The Road Between Us (22 page)

‘I’ll get someone on to it.’ Sir Kenneth nods at both artists in turn then marches off.

‘You’ve just copied “The Scream”,’ Bacon says, flicking ash on the new mirror.

‘I suppose Munch might have been a point of reference,’ Charles concedes. ‘Subconsciously.’

‘What do you call this thing you’ve done with the mirrors?’

‘It hasn’t really got a name.’

‘It reminds me of one of those triptychs you get in medieval churches.’ Bacon draws on his cigarette. ‘I don’t like it.’

Charles stares at him. ‘Have I done something to offend you?’

‘You tell me, darling.’

Charles pats his pockets. ‘Well, if you will excuse me, I need to be heading along, too. Good day.’ He walks off in the same direction as Sir Kenneth, leaving Bacon contemplating the dressing table. Once he is back out in the courtyard he takes several long breaths and feels calmer. He takes a slug from the hip flask and, as the alcohol warms his belly, he sets off to walk along Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. By the time he reaches the Chelsea Arts Club he has almost managed to put his encounter with Francis Bacon out of his head. The club porter tells him there is a telegram waiting for him in his pigeonhole. It is from Sir Kenneth Clark and reads simply: ‘Please call soonest.’ It takes two attempts for the operator to connect him with the National Gallery.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ Sir Kenneth says. ‘Your painting has been damaged. One of the candles must have fallen over and … you know how inflammable paint is. I’m so sorry.’

‘Damaged? How badly?’

‘I’m afraid it was a few minutes before anyone noticed and we were able to get to it with a fire extinguisher. I’m so sorry. For what it’s worth, I thought it was a wonderfully original work of art and I’m sure the public would have agreed.’

‘Did your photographer manage to …’

A long pause.

‘I’m so sorry, Charles.’

As he sits at the bar, lost in his thoughts, Charles watches a couple of the younger members playing snooker and doesn’t notice for a moment the porter approaching with a letter in his hand.

He recognizes the Gothic handwriting immediately.

Five minutes later he is back on the telephone to Sir Kenneth. ‘It’s Charles Northcote again. Forget the painting, I need your help with something. You’ve heard the rumours about an Allied invasion of southern France?’

‘I try not to listen to rumours.’

‘But you’ve heard there is going to be one?’

‘Yes.’

‘I want to volunteer for it.’

The Commandant is late for his sitting again. When he arrives, followed by his dog, he is wearing cream-coloured broadfall breeches that are buttoned up the side, and a matching cream sports vest. Over his shoulder is draped a coat trimmed with ermine and mink. There is a foil in his hand. ‘I have been practising,’ he says, holding the weapon up and slicing the air.

He shrugs and, as the coat falls from his shoulders to the floor, the sinewy curves of his upper arms and broad shoulders are revealed. ‘My blood group,’ he says when he notices Anselm staring at the tattoo under his arm. He parries into the air with circular motions of his foil. ‘All SS men have it tattooed on.’

On his desk there is a plate of fresh raspberries. The Commandant reaches for one and tosses it to the dog, who opens and closes its long jaw with a gummy snap. It doesn’t beg for more. Next to the plate is a kidney-shaped enamel tin on which a full syringe has been placed. When Anselm sees three ampoules of morphine next to it, he speculates that he might be in the presence of an addict. When the Commandant follows Anselm’s eye he says: ‘I nearly competed in the ’36 Olympics, but an ankle injury meant I had to drop out. Fencing was very fashionable at my university. Some of the students used to give themselves duelling scars
deliberately.’ He holds out the foil by the tip of its blade. ‘Go on, take it. Feel its weight and balance in your hand.’

As if in a dream again, Anselm does as he is told.

‘It is the duty of every good German to fence. The most noble of the Germanic sports. That moment of anticipation when guards are taken and the swords touch. Exquisite.’

Anselm gets the feeling that whatever it is the Commandant is talking about, it is not fighting with swords. ‘Your university?’ he says as he places the foil on the desk.

The Commandant lights a cigar and sits astride the saddle. ‘Before the war I was an academic. Taught philosophy at Freiburg. Does that surprise you?’

Anselm is not sure what the right answer should be. He nods his head, then shakes it.

