Simultaneously, life was raging: upheavals with Suzie, embryo poem with Falls and Ascents. Desiring ultimate simplicities, I was stranded in her half-surrenders, sudden retreats, occasional anger, the behaviour, I judged, to be expected from the young and powerful. It was the impact of what Jünger called being drunk without wine and, besotted, I was as uncertain as I had been in childhood, wondering which was more real, my Turret world, or that of adults, with its puzzles and initiations.
We continued our morning strolls, afternoon cafés, less often by night. Any move, however slight, was a move towards victory or defeat. Outside a small bistro, she grabbed my hand and put it to her cheek, a landmark in a week of stratagems and non-sequiturs. ‘Young Berserker!’ She almost sang it, grimacing, head tilted back: small peaked cap, dark glasses, her knowledge of the North still rudimentary: elks, Northern Lights, Lapland forests, all clustered in a single movie-shot. She called me Viking Lars, as if I had been hacked from an iceberg, from a country swarming with beasts elsewhere extinct, where lust-ridden heiresses swung themselves over torrid grooms and pastors galloped into hell. A North unnecessary as St Helena, fugitives like myself strong but pitiable mastiffs roaming Paris, the world’s centre.
Yet we were in an urgent, throbbing, moment, a perpetual ‘Is’. I attempted to entertain her with Forest Uncle, Margarita-Who-Grieves, huge winter suns over the Sound, bows cutting water as summer folk sailed to ‘Ogygia’. I boasted of Count Pahlen, enthused more energetically about Gulf Wind with its scraps of salt, pine, sand, and attempted to excite her by descriptions of wild geese soaring for the moon, the Lake sprinkled with fancy, the girl running, but, in stagy patience, she was silent. Yet, never breathless for adventure, she saw other things and shrank from them behind her mimes, spurts of ribaldry, her dances. War and Occupation remained unmentionable. She wished to forget.
I had my own preoccupations – commissars’ eyes like straps, like hooks, Meinnenberg, scrap-heap disregarded by history but surfacing in dreams. That I could have led partisans, sabotaged a train, was as unlikely as Wilfrid stoning a cat, Trilling betraying friends to McCarthy or Primo Levi choosing to forget, but Let’s cancelled misgivings, regrets, indecisions, and concern with the illusion of self, the non-existence of evil. With her, clichés were original, action not despicable but trite. Not violence, not news, not slogans, but windows, lamps, advertisements gleamed with possibility, like souls. Air sparkled, parks glittered, walls had spirit, the dyed hair was thrillingly appropriate. When our hands met, they dispersed all else. Only the nebulous was solid. Images flashed hysterically, the dull tree actually ashine with Iduna’s apples as if freshly risen from the Underworld: a cracked mirror was a vista into myth, a fountain was the exuberant surge of existence, thoughts worthy of Frodi the Unthinking and which, if spoken, would have provoked her mockery, make her the elder, more determined, always in command.
Freed from Conference jargon, words hitherto colourless – table, jug, tile – were repolished. Light noosed the Dôme, silver rippled the Seine, woods were Corots, all goading me towards less talk, more writing, but yet again, when pen touched paper, fragmentary vision collapsed.
However, in side streets, recesses, buses, Suzie was irresistible, caustic, joking, scowling at passers-by, pulling me into a shop, never buying. Sometimes she sent a postcard, often with an obscene picture, Lisette disapproving, though usually only to apologize for failing a date – ‘studio business’ – or cancelling another with less explanation. In brisk switches of mood, we were, and were not, like the gods. Whether or not she used drugs I never cared to ask. Wary of Lisette, she never rang.
Autumn was near, the year sagging, streaking trees with gold, emptying the parks of afternoon children. The news was stiff with portents, as though the Conference had never been. Words had fallen like snowflakes and, like snowflakes, died. An exiled Lithuanian poet, Conference delegate, was found hanged in the Bois; Americans, often black, complained of being trailed by the CIA; we read of a father kept locked in a garden cage.
As if affected by lower skies, capricious suns, Suzie became less animated. ‘I’m a drying pond, Lars. Eggshell in a flood.’ Sexual politics were corrupting the studios, vilifying or obstructing talent. A last-minute story change had wrecked a promise, Gabin had reneged, a modelling contract had been returned, unsigned.
