Night School: A Reader for Grownups

Motherwhere

The whole village was in a tizzy. Motherwhere had vanished. Every last nook and cranny had been picked apart, the cellars and attics gone through, haystacks, beehives, pigsties, duck ponds—all checked. They searched for her in the world-renowned peacock-feather collection, all around the vulcanite, in the turbo-incubator (that one had never really worked out), in the experimental drug-spice plantation (that one had), in the cold-turkey clinic, the Wild-Turkey still, amid the black eggs at the bottom of the lonely nest, in the market square, in the market research center, under the slouch, on top of the slouch, among and around the slouch hats, in the ash cans and the trash cans, under the bumps and in the sumps. She was nowhere to be found. The whole village gawked at each other, their spirit broken. She did this a lot. Except that they had always managed to find her, till now. She would always leave them searching for hours on end, delighting in the sheer panic she caused, seeing them wound up, worrying, anxious, fighting, letting down their guard and saying the most outrageous things that even they could hardly believe, knocking each other around, swearing, getting drunk as skunks and giving each other earfuls, cutting in on the dance floor and spitting, becoming too piqued to wait in line—all because of her. She delighted in it all. But she would always turn up once she had drained her cloyingly sweet glass in the saloon, with two cognacs as a chaser and, with a shame-tinged smile on her face, she would reappear, to a chorus of huzzahs and cloudy dazes and microclimatic solar eclipses.

Kurz und gut, this is how Motherwhere got her name, and also because she had left her position as head of a monastery (and one of the more plum posts at that, which might explain the whole thing), plus because she could also easily have been everyone’s mother even though she didn’t look that old and actually she was only mother to one. [Whose mother, in your opinion, was Motherwhere? Argue pro or con.] Look, thought the village whenever it saw her, that’s my mother, and extended a greedy hand to her teat for a suck, but Motherwhere would always push it aside since she wasn’t too keen on suckling and she had a whole wall covered in notes to the effect that my daughter is feeling ill, hence I request to be relieved of suckling for today and always found a nice, hefty Gypsy woman as a stand-in on such occasions. Which is why, ever since, the whole village has danced like demigods but been repressed by society. For mysterious reasons, Motherwhere wore a large scarlet letter on her clothing, except on Saturdays, when she wore a yellow star, since it went much better with her fur stole. The disharmony of colors is the death of elegance, was one of Motherwhere’s favorite sayings, which the whole village learned just in time. It would never, ever happen that, say, anyone would be caught wearing red with orange, or tassel loafers with white crepe socks. When the Germans came, the transport leaving the village was laden with a cargo attired in unimpeachable elegance. I’ll gladly die, the village said, but tasteless I shall never be. Then Motherwhere’s chest would swell with pride in her delight at not being shamed by the village’s conduct. One must allow that the Germans appreciated the village’s efforts in this area, and indeed they would smack their lips with respect anytime they spotted a tastefully selected accéssoire. They had a particular soft spot for hatpins, gold teeth, and refined suede shoes. The Russians were less impressed with such things. When Motherwhere protested as they attempted to dress her in an abrupt-green bouclé skirt with a pink cardigan, which would constitute an assault on good taste, she promptly found herself in the same pickle as good taste itself. None of this, though, irked Motherwhere one whit. She was lovely as ever, mysterious as ever, fragrant as ever, as wretched a cook as ever, as regular a participant in parent-teacher meetings as ever, and drummed her fingers fretfully whenever she couldn’t get an open phone line. Naturally, once in a while she would lose her composure, but after all who doesn’t, and then she would give the village a prodigious smack that left a welt the shape of Motherwhere’s hand on the village’s skin for days. She was always quick to beg pardon, which the village would generously grant. This was the usual game, in which Motherwhere would generally emerge the winner, by the score of 6-2, 5-6, 6-1. The press was absolutely in awe of her forehand, particularly since on occasion they, too, would take one on the cheek. Motherwhere was a real firecracker, a regular McEnroe, howling at the umpire, slamming her racket down, giving the ball boys and girls a swift kick in the rear whenever they proved insufficiently sprightly. But no one held this against her since no one (and I mean no one) had Motherwhere’s enchanting smile, or could wriggle their hips as gracefully, or give a flash of shoulder or ankle, or wink as flirtatiously while asking for an appointment at the dentist’s. No: the village forgave her for having to ask forgiveness whenever she committed one of her real howlers, because Motherwhere’s nerves were weak even though, to all appearances, nothing really got to her.

