‘I see,’ I said.
‘You look sad. It makes you think of another patient there?’
I turned my face away from her.
‘But, my treasure,’ she said then, ‘I think you know in your heart the one you hope to see from Klosterneuburg will never come. Look—Elista’s spotted us; she’s waving. That was a wave of relief! We’ll go over and rescue her. But let’s be careful with Keleti when we’re talking to him.’
‘In what way?’
‘Careful not to excite him—not to talk about difficult things.’
‘What are they?’
‘Things that might upset him—best just to listen to what he has to tell you. You’re good at listening. And be gentle with him—people like him are full of self-loathing: they blame themselves.’
‘What for?’
‘For surviving. The last time I went to see him at the sanatorium we spent a long time together. He showed me the drawings he’d been making for himself. I can’t begin to describe them to you. They were wild: without structure. They looked to me like pictures of the world’s creation—or its end. At that stage the doctors were still afraid he was a danger to himself.’
I glanced at her.
‘Don’t ask—you know very well what I mean,’ she said, her voice rising: ‘And what a ridiculous expression that is—as if life was a thing to steal; how can you take something that’s already yours? They medicate him now, quite heavily. It seems to work: that problem’s gone. He was always very fond of you: he used to speak about you and ask after you whenever I went to see him. You remember: I told you all about him, and what had happened—that day we came to fetch you from Zuoz. That’s why I thought seeing you again might bring him a little happiness. And it might be good for you to see him too. So you can be face to face with him.’
‘Of course,’ I said: ‘I liked him. We used to go on long walks together, explorations, just the two of us; especially that last summer we spent with him.’
‘Not for that reason,’ said Ady, sternly: ‘More so you see with your own eyes what’s become of him. What can happen. How vulnerable we all are. How fleeting the life and the wellbeing that’s given to us can be. Say no more now.’
She led the way between the tables, gave Elista a quick glance of acknowledgement, placed her hand on Egon’s shoulder in greeting, and bent down and kissed him ceremoniously on both cheeks. He gave her a thin smile.
‘Palafay,’ he said, in a soft voice.
‘Stay sitting,’ said Ady: ‘Don’t strain yourself. And look who I’ve brought to say hello to you!’
Egon peered up at me through his dark-tinted spectacles, and frowned: his hands were clasped tight against his chest, and they were encased in green suede gloves. He unclasped them and stretched one out in my direction, then withdrew it.
‘I won’t shake hands,’ he said: ‘I still recognise you, child: you haven’t changed that much, in all this time: same look, same searchlight eyes. Do you still remember me the way I was? Do you even recognise me? I’ve been in the wars—dreadful wars—internal wars.’
‘You look wonderful, dear friend,’ said Ady: ‘Unchanged. Treasure—tell him so.’
‘I’m not unchanged,’ said Egon: ‘Everything’s changed in me. I don’t know myself anymore. I wonder what my surviving characteristics are—my qualities? I’m a stranger to myself. Perhaps I always was.’
He gave a little laugh; he turned to look at me. ‘Sit,’ he said: ‘Next to me. Look at me. The good thing about being ill’s that you’re allowed to think this way. What do you see now—in my face; in my eyes?’
‘Keleti,’ said Ady: ‘Please—be calm.’
‘I am,’ he said: ‘I’m happy. Happy that you’ve come. You didn’t answer.’
He lifted up his glasses, and stared at me, and widened his eyes. ‘Do I have the look of a composed, creative being? Do I?’
‘Yes,’ I said to him: ‘Of course you do. You always have.’
‘I know what I look like,’ he answered: ‘I draw myself. Lined face, skin like parchment, eyes reflecting nothing. You shouldn’t lie—it’s a bad habit to get into. Not to order, anyway, not just because you’ve been told to by Palafay.’
‘He’s not lying,’ said Ady: ‘He’s being perfectly truthful. Of course you’re still open and creative—no one can take that from you—not even you yourself. Stop trying to: you’re always working; you’re creative every day.’
