‘You’re not a shadow,’ I said: ‘Not to me.’
‘A shadow of a shadow. A shadow’s dream. But I can tell you things about how to live when you’re surrounded by people you don’t trust: things worth remembering.’
‘Like what?’
‘Survey yourself as if you were a stranger. Fight your feelings. Suspect your motives—see everything around you with cold eyes: cold and clear.’
‘Is that the way you were leading your life then?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid not: I couldn’t ever step aside from myself. I had no capacity for any of that. And that’s why things came to a head for me. It all went very fast. It happened in Munich—in July: on a hot high-summer day: the day of my exhibition’s private view. Everyone came: it had been turned into an event on the social calendar. The minister-president and his staff and entourage were there; the bohemians, too; Ady made her usual grand entrance, with her husband in tow, and his accompanist; there were writers and film-makers, photographers, television camera crews: I felt I was being lifted up by a wave that kept rising—I was becoming an image myself—an object—and at first that was a pleasant feeling, it was delightful. The politicians spoke—my gallery director from Vienna spoke—Navratil. Then it was time for me. I went up to the podium, and I saw my drawings and my pastels and gouaches—my own work, all around me: the painted bookplates I’d made as a student, my dream sketches, my portraits of the army conscripts I’d seen in Budapest; my village pictures too, my memories of childhood, even the photos I’d taken of the barbed wire on the borders between East and West. Everything I was, everything I’d ever been: it was hanging on those walls. But I felt crushed by all those images—it seemed to me I had no right to be there with them: they were my bid for perfection, they were all that I could hope to make in life: I was overjoyed to see them—and at the same time I thought they were vulgar, they should be taken down at once—they should have lived on as imaginary things, to have made them into artworks was a proof of vanity—a sign of pride: and they were potent, too, at least to my eyes—they were hostile; they dissolved me—they removed the need for me to exist and have a voice. I said nothing: I couldn’t speak a single word. I bowed my head, and it must have looked as if that was my gesture of gratitude; everyone in the room before me burst into applause. There was a jazz group: they started up. That was our chance to slip away. I left with Navratil. “Thank God that’s over,” I said to him. “I felt so on edge.” “It’s only just beginning,” he said to me: “There’s a party for you, of course, a celebration—you have to be there—at the hotel.” We strolled back together to the Vier Jahreszeiten: and as we went, with Navratil talking and joking and laughing, I had the sense I was no more than a character in a film—acting, playing myself, performing the role of the art maker—that’s how it seemed to me: that I was betraying myself with every step I took and word I spoke.
‘We reached the hotel; we could see a crush of people milling round the entrance. Inside, in the great reception, it was even worse: there’s a cupola of stained glass that hangs over you in that foyer, and it seems always on the point of crashing down: it’s gleaming, and threatening, you raise your eyes up to it—it’s an emblem of the four seasons, but it has the fire and fury of an atomic cloud. More talking, more speech-making. This time, I had to find some words. An art critic gave an introduction. Our dear Egon, he’d called me: Our Keleti—one of us—the new conscience of the West. “He might as well have called me their mouthpiece,” I said in a whisper to Navratil: “Their puppet—as if I belonged to them—as if I ever belonged to anyone!” The men and women round me smiled and clapped their hands again. I felt a nausea. How had I been so vile as to make my art a slave to politics? Navratil was close beside me. He had his hand between my shoulder blades, and he was trying to tell me something; his voice rose and fell—he patted me as if I was a skittish horse. “Go on now,” he said then into my ear: “Listen to me—don’t be confused, don’t pay any attention to that nonsense; that’s what speakers at openings say—whatever their audiences want to hear. But they want you now. They admire you; they adore you. Say something—anything. Give them a few words from your heart to go home with; that’s what they’re waiting for.”
