Utz Read online

  I am equally fascinated by the way in which ‘porcelain sickness’ – the Porzellankrankheit of Augustus the Strong – so warped his vision, and that of his ministers, that their delirious schemes for ceramics got confused with real political power. Of Brühl, who would become Director of the Meissen Manufactory, Horace Walpole commented tartly: ‘ . . . he had prepared nothing but bawbles against a prince (Frederick the Great) that lived in a camp with the frugality of a common soldier . . .’

  Utz had chosen each item to reflect the moods and facets of the ‘Porcelain Century’: the wit, the charm, the gallantry, the love of the exotic, the heartlessness and light-hearted gaiety — before they were swept away by revolution and the tramp of armies.

  Arranged along the longer set of shelves were .plates, vases, flagons and tureens. There were tea-caddies of polished redware by the ‘inventor’ of porcelain, Johannes Böttger. There were Böttger tankards with silver-gilt mounts; teapots with ‘Watteau’ scenes; teapots with eagle-headed spouts and teapots painted with goldfish, after Chinese and Japanese models.

  Utz came up behind me, breathing heavily.

  ‘Beautiful, no?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ I repeated.

  He showed me an excellent example of ‘indianische Blumen’, and a turquoise bowl painted by Horoldt, with a panel of Augustus enthroned as The Emperor of China.

  He showed me the Meissen imitations of K’ang Hsi blue-and-white: the porcelain his hero Augustus had loved so passionately; for which he had emptied his treasury to the dealers of Paris and Amsterdam, causing his Minister of Industry, Graf von Tschirnhaus, to moan, ‘China is the bleeding-bowl of Saxony’.

  Pride of place, however, was given to a Swan Service tureen: a Rococo fantasy on legs of intertwined fishes, the handles in the form of nereids, the lid heaped high with flowers, shells, swans and a bug-eyed dolphin – which, but for the bravura of its execution, would have been a monstrosity.

  I gasped: knowing that the way to endear oneself to an art-collector is to rhapsodise his things.

  ‘Come,’ he beckoned me across the room.

  I picked my way around the pelican and the rhino and arrived at the second bank of shelves where, in rows of five and six, were assembled a multitude of eighteenth-century figurines, all dazzlingly clothed and coloured.

  I saw the characters of the Commedia dell’ Arte: Harlequin and Columbine, Brighella and Pantaloon, Scaramouche and Truffaldino; The Doctor with a corkscrew for a beard; The Captain, who, being Spanish, had a jet-black moustache.

  Utz reminded me how the Italian players – the real ones! – had been masters of extempore who would decide what to play, and how to play it, a mere five minutes before the curtain rose.

  He pointed to the Personification of the Continents: Africa in leopard skin, America in feathers, Asia in a pagoda hat – while a lascivious, broad-bottomed Europa sat astride a white horse.

  Next came the ladies of the Court: ladies with frozen smiles and swaying crinolines; their wigs were powdered, their cheeks pocked with beauty spots, and there were black bows tied around their necks. One lady caressed a pug. One kissed a Polish nobleman. Another kissed a Saxon while Harlequin peeped up her skirt. Madame de Pompadour, in a lilac dress scattered with roses, sang the aria from Lully’s ‘Acis and Galatea’ which she had sung in real life, with the Prince de Rohan for a partner, in the Petit Théâtre de Versailles.

  The lower orders were represented, each according to his or her occupation: the miner, the rope-maker, the woodcutter, the seamstress, the hairdresser and a fisherman, hopelessly drunk.

  Shepherds trilled at their flutes. A Turk puffed a hookah. There were Tartars, Malabars, Circassians and Chinese sages with wispy beards and songbirds perched on their fingers. A party of freemasons scrutinised a globe. A pilgrim bore his staff and scallop-shell, and an endlessly grieving Mater Dolorosa sat next to a disconsolate nun.

  ‘Bravo!’ I cried. ‘Unbelievable!’

  ‘Now look at these funny fellows!’ Utz was stroking the cheek of a grotesque buffoon. ‘This one is Court Jester Fröhlich. That one is Postmaster Schmeidl.’

