In Babylon

I looked at Nina. ‘A family chronicle. Almost a family chronicle.’

‘But why put so much work into it? Fifty pages would have been more than enough.’

‘I think Herman’s little plan worked.’

She squinted again and peered through the windscreen. This far away from town they didn’t sand the roads, or at least, not any more. The road that, a few miles back, had wound through the whiteness like a black river, was now nothing more than an indentation in a landscape that had been stripped of all distinguishing features.

‘What little plan?’

I told her. That one of the terms of Herman’s will, a biography of him in exchange for the house, had been his final attempt to lure me away from the domain of the fairy tale. That he had always thought my work was a waste of talent and, all my life, had tried to change me. ‘And now, after fifty years, he’s actually done it. I can’t get away with some fake biography. But I can’t see myself writing a real one either. The Life and Works of Herman Hollander … No. Somehow or other I have to tell everything. From Great-Great-Grand-Uncle Chaim up until this very moment. Like that story about the English explorer who finds himself in an Indian tribe in the Amazon. Never seen a white man. He and his travelling companions receive a royal welcome and that night around the fire the tribal sorcerer tells them the history of his people, from the moment the gods created the first Indian out of a crocodile, up until the moment that three white-skinned, red-headed Englishmen walked into the village.’

‘The Creation of the World, and everything that goes with it. By Nathan Hollander.’

‘Something like that.’

Nina sighed.

We had reached the end of a long, sluggish dip in the road and were now moving slowly upward, up the Mountain that wasn’t a mountain. Conifers, heavy with snow, jostled along the narrow path. Now and then the car skidded and Nina had to shift down to get it back on course. The woods grew denser, the road narrower, until all that remained was a path that bore like a tunnel through the thick hedge of tall white firs. It twisted left to right and the car glided right to left. I looked sideways and, in a flash, saw ghosts among the trees. They were hurrying along with us to the top. Uncle Chaim, Magnus, Herman, Manny, Zeno. They dashed through the thick white forest like a pack of wolves. The road curled once more, the car wriggled, groaning, into a curve. It was as if we were driving so slowly because we were laden down with history, as if my family was indeed running along the edge of the wood, while the weight of their stories hung from the rear bumper.

‘Shit.’

With a thud, the car veered into a snowdrift. The engine screeched and died. The snow scurried around us and the windscreen wipers stuck out through the layer of down that was forming on the glass. Nina opened the door and looked outside. Then she turned to me in amusement. ‘We’re stuck.’

I rolled down my window a little and tried to inspect our surroundings through the veils sweeping by. ‘It’s not even supposed to snow this hard around here.’

‘Yes, but when it does you get an instant seventeenth-century winter landscape.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘The only thing we can do,’ said Nina. ‘Walk.’

‘Don’t you think you’ll be able to get us out?’

‘I can try, but it doesn’t look hopeful.’

‘I’ll push.’

I got out. Nina started the car, put it into reverse, and slowly released the clutch. I leaned against the bonnet. The wheels churned through the snow, the car glided slowly backwards. When she had manoeuvred it to the middle of the path, about thirty feet back, I went around to her door and leaned over. Nina rolled down her window and began laughing. ‘You look incredible.’

‘We’d better walk the rest of the way,’ I said. ‘It’ll take hours to get past that bank and I think it’ll only get worse higher up the Mountain.’

‘What do we do with your luggage?’

‘I can manage, it’s just one bag.’

She got out of the car. I took my suitcase out of the boot, and then got out the tow rope. I tied one end around Nina’s waist, the other around my own. She arched her left eyebrow, but said nothing.

It snowed. It snowed it snowed it snowed. When we looked back after sixty feet or so, we could hardly see the car anymore. In a few hours’ time it would be a barely visible bulge in a high white bank.

From where we were stranded the path went up and to the left. It was only recognizable as a path because it was fringed with trees. I had no idea exactly where we were or how much farther we had to walk. We waded through the knee-deep snow, hampered by our long coats and slippery shoes and the shrieking snowstorm. Now and then I felt Nina tug on the rope and I turned round and waited until she signalled for us to move on.

After half an hour’s walking the path disappeared. In a whirling white vortex of snow, half visible, fast asleep behind the shuttered library and hunting room windows, stood the house.

