by Clare Clark
Fräulein Eberhardt hesitated. She was shivering, her lips blue-stained. ‘The things I said to you, that’s not why you’re leaving, is it?’
‘Your self-regard is striking but no, child, I am not leaving because you insulted your mother.’
‘I am not a child.’
‘No? Then perhaps it is time you stopped behaving like one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch my train.’
Fräulein Eberhardt was silent. ‘She’s not like that, you know,’ she said in a small voice. ‘The things I said. Here.’
Digging in her pocket she pulled out a folded piece of paper and thrust it at him. Confused, he took it. As the chauffeur slammed the door she ran back towards the house. Julius saw the door open, the outline of her slight figure against the blaze of light from the hall. Then the door closed and she was gone.
The car glided along the wooded road that led to the lake, its headlamps twin tunnels of light in the deepening gloom. Pale trees loomed out of the darkness and disappeared. Julius turned the square of folded paper in his hand, feeling the sharpness of its corners against his fingers. On the seat beside him the Noah’s Ark gleamed in its shiny wrapping. He sighed. Closing his eyes, he dropped the note unopened into his coat pocket.
VII
In the weeks after Julius’s return from Munich, Matthias was frequently in Berlin. Business, he said vaguely, and Julius did not press him. He was glad that the young man made it a habit to drop by. He no longer bothered to make an appointment, preferring to call in on his way from a meeting or en route to dinner, and, although Frau Lang made no secret of her disapproval, Julius was charmed by his impulsiveness. He was right, he was not the barging-in type. On the contrary, he seemed to possess an infallible instinct for the right moment, the evenings when Julius’s appointments finished early, when he was dining alone. Several times he brought a painting for Julius to authenticate. Often he did not. He had a way of leaning forward when he listened, as though he absorbed the words through the surface of his skin.
‘You do promise you’ll send me packing, won’t you, the moment you’re tired of me?’ he insisted, and though Julius laughingly assured him he would, there was never an evening, as the young man rose to leave, when Julius did not wish he might stay a little longer. He thought of the vacuous gaggle of men that crowded Luisa’s parties, Matthias’s age, most of them, as squealingly fearful of silence as children playing Musical Chairs. In their youth Julius and his friends had stayed up all night, drinking, of course, but mostly talking, talking, talking, not the frenzied empty chatter of cocaine but the meticulous, miraculous unfurling of ideas, of literature and philosophy and art. They had wanted to understand everything, to feel everything. Matthias was the same.
In the Yellow House in Arles, van Gogh had dreamed of creating a community of artists. If only ten people could be found in every country to come together with the simple intention of working for good, the world would blossom like a flower, he wrote to Theo. His own strength was failing but art would endure. To the horizon, an infinity of beautiful things. Though perhaps those words were Julius’s. He could no longer exactly remember where Vincent ended and his imaginings began.
He was putting in his cufflinks when Frau Lang knocked at his dressing-room door, outraged and out of breath.
‘It’s Herr Rachmann, he’s here. I told him quite plainly you were going out, but he insisted. Apparently it can’t wait, though why I couldn’t say.’
Snatching up his coat, Julius hurried downstairs. Matthias was standing in front of the fire. He turned as Julius came in, his face shining with excitement.
‘I’m sorry, Julius, I’m interrupting you, I know, I should have telephoned but I go back to Düsseldorf first thing tomorrow and I couldn’t leave without telling you.’
‘Without telling me what?’
‘We’re opening a gallery.’ His grin was so wide it split his face in two. ‘My brother and I, here in Berlin. Hardly a gallery even. A room. A cupboard. A cupboard on the third floor of a building with no elevator that isn’t quite in the gallery district. Moltkestrasse 98. We signed a lease this afternoon.’
‘But that’s wonderful news,’ Julius said. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you. I can’t really believe it. Of course it’s all thanks to you.’
‘I hardly think so.’
‘I’m serious. Don’t you remember, the very first time we met, I told you that all I wanted was to be taken seriously and you said that if I was serious about art I had to be in Berlin. So here I am.’
