The Secret Knowledge (24 page)

He has spoken to Ulrike about Beethoven. Fundamentally she prefers the Rolling Stones but won’t admit it. There lingers in her hesitation to accompany him to concerts, not fear of exposure, but suspicion that the whole of the so-called classical repertoire constitutes bourgeois hegemony, when really its finest works are both its expression and negation. The significance of recapitulation is its emphasis: the identity of the non-identical. In those atavistic consecutive fifths Carreau-Klauer involuntarily affirms the fundamental inadequacy that was, after all, the initial impulse. The Frenchwoman loved Klauer, so Carreau had to become Klauer. The music is a process of becoming that is forever unfinishable. There can be no ending to it – until Adorno stops playing.

Two days later he gets another phone call at the university. This time he’s expecting a journalist or radio producer wanting to know his views about the student movement; instead it’s a man who gives a name Adorno doesn’t recognise and says, “I believe you spoke with Yvette Carreau.”

“Who? Oh yes, the French lady.”

“She told you about a certain book?”

“I have it.”

A pause. “Perhaps we could meet to discuss this.”

Please not another pointless stroll past the flowerbeds. “Come to my office,” Adorno says; they agree an appointment and he hangs up. The country’s in a rising state of turmoil and there are people pestering him with trivialities. The book is in his drawer in the office; he thought of trying to find a colleague who might understand the coded symbols but his curiosity evaporated as soon as the item was out of sight. Instead he’s been thinking about the problems of the
Missa Solemnis
. No themes, no development. Omission as a means of expression.

He gives a seminar on eternity. Ulrike is there, taking notes and hardly looking at him. What if she got pregnant? Says there’s no chance but anything’s possible. Good that he and Gretel never had children. No way to perceive the little mites except in relation to one’s own generation whom they can only despise. The student protests are a manifestation of social infantilisation. Relate this to the growing tendency to remain childless.

“Are you saying that immanent and to-be-completed eternity are distinct?” a student asks him. Adorno says nothing, he’s lost his train of thought. Everything is a void and the students look at each other, even Ulrike stops writing.

One of them turns to his companion. “I think he’s saying there is no eternity. It only feels that way.”

When he goes to Ulrike’s apartment building later that day and presses the entry buzzer he gets no reply. And yet they had an arrangement, she told him to come at exactly this time. She must have gone out briefly, he waits. Eventually a dark-skinned foreign woman comes and lets herself in, he follows her and takes the lift to the third floor, tries Ulrike’s door but of course it’s locked. Keeps waiting until at last, furious, he goes home. So this is how she tells him it’s over.

The man comes to see him about that wretched book. The appointment is in his diary but Adorno is in the middle of writing about dialectic in the
Eroica
when the secretary knocks and reminds him, then shows the fellow in.

“Laurent Oeillet.” He extends a hand, though the first thing Adorno notices apart from his French accent is the eye-patch; a war-wound, perhaps, he’s old enough to have been in the Resistance or Wehrmacht.

“You wanted to talk to me about this.” Adorno opens his drawer, rifles beneath some student essays that have been deposited there in the last few days, and brings out the thin yellow book which he drops on his desk. Oeillet’s single eye is momentarily transfixed by it, then sends its sparkle once more at Adorno who invites him to sit down.

“What story did Madame Carreau tell you?” Oeillet asks. “You know she thinks she can hear messages from aliens on her radio?”

“She struck me as having a lively imagination.”

“A polite way to put it.”

“She herself said the story was fiction. Now are you going to give me a different version?”

The secretary knocks again and asks if the gentlemen wish coffee. University life these days, thinks Adorno, is so much less pleasant than it used to be, so much less conducive to thought. More like being in a cafeteria.

“I was a friend of the late Monsieur Carreau. He was a fine man. His business interests brought him to Germany not long after the war ended; he ran a small plant producing thermionic valves, later he got into electronics. His wife, his very lovely wife, unfortunately developed mental problems. She spent time in an institution.”

“What about the lover she lost, Klauer?”

“Madame Carreau is what one might charitably call a romantic.”

