Uncle Rudolf

by Paul Bailey

  —I know I’m good looking. I would be a liar or a fool if I said I didn’t. I often wish that nature had given me a blemish. A flat nose, a non-existent English chin, a baboon’s lips.

  I was in his dressing room throughout the final performance of Magyar Maytime in April 1938.

  —You’re more like a little boy tonight than that little boy is, said his dresser, pointing at me. I’ve never seen you in such a skittish mood if I may say so, sir.

  —No, you haven’t, Joe. Nor is it likely that you ever will again. It’s the end of an era for me. The overdue end of an era.

  He hugged and kissed me every time he came back to adjust his make-up or change his costume.

  —The Rudolf Peterson leg has thrilled the ladies for good. Did you hear the commotion they made, Joe?

  —Impossible not to, sir. Like a mob of screaming banshees, or cats on heat.

  My uncle had to translate ‘banshees’ for the, and impersonate the noise a cat makes when it’s in the mood for love.

  The peculiarly, but not unpleasantly, rancid smell of that dressing room is with me here as I revisit it in memory. It’s a smell compounded of other smells – of greasepaint; powder; of my uncle’s copious sweat and the cologne (Jicky, I believe it was called) Joe sprayed into his armpits. The strong disinfectant the cleaners used each morning to fumigate (‘fumigate’ was a new word that delighted me) the theatre is here, too, as it was then.

  —The end, the end, the end of an era, Uncle Rudolf shouted when the last curtain calls had been taken and he was at his dressing table, ruffling his nephew’s hair and fidgeting impatiently while Joe undid the buttons on his regal uniform.

  —You were my lucky charm, Andrew, as I said you would be. It’s over. It’s over, my darling. Èfinita la commedia. You are the finest mascot a misguided tenor could have. Thank you, thank you.

  His mascot dozed in his uncle’s arms during the party he gave at the Ritz to celebrate the end of a personal era. He was saying an unfond farewell to operetta, he announced to cries of ‘Shame on you’ and ‘Think again, Peterson.’ He was never more serious. He did not say to his theatrical friends, as he had said to his then-uncomprehending nephew, that he was not too old at thirty-eight to tackle Don Ottavio and Ferrando and have a stab at Don José or Florestan. Time, and impresarios, would tell. There was one great tenor, now in his fifties, who was always singing Otello somewhere in Italy. He, Rudi Petrescu alias Rudolf Peterson, had a certain duty to fulfil.

  My uncle was being precipitate. He was to appear in one more operetta, as Igor, the heir to the Boldonian throne, who is enamoured of pretty Mélodie, the servant girl with – yes – royal blood, in The Gypsy Prince.

  —I am doing it for the money, Andrew, and nothing else. It’s all that I’m being offered, anyway.

  The critics were dismissive of the show, and cruel to its leading man, who had no leg wound to expose for the benefit of the ladies. It opened in the spring of 1939 and closed in late summer, with the threat of an impending world war causing people to think seriously about the prospect before them. In those dark years, after it was decided he wasn’t a threat to national security, he sang for the British troops in Malta and Italy. Then, in December 1945, Uncle Rudolf gave – at his own instigation – a positively farewell performance at London’s most famous variety theatre, the Palladium, in aid of the relatives of those who had perished in Auschwitz, Belsen, Buchenwald and the other concentration camps. He sang from the operettas in which he had made his name in Vienna between 1922 and 1931 – The Merry Widow, The Gypsy Baron and Die Fledermaus. And he sang, as encores, three arias by Mozart, one of which he dedicated to the blessed memory of Jean de Reszke. He ended the evening with the song ‘Goodnight, Vienna’.

  —Goodnight, Vienna, indeed, he said to the friends and admirers who were crammed into his dressing room. Goodnight and goodbye to the city of cream cakes and Nazi generals. Güte shitting Nacht.

  The train has stopped on the outskirts of Paris, and my father is smoking furiously. Yes, ‘furiously’ is accurate, for he is lighting one cigarette from another and they are like daggers going in and out of his mouth, I think, because he seems to be stabbing himself with them.

  —Nerves, Andrei, he explains, seeing me staring at him. They will pass.

  —Do I have to stay with Uncle Rudolf? Do I really have to?

  —Yes. For the present. You will come back to me. To us.

