He rose to his feet, tapped out his pipe on the trunk of a willow and they wandered back through the birch wood.
‘I just wanted you to be aware about this,’ he said, ‘about Jochen.’ He smiled at her. ‘He’s an intriguing man.’ His features were small beneath his wide pale brow, as if crushed and squashed slightly by its weight. There were bags under his eyes, she noticed; he looked tired.
‘You’re like a meteor,’ he said. ‘Suddenly you’re attracted by the earth and are drawn into its atmosphere. At this moment you become a shooting star, incandescent and beautiful. There are two options available: to be tied to the earth’s atmosphere and plummet, or to escape, moving back out into space’ – she was baffled at first, but then remembered he was quoting from his own book, something she had heard in his class – ‘where you slowly cool down and eventually extinguish. The point is you need not plummet,’ he said, carefully. ‘There are different laws in different atmospheres, freer movements, freer dynamics. It need not be rigid.’
‘Loose continuity,’ she said. ‘I remember.’
‘Precisely,’ he said, with a smile. ‘There’s a choice. Rigid continuity or loose.’ He tapped her arm lightly. ‘Do you know, I think I may be interested in buying your rug.’
Spencer tightens the final bolt and crosses the street to join us on the opposite sidewalk. Mr Koenig, Mrs Koenig, Spencer and me. It is almost midday, and the sun is almost insupportably bright. I put on my sunglasses and through their green glass I stare at the Koenig’s mini-diner.
Mr Koenig turns away and takes a few paces, his finger held under his nose as if he is about to sneeze. He comes back to us.
‘I love it, Miss Velk,’ he says after apologizing for the few private moments he has needed. ‘I just… It’s so… The way you’ve done those jutting-out bits. My God, it even looks like a sandwich – the roll, the meat… so clever, so new. How it curves like that, that style –’
‘– Streamline moderne, we call it.’
‘May I?’
He puts his hands on my shoulders and leans forward and up (I am a little taller) and he gives me a swift kiss on the cheek.
‘I don’t normally kiss architects –’
I try not to smile as I contemplate my personal refutation of everything the Institute stood for. ‘Oh, I’m not an architect,’ I say. ‘I’m just a designer. It was a challenge.’
Gudrun never really knew what happened as the stories changed so often in the telling, and there were lies and half lies all the time. The truth made both guilty parties more guilty and they thought to absolve themselves by pleading spontaneity, and helpless instinct, but they had no time to compare notes and the discrepancies hinted at quite another version of reality.
Gudrun climbed the last block from the station and quietly opened the door of the apartment on Grenz Weg. It must have been a little before eight o’clock in the morning. She took a few steps into the hall when she heard a sound in the kitchen. She pushed open the door and Jochen stood there, naked, with two cups of steaming coffee in his hands.
His look of awful incomprehension changing to awful comprehension lasted no more than a second. He smiled, set down the cups said, ‘Gudrun –’ and was interrupted by Utta’s call from her bedroom. ‘Jochen, where’s that coffee, for heaven’s sake?’
Gudrun picked up a coffee cup and walked into Utta’s room. She wanted Utta to see, there was to be no evasion of responsibility. Utta was sitting up in her bed, pillows plumped behind her, the sheet to her waist. Jochen’s clothes were piled untidily on a wooden chair. She made a kind of sick, choking noise when Gudrun came in. For a moment Gudrun thought of throwing the hot coffee at her, but at that stage she knew there were only seconds before she herself was going to break, so, after a moment of standing there to make Utta see, to make her know, she dropped the cup on the floor and left the apartment.
Two days later Jochen asked Gudrun to marry him. He said he had gone to the apartment on Saturday night (his wife was away) thinking that was the day Gudrun was returning from Sorau. Why would he think that? she asked, they had talked about a Sunday reunion so many times. Once in his stream of protestations he had inadvertently referred to a note – ‘I mean, what would you think? a note like that’ – and then, when questioned – ‘What note? Who sent you a note?’ – said he was becoming confused – no, there was no note, he had meant to say she should have sent him a note from Sorau, not relied on him to remember, how could he remember everything, for God’s sweet sake?
