The Blasphemer: A Novel (25 page)

WHEN AN ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE OVER THE PUBLIC ADDRESS
system that the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv was closing in half an hour, Hai-iki buizi Yzu shook her wrist and held her watch to her ear. It was working, but the hours had crept up on her. Since ten that morning she had been checking the collection of drafts for Mahler’s symphonies – one to eight – in the hope of finding something relating to the Ninth. A doodle. An annotation. A sketch. It had been laborious work, not least because each symphony comprised a box of around 160 separate sheets of music. It didn’t help that Mahler, out of superstition, had avoided referring to the Ninth as the Ninth. He had been a prodigious and messy scribbler with a spidery scrawl and a propensity for crossing out – and the hours of hard concentration were making Hai-iki’s eyes sore and bringing on a headache. Also she felt sick, or at least she had in the morning session, which was why she had wanted to leave that afternoon in time to get to a chemist. The other reason was that her period was late.

She had been feeling frustrated anyway. The previous two days she had been working her way through the Mahler family letters and diaries for 1908–1910, the ones held at the Abteilung Potsdam, but her research had produced none of the material Wetherby had assured her it would, and she was dreading telling him this. There was something about him that made her want to please him all the time. It wasn’t just that he was the master and she the pupil, it was
more to do with his vulnerability. On the one occasion when he had struck her he had been so contrite afterwards she had found herself feeling sorry for him. Besides, she knew she had provoked him. She had wanted to play a sex game, had thought that was what he wanted. He would be the submissive and she the dominant – insulting him, slapping him, calling him a worm. She had not bargained on his self-esteem being so low. She pictured him now – his look of wounded dignity, his soulful eyes, his expressive hands – and felt a rush of longing. She loved his fierce intellect, his dry humour, his tenderness when they kissed. She loved him.

There was a loud click as she shut her laptop. She smoothed her hands over its lid, lost in thought, then coiled up its lead and gathered the two remaining archive boxes under her arms before returning them to the front desk and heading for the antiquated wooden lifts – ‘continuation chambers’ that Berliners hopped on and off as they trundled slowly up and down without stopping. The lifts had been the height of modernity when the archive was built in the 1930s. In fact the whole building, triangular in shape with interlinking courtyards and covered throughout with dark brown glazed tiles, had been considered a fine example of Third Reich architecture: futuristic, angular, Teutonic. That it had survived the carpet-bombing of the war was a mystery to the local residents. It was the only building for miles around that hadn’t been reduced to rubble.

As Hai-iki stepped outside into the Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg, she inhaled the
Berliner Luft
and turned up her collar. Although sticky spring buds were appearing on the beeches and oaks, a wintry chill was in the air. The days were still short, too. The streetlights were warming up. A giant radio transmitter opposite the Rundfunkarchiv was a silhouette. In the gloom, farther down the street, Hai-iki could make out a stumpy cylindrical column carrying theatre schedules, and several yards beyond that a small, green neon cross above a shop window. The blue-coated pharmacist was about to bolt the door as she reached it. When she asked for a pregnancy testing kit in her rough German, the man looked confused. But when she asked again, this
time also describing with her hand an exaggerated shape of her belly, he nodded. A tram took her to the door of her hotel on the Albertstrasse. She ripped open the packet and drank a glass of water as she read the instructions. Five minutes later she returned from the bathroom, lay on her bed and stared at the indicator tube to see what colour it would turn.

Wetherby, fastidious and elongated in a double-breasted chalkstripe suit, considered the hateful object on his desk, one of the flatscreen computers that had recently become standard issue for members of staff at Trinity. He didn’t mind the laptop he was obliged to use, because that could be folded away and hidden, but the desktop was a permanent affront to his aesthetic sensibilities, squatting on his desk in a space that should be occupied by books. He moved his mouse so that the cursor was hovering over the first of six unopened emails, all from the same sender. She was still in Berlin, still waiting for a ‘discovery’ to fall into her lap, still letting him down. He should have known better than to entrust such delicate research to an undergraduate. And now she was becoming high maintenance, making emotional demands, declaring her devotion to him, expecting some level of commitment or reassurance from him in return. He enjoyed her company, enjoyed listening to her play the piano, enjoyed talking to her about the great composers. But he had no need of an acolyte at this stage in his career, not even one who allowed him to sleep with her. He hesitated then logged off. He knew what the emails said anyway. She had been sending them for the past two days, as well as leaving messages for him on his home answering machine.

A rapid triple knock distracted him. A head framed by a thick bob of dyed blonde hair appeared around the door. ‘Dr Kennedy to see you,’ the secretary said.

Wetherby stared at her over the rim of his half-glasses.

‘You had a meeting with him at eleven.’

Wetherby rolled his eyeballs upwards in the manner of St Peter. ‘I remember now, I did. Show him in. Oh and …’ The head reappeared. ‘Could you check something for me regarding student visa applications?’

‘Sure.’

‘I believe foreign students need to obtain permission from the Home Office before they are allowed to travel abroad in term time on a student visa. Could you get chapter and verse on that for me? Find out what the implications are in terms of deportation. Thank you. And do send in Dr Kennedy.’

As the secretary disappeared, Daniel appeared, grinning broadly. Wetherby eyed him, his gaze moving down his body then up, taking in the hipster jeans and the V-neck jumper worn over a blue-and-white-striped matelot shirt. ‘
Danny
,’ Wetherby said with undue emphasis as he rose from his chair and extended a hand. ‘How are you? Recovered from your ordeal?’

