—It’s not me, said Benjamin. I’m not lecturing anyone.
—You tell me this, said Haffner. Is it really a way to live your life, to do what you’re doing out there? With your missiles and your lunatics.
He hadn’t phoned, said Benjamin, to have this conversation. He wasn’t having this conversation. They’d had this conversation.
—Are you ever going to tell me how things are going? said Benji. Are things fixed yet?
—No, said Haffner. They’re not.
—I really think, said Benjamin, if you’re having so many problems, then I should come and see if I can help.
Haffner considered Frau Tummel, and Zinka, and felt alarmed.
He couldn’t bear it. Youth, he thought, was the spirit of the petit bourgeois. Of course, thought Haffner, the young needed their myth of adolescence, their myth of ‘68 – of course they needed the romantic movements. Without the romantic movements, the young would have to see themselves for what they were: always the most punitive, the most envious, the quickest to judge. So Haffner, as he lay prone, on the massage table, opted to ignore Benjamin’s proposal of a friendly visit. Instead, Haffner asked Benji if he’d ever heard of the celebrated Peter Ustinov. Benjamin said that he hadn’t.
—He’s never heard of Peter Ustinov! said Haffner: possibly to Viko, but almost definitely to himself.
—Now, let me tell you something, continued Haffner. Peter Ustinov possessed a quality which is in very short supply nowadays. In very short supply.
—And what’s that? asked Benjamin.
—Charm, said Haffner. Now listen, old chap, I have to go.
—This is ridiculous, said Benjamin, and continued the conversation: in which he told Haffner that he could get a flight that day. He really thought he should. He could be with him by tomorrow. But Haffner never heard this conversation, nor Benjamin’s frustrated squawk when he realised that Haffner was no longer listening, because he had hung up.
Haffner turned to the masseur. Suddenly, he felt naked. But he felt calm.
—Thank you, said Haffner.
—Mais merci, smiled the masseur.
—Absolutely, said Haffner.
A change seemed to happen within Viko: a ripple, a sigh. He turned away. He seemed to be smiling to himself. Haffner questioned him on this. He denied that he was smiling.
Sitting on the table, Haffner gave Viko all the money in his wallet. It was not much. It seemed ungrateful.
Not for the first time, Haffner felt overtaken by an exhaustion. He looked at the chair beside the massage table, at the arms of his tracksuit top, helplessly hanging down. Clutching his towel to his waist, Haffner gathered up his clothes – a hunchback. And then Haffner – who so wanted sleep, and rest – shyly shuffled out of Viko’s salon.
9
There could be courage in retreat. Think, pacific reader, about Napoleon. The wars of Napoleon led to a million bushels of bones being taken from the plains of Waterloo, Austerlitz and Leipzig, then shipped to Hull, there to be sent to Yorkshire bone-grinders and converted into fertiliser for farmers. Haffner knew this. But he also knew the greatest bon mot ever, when Napoleon, recounting to the Polish ambassador the story of his retreat from Moscow on a sledge, observed that from the sublime to the ridiculous was only a step. No experience, after all, could not be transfigured by the telling. No retreat, therefore, was always shameful.
Yes, to Haffner, who admired the war books, the manuals on strategy, Napoleon was not so much the emperor of Europe, but more an expert on an empire’s inevitable decline and fall.
Many years ago, on the French Riviera, when he was there for the jazz festival at Juan-les-Pins, Haffner had seen a waistcoat of Napoleon’s, worn in exile on St Helena: it had charmed Haffner with its miniature size. Everything he loved in Napoleon was embodied in this waistcoat: he understood the littleness of things. Napoleon: the man who, at the Battle of Borodino, stayed in and issued orders from his tent. Yes, that man knew about the tactics of withdrawal: just as Bradman, another of Haffner’s imaginary mentors, when faced with batting on a disintegrating wet pitch at Melbourne, in 1937, sent in his batting order entirely reversed, so that by the time Bradman went in at number seven the pitch had dried out, and he made a double century and won the match. That was the action of a true genius of victory: a man who was an expert in the mechanics of timing, a connoisseur of retreat.