‘Well, here we are …’ said Nina, her shoulders hunched in the snow-covered coat.

The storm seemed to have subsided, slow fat flakes were falling, creamy tufts of white that floated down with such ease, they seemed to be saying: No need for us to hurry, there are so many of us, we have all the time in the world. I looked at the house and felt something stirring inside.

Even though the snow lay thick upon my shoulders and was falling so steadily that it nearly robbed me of the view, my thoughts slipped readily into the lake of memories that encircled this place, and instead of white, white, and more white, I saw the long wooden table that had been set out in the garden when we spent our last summer here all together: the tablecloths hanging down in the tall grass, wine bottles here and there, half-empty, half-full, the flowers Zoe had strewn among the dishes and bread baskets, the gentle confusion of empty chairs around the table. At the back of the garden Zelda and Sophie, our mother, were playing badminton, Zeno lay asleep on the garden seat, smiling like a buddha, and Zoe and Alexander – I think it was still Alexander in those days – walked hand in hand in the soft twilight at the edge of the lawn, where the woods began. Bumblebees buzzed above the wine glasses, way, way up in the sky swallows were chasing thrips, and the smell of resin and dry wood wafted down from the treetops.

‘I’ll tell you what you’re thinking,’ said Uncle Herman. He blew out a grey-blue cloud of cigar smoke, a Romeo y Julietta, so fragrant it made my head swim. ‘You’re thinking, if only things could always be this way.’

We were sitting side by side on the red-tiled verandah, a table with ice bucket and bottle between us.

‘If only things could always be this way, that’s what you’re thinking. You’re such a sentimental bastard. A little sun, some wine, the family in the garden, and you think: Une dimanche à la campagne. I know you.’ He puffed at his cigar. ‘Where’s Mrs Sanders?’

I turned around and looked inside. ‘No idea.’

‘Are you planning to stay and work here?’

A pretzel-shaped smoke ring floated off and didn’t dissolve until it was very far away from us.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If it’s all right with you.’

‘You didn’t get the key for nothing. And if you can keep your mouth shut I’ll even tell you a secret …’

Zoe and Alexander came walking towards us. They looked like two characters in a French film. My sister was wearing a long white linen dress, Alexander a cream-coloured suit and a battered straw hat. They were still walking hand in hand. Zoe worked for Elegance. If she was wearing this now you could be sure that the Summer-in-the French-Countryside look would be all the rage the following year.

‘Just don’t tell me you’re engaged,’ said Uncle Herman, ‘because if you do I’m going down to the cellar and staying there until everyone’s gone.’

‘We’re engaged,’ said Zoe.

‘Une dimanche à la campagne,’ I said. ‘Need I say more?’

Alexander turned his questioning gaze to Zoe.

‘Where the hell is Mrs Sanders?’

Zoe pointed. Uncle Herman turned round and jumped when he saw that she was standing right behind him. ‘Good God, woman, don’t sneak up on me like that.’ Mrs Sanders lowered her left eyebrow. ‘The engagement cake,’ he said. ‘It’s time for the engagement cake!’ Zoe began laughing. Alexander opened his mouth, looked at Uncle Herman and from him to me and then back to Zoe, and closed it again.

When Mrs Sanders had cleared the table and set out the huge cake, the coffee, and the plates and cups, I went to get Zeno. He was still lying on the garden seat, nestled in a cloud of cushions. The sun filtered through the leaves of the apple tree. His body was dappled with tiny golden flecks. ‘Raised by leopards, he was, all the years of his youth,’ I said, after I had stood there for a while watching him. Zeno opened one eye. He observed me coolly. ‘For a kabbalist, you’re far too poetic, N,’ he said. He shut his eye again and for a moment it was as if he were drifting away. I could see him lying in a paper boat, gliding away over an unruffled lake that was red with evening sun. ‘The cake’s ready,’ I said. Zeno groaned softly. ‘Is it that time again?’ He opened both eyes, so slowly I almost envied him.

At the table the coffee had already been poured. Zelda turned halfway round in her chair and beckoned to Zeno. He sat down next to her and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. He was the only one who could. Uncle Herman once said that Zelda’s great tragedy was that she had been born a nun in a Jewish family.

