Red Heaven

by Nicolas Rothwell

  I broke in. ‘Wait: what was your uncle’s name—family name, I mean?’

  He gave a sad smile: he inclined his head. ‘Yes,’ he said: ‘I can see you’ve worked it out. It was inevitable. You’re right, of course. He was Amborn—that famous, notorious, unfortunate Amborn—whose name’s remembered now for one thing only.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said.

  ‘Really not?’ He gave me a suspicious stare.

  I shrugged. ‘None at all.’

  ‘So—where were you in the late nineteen-eighties? Taking a long vacation on a different planet?’

  ‘In a way: I was working in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Not much news from outside reached us back then.’

  ‘But the scandal was all about the East! You do know my uncle Urs was an arms dealer, don’t you?’

  ‘Precision guidance systems, I thought. And medical equipment.’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘And he had a foundation.’

  ‘Among other things: like export-import companies in Sofia, and a Kazakh goldmine and ties to Moscow and a private militia in the Middle East. There was a problem with one of his subsidiaries: minor—financial. It became public: an investigation began. All this not long after the recital at the villa on the lake. My uncle loved that place; he designed it himself. He called it the Villa Sorgenfrei—a bad choice—God knows where he got the name.’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ I said.

  ‘And all this passed you by? There were front-page stories everywhere: Zürich, Munich; I think even the United States. It was a witch-hunt; it gathered strength. He tried to defend himself: he insisted he was innocent, wholly innocent: he’d been made a scapegoat; he was working for the West, and governments knew it; foreign ministries knew it: they could vouch for him; they could clear his name.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘What always happens. There were inquiries, reports—no clear evidence against him, no charges, just rumours and vague stories of misdeeds and the sense of murk persisting, deepening. He lost his board seats: his friends and business partners pledged their loyalty and drifted away. I know the rest from his daughter: we were close at that time. He tried to salvage what he could; his contracts ran out; he had large fines and legal costs to meet: he sold off what was saleable: he stayed away from Konstanz, and spent his time at the villa, always on his own. Early one morning, before daybreak, he went down to the conservatory. He opened the double doors that looked out across the Bodensee so he could see the first sunlight on the water: then he shot himself through the head.’

  He fell silent.

  ‘A bleak ending to your story,’ I said.

  ‘But it’s not the end—it wasn’t the end at all: at least not for me. My uncle left something behind him: a letter, for his daughter. Handwritten—it was lying on the desk in his study, the pen he wrote it with still open. She showed it to me a while later, after she’d been alone with it long enough. She felt it was also meant for me; that I should read it—it would speak to me. I told her she should have it published: along with the essays her father wrote from time to time: for art exhibitions, for the feuilletons. He had a strength of intellect: but he believed in reticence: he used to say there were things he’d lived through he never wished to tell.’

  ‘But what was in the letter?’

  ‘He wrote about his love for her: his wish for her to lead a happy life.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘She’s not with us anymore. Please—let me continue.’

  I made a sign: he did.

  ‘He said nothing about his troubles. He set out his beliefs for her: he was convinced life had meaning, nobility and purpose—both in the living, and at its end. And if there was a force greater than us, set above us, that force showed itself in symmetry and pattern, in the forms of nature, in art too, art that clarifies our picture of the world. He wrote about his life: how he wished he’d told her more about his childhood: in Vienna; in dark years. The people who shaped him and made him what he was when he was growing up were all easterners, from Europe’s furthest edge. Ever since that time it had been his aim to bring East and West together: the people he felt closest to all came from that other Europe, and only lived a life of exile here.’

  ‘Hence Novogrodsky.’