  —When?

  —Soon. As soon as possible. You may not want to come back to us. Once you have met Uncle Rudolf, coming back to your Mama and Tata may be the last thing you want to do.

  —Why do you say that, Tata?

  —Wait till you meet your uncle, Tata laughs. Of course you will come back to us. Do not look so afraid. Smile for me.

  I smile for him because he is my father and he has asked me to, but I do not want to smile now, not now that the train is moving once more.

  —Thank God for that, says Tata, throwing his cigarette out of the window. I was scared you might miss your connection, Andrei. I was nervous for you. With a little luck on our side, we will reach Paris on time.

  —Goodness me, said Annie as she opened a brown paper parcel on my uncle’s instructions. Whatever can the woman have in mind?

  —I shall refrain from answering that question, Annie. We are both well aware what she has in mind.

  —I really don’t think Andrew should see what’s inside.

  —Let him see, Annie. Let him be educated in the strange ways of the world. While he eats up his burnt toast, like the good nephew he is.

  —It’s more ladies’ underwear, though whether the floozy who sent you these deserves to be called a lady is another matter.

  —She probably has a title, Annie. Is there a note attached to her – what shall we say – gift?

  —There is.

  —Read it to me. And to Andrew as well, if it isn’t too explicit.

  —It’s quite tame, I have to say, compared to some of them. There aren’t any words the boy shouldn’t hear. She signs herself Elsie. No, I tell a lie, she doesn’t. It’s Elise.

  —‘Elise’ is certainly more romantic than ‘Elsie’.

  —Romantic is as romantic does, and sending a man your drawers in the post isn’t in any romance I’ve ever read.

  —Elise’s message, Annie, if you please.

  —If you must, Mr Rudolf. ‘I dream of you day and night, in and out of the enclosed. Your Elise.’

  —That is definitely tame. Bring them forth, Annie. Let Andrew enjoy the spectacle of Elise’s under-things.

  Annie brought them forth, one by one, with obvious distaste. They were coloured red and white and blue and a hole had been cut into each of them.

  —The foul-minded slut.

  —But patriotic, Annie. There is no danger of her spying for the Germans, even if her name is Elise.

  Uncle Rudolf’s shoulders began to heave, and soon his entire body, it seemed, was uncontrollable with laughter.

  —You’ll be having palpitations, Mr Rudolf, if you carry on like that.

  —Oh, Lord, Annie. Oh, Lord. It’s just occurred to me that I shan’t be able to listen to Für Elise again without picturing those patriotic silk panties.

  My uncle always relished the disgust Annie exhibited on opening the parcels. Her refined Edinburgh accent became more pronounced and her manner notably prudish, especially when the drawers – as she invariably referred to them – were stained or soiled.

  —These are from a Lady Cosgrove, would you believe. Lady Muck’s too polite for her. I’d sooner break bread with Lady Macbeth.

  Uncle Rudolf and I were intrigued as much as amused by the fact that Annie did not dispose of these ‘offending objects’ straight away. It was her weird custom, which she refused to account for in terms of logic, to pick up the offending undergarments and bear them at arm’s length to the laundry room, where she would deposit them in the huge metal pot in which she boiled tea towels and handkerchiefs. Perhaps she was s
etting Lady Cosgrove and the other ‘hussies’, aristocratic or not, an unseen example in cleanliness and decency, or perhaps – my uncle reasoned – she did not want the porter at Nightingale Mansions to come to unpleasant conclusions when he collected the rubbish, even though she had taken care to secrete the newly-fragrant drawers beneath cabbage stalks, potato peelings, cigarette packets, newspapers, tea leaves – the familiar detritus of a busy household.

  I witnessed this untoward ritual for many years, until I was old enough to read and comprehend the contents of the letters, notes and cards that accompanied the panties, brassieres and suspender belts my uncle received with startling regularity from his frustrated admirers. He was invited or commanded to sniff them, kiss them, bury his beautiful face in them, wear them, keep them under his pillow and, most frequent of all, to ejaculate inside them. ‘Spend your seed in these, you dirty beast’ ordered a woman writing in purple ink on scented notepaper. ‘And send them back to me at the above address.’

  —For boiling, Annie. Definitely for boiling. I shall get Charlie to return them in person.

