‘Is that right?’ I said: ‘You don’t think you’re reaching a little—extending your analysis too far?’
‘No. Anyway—you were just getting going. Telling me your problems. Don’t stop now. Keep on: although you don’t actually need to. I can see the trap you’re in: your precious past—it’s too close up, and too far away.’
He looked at me. His smile had sympathy in it—an edge of amusement too. He had read me to perfection; he knew he had.
‘Go on,’ he prompted: ‘I’d like to hear. I’ll keep your secrets; you can trust me on that. I always have.’
And so, haltingly, I told him, or tried to tell him: how I still remembered those days of summer in the mountains and the figures I’d first known then; how there were times when they seemed close by me, almost present to me, when I could hear the sound of their voices in my head: and what he’d said was true—I did feel a longing to see those peaks and valleys, and the skies of my childhood: to walk the forest paths again.
‘But you haven’t gone back,’ he broke in: ‘And you won’t. I can tell. It would have been easy for you—at any time. The simplest thing. The truth is you’re careful to keep away. You’d rather stay safe in your nostalgia: you’re afraid of disappointment: afraid you might destroy your imagined heaven. Nothing’s changed in you. You want to keep the past intact; you don’t see preserving it destroys the present: you hang on to an ideal: it makes you happy and sad at the same time—you’re its hostage—you don’t really live your life.’
‘Strangely I’ve heard something like that before. But that doesn’t make any of it true.’
‘From your profound great-aunt.’
‘Did I speak to you about her? Surely not!’
‘Your fake great-aunt, to be exact. The Red Princess. Don’t you remember anything? Or do you just block things out? When we first went off on assignment together she’d only just died. You were full of grief then: I’d almost want to say you were heartbroken.’
‘I don’t remember it that way.’
‘It’s true. You told me all about her. Long stories, every evening. Out in the desert, with the oilfields burning in the distance and lighting up the sky. Don’t give me that look of disbelief: you did. And it was a normal thing to do. People share their stories; that’s how they know each other. That’s why they get along. That’s why we get along.’
‘And here I was thinking it was the charm of your nature and your propensity for passing judgement on your friends!’
‘Ease up, brother,’ he said then: ‘Sarcasm’s not your thing. So: what’s the call?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Where to next for you? Where are you actually supposed to be headed next?’
‘Back to Zürich. Three days free, then an onward flight.’
‘You could come with me,’ he said: ‘Give me a ride.’
‘Where to?’
‘Not far—two hours, no more, the way you drive: a place called Mainau. It’s near Konstanz: on the shore of the Bodensee. I’ve got a commission there.’
I laughed.
‘Don’t tell me you know it.’
‘The flower island! I used to. I had another great-aunt—she liked to drive me out there when she collected me from boarding school on weekends.’
‘Another one! How many were there?’
‘Just two.’
‘Both equally controlling?’
‘In their different ways.’
‘And which of them did you prefer?’
‘What kind of question is that to ask me? What would you expect me to say? It was long ago: I look back now and I can see they went together. They were perfect opposites. One without the other would have been unbearable. I think they knew that themselves.’
‘You mean they worked in tandem.’
‘I mean they served as counters to each other.’
‘Fire and water,’ said Bruno, firmly: ‘The way the world works. You were lucky to have that shown to you so young. Let’s drive.’
We did: the road wound its way towards the lake. He told me stories from his most recent journeys—wild exploits. Then he began to reminisce; his youth in São Paulo; how he escaped; the teacher who gave him his first camera; what happened to it; how he found it again; the dreams he still had of going home—dreams unfulfilled.
‘You too,’ I said.
‘Of course. Why else would I be so interested in your story—if it wasn’t my own? That’s why we’re on the road together—that’s why we always used to end up working together. You know that: we both live in transit, always moving, we’re airport people—we’ve both been made to realise there’s no way of going back.’
I took this in: I let the thought sit with me, and said nothing in reply.
