Red Heaven

by Nicolas Rothwell

  ‘I did as you would have wanted, madame,’ said Muscatine.

  ‘So you’re a mind reader now, to go with all your other hidden talents. For subterfuge, for double-dealing, for ill-treatment of animals?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I see you kicking the dogs off the piano stool at home, I see them flinch whenever you come into the room.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘If you’re looking for fairness from a woman in my position in the world, you’re looking in the wrong place! We’re not here for you to air your grievances.’

  She turned to me suddenly, placed a hand on my shoulder and drew me to her, and looked down, an amused expression on her face.

  ‘Why are we here, in fact,’ she said, ‘my treasure?’

  ‘To have tea, and cakes?’

  ‘Not exactly, although it’s always a good time for tea and cakes. We’ll arrange ourselves at the round table, over there, beside the window and the chaise longue. Eppler. Dear Eppler. Would you mind terribly? See if you can arrange a selection to be brought to us. Everything that’s sweet and crumbles on the tongue. Say, a plateful of Ischlers and Florentines, a Religieuse or two for our Parisians. Mohnzelten from the Waldviertel to make my nephew feel at home. And Mozart cakes as well, the finishing touch—why not?’

  Eppler retreated.

  ‘And chamomile tea, of course,’ she called out after him: ‘For everyone. Yes, everyone.’

  She made a sign to Amborn. ‘Stay with us. You too might be interested by what I have to say.’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘And our French friends, also.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Daru—but Josette took a step forward.

  ‘I have to tell you this,’ she said to Ady, and gave a quick, defiant toss of her hair.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘You’re being unfair to Serghiana. You shouldn’t speak that way about her in front of the boy. She looked after him all through last summer. She cared for him as if he was her own flesh and blood. She took him to the peaks and forests; she sat with him and read through books with him, every day, for hours on end; she showered him with affection, she gave her all to him. I saw it. You may have your differences with her. That’s no reason for you to tear her down in front of him.’

  ‘A pretty speech. You think I don’t know what was going on last summer? Keleti told me everything the day that I arrived. Hungarians have no secrets from each other. I know all about the reading sessions in the gardens, and the little classes in French literature, and the long conversations at the dinner table: words, words, words, day and night. I know what she was doing. Shaping him, training him, making him her own—reading him those sickly mediaeval stories that tell her own life’s tale. I know her ways—much better than you do. My disagreement’s not just with her but with what she preaches: the religion of art she’s being pouring into my treasure’s ears. Art above all things, art as the purpose of mankind, art as the royal road to self-fulfilment, to paradise on earth. It’s a sickness women like her fall prey to. She idealises art because there’s no life in her, she’s parched and dried up. Women like me are quite different: I understand what life is. Fear, mystery, beauty, laughter, tears. Art reflects life. That’s all it is. A mirror, a mechanical thing. I put it in second place.’

  ‘Despite being married to a great artist?’ said Daru, but Ady paid no attention.

  ‘The truth is that my doctrine’s darker still. Isn’t it, Muscatine? At home in Vienna we’re surrounded by art. The best of everything. We hear music constantly, the walls are hung with tapestries, there are prints in the reception rooms that should be in the Albertina, not a private home. Every conversation’s about art, it feeds us, it chokes us. And yet in my inmost being I know the truth. That it’s next to nothing, it’s an illusion, or not even that, it’s a dreamed-up realm, it springs from our needs, it’s a symptom in our psychology. We need art in a godless world, we make it the special, holy element, life’s vanishing point, we build it up. We tell ourselves the notes in music are lovelier than birdsong, and more meaningful, that we stand far above mere nature, that art’s more than craft, and skill, and subtlety in design or story-telling—yes, much more, it reaches to the skies, it gives us our one earthly chance at transcendence, it makes us companions of the gods…’

  ‘But it’s really a cult,’ Daru broke in: ‘A form of false worship. An idolatry: it’s a bowing down before the golden calf.’

  ‘How well you listen—and that’s exactly why we came here today, why I dragged my poor nephew all the way from his place of incarceration to this menagerie.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said: ‘The school! The study period! Remember what the headmaster told us? About being back there?’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Muscatine: ‘The sun’s going down. We’re going to be late.’

