The light up there was pulverised; it was dust. The Tiber below Haffner was sluggish mud. A breeze made the leaves on the poplars silver themselves. Their pollen floated whitely on to the ground.
And Haffner looked down on the ruined, eternal city. It was the ruins, considered Haffner, which were precisely what was eternal.
Yes, this seemed to be Haffner’s pattern.
Up from Anzio, before they reached Rome, they had ended up sleeping in the grounds of Ninfa. At that time, Haffner had not been horticultural. He had not admired the romantic unkempt wilderness. Kept awake by mosquitoes, Haffner instead found himself oppressed by the death of kings.
The gardens of Ninfa were built on the ruins of Ninfa – a town which had been sacked by its neighbours in the thirteenth century. The basilica had once held the coronation of a pope: now it was a dismantled heap of stones. Then, in the twentieth century, the town had been made into a true romantic garden: a meditation on the ruins of time. But Haffner had been troubled. There was no romance for him in ruins. They made him sad. Although this sympathy could so easily have been a more inward form of sympathy: Haffner’s empathy for himself. In these cities’ destruction, he only saw the futility of Haffner. The hollowness of Haffner.
—I will be remembered, he once told me, for my after-dinner speeches.
And then he paused.
—But that’s worth nothing, he said.
And then Haffner smiled, glorious in the knowledge of his defeat.
6
Awkwardly, Haffner unfolded himself upright, via the rim of the bath, then the rim of the basin. He looked around – at the emptying swirl of the water, the deliquescent towels on the soaked mat. His masculine cologne was sitting on the shelf, its bottle embossed with a white tear of toothpaste foam. The toothpaste itself lay there, its tail twisted like a comma – like a fortune-telling miracle fish: its red plastic curled into the sign for passion, for jealousy, for sadness. The scenes of pleasure usually ended up this wasted, like the hotel in Venice where Haffner and the girl who had chosen him from his perch at the bar proceeded to order a feast of room service, one bottle and dish at a time, delighted by the maid’s growing confusion between curiosity and distaste.
You should be happy for the things you get, Mama had said. No man should think he could have more than the Lord intended. So Haffner was humble. For at least the worship of women was a brave and noble aim.
Methodically, he laid out the full range of his medicines, in preparation for the night ahead. They included pills to combat the intensity of his blood pressure, pills to lower the ratio of bad cholesterol to good, antidepressants. Then the more soothing medicines: the ones to relieve Haffner’s body of pain; the ones to make him sleep.
He picked up the wet towels, scented with Zinka’s body. Then she appeared in the doorway.
Did he want to walk her home? asked a clothed and beautiful version of Zinka. To which a reduced version of Haffner wailed in response that the idea that he should ever be parted from her oppressed him with an absolute melancholy. If this miniature Haffner were to be allowed to rule reality, they would never be parted.
So Haffner said yes; and went out with his chaperone into the midsummer night.
Haffner Buoyant
1
To kiss a girl’s knee, while on one’s own knees, might have seemed, to the outside observer, a little pitiable, thought Haffner. To the outside observer, it might well have seemed to indicate some incipient breakdown. But Haffner tended to disagree. He admired the effects. The sound and light. The softly spattered fireworks above the ruined chateau: the fading and luminous palm fronds, thistles, water lilies in the sky.
For Haffner was in love.
They had left the lake behind; and the park, with its watchful factories. In what looked, to Haffner’s bourgeois eye, like a shanty town, a tzigane was carrying a blue gas canister and a gold can of beer, following the dug-out route of a possible but phantom pipeline. Then they found themselves in another, less private park. It was a shortcut, said Zinka. At the centre of this park was a boating lake, embossed with a fountain, a fraying plume of foam. The rowing boats by the side of the lake crossed their arms neatly; the pedalos were chained together, clopping. Yes, there they were, at midnight: with the monuments to the source of the river; the monument to the unknown soldier. All the angels in stone, their wings in imitation of the earthly wings of pigeons.
