“It’s well she ended it,” Madame Gérard said. “She knew it wasn’t right. She invited you into her house thinking you might be a friend to her daughter. You should have stopped going once you knew you didn’t care for Elisabet.”
“It was too late by then,” he said. “I couldn’t stop.”
“You don’t know Klara,” Madame Gérard said. “You can’t, not after a few Sunday lunches and a week-long affair. She’s never made any man happy. She’s had ample chance to fall in love-and, if you’ll pardon me, with grown men, not first-year architecture students. Don’t imagine she hasn’t had plenty of suitors. If she ever does take a man seriously, it’ll be because she wants to get married-that is to say, because she wants someone to ease her life, to take care of her. Which you, my dear, are in no position to do.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that.”
“Well, someone must, apparently!”
“But what now?” he demanded. “I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Why not? It’s over between the two of you. You said as much yourself.”
“It’s not over for me. I can’t put her out of my mind.”
“I’d advise you to try,” Madame Gérard said. “She can’t be any good to you.”
“That’s all, then? I’m supposed to forget her?”
“That would be best.”
“Impossible,” he said.
“Poor darling,” Madame Gérard said. “I’m sorry. But you’ll get over it. Young men do.” She turned again to her packing, loading her gold and silver makeup sticks into a box with dozens of little drawers. A private smile came to her mouth; she rolled a tube of rouge between her fingers and turned to him. “You’ve joined an illustrious club, you know, now that Klara’s thrown you over. Most men never make it that far.”
“Please,” he said. “I can’t bear to hear you speak of her that way.”
“It’s the girl’s father, you know. I think she must still be in love with him.”
“Elisabet’s father,” he said. “Is he here in Paris? Does she still see him?”
“Oh, no. He died many years ago, as I understand it. But death isn’t a bar to love, as you may learn someday.”
“Who was he?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. Klara keeps her history close.”
“So it’s hopeless, then. I’m supposed to let it go because she’s in love with a dead man.”
“Allow it to be what it was: a pretty episode. The satisfaction of a mutual curiosity.”
“That wasn’t what it was to me.”
She tilted her head at him and smiled again, that terrible all-knowing smile. “I’m afraid I’m the wrong person to dispense advice about love. Unless you’d like to be disabused of your romantic notions.”
“You’ll excuse me, then, if I leave you to your packing.”
“My dear boy, no excuse needed.” She rose, kissed him on both cheeks, and turned him out into the hall. There was no choice for him but to go back to his work; he did it in mute consternation, wishing he had never confided in her.
There was one great source of relief, one astonishing piece of news that had arrived in a telegram from Budapest: Tibor was coming to visit. His classes in Modena would start at the end of January, but before he went to Italy he would come to Paris for a week. When the telegram arrived, Andras had shouted the news aloud into the stairwell of the building, at a volume that had brought the concierge out into the hall to reprimand him for disturbing the other tenants. He silenced her by kissing her on the brow and showing her the telegram: Tibor was coming! Tibor, his older brother. The concierge voiced the hope that this older brother would beat some manners into Andras, and left him in the hall to experience his delight alone. Andras hadn’t mentioned Klara in his letters to Tibor, but he felt as if Tibor knew-as if Tibor had sensed that Andras was in distress and had decided to come for that reason.
The anticipation of the visit-three weeks away, then two, then one-got him from home to school, and from school to work. Now that The Mother was finished and Madame Gérard gone, afternoons at the Sarah-Bernhardt passed at a maddening crawl. He had arranged everything so well backstage that there was little to do while the actors rehearsed; he paced behind the curtain, subject to an increasing fear that Monsieur Novak would discover his superfluity. One afternoon, after he’d overseen the delivery of a load of lumber for the set of Fuente Ovejuna, he approached the head carpenter and offered his services as a set builder. The head carpenter put him to work. During the afternoon hours Andras banged flats together; after hours he studied the design of the new sets. This was a different kind of architecture, all about illusion and impression: perspective flattened to make spaces look deeper, hidden doors through which actors might materialize or disappear, pieces that could be turned backward or inside out to create new tableaux. He began to mull over the design in bed at night, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Klara. The false fronts that represented the Spanish town might be put on wheels and rotated, he thought; their opposite sides could be painted to represent the building interiors. He made a set of sketches showing how it might be done, and later he redrew the sketches as plans. His second week as assistant set builder he went to the head carpenter and showed him the work. The carpenter asked him if he thought he had a budget of a million francs. Andras told him it would cost less than building the two sets of flats that would be required to make separate exteriors and interiors. The head carpenter scratched his head and said he’d consult the set designer. The set designer, a tall round-shouldered man with an ill-trimmed moustache and a monocle, scrutinized the plans and asked Andras why he was still working as a gofer. Did he want a job that would pay three times what he was making now? The set designer had an independent shop on the rue des Lombards and generally employed an assistant, but his most recent one had just finished his coursework at the Beaux-Arts and had taken a position outside the capital.
Andras did want the job. But Zoltán Novak had saved his life; he couldn’t very well walk out on the Sarah-Bernhardt. He accepted the man’s business card and stared at it all that night, wondering what to do.
The next afternoon he went to Novak’s office to lay the situation before him. There was a long silence after he knocked, then the sound of male voices in argument; the door flew open to reveal a pair of men in pinstriped suits, briefcases in hand, their faces flushed as though Novak had been insulting them in the vilest terms. The men clapped hats onto their heads and walked out past Andras without a nod or glance. Inside the office Novak stood at his desk with his hands on the blotter, watching the men recede down the hallway. When they’d disappeared, he came out from behind the desk and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey from the decanter on the sideboard. He looked over his shoulder at Andras and pointed to a glass. Andras raised a hand and shook his head.
“Please,” Novak said. “I insist.” He poured whiskey and added water.
Andras had never seen Novak drinking before dusk. He accepted the tumbler and sat down in one of the ancient leather chairs.
“Egészségedre,” Novak said. He lifted his glass, drained it, set it down on the blotter. “Can you guess who that was, leaving?”
“No,” Andras said. “But they looked rather grim.”
“They’re our money men. The people who’ve always managed to persuade the city to let us keep our doors open.”
“And?”
Novak sat back in his chair and laced his hands into a mountain. “Fifty-seven people,” he said. “That’s how many I have to fire today, according to those men. Including myself, and you.”
“But that’s everyone,” Andras said.
“Precisely,” he said. “They’re closing us down. We’re finished until next season, at least. They can’t support us any longer, even though we’ve posted profits all fall. The Mother did better than any other show in Paris, you know. But it wasn’t enough. This place is a money-sink. Do you know what it costs to heat five stories of open space?”