Making Things Better

by Anita Brookner

  He went out into the cold Sunday streets, deaf now to what he might hear. He would not go to Bonn. This decision had been made without his active participation. He would write back, not with reassurance but with fellow feeling. He would offer advice, though what she wanted was practical help, and even more than that, partisanship. But in Chiltern Street, in Paddington Street, in Nottingham Place, in Spanish Place, in George Street, where he had walked so many times, the mournful emptiness reminded him of a long-desired companionship, no less sweet for being the construct of his own faltering heart.

  14

  ‘Dearest Fanny,’ he wrote, ‘My former wife, a nice woman, recently told me that she had formed an attachment to a man, whom, I surmised, she hardly knew. She told me this prudently, but her eyes were sad, from which I deduced that she had fallen in love, one of those unforeseen episodes that are so disastrous at our age. I could easily sympathize for I know the symptoms, that eagerness which reawakens the eagerness that lies dormant in each of us and which we remember from our youth. It is that eagerness that sends us out so willingly in the morning and which furnishes our dreams at night. I imagined her, living her rather boring days in the anticipation of a meeting, never scheduled, deliciously postponed, until the reappearance of this man, framed in her doorway, would let her know that she had not been mistaken, that there was something there that existed in reality, and not just in her imagination.

  ‘In the end she did a brave and dignified thing: she went away. I thought that I was doing such a brave and dignified thing when I left you in Nyon, although in fact I had little choice. I remember urging Josie, my wife, to stand her ground, and now I see that I was talking to myself. I should not have left matters as they stood in Nyon. I should have insisted, if not at that particular moment, then later. I should have defied you (and your mother) and returned time and time again to argue my case. Even a woman such as yourself, quiescent, must have been bored without male companionship, or if not companionship, for you had that of a kind, the homage and protection that only a man can give. You would have respected me if I had insisted on the rights of my claim, even if I failed to interest you as a man.

  ‘I doubt that you were ever in danger of losing your dignity, as Josie, my wife, was. She explained to me that she thought herself beyond the age of physical love, not because such impulses had left her—on the contrary—but because she was aware that she stood to lose too much by revealing herself as an ageing woman to a man who was, she said, attractive. Her decision was heroic, but I think wrong. I now see that dignity has little to do with the affections, which are all too often inappropriate. I made the same mistake, which proves, bizarrely, that once again Josie and I thought along similar lines. I never really had thoughts of making love to you, for that would have been beyond my expectations. I should have fared better by treating you as I would any other woman; instead I lavished respect on your so complacent person, thinking you too fine to entertain any gross feelings. Who knows? You might have enjoyed a rather more undisguised approach, though somehow I doubt that you would have appreciated it for what it was.

  ‘I had always thought you a rare creature, so beautiful and so confident that you could make your own choices. Now I see you rather more clearly. Others made choices for you, and you accepted them, reserving your will for whatever actions might be demanded of you in the name of survival. It should not be forgotten that we were both exiles at this stage, and that this condition presupposes a certain caution, a certain good behaviour. I thought that I had behaved well, as well as I could in the circumstances. I was, as always, humbled by your assurance, so very different from my own anxieties. Quite simply, I did not see how I could ever be good enough for you. All this, you remember, against a background of teacups and the first aperitifs, with people coming and going, in an atmosphere of easy living, the unreal ambience fostered by hoteliers all the world over. I am ashamed to say that I felt humbled by this too, but most of all by the fact that you seemed to belong so naturally in this particular setting. I had in mind, you see, my own particular circumstances, which at that time were uncomfortable: cramped living quarters, parents for whom I was responsible, the sort of employment you would have found unacceptable in anyone you knew, let alone a husband. But with hindsight I see that none of this was irreversible. I should have left home, sought other work, allowed my parents to sort out their own destiny without my help. I believe that your own parents disliked my mother, and even I can see that they were partly justified in their dislike, which I came to inherit. It was the imprinting of those early attitudes that led to our perceptions of each other, as, on the one hand, superior, and on the other so markedly inferior as not to be taken into consideration. This is the curse that families hand on to their offspring. I regret most bitterly that I was not able to overcome this particular constraint, to overturn this particular verdict. But neither were you. You had simply never exercised your judgement, and now I think, and indeed see, that your judgement has always been in default. The letter you recently wrote me supplies proof of that, if additional proof were needed.

  ‘I returned to London believing that I had done all that could be done. I was all too ready to concede the charms of your life in Nyon, which I could appreciate for myself, in that brief interval before catching my train to Geneva. The air was softer than London air could ever have been, the simple gestures of greeting that even I encountered were more benign than any I had ever experienced. Since leaving you there my life has been dull, for I knew that I had avoided the supreme emotional challenge: that of getting my will to conquer yours. I now see that this need not have been as difficult as I thought it was then. Your letter makes clear that you are still enough of a woman to seek a man’s support, though what you ask of me now is ludicrous. I cannot, I think, come to Bonn. What would I do there? My German is now rusty, and somehow I do not see myself making representations to a German lawyer. And I do not know that I want to see you as you must be now. I would rather remember you as that lovely girl, whose dark beauty aroused suspicions in easily influenced minds. You are now as old as I am, within a year or two. Josie, my wife, told me that women have more to fear from age than men do, but this I doubt. From middle age onwards all is loss, unless one has children. This, I believe, is where we both failed. With only our own welfare to preoccupy us how could we not go wrong?

