Dreams of Innocence

by Lisa Appignanesi

  To avoid temptation. The thought suddenly crystallized and she shook it away.

  Yes, Vienna was a truly cosmopolitan city, teeming with ideas, with writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, with political dreamers and doers of all casts. There was of course the drawback of its decaying monarchy with its manifold lunacies which her father had so adhered to. But even that had its charm. She smiled to herself.

  Where was it that she had read that hilarious list of Austria’s contradictions? A country where the parliament made such liberal use of its liberties, that it was usually kept shut. Though by an emergency powers act, it was quite possible for the Emperor to manage without it, as he was doing now. But no sooner had the public begun to applaud absolutism, than the Emperor determined that it was once again time to return to parliamentary government. And so it went on, in its own inimitable way.

  She had arrived. The gilded laurel dome of the Secession Gallery was before her, its iron weight sitting heavily on the graceful white of cubes and cupolas. And the inscription on the door, ‘To the Age its Art, To Art its Freedom’. She could still remember the stir the building had first caused all those years ago, the great generational battle between the artists.

  And there was Klaus, waiting for her, tucking his copy of Karl Kraus’s satirical mag into his pocket, striding in his loose-limbed way to pay the Fiaker.

  ‘A pleasant morning?’ he helped her down the step.

  Bettina nodded, ‘Very.’

  ‘I’ve been through the exhibition once already. It’s good. And there are three fine works by our new friend.’

  Bettina swallowed hard. ‘Really?’

  ‘Come and see for yourself.’

  As they made their way through the gallery, Bettina forced herself to listen to Klaus’s words, his enthusiasm for various works and denigration of others. All of which led inevitably to their ‘new friend’.

  ‘You see how much finer, bolder these are than their neighbours,’ Klaus stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I have great hopes of our friend. In fact I have suggested a little scheme to him.’

  Bettina made a great play of examining the pictures. One showed a woman decked out like some exotic plant in a lavish dress. Visible through its ornate flounces and drapings was a pale stalk of a naked body. Nervousness coiled inside her.

  ‘I’ll tell you about the scheme later,’ Klaus looked at her closely. ‘You do like his work, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘But the brushwork seems a little lurid.’

  ‘No. No, that’s exactly it. That’s where his genius lies. He has a great feeling for nature, its turbulence, its darkness. Like the best German romantics, but translated into a modern idiom.’

  Klaus had his solemn air. It was one she rarely argued with and she let the subject pass now, worrying, as canvases and sculptures slid past her, about his latest scheme.

  For old-times sake, Bettina had suggested that they lunch at Demels. They decided to walk, strolling through the crisp autumnal air down the narrow Augustinerstrasse, past the Hofburg and into the Kohlmarkt. In the café window, the finely decorated gateaux sat invitingly displayed and for a moment Bettina wondered at the oddness of a nation which liked to see its monarch’s head on a cake. The thoughts that must pass through the mind as one cut into it. Another Viennese lunacy.

  Inside, the café was just as she remembered it from Sunday outings with her father and mother: racks of newspapers, great globed chandeliers, cool marble-topped tables, formal waitresses in monastic black; and walls of arched mirrors which induced a madcap sense of vertigo as chattering faces, including one’s own were reflected ad infinitum.

  Her mother had loved it here, her pretty empty-headed mother. Music, the opera, theatre, a joy in spectacle - they filled her life. And she had spoiled them, succumbing to their every whim, particularly little Anna’s, letting her run wild.

  ‘Shall I tell you about my scheme,’ Klaus broke into her reminiscences.

  ‘Do,’ Bettina rifled in her bag for a handkerchief and pretended only a minimum of interest.

  ‘You know I’ve been thinking of adding on an extra wing at Seehafen, just a few rooms for my library, the collection.’

  Bettina nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ve suggested to Johannes that he might design it, go and stay there for a while - as long as he likes, really. Oversee the work. Perhaps paint a few murals. Use one of the outhouses as a studio.’

