“How much do you think one of these paintings goes for?” Fitzsimons-Ross asked me.
“The art market is something I know nothing about . . . especially the European art market.”
“If this was in the Kirkland Gallery in Belgravia—where I usually exhibit—you’d be paying just under three thousand pounds for the privilege of hanging a Fitzsimons-Ross on one of your walls.”
“That’s serious money.”
“Semi-serious. I’m not in the Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud league. Still David Sylvester did once compare me to Rothko. You know Sylvester?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Possibly the most influential postwar art critic in the UK.”
“Bravo to you. And he’s right. There’s a decided Rothko Goes Greek Island color spectrum to those two paintings.”
“That’s facile.”
“You don’t like being compared to Rothko?”
“Not when I am completely opposed to everything that Rothko stood for.”
“Which was?”
“Geometric gloom. Fucking portals in every corner of his fucking funereal paintings. All those blood-red earth tones shaded downwards into shadow and somber self-pity.”
“I think I was talking about your use of rectangular shapes and color.”
“And that makes me like cut-my-wrists Mark Götterdämmerung Rothko?”
“You’re the first artist I’ve ever met who doesn’t admire him.”
“So you’ve lost your Rothko virginity. Congratulations. I deflowered you.”
“Am I supposed to snicker quietly—or get all offensive—about such a profoundly stupid comment? I mean, I hate to break it to you: your paintings show real talent. Your repartee, on the other hand, is crap.”
Fitzsimons-Ross paused for a moment to stub out his Gauloises and pour the tea. He then opened the small fridge, in which were kept several bottles of wine, several bottles of beer, an open freezer compartment from which protruded a Russian bottle of vodka (or, at least I presumed it vodka, as it had Cyrillic lettering on the label covering its plain glass bottom), and a single bottle of milk. He reached for the milk, pulled out the stopper, and poured such a considerable amount of white liquid into my cup of tea that it suddenly went a particularly pedestrian shade of brown—the color of a street puddle.
“Don’t look horrified,” he said. “This is how tea is meant to be drunk. Sugar?”
I accepted a heaped teaspoon. He pointed to one of the bentwood chairs. I sat down. He fired up another Gauloises, then asked:
“So, let me guess. You write. And you’re here to write the Great American Novel or some such tosh.”
“Yes, I write. But not novels.”
“Oh God, don’t tell me you’re a fucking poet. Met far too many fucking poets in the one year I was at Trinity College Dublin. They all smelled and had bad teeth and sat around pubs like McDaid’s, begrudging the world, telling each other how brilliant they were, berating the editor of some pathetic little magazine for daring to suggest an editorial cut or two, and generally making everyone in earshot never want to read a fucking poem again.”
“Not that you have a strong opinion about such things.”
“Glad you noticed that.”
“Anyway, I’m not a ‘fucking poet.’”
I briefly told him what I did—mentioning the book that was published, and the book that had been commissioned.
“Might I see a copy of this book?” he asked.
“Yes, you might. And you’re from Dublin?”
“Just outside. Wicklow. Ever been there?”
“Once. Powerscourt. Glendalough. Roundwood.”
“That’s my parish, Roundwood.”
“A very beautiful one at that.”
“Roundwood House was the family manse. Classic Anglo-Irish Big House. Before my father lost it all.”
“And how did he do that?”
“The usual Irish way. Drink and debt.”
“That sounds like a good story. Tell me more.”
“Are you going to take all this down afterward and perhaps use it against me?”
“I’m a writer—so, yes, there is that risk. But does that really worry you?”
“Hardly. Then again, who’s going to read what you write?”
“My last book sold eighteen hundred copies—so you do have a point there . . .”
He studied me with care.
“I can’t rile you, can I?”
“No doubt you’ll continue to try. A fast question before I even look at the room. And the question is one word: quiet? Though I approve of your taste in music . . . do you blare it all the time?”
“Frequently, yes.”
“Then there’s no real point discussing anything to do with the room, as I won’t be able to live in a place where there’s loud music.”
“A sensitive artiste, are we?”
“I need silence when I write, that’s all.”
