Such memories now were sweet to Hartmann, as was the position of safety that he had made for himself in this uncertain world. He would talk to Fibich of the early days in England, and indeed Fibich was now able to reminisce with him, although discussion of what had gone before was still out of bounds. And yet, Hartmann thought, later we may even come to talk of that, of those matters, of what must have happened. Not yet. He knew the time would come, near the very end, perhaps. And Fibich, he knew, was writing some kind of memoir, for his son, he said, of all he could remember, which was very little, but which was coming into a sort of low relief as he wrote. He said little of this to Hartmann, although he asked if he might give the papers to him for safekeeping, if anything were to happen to him. Nowadays he was quite eager, even enthusiastic, when the discussion turned to those early days at school (here they were apt to look round fearfully, to see if they had made good their escape) and at the print shop and in Compayne Gardens and the Farringdon Road, until they looked at each other, amazed to find that they were still on their feet. Look! We have come through!
Hartmann, for whom the working day had always been long when not furnished with diversions, had instituted a new, though atavistic ceremony: second breakfast. To this end he would summon Fibich to a café he had discovered, for scrambled eggs and toast at ten forty-five every morning. It was in this atmosphere, with the beneficent smells of innocent food rising around them, that the memories would be exchanged, a haze of goodwill emanating from the realization that their appetites were still excellent. Did they eat more than other men of their generation? Or did they simply come from well-nourished backgrounds? Whatever the explanation, they were easily able to accommodate four meals a day, and they liked to have at hand fruit or chocolates to sustain them through the comforting evenings. Food was still a source of pleasure, and why not? All sources of pleasure – those of the faculties and of the senses – must now be enjoyed to the full.
It was in comparison with the enjoyment he still felt, and with the brilliant appearance of his wife, that he viewed his daughter’s pale and lack-lustre presence when she drove herself over to see them. It was understood that Roger would not accompany her because he saw Hartmann every day at the office, and this did duty for family intimacy. Hartmann, who could tolerate him in Spanish Place, where relations were naturally formal, found his presence in Ashley Gardens inappropriate: he could not reconcile this pale, freckled, righteous stranger with his own frivolity. He considered the other man to be benighted, rendered bloodless by his irritating single-mindedness, and by the puritanism which decreed that his wife should wear no make-up and should bear children until the time for such matters ran out. And Marianne had not even put up a fight! She is so different from us, he thought. What has made her different? Did we look after her too well, see that no harm came to her? Did it deprive her of initiative? He knew she was not happy. And he knew there was nothing to be done about it. There was no getting rid of Roger: he was too obviously impeccable. And Hartmann drew the line at inciting his daughter to revolt: that was too unseemly to contemplate. If only she had my vanity, he thought, and her mother’s complacency. If only she were light-minded like me, subversive, wilful, sensationally charming. If only she had my flair, my bad character. But she was good, passively, obediently good. And he loved her all the more for it.
Some of the distaste he felt for Roger also affected his attitude to Henry Myers, which he felt was probably unfair, if on the whole justified. Henry was a pale freckled boy, a miniature version of his father, with his father’s thick white limbs and large pale blue eyes englobed in mauvish eyelids. Although he no longer smelled of sick his appetite was poor and his flesh was not attractive. When invited to tea at his grandmother’s he would peer suspiciously inside sandwiches to see if they contained anything he disliked, and would halt his mastication of sponge cake in mid-flow to wonder if it were agreeing with him. Yvette, naturally, found this exasperating. ‘Henry!’ she would say. ‘We do not serve bad food in this house! Sit up and swallow properly!’ He would abandon what was on his plate, and drink his tea steadily, eyeing his grandmother over the rim of his cup. He often neglected to wipe his mouth with his linen napkin, and had to be reminded. He was not an endearing child, and, for his part, he seemed to have decided that his grandparents were not serious enough for him, or rather not weighty enough to be taken seriously. They loved him, of course, but failed to like him very much.
But Flora was in every way different. Flora was, quite simply, what Marianne had been as a baby, before she grew up and began her fall from grace. From his first sight of Flora, with her damp dark hair and tiny purposeful mouth, Hartmann was lost to reason. He worshipped her, cunningly contrived to ingratiate himself, to integrate his presence into her sensibility, her receptivity, removed her from her mother’s arms and sat down happily with her, talking to her even when she was fast asleep. When no one was looking, when his wife and his daughter were in the kitchen or were engaged in talk, he would give Flora a gentle nudge and wake her up. She might cry a little, but after a few minutes was always pleased to see him, opening her blue eyes at him as he lovingly wiped away her tears. ‘Time for her nap, Daddy,’ Marianne would say. Or, ‘We must be going.’ ‘Not yet,’ he would plead. ‘She’s not tired.’ ‘Leave her alone, Hartmann,’ Yvette would pronounce. ‘You are breathing on her.’ Even Yvette, who was by no means afflicted with Hartmann’s sentimentality, would linger over the child, and smooth her perfect cheek with the back of an index finger. When Hartmann saw the contrast between the bloom of the infant’s face and the wrinkling flesh on the back of Yvette’s well-kept but ageing hand, he felt overwhelmed with love for them both, felt an overflowing of such loving-kindness that he would have to go out for a walk. In any event, once Flora was removed his home seemed to him momentarily intolerable. Yvette, although she looked at him with a sceptical eye, understood. He was in love, she knew, and there was no point in trying to reason with him. And of all the rivals with whom he might have presented her, Flora was the only one above suspicion.