  Bettina gazed at him in astonishment. She searched for an argument, found one, ‘But does he know anything about architecture?’

  ‘Enough.’ Klaus shrugged. ‘And he has ideas. A master builder can do the rest.’

  ‘I don’t know, Klaus. I…’ Bettina felt she was about to utter something irrevocable.

  Klaus lit his pipe nonchalantly, then met her eyes, examining them. ‘He’s in a bit of a precarious financial position, you know. Some terrible row with his father. I can’t quite make out whether he disinherited him or Johannes simply refuses his money. In either event, life can be hard for artists.’

  ‘When did you find all this out?’ Bettina was suspicious.

  ‘Oh, just before we left. I bumped into him at the Stephanie. He was a bit the worse for wear. His electricity had been cut off. The landlord was threatening him.’

  ‘I see.’ Bettina looked away, caught her reflection in the mirror, the worried eyes. ‘I…’

  He stopped. ‘I believe in him Bettina. He has something. It might even be genius.’

  ‘I know,’ she murmured. She felt as if she had been brought to the edge of a precipice and Klaus were forcing her to plunge. ‘But I’m not sure. Johannes is so…so…’

  ‘Unpredictable?’ he finished for her. He toyed with his pastry for a moment, didn’t look at her. ‘I think I understand Bettina, understand your difficulty.’

  What did he understand? Bettina sat rigidly in her chair. What had Johannes said to him? She felt suddenly as if she had become a pawn in the hands of the two men. It made her rage.

  ‘What difficulty?’ she said stiffly, barely containing herself.

  ‘You know,’ Klaus fluttered his long fingers vaguely in the air, then paused, smiled, suddenly excited. ‘I thought we might both go down there next week. Talk it through with him. Then I’d have to get back. My course starts. But you could stay on a while, work on your book. Make sure things were going according to your taste.’

  He met her eyes, but she couldn’t decipher their meaning.

  ‘I’ll see,’ she said as casually as she could. She buried her face in the copy of the Neue Freie Presse she had picked off the rack and she started to laugh. ‘Listen to this, Klaus. From the classifieds: ‘Young lieutenant wishes to meet girl in pale pink dress and grey hat seen waiting in front of Hotel Sacher and sitting at performance of Madame Butterfly with father and mother…’

  For the remainder of their stay in Vienna, Bettina was on tenterhooks. She couldn’t settle to anything. All her conversations with new and old friends seemed to be taking place in the past, while the future was rushing towards her, threatening to obliterate her. At moments panic overtook her, as if she had been making her way carefully along some steep embankment only suddenly to slip on a sheer icy slope where there were no footholds. And she was falling, down, down, into a gully that rushed inevitably to meet her, but was still invisible. For a woman who had always foreseen and thought and controlled, it was a terrifying sensation.

  She had not been back to see Johannes after that afternoon when she had stumbled on Anna in his studio. The arrogance of him to think that she would. In a sense Anna had saved her. Saved her by her very presence: she had been filled with shame, a sense of wanting to be anywhere but secretly, deceitfully there, in Johannes’s studio. But Anna had not been able to save her from thinking about him.

  And then that strange letter had come from him, more like a manifesto, or a document, than a personal letter. A sequence of dark musings linking Henry Ford’s unveiling
of a moving assembly line at his American plant to the war in the Balkans; evoking a bleak machine man, soulless, the fruit of centuries of reason. A man as expendable as the machine. Calling on some irrational life force to turn it all round before it was too late. Calling on her to understand. She could understand. She was one of the few.

  In the experience of reading it, the letter had made sense. She had felt its plea as well as its evocative force. She should go and see him, she had thought. Perhaps they could simply talk. He needed someone to talk to. But she had put it off. And off. Then Anna’s wedding had intervened.

  Placing a physical distance between herself and Johannes had given Bettina a semblance of control. And now, here was Klaus, undermining it all, setting up schemes, throwing the two of them together. What had he deduced? What had Johannes said to him? She couldn’t bring herself to ask, though the presence of the unspoken topic in her mind foreclosed the possibility of any other topic being raised with ease.

