'Elegant and original... beautifully crafted, without a word out of place or a sentence too many.' - Time Out
Part Two
WHEREAS the stark lines of the dining room were designed to focus attention on the dining table, Axel created in the sitting room a general ambience of warmth, comfort and relaxation. The focus of the room is dual: the Hundertwasser, one of the earliest in which his famous spiral appears, hangs on the east wall. We decided that the chairs and sofas should be organised in a loose horseshoe, the open end of which is directly below the painting. That large coffee table in the centre, with its dark, highly polished wood, was imported from Italy. Axel said that he thought it would be better than anything he could make. I polish it myself and do not allow the cleaning woman to touch it. The glass-fronted cabinets around the room are very carefully positioned. The effect is such that the painting is reflected or re-reflected and its image can be seen in the surface of the coffee table wherever one sits. The idea of having the furniture in a horseshoe was my idea. It was Axel's genius which achieved the remainder of the effect.
"There was something else, my friend. About the book. The essay entitled 'The Mouldiness Manifesto Against Rationalism in Architecture'. You know it?"
"Yes, the Seckau speech from '58."
"He claims that the straight line is godless and immoral."
"Yes."
"There are straight lines in the building at Loewengasse which I am quite sure were only achieved through the use of a T-square. Do you not think?"
"I do not know. I do not think it matters. He is proposing a principle, not attempting to enact an ideal. Hundertwasser is a visionary. The world is only now attempting to catch up with his ideas. You would agree that the world is catching up?"
Cruise was silent for a while. Then:
"Do you think the house is beautiful?"
"Yes, do you not?"
"I think it is a work of art."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Without the T-square, or straight line, his art would be an impossibility. His opposition to its use is not consistent."
"Why does he have to be consistent? He is an artist."
"You, I know, consider the Dadaists degenerates. I consider Hundertwasser regressive."
"What do you think, Axel?"
"Me? I think the house is beautiful. I think the painting is beautiful. And I don't much care about theories - his or Cruise's."
"Leppard?"
Leppard was standing, his nose only inches from the painting.
"The guy's a head-fucker. No getting away from it."
Cruise looked at him thoughtfully:
"Yes. A head-fucker. He talks a lot and paints great pictures, but anyway..."
"Why do you dislike him, Cruise. It seems to be something personal with you."
"It is. I don't think Hundertwasser is a Nazi by any means. He's partly Jewish, isn't he? But his aesthetic - it reminds me of the Nazi aesthetic. You know, all those paintings of very maternal women and blond, blue-eyed supermen, all very close to the earth and public-spirited... I don't mean that exactly, not the way he paints. But his ideology. In fact it isn't even what Hundertwasser says himself. More what other people see in him that disturbs me. He's turned into a national hero and his, actually very internationalist, green beliefs are turned around into a nationalism which I don't think is good. But if, by designing Austria's postage stamps, he allows himself to be seen in that way, then he is at fault."
"Anyone can be misinterpreted. You called Thus Spake Zarathustra a holy book, once. Remember?"
"The difference being that Nietzsche did not have a foreknowledge of fascism by which to avoid it. I'm not sure about Nietzsche either, really."
"Cruise, stop giving our host such a hard time."
I decided it was time to open the tequila bottle so I excused myself and went to the kitchen to get it. I brought lemons and salt as well, and some fresh glasses.
By tacit agreement, Cruise and I did not resume our discussion until we had drunk three shots of tequila each. Axel was obviously quite drunk now. Of the three of them he is the one who is least able to take his drink. He is often ill or passes out. Like the other two, he does not know when to stop. Cruise and I can out-drink the other two on any occasion. And we often do so. After the third tequila Leppard and Axel decided to play chess. The winner, when we play, must buy his opponent dinner at the restaurant of the loser's choice. Anyone suspected of trying to lose on purpose - it has never happened - would be judged the winner of a series. A series is five games so the winner must buy three meals for the loser before the next game is played. At least one game must be played by each possible pairing every month and we try to go to dinner all together. We are very competitive but there is a humility associated with victory, brought on by its expense - sometimes two or three thousand schillings for one game if it has been a good one and the loser has played well. If the loser has played badly, he will nominate the sausage stand at the end of the Naschmarkt as his chosen "restaurant".
Cruise picked up my copy of the Hundertwasser book. He leafed through the pages a little, stopped at one, carried on some more, put the book down on the coffee table. Leppard was on white and started with an unusual move which made Axel spend more time on his opening than usual.
"What do you think of his green ideas generally? Would you seriously want to live in a world where every individual was responsible for disposing of their own faeces?"
"I do not say I endorse him fully. The point about the humus toilet is that it is an inevitable necessity for human survival. Not just a hippy's toy. He is right, I think, that we are alienated from our bodily functions."
"Oh, yes, he certainly is, but that is a Marxist issue, not an aesthetic one."
"Come on, Cruise, Marx does not have a monopoly on the truth. Not these days."
