ABOUT THE BOOK
Red Heaven is the story of a child’s journey to adulthood, his loss of those he loves and his fixing of them in memory. It begins in the late 1960s in Switzerland, as the boy’s ideas about life are being shaped by two rival influences.
These are his so-called aunts—imperious, strong-willed, ambitious—both exiles, at the mercy of outside political events; both determined to make the boy into their own heir, an inheritor of their values. In self-contained episodes, each set in an alpine grand hotel, we see one aunt and then the other educate their protégé.
Serghiana, the ‘red princess’, is the daughter of a Soviet general, a producer of films and worshipper of art, a true believer. Ady, a former actress and singer, is a dilettante and cynic, Viennese, married to a great conductor: in her eyes, all is surface, truth a mere illusion.
Memory and nostalgia—the aunts’ gifts to the boy, gifts of obligation—are the purest expression of love allowed them. Gradually he comes to understand the shadows in their past. Their stories stay with him, guiding his path through adolescence, until he can absorb the influences of the wider world.
Red Heaven is about the people who make us what we are: how they come into our lives, affect us, then depart the stage. This fiction, alive to the elusive beauties and sadnesses of the world, is Nicolas Rothwell’s finest achievement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
I: Overture: Mont Ventoux
II: Fil de Cassons
III: Corviglia
IV: Chastè
V: Passirio
VI: Clemgia
VII: Envoi: Bodensee
About the Author
Copyright Page
In memory of NS, brother spirit
‘The morning cometh, and also the night:
if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come.’
I
Overture: Mont Ventoux
IT WAS LONG ago that I first heard old tales and romantic stories, on the drowsy afternoons of summer holidays, when my great-aunt Serghiana used to read to me, translating, explaining, interspersing her own brisk, judgemental comments—and though Serghiana is dead now, and the world she knew has long since vanished, the sound of her voice is still in my ear, and the books she most loved, their narratives invariably bleak, are still clear in my memory. She was a distinctly eastern figure, an exotic, the air of the faraway clung to her, even then I knew somehow she had spent her early life in Soviet Russia, a realm that seemed, in those days, quite beyond the pale—but the books she chose for us to read were invariably western, and she was convinced literature should be the school of life.
How majestic she seemed to me: all-knowing, self-possessed, at once charming and intimidating, swift in conversation, precise in thought. Her tastes in books and writers were eclectic in the extreme, her enthusiasms firm. She was fond of ancient histories, the darker the better, she tolerated memoirs if they were uplifting, but most often she preferred to read to me from her anthology of French mediaeval tales, which she regarded as eminently suitable for children, and to begin at the opening page, with the verse romance she prized above all others, the ‘Châtelaine de Vergi’. The progress of this story is a familiar one: desire, deception, fatal end. The poem as a whole, though, is cast as an exercise in moral demonstration, a lesson made manifest by words. Why speak, it seems to say, why tell any story, why confess one’s inmost feelings, when silence alone can keep them pure, and save them from betrayal in the bright parade of life?
