‘I’m a staunch atheist, darling.’
*
Kitty was driven by mistrust: a profound, inherent mistrust of other people. As if all she wanted was to assure herself that other people never meant well by her, that they never kept their promises. It was with this mistrust that she called Amy’s number in early January, and when Amy sounded genuinely excited that she had called and immediately suggested that she come and visit, her mistrust only increased.
Kitty took the Underground to King’s Cross, a part of town she had never been to before. Amy’s was a modest but respectable brick house in a tranquil street, concealed by a black iron gate.
Kitty stopped outside the gate. For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether it wouldn’t be better for her to turn round. She had become used to the East End. It was full of people like her. There, she wasn’t conspicuous. Here, even the shadow she cast on the street seemed conspicuous in its poverty: too big, too coarse, too proletarian for this pavement, these walls, these windowpanes. Then she summoned her courage and rang the bell. The glossy black door with the gold knob flew open, and there was Amy in a navy-blue dress, stepping towards her guest and beaming from ear to ear.
Kitty’s sense of being out of place here was reinforced on entering the house. She had assumed that Amy lived in a flat, not that she was the mistress of this three-storey abode. She was led into the drawing room and offered Earl Grey tea and apple cake. Sitting there on the floral sofa, she felt like a Siberian bird that had strayed into the tropics. Embarrassed by her plain Red Cross smock, she kept her arms crossed over her chest at first, as if she could conceal the ugliness of her clothes. And when an immaculately dressed maid entered the room and asked her mistress if she could bring them anything else, Kitty felt a powerful urge to flee.
But the lady of the house didn’t really comport herself in a manner suited to the genteel atmosphere. Her laughter was too loud and too immodest, revealing her big white teeth and pink gums; her gestures were too uncontrolled; and the way her eyebrows shot up when something surprised her, the way she pursed her lips when she was particularly delighted by something, or the way she left her mouth open when she wanted to emphasise something she had said — none of this seemed at all fitting for a sophisticated lady with a parlour maid and a floral sofa. In spite of her expensive clothes and the patchouli scent she wore, she was simply too unpolished for this environment, too lacking in self-possession.
This time, too, their conversation was very stilted. However, once Kitty had stifled her discomfort, she proved more talkative than during their previous meeting in the pub. If she got stuck she would reach into her pocket for the tattered English dictionary she had bought in Prague — the only souvenir of her banishment — and point to the word she was looking for. Each time, Amy nodded to show that she understood, and was delighted, as if it were a miracle that the same word appeared in both their languages.
Amy had been born in India, and had lived there until the age of fifteen. She was the youngest child and only daughter of a British officer who had married the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Her father had served in the British Army almost all his life, and had spent two decades in Calcutta. For many years, Amy and her three older brothers, whom she idolised, knew no other home. In India, Amy could run and climb, play cricket and roll in the mud, skip and run races, tell dirty jokes and stick her tongue out at people — as long as she was with her brothers, as long as they kept her with them. For it was only with them that she could escape all the awful doll-filled prisons and the tedious poetry evenings, the pale English girls with their bloodless dreams who all suffered so in the tropical climate, the violin and singing lessons — all the things her mother intended for her. Later, though, all three of her brothers joined the Army, one after the other, in great despair at having to leave behind their Indian life, their carefree games and adventures. At the age of fifteen, Amy was put on a steamer and sent to an English boarding school. She arrived at a school for upper-class girls in Devon, and everything changed. Her childhood remained her secret garden, which gave her so much that was good and wonderful that she was able to nourish an entire unhappy life on the memory of it. Two of her brothers lost their lives in the war; Amy herself escaped an arranged marriage when war broke out, and so, after finishing school, she found herself alone in London, though she was now financially independent, thanks to a sizeable inheritance from her parents.