Haffner’s knees, aching from their bathtime antics, made walking difficult for Haffner. As they passed a sinuous bench, he asked if they could sit down, just for a moment.
—Not yet, she said. Not yet.
He was so old. And Zinka was so young. These facts were undeniable. But Haffner did not care. He looked at her, she smiled and Haffner did not care if this girl were using him; if she looked on him as an old fool. He was an old fool. There was no shame in that.
—How old am I? asked Zinka.
—Thirty? hazarded Haffner, baffled utterly.
—So old? said Zinka, disappointed.
—I was wrong? asked Haffner.
—A little, said Zinka.
And she, beckoning to tired Haffner, began to climb some small and artificial hill. Wincing, Haffner followed her. They sat for a while, to ease Haffner’s legs, in the bandstand. But no band could stand this bandstand – thought Haffner. Dejectedly he regarded the signs of a struggle, a flight in haste: two condoms; a cigarette packet and its scattered assortment of butts, some blushing with lipstick, some not; a bottle of beer, without any beer. He looked out over the landscape.
From this point, perched on an artificial mound, Haffner saw the fields outside the city; the yellow rape fields, now blue in the dark, against which were dabbed the cypresses’ black Japanese brushmarks.
From here, Zinka told him, she was fine. She was just in that apartment block – the one he could see, on the other side of the park. Haffner slowly nodded. She kissed him goodbye on his cheek.
Around him clouded his life: its particles – as usual – suspended, motionless. He hardly knew where he was: or to whom he belonged.
2
But no, just right now, I’m not quite in the mood for Haffner, and his confusions. Instead, I am into the different confusions of Zinka.
For Haffner suspected that to Zinka it was simply a matter of the usual story: an old man being used by a young girl. But this, I think, was not fair to the complicated romance of Zinka.
He was, thought Zinka, the first man she had ever met who enjoyed it when she teased him. He did not mind when one praised him for the smallness of his hands. He did not mind when you asked him to follow you, when you refused him the kisses you knew he wanted from you.
To Zinka, Haffner represented freedom. He had a politesse which she admired. This would have seemed unlikely to the women who had known the previous incarnations of Haffner: the forgetter of birthdays and anniversaries, the man incapable of returning a phone call. But maybe Zinka was not so wrong.
In front of her apartment block there was a water feature which she had never seen working: in its trough lay a ready-made of garbage. So she looked up instead, at the giant advert covering her balcony: the manic woman, the manic birds.
He didn’t need his pride. This, she thought, was why she liked him. At last, she had discovered a relationship which could be improvised by Zinka.
And as Zinka went into the kitchen, to find some food – emerging with a packet of crisps – above her hovered the moon, the clouds in a cirrus formation which watched over the buildings with their scaffolding, their satellite dishes and air-conditioning units, the adverts (Heineken: Meet You There), the raised blinds and the shut blinds: all the domestic paraphernalia.
She turned back the two folding doors to the television. She switched on some form of American TV. A baseball star was showing the camera crew round his house. They were approaching the bedroom.
He was going to say, thought Zinka, that this was where the magic happened.
She reach
ed in the packet for some crisps; her fingers emerged empty, but dandruff ‘d with salt.
—This is where the magic happens, said the baseball star.
And Zinka marvelled, silently, looking out at the suburbs by night, through the advert’s gauze: wishing she could have told someone. First, she thought of Niko. But she wasn’t sure Niko would understand any humour, let alone hers. And then she thought of Haffner.
And there she paused.
On the packet of her paprika crisps, a slice of potato with arms and legs beckoned to her with delirious eyes.
3
Alone in the midsummer night, Haffner had wandered off towards the hotel – on a road marked only by stray houses, then a Service Auto, beside a shop which seemed to sell the million varieties of cigarette, displayed behind glass cases, like extinct species of insect. Then a pizza place. And then a strip joint.
