by Naomi Wood
I knew why Jenö was concerned about Charlotte; so were Otti and Anni, although to herself Charlotte’s pathology was probably invisible. The fast, the coke: both were a means of erasure. Whereas everyone else’s personalities, high, were both vastly elaborated and also comically dishevelled, Charlotte was to be found on these nights semi-tranquillised, looking out to the benign world which could not touch her. She liked not to feel anything. She liked remoteness. Had it been naturally induced it might have been called enlightenment, but instead it was a system of neglect. She grew thinner.
After so much of this business, Otti, with a look of concern that turned her face mournful, told Charlotte she had to get back to work, but Charlotte wasn’t interested. For days the loom had gone untouched. Anni, too, said she was worried.
‘She won’t be able to stop herself,’ said Otti, in my bedroom, a rolled-up cigarette behind her ear, and one in her mouth. She wore round black beads and her outfit didn’t look warm enough for the weather. Perhaps, at home in Zmajevac, this was more like spring. ‘You know she gets into these things,’ Otti said. ‘She likes being emptied out.’
‘Otti’s right,’ said Anni, who sat under Charlotte’s weave, a blackened window. ‘It’s no good for her.’
‘What am I meant to do?’
‘You have to persuade her to stop.’ Anni picked up a newspapered wrapper from my table. ‘Or at least set an example.’
‘Charlotte can do what she likes. She’s old enough to decide.’
‘Of course she is,’ Otti said, ‘but that doesn’t mean she’ll make the right decision.’
I looked at the two women. Both were small, both thin, and their dark hair offset their paleness. Neither smiled as Anni pressed home her point. ‘The Director wants us to be productive. Charlotte’s not been in the Weaving Workshop for a week or so. People will start to notice. Gossip will get around. The Director won’t look warmly on it.’
Teaching high was something of a rollercoaster. Sometimes I ran out of things to say or do. At other moments I went way over time, and the students would look at me perplexed, wondering, I think, what had happened to the man who had so surely told them to eradicate the past.
After Otti and Anni’s dire warnings that morning, I taught in the afternoon. I had three objects assembled before me: a lamp, a chair and a tea glass. I wanted to show the students the will to form; that good design might be made from a few simple shapes, or maybe even just one. I went off for a while on my theme – the criminality of ornament – then I remembered what we had come to do. I tried to temper my excitement because I thought maybe it was obvious that I wasn’t all there. ‘Each design,’ I said to the babies, ‘should consist of no more than a few simple parts.’
Michiko and Howard exchanged looks, and the rest of the class was silent. Maybe I’d already said all of this.
‘The gramophone needles,’ said one, a woman whose name I frequently forgot, and who knew I frequently forgot her name. ‘You said we were going to present our findings today. Because we ran out of time last session.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, having clean forgotten I’d set them that task. ‘Use them for your Metal Ball costumes,’ I said, bungling it. ‘I’ve no idea what I intended us to do with them.’
I could tell she was unhappy with my sloppiness, but I ignored her. I felt adrenal. I was a powerful teacher, and I had more important things to communicate. ‘Look at this lamp,’ I said, quite loudly, and pointing to the Wagenfeld and Jucker lamp. ‘Spherical shade, cylindrical shaft, and a circular base to mirror its top. It’s perfect. Three variations of the circle. And yet all its parts are visible; even the cord and switch. It shows its functions. It hides nothing.’
Here, as Marianne had said, was the ontology of the lamp.
I moved on to Josef’s tea glass. It was a triumph of design, though it had not sold well: the story, really, of the Bauhaus. ‘Heat-resistant glass, brushed chrome, but what about this cup makes it special?’
Michiko raised her hand. ‘The handles.’
‘Exactly. One handle for the server to give: horizontal. But it’s much easier for a human hand to receive on the vertical. Two handles, two directions, one tea glass. It’s a wonder no one’s ever thought of this before. This happens when you will simplicity.’
I passed the tea glass to Michiko using the vertical disc, and she took it with the horizontal, and smiled. My teaching leapt with brilliance. ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’
Nods all round.