  ‘And others, too. Then he drew to a close. He asked her forgiveness. He knew how fragile she was. He feared for her. She had been his greatest joy; the purest joy on earth was a parent’s love. When she was a child, and they lived in Basel and he was building up his empire, she’d asked him what he most valued in life—and he’d told her: not possessions, but ideas—ideas that give us the eyes to see beyond ourselves and our surrounds, that let us seek truth in the chaos of the world. But now, he wrote, he’d changed his mind: it was words that were the magic gift in life: each word was a wonder, each word was a crystal gleaming in the light of language: where he was bound, though, there would be no need of them any longer, world and individual would be joined as one. He ended on that: it wasn’t a sacrifice for him to leave this earth: he would see the sun shine on the water and feel reborn.’

  ‘And that was it?’

  ‘That was it.’

  ‘A disturbing kind of farewell letter.’

  ‘Beautiful and disturbing: that’s what gave it such special force. My version just then was nothing like the original—what he wrote was plain and majestic at once. The only thing I’ve ever come across that made the faintest sense of suicide.’

  ‘It must have affected you,’ I said: ‘You would have been quite young then.’

  ‘I could think for myself. I had an engineering degree—a good one. I’d started down that track: I was already doing site work in Africa: it was in the air that I’d end up working for the Amborn group; that door closed when the scandal hit. I changed course. In part because of my uncle, and what he’d written, and what I took from it. It seemed like a summons: I felt he was commanding me—don’t waste your life; don’t put your faith in power; live for truth.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘That depends on your perspective. I look back now and find I don’t see that time clearly; it’s as if it was lived through on my behalf by someone else. I had to leave: get away—that was obvious. I knew the curator who’d looked after my uncle’s art: we spoke often in those days: I confided in him. He was well-connected; he pulled strings for me—he helped me into a place at the art school in Düsseldorf—the academy, the famous one, where Beuys and all the other sacred monsters used to prowl around. That seemed the right idea. Answer a death with new beginnings. I’d wanted to see the world in new ways. Free myself from everything unexamined that I’d learned: reject the passions of mankind. I travelled north: to my new home. I was out of luck! It was that time when the two Germanies were coming together. The academy was a madhouse of politics. The students there all knew my story. They treated me as though I came from tainted stock: either I was an eastern spy or an agent of western capital—or both at once.’

  ‘And you stayed on there, despite that?’

  ‘I kept to myself: I studied in art the way I used to study in the sciences. I made my artworks the way I used to run experiments. I was my own experiment: a project in self revision. No one among the professors there found anything I did of interest. But one good thing came from it. A wondrous thing. It opened up a new world for me. I was able to see Hombroich.’ He gave me a questioning look.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name,’ I said.

  ‘When I found my way there it seemed like the garden of delights—and I needed something to light up my world. I was lost in the academy. The only people I was at ease with were the technicians. One of them told me about a collector who’d bought an estate outside the city to house his art. Nothing special, I thought: that’s what all rich Germans do. Soon the whole of reunited Germany will be an archipelago of museums set up by millionaires who want to be remembered for somethin
g other than what they were. Just like the courts of baroque times: tiny kingdoms devoted to their own prestige and nothing else. “Remember who you’re talking to,” I told the technician: “I’m from the world of capital. I know the syndrome.” “Go and see before you write it off,” he said: “There’s nowhere like it. It’s called Hombroich. It’s still being developed: it has a purity about it. There are secrets there, if you have eyes to see them. Go.”