‘The crowd was getting thicker; they pushed forward: they were smiling, grinning, standing close around me, they were so close I could feel their breath on my skin. I stammered something: it made no sense. There were words in my head, but they were in the wrong language: my thoughts had flown back to my childhood; I saw the faces of the people I cared about when I was a boy: a parade of faces—eastern faces, from far away, passing before me one by one, as if they were telling me their fates. I was so nervous that I was on the verge of laughing. “I feel shame,” I said, then—it was a whisper—less than a whisper. I should never make another sketch, I told myself—I should never make another drawing. I should take the stiletto knife I use to keep my pencils and my crayons sharp, and I should drive that knife’s blade right through my drawing hand. It was plain—it was obvious—it was my task. I shook my head. There was a burly, broad-faced man standing near me, right in front of me, close enough to reach out and touch. I was looking at him as these ideas went through my head. I saw him mouthing words at me—I knew what he was saying: it was clear: “Don’t forget what you are,” he was telling me: “What you always will be. A knife, yes, by all means, why don’t you—but both hands, be sure, like a crucifixion, if you want to be one of us so much—both hands.” Had that happened? Did he say that? I was dazed, I looked round for Navratil, then back, and the man was lost from me in the press and movement of the crowd. “I need air,” I said, and turned, and pushed my way through—out into the lobby with its blood-red marble floor. There was Navratil, almost at once, pursuing me, with a reporter and a photographer in tow. “Our conscience,” he called to me, as if it was something amusing. I was outside now, on the pavement—it was bright daylight still—you know how the sun goes down so very late there at that time of year. “A quick likeness,” said Navratil to the photographer as they overhauled me. He put his hand on my shoulder: “Stay a moment,” he said to me, and then: “It’s his day of glory. Go on—immortalise him.” “Please,” I said: “I have to breathe—I have to be on my own—I have to walk my thoughts away.” The camera clicked, once, twice, ten times. “My thanks,” said the photographer, in that sympathetic, half-guilty way they have. “Alone can be bad company,” said Navratil—and he and the photographer exchanged looks and went back in.
‘I turned: I made my way along side streets. I passed the Residenz: I reached the English garden: there were couples strolling on the pathways, smiling, holding hands. How calm it was there: how pure and true the colours were. I drew deep breaths, as if I’d been suffocating all through the afternoon. I walked and walked—for hours—or it seemed that way. I saw the little rise that leads up to the Monopteros temple: what a place to make one’s destination! A vacant shrine—a shrine to abstraction—to emptiness. All round me was elegance and beauty—a perfect vista—landscape, sweet, soft light: but there was only dark inside me. I leaned against one of the temple columns, and felt its coolness on my cheek, and I stared up at the decorations inside its dome. How even they were in their spacing; how lovely—how meaningless. I know what I saw then, and realised: I saw that meaning lies in nature and her creations, only nature—not in man.
‘After the sunset I came back through the twilight to the hotel: the crowd had disappeared. Navratil had booked me into a suite—the King Ludwig suite—can you believe it? There were portraits of him everywhere, those cold, dead eyes of his were looking out. I sat down at the working desk, with the view of the city and its lights before me. I took my stiletto knife: I gripped it tight. I think I closed my eyes then. I drove the blade straight through the palm of my drawing hand. I twisted it at right angles, and pushed harder: I could hear it grating against the bones. For some while there was no pain at all—only clarity, sublime clarity. My fingers move
d, they clenched and unclenched by themselves. I felt remote from what was taking place in front of me; I watched the blood come spilling out in a rich, thick flow. I felt pleased that I’d done something I’d wanted to do so much. The other hand, I thought: it still held the stiletto: but how should I complete the task? It was a logic problem. Then the pain arrived. It swept through me like fire—I lost consciousness. When I came round I was in a hospital, strapped to a bed. Everyone who came to visit me was very kind. Palafay looked after my affairs. She brought me to Klosterneuburg. It took two years before feeling started to return to my hand. There’s not too much discomfort now: it comes and goes.’
