by David Plante
Joseph is originally from Russia, from a family of furriers; he grew up in Berlin. As a boy, he was taught tennis by Vladimir Nabokov, a relative through marriage to his wife Vera. Joseph said that, really, Nabokov would let him and his brother play in whatever way while he sat on a bench on the side of the court and read. Ruth was from Nuremberg, where Jews were allowed to own land, she from a family of gentlemen farmers, her father even calling himself, as a descendant, the Third, which is not Jewish. He and his family escaped by way of Cuba, she by way of going east, to Japan, to San Francisco, to New York. They met in New York.
She stayed with an aunt who did not like her, and restricted even her food, so that Ruth with all of ten cents bought apples which she had to hide in her room until her aunt, coming in, sniffed and said, ‘I smell apples,’ and Ruth had to give them up.
Ruth remembers walking down Broadway with her bobby socks and pleated skirt and hearing a man call out, ‘There goes an American girl!’
After they married, Ruth’s aunt said to her, ‘So you’ve married a kike.’ He was from Russia and she from Germany.
From Milan, where they lived for thirty years, Joseph working his way up to head of a furrier company, they moved to London, where their son Michael, after unsuccessful treatment for leukemia, died, a young man. His absence is also his presence in their flat.
Ruth is completely autodidact, especially in old master prints. She completed the catalogue raisonné of Canaletto prints, and is now working on the catalogue raisonné of Walter Sickert prints, of which they buy as many as they can for her to study them closely. Nikos and I proofread her entries.
She says we are all family.
They invite Nikos and me to grand restaurants, and we invite them to less grand. Or they invite us to dinner parties, catered, with other guests from the world of art historians and museum curators, as the Brombergs have endowed a fellowship in their son’s name for research in prints, and, too, they often donate money and works to the Print Department of the British Museum.
Ruth sits to Frank Auerbach every Wednesday. Every Tuesday, she has her hair done at a hairdresser in preparation. From time to time, Frank, as a gesture of thanks, gives Ruth a portrait he has painted of her. Each time a new one is given, all the pictures have to be rearranged, and, when Nikos and I visit, Ruth looks down at us from many different angles with contorted faces, but always with a rather comic smile applied, it appears, almost as an afterthought with a quick stroke of the brush.
Because he hardly ever goes out, very occasionally Frank and his wife Julia come to dinner at the Brombergs’, and Nikos and I are invited.
This amazed me:
Joseph said that the most powerful image in the Western world is the image of Jesus Christ crucified on the cross. I still hear him saying, as if in awe, ‘He gave up his life for the salvation of humankind.’ He asked Frank what he thought, and Frank, in a low voice, said, yes, there is no more powerful image in the Western world.
Sometimes, when I am alone with Joseph, he will tell me stories that he does not want Ruth to hear, they would upset her; and I weep.
We commissioned Keith to do a work for us, one to fit into a narrow space in our new flat, but, Keith being Keith, he brought to the flat a work so large it has to take up an entire alcove where there was once a fireplace. It dominates the room, and it dominates with grandeur: it is made out of sheets of lead folded over wooden frames so that each frame is the size of a building block, the lead blocks layered to form a wide, high, semi-circular wall, rather like the stone wall within a medieval tower, between the blocks non-drying putty that drips oil onto the lead. The whole is majestic and has the quality that Keith says he wants in his work: classical.
A comment about Keith’s work –
He uses raw, perhaps what he considers essential, materials – lead, resin, cement, plywood, copper, sheets of plastic – and with them structures works that themselves stand for essentials in, say, the essential shapes of tondo, cross, cenotaph, different stylized architectural forms, all essentially timeless, majestic, classical, and all with an intellectual ‘edge’ to them that defines them with clarity.
We also have a large cross by Keith, made of cement and resin, one vertical half of the cross flat and the other vertical half at a slant, the whole giving the impression of a Greek kouros with one leg rigidly straight and the other taking a step forward, and, again, there is classical grandness to it.
And we have other works by Keith, some we have bought, some he has given to us.
One of our pleasures is to acquire a work of art and then spend all weekend rearranging the hanging of all the pictures.
