Innocence To Die For

by Eidinow, John

  A traveller’s edition of Horace’s Odes dated 1517 had caught Peter’s eye and he picked it up, but then hesitated between that and the French traveller’s description of the Russian steppe. Meanwhile, the bookseller had returned with the professor’s book. He held it out to Peter: Hesse and Isenberg, Hölderlin: Dokumente seines Lebens. ‘Are you acquainted with Hölderlin?’

  With a smile, Peter shook his head. ‘No more than with Novalis. I hope to get to grips with him.’

  The bookseller took both the Odes and the travel book from him, and over Peter’s further protests made a neat parcel of the three. ‘I will give you a sale or return invoice, in case you need to explain them to your Customs. Do call in again if you are in our city, even if you have no errand from the professor. Please assure him I am staying on here. Business as usual, for as long as possible. Then via our Zürich connection.’

  ****

  ‘You are sure this is the one?’ Dinah’s tone was unexpectedly sharp.

  ‘It’s the one the bookseller gave me for him. There are two others, but, as I said, they’re the books he asked me to pick out as a going-home present.’

  ‘I think it is Lichtenberg grandfather is expecting. The Letters from England.’

  ‘Georg Lichtenberg? The chemist?’

  ‘And diarist. “If angels could tell us their philosophy, it would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13”. One of my father’s favourite quotations.’

  ‘Sounds just like Wittgenstein.’

  ‘I studied his house in Vienna. Have you ever seen it? The house he builded for his sister? Everything is exactly right about it.’

  ‘Built. His passion – and genius – is exactness. But that Hölderlin is the book for your grandfather. And the bookseller said to tell him that he hopes to carry on business as usual for as long as possible, then through their Zürich connection.’

  ****

  He’d been in their teashop trying to read, too edgy over seeing her, when – and how strangely like his mother – her hands had clasped his shoulders from behind. He’d kissed each one in turn. They were fragrant with a rich, lively scent – he’d never noticed her wearing real perfume before, just a trace of Lily of the Valley. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  She’d taken the seat opposite him. ‘And I have missed you.’

  Her grey mackintosh was unbuttoned revealing a pale blue silk blouse with a long pointed collar and a fine wool navy-blue suit, with a double-breasted jacket with a faux spotted handkerchief in its breast pocket. Her hair was tightly coiled in the nape of her neck.

  ‘I’m sorry. I will explain.’

  Still feeling edgy, he’d told her how smart she looked.

  ‘The store expects its managers to look business-like. And I am now in charge of a few people and so a manager. To be exact, lower manager. It is not what I want in life.’ She’d shrugged. ‘It is what is on offer. And I can do it.’ She’d asked for a cup of strong tea. ‘How was your visit to The Hague? Did you manage to see the bookseller?’

  ‘The Hague? Very quiet. On the surface, all peacetime normality, everything lit up; underneath, deep anxiety over war. They know the Germans will come but not when, and they know they’ll fight but never hold them, even by flooding. Inside four months, the bookseller believes. I had a look round his shop – wonderful variety of works – and we had a very interesting chat. He even let me chose two books for myself. Said he’d rather they were in London than in his shop under the Nazis. And this is the one for your grandfather.’ He’d put the Hölderlin in an envelope for her. ‘Hölderlin: Dokumente seines Lebens. We’d better keep hold of it.’

  ****

  Customers were all talking about road casualties, she said, as they edged cautiously through the crowds in the encroaching gloom. She gripped his arm. A buyer had shown her a letter of the directors had written to The Times saying that Hitler wouldn’t need to bomb Britain if the blackout went on. Road deaths would do the job for him.

  A pub in Rathbone Place off Oxford Street offered bright and cheerful sanctuary from the uncertain darkness of the street. They were lucky. A cosy booth, its wooden partitions topped in stained glass, had just been vacated, the table glistening with rainbow rings from recent pints of beer.

  To make themselves heard, they had to sit with their heads almost touching, the forward crouch a bit like being in church, he thought, on the edge of the pew to avoid actually kneeling—not that she would know that. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you at all,’ he hesitated, ‘after that meeting.’

