The Moment

by Douglas Kennedy

  “I hardly see life as tidy.”

  “But you do want to live happily ever after with the divine Petra?”

  “Of course. Don’t we all want that? Don’t you want that with Mehmet?”

  Alaistair shut his eyes.

  “What I want is a cigarette. As soon as you are off the premises—and no longer raising such vexacious questions—I am going to shuffle down to the room they have consecrated for us nicotine addicts and try to block out the echo of your interrogatory voice with an HB Filter. Then I will get back here for my afternoon fix—another highlight of the day.”

  “And how is that going?”

  “The medicos and the shrink they’ve assigned to me are pleased with my progress. They feel I am almost ready to be set loose upon the world.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Unless you see the world as vindictive and evil.”

  “You’ll go back to work.”

  “And then Mehmet will get rumbled by his people, and I’ll end up getting stabbed again. Only this time I’ll end up on a mortuary slab, not a hospital bed.”

  “Always the drama queen, Alaistair.”

  “That’s me. But one good piece of news. The police finally captured the lunatic who slashed me and my work. As soon as he was apprehended a few days ago—nabbed while on the run in Munich—he was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and has been indefinitely banged up in some very secure mental hospital deep in Bavaria with all those insane Christian Democrats. So when I am finally given my walking papers out of here, I will be able to stroll the streets of Kreuzberg without the fear of running into that talent-free but very violent nutter again. Meanwhile, when am I going to meet this love of your life?”

  “You’ll meet her as soon as you are installed back at home. By the way, your studio is pristine again.”

  “So Mehmet told me. When are you going to present me with the bill for services rendered?”

  “All I ask in return is that, once you’re finally sprung from here, you actually try to stay clean.”

  “Why do you even care if I fall back on my old junkie ways?”

  “Because, idiot that I am, I happen to like you. And the world, for me, would be a far less interesting place if you were no longer in it.”

  “Sentimental rubbish,” he said as the bell announcing the end of visiting hours sounded. Then, shutting his eyes again, he said:

  “Now get out of here before I do something foolish like become emotional. But you will drop by tomorrow?”

  “I suppose I have no choice.”

  “But if you could do it around noonish, as Mehmet will be coming at eleven.”

  “He is? But that is such good news.”

  “Perhaps it is,” he said, staring back at the ceiling. “Perhaps this is, for both you and me, one of those rare interregnums in which all the fucking stars really are in fucking alignment.”

  Some hours later, when Petra came rushing through the door and threw herself into my arms, I reflected again on Alaistair’s last comment and agreed that there are rare moments in life when everything really does fall into place, when the gods, the stars, the guiding hand of destiny, the nature of happenstance (and all the other non-empirical forces we occasionally cite when discussing the ways our fate plays out) really do seem to be in one’s court. Certainly, thinking back on the three months or so that followed this pronouncement, this was a time when all seemed well in the world. Being in love—and having that love so reciprocated—is, perhaps, the closest I’ve ever come to sheer, unalloyed wonderment. That’s what I remember so vividly about this initial time with Petra—the way life was lived at such a heightened level that it was as if we had created a bulwark against the world at large. We were inseparable, and so totally committed to the project that was our life together. This was unknown territory for me. Having previously always told the girlfriend of the moment that I needed space, privacy, a bit of distance to get on with my work, now, I simply couldn’t imagine an evening without Petra. I always endeavored to have the day’s writing finished by the time Petra was home from work. And she was always rigorously on time, as I was whenever it came to meeting her somewhere outside of the apartment. Then again, we always treated each other with great respect and saw each other as nothing less than equals. In our domestic life together, we had already ascertained that we both liked order. What was wonderful was the way we both, without ever discussing it, always tried to make life easy for each other. For the first time in my life, I was actually playing house with someone else, someone whose arrival in the evening I awaited with the best sort of impatience, someone whose sheer presence in the rooms we shared, across a table from me in a restaurant, with her hand in mine as we sat side-by-side in a cinema or a concert hall, made me so happy.

  That was the other overwhelming memory of those first months together: the absolute felicity of our life together. Even Alaistair—when he finally was allowed out of the hospital—noted the “changed atmospherics” in the apartment.

  It was a Saturday when he was granted permission to return to life outside constant medical supervision. Mehmet and I arranged to collect him, Mehmet telling his family that he had a decorating job that morning. Before he was released into my “care” (Mehmet was adamant that he not talk to any doctors, that I was to tell anyone at the hospital who asked that he was the taxi driver I’d organized to take Alaistair home), I had to spend half an hour in the company of a Dr. Schroeder. He explained to me that Herr Fitzsimons-Ross had to maintain the strict regime of methadone under which he had been functioning for the last three weeks. It was explained that he would be given no more than a week’s supply at a time—sachets to be dissolved in water and then ingested before all meals—and that he would be required to present himself at the hospital every Monday morning at nine o’clock for a blood test to ascertain that he hadn’t backslid into heroin. Dr. Schroeder asked me if I had ever seen Alaistair after shooting up. “Don’t worry,” he said when I hesitated in answering. “You are not his legal guardian, so you will not be held responsible if he does begin to ‘use’ again. But as you share the apartment with him, you will be more aware than anyone else should he resume, and you must phone me instantly.”