"Hundertwasser is crazy if he thinks I want a very close association with my own shit. There are few animals which actually nurture their own excrement."
"Though the scarab was a sacred creature."
"Leppard, are you trying to lose this match? Cruise, did you see that?"
Axel knew that Leppard had outwitted him already or he would not have said this. The trap was the same one that Leppard had used on me a few days before and I had fallen into it as well. Cruise knows this so we watched them play the game out now, hoping to learn a little more about Leppard's new move and thus avoid the same fate another time.
"Have you men sorted out the meaning of life yet?"
"Our host wishes to recreate the prelapsarian pastoral ideal."
"Too damn right, my son. Smash the Machines!"
"I am quite serious, though, Cruise. The use of the humus toilet is just an extension of the principles of organic farming. That makes some sense, surely."
"I'm no eco-freak, but sure, I think the green movement is important. That's not the issue, my friend. The issue is whether by turning the problem of ecology into an aesthetic one, Hundertwasser is not performing an essentially fascist function - whatever his personal views in that connection. If it is possible to define Hitler's attitude towards the Jews at all, one might say the Final Solution was an aesthetic one in the purest sense. Obviously, having failed to get into the Vienna Art Academy, we can say that Hitler's taste - and ability - was lacking, but the definition of the Shoah as aesthetic in conception could stand. Aesthetics are not appropriate when it comes to political decisions. They are too subjective."
"Ignoring the Shoah, one can say that Hitler's aesthetic was shared by many people. Almost the majority."
"Yes. I went to Mauthausen two weeks ago."
"I have been there." I said this quietly.
"You've been in the Commandant's office? You know about that Dutch guy? The cripple who was admitted to the camp and the Commandant said 'I want him on my desk tomorrow'?"
"Yes."
"That's your popular Nazi aesthetic. Please don't try to defend it. They killed many of my relatives in Yugoslavia. My own father died as a result of injuries he sustained during torture. Though he survived ten years, I never met him."
"You think we Austrians are all still Nazis, do you not, Cruise?"
"No, my friend, but your countrymen were misled - are still being misled - by Hitler and his aesthetic."
"That would seem to be readily apparent. Do you blame Hundertwasser for the current climate?"
"Not directly, but the issue is always one of freedom versus slavery."
"I was simply saying - still am - that a world where we are closer to nature is a more beautiful, more inhabitable one."
"We don't live in a beautiful world, my friend. Not for a long time."
I poured another round of tequilas.
"OK, Leppard, I concede. But for that one you can take me to that Greek place by the opera."
"It'll be a pleasure, my man. A sweet pleasure. Now, shall we get on with the serious business?"
Leppard always becomes blase when he wins. He has the least natural talent and practises for hours, playing his chess computer. The computer teaches him set pieces which he tries out on us from time to time. Sometimes they are transparent and he loses quickly. Occasionally they work and when they do he buys dinner with his Visa gold card.
I DECIDED to put on some music, hoping to lighten the atmosphere. Cruise had receded into silence and was chain-smoking and serving himself three tequilas for every two we drank. Leppard and Axel were joking with me about my music collection. I have only opera or cool jazz and one or two other cassettes given to me but never played. They say I am confused because I listen either to the carefully staged formality of opera or to the free improvisation of the jazz. They do not understand how I can adore both with an equal passion. When I started trying to justify it, I suddenly found it funny as well and laughed too.
Axel was very drunk by this time. He got to his feet and lurched to the door. We heard him vomiting into the toilet a short time later. Leppard laughed loudest, though even he knew that he was next. Axel returned, only slightly embarrassed. It has happened many times before and he knows we do not care. I felt a little hungry, so I offered my guests the cheese and biscuits we had been too full to eat earlier. Cruise declined the offer but the other two said yes. In the kitchen I thought about what Cruise had said. I was a little annoyed with him, but I thought something might have been bothering him as he is never normally so critical of the Austrian people. Usually he is sympathetic to the situation in which we found ourselves in 1938 and, indeed, in recent times.
Back in the sitting room the others were animated.
"You know, in Denmark we say that you only truly know your friends if you have been drunk with them."
"We know, Axel, you tell us every time. I do not know why."
"He thinks it's a reasonable excuse for his disgraceful behaviour. What do you reckon, Cruise."
Sometimes Cruise has a look in his eye which we all recognise. It is a distant, almost trancelike expression which always precedes one of his obscure parables.
"There is a story, from Turkey..."
We all laughed. It was a running joke with us.
"...about a tribe in the East. This tribe was involved in a blood feud with a neighbouring clan which had already caused many deaths and much hardship. One day the chief of the tribe summoned his captains and told them: 'Issue a decree to the women of my tribe. Tell them that if any of them should lose a husband or a son or a father or a brother, they must not cry.' The captains protested. Why should their chief issue such an order to the women of the tribe? Was not their prerogative that of any wife or mother, daughter or sister - to mourn the passing of their loved ones? 'Tell the women of my tribe that if any of them weep when they lose a loved one, they may have their head delivered to me at their convenience on the following day.' Again the captains begged their chief to explain or reconsider but he was adamant and the decree was issued. Within weeks the feud was won and the captains asked their chief again about the decree. 'Pain must be used, at times of war, to build new strength. Just as muscles are built by hard exercise in peace time. If a woman shall cry she remains weak and in times of war the women too must be B.'"