‘You don’t agree?’
‘I think I always have,’ I said.
We had made good time; we were across the border now, past Konstanz. I turned off the motorway.
‘How easy the journey’s been,’ I said to him. ‘And look how far we’ve come. Here’s the road to Mainau, up ahead. I wanted to keep you talking a while longer. I wanted to hear your ayahuasca story, about the jaguars with diamond eyes—the one you began telling me when we were together last.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s a real saga. Too late: a shame. But I’m happy that we’ve seen each other again: it makes me think our lives have a shape—a symmetry—if only we can read it: find the code.’
‘And you’re convinced of that?’
‘It’s a working hypothesis. Maybe one day we’ll know for sure.’
I pulled up. He jumped out and shouldered his camera bag. We walked along the causeway to the island slowly, side by side.
‘I could wait for you,’ I said: ‘If you’re not too long. What is it that you’re actually doing here?’
He gave me an enigmatic smile. ‘See the glow on the lake from the sun through the clouds: what an image: how full of mystery. We’ll never really know what makes beauty, will we? See you.’
‘That’s a sad-sounding goodbye,’ I said.
‘Beauty always makes me sad,’ he answered: ‘That’s what it’s for.’
And he strode off down the avenue of tall trees toward the buildings in the distance, his gait even, his bearing self-assured. I watched until he was no longer in sight, and wondered if I would ever see him again, and realised the same thought had occurred to him. I turned away.
I was about to retrace my steps when I saw a narrow path that ran beside the shoreline: winding, shaded, half-overgrown: and in that instant I knew it was the same zigzag path I used to take with Ady, so many years before. I followed it, trying to picture her and my young self beside her, memories of the days we spent together coming back to me, each image leading to another, each more vivid than the one preceding it: I was caught up in them: summoning them up, receiving them—it was almost a surprise when the path curved round to its end. I was at the entrance to the island’s little harbour. Halfway along the jetty was a man in an overcoat, facing towards the far shoreline, taking in the view. He turned and watched my approach.
‘Hello, friend,’ he called out to me.
I stared back at him. He was in his middle years; his features were soft and pleasant; the red scarf at his neck was loose in the breeze. He tossed it back over his shoulder, then raised up his hands, palms open, as though to prove peaceful intent.
‘That’s not a very friendly look,’ he said.
‘Am I your friend?’ I answered: ‘What makes me that?’
‘Why the pensive air?’
‘It’s reflective—not pensive.’
‘What are you reflecting on, then?’
‘Memories: from here; elsewhere: people; what they were—the usual things.’
‘Time in its passage,’ he said. ‘The past—unmastered, constantly receding from us—it’s hard to bear, isn’t it—the way we’re so estranged from what we once were?’
‘I think I’ll keep on moving,’ I said.
‘Wait. Maybe you ne
ed to talk to someone: maybe me.’
‘And maybe not.’
‘Don’t be in such a hurry. Conversation with a stranger can be liberating.’
‘Is that right? Are you a priest or something, looking for a confession to hear: a conscience to ease?’
‘I might be. And you might benefit.’
‘I’ll pass, and take my chances,’ I said.
‘Or I could even be an angel. One of the thirty angels sent to save the world.’
‘Thirty-six,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Thirty-six, not thirty—and they’re not angels, they’re the hidden figures of humility. If you’re going to quote the Talmud, it’s probably best to get it right.’
‘Theology’s not my strong point, to be truthful with you. And I’m not really an angel, I’m an ecological investigator.’
‘Almost the same thing, these days,’ I said.
He made a little bow, and we shook hands.
‘And you look after this place?’
‘Not in a formal capacity,’ he said: ‘Though I study it. For the most part the rarer botanical specimens, of course.’
‘It must lift up your spirits, spending time in such surrounds.’
‘You mean it’s peaceful—harmonious—all the elements in communion with each other: nature in its lush profusion, the great bowl of the sky, the shining water, the whole framed, completed by the graceful works of man.’