  ‘One weekend I did. It was January: ice on the roads; that ghastly yellow-grey sky you see in the depths of winter there. I found the site: surrounded by open fields; down narrow back roads—quiet. It was unattended—at least I saw no one there. I found a way in—steep metal steps down: a green expanse, a valley, sheltered, a stream flowing through it, meadows, trees, mist swirling everywhere, and rising up in that mist the shapes of buildings, strange shapes, a handful of them, like temples, each one geometric, each one with open doorways and wide windows that seemed to draw the landscape in. They were empty—the first few I saw—then I found others: a gallery that held abstract works, large canvases, all laid out on the concrete floor like stepping stones—and nearby another pavilion, high up, set apart: it was dank, and ill-lit—when I first went in it felt like a shrine or some freshly excavated ancient tomb. My eyes adjusted. I made out etchings and prints and paintings on its walls—hung in an odd way—in disorder—in mockery of order. New work by East German artists; old blurred photographs; Dutch treasures from the Golden Age. Was that what I was meant to see? Was that the secret my technician friend had been hinting at? An end to all hierarchies—art shown without context: art judged on its form alone. The logic of the place sank in on me: I stayed for hours, meandering, exploring, making new discoveries, losing my way. There were footbridges that led nowhere; forking paths that doubled back onto themselves—there was a portico that held Asian statues, a line of figures, staring out; they seemed at home, perfectly so: and beyond them, in the open, wooden sculptures, grouped together: suggestive, monumental—they looked like shapes found in nature: they may have been. And who was the collector, I asked myself: what scheme had guided him. Later, of course, I found the answers to my questions—but by then the questions hardly mattered. I knew what I’d seen there: it was a theory brought to life; it was the negative of Versailles and all the lovely gardens of the West. A garden where nature itself was the art form, and human art its frame.’

  As he was telling me this, one of the ferry boats from the far shore came into view. It was some way off; its course changed; it drew towards us. I followed it with my eyes.

  He continued speaking. His voice became insistent. ‘That’s when it came to me. When I understood the message in the note my uncle left. It was time for me to forget my own ambitions; let the four winds scatter them. The finest artwork I could ever make would be in nature. That was what lay ahead for me. That’s why I redesigned my life.’

  ‘All this from a single visit?’

  ‘It was an epiphany: it changed me, it struck through to my heart—to the centre of my being. It was given to me only when I was ready to receive it: I saw that nature’s patterns exceed ours: that’s the mystery at our beginning—and our end.’

  We could hear the ferry now: it slowed, and drifted in towards the pier: its engine made a grinding noise. My companion turned.

  ‘And here it is. The lake steamer from Meersburg: always without passengers—always perfectly on time. Ready to bear me away. See where it came from—over there—the haze, the clouds—there’ll be a storm this evening.’

  ‘Like the night Novogrodsky played,’ I said to him: ‘I’m sorry I brought out such sad memories in you.’

  ‘You’re wrong: Those were the golden times for me. The memories I treasure most. I’m grateful to you. Stories told to strangers are the best and richest.’

  I was about to speak: he held up his hand.

  ‘No farewells. Never farewells. We’ll say au revoir instead. Once you’ve come across someone you see them again and again. It’s pattern, not coincidence.’

  ‘That’s what you find?’

  ‘Always—people keep coming back to you—you can count on it.’

  And he climbed on board with light steps, looked round in my direction, then waved as the ferry made its slow turn from the pier and began to glide away. I drove to Konstanz down the coast road, my mind full: Bruno; Ady; the stranger, his tale, its music, the rhythms in his story: sounds, vistas, voices, little details—how much past we carry inside ourselves, I thought: that’s what memory really is: it’s weight, it pulls and pulls—and what would death be but that moment when the weight becomes too much, the self gasps and gives way. The sun was low by now, the light soft: here was the Rhine Bridge, rail and road together, the inner town ahead, the monastery hotel: how familiar it all was—I still knew the streets and one-way system, I even knew the short-cuts and the turns to make.

  I pulled up outside the hotel, took the last space in a row of Mercedes sedans and went in. A young man in a fine suit eyed me from behind the reception desk, and welcomed me in an unwelcoming way. I glanced around: the counter made from choir-stall wood, the arched windows, the cloister walk that led towards the guest rooms—I remembered them as well.

  ‘Here for the council, sir?’ he asked me, sounding sceptical.

  ‘The council?’

  ‘The council of European private banks.’

  ‘Actually no,’ I said, and thought I might have done well to say yes and go from there.

  ‘Reservation?’

  ‘No again.’