“And I need the rent money you’ll pay me—so perhaps we can work out an arrangement. Especially as I usually paint in silence.”
“Then why did you say you blare music?”
“Because I felt like being a cunt . . . which I am most of the time.”
“So if I take the room . . . do I have your assurance that, when I’m writing or sleeping . . .”
“There will be quiet.”
Given his prior need to prod and poke at me with his sardonic banter, it surprised me to hear him say this last statement so reassuringly. For all his talk about his big-deal London gallery, money was obviously a problem . . . the mention of his wastrel daddy a further hint that this was a man who might be worried about keeping this roof over his head.
“And how much is the room per month?” I asked.
“Let’s talk about that after you’ve seen it.”
Then putting his cup of tea down, he said, “Ready for an inspection tour?”
We stood up.
“Down here is my realm. The studio, the kitchen, the living area. I sleep in there . . .”
He pointed to a door off a far corner of the studio area. It was open—and I could see a simple double bed, immaculately made, the sheets crisp, ultra bleached.
“You’ve lived in Greece, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Absolutely. The white walls. The sky and azure blues of your canvases. What the hell are you doing here, all so cold, so gray . . . with The Wall just yards away?”
“The same thing you’re doing here. Running away. Existing in an affordable place with edge. Oh, Spetses was pretty damn affordable. The year I spent there, it was pretty fucking sublime. But it was also devoid of interest. It was like so many men I slept with there and elsewhere. So beautiful, so empty.”
So there was a fact dropped into the conversation, even though it was one I had already surmised.
“Are all your lovers like Greek Islands?” I asked.
A hard laugh from Fitzsimons-Ross, followed up with a bronchial cough.
“In my dreams,” he said. “But you already know too much. Let’s head upstairs where I can show you where you’ll live.”
“What makes you think I’m moving in?”
“Because you can’t resist the complexity of it all. And because you’re not a squalor junkie, and what I’m offering you here is tidy debauchery.”
“Tidy debauchery,” I said, trying out the phrase. “I might have to steal that.”
Behind the kitchen was a small spiral staircase that led up to a sort of half-floor, made up of three rooms: a large studio space with a tiny kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom. The kitchen was nominal: a small fridge, a hot plate and tiny oven, a sink. The bathroom was equally minuscule, but still had enough space for a shower stall. There was a simple double bed in one corner of the small bedroom and a wooden wardrobe. But the studio space was enviably large at around four hundred square feet. An old sofa, draped with a cream linen cover. A plain table that would serve more than ad
equately as a desk. What was most pleasing about this space was the fact that all the furniture had been stripped of its paint and varnished in its natural state. Coupled with the white walls it had an ascetic cleanness. It struck me as an ideal neutral refuge from the disorder that lurked in the streets beyond, let alone in Fitzsimons-Ross’s downstairs lair.
But that was the intriguing thing about my roommate-to-be. On first sight he’d strike the most indifferent of observers as this side of dissolute, with a mouth on him like a leaky latrine. But from the small glimpse I’d had of his living and working spaces—and of the apartment I was to call my own (and which he so evidently designed to mirror his downstairs space)—he was deeply fastidious. Which led me to wonder: was he, like me, someone who understood that there was profound reassurance to be found in the surfaces of things, and that a disciplined approach to housekeeping allowed you to be saturnalian in so many other areas? But again, this insight is not one which I probably had at the time. All I saw was the fact that Fitzsimons-Ross had the air of an Irish Isherwood about him and knew how to demonstrate good taste on a nominal budget.
“Pretty nice,” I said. “I hope I can afford it.”
“You’re staying where right now?”
I told him about the Pension Weisse and how it suited me so well.
“So remain in Savignyplatz and write about your neighbors the merchant bankers. Or the gallery dealer who’s doing a five-million-deutsche-mark turnover per annum. Here, in Kreuzberg, you get to watch junkies shit on the street and Turkish brutes beating their wives. And you get to see me in flagrante delicto with whatever rent boy or Finnish depressive I’ve picked up at Die schwarze Ecke.”
“I know that place well. I fell into it last night.”
“And fell out of it with company?”
“How did you guess?”
