Then the manager began his speech. He regretted to say it, he said, and he was sure that everything could be explained – just as, he added with what he imagined must seem an engaging twinkle, a teacher had once told him that everything, yes, must have an explanation, a rational explanation. So: he regretted the situation, but there it was.
Haffner watched him, silently.
Benjamin, in an attempt at disappearance, debated within himself the eternal oppositions: between the one-piece and the bikini; the bronzing or the elegance; the virgin or the whore.
So. There had been accusations. There had been comments raised to him of a personal nature, concerning Mr Haffner.
Haffner began to read the songbook’s liner notes, with scholarly exactitude.
Yes, continued the manager, these allegations involved Haffner and a member of staff.
Haffner discovered with surprised satisfaction that the record – Haffner’s vocabulary was not always modern – not only included Ella’s renditions of Cole Porter, but also included a selection of live recordings: so that here, even here, in the least smoky and least cool environs of a spa town high in the backward Alps, Haffner could listen to Ella’s improvisation of ‘Mack the Knife’ – an improvisation she delivered at the jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins on the French Riviera with Duke Ellington in 1966. Which Haffner himself had annoyingly missed. An improvisation, he then found out, which was in fact a staged version, since it went back to 1960 in Berlin, where Ella had first improvised these new lines to a song she couldn’t remember.
Of course this could all be settled amicably, said the manager. He just needed to be aware of the facts. The facts as they had been made known to him by this lady here beside him. But he was sure that, perhaps, there had been a mistake.
—Present the evidence, said Haffner, simply.
Then he selected a new track, and pressed play. Because now he was truly bohemian: which is to say, he was bored.
Frau Tummel looked away, distressed.
—I’m sorry? said the manager.
He would of course have to determine the full facts, said the manager, raising his voice over the beginning big band. But naturally if this were true, he was afraid that naturally the young lady in question would have to be let go by the hotel.
—The evidence! shouted Haffner.
Furious, he turned away to the window, with his arms folded, and considered how he was going to save Zinka. It seemed unlikely. But Haffner wanted to try. For even if the world were a trap for Haffner, he saw no reason why it should be a trap for anyone else. Other people, he thought, could be done with being caught up in the farce of Haffner.
5
In other words, he no longer wanted to be Mack the Knife. It had always seemed to Haffner to be universal: this song which had begun in London, been rewritten in Berlin, then transatlantically re-rewritten by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, and finally Ella and Duke. This universal ballad used to seem a statement of the universal facts as Haffner knew them.
But now, Haffner was less sure.
For Macheath was the perfect criminal. With Mack the Knife, anything was possible: on the Thames, a body was found; or there you were, in Soho, and a woman was discovered, raped;
or in the City of London, on a Sunday morning, there on the sidewalk was a body oozing life, and someone was sneaking round the corner.
This was how the song had gone, in Europe. Mack was the emperor of crime: the rewrite of a man like Tiberius, who made his guests drink lavish vats of wine, then tied a cord around their penises, so that their bladders burst. That was the usual story of how humans liked to be animals. But now that Ella sang it, something new occurred. Suddenly, realised Ella, the chorus had disappeared: and so that great singer, with her own bravado, had made up her own words.
Just like ‘Begin the Beguine’, the song had a way of extending itself. It went the distance. It possessed a final flourish of pure happiness.
For oh Bobby Darin, and Louis Armstrong, they made a record, ooh what a record, of this song, she sang. And now Ella, Ella and her fella, they were making a wreck, a wreck, such a wreck of the same old song. Oh yes yes yes yes they’d sung it, yes yes yes yes they’d swung it, they had swung Mack, they’d swung old Mack in town – for those people there, there, at the jazz festival, they were gonna sing, they were gonna swing, they were gonna add one more chorus.
And the Duke took over, with his big band.
Haffner, at the window, hummed along. And Benjamin, amazed at his grandfather’s odd insouciance, amazed that one more time his grandfather was being accused of monstrous fidelity to pursuing love, went out on to the veranda. The prickly hair between Anastasia’s legs returned to him, in the memory of his lips, his soft thick hands. It made him happy. While the manager, having been engaged in theatrical conversation, at this point left the hotel lounge with a final severe glance at Haffner: sweeping away in a flounce of Tummels.
It must, thought Haffner, have been Frau Tummel’s doing: this catastrophe. And he could see why: always, the wives wanted to reassert their dignity: the sanctity of their marriage. Betraying Zinka was simply Frau Tummel’s way of doing this. He couldn’t blame her. What else was Haffner doing himself – if not trying to reassert the sanctity of his marriage?
No, Haffner wasn’t hurt by Frau Tummel’s malice: the melodrama of everyone’s feelings. He was really done with all the theatre now. Because this was the point when Ella’s scat began: the scat she had learned from Duke – the scat which Haffner admired. Twice she used it to push once more through, into a new repeat of the chorus. And then once more. And then finally again she sang: could they go with one, just one, one more? And oh they had swung it, yes they had swung it, they had swung old Mack, they’d swung old Mack for you. And once again they’d like to know, to let them know they were through.