So the village had a fairly wellhowshouldiputit relationship to Motherwhere, but still they wouldn’t have traded this wellhowshouldiputit relationship for, say, a domesticated, enthusiastically suckling mama, or a sweet little transvestite running around in an apron, or a mabelnormand, or a motherrussia, a threesisters or a mariecurie, a pregnant she-elephant (even though the latter was decidedly the village’s soft spot). Everything was fine just the way it was. Motherwhere was the most motherwhere of all Motherwheres for the village. Of course, for all the village knew, she was the only specimen of that sort in the whole region. There might have been better versions elsewhere, but the village hadn’t the faintest inkling thereof. And now she just wouldn’t turn up. Motherwhere, who had always turned up without fail even if the village had gotten lost in the GUM department store or on the seashore at Cochabamba, or landed headfirst in a snowdrift, or when it feared it’d gotten knocked up (which was true), or when it decided to be a miserable human being, or when it decided to become a Sister of Mercy (at which time Motherwhere turned up immediately), or when it began an incestuous relationship with its father (at which time she waited a little longer to reappear than was proper), or when it was time to turn up for deportation, or volunteer for executioner duty, or show up at the Nuremberg Trials as a simultaneous interpreter (she spoke seven languages), or when she just had to check in after not talking for a long time because any way you look at it Motherwhere just couldn’t go not talking to her village for weeks on end (which in fact did happen). In a word, she had always turned up. But now she was nowhere.

The village was alarmed. It quickly put together a carnival extravaganza, having learned from Motherwhere that when you’re totally verkungelt, the thing to do is throw a party and invite a bunch of people that a bunch of other people just couldn’t stand, then invite them too, serve up the zuppe and let a thousand indignations bloom. Ideally in such a situation you forget how alarmed you are because you have to keep the loggerheaded guests at bay, and check to see whether they’ve started upchucking and whether the police radio was on the air because that’s how you found out if the party was really rocking. Motherwhere was an old hand at all this, and an absolute master of etiquette who knew exactly what kind of knife went with what dish, and that the ambassador always drank the lemon juice from the fingerbowls so you needed to put out two of them, she knew that cicadas die quickly, and right into the soup, and that sucking comes after licking, and night after day, and nao two waiys abat it. In a word, Motherwhere always said, Don’t shrug your shoulders or you’ll get stuck that way. Which actually happened. But now Motherwhere wasn’t anywhere to let them know. The village was at liberty to shrug its shoulders as long as it felt like it, pick its nose as far up as its finger would go, boldly flash its bare ass to Pauly Körmendi, poke into others’ private business as much as it felt like it, spread awful rumors, point impolitely, wallow in schadenfreude, masturbate (two hands), and exercise its undeniable homosexual inclinations, which was the height of impropriety. [Define inclination in your own words. Argue pro or con!] Using the carnival as cover, the village did all this, but felt neither satisfaction nor liberation, and took no pleasure in anything that, at any other time, would fill it with happiness. All of which just alarmed it even more. Now where would its joy be found, where that glittering wet sensation?