“She says this book belonged to my friend Walter Benjamin.”

“And you believe her?”

“Carreau got it from him in Spain in 1940.”

Oeillet laughs. “Louis came across it not long before he died.”

It is an interesting problem: two stories, wholly contradictory, either of which could be true. Oeillet leans forward in his chair, about to continue, but the coffee arrives. When the secretary departs with her tray and closes the door behind her Oeillet says, “I should like to buy the book.”

The proposal is more distasteful than the coffee; Adorno nearly spits what’s in his mouth, but swallows. “You’ve come for that?”

“I’m a collector and Louis intended me to have it.”

“His wife evidently doesn’t. And whatever her mental condition, she happens to be the one still living.”

Oeillet is barely able to conceal his displeasure. “Natural courtesy would be to give it freely to its rightful possessor; instead I show you the favour of making a fair offer.”

Adorno, too, is displeased. “The courtesy was mine, in receiving you here. It is you who have made of this meeting a financial transaction, and in relations such as those, courtesy plays no part.”

“Fifty marks,” Oeillet says abruptly. “More than it’s worth.”

“And less than I have imminent need of.”

“One hundred.”

“I shall not sell it.”

“You don’t believe me? You find Yvette’s ravings more convincing than the plain facts I’ve told you?”

Adorno shakes his head. “I believe what you say. Her story is false. But she gave the book to me, and unless you tell me what it is and why it is important, I will not part with it so easily.” He opens the drawer, puts the book back inside, and waits for Oeillet to leave. But the seated visitor has no intention of departing.

“It is mine, sir, and I shall have it. My dear friend wished it, yet you go against the most fundamental decency of human conduct, respect for the dead. You are an atheist, I suppose. You have no notion of the immortality of the soul…”

“Do not presume to lecture me about the categorical imperative. Excuse me but I have work to do.” Adorno turns to arrange papers on his desk; the Frenchman refuses to take the hint.

“You will give it to me or there will be consequences.”

This is the most incredible effrontery. “Consequences?”

“One hundred marks for your troubles, professor, I can give you cash straight away. Otherwise…” Oeillet shrugs with the casual brutality of a police interrogator.

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Women.” The word falls stillborn from Oeillet’s lips, vile and slimy.

“You think you can blackmail me?”

“I have names, evidence. Photographs.”

Adorno can feel the room spinning; this is simply unreal. “You’ve been following me? Spying on me? Who the hell are you? Who are you working for?”

Oeillet has found beneath his own fingernail something more noteworthy than Adorno’s pale face. He picks at the irritation, then looks up. “Just give me the damned book, that’s all. Give me it or I’ll tell your wife.”

“You pathetic bastard, she knows already. I’m not afraid of you.”

“She knows everything about you? And the faculty, do they know? Your students? The press? Would you ruin yourself on account of a few pages that mean nothing to you?”

All is apparent: the widow’s story holds a greater truth. Walter Benjamin was once in exactly the position that is now Adorno’s own, confronted by a demon persecutor. Is Adorno to be a martyr too? And for what will posterity praise and honour him? No Gestapo, no epic journey of escape. Only torrid afternoons at an apartment in an inferior part of town. You’ve lost the game, he says to himself, a game that is not worth playing. He opens the drawer, brings out the book and hands it to Oeillet who quickly glances with satisfaction at it, flicks through the pages, puts it inside his briefcase then reaches into his pocket and begins to draw out his wallet.

“Get out,” Adorno says heavily, barely able to breathe.

“I owe you one hundred marks.”

“I said get out of here.”

“I’m a man of my word.” Oeillet tosses the notes onto his lap. Adorno, broken, grasps and crumples them like a handkerchief.

“Who are you?” Adorno eventually asks.

“I told you, I’m a collector.”

“No more of that shit. Your name, your story, even that stupid eye-patch, none of them real, surely?”

“They’re all that you, your secretary or anyone else will remember of me. Far better that way, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What will you do with the book?”

