The New Confessions

by William Boyd

  Of course I had another obsession, but it was lying dormant, temporarily overshadowed by the Doon crisis. Myself. My development as an artist. My dreams, my ambitions. The next day I literally dusted them off.

  In my office at Realismus’s Grunewald studios I kept an old trunk concerning certain precious possessions, such as my reels of Aftermath of Battle, my photo albums, my diaries (now temporary abandoned), Hamish’s letters and suchlike. It was superstitious of me, I suppose, but I did not want them in the house with me. Snow had fallen in the night and from my window I could see the three vast gasometers of the Berliner Gas-Anstalt capped with white, steel cakes with generous icing.

  Idly, almost absentmindedly, I opened the trunk and contemplated these artifacts of my past, like a bored shaman looking at a scattered pile of bones, halfheartedly trying to devise the way ahead. These relics, precious totems of my youthful dreams … I picked up a frayed bundle of paper tied with string. Pages from a book. I read:

  I am now starting on a task which is without precedent and which when achieved will have no imitator.…’

  The fit passed in seconds. It was a fit. It is the only time I have ever experienced it so physically. Afflatus, Inspiration. The muse descending—call it what you will. It was a Pentecostal confirmation of what I had to do. My task was clear to me now. I was going to make the greatest moving picture the world had ever seen. It would be unprecedented and have no imitator. I was going to make a film of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions.

  VILLA LUXE, June 21, 1972

  I am sitting at my “lookout” with my binoculars, trying to discern what’s going on at the public beach. A police car has arrived and someone has been arrested, I think, but it is really just beyond my range. Perhaps a nudist? My hand shake is too pronounced. I consider buying a tripod.

  Emilia shouts from the house that I have a visitor. I wander over. It’s Ulrike. She wants permission to go down to my beach. I say, of course.

  We stand on the pool terrace, in shade, looking at the hot empty pool.

  “It’s a shame about your pool.”

  “It’s that fig tree. Over there. The roots, they’re pushing through the concrete searching for water. See the cracks?”

  “From so far away, with such force. It’s incredible.”

  “Apparently they can get through a foot of concrete. It’s always happening—cisterns, septic tanks.”

  “Ah. Nature,” She said it with no cynicism. A sense of awe, rather.

  I gestured at her bag.

  “Off for specimens? I saw you the other day, in your boat.” I felt and attempted to ignore the beginnings of a blush. “What are you working on?” I asked quickly.

  “Certain kinds of crab.”

  “Really?” What more could one say about crabs? “Plenty of crabs on those rocks.”

  She frowned as if she could sense my indifference.

  “I wrote a small thesis on the fiddler crab. You know, the ones with one oversized claw.” She paused. “Do you know that before and after the male fiddler crab mates, he soothes the female by stroking her with his claw, very gently?”

  “No. I—”

  “And then—this is amazing—they make love face to face.”

  “Really?”

  “You see? I said ‘make love’ as if they were humans. Apart from us they are the only animals to do this. Face to face, like so.” She held up her hands analogously. “Just us and the fiddler crab. Why should that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A breeze shook the tree we were standing beneath. The dappled light spots shifted on her face and the air-blue toweling jerkin she wore. We were two feet apart.

  “Extraordinary,” I said.

  She picked up her bag.

  “My boyfriend said they are showing your film—Julie. Maybe when we go back I can see it. He says it’s very good.”

  “It is. But he should see my—” I stopped just in time. “I was very pleased with it. I’m delighted it’s being shown. Doon … Doon Bogan is marvelous.”

  10

  Comrades

  I waited, wisely, prudently, until well after Julie was released before going to the Lodokians with my new plan. Aram had been pestering me for weeks to sign a new contract with Realismus but I had delayed, calculating that the audacity of my proposal would be easier to take if Julie was steadily earning money. So I was annoyingly evasive on the matter of what we should do next whenever Duric and Aram brought it up.