What we have: paintings by Adrian Stokes, paintings by Stephen Buckley, a painting and prints by Mark Lancaster, two etchings by Frank Auerbach, a cut-out tin piece by Julian Opie, a painting by Lisa Milroy, prints by Joe Tilson, prints and a small painting of me by R. B. Kitaj, an etching by Lucian Freud, etchings and drawings and a small painting by David Hockney, a drawing by Sandra Fisher, drawings and a sculpture by Barry Flanagan, a pastel by John Golding, drawings by Michael Craig-Martin, drawings and a watercolor by Patrick Procktor, a stone tondo by Stephen Cox, a large pastel by Jan Hashey, a print by Howard Hodgkin –
David Sylvester will ring up to ask if a sentence he has written sounds right, and, with long pauses, he will be on the telephone for hours, getting the sentence right. The people he rings talk among themselves, perhaps with a degree of complaint, about those long conversations, but no one would want to be left out. And it is certainly a sign of belonging to a circle to be invited to dinner by David to his house (bought by his selling a painting that Francis Bacon gave him, which Francis did not seem to mind), the house like a private museum, all dominated, it seems, by an immense sandstone Egyptian pharaoh standing within a bay of windows, outside the windows a screen of high reeds. You ask if you may look about the house, and David, not saying anything, stares so intensely at you that you wonder if you shouldn’t have asked, but that’s the way with David, he doesn’t say yes or no, he simply stares. The house has bare wooden floors painted a carefully chosen slightly mottled, pale grey-blue, with only fragments of rugs here and there, and from room to room, each object given space to set it off, you see a Kerala canoe, battered Roman busts on marble columns, an African Nupe stool, a Neolithic pottery jar, a drawing by Joan Miró, a Regency card table, a lute, a large painting by William Turnbull, an Indian sandstone female torso, etchings by Picasso, an Italian walnut wardrobe, drawings by Giacometti. You say, ‘David, this is all wonderful,’ and again David stares at you, then finally says, ‘But I don’t have one major work,’ and you feel a little badly for him that he doesn’t.
The evening will have been as carefully arranged as the furniture and pictures and antiquities in his house, and you always have the sense of the privilege of being invited, though, at the glass-topped table, David will listen with acute attention to what you say, staring at you, one eye drifting off to the side as if with the strain of his attention, and after saying what you think of as at best incidental, if not stupid, David will seem to think a long while about it, then say, portentously, ‘That is very profound.’
Nikos and I were invited to a dinner party at his house, Marina Warner also invited, and Sarah Whitfield, from the house next door, a partner to David, who in fact prepared the meal, the menu chosen by David. Suddenly, David got up from the dining table and went out then came back with a picture which he handed to me across the table, saying, ‘The only gift worth giving is a gift it hurts to give,’ and I reached out for a colourful drawing by Stephen Tennant of an ancient Greek goddess among white roses, a fantasy cover for a book of poems by Stephen Spender. It was as though David were giving me a world of associations, and I realized that David himself lived in that world, was himself a world of associations.
During a weekend when I was away, Nikos saw Dawn Ades, and, he told me when I returned, they had asked each other whom they would like to sleep with, just lay nex
t to and sleep, and Nikos said, ‘David Sylvester,’ and Dawn said to Nikos, ‘You!’
Pleading with me when I feel I have failed as a writer, Nikos asks me, ‘Isn’t my love for you enough?’ and I become weak and want to fall on the floor.
A sun-filled Saturday, edged with blossoming daffodils. Suzi came to lunch, then we sat in the sun on the roof, Nikos repotting some plants there. After Suzi left, Nikos and I had a nap. We will have drinks with the Brombergs, then all go together to our local church – Saint Mary’s – to hear Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion.
If no one had ever conceived of eternity, of timelessness, which we long for, especially on a day like this, perhaps we wouldn’t mind the day passing because we would not imagine anything different. But the fact is we do imagine. As we’ll never realize what we imagine, I wonder if imagination is our greatest curse.
When I rang Stephen and Natasha to invite them to dinner, they both answered on separate telephones, as they often do, so there is a three-way conversation. Stephen said, alas, they couldn’t come because they were to take an American professor to the theatre, as he’d entertained them when they were in Nashville, Tennessee. Natasha asked Stephen, ‘Where will we take him to dinner after the theatre?’ and she and Stephen had a little discussion as to what restaurant they’d go to while I listened in, then Stephen said to me, ‘I have an idea – if I buy some meat pies and wine, can we come to you and Nikos after the theater?’ and I, feeling small because I hadn’t suggested this first, said, ‘Of course you must come here, and don’t bring anything, as I’ll make a stew of some kind that will keep,’ and they were filled with thanks. Natasha said, ‘Thank you v. v. v. much.’