Oeillet rises to his feet, puts on his hat and lifts his briefcase from the floor. “Its rightful owners will make good use of it. Congratulations, professor, you have shown yourself to be a man of action as well as thought. You have changed the course of history.”

Paige has heard it repeatedly: you only get one shot. Now she’s on the train to Manchester to meet Paul Morrow who’s giving a concert there tonight. The famous pianist is sacrificing rehearsal time to listen to an unknown student, thanks to Julian Verrine.

She gets off at Piccadilly station and isn’t sure which exit to head for, she’s standing on the busy concourse looking at the map she printed from the internet when a lady stops to help her, even knows where the music college is, and when Paige thanks and leaves her, stepping outside into grey morning light, she thinks how helplessly lost she must have looked, when she ought to be leaping with excitement.

Doesn’t take her long to walk to the area where the college is situated, Verrine said he’d meet her there at eleven. She’s got time to kill and finds a café, cheap and shabby with fixed plastic chairs and a few customers who look like they’re out of work. She gets tea in a plastic cup and chooses a seat where no one can make eye contact with her, it gives her a view of the street and the small park across the road. While she leaves her drink to cool she taps out passages of Klauer on the table’s chipped edge.

David Conroy sent the whole score, never suspected her offer of safe-keeping was prompted by a hidden motive. It’s in her shoulder bag though she won’t be needing it, all the notes are inside her head, memorised just as Verrine ordered. Could turn out to be her signature piece, he says, her big break.

If Mr Conroy knew what was happening he’d probably see it as some kind of betrayal. But he’s not of sound mind, and even if he were, he’d have no right to feel betrayed, because between himself and Paige there has never been anything except the brief, professional relationship of teacher and student. She has to look after her own interests. Julian Verrine knows the business and he’s the one she must listen to. She checks her phone messages then switches it off since she might forget later, it would be a disaster if it rang during her performance. She sips her tea and the minutes pass until she sees a familiar figure outside, Verrine walking briskly past the park, looking smart in a charcoal-grey suit. She snatches up her bag and hurries out across the road to greet him, but when he sees her he shows no warmth, instead seeming almost annoyed at being accosted before their scheduled appointment.

“I hope you’re well rehearsed,” he says as they walk together to the college. Doesn’t bother asking if she had a pleasant journey, he’s got no time for redundant niceties. Instead he gives Paige instructions for the audition. “Initially you’ll be warming up at the piano while I speak privately with Morrow in another room. I’ll bring him in and do the introductions, then leave you both. All you have to do is play the piece.”

It sounds like a military operation. “What does he know about me?”

“That doesn’t matter. Just play your best. Either he likes it or he doesn’t.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

Verrine’s chin juts forcefully as he walks. “Then we’ve wasted our time, haven’t we?”

The college is large and modern, a slab of glass and steel that could be the façade of an international business. Verrine leads the way inside. Paige waits shyly while he speaks to the receptionist, acting as if he comes here all the time and everybody ought to know him. Perhaps they do, she thinks. He turns from the desk and tells Paige which room to go to. “Take the lift,” he suggests, indicating it with a casual wave of his arm.

“You want me to go there now?”

“Yes,” he says impatiently, “Hurry up.”

She does as he says, feeling like a school kid sent to see the headmaster. Coming out of the lift she finds the room easily enough, a small studio with a piano, a couple of chairs and music stands, some recording equipment, the place sound-proofed and windowless except for a round pane on the thick door. She seats herself at the keyboard and adjusts the stool to the right height, feeling isolated and nervous. A few bars of Bach get her fingers working and let her hear what the instrument sounds like, this relaxes her a little. But she can’t help thinking that Verrine wants her to fail, she can’t understand why he behaved so dismissively towards her.

She doesn’t play the Klauer, she wants to save it for when Morrow arrives. Instead she does random exercises, telling herself all will be fine. Yet the time drags, she expected to wait only a short while, ten minutes go by and she resorts to Schubert as a way of calming herself. She can’t think about the notes, only the door with its round porthole to the corridor and world beyond where everyone appears to have forgotten her. Impossible to enjoy the music this way, it feels more like punishment.