by Naomi Wood
It’s a scenic picture, not unlike a Steiner painting: all plashing water and oiled sunlight and fattened kids. I have said I am one of the lucky, and I still believe that is true: as a young boy I thought I’d die in French fields; in the thirties, I escaped Germany, because Irmi was able to lend me the money. No, I would not swap my life for any other. Walter, moaning about Goethe, humping a tree; sunshine by the Ilm with Charlotte; drawing lemons with Master Itten. Each memory is a loveliness, and I can’t shake it off; this rebounded optimism.
My home here is comfortable and big. There’s not much that doesn’t have its place. In fact, there’s really not much here at all. A simple kitchen and den, my bedroom up a level, then the studio on the top floor, which traps the more useful winter light. On the studio walls there are photos from the Dessau Bauhaus: one of us on a balcony, another from the Metal Ball. There’s also one of Charlotte’s weaves, damaged during the Berlin raid. It does its bit to brighten the place. Looking at one of her tapestries is like listening to a record. The yarn sings.
Aside from its simplicity, the house does not show my lineage; there are no Breuer chairs or Brandt lamps. With its rounded rocking chairs, pale walls and wooden furniture this house is more Shaker than Bauhaus. There’s a print in the living room that I love: a Lucio Fontana, a canvas slashed: Concetto Spaziale (Bianco). I think this is what Charlotte was aiming for when she introduced big holes into her weaves; a technique called openwork she trialled in Dessau. If she had lived, I imagine she might have taken her work in this direction; making space in the weaves. I look at the Fontana often: to think of the life she might have had, and the work she might have done.
Irmi calls again. Her voice is rich and mischievous, though we are having to talk carefully. A long time ago we stopped talking of our group because it caused too much tension between us, but now there’s nothing else to speak about. Walter’s dead, and Irmi has matters to attend to. She asks if I can come to his funeral. It will be held in Mitte, next week.
‘I can’t.’
I don’t want to see him buried. I’d feel compelled to offer him forgiveness, or else St Irmi, good to a fault, would chivvy me to it. Besides, if Jenö were there I don’t think I could bear it: our hopeless three watching the softly descending coffin, not knowing how to mourn our friend. ‘I can’t get a pass,’ I say.
‘Nonsense. You’re a Saxon: you’d be coming home.’
‘I’m bourgeois. I’d be a scalp.’
‘You don’t paint tractors or workers. They’re not interested.’
Nothing she can say will persuade me to go.
‘It’s not his fault that Charlotte died in the camp, Paul,’ Irmi says. She always was a straight talker. It’s no surprise that she should feel no compunction about saying this outright.
‘He could have got her out.’
‘It was more complicated than that.’
‘All it needed was a quiet word to Ernst.’
‘Ernst Steiner was very high up then.’
‘Exactly.’
‘That’s not what I mean. Steiner couldn’t be seen meddling in the fate of a single prisoner.’
‘Walter managed it for Franz.’
‘That was in 1937! So much had changed by the time she got there.’
‘I don’t believe the distinction, frankly.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you believe. You weren’t there; you were in England. Both you and Jenö, you don’t know what it was like.’
Pips on the line. I wonder if we are being overheard. Maybe the conversation is commonplace: about who was responsible, about who did what; about how much exiles are allowed to judge. Richtet nicht, damit ihr nicht gerichtet werdet. Judge not, lest ye be judged: this was an embroidered panel my mother made for her Dresden drawing room. And yet I can’t help it; I do judge Walter; I hate Walter, and my hatred makes me feel better.
‘Charlotte was right. She said he was always strategizing against her. Trying to rob her of what she had. Leaving her in the camp: it was his last act. Don’t you see? It was his revenge.’
Irmi sighs. ‘He wasn’t a monster, Paul.’
‘Then why didn’t he do something?’
‘I don’t know. Besides—’
I try to interrupt but she won’t have it.