  The two clowns used to perform at royal banquets, and keep everyone in stitches all night. Utz thought them as funny in porcelain as they were supposed to have been in real life. Schmeidl, he said, was terrified of mice.

  This was why he chose to portray the Court Jester in the act of teasing his friend with a mouse-trap.

  ‘Kaendler’, he sniggered, ‘was a witty man! A satirical man! He was always choosing persons to laugh at.’

  I forced a nervous laugh.

  ‘Now, Sir, if you please, look at this one!’

  The model in question showed the soprano, Faustina Bordone, singing in ecstasy while a fox sat playing a spinet. Faustina, he said, had been the ‘Callas of her day’ and wife of the court composer, Hasse. She also had a lover called Fuchs.

  ‘Fuchs,’ said Utz, ‘you must know in German means “fox”.’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘That is very amusing? No?’

  ‘Very,’ I laughed.

  ‘Good. We agree on that one.’

  He let fly an unexpectedly loud cackle, and went on shaking with laughter until Marta returned with her canapés and, with another ‘Herr Baron!’, silenced him.

  The moment her back was turned he re-entered his world of little figures. His face lit up. He grinned, displaying a set of unhealthy pink gums, and showed me his monkey musicians.

  ‘Lovely ones, aren’t they?’

  ‘Lovely,’ I assented.

  The monkeys wore ruffs and powdered wigs and, under the baton of a tyrannical conductor in a blue swallow-tailed coat, were fiddling and scraping, trumpeting, strumming and singing: in mockery of Count Brühl’s private orchestra.

  ‘I’, Utz boasted, ‘am the only private collector to possess the whole set.’

  ‘Good for you!’ I said, encouragingly.

  Finally, we passed from the monkeys to the rest of the menagerie where there were wagtails, partridges, a bittern, a pair of sparrow-hawks, parrots and parakeets, orioles and roller birds, and peacocks displaying their tail feathers.

  I counted a camel, a chamois, an elephant, a crocodile and a Lipizzaner led by a negro. Count Brühl’s favourite pug-dog sat curled on a rose-velvet cushion while, on the bottom shelf, like a large albino fish, lay the life-size horse’s tail in white porcelain intended — or so Utz said – for an equestrian statue of Augustus to be erected at the Judenhof in Dresden.

  He then removed one of his seven figures of Harlequin — the Harlequin his grandmother gave him as a boy — and, turning it upside down, pointed to the ‘cross-swords’ mark of Meissen, and to an inventory label with a number and letters in code.

  This was the label that earmarked the piece for the Museum.

  ‘But those persons’, Utz whispered, ‘have made a mistake.’

  One morning in February of 1952, a rap on the door demanded entry for three unwelcome visitors. They were a curator from the Museum; a photographer and an acne-pitted lout who, as Utz guessed, was a member of the secret police.

  For the next two weeks he was a helpless witness while this trio turned the apartment upside down, trampled slush into the carpet, and made an inventory of every object. The curator warned him not to tamper with the labels. If he did so, the collection would be forfeit.

  Utz particularly loathed the photographer: a grim, fanatical young woman with an astigmatism, who had worked herself into a fever of indignation. In her view, he had no business keeping treasures that rightfully belonged to the People.

  ‘Really?’ he answered. ‘By what right? The right of theft, I suppose?’

  The policeman told him to hold his tongue – or it would be worse for him.

  The photographer converted the room into a makeshift studio, fussing over her plate-camera as though it were a thing beyond price. When Utz accidentally brushed against the lens, she ordered him into the bedroom.

  She may have bee
n a competent photographer: but she was so short-sighted, and so clumsy when handling the porcelains that Utz had to sit on the edge of his bed, numbly waiting for the crash. He begged to be allowed to position each piece in front of the camera. He was told it was none of his business.

  Finally, when the young woman dropped, and smashed the head off, a figure of Watteau’s Gilles, he lost his temper.

  ‘Take it!’ he snapped. ‘Take it for your horrible museum! I never want to see it again.’

  The photographer shrugged. The policeman wobbled his jowls. The curator went into the bathroom and, returning with a length of lavatory paper, wrapped the head and the torso separately, and put them in his pocket.