‘Then I’m delighted I said it. What I remember is you saying that you wanted a happy life.’
‘And perhaps, thanks to you, I’ll have one. Where else can a man be truly happy but here?’
The gallery would be called the Old & New Art Gallery Ltd. There was so much of Matthias in the name, Julius thought, in its blend of artlessness and awe. Matthias’s brother would deal in antiquities, Matthias in modern art.
‘We should celebrate,’ Julius said. ‘Stay for a drink. Better still, stay for dinner.’
‘But you’re going out.’
‘A dinner I haven’t the slightest desire to go to. Frau Lang will telephone and tell them I’ve been taken ill. An occasion this momentous cannot go unmarked.’
Matthias protested. It was an imposition and much too late and besides he had only the suit he stood up in, but Julius insisted. He had Frau Lang decant a bottle of the 1900 Château Margaux and watched with pleasure as Matthias took his first sip, savouring the wine’s tannic sleekness, its long, lush finish.
‘Oh my God,’ Matthias said, laughing. Julius laughed too.
‘To the Old & New Art Gallery,’ he said, raising his glass. It was only when the wine was all drunk that Matthias confessed that he and his brother were already in dispute about the future of the business. Gregor had recently secured a profitable contract to supply decorative antiquities to a large Berlin department store, he was confident others would follow. He wanted Matthias to give up on modern painting and work with him. Julius thought of Matthias flogging amphorae amid the faux-Hellenic monstrosities of the Wertheim atrium and shook his head, aghast.
‘But that’s unconscionable. You’d be nothing but a glorified encyclopedia salesman!’
Matthias shrugged. ‘Gregor has had enough of being poor. To follow one’s heart when there is an easier way, he thinks it’s a kind of madness. Maybe it is.’
‘You don’t think that.’
‘No. But perhaps in time I can learn to.’
‘Or perhaps you could find yourself another partner. A partner who would support you, who wanted what you wanted.’
‘You make it sound as though such men are everywhere.’
‘There are enough of them, if you know where to look,’ Julius said. He leaned across the table. ‘I know a lot of people, Matthias.’
Matthias shook his head. ‘You’re very kind,’ he said stiffly. ‘But I can’t impose on you like that.’
‘Why not? I’m not in a position to invest myself, not presently, but I have friends, collectors, wealthy men who are always looking—’
‘Stop. Please.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Julius said, bemused. ‘I want to help.’
‘I know that and I’m so grateful, but I can’t, don’t you see? I admire you so much, I don’t want to be your protégé, your—your good cause. I want to earn your respect. I want, if I can, one day to be your equal. Oh, I know what that sounds like, the arrogance of it, but that’s not what I mean, I just want—I want to do it myself, I want you to know I can do it myself.’ His face was stricken. ‘Please tell me I haven’t offended you.’
‘Of course not,’ Julius said softly. ‘Forgive me. It was I who spoke out of turn.’
Later they went to the Hotel Eden for a nightcap. Julius could see no reason to leave Meierstrasse but Matthias insisted. He ordered vintage cognac.
‘The best you have,’ he told the waiter and grinned at Julius. ‘We alwa
ys drink your wine but tonight, for once, it’s my turn. Thank you, my friend. To you. To us.’
Julius returned to Meierstrasse very late and more than a little drunk. Frau Lang tutted as she let him in and he laughed at her and kissed her loudly on the cheek.
‘Heavens, Frau Lang, didn’t your mother ever tell you not to frown like that in case the wind changed?’ he asked and, seizing her by the waist, he spun her in a clumsy waltz.
Once Matthias moved to Berlin Julius hoped he would see him more often. Instead his visits dwindled. The new gallery seemed to take up all of Matthias’s time. He still dropped in, brought paintings for authentication, but too often he had hardly taken off his coat before it was time for him to leave.
‘Stay for a drink,’ Julius said every time, but Matthias always declined, always had somewhere else he had to be. Perhaps it was Berlin’s breakneck pace or its famously bracing air but, despite his relentless schedule, he never seemed to tire. It made Julius feel very old sometimes to see his excitement, the exhilaration that lit him like a lamp.
