'Elegant and original... beautifully crafted, without a word out of place or a sentence too many.' - Time Out
Part One
IT IS A RITUAL. The whole thing. I do not see anything bad in that. These are casual affairs but they are also inherently formal. The ritual is the cornerstone of that formality.
I get out of bed, at about nine, and dress. I make myself a coffee - always espresso and preferably Splendid which I have an Italian friend post to me each month. I go to the newsagent and buy a newspaper which I scan for any articles of interest and read the television pages even though I do not have a set. I smoke a couple of cigarettes - Camel, always - and then I will make another cup of coffee. The second coffee of the day kicks my mind into gear and I am ready. So I take my menu notebook - it is the red one - and my fountain pen from the kitchen bookshelf.
I plan the menu very carefully indeed, confident that I will find what I need. If I have to cross the city I will obtain the most esoteric of ingredients. The red notebook is for me to jot down my ideas for the meal and is filled with scrawl and crossings out.
I usually plan the main course first. There is less temptation to complicate things, so it is easier. But when I feel like doing something special, like tonight, when I want to make an effort, I decide on a starter first. From there I select themes, leitmotifs, allow the meal to develop at its own pace, organically, perhaps, or like music, like a symphony of colours, smells, shapes and tastes, textures, sounds.
There is nothing wrong with using tinned food on occasions like this. So for a starter I decided to buy some stuffed vine leaves. These I will serve on a platter with some sharp tasting feta cheese, some B calamata olives, ripe beefsteak tomatoes and freshly baked baguettes. The calamata olives will echo the sweet Spanish green olives, pitted but not stuffed, which I will serve with extra-dry Martinis as an aperitif. And for the main course I will wrap jackets of vine leaves around fresh river trout, bake the fish in a sauce of wine and herbs and serve with baby sweetcorn and broccoli and a butter sauce. But the theme is not simply olives or vine leaves: it is ambiguity, duality, polarity. Just as the stuffed vine leaves combine the piquant taste of the vines and the delicate bland taste of the rice and onion, so too the sweet, innocuous trout flesh will be offset by the Bly seasoned sauce; an assault on the sense of the best possible type.
And it is a statement, too. My guests tonight are artists and poets, philosophers and critics. I must impress on them my own understanding of the flavour of life itself, its contradictions, its bitter-sweetness, its ecstatic melancholy. My desperately dry Martinis, made after the model of Bunhuel whose recipe still brings me to tears, will jerk my guests into an awareness of their surroundings which will be like a marinade for the evening. And that starter, with its profound intricacies, will demand the attention of their senses, focusing their minds on the meal, giving me the initiative, giving me the power. And when, with my kitchen scissors, I snip open those vine leaf jackets and their anticipation reaches its climax, then I will have them at my feet, cast there by the very force of my imagination and daring.
For dessert, again, something simple yet spectacular. Something to catch them out when they imagine that they have endured the final flames of my desire: chunks of fresh pineapple, ripe nectarines, oranges, lemons, mangoes, cherries, strawberries: I will soak these in Cointreau for several hours and, upon serving, will quickly - before they have a chance to understand my actions - douse them with rum and flambé them at the table. As a kindness to my friends they may take cream. And cheeses and port and coffee. And a spirit of my choice.
Then the evening will be theirs.
WHEN I have planned the menu I write out a list of all the things I will need, ticking off what I already have. I write the list out twice. Once in my green recipe book and once on a sheet of paper which I will take with me to the shops and Naschmarkt. One bottle dry Martini, one bottle Gordon's, a quarter of pitted olives (Spanish), two tins stuffed vine leaves, half a kilo of feta, two beefsteak tomatoes, a quarter of calamata, six baguettes, a lettuce, herbs for the dressing, four river trout, vine leaves, a bottle of dry white wine, garlic, herbs, unsalted butter, cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn, broccoli... This list covers two pages and finishes: two bottles of tequila, lemons, one carton Camel.
Choosing wine to go with the meal is easy. I drink so much of the Tollo Montepulciano d'Abruzzo that some friends call it the "house" wine. It is a full-bodied Italian red and quite spicy. That the main course is fish does not bother me because it is all part of the statement that I wish to make. Should I buy some other drinks? I decided not to this time because I intended to govern the course of the evening. To a point, at least. I intended to enthuse about each of my choices, so disarming my guests of any they might prefer to make. There was, in any case, whisky and vodka in the cupboard besides the rum, Cointreau, Martini, gin, tequila, port and wine I planned to use.
Once my list is complete, the menu is set. The list becomes an immutable dictate, one to which I subject myself as I shop with an iron discipline. I know that were I to digress from it in any way, were I to act upon any spurious impulse, the meal which I have created mentally in those few perfect moments after that second cup of coffee would cease to be mine. Would belong, somehow, to the city, to the streets, to the shops I enter and the people I meet. This control I have learnt as a result of too many failures and tonight, this night, must be perfect. The perfect ritual to accompany the flawless formal event.