  ‘I understand now the tricks that Nature plays, how we can be awakened in spite of ourselves, and to our very great detriment. Love can strike at any time, as Josie, my wife, made plain. I find myself thinking of her so much these days, rather more so, in fact, than I think of you. Yet you remain an image in my mind, an icon, if you like, indistinguishable from the buoyant Berlin air, or the soft penumbra surrounding the lake in Nyon. You will always be young to me, and perhaps I prefer to keep you that way. I am shocked to say that as an elderly German lady you have little interest for me. I can imagine you all too clearly, for I have an ancestral memory of such women, as you have. You may even have lost your looks, and I should find that too cruel to contemplate. No doubt you have only the haziest memory of myself, and as little interest in my life as I have in yours. And yet my imagination—and your letter—furnish certain details which I am obliged to consider. The house in Poppelsdorf I can picture easily. It is far more difficult to come to terms with the decline in your fortunes, for which you make your husband responsible. I would wish you to be cocooned in your original arrogance, and I dare say you have managed to retain a good part of that, just as you have managed to retain your assets. Yet you are anxious lest these should be taken away from you; you even invoke my help after so many years of absence. Your letter reflects anxiety on your own behalf, not on anyone else’s. That too I find entirely characteristic.

  ‘Let me explain to you how I live. I have a very small flat in central London, in a district which no longer interests me. I have an old person’s preoccupations: my health, my ability to endure the general uncertainty that life today generates. Sooner or lat
er, and I think sooner rather than later, I must look for somewhere else to live. My days are spent in decorous pursuits, or perhaps they merely used to be: I read a lot (and you really should try Buddenbrooks again), sometimes go and look at pictures. Such harmless activities do not preclude the promptings of utter folly, to which one somehow succumbs. This is where I come back to Josie, my wife, and her wisdom in removing herself from such temptations. And yet I still see this as the greater of two evils. I believe—I am even ready to concede—that Nature knows best, however much we are humiliated in her remorseless process. I have never doubted that we were put on earth to provide amusement for the gods, for there is too much proof of this cruel joke to be ignored. In this sense you are no worse off than I am. Of course I appreciated your letter, on many levels, I may say. But you should know, dear, that I am no longer susceptible. What moves me now is that same Nature that has deprived us, you and I, of our beauty. I can respond to a flower, a child, to the all too rare sun, as I can no longer respond to a woman. This is all loss, for memory persists in providing the details. But I must accept this, as you must. Let me hear from you again. As a persistent reader I long to know the rest of the story. And in spite of everything I still love you. I always shall. You are part of my life. If I came to you now I should not come as a stranger (I could never be that) but as a man who has known many defeats and who has somehow survived them. I shall advise you as best I can, of course, but do not be surprised by my apparent coldness. As is stated in one of the many great books you have not read, if I were to see you again no good would come of it. Despite my defences, acquired with such difficulty, through such hardship, I might fall in love with you all over again. It is better that I remain your affectionate cousin, Julius Herz.’

  He read his letter through, tore it up, and started again. ‘My dear Fanny,’ he wrote. ‘How delightful to hear from you and to have an address for you at last. You will see that I too have moved, but may not be here much longer. Should we not meet to discuss these and other matters? Unfortunately I cannot come to Bonn, but we can choose some halfway house where we can be at our ease. What about the Beau Rivage? I remember that you found this comfortable, and I was favourably impressed during the brief time I spent there. The weather here is harsh, as it always is in the early days of spring. Of course it will still be cold in Nyon, but we should be well looked after in the hotel. Let me know when you would be free to meet me there, the sooner the better, I think, as unfortunately our time is not unlimited. You can leave everything to me: all you have to do is buy your ticket. You have my telephone number now. I expect a call from you when you receive this letter. It will be good to see you again after this long time. Your affectionate cousin, Julius Herz.’

