by Paul Russell
Madame Meyer having concluded her aural shape-shifting with a final, definitive chord, those last words hung in a sudden silence.
“Dear me,” Cocteau mused. “Was it something I said?” But everyone’s attention was drawn not to him but to Madame Sert and Serge Lifar. As if on cue, they had risen from their seats to take up positions at the piano—Lifar, to everyone’s astonishment, climbing on top of the instrument. For a very long moment the two remained motionless: Lifar reclining, eyes shut, dreaming; Misia attentive, poised, prepared. Then Lifar tilted back his head, touched his thumb to his lips as if to sip some exquisite unseen elixir, and Misia obliged with that languid melody curling into sultry chords by which Debussy so unforgettably conjures L’Après-midi d’un Faune. Half crouching, Lifar slowly, liquidly shed his jacket, then crept down from the piano. From Misia’s neck he uncoiled her ivory-colored scarf. At the touch of his hands, her chords faded into silence. In the room’s awed hush he began to dance—a sinuous, deeply mysterious communion between himself and the fortunate scarf. It was charming, it was shocking, it was very beautiful.
Applause accompanied knowing laughter. “He’s certainly the bold one,” Cocteau remarked, applauding along with everyone else. “The faun is dead—or at least hidden away in a Swiss asylum. Long live the faun. I wonder how long our latest ingenue imagines it will last. He’s heir to such a distinguished lineage. Did you hear what Stravinsky said when Nijinsky first danced that prurient faun? ‘Of course Vaslav made love only to the nymph’s scarf. What more would Diaghilev have allowed? ’”
At the head table, as Sert and Lifar resumed their places, Diaghilev, the wounded, the all-powerful, the unquenchable, rose to his feet and raised his glass to propose a toast—an old-fashioned Russian toast—to the lovely and brilliant Princesse de Polignac, dear Tante Winnie; to our refined American friends Gerald and Sara Murphy; but most of all (he spoke hectically, stumbling over words, even leaving words out altogether), most of all (his voice rising to an almost hysterical pitch), most of all to notre cher mâitre Igor Stravinsky. “I have loved with all my heart L’Oiseau de Feu, I have loved Petrouchka, I have loved the holy Sacre—but I have never loved, as I love now, this Les Noces, this wedding that is so… How can I say it? How can I tell you, if you are not Russian, how…”—he seemed to search in vain for words—“how…”—he gestured futilely, as if holding in his outstretched palms the fertile soil of the motherland—“how Russian it is.” I saw, to my astonishment, that tears were streaming down his fat cheeks. “Merci, dearest Igor,” the great Diaghilev sobbed. “Merci, merci, merci.”
Stravinsky stared at the tablecloth.
Our waiter brought yet more champagne. More music poured from the piano as well, a cascade of improvisations that swung from waltz to fox-trot to polonaise and back again. Madame Meyer was in splendid form, and soon dancing got under way.
Cocteau resumed his tour of the portholes, declaring loudly, in a deadpan voice, “We’re sinking, my fellow travelers. Rejoice, we’re still sinking. May we continue to sink without end.”
At a table in the corner, by the flickering light of a raft of candles, Natalia Goncharova read palms.
“I detest these Russian diversions,” huffed Diaghilev, strolling among us. “She does it as a joke, but she only invites trouble.”
Memories of that disastrous Berlin séance still haunted me, but on this evening I surrendered to a bit of Russian nostalgia, and when my time came I too sat before Goncharova and allowed her to palpate my palm with her slender, bejeweled fingers.
“Nice young man from Petrograd,” she addressed me. “What I see I see clearly. You will marry a princess from an eastern kingdom. You will sire a gallant son and a beautiful daughter. You will live in a castle high in the Himalayas and become wise, you will love sweet music, you will die in great happiness at the age of one hundred and forty-five!” Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Meanwhile, beware the prancing admiral! He’s an homme fatal for such as you, my mooncalf. You’d do best to find other company.”
With a smile, I slowly withdrew my hand from hers, though she seemed to wish to prolong her claim on me.
“I rather believe I can take care of myself,” I told her.
