Red Heaven

by Nicolas Rothwell

  ‘Super-cool,’ I said.

  ‘You’re good to talk to—you know that? You’re cool, in fact.’

  ‘So we’ll be friends?’

  ‘There’s a significant age difference, but what the hell: why not! And where are you with music, anyhow? What do you listen to, in that grey castle in New England, when evening comes around? Hendrix—Santana—The Doors?’

  As he was speaking he pulled out a strangely shaped plastic assemblage from the glovebox and levered it in to a cavity between us on the dashboard.

  ‘Music’s not really allowed until the senior years,’ I said. ‘What’s that thing?’

  ‘It’s an eight-track cartridge. Never seen one? You really do lead a sheltered life up there, don’t you? Here we go: Creedence Clearwater.’ With a flourish, he pressed a button on the console. ‘Take a listen—Vietnam music—I’m really into this right now.’

  The speakers gave a quick, loud hiss, followed by a whirring, grinding sound.

  ‘Oh, no—it’s jammed—jammed again! Too bad. You’ll just have to listen to me talking film theory all the way.’

  We spoke on. Night fell. The road wound upwards. A PostAuto, its headlamps gleaming, its horn rising and falling, came towards us and went rushing past. The hairpin bends began: they had a regularity to them: straights, acceleration, gears changing, then a braking, a sudden slowing, long, languid turns, the engine dropping low. It was a lulling rhythm: I leant my head back, and closed my eyes, and almost drifted into sleep. Some time went by, with Lipsett’s voice in the background. Eventually he shook me, and gave me a reproachful glare. We were stationary: he had pulled off the road; we were looking out over the still surface of an alpine lake.

  ‘How can you fall asleep to West Coast music!’ he said: ‘Come on—come with me—quick detour. I’m going to show you something. Something special—it’s just a short walk. It won’t take any time—and we can see everything beautifully. Doesn’t it look like a landscape in a dream?’

  Outside, the whole valley was bathed in moonlight; the peaks and forests rose steeply all around us: there were town lights in the distance strewn along the valley floor.

  ‘I know where we are,’ I said: ‘It’s Lake Silvaplana. We’re almost there.’

  ‘You’re right—and that’s the waterfall—see, the ribbon of its spray, high up there, tumbling down. Listen—you can even hear it, can’t you—you can just catch the sound. So bright, isn’t it—a real day for night.’

  A few steps more, and we had crossed a footbridge over a rushing stream: onwards, and the path came out by the lakeside. Lipsett stopped, and looked at me, an expectant expression on his face. ‘So—see where we are now? What do you make of it?’

  ‘Make of what?’

  ‘The Nietzsche stone: here it is—right in front of you! The symbol—the stone of revelation.’

  ‘This one here, next to you, like a little climbing pyramid?’

  ‘Like a mountain. It’s where he came up with his great idea: the eternal return. I can even recite what he wrote about it for you. Would you like that? I know the whole passage off by heart.’

  ‘In German?’

  ‘In translation—but I’m sure it’s just the same—in fact it’s probably better this way.’

  He assumed a dramatic pose, one hand stretched out, palm up, fingers curved and trembling, as if the better to extract the essence of the words. ‘How,’ he began, then paused a moment for effect, and fixed me with a stare: ‘How if some day or night a demon were to sneak after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you, this life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you—all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a dust grain of dust!’

  He lowered his outstretched hand and bowed his head reverentially. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it? The hero tears down the walls of his prison cell, and finds another set of self-created bars surrounding him.’

  ‘I liked the loneliest loneliness,’ I said.

  ‘That’s all? What about the idea itself? That we’re all trapped, every one of us—we’re in a cycle, going round and round the same life all the time?’

  ‘Wouldn’t we remember?’

  ‘Yes—well, that’s a good point to make.’

