The Empire of the Senses (45 page)

Lev wandered through the party, a glass of champagne in hand, weaving in and out of small clusters of people talking and smoking and drinking. The actress Hertha Schroeter played the saxophone in the corner, immersed in her own performance. Baby Goldschmidt-Rothschild was talking to Hermine Feist, the daughter of a coal and steel magnate who’d married into a German champagne dynasty. She had the largest collection of china in Europe, particularly Meissen, and after Baby Rothschild pulled Lev aside, introducing him as “the textile man,” they resumed their conversation about stonechats. Baby Rothschild said her son had found a nest in their garden the other day. “Impossibly beautiful eggs—russet flecked, as if dusted with cinnamon.” Then Hermine explained how stonechats received such a name because their high-pitched calls sounded as if two stones were clicking together. She put a hand on Lev’s arm. “The way their wings constantly flutter—I’d give away half my china for their metabolism.”

“Where’s your lovely wife, by the way?” Baby Rothschild asked, scanning the room.

“Migraine,” Lev said dryly, half listening to another conversation, one that Diaghilev, the Russian choreographer, was carrying on with Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy. “I thought he was the next Nijinsky,” Diaghilev cried mournfully, “but this Cobos, the Spaniard, he went mad and disappeared, just like that, not showing up for performances or showing up at the very last minute, unprepared, but then he would dance the most unbelievable dance, and the crowd would roar with applause—everyone made special allowances for Cobos.”

Paul nodded sympathetically. “And now he’s loose in Berlin?”

Diaghilev sighed. “He’s the depressive type.”

Lev’s little cluster dispersed. Rothschild went to refill her drink, and Hermine spotted a banker she knew who’d recently had his ten-room apartment in Charlottenburg done over by Ernst Freud, son of Sigmund, whose views on clutter were as severe as those of Mies. “I must say hello,” she whispered to Lev, before shimmying over to the banker. Lev thought about congratulating Flechtheim on his recent purchase—an El Greco—but Flechtheim was in deep conversation with a willowy woman who looked vaguely familiar. She nodded and jotted down notes on a notepad. A journalist of some sort, Lev thought, his stomach rumbling. Of course there was no food to speak of—only champagne and caviar dotted on endive leaves. He suddenly felt overcome by a wave of exhaustion. He wanted to sit, to recline if possible. Remembering the library with the deep leather couches, he waded through the living room, catching snippets of chatter—two women bickered over Beethoven’s late quartets, a man in formal wear exclaimed how handsome Picasso was, and a young girl carried a Persian cat on her shoulder.

When Lev squeezed past Flechtheim and the journalist, he overheard her saying how a person never just feels one emotion at a time—one always experiences a layered response to the world, and art captures this best, especially portraits. She raised her voice, sensing Flechtheim’s boredom. “At least the new art does this, what you collect, as opposed to the simple happiness of the Impressionists.” Flechtheim laughed sardonically
at the phrase “simple happiness.” Lev was always struck by his full lips, which had an unnatural purple hue to them and made him seem preternaturally decadent.

Finally, the library, with its half-open door, appeared before him. A dim glow emanated from the room, and before entering, Lev heard a booming, familiar voice.

“Ugliness, the grotesque, this is part of reality—no, what I mean to say is, that
is
reality. We must capture reality, stop it in its tracks, study it, analyze it, and confront the truth, a truth that encompasses all of life—its cruelty, ugliness, and its dark beauty too.”

Lev pushed open the door to find a man, his broad back facing him, and two young women in semitransparent shifts who leaned into each other on the leather sofa. The man sat on a fringed ottoman, his feet planted on either side of it, his massive knees jutting outward. Everything about him appeared oversized, bombastic, charged with energy.

“Have you read Henry Miller?” the man demanded.

The girls smiled and fanned themselves.

“I greatly admire his books.” He paused and took a long gulp of his drink.

“He’s only written a few books,” Lev offered, speaking to the back of the man’s head.

The man shrugged. “Miller doesn’t shy away from extremity. What I do with images, he does with words.”

One of the girls kicked off her high heels and wiggled her toes. “The way you paint, the New Objectivity?”

The man studied his nails. “Hmmm.”

She yawned into her drink. “Is it German?”

