The Discovery of Chocolate (18 page)

‘You must work and you must love. Work and Love. They are the only guides we have, and without them the human mind falls sick.’

I
wanted to talk to Claudia about these conversations but was convinced that she would cut my musings short with her customary impatience. She was easily irritated by what she referred to as my dream-like distractions, and could not understand what it was like to live life as I did. Yet despite our differences she was still my one true friend; and it was my fondness for her that caused my life to change, and eventually move forward onto a new and better path in the most extraordinary manner – so much so that I can say now, looking back on that time, that if there has been one person in my life who has been selfless in her care for me it is Claudia.

One cold, wet, and dark night, just before Easter, she insisted that we attend a concert in which a friend of hers was singing a Lacrimosa. I was extremely unwilling to accompany her, particularly when she informed me that the piece of music was part of a Requiem. I did not want to think any more about death, or be upset by my confused thoughts on the nature of eternity, but Claudia was insistent. I only agreed on the understanding that afterwards there might, at last, be an opportunity to talk seriously with her about these things.

And so we found ourselves in the midst of the Stephandom waiting for orchestra and choir to fill its cavernous interior. People huddled in their chairs, wrapped against the cold, and candles spluttered under the marble statues.

At last the music began. It filled the air with grandeur and assurance, proceeding with a grave and natural inevitability, as if there had been no beginning and could be no end, each phrase beginning before its predecessor had finished, building its harmonies with a daringly slow serenity. It seemed as if there could be no other music than this, as if it had been written by a man who could do anything. Each time I thought the fullness and the richness of the harmony could not possibly be more poignant or more beautiful, the music flowed on, naturally and effortlessly, into a dimension of which I could not even have dreamed. The basses sang out as if they never needed to take breath, the high sopranos as if they were dancing with their voices, echoing the frailty of humanity against the deep bass of the world, crying, ‘I am here. I am part of this. I am involved in it all.’ I had never heard joy and pain so combined, as if everything it meant to be human was contained within it. It was complete. Nothing could be added or taken away.

And, as I looked at Claudia, her eyes gleaming in the candlelight, I was overcome by an almost inexpressible sadness. I could not accept that this music must end; that all things must perish from under the sun.

I knew that Claudia would have to grow old, and the thought suddenly terrified me. She was living her life at such a different pace to my own, and would be here on this earth for so short a time. I tried to imagine what she would be like, and her skin seemed to shrink in the dim
light before my eyes. Her face aged, and for an instant she seemed seventy years old. I was filled with horror at the speed of my imagination, as if reality was falling away from me once more and I was about to plummet, yet again, into a terrifying dream.

‘What are you thinking?’ Claudia whispered.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You look strange.’

‘I was afraid.’

I could not help but stare at her.

‘Of what?’

‘Of the moment not lasting.’

‘It never does,’ she whispered as the music continued. ‘That’s the point. It is only beautiful because it is rare.’

And I thought that even though Claudia might live a long life, and have children, and eventually die so that others might come in her place, there would never be anyone like her again, that this moment could never be repeated or reclaimed. Everything created could only be lost. Despite life’s beauty, whatever its securities and strengths, its transience infected the lives of all whom I loved.

To see Claudia grow old and suffer and die was something I could not bear. I would be bereft, and could not, did not, want to imagine such a thing.

The
Dies Irae
began. I had never heard anything so fierce or so destructive. Such anger and vengeance, thundering through the cathedral, filling it with terror.

I could not bear it.

I had to leave the city.

And so, terrified by my own feelings, longing for my own
death and yet appalled by the very idea of the demise of my friends, I hastened to the Berggasse and explained my fears to the Doctor.

It seemed that there was no alternative but to begin the new life in England that Mr Fry had offered a few years before. It was the only course of action that would enable me to retain my sanity.

The Doctor smiled at me, as if he had always suspected such news.

‘Still you refuse to mourn.’

‘I cannot bear to. I know that I am fleeing my responsibilities, but I am filled with the need to escape the fears of life and the terrors of death.’

‘But if you live in dread, then you must die every day. Will you work?’

‘So hard as to forget myself.’

‘I only warn you that your fears must and will return.’

‘I know. But I shall work hard to protect myself from them. It is all I can do.’

‘I think there is still much to be done before you find peace.’ The Doctor shook my hand warmly.

‘Remember: we must all realise our place in the world.’

He assured me that I could always return to see him in Vienna, and that although he was sad to lose me as a patient, he recognised (adding this with a twinkle in his eye) that I would outlast a good few doctors before my time came. He also informed me that, despite his natural fear of trains, he would be glad to wave me a fond farewell at the railway station, for he would be most interested to observe a man of my slowness embracing the speed of the iron horse.

All that remained was to explain my decision to Claudia.

I drank a large cognac to steady my nerves and rang the bell of her apartment.

‘Who is it?’ she called from inside.

‘It is I.’

She opened the door, pulling her nightgown around her.

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’

‘You can come in for five minutes.’ She held open the door and allowed me to pass. ‘Sit on the chair.’

