Invisible Others
KARINA M Szczurek’s debut novel is a beautifully wrought, poetically written story of a group of fragile people in Paris, trying to find each other through, or despite the pain of their pasts. The romantic city of Paris is glimpsed in haunting waves: a city of love, winter, cold nights, glimpsed through the mists of these characters’ searches for healing, hope and more… so much more, isn’t there always the hope of more?
The tagline on the cover of the book asks: “Don’t we all carry scars which remain invisible to others?” And both the title and the tagline hint at what is to come.
A South African writer, Cara, has escaped the country, arriving in Paris in the dead of winter. She lives alone in her apartment there, fleeing ghosts and memories, shunning contact to the point of isolation.
Then there’s the Polish academic, Konrad, living in Paris on a grant, making ends meet while working at a Polish bookshop in the city – the shop also a metaphorical home to other exiles in the city.
A neighbour of Cara’s, Konrad becomes mystified and intrigued by her strange, haunted presence.
She orders a book from his shop, a translation, and a tentative, very elusive friendship develops between them.
It is not easy, and it takes time. You wonder as a reader if they are fated to simply dance around each other, both lost in their own griefs.
We learn that Cara is fleeing the suicide of the wife of the man she has loved for years, the South African artist Lucas Stutterheim. And in a strange twist of life imitating art, Cara wrote a novel, Triangle, in which she predicted the death, and then the woman, Dagmar, took her own life.
Outrage and fury following the scandal have led her to flee to this place where no one knows her.
Konrad too is fleeing his own sor- row and demons, following the accidental death of his own partner. These two wounded people find each other – but the dance is complicated and the figure of Lucas enters through memory.
This isn’t a conventional love story. While Konrad is drawn to Cara, she remains haunted by her relationship with Lucas and the possibilities that have been snuffed out, the future that lies shadowy and now unknown. The eternal triangle clangs throughout, the notes reverberating from one to the other; it’s impossible to return to the past, or is it?
Paris is as much a character as these three people navigating loss. The scene where Cara and Konrad go ice skating on a level of the Eiffel tower will stay with me: “They line up for their tickets and proceed to the first floor. The rink is lodged between two of the tower’s legs almost 60m off the ground. It is small and pretty crowded – Konrad estimates about 50 people sailing through the air around them – but in spite of the fog, or because of it, the view is breathtaking.”
This is a memorable debut, full of power, an engaging read that illuminates the difficulty of our own choices, and our own desires. – Arja Salafranca
ArjaSalafrancaistheeditorof theLifesupplementinTheSunday Independent,anda writerandpoet. Herthirdcollectionofpoetry, Beyond Touch, waspublishedin May.