The Golden Age

The master from Berlin

Perhaps, dear reader, you think that as I write my mind is filled with visions of the island, that nothing is important to me except the efforts to fish out of memory clearly-drawn pictures of the landscape of the island. Perhaps you think I consider you a remote figure, unreal or bothersome, a figure that disturbs my dreams and at whose behest I have to demean and exert myself by transferring glowing images into dark, clumsy words, to bind in the manacles of grammar and syntax the free, light motions of the waves, sands, and winds that linger in my memory. Perhaps you think that because of this I hate you, that I consider you the agent of my misfortune, that I sit at my computer keyboard — whose gentle tapping beneath my fingers is transformed into the sounds of gravel underfoot on the scorched paths of the island’s rocks — hatching plans which do you harm, which use language to ensnare you.

How mistaken you are, dear reader! I think of you continually; I am grateful to you that our conversation allows me to inject by sharp, angular words at least a flickering glow in the faded images. It is your face that I see in the gaps between all words, I am forever anxious for your comfort, I worry that the reading I ask of you is boring you. I would be happier if this travelogue were sold in a box containing items to supplement the reading matter — a fine-woven hammock, a bottle of a sweet liqueur, flacons, Oriental sweetmeats; you would read the book stretched out comfortably in the hammock, nibbling on Turkish delight and sipping the liqueur, the air would be scented with essence of cedarwood and myrrh; in fact, I would even offer my services for free for the packing of these boxes.

When I told you that nothing ever happened on the island, I suspect you did not believe me; you thought that I was exaggerating, that there was surely a tale of excitement to come. In this I am afraid I have to disappoint you: it really is the case that you will encounter nothing like this in the whole book. I suppose I could invent something, tell you of fights with vicious beasts, of the discovery of precious carvings in a sunken gallery, of the stirring of a volcano, of the remnants of an ancient cult of magic into which I was initiated, of mysterious apparitions in the hot, empty streets of the lower town…But I really want to tell you the truth, which is that in the three years I spent on the island, nothing happened; nor had anything interesting happened there in all the centuries since the European conquest. But when — thinking of you — I sat down at my computer this morning, an idea came to me: if you are so anxious to have a story, I can at least finish that of the Czech emigrant in Paris. Now it seems to me I was too harsh on you in refusing to say any more about the theft of the necklace. Let us return to Paris; perhaps you remember that we left Baumgarten sitting next to the cat-burglar — whose life he had just saved — on the snow-covered roof, perched on the neon letter “a.”

“Is it really necessary to commit crimes in weather like this?” he asked her with reproach, when at last he had got his breath back. The girl began to apologize, assuring him that she, too, would sooner be sitting at home than in a blizzard like this. But she desperately needed to get her hands on some money by the morning of the next day, when at eleven o’clock an auction would commence where a painting she had long hankered after was up for sale.

“And what picture is this for which you almost plunge from the rooftops? Have your friends ransacked the Louvre?”

“No, the gallery where the auction is taking place is a respectable business. The picture I want is by a German painter who recently died. Drowned last year bathing in the Wannsee. He left only a few works behind and hardly anyone knows him. I came across the picture by chance in a small gallery in Kreutzberg, the quarter of Berlin. And unfortunately I didn’t have the money for it then.”

“Nothing’s changed there, has it?”

“Quite right. In fact I’m in a worse position now than I was then, because the artist’s death has raised the cost of his pictures. But I’ve stopped working in a bank and found a new career for myself, one where I can get more money.”

“I have to say you’re pretty good at clambering over roofs. But what’s so wonderful about the picture by the drowning Berliner?” Baumgarten was asking out of politeness; he was getting cold and he was imagining himself back in his warm bed. But obviously the girl had been waiting for such a question and she began to talk of the picture.

“The picture is really a great book of stories,” she said. “There are hundreds of elaborate story-lines on it, which at certain points cross, join or branch off in new directions. It’s true that the picture shows a single place at a single, non-dimensional moment, but into the space which fills this moment the artist has implanted a great many signs which form some kind of lettering. One needs to make connections among the signs, to group them into the words and sentences of the individual stories.”

“These are symbols, did you say?” Baumgarten, who taught a seminar in semiotics at the university, was suddenly attentive.

“No, the signs are in body language, facial expression, on postcards and in open letters, photographs, pictures and sculptures, newspaper articles and books lying open with notes in the margin and passages underlined. In the week that the picture was on exhibition in Berlin, I managed only to identify a small part of the story-lines written using these letters, but the need to decipher them took hold of me and I longed to read the picture to the end, although I knew very well that I would be unlikely to manage this during my lifetime. But it’ll be marvellous once I have the picture hanging on my wall at home and I’m able to study it when I get in from my night-time excursions to strangers’ rooms and empty rooftops. My life will be wonderful and I’m so much looking forward to it!”