“Because it’s Die schwarze Ecke—where everyone in Kreuzberg goes to score weed and to pick up whoever’s sitting at the bar that night and doesn’t look too insane. That’s the thing about that kip. We all know it’s toxic. But everyone frequents it for exactly the same reasons. If you want to score some hash, the only guy there to trust is Orhan. A Turkish dwarf—and fat. Looks like he belongs doing a stint as Snow White’s Big Boy. But the hash he peddles . . . premier cru.”
He fired up another cigarette. Then:
“So are you taking the place?”
“How much do you want for it? I don’t have much money.”
“You mean, you didn’t grow up in a Park Avenue household with a black maid named Beulah?”
“Home was a small two-bedroom apartment on an unfashionable corner of Second Avenue.”
“Ah, a boy with something to prove.”
“Just like you. You still haven’t told me the story of how your father squandered all the family money.”
“Maybe I never will.”
“So how much do you want per month?”
“One thousand deutsche marks.”
“That’s a lot more than my apartment in New York . . .”
“But this is a virtually self-contained apartment . . .”
“. . . in a less than savory corner of Berlin, where I know I could rent a studio for three hundred. Which is what I am prepared to pay for this place. Inclusive of heat.”
“No can do.”
“Nice meeting you then.”
I turned and headed toward the stairs.
“Five hundred,” he said.
“Three-fifty. Final offer.”
“Four hundred twenty-five.”
“I’m not budging on this. But thanks for an entertaining cup of tea.”
“You truly are a New York cunt, aren’t you?”
“By which you mean . . . ?”
“Money grubbing.”
Is that a synonym for “Jewish”? I wondered but decided to say nothing. Except: “You know something, chum . . . I really don’t like your tone.”
“Three-fifty then,” he said, the hint of desperation coming out again.
I held out my hand. He took it.
“We have a deal?” I asked.
“I suppose so. One thing: I’d also like a month’s deposit, just in case . . .”
“Do you own this place?”
He coughed out a lung full of smoke.
“Me Own Anything?” he said, giving emphasis to every word. “What an extraordinary idea. I have a very unpleasant Turkish landlord—a real Mister Big, with gold chains and minions and a very black Mercedes in which he cruises the streets of Kreuzberg. He despises me. The feeling is mutual. But I’ve had this place for three years, and he let me renovate it in exchange for a reduced rent. But now that it is much improved over the dump I first obtained from him . . . naturally, he has increased the rent by four hundred a month.”
“Hence the need for a roommate.”
“I’m afraid so. And don’t take this the wrong way—but how I loathe the idea of having you upstairs. Not that you’re bad news. It’s just, I really don’t want the company.”
Fitzsimons-Ross evidently had this need to play the one-upmanship card at every possibility. I knew from the outset that my relationship with this gent would be less than easy. But like Kreuzberg itself, I sensed that his disquietude—and the need to compete with me on everything—might just prove bracing.
“Hey, you want to be alone,” I said, “you can play Greta Garbo if you fucking want.”
This time I did walk down the stairs.
“All right, all right,” he shouted after me. “I’ll shut my bloody mouth.”
“I’ll be back in a few hours with some cash,” I said.
“Can you pay me the deposit and one month up front?”
“I suppose so. Will you be here at six?”
“If you’re coming back with cash, absolutely.”
I showed up at six fifteen—having returned to the Pension Weisse and collected a handful of traveler’s checks from my suitcase, then cashed them all in a nearby bank. After spending some time in a café, writing all that had transpired earlier with my roommate-to-be, I took the U-Bahn back to Kreuzberg. Fitzsimons-Ross had given me the front door code before I left. So this time I didn’t ring the front doorbell. When I reached the door to his apartment I heard Miles Davis from his “cool” period (“Someday My Prince Will Come”) blaring on the hi-fi. So much for his assurances that loudness was not his style. I banged once on the door. It swung open. I stepped inside.
“Hello?” I shouted.
No reply. I walked toward the studio area. Still no sign of him. Then I glanced in the direction of his bedroom. The door was wide open here—and the sight that filled my field of vision caused me to take a sharp intake of breath. For there, on the bed, was Fitzsimons-Ross. He was bare-chested, with a thick rubber tourniquet encircling his upper left bicep. A needle was sticking out of the bulging vein in the crook of that same arm. Though his voice was otherworldly, it still had a strange cogent clarity to it.