Utta. Utta had written to him, Gudrun surmised, perhaps in her name, the better to lure him: ‘Darling Jochen, I’m coming home a day early, meet me at the apartment on Saturday night. Your own Gudrun…’ It would work easily. Utta there, surprised to see him. Come in, sit down, now you’re here, come all this way. Something to drink, some wine, some schnapps, maybe? And Jochen’s vanity, Jochen’s opportunity and Jochen’s weakness would do the rest. Now, darling Jochen, this question of Marianne Brandt’s resignation…
In weary moments, though, other possibilities presented themselves to her. Older duplicities, histories and motives she could never have known about and wouldn’t want to contemplate. Her own theory was easier to live with.
Utta wrote her a letter: ‘… no idea how it happened… some madness that can infect us all… an act of no meaning, of momentary release.’ Gudrun was sad to lose Utta as a friend, but not so sad to turn down Jochen’s proposal of marriage.
I say goodbye to Spencer as he sits in the cab of his crane looking down at me. ‘See you tomorrow, Gudrun,’ he says with a smile, to my vague surprise, until I remember I had asked him to call me Gudrun. He drives away and I rejoin Mr Koenig.
‘I got one question,’ he says. ‘I mean, I love the lettering, don’t get me wrong – “sandwiches, salads, hot dogs” – but why no capital letters?’
‘Well,’ I say, without thinking, ‘why write with capitals when we don’t speak with capitals?’
Mr Koenig frowns. ‘What?… yeah, it’s a fair point. Never thought of it that way… Yeah.’
My mind begins to wander again, as Mr Koenig starts to put a proposition to me. Who said that about typography? Was it Albers? Paul?… No, Moholy Nagy, László in his red overalls with his lumpy boxer’s face and his intellectual’s spectacles. He is in Chicago, now. We’ve all gone, I think to myself, all scattered.
Mr Koenig is telling me that there are fifteen Koenig mini-diners in the Los Angeles area and he would like, he hopes, he wonders if it would be possible for me to redesign them – all of them – in this streamlined, modern streamline sort of style.
All scattered. Freer. Freer movements, freer dynamics. I remember, and smile to myself. I had never imagined a future designing hot-dog stands in a city on the West Coast of America. It is a kind of continuity, I suppose. We need not plummet. Paul would approve of me and what I have done, I think, as a vindication of his principle.
I hear myself accepting Mr Koenig’s offer and allow him to kiss me on the cheek once more – but my mind is off once again, a continent and an ocean away in drab and misty Dessau. Gudrun Velk is trudging up the gentle slope of Grillparzerstrasse, her suitcase heavy in her hand, taking the shortcut from the station, heading back to the small apartment on Grenz Weg which she shares with her friend Utta Benrath and hoping, wondering, now that she has managed to catch an early train from Sorau, if Jochen would have some time to see her alone that afternoon.
Incandescence
ALEXANDER TOBIAS. The burning lake. That’s what comes to me first about that weekend – the image of the sun on the lake, blinding me. The lake seemed on fire, as if it was burning with a low, sulphurous heat. It was a hot lemon colour – the water, I mean – and wraiths of steam were weaving from the surface. I stopped the car – it was that arresting – and stepped out to check that I wasn’t hallucinating. I know now that it was a trick of the weather: a cold, overcast day suddenly turned hot and cloudless by some passing front – and then the angle of the su
n on the water and my arriving at that bend in the drive at that precise moment – but for a moment or two the serene landscaped park at Marchmont suddenly seemed apocalyptic. I should have recognized it then for what it was: an omen.
LADY MARCHMONT. Yes, I invited Alex Tobias down for the weekend. I bumped into him in London, in the food hall at Harrods, of all places. I hadn’t seen him for three or four years but of course I knew him very well. He was always down at Marchmont when he and Anna were, well, not so much engaged, but very close. He was very much in love with Anna, I always knew that. I saw him, went up to him and we got talking. He told me he’d been in the Far East – Japan or Hong Kong or some such place. He’d done very well – pots of money – but I felt sorry for him, suddenly. I can’t explain why. I sensed a kind of sadness in him and so I said why don’t you come down to Marchmont for the weekend, it’ll be lovely to see you again – everyone would love to see you again. I told Anna and Rory and they didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact Rory was very pleased, I remember. There was no animosity or jealousy – not a shred, not a whit. Everyone seemed delighted at the idea Alex would be coming. I was always very fond of Alex.
