Nadja, captious, freakish, would be an unsatisfactory partner. As though in a joke intended only for me, she feigned immediate fascination in a dictionary of Finnish slang, open at a caricature of perhaps a human face, perhaps a diagram of some transport scheme. Perched on a pile of shabby notebooks was a wooden bowl of fruits-des-bois.
The silence was awkward, that of bare forbearance of householders awaiting explanations or excuses, while I scanned the dishevelled room for evidence of conspiracy, dangerous information, prejudice, even looking for my own Secret Protocol amongst the many volumes, not from vanity but for confirmation that the couple were at very least political.
We were still standing. My hopes of a strawberry were, so to speak, fruitless, but the woman, with a minute intimation of thaw, did then indicate two stools, from which Nadja, mouth set against outward humour, waited for me to remove papers. The man stayed on his feet, in authority; the stools were low, so that we crouched beneath him. Nadja, at last deciding that some courtesy was due, told them in a slow French calculated to appease infants that Monsieur Alain had expressed much pleasure and very considerable eloquence about their arrival, the honour dispensed to our community, our own anxiety to be of all possible service. While respecting her strategy, I judged such extravagance maladroit, she herself afterwards admitting that it would have sounded well only to cretins.
The woman had withdrawn nearer the sink and was apparently deaf, but the man was scowling, his hands, deeply scratched, over-large. Neither face showed signs of suffering, fear, cruelty, only granite patience or sullenness. Both figures, statuesque, almost monumental, implied powers considerable but imprecise. In some abrupt non-sequitur I remembered Alex’s account of the gift of levitation granted to St Teresa of Avila, though frequently on occasions demanding utmost decorum.
Nadja uncaged her largest, most devious smile, crinkling into facial embrace, prompting the two to veer towards the human, the host deigning to seat himself.
From curt, wrenched-off sentences we learnt that they were Andrejs and Margarita Ulmanis, himself cousin to a pre-war Latvian statesman, though whether hero, crook or nonentity was unascertainable. Thus these relatives could be targets or agents of the vengeful and implacable.
Nadja, in her way, sociable, was also unhelpful, speaking of the general untrustworthiness of French and foreigners alike, while in some stutter of nerves I fingered another book, cheaply printed, coffee-stained, though I adopted a mien of reverence, interpreted by her as nauseating fulsomeness. But, noticing, Andrejs exclaimed gruffly, then clapped hands in resounding thud. Margarita shook herself into life, an undoubted smile cracked surface, her eyes gave faint glow to skin gone tight, slightly fungoid. Her voice was unexpectedly mild, her French agreeable as she explained that new territory made her shy. Andrejs concurred, with some pride. Carefully, as if it were sacramental, she touched the book I was holding. ‘Linards Tauns. One of our people. A great, a very great poet. He saw the shapes hovering between flowers and eyes.’This attributing to me a specialized connoisseurship was unlikely to awe Nadja and I feared a giggle, while also recalling that, in the Miscellany, from the bastion of inadequate research, I had recommended the work of the outstanding Latvian, Tauns.
Andrejs’ silence had been that of a prosecutor awaiting his turn, unlikely to overflow with what Alex called chitter-chat. He did, however, relent sufficiently to command coffee, which Margarita obeyed with an alacrity unjustified by the drink’s quality.
I praised Tauns, with an eye still for the strawberries, Nadja rhapsodized the coffee, while leaving it almost untasted, and, with renewed offers of assistance, hospitality, advice, we escaped.
For several days, Nadja avoided discussion of this petty escapade, during which I found some liking for Andrejs, his tired eyes, worn hands, reminding me of Greg, obdurate as weed under cities, dry-eyed in calamity.
Eventually, she announced that Margarita possessed jettura, evil eye, linking her with Alain’s account of Alfonso XIII emptying sophisticated salons by such a possession. Even suave croupiers and brutal footballers, she declared, extended figures in the cornu, repelling malign influences obvious to whoever could ‘verily see’.
We knew one remote village where strong or talented children were nicknamed Insignificant, Jug, You, to avert jealousy of saints. Occasionally, we passed the Ulmanis, gestured politely, but did not linger, feigning some urgent appointment. Without admitting it we maintained watch on the Villa. Once a limousine, smoke-glassed, presumably bulletproof, stopped outside it, no one leaving it or stepping from the house.
We wagered on who would first induce Andrejs to utter more than ten consecutive words.
More than ever, I was grateful to the garden, its constant changes within perfection. With trees and flowers, I was unperturbed by a report of Herr Doktor Gust, commandant of Buchenwald Camp, now a Stasi colonel, evading Israeli vengeance squads and, this week, cruising on the Black Sea. A wink from old times.
Drinking at Alain’s, I was more disturbed, not by balletic guns or suspicious-looking strangers but by Zimmer-frame crocks disputing at a beach kiosk below. Without warning a jet plane screamed over, cutting the sky with dead-white streak, unpleasant surgery.
‘Selfish buggers!’ Dick Haylock settled beside me, with empty glass. Knowing he preferred whisky I poured him wine.
‘Cheers, Erich! Or should I say prosit? Anyway, as I’ve been saying to everyone, there are things around I don’t care for. Incidentally,’ – a small awkwardness did not escape me – ‘we hear that you’ve been hobnobbing with the Letts. No offence. But, as poets say, they’re scarcely pukka. Mind,’ – he looked at the waves, dissatisfied by their performance – ‘I’ve not yet met them. Daisy thinks them club-footed. Bad luck, of course. But I’m sorry not to see your lady. A lily. But deep. Very deep.’
Too markedly glad of Nadja’s absence, he continued, ‘Aloofness can inspire. Like a cellist. So I wish her joy of the morning. Gates of Paradise. I should say, Portals.’
Was she, too, being called club-footed? He was looking serious, he should say, philosophical. ‘We don’t necessarily understand her, like so-called modern art. But some of us attempt to.’ The brown, weathered face twitched with doubt. ‘She has this effect on men, indeed on women. None of us would be surprised if one day she surprised us by doing something utterly unexpected!’
Surprised myself, I imagined horns, ribs, rotting carcasses as the wagons roll west, guarded by Wayne, Stewart, Fonda, though Dick’s greedy eyes had the leer, the bar-room joke, men, indeed women, imagining Nadja’s curves, dark crevices, the limitless majesty of nakedness.
He let me wave for another bottle. Alain responded at once, but the bar was crowded and he stayed only for one drink, time to inform us that Fred Astaire’s daughter told him that, at twelve, her closet friends were Clark Gable and David Niven. ‘They would not have been my choice, but…’
He darted away. Dick shook his head, showing wrinkled neck, dirty vest. ‘That fellow’s too French. He wouldn’t be passing the port in my mess. Always has to go one better. Tell him goats have chewed up the vines and he’ll know who bred the goats.’ His thin mouth sagged. ‘Thank God, the one thing that can’t be said of me is that I’m oily.’