The twenty-four-hour bar (Service Non-stop!) into which Haffner descended, down a steep flight of stairs, was apparently in its busiest period. A group of possibly Polish truckers and a couple of policemen off duty made up the front row. Behind them, amphitheatrically, were ranged an assortment of men.
Haffner, however, wasn’t here for the men.
He watched the women extend their legs around a stainless steel pole. He observed the way their breasts fell forward, elongated pyramids, as they leaned over – touching their toes in some strange imitation of an eighties aerobics routine, without the pink leg warmers, the turquoise sweatbands.
Then, in the crowd, Haffner recognised Niko: Zinka’s boyfriend. He felt a descending qualm, a chime inside his chest. Niko gestured to him, warmly. He wanted him, it seemed, to join Niko’s group. Haffner wondered about this.
He decided he had no choice.
—You all speak English? said Haffner to Niko.
—Of course we speak English. Fuck you, said Niko.
—That’s a good accent you’ve got, said Haffner.
—Merci, said Niko.
It was the world of men.
—This man, said Niko, he look after my mad girl tonight. She bored you?
—No no, said Haffner, brightly.
—Yes, she bored you, said Niko. It’s OK. We all understand. And everyone, including wistful Haffner, laughed.
—You want to play a trust game? said Niko. It is what we are doing. You can zip the person next to you – zip zip. Only zap the person across from you.
—No, said Haffner.
—Zap, said Niko.
—You mean zip, said Haffner.
—Yes, said Niko.
—Can we stop this? asked Haffner.
On stage, a girl was now entirely naked, apart from a pair of translucent platform heels, on which she was balancing with a grace and ease which charmed old Haffner’s heart. But not Niko’s. She lacked flair, he argued. If, however, Haffner wanted her . . . He indicated that he had not finished his sentence. Haffner, however, was beyond the innuendos now. The masculine, and its zest for the tight-lipped, no longer charmed him.
He sadly nodded no.
—This is what you are here for? asked Niko.
Wearily, Haffner explained that, in fact, it was not why he was here. Or not officially. Nor primarily. Haffner was in this town to secure his heritage, his inheritance. He was here to do honour to his wife.
Angrily, he began a tirade against the state. He could not understand it. The bureaucracy bewildered him. It demeaned the human spirit. Why did no one seem to care? What, he asked Niko, did you have to do in this country to get anything done? He only wanted what was his due. He was hardly demanding the moon.
—You know, said Niko, I like you.
—I like you too, said Haffner.
—Yes, I like you, said Niko, then wandered off, leaving Haffner with Niko’s friends, who did not seem to share his pure love of Haffner.
4
Ignored, listening to Niko’s friends talk freely about him in a language he could not understand, Haffner sat and watched the women. If these men wanted to mock him, then so be it. He could do abasement. The silent pattern of his life had been delicately training him, thought Haffner, for these moments of humiliation. Like the time when he came home to discover that his father had sold all his bar mitzvah presents, arguing that they only took up space in the house, declining to discuss the possibility that he was going to use the money for some selfish gain. Yes, Raphael Haffner was used to the destruction of his hopes.
Then Niko came back.
—You want this place? said Niko. Maybe we can do this for you. But it costs.
—I’m sorry? said Haffner.
—You want this place? said Niko.
—I don’t understand, said Haffner.
He understood, of course, that Niko had a proposal. It wasn’t the deal which was beyond him. It was the fact that Niko seemed to think he could effect such a deal: this was beyond the limits of Haffner’s scepticism.
—Simple, said Niko.
He began to explain. It all depended on knowing the right people; and Niko knew the right man. It was not so difficult. It all depended on the right things getting into the right hands.
—You are not from here, said Niko.
This was just the way things were. Everyone knew how this worked. Either you could go through the ordinary ways of doing things, or you could enter the speed road. It was just a question of speed. Then the papers could get handed over, and the villa would belong to Haffner. The wheels would be oiled.
—No questions ask, said Niko.
There was a pause. In this pause, Haffner considered the perfect bodies of imperfect women.
—I am your patron, said Niko.
