She picked up the glass in front of her, tilted it in her fingers, and gave it an appraising look.
‘Bohemian crystal,’ she said: ‘The finest. You probably don’t know much about the properties of glass crystal, Pavel Pavlovich—after your childhood in the workers’ camp at Chelyabinsk. It has a tendency to shatter completely when struck; it makes a satisfying noise, a clanging noise—like this.’
She brought her hand down as she spoke and smashed the glass on the surface of the table. It exploded into fragments, they caught the light and gleamed, they hung in the air a moment, then fell in a shining circle all around her. At once the figure at Naumov’s side jumped up and began brushing the shards from his jacket. Naumov lifted up his hand.
‘You’ve made your point,’ he said: ‘Very clearly.’
‘If I go on making it and remembering the past and my silences and your words until Judgement Day, it wouldn’t be long enough.’
‘Antique superstition—how far you’ve fallen, Serghiana Ismailovna.’
‘A Caucasian trait. It must be ancestral. It’s fitting, in a way, Pavel Pavlovich, that it should be you who came here with the news that’s brought us to this. You, the grey comrade, the specialist in propaganda, the system man, always serving, always stealthily advancing; you who never understood a thing about Soviet culture, what it was in all its glory—what it could become—and yet you hold its future in the palm of your hand—and it’s plain from everything you say: you mean to choke it and strangle it until nothing’s left. You talk, you repeat your slogans, and I hear the voice of the party, and hear what it’s become.’
Malzahn rose from the table as she was speaking, and came towards us.
‘Let’s go,’ he said to Josette: ‘This is in danger of becoming an incident.’
‘Becoming! It already is,’ she said to him: ‘It’s wonderful!’
‘It’s dangerous. This is the kind of absolutism that starts wars. Come—it’s best to leave. We should have gone long ago.’
She turned to me. ‘Come too,’ she said: ‘Or do you want to stay in this pandemonium with her? We could find a place for you, couldn’t we, Henri?’ she said, and looked round, but Malzahn was already on the terrace, beckoning to her furiously. She paused a second, then hurried out to him.
‘It’s just us now, kiddo,’ said Lipsett: ‘Just us.’
‘We’ll leave you, Serghiana Ismailovna,’ said Naumov, in a calm voice: ‘I doubt our paths will cross again. I’ll make the report you want. I’ll convey it in person. In detail. But it’s the wrong choice you’re making. You’re comfortable here—in another country. Too much at ease: I can see it; everyone says it: even your defenders. But your judgement’s in error. You’ll miss the world you came from. You’ll regret your decision. You’re going into a great wilderness.’
‘I know where I’m going, Pavel Pavlovich,’ she said, also in a low voice, almost in a whisper: ‘I was in the wilderness already—I’ve been there for years. In my mind I’m always in the frozen north. So I’m grateful to you—for speaking as you did, for being what you are, and showing it so plainly to me. I’m grateful to you—for being my foe.’ She gave him a tranquil, beatific smile.
Naumov shook his head, and glanced round again. ‘Enough of your paradoxes. You’ll survive, of course, Serghiana Ismailovna: we both know that: you’ll prosper, you’ll see rewards, this will be the making of you in the West. I’ve suspected for a long time that things would end for you this way—since I first met you, when you were in your glory, when you were the young bride of a great man of science, and I was nothing.’
‘Nostalgia, Pavel Pavlovich! And self-pity! Truly? Your parting shot?’
‘I watched you,’ he went on: ‘How could I fail to? It was splendid, you were the party’s favourite child—but I knew—I could see there was a fatal pride in you: it lifted you too high. You thought you were safe forever, the machine would never touch you, the state security was for other people, the knock on the door in the dead of night would come for them but not for you. And then, one day…’
‘I know the story, Pavel Pavlovich, I know it very well. Do you say all this to ease your feeling of complicity or to cause me fresh pain? No more! Be off—go on your errands. You can remember the day when you drank from crystal glass in a grand hotel and saw the Red Princess of your dreams go over to the West. Remember it, and laugh at me—but it’s time for you to disappear—you don’t belong in a place of light like this. You don’t: I renounce you—I’ll never deal with you or any of your kind again. I promise myself that—and I promise you, in front of everyone, and I’m happy as I tell you—I’m joyful in my tears.’