“Nice young man from Petrograd,” she said, smiling steadily,
“I do hope that’s true. He is right about one thing. The river is full of serpents.”
A commotion at the far end of the room brought an end to our disquieting intimacy. The dishes having been cleared away, Kochno and Ansermet clambered onto the head table and began unhooking the commemorative laurel wreath from the ceiling. Giddy with champagne, they leapt down, holding their trophy between them. Stravinsky removed his shoes, and in socks whose twin holes revealed his yellowish heels, sprinted the length of the room and, executing an ungainly jeté, leapt through the proffered wreath to great applause before crashing comically into the wall.
That inspired act signaled the end. Soon everyone was saying good-bye. One of the Americans passed around a menu, asking each of us to append our names. “I never, ever want to forget this,” he proclaimed. “I want all my friends back home to know. This truly has been the most beautiful evening of my life!”
28
BERLIN
DECEMBER 6, 1943
I HAVE NO PARTICULAR WISH TO VENTURE OUT TO my niece’s wedding. I would prefer to stay at my desk as the grains of sand slip inexorably through the neck of the hourglass, but obligations are obligations, and I am, after all, the best man, even if my gift of brandy is no more. The bride’s mother is my cousin Onya, Nika’s sister, who married a German career officer and thus chose loyally to remain in Berlin. Her husband, like all German husbands, is at the Front—in his case, guarding the Atlantic Wall against the threat of invasion, which Onya is certain will not happen. “The allies would be insane,” she says. “The coast is so well defended, they would be slaughtered. Even Churchill is not so mad as to order that. Mark my word—there’ll be a negotiated settlement. Before you know it, we’ll hear the news that the British Fleet has been handed over to the Reich.”
I do not know the groom particularly well, but I like him; a fellow exile, he is a composer of church anthems, the leader of the Black Sea Cossacks Choir, a gentle, intelligent, cultivated man, and a good quarter century older than his bride, about which Onya is not entirely pleased. A church ceremony being out of the question, the wedding is a modest, even forlorn affair held in a basement reception room in the heavily damaged Hotel Adlon.
It is difficult to watch this vestige of normal life through the eyes of a ghost, for that is what I am. I do not of course for a moment let on to that assemblage that I am a ghost. It is their happy day, after all.
The Black Sea Cossacks Choir, much reduced in number, sing several austere hymns that take me back to my childhood, and I am grateful for the excursion.
Onya confides to me that she is wearing a brand-new hat. Do I like it?
“Very much,” I tell her. “Where on earth did you find a new hat?”
“There’s a lovely shop in the neighborhood I used to frequent, but for the longest time there’s been nothing in the window. Then last week I went by and saw the most extraordinary collection of hats. I was too busy to stop, but the next day I went back. As I turned into the block my heart sank, for I could see buildings burning on both sides of the street. But the shop hadn’t been hit, though the plate glass was shattered, and the shopkeeper was sweeping up the shards. I asked if the shop was open, and he said, ‘By all means!’ So I went inside and tried on half a dozen hats—what fun! It’s been such a long time since I did anything like that, and I thought I might never have the chance to do it again. And so I chose this one. It was covered in ash, but then so was I. It dusted off quite nicely, I think.”
“You look marvelous,” I tell her.
“We all look marvelous these days,” she says. “Everybody who’s still alive looks marvelous, even the most bent-over crone or hideously mutilated crippl
e. I mean, when you think of the alternative. On my way here I passed a downed Lancaster, I suppose from last night. It was still smoking. They’d laid the charred bodies out on the sidewalk. I pity the RAF boys still alive who fall into the hands of the locals. I don’t imagine it’s pretty.”
“No,” I tell her, “I don’t imagine it is.”
The wedding puts me in a dismal mood; perhaps it is the sense that life will go on perfectly well without me, perhaps also the feeling that everything I do, I do for the last time. The refuge I have sought in composing this account of my past no longer seems sufficient. I have lived, certainly—my pages attest to that—but I am also still alive, and Onya’s new hat makes me think there are certain things I too would like to do once more before I leave this earth.
