Temporary Kings (17 page)

‘I’d
never call you an aesthete, Dan.’

Tokenhouse
laughed shortly.

‘Certainly
not in the nineteenth-century use of the word. All the same, you have to watch
yourself. We all have to. That was specially true of my next phase, when I
thought I would try Political Symbolism. The effect was very mixed. I’ve
painted-over quite a lot of them, wiped them out completely. This is one of the
rather better efforts I preserved. It was completed quite soon after my breach
with retrospection – accepting the past, I mean, simply as a point of departure.
The important thing was I had learnt by then that Naturalism was not enough.’

‘Like
patriotism?’

Tokenhouse
paid no attention, either because he never cared for flippancy, or, more
likely, had passed beyond paying attention to most remarks made by other
people. He had begun to speak quickly, excitedly, almost gabbling this account
of his own development as a painter, reciting his painting creed like a lesson
learnt by heart.

‘I
suddenly saw in a flash, a revelation, that I could not retain any remnant of
self-respect, if I gave way to Formalism again in the slightest degree. I
must
satisfy my own conviction that a new
ideological content had to be infused into painting, one free of all taint of
neutrality. That was just as important for an amateur like myself, as for a
professional painter of long standing and successful attainment.’

Like
an onlooker dexterously exposing an attempt to deceive in manipulation of the
Three-Card Trick, Tokenhouse seized the three studies of miracle-rigging
priests, two in his right hand, one in his left, with incredible speed setting
in their place a single example of his interim period. It was larger in size
than earlier exhibits, brighter in colour. Most of his pictures, Formalist or
Reformed, were apt to end up a superfluity of brownish-carmine tones. This
latest canvas, vermilion and light cobalt, showed the origins of the fresco
technique in representation of what were evidently factory workers, stripped to
the waist, pushing over a precipice a disordered group of kings and bishops,
easily recognizable by their crowns and mitres. Perhaps deliberately, treatment
of posture and movement was a trifle wooden, but the painter had clearly taken
a certain pleasure in depicting irresolute terror in the features of monarchs
and ecclesiastics toppling into the abyss. The subject suggested, not for the
first time in the character of Tokenhouse, a touch of muted sadism, revealed
occasionally in conversation, otherwise kept, so far as one knew, in check.

‘I
found Politico-Symbolism, for a person of my limited imaginative faculties, a
cul de sac
. My aim latterly has been to depict social
injustice in as straightforward a manner as possible, compatible with avoiding
that too passive Realism of which I have spoken. My own constricted skill has
prevented me from attempting some of the more ambitious subjects I have in
mind, though I like to think there are signs of improvement. Ah-ha, you do too?
I am glad. It is simply a question of documentation in the last resort. You
meditate along the correct political lines, the picture almost paints itself.
Look at this – and this.’

We
inspected a representative collection of Tokenhouse’s more recent work.

‘I
don’t want to bore you with my efforts. Shall we set out for the Biennale? If
you want to see more, we could look in again after
lunch, but I expect you’ve had enough by now.’

He
found an ashplant walking-stick, placed on his head a battered grey hat with a
greenish-black ribbon, turned down the brim all round, opened the door of the
flat. We set off for the Giardini, Tokenhouse at his habitual short rapid
stride, a military quickstep, suggesting chronic fear of unpunctuality. He
hurried along, hobnailed shoes grinding the cobbles.

‘I’m
feeling rather pleased about a letter received this morning. I’ve been revising
my will, terms that may surprise some people, among others making the lawyers
agree to insert a clause for no religious ceremony at the funeral. They didn’t
like it. Don’t like that sort of thing, even these days. I had my way. No nonsense
of that sort. Well, tell me about your Conference. What do you all discuss?
Plenty of nonsense talked there, I’ll be bound.’

‘The
Philosophy of Engagement – Obligations of the Writer – the Arts in relation to
World Government – all that sort of thing.’