  She repeated, ‘I am sorry, so sorry. I felt I had much to think over, and I needed to be alone. And then a friend had an operation and I went to stay with her for a few days to help in the evenings with her children.’ She lifted her head to look into his eyes.

  Was she battling her roots, as his mother had warned? Had that meeting shown they were too far apart politically? Was there someone else? All of those things? He only knew anxiety possessed him. The dark eyes with the hint of hazel were warm. Were they glistening slightly?

  She caught him by surprise, leaning forward to kiss him. ‘I did think of you, Mr Peter. All the time.’

  His anxiety dissolved. ‘I wish you would call me Peter.’ He took her face in his hands and kissed her. The tips of their tongues touched, flames lancing. Happiness consumed him.

  ****

  At the bar, someone was watching them. He emptied his glass and came across, swaying slightly, a small, round man with a pale skin and red hair in tight curls

  ‘“… quisquis amore tenetur eat tutusque sacerque

  qualibet; insidias non timuisse decet …”’

  They jumped apart. Leaning into the booth, he was declaiming Latin at them in a high almost reedy voice, lilting with a Welsh accent.

  ‘“… non mihi pigra nocent hibernae frigora noctis,

  non mihi cum multa decidet imber aqua …”’

  He was dressed in a hairy Irish tweed jacket, red-brown with leather patches on the sleeves, a blue flannel shirt and green woollen tie, and brown corduroy trousers held up with a leather belt.

  ‘If you’re going to be dressed by Technicolor, Rhees, you should hand out dark glasses for your friends and acquaintances to look at you,’ Peter said equably.

  Rebalancing himself on the heels of his scuffed black boots, the Weshman continued as if Peter hadn’t spoken.

  ‘“… non labor hic laedit, reseret modo Delia postes

  et uocet ad digiti me taciturna somum.”’

  He nodded gravely at Peter. ‘Mr Hill, your version please.’

  Peter thought for a moment, then smiled at Dinah: ‘“He’s hallowed whom love consumes. Tread where he likes, he’ll be safe; for these blessed, snares just vanish. Winter’s icy night can’t touch me; rain, even torrents, can’t wet me.”’

  Peter waved at the intruder. ‘Dinah, let me introduce Professor Chiasmus. Teacher extraordinaire of Greek and Latin. And poet. This Latin is Tibullus, the Roman poet.’ He continued with the verse: ‘“When Dinah secures the door and calls with a finger’s lift, away with present trouble.”’

  Dinah had flushed slightly. She held out her hand. ‘Dinah Altschuler.’

  “Professor Chiasmus” took it in both of his and kissed it. ‘Dear lady. And what could my former pupil have possibly done to deserve you?’ He squashed himself into the booth beside her. ‘I’d say we’re all ready for another drink.’ His small blue eyes, deep set, glinted with a sharp, mocking intelligence, darting from Peter to Dinah.

  ‘It’ll have to be a quick one – we’ve a dinner date.’ Peter glanced at Dinah.

  Dinah shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

  Peter got up. ‘The civil name is Rhees Rees. Former classics fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and occasional teacher of classics at Eton.’

  When he returned with two whiskies, Rees was explaining that, as a Welshman, he too knew what it was like to be a member of an oppressed minority.

  ‘More miti
gation than oppression in your case, many would think, Rhees,’ Peter said. ‘What are you doing now?’

  ‘I have temporarily diverted my talent into an official film unit, as scriptwriter. Re-diverted, I should say. Or perhaps recalled to the celluloid by a former colleague.’

  Peter remembered vaguely hearing of Rees’s working on a documentary film about Spain, the director a former pupil and an ardent communist.

  ‘By good fortune, my fellow film-makers have the same attitude to the demands of creativity as I. Nothing good ever was written in an office: a standard issue chair at a standard issue desk is guaranteed to produce only standard issue thoughts. Thoughts ordinary, dullards for the use of. The fellowship of the saloon bar and the company of fair ladies can be counted on to stimulate the juices—the creative juices.’