  This suggestion had come into his mind quite involuntarily, but once accepted bloomed magically into something like action. He and she would meet at the Beau Rivage, for an unspecified length of time. He could see no reason why they should ever leave. Would that not be an answer to his problem, if not to hers? When and if their sojourn came to an end he would send her back to Bonn and her machinations with a clear conscience, having done his best to advise her, if this were possible. And he would also do his best to steer her off the subject, trying once more, and no doubt in vain, to establish an intimacy which he had always imagined would be possible, given the right circumstances. In the hushed and discreet atmosphere of the hotel she would surely lose her sense of grievance, while he, having recovered a long-lost equanimity, would walk by the lake, with no plans for the day ahead, no tedious routines which he would be obliged to observe, no halfhearted contacts with people he hardly knew, no careful preparations for meals he no longer wanted to eat. He disliked hotels, but this was not the kind of functional establishment he was used to, the normal background to his wistful holidays. This was a luxury pit-stop for wealthy transients, mild businessmen, divorcées, contented tourists of the type he had never found it possible to emulate. Why, in fact, should he ever leave? This idea, equally involuntary, possessed him with a brief excitement. An unlikely answer to his present problems, which he had taken no steps to resolve, he envisaged, if not permanence, at least a long absence. Once there, and becalmed, as he somehow knew he should be, he would allow himself to be absorbed into the surroundings, would recover his dignity, would realize his destiny as an exile, and perhaps acknowledge the rightness of the solution. He would wean Fanny from her preoccupations, fashion her into the companion of his dreams. Memory and increasing familiarity would make this easy. And there would be a face opposite his at the tea-table, the dinner-table, mild remarks of no consequence to be exchanged, excursions to be undertaken, an illusion of symbiosis, the symbiosis he had always sought. They would be regarded as a couple, yet be spared intimacy and the embarrassments of physical closeness. He could clearly see rooms on the same corridor, but not adjacent. Thus dignity would be maintained, the kind of dignity that had so recently deserted him. He would be retired at last, would attract respect, if only of the kind that could be adequately remunerated. And his home would dwindle into something he had once known, while the lake shore would take its place, as if he had always had it in reserve as a suitable setting for his last years. Here he might find peace, certainly a degree of amusement, for Fanny would just as certainly supply that. She took her place in his mental landscape, no longer prominent, as he had always fashioned her, but as just another acquaintance, whom it would interest him to rediscover. She too would dwindle, for the girl, the woman he had loved, would be no more important than himself. After this long parenthesis he would at last occupy his proper place.

  Since the whole project appeared to have been encoded somewhere in his consciousness, without the active participation of his will, he accepted it as inevitable. Seized with a sudden excitement he began to make plans that would have been inconceivable only a few hours earlier. He would let the flat, would come back to it only to make arrangements for its ultimate disposal. Or he would return to it in a few weeks, knowing that he had the power of choice. He would give Bernard Simmonds power of attorney, instructing him to defray his expenses from funds he would leave in his account. In time, if that moment were to be reached, Simmonds could liberate the flat and its contents. As if acting on this assumption he opened all the drawers of his desk, pulled out the sheaves of accumulated papers, and destroyed them, leaving only the photographs as relics of a life that was no longer relevant. He was not even surprised that he felt so little attachment to his previous existence, though he knew that at the moment of departure mute objects would exert an appeal that he might find it difficult to withstand. He felt a physical lightness, as if he had shed a burden. Only one more thing, or rather one real thing, remained to be done. He took up his pen again. ‘Dearest Josie,’ he wrote. ‘I may be going away for a little while. Don’t be alarmed if you cannot reach me. Bernard Simmonds will have your affairs in hand, and your allowance will be paid for as long as you need it. This is a somewhat unexpected departure, but I feel the need of a change. I hope you are well, and not too lonely so far from London. I find it difficult to imagine your life, just as I find it difficult to imagine your courage. Such heroism would now be beyond me. I wonder why we are called upon to make such efforts of will, when a little moral laxity might achieve a much more agreeable outcome. But I always admired your sense of purpose, which was in fact superior to my own. You always thought me impractical, poured scorn on my efforts to make those around me comfortable, and you were right to do so, for my efforts have always been based on a misreading of character. One cannot always make things better; my one remaining regret is that I did not make things better for you. But you were always clear-sighted; maybe you did not love me more than you were able, prudently keeping some feeling in reserve for another man you might eventually meet. I loved you, perhaps unrealistically, as is my wont. My one hope now is that you will not be lonely, for you always had such a cheerful disposition. Do not let your mother occupy all your time. Forgive me for offering such pitiful
advice; you will of course do as you think fit. I hope you will not let the past encroach too much on the present. That is the mistake I always made. I find it easy to tell you that I love you. Think of me sometimes. Ever, Julius.’

  He sealed and stamped his letters, emptied his wastepaper basket, realized that the day was nearly over. There was no food in the house, but this did not bother him: in the future food would appear without his having to think about it. His excitement had given way to a sense of purpose, for which he was dependent on no one but himself. It felt good to have entered into this new autonomy, which, he thought, could be endlessly implemented. But not here, not in his flat, with all the difficulties that might ensue, the endless obstacles that would be put in his path by those faceless others who, even now, were planning to uproot him. He made a note to telephone Bernard Simmonds as soon as he got back from the post office, the supermarket, the dry-cleaners, and all the other places he no longer recognized as anything other than petty accompaniments to a life soon to be transformed.