She and her brother John had always shared a passion for music. Music was a secret language of symbols that, in their family, only the two of them had mastered. They had always loved Chopin and Schubert, but they had also listened to the disreputable music called jazz, had danced wildly to be-bop — still an insider tip at the time — had vied with each other as to who was the better musician, who knew more pieces, who had the better ear, who was more knowledgeable about music history. However, they were both sufficiently realistic to know that neither of them would ever be more than mediocre as a musician, and so they decided to become the best listeners in the world. Amy went dancing in Blitz-ravaged London, a city hungry for resurrection; she went to the East End in search of the newest clubs where the wildest, most exciting, most offbeat musicians played. She developed an infallible intuition for good music. She befriended dubious club owners, frequented pubs and basements that lived in fear of the vice squad; she didn’t shy away from even the most out-of-the-way venues and the shabbiest houseboats in the harbour if she thought that was where she might discover an unknown talent.
It was around this time that she spent her first night with a woman. Her brother John, the only one she spoke to openly about her inclination, introduced her to a friend of his, Magnus, whose reticence and sensitivity reminded Amy of her second-eldest brother. Magnus’ father had made his money — and there was a lot of it — in the diamond trade, and it meant a great deal to him that his homosexual son and only male heir should at least appear to live in a socially acceptable manner. The wedding was hastily organised, and Magnus and Amy were finally at liberty to do whatever they felt like doing with their lives. Amy bought the red-brick house in King’s Cross, which she decorated according to her parents’ taste as a way of maintaining the appearance of normality. Magnus spent most of his time in his country house in Wales, which served as his retreat and love-nest, and which Amy, out of consideration for his privacy, never visited. Instead, she stayed in London. Magnus treated her with equal discretion and never came to town unexpectedly. He was sufficiently tactful not to want to put his wife in an awkward situation. Without having to lift a finger, through mere fact of their existence, and this absurd state of being man and wife, they gave each other what they most needed in order to be happy: freedom.
*
In one of Magnus’ regular haunts in Soho, between hidden erotic cinemas and houses of ill repute, Amy met Fred, the red-haired sorceress.
A little-known Austrian-Jewish painter, her full name was Friederike Lieblich, and she compensated for her lack of success in the artistic arena with a legendary love life. Rumour had it that the number of her conquests would have made Sappho pale with envy.
By day, restless, cold as a stone, insolent, hurtful, egocentric, and offensively unconventional, by night, she was, in equal measure, permissive and uninhibited, morbidly passionate, a real nymphomaniac. People said that any good-looking woman, regardless of sexual orientation, would do better to steer well clear of her: she always got them in the end. People also said she was nothing but trouble: she had no money, and no permanent abode; she would crash in like a November wind, flay you, take everything you owned, and vanish again as quickly as she had appeared. The consensus was that it was best to beware of the sorceress.
To Amy’s ears, however, all the less-than-flattering rumours about Fred Lieblich sounded like compliments and enchanting promises. And when she saw the strange, slender woman sitting at the bar, and all the other customers whispering about her, she was determin
ed to get the redhead to approach her, and sent over a glass of the most expensive whisky the bar had to offer.
Fred didn’t have to be asked twice, and came to sit at Amy’s table. She had a dreadful German accent and narrow cat’s eyes; she was wearing a man’s white shirt and working-men’s trousers turned up at the bottom. In the dim light of the bar, her hair glowed fiery red, like a warning.
Although Amy left the bar that first evening without returning Fred’s advances, and didn’t show her face there for weeks afterwards, her curiosity had been roused. She wanted to know whether the sorceress really could cast a love spell. Despite the various experiences she had accumulated in this field over time, in bars, on houseboats, in clubs, and at private parties, Amy still felt gauche: she was ashamed of her lust, ashamed of her preferences, and never knew to what extent it was acceptable to express her desires. So Amy went back to Soho, and after three nights during which she spent several hours sitting at the bar, drinking a lot of gin and tonics and trying to look as indifferent as possible, Fred finally appeared. This time, she didn’t have to buy her a whisky; Fred marched straight up to Amy and shook her hand. She told her she had sold a painting and was feeling flush. It was her turn to buy the drinks, and show her a few places that were more interesting than this dive.
