The Avignon Quintet (136 page)

“I was intrigued to see from the minutes,” said Constance, “that you came out rather strongly
against
the display idea for the pictures. We thought that as a Jew the subject …”

Schwarz made a noise like a snort and said,
“Aber
, Constance, I am first of all a doctor, and my decision was according. The subject is horrible, the injustice and horror palpable, but on such a scale should we turn it into a peepshow? Of course the thing must stay on the record and we will somehow have to try and forgive what it will be impossible to forget. But finally this whole-scale outbreak of German
lust-morder
was a national aberration on a fantastic scale. What is even more interesting though is that they managed to start the French off behaving like that at first; doubtless the British would have followed suit if the Channel expedition had come off. All this raises a medical and philosophic problem of such great importance that we must try and study it coolly, as we are trying to study Mnemidis. What a triumph it would be if we could throw that Faustian switch and get him working with rather than against us. Roughly, all that was in my mind when I voted against.”

“I see.”

“I wonder if you do. I know that Affad does because I was able to discuss it with him, and of course in the new book I try and deal with the whole matter in general terms. Our whole civilisation is enacting the fall of Lucifer, of Icarus!”

She felt a rush of affection for all that he had given her over the years and a quickening of love and admiration for the dignity of the man and his faithfulness to his craft. He worshipped method like the wise old god he was. “Affad was right when he said that the most tragic thing about the German decision to abolish the Jews was that their solution, for all the horrible pain and suffering it brought, was profoundly
frivolous
– cruel paradox! For the problem of the Jews is far more serious, not less, concerning as it does an alchemical
prise de position
on the vexed question of matter. Demos Demos Democritos … now we see that matter is not excrement but thought. If we have come to the end of this cycle and are now plunging into a hubristic
dénouement
I can’t help as a Jew being deeply proud of the tremendous intellectual achievement of Jewish thought. I am thinking of our three great poets of matter. What a stupendous Luciferian leap into the darkness of determinism. Will there be time to correct the angle of vision, that’s what worries and intrigues me? This Jewish passion for absolutism and matter has already started to modify itself – entropy is the new sigil! Freud arrived on the scene like a new Merlin to take up the challenge of the Delphic oracle. He resolved the riddle of Oedipus. A Hero! He paid for it with his organ of speech, just as Homer and Milton each paid for his inner vision with his sight! But the confusion of gold and matter is a philosophic problem, and you can’t deal with it by abolishing the Jews’ physical presence. Our racial passion must become less visceral and more disinterested. The Jewish mind cannot
play
as yet! O Christ, what does all this rigmarole matter? Who will read my book? They will say that I am anti-Jewish!”

“Yes,” she said. “I am familiar with this line of thought because of …” – strange that she should have a kind of inhibition about pronouncing his name – “Affad!” There! but it made her feel shy. “Unhappily we still have a need for heroes. Myths cannot get incarnated and realised fully in the popular soul which seeks this nourishment with sacrifices, for reality is just not bearable in its banal daily form, and the human being, however dumb he is, is conscious of the fraud.”

“Yes. It’s what that bastard Jung is up to. Affad approves a little bit but not entirely of his attitude. The alchemical work is in distillation or decoction – the personal ego decants itself in thoughts which are really acts and slowly, drop by amazing drop, virtue, which is voidness, precipitates.” They both laughed, he with that sardonic helpless Viennese despair which had taken so many generations to form. It was not cynicism. It was a profound creative distrust of the dispositions taken up by reality, by history. He said softly, “A sort of
pourriture de soi
…”

They were both wondering what Mnemidis would have made of this conversation – highly articulate as he was. How could one talk to him about such matters, which were after all vital for his health, his recovery? His response would be “acted”: for him all love was the genius of misgiving, which rules the human heart.

Schwarz was sick to death of this world and its works. Even as he felt the pulse of Constance under his fingers he felt rise in his own soul the thick sediment of despair, like the lees of a bad wine, which dragged him always towards suicide – the suicide which always seemed to him so inevitable. One day it would claim him, of that he was sure. At such moments when the demon had him by the hair he wanted to bury his face between the breasts of a woman and hide from this all-pervading idea.

“I dreamed last night that we killed Mnemidis with one simple injection; you helped me. We were so happy to be delivered from him!” He sighed and cleaned his old hornrimmed glasses and he thought to himself, “It’s a question of patience. The vast weight of cosmic submission, the inertia of mass, will prevail over all.”

“I’d like a dry Martini,” she said.

“Done!” he said, stripping off his white tunic.

They took the ferry across the lake whose glassy surface reflected the coming night, and made their way with slow steps across the town – carefully avoiding the old Bar de la Navigation, for they did not want any more talk – and slowly arriving at the main station of the town where they sought out the first-class buffet, incomparable for the size and quality of its pre-war Martinis. The barman was an old friend, and had in his youth worked at the Ritz in Paris. Yes, they wanted to sit quite quiet in a companionable silence. And this came about as planned except that as they sat down he said, “I am profoundly worried about you.” And she replied, “I know you are – I have a juicy neurasthenia coming on, like influenza. It will pass, you will see.” No more. Just that and the alcohol burning in the mind like a spirit lamp. And of course, dimmed by the heavy doors, all the distant romantic stirring of trains arriving and departing.

