Red Heaven

by Nicolas Rothwell

  ‘Stephane,’ said Serghiana: ‘How fine you look, in your linen suit: as sleek as a racehorse. But I’m afraid the child won’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Let me spell it out, then,’ said Daru.

  He moved to the centre of the room, and made a sweeping gesture towards his companions. ‘We know,’ he said, in accusing fashion: ‘We know you attended a meeting that involves me directly—and told me nothing.’

  ‘A meeting?’

  ‘In Vienna—two days ago. And now I find myself called in to my minister, and I’ve been kept in the dark: it’s left to my colleagues to inform me.’

  At this, the older man, who was standing at Daru’s shoulder, broke into a sphinx-like smile.

  ‘That may be,’ said Serghiana.

  ‘May be?’ Daru’s voice rose: ‘You said nothing, and you know I was trying to lead negotiations. I could almost believe you’re trying to damage me, or act against us.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you to tell you.’

  ‘We’re staying in the same hotel.’

  ‘And do you have some inborn right to know my every move, as if I were your captive here? Are you my guardian? Are you my keeper?’

  ‘I thought I was your friend.’

  At this, Serghiana laughed. The smile on the face of the man beside Daru widened. The two men from the verandah opened the French doors and came in.

  ‘I think you know these gentlemen,’ said Serghiana.

  ‘I do,’ said Daru, ‘and I see your betrayal of me is complete.’

  They all shook hands, slowly, ceremoniously, without a word.

  ‘You look like dancers in a ballet,’ said Josette, nervously.

  ‘Impromptu diplomacy!’ said Daru: ‘I learn more about you by the minute, Serghiana.’

  ‘Stephane,’ she said: ‘You lack intuition. You don’t know me at all. You like to paint me as some kind of conspirator. You’re wrong. If I find myself summoned to a talk with artists from an invaded country, it’s precisely because I have no cause to fight for. Because I’m nonaligned. Do I even need to tell you something so obvious?’

  ‘But you will surely report everything back.’

  Serghiana made a sign to indicate the two men who had just come in. ‘As you can see. Is that a surprise? Is it improper? Have you never felt the need for intermediaries? If someone asks for my help, I give it. If a diplomat like you asks for my opinion, I share it. Otherwise, I keep my thoughts and expectations to myself.’

  ‘And what should we be concluding about all this? That some channel for negotiations has been opened?’

  ‘Not at all. That a private talk of no consequence has taken place. You ought to pay more attention to the surface of events. Don’t you know that an agreement’s going to be signed in a few hours’ time? The first act of the play’s over now: there’s no more state of crisis. Just the long sequence of aftershocks ahead. It’s as I told you it would be on the first morning. The West deliberated, and force of arms prevailed.’

  Daru looked at the man at his side, and shrugged, and turned back to Serghiana. ‘It’s true,’ he said: ‘It’s really true, Serghiana, what they say about you. We’re witnessing a masterclass. The truth is that you give nothing, and you disclose nothing. How useful you must be to those who have your loyalty.’

  ‘Josette,’ said Serghiana: ‘Let me call on you again—time for you to step in and take the child away.’

  Josette led me down the corridors. ‘I’m glad we don’t have to listen to any more of that discussion,’ she said.

  ‘They don’t seem to like each other very much,’ I ventured.

  ‘They like each other very well,’ she said, a note of resignation in her voice: ‘They understand each other perfectly. That’s the world they inhabit: every word they say to each other is said to gain advantage, and when they express a view you can be sure they think the opposite.’

  ‘But if you don’t like it, why do you spend your time in that world with them?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t pass judgement on me that way,’ she said, frowning: ‘You’re becoming too much like Serghiana. We’re here: your room—so—until tomorrow—or the next little dramatic episode. Just be careful that you don’t end up living this kind of life.’

  *

  The following day, in the late afternoon, I was sitting alongside Egon Keleti at a table in the gardens, both of us bent over a block of pale blue sketching paper. In front of him was a wooden box full of pencils in bright colours, and at his side a leather satchel. The low sun lit the branches of the trees above us; the first leaves were beginning to turn.