One evening she abruptly decided we should ‘go club’ in a drab Left Bank subterranean hideaway. We arrived during in an Italian movie, a jumble of discordant sequences without clear narrative. A child was disembowelled by hooded women, live goldfish gnawed by naked revellers, gorillas sparred in boxing gloves, a swastika slowly straightened into the Cross of Lorraine, a dance was staged like flamingo mating-habits, echo of a Rathaus ball, the Duce’s bald head peeled to a skull, perhaps fulfilling the programme’s promise to illustrate the Metaphysical Absurd, the Intricacies of Nothing, the Folly of Purpose. Soughs of rapture shook an audience in which the fashionable, the workaday and pin-table loungers awash with plonk sat in unsteady mass. Once a voice breathed ‘Now’, primed for the ghoulish as a knife hovered before a flower transforming to a delicate, adolescent throat. Another conference, also dedicated, but to what?
Suzie was professionally intent, though the tensions suited her, creature of sunless noons.
In climax, a smiling, androgynous youth, in leaves and panther-skin, face soft as candy-floss, gypsum-white, with cruel lips and eyes, minced from pines and dunes, naked adolescents capering around him waving garlands to shrill pipes, before rushing to maul a cloaked voyeur. A crone, his unwitting mother, spied with sickly interest and received, gloating, his severed head and rigid penis, the audience at one in laughter, bravos, rhythmical stamps.
Afterwards, red wall-lamps glowed, benches were stacked away, dancing began to a tinny record player, jewelled girls clasping unshaven, denimed youths, both sexes earringed, braceleted, with fluorescent ties, cheap stones on noses, and naked bellies, all jigging, twirling, swaying in toxic intimacy while Suzie and I clung together as if on a shifting raft, enclosed by faces, spoilt or unfinished in the Mars-light. The beat was ruthless; from a mask, yellow and black as a pansy, someone murmured that I should shout when I whispered. Suzie, eyes half-closed, fondled my hair, but her words were inaudible. Clasping her tight I was numbed, the stolid outsider amongst children of hideous sales, deals, scuffles of Occupation. But her hand was on mine, I muttered stock endearments, feeling neither alone nor fully with her, but in a bubble which distorted feelings, even appearances, to agitated flakes, spun by saxophone and trumpet, the drum, a clarinet’s dissent, febrile screeches; or were blurred by the low ceiling, the crush of mouths, jutting breasts, close walls.
A seamed face on a young body thrust between us, the owner one-armed, his grey shirt dripping. ‘They rush for answers. Sartre, Sagan. And Bardot. But find only Sartre, Sagan. And Bardot. Me, I never left my room for two years. Didn’t need to. So much went on, I had only to lie back and watch. And, mark that, to count.’
He giggled uncontrollably, Suzie steered me away, more masks and faces, hemming us in like a just-alive stockade until her own face abruptly awoke, her eyes widened in dismay, pricked by mutters, thrilled, scared or expressionless, that an Algerian snake-charmer was amongst us and had released his pet, uncharmed, charmless. Suzie tugged me. ‘Outside. Quick.’
For the first time she permitted me to escort her home, towards low-living Saint-Antoine. A momentous instant, though she was brooding, rapt in herself, small. Disdaining a bus, she finally halted at a tenement lit by a feeble lamp over the central door. At the concierge’s lodge she was dejected. ‘These goodbyes …’ As if to herself, but giving me hope, she mumbled, ‘something gone. It needn’t be so. Shouldn’t.’
She blinked rapidly, tweaked my coat, gave a short indeterminate laugh, her lips touched my mouth. The night made her small; with an incomplete swirl of her cloak she was gone. The door slammed, I was trudging away, indignant, self-pitying, wondering. Could she be ashamed of some physi
cal blemish? Was she the dangerous woman of folk-memory, the seal-maiden, vixen-girl, snake-bride?
The week was rainy, cold, threatening premature winter, an ambiguous, surreal season, the Column halved by mist, Notre Dame in wide separated pieces, trees swollen, women furred and feathered, moving fast, overgrown. As if in repertory, I enacted the stalled lover, imperturbable officer, the spy, ready to lurk beneath her window, not yodelling to a guitar but counting her clients.
We quarrelled when I suggested we travel south, to the sun, speaking, as if from experience, of red roofs, Roman stone, midget harbours; of Antibes, Saint-Tropez, Le Touquet, Cap Ferrat, Cannes, names of pleasure and corruption, each, as the list mounted, making her angrier, her refusal adamant as a warrant. She, too, was playing parts, changeable as clouds.
