A Ladder to the Sky Read online

  ‘They say that he will restore Germany’s power,’ I remarked carefully.

  ‘And he may succeed,’ said Oskar. ‘He has charisma, it’s true, and his oratorical skills incite the crowds. The people are behind him for now. He has infected them with his hatred. He demands absolute loyalty, and when anyone dares to criticize him, they lose their position. I think he will lead a great army, but what will be the result?’

  ‘A thousand-year Reich,’ I said. ‘At least that is what he says.’

  ‘And is that what you want?’

  ‘All I want is to live in peace,’ I told him. ‘I want to read books and perhaps one day write some of my own. The future of the Fatherland is not something that concerns me.’

  He smiled and reached a hand across the table, placing his atop mine in what was certainly intended as a fraternal gesture but sent sparks of electricity through me nevertheless. No boy had ever touched me like that before. ‘I want the same,’ he said. ‘Only with my paintings.’

  ‘Do you think I might find inspiration in Paris too?’ I asked.

  ‘For your novel? Of course! Great writers have lived there. Hugo, Hemingway, Fitzgerald. Many classics of literature have been written in the city. It encourages creativity, or so I’ve heard.’

  An image came into my mind of the two of us sharing a flat on the top floor of some decrepit old building near Notre-Dame, he painting in his studio, me writing in my study, the two of us coming together as one in our shared bedroom at night. The idea was almost too glorious to imagine. Before I could embarrass myself by suggesting it, however, he stood up and excused himself to use the bathroom and while he was gone I looked across at his sketchbook, telling myself to leave it alone, not to intrude on his privacy, but I could not resist and pulled it towards me, opening it at the first page. It was brand new, containing only one drawing so far, and as I stared at it my heart sank in my chest as waves of disappointment poured over me. The sketch was of a young girl with long black hair, very beautiful, turned to a left profile but with her back to the artist as she sat on an ottoman. Her right hand was touching her cheek and she was naked. A hint of her breast was given towards the left of the picture and there was something in her eye that suggested desire. I wondered whether she was a creature from his imagination or a girl who had posed shamelessly for him and, if the latter, did that mean that she was his lover? Closing the sketchbook, I returned it to his side of the table, placing the charcoal pencil on top of it, and when he returned a moment later he told me I had a sad expression on my face and the only way to conquer that was for the two of us to stay there and drink until our money ran out, a suggestion I agreed to immediately.

  ‘Did he know that you had looked at his drawing?’ asked Maurice, and I turned to him, shivering a little as I dragged myself back from a lost Berlin to a living Rome.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think it would have disappointed him if he’d caught me and perhaps our incipient friendship would have ended at that moment. Anyway, we got very merry and by the end of the evening I was certain that I was in love with him, but every time my eyes fell to that sketchbook I felt the impossibility of a romance and then I would drink some more to numb the pain.’

  I glanced at my watch, it was time for us to move on, and we stood up, talking of other things as we made our way back to the hotel. I sat alone in the bar later, lost in my thoughts, and when Maurice rejoined me he had taken a shower and smelled of soap, his hair a little damp on his head, and this was exhilarating to me. We spoke some more of Maurice’s own writing and he told me how much my stipend had meant to him for he had moved to a small flat closer to the Savoy where he found it easier to write.

  Later, as we walked along the corridors towards our bedrooms, he paused outside my door and I reached for his hand, to wish him goodnight, but to my surprise he leaned forward and offered me a hug. Like an inexperienced performer on a stage, I was uncertain what to do with my arms, whether I should leave them hanging by my side or wrap them around him too. I breathed in the musk of his scent, and my lips, so close to his neck, longed to find a place to call their own. But before I could embarrass myself any further, he pulled away.

  ‘Your advice is so helpful to me, Erich,’ he said. ‘I’m lucky to be able to learn from you. I hope you know how grateful I am.’

  And with that he was gone and I let myself into my room, knowing that I would lie awake for hours yet.

