Doctor Criminale

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking one from the elegant case he presented to me. I put it into my mouth, nibbling the end. ‘No, no, not like that, my friend, these are from Castro, they must be respected,’ he said, taking it back and shaping it neatly with his pocket knife, ‘You see, we have no great story for ourselves, and so we go nowhere. Isn’t it true?’ ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ I said. And so we stood there, two friendly passengers, our cigar ends glowing, staring out over the rail as the lights of Vevey and then Montreux slipped brightly by. ‘You know, I like this lake,’ he said after a moment. ‘Yes, it’s very pleasant,’ I said. ‘The lake of exiles,’ said Criminale, ‘The people who loved it most were mostly exiles, like myself. All came looking for what you can never find. Rousseau came, looking for human innocence. It was not here. Byron came seeking political liberty. Not here. Eliot came wanting a relief from the madness of the modern. No good. Nabokov came and thought he would find Russia again. He found Swiss hotels.’ He wasn’t the only one, I thought.

  I looked at him sideways. One thing, I realized, was certain: whatever erotic delights this famous and fortunate man was enjoying – or perhaps not enjoying – in the warm arms of Miss Belli, they had not diminished by one jot his teacher’s unquenchable desire to instruct and explain. I was full of questions; I wanted to ask him things, to ask him everything about his childhood, his politics, his philosophy, his experience under Karl Marx, his life, his loves. But I settled for listening, and why not? That was what you did with Bazlo Criminale. After all, in the middle of an egotistical world, very short on dignity (the photographers behind us were now turning the party raucous), he had the gift for deepening and dignifying any occasion, for adding presence and value to any thought. I found now, as I had at Barolo, that I liked the sound of his talking voice, the slow, ironic tone of his ideas, that I liked him. I liked his seriousness, his human flavour, his sense of history. He came out of confusion, but he brought a sort of order. At moments like this I knew there was nothing wrong with Criminale.

  ‘But the best book of this lake was Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He finished it here, a very great book. You have read it, of course?’ ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ I said. ‘Do it one day, to please me,’ said Criminale, ‘A book that shows that to all historical epochs there is a finite cycle. Also a book that began the modern re-interpretation of history. Just as I sometimes think I must someday begin the re-interpretation of philosophy.’ ‘That’s quite a project,’ I said. ‘Well, I think we were put on this earth to perform quite a project,’ said Criminale, ‘I am not like many philosophers today, who think we were put here to perform nothing at all. Of course they have a reason. All those who tried the great project in modern times have failed. Nietzsche found confusion and it drove him mad. Heidegger was deluded by those Nazis, whom he mixed up with great philosophers when they were really bully-boys, thugs. Sartre, naive like some girl with all those Stalinists, I knew those people and how they used him. But of course a philosopher is there to be used.’

  ‘So why do you try?’ I asked. ‘Because worse is to do nothing at all,’ said Criminale, Today they tell the philosopher, be modest, you have done enough harm. But how can he be released from philosophy? I think always we need a morality, a politics, a history, a sense of self, a sense of otherness, a sense of human significance of some kind. Now we have sceptics who invent the end of humanism. I do not agree. The task of philosophy is simply always to reinvent the task of philosophy, to subject our age and our world to thought. You are a young man, we owe you ideas. And always we need a morality, a politics, a history, a sense of self, a sense of others, a sense of eternity of some kind. So how then do we invent philosophy offer philosophy? That is the question I always ask myself ‘And how do you answer?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, that there is always something to divert us,’ he said, ‘Love, money, power, celebrity, boredom. Speaking of this I must go and find my young companion. You are alone?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘I thought I saw you with someone. What is happening?’ The paddles were churning, the ship turning; I looked down over the side. A small pier was in view below. ‘We’re docking,’ I said, ‘We must be going ashore.’ ‘Ah, yes, Chillon,’ said Criminale, dropping his cigar carelessly over the side, ‘I must get ready to give my lecture.’ ‘You’re lecturing now, here?’ I asked. ‘I think so, that is how they plan to spoil this nice evening,’ he said, ‘Don’t you have it in your programme?’ ‘Ah, I lost it,’ I said quickly, ‘Well, I look forward to hearing you.’ ‘Never look forward to a lecture,’ said Criminale, raising his hand to me, ‘Only look back on it, if it has been worth it. Good-night.’ He walked off along the deck. He was looking, I suppose, for Miss Belli, although the relationship between them struck me as far stranger than I had thought before.