The plot is quickly sketched. The central character, the Châtelaine, is the niece of the Duke of Burgundy. She loves a brave knight, the favourite of the court. He returns her love. In deepest secret, the two conduct an affair. She calls him to come to her chamber by means of an innocuous signal: she sends her little lapdog to play in an orchard. If the knight sees the little dog, the coast is clear. But the Duke’s wife has conceived a fondness of her own for the knight. She approaches him. ‘Really, truly, don’t you know that I have given you my love?’ The knight professes his devotion to the Duke, and turns away. The Duchess tells her husband that same evening that his special favourite is disloyal. ‘My Lord, he begs me for my affection!’ The Duke believes her, and is incensed. Interrogation follows. The knight can only avoid banishment by confessing the truth that lies buried in his heart, the secret he is sworn not to tell—his love for the Châtelaine. The Duke, astonished at this disclosure, demands proof. He must see with his own eyes. And so he too goes to the orchard, and hides, and waits. He too sees the lapdog; he sees the knight go to the chamber of the Châtelaine. ‘And what then,’ I would always ask: ‘What happens next?’ And Serghiana, depending on her mood, and the prevailing undercurrent of her thoughts, would make some quick answer, in sardonic fashion: ‘Well, the human heart is made to break,’ she might say, or, perhaps, ‘Secrets always take wing, my child,’ then sweep on with the story, the details that fulfil the plot: how the Duke betrays the secret stratagem, how the Duchess lets slip in cruel fashion that she too knows the secret, how the Châtelaine retreats to her chamber, where she believes herself to be alone. At which point this courtly romance, so similar in style and pace and setting to scores of others, departs from the formula, and takes on an urgent, impassioned tone. The heroine laments her plight out loud, and explores its bitter depths. All, she believes, has become plain to her. The knight has betrayed her; the secret he alone knew is on everyone’s lips. ‘Sweet God,’ Serghiana would read on, speaking as the stricken Châtelaine, bending close towards me, her voice falling low: ‘Sweet God, I loved him as deeply as anyone could love, I could think of no other, by day or night. He was my joy, he was my pleasure, he was my happiness and my delight. If God had offered me the whole world, and even heaven and paradise, I would not have taken it if I had to lose my love as the price—lose my treasure, my most beloved, my life!’ By this stage, I could hear Serghiana faltering, struggling to pronounce each word. Eventually, she would break off. ‘Now this is literature,’ she would say: ‘When feeling becomes form—this is art and truth, not artifice,’ and shake her head, then begin her recitation of the Châtelaine’s speech once more, her voice darkening, becoming resigned and solemn: ‘God pity me and send me death—that death will itself be dear to me, since it comes to me from my love, so there is no sadness in my dying for him.’ Serghiana, by now almost unable to speak, would put the book down in dramatic fashion, pause, and look up: ‘You know the story’s end already, don’t you? She dies of her grief, the knight dies by his own hand, the Duke discovers everything. With a single sword stroke he kills his wife, he leaves behind all his wealth and the splendours of his kingdom, he becomes a knight templar, he sets off on a crusade, and travels far beyond the sea.’
And as I already knew the story well, from the earlier reading afternoons that summer, I would nod in assent, still unsure exactly what a crusade was, disappointed that the performance was coming to its close, awed by the intensity in Serghiana’s recitation, and uncertain just what its cause might be. This was her cue. ‘Let’s join the others,’ she would say, always with a pained expression, as if renouncing a special, private pleasure we two alone were fit to share: ‘It’s time. They must be wondering what it is that’s kept us quiet over here so long.’
One afternoon, though, even as she was saying these words, she stopped mid-syllable, and looked at me again. It was a sceptical, assessing stare, and I can see her still in that moment: her angular, expressive features, her pensive frown, her smile, which was kind and mocking at once. Above all, though, I picture her eyes—hawklike, undying in their strength, dark, deep-set eyes that could convey any register she wished
to express: amusement, indignation, world-weary wistfulness, a languid irony, contempt.
‘How old are you now, in fact?’ she asked me: ‘You’re growing up so fast.’
‘Eight and a half,’ I said: ‘Nearly nine.’
‘Is that so, really? A very cinematic age! I can still picture when you were just a little boy, in Arosa, or when we all spent the summer together in Tarasp. It doesn’t seem so long ago. Do you remember any of that? The hotel, and the gardens, and the bridge beside the river rapids where we used to walk? I’ll take you there again one day.’
‘You’re very kind to me, Great-Aunt Serghiana,’ I said.
‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped: ‘Why do you keep doing it? It gets on my nerves.’
‘The grown-ups call you that.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ said Serghiana, grimly, ‘and other names as well.’
‘I meant it as a good name—someone better than a relative—closer than a friend.’
‘Well! In that sense, then, perhaps’—she paused, and pondered—‘perhaps I am. Perhaps I am something like a great-aunt to you, though I certainly don’t think of myself as old enough to be one. But why not? As long as we’re agreed it’s an affinity, not a genetic tie.’