‘Ah-ha,
yes. There can be serious sides
to such questions, but they are rarely tackled. Now those attending your
Conference, do any émigré writers from the USSR, or Balkan countries, turn up
there? One would be interested to hear what such people are saying and
thinking, especially the Russians. For example how they react to the “thaw”, as
people call it. I’ve been looking through a novel called
Dr
Zhivago
. I expect you’ve heard of it. It’s been given
a good deal of publicity. I suppose that sort of book, purporting as it does to
present the point of view of certain members of a generation very much on their
way out, might give a certain amount of satisfaction to expatriate Russians?
Those who’ve chosen to dissociate themselves from the great developments taking
place in their country. It would gratify them, a book like that, by stilling
their self-reproach. Have you come across instances of that? One would be
interested to hear.’

‘I
haven’t met any émigré Russians at the Conference. I couldn’t swear none are
there.’

‘Which
again reminds me. There’s a certain Dr Belkin who might have turned up. He
visits Venice from time to time. Usually lets me know at the last moment.’

‘Not
an émigré?’

‘No,
no. Far from it. A man of the soundest views in his own country. He informed me
some little while ago he might be looking in on this congress, or one about
this time. He enjoys coming to Venice, because he’s devoted to painting. He’s
even kind enough to be interested in my own humble brush. Of course my sort of
painting is practised comparatively little in Western Europe. Nice of him to
include a novice like myself in his survey. He’s been to visit me several
times. Naturally we see eye to eye politically.’

‘Somebody
else was asking about him.’

‘Belkin
has many friends. I do what I can to keep him up to date about books and
things. Hold them for him sometimes, if he’s afraid they’ll go astray in the
post. That avoids delay in the long run. He admits his own impatience with some
of the bureaucracy unavoidable in getting an entirely new system of government
working, a revolutionary one. We all have to face that. There’s quite a lot of
stuff he prefers to collect personally when he turns up here.’

‘Somebody
said they thought he wouldn’t be able to come to the Conference.’

‘Very
possibly not. It’s of no great importance. I can hold his stuff for him. I
always like to see Belkin. Such a cheerful fellow. Full of ideas. Where does
this Conference of yours meet?’

‘Over
there on San Giorgio.’

A
mist of heat hung over the dome and white campanile, beyond the glittering
greenish stretch of water, across the surface of which needles of light
perpetually flashed. It was so calm the halcyon’s fabled nest seemed just to
have floated by, subduing the faintest tremor of wind and wave. We reached the
Gardens, and entered the cool of the lime trees. Tokenhouse made for the
enclosure permanently consecrated to the cluster of strange little pavilions,
which, every two years, house pictures and sculpture by which each country of
the world chooses to be known to an international public.

‘We’ll
look at everything. Just to get an idea how low the art of painting has fallen
in these latter days of capitalism. You were speaking of the obligations of the
artist. I hope someone has pointed out that art has been in the hands of snobs
and speculators too long. Indeed, I can guarantee that the only sanctuary from
subjectless bric-à-brac here will be in the national pavilions of what you no
doubt term the Iron Curtain countries. We will visit the USSR first.’

The
white pinnacled kiosk-like architecture of a small building, no doubt dating
from pre-Revolutionary times, seemed by its outwardly church-like style to
renew the ecclesiological atmosphere that pursued Tokenhouse throughout life.
Within, total embargo on aesthetic abstraction proved his forecast correct. We
loitered for a while over Black Sea mutineers and tractor-driving peasants.
Never able wholly to control a taste for antagonism, even against his own
recently voiced opinions, Tokenhouse shook his head more than once over these
images of a way of life he approved, here found wanting in executive ability.

‘Don’t
think I’m lapsing into aestheticism in complaining that some of these scenes
from the Heroic Epoch seem a little lacking in inspiration. Not all of this
expresses with conviction the Unity of the Masses. I shall return for a further
assessment. Now we will marvel at the subjective inanities you probably much
prefer.’

Tokenhouse
showed no ill will in exploring the other national selections on view, my own
presence giving excuse to examine what, alone, might have caused him to suffer
guilt at inspecting at all.

‘Absurd,’
he kept muttering. ‘Preposterous.’

In
the French pavilion we came upon Ada Leintwardine and Louis Glober. They were
standing before a massive work, seven or eight foot high, chiefly constructed
from tin or zinc, horsehair, patent leather and cardboard. Ada was holding
forth on its points, good and bad, Glober listening with a tolerant smile.
Glober saw us first. ‘Hi.’