  “I really don’t like the idea of playing Big Brother here,” I said, “since it could run him into problems with the law.”

  “You would also be saving his life at the same time. If he does start to ‘use’ he will not go to prison, but he will be brought to a secure hospital where he will be put back on methadone and kept there until the doctors are certain that he is fully clean.”

  “But that means he could be locked up against his will for months.”

  “It also means that he will be finally off heroin. But, as I said, if he keeps to the methadone regime now, there will be no problem. Here is my card. I know this will all be a question of conscience for you. But if Herr Fitzsimons-Ross really is your friend, then you will be a good friend to him by calling me the moment you see he has embraced heroin. All right?”

  He proffered the card. I took it, thinking: actually, no, this is not “all right.” In fact, it puts me in a major moral dilemma. Alaistair functioned pretty well as a junkie, and only ended up in the hospital because of his unfortunate choice of pickup. And the libertarian in me basically thought: he’s a big boy, and I am not going to play health cop here.

  On the way back to the apartment, Alaistair raised this subject with me in English to make certain that Mehmet—who was driving us back in his van—wasn’t cognizant of his thoughts on the subject.

  “Let me guess: Herr Doktor lectured you on my fragile state, the fact that I am ‘teetering on the edge between addiction and cure,’ as he put it to me a few days ago, and asked you to play the Stasi and report to him when I started inserting a spike in my veins. Is that about right?”

  “That’s absolutely right,” I said.

  “What are your thoughts on the subject?”

  “It’s a very simple thought. It wou
ld be good if you were to remain clean. But it’s none of my business if you choose to do otherwise.”

  “Thank you for that. I know I am very much under surveillance already. If I fail to show up every Monday morning for my weekly appointment—and if I fail the blood test—they can incarcerate me for as long as they see fit. And the bastards have my passport.”

  “It looks like you have to play by their rules.”

  “I hate playing by anybody’s rules.”

  “Look at it this way: all junkies die prematurely. If you beat it now . . .”

  “Cigarettes or ennui will then kill me. Still, one thing the doctor did say to me which made a little sense: with the Bundesrepublik paying for the substitute, I will be saving myself the three hundred deutsche marks a week it was costing me to fund the habit. And my gallery in London is making noises about those three paintings that they were expecting from me this month. In fact, in the pile of mail you brought me last week, there was a letter asking me when they could expect delivery . . .”

  “Did you tell them what had happened?”

  “Are you daft? The fastest way to lose a commission is to state that all the work you’ve been spending months on has been destroyed. Rule Number One of the Creative Life, Thomas, is: never, never, tell anyone in authority or with cash in his pockets how long it took you to paint or write something. What I wrote back to the gallery owner was the work was taking longer than expected, and that the reason he was getting this letter on hospital notepaper is that I was suffering from exhaustion. When it comes to extending a deadline, the artist must always hint at la souffrance behind the creative process. I am awaiting his reply from London—but I’ve no doubt it will have bought me some time . . . not that I really have much of that right now, as I have bills to pay.”

  “So you’re going straight to work?”

  “Well, give me an afternoon to settle in. But tomorrow I will visit my other dealer in Berlin—the one who supplies me with paint and brushes and stretches canvases for me—and will arrange for a delivery of everything within two days. Then, yes, to work. Though, of course, the very idea of starting again, and painting without smack, well, to say that it’s a tad daunting is to engage in understatement.”

  When we got to the apartment, Alaistair spent several minutes walking around the freshly painted, freshly sanded and stained space. It really did look pristine, and I saw him blink back tears as he surveyed his refurbished domain. When he spoke, his voice was just above a whisper.

  “I don’t deserve such kindness.”

  Mehmet shook his head, a hint that he had heard such heart-on-the-sleeve self-loathing from Alaistair far too many times before.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You deserve shit. But me and Mehmet are such fools that we . . .”

  “All right, I’ll shut up. But not before saying ‘thank you.’”

  At which moment I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Petra was standing there, looking wonderful, dressed in jeans and one of my faded blue denim work shirts.

  “Welcome home,” she said to Alaistair.

  “What a pleasure to meet you, Petra.”

  “You know my name.”

  “Thomas told me your name. Just as he intimated that he was the happiest man in the world.”

  I found myself shaking my head at such blatant chutzpah. But Petra came over and put her arm around me and said:

  “Well, he has made me the happiest woman in the world.”

  “And thank God we will be living on separate floors,” Alaistair said, “as such blatant bliss is far too difficult to bear. I need negativity, melancholia, dejection in order to—”

  “Shut up,” Mehmet suddenly said, and with an edge to his voice that caught us all by surprise, most of all Alaistair.

  “My, my,” he finally said. “I must have misspoken.”

  “You did,” Mehmet said. For the first time I could see that the entire balance of power in his relationship with Alaistair had changed.