  ‘Your name?’

  I told him.

  ‘Unusual. Have you stayed with us before? It should be easy to find your details.’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Our record keeping’s excellent.’

  ‘I have no trouble believing that,’ I answered.

  He looked at his screen, typed, and made a slight whistling sound as he scrolled through. Then he stopped, a look of triumph on his face.

  ‘It was a while ago, for sure. Booked by a Madame Novogrodsky.’

  ‘That sounds right.’

  ‘On the account of her husband. The Novogrodsky—the conductor—can it be?’

  I nodded.

  His manner changed perceptibly. ‘How wonderful,’ he said: ‘We have a suite for you—with views across the lake. We’re happy you’ve come back to us. If there’s anything…’

  And so it went. A porter with dramatic features and long black hair appeared.

  ‘Raimundo will show you up—and even tell you something of the history of the building on the way, won’t you, Raimundo?’

  We walked along: down corridors, through the old cloister, past the high-vaulted breakfast room with frescoes on the walls. The porter began his narrative.

  ‘No need to worry about all that, Raimundo,’ I said to him.

  ‘It’s Ramun,’ he said, ‘if you want to be kind and human to me.’

  ‘A Romansh name?’

  He nodded his head: we had reached the room. The balcony’s French windows were open on the lake: it was almost sunset: the light had turned the water shades of gold and dazzling red.

  ‘How magnificent,’ I said, trying to sound appreciative.

  ‘You get used to it, I find,’ the porter said. ‘It’s like that almost every evening: a scene of blood and violence on the lake. Shall I turn the television on for you?’

  Without waiting for an answer he clicked the remote control and a vast screen sprang to life: a Swiss newsreader was staring intently out at us, his expression at once disarming and grave.

  ‘And now, if you don’t need anything else.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said: ‘Please: Ramun. Is there a news broadcast in Romansh?’

  He gave me a look of surprise. ‘Yes. Just for a few minutes every evening—round about now, as it happens—but it’s on another channel.’

  ‘Could you switch to it?’

  ‘You know Romansh?’

  ‘Not at all: I
wish I did. I used to hear it being spoken, when I was young. In hotels, for the most part, in the Engadine: and I heard people singing in it, praying in it—I loved listening to its sound; someone once told me it was the most beautiful of all languages, and if everyone spoke it there’d be no more wars in the world.’

  He smiled on hearing that. He clicked through the channels on the remote, then stopped: there was a picture of an arctic mountain range on the screen, and the soft sound of a man’s voice: blurry syllables, spoken fast.

  ‘Shall I translate for you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  He stood beside me, his manner serious, one hand to his chin, and began to whisper in my ear.

  ‘It’s a strange story: it’s about science. Scientists looking for rocks—in the Russian far east.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said, and in that moment distinctly heard the newsreader pronounce two place names that I knew: Magadan and Anadyr. ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘It’s complicated. I’m trying to understand.’

  Images appeared on the screen: a group of figures lined up in hiking clothes; a tracked vehicle plunging into a river; more mountains, again snow-covered; a sea coast; a piece of rock in close-up.

  ‘I think I see now,’ Ramun said: ‘Why are you interested in this?’

  ‘Tell me—before you forget.’

  ‘So: long ago, in Soviet times, explorers went out into the Koryak Mountains: to a river called Khatyrka—a remote place: deep in the wilderness.’

  ‘Yes—near Anadyr. And?’

  ‘They collected rock samples there: one in particular was something strange: something that seemed completely new. The rock was sold abroad: it was in a collection, in Italy, in a museum. There was a special kind of crystal in it—they call it quasicrystal now. They were a dream of science. No one thought they could be formed on earth. I’ll listen more.’

  There were interviews, brief, with voiceover, more narration, the sounds soft, elusive, running into each other—a further set of images, then, abruptly, the newsreader smiled and brought his hands together in front of him, a theme tune played: the program was at its end.