Fear of Mirrors

by Tariq Ali

  ‘So if Moscow shifts gear, you will need a few supporters in the DDR.’

  ‘You’re an intelligent man, Professor Meyer. You might win sooner than you think.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I believe you.’

  ‘Wait and see. Patience is the noblest of virtues.’

  I walked back to the apartment in a daze, oblivious to the spring sunshine, oblivious to the almond blossoms, oblivious to everything except Winter. My mind played and re-played the events of the afternoon. I wanted to run down the Unter den Linden, screaming to the world that my mother was a spy, that she had spied on her own family, that her crippled mind had totally destroyed any sense of honour. Morality was a concept Gertrude had never understood.

  The apartment was quiet when I returned. You were away in Czechoslovakia with a group from your school. Helge was working late; it was Tuesday, when she saw extra patients in her rooms at the hospital.

  ‘Come home, Helge,’ I shouted at her photograph. ‘Come home and analyse me!’

  I walked from one room to another, removing every photograph of Gertrude I could find. There was one I had always liked: Gertrude holding you when you were three years old. She was smiling at you, a genuine smile. I loved that photograph. It was on my desk, but now I lifted it and smashed it on the floor. I hated that smile. It couldn’t be real. Nothing about her was real. Her face, her emotions, her life – everything had been a mask.

  When Helge returned that evening, I told her everything. She was shaken, too, but not completely surprised. For her it was as if a puzzle had been solved. For an hour we sat silently next to each other, buried deep in our thoughts.

  Twenty-four

  IF THERE WAS A SINGLE PERSON who could have told Vlady what he wanted to know about Ludwik, it was Felix, who knew him from a child’s perspective. Felix, who was born out of the great love his parents had felt for each other in the heroic days of utopia. Felix, who understood more than his parents realized and who was alert to even the slightest change of mood on the part of either of them.

  When Felix woke up on that beautiful July day in 1937, he tried to understand why he was feeling so happy. He frowned, struggling to remember the dream, but shrugged his shoulders and gave up. One reason for his happiness was that the three of them had been together now for nearly a month. Ludwik was no longer travelling.

  Felix tiptoed to his parents’ bedroom and turned the brass door-knob as softly as he could. The door creaked as he pushed it open. There they were, lying fast asleep in each other’s arms. Felix smiled and walked out backwards, pulling the door shut behind him. It creaked again, making him shudder and stop, but there was no sound from the room.

  Paris in summer. He leaned out of the kitchen window, shutting his eyes as the sun hit his face. The streets looked crisp and dry. The parquet of puddles appeared to have vanished. The noises on the street were getting louder and soon he began to see familiar figures.

  In his daydreams, Felix would look at the shopkeepers and put different features on each of them. Then they began to remind him of people he loved, but who were now far away in the Soviet Union. Despite the strain on his mother, Felix had enjoyed their trip to Moscow. Old friends were fresh in his mind. Often he would start imaginary conversations with the imaginary characters below. Sometimes he would get so involved in the intricate details of his make-believe world that he would fail to see his mother, standing at the edge of the kitchen, drinking in every word he spoke. Occasionally he was embarrassed, but it never really bothered him.

  Today he was happy, waiting for his parents to wake up. He made himself some breakfast, but he could not relax for long. An old civil war fantasy, which had first taken hold when he was five or six years old, had marched into his brain again to the strains of the ‘Internationale’. He could already hear Marshal Tukachevsky’s voice, soft and gentle, not like the generals he saw in the cinema.

  ‘You can bring my breakfast now, comrade. I’m ready!’

  Felix picked up the tray and took it to the Marshal, who smiled as Felix gave him the red-fist salute.

  ‘Any news from the front, Comrade Marshal?’

  ‘The Whites are in total retreat. Kolchak’s forces have been defeated. Denikin has disappeared. Good news, eh?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Comrade Marshal, but the foreign armies. There are twenty-two of them on Soviet soil. Can we defeat twenty-two armies?’

  Of course we can. Comrade Trotsky is arriving today. Would you like to meet him?’