  *

  The grim stone castle of Chillon, sad spot in the history of human misfortune, islanded in the lake, sat illuminated close to where our steamer had docked. The photographers were already streaming off the boat, onto the promenade, and, in a noisy crowd, crossing the wooden bridge that led to its keep. Criminale was among them; I could see him in the crowd, brought to attention by the bright orange dress of Miss Belli, who hung onto his arm. The person I could not see was Ildiko, and I went round the ship, looking everywhere for her. She was not on the open decks, not in the saloons; she seemed to have acquired a gift for disappearance quite as expert as Criminale’s. My life these days seemed to be a quest not for one person, but two. The ship was almost empty now, so I went ashore, and across the bridge to the castle of Chillon.

  Here, in the courtyard, the congress members had gathered together. The Mayor of Montreux stood on a balcony and welcomed them, telling the story of poor old François Bonivard, who had been chained six years to a rock below the waterline in a dungeon beneath, apparently for choosing the wrong philoso­phy on the wrong day. Thinking has never been easy to get right. I scanned the crowd, but Ildiko was nowhere to be seen. Next we were ushered into the Great Hall, where modern chairs were laid out under modern lighting. A flamboyant chairwoman rose, and introduced the congress guest of honour, and speaker for the evening. It was Criminale, of course, rising to give our keynote lecture, on the topic of ‘Photography and Desire’. I sat at the back and looked carefully round the attentive audience. Ildiko was not in the room.

  This rather distracted my attention from Criminale’s lecture, but it seemed to go well. The apocalyptic gloom he had shown at Barolo seemed to have gone, as had the signs of sexual boredom he had displayed to me a few minutes before on the deck of the ship. He spoke in open praise of the erotic, celebrating desire, more than desire: frankness, shockability, outrage. He refused, he said, to see the body as sign or symbol, like the modern philosophers. For him it was pure presence, flesh as flesh. The erotic self was a place of plenitude, the naked being was a place beyond culture or disguise. He assaulted old-fashioned moralists, new-fashioned semioticians; he dismissed Lacan, told Foucault just where to go. Feminists hissed and abstractionists muttered, for he was clearly going beyond the intellectual convention, the most conventional form of convention there is. But, tired by two days of theory, and keen to get to the wine to follow, the photographers reacted warmly, greeting him with loud applause.

  I could hear it even from a distance, for by now I had slipped away; I wandered round the grim stone castle, looking everywhere for Ildiko. At last, down in the dungeons, I found her, holding a drink and talking warmly to Hans de Graef. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ I said. ‘You know how I don’t like lectures,’ she said. There was a flash, and I saw Hans de Graef taking our photographs. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘Now I must go upstairs for the reception.’ ‘Ildiko, I’ve had enough of this,’ I said when he had gone, ‘I think it’s time you told me just what’s going on with you and Criminale.’ ‘Nothing goes on,’ said Ildiko, ‘I don’t even see him.’ ‘You came all the way from Budapest to see him,’ I said. ‘At least I am no
t suspicious,’ said Ildiko, ‘Do you know that nice young man is asking many questions about you?’ ‘De Graef?’ I asked, ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘About your work, your background,’ said Ildiko, ‘He says you are the first Russian he ever met who speaks no Russian at all. Maybe you should learn to be a bit more Hungarian, like me.’ ‘What did you tell him?’ I asked. ‘Nothing,’ said Ildiko, ‘I said I hardly knew you at all. Isn’t it true?’ ‘I had a long talk with Criminale,’ I said, ‘He told me how his life had been ruined by sex.’ ‘He talked about me?’ asked Ildiko. ‘No,’ I said, ‘And I told him nothing at all.’ ‘Good,’ said Ildiko, ‘With matters of this kind it is best to be a bit discreet.’ ‘Matters of what kind?’ I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ But just then a crowd of conferees, wearing their badges and carrying glasses in their hands, came down the steps to inspect the dungeon. ‘Go back there and do your mingle,’ said Ildiko, ‘We can talk on the ship. I like to look some more round this terrible place.’