‘A fine university,’ the Commandant continues. ‘We had Martin Heidegger as our rector there for a while. A true National Socialist. I believe he is still a member of the faculty. A great man.’ A funnelling of the lips at this memory. ‘And a great philosopher. His phenomenological explorations of the “question of being” are still highly influential.’

Anselm begins painting.

‘And he was very thorough when it came to flushing out the Jewish professors. Though he wasn’t so keen on the book-burning. We did it anyway. Books by Jews and Bolsheviks, they all went on the bonfire. We would burn them at night to make more of a spectacle. Half the library was emptied in the end.’ The Commandant draws on his cigar and blows out a tumbling shaft of smoke. ‘My students adored me. Adored me. You think I am making this up, don’t you?’

Anselm shakes his head again.

‘Well, I might be. Everything I say is a lie. Have you heard that one? I like to think of it as Goebbels’s Paradox. If everything I say is a lie then the statement “everything I say is a lie” must also be a lie.’

Anselm nods uncertainly.

‘Except that it could also be a false dichotomy, because it is possible that I occasionally lie and I occasionally tell the truth.’ It is as if the Commandant is talking to himself. He stares at Anselm and then gives a twitch of a smile. ‘As it happens, I am telling the truth. Do you know what truth is?’

Anselm thinks for a moment. ‘Beauty?’

‘Ah, a man who knows his Keats. Not as great a poet as Goethe but interesting nonetheless.’

Anselm has only heard the word ‘man’. He hasn’t thought of himself as one since his trial. He stares at the floor, trying not to smile, feeling as if a crushing weight is being lifted from his soul. Unless he concentrates hard, he might float away.

‘My students looked on me as a father figure. Often they would share their news with me first, before telling their parents … You remind me of one of my students, Anselm. He was about your age.’ The Commandant blows out smoke and studies Anselm with his small eyes. They are hazel. ‘Did you study aesthetics at the Slade?’

‘A little. Immanuel Kant. Hegel.’

The Commandant picks a tobacco flake from his tongue. ‘I hope to return to teaching after the war. When the world is cleansed. I miss the conversation. Alas, not many of my colleagues here share my interest in Socratic dialogue. They are suspicious of intellectuals …’ The Commandant gets to his feet and circles the easel so that he can see how the painting is progressing. ‘Excellent.’ He rubs Anselm’s shoulders. ‘You have talent. That is because you are German … Tell me, Anselm, what do Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger have in common?’

‘All philosophers?’

‘Yes, and they are also German. The greatest philosophers the world has ever known have been German … And Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Haydn? What is it that they have in common?’

‘German?’

‘German. Exactly. The greatest philosophers and the greatest
composers have been German. Well, Austrian and German. Why is that, do you suppose?’

‘Because we are the master race?’ Anselm shocks himself with his use of the personal plural pronoun. If he hasn’t thought of himself as a man for years he certainly hasn’t thought of himself as a German.

‘Exactly. Because we are the master race.’

Anselm nods thoughtfully. ‘What about Wittgenstein?’

The Commandant slams his fist down on the wooden horse. ‘
Fuck Wittgenstein! That fucking Jewish whore!
’

Anselm is stunned by the ferocity of this reaction.

‘Do you want to know a secret, Anselm?’ The Commandant is calm again.

‘What?’

‘I can’t abide Wagner either.’

Anselm splutters. He was not expecting that. It is the first time he has laughed in four years and the sensation leaves him light-headed.

The Commandant is also trying to suppress a smile. ‘He is so fucking melodramatic, don’t you think?’

Anselm nods again. ‘And he never knows when to stop.’

‘I know! Hour after fucking hour. It’s torture … I could tell you were a man of taste, Anselm. Did you enjoy the Bach the other day?’

Anselm has a paintbrush between his lips. He nods again.

‘I think I shall play some Bach every morning. That way we will civilize them. The French are not an uncivilized people, but they are savages when it comes to music, like the British. Some of the French prisoners here may survive this war and, when they return to their homes, it will be important they understand German music. My favourite is the Goldberg Variations. Shall I play it now?’ He dismounts, reaches for a record and places it on a turntable.

Using his finger as a baton, the Commandant points out how the variations do not follow the melody of the aria, but rather use its bass line and chord progression. He closes his eyes. Lost in his
thoughts. When it is ended he blinks as if coming out of a trance. ‘Perfect,’ he says. ‘Would you like some wine, Anselm? We are in a famous wine region here. But I am not fussy what I drink, so long as it is not schnapps.’ Without waiting for an answer the Commandant pours two glasses of Riesling.