‘No. Listen to me now. Walter’s dead! There’s nothing left to do, don’t you see? You too could have done more, but you didn’t. And Walter didn’t, and Jenö didn’t, and I didn’t. There comes a time when all this fury is useless against it all.’ There’s a voice in the background; maybe it’s her husband, Teddy. ‘Please,’ Irmi says. ‘Come for me, at least. For us. For old times’ sake; for what we had! I want to see you.’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Go on,’ she says, her voice gentle again. ‘I’m broke. You still owe me for that ticket to Amsterdam. How much is a hundred marks after inflation?’
This is how much she lent me to get me out of Germany. ‘I’ll wire it to you.’
‘Forget it,’ she says, her tone hardening. ‘I don’t care. I don’t want it unless you’re here.’
Because I don’t know what else to say, I hang up and listen to the telephone’s song, watching the beach huts below as people take dips in the sea in the last of the day’s warmth.
It won’t make a difference whether I am in Berlin or not. Walter König can be buried without me.
9
Weimar
We were a week into the fast when I saw something that made me think my eyes were playing tricks on me.
It was after one of my shifts at Mr Steiner’s studio. We had been working on a commission of Christ ascending, all halo and fat cherubs. It was for a Jewish bank in Hamburg, Steiner said, laughing: something to make their customers feel at ease. It was a straight-forward commission because the light was so refulgent and frankly ridiculous, and Ernst said I could go a little earlier than usual. Thank goodness he did.
Once I hit town I went directly to the station bakery. It wasn’t as good as the one nearest my lodgings, but by the time I cycled there, inflation meant I’d only be able to buy half a loaf. Like the others I wheeled my bicycle inside to offload Steiner’s marks, and I heard the shopkeeper make his regular joke about preferring the basket to the cash.
The baker poured me a coffee – made from turnip, or chicory, it was only about a quarter coffee, anyway – then sliced the black bread that would be my breakfast and dinner. He knew to keep all the painters sweet – we were his first customers of the day, and besides I think he liked our company so early in the morning.
It was as I was finishing my coffee that I saw Jenö walking past the bakery window. It was not yet four thirty and still dark, but the light of the baker’s captured his expression perfectly: he looked worried and full of remorse. Instinctively I wanted to ask him if he was all right, since I couldn’t work out what on earth he was doing at this hour, and on the wrong side of the railway tracks to boot, but his manner made me hesitate. He had such an air of melancholy that perhaps a conversation would be useless, and instead I watched as he walked away, around the corner, and into the city. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t seen me, on the other side of the glass, only a few feet away.
I went to bed thinking little more about Jenö’s appearance at the baker’s. It was so early, and I’d been so hungry, that I assumed I’d dreamt him up, a ghost in the fasted streets.
What with the late night, I spent most of Saturday asleep. Bed was also the easiest place not to think of food, so that’s where I stayed. Every time I woke I was surprised that Charlotte wasn’t standing above me, asking me whether I thought it a good idea that Steiner’s studio had made me miss a whole day of my life. We usually spent the weekends together, preparing work for school, or cycling the woods, or strolling the Ilm. I gave her hanging lantern a tap, hoping it might invoke her presence here.
All afternoon I spent sketching, something I hadn’t done in a while. My boarding house was on a hairpin turn, whe
re the town’s prostitutes often solicited business. Opposite was where the Communists met on a Thursday, and a bigger band of the NSDAP met on a Tuesday, although that wasn’t hard, given the Kozis in Weimar might be counted on two hands. Below my rooms was the city’s cemetery packed with famous dead men, and the striped Russian church, and the statue of a helmeted warrior with his sword up, whose name I never knew. I always liked him, perhaps because I fancied I saw myself in him: here was a man ready for action.
All afternoon I sketched the women below. Though it denied me a muse, I was always pleased when one of them found a customer. I imagined the meal she’d be able to eat afterward, and I wondered whether, with each man, she thought ‘there’s breakfast’ and, with another, ‘there’s schnitzel’.