Nikos was pleased.
The next day, Stephen rang and said, ‘Honestly, Natasha shouldn’t have agreed to your offer to entertain us all. I feel she takes advantage of her friends.’ I thought back at our conversation, wondering if I had remembered correctly, but was pretty sure I had: Stephen had proposed coming to us.
I also asked Melvyn Bragg and Cate Haste, to whom I’d explained that Stephen and Natasha would come late; they arrived about 10.00, and they and Nikos and I drank wine and talked, I wondering when Stephen and Natasha would come.
They arrived late, about 11.30. Stephen had a basket of three bottles of good wine. We sat around the sitting room and ate off our laps as there was not enough room at our dining table. The professor hardly spoke, hardly ate the food I served him. We others talked about the campaign to retake the Falkland Islands, which everyone agreed was a mistake. It was, as Natasha would say, a jolly good evening, or so I thought; she was especially lively and talkative. Then everyone got up to leave, and as Melvyn and Cate were saying goodbye, I saw Natasha looking at a picture in the sitting room, and I suddenly thought: My God, the Picasso etching!
I’ve mentioned the etching in here: Stephen gave it to me in case Nikos threw me out, so I’d have something to rely on. At that time, he also gave one to David Hockney as a gesture of thanks for all the drawings and etchings David has given to him. Shortly after, he and Natasha were at David’s studio, and Natasha, seeing the Picasso, said, ‘Oh, we have one just like that,’ and David said, ‘Stephen gave it to me.’
There are many stories of Stephen giving precious possessions away without telling Natasha, the most dramatic story being: Stephen gave to Natasha as a wedding gift a special bound copy of World within World, his autobiography, which some years later Cyril Connolly saw in their house and asked for, and Stephen simply gave to Cyril what he had given to Natasha as a wedding gift; when Natasha, perhaps one day looking for it and not finding it, asked Stephen where it was, he told her he had given it to Cyril, and she went into a state; Stephen asked Cyril, explaining the situation to him, if he’d give the book back and Cyril said no, and from then on Natasha wouldn’t speak to him.
When Natasha was told by David H. that Stephen had given the Picasso etching to him, she went into a state – at home, of course, alone with Stephen. Stephen had told me this story and admonished me, ‘For God’s sake, don’t let Natasha know you have that Picasso. It’s an atomic bomb!’ How he explained its disappearance from the house I didn’t know. Each time Natasha came to the house, I had to remember to take down the etching and replace it with something innocuous, say a drawing by Johnny Craxton. Sometimes I remembered to change it only minutes before she arrived. This evening, I forgot.
When I saw her studying the etching, I quickly went to her, not knowing what to say. She said, ‘That’s nice,’ and I said, ‘But that’s yours.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘is it?’ I said, ‘We have many pictures that belong to you.’ ‘Oh yes?’ she said. I didn’t know what else to say, and looked across the room towards Stephen, who gave me one of his looks of combined anger and defeat. They left with the American professor, Natasha hardly saying goodnight.
Nikos said, ‘Well, you’ll simply return the etching.’
It took me a long time to fall asleep.
As I’d anticipated, Stephen rang me in the morning. I apologized for what had happened, and he said, ‘No, don’t worry. Natasha didn’t mention a thing about it.’ We talked more, and I heard the second receiver being lifted and Natasha listened for a moment before Stephen asked, ‘Natasha?’ and she said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ and hung up. I said to Stephen, ‘I feel awful about that Picasso. Supposing I had given one that Nikos and I owned to a young man without telling him and he found out, of course he’d be angry. I’m amazed that Natasha isn’t. You must have it back.’ He said, ‘Well, if she asks for it, perhaps. But no one is going to sell it. There it is. Why shouldn’t you be enjoying it?’ ‘No,’ I insisted, ‘Nikos says I must give it back.’
