Adam Thirlwell - Politics

No, Moshe was wrong. It was not his talent that charmed her.

2

In fact, people’s conclusions are often wrong. And I have a theory about this. Conclusions are often wrong because people’s memories are so bad.

For instance, the first time Moshe called her mobile, Nana saw it was him. She had misspelt his name. ‘Moysha mob’, said her Nokia 62ioe. But she did not answer it. She let it ring. This was because she was on the loo in the

Bloomsbury Pizza Express, seated in the brace position — feet splayed, head down, leaning forward. And she never remembered that phone call. But that was the first time he called her. It was a crucial stage in their love story and Nana, because it was embarrassing, because it was unromantic , never ever remembered.

But then everyone is slightly romantic. Everyone has bad memories. Moshe was a romantic too.

Because Moshe remembered so little, he concluded two things about the beginning of this affair. Both were wrong.

Conclusion number one was that it was a seduction. She was seduced by his talent. That was what he thought just after he kissed her. Conclusion number two was that it had been pure love . That was what he thought just after they broke up. Both conclusions made sense only because he had forgotten all the details. To get to conclusion one, he forgot Nana’s lack of concentration and his nervousness in the living room. To get to conclusion two, he forgot their nervous small-talk backstage at the Donmar.

The first conclusion, the seduction conclusion, romanticised Moshe. The second conclusion, the love conclusion, romanticised the two of them.

3

The next time he called he was crafty. Moshe rang her from the theatre. ‘Withheld number calling’, said her Nokia 62ioe. She assumed it was Papa. It was not Papa. Moshe asked her out for a drink. And shy happy Nana said, ‘No no no I’m, m, no. Not tonigh.’ She said, ‘Bu why don you email me?’

He did not email her. He got shy, too.

At first, he accepted, his dramatic techniques seemed only to depress her. But he was always witty. He possessed a variety of conscious burps. He told her acting tips. But why she sat there listening, thought Moshe, was a mystery. He was not cool.

I think, actually, that Moshe was being unfair to himself. It is true he was not incredibly cool. In fact, none of my characters is really very cool. I like that about them. But he was still quite cool.

There was, however, one specific uncool aspect to Moshe. This was acting. Get him on acting, and Moshe had thoughts. He had theories. He had learning. He was, for instance, a student of the great eighteenth-century actor, David Garrick. The cushion trick, in fact, was a bit of a steal from David Garrick.

And this was another steal. Moshe told Nana that in the final scene of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet should wake up too soon, too late, just in time to see Romeo die. This was absolutely crucial. As Juliet struggles awake from her drugged sleep she should drowsily see Romeo put the death philtre to his lipsticked lips. This would make it truly tragic. Because it would make the audience think that Romeo and Juliet could have lived happily ever after, that there could have been a happy ending. This would make it a heartbreaking tragedy. Oh yes, the art of acting was to know all about the human heart, and he was the heart’s connoisseur.

Then he called her as she was going down into the tube at Goodge Street and she said she’d call him back. She didn’t.

But Moshe had still more skills. He could put his head through a door and in four or five seconds could change his expression from wild joy to mild joy, from joy to contentment, from contentment to shock, from shock to astonishment, from astonishment to sadness, from sadness to exhaustion, from exhaustion to fear, from fear to horror, from horror to despair. He could make his face descend to anything. In the Alphabet Bar on Beak Street, Moshe showed her. She seemed to like it. He offered to show her again.

She browsed through his books and when she got to a copy of Nick Cave lyrics he said, ‘Oh no no no not that one,’ and tried to take it away, smiling, but not before naughty Nana had seen the dedication from ‘C’ who would love ‘Puppy’ for ever.

He was, thought Nana, stubborn. And stubborn had its attractions. It showed, after all, that he liked her. There were good things in persistence.

And then, they remembered later, he called her and she was with one of her friends — ‘You know,’ said Moshe, ‘with Cleo, or Naomi. Or Biff, or Scooter.’ ‘It was Cleo,’ said Nana, ‘no Tamsin, yeh Tamsin, and we were trying on bras in MS.’ ‘You never tol me that,’ he said. Moshe said, ‘You told me it was shoes, you were trying on shoes. In L. K. Bennett.’ ‘Well I wasn going to tell you bras,’ said Nana. She was trying on a bra and was rushed and flustered. So she said yes. So they got drunk.

And she said once, ‘So dyou like Dario Fo’s stuff?’ and Moshe said, ‘Dario?’ ‘Dario Fo,’ she said. ‘You’ve got lots of his plays.’ ‘Oh them,’ said Moshe, ‘no no no, actually no.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I just would imagine you’d like him. He’s good, I think.’ ‘Really?’ said Moshe. ‘Well maybe.’

We are just so well matched, thought Nana, happily.

As for the sex, the history of sex between Nana and Moshe began with the giggles. For the second night running, they were sitting on the futon. They were sitting primly on the sofa talking about the state of contemporary theatre. Then Moshe got up to go and piss. This was two a.m. And when he came back Nana was not sitting primly. Not any more. She had stretched herself out, horizontal.

This must be my chance, thought Moshe. But he moved very slowly. Moshe moved ever so slowly. He did not want to be wrong about this. He did not want to misinterpret.

He did not want to misinterpret! She was horizontal!

He kissed her. She kissed him. She kissed him. He kissed her. She said ‘You’re lovely.’ He said ‘You’re lovely too.’ Then they both started giggling.

As you may have worked out already, Moshe was not without his nervous side. So he said, ‘Would youvev said no?’ And Nana said, ‘When?’ And Moshe said, ‘If I’d asked to kiss you?’ And Nana replied, ‘If I’d said no it wouldv made you cocky. Youdv thought I was, I don know, scared of you. So I kissed you.’

And although this sounded true, thought Moshe, allcon- quering gorgeous exhilarated Moshe, he reckoned it must be a lie. So Moshe kissed her again.

5

I am going to backtrack a little. I am going to backtrack to Nana on her own.

Nana was in the cafe at the Architectural Association in

Bedford Square. At this point, she had met Moshe but had not yet kissed him. She was therefore about to fall in love. However, although she was about to fall in love with him, Nana was not thinking about Moshe. She was not brooding, like a heroine, on the nature of love.

She was thinking about the architect Mies van der Rohe.

This might be a surprise to you, I suppose. But you do not need to be surprised. There was a plausible reason why Nana was thinking about an architect, and not Moshe. Nana was an MA student in the one-year Histories and Theories programme at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. She was doing an MA in preparation for a doctorate. Mies van der Rohe was the subject of Nana’s MA thesis.

She was a quiet girl — you know that. She wanted to be an academic. She wanted to be a historian of architecture.

Mies van der Rohe was the innovative architect who in 1921 invented the glass skyscraper. He was a revolutionary. He belonged to the Bauhaus movement. The Bauhaus movement was committed to the renovation of design and style, in accordance with the demands of a new socialist democracy. It despised all ornament. In 1930, Mies van der Rohe became the last director of the Bauhaus movement. Mies banned political activity of any kind. In 1933 the Bauhaus was disbanded by the newly elected Nazi government. In 1937 Mies went to America.