As
neither of them seemed attached to a party, it was to be supposed they had
become sufficiently friendly at the Bragadin palace to arrange a visit to the
Biennale together. There was the possibility, a remote one, that both had
decided to spend Sunday morning at the Exhibition, run across each other by
chance. Ada wore a skirt and carried a guidebook, outer marks of serious
sightseeing, but the idea of Glober setting out on his own for such a trip was
scarcely credible. Ada’s immediate assumption of the exaggeratedly welcoming
manner of one caught in compromising circumstances was not very convincing
either. The Biennale was hardly the place for a secret assignation.

‘Why,
hullo,’ she said. ‘Everyone seems to have decided to come here today. What fun.
We’re having such an argument about the things on show, especially this one. Mr
Glober sees African overtones, influenced by Ernst. To me the work’s much more
redolent of Samurai armour designed by Schwitters.’

To
recognize a potential pivot of Conference gossip, a touch of piquancy, in
detection of the pair of them together, was reasonable enough on Ada’s part.
Glober’s greeting too, his serenely hearty manner always retaining a certain
degree of irony, was seasoned this time with a small injection of deliberately
roguish culpability. Nevertheless, their combined acceptance of giving cause
for interesting speculation could not be taken at absolute face value. Pretence
to an exciting vulnerability was more likely to be demanded by sexual prestige,
an implied proposition that something was ‘on’, no more than mutual tribute to
each other’s status as ‘attractive people’. That was to take a cool commonsense-inspired
view. At the same time, the significance of so rapid a move towards association
together was not to be altogether ignored, even if Glober, as playboy-tycoon,
was no longer in his first youth; Ada, near-bestseller, mother of twins,
alleged to prefer her own sex.

Ada’s
pronouncements on the subject of the artefact in front of us, extensive and
well informed, continued for some minutes, so there was no immediate
opportunity to introduce Tokenhouse. He was contemplating the metal-and-leather
framework with unconcealed dislike, dissatisfied, too, at prospect of meeting
strangers, particularly an American, representing by his nationality all sorts
of political and social attitudes to be disapproved. A pause in Ada’s talk
giving opportunity to tell him she was a well-known novelist, also active force
in a publisher’s office, so to speak, on the other side of the counter, he
showed no awareness of her writing, but grudgingly muttered something about
having heard of her husband. When, on the other hand, Glober’s name was
announced, Tokenhouse displayed an altogether unexpected remembrance of him. He
seemed positively glad to meet Glober again after thirty years.

‘You’re
the man who put up the idea of the Cubist series. Of course you are. I’m not in
the least interested in Cubists now, with their ridiculous aesthetic ideas, but
I thought them a good proposition at the time, and I haven’t changed my mind
about that. It was a good proposition then. I was quite right.’

This
looked, at first, an altogether remarkable example of Glober’s mastery of those
attributes which impose their owner’s personality for life; even after so
trivial a business contact as that which had brought Tokenhouse and himself
together. Then there turned out to exist a more tangible cause than Glober’s
charm, in itself, to stimulate Tokenhouse’s memory. He began to chatter away in
his rapid, assertive, disconnected manner, which, once under way, was
impossible to check, however ill-adapted, or unintelligible, to his listeners.

‘We
made the blocks for the Cubist illustrations. They were never used. Your firm
went out of business, but it wasn’t due to that. Several American publishers
went bust about that time. Some of the most active, as regards what were then
new ideas. The whole thing was called off for quite other reasons. It was a
great pity. I always held we could have made a success of things. I had a row
with my board about it. They accused me of behaving in a highhanded manner.
Very well, I said, if you think that, I’ll pay for the blocks myself. I’ll buy
them at cost price. I’ll stand the damage. They’ll be my property. They could
make no objection to that. So long as publishing remains in private hands, it
might just as well be for my profit, as for that of any other speculator. I’d
use them in my own good time. That was what happened. They’ve been in store
ever since. I own them to this day. I stick to it that they would have made a
good series in the light of what was being thought at the time.’