  ‘This piece’, he said, ‘will not appear in the inventory.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Utz. ‘Thank you for that!’

  At last, when they had gone, he gazed miserably at his miniature family. He felt abused and assaulted. He felt like the man who, on returning from a journey, finds his house has been burgled. He summoned up a few vague thoughts of suicide. There wasn’t much – was there? – to live for. But no! He wasn’t the type. He would never work up the courage. But could he bring himself to leave the collection? Make a clean break? Begin a new life abroad? He still had money in Switzerland, thank God! Who could tell? In Paris or in New York, he might even begin to collect again.

  He decided, if he could get out, to go.

  During the Gottwald years, the most reliable method of obtaining an exit visa was to apply for foreign travel on the grounds of ill-health. The procedure was to go to your usual physician, and ask him to diagnose an ailment.

  ‘Do you suffer from depression?’ Dr Petrasels demanded.

  ‘Constantly,’ said Utz. ‘I always have.’

  ‘Doubtless a malfunctioning of the liver,’ said the doctor, who made no effort to examine him further. ‘I advise you to take the cure at Vichy.’

  ‘But surely . . . ?’ Utz protested. Czechoslovakia was the land of spas. Surely they’d be suspicious? Surely there were waters for the liver at Marienbad? Or at Carlsbad?

  ‘Far from it,’ the doctor assured him. The visa authorities knew all about the waters of Vichy. Vichy was the place for him.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Utz, with misgivings.

  The official in the visa department glanced at the medical report; mumbled the word ‘Vichy’ in a disinterested tone, and went to consult the file. A week later, when he returned to the same office, Utz learned he had been given a month’s stay abroad. He undertook not to spread malicious propaganda against the People’s Republic. The porcelain collection would be considered surety for his good behaviour, and his safe return.

  The man insinuated that they had ‘ways and means’ of finding out where he went in Western Europe, and if he actually turned up at Vichy. Utz was astonished that no one bothered to ask how he would support himself in a foreign country. Was this, he wondered, a trap?

  ‘What can they expect of me?’ he asked himself. ‘Subsist on air?’

  On the eve of his departure, his tickets and passport in order, he took leave of the collection piece by piece. Marta was cooking in the kitchenette. He had ordered dinner for two.

  She had spread a fresh damask cloth over the glass-topped table; and as he surveyed the sparkling Swan Service plates, the salt-cellar, the cutlery with chinoiserie handles – he came close to believing in his fantasy: that this was the ‘porcelain palace’, and that he himself was Augustus reincarnate.

  Marta, whom he had taught to make a soufflé, asked what time the guest would arrive. He stood up. He straightened his tie. Then, without a hint of condescension, he pressed her calloused hand to his lips.

  ‘This evening, my dear Marta, you are to be the guest.’

  She coloured at the neck. She protested. She said she was unworthy, and in the end accepted with delight.

  Marta was the child of a village carpenter who lived near Kostelec in Southern Bohemia. His wife’s early death, from tuberculosis, drove him to drink, and in a tavern brawl he almost killed a man. Ostracised, accused of the evil eye, he sent his two elder daughters to live with an aunt, and took the youngest along on his travels. He found work as a woodcutter on Utz’s estate at Čéské Křížové. When he also died, crushed by a falling tree, the bailiff evicted the girl from their cottage.

  She earned a few pennies doing chores for the baker or laundrywoman. Later, to avoid being sent to a workhouse, she went to live on a farm, where she slept on a straw-filled pallet and looked after a flock of geese.

  She sang strange, incoherent songs and was thought to be simple: especially when she fell in love with a gander. Children in peasant Europe believed the tales they were told: of werewolves, of stars that were ducks in flight, or the gander who turned into a shining prince.

  Marta’s gander was a magnificent snow-white bird: the object of terror to foxes, children and dogs. She had reared him as a gosling; and whenever she approached, he would let fly a low contented burble and sidle his neck around her thighs. Some mornings, at first light when no one was about, she would swim with her lover in the lake, and allow him to nibble her long fair hair.

