Red Heaven

by Nicolas Rothwell

  ‘They’re saying the rock came from a meteorite: a rare kind: older than the earth and all the other planets. At first it was a great mystery, a problem: where did the sample come from; how was it found. Then it turned into a detective story: a hunt: they traced the first prospector: he was in Moscow: he knew the site: he led an expedition back there: to the same Khatyrka river—western scientists—they were talking to them on the bulletin, about what they experienced: hard conditions; mosquitoes biting; bears prowling round—they dug and dug; they found more samples: everything confirmed the first ideas. It’s just been announced in scientific journals. Crystals of a new kind, that came from space; that date from the time before the earth was made.’

  He broke off.

  ‘That’s all they said?’

  ‘It’s not enough? Are you a scientist: a geologist?’

  ‘No,’ I answered: ‘Not at all. It’s just that story was like an echo of something that I heard once—a long while ago—and never thought I’d hear about again.’

  ‘I have to go back,’ he said: ‘I’m glad to have spoken to you.’

  ‘I’m glad to have heard you,’ I said: ‘Glad to have heard that news in such a perfect language.’

  He went. I looked out: the lake’s surface was deep grey now, the slate grey of an undeveloped film. I could make out a faint pulse of motion on the water—unending variations in a monotone. I watched until the dark had become absolute before surrendering to sleep.

  It was a bad night: broken, memory-laden dreams. Dawn approached: I watched the sun come up: after a decent interval I went downstairs and found a corner alcove in the breakfast room, drank coffee, and gazed up at the painted saints and bishops on the walls. There was a long table beneath the high window: a group of men, grey-haired, were occupying it, speaking softly to each other, making expressive gestures, their manner relaxed and elegant, their voices rising and falling in a rhythmic, pleasant hum. I glanced across at them: the private bankers—in their element: I was about to look away. I stopped. Could it be?

  I looked more closely: it was—my old friend David Blaize was there among them, seated at the head of the table, saying little, watching the movements of his companions, hands joined together as if in prayer. How long since I’d last been in touch with him? A year—more? The two of us had shared our schooldays, and our student life: there had never been a rift between us, or a slackening in our friendship, despite the different paths we followed: we saw each other often, on his travels or mine, but the meetings that seemed warmest were the handful that came about by pure chance. I smiled to myself as I watched him there—at which point he saw me, tilted his head back in a silent laugh, rose from the table, said something to the man beside him and made his way across.

  ‘I won’t say I’m astonished to see you here,’ he began: ‘Although any time you’re seen in Europe, any time you’re in a western city should be cause for amazement, shouldn’t it? You here—in the lost and drifting west, the home you won’t return to—but I’m not that surprised: I caught sight of you for a moment just the other day, at least I think I did—in Davos—at the summit.’

  ‘You were there? I didn’t see you—and I’m supposed to be a trained observer.’

  ‘Supposed being the operative word. I was keeping a low profile. I was advising the US delegation.’

  ‘You’re not American.’

  ‘Not in the strict sense of the term, no—but I am a financier; that seems to count as honorary citizenship in some circles over there.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘I doubt that, on the whole—but no matter. How relieved I am to see you again.’

  ‘You always say that—you even sound relieved—it’s as if you think we’re survivors of some dreadful conflict raging all around us: some nightmarish guerrilla war.’

  ‘But we are: surely you know that: our war against time. The invisible war. The war we’ll have to lose one day. Plans—for the morning?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Cancel them: I’ve got something better for you. An adventure.’

  ‘Your track record in that area hasn’t been that great in recent years, though, has it—if you think back? The car crash in Canyonlands; you losing our passports in Bogotá; and then there was the unfortunate episode in Yellowknife.’

  ‘Those were false adventures: what we used to think of as adventures—indulgent games, efforts at self-escape—not activities of self-fulfilment, not projects tied to what we need to experience: need to see and take in to ourselves. I mean a true adventure: a proper one; one fitting for you. You won’t regret it.’

  ‘This activity wouldn’t have any tie to art collecting, would it, by some strange chance?’

