The InvisibleBridge

CHAPTER FIVE. Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt

THAT FALL the Sarah-Bernhardt was presenting The Mother, a new play by Bertolt Brecht, at nine o’clock every night but Monday. The theater was located at the direct center of the city, in the place du Châtelet. It offered five tiers of luxurious seating and the thrilling awareness that Miss Bernhardt’s voice had filled this space, had caused that chandelier to shiver on its chain. Somewhere inside the theater was the cream-and-gilt-paneled dressing room with the gold bathtub in which the actress had reputedly bathed in champagne. On the first Saturday in November the cast had been called for an unscheduled rehearsal; Claudine Villareal-Bloch, the Mother of the title, had suffered an acute attack of vocal strain that everyone tacitly attributed to her new affair with a young Brazilian press attaché. Into these vaguely embarrassing circumstances, Madame Villareal-Bloch’s understudy had been called at the last moment to take over the part. Marcelle Gérard paced her dressing room in a fury, wondering how Claudine Villareal-Bloch could have dared to spring this trick upon her; it seemed an intentional humiliation. Madame Villareal-Bloch knew that Madame Gérard, chafed by her position as understudy, had failed to prepare. That very morning in rehearsal she’d forgotten her lines and had stammered in the most unprofessional ma

Desperately, desperately, Zoltán Novak wanted to smoke. But he couldn’t smoke. The previous night, when he’d learned of Madame Villareal-Bloch’s illness, his wife had hidden his cigarettes, knowing he might tend toward excess; she had made him swear not to buy more, and vowed that she would sniff his clothes for smoke. As he paced his office in a state of nicotine-deprived anxiety, the production assistant came in with a list of urgent messages. The properties manager was missing a set of workers’ shovels from the third scene; should they do the scene without them, or buy new shovels? Madame Gérard’s name had been misspelled in the program for tomorrow night (Guérard, a minor mistake), and did he want the whole lot reprinted? Finally, there was a boy downstairs looking for a job. He claimed to know Monsieur, or at least that was what he seemed to be saying-his French was imperfect. What was his name? Something foreign. Lévi. Undrash.

Buy new shovels for the workers. Leave the programs as they were-too expensive to reprint. And no, he didn’t know a Lévi Undrash. Even if he did, God help him, the last thing he had for anyone right now was a job.

Andras had pla

U NBELIEVABLE NEWS! T HANKS FOREVER TO YOU & V AGO. W ILL APPLY STUDENT VISA TOMORROW. M ODENA. H URRAH! T IBOR

He would have given anything to see Tibor, to tell him what had happened and hear what he thought Andras should do. But Tibor was twelve hundred kilometers away in Budapest. There was no way to ask or receive advice of that kind by telegram, and a letter would take far too long. He had, of course, told Rosen and Polaner and Ben Yakov at the student dining club that weekend; their anger on his behalf had been gratifying, their sympathy fortifying, but there was little they could do to help. In any case, they weren’t his brother; they couldn’t have Tibor’s understanding of what the scholarship meant to him, nor what its loss would mean.

At seven o’clock in the morning the École Spéciale was deserted. The studios were silent, the courtyard empty, the amphitheater an echoing void. He knew he could find a few students asleep at their desks if he looked, students who had stayed up all night drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and working on drawings or models. Sleepless nights were commonplace at the École Spéciale. There were rumors of pills that sharpened your mind and allowed you to stay up for days, for weeks. There were legends of artistic breakthroughs occurring after seventy-two waking hours. And there were tales of disastrous collapse. One studio was called l’atelier du suicide. The older students told the younger about a man who’d shot himself after his rival won the a

A light was on in Vago’s office; Andras could see the yellow square of it from the courtyard. He ran up the three flights and knocked. There was a long silence before Vago opened the door; he stood before Andras in his stocking feet, rubbing his eyes with an inky thumb and forefinger. His collar was open, his hair a wild tangle. “You,” he said, in Hungarian. A small word, salted with a grain of affection. Te.

“Me,” Andras said. “Still here, for now.”

Vago ushered him into the office and motioned him to sit down on the usual stool. Then he left Andras alone for a few minutes, after which he returned looking as if he’d washed his face in hot water and scrubbed it with a rough towel. He smelled of the pumice soap that was good for getting ink off one’s hands.

“Well?” Vago said, and seated himself behind the desk.

“Tibor sends his deepest thanks. He’s applying for his visa now.”

“I’ve already written to Professor Turano.”

“Thank you,” Andras said. “Truly.”

“And how are you?”

“Not very well, as you can imagine.”

“Worried about how you’re going to pay your tuition.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Vago pushed back his chair and went to look out the window. After a moment he turned back and put his hands through his hair. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t feel much like teaching you French this morning. Why don’t we take a field trip instead? We’ve got a good hour and a half before studio.”