The man shook his head. “What does it matter if it’s German or not? It’s human.” He turned his head. His strong jaw and heavy-lidded eyes, his short neck and sharp profile sent a tremor of recognition through Lev.

“Excuse me?” Lev said, his voice buried in his chest. He coughed a few times. “Otto? Otto Schad?”

The man faced him. “Of course I’m Otto Schad.”

Lev shook his head and laughed.

Otto jumped up and bellowed, “Lev Perlmutter! What in the hell are you doing here of all places?”

“What do you mean ‘of all places’?”

Otto ran a hand through his hair. “I knew I would see you again, but I always pictured running into you at Berlin central station or the lobby of a hotel or some little bar. Flechtheim’s my dealer. We met in Düsseldorf a few years back.”

“You seem to be doing quite well for yourself.”

“Well?” Otto roared. Then he embraced Lev and pounded a fist into his back. “I’m doing well, yes, you could say that.”

One of the girls drowsed on the couch. The other one stretched her arms overhead, managing to show off her perfectly pointed breasts, which poked through the chiffon fabric. “Are you going to paint me tonight or not?”

“Lev Perlmutter. Lev Perlmutter.” Otto looked at him with astonishment. “Incredible.”

They spoke for a while in the library, unaware of time, of the night growing later, of the girls leaving and the party dispersing. It was as if, just by looking at Otto, Lev simultaneously inhabited two different existences: in the barracks of Mitau, smoking on their beds and listening for gunfire, walking along the icy streets, talking about women—Lev’s incessant yearning for Leah, and Otto’s Lithuanian, who fed him milk and cherries to heal his gout. These images collided with the present, or what had been mutually agreed upon as the present: Otto in a smoking jacket with a Brazilian cigar between his lips, explaining how he lived in the fashionable part of town and that his paintings had been selling extremely well. He looked comfortable, flush with money, the color high in his cheeks, his gold cufflinks glinting in the dim light of the library. The rough-and-tumble character Lev had known in the army was all but hidden until Otto opened his mouth. Then every obscenity flowed from it, accompanied by the same wild unhinged gestures, which so attracted women and gained the admiration of men. But how did he appear to Otto? Was he much changed? Had he grown complacent with the level of success he’d achieved as a “textile man”? No—it was simpler than all that. He was the same but older. Which was how
people appeared in middle age, carrying on the same quirks, the same irritating habits, the same unattractive physical qualities, magnified by age, as if you were examining someone under a microscope, the microscope being time passing, and saw that it revealed what had been there all along: that same inherent, damning lack.

The party was in its final throes; a few people remained, passed out on the chaise lounges while housemaids cleared glasses and plates, moving through the rooms as if their limbs were encased in velvet. Alfred and his wife had retired. Max Beckmann sat alone in a corner, surly and depressed. His benefactor, Käthe, smiled at Lev and shrugged her birdlike shoulders, as if to say,
He’s difficult, but I love him all the more for it
.

On their way out the door, Lev muttered to Otto, “God, she suffers for him,” and Otto said, “Suffering is an art unto itself and one I’m not very interested in.”

They ended up wandering the streets of St. Pauli, drinking from Otto’s flask, recalling various details about Mitau, details they’d chosen to forget until now.

“Remember when it snowed and you took me to that cabal with the wonder-rabbi?”

Lev shook his head. “It wasn’t a cabal. Just a group of old men and a rabbi.”

“Well, it worked! My gout healed.”

Three women passed, and under the harsh light of the streetlamps, their heavily painted faces betrayed their true sex. They catcalled to Lev and Otto once the cover of night enveloped them again.

Lev and Otto kept walking.

“Your gout healed because you stopped drinking.”

“And then it came back,” Otto admitted, “when I started drinking.”

“Did you ever hear from Antonina again?” Lev asked, wanting to steer the conversation back to the women they’d left behind so that he could talk about Leah. Seeing Otto made him feel as if Leah was nearby, watching him. If he could only talk about her out loud, to someone who also knew her, she would feel more real to him, as if invoking her name would magically summon her.

Otto paused, examining the street signs. “I haven’t thought of her in years. Jesus—Antonina. Who knows?”

The streetlamps shone down on them, a spectral glow.

“I never heard from Leah,” Lev said.

Otto glanced around the empty streets. “I could have sworn the club was here.” Then he smiled at Lev, his face loose with drink. “It’s better not to harp on the past.”