  ‘It might. You know it’s my religion, it’s what gives me the greatest joy I find in life.’

  ‘There’s no end to it—you don’t feel you’ve gone down that road far enough?’

  ‘There’s been a change. I’ve been rethinking things. Twombly died a year ago: I’m sure you heard. He meant a great deal to me. When that happened I couldn’t bear to have his paintings up: I realised that after death there has to be a period of eclipse: for the art as well. I looked around the rooms at home in Cologny: it was like being in a mausoleum: a shrine to the glorious dead. I decided on recalibration. I began giving my attention to a different kind of work. Precision, not expression: the modest and the grounded, not the wild sublime. A trend in keeping with the present. Art of rigour. Art that measures what we see of our world—that’s what I’m collecting now.’

  ‘Almost like starting again?’

  He agreed, but at that moment a tall figure wearing a bright red scarf came in, made his way over to the bankers at their table and joined them. He glanced around the room, spotted us and inclined his head in greeting. It was the man I had spoken with on the pier at Mainau: I looked across again: it was him.

  ‘Who’s that—the man with the scarf who just came in?’

  ‘Schoenfeld? He’s the chairman of our little group. Do you know him?’

  I explained. Blaize laughed.

  ‘And he said he was an ecologist? That’s amusing. He’s a good storyteller—and technically it’s true, in a distant kind of way: he runs an investment fund. It’s called Deep Chlorophyll. It makes money, that’s for sure.’

  ‘And did he have some connection to Amborn: Urs Amborn and his bank?’

  ‘That rings a bell.’

  ‘They were related.’

  ‘Most people are related to each other in some fashion in this milieu: it’s like a family—only with incest.’

  ‘And there was a scandal—and Amborn and his empire fell apart. You must know about it.’

  ‘No need to be quite so quick to judge: there was a re-engineering of assets. Amborn cut a few corners dealing with the East, that’s all. It was a long time ago. Scandals come along in banking; they serve their purpose, and then they go—into oblivion. It’s the norm. No one here’s completely innocent of financial sin.’

  ‘How reassuring,’ I said.

  Blaize ignored this. His expression changed. ‘I want to tell you something.’

  He fixed his eyes on me.

  ‘You sound serious.’

  ‘I am. Each time I’ve seen you in the last few years, I’ve thought the same thing. I’ve never told you—I’ve been a bad friend to you that way—but now I have the feeling the right time’s come.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You live like a nomad: still. Whenever I hear from you and hear where you are I can’t help thinking it shouldn’t be that way: with you always moving, always a stranger among strangers, taking hotels for your home.’

  ‘Why tell me now? You know it goes with the terrain: with what I do. And I seem to remember you living in a hotel once—it was a very extended stay.’

  ‘Three months in the Carlyle during a divorce isn’t the same thing as years at a stretch in Bangkok or Beirut.’

  ‘Your point?’

  ‘I do
n’t believe it’s chance when our paths cross, like this morning. I’ve never really believed in chance. Materialists don’t.’

  ‘Fate instead?’

  ‘I’ve come to think the pieces of a life join up as you live on—they start to make sense. You can read them.’

  ‘And mine say what?’

  ‘Listen to me. Take what I’m telling you to heart. I’m the only friend you have who knows what your life was like when we were at school together. Who it was that brought you up, and how. Those two old twisted gargoyles!’

  I looked up at him in surprise.

  ‘How strange,’ I said: ‘Strange you say this now.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘They’ve been in my thoughts—for the first time in ages. Because of where we are.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re always in your head: that’s exactly what they wanted. Remember: I saw you with them when they were in their glory—in full flight. They treated you as if you were clay for them to refashion in their own image. I know what they were—monsters of vanity and pride. Mesmerising ones, it’s true, with a glamour of a kind about them—but monsters just the same.’

  ‘You’re talking about the two people I loved most in the world.’

  ‘I’m afraid I know that too. I’ve always known it—I wish I didn’t have to say all this to you. I wish I didn’t have to bring them up at all. Are you actually going to disagree with my description of them?’