‘Too much so, if anything,’ he said: ‘The images are constantly flowing in. I try to hold onto them; but everything’s provisional with me—nothing stays, nothing’s still inside me. It’s the same feeling I had before.’
‘Don’t speak of that now, Keleti,’ said Ady: ‘Don’t. You have to guard yourself. Don’t look back—those times are all gone now. Look around instead: and don’t put those blind man’s dark glasses back over your eyes; see—it’s the magic time of year—late summer, when the season’s at its most beautiful, and it’s saying farewell.’
‘You’re right,’ said Egon, in a resigned way: ‘The peaks almost free of snow, the sky deep blue like the sky of an altarpiece—a day so lovely it makes me think all God’s angels brought it to us. How thankful I am to you for bringing me here!’
He turned to me. ‘I’m staying in a kind of earthly paradise. Your aunt insisted: she thinks I’ve been confined in hell: but hell was really where I was before, when I was an artist with a reputation in the world.’
‘He’s in Fragsburg,’ said Ady: ‘It’s high up: the view’s magnificent.’
‘It’s the castle on the hillside,’ said Egon: ‘In past times it was a hunting lodge—the trophy heads of dead animals are everywhere—they’re looking back at you, whichever way you turn.’
‘It’s calm there,’ said Ady, breaking in: ‘That’s why we chose it for you. So you could be quiet, undisturbed. There’s a famous rose garden: it’s been cultivated for hundreds of years.’
‘You should come to spend a day with me,’ said Egon: ‘We could sit, and look out like two invalids, and think up new names for all the mountain peaks: names that suit them, names better than the ones they have now.’
‘We’re making a short visit here,’ said Ady: ‘There’s not time for that.’
Egon paid this no attention. ‘I imagine I seem frail to you, my child. I’d like to speak to you alone. May I?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘I think I was asking someone else’s permission,’ said Egon.
‘Elista,’ said Ady, ‘order for us: what we always have. And for the treasure a chocolat liégeois.’
‘But that’s not what I really want,’ I said.
‘Perhaps you’d prefer to drink a Kir Royale like the rest of us?’ she said in a strained voice: ‘Take what comes.’
‘Won’t you trust me with the child?’ said Egon to her: ‘Don’t be angry with him for saying yes to me. I care for him more than for life itself. Let me spend a few minutes with him.’
Ady looked at me. ‘Would you like that?’ she asked in a clipped way.
‘It’ll remind me of when we used to walk in the mountains,’ I said: ‘And everyone we used to see.’
‘Very well,’ said Ady, rising from the table. ‘As you wish. We’ll leave you two together for a short while. You can talk about your special things. Elista—come—we’ll take a stroll up to Castel San Zeno and back.’
‘Off they go,’ said Egon: ‘Such lovely creatures!’ He followed them with his eyes for a few seconds, then turned to look at me.
‘Are you afraid—to be alone in my company? Don’t worry. I’m perfectly well; I’m in control of myself. I think clearly. That’s a large part of the trouble. I don’t deceive myself about the life we lead. And when I look at you and remember times before, it’s true—a sadness steals over me. I haven’t seen you for so long. I’ve wanted to. I wanted to explain to you why it was I dropped from sight. And tell you other things: about where I was sent, and what I saw there: who. But now you’
re here: and I find I can’t.’ He smiled at this, and stopped speaking.
‘You don’t need to say,’ I said to him. ‘I’m sure I know it all: or I can guess.’
‘And some things we know by instinct, without knowing: of course that’s so. But I wanted to be truthful with you. I made you that promise, once, long ago. I want to tell you—but I don’t have the words.’
‘Perhaps there aren’t words for everything in the world,’ I said.
‘We’ll be quiet, then, a minute—speak in other ways—and think of other things.’
He reached for the satchel at his side—it was the same one he had with him years before. He produced a sketchbook and a charcoal pencil.
‘You find drawing helps?’ I asked him.
‘I make sketches all the time. How could you think I wouldn’t? For a long while, after I went away, I hoped you’d come and visit me: and I used to make drawings for you, I made them every day.’