‘Hollanders!’ cried Uncle Herman, jumping up from his chair and waving the cake knife, as if he were about to make the traditional sacrifice. ‘Here we are, all together again, as we are nearly every summer, and here is the engagement cake …’

‘… as it is nearly every summer,’ I said.

Zoe smiled indulgently.

‘As it is nearly every summer,’ Uncle Herman affirmed. ‘But why, you should be asking, Zeno, why is this day different from all other days?’

‘Why should I be asking?’

‘Because you’re the youngest, you moron.’ Zeno nodded at Zoe as if to thank her.

‘This day is different from all other days, because I have a few important announcements to make. A: I’m giving up the house.’

None of us were prepared for this. My mother shrank back, her right hand on her chest, mouth slightly open. Zelda gazed intently at Uncle Herman. Zeno narrowed his eyes. I looked to the left and stared up at the sky. The dying light of the setting sun caressed Uncle Herman’s white hair, ‘the Einstein halo,’ as my father used to call it.

‘I’m too old to look after the place,’ he said. ‘And for that reason: point B, I’m leaving Nathan in charge, not only of the Fatherland …’ Cheers rose. Zeno said something I didn’t understand. ‘But also …’ He held up one hand to silence his audience, ‘… in charge of the house. That is, if he’s willing to accept the responsibility. Each of you will have the right to spend time here now and again.’

There was another burst of applause. Uncle Herman didn’t move a muscle. He waved the knife, and when it was quiet he opened his mouth again. ‘And now we cut the cake, the traditional engagement cake, in the hope that this will be the last. And finally: regards to all of you from your father. To the happy couple!’

He stuck the knife in the cake and sliced it in two, so resolutely that he really did seem to be finishing off a sacrificial beast.

Later, when the sun had gone down, we sat in the library, Uncle Herman, Sophie and I. The rest, Zoe and Alexander, Zeno, and Mrs Sanders, were in the kitchen, where my sisters and brother drank wine and the housekeeper plied Zeno with bread and cheese. Even though it had been a hot day, Uncle Herman had asked me to make a fire and move the large chesterfield over by the hearth. ‘Fire is good for books,’ he said, ‘as long as it doesn’t get too close.’ The glow of the flames enclosed us in a swaying red globe of light and shadow.

‘It’s been a fine day,’ said Sophie.

‘After a day like today, a person could die happy,’ said Uncle Herman.

‘Actually, I was thinking of trying to get some work done,’ I said. ‘One last glass of wine, cup of coffee …’

‘That’s exactly why I’m leaving you the house,’ said Uncle Herman. ‘You’re such a Calvinistic bastard.’

‘Leaving him in charge of the house,’ said Sophie.

‘Leaving him in charge. But when I die, the house is his. He’s the only one of you who has any use for it. Besides, where else would he put all these books?’

My eyes travelled from the fire to my uncle. I was aware that my mouth had dropped open.

‘You get the house, N.’

I wanted to say something, but got no further than a vague sort of stammering.

‘Herman, how can he keep up a house like this? The boy can hardly even support himself.’

Uncle Herman raised his glass and peered at the red spark floating in the wine. ‘It has always been my conviction that you should give a man bread when he’s hungry, but let him provide his own butter. Stimulates the initiative.’

My mother looked at me with a worried expression.

‘Sophie,’ said Uncle Herman, ‘if it’s the others you’re concerned about … I’m sure they’ll see reason, and if they don’t, they obviously don’t have the sense of family loyalty they should. And besides …’ He straightened up in his chair and took a gulp of wine. ‘Nathan will have to do something for me in return.’

I looked at him without saying a word. In the reflection of the flames the white wreath of hair had taken on a faint red glow. The gently hooked nose stuck out like a beak and the wilful mouth was crinkled into a benevolent smile. He wasn’t very tall, my Uncle Herman, five foot eight at most, but sometimes, like now, he gave the impression of being twice his size. Perhaps it was the coarse tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches, or his rather slow-emphatic way of moving, or his penetrating gaze. Or perhaps it was the way he spoke. The way Uncle Herman talked always sounded as if he were pronouncing judgement on the validity of the logical-positivistic viewpoint in this day and age or something similar, even if he was only asking you to put the cork down next to the bottle after you’d opened it. On the few occasions that I had accompanied him on one of his lecture tours, I’d been impressed by his talents as a demagogue. For the first time I had understood why the great minds of our time spoke with and listened to him as if he were their equal.