  Lipsett stepped back, and leaned against the stone, and looked up at the sky. ‘No stars: the moon’s so bright. It must be just the way he saw it when he went walking out from his lodgings, in the cool summer nights. You know—I’ve come round to him. When I started working for Semyonova, and reading him for her, I wasn’t tuned in to him at all. I couldn’t tell what’s deep in him from what’s shallow, what’s real from what’s nonsense. I thought he was unbearable—violent in his thinking, self-centred too. Now I see a life—a life full of suffering—and suffering goes down very well on film! The more I’ve listened to him, and followed in his footsteps here, the more it all hangs together: the idea that you just go round and round in repetition, that we do things again and again until we find a way to get past them. Don’t you ever feel like that—like you’re caught in circles you just can’t get away from? No?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘I imagine I can see into the future—I imagine seeing myself a long way ahead in time, and I look at what I’m doing, and hear the words I’m saying, and wonder—where I am, and who I’m talking to—or I imagine being older and looking back, and seeing myself now, seeing that perfectly. Being in two times at once.’

  ‘See, kiddo—a philosophical idea if I ever heard one.’

  ‘Does that ever happen to you?’ I asked him. ‘Do you imagine like that?’

  ‘I get caught up in obsessions, things that keep coming back to me: ideas that become a part of me, and stay. Returning experiences, remembered dreams.’

  ‘And remembered places?’

  ‘Memories of places too. That’s part of what Nietzsche was thinking: and the thought came to him right here. He used to lean back into the rock—I can see him doing it: he says so in his letters: he’d lean back, and rest his body in the folds of the stone, like this. Try it. Lean back. Rest your head back: listen.’

  I did as he said, and looked up at the moon blazing in the darkness, and the peaks shining by its light. I felt the cold, rough surface of the rock against me.

  ‘And maybe,’ said Lipsett then, ‘just maybe, you’ll hear something—a voice, a whisper, the echo of a heartbeat—as if you’ve been here before, many times before—as if the mountains and the valley were welcoming you back home.’

  *

  Morning came. My hotel room was flooded with light. I made my way down the grand staircase to the reception, listening for voices and counting the steps as I went. The lobby was empty; the salon beside it too. I tried the garden terrace. There, seated at the centre of a long table, surrounded by a group of men and women in outdoor clothing, was a familiar sight: Serghiana, holding court. Her face was serious and severe. She was giving instructions. Everyone hung on her words. I came closer: she saw me and her expression changed.

  ‘Come—my child. Come and sit here next to me.’

  I went up to her, a little tentatively.

  ‘My child! Don’t look so unsure what kind of greeting to give me. I’m the person who cares the most for you in all the world.’

  She stretched out her hands. ‘You can give me a kiss on each cheek if you’re feeling Central European—or a handshake, if you want to be transatlantic in your manners, I suppose. I can’t tell you how much it pains me that I haven’t sent for you before. Everyone—this is my…’

  She stopped, and frowned. ‘Yes—what, in fact, are you? And what should I be now to you?’

  ‘Great-aunt,’ I said: ‘Don’t
you remember?’

  ‘Perhaps adopted son,’ said one of the young men at the table, smiling.

  ‘Skating on thin ice there,’ said Serghiana sternly: ‘Advance team—it’s a good time to break: you can head off.’

  They all rose to their feet obediently, pushed their seats back to the table and trooped away.

  ‘They’re the set-up crew,’ she said: ‘They’re checking the locations in Fex valley this morning—then back to Zürich later this afternoon. Now—let me look at you. Taller, thinner, distracted-seeming. You’re growing up—you’re losing your simplicity. Well—it has to be!’

  Lipsett had appeared, and was hovering beside her.

  ‘You’ve met Corey—you’ve been exposed to his dazzling personality and charm. Did he try out his Russian on you? For a westerner, he speaks it well. And he took you on an excursion, I gather—a moonlight drive.’

  She turned to him. ‘You seek out Nietzschean places all the time, don’t you? You’re insatiable: I should just give the running of this project over to you!’