With these reflections, Haffner returned to the hoped-for safety of his room, where he discovered a chambermaid, in an abattoir of her own devising: surrounded by the intestines of the Hoover cabling; the wet towels on the floor, like tripe.
And so Haffner, homeless, retreated further: he turned round and walked away, searching for somewhere to sleep.
Haffner Timeless
1
Haffner went out on to the veranda. Finally alone, Haffner lay in a lounger and looked at the mountains. He saw nothing which might interest him. Should he go so far as to say that he was exhausted? Yes, Haffner was exhausted. The sun was softening. And Haffner only wanted rest. For what a night it had been! What a morning! In the distance, the dogs in the village were yelping. He willed them to be quiet. Just as he had often willed Livia’s pets to be silent: the moody schnauzer, the bulimic borzoi.
A tree was leafing through itself, anxiously.
Into a doze went Haffner. He drifted and looped as if through a dream of an endless sky. In his sleep he could rest and then fall, fall further, rest and then fall. His doze was a dream of diving.
Peace for Haffner! Let him rest!
While Haffner falls asleep in the midst of the afternoon, maybe I should let him be – reclining in my invisible deckchair, my imaginary lounger.
2
Haffner’s sense of time was often subject to odd absences. Now that he was older, his time spans had lengthened. Benji, for instance, felt grand when he thought in terms of months. Haffner was used to thinking in decades: the decades seemed more accurate to the nature of the facts. They were the more useful unit of measurement. But here, in the mountains, these problems with time involved new proportions entirely. At moments, and this was one of them, he could not tell how long he had been in this spa town, in this hotel. Everything up here had become timeless. The usual coordinates were lost.
At what point had Haffner been innocent? Haffner, who could still remember with more vividness than he experienced many other things how on his eighteenth birthday, during the Scarborough Cricket Festival in 1938, Papa had invited the greatest opening batsman in England, Herbert Sutcliffe – a Yorkshireman, and a professional – to dine with his wife in the Grand Hotel. He was the first professional ever to be invited to dine, during the Cricket Festival, at the Grand Hotel. Before Papa’s invitation, it had been strictly reserved for the amateurs. But Papa could not be denied. For Papa believed in cricket more than he believed in class. So into the dining room of the Grand Hotel walked Papa, followed by his wife and son, behind whom came Herbert Sutcliffe, with his wife, Emmy. Haffner danced the Lambeth Walk with Emmy. And around nine months later Sutcliffe phoned up to ask Solomon Haffner if he remembered that evening in the Grand Hotel, and Emmy and the champagne?
—Well today, said Herbert Sutcliffe, Emmy presented me with a son. And Sutcliffe started to laugh.
This was how Haffner’s soul functioned – through these anecdotes which everyone else had forgotten, which no one else had noticed: like the ballet of electrified shrugs and ripples given off by the fringe of a beach umbrella, on a terrace, at midday, while everyone lies there sunbathing, with their eyes closed against the light.
There were two methods for the historian to record the history of Haffner. The obvious way was to follow the chronology: the annals of Haffner. But then there was the more philosophic way, which happened to coincide with the way Haffner really thought about it: with events overlapping, grouping themselves into themes. In his privacy, suspended in the fluid of his memories, Haffner approached the philosophical himself: a medium of total objectivity.
So it was only right, perhaps, that he should perform his finale up here, in the mountains, where everything seemed turned upside down: in the endless light of midsummer. Up here, as Haffner would have read if he had begun the novel beside his bed – but he had not, because he cared too much about the lives of the Caesars – life is only serious down below. Up here, all the being ill, all the dying and recuperating, all the endless and serious work at the spa was just weightless: life was just another way of wasting time.