"Great, Cruise, just great."
What he meant, I think, was that if Axel wanted to invoke his culture to tell us that we were his friends, we should allow him to do so.
"Thank you Cruise, at least someone around here understands me."
"Shall we have some more tequila?"
"There is another bottle in the fridge."
Cruise went to the kitchen to fetch the bottle. Axel started to talk about the apartment. He often does this. Was I happy with everything? Did I think anything was missing? For him as a guest it was fine, but to live here... There is nothing which needs to be done. I love the apartment and would change nothing. I tell him this, but he continues to make suggestion after suggestion, each more elaborate than the last.
They would not go dancing now. It was getting late and they had drunk and eaten much and were drugged by the atmosphere. When you are with friends, it is sometimes difficult to go out into the city and be with people you do not know. There is always a hostility which, at home with the curtains closed, you can ignore. But now I wish, in some ways, that they would go. I had planned, initially, for them to stay until dawn or later, as they often do. But when I thought that they would leave I changed my plans and the meal was eaten earlier than I would have liked. Now the evening does not have the balance I had intended. As time passed the meal had retreated into the periphery of the evening and the tequila and that discussion with Cruise, for me at least, had taken centre stage. At other times it is properly so - we all love food and it is right that it should be the focus of the evening on so many occasions. But often, too, it is something to get out of the way. If one of the others goes away for a while, when he returns we eat together solely in order to be able to consume more alcohol. As Cruise says: "With food it goes better drinking." If Axel goes to Denmark he always returns with a couple of bottles of Swedish punch and we spend the night drinking it with coffee. Or if Leppard makes a trip back to England, he will always bring back as much good quality single malt as he can carry - it is expensive here, for the good stuff - and we eat small snacks throughout the evening, but no meal. From the start this evening was theirs, I suppose. It was always to be.
THERE is a lull at some point in every evening. This is not a problem if everyone desires it. Cruise was reading. Axel was asleep. Leppard had gone running to the bathroom fifteen minutes before and was now taking a shower. I went back into the dining room and put on a collection of baroque tunes. They were, I felt, right for the moment. I opened one of the large windows and sat in the frame, on the ledge, sipping at a Margarita I had made myself, smoking a cigarette, staring down onto the street. A rat scuttled across the road. They are becoming a common sight in the city and when I put down some poison in my little wine cellar in the basement I found many dead bodies soon afterwards. They are big and only B poison will kill them because they become immune to it. And when I put poison down I feel ill at ease, as if I have a skeleton in the cupboard, because you read of young children and family pets dying. I shudder when I think of the rat's capacity to transcend man's hostility to their species.
The street is quiet. The bars are open but there are few people out tonight. Strange because there are many new restaurants and nightclubs here in the fourth by the Naschmarkt and all summer they have been very busy. I suppose that the autumn is coming. I do not like winter in the city, though I remain here. It is very cold, it is unpleasant to leave the warmth of my apartment, to do anything at all. I spend too much time at home, alone with my thoughts. I should do something but beyond going to a coffee house, nothing appeals to me. Cruise likes to go coffee houses with me. There is one, near the Hofburg, not a real coffee house like Museum or Hawelka, more a café, where you can sit in the window staring out onto the street. Leppard, surprisingly, likes to come there as well, though not Axel. The three of us sit there from lunchtime until it becomes dark, drinking tea with lemon, watching the people pass, saying little. And then we will meet Axel and go for some food and perhaps to a bar or to Hawelka where it is always busy at night and there are friends and we can forget the weather. Axel and Leppard like to ski and when they go - to St Anton or sometimes to Cortina - Cruise and I never see each other. Those times are very lonely here. I know I should go with them but I have not wished to ski since my parents died. There are too many memories.
Yes, the spring and the summer and early autumn are the best times to be in this town. Often we stay up all night, perhaps driving up to the Leopoldsberg for the dawn. From there you can see the entire city, spread out before you, and the Danube glowing in the half-light. I know people who have travelled the world but never seen the city from there, watched the sunrise from the Leopoldsberg. For them I feel sorry. They have not truly appreciated the beauty of our city.
As I was sitting there Cruise came to join me. He just sat in the open window, saying nothing. Then:
"I am sorry, my friend, for what I said to you earlier."
"You have a point. Austria has yet to come to terms with its past. Or its present."
"I went, yesterday, to the Karl-Marx-Hof."
"I have only seen it from the bus."
"I find it sad that socialism could create something so ugly."
"Socialism also created the Hundertwasserhaus. Or allowed it to be built. It is a council house."
"But occupied by lawyers and businessmen."
"There is little justice, that is true."