‘It’s not a girl, is it?’ he asked one evening, saying goodbye.
Matthias shot him a startled sideways glance. ‘A girl? No, of course not.’
‘Well, I hope it’s not business at this time of night.’
‘Actually, I’m dining with Walter Ruthenberg.’
It was Julius’s turn to be startled. He had not known that Matthias and Ruthenberg continued to work together, still less that they were on first-name terms. ‘Are you indeed?’ he said with a brittle laugh. ‘In that case you should eat first. Ruthenberg’s frugality is legendary.’
‘He doesn’t serve wine like yours, it’s true.’
So it was not the first time. Julius wanted to ask when and how often. Instead he forced a smile. ‘Then dine here tomorrow. We will redress the balance.’
Matthias bent over his painting, his face averted. For a strange, brief moment Julius was afraid he was laughing at him, but when he looked up his expression was warm, even tender. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’d like that very much.’
Matthias arrived early. Julius saw him from the gallery, leaning in the morning-room doorway, his hands in his pockets. He smiled over his shoulder at Julius as he hurried across the hall.
‘I’ve kept you waiting, I’m sorry,’ Julius said.
‘Not at all. The lovely Fräulein Grüber has been keeping me entertained.’
‘The lovely Fräulein Grüber should have gone home an hour ago.’
The typist blushed, bundling her coat into her arms. In the study Julius mixed Negronis and gave one to Matthias.
‘So how was Ruthenberg?’ he asked. ‘How was dinner?’
‘He was very hospitable. The dinner was—simple.’
‘As plain and stodgy as his prose,’ Julius said. He expected Matthias to laugh. Instead he shook his head.
‘I’m sorry, Julius, I know he’s your great rival, but I rather admire his work. It has integrity.’
Galled, Julius put down his drink. He could not recall Matthias ever disagreeing with him so directly. ‘Integrity, really? Is that what you think?’
‘Actually, yes. He writes with such obvious care, such precision.’
‘He writes like a schoolboy. He writes as though art can be explained, as though it can be contained within the constructs of the rational intellect, but art is not like history or science, it cannot be reduced to facts, to formulae. There is no integrity in reason, in weighing one side and then the other. Paintings are not potatoes. To write about art you must speak as art speaks, passionately and directly to the soul.’
There was a silence. Matthias looked at him, his green eyes unreadable. Then slowly he smiled. ‘I know,’ he said, and he clasped his hands together as though he meant to catch Julius’s words in the cup of his palms.
Matthias was in high spirits. Somehow he had convinced his brother that it would be imprudent to rely too heavily on the department-store trade, that with circumspection and careful management modern paintings might yield a second steady stream of income. If Matthias had once been prepared to gamble with borrowed money, the Trübner had taught him a valuable lesson. He was not in the business to get rich. He wanted to establish a new gallery of modern art that would be taken seriously, respected by artists and buyers alike. He would build the business painting by painting, learning a little more with each step.
‘There is one thing you were wrong about, though,’ he said as they lingered over coffee.
‘Not Ruthenberg again?’
Matthias smiled. ‘On that point I’m convinced. I meant when you told me it was impossible to have a happy life as a dealer.’
‘I think I said parting with beautiful things would break your heart.’
‘You did. And I was afraid you were right. When I was growing up my father was a servant in—’
‘I thought your father was a blacksmith.’
Matthias flinched. Too late Julius remembered it was Salazin who had told him about Matthias’s father. It was quite possible that Salazin was wrong, possible too that Matthias resented Julius prying in his private affairs. He was wondering whether to apologise when Matthias shrugged.
‘Yes, when I was very small. But then there was the accident, his hand, and he became a servant. I used to sit in the kitchen with him sometimes while he polished the silver and I told myself when I grew up I would own beautiful things. I used to look at paintings in museums and want so badly for them to be mine, but in the last few months that urge to acquire, to own, it’s gone. I sell a work but I don’t lose it. Its beauty, its power, they are still mine because its essence, its spirit and mine—I can’t put it into words, not like you. But I think of a wall after a hot day, the warmth that stays in the bricks even as the air cools . . .’ He trailed off, his cheeks flushed. ‘I can’t explain it. Tell me to shut up before I make it any worse.’