  ‘Thank you, Madame Semyonova,’ he said, inclining his head deferentially.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s entirely a compliment. Now—my child—but it’s really true, isn’t it: you’re not one anymore. My young adult—my adolescent—those won’t do. What on earth am I to call you?’

  ‘The airline gave him a badge saying Unaccompanied Minor,’ put in Lipsett.

  ‘No. We’ll stick to child! It’s decided: now—and forever. It’s a tradition with us—we’ll keep it going. Nostalgia’s best. Corey, go and check for overnight messages with the concierge—you know what I’m expecting.’

  ‘I sure do!’ He retreated.

  ‘And look now, there behind you—see who’s coming over to us,’ said Serghiana to me: ‘Step by fretful step.’

  I turned. A round-faced, worried-looking man in glasses was weaving his way between the tables in our direction. I struggled to place him.

  ‘My boy—we meet again,’ he said in a friendly way.

  ‘Surely you remember Professor Leo, who was so very interested in your poor mother? Leo Loewy, the lion of East European scientific theory, the genius of Prague. But no longer a hero of actually existing socialism. Don’t ask him about the old country—he’s made the break!’

  ‘Please, Madame Serghiana,’ he said unhappily: ‘Not so loud—it’s not necessary to advertise!’

  ‘Leo, Lyova, Lyovushka—nothing’s louder than defection. The look in your eyes—there’s nothing like it: exaltation, excitement, fear. Everyone who needs to know already knows. Everyone can tell. Sit—we’ll have a good talk. It’s been so long since the three of us were together. My child, Leo’s found a good position, don’t worry for him; he’s a professor now, in Zürich—we saw each other there when my last project was underway.’

  ‘Your great success with the comrades,’ said Leo, in a reproachful voice: ‘No need for you to feel any sense of worry.’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Serghiana: ‘Calm yourself, dear friend. No one’s going to trouble us here, it’s like being in heaven.’ She patted his hand, and gave him a reassuring smile.

  ‘Did you see it? Or hear about it?’ she asked me: ‘My film—the new production?’

  ‘It was very widely discussed,’ said Professor Leo: ‘Here and all through Western Europe, when it came out a few months ago. I took care to follow the reviews and the feuilletons.’

  ‘What was it called?’ I asked him, and he began to answer, but Serghiana broke in:

  ‘Don’t you know? Whatever are they teaching you in the place that ridiculous woman sent you to? I should never have gone along with what she wanted!’

  ‘What do you mean? You chose the school—along with Ady?’

  ‘Do you really imagine I’d let her make decisions about you by herself? Don’t think that just because you don’t hear from me I’m not watching over you. Do they at least teach you some kind of modern history there?’

  ‘I didn’t know you two spoke to each other,’ I said: ‘I didn’t want to go to America.’

  ‘What a voice! Don’t be that way. Don’t be resentful: you have to go to school somewhere, after all: why not the new world rather than the old? I was talking about our Lenin film. You didn’t hear anything about it? I suppose you don’t read the culture pages of the newspapers over there; there’s not much to read about anyway.’

  Professor Leo leaned forward: ‘It was very well done,’ he said to me, in a soft voice, as if imparting a confidence: ‘It was wonderful, in fact—such an original idea.’

  ‘Modesty prevents me from telling him—Lyova, fill him in.’

  ‘Madame Serghiana had the idea of casting Vladimir Ilyich’s life in a new way—by giving the story of his time in exile—before the revolution came. He spent a whole year living with his wife in Zürich, in the downtown, on the Spiegelgasse. Maybe you remember all this—from your school lessons from before?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No? I didn’t really pay attention to all that party history myself when I was studying, I can confess it now! But some points I still remember—they made us learn it all by heart. Ilyich was busy: he was writing all the tracts that became famous in later years. The lodgings he found were very humble. There was a sausage factory round the corner from them: they couldn’t open their windows in the daytime because of the smell. But it was an interesting neighbourhood. Just down the road, only a few doors away from them, was the Cabaret Voltaire.’

  He paused for impact, and glanced at me.