And she laughed, and tilted her head to one side a little, as if to get used to the idea.
‘Yes, why not? I want to shape you, after all. Read to you, explain the words to you, give them breath and motion. How else can one live truly in the world, if not by offering the gifts of life to the young?’
‘Gifts of life?’
‘Books, of course. And this is what we should read next. It leads from the “Châtelaine”, it leads on perfectly. We’ll take a step ahead; we’ll read a novel. I think the time has come.’
With a flourish, she reached into her handbag and produced a small, red leather-bound book and held it up before my eyes. I could just make out the lettering on the spine.
‘La-fayette,’ I said, carefully: ‘Like the park in front of the White House.’
‘How American of you! A different Lafayette: Madame de Lafayette, the first great novelist of French literature. I studied her when I was your age, and so shall you! Come closer.’
I perched beside her so I could see the first page.
‘You start,’ she said: ‘Begin.’
I did as she instructed—and the book we began reading that afternoon has stayed with me as a companion ever since, appearing in a new light with each passing stage of life. The Princesse de Clèves, sole work of substance from the pen of Madame de Lafayette, is at once a graceful, well-turned romance and a study in psychological analysis. It is famous and much admired, it stands at the fountainhead of modern fiction, it pursues its themes of enrapturement and obligation in cool, almost glacial prose, the tale is simply told, with swift momentum, yet there is an enigma at its heart, a mystifying decision, a refusal that shapes everything—and when, in our reading of the book, we reached its central passages, and I felt Serghiana listening to me intently, eyes wide and solemn, I wondered what their special significance for her might be.
‘At no time in France,’ I read out loud, ‘were splendour and refinement so brilliantly displayed as in the last years of the reign of Henri II. The monarch was courteous, handsome, and fervent in love…’
I looked up.
‘Is it a sad story or a happy one?’
‘All true stories are sad,’ said Serghiana.
‘And is this one true?’
‘You could say that. Aren’t there two kinds of truth? The story’s set in history, it all happens a hundred years before Madame de Lafayette’s own time, the plot turns on events that actually took place, everything in the background of the book is real—it’s in the arms of reality, but all imagined.’
‘So none of it’s true?’
‘It’s all true if you believe it: let’s go on.’
At least in its initial unfolding, the tale is simplicity itself. The heroine of the title, a sixteen-year-old heiress of great beauty and pleasing character, sincere, intuitive and modest, is given in arranged marriage to a distinguished husband whom she respects, but does not love. He loves her; her restraint and coolness inflames this love, and turns it into a passion, he is at his wife’s feet, he adores her ‘as if she were his mistress’. In due course the young Princess makes her first appearance at court, and is soon enmeshed in the play of factions and interests gathered round the throne. One evening, at a banquet in the great hall of the Louvre Palace, the King himself calls on her to dance with a majestic newcomer she has never met before. This is the drama’s second principal, the Duc de Nemours. The scene that follows has the bright-lit quality of a dream or fairytale. Even before the pair are introduced to each other, they dance together, and ‘a soft murmur of admiration’ fills the air. Nemours easily guesses the identity of the Princess; she pretends not to know who he is. The stage is set for all that follows. The two meet often in company at court, they are drawn to each other, their feelings sweep them up in turmoil. At last, Nemours comes upon the Princess alone and is able, in coded, cryptic fashion, to confess his love. The Princess is overwhelmed. Fear takes hold of her. She is determined to remain loyal to the precepts of her upbringing, to be true to her husband and give Nemours no sign of her emotions. But her feelings master her—she feels herself on the verge of losing her self-control. She decides her only hope is to flee from court. Complex episodes soon ensnare her further: Nemours is injured in a jousting contest with the King and the distress she feels is visible; a misplaced letter she reads seems proof that Nemours loves another woman; subterfuges and deceptions and parallel plots multiply in dizzying style. Dark thoughts take hold of the Princess: she reasons with herself out loud. It is almost impossible, she believes, for her to find fulfilment in the love of Nemours. ‘But even if I could,’ she says, ‘what do I want to do with that love? Do I want to allow it? Respond to it? Do I wish to enter into an affair? Betray my husband? Betray myself? Open myself up to the bitter reproaches and mortal pain that love always brings? I am vanquished by an inclination that drags me off despite myself.’ Several days after we had begun reading together, I reached this passage, and read it out as best I could to Serghiana. She listened, took the book, and read it back to me in a monotone, her voice very low.