—Cash? asked Haffner, suspicious.
—Cash, said Niko. You crazy or what?
Niko didn’t really understand, he said, why Haffner needed any more detail at all. He only needed to know this. If he was so impatient.
—I’m not impatient, said Haffner.
If he were so impatient, said Niko, then things could be worked out. He had seen this problem before. He knew how to fix it.
Haffner had to understand, said Niko, that it was still the same people in charge. Yes, Niko knew what had happened. Haffner’s papers would be sitting there, ignored, in someone’s office. Just waiting for a reason to be dealt with.
—Let me think about it, said Haffner.
And as he tried to balance his doubts as to Niko’s efficacy – his general untrustworthiness, the danger of relying too much on a man whom he had spied on only the night before, and whose girlfriend had so recently been soaping herself in Haffner’s bath – against the obvious benefit of having, as he used to say, a man on the ground, Haffner excused himself: desperate to find a toilet, a cubicle where Haffner could think.
But reality continued to pursue him. He took a few steps, into a corridor which bore graffiti, torn posters, an exhibition of faulty plumbing. Then all the lights went out.
And Haffner was in the dark.
5
Practical, Haffner told himself that he mustn’t get this wrong: he didn’t want to lose his way. To his surprise, in a basement, in a bar, in a wasteland, he found himself wishing he had the practical wisdom of Frau Tummel. He stopped. He considered this thought.
To whom was Haffner loyal? It seemed unsolvable. There seemed so many ways for Haffner to demonstrate his disloyalty. Livia, the obvious candidate, was so fluently replaced by all her avatars, her rivals.
In the dark, Haffner edged his way along the wall – his hand extended, palm flat: directing invisible traffic. Distant whoops of masculine joy reached him from the main area, whoops which were tinged, now, for Haffner, with a poignancy. It seemed unlikely he would ever see humans again. Then suddenly the wall gave way, as it transformed itself into a door. Haffner peered into the black. Soothing plashings from what he thought could be urinals echoed throughout the room. Was this a bathroom? wondered Haffner. He could not be sure. It might have been, for instance, the hideout of the janitor.
Then he discovered one tiled wall. It decided Haffner on the question of a bathroom. Where else did one find ceramic? He ignored, for instance, the possibilities of storerooms, the opportunities of kitchens. Facing this wall, Haffner stood, unbuttoned his fly, and began the lengthy process of unburdening himself – telling himself that, after all, it wasn’t as if Haffner disliked the dark. Bourgeois he may have been, but Haffner wasn’t spoiled. He started working at Warburg’s in the winter of 1946: the nightmarish winter, when the electrics failed and everyone in the City worked by candlelight. The clerks sat with their feet encased in typewriter covers stuffed with newspaper – gigantic and ineffectual slippers, improvised snowshoes. That spring, the streets were still a mess of rubble sprouting woodland plants – ragwort, groundsel. The dark had nothing on Haffner.
When he emerged, the lights were still not on. Now, however, a selection of torches had been discovered, and lighters, and solitary candles. A man was savagely strumming an acoustic guitar.
—Like a refugee camp? Niko breathed into Haffner’s startled ear.
Haffner stared at him.
—So wonderful, no? said Niko.
Haffner looked around. In chiaroscuro, a girl was holding a flash-light above her head, like a handheld shower. In the sway of its light, she was dancing. As the light swayed, her breasts swayed with it. Another girl was on all fours, while a man mimicked the act of whipping her: his whip ascending in flourishes, an undulant lasso. The shadows made momentary blindfolds on the man’s face; or the girls acquired sudden grimaces, as if from the painted masks of Venice, which Haffner had looked at, in wonder, in 1952, at the carnival with Livia – while she began to cry beside him, describing the carnivals she had seen before the war. Which seemed so long ago, she said. And already, at this point, Haffner had considered if he could ever leave Livia – because this was how he tested all his affections, by imagining him leaving them behind – and had realised that, for him, it was unimaginable. She was the only person he would never leave.
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