‘You said it was the other way around,’ the nameless woman said.
‘What? Did I?’
‘You said horizontal for the server, vertical for the receiver. Then you did the opposite.’
I looked at the tea glass. She was right. ‘Well spotted. Yes. See how adaptable it is!’ I turned to Breuer’s slat-chair to distract them. ‘And finally, regard the angular construction, and the elastic belts to promote posture. Look at the spaces in between; they’re all squares and rectangles. The shapes are additive: they don’t blend. Ockham’s Razor: the simplest design is always the best.’
I set the students a task to make a stool with as few shapes as possible using rolled-up newspaper. While they worked, I settled myself into Breuer’s chair. I knew I shouldn’t have shown them the objects first; now they wouldn’t be as free to do their preparatory designs and to draw ugly things. In Josef’s classes he insisted draughtsmanship should be without goal, and he was right, pedagogically: ask students to produce something, rather than explore the material, and the results would be conservative.
I knew, too, I should leave, but the chair was comfortable, I felt relaxed, and I let myself wander off. From here I could see the field below our balconies. In the summers the grass would be burnt yellow, but in the winters it was covered in snow for the best part of Christmas to Easter. The thaw usually uncovered all manner of hidden things: cigarette ends, mostly, but also textbooks gone missing, used contraceptives, paints which coloured the melting snow in rainbows; once, a couple of puppets, fallen from the roof after a particularly energetic performance from the theatre department.
I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep, but I did. Michiko woke me later. The room had acquired twenty new stools; all of them depressingly identical. The students looked at me with worried expressions. ‘Is everything all right?’ the woman said, and I remembered that her name was Viktoria.
‘Fine, fine.’
‘There’s the design flaw,’ Michiko said, staying a little longer by my side; ‘in Japan we would call this chair too comfortable.’
32
Dessau
It was fairly unusual to find civilians at the Bauhaus. I don’t know where Walter had picked up the green-eyed Nazi, but it was certainly a surprise when, on the evening after my botched class, I saw him, hands behind his back, observing the scalding light of the painting now hung above Walter’s bed. I felt so groggy from the classroom doze that I almost wondered whether he was real.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ the Nazi said. He stood at ease, as if his uniform meant nothing in here.
‘I don’t know. I prefer my art with a little more Kultur-bolschewik.’
I looked at Walter, who was refusing to meet my eye.
He offered his hand. ‘Oskar.’
‘Paul Beckermann,’ I said, thinking my formality would outdo him. ‘How do you know Walter?’
‘I met him at the Metropol.’ A warming of his cheeks. ‘I’ve never been inside the Bauhaus. It’s less impressive than the outside.’
‘Do you think so? Most people say the opposite.’
He blushed again. I don’t think he had meant to be aggressive, and in that moment he reminded me of my father, who, despite his dominance, was more confused about the world than he would admit. ‘I thought there’d be more of everything. Everything’s rather spare, and I thought it’d be opulent. That’s what everyone thinks in town.’
‘I saw you once at the Lamb.’
‘I remember.’
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But as soon as I’d mentioned it Oskar excused himself to the bathroom. Perhaps I’d embarrassed him; I hadn’t banked on him being bashful.
‘Are you in the habit of picking up Nazis in the city?’ I asked Walter once the door was shut.
‘Wrong way round.’
‘How’s it going with Ernst?’
‘Very well.’ Walter smiled. ‘I’m surprised by how much I like him.’
‘And this young man?’
‘Well, while the cat’s away . . .’
‘Ernst must like you. To send you such expensive gifts.’
Yesterday Mr Steiner had sent six more dumplings in the post, enough to keep us going for a week of weddings.
‘The painting?’ Walter asked, mistaking my meaning. ‘Oh no, Ernst’s having a clear out. They have so many customers they need every inch of space. The Americans love his stuff.’
‘I meant the coke.’
‘Ah no: that’s an indulgence just for me and my friends.’
‘Friends like Franz?’