The sun returned, we stood in the Bois above the deserted Grand Lac, surrounded by fern and myrtle, tawny chestnut and the soundless purr of falling leaves. Gnats hung over the water as if painted. A setting for lovers, genuine or counterfeit. Gold and russet, blacks and reds, reminders of bark and resin, spruce and oak, mushrooms and Old Men of the Earth, of Marie-Filled-with-Woes, covert offerings to Fenris, a ghost dwindling to damp air, though, in darkness, staring me to sleep. While Suzie, secluded, private, gazed into trees, black-headed gulls flurried up, like choristers turning their pages. I thought of amber gleaming on a beach, birch leaning back in the wind, brilliant surf mating with rock and sand, dragonflies zigzagging over marsh, until the North, Paris itself, shrivelled to a bleached hand in mine and a sticky groin.
Her own thoughts were probably more exceptional but indecipherable. Her head, shoulders, arms were far removed from me, and neither of us was willing to spoil the silence. Foliage blocked the late afternoon hum, and I tried to recall an Estonian belief about the language of trees, more musical than verbal. Then she smiled, not at leaf or water but up at me, sighting a friend and ally.
The sun chilled, moving us back to the Avenue, then poorer streets, lights already starting. She slipped an arm around me, insisting we walk. Windows, frontages, smells eventually became recognizable. Her door, the axe-headed concierge at her own porch. Suzie did not hesitate, and I followed her in as if by right. Storm Prince in a hurry, too excited to do more than realize a large room illuminated by a violet-shaded lamp, jazzy, mildly erotic posters, bright mats and cushions, chromium-limbed chairs, floppy pouffe, plastic flowers, a hi-fi construction, movie-stills tacked on a door. She poured me sour white wine then, on the floor, looked sylvan, fresh, in green coat, black trousers. I moved closer, to loll beside her, but she jumped up to put on a record, indescribably nasty, then placed herself on a window seat as if prepared to yell for help. My assurance ebbed, we could be cartoon stooges, caricatures of puritan courtship.
The music swung, jittered, then grounded. I was eager to plunge, grab, strip, her sigh, mock-resigned, implied readiness to succumb, when a thump shook the outside door. She swore, but despite my plea to ignore it she rushed away, while I waited, hands still at my belt, desire rampant.
A man’s voice, hurried whispers. Scuttling back, she was contrite though swiftly vanishing, reappearing in mini-skirt, light-red wrap, breasts near naked. On her toes she kissed me, in haste to depart missing my lips, smudging my chin. ‘Chérie, must go … an offer … I’ve a car. Don’t go. Will be back … André … agent …’
Left almost at the winning post I lingered on the course, held by a small fringed face, now ardent, now petulant, unexceptional and at this moment absentee, withdrawn by a dubious agent for some spurious project or let-down. Urgency stretched, slowly subsided, might not revive. Tempted to leave her to a cold, empty bed, I was simultaneously curious, to explore, uncover intimacies, be relieved to discover none.
The bedroom was small, scented, tidy, the bed narrow, unsuggestive of gasps and tumbles, Alexandrian subtleties, Manhattan vigour, Left Bank explosives. I rummaged through a small bureau, a sham-antique chest, at the dressing-table examined combs, tweezers, tiny pots, powders, then scarves still in tissue, cheap handbags, jaunty caps, an umbrella with mina-bird handle, gloves from Germany, a 1944 Montpellier visa. No diaries, address books, engagement tablets, nothing of me or anyone else. Within a jumble of empty millinery boxes and imitation-leather suitcases I did find a yellow folder, but it contained only a routine picture postcard of Pétain, Hero of Verdun, Father of the French.
Irritated, I tried the last redoubt, a wardrobe in the featureless bathroom. Therein, moth-ravaged gowns, some sheets, pillow-slips. And then. Ah! A large plastic bag buried under piled blankets, with plate-silver clasp and heavier than it looked.
Unease prickled, like that when only half realizing a burglary. Something not quite right, but what?
The clasp opened easily, revealing only Vichy coins, wartime permits, stamped food cards, a cigarette case, possibly aluminium, stamped H.H. Some beads, brooches, tins ornate but valueless. No family mementoes. One smaller bag, grey, entwined with gold threads, containing more useless coins, costume jewels, then a soiled Provençal clipping of a girl, bald, weeping, surrounded by angry townsfolk. Southern Spite. Recognition came very slowly, though eventually stabbing sharp as the Snow Queen’s kiss.