Later, when I heard a voice travelling the staircase, shouting my name, I assumed it was Charlotte, coming to explain her delay. But when I opened the door it was Irmi, standing on Mrs Kramer’s WELCOME mat, her eyes scooting my room. ‘Paul,’ she said, her voice breathless. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Here,’ I said. ‘I’ve been here.’
I invited her in but she didn’t sit down. ‘All day?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘Something’s happened. With Jenö and Walter,’ Irmi said, coming down heavily on the r. ‘They’re in trouble. Maybe we all are.’ Irmi looked at my scalp. ‘I don’t know why you all had to shave your heads. It’s only going to make things worse. Get your shoes and coat. We have to go.’
We took the staircase, but we hadn’t escaped before my landlady shouted at me from her open window. ‘No more noise, Mr Beckermann! I can’t stand all this hollering.’
‘Yes, Mrs Kramer!’
I wondered if Jenö’s melancholic appearance outside the baker’s was linked to whatever trouble he now found himself in. ‘Where are we going?’ I said as I caught up with Irmi.
‘To the Bauhaus, of course.’
In the dark the cafeteria was as lit as a proscenium. Bald Walter and Jenö were hunched over the same table where I had first talked to Charlotte many moons ago. Charlotte and Kaspar were there too: bussing plates of food from the serving station. It wasn’t yet dinner time, and no one else was in there. I felt left out, and wondered what they had all been up to without me, but I told myself not to be silly and put this feeling away. ‘What’s happening? Is the fast done?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Irmi. She wasn’t the one usually dispatched to run errands, and I wondered why she had let herself be. ‘They just told me to fetch you.’
‘We’ve only just begun,’ I said, thinking about the high by the river, and that I didn’t really want to stop whatever that feeling had promised.
Inside, the cafeteria lamps lit Jenö’s face more clearly. There were bruises along his jaw and another on his cheek. I couldn’t remember seeing any bruises at the bakery, but then perhaps they hadn’t come up yet. His big hands were on the table and they looked scuffed and sore. Maybe he’d been in a brawl. Maybe someone had picked on him at the Swan. Maybe it was one of Steiner’s men. Walter didn’t have a mark on him.
‘Jenö, what happened?’
Charlotte placed a bowl in front of herself. Pulling herself erect, she began to eat.
‘Charlotte, what’s going on? What about the fast?’
She began to eat the stew slowly, and we all watched. ‘Director’s orders.’ She chewed at her food. ‘We all have to eat.’
‘The Director cancelled the fast?’
‘The Director doesn’t want us doing this funny business any more. The fast is done.’
‘But I was only just getting somewhere.’
Charlotte looked at Walter. ‘You explain.’
Walter shifted in his seat and it was then that I noticed he looked different. Usually he went around with a high toss of his head as if he owned a good deal of the land you walked on, but now there was diffidence there. ‘Something happened at the Bath-house.’ He straightened his knife and fork as he geared up to his story. ‘Forgive me for repeating myself. Everyone’s heard this already.’
‘Why didn’t you fetch me earlier?’
‘Too busy recounting the story,’ he said. ‘Well; I’ll be brief. Jenö fainted in the sauna. It was very hot; naturally. And we were hungry from the fast.’
‘You fainted?’
Jenö made a noise. I’d never thought of Jenö as a fainter. I could pass out easily with only a sighting of blood. But I’d never known Jenö – brickhouse that he was – to faint.
‘I couldn’t move him,’ Walter continued. ‘I called for help. A man came in; he worked for the Baths. He was slapping Jenö, trying to wake him. And when Jenö came to, well, he must have thought he was starting a fight. There were blows on either side.’
‘What does the other man look like?’
‘Worse,’ Jenö said. Maybe it was the pain in Jenö’s jaw that made Walter the storyteller. ‘Much worse.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last night,’ said Jenö.
‘What time?’
‘Late.’
‘But what time?’
‘Why does it matter?’ said Kaspar, who was heartily eating his meal, finally out in the open.
‘About midnight,’ said Walter. ‘The man’s name is Sommer. He lives above Reinhardt’s cobbler’s.’
Jenö’s hands tapped the table. ‘He might press charges.’