OFTEN on Saturday, if I do not have guests coming in the evening, I will sit by the window overlooking the street and watch the shoppers go by, perhaps listening to some music or drinking some beers. They look so sad, as they fulfil their weekly duties, exploited as consumers just as they are exploited as workers the rest of the week. I try to shop early, usually, to find the best, freshest food and before the market becomes very busy. It closes, anyway, at one as do all the shops here. Then only the flea market is open and sometimes I join my friends there in the afternoon, looking for bargains or spare parts for machines which have broken down, dodging the tramps and the drug addicts who come there to buy or sell.
First I went to the market to buy what I could. It is large and well-stocked, though busy, and they had nearly everything I needed. I met some people I knew there and we went for a beer together. I had to go to the fishmonger to get the trout. It is the only fish shop I know of where the owner will not sell farmed fish. Of course it is more expensive. Nearly three times as much. But I think it is worth it. The calamata I decided to buy from the Cypriot shop on the corner of my street, by the underground station, because I know the owner well and like to do business with him. The fruit I bought from the greengrocer's next to that because it is of a better quality than one finds in the market. The supermarket had the tequila and I asked them to deliver the wine. I ordered two cases for good measure. It would save them work and they give me a discount.
My guests will bring wine tonight, but I shall take it at the door and put it in the cupboard in the hallway. To take with me to other parties. Other meals.
WHEN I have shopped, when I am home again, I take out my day book. This is a display file and I have over fifty of them, all full, already. In them I keep sheets of paper giving the exact recipe for each dish of the meal and the precise sequence for my preparations. The clear plastic protects the papers from accidental spills as I work so I can use the recipes, if they are good ones, again some time. My Italian friend, who posts me coffee, is proud of his collection of stained cookery books, but he does not need to read the recipes as I do. The file entry for today is quite simple. It should be a relaxing afternoon and early evening to prepare this meal. Sometimes it is not.
I do not write everything in the file. When, for example, I write "Clean fish" at the beginning, I am writing this for my own information. I do not need to explain to myself the specific procedures which I follow when cleaning fish. I firstly sharpen my fish knife - a gift from one of my guests tonight - and begin to gut the fish. I draw the blade from the anus to the gills, the length of the gut, and pull out the intestines which I throw away. I slice across the underside of the fish, below the gills, to make sure I remove all of the intestines and blood. Then I take my kitchen scissors and snip off the fins and gills. And finally I use a blunt knife to scrape away the scales from the skins. I pat the fish dry and put it in the fridge.
You can tell if a pineapple is ripe by tugging gently at the leaves in the centre at the top. If they come away easily then the pineapple is ripe. I cut it into thick rings, removed the core and sliced away the peel before chopping it into large, uneven chunks. The lemons and oranges I peeled with a knife before chopping roughly. Same with the nectarines and mango fruits. The cherries I used whole, and the raspberries. The strawberries I simply halved. On a shallow dish I spread the fruit in a single layer, poured over an eighth of a litre of Cointreau and placed the lot in the refrigerator. Done simply, done well.
One of the first things I learnt as a child from my father was the preparation of a salad dressing. He would sit, alone, in his study whilst my mother and my little sister cooked in the kitchen, I watching everything with detached fascination, trying to unravel the secrets of what they were doing. And when the meal was nearly ready my mother would send me to fetch father to make the dressing. His speciality. Every time, I think, it was slightly different. Sometimes he would soak tarragon in white wine vinegar and use this as the base. On other occasions he would use whole-grain mustard and a little thyme. On others he would use only olive oil and vinegar, salt and a little black pepper.
To dress stuffed vine leaves it is essential to get the balance of the acidity correct. It is particularly important not to use too much vinegar, though a little too much lemon juice does not matter. In a bowl I mixed nine tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil with two tablespoons of white wine vinegar and the juice of one lemon. I added a little salt and pepper but no herbs yet.
Then I mixed together, in equal proportions, dried basil, dried thyme and dried oregano. This was for the fish. And I sliced four cloves of garlic and selected four large bay leaves. These I set aside for a while. It was early yet, only five, so it was time to bathe and shave and dress.
MY guests tonight were very close friends of mine. My best friends, I suppose they would be called. They were people I wished to impress, to cater for properly. I wanted them to notice that I too had a creative, artistic talent for which they could admire and respect me. I wanted them to know that they had no monopoly on poetry, philosophy, taste.
Cruise - not his real name, of course - comes from Yugoslavia. I call him Cruise, here, because this is the name which Leppard uses for him. Leppard - also not a real name - is from London. He first came to Vienna many years ago and settled here soon after. His German, like that of Cruise, is terrible and to earn his money as an arts critic he has to employ someone to translate his articles. He says that, anyway, he would rather pay the translator than the tax office and it is a question of one or the other. He is a novelist as well, but has never been published. In his latest novel, which I have read, there are three central characters: Cruise, Leppard and Axel. All three are my guests tonight.
