Magnus

by Sylvie Germain

  Jules Supervielle, ‘A grey ox in China…’

  The Innocent Convict

  Fragment 22

  The first time they faced each other naked, Magnus felt the ground shift under his feet. All his dreams from the past suddenly gathered in a solid mass shattering the reality that had finally come into being. Peggy’s body was already so familiar to him this sudden revelation seemed like an absurdity, an assault. And his desire for her was panicked to the point of collapsing into impotence. His own body failed him.

  Lying beside her on the bed, he hardly dared look at her, caress her. His vision was blurred, with images of Peggy’s nudity contemplated in his dreams overlaying the very real vision that presented itself to him; images that rippled over her skin, making it untouchable. Peggy took his hand and laid it on her breast, gently holding it there. She did not say anything. She smiled at him, waiting for the emotion that paralysed him and made him tremble to subside. But his emotion intensified. Magnus felt his hand grow heavier, practically weld itself to Peggy’s breast. And his sense of touch became confused with his hearing. His palm could hear her heartbeats and these pulsations spread through his whole body, all listening and resonance. He shivered as though in the grip of a high fever.

  This heart beating beneath his palm, ringing in his blood, was not just that of Peggy now, it was a palimpsest of sound – in which May’s heart released indistinct echoes, calling to him, reminding him.

  He had made love with other women since May’s death, but none had caused such a jolt to his memory. Women briefly desired, very fleetingly and casually loved; occasional mistresses, purveyors of pleasure and oblivion, no threat to his enduring love, the woman who had enchanted his life for ten years. May’s place as friend, lover and accomplice was left unoccupied. A place set very high, beyond reach: high up in the sky’s sheer blue of empty space, amid the dreadful quiet and ashes.

  And now this vacant place was suddenly destabilized, and to the question that had tormented him for years – Did May love me? And did I love her? Have I ever loved anyone? – Magnus was given an answer: a calm and profound yes. He wept silently for a long while. And as they flowed his tears dampened the sheet, Peggy’s hair, they also dampened the noise that filled his palm and pulsed in his flesh, making it sound softer. Peggy brought her face right up close to his and kissed his eyes, then licked at his tears, like a kitten. And licking at him, she laughed, then hummed a song.

  Then the palimpsest heart disclosed other resonances, yet fainter than the earlier ones. They unfurled in tiny waves, barely perceptible, as if originating from a long way off, from an earlier age. From even before his birth perhaps, from the time when his body was slowly forming in the liquid darkness of his mother’s body.

  And he fell asleep with his hand resting on Peggy’s breast. When he woke, all echoes within him had fallen silent, no thought constrained his movements, his desire was free. And his body this time did not fail his desire.

  This scene took place several years ago now, but it continues to glow in Magnus’s memory like some permanently illuminated night-light. He knows when and where the scene took place – one evening in June 1974 at Peggy’s apartment in Vienna. But as this event was the blossoming of an old desire, long felt then forgotten, gradually revived and again thwarted and deceived, to him it feels timeless, both very distant and very close, always vivid.

  They have never discussed the tragedy that occurred on the cliffs of Dover, and Magnus says very little about his own past. They each bear their respective burden of time with discretion. Nothing is denied or cancelled out, but they know it is pointless to try and explain everything, that you cannot share with another person, however close, what you experienced without them, outside of them, whether it be love or hate. What they share is the present, and their respective pasts settle in silence in the radiant shadow of this present.

  The day they visited the crypt in the Church of the Augustinian Friars the inevitable reticence that surrounds consummated passions, because of the impossibility of accurately conveying them in all their subtlety, intensity and contradictions, suddenly became pathetically apparent to them as they looked on those urns containing the hearts of the Hapsburgs. In a small alcove steeped in a wan light and protected by a grille, some fifty urns of wrought silver of various sizes are lined up in two semi-circles, one above the other. Once living hearts that beat with pride in the breasts of empresses and the bodies of all-powerful emperors. That beat with passion, with fear and anger too, with jealousy, desire and sorrow, shame and hope. Of these aristocratic hearts that each in turn, in gold and steel, in splendour and in blood, rang the hours of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, there now remains a cohort of old shrivelled muscles in formaldehyde, keeping vigil round a void. Thus do the living hide away in a corner of their memories reliquaries of affections, hard feelings, joys and sorrows that are more or less played out.

