Book of My Mother by Albert Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

in the suitcase, and they will emerge gradually over the next few days. She wants to draw out her enjoyment, to give me a present each day. I let her think I don’t know. I do not want to spoil her little pleasure. Now it is the following morning. She brings me the breakfast tray. She is in her dressing gown. Her days of elegant modesty are behind her; she is old. I am glad she is in her dressing gown and slippers. Let her relax.
    The only fake happiness left to me is to write about her, unshaven, deaf to the music on the radio, beside my cat, to whom in secret I speak in the Venetian dialect of the Jews of Corfu, which I sometimes used to speak with my mother. My impassive cat, my substitute mother, my piteous little mother with such a limited capacity for loving. Sometimes when I am alone with my cat I lean toward her and call her my little Maman. But my cat merely gives me an uncomprehending stare. And I am left all alone and my ridiculous tenderness remains unemployed.
    I am haunted by the scene which I made. “Please forgive me,” sobbed my angel. She was so appalled by the sin she had committed in daring to phone that countess and ask “if my son, Albert, is still at your house, if you please.” That countess, because of whom I was cruel to my holy mother, was an imbecile with no behind who was actually impressed by the functions and medals of her diplomat of a husband and who chattered nonstop, the idiot, like a parrot drunk on white wine. “I’ll never do it again,” sobbed my angel. When I saw blue marks on her hands I broke down, and I fell on my knees and passionately kissed those little hands, and we gazed at each other, son and mother forever. She took me on her lap and consoled me. But the following evening, when I went off to another grand reception, I did not take her with me.
    She was not angry at being left behind. She did not consider it unfair that isolation should be her lot, her lamentable lot of being hidden from my acquaintances, my stupid social connections, the vile tribe of the well-bred. She knew she was ignorant of what she called “fine ways.” Like a good and faithful dog, she accepted her humble fate, which was to wait, alone in my flat and sewing for me – to wait for my return from those smart dinners from which she thought it natural to be debarred. To wait in obscurity, sewing for her son, humbly to await the return of her son, was enough for her. To admire her son on his return, her son in a dinner jacket or tails and in good health, was enough to make her happy. To be told the names of his important fellow guests was enough for her. To be given details of the dishes on the sumptuous menu and the low-necked evening dresses of the ladies, those grand ladies she would never know, was enough for her, enough for that unresentful soul. She savored from afar the paradise from which she was excluded. My darling, I am introducing you to everyone now, proud of you, proud of your accent, proud of your incorrect French, passionately proud of your ignorance of fine ways. It’s a bit late in the day for such pride.

XI
     
    O NE DAY in Geneva when I had arranged to meet her at five in the university square, I was detained by a girl with fair hair and did not arrive until eight. She did not see me coming. My heart filled with shame, I watched her sitting there patiently waiting, all alone on a bench in the waning light and the now chilly air, in her poor coat which was too tight and with her hat askew. She had been waiting there for hours – meekly, peacefully, slightly drowsy, older because she was alone, resigned, used to solitude, used to my lateness, uncomplaining in her humble wait, a servant, a poor, put-upon saint. What could be more natural than to wait three hours for her son, and was he not entitled? I hate that son! She saw me at last and came back to life, entirely dependent on me. I can see the little start she gave as her vitality came flooding back, I can see her passing in a