  One morning, sometime in the late Thirties, as Utz was driving his Steyr coupé from the castle to catch the early train to Prague, he caught sight of a girl in dripping clothes being hounded down the street by a mob of villagers. He braked the car, and asked her to sit beside him.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said kindly.

  She cringed, but obeyed. He drove her back to the castle.

  A new life opened up for her, in domestic service. She followed her master’s movements with an adoring gaze: frequently he had to prevent her from kissing his hand. Four years later, when he had put her in charge of the household, his other retainers, puzzled by the habits of this solitary bachelor, spread rumours that she shared his bed.

  The truth was that, in a world of shifting allegiances – and since the death of his grandmother’s faithful major-domo – she was the only person he could trust, and, at the same time, use. Only she knew the hay-loft where the Hebrew scholar Dr Kraus – and his Talmuds — was in hiding: she would risk her life to fetch him food. Only she had the key to the cellar where, throughout the War, the porcelains were stored.

  Later, in the months after the Communist takeover, when the peasants, still bemused by propaganda, believed that the new ideology allowed them to divide the landlord’s property, it was she who stood guard against them. Utz was free to leave the castle with his treasures.

  In Prague, she slept in a leaky attic room a few doors down Široká Street. When interrogated about the terms of her employment, she bridled. She was not Mr Utz’s employee. She looked after him merely as a friend.

  He, by inviting her to share his table, affirmed that the friendship was shared.

  Over dinner, he explained the reason for his journey. She dropped her knife and fork, and gasped, ‘You’re not ill, I hope.’

  He calmed her fears, but gave no hint that he might never come back. She should sleep, meanwhile, in the apartment — in his bed if she wished it — and keep the door firmly locked. His friend, Dr Orlík, would look in from time to time, in case there was anything she needed.

  The wine went to her head. She became a little flushed. She talked a little too much. For her, it was an evening of perfect happiness.

  At breakfast, she came back to make coffee. She helped Utz with his suitcase to the taxi. Then she climbed upstairs, and listened to the beating of the rain.

  The customs men were expecting him at the frontier.

  They frisked him, removed the small change from his pockets and, as experts in the art of irritation, appropriated Marta’s picnic. Then, finding nothing in his luggage that could be classed as a work of art, they took his copy of ‘The Magic Mountain’ and a pair of tortoiseshell hairbrushes.

  ‘I suppose,’ he muttered as the green caps moved along the corridor, ‘they need those for the Museum also.’

  After
Nuremberg, the rainclouds lifted and the sun came out. He had nothing now to read and so stared from the window at the telegraph wires, the tarred wood gables of the farmhouses, the orchards, the cows in fields of buttercups, and parties of blond-haired children who clung to the barriers of level-crossings and waved their satchels.

  The signal-boxes, he noticed, were pitted with bullet-holes. Across the compartment sat a young married couple.

  The girl was turning the leaves of an album of wedding-photos. She was pregnant. She wore a grey smock trimmed with lace. Her bluish legs were unshaven, and her dyed hair dark at the roots.

  The boy, Utz was glad to see, was disgusted by her. He looked very ill-at-ease in his American leather flying-jacket, and shuddered whenever she touched him. He was a swarthy, skinny boy with pouting lips and a head of black curls. His nails were stained with nicotine, and he chain-smoked desperately. Was he an Arab, or something? Or a gipsy? Or Italian? Italian, Utz decided, after hearing him speak. She must have had money, and he had been starving. But what a price to pay!

  She began to unpack her hamper and Utz began to have second thoughts. He was ravenous. Had he, perhaps, misjudged her? Perhaps she would offer him a share?

  He prepared a grateful smile for when the time came. Then, like a dog at the master’s table, he watched her swallow a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a schnitzel, a ham sandwich, half a cold chicken and some rounds of garlic sausage. She swilled these down with a bottle of beer, smacked her lips and continued, absent-mindedly, to stuff slices of pumpernickel between them.

  The boy hardly touched his food.

  Utz could stand the strain no longer. He had come to a decision. He would ask. He would beg. He opened his mouth to say ‘Please’ — at which the young man tore off a chicken leg and was in the act of handing it across when the girl, shouting ‘No! No! No!’, slapped him back, and went on peeling an orange.