"They live in such poverty in the Karl-Marx-Hof. It is a tragedy that so many people should be neglected in one place."
"Do you think refurbishment would help."
"That. But the building also represents the Austrian people's final courageous stand against Nazism. It should be honoured for that. When it was bombarded in '34 that was it for Austria. Hitler's entry was inevitable." "That does not say much for the Austrians, though. The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto fought to the end."
"The Jews were condemned. The Austrians were given a choice."
"A slight one."
"A choice nevertheless. And to choose death over life may be wrong."
I did not reply to this. He was right in saying that the Austrians' choice was mitigated by circumstances to some extent. But how far I could not tell.
"What did your father do in the war. He would have been of the right age, no?"
"He was a soldier of some sort. I do not know what he did. He never spoke of it."
"He never spoke of Hitler."
Cruise talks like a psychiatrist sometimes. I think, after he was arrested in Italy, he was ill for a time. He told me once that he spent a year seeing various doctors. He knows that we are all traumatised by our history and whenever he discusses fascism with me uses this reflexive method he learnt then. Inviting me to talk my way deeper into my past. I have become adept at excusing myself.
"Shall I make some more coffee?"
Cruise nodded slowly and returned to his book.
THE phone rang. Cruise answered it. This angered me slightly, although it was obviously for him. I do not mind him using the phone. But answering my phone with such casual assumption - as if I did not exist.
"My friend, some acquaintances of mine need to come here. Do you mind?"
"Of course not, Cruise."
He muttered a few more words into the mouthpiece. I did not catch them, but they were not in German anyway. He put the phone down and came back into the dining room and sat down again on the window ledge. Leppard appeared, fresh-faced and invigorated again after his shower.
"That's better. I needed that. Hey, my man do you have anything else to drink? I've really had the tequila, you know."
The evening, finally, had outpaced my plans. The initiative was theirs, now, and the best I could do was go along with it. As I always have done. I simply pointed towards the kitchen. He knows the way.
"When will they come?"
I felt diminished now, as if I were an unwelcome guest in another's home, intruding upon their privacy but with no means of escape.
"Soon. They are nearby, but they must be careful in case they are being followed. For your sake and mine."
"You know the way out."
"Of course."
The building backs onto an embassy compound and from my bedroom window it is easy to jump onto the low compound wall. If it is necessary they can hide and they will be safe.
"My friend."
"Cruise."
"They are dangerous people who are coming. They could cause you trouble with the police if they are followed."
"Cruise, I am doing it for you so it does not matter."
"Which is why I wish for you to know that they could bring trouble."
"Forget it. They will come, they will stay, some time they will leave. It does not matter."
Axel was awake. He came through and sat at the table, which I had cleared earlier, and lit a cigarette. We were smoking more than usual tonight and, although the open window had cleared the air, the apartment smelt stale and unpleasant. He looked around the room with a kind of grim satisfaction. I followed his eyes but could not see why he was smiling.
LEPPARD spent a long time in the kitchen. When he returned it was with a tray on which was a collection of cold meats, cheeses, tomatoes, bread and pickles which he had taken from the fridge and the larder. He put it on the table and took some plates and cutlery from the sideboard and fetched two bottles of wine and a case of beer from the fridge. In some ways it is nice to be catered for in one's own home and I suppose that it must reflect a certain depth of companionship that Leppard feels free to do this.
As we were sitting down Cruise's friends arrived. They were two Slovenes and dressed like Cruise in black polo necks and black trousers. They wore leather jackets which they did not take off. Cruise invited them to eat and drink but they refused and took only a whisky each and they sat drinking it in the sitting room. We four sat in the dining room and began to eat. I remembered that I had in a cupboard some jars of herring. Leppard made a pained expression but Axel was pleased. He had, in fact, brought them himself from Denmark only a couple of weeks before.
"So who are your friends, Cruise?"
"They are from Carinthia. They are active on behalf of the minority there. They have been in Vienna for two weeks holding meetings with the Yugoslav guest workers here. They want to organise a strike by guest workers in the winter."
I nearly laughed out loud. There are nearly three hundred thousand guest workers in Austria, many of whom have no work and most of whom would never support a strike. On their pitiful wages it is all they can do to earn enough for food from the work they get. And as one politician said recently, there are as many unemployed Austrians as there are guest workers: a simple answer to the so-called complex issue of unemployment. A stupid answer, of course, because the Austrians would never do that sort of work, but one which maintains the guest workers' fear of being deported.
"They will not strike, Cruise, no way."
"But they might. And what if they did?"
"What?"
"Who would clear the snow? Who would sell the bourgeoisie of Vienna its newspapers? Who would do the really dirty work?"
"Probably other guest workers. The Turks, perhaps. They do not love the Yugoslavs."
"But say they have their own reasons for striking. Who then? If the solidarity is there, who will do the work?"
"The army."
"You know, you men have spent the entire evening arguing. How about it? Take a break. Let's have some love around here. Say Axel, you primitive?"
"Sure, why not?"