They meandered around town, having fun, drinking, kissing uninhibitedly on the street, and finally ending up at Amy’s house. The sorceress stayed on for several days, being waited on by Amy’s maid and cook, and beguiled by her hostess, who gazed at her wide-eyed with lust and delight. Then the redhead disappeared again for many long weeks. Although Amy knew she had no right to expect Fred to be anything other than what she was, she still felt cheated. She wandered around, asking the creatures of the night whether they had seen her lover, slipping barmen some coins to try to glean information about Fred’s whereabouts, but in vain.
Fred was nowhere to be found. She could only ever be tracked down when she wanted to be: that was a lesson Amy learned in the course of those weeks. And when she turned up again and rang her doorbell as if nothing had happened, Amy made a scene of which she was subsequently ashamed. But there was nothing for it; she had to admit to herself that she had never craved any other person on this planet as she did this small, almost plain woman, a woman one noticed (if at all) only for the colour of her hair, who had absolutely no manners, let alone good taste, or anything approaching consideration.
Of course, like every woman before and after her, Amy wanted to be the first great exception in Fred Lieblich’s love life. With patience and great forbearance, with many enticing suggestions, with her unconditional acceptance, her soft, compliant character, her cheerful disposition (because her Austrian friend was distinctly inclined to melancholy), and with her impressive audacity in lovemaking, she would tame the sorceress, teach her reliability. Besides, Amy had something the sorceress did not; something on which she, like every other person, was dependent — money.
Although Amy’s affluence didn’t mean as much to her as one might have thought, she did know exactly the sort of power one could wield as a patron.
Over the next few weeks, she rented an old storeroom in Soho and had it converted into a studio for her lover. She called some of Magnus’ art-loving friends, commissioned paintings from Fred Lieblich under false names, and equipped her with everything she had so painfully lacked in the past. But Amy didn’t know her lover well enough yet. She couldn’t know that, ever since she was a child, Fred had suffered nothing but deprivation; that, for her, lack and self-denial were normal.
What she didn’t have, she took: cruising Soho and the East End, sneaking out of the cheap bed-and-breakfasts, rented flats, and basement lodgings the next morning, each time leaving a naked, sleeping woman behind her. Then, for a short while, she felt as if she had everything, as if she owned the whole world, until longing drove her back out onto the streets. If she ran out of paint, she drew on a napkin with a pencil. If she had no winter coat, she just took a blanket and wrapped herself in it. If she had no money to pay for her drinks in the bar, she fixed her cat’s eyes on one of the female customers and stared at her until she asked if she was all right. After that, getting her to pay the bill was child’s play.
Amy had no option but to accept Fred as she was — in between fits of rage, heartrending declarations of love, and curses. But this acceptance was only possible because she still hoped that one day she would be allowed to call Fred Lieblich her own. She had India in her blood, after all; she too was familiar with self-denial and deprivation; she always got what she wanted; and she wanted Fred, of that she was quite certain. Even if Magnus, John, and their friends were constantly trying to convince her otherwise, she would learn to make herself indispensable to her lover. One day Fred would need something — more than anything else, more than these wanton, escapist affairs, more than life itself — and Amy would be able to give it to her. Whatever it might be.
*
Perhaps weary, heartsick Amy would not have leaped so precipitously into the Kitty adventure had two events not preceded their meeting: Fred’s renewed disappearance, and John’s return to India. With his departure, Amy felt as if the connection to her childhood had been severed, and she was scared of loneliness. Magnus was either travelling or in Wales. He was living his life. But some days Amy didn’t seem to know where she belonged any more. Who or what would remind her of her origins, which she seemed to need so badly, in order to reassure herself that her life remained true to these origins, to this childhood? Should she travel abroad? Follow her brother? And so Kitty’s appearance in her life was the straw to which Amy clung. Someone needed her.
