‘Theo.’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘It’s just … I was doing some more online research this week.’
‘Why do online research when I’m right here with you? You can ask me anything you want. I’ve been incredibly honest with you so far, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I was looking at old photos,’ he continued. ‘From when you were younger. I even found one of you and Erich Ackermann together.’
‘Really?’ I said, surprised, for at first I couldn’t recall us ever having our picture taken.
‘Yes, you’re sitting outside a bar, having a drink, and your arm is around his shoulders. You’re looking into the camera. He’s looking at you.’
I threw my mind back almost thirty years and had a vague recollection of us sitting in Montmartre while a young waitress took our photo. Had Erich held on to that for years afterwards, I wondered, and it had somehow found its way into a newspaper obituary or a critical work? How utterly tragic, I thought.
‘Yes? And? What of it?’
‘Well, you must know. You were very handsome.’
‘I suppose I was.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude.’
‘If anything, that was a compliment.’
‘It’s just that you don’t look like that any more,’ he said.
‘Well, of course I don’t,’ I said, growing irritated by his obfuscation. ‘It’s been over twenty-five years since Two Germans was published. I’m hardly going to look the same as I did when I was little more than a boy.’
‘And I was thinking about a neighbour of mine,’ he said.
‘A what?’ I asked. ‘A neighbour, did you say? Well, what about him?’
‘He drank himself to death.’
I sighed. I could see where this was going now. ‘Did he indeed?’ I said quietly.
‘It wasn’t his fault. He was an alcoholic. But in those last years, his skin looked just like yours. Very grey, I mean. And he had the same dark bags under his eyes that you have and red lines across his cheeks and nose. I was just a kid, but he always frightened me when he came too close.’
‘You’re really making me feel very good about myself,’ I said.
‘I’m not trying to upset you.’
‘And yet I feel upset.’
‘I just wondered whether, you know, you might have a problem. And, if so, whether you should do something about it.’
I sat back in the chair and found myself, quite unexpectedly, laughing. I was aware that I was coming across as a little hysterical so it was no great surprise when he began to look at me nervously and shift uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Oh, Theo,’ I said, reaching across and patting his hand a few times. ‘Bless you. But of course I have a problem. Do you think that’s news to me? I drink a minimum of seven pints of beer, two double whiskies, a single malt and a glass of Baileys every day, seven days a week. Does that seem like the actions of a rational, uncomplicated, sober man to you?’
‘No, but …’ He frowned. ‘I mean, if you know you have a problem, then why don’t you look for help?’
‘Because I don’t want any.’
‘Everybody needs some—’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘I’m not trying to be funny, but let me get another drink first. I feel like I’m going to need it. And I’m sure you need a cigarette if you’re going to keep impersonating the Archbishop of Canterbury on the first day of Lent.’
I stood up and he looked annoyed that I was interrupting this particular conversation to return to the bar and, a moment later, he marched past me towards the door, his cigarette pack and lighter in hand, his notepad sticking reliably out of his pocket. I watched him go and couldn’t help but laugh. There was something adorably guileless about the poor boy, I thought. He’d always been like that, of course, ever since he was a child. He’d believed in the tooth fairy a lot longer than other children.
‘I’ll take a whisky too,’ I told the barman when he took my usual order and when it arrived I knocked it back in one go, leaving the empty glass on the counter as I carried the beers to the table.
‘We’ve talked about Dash, about Edith and about The Tribesman,’ said Theo, when he returned. ‘And I think I’ve got everything I need on them. Since his name has come up, perhaps we should finally talk about Erich.’
‘There’s nothing I’d enjoy more,’ I said with a wide smile.
‘You told me that you felt badly about how you treated Dash Hardy but, of course, he doesn’t figure in your work very much. Erich Ackermann does, though. He’s where everything begins for you.’
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But it was all such a long time ago. Quite honestly, I barely think of him at all any more.’
‘But you must on occasion. And he’s a central part of my thesis, obviously.’
‘On occasion,’ I agreed. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘I’d like to know,’ he said, laying an unexpected stress on the verb, ‘what you feel when you look back at those days. And whether you feel that you treated him fairly?’
‘Well,’ I replied, taking a draught of my pint and considering this, ‘I suppose if you want the absolute truth, I can see that I didn’t treat him quite as well as I might have. I’ll admit that I cultivated his friendship from the start, but I don’t think there’s any great harm in that. Artists have been doing that since the dawn of time. And, let’s face it, you’ve cultivated mine, after all, haven’t you? To get ahead.’
‘Well,’ he replied, blushing a little, and it seemed as if he was about to say something to justify himself, but I didn’t let him.
‘Look, on the night that we met I could see how drawn he was to me. It was so obvious it was almost pitiable. Erich had shut down that part of his soul for decades after the death of Oskar G?tt and, for whatever reason, I had reawoken him. He was utterly reinvigorated by my presence, as if he’d taken a deep breath after staying underwater for too long. That’s why he invited me to visit all those cities with him; it wasn’t to help him, it wasn’t to be an assistant, it was because he fancied me. And why not? I was a good-looking boy and I brought him back to life. I may have taken advantage of his good nature, but why not? I flirted with him, made sure that I remained sexually ambiguous at all times. Always a possibility but never a certainty. I led him on to the point where he was so overwhelmed with desire that I think there was literally nothing he wouldn’t have done for me, had I asked. And then, when I got everything I needed from him, I wrote Two Germans.’
‘And your friendship ended there?’
‘This might seem callous to you, Daniel,’ I said. ‘Theo, I mean. But once I had what I needed, why would I have stuck around? Are you planning a lifelong relationship with me after you complete your thesis?’
‘No, but—’
‘I didn’t consider him a friend, anyway, and it’s impossible to define how he saw me. He was paying me, remember, and you don’t pay your friends to travel with you, do you? You pay an assistant. And also, other than a love of books, we had very little in common. Think about it: he was old; I was young. He wanted a lover; I didn’t. His career was almost behind him; mine was yet to begin. You could say that I actually did him a favour when I severed the umbilical cord that connected us, even if the cut did produce more blood than either of us had anticipated. No, the time had come to say goodbye. Anything else would have just made Erich look foolish. If he could only have seen that, then he might have thanked me.’