He gave a slight smile. ‘Would you like to see the scar?’ he asked me then, in a soft voice.
Without waiting for an answer he raised his hand in front of me; in a single fluid movement he clasped the fingertips of the glove, pulled it off and spread his fingers wide.
‘See,’ he said: ‘It has a certain wayward elegance, don’t you think?’
There on his palm was a patch of pale, uneven skin, almost symmetrical in form, with serrated edges and neat cut marks in the form of a cross.
*
Morning once again, and in the room that same seething, constantly shifting river sound: it had pursued me in my sleep all through the night. I went downstairs, walked over to the bank, leaned on the iron railing, and watched the foam and water swirling by. After a while I looked round: there was Elista, standing in the same spot as the day before, beside the hotel entrance, her arms crossed in front of her. She came over with languid steps, brushed her fringe away from her eyes and gave me a challenging look. I stared back.
‘Well,’ she said: ‘What now?’
‘Hello, Elista,’ I said.
‘Do you have to call me that?’ she said. ‘It’s not my real name.’
‘It’s not?’
‘Of course not. Madame Ady invented it. Whoever would be mad enough to name their daughter after a city?’
‘What city?’
‘The capital of Kalmykia: where I came from—that’s Elista—it’s on a plain north-west of the Caspian Sea.’
‘It must be wonderful there—it sounds wonderful—like a citadel of domes and spires.’
‘Names aren’t everything. It’s very drab, and very flat. I hope I never see it again.’
‘It’s not the place you think of as your true home?’
‘Home! I’m an exile ten times over. I’m an exile much more than you and all your kind. I don’t have that Central European nostalgia for lost places and times.’
‘You don’t have any fondness for it?’
‘How could I? We left when I was very young—I only went back once, while I was still a student at the institute in Leningrad. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough: I saw dark sights.’
‘Like what?’
‘I had a glimpse of something.’ She paused: ‘Is there some reason why I should be talking to you about this?’
‘Why not—just for the pleasure of the telling.’
‘What pleasure is that? Who are you to know anything of mine? You wouldn’t understand a single word of what I’m saying anyway—there’s zero chance.’
‘No danger in saying it, then: keep going. You had a glimpse—what of?’
‘Questions, all the time. Questions to ward off questions. It’s not other people who have the answers that you need in life.’
‘You’re not saying because it’s a secret—or it’s something you don’t think I should hear?’
‘There are always reasons for saying—and for not saying as well. If you speak about some things too much you destroy them—or make them real. You still want to know—truly? You won’t thank me.’
Another stare of challenge. I nodded my head. She allowed herself a slight smile.
‘I’ll tell you, then—what I saw on my journey to Elista: my return to the promised land: the first morning I was there. I went to see the Lenin statue. My pilgrim act. It’s the great monument—there’s nothing else. And even there, in the heart of town, you can see the grasslands in the distance stretching away: but I saw further, for a moment—through all the dust and through the haze. I saw much further—do you understand me?—I could see the world beyond this world.’
Her voice had fallen low; she looked me in the eye, and held the look.
‘Everyone believes paradise must be beautiful—it must be some kind of lovely garden, full of streams and flowers. But when I was standing there I saw past the edge of things: to what’s waiting for us—a dull, flat plain that stretches to the horizon, and further, beyond that line—forever. That’s our heaven, and that’s our hell. Nothing profound, and nothing complicated. No dictators; no God. Just silence, and emptiness and a grey half-light, on and on. What do you think of that—Mister Interrogator? Nothing to say? No response?’
‘I wish I could see something like that,’ I said then: ‘Just once—once would be enough. Maybe I should make a pilgrimage to Elista.’
‘The capital of exiles. I’m sure they could make room for you.’
‘But if it’s not really your name,’ I asked her, ‘why does Ady call you that?’
‘She has names in code for everyone. Haven’t you noticed? Me, Stephane—you too—treasure. That’s the way, with her: devices and diversions, schemes to keep the world at bay.’