‘I might have put it more succinctly,’ I said. ‘But yes.’
‘It seems so, on the surface, doesn’t it? The opposite is the truth. When I come here I fight the darkness every day.’
I looked back at him.
‘You don’t know the history—what happened here?’
‘I remember it used to be a Swedish possession—isn’t that right?’
‘It is. It was: then wartime came. Shall I go on?’
‘I can guess the general drift.’
‘But you need the details. What’s history without the fine particulars: the specifics that give us the truth of life?’
And he launched into a recitation that had a rehearsed, perfected quality about it: it had wit; it had pace; it had surprises and twists in the telling.
‘A new chapter now,’ he said, and his voice dropped down in sombre fashion: ‘After all the early battles—once the war had begun in earnest—it was the time of Speer.’
He paused. ‘Normally, at this point, people ask me if I mean the architect.’
‘I already know about his plan to build villas along the lake shore for the men who ran his weapons factories.’
‘You do?’ he said, sounding rather crestfallen: ‘I imagine it would have been something like those grand projects they’re building on artificial islands in Dubai today. But I’m sure you don’t know about the French connection to Mainau, do you?’
‘Why should I?’ I said: ‘I’m not French.’
‘I didn’t think you were. It’s a story for all civilised people to know: no matter where they come from—even if they don’t have any nationality, even if they’re homeless in the world.’
‘So—tell me.’
‘Let’s sit, then. Here, on the bench beside the barrier, looking out: why not? We’ll sit together: spend a few minutes—perhaps longer. We can watch the light as it changes: it’s majestic here—we’ll let it lift our spirits up.’
And he resumed, his eyes on my expression as he spoke: Mainau as the headquarters of French collaborators when the war was in its dying days, Mainau in the French occupation zone, Mainau as reception camp for French survivors brought from Dachau after the liberation of the camps, as their burial place. He paused again.
‘Well?’ he asked me: ‘Now what do you think?’
‘What anyone would: that the stain of that time seems to reach everywhere. That it’s spread out over every part of this poor continent.’
‘That stain is history,’ he said then, in a triumphant voice: ‘The history that sweeps us all up. And the shadow never goes: we’re always in the shadow—even if we try to hide from it or quarantine it, even if we pretend that it’s not there, polluting everything, defiling everything the way a dust cloud discolours the whole sky. And so we put our trust in ignorance. Like you. Look at you: you know this place, you thought you knew its past—you know the standard version—but you didn’t know what I just told you—you had no idea.’
‘How could I have?’ I said: ‘I was eight or nine years old the last time I came here. My great-aunt used to bring me with her on days out from school.’
‘Because she felt the shadow! And wanted to expiate it.’
‘Not at all—she loved coming here, it made her happy: she always said Mainau was beautiful. It was convenient—it was nearby. And she thought coming here was good for my cultural education as well.’
‘Why?’
‘She said Wagner found the inspiration for Parsifal here beside the lake, when he looked out at the peaks after the first falls of winter snow.’
‘Pure mythology. Like all those Wagner stories: I’ve even heard people say the inspiration for the Rheingold theme came to him when he was sailing down the Italian coast from Genoa to La Spezia. People say anything they want about art. At least she was a Wagnerian, though, your great-aunt: that counts for something.’
‘But she wasn’t. She was the exact opposite. She couldn’t stand Wagner—she thought he was responsible for all the formlessness in modern art: music, painting, everything. She thought he was a monster—a manipulator of emotions—the composer who made sensation and sentiment respectable: she said if she listened to him for too long she felt as though she was about to dissolve.’
‘Why listen to his music at all then?’
‘She didn’t have much choice—she was married to a conductor—a Wagner specialist.’
‘Indeed: and who was that?’
‘Novogrodsky.’
The man’s face lit up. ‘The Maestro—how wonderful: this is wonderful!’ He jumped up from his seat, he reached out as if to clasp me by the shoulders, then checked himself: he paced about, he swung back and looked at me with earnest eyes.