Axel is from Denmark. His German is fluent, with just a trace of an accent. In Leppard's novel Axel is an aristocratic German whose art is life itself but who is always getting into trouble. This says a good deal about Leppard's perception of his friends because, although he is from a wealthy background, Axel is hard working, down to earth and seldom in any trouble. In the novel Leppard is an account handler for an advertising company in London. This does not reflect any desire on the real Leppard's part. Rather it is his acknowledgement that as a critic and an aspiring novelist, much of his energy is expended on "keeping his clients sweet". He hates it. Cruise, too, is mythologised. In reality he is a brilliant poet, a talented philosopher, a good friend to his friends. In the novel he becomes a black "speed-freak" from Amsterdam whose philosophy is derived from the streets, who can never hold down a job, who "cruises" through life. It could not be further from the truth. Leppard's novel is not very good because, I suspect, he is too close to his characters, or at least to the people upon whom the characters are based. Yet for all that there is insight enough for me to feel comfortable thinking of them now by the names Leppard has given them. There are certain truths in his representation which are important to me and which meant that I enjoyed his novel, good or bad.
I try to take a bath if I have people coming to supper. The hour I spend washing myself is another part of the ritual. It ensures that my passions do not flow too quickly, gives me time to reflect upon the progress of the preparations thus far. There is a Chinese saying to the effect that he who can tell how an oak tree unfolds from an acorn can predict the course of the future. I examine my acorns, follow through the numerous conceivable unfoldings which are to take place during the evening. Tonight is to be special. It must be mapped out in meticulous detail. I can only provide parameters for the action of the story, but they must be considered well. I wish, perhaps, to challenge their conceit tonight and to do this a certain stature is required.
CRUISE came to Vienna because of politics and he lives here still for them. In Yugoslavia, when he was younger, there was little scope for a philosopher of his calibre to speak his mind. His socialist beliefs were, perhaps, a little too ideologically pure for his less committed compatriots. He travelled firstly: to Turkey where he was caught up in the communist underground; to Italy where he was an activist and had friends in the Italian Red Army Faction - he was arrested there twice, though never convicted; and to Holland where he lived with anarchist squatters, helping to run a community centre in the city. In many ways I think he is here to rest, or even retire. He is still active, but with his work in the restaurant near here he has little time and he is, after all, older than any of us. He does not write so much now. One poem a year or so, he told me recently. And occasionally he contributes to magazines here and abroad. He takes an innocent pleasure in seeing his name in print and walks around with the publication in which it has appeared, showing it to everyone he meets. "This is me." But he lives here illegally and the strain of that is all too apparent. I bought him a false passport for 40,000 schillings which helps, but not enough. He lives now for his friendships and has mellowed slightly with age. Or perhaps he is coming to the knowledge that an abstract love for humanity cannot replace a real love of people. I have asked him that before and he has never answered but I think it may be true. I envy him his experience of life, I who have lived in this city, in this apartment by the Naschmarkt, all of my life. I have only travelled twice, to Prague and Venice, and have ski'd in the Alps a few times. But that was with my family. I have not left the city for ten years now. And I have not worked for twelve. There is money enough. I see no point in working for the sake of it and I prefer to cook, to entertain.
Cruise never talks much about his politics with me. I think he suspects that I have little sympathy for his type of socialism. I thought that Kreisky was a great man in many respects, though I would go no further than that. Indeed, I think Cruise suspects me of many things which are anathema to him. Leppard is on another plane when it comes to politics. He is a romantic anarchist on the lines of Shelley. He believes all government and authority to be wrong and tells us that love is the true revolution - though he is no hippy. Needless to say, I do not agree. But his views are at least entertaining where Cruise's are clinical and morose. I do find politics interesting, however, and I admire the way these three, with their so different beliefs, remain friends. Axel's views are closest to my own. Sometimes we see each other without the other two and stay up late into the night talking about the disintegration of values, the need for B moral authority and governments free from corruption. At the same time, were I to say anything against the views held by Leppard or Cruise, Axel would take it to be a personal insult. Such is their loyalty.
WHEN I was shaving the telephone rang. I did not answer it but Leppard left a message which I could hear from the bathroom. They would be coming early. At seven-thirty instead of eight. They wanted to go dancing at midnight. I do not deny that I was annoyed, though I should not have been. Perhaps I was more annoyed with myself for not anticipating this possibility - it has happened before. I suppose I felt that this evening was so important to me that they would not dream of upsetting my plans in so simple a way. But every time I invite them to dinner it is important to me in the way that it is tonight. This evening is nothing special, there will be other evenings like it again and again. There have been many before.