‘Of mountain dragons?’
‘Yes—naturally. That was what we were drawing when we were together. They took them away in the end. They thought the dragons were signs of unhealthy tendencies.’
‘And you don’t draw them anymore?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I came to an agreement with my doctors: the dragons don’t exist.’
‘And what do you draw instead?’
He laid the sketchpad between us on the table. With the gloves still on his hands he began outlining: bands of pattern, a central axis, abrupt, sweeping curves; he made a series of dark smudges, he traced out fine cross-hatchings and thick straight lines. The image took shape. I leaned over and craned my neck to see it better. He frowned and turned the sketch towards me.
‘There,’ he said: ‘For you—the way I used to draw for you.’
It was a butterfly—a butterfly in black and white and shades of grey—but with an iridescence imparted somehow to its wings: they seemed to tremble in the light, they gleamed as though the sun were shining on them.
‘What’s the verdict?’ he asked, and added in a final flourish, and laid the pencil down.
‘How wonderful,’ I said, ‘that you still makes sketches like this.’
‘You’re not just saying that because you were told by Palafay to humour me: to keep me calm?’
‘I’m not just saying it.’
He brushed away the charcoal dust from the paper, and looked up. ‘You like it—really?’
I nodded my head.
‘I’m pleased, then—pleased for you. All true Europeans should be entranced by butterflies. The gardens at Fragsburg are full of them. I’ve been studying them: closely—blues, nymphalids, Vanessas, swallowtails. I watch them every afternoon. They have no fear. They fly where they please. They fulfil themselves. I try to draw them in a scientific spirit. I want to know them. I’d love to see as they see. Of course I have my favourites—but I haven’t reached the stage of Aby Warburg in the Bellevue. Do you know his story? He used to talk to the moths and butterflies around him in the sanatorium grounds; he heard their voices and their whispered conversations outside his window every night. I hear nothing. Nothing at all. I’m not as fortunate as him—to be given beauty from beyond this world. I draw the beauty that’s in front of me—here before my eyes. That’s what’s been vouchsafed to me. My subjects are all living beings—not visions seen by dark of night.’
A waiter from the Wandelhalle appeared just as he finished speaking, and hovered by our table, balancing a tray of drinks on the palm of his hand.
‘May I,’ he began, then stopped: ‘But it’s you—it is you, isn’t it, Signore Keleti? The artist—E.K.?’
He placed the glasses before us with great formality, and glanced at the drawing on the sketchpad, and smiled.
‘It is,’ said Egon: ‘Or it used to be.’
‘How poised the image is,’ said the waiter: ‘You expect the insect to quiver its wings and fly away.’
Egon looked up at him, an uncertain expression on his face.
‘A pleasure to see you here in our valley, with your son, for these last days of summer,’ the waiter said then: ‘How much joy your paintings and your sketches bring me! I saw the exhibition last year: I made the trip to Venice specially to be there.’
Egon made a slight grimace, and touched my hand with his gloved fingers, and inclined his head.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
The waiter gave a little bow, and retreated.
‘You see?’ I said: ‘He loved what you do. He said so. You could tell what he saw in your work.’
Egon glanced at me, and, for a second, covered his face with his hands. ‘The things other people see in us can’t save us,’ he said: ‘It’s not enough. Not even close to being enough.’
‘What more could you hope for?’ I said: ‘It must be every artist’s dream to be admired like that.’
He was quiet for a few moments, then looked across at me. ‘What now?’ he said, in a low voice: ‘What will it be? Talk, or draw?’
‘Draw first,’ I said. ‘Like before. Draw Ady—why not? Draw her the way you used to draw Serghiana, all that time ago—not as a dragon, though—you could make her a butterfly.’
‘I don’t think she’d approve,’ he said: ‘I’m sure her picture of herself would be quite different. And she’ll be back soon, and I don’t want to upset her. I still can’t believe she came with you all the way from Zürich—just to see me. You know she used to live here—when she was a girl: when she was your age—just growing up.’