A refugee from the Soviet Union; a talented one, a brilliant singer. A minor sensation. Escaped from the dark clutches of communism, catapulted into the capitalist utopia. And before her new trophy realised that this country and this city were no place for utopias, no place where newcomers’ dreams came true, Amy had to act: she had to imbue this melancholy and mistrustful creature with her very own personal utopia. She had to corral her with a fence woven from dreams, so that she would stay, so that she wouldn’t waste her talent, so that she didn’t long to return to her homeland, so that she went on singing. Just as she had once created a garden with her brothers, a garden of mud and happiness, of sand and wood and promises each made to each other.
*
At their very first meeting, Amy suggested that Kitty Jashi move in with her, to a flat on the top floor of her house. Her husband, she said, was never there, and she was usually alone. She had enough money. She was happy to help. She emphasised this again and again, and when she realised that Kitty was too proud to accept charity, she suggested a different form of payment in lieu of rent: her music. ‘I’d like to introduce you to some friends of mine; they’re all in the music business. One of them owns a jazz club. I can take you there. I just want them to listen to you, and perhaps you’ll get some work out of it. Then, and only then, you can pay me rent.’
It took some time and all Amy’s powers of persuasion for Kitty to agree to the plan, but when she arrived at the house in King’s Cross, carrying her one suitcase and her guitar, and saw the little attic flat, she was deeply touched.
The new bed standing there, the empty bookshelves smelling of fresh paint, the new crockery in the little kitchenette, the unused handtowels — all this made her feel welcome. Amy had gone to great pains in decorating the flat. Kitty sat down on the edge of the bed. She stayed there for more than an hour without moving, feeling something between grateful amazement at such generosity and a certain unease that came over her at the thought of moving in with this woman she didn’t know.
Amy’s house began to fill up. Friends came to marvel at the Soviet wunderkind. They all wanted to know how she had managed to flee, why she had come to London, and what she had done in her previous life. Atlases were brought out to look for the Black Sea and Georgia. Even Magnus made a special trip to London
from Wales to inspect his wife’s new discovery. Everyone admired Amy for wresting Kitty away from the refugee shelter and introducing her to London’s free spirits. As all the visitors, and especially Amy, kept repeating, she was a rare talent who should be encouraged and admired. Kitty, who was still working in the East End and waiting for calls from her faceless friend, accepted Amy’s praise and her friends’ interest in her music with indifference, as a matter of course. Her acting talent stood her in good stead: she invented stories about her escape, mixing fact with invention, and gave the visitors, who marvelled at her as if she were an exhibit in a museum, what they wanted to see and hear.
And at precisely the moment when Kitty had acquired a degree of renown in Amy’s circles, Fred reappeared.
Wunderbar, wunderbar! What a perfect night for love.
Here am I, here you are — why, it’s truly wunderbar!
COLE PORTER
Fred materialised out of nowhere one foggy evening. She arrived in King’s Cross, sat down at the table in the drawing room, and asked if she could get something to eat. Simultaneously overwhelmed with joy that her beloved had returned and outraged at her chutzpah in simply bursting in and demanding a hot meal, Amy hurried to the kitchen herself, as both the cook and the maid had the day off, and prepared Fred a lavish supper. Then she sat at the other end of the table and watched her eat, as if she were a child with a poor appetite who had finally announced that she was hungry.
Guitar chords drifted down to them from upstairs, and Fred, her mouth full, cast her eyes to the ceiling.
‘I bet you haven’t heard about my new girlfriend yet,’ Amy began cautiously. She chose the word ‘girlfriend’ very deliberately. Fred shook her head and replenished her plate.
Amy spoke of Kitty with enthusiasm, watching closely to observe her lover’s reactions. She was hoping for jealousy, but all she saw was curiosity. Nonetheless, she instantly relented when the flame-haired Fred came over and began to caress her, whispering words in her ear that testified to her desire and concomitant suffering.
The Eighth Life Page 42