Reader for Hire Read online

  MEIKE ZIERVOGEL

  PEIRENE PRESS

  The premise of the story is brilliant: a woman who loves reading aloud acquires – without realizing – power over others. What’s true for her clients becomes real for you, the reader of this book. As you turn the pages, think of Marie-Constance as the personification of reading itself. And I promise you an experience you will never forget.

  ‘In every woman there is an element that has gone astray… and in every man an element of the ridiculous.’

  JACQUES LACAN

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Reader for Hire

  Also from Peirene Press

  About the Author and Translator

  Copyright

  Let me introduce myself: Marie-Constance G., thirty-four years old, one husband, no children, no profession. I listened to the sound of my own voice yesterday. It was in the little blue room in our apartment, the one we call the ‘echo chamber’. I recited some verses of Baudelaire I happened to remember. It struck me that my voice was really rather nice. But can we truly hear ourselves?

  Funnily enough, when I met up with my friend Françoise last week, she said to me: You have a wonderful voice, it’s silly not to do something with it. A woman really needs an occupation these days… When we were at the Conservatoire you showed such talent… Why don’t you put an ad in the papers offering to read to people in their own homes? Françoise is lovely but she often has these outlandish ideas. As far as she herself is concerned, she has her feet pretty firmly on the ground – she’s a lawyer’s secretary – but that makes her all the more inclined to project a whiff of romance and quirkiness on to other people. And this was certainly a quirky idea: being a private reader – at a time when talking books are readily available – like in the days of duchesses, tsarinas and genteel companions. Oh no, retorted Françoise, not at all. It would be very different nowadays, totally practical and concrete: for people who’re ill, handicapped, old, single. A delightful prospect indeed. But I have to admit the thought of bachelors was entertaining. The idea grew on me.

  *

  Now I’m sitting facing the man at the agency who takes the copy for classified ads. He’s chewing on an extinguished cigarette butt beneath his toothbrush moustache, his eyes pinned on me. It’s difficult to put a spark into dead eyes, but he’s having a go. It’s not up to me to give you advice, he says, but if I were you… I wouldn’t run an ad like that… I really wouldn’t… specially not in a town like ours… So I ask him why. He nods his head, heaves a sigh, rereads my piece of paper, which he’s fingering helplessly: ‘Young woman available to read to you in your own home. Works of literature, non-fiction, any sort of book you like.’ Then comes my telephone number. You’ll have trouble… A typist sitting at a nearby table stops every now and then to squirt the contents of a pocket vaporizer into one of her nostrils. She takes these opportunities to watch us furtively, probably listening. He lowers his head and his voice: Believe me, I know my job… I reply tartly: I’m asking you to run the ad, not comment on it. He eyes me in silence, staring, then explains that a lot of newspapers, even the biggest ones, now publish somewhat dubious ads, and that mine could be… misconstrued. He goes back to his chewing and nodding. I tell him there’s nothing dubious about my ad. More squirting from the typist. In that case, he says, you should take out the words ‘Young woman’… And put what instead? He thinks about this, concentrates: And put ‘Person’. Now I’m the one who’s baffled: What do you mean, person? He still has my piece of paper in his hand, and he holds it further from his eyes, as if to get a clearer view of it, the cigarette stub quivering on his bottom lip. Yes, you should put: ‘Person predisposed to read to you in your own home, offers their services, etc.’ You see, ‘person’ is sexless! Slightly dazed, I reply that no one will understand what the ad is about with all that gobbledegook in it. He falls silent, piqued, then says brusquely: All right, if that’s what you want, we’ll run it as it is. After all, it’s up to you. But at least don’t give your telephone number, just have a box number at the newspaper if you want to limit the fallout… Believe me, these ads are my standard fare and there’s nothing standard about what you’re offering… He hands the piece of paper to the typist, not even glancing at her but looking vaguely disgusted, and asks her to type out the text three times for the three local newspapers. Then he picks up a calculator and works out my bill. I write a cheque, stand up and leave. Aware of his gaze lingering on my calves and my heels.