“You bring the rent money?”
Why didn’t I turn and walk out right then and there?
Because I knew I had to see how this would all play out. And because I was already thinking: it’s all material.
“Yes,” I said, “I brought it.”
“Just put it on the kitchen table. And if you wouldn’t mind putting the kettle on . . . I could use a cup of tea.”
“No problem,” I said.
Fitzsimons-Ross looked up at me with eyes that, though glassy from the narcotic hit, still shone with arctic-blue incandescence.
“Don’t forget: the tea needs to be steeped for a good four minutes,” he added.
“Fine,” I said.
I turned away from the man with the needle in his arm, thinking:
Welcome to my new home.
FOUR
I AM A RATHER fastidious junkie,” Fitzsimons-Ross told me.
I made him his cup of tea, which he drank silently. Then I proffered the seven hundred deutsche marks. He reached into his pocket and f
ished out a metal object that he placed on the table, then slid toward me.
“Here’s a key,” he said. “Move in whenever.”
“I thought I’d come by tomorrow with my stuff, then move in on Friday.”
“Whatever works. Don’t worry about any of this. I’ve got it all very regulated. Very under control.”
I said nothing. But I did notice how he was working very hard at being lucid right now, despite having mainlined what I presumed to be a significant amount of smack. This, I came to discover, was the strange, infernal duality of Alaistair Fitzsimons-Ross. It didn’t matter that I had walked in on his shooting up. It didn’t matter if he called me a cunt or made some less-than-vaguely anti-Semitic comment (as he was prone to do). It didn’t matter if he had woken up next to some Kurdish rough trade he’d picked up in the toilets near the Hauptbahnhof. Appearances had to be maintained. He was always determined to see himself in the best possible light—even though, as I also came to discover, the hardened, foulmouthed veneer with which he cocooned himself was easily permeated.
But all that was future knowledge. For the moment I had that strange heady thrill that comes with tossing yourself into a situation that you know to be, at best, dangerous. Writers—as somebody once noted—are always selling somebody out. I knew I had struck pay dirt the moment I’d spent five minutes with Alaistair. I had my opening chapters, and could only hope that the shooting-up episode was the start of many a low-life moment to be witnessed chez Fitzsimons-Ross.
So the next morning I gave notice at the Pension Weisse. Then I went to KaDeWe—the big department store on the Kurfürstendamm—and bought two sets of white sheets and equally white towels and a desk lamp and a basic set of plates and cutlery and a kettle and a coffee maker. I loaded it all up into a taxi and gave the address on Mariannenstrasse and hauled everything up the three flights of stairs to the atelier. Fitzsimons-Ross was nowhere to be seen. I unpacked my bags and made up my bed. Afterward I adjourned to the café nearest to Mariannenstrasse 5—the Istanbul—for lunch.
The Istanbul was run by a diminutive chain smoking man with a perpetual hack cough named Omar (he finally introduced himself around a month after I starting using his place as my outer office). It was a dump. A very basic zinc bar. Cheaply laminated tables and chairs. Cheap liquor decorating the bar. There were yellowing travel posters featuring scenic views of the Blue Mosque, the Bosporus, Topkapi Palace, and other Istanbul highlights. The cassette player by the till always seemed to be quietly playing some dirge sung by a Turkish woman about (I imagined) the swarthy Lothario who’d ditched her. But I immediately took to the place largely because—bar the low hum of the music and the whispered conversation of the middle-aged men who always seemed to be huddled at a rear table, plotting the downfall of some enemy—the place was ever-calm. More tellingly Omar came to know me as an habitué. Even when I told him my name he seemed to ignore this piece of information and continued to refer to me as Schriftsteller. Writer. He also started to lower the music whenever I came in, and seemed to approve of the two hours I would spend every afternoon at a corner table, writing in my notebook, getting everything that had transpired in the past twenty-four hours down on paper. Trying to write it all while the details were still bouncing around the inside of my head.
The Moment Page 9