Anselm coughs after he takes a sip. When the warmth of the alcohol hits his belly the unreality of his situation is complete. A prisoner drinking wine with a commandant. It feels like he is riding a thermal.

‘Come with me, Anselm, there is something I want to show you. Bring your glass.’

The Commandant strides across the floor and holds the door open. As he follows him out, Anselm avoids looking at the chair by the entrance where he knows the Valkyrie will be sitting. Instead he eyes the display box of butterflies in the hall as he heads up the stairs. The shuffle of his clogs against the stone seems intrusively loud. In between his steps he can hear the dog breathing behind him. At the top of the stairs, the Commandant holds a door open again; the Alsatian enters and jumps up on a dark mahogany four-poster bed, swagged with faded dark-red velvet, and tasselled grips.

‘Lord Byron once slept in it.’ He directs his voice at the bed. ‘Go on, try it.’

Anselm takes a couple of steps towards the bed but, seeing the Alsatian staring at him as impassively as a statue, he stops. The beast has hooded eyes, like those of the lions guarding Nelson’s Column.

‘Don’t worry about Hilde, she won’t bite.’

This hellhound has a name, Anselm thinks as he reaches the bed and extends a tentative hand to pat her head. When the Alsatian does not react, Anselm crawls up on to the bed beside her, as if crawling across a minefield.

‘She is my only true friend,’ the Commandant adds, talking over his shoulder as he locks the door and walks over to a chair by the window. ‘She never leaves my side.’ As he sits down, the leather of his boots creaks.

The room has an odour that Anselm finds hard to identify.
Incense? A stirred cocktail? No, more elusive even than that. It evokes an image of heavy-hanging fruit, ripe and forbidden. A grape losing its elasticity, perhaps. And a taste: not the acid of an orange exactly, nor the sweet obviousness of a pear, but something more restrained, more decorous. ‘I think Lord Byron was not very tall,’ he says, rotating his feet as they hang over the end of the bed. He eyes the bowl of chocolates on the bedside table. Hunger makes his stomach clench.

‘Have some,’ the Commandant says.

Anselm takes one and tries not to eat it too quickly.

‘I think Hilde would like some, too.’

Anselm takes another and, when he holds out his hand, the Alsatian swallows it in one efficient gulp, leaving only saliva.

As he chews, Anselm looks around the room. On a plinth is a marble bust. He suspects it might be by Rodin. More spoils of war.

‘Do you know who carved that?’

‘Rodin?’

‘Very good. You know your art … Look under the bed.’

Anselm steps off the bed and gets to his knees. He sees a wooden panel, unframed. Thin glazes of oil over a tempera underpainting. He holds it up to the light and sees it depicts a one-legged woman in a man’s suit. Though she is wearing heavy make-up, her hair is cut in the style of a man. She is smoking a cigarette and drinking a cocktail. Anselm looks at the signature. Otto Dix.

‘It was going to be destroyed but I managed to rescue it. The artist is a degenerate. Do you like it?’

Anselm shakes his head.

‘You can be honest.’

Anselm nods. The room seems to be melting and shimmering, like the horizon in a desert. He leans his back against the bed, happy to find a tactile connection with reality there.

‘I like it, too. I also like to listen to swing and jazz. Negro music. Does that surprise you? Both banned, of course, but you can still hear it on the wireless if you know where to tune the dial. Dr Goebbels plays it for the Doughboys. Gets them feeling
sentimental, then he slips in his propaganda about what a useless, wheezing, bandy-legged dolt Roosevelt is. Quite ingenious, really.’ The Commandant puts his cigar to his lips and inhales. ‘There is a place in Berlin where you can still hear jazz. Along with Latin music. Have you ever danced the tango, Anselm?’

Anselm shakes his head and wonders if this is what madness feels like, having a sane conversation in an insane context.

‘It was originally a dance for two men, a way for them to practise.’ The Commandant sips from his glass. ‘Have you ever been to Berlin?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘On the eve of the war, when I was …’ Anselm has noticed the SS uniform draped over a chair by the bed. It is a terrifying sight, like a giant, red-eyed spider staring at him from the corner of the room.