  “Noted,” Alaistair said quietly. “As you will come to discover, Petra, I do talk shit all the time.”

  “Language,” Mehmet said.

  “It seems I am being reined in by my associate today.”

  “I have to go,” Mehmet said.

  “You mean, you won’t stay for lunch?” Petra asked. “I’ve got a spaghetti sauce brewing upstairs.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “I just thought, with Alaistair coming home, it would be nice if we could all sit down and have lunch together.”

  “I’m liking you even more by the minute,” Alaistair said.

  “So I’ll go and put the spaghetti on now,” she said. “And Alaistair, you’ll see I picked up some bread and cheese and milk and coffee for you.”

  “Marry this woman,” Alaistair told me.

  “I probably will,” I said, staring right at Petra.

  “I’d best go upstairs. I hope you can stay for lunch, Mehmet.”

  “Not possible.”

  “See you soon then,” she said. Squeezing my hand she whispered: “I’ll hold you to what you just said,” then headed upstairs.

  “Aren’t you the lucky bastard,” Alaistair said. “She is lovely.”

  “I agree.”

  “And I hope you didn’t ask her to make lunch for me.”

  “Some people are actually just nice,” I said, glancing over at Mehmet.

  “I’m aware of that,” Alaistair said. “And some people are foolish enough to stay with the wrong person.”

  Mehmet’s response to this was to shake his head several times, then mutter “I have to go,” and head to the door. Alaistair immediately chased after him. I took this as a cue to head upstairs. As I reached my doorway I heard something that I had never heard: the sound of Mehmet getting angry, shouting something at Alaistair in his gruff German and Alaistair trying to soothe him. As I opened the door Petra was standing in front of the stove, a huge pot of spaghetti on the boil next to a most aromatic pan of sauce. She immediately came over and put her arms around me:

  “It sounds like Alaistair said the wrong thing.”

  “That he did.”

  “We’ll never say the wrong things to each other, will we?”

  “Of course, we will. But then we’ll apologize profusely and make mad, passionate love and . . .”

  She kissed me, and we stumbled backward against a wall, Petra throwing one leg around me, sticking her hand into my jeans, and whispering:

  “If it wasn’t for the spaghetti, I’d take you right now.”

  “To hell with the spaghetti.”

  “But Alaistair will be arriving any moment.”

  “To hell with Alaistair.”

  As we stumbled toward the bedroom, there was the sound of knuckles rapping on the door.

  “Scheisse,” Petra said, straightening out her clothes and rushing to a spaghetti pot that was about to erupt, while I rebuttoned my jeans and staggered over to the door. As I opened it I found Alaistair outside. His eyes were red.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, coming inside. “Trust me to ruin everything within five minutes of getting home.”

  “What happened?” Petra asked.

  “I pushed Mehmet over the edge, and he just stormed out and said he wasn’t coming back.”

  “That could just be an overreaction,” I said.

  “No, it’s been building up to this for a very long time.”

  “Let him calm down. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Wishful thinking. The truth is, I’ve lost him.”

  “I think you could use a drink,” I said.

  Alaistair rubbed his hand against his very wet eyes. I’d never seen him quite like this before—so open, so vulnerable, so sad.

  “I could use twenty drinks.”

  I uncorked the cheap Italian white that Petra and I always drank. Alaistair downed two glasses quickly with two accompanying cigarettes. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, he discarded th
e sorrow and amused us over lunch with tales of the art world, bombarding Petra with questions about her painter friends in Prenzlauer Berg and impressing her with his knowledge of East German artists while downing a bottle of wine by himself before suddenly announcing:

  “Oh fuck, I forgot my bloody methadone.”

  Then he roared down the stairs, clearly drunk.

  “Well, that was a first,” Petra said.

  “Yes, he does tend to deal in extremity.”

  “I was talking about never having had lunch with someone before who had to dash off and take his methadone.”

  “At least he doesn’t shoot up anymore.”

  “I actually like him. He is mad and charming and evidently desperate for love and unable to receive it.”

  “That sounds pretty accurate to me. But I am amazed you gleaned all that over one lunch.”

  “I was married to a man like Alaistair. Not gay like him. Life was complicated enough between us. But very much a man whose entire life was an extended public performance. Someone who had to take over a room as soon as he walked into it. Who loved to blurt out completely outrageous things, and would frequently tell people what he thought of them without any regard whatsoever for the consequence. Of course, you tell me that Alaistair is highly disciplined, that even when he was using heroin he did so in a very controlled, orderly way. The thing about Jurgen . . . he had brilliance galore. He was wildly cerebral, wildly imaginative, and fantastically entertaining, which, I suppose, made him a very attractive man at the outset.

  “But then, once we were settled together, once the shine came off his act, he was impossible to be around. Especially as he was a profoundly talented and undisciplined man—and one who decided to take on the powers-that-be.

  “If there was one great rule to life in the GDR it was that you had to somehow find an accommodation with the system, work out a way of paying lip service to the strictures under which we all lived, but also create a private world which the authorities couldn’t really penetrate, as much as they wanted to.