Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

Haffner began to talk to the waiter, offering Zinka an aquavit. No, she interrupted. It would be better if she took care of this.

He must, for instance, try the cuisines of the region. And Haffner, as she conversed with the serious waiter, the marvelling waiter, took the opportunity to wonder about this continuation of his syncopated adventure with Zinka.

There had been the incident of the wardrobe, then the incident of the lake. Neither of these episodes, he thought, had enabled Haffner's true charm to shine. But now, here she was — opposite him in the elegance of a dining room. This was Haffner's more usual backdrop. He considered Zinka: in the residual glow of his amazement. The persistent, grand desire for her disturbed him. And yet, he sadly considered, he could not think for a moment that Zinka desired him. He possessed no liberating craziness about his erotic attraction. He knew that Zinka represented the unattainable. Even if, he wanted to add, there had been the improvised escapade with the wardrobe. This, surely, was not without some kind of wordless flirtation? Although, he corrected himself, it could so easily have not involved any wordless flirtation. She had been talking to him about his wife, all the melancholy reasons why he was here, in this spa town where everyone, she said, was so unhappy. Haffner was drinking some kind of grappa. And, as normal with the women, Haffner asked the intimate questions: because he was always intent, with women, on understanding their hidden sadnesses, the depth of their secrets. Which he perhaps inherited from all the imprecise conversations with Mama. And Zinka told him about her love life, and together in this conversation they knitted and clothed a rag doll of Zinka — unfulfilled, sarcastic, mischievous. So it had seemed somehow natural for her to lean in and propose — in English so accented and asyntactical that Haffner worried he had utterly misunderstood — that Haffner should conceal himself in a wardrobe and see how brutishly Niko treated her. If he wanted. And Raphael Haffner very much wanted indeed.

No, thought Haffner, the episode was not about him. And there he paused, because he had no wish to spoil this image of the two of them there — dining together: this image of the old and the young entranced. He didn't want to do anything which might disturb this dream of Haffner.

He discovered that Zinka was already involved in conversation. In Zagreb, she told him, she had trained as a ballet dancer. This he knew. Evenings, she used to practise trapeze. The trapeze was what she really loved.

Haffner mentioned that all the same he thought he would order an aquavit for himself.

Patiently, she explained to Haffner the various terms — the French vocabulary: the croix , or crucifix; the grenouilles , or candlesticks; the soleil avant , which in English was the skinner; the chutes , the drops. The tour du monde . And then the important sorties — as you extricated yourself from the tangle of movement.

Haffner, concealing his excitement at this vision, these outlined movements, asked her if it weren't dangerous. Zinka said no. Not at all, on the flying trapeze? Haffner had always imagined. .

— Not the flying trapeze, said Zinka. Just trapeze. There was a pause.

— I was on the stage once, said Haffner.

It was towards the beginning of the war, in 1939 or '40. In Haffner's battalion there were many actors. Since he was in a London regiment. Many famous actors. And one day the actors said that they ought to get the whole battalion together and put on a variety show. Did she understand? She thought so. And they put it up to the second lieutenant — who went on, added Haffner, to become a very eminent newspaper editor, as it happened — who agreed, and so they put on this show which couldn't have been put on at the Palladium. No. There was Max Miller, and. And. No, Haffner had forgotten.

— How can you be a name-dropper, wondered Haffner, if you can't remember anyone's names?

He looked out of the windows at the sky: out of the grand windows at the grand sky.

There was Enid Stamp Taylor, Renee Houston, Oliver Wakefield, Guy Middleton, Stanley Holloway, Hugh 'Tam' Williams. These names probably meant nothing to anyone now. These chaps were putting on their own little sketch. And one of them, who was a well-known producer, Wallace Douglas, fell ill and Guy Middleton came up to Haffner and said that Wallace Douglas was unwell and he wanted Haffner to take his part.

Should Haffner tell this story?

In this sketch Middleton was a colonel and Haffner was a subaltern. And all that happened was that Middleton would ask Haffner where he had got his breeches. And all Haffner had to reply was that he had got them in a shop in the Strand, sir.

No, thought Haffner. He should not.

He was so old, so woebegone, thought Zinka. She felt a tenderness for him. Tenderly, she tried to retrieve the conversation.

— You were in the war? asked Zinka.

— I was in the war, said Haffner. Of course. Everyone was.

He paused. He looked at her.

Zinka was wearing a grey boiler short-suit, with black tights and rouge noir fingernails. Her hair was brown and her eyes were blue. The style was beyond Haffner: he had no idea, any longer, whether this was a style at all. He no longer cared. She was so utterly and completely beautiful, thought Haffner. So absolute in her body.

Then Zinka took hold of his hands, and looked at his palms.

Haffner, amazed, asked her if she was reading his palm. Meditatively, ignoring Haffner's scepticism, Zinka said that he was intelligent.

— Unintelligent? misheard Haffner, depressed.

He shouldn't have been shocked. The women he wanted were so often unhurt by a feminine self-hatred. Instead, they were happily confident in describing how Haffner could fail.

— Intelligent, repeated Zinka.

A paper flower of relief unfolded itself in the solution of Haffner's soul. He smiled at her, as she continued to read from his hand. But, she added, sombrely, he was unlucky.

— Unlucky? repeated Haffner.

— Well, said Zinka, trying to reconsider. Yes. Unlucky. I am sorry. I tell things as they are.

Haffner looked round, in an effort to find comfort in the view. But the view had disappeared. All that was visible was human. There, as usual, were the usual diners. At the table by the opposite window sat Frau Tummel, and her husband. They sat silently, in their marriage of silence. So Haffner turned back to Zinka.

— You do not wish you were eating with her? said Zinka.

— Her? said Haffner. No no.

— I am glad, said Zinka.

He knew his place in the art of love: the comic figure, for ever grasping after the women who fled him. Just like Silenus, whose comically old flesh concealed the youth of the lust within.

He tended to see himself in poses. This was true. But I saw him as something else. Like the hero of every legend — you had to gnaw on him, like on a bone, to discover the richness, the inner meaning. So I preferred my private image. Haffner was his own matrioshka : concealing within himself the other, diminutive dolls of Haffner's infinite possibility.

Zinka used to live in a village with her grandmother. Haffner considered if he could think of any questions about this arrangement. He paused. So, asked Haffner, were her parents dead? Not at all, replied Zinka. She described their characters for him. Her mother was hysterical. Her father was calm. That was all he needed to know. Haffner paused again. In this pause, Zinka asked if he believed in God. Did she? asked Haffner, avoiding the question. She replied that she believed in an energy. And Haffner? He did not believe, said Haffner.