  At this crucial point the telephone began to ring. Felix cursed the caller and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it’s me. Mama is still asleep, Uncle Shmelka. I’ll tell her you called. Sure. I hope so. Au revoir.’

  Ludwik was never at home to callers unless he chose to answer the phone. This house-rule was so deeply ingrained in Felix that it came to him automatically. Felix liked Livitsky. He was the only old face from home who was in Paris at the moment. He had been to see them twice last week, but they had all looked extremely tense and, surprise, surprise, they had stopped talking when Felix had entered the room. He hated it when grown-ups did that to him. He was no longer a child.

  He had surmised that both his parents did some secret work for the Soviet Union. Neither of them had told him anything, but the house-rules were odd. Family travel plans, for instance, were never to be divulged to anyone. Lisa’s explanation for this had been so unconvincing and stupid that Felix could no longer even remember what she had first told him. He frowned. Only yesterday, one of his friends, André, had asked him to come and spend a few weeks with him and his family in the Pays-Basque. Felix had declined. When André had persisted, wanting to know the reason, Felix had mumbled something incoherent to the effect that his parents were planning to take him on a long trip somewhere or the other.

  It was the first day of the school holidays. He clapped his hands. That was one of the reasons why he was feeling so happy. How could he have forgotten? He was glad school was over. At first they had mistaken him for a Spanish refugee child seeking sanctuary from the horrors of the civil war. He had been given special attention and had begun to learn French at a surprisingly quick pace. Most of the teachers were Socialists or Communists and Spain was always close to their thoughts. The chemistry teacher’s brother had died at Teruel. It was only later that the teachers had discovered that Felix did not speak a word of Spanish. They had deceived themselves, but their anger percolated through to Felix.

  ‘I speak Russian, Polish and German,’ he had declared, his eyes ablaze with anger.

  ‘Russian!’

  Even better than Spanish for some of the teachers and he had received even more care. His French continued to improve.

  ‘What does your father do?’ a friendly young maths teacher asked him one afternoon.

  ‘He’s a businessman,’ Felix replied, as he had been told to do on numerous occasions and in numerous cities. The look of horror on the teacher’s face made Felix blush.

  ‘When did he leave the Soviet Union?’

  The tone was now so hostile that Felix defiantly shrugged his shoulders. Was it Felix’s imagination, or had the teacher actually muttered ‘White scum’?

  Since that day school had become an unendurable misery. A few kids had teased him about being ‘a White’, a gibe which, on one occasion, had led to fisticuffs. What had annoyed Felix even more was that when he told Ludwik and Lisa, they had laughed. Subsequently Lisa had spoken to the teacher, and the tension had eased, but school was no longer fun.

  André was his only friend. They talked to each other about almost everything. Felix loved going to André’s house. His father was an engine driver who worked shifts. Whenever Felix had gone home with André after school, his father was just getting out of bed, ready to go to work, but he always chatted to them, treated them as adults. On Sundays, André and his dad played an intense game of chess. Felix would have loved to go with them to the Pays-Basque for a week next month.

  The sound of fa
miliar voices reached him and he ran into the bedroom. He thought Lisa would be in an ebullient mood, exhilarated, just as he was, by what Ludwik had told him last week about never having to go away again. But her face was tense. It was a look Felix knew well, but in the past it had always been associated with Ludwik’s absences. Today it was inexplicable. He hugged his mother and she held him close, stroking his face all the while. Words became redundant. These mute, emotionally charged exchanges always conveyed a special signal. It had been like that for as long as he could remember. Felix realized that his father’s decision not to travel meant some threats that might be even more dangerous. Where did the danger lie, and why?

  ‘Why is Mama so upset?’ Felix and Ludwik were walking through the Latin Quarter. Ludwik had first seen Paris in 1923 and fallen in love with this city within a city. Napoleon III, he explained to Felix, had ordered the construction of the Boulevard Saint-Michel, but there were enough narrow streets to preserve the old Bohemian flavour.