‘Franz got a little too demanding. I had to cut him off.’
I noticed then the scribbling on his arms: blue inked marks. The lettering looked a good deal like the ‘Expressionist shit’ Franz had derided, but the type was slightly straighter, which made it more legible. ‘Did you run out of paper? What’s that?’ I twisted his wrist so I could better see the alphabet: an L, C, A.
I felt the tension in his arm, wanting to withdraw it.
‘It’s my new type.’
The tattooed letters were thin, without a serif. ‘It’s nice,’ I said. ‘Have you christened it yet?’
‘I was thinking of calling it the Lotti-line.’ And I saw then what word these letters would make: Charlotte.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I like the sound of it. Lotti-line, Lotti-line, Lotti-line.’
Oskar’s polite knocking interrupted us. He looked at us as I held Walter’s arm. ‘Funny who you bump into, at the Bauhaus.’
On the table there was a scrap of Weimar newspaper, springing open like one of those Japanese miniature temples dropped into water. Walter chopped a line onto his desk and Oskar eyed it enviously.
‘Don’t worry, dear,’ Walter said, ‘all this is for you.’
Oskar put it up his nose at once. It was rather glorious that he was so unhindered; that he didn’t separate the fat bar and have less, or snort it slowly. His green eyes dazzled. Walter looked thrilled at the young man’s appetite.
Later we tried on our Metal Ball costumes. Walter insisted that he and I were to go as a pair: we’d wear chains around our necks; as hats, the inner wheel of a bicycle, held around our chins by rope. We had raided the school’s chicken coop for feathers and Walter glued them onto the wheels. We were roadkill, and we thought ourselves very clever.
‘What’s Charlotte going as?’
‘The Statue of Liberty.’
‘Excellent choice, excellent choice!’ He looked at the feathers. ‘Maybe we could use them for her torch? I wonder if we could somehow get it to burn. Wouldn’t it be great if the torch could be on fire! And Jenö?’
‘Jenö’s not really into it. The theme.’
‘It’s his theme! Metal! Can’t Marianne fashion him something?’
I shrugged. It was entirely up to Jenö what he did. I thought of Marianne and Jenö jointly humped over a desk lamp, and I wondered if anything might be going on there.
‘I wish I could come,’ said Oskar.
‘Maybe we could smuggle you in,’ said Walter. ‘You’d have to ditch the uniform, though. It’s not quite Bauhaus, though it’s a smart design.’ Walter moved me to the mirror so that he could fix the wheel to my head. It was lighter than it looked. ‘A touch of beetroot juice here, here and here’ – he touched my cheeks; it felt nice – ‘and we’ll be on the road, so to speak.’
‘Nothing too realistic.’
He pecked me on the cheek. ‘Ah yes. The famous haemophobia. Can’t have you walking around half blind, can we? Don’t worry. We shan’t exploit you.’
As I smoked on the balcony I looked in on the men. The room was in disarray: chicken feathers, bike parts and the residue of our lines. Walter lay on the bed, and Oskar was on the floor, a book on his knees. He actually seemed a sweet man, as much as a Nazi could be.
As I watched them Walter’s finger idly traced the young man’s neck: his Adam’s apple, his jaw, his collarbone. I felt a shiver of excitement, knowing that I couldn’t be seen, though I could see in the reflection my gaze hardening. After a while, Oskar tipped his head onto the bed. Walter’s hand paused, then he propped himself up and kissed him.
Something about the way Walter’s lips touched Oskar’s so sensually – soon I saw the dart of tongue, the meeting of bristle and moustache, and Oskar moved himself to the mattress – made me touch my own mouth. I felt the familiar stirring to touch someone and to have them touch me: just as I had felt outside the Metropol. The men kissed more urgently, and I wondered what it would feel like to have another man against you. Then Oskar looked over, wildly, invitingly, and I swivelled around, concentrating my gaze on the snow below.