“But you’ve forgotten that you don’t have the money for the picture. Or are we to resume our fight for the necklace?”

“Don’t worry, I’m finished on this roof. But it’s a long time till morning.” With this the girl fell silent; it seemed she was waiting for Baumgarten to invite her to tell him more about the picture. But because the aesthetician, too, was silent, she resumed of her own accord.

“If I were to describe to you everything I’ve seen in the picture, we’d freeze to death up here. Anyway, I don’t have much time — as you know, there’s still work for me to do tonight. But I would like to make up for the unpleasantness I’ve caused you. I’d like to give you at least a brief description of the picture.”

Accepting that he would have to hear the girl out, Baumgarten made himself more comfortable on the tip of the “a,” while cautiously the thief changed her position from the right-hand cap of the “y” to the left so as to be closer to him. The neon tubes hummed quietly; there was something about this sound that reminded Baumgarten of his past, but he did not wish to think about that now. The girl’s mouth gave out cloudlets of vapour as she spoke; these were coloured by the purple light before they dissolved in the dark.

“The picture was four metres long and a metre-and-a-half high. Three-quarters of its surface was covered by a gently rippling sea with a blue sky above it. In the other quarter, on the right, the artist had painted a town with a harbour. It looked like it was somewhere in the Mediterranean. It was the time of the afternoon siesta and the walls were sweltering in the sun. There were suntanned tourists walking along the pier, figures in shorts and colourful T-shirts sitting on the terraces of harbour-side restaurants in the shadow of outstretched sails, on the tables beside them glasses of iced coffee, broad-brimmed straw hats, glossy magazines and half-written postcards.”

“You said you were going to keep it brief,” Baumgarten interposed as the cold continued to bite.

“But that’s why I’m not telling you what was written on the menu cards, in the magazines, on the postcards and in the diary of a history of art student from America, which was lying next to her on a wickerwork chair on a café terrace, although these were all extremely important things. On one of the postcards, for instance, written in green ballpoint…”

“OK, I won’t interrupt you again,” said Baumgarten, who was afraid the thief would go into detail about all the things she wouldn’t be mentioning.

“In narrow streets leading up from the harbour to the ruins of mighty ramparts were women wearing black dresses, sitting on chairs in front of doors which gave straight on to living rooms. In the shadows of open taprooms the wrinkled, tanned skin of natives was visible as they sipped their coffee and their anisette. As I said, when one studies the scenes in the picture, one discovers connections among them which build up into stories.”

“I’m still having difficulty imagining it clearly,” said Baumgarten, who was beginning to be drawn in by the narration.

“It might be better if I were to give you some examples of the stories which I read in the picture. How about the one about the turbine, the peanut butter and the sordid dreams? In a window of one of the apartments you could see three men, the eldest of whom was sunk in a deep armchair showing the youngest something on a sheet of paper, while the third man was sitting by the window flicking through a notebook. In a mirror hanging on the wall in the background was the reflection of the corner of an adjacent room, which was flooded with sun and had a table in it on which was lying a metal part in the shape of a cylinder, which was smeared with honey…No, the story of the sordid dreams is too long and complicated — it’d be better if I told you the one about the golden helicopter. No, not that one — I’ll tell you about the wrecking of the Zephyrus. One of the yachts at anchor in the harbour had the name Zephyrus emblazoned on its side. The last letter of the name rested against a large, brick-red paint stain in the shape of a butterfly, or rather a moth…” (Baumgarten gave the thief a look of reproach, but apparently the girl did not consider her descriptions to be too long-winded.)

“It looked as if someone had painted the yacht as a temporary measure after some kind of accident. On the jetty there stood a sinewy, unshaven native in a checked shirt, one of whose hands was pointing at the yacht, the other making a sweeping gesture while he explained something excitedly to a soft, pink tourist in Bermuda shorts adorned with palm groves and surfers riding great blue waves.” (Baumgarten was relieved the girl did not describe the patterns on the surfers’ swim-wear.) “He appeared genuinely interested in what the old native was telling him. Which means…”

“Which probably means that not long before the yacht had been involved in some kind of adventure which had damaged its hull, and stories of this adventure were spreading across the town.” Baumgarten was trying to interpret the scene in the picture so that he could move the girl’s account forward. Watching the luminous, phantom-like purple snowflakes, it seemed to him for a moment that he knew their full repertoire of dances, which they repeated ad infinitum.