  Now I’ve come to see the man I call my ‘old master’. He isn’t old. Barely in his sixties. Roll-neck sweater, tweed jacket, pipe, an expression like a good-natured dog with bright eyes. Dear Roland Sora is very relaxed and always seems delighted to see me. He was my tutor on my literature course fifteen years ago, and we’ve kept up an easy, trusting friendship. He’d set himself a rule never to sleep with his students, so I was never his mistress. But I could have been: all the signs were there. I come to have a chat with him in his office from time to time, and to ask his advice about things. If there are too many students queuing up to see him, he comes out with me and we drive somewhere like the local bistro for a cup of coffee. If he’s free, I sit opposite him in his office.

  That’s what I’m doing today. The usual compliments. He says a kind word about the colour in my cheeks, how I look. I note – out loud – that his hair is going very silvery and it suits him. Then I outline my idea. I can tell he’s taken aback but doesn’t want to show it. Everything’s possible, he says, so why not reading to people in their own homes? Seeing as you committed the unforgivable error of not finishing your course, which you were quite capable of completing, and you have no prospects or position, anything that gives you something to do is all to the good. But a classified ad? I mean, really! And what’s wrong with a classified ad? I ask. He fills his pipe, tamps down the tobacco. Well, yes, why not? he mutters, but doesn’t hide his scepticism. He doubts it will deliver a result, doubts I’ll receive any replies. I tell him we’ll soon see, but that I’d like some advice from him about the sorts of books I should choose for my listeners, should any materialize. He thinks about this, or pretends to, drawing on his pipe and blowing smoke rings. Whatever you do, don’t suggest anything tedious: no great works, no Proust, no Robbe-Grillet. No poetry either, but easy things that go down well. Like the minor naturalists. They’re precise, they have stories, events, facts… He’s always had a thing about the ‘minor naturalist writers’. I think he did his thesis on them back in the day. And I remember some tremendous lectures – rather theatrical, but well planned – he gave about them. I remind him about this and he smiles and looks a little dreamy for a moment, lost in the mists of his pipe smoke and memories. Then he gets up suddenly and goes over to the bookshelves to the right of his desk, saying, Why the minor naturalists? Why not the greats? Why not Maupassant? There’s nothing better than Maupassant, believe me, Marie-Constance, for all ages, all tastes, all situations, all countries… He’d be perfect for what you have in mind… You definitely shouldn’t be embarking on anything ambitious or pretentious… Sora takes a beautiful Maupassant edition from the shelves, an old book with a brown binding, and leafs through it, looking for something. You should choose supernatural short stories, he says, you’re guaranteed success… And then he launches into a strange description of his early days as a teacher. He was in a high school out in the sticks where he’d been given younger classes that bored him to tears, meanwhile he was champing at the bit, longing to start a university career, and to kill the boredom he would devote long hours in the classroom to reading supernatural short stories to his pupils. It was a huge success. The kids were frightened but, because they loved being frightened, they revelled in it and ended up m
ore attentive than they had ever managed to be for any other lesson. We’ve all heard teaching tales like that. I could take inspiration from it.

  Apparently wanting to illustrate his point, he’s leafing through the book, searching, then he finds what he must be looking for. There, he says, ‘The Hand’. Do you know it? Everyone knows ‘The Hand’. I admit that I don’t remember it very clearly. ‘The Hand’, he says, is the story of an eccentric Englishman who moves to Corsica to get away from it all and hangs a rather mysterious hand on the wall of his house. The story is narrated by a judge to a group of women, who are of course quaking as they listen to him:

  Several women had risen to their feet and drawn closer, and they stood there, their eyes hanging on the magistrate’s clean-shaven face as he pronounced these solemn words. They shuddered and quivered, fraught with inquisitive fear, with the avid and insatiable need for horror that preys on their souls, torments them like a hunger…

  He stops to say: The avid and insatiable need for horror that preys on their souls – wonderful stuff, isn’t it? He’s been reading in a deep, resonant voice. I watch his lips, the clean-shaven skin around his mouth. He skips a few lines and picks up the story a little further on. Ah, here’s the Englishman, he says:

  He was a big man with red hair and a red beard, very tall and very broad, a sort of polite, placid Hercules. He had none of the so-called British stiffness, and in French coloured with an English accent he thanked me energetically for my tact. In the space of a month, we had spoken together five or six times…

  And now here’s the hand!