ALEXANDER TOBIAS. I motored on through the park towards the house, memories crowding in on me. How many times had I come up this drive? Through the south gates, past the lodge, the lake, the deer park with its huge dying oaks and then that turn around the stand of beech trees and there the house lies before you. I was a bit shocked, I confess, when I saw the scaffolding on the west wing. You can tell when scaffolding has been up for ever: it ages, like everything else. The place looked neglected, ramshackle. It had been four years since I had seen it and I couldn’t believe how short a time it took for a grand ancient house to degenerate and decline into something forlorn and moribund. I parked and had a quick wander around. Nobody was working on the wing – nobody had been working there for weeks – there was a bucket on a rope filled with solid cement. The gravelled turning circle was badged with weeds. Buddleia was growing in the gutters. It was nothing like the old Marchmont.
ANNA MONTROSE. When Mamma told me she’d asked Alex down I felt genuinely happy: I so wanted to see him again. It was only later that I wondered if it was such a good idea. But Rory put me at ease. Don’t be silly, he said, what’s he going to do: kidnap you? Steal you away? I like meeting my wife’s old boyfriends, anyway – they can tell they can’t match the competition. Rory can make you laugh at anything. If you were on the deck of the Titanic as it was sliding beneath the waves he’d make you laugh. That’s why I married him, I suppose. That’s why I love him… As soon as Rory said it was fine I relaxed. And I began to look forward to seeing Alex again. In fact we were all looking forward to that weekend.
PENELOPE MARCHMONT. I was really looking forward to seeing Alex again. I remembered him from when I was about ten or eleven. He was part of the family: always there with Anna, always around. It was just after my fifteenth birthday when he and Anna split up. In fact it was the day after, that’s why I remember it so well. I cried and cried, and to tell the truth I still don’t understand why they broke up. One of those silly things that escalates, gets out of control and explodes – like a car bomb, wounding everyone. Anna didn’t want to go to Hong Kong, or something. And so they had a fight and Alex went and he never came back. Then Anna met Rory and a year later she was Mrs Montrose. Richard says Alex has made a fortune on the Hong Kong stock exchange. He’s very clever, Alex: I always knew he’d make a pile.
LADY MARCHMONT. We put Alex in the Rose Room. He always used to have the Blue, but I thought it would have been tactless to put him in his and Anna’s old room. Also it’s just under Rory and Anna’s apartment. So: not a good idea. Alex was on good form, just like his old self. He had ever such a smart motor car. Richard would know what type it was – I’m hopeless with cars.
ALEXANDER TOBIAS. Lady M. put me in the Rose Room to ‘spare my feelings’. She needn’t have worried as I felt quite relaxed. I really wanted to see Anna again for all the usual reasons but also because I wanted her to see how I’d changed. It’s funny: sometimes you only start to grow up in your late twenties. I’m a late-maturer. I was perfectly calm, I’d talked to myself. Anna was an old friend, pure and simple. She was a married woman. What was past was past. No lasting regrets. I felt absolutely confident I would be able to see her again, calmly, maturely, openly.
ANNA MONTROSE. He looked so much older. His haircut was different, combed off his forehead. That was my first thought: you’ve changed the way you comb your hair. In fact it was very slightly greying at the temples. He was, what, thirty-one? When I kissed him on the cheeks I rested my hands on his shoulders and I felt the material of his jacket. It must have been cashmere, I suppose. Some incredibly rare super-cashmere: I’ve never felt anything so soft. It just seemed to whisper: moneyyyyyy – Then I saw his car. This boy has clearly done well, I thought. He was very sweet but I could see he was nervous. He thought he was covering it up being all polished and debonair. But remember I knew him so incredibly well. I know him so well. Funnily enough, I think I know Alex better than I know Rory. I suppose I shouldn’t say such a thing, but Alex was, in the years we were together, always completely transparent to me. I always knew what he was thinking.
LADY MARCHMONT. It was as if they had seen each other last week. I thought it was marvellous, marvellous. I felt so good seeing how relaxed they instantly were with each other. I thought: now, we’re going to have fun, a wonderful weekend.