V
Passirio
ZÜRICH AIRPORT ONCE again, the arrivals hall: late afternoon, a year on. I looked round for familiar faces: a driver I knew, perhaps, or even Muscatine. No one. I went up and down expectantly, dragging my case behind me, until I noticed a young woman, tall, with long, dark hair and angled eyes, studying me. She beckoned.
‘Come,’ she said, in an accented voice.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘Elista,’ she said, and reached for my suitcase: ‘Madame Ady’s assistant. Give!’
‘I’ve never met anyone called that before.’
She stared back at me. ‘Don’t you like the name? Don’t you recognise it from somewhere? Geography not your strongest subject at school? Quick—there’s far to go.’
‘I thought we were going into town—to the same hotel as usual. The one by the river.’
‘Change of plan.’
‘Where’s Muscatine?’
‘With the Maestro, of course, where do you think? We left them in Salzburg. We drove all the way here to collect you. We’re going south.’
‘Who’s we—and where to?’
‘Questions all the time! Let’s hurry. What’s wrong—don’t you believe me? Do you think I’m trying to steal you away? Are you always so suspicious? So on edge?’
‘I’ve never heard Ady mention your name before. I’d have remembered. Where do you fit in? Have you only just started working for her?’
‘You’re not very well informed, are you? You could say I play the role you used to play in Madame Ady’s life—that I’m replacing you, in fact.’
‘I didn’t realise I had a role—or that I was being replaced.’
‘Ask her yourself.’
‘Where is she? I can’t see her.’
I looked towards the concourse; I peered over the young woman’s shoulder—at which point a pair of gloved hands slid over my eyes.
‘I’m here, right here, behind you,’ said Ady’s voice.
I swung round. There she was; she held me by the shoulders and gave me an appraising stare.
‘How tired you look, my treasure: those flights! Each one a trip through purgatory. Has Elista made you welcome? Are you being pleasant to him, my dear? She’s been dying to meet you; she’s heard so much about you.’
‘I gathered that,’ I said.
‘And you’re forgetting something—something critical!’
‘I am?’
‘Your upbringing: take my hand, touch it to your lips, my poor treasure who’s growing up so fast. Quickly, now: we’re heading off on an adventure together.’
‘We are?’
‘Yes, we’re going to the landscape of my childhood—to the Dolomites: to Meran. Come—follow me: you won’t be sorry.’
She strode off towards the exit from the terminal. I followed in her wake.
‘Where—where are we going?’
‘The name says nothing to you? Nothing at all? It’s called Merano now, and it’s a backwater—but it used to be the centre of the world—at least in summer, and in Austro-Hungarian times. I’ll show you the valley, I’ll show you the old town—I’ll show you everything: it was the magic kingdom of my childhood; it was a paradise. I spent my happiest days there—and my saddest, too. I haven’t ever been back, since that time.’
‘Why not?�
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‘I never felt I could—but with you here: we can excavate the past together, can’t we, explore it hand in hand? And there’s someone staying there you might remember: someone you might like to see.’
‘What about the hotel in Zürich?’
‘Don’t worry so much—it’s just a side trip we’re making, two days, three days—no more. We’ll be in Zürich again soon enough: you can go back to walking round the lake shore and feeding the swans.’
‘That’s not the only thing I do all day when we’re in Zürich.’
‘Don’t argue—it’s good to see new sights and travel to new places: the mind stays fresh.’
She stopped in front of a large Mercedes. ‘Jump in.’
‘Into this? You’ve changed cars since last time.’
‘You think perhaps Novogrodsky and I have only one? We change them often—but never the make, or the colour. Always grey metallic—always the dark grey of Bukovina skies. Slide across to the middle of the front seat, sit between us—we can talk along the way.’
The young woman opened the car door and inclined her head towards me in a slightly mocking fashion.
