Unity (12 page)

Fliss looked ravishing, albeit freezing, in a silver evening dress. She wore the lightest make-up in deference to Hitler’s disdain for
cosmetics (the one – the only – matter on which I agree with him). I’m enclosing three photographs which I’ve filched from the Unit Photographer so that you can see what a great blonde she makes. But, when I told her so myself, she took it quite the wrong way and accused me of being ‘pathetic and predictable’. I tried to explain that I was paying her a compliment not expressing a
preference
. She remained unappeased.

The extended delay allowed the two of us the chance to explore the theatre, although we were prevented from entering the
auditorium
by an attendant so officious that I felt sure he must have been a relic of the ancien regime. As we gazed at photographs of past productions, we drifted into a discussion on the nature of art. Standing in what must be the greatest of all monuments to an artist’s sense – or should that be delusion? – of grandeur, it would have been hard to avoid a momentary consideration of artistic responsibility, even without an awareness of the forces massing outside. After all, Wagner created not only supreme works of art but the supreme image of the artist. It is commonplace to
question
his work – how much it was distorted by Nazi philosophy and how much it was the source of it – but it is equally germane to examine the nature of the man himself. It was he, far more than Nietzsche or anyone else, who introduced Hitler to the concept of the dictatorship of genius: the great man – ostensibly an artist but, as you brought out so brilliantly in your performance, he
interpreted
the word
artist
very loosely – who was entitled to ride roughshod over all personal and social obligations in pursuit of his vision.

Do you remember Brian, whose knowledge of theology far exceeds mine and, I suspect, yours, supplying an eloquent
explanation
of why artists should not be judged by conventional moral standards? Orthodox belief states that, at the Last Judgement – the only one that truly counts – we will be assessed not by our actions but by the consequences of those actions after our deaths. So
Tolstoy, Shelley, Byron (I think he also included J.M.Barrie, but that was just swank) and the rest may have behaved like pigs to their wives and families, but that was outweighed by the insight, joy, even grace that they have subsequently brought to millions of readers. Them I grant, but what of Wagner? He provided both the inspiration and the imagery of fascism. To talk of his work in purely musical terms is disingenuous. Look at the difference between Wagner’s version of the Grail myth and Mallory’s. Mallory extols the purity of his hero’s character; Wagner the purity of his race. His is an exclusively Aryan redemption. He purged the Grail of any taint of Semitic origin fifty years before Hitler. Israel is right to have banned the performance of his work.
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Whereas I see unbridled individualism as the danger – perhaps the gravest – facing any artist, Fliss sees the opposite. To her, single-mindedness is the essence of any true artist from Wagner to Wolfram (Don’t make too much of the coupling; I’m sure she did it purposely to annoy me). She claims that, if I’m so intent on social improvement, I should write odes to tractors in the Ukraine (it’s noticeable that her new-found sympathies are all for the
revolutionary
elite and stop short of the toiling masses). It may be because of my Cambridge training – I should say ‘our Cambridge training’ since I know you feel the same – that I lay so much emphasis on the moral value of art.
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The word
moral
rings immediate alarm bells for Fliss, who maintains that I sound like Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby embroidering homilies on a sampler,
but you know very well – as does she, though she won’t admit it – that I’m talking not of dispensing moralistic precepts but rather of extending human sympathies. Religion is divisive, and, moreover, its premise is increasingly tenuous. Art, especially in the public arena, is now the only place where we can come to celebrate our common bond. I understand that the art-humanity equation may cause problems for Wolfram and his friends who grew up in a country that produced Heydrich.
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But their history is not ours. They have Wagner; we have Shakespeare.

Besides, I feel that Wolfram is simply rationalising his own instincts. He holds that people are fundamentally selfish (remember the line that he gave to Mephisto: ‘altruism is just egotism in Lent’?) and that it is impossible for them to make any genuine connections. Whereas the whole reason I’m here – I’m talking Germany, but we might equally be talking life – can be found in my conviction that the shortest distance between any two people is art.