  I was busy enough, anyway, with the success of Julie, attending gala premieres in Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt, consenting to inumerable press conferences and interviews. Long profiles appeared in UFA-Magazin, Film-Photos, Illustrierter Film-Courier and Kino. It was the most successful and talked about film in all Berlin until the premiere of Potemkin at the end of April. Aram sent Karl-Heinz and Doon on an international promotional tour, to Britain, France and Italy, but they both surprisingly refused to go with the film to the U.S.A.—Doon, I believe, out of some perverse sense that she was in exile, and Karl-Heinz for the odd but simple reason that, he claimed, it was not his sort of country.

  For my part, the success of Julie was highly gratifyingly. I felt calm, with a new deep self-assurance, which explains why in the many newspaper and magazine articles that appeared I was several times described as “impassive” or “brooding.” I was brooding—on what to do next—and was moving forward with steady determination. Karl-Heinz’s advice had been astute: my new obsession had saved me. I had not forgotten Doon (we met from time to time at receptions, but there were always dozens of people there; her attitude towards me is best described as pleasant), but I found her easier to cope with.

  In June profits from Julie were such that Realismus paid me a bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars, a vast sum in those days. Aram offered me another fifty thousand to direct two films for the studio: Frederick the Great with Karl-Heinz and Joan of Arc with Doon. I asked for time to think it over.

  I read and reread Rousseau’s Confessions and my plans for it altered daily. The scale and grandeur of my project burgeoned in my mind. After blocking out a preliminary outline I calculated that the film would last eight or nine hours. For a week I was in despair, but then suddenly realized that its great length could in fact be its greatest asset. I would make not one but three 3-hour films of the book—a truly epic moving picture, and a fit monument to the man who had inspired it.

  In March, Sonia announced that she was pregnant again and at the same time, though unconnected with this news, I rented for my own use a small wooden villa in the country, about an hour from Berlin in the woods of the Jungfernheide. There I spent weekdays alone, working secretly on the first draft of The Confessions, returning home at weekends. To my vague surprise, on a Friday as I motored back to Charlottenburg I found myself actually looking forward to rejoining my family. Vincent had lost his terror of me and Hereford proved to be an engaging, affectionate baby. I spent many hours teaching him to walk, during which he took the most appalling tumbles, crashing into tables, falling down steps, bouncing off walls. He would hit the ground—slap!—and look stunned for a moment, as if deciding what was the correct response to this misfortune. All one had to do was laugh ostentatiously—“Ha ha ha, Hereford, ho ho ho!”—and he would immediately join in, no matter how bruised or winded he was. He was a cute little fellow, still shitting himself at every opportunity.

  I made one mistake that summer which was to have bitter consequences later. One Wednesday in June I drove into the city to attend Leo Druce’s wedding. He was marrying Lola Templin-Tavel. The ceremony took place in the pretty English church (St. George’s) in the gardens of Schloss Montbijou, with a reception afterwards at the Palast Hotel. After the service Sonia felt ill and left me to go on to the reception myself. There was an impressive turn out at the Palast and I remember asking myself how Leo Druce, tyro co-producer, had managed to invite so many luminaries to his wedding—Pola Negri was there, Emil Jannings, Walter Ruttmann, Tilly de Gar
mo, Michael Bohnen the baritone, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover and many more. It was a spontaneous reflection, I bore no ill will to Leo, but I remember commenting on it—prophetically—and ironically complimenting him on his ability to get on in the world. He said, with typical modesty, that they had only come because of Lola. I might have added that that was precisely my point, but I refrained.

  It was a hot day and not enough of the Palast’s windows opened to provide any kind of breeze. I felt stifled in my morning suit and stiff collar, and drank rather too much chilled fruit cup to compensate. I began to enjoy myself and the steady stream of compliments I received as a result of Julie’s success. That day I felt a kind of power emanating from me that was further generated by the secret that I owned.

