that students usually chose their thesis topics themselves. But if she had chosen it herself, why had she done so? Because of her literary tastes? Her views? Her personal experience?
Simone de Beauvoir had been translated into Polish, and I had read several of her books: the first two volumes of her autobiography, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, and La Force de l’âge. I hadn’t been very taken with them: I’d found them long-winded and overwritten, in some places grotesque in their extreme rationalism, in others effusively over-emotional. Nevertheless, I couldn’t deny that they gave me some insight into a woman’s psychology, and in particular into the morals and intellectual life of the Paris existentialist set.
The general impression I got was of a sort of learned twittering. Beauvoir tells us how she rejected compromise and ‘bourgeois’ values in favour of intensity of experience, and resolved to lead what was known in existentialist terminology as an ‘authentic’ life. But the ‘authentic’ life, contrary to what one might suppose, was not one of decadence and extravagance. It consisted, first, in a fanatical and ridiculous politicising of every conceivable sphere of existence: one had always to be in opposition to something, to protest and to rebel against something or other. This protest was usually indulged in at little cost to oneself – indeed it tended, if anything, to be quite profitable – and always made a horrendous din. Secondly, it involved interminable and relentless self-analysis: every single experience, reaction and desire had to be subjected to rigorous intellectual scrutiny and then interpreted psychologically and philosophically. That, at least, is what it looked like. Reading these fat, bloated tomes full of verbiage, one got the impression that from her earliest childhood Simone de Beauvoir had lived in a state of permanent self-vivisection. She treated herself as an object of scientific inquiry, and her internal eye was alert to the slightest reaction. Every detail of every emotion was immediately noted down; nothing was overlooked, nothing left unanalysed.
What was there in all this that could have interested Madame? Did she like it or was she repelled by it? Did Beauvoir’s personality, views and way of looking at the world seem foreign to her, or did they strike a familiar chord? Was her choice of thesis topic prompted by approval and admiration, perhaps even by a feeling of kinship? Or was it, on the contrary, the result of profound disagreement, irritation and disgust? She was, after all, the head of a socialist school, and as such was unlikely to feel much sympathy, let alone approval, for anything written by the (admittedly unofficial) consort of the author of L’être et le néant. For however enlightened this reigning deity of artistic and intellectual life in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s might be, however left-wing and fervent in her dreams of world revolution, however slavish in her devotion to the French communists and outspoken in her support of movements of national liberation throughout the world, the fact remained that she was connected with existentialism. And existentialism, from the Marxist point of view, was a ‘nihilist’, ‘fundamentally bourgeois’ and even ‘fascist’ doctrine. (After all, Martin Heidegger – ‘Hitler’s right-hand man in Nazi higher education’ – had been one of its co-founders!) Marxism, of course, as ‘the only truly scientific system’, had long ago exposed, with childish ease, the intellectual poverty and moral rottenness of this ‘pseudo-philosophy’. Nevertheless it continued to proliferate, as weeds do, and to poison people’s minds. It was still necessary, therefore, to oppose it.
After 1956, opposition to existentialism assumed a new form. During the early years of the Cold War it had been simply taboo; with the ‘thaw’, however, it was allowed some expression, although mainly in order that it might be ridiculed and condemned. That, at least, was the official ritual, and numerous journals, magazines and academic conferences acted accordingly. This being the case, what could one expect from an MA thesis, especially an MA thesis supervised by someone with such a sinister name?
Surowa-Léger: the name was not just sinister but dubious. The woman had connections with bourgeois France! She had probably married a Frenchman. So she must be interested in trips abroad. And that meant she must be ideologically untainted – or at least very careful. She must have seen to it that Simone de Beauvoir’s famous ‘emancipated woman’ turned out to be ‘incorrectly’ or at best ‘superficially’ emancipated.
‘Do you know how I could get in touch with Dr Surowa-Léger?’ I asked.
‘Dr Léger,’ replied the Senior One, neatly omitting the first barrel of the name, ‘left the department a long time ago.’
‘She’s at the Academy, I suppose?’ I asked in tones of respectful gravity.
‘She left the country,’ the other secretary hastened to explain. ‘Five years ago. She went to France. For good.’
‘Oh, I see . . .’
My head began to spin with new questions. Gone! Left for good! Stayed in the West! It was like some kind of malevolent curse. People who went to the West and stayed there were considered ‘traitors’ or ‘renegades’; at best they were seen as people with no ‘moral fibre’, so tempted by Western trinkets – clothes and cosmetics, cars and nightclubs – that they succumbed to the shameful lure of consumerism. Of course, Dr Léger had probably left in order to join her French husband – but perhaps she had planned the whole thing in advance, in cold blood? Perhaps Magdalena Surowa had married M. Léger not for love or even because of a common interest in things French, but only because she hoped that sooner or later, through him, she would get to the West? In any event, that wasn’t the important thing. The question was who she was while she was still in Poland. An ideologically pure Marxist, critical of existentialism and other Western novelties? Or someone who approved of it, even admired it, along with other forms of Western decadence?
On the answer to these questions depended the interpretation of Madame’s final mark. What was the significance of that A? Had it rewarded a devastating critique or a sympathetic analysis? Or perhaps the thesis was no more than a pretence at criticism, a mask, assumed in order to wallow safely in forbidden ideas? How on earth was I to find out?
‘Where could I find out more about these people?’ I asked, gesturing towards the open file.
‘Which people, exactly?’ inquired the Senior One, an edge of impatience in her voice.
I almost said, ‘Well, for example, about Miss . . .’ but at the last minute I thought better of it. I began leafing nonchalantly through the file, as if the choice were a matter of complete indifference to me, until I came to 1959 again.
‘Oh, well, let’s say these, for instance,’ I said offhandedly, ‘the ones from ’59.’
‘Fifty-nine,’ the Other One repeated, ‘let me see, whom have we there?’ She got up and came over to look at the list. Once again I was on the verge of supplying Madame’s name as an example, and once again I held my tongue. The Other One went down the list of names with her finger. About halfway down she stopped.
‘There you are!’ she cried in a joyful voice, ‘Dr Monten. He’d be perfect for you. He’s a lecturer in our department, in seventeenth-century literature.’
Monten, Monten . . . wasn’t that the name of my mountain cicerone, the man who had taken me to the Tatras, the friend of my parents’ from before the war? Could it be the same man? Could this 1959 graduate of Warsaw University and possessor of that seldom-found combination of first names, Frederick Bonaventure, have any connection with my friend? Was he perhaps a relative, even his son?
I knew there was a son, but I had no idea what his name was, how old he was or what he did. Somehow we’d never talked about it, and I had never met him. Now, excited by this extraordinary coincidence, which might turn out to be priceless for me, I feverishly began to calculate whether it was possible.
Indeed it was.