  Ludwik looked at the boy’s hair, which was reflecting the sun and smiled to himself. How tall Felix had grown and how good-looking, just like his mother. He remembered the arguments with Lisa about bringing a child into a world torn by dissension and wars. Thank heaven she had won the argument. He put his arm round the boy’s shoulder. His profoundest moments of agony concerned Felix. In the early days he used worry about what would happen to his son if he himself fell into enemy hands. As the years had passed, Ludwik had become more settled in his mind. Now Felix would at least remember his father.

  ‘I’m not a baby any longer. I know more than you realize. She’s upset because she’s worried about you. Why, Papa? Please tell me. Please.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we’re on holiday. I promise. We’ll sit down together in a café and have a long talk.’

  ‘So we are going away together?’

  ‘Not exactly. You and Lisa will leave tomorrow, and I will join you within a few weeks. I promise.’

  ‘Is that why Mama is upset? Because you won’t be going with us?’

  ‘That is certainly one reason.’

  Felix’s face clouded, but he did not say anything. Why did Ludwik have to stay here for another few weeks? They had now crossed the rue de l’Odeon and reached the kingdom of literature. Felix loved the Galéries and had intimate knowledge of the arcade. Even when Ludwik was away on his travels, Lisa would often bring him here, leaving him alone to browse for hours.

  While Felix looked at the newest books and longingly eyed the stationery, his father strolled casually to a second-hand stall, behind which an elderly woman was constantly rearranging books. Her eyes lit up when she saw Ludwik, but not a word was exchanged. She went away and returned with what appeared to be a very old book and handed it to Ludwik. This time her eyes expressed concern. Ludwik noticed, and gave her a reassuring smile and a nod as he took the book from her. As he walked away she looked around anxiously to see if they had been observed by any strangers, but everything seemed normal. She knew most of the old customers. ‘Be careful, Ludwik,’ she muttered to herself.

  Ludwik went in search of Felix and found him at the stationery stall. As he did so he removed a piece of paper from the book and put it in his pocket. Felix took the book from his father, a first edition in Russian of War and Peace. Felix shook his head and smiled. Ludwik laughed. His collection of antiquarian books always amused Felix, who could not fully appreciate the point of having several editions of the same book.

  When they got home some hours later, after detours via the Café Voltaire and to buy a pair of tough climbing boots for Felix, he got a terrible shock. The apartment was completely bare. Everything had been taken down from the walls. Suitcases full of clothes and books covered the floor. They had lived here for nearly two years and Felix, unlike his parents, had become quite attached to this apartment. Ludwik saw the look on the boy’s face and squeezed his shoulders affectionately.

  ‘Your mother’s already done the packing for the holiday!’

  ‘But she’s packed everything. Aren’t we coming back here?’

  Felix’s distressed voice upset Ludwik; he was hurt. Ludwik knew only too well that the nomadic existence they led was psychologically destabilizing for Felix. Till now there had been no other alternative, except, of course, for Lisa to move permanently to Moscow with Felix, and that was impossible.

  ‘Felix, we will never return to this apartment. Tomorrow you’re off to a place far away from here. No letters, no telephones, no messages. And from now on we’ll all be together. Always. Happy?’

  Felix hugged his father.

  ‘Are you getting a new job? Are you tired working for the Soviet Union?’

  ‘Very tired.’

  ‘Hmm. Soon you’ll be totally bald.’

  Ludwik smiled as he sighed. If only he could be let off so lightly. He took out the crumpled note he had been handed at the bookstall.

  Some men, definitely Russians, were asking about you today. When you had last been and did I expect you to call on any particular day. I pretended not to know you and not to understand them. They had no idea I spoke Russian so they cursed you, but believed me. Must be the wrinkles on my face. Take care, Ludwik.

  That evening as he was preparing to go to bed, Lisa told her husband not to keep the boy up for too long. ‘He must sleep soon. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.’

  As Lisa rose to clear the kitchen table, still littered with the remains of their supper, Ludwik lifted his son on his back as he used to when Felix was much younger and moved towards the tiny, enclosed space – more a cupboard than a room – where Felix’s bed was situated.