  ‘I thought you could draw anything,’ I said. ‘Why not the mountains?’

  ‘I can,’ he said: ‘Of course I can—but landscapes leave me unmoved. I much prefer humanity.’

  A waiter was hovering close by.

  ‘Another coffee,’ said Egon: ‘Black and strong. We have ground to cover, my nephew and I! You don’t mind if I call you that? I hope not. One can never have too much family.’

  He gave me a quick look, failed to meet my eye, and picked up his outline pen. With a few quick motions he drew a set of curves and hatch marks on the paper, and pushed it away.

  ‘I’m talking incessantly,’ he said: ‘I know it—but I’m nervous every time I sit down to draw.’

  ‘Nervous? But you’re the best in the world. Great-Aunt Serghiana said so.’

  ‘She also says I’m highly strung. And it’s the truth. Fear comes over me, my hands shake, my heart pounds, I feel as if I’m going to pass out. It happens to me every time.’

  ‘Even now?’

  ‘Even now—and I’ve already finished two cartoons today: I outlined them this morning, and sent them off—do you want to see the drafts?’

  He produced a pair of lightly traced out pencil sketches from the folder at his side—scenes of men standing together, gesticulating, arguing, pointing at maps.

  ‘What do they show?’ I asked him.

  ‘They’re political,’ he said: ‘Like everything I do. Like everything around us. You’ve been spending a lot of time with the Red Princess, haven’t you?’

  His coffee arrived. He drank it in a single gulp.

  ‘Why do you call her that?’

  ‘I think you know—you know very well. You’ve got the trick of pretending not to know what you know, don’t you? I used to be like that. I still am. She’s not really a communist, I’m sure you understand—but then no one is, these days.’

  ‘She’s looking after me—while my mother’s away.’

  ‘It’s a mystery to me how those two could ever have come to know each other,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine how their paths even crossed. Where is she now, your mother?’

  ‘She’s on holiday.’

  ‘This is a holiday.’

  ‘She’s on holiday from our holiday.’

  ‘I should be honest with you,’ said Egon then, his voice uneasy. ‘I promise I will be in the future. I know where she’s gone.’

  ‘You were tricking me,’ I said, and stared at him: ‘You’ve got your tricks, too.’

  He looked down, and started to draw lines on the paper once again. His hands were long, and thin, and elegant: they moved in soft and even fashion on the page, and made a gentle, soothing sound.

  ‘Yes,’ he said: ‘That’s right. I’ve been to see her. I know exactly where she is.’

  ‘But I don’t—I only know she had to go to Austria—somewhere near Vienna.’

  ‘Yes—to Klosterneuburg: it’s beautiful. It has a famous monastery—and a church with a golden altar, and parapets like crowns around its spires.’

  He paused, and toyed with his empty coffee cup, and checked my expression, then hurried on: ‘I was very young, you know, when I first met her—I was still in my first year at the School of Arts in Budapest. She spent a month there, on a student exchange. They were hard times, for everyone—it was just after the uprising. Do you know about all that history?’
>
  I shook my head.

  ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter, really—it was before you were born, and you don’t have to know—the story repeats itself.’

  ‘Were you friends?’

  ‘Not then—she was quiet, and private: she seemed completely unapproachable—and I was very much in awe of her. We all knew she had some official connection: you couldn’t travel so freely back then without approval. And we knew the foreign students only stayed with us for a short while. I wouldn’t have been able to say much to her, anyway. Slav languages were a closed book to me; I didn’t speak Russian—I hated it, I never wanted to learn it. I’d come from a small town in the Hungarian part of Romania. I was very much on my own in those days.’

  ‘So you didn’t know her at all?’

  ‘The truth,’ said Egon, ‘is that she was a kind of ideal for me, a far-off ideal. I didn’t want to know her. I never imagined I would in later years. I saw her: that was enough. She had a striking face: a candid face: it conveyed emotions very well. She was a beautiful girl, of course—I’m sure everyone tells you that—but I could see something else in her: an air of tranquillity: a great, accepting calm. It came back to me, long afterwards. I had a strange experience.’