  —Are you losing your wits, Mr Rudolf? What can you be thinking of?

  —I am curious to discover what kind of floozy or hussy or foul-minded slut uses such Biblical language. Charlie will find out for me.

  The ‘offending objects’ were duly boiled, and Charlie instructed to inform their owner that Mr Rudolf Peterson was a firm believer in the adage—

  —Be sure you say ‘adage’, Charlie. Adage, yes?

  —Adage, Mr Rudolf. You are a firm believer in the adage—

  —Excellent. Mr Rudolf Peterson is a firm believer in the adage that cleanliness is next to godliness. Study her reaction and report back to me.

  My uncle was impatient all afternoon for Charlie’s report.

  —I wonder if she has lured him into her Biblical lair.

  Charlie was thoughtful to the point of despondency when he returned to Nightingale Mansions.

  —Demure’s the word, Mr Rudolf. I handed her the box and told her Mrs Mackenzie had thoroughly boiled the thingumajigs inside and I passed on your message about the adage and that was when she blushed. She’s demure and shy, Mr Rudolf. Not my type of girl in a million years. I just couldn’t credit that she’d written you that letter. She’s mousy, that’s what she is, and ever so quiet-spoken.

  My uncle, a connoisseur of the vagaries inherent in human nature, was satisfied with what Charlie had to tell him. He smiled sadly, and thanked his ‘errand boy’ and promised that Mr Rudolf would never send him on such an eccentric mission again.

  —Leave the poor souls with their fantasies.

  The routine of boiling and scrubbing continued.

  Then, one day in 1946 Annie came into Uncle Rudolf’s music room at the house in Sussex, carrying a brown paper parcel that was unexpectedly large and as unexpectedly light.

  —Dear God, she exclaimed upon opening it. I wasn’t wearing these things when I was married to my lovely Gavin. They’re bloomers, Mr Rudolf. They’re passion-killers. Look at them. (She held them in front of her.) They start at the tummy and stop at the knees.

  —They will be the centrepiece, said my uncle, those – what did you call them? – passion-killers. Oh, I adore the idea of underwear killing passion. It will appeal to Bogdan. I shall insist that he make them the centrepiece.

  And insist Uncle Rudolf did, though Bogdan Rangu did not need much persuading when he mentioned the idea of a collage to him. Bogdan was captivated by the notion of collecting items of women’s underwear for the purpose of a surrealist painting and urged my uncle to pass on everything his ‘daring ladies’ sent him. This Uncle Rudolf duly did, despite Annie’s protests that both he and that mad Mr Bogdan were making prize idiots of themselves. Some months later, the controversial painter had amassed enough material to start work – which he did, he declared, in a frenzy of excitement.

  —Rudi, my dear friend, such serious fun I am having with these cast-offs.

  The collage, which was entitled Thoughts after Géricault, or The Raft of the Medusa Revisited, was exhibited at a London gallery during the cruel winter of 1947. The title was, of course, one of Bogdan’s jokes, a fact that didn’t prevent several critics comparing his idiosyncratic assemblage to Géricault’s masterpiece. The collage, which occupies an entire wall of the room where I am writing, is composed of a pair of red silk panties, cut in half; another pair, black, which a glum-looking priest is wearing as a hat; a brassiere supporting two empty milk bottles, and – in the centre, as Uncle Rudolf insisted – the voluminous bloomers, on which the words Mort de passion have been embroidered. In the background are photographs, variously torn or shredded, of film stars, birds, fish, disembodied arms, eyes, and legs, and a lavatory bowl, with the smiling face of Joseph Stalin peering out of it. Of all the works of art in my uncle’s possession – the Gainsborough drawing of a falconer; the early Picasso painting of a young girl; the exquisite still life of a jug by Giorgio Morandi which the percipient collector bought for less than a hundred pounds in Rome in the 1950s – it was Thoughts after Géricault that attracted most comment and interest. Visitors to Nightingale Mansions would stare at it in bewilderment, shaking their heads in disbelief. Others, though, would laugh – and it was they who delighted my uncle, who would then reveal its esoteric origins.

  —I could write a book, if I so desired, about the changing fashions in ladies’ lingerie over the past thirty years. I was sent the first pair of drawers, as my darling Annie liked to call them, in Vienna in 1922, and I’m still getting them now that I’m retired. Not so many and not so often, God be thanked. I am glad Bogdan’s agitated imagination was fired by those passion-killers.

