Making Things Better (18 page)

17

Fanny's second letter was as bulky as her first, but this time correctly addressed. Herz sat down at his desk to read it, as if dealing with some mildly disagreeable business matter. Before briefly scanning and counting the number of pages (five) he noted that the handwriting was becoming fainter, as if the writer were on the point of expiring, or, more probably, as if her pen were running out. This would be a complaint, he thought, along the lines of those sung by minstrels accompanying themselves on some early stringed instrument. He had once attended such a recital at the Wigmore Hall, and had not much appreciated it.

‘My dear Julius,' he read. ‘Your letter was most welcome, and it reached me at a time when I had need of kindness. I had just returned from Bad Homburg, and was so badly affected by my visit that I was obliged to stay at home for a couple of days until I felt well enough to go out and face the world. When Lotte Neumann invited me to join her party I accepted almost eagerly, though I have always found her a rather tiresome woman. What I did not realize was that I was expected to pay for myself. This led to what has become a routine humiliation. I had to promise to send a cheque from Bonn, which I managed to do, though it has led me to wonder how I shall face the future. This fear has dogged me all my life, and it is one from which Mother tried to protect me. Now that she is gone and I am obliged to fend for myself I find that I lack the wisdom and the practical help on which I had come to rely. Yet I am forced to encounter this embarrassment day by day, and can only regret that I was not better trained to face hard times. This is strange, since hard times have been my lot since leaving Berlin, and even more since leaving Nyon.

‘I relied on Mother's experience to guide me through, and for a time it was sufficient. We left Berlin with just enough money to tide us over, but when Father was killed it ran out altogether. It was Mother who encouraged Mellerio, who was in the habit of meeting business acquaintances at the Beau Rivage for dinner or a glass of champagne. It pains me to say this now but I disliked her way of showing me off, almost of proposing me. I had never needed a sponsor to attract men, and the looks that I intercepted from some of the people in the hotel offended me. Fortunately Mellerio, who was twenty years older than myself, was a courteous man and a gentleman: I believe he sincerely wished to put an end to my discomfiture. And of course I was very pretty. He was also pleasant to Mother, for which I was grateful. I could not blame her for her manoeuvres. She thought she was making provision for my future. I thought I was making provision for hers.

‘When Mellerio died he left enough money for us to live quite comfortably at the Beau Rivage for a few years, though not enough to live there when Mother became unwell. I was older, and that was my tragedy. I had thought that my looks would last me all my life, and this is perhaps an illusion from which women suffer, until they look in the glass one day and see that some sort of fading has taken place, as if a veil had obscured the original brightness that no amount of added colour will restore. Your visit to Nyon occurred just before I had had such a revelation. I was still confident, you see, confident enough to wait for a better offer. Does that shock you? It shocks me too, though at the time I was thinking only in practical terms. I knew little of your circumstances; your mother's letters were full of false assurances that did not convince us. We remembered you as difficult people, who rarely shone in company. In our company, that is. And the antagonism between the two sisters was difficult to forget. As a small child I remember disputes which ended in noisy tears. I was for that reason somewhat prejudiced against you, despite your excellent appearance. Life at the Beau Rivage was endurable, even pleasurable. I knew that sooner or later something or someone would turn up. And so I sent you away. I have regretted it ever since.

‘My second marriage was brought about in the same way as the first had been, but this time there were no alleviating circumstances. Alois Schneider was an unattractive man whom we both thought wealthier than he actually was. In fact although he had inherited a printing business from his father and grandfather he was something of a speculator and made a series of unwise decisions about the future of his firm. I came quite quickly to dislike him, but once again I had Mother to think of. At least I managed to look after her, but at a price. I hated my husband to touch me, which he did at every opportunity. I simply could not respond. Perhaps I never have. And yet I have always longed for love, romantic love, the kind of love that strengthens a woman against misfortune. I am convinced that with another man I would have had the courage to accept my situation. As a girl I was envious of those of my friends who became engaged, and who were nothing like as good-looking as I was. Perhaps that is why I have never enjoyed the company of women. As the only daughter of an adoring father I had got used to the idea that I should always be favoured. You were the one whose attitude most resembled his, but remember, I had so many choices in those days. Such choices ended pitiably, in two husbands who failed to bring me to life. As for you and me, we should have been lovers in Berlin, when we were young and perfect.

‘Does it surprise you to hear me talking like this? It surprises me when I tell the truth, which I rarely do now that I have to keep up some sort of pretence. In fact I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. Now I am too tired to do so much longer. That episode at Bad Homburg convinced me that I must be wary of other women. I still attract enmity, notably that of my erstwhile sister-in-law and her terrible daughter. You may not know that women are natural competitors. Maybe you have never encountered women who will abruptly end friendships of long standing when a man is involved, not out of disloyalty but out of natural instinct. Perhaps I was not as lovable as I thought, though men found me so. But it is part of my sad inheritance to be loved only once, by Father, or perhaps twice, by you. If only you had been more forceful I might have relented, but that is what I tell myself today, when I am in such sad circumstances. Even the idea of seeing you again both tempts and frightens me. And the only way I could return to the Beau Rivage would be with a man at my side. Even then I know I might be subjected to side-long glances, for it seems that I still possess some elements of style. Or maybe I still have the manners and gestures of one who was once thought beautiful. You will find this too among women, a kind of natural confidence that causes envy, even resentment. And yet I never exploited my looks. It was Mother who did that for me.