  As a result during the remainder of their stay in Vienna, when they were alone, Bettina was unusually quiet. The quiet persisted through the journey home to Munich. She kept her head buried in a book, pretending that she couldn’t feel Klaus’s eyes on her, querying, trying to probe, ever so gently.

  They were to leave for Seehafen a mere two days after their return to Munich.

  ‘Is Johannes accompanying us?’ Bettina asked that morning, needing to know.

  ‘Oh no. Didn’t I say? He was scheduled to go down a few days ago. Wanted to get a feel of the place, jot down some ideas before we arrived.’

  ‘I see,’ Bettina murmured. ‘So you were only informing me of all this when we spoke. The crucial decisions had all been taken.’

  Klaus shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you’d have any objections. And the plans are all still to be made.’ He smiled in his slightly lopsided, endearing way. ‘I won’t go ahead with anything you don’t approve of. You know that.’

  She held back the arguments that were on the tip of her tongue. Perhaps she was simply imagining a greater knowledge on Klaus’s part than he had. After all, it was quite in character for him to want to support the work of a young artist. She returned Klaus’s smile as equably as she could. ‘I know,’ she said.

  Seehafen, when they arrived, was unseasonably warm, bathed in a mellow autumnal light. Trees and shrubs glowed russet and golden, darkening into ruddy bronzes, burgundy reds, crimson. The house in their midst emerged startlingly white. Klaus’s pleasure at returning here, Bettina noted, was palpable. No sooner had he greeted the housekeeper, than he was bending to check on the condition of a plant here, a bush there, letting the soil trickle through his fingers. She was a little in awe of him when he was like this, not understanding in what language the plants spoke to him.

  ‘Do you know where Herr Bahr is?’ Bettina asked Frau Trübl.

  The woman shrugged, shook her head. ‘We hardly see him,’ she was a little disapproving, ‘except for dinner. Will you be needing, Dora?’

  ‘No, no, we’ll manage. It’s only for a few days.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But perhaps some lunch, in about an hour?’

  They found Johannes just outside the boathouse. He had set up a crude trestle table and was mixing colours on a palette, colours which echoed the crimsons and russets around them. He seemed startled to see them. There was a strange gauntness to his face.

  ‘Hello, hello.’ He wiped his fingers hastily on a rag, stretched out a hand to Klaus. ‘I’d lost track of time,’ he murmured apologetically, bowed to Bettina.

  She averted her eyes.

  Klaus laughed, ‘It’s easy to do here. Have you made yourself comfortable.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes.’ he pointed to the boathouse. ‘I’ve set up in there. I hope you don’t mind. Herr helped me move some things and there’s plenty of room.’

  They followed him in, saw a camp bed, a rough table strewn with papers, a chair, one stretched canvas untouched, an easel.

  ‘But surely, you’ll sleep in the house. It will soon be far too cold out here.’ Klaus protested.

  ‘No, no,’ Johannes demurred. ‘There’s the little stove.’

  ‘And the light? There isn’t enough light. I’ll have Hans cut another window.’

  ‘No, really.’

  There was something very wrong, Bettina mused. She had never seen Johannes like this, so self-effacing, almost subservient. It couldn’t last.

  She found her voice. ‘We’ll discuss it over lunch. But I think Klaus is right. If you’re to stay for any length of time, it can’t be in here, in winter.’

  From beneath the darkly arched brows, eyes of midnight blue met hers for the first time. ‘Whatever Frau Eberhardt determines.’

  She could almost hear him click his heels, so stiffly formal was the voice. She wanted to shout at him, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Johannes.’ Instead the flush rose to her face.

  ‘And the plans? Have you made any headway with the plans?’ Klaus asked.

  Suddenly Johannes was electrified. His features took on a mobility, his eyes glowed. He moved swiftly to the rough table, picked up a sheaf of papers, ‘Shall we look at them now? Back at the house. I want to show you.’ He almost flew over the paths, talking exuberantly, hands waving, telling them how he had contacted various architect friends in Munich, spoken to some local builders. Had even already received some rough estimates.’