Not to worry. I still had sufficient time for my preparations and, perhaps, the promise of endless drink would keep them here. My naivety depresses me at times. It was just after six so I quickly dried my hair and returned to the kitchen. I sliced the beefsteak tomatoes, chopped the feta into neat cubes, arranged the stuffed vine leaves, tomato, cheese and calamata on a bed of lettuce on a platter. I sprinkled some dried oregano and some fresh basil over this and poured on half of the dressing. The rest I would use another time. I put the platter in the fridge and took out the four trout. These I seasoned inside and out with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and the mix of herbs which I had previously prepared. Inside each fish, in the stomach cavity, I placed one bay leaf and a few slices of garlic. I put the fish into a dish and sprinkled it with a little lemon juice. Then I put it back into the fridge to soak up the marinade for a while. After this I broke up the broccoli and put it in a pan of slightly salted cold water. I sliced up some of the cherry tomatoes I had bought and, the bulk of the preparation done, opened four bottles of wine and poured myself a glass.
Now it was time to prepare the vine leaves with which I would wrap the fish. This I did, simply, by pouring boiling water over them and allowing them to stand for twenty minutes. This makes them tender, though I do not intend that my guests should eat them. Rather their purpose is to add flavour to the trout flesh and also, when peeled from the fish, they will bring away the skin which has a pleasing cosmetic effect, I feel. I set the table with place mats, cutlery, side plates, napkins and glasses. No extra seasonings, however. Half of the unsalted butter I curled into attractive knobs and put into a butter dish. This will not be a very healthy meal, I am afraid. When the vine leaves were ready I took out the trout and wrapped each one in an overcoat of three leaves. Then I drizzled a little olive oil onto the baking dish, sprinkled on some more herbs and seasonings, put down a layer of baby sweetcorn over this, placed the trout upon the sweetcorn and seasoned again. And I placed a layer of tomato slices over the trout in vine leaves to keep the overcoat moist on top. Finally I poured half a bottle of Muscadet into the dish and the doorbell rang.
"CRUISE, welcome, are you alone?"
"The others will come together."
He had not brought any wine with him. I was made cautious by this and the fact that he had come first, alone. It meant I would have to wait for the others before serving the Martinis. I wanted to tell them of Buñuel's recipe at the same time. But I could not leave him without a drink.
"We owe you lots of meals now."
"Not to worry, Cruise, you know I enjoy your visits."
We walked through to the dining room and, just as Cruise sat down and I was about to offer him something, the doorbell rang again. I would be able to tell my story.
"Have you heard of Buñuel's recipe for a dry Martini?"
Cruise smiled and nodded. I motioned to him to tell it himself, but he insisted that I complete my anecdote.
"You take a Martini glass, like this." I held a glass up in the air. "How is it? You pour in two fingers of gin." I did so. "And you take a bottle of Vermouth. Noilly Prat is suggested by Buñuel. You hold the bottle up so that a shaft of light passes through the bottle and shines onto the glass of gin for just a few instants, add ice and an olive and..."
Leppard and Axel started to laugh and immediately followed suit, pouring gin into their glasses, holding the Martini bottle up to the light and sipping the surrealist cocktail of gin and more gin. Cruise poured himself a glass of Martini, held the gin bottle to the light for a moment and drank the drink down straight with ice but no olive. Leppard and Axel laughed again and so did I. My opening scene had gone well.
LEPPARD'S character in his novel is that of a predatory male who is apparently of an infinite capacity to convince attractive women of his integrity and sincerity. The lesson, that a leopard cannot change its spots, is learnt the hard way by a succession of women until he meets Marie. Marie learns the truth: Leppard's first and only love deserted him and that predatory "instinct" is actually the desperate search of a vulnerable and sensitive man for someone to take away the pain. By learning this and showing Leppard that she appreciates his sensitivity and vulnerability, Marie becomes Leppard's second true love. The scene is set for a happy ending until we learn that Marie's best friend killed herself after being left by Leppard and Marie was out for revenge. Having gained his trust she leaves him. To all appearances he is a broken man and spends much time drunk. Then, one day his friend Cruise tells him: "You gotta cruise, man," and he does. The story ends with the three heroes leaving London in search of other hunting grounds "where the girls are prettier and the pubs open late".
Leppard does write out of desire, wish fulfilment in this respect. He has never really loved anyone and never will. But he feels that he should. Unwilling to act out that role in real life, he consigns it to paper. It makes for artificial contradictions between the man and his writing which are utterly see-though. Yet that in itself provides other, deeper contradictions which are fascinating where the artificial ones are not.
After two or three Martinis I invited my guests to sit at the table - we had been standing, strangely. I served them the starter. As I was putting the platter of stuffed vine leaves and cheese and calamata and tomatoes on the table, I realised that I had not cut the bread. So I went back to the kitchen to get it ready. I waited in the kitchen for a few moments, quietly listening to the voices of the others. I think I felt a little worried, as if something were not quite right, but I put it down to nerves. I do not believe in destiny.