Leppard rolled his eyes. Axel was concentrating fully on his fish. Even I did not know how he could eat it after being sick, but he seemed fine now.
"Leppard's right. Let's stop now."
For a while we laughed and talked about things, drinking bottles of beer and eating the delicious cold meats and cheeses. Axel is a fair artist as well as an architect and one picture is of the four of us in a bar, our muscles exaggerated and our clothes imagined so that we look like workers from a factory out at lunch. We enjoy such fantasies. We drink beer straight from the bottle and slap the cheese and meat onto the bread in huge hunks, swaggering as we talk in parodies of the international figure of the proletarian hero. I would object Cruise to object to this, but it is his own background we are celebrating. Leppard takes to it most easily. His parents became wealthy quite recently and until he was a teenager both were factory workers themselves. They set up their own business and immediately became successful. This is the reason Leppard came to Vienna, I am sure. He wished to escape the severe contradictions of class which exist in Britain. They are too painful for him. He finds himself unaccepted by workers and bourgeoisie alike and his own class, the new rich, are too neurotic, too self-obsessed to satisfy his curiosity, not to mention his taste. So he buries his own neuroses and there are few better ways to do this than beneath a language of which you are no master. Axel and, I imagine, myself are less convincing proles - though no less energetic and filled with bravado. The four of us love to strut through the city streets, shouting comments at old women or young girls: 'Hey, beautiful, come for a drink with us.' 'You, precious, we'll buy you an ice-cream if you bring some friends.'
And sometimes they do and we laugh and joke together before parting.
LEPPARD told the story, again, of how he and Axel and two Spanish girls spent a weekend in Prague soon after they first met here in Vienna. Both Cruise and I had heard the story many times, but this time it was told to introduce something which happened a week or two later when Leppard was in a café with one of the girls - Natalia - waiting for Axel. They had spent one month here, studying at a summer school. During this time they met many people and the high point was the visit to Czechoslovakia. There they had an adventure with a Russian named Igor who held a West German passport and said he was on holiday with a friend. He drove a Mercedes 190 and seemed to have a great deal of money. This was before Glasnost and they had been slightly suspicious of him from the start, when he spoke with the waiter and they were not allowed to pay for their meal. He drove them around the city and took them to places which they would otherwise not have found. Even to the Russian embassy in the hills above the town. Early in the morning they were stopped by the police, but Igor, who was drunk, spoke only a few words to the policemen in Russian and they were given a police escort back to their hotel.
With the 'KGB' man as their staring point, Leppard and Natalia constructed a conspiracy at the centre of which they alone were the unwitting innocents. As the conversation progressed they drew all the individuals they had met into the plot and assigned them roles. An American friend was with the CIA, the Italians on the course were Mafia people, the Spaniards were Fascists, agents of Franco's supporters seeking to reintroduce a dictatorship with help from Austrian neo-Nazis - of whom I, apparently, was one. Axel arrived and the construct collapsed. His solid, Danish common sense found the affair foolish and he could not participate. Even now he found the telling of the story embarrassing.
The tale loses something in the telling, I imagine, but the point remains:
'It takes only the smallest iota of imagination to create a fiction substantial enough to draw the world into itself. We all have our fantasies. Axel's is that the world is a well-ordered place which simply needs a little decorating and some good design to brighten it up. Yours, Cruise, is that the owners of property exploit everyone else and that such exploitation can be changed.'
'That's no fantasy, Leppard.'
'It's a fiction and you bring in fiction to support it.'
'And what's your fiction, your fantasy?'
'Aha! That's for others to judge.'
'And what is mine?'
There was an instant of discomfort as I said this.
'You, my man? Your fantasy is the most delightful of all. You firmly believe that if we all eat and drink enough, the whole world will go away and we'll all be fine.'
I was not sure how to take this.
'I mean that in the most positive possible way.'
I grinned at him, but he could see that I was still rather puzzled.
NEXT door, in the sitting room, the two Carinthians were still sitting in silence, occasionally sipping at their drinks. I could see them through the door from where I was, at the table. I was surprised that Cruise had said so little to them. He appeared angry with them in some way. Or more probably he was torn between his cultural - or political - loyalty to them and the loyalties associated with his friendships. Though more than merely peripheral to these three, I have never truly been part of their brotherhood. It is impenetrable to outsiders, Ber than blood. Like the best friendships, it has survived much strain in its time. There have, I know, been bitter confrontations - the worst one between Axel and Leppard over a girl. These are caused by the very frivolity they enjoy. There are times when Axel will feel that Leppard is taking him and Cruise too much for granted. Or Leppard, in turn, will be angry that the others are not taking him seriously enough. Or Cruise, mindful of his PhD, his mother's expectations of him, his advancing age, will sternly admonish the other two - and himself - on the need for seriousness and spiritual growth. Look at our friend J-, he has developed in this last year; we must work harder or we will be left behind. You, Leppard, must stop this foolishness and find a regular girl. You, Axel, must learn to hold your drink or not drink at all. And you, Cruise, are full of shit, comes the inevitable response before they go out and get drunk again and wind up the professionals who work outside the block where Cruise lives, on the Guertel, the highway which orbits the inner city and which has brothels all around it. Frequently their company makes me feel very lonely indeed.