‘But he was the only one to witness it,’ said Charlotte.
‘Who will a judge believe? A citizen or a student? Besides, it’s hardly honourable to argue my way out of what I did. I caused him harm. It’s my responsibility.’
‘The Director’s talking to Mr Sommer,’ Walter said confidingly. ‘To persuade him not to press charges.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jenö burst out, penitent: ‘I lost control of my temper!’
Walter moved his hand to cover Jenö’s; it was the first time I had ever seen the two men touch like this. ‘It was because of the faint,’ Walter said. ‘Obviously you didn’t intend to hurt him.’
Jenö looked at him, searchingly. ‘Still.’ He touched his lips. ‘Not much of an excuse.’
‘You got off rather lightly,’ I said to Walter, who, as I said, didn’t have a scratch or a bruise on him.
‘Not much I could do.’ He looked at his hands. ‘I’m hardly built for brawling.’
‘What do we do now?’ asked Irmi.
‘No ostentatious behaviour,’ Charlotte said. ‘No more fasts. At the Bauhaus, and in town, we’re as good as gold.’
Walter coughed. ‘There is one more thing.’
‘What now?’ said Irmi, who seemed just about as irked as I was, and I saw Charlotte shoot her a look.
‘We’re under curfew.’
‘What?’ said Kaspar. ‘All of us?’
Walter nodded. ‘The Director said “you six”. “Master Itten’s folk,” he called us. “The acolytes. The bald ones.” We’re to stick to the Bauhaus and our rooms. And, once it’s dark, nowhere else. We’re under curfew until this whole thing blows over.’
Kaspar threw his cutlery down. ‘Brilliant.’
Walter lowered his voice. ‘The Director thinks there’s a threat of retaliation. And the school’s relationship with the city is fragile. I think he’s scared we might get beaten up.’
‘Right,’ I said, but not knowing really what to say.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jenö said again. ‘I got us all in this mess.’
Charlotte put her hands on the table. Her bowl was empty. She regarded Jenö’s bruises. ‘If I hadn’t started the fast, this wouldn’t have happened. We were foolish to have done it.’
I saw Walter try to arrange his thoughts; Charlotte’s contrition was obviously unexpected. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘You said it was the fast that made Jenö faint.’
Walter made a kissing noise. ‘The fast; the heat; it was a number of things.’
‘It’s my fault. I want to help.’
&
nbsp; ‘Thank you, but there’s little that can be done.’
‘If the police press charges,’ I asked, wanting to distract Charlotte from her guilt, ‘what then?’
‘Then it’s curtains for the both of us.’
‘Surely not?’ said Kaspar, suddenly bereft.
‘We can’t go around beating up the citizens of Weimar, Kas. It won’t do. The Director won’t have it.’
I stood. The disordering of our six made me want to quit this place. Also: I had no desire to eat, and I wasn’t going to squander my hard-won labours so far. It was no one else’s business what I did or didn’t do with my time.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home. We’re under curfew, remember?’
I expected Charlotte to come with me, but she stayed, and I left her to it.
I caught them one last time before I turned the corner for home. They looked a lonely group: rather exposed, and just ever so slightly stupid, as if I were viewing them with the eyes of the Director, or the baited citizens of Weimar, who had us now in their sights. The scene had an elegiac feel; no one looking at anyone else. Not long ago we’d been horsing about in the woods. Now we were menaced: because of stupid Jenö, and his stupid temper.
I watched them for longer than I meant to, until Walter caught my eye. And then I saw something I hadn’t seen during the conversation: a look of pleasure drifting across his gaze, like happiness itself. It was then that I realised why Walter looked so different: he was without his spectacles.
10
Weimar
The story was all quite strange. I had never known Jenö to faint, and though he could be mute when the situation warranted it, the fact that he hadn’t offered a defence struck me as odd. All he’d done was apologise for his temper. Still, I chalked it up to misadventure: the police were never going to prosecute a couple of budding art students for a minor brawl, and so I spent Sunday preparing for Itten’s class.