They are all intimidated by formality. In some way at least. And they all react to it completely differently. I generally feel threatened, rather, by Cruise when I am with him, because I suppose that I feel him looking right inside me or chewing me over like a cow with its cud. But the moment I present him with something which he perceives to be of a very high quality, he falls silent. Often, on birthdays or at Christmas or New Year I have opened a bottle of good champagne to share with my friends and he has not said one word until the last drops from the bottle were drunk. I chose the starter tonight partly because it has a Balkan flavour to it, I think. But still, from the moment it was served to the last mouthful of the main course, he was virtually silent. Of course it could be that he simply wishes to appreciate the food with which he is served. To appreciate sensual things fully, one has to be very quiet and Cruise is the sort of person who would realise that. He withdraws into a private universe, one which meets the common world at a tangent, and allows events and lives to pass him by. As well as this, though, it is true that he is unused to the dictates of others and resents them. He is by nature a leader. I have been to parties and meals at his place and he talks constantly from the moment his guests arrive. He can be quite the finest raconteur when it suits him, though this is still strange to me having seen him and his silence so often. It is the formality which does this. The conscious existence of self in an alien, rigorously structured environment. He is the only one of the three who does realise that the situation is a formal one. The subtitle of his doctorate was, after all, "On The Poem as an Aesthetic Object". It is not surprising that Cruise, of all people, should have some insight into form and its relationship to content.
Leppard is unused to form. Or, at least, he is used to form when it is something he can observe, something he can relate to as a spectator, commenting upon it, remaining at all times a few steps removed from it. Interestingly, his reviews and essays deal with form frequently. Intellectually, academically, he has a good understanding of the way in which form should - or can - match content. But that objective view upon which he prides himself is never applied to his own surroundings with the same stringency. He never acknowledges, in his criticisms, that the spectator or the reader is a party to the form of the art, a party to the formality of reading or watching. So, for him, a social gathering, something in which he, the critic, participates, is a formless, fluid thing. Where anything can happen. When we go out, the four of us, he is usually the one who decides where we should go next, what we should do. Now to Tunnel in the eighth, now Europe in the seventh or to a disco in the "Bermuda Triangle", the tourist trap in the centre of the city where there are always girls and free drinks. Leppard is an unwitting dictator. He fails to notice that, when a dinner guest, the initiative is no longer his own. Still he attempts to control the course of the conversation or the speed at which events - events I am now staging - will take place. The rest of us had started our meal, but he had just lit another cigarette and we felt uncomfortable, eating in the presence of this observer. He is a master of his trade.
Axel, though, is the perfect dinner guest. He responds to questions, initiates conversation with practised ease. He does have a certain aristocratic quality in this respect. He knows what to say and when. He never compliments me on my cooking. He knows that to do so would be to suggest that it might conceivably be anything less than the best for my guests. Leppard, with his lower-class background, praises every mouthful loudly and without feeling. Cruise says: When it is late and we are in a bar or restaurant, his aristocratic sense of proper behaviour gives way "Thank you, my friend, may your hands be blessed." As if I have done his stomach a favour rather than his taste buds - and taste - an honour. Axel, too, is intimidated in his own way. This shows in his behaviour when he is drunk. to an aristocratic desire for debauchery and amusement. He understands form and appears comfortable with it. But he needs to escape it often. I do not like to see him at these times. He is not himself.
THE starter worked. Although, actually, insubstantial, my guests felt quite full at the end of it, they said. In any case, I only switched on the oven now, so there would be a fair interval - of fifty minutes or so - before the main course was served. We talked about what we had been doing. Nothing unusual, it seemed. Axel had a new contract - he is never short of them. He is an interior designer and makes the furniture he designs specially for each place he works on. He is a brilliant architect. I had him redesign the interior of this apartment a couple of years ago and I love what he has done. He is a different person when he works. Like me when I cook, and Cruise when he is writing a poem, I imagine. He throws himself into his work, becomes absorbed by what he is doing, a part of the project. His understanding of materials, of textures and of finishes, of colour and light makes me feel like a blind man in a gallery. When we were working on this place I would give him my ideas - crude outlines at best. From his understanding of me he would interpret those notions and within hours could provide detailed sketches which seemed, in comparison to my faint suggestions, like Platonic ideals brought to earth, retrieved by the master craftsman from their cave.