Vera Russell is writing her memoirs. In conversation, she will say, ‘Henry told me . . .’ and one has to know this is Henry Moore, or ‘Sam told me . . .’ and this is Samuel Beckett, or ‘Joyce once told me . . .’ and you think this must be James Joyce, or ‘Igor . . .’ and who else could this be but Igor Stravinsky, or ‘Serge . . .’ and, yes, Serge Diaghilev, and ‘Valéry’ had to be none other than Paul Valéry, but when she mentioned that ‘Albert once said . . .’ I was hard put to know that this was her friend Albert Schweitzer. As she has no money, she rang the dealer in books and papers George Lawson to ask him to come round to see the letters she’d saved and to give an estimate of their value. George came back saying, ‘It’s absolutely true – Vera has known everybody.’ Her memoirs, which require the help of a research assistant, are already four volumes long. We had lunch in a restaurant in Hyde Park, where she said, ‘I’ll have a big steak. I need strength.’
She said to me, ‘Henry told me that he believes the word is more powerful than the image. Writing matters more than painting or sculpture.’
‘That’s reassuring to me,’ I said.
‘I have known Henry for fifty years,’ she said, ‘and worked with him for twenty-five.’
The impression (and I rely on the word: impression) is that Henry could not have achieved what he did without her.
‘When I was placing Henry’s –’ and here she identified a huge sculpture – ‘in the landscape of Yorkshire –’ and I imagined Vera hefting the huge piece and placing it on a hill, or in a dale.
I shouldn’t be making fun of her.
She showed me her essay on Henry Moore. ‘I wrote this five times. I wanted to write something about him that hasn’t been written before.’ The essay is filled with wonderful non-sequiturs. ‘Because I am a revolution baby’ (she was born during the Russian Revolution in Moscow and can remember, she says, looking out the window and seeing the Revolution happening) ‘I understand Henry Moore’s art –’ No, this isn’t right. I am making fun of her.
Once, she showed me a reproduction of a painting by Francis of a grotesque figure with a leg in a large plaster cast, and Vera said, ‘That’s me.’
Francis invited Nikos and me and Stephen to meet his new friend, Bill. We hadn’t known he had a friend since George. Bill is an electrician. Sonia say
s telephone engineer. He is a broad, very handsome man who wants to become a policeman in New York but who is intelligent enough to know that he really only wants to satisfy a fantasy he has about New York cops. His life, it seems, is devoted to satisfying his sexual fantasies. He’s been all over the United States, and Canada too, and he can tell you where the best bars are, and where men like one thing or another. Because of his looks, he said that every time he goes into a queer club in America the bouncer will say to him, ‘You do realize, sir, that this is a club for homosexuals?’ He loves asking policemen in the street for the way to bars and clubs that, he said smiling, they of course know are queer. Bill’s smile is wide and clean and very white.
After dinner at Langan’s Brasserie, for which Francis insisted on paying, we all got into a taxi to go to a club in Leicester Square called Adam’s. The taxi stopped and started, stopped and started in the Friday late-night traffic in the West End. Once we got to Leicester Square, Stephen said he thought he’d go home – it was still early enough to catch the tube.
Adam’s is a large, crowded club with gold chandeliers and gold-framed mirrors, and is so dark and filled with smoke we could hardly see. Francis, Bill, Nikos and I stood by the bar. Francis kept giving Bill twenty-pound notes to buy bottles of champagne. We talked a lot about sex. Bill said he liked to be fucked, fist-fucked, and he also liked, from time to time, ‘G.B.H.’ Nikos asked, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Grievous bodily harm,’ Bill said, and smiled his bright smile. ‘And you’ve had it?’ Francis asked him. ‘Only a couple of times,’ Bill answered. ‘Real welts and wheals?’ Francis asked. ‘Oh yes,’ Bill answered; ‘I enjoy it but it has to be done by someone you like. And there’s always the danger that they won’t be able to stop when you want them to.’ ‘Well,’ Francis said, ‘I like G.B.H. now and then. I had a friend – he finally killed himself – who had a collection of whips he kept at my place. A while ago, I took someone there who said he was interested in whips, and I showed him the collection.’ Francis laughed. ‘Well, I undressed and got on my fish-net stockings –’ ‘Black?’ Nikos asked. ‘Of course black, stupid,’ Francis said. ‘And he started to beat me. But he got carried away. He wouldn’t stop. I’m a total coward. In nothing but my black fish-net stockings, I ran out into Reece Mews.’ He laughed a loud laugh.