‘I should be the one opening the door for you,’ I said to her: ‘Not the other way around.’
‘Heavens,’ said Ady: ‘You’ve remembered your gallantry. Don’t try to charm the staff—I won’t allow it. She is lovely, though, isn’t she? Aren’t you, Elista?’
‘If you’re kind enough to think so, madame,’ she replied, ‘that makes me happy!’
‘Her name,’ said Ady to me: ‘It’s a romantic story: shall I tell it to you now? You don’t mind, do you, Elista? Her father was an academician, from Leningrad: he specialised in eastern religions; he studied in Kalmykia: he fell in love there—can you imagine, in those Buddhist wastes—he brought his daughter back with him to the city; she grew up in a grand apartment on the Fontanka: golden privilege—until things changed, the way they do in that part of the world.’
‘And that’s where you met?’
‘No: that’s not exactly a milieu for someone with my kind of past—you know that. It was elsewhere: you won’t ever guess; we found her during last year’s concert tour. She was a language student; she was interpreting for the Slovak opera. We extracted her. I felt we had to. She reminded me of myself when I was young: proud, and lost, and helpless. Of you, too, actually—you the way you were before I took you in hand.’
I glanced across at Elista during this little speech: she said nothing; her expression stayed unchanged.
‘Believe me,’ Ady went on: ‘She’s gifted: very. You can practise your languages on her—or have you already forgotten everything in that foreign school? You could even go exploring together. You’ve never been to Merano, have you, Elista?’
‘No, madame—you know that. I’ve never been anywhere except with you.’
‘Another thing to thank me for! Drive, then, fast. I want to be well across the border before night comes.’
‘The border?’ I said.
‘Yes—of course—we have to go over the mountains: into Italy.’ Ady’s face softened—her voice became nostalgic. ‘I loved crossing the frontier, on journeys like this, when I was a child. We’d drive from Vienna, my father and I, just the two of us: we’d set off early in the morning, so we could make the whole trip in a single day: through Innsbruck without stopping, and up, across the Brenner—on the old road no one takes anymore. I can still picture it the way it was: the barrier that had to be rolled away for each car going through, and then rolled back again—the guardhouses painted in national colours; the soldiers on both sides in their uniforms, saluting: all the signs and all the flags. Even then, I understood it was more than a frontier between countries.’
‘It was, madame?’ said Elista.
‘Much more—it was the dividing line between north and south. Every time we made that trip, I longed to see what lay ahead: I’d wait for the moment when we first caught sight of the high peaks and the cliffs, and the waterfalls and landscapes far below. I told myself I’d always be happy if I could stay in Merano. It was everything I dreamed of as a girl: bliss and harmony, warmth and light. And the border—how majestic it was to my eyes—it was like a heaven there. We’d stop at the pass, every time, and sit still, side by side, saying nothing, looking out, as if there was only us two, only my father and me in all the world.’
She fell quiet; I listened to the engine’s hum; night was falling. I leaned back against the seat.
‘Don’t sleep,’ commanded Ady: ‘Stay awake with us. We’ll be driving through the Engadine; your old home away from home—and then the road runs straight as a line. You’ll feel the change as soon as we reach Merano: it’s like the Mediterranean—there’s a softness in the air: there are vineyards and orange groves in the hills all round the town, palms and frangipani along the riverbanks. I knew their botanical names—I memorised them all because I thought they were so beautiful. Everyone went there in the season: everyone who mattered: the cities emptied out. Schnitzler had a great romance there; Zweig went each summer; and Strauss, and Schoenberg: Rilke, naturally, but Rilke was everywhere. Doesn’t it sound appealing to you? I used to think every piece of music or writing worth anything came from the Dolomites. And it’s where self-knowledge and the science of the mind began.’
‘It is?’
‘In a certain way. You know all about Freud by now, don’t you?’
‘We’ve just begun studying him,’ I said: ‘And Serghiana used to talk about him—all the time.’