  ‘I’ve heard of that, I think,’ I said.

  ‘Good, good. The name’s famous now: it’s become a sacred place of modern art—where the Dada movement began. That’s why the film has a double title: “Dada Lenin”. It’s the story of the two revolutions—in art and in politics—it sets them side by side. I believe it found strong support in party circles.’

  ‘There was the usual disagreement between the usual factions,’ said Serghiana.

  ‘They must have been happy to see you coming back to approved subject matter.’

  ‘I heard whispers. They thought the Dada scenes were suitably decadent. They were relaxed about Ilyich’s long walks by the lake shore, which he found so very beautiful, and wrote about in letters home. The only episode they cut was one that showed him and Krupskaya on the crest of the Zürichberg, lying in the grass and eating Swiss chocolate: of course he couldn’t be allowed to show any fondness for capitalistic products.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Professor Leo. ‘Naturally not! And you’ve heard no echo of all this at your new school, my boy? Of course, European stories must all seem remote and inconsequential over there. How are you finding it? Tell us. I imagine the change was difficult.’

  ‘There’s a lot of mathematics,’ I said, ‘and science.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Professor Leo.

  ‘And it’s not a very friendly place.’

  ‘You think you’re among strangers—you’re always on edge?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Yes—I’m familiar with that sensation myself, these days.’

  ‘Lyova,’ said Serghiana: ‘Don’t encourage him. Pull yourself together, stop wallowing—it’s a new chapter for you now, a new decade. Thank heaven the sixties have come to an end—what a dark, disconsolate stretch of years that was!’

  ‘I liked them,’ said Lipsett, who had just returned to the table: ‘Wild times!’

  ‘Did I ask for your opinion, Corey?’ Serghiana shot back: ‘Have you lived through any other decade as an adult to compare them with? No—you haven’t. What news?’

  ‘There’s a long message. Everything’s arranged: the delegation from Moscow’s already left: they’ll be here in two days’ time.’

  ‘What delegation?’ asked Professor Leo in a voice of alarm.

  ‘Naumov’s coming?’ asked Serghiana: ‘That’s confirmed?’

  Lipsett gave a solemn nod. ‘Absolutely,’ he said: ‘With a support cast. It�
�s all in the telegram.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Professor Leo again.

  ‘The deputy culture secretary from the Central Committee,’ said Serghiana.

  ‘A powerful man?’

  ‘In some ways. Well connected: that’s what matters.’

  ‘A friend of yours?’

  ‘I doubt he thinks so, though he might say he was.’

  ‘And you—how do you see him?’

  ‘Naumov—I’ve dealt with him for years; I know him well. A facade of liberal-mindedness, a surface of civility; educated, able, fluent in the western languages he speaks, fluent above all in the system and its ways; complex enough to seem a moderate—an artist in the exercise of power behind the scenes.’

  ‘A true believer, then?’

  ‘Who could say? In name and deed a communist—a believer in the policies and causes it’s prudent to believe in. Efficient, once he’s been shown the necessary tasks to fulfil.’

  ‘A minor devil, in that case, in the scheme of things?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But why are you dealing with such a man?’

  ‘Funds. But not only funds. It was his backing that first gave me a position; a part to play in this world. No point in deluding oneself. It’s very clear: I wouldn’t still be afloat in this business if I hadn’t kept that tie with him over the past two years, and been careful to maintain the ambiguities.’

  ‘Serving the interests of both sides?’

  ‘Serving as an unofficial contact point, yes—but also nourishing the dreams of both.’

  ‘Dreams!’ said Professor Leo: ‘Do people like that really dream?’

  ‘Desires,’ said Serghiana then: ‘Priorities. For westerners, there’s always the longing for new commercial arrangements, for distribution in the East; for Naumov and his kind, the mirror image: more co-productions: more dramas from the war years and the revolution’s glory days: anything to change the climate of opinion they face in western capitals.’

  ‘Cultural politics—that’s become your specialty now?’

  ‘Diplomacy by another means.’