LEPPARD and I had just thrown down our knives and were lighting cigarettes when Cruise stood and ran to the toilet. A few moments later we heard him being sick and Leppard laughed loudly again.
"Three down. Just one to go, my man."
"Not me, friend. I can hold my booze. You children need some practice."
We made some jokes about Cruise's sudden exit. Probably it was not the drink, but the sight of Axel with his raw fish which made Cruise ill. No, it was listening to Leppard's stupidity. That would churn the Best stomach. Or was I sure I had prepared the food properly before and washed my hands after that "nap" I took earlier?
Cruise returned, a frown on his forehead.
"Never, never before has this happened to me. I think I must be getting old."
"Admit it, Cruise. You got caught out. You just can't handle the pace these days, that's all."
"Perhaps, friend, perhaps."
Next door the Slovenes were staring at us, not understanding the exIment. I found them disturbing. Their silence was almost threatening. The others seemed to feel their intrusion as well. All three looked uncomfortable now, and restless. Axel had gone to the window and was standing, looking outside. Leppard was examining his fingernails. And Cruise, bright and alert, was looking around him, nodding, almost waiting for something to happen. Tentatively, I cleared my throat.
"Why do we not go somewhere? For a walk and maybe to a bar?"
Cruise, Leppard and Axel looked at me. Then at each other. Cruise's face was the first to light up and the rest of us grinned too.
I got up and switched off a few lights and put on the dishwasher. Then I got a jacket to wear because it was a little cold outside. Cruise spoke to the Carinthians and then to me.
"They would prefer to remain here where they will be safe. Do you mind if they stay? I've told them they must not move from where they are sitting. Not even to piss."
I was concerned. There are things of value here and it did not seem to me that Cruise knew these friends well. But I could hardly insist that they leave. I had welcomed them into my house as guests and to send them away would be wrong.
"They know the way out?"
"Yes, I've told them."
Outside it was even colder than I had expected. Some of the bars were starting to shut. If we wanted to drink there were other places, however, which were open later or all night. The restaurant where Cruise works is near here and does not even open until after midnight. For now we were happy just to walk and talk, pleased to have a change of atmosphere and scenery. If we had not had so much to drink I might have suggested that we drive up to the Leopoldsberg. It was a clear night and the sunrise would be worth seeing. We walked through the Naschmarkt and past the Secession building towards Karlsplatz. From the underground entrance we cut across to Karlskirche and sat in front of the church for a while. Then we went through the Kaerntnerstrasse to the centre of the city. There were still people walking around the streets and in St Stephen's Square, the Gothic heart of the city. From there we walked eastwards until we found ourselves in Riemergasse where there is a café-bar I go to sometimes. It is a good place where they play opera the whole time and loudly. Many opera stars go there after performing and the atmosphere is friendly and artistic. But the doors were closing when we arrived so we walked on to the Ringstrasse and south, past the hotel where Hitler stayed in '38, and then back towards the fourth.
"OK, lets go to the restaurant."
"You sure? You'll have to play."
Cruise plays the piano well and in the restaurant where he works there is always live music from Yugoslavia. A plaque on the wall says that Wagner used to have a regular table there.
When we arrived, Cruise was greeted noisily and warmly and as he was taken to the piano to play we were given a good table and beers and offered food which we declined. Cruise taught himself to play the piano and cannot read music. He is very good and plays Balkan folk tunes by ear. We three sat there, listening to his playing and clapping the beat in time with the other customers when we could, but getting lost mostly, and laughing about their music.
Eventually he was allowed to stop playing and a wicker basket was passed around for contributions. The owner of the place came and sat with us, telling us that Cruise was his best waiter and a good friend to have.
AN Austrian acquaintance of mine turned up just as we were thinking of going. He insisted that we stay for another drink and ordered two bottles of champagne. I did not want to stay because I knew that Axel would have no interest in him, Cruise would soon come to despise him and Leppard would argue with him. His name is Otto and he is a student. He comes from a very rich, aristocratic Vienna family. He is friends with the Habsburgs and many other European monarchs and he mentions there names incessantly. That did not even matter so much, but I told him once about my friends and Cruise and Leppard he particularly wanted to meet. He imagines himself a writer and paid for a collection of his stories and poems to be printed by a vanity publisher. He carries copies of it with him everywhere to give to people he meets and hardly knows. Cruise insisted that we stay a little longer. He always likes to meet new friends.
"It seems that we have something in common, colleagues."
"And what's that, my man?"
"Well, I understand from our friend, here, that you, Leppard, are a novelist and that you, Cruise, are a poet. Whereas I myself am both."
This was what I had feared. Neither Leppard nor Cruise ever refer to themselves as either novelists or poets, not even in jest. Leppard's response was predictable.