She looked so beautifully pale, untouched by time.

‘There’s no need to stare. What do you want?’

‘Could I have a drink?’

‘No, of course not. You can have some water if you are thirsty.’

‘Please.’

I believed that the best thing would be simply to splutter out my news and then leave the room as quickly as possible.

It was not going to be easy.

Claudia poured water into a glass by the bed and looked at me suspiciously.

‘I hope you haven’t done something stupid,’ she threatened. ‘You look ashamed.’

She handed me the glass, bending towards me so that for a moment I glimpsed her breasts close to my face.

I closed my eyes.

I do not think that I had ever felt so uncomfortable.

‘Well?’ Claudia asked.

‘I am going to England,’ I said, quietly, my voice caught in my throat.

‘Oh …’

There was no going back.

I had spoken.

The new-born truth filled the awkward silence between us.

‘For how long?’

‘I do not know.’

Claudia seemed shocked.

‘Why do you want to leave? Are you tired of your life in this place?’

‘No, it’s not that exactly …’

‘You’re tired of me?’

‘No, no, definitely not …’

‘Our life?’

‘No. It’s not that …’

‘Then why go?’

How could I explain myself?

‘I feel that I do not know enough of the world. I have so much to learn. I believe that Mr Fry might guide me, and help me free my life from fear.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Apart from you?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘You know the things of which I am afraid.’

‘I do.’

So many silences, as if we could not say more without hurting each other.

I looked down and noticed Claudia’s bare feet.

Their soles were wrinkled, like patterns in the sand left by the outgoing tide.

Age.

‘You are quite certain you must do this?’ she said at last.

‘I am.’

‘And when do you leave?’

‘Next week.’

‘Well then, if your mind is made up …’

‘It is. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s of no concern of mine. It’s your life,’ she added abruptly.

I could not understand her. Suddenly she did not seem to care at all.

‘I had better go.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good night,’ I said, but Claudia was looking out of the window now, across the roof of the opera house and out, far away, into the night sky.

My departure fell on Palm Sunday, and the city was covered in snow. The railway station was crowded with people, the tracks were cleared, and there was nothing to stop Pedro and me travelling through a wintry and frozen Europe to seek a new life in England.

The Doctor busied himself finding porters for our luggage, securing a crate for Pedro in which he was obliged to journey. In a particularly kindly gesture, he had brought us both a travel rug as a leaving present.

Claudia was dressed in her fur hat and coat, and stood uneasily on the platform, stamping her feet against the cold. I can still see the wisps of breath emerging from her mouth as she spoke, the fierceness in her green eyes, the crisp red lines of her lips.

‘Well then,’ she said at last, ‘this is goodbye.’

She held out her hand for me to take.

It was such a cold gesture after all that we had shared together.

‘I will miss you,’ I said, kissing her gloved hand. ‘I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for me.’

‘And I must thank you. Will you ever return?’

‘I do not like going back,’ I said, thinking of Mexico. ‘It is never the same.’

‘Then shall we never see each other again?’

‘Come and see me in England,’ I said, as brightly as I could.

‘Perhaps.’ She sounded unconvinced, and dropped her hand.

We looked at each other in silence. We had shared such companionship that it was impossible to believe that it might be ending.

‘I am sorry to see you leave. You set me right.’

‘You have been a true friend,’ I replied, clasping her warmly. ‘You have been as a sister to me.’

She swallowed.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose you did think that.’

I could hardly hear her words, and our bodies seemed awkward together. Something was wrong. Claudia would not look me in the eye.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, nothing. Our love would never have survived in any case …’ she said quickly, as if wishing as soon as she had spoken that she had not said such a thing.

‘Our love?’ I questioned, letting my hands drop. ‘What do you mean “our love”?’

‘You did not see?’

‘What should I have seen?’

‘That in the end I loved you.’

‘My God,’ I cried, ‘but you let me talk and talk and talk …’

‘It was part of loving you.’

‘You kept silent for five years?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about Gustav?’

‘He is my employer. I do not love him.’

‘And now it’s too late? For us?’

‘That is why I am telling you now.’

‘Why didn’t you say so before?’

‘Did I have to spell it out?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘You know how slow I am.’

How had I failed to see what was happening to us?

‘Come,’ said the Doctor, walking towards us from the baggage car. ‘You must board the train.’

Claudia knelt down and held Pedro’s head.

‘Look after him,’ she said to this beloved greyhound. ‘Your master cannot survive on his own.’

‘I will always remember you,’ I said.

‘And I you,’ she replied, standing up once more. ‘At least I learned to love again.’

The Doctor led Pedro away and placed him in a small crate ready for the train.

‘Was that really love?’ I asked.

‘I think it might have been. We knew each other. We felt safe with each other. We were protected. It was better than desire.’

I reached out and held Claudia to me, but her body felt
stiff, as if she did not want to touch me. I could not believe that I had failed to see what stood before me. Was I destined to spend my life in ignorance of the truths that surrounded me?

‘You think I do not know what love is?’ I asked.