“Yes,” Lev said softly.

“Look at me! I take each moment as it comes. The future, the past—blah—who cares?” Then Otto stuck out his tongue.

Lev tried to act amused, but he thought Otto had barbarically severed himself from the past, as if it were a dead thing. Lev tried again. “What did you do after the war? Did you end up going to your brother’s in the south?”

Otto yawned. “For a bit. Then I got bored. You know, I wanted to become a famous artist. So I moved back to Berlin. And here I am!” He walked a few paces ahead and threw his hands in the air. “I must be really drunk. Can’t find this damn place.”

Just then a Chinese man appeared, and spotting Otto, he scurried over and whispered into his ear.

Otto nodded, and they followed him for a few blocks until they arrived at a nondescript building with a red awning.

“Wait here,” the man said, and then he disappeared behind a black lacquered door.

Otto turned to Lev. “They’re suspicious of Europeans. Generally, only Chinese and Malays come here.”

Before Lev could ask more about this place, they were ushered into a dimly lit antechamber. Otto paid the admission, and the Chinese man gestured for them to check their coats and umbrellas. Otto then pulled out a revolver from the inside of his jacket and checked that too. Lev glanced at him, and Otto just shrugged.

The Chinese man performed a little bow, and then led them to a cellar with red carpets and vaulted ceilings. In the dim amber light, Lev noticed a few elegantly dressed Chinese men dreaming, tossing to and fro, their slim bodies splayed out on the low velvet couches. The air,
sweet and moist, hung heavily. The host, a portly Chinese man, made an extravagant bow and showed them the opium pipe, dropping a small pebble of opium in its porcelain bowl, and gestured to a nearby couch. Once they were seated, he slipped away.

The calming sound of water flowing from a fountain combined with the occasional Chinese man speaking in his foreign tongue gave Lev an artificial sense of ease, while he vaguely wondered what time it was, and where they were, and why Otto carried a gun.

Otto took a tentative puff of the pipe and then paused, waiting for the effect. He passed it to Lev, who did the same. They continued to smoke. Behind them, Chinese men chatted. Lev saw a European man clutching a pillow with tassels, moaning, “Please, please don’t—I don’t want it.”

Otto tilted his head back, gazing up at the ceiling from which drapery hung in great silk folds. “The best inspiration comes from the pipe; when I wake, the most amazing revelations come to me.” A string of drool hung from Otto’s lower lip. Lev felt his eyelids grow heavy. He blinked. Holding the bamboo pipe suddenly felt like a strain. He twisted the little knob in the middle of the pipe because it looked similar to a doorknob, and he imagined that another door would open, and it did.

He walked into a forest of birches. The long white trees shielded him from the hot eastern sun, and the smell of wheat and dirt instantly confirmed what he already knew: he was in Mitau again. He clutched at his belt, but he didn’t have his gun. The forest was suspiciously quiet. He could only hear the crunch of his shoes treading through dry mounds of leaves. He wore civilian clothes—a three-piece suit, leather lace-ups coated in mud. I should take off my shoes, he thought, bending down to remove them. The sun beat on his neck. He glanced up at the trees, a dizzying maze of whiteness. A feral cat crossed his path, paused, and kept moving. Then he was holding his shoes, and the earth felt cool beneath his feet. He made his way to a clearing and saw a little straw hut with a thatched roof. Shelter, he thought.

Leah poked her head out of the hut. “Lev!” she shouted. “What took so long?” She looked exactly as he had left her—the same blue-black
hair dazzling in the sun, the same open face, high cheekbones, delicate mouth. He wanted to run to her, touch her mouth, her hair, her skin.

She waved to him again. “Come. We’ve been waiting.”

The hut was just there, twenty meters ahead, but with each step he took, the hut receded into the forest. He reached out his hand. “I’m coming.”

She held an embroidered handkerchief into the wind. It fluttered and dipped with grace.

He paused, catching his breath.

“Why are you wearing that suit? It’s broiling out. I have a clean set of clothes for you. The shirt from yesterday? I already washed it.” She smiled triumphantly.

“That’s good,” Lev managed, afraid to take a step lest the hut, and Leah, drift farther from him.

She folded the handkerchief into a triangle and tied it under her thick mane. Then she marched toward him. “I have to come fetch you myself.”