Fliss attacked me on that front too. She claimed that my work will never compare with Wolfram’s because he ‘embraces his demons’ (don’t ask!). He struggles to find the beauty in ugliness. But, given that there is so much beauty in beauty, doesn’t that strike you as perverse? She insisted that I wouldn’t amount to anything unless I dared more. Artists had to experience
everything
. Yes, I replied, in their imaginations not in their lives. We then resorted to name-dropping. I cited Trollope in his post office, Kafka in his insurance company, Eliot in his bank. She cited Cellini, Ben Jonson and Burroughs, all murderers, Verlaine shooting Rimbaud, and various drug-taking Romantics. She called me a minnow, which she later amended to squid because I … No, let’s try another riddle.

Question: Why is a writer like a squid?

Answer: Because he sends out clouds of ink to defend himself.

Feel free to use it on the boys.

It turns out that, when she talks about my need to experience everything, what she is actually talking about is my need to
experience
Wolfram. Maybe you won’t find it bizarre – I’m sorry; I know you and I should know better – but she has taken it on herself to plead his cause. The truth is that the incident in Cannes wasn’t the end of the matter. I’ve spared you a protracted report of his sexual manoeuvres, partly because they’re squalid and tedious, but mainly because I don’t take them seriously, any more I suspect than he does. It’s as though it’s a ritual we’re bound to observe. He makes a move. I deflect it. Both our honours are satisfied. Fliss, on the other hand, supposes him to be in earnest. She says that the film is suffering on account of his obsession with me and that I make myself ridiculous by resisting. After all, women constantly have to sleep with undesirable men.

What makes it worse is that she claims I’ve encouraged him: that I’ve been flirting with him ever since Edinburgh. When I told her that she was talking balls (as you’ll appreciate, my patience had run out), she declared peremptorily that I was at the mercy of my unconscious. She compared me to her niece who, at six years old, sits on her father’s lap, making sheep’s-eyes and stroking his thinning hair. Gee thanks! Don’t worry, she said, I’m not suggesting that she wants to have sex with him, rather that she’s aware of his sexuality and instinctively plays on it. The net result of her remarks has been to make me so wary of Wolfram that, this morning, he asked me why I was in a perpetual sulk.

Why does she say such things when she knows they hurt me? Of course she admires Wolfram; of course she’s grateful to him, but she has an odd way of showing it. I think the answer is that she’s not at all the sexual sophisticate she would like to appear. Do you remember that time in Greece when she suggested that
you and I should share a bed and ‘consummate’ our friendship – as if friendship followed the same course as love? The idea was appalling. I could see that you felt as insulted as I did, although, with characteristic tact, you chose not to embarrass her. I’ve even begun to wonder if women might fantasise about two men together the way that men do about two women. At least that this man does. But a fantasy is a fantasy. I wouldn’t expect anyone – especially not Fliss – to make it real. So I asked her point-blank if the thought of Wolfram in bed with me turned her on. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she said in a voice curdled with scorn. ‘I don’t know what he sees in you.’ ‘What do you see in me?’ I countered,
immediately
regretting the question. ‘You may well ask,’ she said and walked away.

I’ve talked it over with Dora. I left out some of the details, but she seems intuitively to understand. Not the way you do, of course. I miss you awfully. Fliss says the same. It’s one of the few things on which we still agree. At least you’ll be out here for
half-term
, by which time it should all be over bar the shouting. Normal service will be resumed.

In the meantime, I send you my very best wishes,

Confused of Munich.

8 München 40,

Giselastrasse 23,

West Germany

2nd Oct 1977

Dear Michael,

Our letters must have crossed. Perhaps we should institute a system whereby we each write every second Thursday. That way we ought to keep in synch. At the risk of repeating myself, please don’t worry about not replying at length. I know you’re under a lot of pressures. So am I. But the one that I can escape is time. I hope you won’t consider this self-aggrandising, but would you keep these letters from now on? It’s not that I’m planning a collected edition of my correspondence; I’d just like to preserve a record. You’re the only person to whom I’m writing regularly … the only one to whom I could begin to say the things I’m going to say today. Perhaps one day, I’ll write an account of the filming and the letters will jog my memory. Or perhaps one day, I’ll look back from happier times in order to refine my definition of
sad
.

