Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘Well, all right. We won’t quibble over minor details. Interesting days, as I recall. We went everywhere together, we were quite the odd couple.’

‘Not exactly a couple,’ you said, interrupting him.

‘I introduced him to everyone who was worth knowing. We dined with Mrs Astor, spent a weekend with Edmund on Fire Island, travelled to the Amalfi Coast to spend a night with Gore and Howard. We even went to Jets games together, didn’t we?’

‘But you hate sport!’ I said, turning to you in surprise.

‘But I love it,’ said Dash. ‘And Maurice was very… what’s the word I’m looking for? Obliging . A most obliging boy indeed. Up to a point, anyway.’ He paused for a moment and gave a deep sigh. ‘But then his novel was published and he was far too busy to bother with me any more!’

‘That wasn’t it,’ you said coldly. ‘I was travelling a lot and—’

‘As I say, you were very busy. Have you ever read Erich Ackermann, my dear?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t read books by fascists,’ I said.

‘Why ever not? There’s not much left to read if you ignore them. Writers are all fascists. We like to control the discourse and crush anyone who dares to disagree with us.’

‘Are you here for an event?’ you asked, before I could engage with this observation.

‘Yes, I have a new novel out. Didn’t you know?’

‘No, what’s the title?’

‘ The Codicil of Agnès Fontaine. ’

‘Sorry, I haven’t heard of it.’

‘It’s been widely reviewed.’

You shrugged your shoulders. ‘Well, I’ll make sure to pick up a copy at the festival bookshop and you can sign it for me.’

‘I remember the first time I signed a book for you,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘It was very early in the morning in New York and you were staying in a hotel with Erich, doing whatever it is you did for him in those days. Do you remember?’

‘No,’ you said.

‘Well, I do. I read your second book, by the way,’ continued Dash. ‘What was it called again? The Garden Shed? ’

‘ The Treehouse .’

‘Not quite as good as Two Germans , was it? I wonder what poor old Erich made of it.’

‘Well, he was dead by the time it came out, so I doubt he made anything of it.’

‘Of course he was,’ said the American. ‘He died alone in Berlin, didn’t he? I read somewhere that he’d been dead a week before anyone discovered the body. One of his neighbours complained about the smell. Such a sad end to an illustrious career.’

‘I thought you didn’t rate him?’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘The hundreds of criticisms you made of his work when we knew each other.’

‘Oh no,’ he said, looking appalled by the accusation. ‘No, I admired Erich greatly. His novels will be remembered, I think. And the scandal will fade away. The poems will last too.’

‘He always said they were ill advised.’

‘He was wrong about that. But then he was wrong about a lot of things, wasn’t he?’

Before you could reply, a young volunteer came over and said that she was there to escort Dash to his event. He stood up carefully, taking a long time to adjust his body to the vertical and to grip his stick just so, and then looked down at us and smiled.

‘Well, I might see you later, Maurice,’ he said.

‘Unlikely,’ you replied. ‘After my talk, we’re catching the next train back to London.’

‘Probably for the best,’ he replied, before waving a hand in the air as he turned his back on us. ‘Goodbye, my boy. I daresay we won’t meet again.’

I watched him as he walked away and felt torn between laughter and confusion.

‘Cantankerous old swine,’ you muttered. ‘He was in love with me once.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘It does happen.’

‘Well I, of all people, know that,’ I said, smiling at you. ‘You let him down easily, I hope?’

‘It’s all so long ago, I can barely remember. Anyway, what time is it? Let’s take a walk around the site. I wouldn’t mind having a look in the bookshop.’

I nodded, following you as you stepped outside. Dash Hardy died shortly afterwards, didn’t he? I remember reading about it in the newspaper over breakfast one morning and feeling shocked that someone who had sat with me so recently could have hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment. You read the article too but said nothing about it, although you were rather quiet throughout the day, as I recall.

One month in, and Norwich was proving a positive experience. My initial fears about teaching creative writing had dissipated as the students seemed both respectful and hard-working. Only one, a Polish girl named Maja, gave me reason for concern. Due to visa difficulties, she’d arrived late on campus, missing the first two weeks of class, and it seemed that she was struggling to fit in. She was working on a novel that had the most bizarre premise – Adolf Hitler solving crimes in post-First World War Germany – and any critical comments made of her work left her in a state of fury. At the same time, she was making little attempt to engage with the work of her classmates, and so I took her aside, asking whether I could help in some way, but she seemed offended by my question and I quickly backed off. I confided in you and your first instinct was to ask me how her English was.

‘Her English is perfect,’ I told you. ‘There’s no issue there at all.’

‘I only ask because, if she’s struggling with the language, then maybe she feels she can’t contribute as much as the others.’

‘No, it’s not that,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure what it is, if I’m honest. She just seems to hate everyone, me included. I don’t know why.’

I wanted to discuss this further with you, to seek your advice, because I suspected that there was trouble brewing with Maja, but you were reading a novel that had been shortlisted the previous autumn for The Prize and I could tell that you were growing increasingly enraged by it. It was a long novel, more than five hundred pages, and I knew that the author, Douglas Sherman, had published his first book the same year that you’d published Two Germans . I remember you telling me how you’d enjoyed touring together in the early days, two handsome young novelists with assured futures, the literary world falling over itself to embrace you both. But since then, Douglas had published four more novels, each one better received than the previous one, and his stature had grown considerably while you, of course, were flailing.

‘I don’t know why you keep reading that,’ I said. ‘It’s masochistic behaviour.’

‘Because I never don’t finish a novel once I’ve started it,’ you replied. ‘It’s a rule of mine.’

‘Not me,’ I said, collapsing on to the sofa and glancing towards the pile of class scripts sitting on the coffee table but making no effort to reach out for one. ‘Life’s too short. As far as I’m concerned, a writer gets one hundred pages and, if they can’t keep my attention during that time, I move on.’

‘Ridiculous,’ you said.

‘Don’t call me ridiculous.’

‘I wasn’t calling you ridiculous. I was calling that policy ridiculous. You can’t say you’ve read a novel unless you’ve read it cover to cover. Yes, perhaps you’ll be bored at the start but what if it gets better and suddenly everything that went before falls into place?’

‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘But I still think it’s a mistake, considering your history.’

‘You make it sound like we were lovers.’

‘Particularly when you’re feeling so—’

‘When I’m feeling so what?’ you asked, putting the book aside and staring at me. You parted your legs a little and gripped the sides of the armchair and an image of Lincoln on the Mall came into my mind.