‘I’m sure of that,’ said Ady, rather acidly: ‘Not that he’d be much help to her, the way things stand for her now. But it’s really true: the whole story started for him in Merano: his first great case: the one that showed him everything. Do you want to hear?’
I leaned back, and half-closed my eyes.
‘He calls her Dora,’ she began: ‘But that wasn’t her real name, of course. She was Ida—Ida Bauer. She was a lovely, gifted child. When she grew into a young woman, men who shouldn’t have been were drawn to her, with the usual consequences. And it all happened in my paradise—in Merano. Here: rest your head on my shoulder.’
‘Maybe we should let him sleep, madame,’ said Elista.
‘My dear, it’s character-building to stay awake for long periods at a stretch—to master the body with the mind. And it’s a story you should hear as well. Besides, car journeys are ideal for case histories like this: you’re disconnected from your surrounds, it’s dark outside, your thoughts are free to range, the shadows of the landscape go rushing by. It’s almost like being in analysis—you plunge into yourself, you can never be sure what’s going to come to light.’
Ady spoke on, her voice low. The car braked; we began climbing the hairpins of a mountain road.
‘I’ll begin in Bohemia,’ I heard her saying: ‘Bohemia, where all good stories start.’
I listened, and let the tale drift into me. Freud’s childhood; his first discoveries; the account he gives of Dora’s early life: the setting, the characters, the tensions between them; the primal scene in Merano’s central square, its sequel on the Garda shore—all this in word pictures, pictures so evocative I saw the drama unfolding as if excerpts from an old movie were flickering before my eyes.
‘Madame,’ I heard Elista’s voice saying: ‘I think he’s almost sleeping now.’
‘That’s ideal,’ said Ady: ‘He can hear it in his dreams—it’s very suitable—perfect for the subject matter. Things sink in deeper, much deeper. When I look back I realise everything I’ve learned has come from dreams.’
‘Truly, madame?’
‘Can you doubt it? Don’t you always see through what your mind’s telling you? Your conscious thoughts? All that’s nothing—what we think. That’s why Freud works so well—at least for Central Europeans: one look’s enough to tell you what kind of creatures we all are: made up of obsessions, and complexes, and buried desires.’
‘Him too? Is he like that?’
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sp; ‘Naturally. It’s part of him. It’s a cultural system; it’s general—there aren’t any exclusions.’
‘And is that why you sent him to a school so far away?’
Ady gave a sigh: ‘Perhaps it was,’ she said then: ‘Perhaps I hoped he could escape the pattern.’
‘And now you’ve changed your mind—and here he is.’
Ady shrugged, and my head moved with the movement of her shoulder; I shifted, and fell back into a fitful sleep.
*
Bright daylight; the hotel room. I woke with a start. Through the open French windows came a seething, high-pitched noise. I went to the balcony and looked out. Beneath me, across a narrow promenade, was a river, straight and fast-flowing, with rapids in its channel and rocks and boulders protruding from its bed. Beyond was the vista Ady had described the night before: peaks, green slopes with vineyards, the facades and roofs of buildings, a slender spire. I made my way down several flights of stairs, through the lobby, out, and across to the balustrade above the stream. Its sound was deafening; the braids and flecks of water went racing past; they threw up flares of spray that hovered, gleaming, in the sun. For a few moments I watched, until something made me turn, and look around. High above rose the hotel’s facade, blue-grey, with an imposing emblem on the pediment: ‘Meraner Hof’—and there, leaning against one of its entrance pillars, arms folded, watching me, was Elista. Her face was sombre; her hair was pulled back.
‘Hello, replacement,’ I said as I went up to her.
‘Don’t talk to me,’ she snapped: ‘I’m in disgrace. I thought Madame Ady was going to send me away this morning.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s your fault. You fell asleep on my shoulder while I was driving.’
‘So? I was tired. You know that. You said so yourself.’
‘Wrong shoulder. You should have chosen Madame Ady’s.’
‘I didn’t choose anyone’s.’
‘Surely you know she’s possessive about you—you’ve worked that much out, haven’t you? Aren’t you something like a child to her—the child she never had?’
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