William Boyd - The New Confessions

I saw Doon again before Sonia arrived. In the Realismus offices, where we met to sign the contracts. Karl-Heinz was there, and Mavrocordato also, to my annoyance. Mavrocordato had prematurely gray hair and was a handsome, large, jowly man with big shoulders and a big soft chest. Apparently Doon still lived with him off and on, and used him as a kind of unofficial manager. Aram wheeled his father out from his office. Champagne was opened and we toasted the success of Julie . That day I had chronic indigestion and the champagne’s acid bubbles seethed the length of my esophagus. It was as if some physical dolor had to attend my encounters with Doon. I suffered from a broth of confused sensations and emotions: heartburn, real and metaphorical; a sour hatred for the ursine Mavrocordato; fleeting elations and pride over Julie . And a dour worry about the impending arrival of my wife and children.

Among the chatter and the toasts, Duric Lodokian beckoned me over to his wheelchair and shook my hand. Then he pulled me down, my ear to his smoky mouth.

“Fantastical girl,” he coughed. “My God, I like to have her once before I die.”

“Me too,” I said, punching my fiery chest. “Me too.”

“I love Doon Bogan, I love Doon Bogan” was the ill-timed refrain pulsating through my head as I watched Sonia, Mrs. Shorrold and my two children advance along the platform towards me. I had not counted on my mother-in-law, but it was reasonable to suppose that Sonia could not have coped with the journey alone. I tried to expunge the image of Doon from my mind as I kissed my wife. Sonia looked as smart as ever, if a little tired, wearing a neat oyster-gray suit. Vincent shied away from me, terrified, as if I were a threatening stranger. Mrs. Shorrold held Hereford. He looked fat and jolly and shook his fist vigorously at me, in welcome, I hoped. He must have been three months old.

I supervised the luggage and organized two taxis to transport it and us to Rudolfplatz. It was a sunny day and I pointed out this and that feature as we drove through the city center. Sonia, I could see, was excited and impressed. Berlin looked fresh and cosmopolitan. However, Sonia’s expression fell rather as we recrossed the Spree and drove down Stralauer Allee towards the apartment. Fine buildings gave way to drab residential streets. From time to time we got glimpses of the river to our right, with its untidy clusters of barges, docks piled high with bricks and sand, sacks and boxes of vegetables.

“Why are we living here?” Sonia asked plaintively as we disembarked at Rudolfplatz.

“It’s very cheap,” I said.

“But I thought you said we were well off.”

“We are.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. “We’ll move, don’t worry. We’ll move tomorrow.”

“No need for sarcasm, Johnny.”

I could appreciate that seen through her eyes the apartment left something to be desired. I was no interior decorator, but at least I had asked Frau Mittenklott to look in twice a week to do some cleaning and cooking whenever her duties at Georg Pfau’s permitted. The unsatisfactory nature of our reunion was compounded by my inability to make love to Sonia that night. Guilt about Doon made me detumescent.

“What’s wrong?” Sonia asked kindly. She was always thoughtful.

“I don’t know.… I think I must be tired. Too much work, the film—” I babbled on, seeking refuge in a monologue, and soon enough Sonia fell asleep.

And soon enough a routine and ostensible family life was established at Rudolfplatz, facilitated and made tolerable — at least for Sonia — by there being some money in the bank. A nurse was employed to look after the boys and Sonia and her mother shopped strenuously for curtains, carpets, furniture and all the odds and ends of a proper home that I had been unable to provide. At weekends we went to the beach at Wannsee, for a picnic in the Grunewald, or we took a steamer down to Potsdam. There was a sizable British film presence in Berlin in those days, owing to the considerable number of Anglo-German co-productions, and Sonia discovered that she knew some of the girls working in the studios. Even Vincent Shorrold came over for a month’s holiday. Suddenly, my life acquired its old context, something that — after the months of bachelorhood and freedom — I found unsettling. I concentrated on my film.

July and August went by as we waited for Karl-Heinz to finish Diary of a Prostitute (A. E. Groth was notoriously pedantic — no one could rush him). In the meantime all the innumerable logistical problems of film making presented themselves and were laboriously overcome. We found our perfect château near Arneburg overlooking the Elbe, and then lost it when the owner asked for double his fee. We found another. A large model of the Parisian skyline was constructed (the view from Saint-Preux’s garret) and was destroyed in a medium-sized fire at the Grunewald studios. Monika Alt (Claire) had an abortion, followed swiftly by a nervous breakdown, and was replaced by Lola Templin-Tavel. And so on.

I found myself becoming steadily more harassed over the day-to-day aggravations. Aram Lodokian could only devote a portion of his time to Julie , as he was preoccupied with running Realismus (old Duric seemed to be growing iller). I suggested we hire a co-producer and Aram agreed. I wrote to Leo Druce in London and offered him the job. Leo sold his car-hire business and was in Berlin by late August. Thus the old team was reunited.

Leo was almost embarrassingly grateful. “You keep pulling me out of the fire,” he said. I told him he was doing me a favor, and sure enough his presence proved invaluable. I soon found myself with time on my hands and on the pretext of doing some rewrites on the script I went to see Doon Bogan.

She lived in the west end, on Schlüter Strasse, off the Kurfürstendamm and not far from the Palmenhaus Café. Her apartment was small and cluttered; no real attempt had been made to prettify or decorate it. Evidence of her wealth and fame — a walnut baby grand supporting a troop of silver-framed photographs, a long rectangular chrome-and-leather sofa — contrasted strongly with her own untidiness. A bundle of half a dozen dresses was laid over the back of an armchair. In the hall was a large stack of what looked absurdly like political broadsheets.

She showed me into the sitting room. She had on a cobalt cardigan over a shirt and tie. The hem was coming down at the back of her crepe skirt. She wore — as I came to learn she always did — her leather dancing pumps. Doon was not an unconfident woman, but she was curiously self-conscious about her height. My abiding memory of her entering a room is the relief with which she flung herself into chairs, as if she had been walking for hours. When compelled to stand, at a reception or a cocktail party, say, she always made straight for a pillar or wall to lean against. It was not a case of politesse , aware of shorter men; she did the same with Mavrocordato, who was taller than she.

Now she sat promptly on the leather sofa and lit a cigarette. I made the usual insincere compliments about her flat. Above the fire was a blurry photograph of a strong-faced, dark-haired woman with an old-fashioned hairstyle.

“Your mother?” I asked.

“Rosa Luxemburg.”

“Rosa who?”

“My God.” She seemed surprised. “Haven’t you heard of her?”

“No. Who is she?”

“Those Free Corps bastards murdered her, 1919.”

“Oh.… Politics.” I remembered there had been an abortive Communist revolution then. I took a cigarette from the inlaid box on the table.

“Can I borrow a light?”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh.… Politics’? Aren’t you interested in politics?”