‘And if it’s not Elista, what should I call you instead—what’s your real name?’
She leaned towards me again, put a hand on my shoulder and whispered something softly in my ear: a sibilant, then a sudden, whirring sound, like a gust or flurry in the wind.
‘I didn’t hear properly,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry—it’s almost unpronounceable. I like to keep it as a secret anyway. Maybe if we ever know each other later, I’ll whisper it to you again.’
‘I’d like that,’ I said, in an uncertain voice.
‘Would you? What ideas you have! Do you think I’m some kind of friend in the making for you? I’m not that. And you should get away from this little world and Madame Ady—as fast as you can. There’s nothing here that’s good for you: it’s an airless world; it’s drowning in memory; these people live through the wounds of the past; they’re all damaged—they go forward looking back.’
‘So why don’t you—get away?’
She gave an ambiguous smile. ‘Perhaps I’m misguided like you. Perhaps I believe there’s a role for me here—for now.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘I don’t think so—those in the drama can’t ever know the plot—or everything would break down. Did you like your reunion with the poor cartoonist? You looked so sad afterwards, when I took him back.’
‘Of course: I was happy to see him—and sad it had to end. We used to spend our days together, years ago.’
‘In the golden past again. You do realise he’s completely deranged?’
‘Perhaps he’s seen the darkness at the world’s edge too. Maybe you should think kindly of him—maybe you should even try to like him.’
‘I never said I didn’t. Stop now: we should go in. The record-company man’s arrived—with all his reports and documents. They’ve begun their talk already. You missed the start: the game-playing, the finessing, all the opening stratagems and feints.’
‘That doesn’t sound like anything that matters.’
‘You’re completely wrong—that’s the key to these meetings. The best part. That’s what I try to study most of all.’
‘Why?’
‘To see and understand what Madame Ady does.’
I turned this over.
‘You don’t look as if you approve of that,’ she said.
‘Are you doing it so you can imitate her; be more like her—become her, one day?’
‘I’m here to be her mirror—complement her. Isn’t it plain? She needs an audience. She needs someone dependent on her—otherwise she doesn’t feel alive. Let’s go—they’re out on the terrace again, smiling at each other—
smiling and contending, with daggers drawn.’
‘Words as daggers?’
‘The sharpest kind.’
‘Just, in fact, like yesterday.’
‘Just like most days in Madame’s Ady’s world.’
We went back in. It was as she said: Ady and Daru were at the long table on the garden terrace; a man of middle age in a pale summer suit was facing them. All three were laughing and gesturing, there was a flow to their conversation, the mood seemed easy and relaxed. Elista and I slid down onto the bench at the far end of the table, and listened, as if to a play joined in mid-performance.
‘You’re wrong, dear Frolich,’ Ady was saying, in an amused voice: ‘Of course Novogrodsky will continue. He’ll conduct until his life comes to its end: it is his life. Performance makes him what he is—you know that.’
‘But, madame,’ said the man across the table, and spread his hands in front of him.
Ady cut him off. ‘Frolich,’ she said: ‘Don’t look so disconsolate. Even if we can’t agree on anything, you should be grateful to me for bringing you to this paradise: consider it a part of your education.’
‘I thought that was over many years ago,’ said the man in a joking tone.
‘A very American attitude,’ said Elista into my ear.
‘You like to generalise, don’t you?’ I whispered back.
Ady looked in our direction—she made a sign of disapproval. ‘You two: bitter enemies one day—best friends the next. Stop murmuring like conspirators. Treasure, here. I ordered for you. Your favourite—café au lait.’
‘Learning,’ said Daru at that point, sighing melodiously: ‘We’re all in deficit. It’s the times. So much revolution, such upheavals, disasters every day—too much news to give oneself the time to study—too much even to feel free to reflect.’
‘Or, it seems, record musical masterpieces,’ Frolich said: ‘Music to outlast us all.’
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