  4. Madrid

  I didn’t see Maurice again for more than a month after this. He returned to Berlin and I to Cambridge. I longed for the trip to Madrid and, when it came, I waited for him in the foyer of the Hotel Atlántico, pretending to read while keeping a close eye on the door for his arrival. I did my best not to look in the direction of the receptionist, with whom I had engaged in an earlier altercation upon discovering that Maurice’s room would not be adjacent to mine but located on the floor below. I had pleaded with her to make the necessary changes but she had proved intractable and I may have disgraced myself with a childish tantrum. When he finally appeared, however, my spirits lifted and we embraced like old friends, before repairing to a local tapas bar, where he ate like a healthy young horse and I simply sat and watched him.

  The following day, a lunch was held in my honour in a private room at the Museo del Prado and, although we arrived early to immerse ourselves in the Titians, I lost track of him at some point and was forced to make my way alone to the reception, where I found myself standing next to the American writer Dash Hardy, with whom I shared a Spanish publisher. As he was spending a semester in the city, teaching at the university, he had been invited to attend the gathering but, anxious about Maurice’s disappearance, I found it difficult to concentrate on his conversation. I remember, however, that he congratulated me on my recent success while informing me that, while he had not read my book – because he did not read non-American writers – he had been assured by our mutual editor that it was a work of some merit.

  ‘Please don’t be offended,’ he drawled, reaching his chubby fingers into his mouth, removing a morsel from one of the canapés that had lodged itself between his teeth and examining it for a moment with the intensity of a forensic scientist before flicking it to the carpet. ‘I don’t read women either and I make sure to say so in every interview as it always ensures that I receive the maximum amount of publicity. The politically correct brigade loses their collective mind and before I know it I’m on the front of all the literary pages.’

  ‘You’re a controversialist, then,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m a fiction writer with an expensive apartment overlooking Central Park West. And I need to sell books in order to pay the co-op fees.’

  We talked for ten minutes or more but I struggled to find common ground with him. I recalled a memoir of his that I had read some years earlier where he listed in graphic detail the many homosexual encounters of his youth and young adulthood, meetings that seemed almost sordid in his perfect recall. He was the type of writer I thought of as a professional queer, one whose nature defined both his public persona and his work, and that was something that had always made me uncomfortable.

  ‘And I see you have a handsome young friend travelling with you,’ Dash said finally, smiling lasciviously and winking at me. ‘I noticed him earlier staring by the El Grecos and I simply had to go over to introduce myself. He was too beautiful to ignore. He recognized me immediately, which of course made my day, and told me that he was your assistant. Lucky old you.’

  Before I could reply, I caught sight of Maurice entering the room at last, locked deep in conversation with a lady novelist, a previous winner of The Prize, and as they stood there, she squeezing his hand tightly as they conversed with passionate intent, I felt a surge of jealousy. I longed to grab him by the arm and make a quick exit from the Prado but of course such a thing would have insulted my hosts.

  ‘There he is,’ said Dash, turning around now and following the direction of my eyes. ‘Where did you pick him up
, anyway? He’s pretty as a peach but also very street, don’t you think?’

  ‘I didn’t pick him up anywhere,’ I replied, trying to control my irritation at his vulgarity. ‘He’s simply a young writer who helps me out from time to time, that’s all.’

  He seemed to enjoy my discomfort. ‘You remind me of my Aunt Gloria,’ he said. ‘She’s long dead now, of course. The poor dear couldn’t bear any talk of sex. She had a stroke halfway through reading my first novel and ended up in hospital for the rest of her life. I don’t know if it was the book that brought it on but I’ve always rather hoped that it was. But tell me, Erich, is he submissive, this young assistant of yours, or dominant?’

  I looked at him again, longing for the lunch to begin in order that it might sooner come to an end, and claimed not to understand what he meant.

  ‘Oh, don’t be disingenuous,’ he said. ‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. What’s his name?’