The flat is a Jugendstil showcase, combining the very best of the functionality of Loos and the decorative brilliance of Olbrich and Wagner. There are prints of paintings by Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka in every room. And the centrepiece for the entire apartment is a Hundertwasser which I bought at Axel's suggestion and great expense and which every guest admires. I adore Hundertwasser's work. It captures the very best of Viennese art and the modern Austrian spirit. My only regret about this place is that my parents could not have seen what has been done. Though my father considered the Secession painters and architects to be decadent and would have despised Hundertwasser, my mother would have appreciated the change. In all the years that they lived here, the apartment was never redecorated and the only change was in the quantity of ornaments and kitsch decorations which gathered here in ever greater amounts. When I was very young I bought a book about the German expressionist painter Otto Dix, whose work I like no longer but whom I continue to find fascinating. My father destroyed the book in a fit of fury, saying that Dix was an obscenity, that he wished to corrupt the morals of the young and spread mental illness and syphilis.
"Cruise, did you go to the Hundertwasserhaus yet?"
"I went only last week. I bought a book there. Of his paintings and his writings. It is very interesting, but he is a confused philosopher. There is little sense in his statements."
"How do you mean?"
"For example, in his speech 'On False Art' he says that 'if an artist refuses to destroy, he is spat upon by this strange Mafia of the arts' and yet, in the previous sentence, he claims that the artist who seeks 'the true values' is considered a backward reactionary. But I would argue..."
At this point Cruise started to wag his right forefinger in the air in front of Leppard's nose. Leppard bit it playfully. Cruise turned to him, staring slightly, and slapped him quite hard on the back of the head. Leppard giggled, but was subdued for some time afterwards.
"...I would argue that in order to find the 'true values' we must tear apart the past, discover in what it is that the art of the past consists, and reconstruct our world from there. The process of art is one of reincorporating that which we see and discover from our pasts, from our cultures, from our everyday experiences of the present into our modern constructions. But to discover we must first undo."
"But is he not saying precisely that we should first accept the constructions of the past for their beauty and for what they tell us directly and secondly create beauty from the world in which we live to match the beauty of the past. For example, he says in that same essay: 'Why don't you ask your grandmother what is good and beautiful. The absence of kitsch makes our lives unbearable. Without the romantic spirit nothing works.'"
"And then he says: 'We have lost the sense of beauty.' Does he have to be both right and wrong in only one essay?"
"I like him, nevertheless."
"I like his paintings."
"What have you been doing, anyway?"
Leppard. He hates confrontation, even on a certain philosophical or rhetorical level. Neither Cruise nor myself cared. Cruise is the sort of person Hundertwasser had in mind when he wrote that essay. Someone whose "genius" lies in his ability to rip to shreds the human soul and call it detritus or call the act of doing so art. They are perfect poems in terms of their use of language, their structure, their internal dynamics. But they hold nothing for the future, nothing for the man or woman on the street. Not for me, at least. We retired from the duel willingly.
"I have not been doing a great deal, really. Reading, writing letters, going to the opera or the theatre. Sometimes a film. I met my astrologer friend for lunch, yesterday it was. He is very depressed at the moment. And bored of writing horoscopes. He seems to find it an immense strain, having all those people depending on him for their happiness or titillation every day and his wife has left him, now. She just walked out one day and he thinks, perhaps, that he will kill himself. I do not know if he will, though. Again, he has his responsibilities to his readers and is too good a man to let them down. There are enough suicides in this city, anyway."
"I'm sick of my work. It's getting boring. I've been taking in at least one book and one film every day for the last fortnight, now. It's ridiculous. Perhaps you should meet my editor. I think you could do the job well."
"I am not a critic. Why do you not do something completely different. Give up the arts altogether and become a postman."
"Yes, why don't you, Leppard. You would make a good worker."
"Easy for you to say, my friend. You don't need to work for your living. And for you Cruise. You happily spend your life bumming drinks from your mates so that they have to work much harder than they would."
"What are friends for? You happily have more money than you need and you don't have the intellectual calibre not to work. You would get bored, you are so simple."
"Get lost, Cruise, you wouldn't know a free lunch if it landed on your lap."
"The food should be ready in five minutes or so."
I took the fish out of the oven and drained off the juices into a dish. I put the trout back in the oven to finish cooking and strained the juices into another pan. I reduced them down until there were only about four tablespoons of liquid remaining. Then I added knobs of unsalted butter one at a time, whisking vigorously as I did so until the sauce was creamy and thick. Then I served the trout on plates with the vegetables. I put the plates before my guests and snipped open the jackets with my kitchen scissors and finally poured a little of the butter sauce over each fish. For once even Leppard was captured by the events taking place before him on the table.
Cruise has been in trouble with the police again. Foolishly he continues to go on demonstrations against this issue or that one, for this cause or another. Of course, the police film the demonstrators and, in Vienna, it is not difficult to put a name to most faces eventually. So they raided his house last week and he was lucky that his Austrian neighbours are communists. He rang them when he heard the police in the street and escaped through the roof of his apartment. They opened the skylight in their attic and allowed him to come inside until the police had gone. He has moved to another friend's house for the moment. I offered him a room here, of course, but he does not want to put me at any risk when it is not essential. I am relieved, slightly, though the implicit insult does not go unnoticed either by myself or the other two. He knows that my greatest fear is of getting into trouble with the police. Not of breaking the law, but of being found out. The shame would cause me great pain. When I bought him his passport - that is, when I gave him the money to buy it - I was terrified that the cash might be traced to me in some way.