I have heard that the Milchbar, where I used to while away some hours, continues despite everything to entertain a clientele. As the evening promises to be clouded, and the chances of another raid thus fairly slim, I determine to see for myself if this furtive oasis still flourishes in the desert the British have made of Berlin.
Though a nominal curfew is in effect, there are plenty of people on the streets: those ubiquitous crews of POWs clearing rubble, families scavenging their belongings from heaps of stone and brick, twelve-year-old boys in uniform heading to or from their antiaircraft batteries.
The city resembles the mouth of an old man—most of his remaining teeth are blackened stubs, and in between are gaps and bare ravaged gums; nonetheless, here and there, inexplicably, a single tooth, though stained, remains undecayed. Such is the Milchbar. So many churches destroyed, and yet God has left this cozy little den intact. I am, as ever, thankful for His mysterious ways. Indeed, I resist an urge to kneel and cross myself as I step across its threshold. What have I expected to find? At most, a handful of depraved old men, those too feeble or demented to serve in defense of the Homeland. Instead I survey a dimly lit room thronged with men and boys. I hear a murmured host of languages—German, Russian, Polish, Italian. There is no music, only a libidinal hum that seems to me heavenly. In one corner two men are kissing; one has shoved the other against a pockmarked wall, and their legs intertwine as their mouths feed on each other. Men sit around tables, their arms draped over each other. Champagne from occupied France is available, but so, I see with astonishment, is wine from the Rothschild cellars. In all wars, it seems, some suffer and some live well—if only for a time. A painted boy of fifteen or sixteen moves flirtatiously from table to table, allowing himself to be fondled shamelessly.
And then I see him, standing alone, one elbow resting on the bar. For a moment I am certain I am mistaken. But there is that lock of hair hanging down over his eyes. He is still wearing his waiter’s uniform; he must have come directly from work. I have learned not to question Fate’s strange mercies. Without a moment’s hesitation I take my place at his side.
“Hello,” he says in lightly accented English.
“Hello yourself,” I tell him.
With a little laugh, he reverts to German. “My English is really very terrible. I only know song lyrics, and it’s rather difficult to string them together into much of a conversation, don’t you think?” He peers at me in the dim light. “Do I know you?”
“No,” I tell him. “But I’ve seen you at the Eden.”
“I seem to remember. Well, actually, I don’t, but I believe you.”
“I suppose the obvious question is, what’s a fit young man like you doing working in a hotel?”
“I’m not so fit, actually. I’ve a bad heart. I used to think it doomed me. Now, what do you know? It might actually save my life, at least in the short term. There really isn’t any long term anymore, is there?”
Unable to resist, I brush his hair from his eye.
“Hangman’s lock,” he says in English.
“Very nice,” I tell him. “Very handsome. Are there others of your kind around? Or are you the only one who hasn’t been arrested?”
“Swing boys?” he says. “Oh, there’s a few of us left. No one seems to care anymore.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Let’s call me Hansel, shall we? And you?”
I think for a moment. “Svetlana will do.”
“I see.” He runs an inquisitive hand up my arm and then down again. I take his hand in mine and examine his tidy, lacquered nails. His lips are plummy, and there is a dark beauty mark just above, on the left. He removes his hand from mine and slides it down the front of my trousers. “So, is Svetlana feeling a bit romantic?”
It seems a miracle I can be aroused, given my daily quotient of terror.
“You’re trembling,” he says.
“I know.”
“I’m trembling as well.”
“I know.”
He takes me by the hand and leads me down a short, darkened corridor. Suddenly we are outside in the cold air, and I realize that the entire back of the Milchbar has been sheared away. We stand amid rubble, shattered furniture, a shredded mattress. We are not alone. In the darkness I can make out other figures, can hear murmurs and groans as men grapple together in a tableau of the damned. A bit of commotion near my feet causes me to look down: an obese rat scuttles out of sight. At least someone is living well these days. Then Hansel the swing boy’s lips are pressed to mine, his hands roaming restlessly, grabbing, caressing, tugging, all of which I meet in full. His breath is quite noxious but I do not care in the least. I revel in all his odors. How my heart goes out to him, this Abyssinian in all but name whose very doubtful future I take gratefully in my traitorous mouth. As I receive his gift I am as certain as I can be that I shall never on this earth taste love again.