ALEXANDER TOBIAS. And then she came in. When she came in, for a second I thought I might vomit. She was just as beautiful. More beautiful, perhaps, because she looked so natural and ungroomed. Jeans, a v-neck sweater: I can’t recall. Her hair was longer, I think. I had forgotten how clear her eyes were: the absolute trusting candour of her gaze. When she kissed me I thought I would pass out. Because I smelt her – that lavender trace of perfume, the shampoo smell of her hair. The touch of her hands on my shoulders was an almost physical pain. It overwhelmed me. All my planned polite reserve, all my prized composure and maturity gone. I wanted to get in my car and drive back to London. It was quite simple, really. When I saw Anna again I knew I loved her still. That I had never stopped loving her and that I would never stop loving her. And suddenly I felt a kind of grief for my life. It’s a terrible thing, this, when you know your life has gone irrevocably wrong, and that, every day, until the day you die, you will be confronted with the idea of an alternative life that you could have, should have lived. There were moments, that weekend, when I felt suicidal. I felt that I should end my life now rather than live on with the torment of what-might-have-been.
RICHARD MARCHMONT. We’d all gone out to a pub for lunch, that’s right: Penny, Rory, me and Lucy, Rory’s friend. That’s right: we met her off the train at Tunbridge Wells and then went to a pub. She’s South African, Lucy, and she said she wanted a proper English pub lunch. You know, pork pies, bangers and mustard, ploughman’s lunch, a pint of Old Ruddles genuine cask-stewed premium bitter sort of thing. And we found this pub – can’t remember where – and I had too much to drink, as per. I think I was quite pissed when we got back to Marchmont. And Alex was there already. I saw this fucking amazing Merc parked outside. Penny screamed: it’s Alex! And raced inside. Rory said he had to check something with Peter so Lucy and I wandered in and there was old Alex. Smooth bastard, tanned. And I realized I’d never really liked Alex, hadn’t missed him at all. But I went up and hugged him. I was definitely pissed.
LUCY DE VRIES. They said this Alex Tobias had been an old boyfriend of Anna’s. Very nice, I thought. Tasty. But after a bit I thought: another young English guy with a stick up his arse. He couldn’t take his eyes off Anna.
PENELOPE MARCHMONT. He hadn’t changed at all. So sweet, so nice looking. I like Rory but I could never understand how or why Anna had let Alex go, why she didn’t fight more. Alex didn’t seem to know me at first. You know that slightly panicky look in someone’s eyes when they’ve forgotten your name. O
f course I’d only been fifteen when he left. I wasn’t even in a training bra. I said: Alex, bloody hell, it’s me, Penny. And he laughed – with relief. And he said all the usual lovely Alex things – how I’d changed, how incredibly, amazingly beautiful I was, how I suited my hair like that, couldn’t believe it. Then Rory came in and it was amazing – like a shock, like an earth tremor. Something happened in the room for a second. And then it was over.
RICHARD MARCHMONT. I distinctly heard Alex say, to himself, when Rory came in – ‘Frank?’. I was right beside him. Then Anna went over and said, ‘Alex, this is Rory,’ and they smiled at each other and shook hands and we got some champagne out. But he definitely said ‘Frank’. I wasn’t that drunk.
ANNA MONTROSE. When I introduced them I could tell Alex was in a strange and terrible state – but he was charming.
LADY MARCHMONT. What did we talk about? We talked about the house, and Rory’s plans for the lake – the fishing. It was lovely: lots of young people. I was so happy I pinched one of Penny’s cigarettes.
ALEXANDER TOBIAS. I saw Frank Montrose come in. And my first thought was: good lord, what’s that scumbag doing here? And then – you know how your brain works like the fastest computer – within a millisecond, before Anna had even taken a step towards him I knew this was ‘Rory’. And the thunder of simultaneous calculations going on in my brain seemed to deafen me. I shook his hand, smiled, chit-chatted, but inside I was thinking: what could have made my Anna marry that sad bastard. This man is a serious drug-user, a liar and a sponger and this family is in deep, impending trouble. And so on. But it was the sudden humiliation I was feeling, and the retrospective anger. I was the one who had left Anna, I know, it was my stupid fault: but if I had ever for one second imagined she would have married someone like Frank Montrose on the rebound from me I would have sacrificed everything and anything to save her. And yet another side of my brain was saying: go very carefully. Call him ‘Rory’, whatever you do – don’t let anything slip. Keep your counsel until you’ve figured out exactly what’s going on.