  ‘Quiet, both of you. We’re at the heart of everything. We’re in the special sanctum where the gilded come to pay each other their respects and incline their heads before the art that reminds them all how privileged they are. But there’s no standard to gauge what’s good and true—none. It’s completely arbitrary! Here’s a canvas, hanging on the wall before us. A thing of beauty. If Badrutt was right, it’s this one that should be worth millions of Swiss francs, this one that should be revered instead of its twin in Dresden. Pure chance decides which version prevails, which one we decide to crown as perfect. And there are hundreds of other paintings to admire across the length and breadth of Europe, thousands. There’s no good reason why one stands above another, or one artist’s elevated above all others. It’s we who feel the need to make our chosen favourites into something more. To find value, to make value. It hardly matters what we choose to look up to. We need the peaks, we need the distant heights our eyes strain to see: we need to believe. That’s why I brought you here to see this painting, my treasure. So I could show you the deserts of illusion that surround us in life. That’s my lesson for you. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  ‘In time,’ said Ady, ‘perhaps you will. And in time you’ll find you have a choice to make. For now, all this may seem like an amusement—but the day will come when it’s clear to you that there are two ways to live. You can live for ideas, like Semyonova, or live like me—live for what’s around us—all the wonder and the strangeness of the world. Ideas are easy, and dangerous, and sterile. Life and truth bring happiness—and pain.’

  ‘You’re so harsh,’ said Josette: ‘He’s still too young for words like that.’

  ‘It’s the judgement of Paris, the choice you put before him,’ said Daru: ‘Only we’re lacking one goddess!’

  ‘That’s not right,’ I said: ‘We’re not in France!’

  Daru gave a quick, sharp laugh.

  ‘He means a different Paris,’ said Josette. She came up close to me, and leaned on the arm of the chaise longue. ‘The Paris who was a Greek hero, in The Iliad.’

  ‘A villain, actually,’ corrected Daru.

  ‘You really think no one can be complete without all your majestic knowledge of the past, don’t you?’ said Josette. ‘Your classics, your old, musty cultures. Always thinking in Alexandrines! The perfect Énarque!’

  ‘Do you want me to repudiate everything I stand for?’

  ‘Stephane, I despair of you,’ said Josette, but Ady interrupted her.

  ‘We’re not in a history seminar,’ she said: ‘It’s an afternoon tea at a Swiss mountain hotel.’

  ‘The Swiss mountain hotel, madame,’ said Eppler, reappearing.

  A train of waiters came behind him. They took up their positions, approached in unison and dispensed an array of silver platters, each one piled high with cakes and biscuits, creams and jams. Tea was poured; tempers calmed.

  ‘What sport,’ said Ady, then she looked across again at Josette and Daru, and gave them both a measuring stare: ‘I realise you two are in Semyonova’s orbit. It’s normal. You have to be. She holds sway in your world. She has conn
ections. She’s really the informal Soviet consul, isn’t she?’

  ‘When she speaks,’ said Daru, ‘we can almost see the nuclear missiles gleaming in the European sun.’

  ‘Indeed. While I, alas, have nothing to offer you beyond season tickets to the Festspielhaus.’

  ‘I’m prepared to rethink my allegiances, Madame Novogrodsky,’ said Daru: ‘On a personal level, of course.’

  ‘Of course. And why are you still here with us, as a point of curiosity? The pleasure of my company? Or is there something else? An invitation from the plutocrat, perhaps?’

  ‘Thoughtful of you to remember us.’

  ‘You make a strong impression.’

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ Josette whispered in my ear: ‘She hates Serghiana, but she’s just like her!’

  ‘Serghiana’s more frightening, and Ady’s got more money,’ I whispered back.

  ‘You two again: you find our talk so dull.’ She turned back to Amborn. ‘My dear industrialist, don’t go, don’t leave us. Surely your party by the lake wouldn’t be complete without the French envoy and his dreamlike wife? Let me present them to you.’

  Daru jumped forward to introduce himself.

  ‘Amborn!’ said Amborn. Another click of the heels, another little bow.

  ‘How pleased we’d be if you could join us,’ he said to Daru: ‘Your deputy minister’s already promised he’ll be there.’

  ‘He spares no gathering of significance his company.’

  ‘I like your husband, I must tell you,’ said Ady to Josette.

  ‘Truthfully?’

  ‘Truthfully. He has no shame.’

  ‘It’s one of his strongest qualities.’

  They laughed, and so the afternoon flowed on. The last sunlight faded. Ady’s mood began to shift. She and Amborn fell into a lengthy discussion of art and politics. Muscatine watched them like a nervous animal. I looked round, and left the table and went over to the fireplace on the far side of the salon, where Josette and Daru were talking in low voices, making expressive movements with their hands.

  ‘Malzahn,’ Daru was saying: ‘Why would he bother with such nonsense? Amborn must surely deal in armaments.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and gave Daru’s sleeve a gentle pull.

  He spun round, and gave me a black look. ‘We’re speaking privately. What do you mean by eavesdropping like that!’

  ‘You’re talking about the man with cruel eyes, aren’t you?’ I said to Josette.

  ‘Did I ever say that in front of you?’

  ‘Last year. Last summer. You said you didn’t care for him.’

  ‘My God, did I really? You’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s not storing up everything we say in the back of his mind,’ said Daru: ‘Think of the consequences if he were to say something to Semyonova.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said.