  ‘Maurice,’ I said, and he threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Of course it is! You couldn’t make it up! What a shame your name isn’t Clive. And does he charge you by the day or is he one of those agreeable boys who’s happy to give you everything he has as long as you open enough doors for him? You’ve certainly brought him to the right place, that’s for sure,’ he added, looking around at a room that had by now filled with writers, editors and literary taste-makers. ‘I imagine he’ll be very grateful tonight.’

  ‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ I told him. ‘For heaven’s sake, he’s just a boy. We’re friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You’re at least forty years older than him. You can’t possibly be friends. If he’s not giving you what you want, then you should throw him back where you found him and find someone who will. Creative-writing courses are full of accommodating boys who have no scruples when it comes to such things. Believe me, I should know.’

  A moment later, lunch was called and to my further annoyance I found myself seated at some distance from Maurice, sandwiched instead between the marketing director from my publishing house and the editor of a literary magazine. He, on the other hand, was placed next to a handsome young Spanish writer who had published three novels in three years, the most recent of which had been a major international success. They spent almost the entire meal locked in conversation, laughing fitfully from time to time, but he never turned in my direction once. And when he took his ever-present notebook from his bag and started to scribble something down that his companion had said, it was all I could do not to pick up the salt cellar and fling it in his direction.

  Later that evening, as was our custom, we spent an hour in the hotel bar, where I tried not to allow my dark mood to overshadow our time together, although perhaps it was obvious that I was annoyed for he asked whether anything was wrong.

  ‘Why should it be?’ I said. ‘It’s been a perfectly pleasant day.’

  ‘You just seem a little out of sorts, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s tiredness, nothing more. You enjoyed yourself, though? You seemed to be having a wonderful time at lunch.’

  ‘I loved it,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘All those writers! I felt like I was one myself.’

  ‘You are one,’ I insisted, despite the fact that he had given me nothing new to read in some time.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Not until I finish my novel. Actually, not until I publish my novel.’

  ‘Well, you have to start one to finish one,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, but I have!’ he told me. ‘Didn’t I mention it? An idea came at last. A plot. And I just sat down and began writing.’

  ‘I see,’ I replied. ‘And are you going to tell me what it’s about?’

  ‘Not just yet,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The thing is, I’m superstitious about things like that. Do you mind if I just keep going and don’t say too much about it for now?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said, even though I minded a great deal. ‘Do whatever makes you happy. And your companion at lunch, the Spanish novelist. Did he offer you any advice?’

  ‘We weren’t really talking about books,’ he said.

  ‘Then what were you talking about?’

  ‘His wife, mostly. And his mistresses. He has a number of them.’

  ‘I’m surprised you could bear to listen to all of that.’

  ‘He gave me his card and told me to look him up if I’m ever back here.’

  ‘You certainly know how to collect us, don’t you?’ I asked. ‘Writers, I mean. Don’t you ever long for someone a little less accomplished? A friend your own age, perhaps? Although I suppose it would be unwise to let yourself be distracted from your work.’

  ‘I’m happiest on my own,’ he told me. ‘And if I wanted companionship—’ He broke off and pointed over my shoulder towards the foyer. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Look who’s just walked in.’

  I turned around and saw Dash Hardy standing in the lobby, looking around in search of someone who might recognize him and pay him the requisite adoration. He must have been staying in the same hotel as us and my heart sank, sure that he would notice us too and spoil our evening by insisting on joining our table, then flirting shamelessly with Maurice while making the offensive double entendres that seemed specifically designed to discomfit me. Indeed, I was certain that he did see us for he smiled in our direction, raising a hand in a half-wave, but then, to my surprise and relief, he turned away and walked towards the elevators.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear that man.’

  ‘You said my attention should be solely devoted to my work,’ said Maurice, ignoring this remark. ‘But you allowed yourself to get distracted at the start of your career, didn’t you? By Oskar, I mean. So perhaps a little distraction is a good thing.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘When we were in Rome you told me how you two met. You weren’t focussed on your writing then but on your desires, right? How did they develop after that, anyway?’

