Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘This is what I’ve always dreamed about,’ Maurice announced, looking around enthusiastically, his blue eyes lively and alert. ‘Being a professional writer and travelling to other countries to promote my work or undertake research for the next novel. Wouldn’t you like to give up teaching and write full time? You probably could now, I suppose, after the success of Dread .’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Cambridge has given me a home and a routine for more than forty years and I value that enormously. I could never stop writing, it’s an intrinsic part of who I am, but I don’t look forward to the day when I’m forced to retire from teaching.’

He took a notebook from his bag, a pale blue Leuchtturm 1917 with numbered pages and a ribbon band, and began to make some notes; he’d been doing this since our first conversations in Copenhagen and it flattered me enormously.

‘What?’ I asked, smiling at him. ‘Did I say something particularly wise?’

‘A home and a routine,’ he said, not looking up but scribbling away furiously. ‘And I’m writing something down about balance. You seem to have struck a good equilibrium between your work life and your artistic life. Perhaps I need that too. Waiting tables doesn’t provide much intellectual stimulation.’

‘But I daresay it pays the rent,’ I replied. ‘Anyway, you can’t write all the time. There’s more to life than words and stories.’

‘Not for me there isn’t,’ he said.

‘That’s because you’re young and this is the life that you dream of. But once you have it, you might find that there are other things of equal importance. Companionship, for example. Love.’

‘Did you always want to write?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘As a boy, I had a peculiar obsession with stationery. There was a wonderful shop near where I grew up and I used to save my pennies to buy beautiful paper, and ink for my fountain pens. My grandfather was a historian and, from my fifth birthday onwards, he presented me with a different fountain pen every year, and they were treasures to me. I still have all but one.’

‘Did you lose the other?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I gave it as a gift to a friend of mine many years ago. I keep the rest now in my rooms in College. They remind me of my childhood, before the war, which I think was the happiest time in my life.’

‘And where was this?’ he asked. ‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Where we met. In Berlin.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Maurice, frowning a little. ‘But aren’t you Jewish?’

‘It depends on your definition of the word,’ I told him.

‘But you fought in the war?’

‘Not quite,’ I said. ‘I was a clerk at a Wehrmacht headquarters in the city. I’ve been quite open about that.’

‘Yes, but still I don’t understand.’

I glanced out the window at the tourists making their way across Møntportvejen Bridge towards the castle. ‘Both my parents were German,’ I explained, turning back to him. ‘My mother’s father, however, was Jewish. So, by blood, you could say that I am a quarter Jewish but of course the Jews don’t deal in fractions. There was a word used back then. Mischling. I first learned of it when the Nuremberg Laws were introduced in 1935. They stated that those with only one Jewish grandparent were a second-degree Mischling – or of mixed-birth – and approved for citizenship of the Reich. For the most part, second-degree Mischlings were safe from any form of persecution.’

‘And a first-degree Mischling ?’ he asked.

‘Two Jewish grandparents. Much more dangerous.’

‘You must have known some of these.’

I felt a sharp pain across my chest. ‘One,’ I said. ‘One that I knew of, anyway. A girl.’

‘A friend of yours?’

I shook my head. ‘Not really, no. An acquaintance.’

‘But if you don’t mind my asking, if you were a quarter Jewish, did you not feel any sense of shame at working with the Nazis?’

‘Of course I did,’ I said. ‘But what else could I have done? Refused? I would have been shot. Or sent to the camps. And, like you, I wanted to be a writer, and in order to be a writer I needed to stay alive. My brother, Georg, worked for them too. Tell me, Maurice, in my situation, what would you have done?’

‘You have a brother?’

I shook my head. ‘He died very young,’ I told him. ‘We lost touch after the war, when I left Germany. A few years later I had a rather abrupt letter from his wife to say that he’d been killed in a tram accident and that was the end of that. Look, the truth is, who can have lived through those times and not feel some degree of shame over his actions?’

‘And yet you’ve never written about it,’ he said. ‘Or spoken of it in interviews.’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But please, let’s talk about something else. I prefer not to dwell on the past. Tell me about you instead. About your family.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ he said with a sigh, and I could tell that he would have preferred to keep the focus on me. ‘My father is a pig farmer and my mother keeps house. I have five sisters and an older brother. I’m the youngest of the lot and the black sheep.’

‘Why so?’ I asked.

‘Because everyone else stayed at home and found a local to marry. And they’ve all done exactly what was expected of them. They’re farmers, coalminers, teachers. None of them has ever travelled, they haven’t even left Yorkshire. But I always wanted more. I wanted to see the world and to meet interesting people. My father said I had ideas above my station but I don’t believe in such things. I want to be—’

He stopped and looked down at his drink, shaking his head.

‘Finish that thought,’ I said, leaning forward. Had I been braver, I might have taken his hand. ‘You want to be what?’

‘I want to be a success,’ he replied, and perhaps I should have heard the deep intent in his tone and been frightened by it. ‘It’s all that matters to me. I’ll do whatever it takes to succeed.’

‘But of course,’ I told him, sitting back again. ‘A young man will always want to conquer the world. It’s the Alexandrian impulse.’

‘Some people think ambition is wrong,’ he said. ‘My father says dreaming of better things only sets you up for disappointment. But your work has made you happy, hasn’t it?’

‘It has,’ I agreed. ‘Immensely so.’

‘And did you never…’ He paused for a moment, an expression on his face that suggested he was uncertain how personal he could get. ‘Did you never marry?’

I took a sip from my glass and decided there was no reason to be disingenuous. If we were to have a friendship, then it was important that I should be honest with him from the start.

‘Of course, you realize that I’m homosexual,’ I said, looking him in the eye, and to his credit he didn’t look away.

‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t certain. It’s not a theme that you explore in any of your books. And you’ve never addressed it publicly.’

‘I don’t care to talk about my private life to the press or in a room full of strangers,’ I said. ‘And as you know, I don’t write about love. It’s a subject that I’ve avoided scrupulously throughout my career.’

‘No, you’ve always written about loneliness.’

‘Exactly. But you mustn’t think that my writing is in any way autobiographical. Just because one is homosexual does not mean that one is lonely.’ He said nothing and I sensed an awkwardness in the air that discomfited me. ‘I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable to hear me speak of this.’

‘Not in the least,’ he said. ‘It’s 1988, after all. I don’t care about things like that. My best friend in Harrogate, Henry Rowe, was gay. I wrote one of my earliest stories about him, in fact. These labels mean nothing to me.’