And then I had the distinct feeling, as one does, that I was not the only one doing the watching out here. A scan of the balconies below revealed no one, but then I found Charlotte on Jenö’s balcony above. She waved and went inside. All alone on the balcony, she had looked sad. To my surprise I thought: I hope they don’t break up. I hope they are all right.
Charlotte showed up at my room later. I’d been reading, trying to forget the image of the men together, and what they were now doing. I had excused myself to their smiles, which weren’t as sheepish as you might think.
‘Where’s Walter?’ she asked.
‘Entertaining a young man in his room.’
‘I thought you said he had a boyfriend. Your old boss?’
‘Don’t ask.’
Charlotte fell like a dead man onto the bed. Maybe from the coke before, I felt good. I put my hand on her neck, trying to find her pulse, thinking how Walter had done that to Oskar earlier. Though my desire for her was all but dormant, the fact of her body – here, like this – was a maddening idea. But Charlotte pulled away, and so I did too. She said something to herself, which I didn’t catch. Outside, I heard rain.
‘Do you think Walter’s happy?’ she asked.
‘I think he wants to be, and that’s what’s made him so unhappy, in the past.’
‘After Rügen, I tried to apologise. There was no reason for Walter to accept, I suppose.’
‘Only tonight he said he’s forgiven you entirely,’ I said, though I had no idea why I was making this up. Our lives were so complicated it was never a good idea to introduce more complexity. ‘He’s even invented a new alphabet. It’s called the Lotti-line. It’s true!’ I said, when her face changed to one of disbelief. ‘He’s practically tattooed it on his arm. It’s rather Expressionistic. Barely decipherable. But I think it’s a compliment. Some kind of gesture of forgiveness.’ I changed tack. ‘Up on the balcony, you looked sad. Is everything all right?’
She looked toward the wall.
‘Sorry. I don’t mean to pry. Let’s not talk about it.’
‘Jenö doesn’t like other people having fun.’
‘Jenö was in tonight?’
‘He said he wanted to spend some time together. He doesn’t like all these nights in your room. He said I turn into a different person. Do you think I do?’ She didn’t give me time to answer. ‘I saw him once, watching Franz and Walter. He looked at them as if they were little boys, when really they were just enjoying themselves. Sometimes he’s so grown-up it’s boring as hell. I just want to have a little fun, and he makes me feel bad about it.’
Charlotte went out onto the balcony and I followed. We watched the rain brightening the night, settling to freeze on the snow. ‘Jenö has a theory that Walter threw that glass on purpose.’
‘Why would he do that?’
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�To get Jenö out of the room. So that he could give me the cocaine.’
‘Again, why would he do that?’
Charlotte craned her neck to see where it had landed, then she looked up to Walter’s balcony and shook her head. ‘Did you see whether Walter checked the ground first?’
‘Why?’
‘Because if he checked that means he threw it on purpose. That would mean it was part of a plan, rather than an accident.’
‘I’d gone all faint. The blood, remember?’
‘Ah yes,’ she said, ‘it’s always the faint.’
‘Look, Jenö’s getting fretful over nothing.’
‘Sometimes I think that. Other times I think he might be right; Walter knew the cocaine would separate us.’
‘Otti and Anni are worried,’ I said. ‘They say we should stop, that the Director will start to notice our whereabouts.’
‘They’re probably right. It just helps. Things with Jenö aren’t so good.’ Charlotte rubbed her face. ‘I don’t know. Walter’s always been a mystery to me. I’ve never known how to be around him. Even when Jenö and I weren’t together.’
Below us two men walked out from the Bauhaus gates. Under the umbrella you could see Oskar’s uniform. I wondered where they were headed. Nowhere would be open.
‘Paul, you didn’t tell me the man was a Nazi!’
‘No one’s not a Nazi in Dessau these days.’
When the rain started to drive in we went back into my room. Charlotte looked around, wondering what to do. It must have been very late; it was after midnight when I’d left Walter’s room. I picked up my book. It wasn’t unusual for us to ignore each other like this, when we wanted company but didn’t want to talk. These nights could be hard on my heart. They were like nights spent between an old married couple.