"This is great. You've excelled yourself, my man. Really good. Think I'll mention this in my column on Tuesday. Where did you get the recipe?"
"You must excuse our friend. He comes from a strange land over the sea where it is simply not done to be creative in the kitchen and where bad manners are considered de riguer rather than simply amusing, as we find them in my country."
"Naff off Axel, you slimy git, it was a bleeding joke, all right."
"They also speak in a bizarre tongue unknown outside their land."
"And you, Cruise, you apeman."
The phone rang, so I answered it and the others fell silent.
"It is for you, Cruise. I do not know who it is."
He took the phone into the sitting room next door and spoke quickly and quietly for a few minutes. The rest of us did not speak, concentrating on peeling the delicate trout flesh from the bones, savouring the flavours as they came.
BY the time Cruise had finished on the phone - he made a couple of calls as well - the rest of us had finished eating.
"Trouble?"
But he did not answer immediately. He sat at his placed and tucked his napkin under his chin, into the top of his black polo neck sweater - he is so very much the existentialist intellectual-worker at times - and ate his food in silence whilst I described the ingredients to Leppard. Half-way through the description I was giving, Leppard held up both of his hands, palms facing me.
"Enough, enough. You lost me ages ago, my man. I guess we'd all better leave the cooking to you. Don't want a job, do you? Could do my ironing while you're at it."
"Our friend is a philistine. You know, I took him to Stockholm for a week a while ago - you remember. We had a smorgasbord. This guy asked me to tell the waiter the fish was undercooked and he'd rather have it hot anyway."
"This man is a party animal. Food is for eating and broken hearts are for assholes. Frankie Zappa said that, don't you know?"
"You're slipping into character again, Leppard."
Even Cruise laughed now.
"So what's the currency, Cruise? They busted you again?"
"Just some friends. I may have to leave early. They will call again."
"That's OK, Cruise, though there's a long way to go."
"That's what we want to hear, my man. More food, more drink, then slip out into the night..."
"Perhaps not too soon. My friends never hurry if they can help it."
When everyone had finished eating I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, but I did not turn it on. They would not feel like eating the dessert yet but I poured some cream into a jug and drained off the Cointreau from the fruit. This I would use as the base for a punch or perhaps a special sauce on another occasion. I put the fruit into a serving dish. And I opened two more bottles of wine. I did not think that we would drink it but it was better to be on the safe side. I have heard some people say that perhaps it is not necessary to allow red wine to breathe. I continue to do so anyway. It is another part of the ritual.
In the dining room my guests were talking very quietly. So that I could not hear, I imagined. Probably Cruise was telling Leppard about the phone call. They deliberately do not participate in each others' adventures, on the whole. But Leppard and Cruise, in particular, conspire constantly. At the various newspapers and radio stations where Leppard works there is a lot of in-fighting. In the beginning it was easy for Leppard to make advances. He had a brawling, street-fighting style which took my mild-mannered compatriots by surprise. They have learnt from him, however, and the in-fighting which goes on is vicious. He deals with the tactics of this himself, but Cruise is the master strategist and guides him all the way. By the same token it is Leppard who advises Cruise on the next move he should make in order to achieve his longer-term plans. Leppard understands people better than any of us - at least he understands adversaries. Whilst Leppard is the protege of Cruise, he is also his principle equerry. They never involve me in these discussions. Usually I am left with Axel while the others "go for a walk" to talk things through. I do not see why it has to be this way, though I suspect that it is Cruise who dictates that it shall be so. Leppard has never objected to playing before an audience and relates the details of every development to me anyway.
"READY for some dessert?"
I put the bowls on the table and, in the kitchen, poured some dark rum over the fruit. I carried the dish through to the dining room and swiftly lit it with my lighter. The effect was good as the bluish flame flared and then subsided.
"Woah! We're being treated tonight, my man."