  … In the middle of the widest panel something strange attracted my attention. A black object stood out against a square of red velvet. I moved closer: it was a hand, a human hand. Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, but a blackened, desiccated hand, with yellow nails, muscles laid bare and traces of old blood. This blood looked like dirt on the bones, which had been cleanly severed, as if by an axe, towards the middle of the forearm…

  He breaks off his reading, closes the book and waits for my reaction. As this isn’t immediately forthcoming, he carries on speaking himself: Completely effective… the plot lines, granted, they’re simplistic, pretty laboured… but it works… There, that’s what you need to read, if you want to find listeners… a good reliable French author who knew how to engineer suspense and a thrill like no other. You’ll have them hooked every time. He must be disappointed that I don’t look entirely convinced. I am, in fact, but I’m wondering who I’ll have an opportunity to read these horrors to. I’m having a lot of trouble picturing that.

  He has put the book back on the shelf and is already thinking about something else. He suggests we have lunch together one of these days, and asks after Philippe. Philippe is my husband. Does he know about my plan? I say that he does know about it, but couldn’t care less. Said without a trace of hostility towards Philippe. I really love him as much as one can love a husband, and I think he’s absolutely spot on for his type: the busy but cool young researcher type, the aerological engineer, with no complications. But it’s true: he couldn’t care less. If I’m happy about something, he takes note. If I want my life to change, he takes note too. He’s anything but obstructive. That’s how I describe him to Roland: anything but obstructive. Roland replies that I don’t know how lucky I am. Then he takes me by the arm and leads me out of his office to the little local bistro.

  Those idiots have gone and put my ad in the ‘Work at Home’ section. At home, yes, but other people’s, not mine. I thought this would snarl up the whole enterprise, would make it fail completely in fact. But to my surprise the first letter has just arrived from the agency. It’s from a good woman with clumsy writing. She says her fourteen-year-old son is disabled, she takes care of him at home as best she can, but he needs contact with the outside world: she thought that maybe…

  Major hesitation on my part, I have to say. I eventually make up my mind and go to see this woman. She’s very welcoming, very much the tearfully attentive ‘mummy’. In a matter of minutes I can tell she’s actually truly unhappy and truly devoted to her child. None of which precludes a degree of practical common sense: she’s quick to ask me my rates. That’s an issue I haven’t considered and I’m secretly annoyed with myself for this. When you advertise your services in a newspaper, you should have worked out your rates. Completely forgot. Thoughtless. Inexcusable. And, yes, what are my rates? That’s something else I should have asked Roland Sora – he must have given private lessons as a young man. If I don’t give the woman an answer, I won’t look professional. I tell her my rates are under consideration and I will communicate them to her in writing shortly, in the form of a small brochure laying out my programmes, my methods and my scale of charges. She looks delighted. A bit of nerve has paid off.

  She draws her chair closer to mine in the kitchen, where she has chosen to speak to me, and embarks on describing her son’s ‘difficult’ circumstances. She has very curly hair, which smells of heated rollers, breath that has not been sweetened entirely successfully by toothpaste, and a spotless apron. Quite out of the blue, she tells me I’m charming and have made a very good impression on her, that I’m definitely the most suitable person (yes, person!) to give Eric some help. As if to emphasize her liking for me, she pulls her chair another few inches closer. This attitude feels all the more peculiar because, in the very first instance, her friendliness seemed not to exclude an element of suspicion. That’s fallen away in a flash and now she’s pouring her heart out. Her mouth is busy talking, her floppy lips moving very quickly, her breath coming in acidic wafts. A touching woman, in her rather milky forties.