He was not who he was! Not an aged patriarch. No, Haffner was so much younger than he looked – and he looked younger than he was. With Morton, as they sat and steamed, he used to turn the conversation to the women: at what point, he asked Morton, did he think they would lose their right to try it on with the women? At what point did Morton think the lust would leave the body of Raphael Haffner? Morton only looked at him, with an infinite amused pity in his eyes. He pointed out that one thing he loved Haffner for, indeed he would go so far as to say it was definitely what he loved him for, was that Haffner always thought there was so much more to Haffner than anyone else ever thought. He had the arrogance of potential. He was a romantic, said Morton.
It didn’t seem so unreasonable. What was down was up, and what was up was down: so that Haffner, who boyishly soared above the hills in his usual dream of flight – the sky turned underwater, with dolphins in the trees – was really this aged Haffner, in a lounger, as the sun declined and the clouds bunched and pooled together, while Zinka – the dream of Haffner’s youth – approached his horizontal form, accompanied by Niko.
Haffner was never left alone by the world for long.
Zinka nudged him, then nudged him again, until he spluttered himself awake. With depression, he realised that he was still so very tired. With elation, he realised he was looking at Zinka.
And then, to Haffner’s startled gaze, Zinka said to him, with a grin, that this man of hers was refusing to chaperone her that night. It was always like this with him – impossible. Haffner nodded, slowly. He tried to understand his role in the conversation; but he could not.
So, said Zinka: he knew what he could do. Haffner smiled, benignly. Think about it, bonza. Haffner tried. He still could not.
He could ask her to dinner himself, said Zinka. Haffner looked at Niko. His face betrayed no expression. He shrugged. Haffner looked at Zinka. Was it dinner time? he asked her, wonderingly. She tenderly smiled.
Was this a dream? thought Haffner. He could not tell. Carefully, Haffner considered his options. His adagio was over. This seemed obvious. There would never be a period, he worried, when adagio would exist again. His options seemed limited to one.
Prestissimo, Haffner said yes.
3
The maître d’ ushered Haffner to his table, where Haffner’s bottle of wine from the night before was settled in a shallow silver salver, the cork stuffed in at a jaunty angle. Swiftly, declining to express his inner smile, his inner shock at seeing Haffner so publicly tend to Zinka, he then gathered an extra chair.
Haffner began to talk to the waiter, offering Zinka an aquavit. No, she interrupted. It would be better if she took care of this.
He must, for instance, try the cuisines of the region. And Haffner, as she conversed with the serious waiter, the marvelling waiter, took the opportunity to wonder about this continuation of his syncopated adventure with Zinka.
There had been the incident of the wardrobe, then the incident of the lake. Neither of these episodes, he thought, had enabled Haffner’s true charm to shine. But now, here she was – opposite him in the elegance of a dining room. This was Haffner’s more usual backdrop. He considered Zinka: in the residual glow of his amazement. The persistent, grand desire for her disturbed him. And yet, he sadly considered, he could not think for a moment that Zinka desired him. He possessed no liberating craziness about his erotic attraction. He knew that Zinka represented the unattainable. Even if, he wanted to add, there had been the improvised escapade with the wardrobe. This, surely, was not without some kind of wordless flirtation? Although, he corrected himself, it could so easily have not involved any wordless flirtation. She had been talking to him about his wife, all the melancholy reasons why he was here, in this spa town where everyone, she said, was so unhappy. Haffner was drinking some kind of grappa. And, as normal with the women, Haffner asked the intimate questions: because he was always intent, with women, on understanding their hidden sadnesses, the depth of their secrets. Which he perhaps inherited from all the imprecise conversations with Mama. And Zinka told him about her love life, and together in this conversation they knitted and clothed a rag doll of Zinka – unfulfilled, sarcastic, mischievous. So it had seemed somehow natural for her to lean in and propose – in English so accented and asyntactical that Haffner worried he had utterly misunderstood – that Haffner should conceal himself in a wardrobe and see how brutishly Niko treated her. If he wanted. And Raphael Haffner very much wanted indeed.
No, thought Haffner, the episode was not about him. And there he paused, because he had no wish to spoil this image of the two of them there – dining together: this image of the old and the young entranced. He didn’t want to do anything which might disturb this dream of Haffner.