  Dinah rose abruptly. ‘Excuse me, please.’ She clutched her handbag to her side as she edged past him.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t ask you to join us for a bite, but we have things to discuss,’ Peter said, watching Dinah disappear into the recesses of the pub. She was shaking her skirt out on the side Rees had been sitting. ‘Another day, perhaps.’

  ‘That would be delightful. I’m quite sure you have much to talk about. A very interesting young woman, and, yes, very strangely attractive; strangely very attractive. But you don’t need me to tell you that. From the borders of eastern Europe, I gather.’

  ‘Bukovina. Though she came here from Vienna with her grandfather, a professor of German.’

  ‘Really. And how is your bewitching mother? Of course you’ve introduced Dinah to her?’

  ‘She’s out of the country at the moment, in eastern Europe. Looking forward to meeting Dinah, she said. When eventually she gets back.’

  ‘Delightful. And Dinah and your mother can speak the same language, perhaps?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll understand each other.’

  ‘I’m sure Dinah has no problems of understanding. Tell me, Rhees, how is the book on figures of speech? Any sign of its publication?’

  ‘Still demanding heavy hours in the British Museum, when my duties as scriptwriter permit and my poetic muse allows. I am trying to track down a Greek line. Perhaps you know it: “Eros pantwn deilian hairei, phrenas Ate.”’

  ‘“Love makes us brave, foolhardiness blind”?’

  Dinah returned but made no move to sit down. Peter took his coat and hat and stood. ‘I’m sorry we can’t linger.’

  ‘“Foolhardiness blind”. That’s to be remembered. I can’t really stay myself: I’m meeting one or two of your fellow scholars in the Greek Club for a drink and an exchange of news.’

  ‘Give them my regards.’ He pushed his untouched whisky towards Rees. ‘And do let me know when your first film is on.’

  Rees pulled a face. ‘Barbarians. They’re not interested in words. “Show, don’t tell. Show, don’t tell.”’ He looked up at Peter. ‘By the way, “ambush”, not “snare”.’ He took Peter’s whisky and swallowed it in one gulp. ‘A scholar must keep an eye sharp for the true sense. You won’t forget “Eros pantwn deilian hairei, phrenas Ate” will you?’

  ‘“Love makes us brave, foolhardiness blind”. I’ll let you know if I come across it.’

  ****

  Outside, the darkness closed around them; they went cautiously, arm in arm, to find a restaurant. He was promising himself he would never again use Vienna to justify Dinah when she broke into his thoughts: ‘Are all your friends like that?’

  ‘Not all as intelligent, as brilliant or as wayward. Or self-destructive, perhaps.’

  ‘Self-destructive? Drink?’

  ‘Oh yes. And he left Cambridge after complaints from women students of unwelcome touching.’ His exit apparently hastened by reports of a notebook in which, it was alleged, he listed victims’ names, entering marks for the prominence, substance and consistency of the mons pubis he’d fingered and the quantity and quality of the pubic hair.

  ‘I will not care to sit next to him again.’ Peter stopped. ‘I do not want you to ever mention it.’ She put a finger on his lips. ‘Please. For my sake. It will not be good for me if you make a fuss.’

  ****

  Over dinner, Dinah talked of the turmoil in which the baths meeting had left her. Yes, the adoption of the new line – revolutionary defeatism – was a matter of communist discipline. Yes, without discipline, without holding the party line, the true interests of the working-class, as strictly analysed, would be betrayed. The general line explained by the Comintern laid down that the working class could not participate in an imperialist war, supporting international capital, against their fundamental, long-term interests. In the final analysis, general revolution was the necessary aim. All that was theoretically clear and unarguable. But … But was the publisher…

  ‘Stanley, Rutherglen Stanley, the Honourable Rutherglen …’

  Had the Honourable Stanley been right when he said that Stalin was really putting forward this line to justify his pact with Hitler? To justify having given Hitler a free hand as the price of peace for Soviet socialism? And, of course, his own aggression? And, to cut the story short, what would holding the new line mean? The Nazi assault was gathering force. With the Soviet Union occupying the western Ukraine, what would happen if the Nazis turned to Roumania? Or Roumania to the Nazis? The onslaught on Jewish people, how was that to be understood in the historical context of the party line?

