Utz (5 page)

Utz waved to some bottles on the table: scotch, slivovic, and a soda siphon.

‘It is scotch, isn't it?'

‘Scotch,' I said.

At the whoosh of the siphon, the maid emerged with her canapes on the Swan Service dish. Her movements seemed so lifeless and mechanical you would have thought that Utz had created a female golem. Yet I detected the suggestion of a superior smile.

‘Cheerio!' said Utz, mimicking an English gentleman's accent.

‘Your health!' I raised my glass – and took stock of my surroundings.

I
am not an expert on Meissen porcelain – although my years of traipsing round art museums have taught me what it is. Nor can I say I like Meissen porcelain. I do, however, admire the boisterous energy of an artist such as Kaendler, at play with a medium which was totally new. And I entirely side with Utz in his feud with Winckelmann – who, in his ‘Notes on the Plebeian Taste in Porcelain', would supplant this plebeian vitality with the dead hand of classical perfection.

I am equally fascinated by the way in which ‘porcelain sickness' – the Porzellankrankheit of Augustus the Strong – so warped his vision, and that of his ministers, that their delirious schemes for ceramics got confused with real political power. Of Brühl, who would become Director of the Meissen Manufactory, Horace Walpole commented tartly: ‘ . . . he had prepared nothing but bawbles against a prince (Frederick the Great) that lived in a camp with the frugality of a common soldier . . .'

Utz had chosen each item to reflect the moods and facets of the ‘Porcelain Century': the wit, the charm, the gallantry, the love of the exotic, the heartlessness and light-hearted gaiety — before they were swept away by revolution and the tramp of armies.

A
rranged along the longer set of shelves were .plates, vases, flagons and tureens. There were tea-caddies of polished redware by the ‘inventor' of porcelain, Johannes Böttger. There were Böttger tankards with silver-gilt mounts; teapots with ‘Watteau' scenes; teapots with eagle-headed spouts and teapots painted with goldfish, after Chinese and Japanese models.

Utz came up behind me, breathing heavily.

‘Beautiful, no?'

‘Beautiful,' I repeated.

He showed me an excellent example of ‘indianische Blumen', and a turquoise bowl painted by Horoldt, with a panel of Augustus enthroned as The Emperor of China.

He showed me the Meissen imitations of K'ang Hsi blue-and-white: the porcelain his hero Augustus had loved so passionately; for which he had emptied his treasury to the dealers of Paris and Amsterdam, causing his Minister of Industry, Graf von Tschirnhaus, to moan, ‘China is the bleeding-bowl of Saxony'.

Pride of place, however, was given to a Swan Service tureen: a Rococo fantasy on legs of intertwined fishes, the handles in the form of nereids, the lid heaped high with flowers, shells, swans and a bug-eyed dolphin – which, but for the bravura of its execution, would have been a monstrosity.

I gasped: knowing that the way to endear oneself to an art-collector is to rhapsodise his things.

‘Come,' he beckoned me across the room.

I picked my way around the pelican and the rhino and arrived at the second bank of shelves where, in rows of five and six, were assembled a multitude of eighteenth-century figurines, all dazzlingly clothed and coloured.

I saw the characters of the Commedia dell' Arte: Harlequin and Columbine, Brighella and Pantaloon, Scaramouche and Truffaldino; The Doctor with a corkscrew for a beard; The Captain, who, being Spanish, had a jet-black moustache.

Utz reminded me how the Italian players – the real ones! – had been masters of extempore who would decide what to play, and how to play it, a mere five minutes before the curtain rose.

He pointed to the Personification of the Continents: Africa in leopard skin, America in feathers, Asia in a pagoda hat – while a lascivious, broad-bottomed Europa sat astride a white horse.

Next came the ladies of the Court: ladies with frozen smiles and swaying crinolines; their wigs were powdered, their cheeks pocked with beauty spots, and there were black bows tied around their necks. One lady caressed a pug. One kissed a Polish nobleman. Another kissed a Saxon while Harlequin peeped up her skirt. Madame de Pompadour, in a lilac dress scattered with roses, sang the aria from Lully's ‘Acis and Galatea' which she had sung in real life, with the Prince de Rohan for a partner, in the Petit Théâtre de Versailles.