  I was talking to Leo when Aram approached. He was wearing a corn-yellow and gold-brocade waistcoat with matching spats. On anyone else they would have looked absurdly comical, but somehow Aram could carry off the crassest vulgarity. We congratulated Leo all over again on his good fortune (a touch insincerely: Lola’s famed vivacity had a distinct neurasthenic note to it) and congratulated ourselves on the news of Julies sale to RKO.

  “I’m sailing to New York next week,” Aram said. “They’ve gone mad for Julie. They want every new Realismus film.” He paused meaningfully. “They’re throwing money at me for Frederick the Great.”

  “I’m busy,” I said.

  “What are you doing in that cottage, for God’s sake?”

  “I’ll tell you soon. Very soon.”

  “But when are you going to make Frederick? We’ve got to start this summer.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Let Leo do it.”

  They both looked at me in open amazement.

  “You can do it, Leo,” I said. “Of course you can.”

  “But it’s your film—earmarked—Karl-Heinz and—”

  “It’s my wedding present to you.” I put my arms round them both. I am not normally given to these sort of gestures, but I was a little drunk. “Go on, Aram. Give it to Leo. He can do it.”

  Aram looked shrewd: one eye closed slightly, bottom lip held between his teeth.

  “Let’s talk when you get back from the honeymoon.”

  “Listen, John, are you sure you—”

  I gave him another impulsive hug. “Course I am. Anyway, I’ve got something else on.”

  There were more surprises to come. I took my punch glass to be refilled, and as this was being done I heard myself greeted and looked round to see a small, perfectly bald young man with an idiot grin of pleasure on his face.

  “Almyr Nelson,” he said. “ ‘Baby.’ Remember?”

  “Of course. How are you, Baby?”

  He smoothed imaginary hair on his gleaming pink pate. “Bit thin on top, otherwise fine.” He smiled again. “Well, you’re certainly doing all right for yourself.… Listen, Harold’s here. Come over and meet him.”

  “Delighted.”

  Faithfull, fatter than ever, was standing too close to someone I knew, Monika Alt, who was fanning herself vigorously with a menu. She greeted me as if I were an old friend, though we were no more than acquaintances.

  “Thank God,” she whispered as she kissed me. “Terrible halitosis.”

  “Look who I’ve dug up, Harry,” Nelson said, drawing me forward. “Old Todd, the intrepid balloonist. Can you credit it?”

  Faithfull managed a weak smile.

  “Todd … congratulations.” His face was moist with sweat. I smelled his rotting teeth as he spoke.

  I accepted his good wishes. “What are you doing over here?” I asked.

  “Just started a film.”

  “Called The Tip-top Twins Go Sailing,” Baby Nelson said cheerfully. “Part of a series.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said. “By the way, Faithfull, I should do something with your teeth. Your breath smells repulsive.”

  I took Monika’s arm and we turned away and strode off through the crowd, Monika’s shoulders heaving with shocked silent laughter. It was childish of me, I know, but these opportunities are rare in life and must not be ignored. Cherish them, savor them; they provide some comfort in the dog days.

  Monika and I had another drink and I told her about my past encounters with Harold Faithfull. We laughed some more. Monika Alt was in her mid-thirties, I think, maybe ten years older than me. She was a thin, blond, sinewy woman who had been a celebrated theatrical actress but whose career had never fully restarted after the hiatus caused by the war. She had been married three or four times and drank rather too much. As we talked she leaned against me occasionally, a breast flattening against my upper arm. It could have been accidental, but it is my opinion that a woman knows exactly when her breasts come into contact with anyone or anything, animate or inanimate. The warmth, the alcohol, my crude besting of Faithfull, and the new sense of confidence that irradiated me made me find her suddenly attractive. I felt a prickling and easing in my groin. However, I doubt very much if I would have gone to bed with her that afternoon if I had not just at that moment seen Doon and Mavrocordato across the room.

