verb in all its tenses helps you avoid making the kind of major mistakes that would put you to shame at a dinner party ("I would of came to the party earlier but I tooked the wrong road"). Or, for example, that to write a proper invitation in English to a little divertiss.e.m.e.nt divertiss.e.m.e.nt at the chateau of Versailles, knowing the rules governing spelling and the use of apostrophes in at the chateau of Versailles, knowing the rules governing spelling and the use of apostrophes in la langue de Shakespeare la langue de Shakespeare can come in very useful: it would save you from embarra.s.sment such as: "Deer freind, may we have the plesure of you're company at Versaille's this evening? The Marquise de Grand-Fernet." But if Madame Fine thinks that's all grammar is for ... We already knew how to use and conjugate a verb long before we knew it was a verb. And even if knowing can help, I still don't think it's something decisive. can come in very useful: it would save you from embarra.s.sment such as: "Deer freind, may we have the plesure of you're company at Versaille's this evening? The Marquise de Grand-Fernet." But if Madame Fine thinks that's all grammar is for ... We already knew how to use and conjugate a verb long before we knew it was a verb. And even if knowing can help, I still don't think it's something decisive.

Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you've said or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognize a well-turned phrase or an elegant style. But when you are applying the rules of grammar skillfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language. When you use grammar you peel back the layers, to see how it is all put together, see it quite naked, in a way. And that's where it becomes wonderful, because you say to yourself, "Look how well-made this is, how well-constructed it is! How solid and ingenious, rich and subtle!" I get completely carried away just knowing there are words of all different natures, and that you have to know them in order to be able to infer their potential usage and compatibility. I find there is nothing more beautiful, for example, than the very basic components of language, nouns and verbs. When you've grasped this, you've grasped the core of any statement. It's magnificent, don't you think? Nouns, verbs ...

Perhaps, to gain access to all the beauty of the language that grammar unveils, you have to place yourself in a special state of awareness. I have the impression that I do that anyway without any special effort. I think that it was at the age of two, when I first heard grown-ups speak, that I understood once and for all how language is made. Grammar lessons have always seemed to me a sort of synthesis after the fact and, perhaps, a source of supplemental details concerning terminology. Can you teach children to speak and write correctly through grammar if they haven't had the illumination that I had? Who knows. In the meanwhile, all the Madame Fines on the planet ought rather to ask themselves what would be the right piece of music to play to make their pupils go into a grammatical trance.

So I said to Madame Fine: "Not at all! That is simplistic!" There was great silence in the cla.s.sroom both because as a rule I never open my mouth and because I had contradicted the teacher. She looked at me with surprise, then she put on one of those stern looks that all teachers use when they feel that the wind is veering to the north and their cozy little cla.s.s on punctuation might turn into a tribunal of their pedagogical methods. "And what do you know about it, Mademoiselle Josse?" she asked acidly. Everyone was holding their breath. When the star pupil is displeased, it's bad for the teaching body, particularly when that body is well-fed, so this morning it was like a thriller and a circus act all rolled into one: everyone was waiting to see what the outcome of the battle would be, and they were hoping it would be a b.l.o.o.d.y one.

"Well," I said, "when you've read Jakobson, it becomes obvious that grammar is an end in itself and not simply a means: it provides access to the structure and beauty of language, it's not just some trick to help people get by in society."

"Some trick! Some trick!" she scoffed, her eyes popping out of her head. "For Mademoiselle Josse grammar is a trick!"

If she had listened carefully to what I said, she would have understood that, for me, grammar is not a trick. But I think the reference to Jakobson caused her to lose it completely, never mind that everyone was giggling, including Cannelle Martin, even though they didn't get what I had said at all, but they could tell a little cloud from Siberia was hovering over the head of our fat French teacher. In reality, I've never read a thing by Jakobson, obviously not. Though I may be supersmart, I'd still rather read mangas or literature. But Maman has a friend (who's a university professor) who was talking about Jakobson yesterday (while they were indulging in a hunk of camembert and a bottle of red wine at five in the afternoon). So, in cla.s.s this morning I remembered what she had said.

At that moment, when I could sense that the rabble were growling and showing their teeth, I felt pity. I felt sorry for Madame Fine. And I don't like lynching. It never puts anyone in a good light. Never mind that I don't want anyone to go digging into my knowledge of Jakobson and begin to doubt the reality of my IQ.

So I backed off and didn't say anything. I got two hours of detention and Madame Fine saved her professorial skin. But when I left the cla.s.sroom, I could feel her worried little gaze following me out the door.

And on the way home I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

5. A Pleasant Impression.

But Manuela, not terribly sensitive to the little steps of j.a.panese women, is already steering us toward another territory.

"That Rosen woman is in a regular state because Monsieur Ozu hasn't got two lamps that are the same."

"Really?" I say, taken aback.

"Yes, really. And why is that? The Rosens have two of everything, because they're afraid they'll end up missing something. You know Madame Rosen's favorite story?"

"No," I reply, already enthralled to think where this conversation might lead.

"During the war her grandfather, who had tons of stuff stored in his cellar, saved his family by doing a favor for a German who was looking for a spool of thread to sew a b.u.t.ton back onto his uniform. If her grandfather hadn't had the thread, he would have been toast, and everyone else along with him. So believe it or not, in her cupboards and in the cellar she has two of everything. And does that make her any happier? And can you see any better in a room just because you have two lamps exactly the same?"

"I've never thought about it. But it's true that we tend to decorate our interiors with superfluous things."

"Super what things?"

"Things we don't really need, like at the Arthens'. The same lamps and two identical vases on the mantelpiece, the same identical armchairs on either side of the sofa, two matching night tables, rows of identical jars in the kitchen ... "

"Now you make me think, it's not just about the lamps. In fact, there aren't two of anything in Monsieur Ozu's apartment. Well, I must say it makes a pleasant impression."

"Pleasant in what way?"

She thinks for a moment, wrinkling her brow.

"Pleasant like after the Christmas holidays, when you've had too much to eat. I think about the way it feels when everyone has left ... My husband and I, we go to the kitchen, I make up a little bouillon with fresh vegetables, I slice some mushrooms real thin and we have our bouillon with those mushrooms in it. You get the feeling you've just come through a storm, and it's all calm again."

"No more fear of being short of anything. You're happy with the present moment."

"You feel it's natural-and that's the way it should be, when you eat."