  ‘No Spanish stories tonight, Papa. They’ve got too sad.’

  Ever since his third birthday, Felix had insisted on special bedtime stories whenever his father returned from a long trip abroad. These had always involved an animal in the central role. Ludwik always ran into a talking seal in Amsterdam; a distraught lion in London; a lost polar from Siberia in Vienna; a disorientated bison in Geneva; a python in Munich, and so on. Around these animals, Ludwik developed a style of explaining to his child what was going on in the world outside.

  As Felix grew, the animals slowly disappeared and were replaced by imaginary superhumans and then, for the last three or four years, Ludwik had recounted true stories culled from his experiences in the Soviet Union, Germany, and lately, the civil war in Spain.

  The war in Spain was talked about endlessly everywhere Felix went. He was proud that his father was helping the republic against the fascists and one summer, he and Lisa had joined Ludwik in Collioure for a week. He had loved the town so much that he wanted to spend more time there and his parents had agreed. Everyday, while Ludwik visited his republican village in the mountains, Felix would drag Lisa to explore the medieval castle.

  But it was not just castles, ice-creams and cakes. Nor the timeless hours spent playing on the beach. The fact was that Felix had made friends with a boy his own age. The two had become inseparable. Lisa was delighted to see her boy so happy. It took her a few days to realize that Felix’s new friend had a sister, a year older than the boys. Felix developed a crush on her and began to follow her everywhere, much to the irritation of her brother, not to mention her more serious suitors.

  And then came the day when the brother and sister departed. The holiday was over. Felix was heartbroken. He wandered around the battlements of the old castle feeling sorry for himself and imagining situations in which he rescued his beloved from the forces of evil. He even went off food for a few days. Lisa and Ludwik had observed everything in silence. Any attempt to talk about it with Felix would have been fatal. Before the week was over Lisa had nursed her son back to reality.

  Ludwik had told him dozens of stories about Spain. Of how the Spanish workers were fighting against Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Of how Americans, Russians, Englishmen and yes, Germans as well, had come to the aid of the republic. Tales of heroism, days of hope. After a time, Felix began to find Ludwik’s stories
repetitive and predictable. Heroism can become incredibly dull. But there was something else as well. He wasn’t getting the full story. He had heard his parents talking in whispers about the poisonous undercurrents, the war within the war, the killings inside the republican camp. Felix did not understand much of this talk, bur he knew that whatever it was, it upset his parents a great deal.

  ‘Tell me about when you were a boy, before the Revolution. Uncle Shmelka said you were always arguing with everyone.’

  The boy lying in the bed in the shadows of a summer night looked adoringly at his father. Ludwik bent down to kiss Felix’s eyes.

  ‘There was a whole gang of us in this tiny town. We all went to the same school. Outside school we spent most of our time together. Our summer headquarters were on the river bank. We would swim, compete with each other to see who could catch the most fish, light a fire and grill the fish. Nothing like that taste.

  ‘During winter we used to hang around the railway station. A border town has many advantages. We were part of the Austrian Empire. The other side of the river was the Tsarist Empire. Personally, I preferred the Austrians. We used to watch the trains go by and dream of seeing the big towns. St Petersburg, Berlin, London, Paris and Vienna. Our world did not extend beyond those places. We used to watch the people returning to Lemberg from Vienna. For some reason, which we never understood, all the beautiful ladies from the Russian nobility used to discard their flowers at insignificant little Pidvocholesk. We used to pick up the flowers, sprinkle them with water, tie them with new string and sell them to people going in the other direction or to Shmelka’s mother. She always bought them from us.’

  ‘Were Uncle Shmelka’s parents rich?’

  ‘Not really, but compared to the rest of us they appeared wealthy. He always wore clean clothes, had music lessons and the ultimate luxury: a room to himself at home.’

  ‘Ludwik! Enough. Let the boy sleep.’

  They smiled on hearing Lisa’s voice. Ludwik kissed Felix on both cheeks.