  She explains that Eric suffers from spasmodic paraplegia and is confined to a wheelchair. His condition is serious but curable, she adds. In any event, it has no effect on the boy’s intelligence; he’s very clever and outgoing. Three times a week he attends an institute where he receives specialist help as well as a general education. But, of course, when he’s at home he’s on his own and he gets bored. He has no friends. His father is very busy with his work for the SNCF railway company and hardly has any time to spend with him. As for her, she does what she can. But, well, you know what mothers are like… It’s in their nature to be too obtrusive, too invasive… particularly for a child in these circumstances… I can tell I irritate him sometimes… He’s so highly strung… which is why I thought someone different… a bit of reading, some entertainment… But perhaps you only work with adults?

  I take a moment to think (secretly genuinely panicked by this unexpected situation, but determined not to show it), then I reply: No, with absolutely anyone. Her face lights up, she looks relieved. But almost immediately a little triangular crease forms between her eyebrows. There is a problem, she says. You see, my husband and I can’t afford very much, he’s only an administrator… Might social services pay your fees? I can tell she’s going to mention rates again and am quick to cut her off: I’d be very surprised. I’m not a nurse or a psychotherapist or anything of that sort, but a reader, that’s all, with no qualifications, no diploma, nothing. You did understand my ad, didn’t you?

  She leaps up from her chair, clasps her hands as if in prayer and raises her eyes to the ceiling ecstatically: A reader! How wonderful! And he does so love reading… literature… He’s so perceptive, such an artist… Oh yes, you’re exactly what we need!

  I’m beginning to find her a bit exasperating. And I’m getting the distinct impression I’ve launched myself into a pool of quicksand. Obviously. Who’s going to want a reader at home in this day and age if not the manic, the mad and the sick? To get it over with, I come right out and ask: Can I see him? I haven’t gauged the impact these words will have. She starts shaking in every limb, repeating, See him? See him? I feel I’ve made a mistake and have revealed myself as something I swore, only moments ago, I was not: some sort of health professional. I spoke like a doctor. Clearly a strategic faux pas. I should have waited for her to take the initiative and introduce me to
Eric. She would have taken her time, and precautions. Instead I’ve stupidly rushed things. I’m no good at this job, or any other. I’m no good at anything. I don’t know anything about human relationships. Suddenly I want to get out, to run away and leave her there, her and her unfortunate boy. What’s he going to be anyway? Down’s syndrome? A miserable paraplegic? A great bobbing moon face? Some poor unreceptive creature I’ll have to tell stories to? That man at the agency was right. Trouble. A load of shit. That’s what I can expect. I’ll never change.

  She’s got a grip on herself very quickly. And before I’ve even had time to see what she’s doing, she’s opened the door at the far end of the kitchen. She leads me into the next room. Another three steps and I’m standing in front of Eric. He can’t have helped hearing our conversation through the wall. He must be either appalled or furious. Or otherwise he really is completely deaf. I close my eyes for a tenth of a second before looking at him. Then I open them. And see a nice smiling face. With a look of extraordinary assurance. At least, extraordinary in someone who’s incapacitated. In fact, he looks totally adult. So much so that I wonder for a moment whether this isn’t some sort of trick. Here he is in his chrome wheelchair, dressed in a kind of tracksuit which successfully hides his legs, all of his body actually, but his torso is very upright, robust even. Not in the least atrophied or hunched.

  This is the lady, his mother says, introducing me. His rather ashen face goes quite pink and his smile broadens awkwardly, and I can now see the child emerging in these features which initially looked so like a man’s.

  In a way, I find that rather reassuring. I’m sure we’re going to get along, Eric, I say. Is it OK if I call you Eric? He nods, as if petrified, incapable of producing the least sound. Of course you can, says his mother. I take my time, walk around the room, come back to the wheelchair. Do you like reading? I ask. Affirmative nods. Would you like to hear some stories? Same nods. For entertainment or for education? His mother is quick to intervene: Oh, education, of course, education… And then, all of sudden, Eric speaks up clearly and firmly: No, for entertainment, he says. Brief silence. Do you have any favourite authors? No, I don’t, Eric says, you can choose them. We’ll trust you, says his mother.