Julius was silent. He thought of the van Gogh, the fierce exultant longing that had filled him when he saw it, the passionate desire to possess it, to absorb it inside himself, like falling in love. He thought of Luisa’s exquisite disdainful face, the way she had looked at him as though he was every mistake she had ever made. Isn’t that why you wanted me, another exhibit for your fucking museum?
Matthias drained his coffee cup and put it back in its saucer. He smiled crookedly at Julius. ‘Ah, high-mindedness. It’s so wonderfully affordable.’
In the chiaroscuro candlelight his face was the face of a Caravaggio.
VIII
‘He goes through your diary.’
Julius gaped at his housekeeper. ‘What did you say?’
‘Herr Rachmann, when he comes here.’ Frau Lang twisted her handkerchief in her hands. There was something stubborn about her, even as she struggled not to cry. ‘He makes Fräulein Grüber tell him things, what you’re doing, who you’re with. It’s not right.’
Julius thought of Matthias laughing in the doorway of the morning room, the way Fräulein Grüber blushed when he bade her good night. Angrily he shook his head. ‘That’s enough, do you hear me?’
‘Ask Fräulein Grüber if you don’t believe me.’
‘I said that’s enough! You will show every one of my guests the proper respect or we will both have to think hard about your position here, do you understand?’
Frau Lang’s face crumpled. Silently, stumblingly, she backed out of the study. Sighing, Julius took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. Frau Lang had always been impossible but he had not thought her capable of such baseness. Her hostility towards Matthias was intolerable, nothing but a toxic admixture of jealousy, snobbery and ill temper. His humble background, his youth, his openness, even his impeccable manners had damned him from the start.
And yet her accusations clung to him, he could not shake them off. One morning, as Fräulein Grüber hurried from the study with her shorthand pad, he called her back.
‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘Is it true that you share private inf
ormation about me with Herr Rachmann?’
Fräulein Grüber’s cheeks flamed. Suddenly Julius wanted very badly not to know. He crossed his arms, his fingers gripping his elbows. ‘Is that a yes, Fräulein Grüber?’
‘I’m so sorry, sir. I know I shouldn’t have done it, only—’
‘Only what?’
She flinched, staring wretchedly at the floor. ‘It’s just, when he asked me, it was right after Frau Lang accused him of barging in right in front of you—maybe you don’t remember, but Herr Rachmann, he was completely mortified, he was afraid you wouldn’t want him to come back, that if he did you’d be too polite to turn him away but all the time you’d just be waiting for him to leave. He said he didn’t know what to do, when he asked me I thought it wouldn’t do any harm, that I was helping.’ Her voice shook. ‘It was wrong, I see that now, I should never have—I’m so sorry.’
Julius thought back over the evenings Matthias had dropped in to Meierstrasse, the curious knack he had for picking nights when Julius was sure to be at home, and he laughed softly to himself. He would never have guessed that Matthias’s considerateness was at least one part cunning.
‘I suppose—I suppose you’ll want me to pack up my things,’ Fräulein Grüber said, not looking at him, but Julius shook his head.
‘I don’t want any such thing. If Herr Rachmann is so determined not to inconvenience me, why on earth would I wish you to stand in his way?’
Fräulein Grüber frowned doubtfully. ‘So you’re not angry?’
‘On the contrary, you have my permission to tell Herr Rachmann whatever it is he wants to know. His scrupulousness is a credit to him, whatever Frau Lang may think to the contrary.’
Böhm telephoned. After months of delay a date had finally been set for the preliminary hearing. The court would hear the petition and statements would be shared with the defence. Nothing would be settled, except a date for the hearing proper. Julius was not required to attend. It did not stop Harald Baeck’s face from rising like a moon in his dreams.