‘I knew it,’ he said in an exultant voice: ‘I knew there was a reason behind it—it wasn’t just coincidence, my running into you here, my being here today. I wish I could tell you what I feel now—how much Novo meant to me: he was like a hero in my mind, a god in music: I had all his recordings, I went through every interview he gave: I made up something like a private cult of him: how lucky you are to have known such a genius!’
‘I didn’t, really,’ I began to say; he spoke over me, his voice rising.
‘I saw him conduct, several times, in fact—in Zürich, in Salzburg, of course, and Munich and Vienna, even at the festival at Bregenz on the far side of the lake: and those were always red-letter days for me. I used to watch him on the podium, follow his movements, study him—see him reaching up as if he was touching the hidden texture of the music—and no performance of a piece was ever the same as the one before, or the one that came after—each time he built a new world of sound—from air—from nothing: I came to think he fed on his musicians; even on the audience and their energies: as if we were all cocooned together in the auditorium, our minds joined in a single task. I treasured those evenings I spent watching him, listening. I had the feeling he was giving me a brief escape from life: raising me up towards the stars.’
‘I’ve heard things like that said about Novogrodsky before,’ I said then: ‘Often, actually: his stage presence, his majestic air.’
‘But that’s not how he was in person. I met him once. We spoke: as equals: he was warm; he was charming; he was modest: he told me he was gripped by fear each time he went out on stage to conduct: and that was the reason he gave up studio recording—because the anguish that built up in him was too much to bear. Fear was the royal road to purity in art, he said. Whoever fears is on the pathway to be followed: whoever knows true fear can breach the limits of the self. He
told me this in all seriousness: as if he was imparting a great secret to me—something for me alone.’
‘And it’s a treasured memory for you?’
‘Naturally. It was at the end of an evening I won’t forget: a recital: a private gathering. You know how much Novo hated those kinds of events: he’d somehow held on to the idea he was an artist for the people: but my uncle persuaded him: he was a sponsor of that orchestra of young musicians the Maestro was setting up just then. We all were there: at the villa, on the lake shore: a perfect setting: a glass conservatory with majestic views. Novo was late; we waited patiently, all in our seats: an hour—longer, even. The weather changed: a storm came up: thunder rolling between the mountains: lightning stabbing down. At last he made his grand entrance, entourage behind him. He strode to the piano: no introduction—nothing—not a word. I don’t know what we’d been expecting him to play: Bartók, maybe, Chopin, even Janáček—music from that hinterland, that tradition. What he chose that night was quite different. He launched in: it was like a military attack. Scarlatti sonatas, one after the other, virtuoso pieces, swift, cascading, violent, no breaks between them, no score to read from—just a man and his powers, calling up the elements, challenging the storm: it strengthened—the rain poured down on us, it drummed on the conservatory’s glass roof—he played on. It was a sublime half-hour—I was transfixed: I could scarcely breathe. When it all was over he stood, gave an amiable, compact bow and stepped away into the throng. At once, as if on cue, the rain slackened; the storm was past. The audience clapped politely: they were the usual businessmen and culture brokers and minor Austrian nobility—they had no idea what they’d just been witness to. I waited. I could see the dignitaries, and the Maestro, surrounded; caught. I don’t believe his wife was with him, in point of fact: I don’t think I saw her.’
He looked across at me.
‘You wouldn’t have missed her if she’d been there that night,’ I said: ‘She stood out. Tranquil face, lovely clothes, golden hair.’
‘No—no one like that. A secretary of some kind, dark and bent and gloomy—and an assistant who was always standing with Novo, close beside him—a young woman, Central Asian, I think, very striking, black hair, hard eyes. I edged my way through towards them. I made a sign to my uncle: he liked me: he beckoned to me to come up. “Make a little space for my favourite nephew,” he said: “He has an artistic streak.” “Uncle Urs,” I said—’
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