  ‘They were émigrés. Exiles: adrift in the world. They had the features of the breed. I can see what you’re building up to; what you’re going to tell me next: that I’m repeating the pattern of their lives; that I live like them; it’s years since they died—and I’m still under their spell. But it’s not true. They didn’t like the path I chose—they did everything they could to stop me. There were showdowns: dreadful scenes. I almost had to break with them—in a sense I did. Nothing was ever quite the same afterwards. You didn’t hear about any of that when it was happening. You were living in Hong Kong—remember?’

  ‘I remember what it cost you. You think you won that struggle: I think they did. They live on in you. You’re a bird of passage, just the way they were. That’s their legacy to you—your inheritance. I’m right about them, and you know it.’

  ‘I certainly can’t fault you for lack of candour, Blaize,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a sad smile. I know you so well—but when we talk like this I realise you don’t want to know yourself.’

  ‘It’s not the task of a storyteller to know himself—but to see and describe others.’

  ‘In seeing other people you reflect yourself.’

  ‘You undo yourself.’

  At this he laughed his silent laugh again, and shook his head.

  ‘No comeback to that! What an exchange. Down to bedrock. Let’s make tracks.’

  He led the way outdoors.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Jump in,’ he said.

  ‘Into this? Seriously?’

  He was standing by a sleek sports car. Its top was down: he rested one hand on the steering wheel, swung his legs over the low door into the driver’s seat and eased himself in.

  ‘Plenty of room. Like it? I had a gull-wing for a while last year, but it was just impossible: everywhere I drove I was afraid of damaging it—it was like owning a Fabergé egg and taking it out on the road. This one’s another story: spare parts are easy: you can drive as you like—do what you want.’

  ‘Has it been in many accidents?’

  ‘Nothing major—not as yet.’

  He reversed back, twirled the wheel, sped out onto the main road, just missed a truck coming in the opposite direction and eased into the far lane.

  ‘See—handles well. I bought it for my new wife, actually, as a wedding present; just for when we’re at the summer house at Annecy. But she didn’t like it: she thought it was too small, too petite: she said she was afraid her long hair would get caught up in the wheels and she’d be strangled, like Isadora Duncan: involuntary suicide.’

  ‘A joke?’

  ‘In bad taste—but that’s one of her special charms. You’ll take to her: she’s intoxicating. She’s lovely.’

  ‘What happened to the last one?’

  ‘You know these kinds of marriages aren’t meant to be permanent. They’re more like chapters in a life. Friendships are what stay; loves and passions, they go. Each new marriage comes from a shift in sensibility.’

  ‘It’s that clear-cut with you?’

  ‘Absolutely—they point to a prevailing cast of mind: a philosophy, even. You see that all the time with artists: new wife, new style. Marriages work for a period, then they don’t—the mist of the initial strangeness starts to rise—the flaws in the compact become clear.’

  We were in open country now: he accelerated past a line of trucks.

  ‘So wonderful—pure sensation—the wind of life. Don’t you find that? Or are you still annoyed because of what I said?’

  He turned in his seat to look at me.

  ‘I’d watch the traffic,’ I replied: ‘Where are we going, anyway? We’re on the slow road along the shore. It’ll take us to St. Gallen in the end: no mysteries or surprises for us there.’

  ‘Relax. We’re headed into an image: I’ll explain when we arrive. For now—take a look.’

  He handed me his mobile.

  ‘See. That’s it. Check it out. Right there—yes—you’re looking at it: it’s my screensaver.’

  ‘A square of grey and white: a horizontal line. Not much to respond to.’

  ‘Look properly: examine it, look into its texture—don’t pretend to be a philistine. We’ll be there soon. I promise you: the journey’s worth it. It’s a journey into depth. I was going to bring Sylvie here to see—but she decided at the last minute to stay behind. I like that—having space: having a wife who gives one space.’

  ‘That’s why you married her?’

  ‘No—I married her because she looked so much like Proust’s Odette.’