  So I returned to the Great Hall. The chairs had been cleared for a reception. There were drinks, drinks in plenty; there were photographs, and what photographs! After all, the greatest photographers in the world were there, all photographing one another, and, of course, Bazlo Criminale. He was where he liked to be, the centre of attention: he was surrounded. I pressed a little closer. ‘You gave such good lecture,’ a very attractive Romanian lady was saying to him, ‘Only five people fell asleep, very good. And you understand so well the erotic. I would love so much to be nude photographed by you.’ ‘Let us arrange,’ said Criminale, ‘Tomorrow?’ ‘Bazlo, caro, time you go back to the boat,’ said Miss Belli, pulling at his sleeve, ‘These people will tire you out.’ Ildiko was right, she sounded just like Sepulchra; maybe Criminale did this to people. ‘This lovely lady likes me to make her photo,’ said Criminale. ‘Don’t forget you have to go to the bank tomorrow,’ said Belli. ‘We can go any time,’ he said, ‘Why is it always time to leave when someone admires you?’ ‘Everyone blasted admires you,’ said Belli, sounding impatient; then she saw me. Recognition dawned; her eyes widened. She turned, and whispered something to Bazlo Criminale. I began now to see the point of Ildiko’s policy of discretion, and slipped away to tour the castle.

  Not till I got back to the ship did I see Ildiko again. A chill squally wind had blown up to accompany our return trip to Lausanne. Hunting through the now very jovial photographers, I found her alone in the rear saloon, huddled against the cold in her/my ‘I ♥ Lausanne’ sweater, and looking extremely unhappy. ‘Time to talk, I want to know what’s going on,’ I said. ‘I too,’ said Ildiko, ‘Is Bazlo still with Belli?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘He wants to take nude photographs and she wants to get him to the bank.’ ‘When, tomorrow?’ asked Ildiko, sitting up. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘You were right, she gets more like Sepulchra every minute.’ ‘That is how Bazlo is like,’ said Ildiko, ‘He finds a nice new woman, then he loses interest. He finds he really loves the one he has lost. When he ran away with Sepulchra, he always said he loved Gertla the more.’ ‘So why did he run away with her?’ I asked. ‘Of course, because Gertla would have ruined him if he stayed,’ said Ildiko.

  I looked at her. ‘Ruined him how?’ I asked. ‘She was sleeping with someone,’ said Ildiko, ‘The chief of the secret police, someone like that.’ ‘Gertla was sleeping with the chief of the security police?’ I asked, amazed, ‘I thought they were against the regime.’ ‘It is well to be on both sides with these things,’ said Ildiko, ‘Maybe she thought it helped him. There were arrangements like that in those days. But it was bad, it ruined his reputation with all his friends.’ ‘Yes, the wife of a leading radical having an affair with the boss of state security,’ I said, ‘I can see it wouldn’t help.’ ‘He had affairs too,’ said Ildiko, ‘And then he was still in love with Pia. You remember Pia, who you saw nude in Budapest?’ ‘I did?’ ‘You saw her nude, yes?’ asked Ildiko, ‘On the wall in Budapest. Pia, his wife in Berlin, the one he always said he loved the best.’

  ‘Why did he leave her?’ I asked. ‘Oh, she knew far too much about him,’ said Ildiko, ‘I think about his contact with Ulbricht and the DDR regime. Those were strange times for him.’ ‘So he kept on seeing her?’ I asked. ‘She died right after he left,’ said Ildiko, ‘But she was the one he talked of the most. You can tell from the photos, the ones of Pia are the best. Except for the ones of Irini.’ ‘Irini?’ I asked. ‘That one he never married,’ said Ildiko, ‘About her I know really nothing. He would not speak of her at all, about Pia all the time.’ ‘What happened to Irini?’ I asked. ‘How do I know?’ said Ildiko, ‘Except he nearly got into some very bad trouble because of her. She died also, and it was a long time before I knew him, you understand.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said, ‘First there was Pia, yes, who knew too much about him. Then Gertla who slept with the security chief . . .’ ‘No, you forgot the one in the middle, Irini,’ said Ildiko. ‘Oh yes, Irini who nearly got him into very bad trouble,’ I said, ‘And next?’ ‘Next Sepulchra, who was only able to possess him by what she knew about him,’ said Ildiko, ‘I like a squash.’ ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘What did she know about him?’ ‘About all the others,’ she said, ‘Then about those things under the table I told you about. Maybe some other things too.’ ‘What other things?’ ‘You know she helped him write his books,’ said Ildiko, ‘Some people say that more than half his work is really Sepulchra.’ ‘I thought she just took notes,’ I said. ‘Some say Homeless is really her story,’ said Ildiko. ‘Then why is he leaving her now?’ I asked. ‘Because he thinks the world has changed, you can leave everything behind,’ Ildiko said, ‘He is wrong. The past does not go away. You cannot escape what you have been. There is always someone who remembers. There, now you know everything.’

  ‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘There’s someone missing in all this.’ ‘Many, I think,’ said Ildiko, ‘Criminale loved many women. He is Hungarian.’ ‘I mean you,’ I said. ‘Don’t let us talk about me,’ said Ildiko. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I want to know when you met him, when you had your affair.’ ‘It is over, that is enough,’ she said, ‘A few years ago. He needed help with his books in the West. I told you this already.’ ‘So why did he leave you?’ I asked, ‘Did you know too much about him too?’ ‘What I know is what I told you, on the train,’ said Ildiko, ‘We all knew too much about him. But now with these changes he thinks he is free, he believes none of these things exist any more, nothing has to be corrected.’ ‘Why did you follow him here?’ I asked. ‘I came with you,’ said Ildiko, ‘I liked to be with you. And now what do you do, bring me here, find me a bad hotel, leave me all the time alone.’ ‘I thought you came to see him,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t like now to see him at all,’ said Ildiko.

  I stared at her. ‘I must say for a thinking man he seems to have led a very complicated sex-life,’ I said. ‘You think just because he is a clever philosopher he can’t make a mess of love just like everyone else?’ asked Ildiko. ‘His complicated sex-life also seems to be a complicated political life,’ I said. ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Ildiko, ‘He comes from Eastern Europe.’ ‘And a complicated money life,’ I said. ‘I told you, money, he likes it, but it is not so important to him at all,’ said Ildiko. ‘And every single one of these women he was in love with had something on him,’ I said. ‘Of course, this is called marriage,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now he likes to run away from all of it. He does not know that at last you can never run away.’ ‘Can’t run away from what?’ I asked, ‘What are these things you all know about him?’ ‘Please, I don’t like to talk any more about it,’ said Ildiko, getting up, ‘Tomorrow perhaps, another time.’ She turned and walked away through the jovial crowd.

  A little later I caught a glimpse of her, dancing with young Hans de Graef. As soon as the boat docked back at Ouchy, she was off before me, running ahead for the Hotel Zwingli. By the time I reached the desk, she had collected her key from the grim receptionist and gone up to her room. Passing her doo
r, I knocked; there was no reply. I went up two floors to my own room, and sat down on the bed. Everything had changed. Ildiko had become distant, and with dismay I felt I was losing her. But Criminale, who had been a blank, was now an excess of signs – signs of thought and sex, politics and money, fame and shame. Before I had had too little; now I felt I had almost too much. What I needed now was to find the heart of Criminale, if he really had one. Over the course of the evening my suspicions had gone, and now returned. I tried joining facts to facts, names to dates. I wanted it all to make sense, but somehow I couldn’t make it make the sense I wanted it to make.

  I thought about Ildiko, and then all the women in his life. I tried to get them in order, understand where Ildiko came in. Pia and Irini, Gertla and Sepulchra, Ildiko and Belli – Criminale said he liked women with a certain grip on power, but he had found a good many who had quite a grip on him. One knew too much about him and the Ulbricht regime. Another, still obscure to me, had brought some very deep trouble to his life. Another shared a pillow with the security police, another helped write his books and possessed him with all she knew. Another was his new bid for freedom from something, his chance of a new start. Another, the one I thought I knew best, had helped him publish his books and secure his bank balance, so that he needn’t worry about money at all. Two of them were here, one not far away in Barolo. I began to understand his sexual dismay on the boat. I felt something of the same myself, but I was a journalist, and I also felt a journalist’s excitement. Lavinia had been right: the life and loves of Criminale made a strange story after all. I pulled on my jacket, slipped downstairs, tiptoeing past Ildiko’s door, and went to the lobby, wanting to call Vienna with the news.