‘My husband and I were visiting Theresienstadt for the first time, we’d not heard about the unused bathroom before. Yet for us, this bathroom was far more expressive of the brutality of the Nazis and the terrible deprivations suffered in the camp than the various monuments that have been specially erected on the Theresienstadt site.’ And again she registered a flare of pleasure at her present-tense husband, as she had with Felix that morning.
‘It’s the same with the Warsaw ghetto,’ Cate Killeen said. ‘We visited Poland during the papacy of Pope John Paul II.’ A smile filled her face. ‘It was a life-changing trip. While we were in Warsaw we went to the Ghetto Heroes Monument built to honour those who opposed the Nazis.’ She looked at her husband and put a hand on his arm. ‘Remember?’
Charlie nodded.
‘During the 1980s, the Ghetto Heroes Monument became the rallying point for members of Solidarity, and since then it’s become the location for all manner of protest and anniversary. I could give only a vague description of the monument and the surrounding grassy area. But what I can describe in detail is the remaining piece of the wall of the Warsaw ghetto.’
Again she glanced at her husband, again he nodded.
‘Tall, tarnished and made from rickety bricks, this small portion of the ghetto wall stands among apartment buildings, across from a clock tower counting out the minutes, the evenly paved paths, the people going about their daily lives. I looked up at that wall, we both did, and we recalled the Jews who suffered and starved there, and those who managed to survive only to be killed in Auschwitz. We remembered those Jews in their daily struggle for survival, while around them, beyond the wall, life went on.’ She paused, and then a quiet final comment. ‘I’ll never forget what that piece of wall means.’
Nina observed the TIF members. All their faces were glazed with faraway expressions as if they were actually seeing the ghetto wall. She allowed a moment for Cate’s story to settle before continuing.
‘So memorials don’t have to be monuments, and some of the most powerful are not.’ She showed them a series of roadside memorials. There were wilting flowers and toys, faded photos and weathered sporting equipment, and one memorial she’d seen in Queensland with a miniature surfboard at its centre. She talked about churches being types of memorials, to God, to faith, and how ruins like Pompeii and the Acropolis could be seen as memorials to past civilisations. And she talked about the collapsing of time when first she walked through the Forum in Rome, her simultaneous sense of being a modern wandering the ruins, and an ancient inhabiting what was an extraordinary metropolis.
‘But someone with less imagination, someone whose thoughts were on the McDonald’s outlet they’d noticed on the way to the Forum, would just see stones and rubbish and weeds and priceless land going to waste,’ Charlie said.
She agreed. ‘All the best monuments require a willing and open imagination. As for the worst,’ she shrugged, ‘there are, unfortunately, too many examples, and no amount of imagination will save them. The poet Robert Lowell wrote that some monuments “stick like a fishbone in the city’s throat”, well, here’s one of them.’ She brought up photos of the bombastic World War II Memorial in Washington DC. ‘This is a huge neoclassical and Deco hotchpotch of bad art and hefty jingoism. There are waterfalls and fountains and mammoth granite columns and arches, all proclaiming American might and American victory. As for the Europeans and Commonwealth citizens who fought in the war, they hardly warrant a mention.’
‘But it might be that in our increasingly ephemeral world, history needs the solid reminders of monuments – even the bad ones,’ Nadirah Harvey said.
Nadirah was wearing a cream head-scarf today; it set off the pale brown eyes, the light olive skin. And even though her mouth was not quite symmetrical and the eyebrows were too heavy, Nina saw an unusual beauty in her face. As for the point she made, Nina had herself argued much the same.
‘And yet memorials serve the ever-changing present as much as the past,’ she now said. ‘You need only observe which monuments haven’t endured, like all those destroyed when the Soviet Union collapsed. And decades earlier, when Stalin was discredited, so many statues were brought down then. The Stalin Monument in Prague, the largest representation of Stalin ever constructed, was completed in 1955 and destroyed a mere seven years later.’
‘And in the Arab Spring a while back,’ said Karim Qureshi. ‘There was an avalanche of falling figures.’
Nina nodded. ‘And even when monuments endure, the meanings attached to them may not.’ She projected the Bremen Elephant on to the screen. ‘This ten-metre high, redbrick elephant was unveiled in 1932 to celebrate Germany’s colonial conquests in Africa.’
They all looked horrified.
‘We forget how recently colonialism was a source of national pride,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘All colonisation of Africa was brutal but the German colonisation was particularly brutal, and no more so than in Namibia – not that anyone was concerned about that in 1932. Fifty years later when colonisation was viewed very differently, the statue had become such an embarrassment there were calls to have it removed. By 1990, when Namibia gained its independence, the Bremen Elephant was re-dedicated as an anti-colonial symbol. And then in 2009 another monument, flat and organic and in direct contrast to the hefty flamboyance of the elephant, was erected nearby in remembrance of those tens of thousands of Namibians who perished in the German colonisation. This one monument and so many different meanings.’
‘It’s terrible,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s racist and it’s patronising. The meanings attached to it may have changed, but the image –’ he threw his hands out wide. ‘It’s no different from those appalling plaster blackboy figures holding up letterboxes in so many gardens in America’s deep south. The Bremen Elephant simply by being what it is still harbours all those old colonial values.’