He discovered that Zinka was already involved in conversation. In Zagreb, she told him, she had trained as a ballet dancer. This he knew. Evenings, she used to practise trapeze. The trapeze was what she really loved.
Haffner mentioned that all the same he thought he would order an aquavit for himself.
Patiently, she explained to Haffner the various terms – the French vocabulary: the croix, or crucifix; the grenouilles, or candlesticks; the soleil avant, which in English was the skinner; the chutes, the drops. The tour du monde. And then the important sorties – as you extricated yourself from the tangle of movement.
Haffner, concealing his excitement at this vision, these outlined movements, asked her if it weren’t dangerous. Zinka said no. Not at all, on the flying trapeze? Haffner had always imagined . . .
—Not the flying trapeze, said Zinka. Just trapeze. There was a pause.
—I was on the stage once, said Haffner.
4
It was towards the beginning of the war, in 1939 or ‘40. In Haffner’s battalion there were many actors. Since he was in a London regiment. Many famous actors. And one day the actors said that they ought to get the whole battalion together and put on a variety show. Did she understand? She thought so. And they put it up to the second lieutenant – who went on, added Haffner, to become a very eminent newspaper editor, as it happened – who agreed, and so they put on this show which couldn’t have been put on at the Palladium. No. There was Max Miller, and. And. No, Haffner had forgotten.
—How can you be a name-dropper, wondered Haffner, if you can’t remember anyone’s names?
He looked out of the windows at the sky: out of the grand windows at the grand sky.
There was Enid Stamp Taylor, Renée Houston, Oliver Wakefield, Guy Middleton, Stanley Holloway, Hugh ‘Tam’ Williams. These names probably meant nothing to anyone now. These chaps were putting on their own little sketch. And one of them, who was a well-known producer, Wallace Douglas, fell ill and Guy Middleton came up to Haffner and said that Wallace Douglas was unwell and he wanted Haffner to take his part.
Should Haffner tell this story?
In this sketch Middleton was a colonel and Haffner was a subaltern. And all that happened was that Middleton would ask Haffner where he had got his breeches. And all Haffner had to reply was that he had got them in a shop in the Strand, sir.
No, thought Haffner. He should not.
He was so old, so woebegone, thought Zinka. She felt a tenderness for him. Tenderly, she tried to retrieve the conversation.
—You were in the war? asked Zinka.
—I was in the war, said Haffner. Of course. Everyone was.
He paused. He looked at her.
Zinka was wearing a grey boiler short-suit, with black tigh
ts and rouge noir fingernails. Her hair was brown and her eyes were blue. The style was beyond Haffner: he had no idea, any longer, whether this was a style at all. He no longer cared. She was so utterly and completely beautiful, thought Haffner. So absolute in her body.
Then Zinka took hold of his hands, and looked at his palms.
Haffner, amazed, asked her if she was reading his palm. Meditatively, ignoring Haffner’s scepticism, Zinka said that he was intelligent.
—Unintelligent? misheard Haffner, depressed.
He shouldn’t have been shocked. The women he wanted were so often unhurt by a feminine self-hatred. Instead, they were happily confident in describing how Haffner could fail.
—Intelligent, repeated Zinka.
A paper flower of relief unfolded itself in the solution of Haffner’s soul. He smiled at her, as she continued to read from his hand. But, she added, sombrely, he was unlucky.
—Unlucky? repeated Haffner.
—Well, said Zinka, trying to reconsider. Yes. Unlucky. I am sorry. I tell things as they are.
Haffner looked round, in an effort to find comfort in the view. But the view had disappeared. All that was visible was human. There, as usual, were the usual diners. At the table by the opposite window sat Frau Tummel, and her husband. They sat silently, in their marriage of silence. So Haffner turned back to Zinka.
—You do not wish you were eating with her? said Zinka.
—Her? said Haffner. No no.
The Escape: A Novel Page 10