  When he introduced me to Bogdan Rangu, my uncle cautioned the artist not to speak the old words.

  —Even your deplorable English will be beneficial to him. Our language belongs to my nephew’s past. He is Andrew, remember – not Andrei.

  —I shall try to endeavour to not forget, said Bogdan, winking at me. That is my solemn vow.

  It was Bogdan’s mischievous habit to assume facial expressions that suited whatever he was saying. A word like ‘solemn’ or ‘serious’ was accompanied by a look of quite absurd gravity, and when he said ‘Don’t be silly’, which he did often, he would grin quickly and maniacally. The phrase was in direct contradiction to his espoused philosophy, which was founded on silliness. His ‘Don’t be silly’ was the cue for laughter, an admonition to be ignored or denied. It meant, in reality, ‘Be as silly as you can.’ Hearing it now, in my mind, I feel suffused by such deep affection for his bravely comic spirit that I am on the verge of weeping. And, having written that last sentence, I hear ‘Don’t be silly’ with renewed force, and I turn round and find myself looking at Thoughts after Géricault for the thousandth time and realizing that Stalin, smiling his murderer’s smile, has been placed where he belongs – in shit; in, and with, perpetual shit. My tears remain in their ducts, as if at Bogdan’s command.

  —I am an exile by choice, not necessity, he once remarked to me, in French. I left when the life was good for fools and charlatans. I needed to transport my delight in everything ridiculous to a country where I would have to fight to see it appreciated. I chose sensible England, and I am still fighting. The Bucharest of my youth was so decadent and yet so provincial that I had to escape. I could have joined my friends and fellow artists in Paris, but that would have been an easy route to have taken. I thrive on hostility, Andrei – I am sorry, Andrew – and contempt, and I am richly supplied with both in London. Even Rudi considers me a little bit mad. And perhaps I am. Who am I to know?

  It occurs to me, now, that Uncle Rudolf’s sense of the sheer absurdity of human existence was as keen and refined as Bogdan Rangu’s. That very sense, however, fuelled the discontent of his later years, whereas for Bogdan it provided a spur to creativity. I suppose I was honoured to witness the ritual of the parcels, because when I mentioned it to the boys I befriended at school they were shoc
ked and surprised and, in one case, disgusted by what I had to tell them. I was being granted a glimpse of a world in which otherwise respectable women, driven by lust at my uncle’s handsomeness, threw caution to the winds and made themselves unrespectable, if only for a moment. My incautious uncle saw no harm in my being educated in the often sad follies of humanity. And sometimes I understood that those winds were there for the purpose of having caution thrown at them, and sometimes – not being an artist – I didn’t.

  I had a wife once, and I have a son, to whom I was introduced when he was six and speaking with an American accent. I had seen and held him as a newborn baby. I had watched him in his cot, and woken in the night to cradle him back to sleep, and bathed him fondly, but then his mother took him away, without warning, leaving behind the briefest of notes to account for her sudden, unanticipated departure. It revealed to her gauche husband that she was in love with another man, and that she would raise William with his help. The note was unsigned.

  Mary died long ago, of cancer, and her lover, who was forty years older, survived into senility. After his step-father’s protracted death, William came to London to talk to the man he doesn’t call Dad or Daddy or even Father. We found we wanted to be Andrew and Billy, as befits friends. It seemed natural not to address each other in terms of the roles we weren’t allowed to play during his childhood and adolescence, when I was busy caring for his great-uncle, whose money – the hated Vienna money – he will inherit.

  —Mummy never loved you, Andrew, Billy said late in the evening of our reunion. She was attracted to you, that was all.

  —That was enough for both of us, at the time. We made an attractive couple. We had the charmed look about us, Billy.

  —She hadn’t the courage to tell anyone the man she loved was already old.

  Neither had I, I didn’t say. I was unaware, while I was married to Mary and beyond, of the true nature of my affections. I had no need of courage, then – my love for Uncle Rudolf being that of a devoted hero-worshipping nephew; my love for him being founded on evident gratitude for his rescuing me from a future that wasn’t a future worth living. Courageousness was not to be considered or contemplated. That kind of courageousness was completely out of the question.