Freidin introduced me to Janet Lind, and suggested that we might like to talk about King Kong. It rapidly emerged that she and I had very little to say to one another about King Kong. What little spark there had been in this conversation was soon extinguished by Nathalie Babel, who was staring at Lind with a fixed, unbenevolent expression. A chilly silence descended upon the table.
“JANET,” Nathalie said finally, in her fathomless voice. “IS IT TRUE THAT YOU DESPISE ME?”
Janet Lind turned to her calmly. “I beg your pardon?”
“IS IT TRUE THAT YOU DESPISE ME?”
“I can’t imagine what makes you say that.”
“I say it because I would like to know if it is TRUE THAT YOU DESPISE ME.”
“That is an extremely odd question. What gives you an idea like that?”
“I just think you were told that I’m a NASTY OLD WITCH.”
“This is really extremely odd. Did someone say something to you?” Lind frowned slightly. “You and I have barely had any interactions.”
“Even so, I had the impression—that you DESPISE ME.”
This conversation continued for longer than one would have thought possible, given how clear it was that Janet Lind, for whatever reason, was just not going to tell Nathalie Babel that she did not despise her. Looking from Lind to Babel, I was struck by the nontrivial truth behind the Smiths song: “Some girls are bigger than others.” It wasn’t just that Nathalie Babel’s face was physically larger—it was somehow visibly clear that she came from a different place and time, where the human scale was different, and bigger.
“Come, Nathalie,” Freidin interceded.
She fixed him with her deep, watery eyes. “SOME PEOPLE DO DESPISE ME, YOU KNOW . . .” She sighed, and pointed at two wineglasses: “Which of these is my glass?”
“They’re both yours.”
“Oh? I can’t see anything. Which is water?”
“It looks to me like they’re both white wine.”
Nathalie stared at him. “AND WHY DO I HAVE TWO GLASSES OF WINE?”
“Why do you say it like it’s a bad thing? If it were me, I would think, ‘This must mean that I’ve done something very good.’ Here, however, is your water glass.”
“Ah.” Nathalie Babel took a drink of water.
There was a long silence.
“So,” Platt said to Freidin, as the waiters were bringing out the entrées. “I hear that Slavic department enrollments are declining in the United States.”
“Oh, do you? Well, you’re probably right.”
“Do you notice a decline here at Stanford?”
“I’d say we’ve had a pretty fair enrollment the past few years.”
“What about graduate students—do you have many graduate students? I have somehow not seen your students.”
“Here is Elif,” said Freidin. “She is one of our graduate students.”
Platt peered at me over the rims of his glasses for several seconds, then turned back to Freidin. “Yes—so. I see you have one specimen. Are there many others?”
By this point we had all been served some cutlets swimming in a sea of butter. These cutlets appeared to depress everyone. The Hungarian scholar even sent hers back, with detailed instructions. It reappeared a few minutes later, with no modification visible to the naked eye.
Toward the end of the meal, Lidiya Babel came over from her table, stood behind Nathalie’s chair, put her arms around her shoulders, and patted her head. “My darling,” she said, “how I love you! How good it is that we are all together!”
Nathalie glanced over her shoulder, with the expression of a cat who does not want to be picked up.
Freidin looked from Nathalie to Lidiya. “Thank you!” he exclaimed. “Thank you, Lidiya!”
Lidiya stared at him. “What for?”
“For coming! In your place maybe I would have hesitated.”
“What do you mean to say—that you would find it difficult to travel with my mother?”
“No, of course not—but it’s a long distance, an unknown place . . .”
“Speaking of your mother,” Nathalie told Lidiya, “how old is she anyway? Some people say ninety-two, some people say ninety-six. Or is it a secret?”
“My mother is ninety-five.”
“She doesn’t look a day over ninety-three,” said Freidin gallantly.
“It’s true, she’s in good health and looks well,” Lidiya said. “However, not as well as she looked two years ago. But that isn’t the main thing. The main thing is that everything is still all right here.” She tapped her temple. “Her memory and her understanding.”
When Lidiya went back to her table, Nathalie followed her with her eyes.
“THAT OLD WITCH WILL BURY US ALL,” she remarked.
“Nathalie!” said Freidin.
She turned to stare at him. “YOU THINK I SHOULD KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT,” she observed. “But—WHY? WHAT DO I HAVE TO LOSE? I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.”
Freidin looked nonplussed. “Well, then, I guess you should risk everything,” he said. And, making a visible effort to change the subject: “Nathalie, now that you’re here, there is something I’ve been dying to ask you. What was your aunt’s name? One sees it written so many ways. Meriam, Miriam, Mary, Maria—which was it?”
“Oh! Do tell us the correct spelling!” exclaimed Platt, his eyes lighting up.
Nathalie looked at him. “I don’t understand what you mean by the correct spelling. Some called her Meriam, others Mary, others Maria. All three were used.”
“How interesting,” said Janet Lind, turning to Freidin. “I’m surprised you haven’t already gone to Odessa and looked it up in the municipal register.”
“I’m afraid there are many other surprises where that came from. I’ve always wanted to go to Odessa and look all these things up, but it somehow never happened.”
“Why don’t you go now?”
“For the same reason that the Babel conference is here, at Stanford: I don’t really travel.”
“Why not?” asked the American journalist.
Freidin explained that his wife’s health kept him in the area, which I thought would end the discussion, but it didn’t.
“Well, your daughter still lives with you, doesn’t she?” someone asked. “Can’t your daughter stay with her?”
“Anna is an enormous source of support and happiness, but she is eighteen years old, and she has a busy life of her own.”
The journalist looked thoughtful. “You know what I think?” she said. “I think you should get her a dog.”
Freidin stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“You should get your wife a dog,” the journalist explained. “It will change her life.”
“I really don’t see what a dog has to do with any of this.”
“The dog will change her life!”
“What makes you think that her life needs to be changed?” There was another silence. “There are various things that cannot be accomplished by a dog.”
The journalist looked downcast. “I just thought that if she’s sick, the dog can cuddle with her.”
“Cuddling is not the problem,” said Freidin firmly.
The journalist nodded. “I can see I’ve said something wrong,” she said. “But I’m just crazy about dogs.” She looked truly sorry.
“We did have a dog once, years ago,” Freidin said, in a conciliatory tone, “called Kutya.”
The Hungarian professor, a mournful-looking woman in gray, looked up with interest. “Kutya means ‘dog’ in Hungarian!” she said. She spoke in a head voice, a bit like a puppet.