"Really, and do you do both at the same time or do you prefer to alternate?"
"Well, I have two novels on the boil at the moment and I do try to pull together at least one poem every day, though I forgive myself as long as I scribble down some notes, at least."
Seeing Leppard's face and being rather more generous, Cruise broke in:
"And have you had anything published?"
"As a matter of fact I have a copy of my collection with me."
He rooted in his jacket pocket for the paperback and handed it to Cruise who started to leaf through it. Leppard rested his chin on Cruise's shoulder and stared at the book with open contempt.
"Of course, as with all literature, it needs careful reading. Take it, take it home with you, Cruise. And Leppard, I shall send you a copy. Perhaps you would like to review it."
"Yeah, sure, why not."
A glint in his eye. I could just imagine what he would say in his most cutting manner. I did not care. I do not like Otto, or his friends. They still think of Vienna as their private property and treat it and its inhabitants as such. Had I not told him that Cruise was his nation's most famous poet in exile - a lie - he would not have spoken to him even now.
"So what do you write about, Leppard?"
"Love and politics."
"Not love and death? No, rather cliched in our time, are they not. Have you had anything published? No? Well, not to worry, everyone's chance comes to them. You simply must keep plugging away. But you, you are well known, are you not, Cruise. I don't believe there is a translation of your works in German yet - perhaps I could arrange it. My cousin is the director of P- Verlag, he is always keen to look at fresh talent, either from home or abroad. So, where do you drink, as a rule? I do prefer the seedier side of the city. There is so much more material for the close observer, don't you think..."
I soon stopped listening and talked with Axel about his new project. He is to design an apartment for an American who wants a home from home, but with an Austrian feel to it. By this, we decide that he does not mean something in the Jugendstil tradition. More probably the American is thinking in terms of Mozart. Prints of that Venetian artist would be in order, and furniture of the period - though made new by Axel. Of course, the American would want all mod cons. Axel is partners with two Swedes and a Norwegian who specialise in the provision of "Integrated Audio-Visual Centres" for the rich. These are huge and complex affairs by which an apartment becomes a temple to the modern age. Televisions, video recorders, sound systems are connected up and operated by remote control. Lights which switch themselves on and off depending upon who is in the room and whether it is day or night. Computer controlled air-conditioning, telephones which, when they ring, turn down the volume of the television or music. Axel's responsibility is to make those masses of wire and circuitry attractive and neat. Of course, he does it well. Such is his pragmatism. The American has given him a huge budget and the flat is very large. He will use it for entertaining business customers - flying them to Vienna for two or three days to see and opera and the Spanish Riding School - so everything must be lavish. The apartment will have everything possible to make brief stays comfortable. As we talk, Axel's fantasy grows larger and larger. Jacuzzis, a solarium, a computer with which the American can send messages home or check share prices, a fax and everything else a good office has. He would write to a friend in San Francisco, asking him for catalogues of all the things one finds in an American home. We are so backward here.
EVENTUALLY, realising that he was the butt of Cruise and Leppard's sarcasm, Otto stood to leave. He nodded rather stiffly to me and when he had gone we laughed long and hard. But he had upset Cruise who just kept saying over and over:
"What an asshole. What a total asshole."
Soon we wanted to leave too so Cruise paid the bill with the money he had earned from playing the piano and we went. As we walked slowly back to my apartment we noticed that there was a dim glow around the edges of the buildings on the Wienzeile. It was nearly dawn and we had done it again, stayed up all night as so many times before.
Even before we went into the building I sensed that something was wrong. Perhaps the fact that some lights were on which I had turned out before we left. I do not know. When I tried to open the door it was jammed. The door had been bolted from the inside. I rang the bell and then Cruise started to knock softly and called to the Slovenes in a hoarse whisper. I turned and ran back down the stairs. I would be able to get into the cellars by the service entrance and from my little wine cellar up the back stairs to the kitchen of my apartment. Cruise and Leppard followed me but Axel stayed behind, ringing the bell insistently. I unlocked the cellar door and went through to the other door which was open. At the top of the stairs there was a light coming from the kitchen. I had switched it off. I slowly went up the stairs. In the kitchen there were tins and boxes on the floor and some jars and bottles had been smashed. Cruise was behind me, furious.
"I swear to you they will die for this. I will kill them with my own two hands."
In the dining room two chairs were broken and the contents of the sideboard and cabinets strewn over the whole room. The sitting room had been searched, though not as violently as the dining room. The coffee table was broken, one leg snapped off. My painting was undamaged but was askew on the wall. I opened the door to the corridor which leads to the bedrooms and to my father's study, at the end. From the doorway I could see that the study door had been kicked down. It is always kept locked. Cruise pushed past me and I shouted to him.
"No!"