‘You see how trapped she is?’
‘How does she escape?’
‘She doesn’t. She comes to realise that she herself is the trap. Her nature is the trap. Her longing, her love. Can you guess what happens next?’
The story has been presented, until this point, as a spectacle of secrets in plain view, a sequence of disguised episodes, of schemes and intrigues, played out in court galleries and royal apartments: looks and blushes, snatched words, brief whispers. Now, for the novel’s best known scene and abrupt climax, the setting chosen is quite different. The lovelorn Nemours pursues the Princess into the countryside, towards her country house at Coulommiers. He loses his way in a forest. By chance, he comes upon the chateau, and sees the Prince and Princess walking towards a nearby pavilion. He hides himself, and overhears their conversation. The Prince is demanding to know why his wife refuses to return to town. She makes excuses, he presses her, she begs him not to force her to speak, he insists, she at last, in a few words, oblique and poignant as they are strong and candid, reveals to him that she cannot trust herself. ‘I am going to tell you something no woman has ever told her husband—but the innocence of my intentions, and my conduct, give me the strength. It is true that I have my reasons for staying away from court, and that I want to avoid the perils that sometimes lie in wait there for young women of my age.’ A thousand pardons if she has feelings that are displeasing to him; at least she will never displease him through her actions. ‘Guide me,’ she pleads with him: ‘Have pity on me, and still love me if you can.’
Despite its brevity, the carefully preserved anonymity of its author and its refusal of romantic outcome, the Princesse de Clèves was a wild
success when first published, largely because of the controversy this scene aroused. Would a woman ever tell such things to her husband? Should the Princess be seen as a fool or as a saintly, moral creature? The dispute over her veiled confession divides readers to this day. The words she speaks in the quiet of the pavilion have swift and lasting consequences. The Prince, driven to distraction, presses her for details. In his hiding place, Nemours hears everything, and feels he has proof, at last, of her love for him. He is both devastated and lifted up by happiness. In guarded terms, he proceeds to tell his closest friend at court what he has witnessed. The story spreads. Soon it reaches the ears of the Princess. No one, she thinks, but her husband could have betrayed her confidence. She accuses him. He is aghast. Believing in his turn that she must be to blame, he ‘sees nothing but precipices and chasms on every side’. Torn by jealousy and mounting suspicion of Nemours, the Prince decides to have him followed. Nemours makes lovelorn visits to Coulommiers, but is unable to speak to the Princess on his own. The spy returns with ambiguous reports, the Prince persuades himself that his darkest fears are true, he collapses into illness and dies. With that, the tale’s final act, brief, and harsh, begins. Months pass with the Princess in deep mourning. At long last Nemours, through subterfuge, contrives a meeting with her. The two of them are alone. It is a time for plain speaking: she confesses the strength of the love she feels for him. She knows very well that both she and Nemours are free. Nothing except her enduring sense of duty to her late husband can prevent them from finding happiness, but still she turns away. She chooses solitude. She dismisses Nemours, with instructions not to seek her out, removes herself from court, travels to her distant estates, and enters a house of religion: in the novel’s brusque final sentence, the reader learns that the span of life remaining to the Princess proved ‘quite short’.
Serghiana closed the book. She placed it on the table before us, and clasped her hands together. Slowly I surfaced from the story, and became aware of the humming of bees from the flowerbeds behind us and voices nearby. Footsteps were echoing from the covered walkways; distant, muffled sounds of traffic came from the streets below.
Red Heaven Page 1