The Messiah of Stockholm by Cynthia Ozick (beginner reading books for adults TXT) 📕

foster mother; he was then sixteen. It made him run away: he had not yet learned whose son he was.

“I’m a refugee.”

She showed no surprise. “All right, let’s start”—she walked straight past him into his tiny flat; there was his bed, there was his crumpled wild quilt. It was more than a year since another human being had stood in this place. He was humiliated. Or else he did not know what he was. He was ashamed, frenetic. He rushed around to sweep some clothes off a chair. He cleared the table with a lightning arm. He was exposed, he was fearful; he was exulting.

“Mrs. Eklund told you to come here?”

“Because you don’t have a telephone.”

“You wouldn’t leave your own number. You wouldn’t say where you live.”

“I have to be careful, don’t I?”

“Careful of what?” he asked.

“Of what I’m in charge of.” She gave her bag a shake. “I have an impulsive nature—I need to watch myself. I’ve spent a couple of weeks now watching you. I’ve been getting a point of view.”

He was preoccupied by her accent. Did she sound like the Princess? But even the Princess was not so confident.

“Mrs. Eklund told me where to look. Mondays in the Morgontörn. I’ve been trying you out. You know things. If you can do it I’ll take you.”

“Do what?”

Now she was sitting on the edge of his bed. “I want a translator.”

“I’m not a translator,” Lars said. “I’ve never done any of that kind of thing.”

“You Swedish intellectuals do everything. Mrs. Eklund says Stockholm is filled with literary virtuosos. History professors who do criticism, critics who do translations, every sort of linguist—”

“I’m not anything like that.”

“Mrs. Eklund says you are.”

“She’s not qualified. She’s nobody. She runs a bookshop, what’s that? She wants to make fun of me, that’s all.”

“Why?”

He dangled Heidi’s key. “Revenge. I’ve unlocked her secrets. I know all about her. She isn’t what she seems.”

Again the woman shook her bag. A witch with a rattle. “Revenge and illusion! You’re just the one I want. Mrs. Eklund says you’re crazy for the Polish writers.”

“You shouldn’t rely on her.”

“Everyone important comes into her shop. One of her customers is actually a Princess. She gets all the professors—the intelligentsia. The Academy orders from her, did you know that?”

“Don’t be so quick,” he said. “You’ve only just met her.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “It went quick, quick! I think she’s clairvoyant. She sees through walls. She saw through me, it didn’t take her a minute—she understood even before I explained. She understood it all. Most people don’t. Most people haven’t heard of it. Not even the literary ones.”

She pulled off her beret. She meant to settle in for a visit. It was true, it was just as Heidi had described it; she was graying, like himself. Sad streaks of grime like old slush. She looked to be his own age, or near it, but when she lifted her chin and he caught the plane of her flat cheek, a momentary child flashed out. She had that in common with him: that suddenly simplified gaze, as if some long-ago movie reel were running fleetingly through. He warned himself to be vigilant. Between her eyes—blackish-brown like his own—there were two well-established vertical trenches. Vigilance! She was not his sister; he had no sister.

“Most people don’t know anything about any of it,” she said.

His breath was trapped in his throat. “It isn’t really The Messiah.”

“Mrs. Eklund told you, didn’t she? She told you what I’ve got.”

“No one will ever believe you.”

“You will.”

“Is it in that bag? Not in that bag!” A foolishness: how foolish he was; but the unfamiliar jubilation quickened.

“Yes, yes, right here”—and shook it. The sound of fifty wings.

“It should be in a library,” he said. “It should be in a vault. It should be somewhere safe.”

“It’s safe with me. It’s mine. I’m in charge of it.”

“You’re not afraid of theft? You’ve made copies?”

“Copies?” Contempt: a voice of contempt. “If I brought you a copy, would you believe in it?”

“How can I believe anything?” Lars said. “You haven’t got any credentials, you come out of nowhere—”

“Oh, credentials.” And again he was puzzled by her accent, with its odd sibilances. “I’ll give you my name.”

“Adela.”

“Adela, is that enough? That’s only what Mrs. Eklund said. Don’t you want the rest of it? Don’t you want where I was born, and all about my parents, my education, all of that? I’ve had an education, whatever people think.”

“I want to see what’s in that bag,” Lars said.

“It’ll break your heart, the look of it. The condition it’s in. Some of these pages I had to pull out of a pair of shoes.”

“Shoes!”

“They were just stuffed in there, way in. In the toes, after a rain. To keep the shape. Have you ever been to Drohobycz?”

“No,” Lars said.

“Warsaw?”

“No.”

“I was born in Brazil, did you realize that? No one’s told you that. In São Paulo. My mother ran there in the middle of the war. You call yourself a refugee! She was only fifteen and pregnant, it wasn’t easy to get passage—she managed it without a visa, she’s a crafty type. She makes friends, that’s how she does it. And then she got used to it—living all over. People say we’re bedouins.”

“A pair of shoes?” Lars said.

“They belonged to this old woman in Warsaw. We’ve lived in São Paulo, Amsterdam, Budapest, Brussels. Then Warsaw. The place we stayed the longest was Warsaw. My mother grew up in Poland, she speaks Polish best. So do I, except for Portuguese. Six months ago we went to Grenoble, we all went, don’t ask me why. It’s just the way my mother is—”

“All? Are you a tribe, your mother and you?”

She colored a little. “She actually married someone down there—a funny Frenchman, I don’t like him—so I came here. My Swedish is really good, isn’t it? Good grasp of idiom—lots of people tell me that. Don’t you think my Swedish is good? Well, it’s not good enough. Not for revenge and illusion! Heaven help