  During the first two years of his relationship with Peggy, Magnus returned to London frequently to spend time with Lothar, who became ever more diminished by illness.

  Progressively losing his eyesight, his voice, and to almost the same extent the ability to walk, Lothar remained seated all day long in his armchair by the window of his study. But far from enduring these infirmities as so many detestable privations, he turned them into an abrasive source of strength. From his paralysis he drew a profound sense of patience, a limitless and measureless readiness to wait in expectation of nothing, if not the unsuspected. And his immobility appeared serene, totally occupied with lengthy meditation.

  In his loss of the power of speech he tasted the bitterness of that inner silence where language unravels, with every word acquiring a new weight, a greater resonance. And his silence was vibrant. In the loss of his eyesight he discovered another way of seeing: seeing behind the visible. A brightness spread over his practically inert hands and his blind man’s face. His smile especially grew luminous. As soon as anyone came into his study he would turn his face towards the visitor whom he would recognize – from their way of opening the door, their footstep – before they had even uttered a word, and he would greet them with a smile. Many things were conveyed by this smile, everything he could no longer express in words. And this ‘everything’ concentrated in the extreme, distilled to nothing, laid bare the depths of his being: the intelligence and modesty of a goodness without regard for itself.

  Consigned to dwell in the silent darkness of his body, he actually conducted a multiple dialogue: with the living and the dead, with himself, and even more so with that element of the unknown whose discreet and yet sovereign presence he sensed within him.

  One evening that element of the unknown summoned him wholly to the other side, beyond the visible world. Magnus was not there; he did not arrive until the day of the burial.

  Erika’s husband delivered the funeral sermon, developed from two biblical texts that Lothar studied constantly towards the end of his life: chapter 19 of the First Book of Kings, in which the prophet Elijah climbs Mount Horeb, and the Sermon on the Mount from St Matthew’s Gospel. Two texts that invite the intellect to undergo a 180° revolution, that require faith to be radically purged of naivety, and the action following from this spiritual rupture to be carried out with as much flexibility as rigour, as much coherence as boldness.

  The day after the funeral Myriam gave him a box firmly tied up with string. ‘Don’t open it now,’ she told him with an abruptness typical of shy nervous people, ‘wait until you get home. I made it for you, just for you.’ Faced with Magnus’s look of amazement she added, ‘It’s not an artwork, it’s something much more than that. Or perhaps worse … I don’t know.’ Then, as he was about to thank her for this mysterious gift, she interrupted him. ‘No, don’t thank me. Wait and see what it is before deciding whether you have any reason to thank me or reproach me. But please don’t open it until after you’ve left London. And don’t mention it to anybody, especially not my parents.’ With these words, she made her escape.

/>   He respected Myriam’s wishes and did not open the parcel until he was on the plane taking him back to Vienna. But he had no sooner opened it a fraction than he closed it again. For the entire duration of the journey he remained motionless in his seat, his gaze turned towards the window, his hands clutching the box on his lap.

  The sea, below, of steel grey veined with green. And down there, land, with miniature towns and villages, fields divided up into yellow or brown rectangles, dark, densely textured forests, lakes and rivers reduced to sparkling puddles and ribbons of silver-grey. Then tumbling rocks, of mountains black and white invested with placid menacing power. And the clouds at times covering everything, at times with rifts opening up to pull the gaze into vertiginous depths.

  And in the cardboard box, Lothar’s death mask.

  Resonances

  ‘This is my brother, Lothar,’ Thea had said.