When night fell on the afternoons of Flora’s visits, Hartmann would take his wife by the hand, and, putting on some appropriate music, would waltz her slowly round the drawing-room. Fibich, coming upstairs on one such evening to ask Hartmann about some aspect of their early life, was astonished to see them both dancing, with serious expressions, and very gracefully too, he had to admit, although neither of them was as slim as they once had been. Fibich was charmed, and, forgetting his errand, sat down to watch. He saw his friend as a brilliant success, brilliant as he himself had never been, and counted himself fortunate to have known him. He thought of the time they had spent together, time that encompassed two lives, then four, then six. He did not count Roger, the incomer, although he liked him well enough, liked him rather better than Hartmann did. He sat quietly, for five minutes or so, watching them dance, and saw that they were old. He gazed round the room he knew so well, with its apricot walls and dark green carpet, and striped apricot and white curtains, and at Yvette, spectacular in royal blue, her feet in small black sandals. As she waltzed past him, her hair, he saw, was brighter and perhaps thinner than it had been: he saw the strands parted at the back, as if she had got up from a little sleep and had not effaced the impression of a pillow or a cushion. Hartmann’s face was grave and serene, as he danced: he had always been a good dancer. Fibich had seen him dance at Deauville, at Monte Carlo, when they had gone on their youthful holidays together, after he and Christine were married, the four of them, before the babies came. How Hartmann had loved a party! He had had a charmed life, thought Fibich. When he gambled in the casino he always won, not much, but enough to enable him to gamble again the following evening. He and Christine had sat quietly, watching the people, watching Hartmann dancing with Yvette, always with Yvette. He had been a good man, thought Fibich. Such considerations were important to him these days.
After a while he waved his hand at Hartmann as if to tell him not to disturb
himself, and took his notebook back downstairs with him. Although he had wanted Hartmann’s opinion that opinion was not really necessary: his work was finished. He found Christine sitting in her chair, her head thrown back, her eyes fixed on the window as if a sun were blazing there. He knew that she was thinking of Toto, and of the day when she would see him again. He himself felt no anxiety for the boy, although Toto’s life was so unlike his own that he could no longer imagine it. He drew the curtains, and Christine stirred herself, as if the sun had been eclipsed, although the sky was black beyond the windows. She looked around her, as if she were coming back to full consciousness after a long absence, and said, ‘Is it late? Are you coming to bed?’ He smiled at her. ‘Not yet. But don’t wait for me.’ She rubbed her eyes, picked up her book and her new glasses, and stood up. He took her in his arms and kissed her, as if he might not see her again. ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Never better,’ he said.
He went into his study, took a large envelope from the drawer of his desk, and put his notebook inside it. Before sealing it, he thought for a moment, and then uncapped his pen again, drew a sheet of paper towards him, and began a letter.
‘My dearest boy,’ he wrote.
‘I want you to have this little memoir, which contains your history and as much of mine as I can remember. There is a copy, typed, in the safe in the office, which Hartmann will look after for you, providing, that is, that you find it of value. So don’t worry if the notebook is tiresome to carry around: you can leave it anywhere, or even throw it away, if you want to. Don’t have a bad conscience about it. It was not intended to be solemn or significant. But I wanted you to know that I have been thinking of you. When have I not been thinking of you? I wanted you to know that these past few weeks, when you have been so far away, have brought you back to me most vividly. I wanted to tell you about your home, and how it came into being.
‘You know the story in outline, and when you read the notebook you will know it as I remember it. I wanted in particular to tell you what a good life it has been. I have been blessed with everything a man desires, and it is my most fervent wish – unfortunately, I cannot pray – that you will be similarly blessed. Marry, have children, and you will know my joy.
‘How is it out there, in America? Have you made friends? Good friends are like gold. I, who have had Hartmann as a friend all my life, know the truth of this.
‘We are all well. Your mother is well. Do not worry about us. But come back to us, if your work permits.
‘Your grandfather’s name was Manfred. Your grandmother was Rosa. She was very beautiful. You will read all about them in the notebook.
‘Take great care of yourself, and, I repeat, don’t worry about us. We are still here, and will be here as long as you want us. Life has taught me that death is only a small interruption. This I now know to be an unalterable truth.
‘Do you remember that poem I used to read you night after night, in an attempt to get you to sleep? Do you remember “battle’s magnificently stern array”? I was never able to capture that spirit myself. Some battles, however, are fought in the mind, and sometimes won there.
‘If I were a religious man I would ask God to bless you. And as I am not I will ask Him just the same. And I send you all my thoughts and hopes.
Your loving father,
Thomas Manfred Fibich.’
Latecomers Page 23