  ‘Is that supposed to reassure me! Children are like sponges. They soak everything up, but they don’t know when to keep quiet.’

  ‘You could show him some gratitude,’ said Josette in a sharp voice: ‘If not for him we wouldn’t be here having tea at Badrutt’s with one of Europe’s best-connected women. We’d be taking another dreary walk round the lake, or looking at the shop windows, and you’d be making vague conversation about diplomacy and ministerial politics, and wishing you were with your Asian mistress and not with me.’

  ‘Any other secrets you’d like to broadcast at this juncture?’ said Daru.

  ‘Is it a secret—or just something I’m not really supposed to know too much about?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Daru to me: ‘Go back over to your aunt and the captain of industry. Be tactful. Surely you can tell this isn’t for you to hear.’

  I did as he instructed. Ady and Amborn were sitting side by side. Muscatine was hovering in front of them now, dutifully pouring out fresh cups of tea.

  ‘I promise you,’ said Ady, laughing, as I came up to them: ‘That morning, standing there in her mink coat, she looked just like a character in a Keleti cartoon.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t interrupt like that, my treasure. Your special friend—the protectress who abandoned you—the one who likes to call herself your great-aunt.’

  ‘How is Egon?’ said Josette, who had followed me across the salon: ‘I haven’t seen his drawings in the newspapers for months now. There’s nothing else remotely like them—one feels their absence very much.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ said Ady: ‘He’s in Klosterneuburg. He’s in the sanatorium.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Josette: ‘I’m sad to hear it.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked.

  ‘My treasure, it’s hard to explain it to you. There are illnesses of the body, and illnesses of the mind—but there are also illnesses of spirit, illnesses that have more to do with grief and melancholy than with health itself.’

  ‘Will he be there long?’

  ‘Poor thing—it may be so. Did you like him very much?’

  ‘We used to draw together.’

  ‘You must think everyone from Central Europe ends up there. It’s not that way: it’s only like that for people who are too sensitive, who feel the sting of exile or displacement very strongly, who find it too much to bear. I made a visit to him not that long ago, from Vienna. He wasn’t in great shape. I told him I was going to take a trip to the mountains specially to see you. He made a little drawing for me to give you. He did it while I was there.’

  ‘What was it of?’

  ‘It was strange. It was a sketch: an imaginary creature. A dragon, yellow, quite like Polomoche in the Babar stories, actually. I didn’t think that was a good sign. I told him not to be ridiculous. I said you were much too grown-up to want something like that.’

  ‘Did you bring it with you?’

  ‘I don’t believe I kept it, my treasure.’

  ‘But I like his drawings of dragons. We used to make them together, every afternoon. They were wonderful. I collected them. I loved them.’

  ‘Don’t whine. Don’t be childish. That’s not the kind of drawing you should want from a great political cartoonist like Keleti, even now he’s fallen in the shadows.’

  ‘Maybe we should go back to the school,’ I said.

  ‘Sulking! Worse and worse! Let’s turn to the education question, then. Let’s accommodate your wish. Muscatine, go and fetch the telephone.’

  ‘The cabins are near the reception, at the entrance to the great hall.’

  ‘I know that perfectly well. I want a telephone brought here, to this table. Find Eppler again: he’ll arrange it. I need to have this discussion in front of the boy!’

  A telephone was produced, and installed. Muscatine called the school, and tracked the headmaster down, and spoke to him: there was a brief altercation.

  ‘Yes, I realise we’re a little late, it’s quite true, I accept that, Mr Ganzhorn,’ he said in an emollient way.

  ‘Hand it to me,’ Ady commanded: ‘Glanzhorn! Where are we? We’re at Badrutt’s, of course: where else would we be? Yes, that’s why I’m calling you. The child’s not coming back. I’m withdrawing him. Why? Can’t you guess? These should be the happiest years of a boy’s life. I arrive to collect him for an afternoon outing, and I find a sullen, subdued, dejected creature. He looks as if he’s been on a starvation diet. And he shows no sign of having learned anything. It’s intolerable. No, I will not reconsider. Don’t worry, you can keep the endowment!’

  She put the receiver down, and pushed the telephone away, and made a face, as though it was a contaminated object.

  ‘Well, that’s done. What a dreadful man. He started talking to me about detentions and punishments. You can’t go back there!’

  ‘What happens to him now?’ said Josette, and looked at me.

  ‘There are always options. After all, this country’s famous for its education. Einstein went to university here, remember!’

 
‘I don’t think he’s quite at that stage yet,’ said Daru: ‘But there are international academies in Geneva, important ones, with a good name, and all round the lake shore, as well.’

  ‘We don’t really want him to fall into the French sphere of influence, at least not too much,’ said Ady: ‘Think of it—a young Cartesian. However would I be able to talk to him?’