There was some agreement around the table, while others said that too great an emphasis on political correctness would erase much of history and culture. Nina listened with interest, all of these people so thoughtful and well read, well travelled too. It was only when she noticed Nadirah Harvey checking the time that she moved the discussion on.
She talked about gravestones as a type of memorial. ‘And cemeteries themselves can have monumental force,’ she said.
‘Like the Jewish Cemetery in Prague,’ Lorrie Aarons said. ‘Thousands of old tombstones crammed in together all higgledy piggledy. The whole area’s neglected, no one’s left to take care of it. All the Jews are gone. Dead.’
‘And Cambodia’s killing fields,’ Karim Qureshi said. ‘And practically all of Afghanistan.’ He was staring through the window to the sky beyond. His next words came slowly. ‘So … is it the monument, or what you bring to it?’
Nina smiled, it was a crucial question. ‘It’s both.’ She paused a moment before continuing. ‘What do you think people will bring to your monument?’
‘Those who share our values will feel confirmed in their beliefs and enjoy a sense of inclusion,’ Karim said.
‘And those who differ will either pass it by or throw a bucket of paint over it.’ Jamie Gray gave a wry smile.
‘Well, there it is: your challenge is to reach the paint-throwers before they reach for their cans,’ Nina said.
Everyone laughed.
‘So, memorials speak to those willing to listen, who have a reason to listen,’ she continued. ‘But what they say, the information they impart, the understandings they promote, tend to speak to an individual’s life and experience as well as their needs and longings at the moment they stand before the monument. Monuments,’ she said, ‘are like books. A book read at a particular time can leave you untouched, and yet at another time it can strike at the heart of you.’
‘So how do we produce a state of mind that’ll make people receptive to our message?’ Elizabeth Featherstone said.
There was silence as everyone pondered this question. Those facing the window stared out at the sky, those on th
e other side of the table fixed their gaze on a wall of paintings. Cate Killeen closed her eyes. Such an easy silence, Nina was thinking, and she, too, shut her eyes. Deliberately she brought to mind – she could see it as if it were in front of her – the ‘private memorial to our love’ (the words were Daniel’s). There had been a problem with the water pipes near their home. The road had been ripped up together with a small section of the footpath. When the pipes were repaired, fresh bitumen was laid on the street and a pale concrete slab poured onto the footpath. The whole job took only a few hours. When the workmen were finished, Daniel had come inside and pulled her from her book. Down the street they went to the new patch of concrete, still damp and shining and unblemished, except in one corner where Daniel had engraved D.R. loves N.J. and a heart – a rather wonky heart drawn very quickly, he said, because he didn’t want to be caught defacing council property. By evening, his private message on the public pavement had been joined by four other messages, each much larger than his but, to Nina’s eye, not nearly as elegant.
That patch of concrete quickly became a significant landmark in their relationship. But after Daniel left she would have ground it out altogether if she’d not been too afraid of being caught. Now, however, she brought it to mind and held it there, this private monument, not simply to better times, but more generally to happiness.
There was a rustling of paper. She sprang back into the room; everyone was looking at her, everyone was waiting. She repeated Elizabeth’s question. ‘So? Any ideas about how to produce a state of mind that will orient people to your message?’
Cate Killeen was nodding. ‘The surrounding environment is all-important,’ she said. ‘The environment sets the tone. Without the park and trees and sloping terrain the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain would be nothing more than a stream of water. Without its Central Park location and the nearby Dakota Building where John Lennon and Yoko lived, the Strawberry Fields monument would be just another engraving on a path.’ She spoke slowly, with care. ‘I think we need to look to our environment.’
‘Perhaps,’ her husband said, ‘our memorial will be all environment.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Father Jamie said. ‘Like ancient Japanese gardens.’
‘Or Tasmanian old-growth forests.’
‘Or the Nile Delta after rain.’
And suddenly all of them were talking of bush and rivers and lakes and cliff tops, birds and pagodas and viewing seats.
Then Karim Qureshi was speaking. ‘All environment? Or all words?’ He looked across to Nina. ‘I’m thinking of your response to the Martyrs Memorial in Paris. What affected you most? What’s remained with you?’
She thought for a moment. ‘The words,’ she said. ‘Robert Desnos’s words.’
‘So perhaps,’ he continued, ‘what we’re wanting is a collection of inspirational sayings. Words from Nelson Mandela, Gandhi –’
‘And Roosevelt,’ Lorrie said, tapping into her phone. ‘There are quotes all through the FDR Memorial in DC. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”’ She scrolled down the screen. ‘And here’s a peace statement: “The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation … It must be a peace which rests on the co-operative effort of the whole world.”’
‘What wonderful sentiments,’ Elizabeth said. ‘If only our present-day leaders demonstrated such wisdom.’
Nina stood up. She was smiling. ‘This all sounds very promising. But before we go any further I’d like to add just one more element to the mix. It’s the notion of a counter-monument.’ She explained how the counter-monument concept arose in opposition to the plethora of huge awe-inspiring memorials. ‘And the most effective of these counter-monuments is, in my opinion, the Harburg Monument Against Fascism in Hamburg. The creators, a husband and wife team called Gerz, designed a monument that was self-effacing and impermanent.