  ‘Truthfully? She reminded you of a fictional character?’

  ‘Odette was real to me: and I know what she looked like.’

  ‘Real enough to me, too: but a thousand readers could have a thousand different images of her: otherwise what’s the point in fiction? You might as well give up and go to arthouse movies instead.’

  ‘But you’re wrong! Completely—Odette’s described: it’s specific—there’s no room left for the imagination—none. The second time Swann calls on her at home she’s unwell, she receives him in a gown of crepe de chine, she looks at him with those great eyes of hers that seem so tired and sullen when there’s nothing new around to light them up, and he’s struck by her resemblance to Botticelli’s Zipporah in the Sistine Chapel—and in that moment he falls in love with her: he’s lost. Hold on!’

  He braked hard, and swung the car into a sharp turn onto a side road. ‘We’re close now. You’ll see what I’m talking about with your own eyes. It began in Luzern, of all places: three years ago: I was at a meeting of prime lenders: it was a wasted day—problems kept piling up. I turned it over to my number two, and walked out: along the waterfront, across the bridge towards the station. The sun was down below the mountains—it was almost dark, but the modern-art museum was still open: it gleamed in the murk, it looked inviting. I went up: there was a retrospective of an artist I’d heard of, but never given much attention—a Japanese artist: Sugimoto—Hiroshi Sugimoto—you probably know all about him.’

  ‘Just the name.’

  ‘That was how it was for me too until that day. The galleries were empty. I wandered in, thinking to myself: More photographic art, I can’t bear this kind of thing, its limits and its archness and artifice—and that mood stayed with me for the first few minutes I was there. I went striding through, my thoughts and prejudices all in place, my eyes casual, my mind judging and rejecting everything I saw—then I came to a corner gallery with a single framed photograph on the wall facing me: black and white; a
large square, bisected by a line dividing two fields of different greys, the image blurred—or so I thought. It held me: I looked and looked—from near—from far away. I realised then it was in focus: perfect focus—it was an image of indistinctness, of mist and blur, of optical effects. Yes, yes, I told myself as I was looking, staring: it’s clear—I understand it, it’s a depiction of the uncertainties in image-making, it’s a reflection of the viewing eye: the elements are clear enough—light and dark, distance and nearness, the now and the eternal, clarity and delusion—every trite dichotomy the experts of the art world could list for you at a moment’s notice. Those were my thoughts—but what I felt then was quite different. Horizon, line, the pale, shining light—it was our movement through time: our trajectory. The mystery: in a single diagram. Beyond me; familiar—as if I’d seen it in my dreams a million times. I looked at the wall text beside the work. I thought that might anchor it somehow; explain away its impact. The image dated from years earlier: it was a view of the sea taken in Cassis, of all places.

  ‘I stepped back: tears were running down my cheeks. I tried to dab them away. “Is something wrong, sir,” said a voice from close beside me: “Some misfortune?” It was a gallery attendant: a young woman in uniform, looking up at me. “Forgive me,” I said: “I thought I was alone here.” “Nothing to be forgiven for.” I took a step away, and tried to compose myself. She followed me, and stood at my shoulder again. “We’re closing soon,” she said, almost whispering: “I have to escort you out.” “Leave me in here,” I said: “Please.” “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she answered: “The management wouldn’t like that very much. You understand, don’t you?” “Maybe I could buy the work,” I said then, and realised how ridiculous that sounded. She smiled. “Maybe you could,” she replied: “But not this evening.” We walked out together through the galleries, and down in the elevator: out into the cold. “I too find it an image that stirs up deep feelings,” she said then: “None of our visitors seem to notice it or pay any attention to it. I spend hours in that corner space alone.” I went on my way along the darkened street. It was raining: I walked back to the hotel, unsure of quite what had happened to me. I’d never had that kind of reaction to a work of art before. Can you believe it? Me: the man of confidence and certainty: me—the king of arbitrage—the empire builder: subjugated—lost for words before a photograph of nothing—on my knees before an image a child could have made.’