  He paused, and turned to look at me. ‘Shall I tell you the whole story? I was already in the West, and working. I used to visit art museums constantly, to school myself: to learn. I had a hunger for art when I was young—a wild hunger. I was in Antwerp, and I went to the fine-art collection there: and I saw her. I saw her in a painting—her face—she was in the altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments. She was Mary Magdalen: the figure gazing upwards from the foot of the cross. I was astonished: I saw the resemblance instantly. I spent a long time there, looking, making sure I had it fixed in my mind.’

  ‘Did you tell her about it?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t dare to. You should go and see it in the museum when you’re grown up, if you have the chance.’

  ‘Why don’t you draw her?’ I said.

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘No—I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘That world’s gone. That time in my life’s gone. It’s nothing but a dream, and one that no one treasures—no one cares about.’

  He fell silent. After a few moments, he began crying, very gently, without making a sound. Tears ran slowly down his cheeks. He reached over and touched my hand, as if to console me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said: ‘I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m not crying for her and what’s happened. I’m not sad. I’m actually happy.’

  ‘Aren’t they almost the same thing?’ I said.

  ‘That’s a very profound piece of wisdom from one so young! Did your great-aunt tell you that, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Did she, indeed! I wonder why she felt she should say that to you.’

  ‘You don’t like her, do you—at least not very much?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like her. I admire her, in the same way one might admire a glacier, or an alpine waterfall. I don’t expect she wants to be liked. She’d think it better to be feared—and people do fear her. You can see what’s going on around us, here in this hotel, can’t you? Look at that professor from Prague—he rushes to her side because he’s afraid of what she could do to him. And that ridiculous French diplomat strutting about the hotel with his mistress…’

  ‘She’s his secretary,’ I said.

  ‘His secretary, then—he keeps his eye on Serghiana Ismailovna in case what she knows could be useful to him. They all run after her and court her favour: they’ve convinced themselves she’s at the heart of things.’

  ‘And she’s not?’

  ‘Who knows? She was once: she may be still. But they imagine when they talk to her it’s like sending a message directly to the Politburo. They have a black-and-white view of a grey world—and nothing’s greyer or more impenetrable than Soviet politics.’

  ‘But you’re not afraid of her like them?’

  ‘On the contrary—I fear her all the more, because of the way she’s been able to present her new face to the West. Everyone believes in her: she’s invented herself, she’s made herself up, she’s sent her image out into the world, and it circulates: it has for several years now. I’m sure the process works the other way—that it wins over her masters in Moscow as well. And maybe that’s enough: maybe the appearance of influence gives her everything she wants. What’s frightening isn’t her, but the way people bow down to her: diplomats, directors, actors, writers, artists—everyone. As if she had some special, secret source of information. But if you strip away all the stories that surround her—who she’s worked with, who she’s supposed to be connected with—what’s left? I’ll tell you! A woman with a faded glamour and an intellectual cast of mind; a woman with access to large sums of money, and a fondness for living in grand hotels. It’s an unusual tale—and I know exactly where it began—I know how she was living in the years before liberalisation came.’

  He gave me a smile, and clasped his hands together. ‘That’s enough,’ he finished: ‘Too much, in fact. I shouldn’t say any more.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said: ‘Don’t just stop!’

  ‘Please!’ said Egon: ‘Do you think I have no idea what children are like? I know you’ll tell her everything I’ve said. Best for me to fall silent. I’m perfectly aware that in some dark corner of her thoughts Serghiana Ismailovna would like nothing better than to see me dead!’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Why the wide eyes?’ he said: ‘You don’t believe me? You don’t think she’s capable of such unpleasantness? You don’t think she’s strong, and harsh, and cruel? She’s kind to you because you’re young, and helpless, not for any other reason!’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say—what you just said about her. And how can you know why she does what she does?’

  ‘I know she’s a monster.’