‘This house,’ said Herman, ‘is no ordinary beautiful house in the woods. And this library …’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the walls of books that surrounded us. ‘… is no ordinary library. This is a line in the sand. A boundary. The black hole through which we can navigate that other dimension.’

‘Herman …’ I said.

‘And nothing less than that.’

‘Okay.’

‘No, not: okay. Do I speak in tongues? This. This. This. Here! This is your ship to the other world. You don’t know it yet, but you’ll find out.’ He emptied his glass and rose unsteadily from his chair. ‘That is, if you’re made of the same stuff as …’ His voice dissolved in a peal of laughter that rang out from the kitchen. ‘Listen,’ he said, raising his right hand, ‘they’re enjoying themselves. Fine. That’s fine.’ He tapped on the pockets of his jacket, glanced down at the table next to his chair, and then rested his eyes on Sophie. She stood up hurriedly. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s all laugh. This way, ladies and gentlemen, to the gas chambers. Everything’s fine.’ He offered Sophie his arm, and as they stepped into the darkness that lay outside the circle of firelight, he tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Yes. Laugh. But just remember where it all came from and where it’s going. Don’t ever forget …’He paused to enhance the dramatic effect of what he was about to say. ‘… we’re still a family of clockmakers!’

They strode off into the dusk. My mother cast a confused glance at me over her shoulder, but when I grinned back, she frowned.

And so, speaking in tongues, more than a little tipsy, leaning on my mother’s arm as if he weren’t my uncle at all, her brother-in-law, but an ageing Casanova, finally at peace in the company of the woman with whom he would spend his last years, my Uncle Herman left the library, never to return, and I was left behind, staring at the slow flickering of the fire, painfully aware of the walls of books that seemed to be whispering softly, ‘You’re all ours now. It’s you and us and the house. We’ll never let you go.’

When I left the next morning Mrs Sanders was standing in the front doorway, at the top of the whitewashed stairs. She had one hand on her hip and the other raised halfway above her head, but she wasn’t waving. I waved to her, hoisted my suitcase onto my shoulder and walked down the path, towards the trees, on my way to the bus that stopped at the bottom of the hill. When I reached the edge of the forest I looked round one last time. Mrs Sanders had gone back into the house. The shutters on the first floor windows were closed and the library curtains drawn to keep out the morning sun. In the late August light, the house looked like the head of a giant whose body was the hill I now descended. I could see him, the Titan, crouched, his arms around his knees, sound asleep for centuries. Moss, grass, shrubs, and finally trees had sprung up all over his body. But there would come a day when he would feel the blood flowing through his limbs once more and his body would stir beneath the earth. The trees would shake and the thick layer of humus and woodland soil would burst open. He’d flex his muscles and rise up and look out over the lazy, elfin landscape of the East, over the rippling farmland, the slopes overgrown with broadleaved trees, the mossy banks and the drowsy little villages at the place where two roads meet.

‘Here we are …’ Nina had said, when the house came into view.

The snowstorm screeched around us. Nina’s hair flew about wildly, only her pale forehead, and now and then part of her face, were visible in the stream of red flames.

‘This is it,’ I said.

I crunched my way to the entrance, a green door at the top of a flight of stairs that was no more than a ripple in the snow, took the big key out of my pocket, and jiggled it in the lock.

In the hall, where the air was grey with snowlight, the stale smell of emptiness leapt up and hurried towards us. I leaned over and began untying the rope around Nina’s waist. I sank down on one knee and tugged at the rope with stiff, cold fingers. I blew on my hands and fiddled with the knot, which had been pulled tighter by our struggle through the snow. Nina didn’t move. She stood bolt upright. When I looked up after a while to apologize for my fumbling, I saw her gazing down at me patiently. Several more minutes went by before I had freed her, and it felt as if I had set myself free. The warmth of her body escaped from her coat and glided around me. I was amazed, so much warmth from such a slender woman. As if she were ablaze, as if it were no coincidence that the red hair kept reminding me of fire, but the visible manifestation of a heat raging within her. I straightened up, the rope still in my hands, a hangman who suddenly lacks the conviction to fulfil his task. Nina laughed like an anaemic angel.