The lower orders were represented, each according to his or her occupation: the miner, the rope-maker, the woodcutter, the seamstress, the hairdresser and a fisherman, hopelessly drunk.

Shepherds trilled at their flutes. A Turk puffed a hookah. There were Tartars, Malabars, Circassians and Chinese sages with wispy beards and songbirds perched on their fingers. A party of freemasons scrutinised a globe. A pilgrim bore his staff and scallop-shell, and an endlessly grieving Mater Dolorosa sat next to a disconsolate nun.

‘Bravo!' I cried. ‘Unbelievable!'

‘Now look at these funny fellows!' Utz was stroking the cheek of a grotesque buffoon. ‘This one is Court Jester Fröhlich. That one is Postmaster Schmeidl.'

The two clowns used to perform at royal banquets, and keep everyone in stitches all night. Utz thought them as funny in porcelain as they were supposed to have been in real life. Schmeidl, he said, was terrified of mice.

This was why he chose to portray the Court Jester in the act of teasing his friend with a mouse-trap.

‘Kaendler', he sniggered, ‘was a witty man! A satirical man! He was always choosing persons to laugh at.'

I forced a nervous laugh.

‘Now, Sir, if you please, look at this one!'

The model in question showed the soprano, Faustina Bordone, singing in ecstasy while a fox sat playing a spinet. Faustina, he said, had been the ‘Callas of her day' and wife of the court composer, Hasse. She also had a lover called Fuchs.

‘Fuchs,' said Utz, ‘you must know in German means “fox”.'

‘I do know.'

‘That is very amusing? No?'

‘Very,' I laughed.

‘Good. We agree on that one.'

He let fly an unexpectedly loud cackle, and went on shaking with laughter until Marta returned with her canapés and, with another ‘Herr Baron!', silenced him.

The moment her back was turned he re-entered his world of little figures. His face lit up. He grinned, displaying a set of unhealthy pink gums, and showed me his monkey musicians.

‘Lovely ones, aren't they?'

‘Lovely,' I assented.

The monkeys wore ruffs and powdered wigs and, under the baton of a tyrannical conductor in a blue swallow-tailed coat, were fiddling and scraping, trumpeting, strumming and singing: in mockery of Count Brühl's private orchestra.

‘I', Utz boasted, ‘am the only private collector to possess the whole set.'

‘Good for you!' I said, encouragingly.

Finally, we passed from the monkeys to the rest of the menagerie where there were wagtails, partridges, a bittern, a pair of sparrow-hawks, parrots and parakeets, orioles and roller birds, and peacocks displaying their tail feathers.

I counted a camel, a chamois, an elephant, a crocodile and a Lipizzaner led by a negro. Count Brühl's favourite pug-dog sat curled on a rose-velvet cushion while, on the bottom shelf, like a large albino fish, lay the life-size horse's tail in white porcelain intended — or so Utz said – for an equestrian statue of Augustus to be erected at the Judenhof in Dresden.

He then removed one of his seven figures of Harlequin — the Harlequin his grandmother gave him as a boy — and, turning it upside down, pointed to the ‘cross-swords' mark of Meissen, and to an inventory label with a number and letters in code.

This was the label that earmarked the piece for the Museum.

‘But those persons', Utz whispered, ‘have made a mistake.'

O
ne morning in February of 1952, a rap on the door demanded entry for three unwelcome visitors. They were a curator from the Museum; a photographer and an acne-pitted lout who, as Utz guessed, was a member of the secret police.

For the next two weeks he was a helpless witness while this trio turned the apartment upside down, trampled slush into the carpet, and made an inventory of every object. The curator warned him not to tamper with the labels. If he did so, the collection would be forfeit.

Utz particularly loathed the photographer: a grim, fanatical young woman with an astigmatism, who had worked herself into a fever of indignation. In her view, he had no business keeping treasures that rightfully belonged to the People.

‘Really?' he answered. ‘By what right? The right of theft, I suppose?'

The policeman told him to hold his tongue – or it would be worse for him.