And as the applause died down a voice said: You’re the Lady – a voice which may well have come from the audience but which Haffner had always imagined, for Haffner liked his heroes to be friends, to be the voice of the admiring Duke himself.
6
Frau Tummel returned in the doorway. She called his name.
But Haffner was done with the romance of others. From the window, he walked across the room. As Frau Tummel motioned to speak, he held out a silencing palm. Instead, Haffner returned to the masterpieces of classical music.
Randomly, he chose a melody from the era of grand opera.
Oh but everyone knows the famous music where the music soars above the circumstances: like the beautiful aria sung by an unfaithful woman who is in love, without knowing it, with an unfaithful man. Or the song which is sung for a girl who is about to die beside her lover, immured in a tomb – music which somehow, as the master said, manages to leave behind the true circumstances of the singing, that two people were being buried alive; they would die together or (what was even worse) one after the other they would die from asphyxiation or hunger. Then the horrendous process of disintegration would set in until only two skeletons would remain, two inanimate objects quite unaffected by the presence or absence of the other. And yet, while all this was true, they continued to sing the most ethereal of melodies.
This is one version of music. It was the version which Frau Tummel believed in. Just as she believed in the eternal power of the feelings. But, for Haffner, music offered no lofty and irrefutable soothing enhancement to life’s unadorned and crude ugliness. He did not believe in music’s triumphant power of transfiguration.
He stood and stared at Frau Tummel, who stared sadly back. In this final meeting of Haffner and Frau Tummel, a gorgeous melody enveloped them. Unknown to both of them, a woman sang about her sad realisation, that the sincerity of passion is no argument against the corresponding truth of its comic portability. When a new god arrives – sang this woman, in a desert – we surrender.
Everyone moves from God to God.
But then, Haffner already knew this. He could have comforted Frau Tummel without the music. Think
about it! Haffner could have said – if he had wanted to care for Frau Tummel in her romantic distress, sad at Haffner’s betrayal, the speed of his feelings. Their liaison may have been brief, but it was still longer than many other more celebrated love stories. And the tempo of a love story’s demise was no argument against it being a love story. The plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes just one night. In that night, so many couples swap over. The plot of Romeo and Juliet takes less than a week. Three days and three nights were all that was needed for a fairy tale. Three days and three nights were all that was needed for a fairy tale. In relative terms, the love of Frau Tummel and Haffner was endless.
And I think that it is possible to add one further comforting thought for Frau Tummel. There is a link, perhaps, between the transience of passion and the irony of the love songs. In the same way that a passion is always so much more fleeting than it believes itself to be, so a passion is always bestowed on an inappropriate object. But just because a passion might be bestowed on an inadequate object doesn’t mean that the passion isn’t real.
Everyone was on their desert island, waiting to be rescued by another god. It was true of Frau Tummel; it had been true of Haffner too.
Haffner auf Naxos!
Was Haffner laughable? Perhaps. But no more laughable than anyone else in love. To go for a young woman at seventy-eight was simply to add to the comedy of passion the comedy of the object.
7
The manager reappeared, with Viko.
—Yes, said Viko, looking bored.
That was the same man. Absolutely, improvised Viko. He had seen him kiss her too. Well then, said the manager. There seemed nothing more to say. He was sorry, but the matter seemed unambiguous.
Haffner had thought that a spa town would be a paradise of liberation. In his imagination, it was a bohemian idyll. And maybe it had been like this, for him, in some secret way. But the overt facts were disappointing. The morality of this place was so depressingly limited: a bourgeois, Communist morality – unoriginal even in its rules.
Haffner looked down, at his suit, at his shoes; at the tie which had been unaccountably crumpled by some customs official in Boston or Tehran. It seemed an adequate outfit for his own banishment.
There would be no need to let the girl go, he said. Instead, he would leave himself. He trusted that this would end the matter. The girl had done nothing wrong. He was sorry if he had behaved in an unbecoming manner.
This was really not what he had in mind, said the manager.
But no, Haffner halted him. It was the only just solution. He was sorry for the inconvenience.
And in the halo of his grandeur, Haffner nodded goodbye to Frau Tummel, to Viko, to the manager of his hotel, and strode out on to the veranda – where Benjamin was standing, looking out at the sky and its clouds, considering the phenomenon of Haffner.
—I am leaving in protest, said Haffner. This is a scandal. I will find another hotel.
—It’s always like this, said Benjamin. It’s kind of amazing. Everywhere you go, there’s a crisis.
Haffner tried to protest. Once again, he had been the victim of an extraordinary set of circumstances. Benjamin said he had no idea.
Haffner changed the subject.
—So you’re leaving as well, said Haffner.
—I’m really not sure now, said Benji.
—Come now, said Haffner.
—But Mama, said Benji.
—We will manage her, said Haffner.
And Benji, newly criminal, smiled.
—But you’re sure you can handle this business? said Benji.
—It’s paperwork, said Haffner.
He put his hand on Benji’s shoulder, in his manly gesture of camaraderie.
—I always stick up for you, said Benjamin, looking out at the sun and the sky. Always.
And he broke off. He tried again.
—Even when she left, said Benjamin, – I still defended you.