  She had to work this out. Think it over. Was she guilty of betraying the working class, guilty of social fascism, if she rejected the line and continued to back the war? Believing that Stalin was cynically putting the interests of the fatherland, the Russian fatherland, above general working class interest? And of course there were the Jews, treated without mercy as Stalin looked on, paying the price for the new dialectic. Its victims.

  The intensity of her conflict shook him. He had presumed so much—that he was her problem, when these transcendent political issues were weighing on her. How selfish of him.

  ‘The final decision on the general line has been taken?’

  ‘Yes. Naturally in Moscow. The thesis is that the war is an imperialist war, which cannot be supported by the international working class or any Communist Party. Britain is not concerned with Poland, which is a semi-fascist country, but only with preserving her own imperialist interests. The international working class and Communist Parties must act so as to shatter the capitalist system. In Dimitrov’s words, they must become “gravediggers at the funeral of capitalism”. The party has decided that it must change its line and, as this is an imperialist war, commit itself to the unyielding struggle for the interests and victory of the working class against their own imperialists.’ She looked round the near-empty restaurant. One waiter was sitting at a table near the service door frowning at a newspaper crossword. Two others chatted by the cash desk. A blonde girl and a young man in a Fair Isle jersey who had come in just after them were already lighting up over coffee.

  In the torrent of words, her meal had grown cold and greasy. Peter signalled to remove her plate and his own, which he had forgotten as he was drawn into the story. ‘You must eat. Cheese or treacle tart?’ he asked her. ‘Or cheese and tart?’

  The party, she went on, had voted for the new line and agreed it had been in error because of an insufficiently rigorous Marxist-Leninist approach and lack of vigilance. It had blurred the distinction between the national interest of the British people and the imperial interest of the British ruling class. It had weakened the class basis of the Party. It had failed to understand Stalin’s analysis that the world front of imperialism must be opposed by the united front of the revolutionary movement in all countries. ‘Every member has to be a fighting member of the Communist International, fighting for the new line. Well, I have decided I cannot be. I will not be a fighter for Stalin and his fatherland.’ She paused again. ‘So, forgive me. I hope you can understand. I had the need to think all this out.’ She gave him a crooked half
-smile. ‘I am on your side.’

  He thought that while her lips laughed, above her dark brows her forehead was still tensed …

  ‘I know the party would accuse me of short-sightedness and treachery, of ideological short-sightedness and treachery to the international proletariat. But I will still fight for the anti-fascist cause, and I will not let the working class down.’

  ****

  One of the blackout’s few advantages was its dispensing with shyness or discretion. Shielded by darkness, on the corner of her street, their corner, she turned to him and took off his hat so that he could kiss her freely, their bodies pressed together. He felt his heart would burst. She broke away, stroked his cheek, and walked off. Almost immediately, she came back. His heart bumped.

  ‘Grandfather’s book?’

  He decided to walk part of the way home. Holding fast to the memory of her body against his, he was content to be wrapped in blackness. Then, crossing a road by the dim light of his torch, he was nearly run down by a small car. The memory was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Later, during the freezing winter, looking back at this autumnal period, he saw his life as through a sequence of snapshots in an album, separate but part of a wider, hidden picture.

  ****

  They were to pick up Ella at the Fitzroy Tavern, where she would be drinking with artist friends, and go on to Bertorelli’s.

  As they came into the Tavern, Ella caught his eye, drained her brandy with a familiar toss of the head and dropped her cigarette end into the glass. She had taken informality seriously, wearing her ARP greatcoat over slacks and a roll-neck jersey, her red-brown hair tucked into a black turban. Her lipstick was a vivid dark red. A touch of the louche—tonight of all nights, Peter thought. Dinah was in her neat business suit.

  ‘Which of you is the older?’ Dinah asked when they were seated.

  ‘Peter was born about five minutes after me,’ Ella said. ‘So he’s my young brother and must always do what I tell him. In return, I look after him.’