  ‘Why don’t you draw her?’

  ‘That’s an interesting idea,’ he said.

  He brought the sketchpad closer, positioned it, selected a bright red pencil from the wooden box in front of us and began to draw. On the page before me Serghiana’s likeness took shape—but it was another Serghiana: her eyes were red, her face was transformed into sharp, contending angles, her hair was piled into a mass of coiling curves. He gave her a dragon’s body, with its scales filled in as blurry hatch marks; she had claws, there were snakes wrapped around her arms, smoke puffs came from her nostrils; her lips were open and she was breathing fire.

  ‘There!’ he said: ‘Your great-aunt as a mountain dragon. I think it’s a good likeness, don’t you?’

  He looked at his drawing appraisingly for a few moments, then wrote underneath it, in capitals: SARKANY.

  ‘Sarkany?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s the Hungarian for dragon,’ he said, and continued writing. ‘Serghiana-saurus—rare and implacable.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Implacable means you can’t resist. The dragon can’t be appeased.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said: ‘I’ve never seen anyone draw like that. But it’s not very kind. I don’t think we should show it to her.’

  ‘No! Of course not. That would be a bad idea. We’ll make it our secret, if you agree—just between the two of us.’

  ‘We should do this every afternoon,’ I said. ‘Draw like this. You could turn everyone into dragons.’

  ‘They’re all dragons anyway,’ said Egon. ‘And you can tell me if you see any new ones, next time you go up to the peaks with Serghiana Ismailovna.’

  ‘That’s more the place for vultures,’ I said.

  ‘Vultures—what are you talking about? There aren’t any vultures in the Alps.’

  ‘She said there were, once.’

  ‘I don’t know why she took you up there to the top of the mountain: it’s cold, and bare, and empty—and there are walks to treasure down here in the valleys and on the lower slopes: walks that fill the heart with happiness. I could take you on the paths through
the forests, to the lakes, and to the cliffs above the Rhine. Would you like to go with me—or would you rather spend your last days here riding up in the funicular with your great-aunt to Cassons Grat?’

  I said nothing in reply: he gave me a quick glance, then turned to look at me more closely. ‘Did something happen when you went up there?’ he asked.

  ‘No—of course not,’ I said.

  ‘I caught the expression on your face. You want to be kind to her—but perhaps she’s not always so kind to you. She was a strange choice to look after a child. Wasn’t there anyone else?’

  ‘She was my choice,’ I said.

  ‘I understand,’ he answered, quietly: ‘Don’t say anything. You don’t need to. You have to like her. And I have a fondness for her too, I even feel sorry for her, at the same time as fearing her: she looms very large in my life. She had her dreams and her ideals—I’m sure she still does. Shall we draw her another way, maybe—not just her harshness but everything that’s strong and pure in her as well? Let’s try—let’s draw her as one of the avenging angels.’

  ‘What are they?’ I asked.

  ‘You don’t know about them? The angels sent down from heaven to cleanse the world? They’re in the Bible, at the very beginning, when God destroys the cities on the plain; and at the end, too, when the rider on the pale horse is given power over the fourth part of the world.’

  ‘And that’s how you see her?’

  ‘Let me show you how I see her,’ he said.

  He closed his eyes tight for a second; he interlaced his fingers and stretched out his hands: then he frowned, and began to draw again: quick, jabbing marks, long, graceful lines. His expression changed: at first it was mournful and solemn, then determined, then he nodded to himself: he tilted his head to one side, leaned back, looked down once more and pushed the block of paper across to me.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s what I see in her.’

  The sketch bore no resemblance to the cartoon he had just drawn. It seemed to come from a completely different hand. This was a portrait: half illuminated, half in shadow. Serghiana’s deep-set, angled eyes, the strength in her gaze, its yearning quality, the scornful, hurt edge to her smile, the hard set of her jaw, her look, her bearing, her presence—they were in the image: he had caught them all. It was nothing but a handful of flecks and lines and hatchings—it was her. It had taken him a minute; she seemed to be there before us, looking at us from the page.