But it was too late. He stood in the doorway of the study, staring at its contents. I walked slowly towards him and Leppard came quickly past me and past Cruise, into the small room. Axel had joined us and remained behind me as I leaned against the doorframe, looking in at the desk and the possessions which my father had left there, preserved for nearly half a century. I could not look at Cruise whose eyes I could feel fixed on me now, searching for my reaction. Leppard was fingering the material of my father's uniform which was folded neatly, as always, on top of the chest of drawers.
"Why, why did you not tell us of this?"
"How could I? How could I tell you?"
"Your father's?"
I nodded. I felt the blood draining from my head and tears pricking at my eyes.
"Why have you kept all this here?"
"He was my father. What could I do?"
"Yes. He was your father."
"What should I have done. He was my father. I loved him, as anyone loves a father. He was my father."
"He was a Nazi. He was an SS officer. A colonel"
"Do you think I have not had to live with that? Do you think I approve of that?"
"Where did he serve? This is the Death's Head emblem. Was he a prison camp guard? Where? Mauthausen?"
My voice cracked as I answered.
"Belsen."
"Shit. But why have you kept it? Why?"
"Can you not see? I told you before. My grandfather was a court servant. My father was his son. He was brought up to serve. And after... until... that is all he did. He just followed orders, there was no choice anyway, you said so, Cruise. You said that."
"No choice. And where did his wealth - your wealth - come from?"
"I do not know."
"Did you never ask yourself: How could my father, a simple man, be so wealthy?"
"Even I did not see the inside of this room until after his death. I never knew of this. He could never have risked that. It was dangerous enough for him to carry on living in Vienna. He should have gone to America or Australia. The strain of the secret killed him in the end."
"Poor man. And how many did he rob and kill? Hundreds? Thousands? You are a fool. You should have destroyed all of this. Or told us when you found it. I remember, now, how little you said when he died. You should have told me."
"He was wrong, but he was my father."
"Yes, until his death. Enjoy your aesthetic pleasures, friend. They are not for me."
Cruise spat on the floor of the study and pushed past me roughly. Leppard followed him out without even looking at me. I turned to Axel, appealing to him to understand. But he shook his head, his disgust evident. And they were gone and I was left with the silence of my father's apartment.
AFTER they had gone I cried for nearly an hour, sitting in my father's seat, leaning my head on his desk. The contempt in Cruise's glare, the disgust written on Axel's face, these things burn my mind even now.
This room has haunted me. In a letter, left with his lawyer, my father told me what to expect. At first I wanted to destroy it all. I hated him as I had learnt to hate the Nazis for what they had done to my country. But as the months and then years passed and I came here daily to sit and think, to sit here at my father's desk, surrounded by his mementoes, his uniform and weapons, his papers, his medals, the excuses started to come to me. There must be many Austrians whose fathers were death camp guards. Not all of them as courageous as my father in his decision to stay. There were many alive still who had killed Jews and taken their possessions. I was not alone. And what should I have done? My father's money - and there was enough - was legally saved in Austrian banks. I had no evidence to suggest that it had once been gold in a Swiss vault. None at all. And the photographs of my father, being awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler, meeting with Himmler and others, these made me feel proud of his achievements, my simple father. Until the war, after the end of the empire, my father had been no one. A servant without masters. The war gave him a purpose. And if he had refused to serve, what then? A prison camp? Death? He only wanted to get on in life, just wanted a life without trouble like any other Austrian. And all of these objects were immaculately preserved. He had cared for them. In those long hours in his study, polishing and brushing, reading through his commendations and personal telegraph messages from the Fuehrer. His Fuehrer. This had been his life after the war.
Now, for the first time, I try on his uniform. It is a little tight and my hair is much longer than my father's in the photographs. But in the mirror I can see a resemblance. I am his son and I carry his clothes with a grace he would have recognised. And now I am sitting at his desk, reading his documents and diaries over and over, wondering how it must have been for him after the war was lost, when the Jews were crying for blood and the Germans were betraying their own people. My friends, Cruise, Axel, Leppard, they could never understand this. They have no reason to fear their pasts. They have nothing to shame them in the eyes of others. They would not understand my feelings now. Proud of my father. Truly proud, without guilt, for the first time. Proud, even, though timidly, of myself for being his son. The son he would have wanted to have if it had all been different.
Leppard wrote, in his novel: "When you read a book, it is your own voice that your mind hears. If that voice is in harmony with your mind's own expectations then its dictates will vindicate your most secret fantasies." When I eat food cooked by another, I think always in terms of what I would have done, how I would have done it. My father's thoughts, as written in his diary on the day the German armies surrendered, they come to me now. His pistol, loaded I know, with a single bullet, has rested there always, there on the edge of the desk. A constant reminder to him of the options which exist. "If, as they say, the Führer is dead, I must nevertheless fulfil my duty to the German people, to myself. I will go on. My courage will be unwavering." And in those words, my deepest, most carefully concealed desires find their affirmation.
I will keep the apartment as it is, as Axel has designed it. The Hundertwasser as well. Perhaps, as Cruise says, he is partly Jewish. But above all else, he is Austrian. And that is what matters.
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.