  “Ouf! It’s so hot in here,” Monika said, blowing discreetly down the front of her dress. “Oh, look. There’s your star.”

  “Why don’t we get out of here?” I said. “Come and have a picnic at my villa.”

  Monika visited me at my villa once or twice a week during the rest of that summer. We would make love and have lunch. After lunch she liked to sunbathe naked in the back garden, a policy I encouraged as this was the view overlooked by my study window. She returned to Berlin in the afternoon as the air cooled. That was as much as we ever did. Her thin, hot, oily brown body with small, oddly deflated-looking breasts are inescapably associated with the genesis of my Confessions films. I grew to like her and I think she liked me, though we never spoke of our feelings. Perhaps that was why she came back. She had half a dozen scars, old and new, on her belly. I counted an appendectomy and a cesarean section, but I could not work out what the others were. I asked her how she got them.

  “Too many men, darling,” she said. “Too many men.”

  One day Aram came round unexpectedly while she was there. He had returned from the U.S.A. and Frederick the Great was about to start. He did not seem particularly surprised to see Monika. We stood at my study window looking at her spread body, glossy with sun oil.

  “I’ve got nothing against Monika,” he said thoughtfully. “But for a man in your position I think it’s a big mistake to get involved with an actress.”

  “I’m not involved with her,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  I looked at him. He was wearing a powder-blue seersucker suit—bought in America, I assumed—a red shirt and a big fat canvas golfing cap. He looked ridiculous.

  “Anyway,” I said, “what are you doing here? You know this is my secret refuge.”

  “My father’s dying. He wants to see you.”

  The heat, that summer of ’26 in Berlin, was immense. It slammed down out of a hazy sky the color of Aram’s suit, heavy as glass. One was glad of the city’s clean wide streets then. At least in the broad avenues and boulevards the air could stir. It must have been some kind of public holiday that afternoon as I motored back with Aram, because the pavements seemed strangely deserted and the big shops in Leipziger Strasse were closed and dark. I remember hearing the sounds of half a dozen bands as we drove through the Tiergarten. I never learned what was going on.

  I was cast down by Aram’s news of his father. I had grown fond of old Duric, who had forgiven me my defection from the Realismus style once the money from Julie started to flow. He had said he planned to use the funds to make a series of films about vermin in our cities. “You mean child molesters, perverts, that sort of thing?” I had asked. “No, no!” he had shouted. “Rats and fleas! Rats and fleas!” I had only known him ill, and foolishly had come to think of his gasps and wheezes, his snail’s pace and omnipresent oxygen cylinder, as being as much part of him as his liver spots and gray hair. Sud
denly these features revealed themselves as afflictions, and that shocked and subdued me.

  The Lodokians, father and son, lived in a thin grand house on Kronenstrasse. Inside it was dark, curtains drawn, and one was forcibly reminded of the summer heat once more. A butler let us in and a male nurse led me upstairs.

  Duric Lodokian was sitting up—rather, lying up—on a soft ramp of pillows, his oxygen mask in one hand and a Russian cigarette in the other. He talked in breathless bursts of a few seconds, pausing to guzzle oxygen from the mask, or to drag weakly on his cigarette. His brown skin was damp and a grayish mud color. His liver spots were more noticeable. He was the color of a certain type of speckled egg. (Some kind of gull or game bird, I forget which now, but they used to be fashionable hors d’oeuvres at parties in the thirties. I could never touch them—they reminded me of Duric, dying.)

  Aram and I sat down on either side of him. The blanket round the ashtray was covered in ash. He was too frail to tap his cigarettes accurately. After the usual bland inquiries I said carefully, “Are you sure you should be smoking those, Duric?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Never did me any harm. Why should I stop now?”

  “I agree, I agree. Don’t deny yourself. May I have one?”

  I lit one. Aram did too. We both smoked while Duric topped up on oxygen.

  “Listen,” he said eventually, “come here.”

  I leaned further forward.