‘Harburg was a rather rough area of Hamburg,’ she continued, ‘well off the tourist track. The location was an important consideration in the Gerz concept, as you’ll soon see.’ She projected an image on the screen. ‘And here it is. A twelve-metre-high, one-metre-square aluminium pillar coated in soft lead. An obelisk type of structure. People were invited to engrave their names on the pillar – special styluses were attached – and in this way add their names to those who’d remain vigilant against fascism. When the accessible space was filled, the pillar was lowered a little way down a twelve-metre shaft sunk into the ground.
‘The monument was constructed in 1986. Every few months it was lowered until in 1991 it disappeared altogether. All that remains is a burial stone marking fascism’s grave.’
‘I wonder how many people visit there now,’ Elizabeth said.
‘I’m not sure it matters. Over the five years of its existence a huge number of people made their mark on the monument. And they took photos and they’ll show them to their children and grandchildren. More significantly though, it continues to speak of an absence – and not just of fascism but also the vanished Jews of Europe. But most important of all, it creates a space for dialogue, for debate, for analysis. I’d guess it has a more lasting effect than many of the mammoth war memorials built around the world.’
‘And graffiti?’ Nadirah Harvey said. ‘You’re surely not going to tell us the graffitists and vandals stayed away.’
Nina smiled. ‘There was graffiti and plenty of it, including fascist symbols like swastikas and death’s heads. But despite the protests it was permitted to remain. This was a monument to reflect the range of human responses, and the good and the repulsive jammed up against each other actually added to the monument’s power.’
‘And it no longer exists,’ Karim said.
‘But nonetheless,’ Charlie added, ‘we’re talking about it.’
Soon after, Charlie Goldstein wound up the meeting. He realised time was limited, that Nina would be returning to London shortly. He checked with the rest of the group that they were able to stay and discuss the project further, then, amid a chorus of thanks, he saw Nina out.
The cool change had dissipated and the heat rushed at her as she left the building, yet, unusually, Nina was not bothered by it. Rather than the tram, she decided to walk a while and crossed to the other side of the road into a sliver of shade. She slipped off her jacket and would have removed her shoes as well if the pavement had not been so hot.
Invigorated, that’s how she felt, and liberated too, as if she’d been encased in plaster for a long time, and suddenly the plaster had fallen away leaving her free to emerge, whole and fully repaired.
It was these people, these TIF people, they were unlike any she had ever worked with before. It was not simply their passionate engagement with ideas and beliefs – she was accustomed to working with people when their passions were inflamed – rather they struck her as uniquely outward-looking, the opposite to self-serving (she was unable to find the right word), a combination of benevolence, selflessness, optimism and faith in humankind. So much for ‘the project from hell’. She had needed the TIF project, she had needed these people.
She arrived back at the flat and went straight to her laptop. No new message from Daniel. She was disappointed, and angry at herself for being disappointed, then furious with him for making her feel this way. But as quickly as the emotions flared so they settled, and what she most wanted was to ring him and hear his voice. Instead she dialled Sean’s number. He’d been avoiding her since she questioned his communism project; but she wanted to tell him about Daniel’s emails, and at the same time prevent herself from acting precipitously. As the phone passed to message bank, it seemed he was still avoiding her. ‘Ring me,’ she said. ‘And remember, Sean, no matter how much I upset you, I’ll never stop loving you.’
She was hungry, she hadn’t eaten since the French toast with Felix; now she made herself a snack of cheese with a sliced peach. Daniel lingered in her t
houghts, but rather than being distressed by this, she remained quite cheery. It was the new possibilities with him, and while she was far from making any decision, it appealed to her that the human psyche would make a beeline for happiness as soon as it became an option.
She settled in a chair out on the balcony, ate at leisure, and must have dozed off because she awoke to the sound of her phone. She ran inside and grabbed it just as it rang off. It was Zoe and she called back immediately.
There was no greeting.
‘George is dead.’ Zoe spoke loudly and in a rush. ‘A heart attack. And Ramsay’s alone. No dinner here tonight. Sorry, I know you’ll understand.’ And she hung up while Nina was mid-sentence.
George was dead and dinner cancelled and what exactly was Nina supposed to understand? That Ramsay had lost his closest intimate and was helpless with grief? That Ramsay had lost his manager and organiser and did not know what to do from one hour to the next? That with George out of the way her sister finally saw an opening for herself in Ramsay’s day-to-day life? That her sister, still obsessed with Ramsay, was planning to leave home and family to set up a life with him?
This last option was so awful that Nina quickly pushed it aside. And yet it was a possibility. You can put desires in storage because circumstances prohibit their address, but as soon as the situation changes, out they come, ten, fifteen, twenty years after their use-by date, still magically fresh and in perfect shape. And it was not as if her sister’s marriage had provided a viable alternative, it should have finished years ago. But not this way. George was dead and her sister was rushing to Ramsay’s side.
The Memory Trap Page 19