The photographer converted the room into a makeshift studio, fussing over her plate-camera as though it were a thing beyond price. When Utz accidentally brushed against the lens, she ordered him into the bedroom.

She may have been a competent photographer: but she was so short-sighted, and so clumsy when handling the porcelains that Utz had to sit on the edge of his bed, numbly waiting for the crash. He begged to be allowed to position each piece in front of the camera. He was told it was none of his business.

Finally, when the young woman dropped, and smashed the head off, a figure of Watteau's Gilles, he lost his temper.

‘Take it!' he snapped. ‘Take it for your horrible museum! I never want to see it again.'

The photographer shrugged. The policeman wobbled his jowls. The curator went into the bathroom and, returning with a length of lavatory paper, wrapped the head and the torso separately, and put them in his pocket.

‘This piece', he said, ‘will not appear in the inventory.'

‘Thank you,' said Utz. ‘Thank you for that!'

At last, when they had gone, he gazed miserably at his miniature family. He felt abused and assaulted. He felt like the man who, on returning from a journey, finds his house has been burgled. He summoned up a few vague thoughts of suicide. There wasn't much – was there? – to live for. But no! He wasn't the type. He would never work up the courage. But could he bring himself to leave the collection? Make a clean break? Begin a new life abroad? He still had money in Switzerland, thank God! Who could tell? In Paris or in New York, he might even begin to collect again.

He decided, if he could get out, to go.

D
uring the Gottwald years, the most reliable method of obtaining an exit visa was to apply for foreign travel on the grounds of ill-health. The procedure was to go to your usual physician, and ask him to diagnose an ailment.

‘Do you suffer from depression?' Dr Petrasels demanded.

‘Constantly,' said Utz. ‘I always have.'

‘Doubtless a malfunctioning of the liver,' said the doctor, who made no effort to examine him further. ‘I advise you to take the cure at Vichy.'

‘But surely . . . ?' Utz protested. Czechoslovakia was the land of spas. Surely they'd be suspicious? Surely there were waters for the liver at Marienbad? Or at Carlsbad?

‘Far from it,' the doctor assured him. The visa authorities knew all about the waters of Vichy. Vichy was the place for him.

‘If you say so,' said Utz, with misgivings.

The official in the visa department glanced at the medical report; mumbled the word ‘Vichy' in a disinterested tone, and went to consult the file. A week later, when he returned to the same office, Utz learned he had been given a month's stay abroad. He undertook not to spread malicious propaganda against the People's Republic. The porcelain collection would be considered surety for his good behaviour, and his safe return.

The man insinuated that they had ‘ways and means' of finding out where he went in Western Europe, and if he actually turned up at Vichy. Utz was astonished that no one bothered to ask how he would support himself in a foreign country. Was this, he wondered, a trap?

‘What can they expect of me?' he asked himself. ‘Subsist on air?'

O
n the eve of his departure, his tickets and passport in order, he took leave of the collection piece by piece. Marta was cooking in the kitchenette. He had ordered dinner for two.

She had spread a fresh damask cloth over the glass-topped table; and as he surveyed the sparkling Swan Service plates, the salt-cellar, the cutlery with chinoiserie handles – he came close to believing in his fantasy: that this was the ‘porcelain palace', and that he himself was Augustus reincarnate.

Marta, whom he had taught to make a soufflé, asked what time the guest would arrive. He stood up. He straightened his tie. Then, without a hint of condescension, he pressed her calloused hand to his lips.

‘This evening, my dear Marta, you are to be the guest.'

She coloured at the neck. She protested. She said she was unworthy, and in the end accepted with delight.

M
arta was the child of a village carpenter who lived near Kostelec in Southern Bohemia. His wife's early death, from tuberculosis, drove him to drink, and in a tavern brawl he almost killed a man. Ostracised, accused of the evil eye, he sent his two elder daughters to live with an aunt, and took the youngest along on his travels. He found work as a woodcutter on Utz's estate at Čéské Křížové. When he also died, crushed by a falling tree, the bailiff evicted the girl from their cottage.

She earned a few pennies doing chores for the baker or laundrywoman. Later, to avoid being sent to a workhouse, she went to live on a farm, where she slept on a straw-filled pallet and looked after a flock of geese.