  Lothar, the repudiated brother, passed over in silence: an exile. A stranger who turned up out of nowhere.

  ‘The life of a saintly man consists more in receiving from God than in giving, more in desiring than possessing, more in becoming pious than being pious,’ declared Martin Luther.

  Lothar Schmalker possessed nothing, and he gave in abundance of his welcome poverty.

  ‘We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now,’ declared Martin Luther King on the eve of his assassination.’

  Pastor Lothar Benedikt Schmalker’s longevity required him to climb very slowly the dark side of the mountain.

  ‘I must be certain of being in the hands of God and not those of men. Then everything becomes easy, even the harshest privation … The important thing is that everything that happens to me finds faith in me …’ wrote the prisoner Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

  Lothar Benedikt placed his infirmity in the empty hands of God.

  Black milk of first light…

  We dig in the air a grave…

  ‘All these years without any news of you …’ Lothar had said to Magnus.

  From now on, there would be no more news of Lothar.

  Fragment 23

  After Lothar’s death the disquiet Magnus feels in Vienna only increases. Certainly the town is attractive, enchanting even, with its atmosphere such a subtle mixture of melancholy and hedonism, conformity and frivolity, bitterness and irony, courtesy and arrogance. It is pointless to criticize the Viennese, they do it very well themselves, their self-criticism as biting as it is subtle. But Magnus sometimes detects here and there, in the course of a conversation overheard in the street, in a café, on the tram, strains of nostalgia for the great heroic opera of Nazism. Peggy has no sense at all of this defiance, she likes living in this city, and would be willing to extend her stay here indefinitely. However, after seven years in Vienna she finally looks for a teaching post in another country, and lands one in Rome.

  Magnus likes these periods of disorder and uncertainty that precede moving to a new home. Time no longer obeys the clock, familiar space is turned upside down, habits are unsettled. Day by day objects disappear into cardboard boxes and packing-cases accumulate along the walls of the apartment where footsteps and voices resonate differently. The place you are preparing to leave suddenly acquires the charm of nostalgia whilst your curiosity about the new country you are moving to increases. Opposites become tangled, desire switches between here and elsewhere, and the present quivers with gentle excitement, tugged between the past and the unknown future.

  The days are still long and the evenings mild in this late summer. One afternoon about five o’clock, Magnus brings home a bottle of champagne to celebrate the completion of their packing. He spreads over some of the packing-cases the ivory damask tablecloth faintly patterned with pink and orange flower-like stain-rings and sets out two champagne glasses together with an assortment of pastries, for which Peggy has a weakness. A pearly white rose with a subtle fragrance stands in a glass vase. This variety of white rose has the lovely name of Schneewittchen, meaning Snow White; it is also sometimes called Iceberg. Teddy bear Magnus is also part of the decor, propped up against the bottle. He has aged a little, his head slightly tilts towards one shoulder, the wool of his muzzle is rough, the leather of his ears and paws is cracked, but his eyes have kept their soft buttercup gleam. He does not have a scarf round his neck any more, but a little cord with a tiny red velvet bag hanging from the end of it.

  He is not merely part of the decor, he is involved in this festive occasion, as he has always been involved in his namesake’s life. As for the tablecloth, it is not there to recall the painful farewell dinner at the house in London, but for having offered a glimpse of a dream of love that has become a total reality. This is a time to look to the future, not to the past and its ghosts.