Nonplussed, the village looked at each other and then, after considerable deliberation, hired a detective by the name of Pinkerton who, as it turned out, had a far-eastern woman in the Far East who went by Madame Butterfly; the village found no solace in this fact either. Still, they gave no guff, made no vicious racist remarks, but only stared off glumly into space. They wouldn’t have minded if Pinkerton’s wife were actually Josephine Baker, though she was a Negro on top of everything else. So the village turned into a liberal democrat from one day to the next, despite its utter lack of interest in politics. Motherwhere had taught the village not to stick its hand into shit because, she said, and I quote, You’ll have shit on your hands. This was just a figure of speech, but Motherwhere was an absolute genius. Still, as the village would later have to learn, there are some situations where you just have to reach into shit (if the price was right, of course) and then you will truly have shit on your hands, but you can get used to it, since you can separate the shit from the chaff if you’ve ever shucked corn. Pinkerton worked feverishly, observing everything and everyone, taking notes, then providing a punctilious report to his employers since, as later became clear, Pinkerton was (well of course!) a secret agent, but years later the village wouldn’t learn much after requesting his official file from the Office of Historical Records, because Pinkerton’s name was blacked out all over the page, making it difficult to determine who the mole really was. The village suspected each other since it respected Pinkerton like its own father, though by that point he was far-flung beyond expectation, and later they heard he’d even become PM. Motherwhere would have liked Pinkerton since she really went for the tall, dark, and stylish type, and clearly would have tried to talk the village into hitching itself to Pinkerton, who was, I mean, really, a splendid fellow and, you see, if the village had come to its senses earlier, then now it could be perched on top of that quaint little trash heap as First Lady. Except that Motherwhere was nowhere to be found, which at any other time wouldn’t have bothered the village one bit because then it wouldn’t have had to listen to the whole spiel about how it was a muttonheaded little hole-in-the-road and how Motherwhere, back in the day, my God, that sweet little thing whose grandfather had been a rabbi in Sátoraljaújhely for God’s sake, all that brilliance together with that elfin little baby-making ponem, I mean, how could you not? It wouldn’t have made any difference if the village had said (if it had even dared). But Motherwhere, if you please, you have to understand, the village isn’t drawn to men, you know (well alright, maybe Brando, OK), no, au contraire. Motherwhere would have just elegantly ignored this, or said, with a little performative stamp of her feet, true to the letter of speech act theory: This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in our family. But alas, this was untrue.

The village searched for Motherwhere for several more days, then gave up. It was time to face the fact that Motherwhere had disappeared for good this time. Now it had really happened—just like when Motherwhere used to scare the village, but the village didn’t believe her because Motherwhere liked to affright the village with the most mindboggling ideas, like when she said the wolf was coming, or that cellulite was about to be made mandatory. Usually the village didn’t believe Motherwhere, so why should it believe this now? But even if it had believed it, it wouldn’t have believed it. That’s how complicated everything got when it came to Motherwhere. Time passed, and one day the village was all in a tizzy again. Word had come that the travelling movie man was on the way, and he claimed he had a film in which Motherwhere played the lead. He even claimed that he’d heard Motherwhere had become an actual film diva in some far-off land ringed with palm trees, and had won best female lead with this very film. So the village hopped to its feet to go see the picture. It washed itself in a pure spring, put on its best holiday outfit, such as it was (and it was), took a wet comb to its unruly locks, hurriedly slapped on some makeup and giddy-up, off it went to the theater. The village was the first to arrive and so took the best seat in the house to ensure a good view, and waited for the show to begin. The film was rough going at first, with a slow introduction and voice-over narration, a practice it found absolutely abhorrent. There were long shots, extended takes, desert landscapes, cacti. The village had a hard time imagining how a diva could make her appearance in such a setting. Then, out of nowhere, human figures turned up on the horizon, looking like so many tiny ants, but as they approached you could discern that one of them was a woman waving her arms for help. The village nearly dropped off its wooden bench trying to make out the woman’s features but, alas, she was still too far off. Once the figures were almost close enough to really see their faces, then … well then the worst thing happened that the village could have imagined. The film snapped. You could hear the soft clicking of the freewheeling reel against the tense silence. The wandering movie man begged their indulgence, and their patience (patience—can you imagine?) while he spliced the film. He fiddled with it for a while, then gave up. Just won’t stick, he said. Never seen anything like it. The village could have throttled him. It moved toward the movie man menacingly, and he, suspecting the worst, ran off. He never set foot in the village again. In its fury, the village dismantled the movie house plank by plank and built a pigsty out of it. This is how the village came to despise movies to the end of its days, and later, when it moved to the city, it still refused to go to the theater. The village never could have survived another film break. And even though it watched the Oscar ceremonies every year, it never again heard from Motherwhere. Now you see her, now you don’t.

WRITE A PAPER on the topic of A Month in the Village. Be careful not to cause a scandal with it either at home or in school!

French

Gustave and Maxime in Egypt

(Or: The Metaphysics of Happening)

"… but an enormous part of our lives is taken

up with everything that doesn’t happen."

—Péter Nádas

Gustave and Maxime are traveling. "Et le petit