Recently, within the last three months, she had had an accidental meeting with someone which she would soon come to regard increasingly as providential; it surprised her that she had not mentioned it to him, since it had involved her in an entirely new programme of personal health, personal endeavour: moreover in a field which she had long regarded as suspect and without much interest for a scientist. Walking one day along the old rue de la Confederation with Felix Chatto, en route for a coffee-shop where they could gossip, they came face to face with a small white-clad figure which at first neither could recognise. It at first looked like an Indian saint, a yogi of some sort. Its mane of white hair flowed down on either side of its dark negroid features. It was clad in white in the manner of an Indian
sadu
or holy man, and it was walking barefoot on the grubby pavements. This was the figure that spread its arms in a signal of surprised recognition and stood stock still, smiling at them. Who on earth could it be? They peered at the apparition, peered through the tangle of silver hair, as one might peer into the jungle, intent on the identification of some strange animal. The little sage had the advantage of them for he said, “My goodness, Mr Chatto, sir, and Miss Constance, fancy meeting you! What are you doing here?”

What were they doing there! And slowly piercing the obscurity of the Indian saint’s disguise they gradually found with the help of memory another face emerge, developed like a photograph. “Max!” she cried, and with a short interval of prolonged puzzlement Felix Chatto echoed her with “Max!” Then they were all three shaking hands, embracing, talking at once. It was the old valet-chauffeur of Lord Galen, whom they had last seen during the last summer they had all spent together in Provence; the old negro boxer who used to be Lord Galen’s humble sparring partner on the lawn at daybreak! How was it that he had so completely vanished from their thoughts – the violet chauffeur who often dressed like an Italian admiral? “Max!” she said, “You have changed so much – what has happened?” And in his affectionate excitement he almost reverted to his old Brooklyn-negroid tones. “Doogone it, Miss Constance, everything! Just everything! Ah been in India a while now and ah’ve learned a new science. Better than the old one-two!” He spread his arms and his face took on an angelic expression of bliss and devoutness. They both felt suddenly abashed by Max in this new incarnation, this new disguise – if disguise it was. Still holding their hands in his he explained breathlessly how the transformation had come about. “When Lord Galen went home I decided to go to India. I had received several invitations from an old man who made a lot of sense to me – I met him in Avignon. He came to the boxing booth where I used to drop in for a work-out. But he wasn’t a boxer, he was a wrestler and a yoga-maker. I got to working with him a little, and was intrigued enough to visit him in Bombay. Thanks to him I became a yoga-maker and teacher; when I was through he asked me to run one of his groups right here in Geneva. So here I am!”

It seemed almost unbelievable; such a transformation of personality in such a short space of time, it seemed almost like witchcraft. They dragged him off to a coffee-shop where they sat him down before a dish of tea and cakes in order to ply him with questions about this new departure. The only one of them who had shown any interest in yoga as a method of health regeneration had been Livia; but perhaps this fact had not been known to Max at that far-off epoch – indeed her own initiation into the science had come about in Germany during her flirtation with National Socialism. But Constance did not mention her name – why should she? The gravity and simplicity with which Max talked about the change of mind involved in developing from a pugilist into a yogi was more than merely interesting – she was struck by the distinctions he drew and the simple vividness with which he enunciated them. How he had changed! India had even improved his English, as well as giving him at times a tiny touch of a Bengali accent. Constance was beside herself with joy, and when Felix Chatto was forced to take himself off to the office she had stayed on for a full hour, profoundly interested in the psychological change which had taken place in this old friend. “Of course our studio yoga isn’t a therapy as such but since I have been here I’ve seen such dramatic changes in people due to its practice that I have begun to wonder jest what in hell it is. Now doctors are sending people to us that they can’t handle. Our classes are full of young people suffering from stress and tension of spirit – on their way to crack-ups we help them to avoid. In India they’d be surprised, since there’s no ego to get mentally stressed up with, so to speak. But why don’t you come and see the studio? My, it’s classy, it’s downright classy. And I’m the boss locally – crazy, isn’t it?”

Later that evening she actually did visit it with him and watched a hatha class under the instruction of a young girl. It created a sort of echo in her, a half-formulated desire to become part of it, to learn the ritual. After all, what was her medical practice about if it was not concerned with the problems of stress in its extreme forms? Why should she not study this ancient method for a while and see what bearing it had upon her own formulations?

Later still, sitting in his tiny office drinking more tea, it seemed to her the most natural thing in the world for him to lean forward and touch her knee as he said, “You know, I believe you could work with us and learn something you could turn to use. Maybe, if you had the patience …”

She smiled and replied, “I’ve always had the patience to learn something new; but tell me how and where to begin.” And the negro smiled and went on patting her hand as he said, “If you like I’ll step out with you to the ten cent store where you can buy yourself a cheap yoga mat. It’s the first really important act, for you will find it very important for you; you’ll get sort of stuck on it. It’s like all your work and your breathing, and your whole mentality soaked into it while you work on it, or maybe just lie on it and rest. They don’t cost much, they are just little eiderdowns as you saw in class. But it’s good to get a colour you like and keep it always around you – you’ll want to anyway. The thing becomes precious, like your own hymn book. It’s a record of your strivings.” He went on in this vein while conducting her downstairs and across the inner courtyard to the front entrance on the street. They ambled across to a store and she duly bought herself the small eiderdown as required. Then she accompanied him back for her first lesson. The studio was indeed rather a grandiose modern establishment forming part of a flourishing Turkish bath. When they re-entered the main courtyard she was struck by the singular vision of two yoga students diligently burning up their eiderdowns on a lighted brazier. Astonished by this aberrant conduct she stopped and pointed it out to Max. “What on earth …?” she cried, nonplussed. He burst out laughing: “They’ve
realised!”
he said cryptically.

She was completely nonplussed. “But after what you have just been saying about yoga mats …” she said in bewilderment, but he only shook his head and laughed at greater length. “Listen,” he said at last, “there is nothing mysterious about what they are doing, but I don’t want to go into merely intellectual explanations. It’s better left – the subject for the time being. Later on you’ll get it for yourself.”

They resumed their trudge up the stairs and then, as she debated, a sudden intuition flashed upon the screen of her thoughts. She stopped dead and said, “I think I have got it! Attachment!”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “That’s it!”