  They developed as these things do, I told him. Two teenage boys with much in common, living in dread of war, feigning a loyalty to a Fatherland towards which we felt no particular attachment. Something struck between Oskar and me that evening in the Böttcher Tavern, perhaps because we got so drunk, perhaps because we both had artistic ambitions, but whatever the reason, we very quickly became fast friends. Outside those times when he was in his father’s café, at home painting or we were attending meetings of the Hitlerjugend we were mostly together, sharing ideas with each other, discussing novels and painters, planning what we hoped would be our extraordinary futures. His own work developed considerably during this period and he trusted me now with studies of the girl I had seen in his sketchbook on that first evening. In his drawings, she was always looking away from him and always nude, but there was nothing prurient about the manner in which he drew or talked about her. Certain that I could not bear for him to tell me whether she was real or imagined, I never asked her name, nor did he offer it, but it was obvious that if she was real, then whatever intimacy he shared with her had been recreated in his work, which just got better and better. Mine, on the other hand, was suffering, as I found myself unable to concentrate on fiction when my thoughts were devoted to him. Perhaps it seems unusual, I told Maurice, that we never talked of romance, either of us, but boys were different in those days than they are today. I did not pry into his affaires de cœur and he did not enquire into mine. To do so would have served only to embarrass us both.

  A few months after we met, to coincide with Oskar’s seventeenth birthday, we decided to take a bicycling holiday over a weekend towards the Havel Lakes and travel on from there towards Potsdam, a distance of some forty kilometres. We left on a Saturday morning, displaying our papers to the soldiers on guard at the gates of the city, and cycled westward in the direction of the Olympic Stadium, arriving at the mouth of the Scharfe Lanke around lunchtime, where we sat at the lake’s edge, eating our san
dwiches and drinking warm bottles of beer that spilled over the sides when we uncorked them, causing us to rush to lick our fingers to capture every drop. It was a warm day and, soaked in perspiration from our exercise, Oskar suggested a swim.

  ‘But we have no costumes,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, we don’t need any.’ He laughed, standing up and slipping the braces from his shoulders as he started to unbutton his shirt. ‘There’s no one around for miles. We won’t get caught.’

  He was stripping so quickly, his boots and socks already thrown to one side, his trousers pulled off in a moment, that there seemed to be no point in arguing with him, but if I were to follow his lead I knew that my desire would be all too visible.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, turning to me with a frown on his face as he slipped out of his shorts and threw them on the pile of discarded clothes by his feet. He was fully revealed to me now at last, all my imaginings brought to life in a matter of moments, and it stunned me how casual he could be in his nakedness. I tried not to look at his sex, which lay dormant, hanging shamelessly from a thick patch of dark pubic hair. ‘You’re not shy, are you, Erich? There’s no reason to be.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said, uncertain whether to look directly at him or turn away. ‘The truth is that I can’t swim.’ A lie that felt to me like a satisfactory excuse.

  ‘Can’t swim?’ he said, bursting out laughing as he pulled one foot behind him, bringing it up to his backside and stretching the muscles of the leg with a satisfied groan before performing the same operation on the other. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing? Swimming’s easy. Anyway, the water is quite shallow here, I think. You don’t need to go out any further than feels safe. Just keep the sand beneath your feet and splash around. It will cool you off.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and he simply shrugged his shoulders and made his way down towards the water. I watched his retreating back, my entire body pulsating with lust. His revealed shape was so overwhelming that I might have groaned aloud as he waded into the water and submerged himself quickly before jumping up again with a roar of delight. I longed to be in there with him so turned away, focussing on other things until my ardour had subsided a little, then quickly threw off my clothes and ran in, caring little for the coldness of the water as I plunged down in order to hide myself as soon as possible. In the distance, Oskar waved in my direction and I waved back.