And Haffner contemplated, for a moment, in an access of irritability at this kid’s sincere demonstration of love, telling Benjamin the truth. For a moment, he imagined the conversation where he revealed, here, to Benjamin, and so to his family as well, the story of Livia with Goldfaden. How Livia had left Haffner not because she was enraged by Haffner’s minor infidelities, not because of his refusal to take the art of ballet nor the religions of his forefathers seriously, but because she had been in love with another man. And then Haffner could have continued, and explained that the reason why Livia then lived for two years, the last two years of her life, on her own, in her flat in Golders Green, was not because she had so taken against the selfishness of Haffner that she had finally decided to abandon him, as her family believed, but because Goldfaden, when confronted by Livia’s proposal that they could finally live together, now that his wife was gone, had gently but irreparably told her that this was a very bad idea. He was quite happy as he was. He couldn’t understand what had come over her. There was no need for such theatrics, he had said.
This was why she had left, and not come back. She would not admit that she had been humiliated.
But Haffner would never tell Benji this. He would never tell anyone. No one would ever know about her defeat. He loved Livia with all the passion he was capable of; with an overwhelming care for her secrecy.
And maybe, I now think, as I watch Haffner stand there, that is how to truly be a libertine: to accept the libertinism of others.
For a final time, Haffner looked at the hotel’s private landscape, the giant mountains, the infinite sky; then he patted Benji’s shoulder again.
—You’re a pal, he said.
And Haffner left the hotel.
Haffner Fugitive
1
Haffner stepped out into the midsummer afternoon, carrying his suitcase. It still trailed rags of cellophane.
The question was, thought Haffner, what he was to do next. Some form of shelter seemed imperative.
Wearily, Haffner made the long walk across the park, into the town, in search of a new hotel. The square was empty. The square was metaphysical. It was a Platonic form of sun. He passed a sports shop with a crate of plastic balls outside, printed with pictures of more leathery, more professional balls; he passed a patisserie with trays of greaseproof paper in the window. On a café terrace, a woman was pushing a folding chair flat with a pensive knee. On and on went Haffner, homeless in the heat. He was ancient. Everywhere was ancient: the imprinted gas vents were fossils in the pavements.
He couldn’t stay just anywhere. He had his standards, his distastes. One hotel Haffner rejected because of the canaries kept behind the counter; another he rejected because of its incorporation of a nightclub.
So Haffner continued to walk, past the former medical institute, past the baths for men and the baths for women, and then, ahead of him, was the Metropole Cinema: its sign in handwritten squiggles of pink neon.
In general, if Haffner were forced to discuss the matter, he felt disappointed by the film industry. He did not feel the pictures had, as a rule, distinguished themselves. First the films were American. And these, Haffner had admired. Once, he had been Jayne Mansfield’s banker: and she was a very handsome woman. Then there was a fashion for the French, which – as Haffner would inform the dinner party, the work colleague – left him cold. He never understood them: with their inexplicable cuts, their disdain for plot. Then Italian, then Japanese. Now they were God knows what. They were Mexican. But whatever their provenance, it really didn’t matter, because one thing was sure: the new cinemas, with their speaker systems, were too loud for Haffner.
But Haffner, today, was tired. He wanted succour. At this point, Haffner would take anything.
He looked at the posters in front of the cinema. He recognised nothing; or no one. The language – as always, written in the language which for ease of reference Haffner was calling Bohemian – escaped him. The faces were foreign too. But Haffner didn’t really want the film. He wanted the cinema instead: the rich
festooned interior, the air conditioning and the darkness and the popcorn. He wanted peace.
So Haffner made his tentative way in.
In the foyer, a depressed salesgirl stood behind a stall which offered multicoloured packets of multicoloured chocolate. This combination tempted him. He bought two bars of chocolate. Then he approached the cloakroom. He lifted up his destroyed suitcase. The girl behind the counter looked at him.
—Is possible? asked Haffner, in his best imitation of foreign English.
She continued to look at him. Then she tore off a perforated ticket, and pushed it flat on the counter towards Haffner, letting it come to rest beside her magazine, which boasted of its proximity to the lives of the stars. Haffner heaved his suitcase up on to the counter, where a protruding plastic wheel caught the pages of her magazine, a circumstance which for a moment Haffner did not notice. As he pushed the suitcase across, he heard, to his alarm, a tearing sound, identical to the sound of glossy paper ripped.
She put the suitcase in a corner.
And Haffner turned round, to discover his interpreter from the Town Hall: Isabella.
—Is you, she said, pleased with this chance meeting.
—Is me, said Haffner.
—So how are things? she asked him. All good?
—Kind of, said Haffner.
—You will be glad to go home, stated Isabella.
Haffner considered this. He said nothing.
Isabella asked him where he was from, in Britain, and Haffner replied that he was from London. Isabella, she told him, had been to London herself. It was many years ago. She stayed at a hotel near Westminster. She told him its name.
—I don’t know it, said Haffner.
—He knew it? asked Isabella.
He felt for his forehead. Now he was sweating profusely. He wasn’t well: he wasn’t himself.
The Escape: A Novel Page 27