Leppard affects a turn of phrase which he imagines to be intimate and friendly but which, in fact, is inane at the best of times. The banality of some of his comments tonight offended me. I think Axel was embarrassed by them as well. Though he is too polite to even hint at that, and possibly even too loyal to admit the feeling to himself anyway. Cruise stares at Leppard blankly when he makes these comments. His lack of response denotes his position in the group as its mature and calm leader. He occasionally remonstrates with the other two if they do things in public which embarrass him. There was a time in a bar when we were together. One of the cool bars in the seventh. We ate a salad with olives and Leppard and Axel started to throw olive pits at some of the other customers. They did it very cleverly so that none of their victims could identify the culprits and it was quite amusing to see them staring around the room looking at everyone. I remember edging my chair away from the table at which we were sitting in a half-hearted attempt to dissociate myself from the group. Cruise excused himself to me before talking to them rapidly in English which I have difficulty following. It is one of the only times that the three of them have talked in English in front of me. They are very considerate in that respect. It is the only time I have ever seen them argue as they did then. Leppard stormed out of the bar but Axel remained behind. Cruise then lectured him, and me, at great length about maturity and being sensitive to the feelings of others. Leppard soon returned and the argument was forgotten. Later that same evening, going home along the Zieglergasse where the bar at which we had been is at one end, all three started to walk over the cars parked bumper to bumper the length of the street. I slowed my pace until they might appear, to an observer, to be none of my friends.
It is when they do things like this that I feel most distant from them. They revel in their unconventionality and cynicism. When they are drunk, at least. There was the time here, in my apartment, when we were sitting on the window ledges in the dining and sitting rooms which overlook the street. Opposite the building was a bar where skinheads met. Youngsters mostly who should not be out drinking. On this occasion three skinheads, two boys and a girl, saw us looking from the window as they were leaving the bar. They shouted something which I did not hear and Cruise shouted back "Fuck off Nazis" - in English. One of them called to us to come down and fight. We did not, of course, but spoke to him in English. He did not understand, although he was wearing a T-shirt with a British flag on the back and a picture of a bulldog on the front. Eventually he picked up two large stones from the side of the road. Cruise ran to the kitchen and brought empty bottles for us to throw. As soon as the first stone was thrown, which came straight through an open window but did no damage, we threw the empty bottles at the skinheads who ran away. I was worried that they would return one day, when the others were not here. They did not, though, and the bar has closed down now. Cruise asked me if I had thrown a bottle and seemed not to believe me when I told him that I had.
NONE of us managed to finish our desserts. I decided not to serve the cheese and biscuits and offered them coffee and port which they accepted instantly, with glee almost. When I had finished serving this, Leppard asked us if we would like to smoke some hashish. I do not care about it. I have had it, of course, but it made me feel nauseous and stupid. And I would not enjoy, especially, to smoke it with these friends. Their closeness is such, anyway, that I feel like a voyeur upon their intimacies. Fortunately Axel knows this, and Cruise seldom takes the drug - it would be an unnecessary risk - so Leppard put away his papers and the little box which he carries with him everywhere. The port was very good and Axel said so, unusually for him.
"Well, my man, you've done us proud tonight. Never knew you Austrians could be so spot on when it came to food."
"Leppard's main experience of Austrian food is the McDonalds on the Mariahilferstrasse. He still thinks Wienerschnitzel is a type of sausage."
"Get lost, Axel, at least we don't eat raw fish in England."
"Do you have a cigarette for me, my friend?"
I went to the kitchen to get a pack of Camel for Cruise. As a joke I placed it on a silver tray - one stolen by Leppard from a coffee house once, in fact. Next to it I put a book of matches and took the tray through to Cruise. They laughed, then Axel shook his head slowly.
"No, no, not like that, like this."
He took the tray from Cruise's side, just as Cruise was reaching for the packet, and went back into the kitchen. A few seconds later he returned.
"Like this, my brother, this is how you do it."
He had unwrapped the plastic from the cigarette packet and torn open the silver foil at one corner. From the corner some cigarettes were protruding, ready to be taken. And he had folded back the match book and bent one match forward ready to use. He bowed to Cruise and presented him with the tray.
"Comrade."
Cruise nodded graciously and we all laughed again as he took a cigarette, flipped it high into the air, caught it in his mouth and, in one action, lit it with his Zippo.
"Comrade, my deepest and most sincere thanks for you kindness."
"Comrade, it is but a duty to serve one's brothers as they work in the great struggle against imperialist oppression and world capitalism."
I find this aspect of their friendship to be unusual. They have a limitless capacity to entertain themselves with the most trivial things. In others this might suggest trivial minds, but with them it is different. Behind everything is a sense of irony which, though unspoken, provides the real humour of the situations they create so spontaneously. They are aware of the contradictions which infest the world like so many cancerous cells. Profoundly so. They find a dark pleasure in their ability to be so contemptuous of them.
I poured myself some more port and sat back in my chair.
"Shall we sit next door?"
I was pleased that Cruise had suggested this. Had I been the one to say it he, or the others, might have taken it as an opportunity to leave. A natural break in the performance. The end of an act.
Copyright © Steven Kelly 1991/1995
Steven Kelly is the author of the short story collection Invisible Architecture and the novels The Moon Rising and The War Artist. By day, he maintains web sites for a living - including his own on-line literary magazine The Richmond Review. By night, he writes. Contact Steven Kelly via The Richmond Review.