‘Julius, I have no money. There was no lawsuit, merely a consultation with a lawyer who explained to me that although Alois theoretically made his assets over to me the document which was to have been the formalization of such an agreement lacked a witness and was therefore invalid. He must have known this. Certainly his sister knew it. We have not spoken from that day to this, and I cannot help but suspect collusion between Alois and his family on this point. Of course I have no proof. It was the daughter who perceived their advantage in this matter. Much good it has done them; there was little left. I think I said that Alois was not even good as a businessman, let alone as a husband. I have no hesitation in saying that I was glad when he died.

‘It seemed fated that I should end up with Mother as my only company, and now with no company at all. I wonder now at the cruel practicality of parents who seek to discharge their own duties onto a third party, or parties. I would guess that you, who were always faithful, were a faithful son, doing duty for your father, whom I remember as fatally mild, unable to sustain a household already riven by problems. There was a brother, I remember, whom I was not allowed to frequent. That was another maternal edict, on your side this time. It was thought that I would distract him from his music, but in fact your mother was jealous of anyone who approached him. What became of him? Did he marry? Somehow I think not.

‘What I am trying to say is that I should love to meet you again at the Beau Rivage, as you suggest. But you will have gathered from this letter that I am in no position to pay for myself. You may imagine how humiliating it is for me to write these words. At least I will have repaid some of the debt I owe you—you who were willing once to marry and love me—to make this clear. So yet again we are divided by money. You do not tell me whether you have done well in life; in fact you tell me nothing about yourself. It may comfort you to know that I think back to the respect in which you once held me with genuine emotion. It would have given me great pleasure, enormous pleasure, to have seen you again. As matters stand you will not be surprised if I decline your invitation. I must accept the fact that the time for love is past, but this is very bitter. I can only end this letter by sending you my belated regards, not only for the compliment you pay me now in asking for a meeting, but for the compliment you paid me once before, in asking me to be your wife. No woman could ever forget such a compliment. Even now I am grateful. Fanny.'

Herz found himself so unsettled by this letter that he was obliged to go out, as if once again the company of strangers was the only panacea for his agitated feelings. So she had in some way cared for him, and did so even now, remembered his ardour as somehow precious, something of which she had never lost sight. That was the missing element in their relationship: her regard for him. He had acted and reflected like a jilted lover, so hurt that he had taken no account of the other, and in this way had lost all perspective. He had been ready to vilify her, to blame her retrospectively for disappointments in which she played no part, had seen her as the indifferent beauty whom he had failed to interest, whereas she was now changed from the girl whom he had once adored. What remained of her dazzling future was the bitterness of a woman who had been denied love, of the sort she had craved. Or had her mother denied it for her? There had been something perverse about those two sisters, his mother and his aunt; they were not given to sympathy, either towards each other or to their young and trusting progeny. There may even have been jealousy behind the iron closeness that united Fanny and her mother; neither was allowed to break their primitive agreement. He had even seen this in action in the course of his dinner at the Beau Rivage, the loving smiles that did not quite conceal Fanny's furrowed brow, the sort of flirtatiousness she was obliged to employ when some activity of her own, however anodyne, presented itself. Staying within the parameters of her mother's approval had become her only preoccupation. Without the need for that approval she might have had the courage to be free. Instead she had seen freedom as the most hazardous of enterprises, had sensed that without the chance to test that freedom she would never become fully adult, and, as her letter showed, had suffered from such an intuition but had borne the consequences of her choice because loss of the only love she knew was too tragic to be endured.

And she had thought of him, even when he had only noticed her indifference. She had retained memories not only of himself but of other family members, had shown discernment, had suspected something obscure in the attitude of his mother to his father, had detected the jealousy of other possible influences in her insane regard for his brother. Even now, even he had inherited the family trait of resentment, castigating Fanny for her hauteur, her self-regard, which, on examination, could be seen as a necessary disguise for ordinary frailty. He was cast into a terrible pity for her, although until he had read her letter he had been prepared to be disbelieving, sceptical, even unkind, dreading the prospect of seeing her again, or if not seeing her listening to her. But in fact her complaint had been that of common humanity: love, loneliness, regret. She had revealed herself, if only slightly, as a simple woman, one who was no longer sought after, who was in fact left alone to pay the price of the confidence that had once surrounded her and which other women so resented. She was being punished, or so it must seem to her, for her early endowments, for the teasing crowd of followers she had once attracted, for the atmosphere of security in which she had existed until exile put an end to all certainties. Though vigilance had certainly been in order, though practical arrangements had of necessity to be made, she would have sensed that she was being sacrificed. She might have stumbled on an even darker truth, namely that if all had been well and they had been able to stay in Germany she would still have been sacrificed by those who claimed to know her better, and who were, moreover, convinced of their good faith.

To go back further would be to enter the unknown world of those two sisters, whose lives, he now saw, had been entirely unmodified by the men they had chosen, or who had been chosen for them. A distrust of natural appetites would have been implanted in them from their earliest days, their inclinations to pleasure seen as a dereliction from family observance. They would therefore feel the same distrust for children, whose lives, they were so lately to realize, might lead them into wider expectations, even opportunities. Such mothers had thought their own narrow upbringing the only true guide. His aunt Anna was no less guilty than his mother, had regarded Fanny as her own creation, her own preserve. For all her hospitality, lavishly dispensed in her sunny salon, she was a martinet. Herz had always known this, had been dismissed too many times, not for any fault of his own but because he represented, or might be thought to represent, an incarnation of impulse, of instinct, from which Fanny must be guarded. She had succeeded in preserving this daughter throughout the uncertain years of exile, but largely for her own benefit. The husbands she had chosen for her had the advantage of compliance, could be persuaded to accept her as a necessary accompaniment. Perhaps Fanny had been presented as delicate, fragile, requiring her mother's care. This mythology had undoubtedly ensured their communal future. Herz saw with pity that Fanny had been denied access to her own desires, and, worse, may even have known this.