‘She said.’
‘Her father moved his companies here, and his bank: that was long before the war years came. He made himself the magnate of the Tyrol, he owned everything—and when the Germans moved south and took the valley, he didn’t run. I’ve heard it said he traded his life for hers—on the day the round-ups began. And at a stroke her world was changed—changed completely: from everything to nothing. Has she told you that?’
I shook my head.
‘Nor me—but it’s true. It’s a well-known story here: people still remember. She may have a different name now, but at Fragsburg they know exactly who she is. Maybe we should draw her in dark colours instead: for grief, for mourning; draw her as a moth that returns to the scene of a death. Or draw nothing—nothing more. My preference. That’s what I think would be for the best. Would you be disappointed? Do you mind very much?’
He clasped his hands together again and held them tight against his chest.
‘Of course not,’ I said: ‘But why do you keep those gloves on all the time—even when you’re sketching? You never did before. Don’t they get in the way?’
‘You don’t like them?’ said Egon: ‘They’re the finest doeskin, from the glove maker on Stephansplatz: the same ones they wear at the Spanish Riding School. I’ve always loved this colour—forest green, the green of the woods in spring. I’m sorry if they don’t appeal to you.’
‘It’s not that,’ I said.
‘More that they stand out too much—they’re startling—shocking: that’s what you think?’
‘Something along those lines.’
‘And that’s one reason I wear them. Don’t you ever do things like that, for the strength of the gesture—purely for yourself, to prove you have some freedom—some?’
He held his hands up, turned his palms towards him, then away again, and gave the gloves an appreciative glance.
‘But there’s another reason as well,’ he said: ‘The true reason. Do you remember what I told you once, that year when Serghiana was looking after you—about my life when I was young? How I came to be here, in the West?’
‘I remember it all,’ I said.
‘After that summer we spent together, everything changed.’
‘Why?’
‘You know very well: it changed for you, too. It was the end of the Prague Spring. And you became like me in a strange way then—didn’t you? Set loose. Lost. Having to make your way on your own. We tried
to anchor you—that’s why we sent you to that school—the Academy. I went to inspect it for Ady: I knew then it wouldn’t work, I knew you’d be unhappy: you didn’t belong there—it was like a seminary—or a collective farm. But for me that year was a time of triumph: in those months, after August, my star rose very high. Everything I drew was snatched up: everyone wanted new work from me. I began to write—stories from my childhood, sketches in the feuilletons, little parables of politics—and it was all published: the world was spread out before me.’
‘Because you were against the Russians?’
‘Because I was useful at that time to the people who had power—because my drawings were useful to them. Disaster was good for me. Tanks and demonstrations in Prague were good for me. I was like the crown prince in those days.’ He gave a marvelling shake of his head.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I used to always see your drawings in the newspapers—and in America as well, later on. They even taught them in my classes at school.’
‘And did you tell them that you knew me?’ Egon asked.
‘I don’t think they would have believed me if I’d said anything.’
‘And then one day you heard some vague story of what happened to me—and you didn’t understand?’
I nodded.
‘I was riding so high then; I was tense from all the triumphs. There were books of my sketches coming out, there were television programs, films, interviews—newspapers and reporters all the time. I began working with galleries, I had dealers, and promoters, I had international agents: there was even an exhibition of my work in Munich, at the Kunstverein. They thought I was some kind of exotic hero—an artist-hero from the East. That’s what I’d longed for; to be known as an artist, not just as an émigré who drew nice cartoons—and it had happened, almost overnight. I’d become one—but I’d become something else as well—or I’d been turned into something: a symbol of resistance, a spokesman for a cause. And that wasn’t a role that suited me.’
He stopped, and glanced up at me, and gave a low laugh. ‘What cards you’ve drawn,’ he said. ‘What bad luck you’ve had! Look at the people who’ve taken an interest in you and your fate. Serghiana, who lives in her self-created world of troubles; Ady, who’s been caught in Novogrodsky’s golden cage; me, nothing but a shadow of myself.’
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