  When the bottle of champagne is empty Magnus fills it with water in which he puts the Schneewittchen stem, whose petals have a pale pink hue in the light of the setting sun. He repositions the soft toy against this vase. Then he removes the velvet pocket tied round the teddy bear’s neck and offers it to Peggy. She opens the little bag and extracts a ring from it. A band of pure gold with a finely wrought zigzag inlay of red rubies. She stares at the ring lying in the hollow of her palm as if it were some unusual plant or insect, and not a piece of jewellery. Magnus takes it and puts it on her ring finger; but her finger is too thin, and so is her middle finger; so he tries it on her index finger. Only on this finger is the gold band not too loose. ‘Well,’ says Magnus, ‘a finger that is used to point to everything, even a long way off, and also to call for silence, is a very appropriate one on which to wear a perpetual engagement ring.’ Inside the band he has engraved ‘You’. Just that one word, which he often uses to address Peggy – ‘Hello, You’, ‘Goodbye, You’, is how he usually greets her, or ‘Hello, You?’ when he telephones her. You, a name reserved solely for Peggy, a personal pronoun replete with desire and lent an importance that does not, however, exclude an element of self-mockery, Magnus making fun of his own besotted happiness.

  He suggests dining at a restaurant nearby, but she would rather go to the Heilgenstadt district on the other side of town, not having been there for a long time. It is quite a long journey, and by the time they get there darkness has fallen, lanterns have been lit in the courtyard of the tavern they go to, and already the long wooden tables set up under the chestnut trees are nearly all occupied. Peggy looks round and spots a small table on the far side of the courtyard that some people are just about to leave. She points out the free table with her gold-ringed index finger zigzagged with translucid red.

  The lanterns cast a slightly acid light that bleaches the shadows beneath the boughs in a pale ochre haze, glistens on the faces of the diners and makes the white wine in the glasses and carafes sparkle with shimmering hues of citron, honey, or pale gold.

  The wine trills in the glasses, strikes a fresh note in the mouth, and soon sings beautifully in a few joyous throats.

  The diners at the table next to Magnus and Peggy are on fine musical form, interrupting their chatter punctuated with noisy laughter to break into song, moving on from ballads to lieder, and returning to some love songs. One of the singers has a deep strong voice, albeit a little husky with age. A bass baritone voice to which everyone listens with pleasure.

  ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?’ asks Peggy, suddenly distracted from listening. Magnus is sitting rigid on the bench opposite her, drained of colour, with staring eyes. He recovers himself and says, ‘It’s nothing … the wine, the heat … a wave of tiredness.’ He makes an effort to smile and adds, ‘Ssh, listen to the singing.’

  He can no longer fight the need to look at the man whose voice dominates, eclipses everyone else’s. He slowly turns towards the next table, seeking out the baritone. He sees a man of medium build, aged about seventy. A narrow band of white hair empha
sizes his suntanned scalp. He can only see him in three-quarters profile. He studies his nose: a short very straight nose. But a nose can be operated on, fixed, thinks Magnus. The man is wearing tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses with dark rectangular frames. Magnus cannot make out his eyes, or the shape of his mouth, which is half-concealed by a moustache that runs into a closely trimmed beard, forming a white oval under his nose down to his chin. So he tries to see his hands. Age has left its mark on them, the veins are prominent beneath the speckled skin, but the observer’s gaze is struck by their appearance: these hands are beefy with impeccably manicured fingernails.

  Magnus rises and walks over to one of the waiters. He tells him he would like to surprise his wife, who is particularly fond of the Schubert song ‘Geist der Liebe’. Could he ask that man who has such a fine voice whether he knows the song, and would he agree to sing it?

  ‘Ah, that Walter!’ exclaims the waiter, laughing. ‘He can still sing amazingly well, can’t he? And nearly eighty he is! And it’s not just his voice that’s well preserved, so is his taste for pretty women!’

  ‘You know him? What’s his name?’

  ‘Walter Döhrlich. He’s a regular customer. Often comes here. Lives in the neighbourhood. Well, I’ll go and convey your request to him. He’ll be delighted to sing for a beautiful stranger.’

  Magnus returns to Peggy, positioning himself so that he gets a better view of the man by the name of Walter Döhrlich. The waiter approaches him and whispers something in his ear. The man smiles, looks round, surely seeking out the charming wife to whom ‘Geist der Liebe’ is dedicated. He gets to his feet, the better to project his voice, and starts to sing.