LONDON EMBASSY
1
‘You have languages, very important. Despite unfortunate familial associations, you appear unconcerned with East Germany. You can be useful in our Secretariat.’
The First Secretary, bald and careworn, examining me as if measuring for a suit, was speaking in poor German, very softly, as if the rooms were bugged. He had silverish skin, as if permitted only a dry shave. At a desk too wide for the office, a leather-bound volume open before him, he could be some genre illustration not of the pleasures but duties of work. Thick green windows behind him, meshed with wire, gave an illusion of being in a fishtank.
Despite Soviet reconquest, pre-war Estonia was still officially recognized by Britain and retained Embassy and Consulate in South Kensington, housed in a high, sooty, late-Victorian mansion, sporting the flag forbidden by the USSR: white, blue, with a black central stripe, the Bar of Pain.
The First Secretary folded and unfolded documents, demanded signatures, murmured about British Official Secrets requirements. The badly distributed light almost obliterated the flower patterns on heavy curtains and rugs, making them remnants of an abandoned garden.
The building was cavernous, overloaded with the ponderous. Stained alabaster pillars had cracked, tinted glass of a fashion long eclipsed, depicting yellow oblongs, sickly blue curlicues, bilious leaves, tessellated periwinkles. Corridors were obstructed by packing cases, disused standard-lamps, rolls of damask, a broken kennel. A smell pervaded everywhere, like that of Greg’s clothes drying on the stove.
Lake and Forest, islands and gardens, the silken rhythms of fêtes, had sunk to dusty files and yearbooks and a portrait of Konstantin Päts, a heavy face glum as if with presentiments of Siberian death. No Camus or Malraux would enter, no clarion-sound advance. Instead, this tired voice, monotonous as a clock.
‘Actually, your background will assist your comprehension not of the 1917 Bolsheviks but of Imperial Germany’s attempt to establish an Estonian fiefdom, to which your family might not have been averse. You may later need to examine the careers of our former leaders – Päts, Tonison, Poska, Laidiner – you may care to study Estonian literature, indigenous not Germanic, H.H. Tammsaare, for instance. You should investigate the British–Soviet Friendship Society, the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, the pro-Soviet elements within CND. And scrutinize the British press daily.’
His voice lowered further, was conspiratorial. ‘We exist on sufferance from those not hostile but who pretend not to notice us. With more resolution, less looking too far backwards, peacetime London could have halted Germany and conciliated Russia. Now the British no longer look not to themselves alone. You will find them polite but no more.’
He paused, wondering perhaps whether to rate me a jot superior to the British. Then n
odded, in my favour. ‘You know of the Cambridge spies, and this new crop … you’ll read of Lonsdale, a Mr Vassall … they have forced the Pentagon to refuse to share atomic secrets with London. In matters of national and individual security, conditions here are lax, sometimes fatally so. Let me warn you against casual acquaintances, unfrequented streets, particularly the late-night Underground. Sit in central carriages, never use stairs, always lifts. Avoid eye contact. Even at diplomatic parties I always stand in corners. Remember, each one of us is watched. KGB, CIA, MI6. Remember Prague, Mr Masaryk dead under his window …’
He hesitated, then rallied. ‘You yourself had role in a well-publicized, American-backed Paris event and could be a target. A man, not always white, glancing at you on an omnibus may be less of a stranger than you imagine.’
My fears of prolonged indolence, lack of adventure, non-being, might be misplaced. Hitherto I had seen only innocuous crowds, good manners, tolerant smiles. Also, no Toute Vie, only party politics, what Mother had called ding-dong.
The First Secretary was dry, severe, insisting full attention. How often had he repeated his warnings to cadets? What had been their fates?
‘The British Joint Intelligence Committee has listed some fifty KGB agents here, liaising with dissident units in factories, labour clubs, unions, five church charities, the universities, Fleet Street, even prostitutes. In certain regions of Europe the Cold War is also a shooting war.’
London, renowned through centuries for subtlety, finesse, stylish opportunism, was, new colleagues insisted, hesitating between the rival empires of Washington and Moscow. To soothe the latter, Whitehall, black hats and bolted faces, was refusing permission for a memorial to the Poles massacred at Katyn. Virtual embargo was levied on reporting the extermination of Baltic professional and intellectual classes. Thermonuclear parity was nearly achieved between the USA and USSR and old Chatterbox spoke of God wearying of mankind.
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