We stood on the black-and-white marble-tiled floor and looked around in silence. The twilight hung about us like vapour, the cakes of snow that had fallen from our coats lay on the floor without melting. It was nearly as cold in here as it was outside. I took a few steps forward. ‘Welcome to Bluebeard’s Castle, Ninotchka.’ She followed the theatrical gesture with which I tried to encompass the space, our presence, everything that determined this moment. When my hand was poised somewhere above my head, her face froze.

Upstairs, where the staircase ended, the staircase that plunged down from the first floor like a waterfall of turned wood and scroll-work, rose a solidified tidal wave of wood and upholstery. The landing was crammed full of cabinets and chairs and lamps. I saw a large sofa, a linen cupboard, the red plush sofa from the bedroom that overlooked the garden, the secretaire, a sideboard, chairs-chairschairs. I took another step forward, in order to see better. My right foot landed in a patch of snow and I slid across the slippery marble. As I fell over backwards, my arms flailing, I saw something black shooting through the air. Nina’s arms slipped under mine and slowly we sank to the floor. Only then, half in Nina’s embrace, my eyes still on the ceiling, did I see, looking down on us, unmoved, impassively gleaming in all its black sovereignty, the piano, the lid slightly open, and behind that lid, barely visible in the murky light of the stairwell, but I knew they were there, the grinning row of black and white keys, the rotting teeth of the music beast.

‘What …’ said Nina, ‘what … is … that?’

We scrambled to our feet and stared up at the protuberance of furniture, the piano that hung there like an ebony cloud, a Dali vision come to life.

I shook my head.

In the grainy light I could see the faint lines of two thick ropes that had been tied around either side of the piano and disappeared behind it by way of a hook on the ceiling. I walked up a few stairs, until I was standing under the instrument, and peered through a gap between two pieces of furniture. The ropes ran down along the wall of the stairwell and had been secured to one of the pieces of furniture that formed the front of the barricade. One tug at the sideboard, the secretaire, or the linen cupboard, and the piano would come crashing down and flatten anyone standing below it.

A trap, I thought, this is a trap. Everything was so precisely wedged together that it was impossible to push anything aside to get through. If we wanted to get past this barricade, we would have to deal with the piano first. It was the only way to prevent it from crashing down unexpectedly. Someone must have dragged the whole interior, piece by piece, to the stairwell, and then, slowly and deliberately, re-arranged it all. It must have been someone who knew Uncle Herman but didn’t have his best interests at heart. I ran my index finger along the sideboard.

‘Maybe we’d better sit down,’ I said. Nina was still staring at the barricade. I took her arm, pulled her along to the hunting room, and offered her the bed as a chair.

The shutters at the front of the house were closed and the hunting room was so dark that the huge four-poster bed, where Uncle Herman used to sleep, stood in the shadows like a solid block.

‘N?’ Her voice came from far away. ‘What is that up there at the top of the stairs?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been back here in five years.’

‘Why?’

‘Why all that junk?’

‘Why haven’t you been back in all that time?’

I looked around me, at the furniture that seemed so lifeless and grey. ‘It’s not the same any more,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t feel I should come back until I’d earned it. Now the biography is almost done. Now I’m allowed.’

She was silent.

I looked into the darkened room. ‘Whatever’s up there, it hasn’t been there very long.’ I lit a cigarette and blew out a puff of smoke. ‘There’s not much dust on that furniture. Someone’s been in here and … It couldn’t have been Mrs Sanders. She’s not strong enough to drag all those …’

‘Then who? A burglar?’

‘I don’t know. The lock was intact. He would’ve had to come in through the back … But why? Why would a burglar build a barricade?’

I held the cone of ash from my cigarette above my cupped left palm and looked around.

‘The fireplace,’ said Nina.

‘What?’

‘You could throw it in the fireplace.’

I went to the hearth and flicked the ash into the blackened hole. ‘Listen. You stay here, I’ll check around the back. And I’ll try to find some wood while I’m at it. If we don’t make a fire in here, we’ll freeze to death.’

She stared down at the floor. ‘I’ve got to go back,’ she said.