I’ve reflected a lot on your remarks about the cruelty of
schoolboys
in relation to my visit to Dachau. The incident with the glue and the horsehair made me squirm. I know that the link has been made before. Wasn’t it Auden who claimed that he was fully attuned to the horrors of fascism having attended an English public school?
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When I first read that, I dismissed it as the typical hyperbole of his class and, if you’ll forgive me, orientation, but I’m no longer so sure. Perhaps horsehair is the piano-wire of the
prepubescent
. And, inside every schoolboy, there’s a Gestapo officer waiting to grow up.

My father would certainly endorse that. The same post that brought me your letter brought me his. I’ve told you that he was one of the first British soldiers to reach Bergen-Belsen. I felt impelled to write to him after Dachau to express – what?
solidarity
… sympathy … I’m not sure. He replied with a very formal letter, written in a deceptively neat hand, insisting that he could not allow me to labour under a misapprehension. His
experience
of the camp had, indeed, been hellish, far more so than I could ever suspect from the newsreels. Sight had not been the only outraged sense. But the real horror – if I were determined to use such emotive words – was what had occurred afterwards, when he was among a group of soldiers who were so inflamed by what they had seen that they took revenge on a German woman who was hiding in a nearby farm, forcing her to have sex with a horse. ‘So you see,’ he concluded, ‘there’s a little Eichmann in every man and he lurks between your legs. Ever your affectionate father.’

Meanwhile, life on the home front has been equally desperate. You remember how Fliss and I always said that we’d make you the godfather to our first child? Well, I shouldn’t choose a christening mug yet. I wasn’t sure that I’d tell you until I began this paragraph (and I’m still not sure that I’ll post the letter), but we’ve split up. Kaput! Finito! I suppose I should try to save face and claim it as a joint decision … best thing for both of us, etc, etc. But, if the truth were known, I was simply the first to be told. It seems that we’ve grown stale; we’ve been together too long; we need to branch out on our own, meet new people (you get the picture). To quote dear Geraldine – and she does: ‘Making love to one man, you learn about him, his likes and dislikes, how to be a couple. Making love to different men, you learn about you, your likes and dislikes, how to be yourself.’

So there it is. No ‘let’s try to talk things through’. No ‘there must be a way forward after all these years’. No ‘you’re as much a part of me as my own body’. No acknowledgement that, as I write
this, every nerve feels as though it has fallen down five flights of stairs. You know us. We’re a pair. We belong together. We’re ‘Felicity and Luke’. It’s always ‘Hi, Felicity, where’s Luke?’ or ‘Luke, where’s Felicity?’ We used to joke that we were the
Pushmi-Pullyu
of Cambridge. Well now, we’ll be pulling in different
directions
. It’s so cruel – and immature – and selfish. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t even be in Munich … there wouldn’t be a
Unity
. I’m not asking her to stay with me from a sense of
obligation
, but common decency demands that she postpone any
decision
until the end of the shoot (by which time it will be superfluous because she’ll be able to think straight again). And yet, when I said as much, she asked if I were trying to destroy her confidence. Did I believe she wasn’t up to the part? Was it too much to hope that we might stay friends?

She demeans friendship by her subterfuge. What you and I are is friends. Friendship isn’t love with the passion taken out like non-alcoholic wine.

I’m convinced that she’s having an affair with Mahmoud’s brother, Ahmet. Have I told you about him? I’m so confused. I remember reading an article about Dieter in which he claimed that he always had to check he was wearing clothes before he went out and thinking ‘What a poseur!’. I humbly beg his pardon. In the ‘losing the plot’ stakes, I win by a length. So, to be on the safe side, I’ll assume that I haven’t mentioned Ahmet before. He arrived from Lebanon on a family visit. Not that Mahmoud seems particularly pleased, although, in his case, a curt nod probably counts as the acme of pleasure. Fliss told me – at a time when she was still telling me things – that Ahmet belongs to some offshoot of the PLO, only more extreme (her word was ‘committed’). He and Geraldine have known each other for years. They bump into each other at conferences (the Old Lefties Network). If you ask me, they share far more than a taste for Trotsky. But, according to Fliss, they are simply comrades in arms. He thinks of her as a
sister. I presume that she means in the Borgia sense.