  When they had arrived at the back of the house, he began to describe an outlying structure, all undulating curves and horseshoe arches, but using trees in their pristine form as columns; a structure which brought the outside in, which defied the break between interior and exterior, a space which played with the colours of the seasons, was a temple to nature. Bettina stopped listening to the waves of words and simply watched Johannes. It was hard to imagine that this man in the grip of a vision was the same person who had spoken so stiffly to them such a short time ago. His excitement caressed her, enfolded her, so that she felt herself once more in thrall to his presence. As she could see Klaus was.

  Johannes’s magic saw them through lunch, through a lecture on the current state of architecture, through sheafs of doodles and a few more careful drawings. It was only when he had left them, saying that he must just jot a few more things down on paper, that Bettina realised that he had not addressed a single word to her directly.

  ‘What do you think?’ Klaus quizzed her.

  ‘It sounds wonderful,’ she replied, but her tone was hesitant.

  ‘It will be. But he’ll need help. The organisation,’ Klaus was drawing her out.

  ‘There’ll be builders,’ Bettina shrugged, refusing to commit herself, wondering again what Johannes had told him, why Klaus wanted her here.

  Later that afternoon, she built up enough courage to seek Johannes out. As she could see through the partially opened door, he was hunched over the small table, an oil lamp already burning in the dim interior. She knocked cursorily and stepped in.

  He leapt up. ‘What can I do for you, Frau Eberhardt?’

  His cold punctiliousness filled her with disbelief. He was behaving like a hired man who resented the hiring. She fumbled for words, blurted out what was on her mind more quickly than she had intended.

  ‘What have you told Klaus?’

  ‘Told Klaus?’

  ‘About us.’

  An abrupt laugh escaped him. ‘Is there anything to tell?’

  The hurt showed in her face. ‘I see,’ she said softly after a long moment, then turned to go so that he wouldn’t see the leap of tears.

  ‘Bettina,’ he called after her, put a staying hand on her shoulder. ‘I didn’t think there was anything to tell,’ his voice was gentle now, the intimate, suasive voice she remembered so distinctly. She turned to face him, meeting his eyes. They were no longer distant, unresponsive.

  ‘You didn’t write, made no sign, didn’t come,’ he shrugged, surveyed her. ‘I thought it was finished. I almost didn’t accept Klaus’s offer because of that, but it was too tempting. I
n any event I would never speak.’

  ‘He wants me to stay here. With you. For a while. Why?’

  Johannes, took her hand, smiled dreamily. ‘Perhaps he understands. Klaus is a man who understands more than he speaks. Understands about art, too. That’s why I wanted to do this, to come here. Though I don’t like being beholden, as you’ve perhaps noticed.’ His face was suddenly boyish. ‘It’s difficult for me to be grateful, to accept Klaus, you, as my benefactors,’ he laughed. ‘You will stay Bettina?’

  She turned away from him. ‘I don’t know. I have to think.’

  ‘You think far too much,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll have ample time to think, once you’ve lived. And it will give you something to think about.’

  She almost rose to the bait, almost started to argue with him about his singularly reduced idea of life, his arrogant equation of it with passion. But she stopped herself, knowing by the quivering of her lips where it would end.

  ‘I have to think now,’ she said as forcefully as she could and fled.

  Looking after her, Johannes felt the grey listlessness which had trailed him for weeks, the sense of working against the grain, miraculously vanish. He hadn’t realised she had gained quite so much power over him. But now he felt drunk, vigorously alive, as if the world had of a sudden regained its vibrant iridescence.

  Later that evening, over dinner, they argued heatedly, with the old zest, Klaus strangely taking Johannes’s side. Johannes had been to the Freideutsche Jugend mass gathering at the Hohe Meissner, the mountain to the south of Cassel where all the various branches of the ramblers associations, the Wandervogel, had gathered to celebrate the centenary of the battle of Leipzig on the 13th of October.