29
PARIS
THOUGH MY FRIENDSHIP WITH COCTEAU blossomed like an origami flower, I soon came to understand that our romp in the Tuileries had been more a welcoming handshake than anything else. His real love he reserved for an erratic young man still in his teens named Raymond Radiguet.
I met this Radiguet only rarely when visiting Cocteau in the flat he shared with his mother on rue d’Anjou. My friend would usually still be in bed, in his lilac pajamas—this was his preferred way of receiving guests. The room was awash in stray papers, curios, sketches, little abstract sculptures he would devise from pipe cleaners while he chatted with you. Without any announcement, a young ruffian would barge in to borrow whisky money or read aloud a review he’d just penned for the Nouvelle Revue Française. He looked as if he had been discovered asleep in a stable and subsequently manhandled by the groom. His lips were chapped, his fingernails unkempt, his haircut atrocious. But he had written a novel, Le Diable au Corps, which had been a succès de scandale; Cocteau had christened it “the greatest masterpiece in French literature since La Princesse de Clèves.”
He talked of Radigo constantly, a steady stream of latest news and well-founded apprehensions. “Radigo’s lately becoming much more regular in his habits,” he reported, “though he’s not renounced whisky, and spends too much of his time with eager American pederasts and egregious French aristocrats. I suspect he’s sniffing out ideas for a new book, about which he tells me nothing, but which I sense will be more brilliant than anything he’s accomplished so far. He’s borrowed Georges Auric’s typewriter and spends hours clattering away.”
Or: “He’s been telling everyone he plans to marry that girl he keeps out in Clichy. He claims to be terrified of waking up one day as a forty-year-old ‘Madame Jean Cocteau.’ How ridiculous! I fear he’s dreadfully unhappy, but his work goes well, which is all that really matters. He’s at last becoming less stupid in his habits. He’s numbering his pages, he’s copying out legible drafts. What people don’t understand is this: art’s only half intoxication; the rest is paperwork. Only a fine line separates the artist from the accountant—but as in drawing, the placement of that line is everything.”
And then one day—quite suddenly, at the age of twenty—Radigo was dead.
Cocteau was beyond devastation. He kept
to his bedchamber. He answered no one’s letters. He rebuffed any attempt to visit; only Maman was allowed to tend to him. Finally, after weeks of this tombal silence he summoned me.
The room was darkened. He lay propped on his side, thin legs folded under a coverlet. An elusive odor hung in the air: grass and damp earth. He held his pipe over the opium lamp and breathed in the delicate fumes that wafted toward his nostrils.
“How very nice of you to come,” he said. “Most people avoid ghosts out of superstitious fear, but you, mon cher, are supernaturally brave. Tell me: do they still speak of me in the world beyond these walls? Or have they already forgotten that a beautiful genius has simply ceased to exist?”
For a moment I could not tell whether he referred to Radiguet or to himself. I did not volunteer the news that the smart set at his nightclub had taken to calling him, this sad spring of 1924, “le veuf sur le toit”—the widower on the roof. It seemed too cruel. The young man’s death had disconcerted everyone, even those ill-disposed toward him. But in Paris tongues will wag, and fingers point, and I was beginning to learn that cruelty is everywhere, especially among the great and talented. It was whispered that Radiguet should have known better, that it was common knowledge Cocteau spelled doom for young men, that this was hardly the first time such a tragedy had happened on his watch. With a shudder I remembered Goncharova’s “C’est un homme fatal.”
He seemed well aware of the scurrilous gossip.
“You needn’t worry,” he told me. “No one should. I’ve put myself under quarantine—lifelong quarantine. I’ve drawn too many young men. Who knew I was such a lethal candle, I whose flame is so very dim? But my beautiful moths, those with the hyperacuity to detect my pale flickering fire—they plunge headlong. No more. Never again. Only those who are already doomed shall be allowed to remain close to deadly Narcisse.”