‘More or less. Good to be back at work.’ Daniel was distracted by the fireplace, a tall and wide construction made from puce and grey marble banded by diagonal seams of turquoise enamel. It soon became apparent that it was not the fireplace that had arrested his attention, or the bust of Dante on its mantel, or the white embossed invitation to a dinner at the House of Lords, but the small object almost hidden at the end behind a decanter: a frosted glass angel five inches tall. He picked it up and examined its hands pressed together in prayer, its wings extending vertically upwards above its head, the length again of its body. ‘I guess I was lucky,’ he continued, replacing the angel. ‘Not everyone walked away from that crash.’

Wetherby was gliding across the room towards him. Without comment he moved the angel back to where it had been, three inches farther along the fireplace. ‘Anyway,’ he said rubbing his long, thin fingers together and bringing the small talk to an abrupt end. ‘What is this project you want to discuss?’

‘It would be easiest if I showed you.’

As the two men walked side by side along the marble-floored corridor, the one looming over the other, neither spoke. ‘Can I ask
you something?’ Daniel said into the silence. ‘You ever had an aesthetic experience?’

‘A strange question.’

‘I know, but … have you?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘Listening to music, I presume.’

Wetherby considered this for a moment. ‘I was fourteen. Bruckner’s Seventh at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I felt overwhelmed, exalted, reduced to tears.
That
I interpreted as an aesthetic experience. My first.’

‘And what is going on when someone has an aesthetic experience, in the brain, I mean?’

What is he up to, this flat-footed biologist? Why the sudden interest in philosophy?

‘Kant defined it as the free play of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding. It is intersubjective, as opposed to objective or subjective. Everyone who attends to a piece of music or a work of art in a disinterested way ought to have the same aesthetic experience.’

‘And what’s the difference between an aesthetic experience and a religious experience?’

Ah.

Wetherby eyed Daniel suspiciously, inclining his head as they walked. ‘Are they the same, you mean? I think not. A religious experience takes the form of a revelation, an epiphany, a vision and so on.’

‘And have you ever had one? A vision, I mean. Is that where your belief comes from?’

Wetherby came to a halt alongside a marble statue of Locke. ‘Sadly no, I do not believe I have. Like Kierkegaard I have had to make a leap of faith.’ He started walking again. ‘
Credo quia absurdum
, as Tertullian put it. I believe it because it is absurd, also sometimes translated as
certum est quia impossibile est
, it is certain because it is impossible. I have come to the view that God does not reveal himself to those of us who are actively looking for him. He appears in the peripheral vision, when you are not expecting him, when you are not trying.’

‘Like the way to remember a word is to stop trying to remember it? Think of another subject and the word will come to you?’

Of course not, little man
. ‘Something like that.’ Wetherby began walking again. ‘The Lord likes to keep us on our toes, reveal Himself at times of his choosing, in unexpected ways.’

‘Won’t do it on demand, you mean?’

‘A God who could not help revealing himself would not be a terribly impressive God, would he? Anyway, what has prompted your sudden interest in visions? Planning one of your mocking lectures, are you? Or a paper that pokes fun at we simpletons who splash around in the shallow waters of faith?’

They had reached the heavy oak door leading out on to the quadrangle. Though Wetherby was a step in front, it was Daniel who opened it.

‘No, not at all,’ Daniel said. ‘Far from it. Your religion must be a great consolation to you. I’m just …’ His brow creased. A thought.

Wetherby wondered whether Daniel had realized at last that whenever the two men were together they played pre-assigned roles. Master and pupil. Wetherby always liked to give him the impression he was being tested. This habit of waiting for doors to be opened for him was part of that.

‘It’s just I’ve been giving the subject a lot of thought,’ Daniel continued, ‘from a biological perspective. There’s a theory doing the rounds that the irrationality of religion is a by-product of our inbuilt urge to fall in love, the temporary fanaticism and mania of falling in love, I mean. The neurally active chemicals produced by someone in love are the same as those produced by someone obsessed with the idea of God.’

‘Yes, I have heard that. It is possible, I suppose …You could say the same of music, of course. What is the part of the brain that releases dopamine?’

‘The name of it? Um, the, um …’ Daniel clicked his fingers. ‘
Nucleus accumbens
. It regulates our moods.’

‘Exactly, but it also regulates the way we experience music.’They stood to one side as a student in a wheelchair trundled past, then they cut across the lawn, a privilege of dons. ‘Although I said
aesthetic and religious experiences are not the same, I do think there is one connection. You almost have to become childlike to have them.’

‘As in naive?’

‘As in innocent. Open. Curious. Part of what convinced me of the truth of Christianity was a tour I embarked upon as a seventeen-year-old – not exactly a Grand Tour but certainly a cultural one, through France, Austria and Italy. There seemed to be so much beauty associated with the church. The sonatas of Bach. The frescoes of Giotto. The statues of Michelangelo. All the great composers and artists seemed to claim God had guided their hands, that their genius was God-given. And I came to see why. Wittgenstein described Mozart and Beethoven as “the true sons of God”. I am not sure about Beethoven, some of the late bagatelles perhaps, but when I listen to Mozart I do hear the divine. His music is angelic. Perfectly poised. To be lost in it is to be lost in oneself. Everything in his music is ecstatic. Change the position of a single chord and the whole thing falls to pieces. That is why it moves you. And if music does not move you, if it does not inwardly reduce you to your knees, what is the point of it? I am trying to say, I suppose, that when I listen to Mozart I have my proof of God. I have my certitude.’

They had reached the bronze statue of Charles Darwin that guarded the entrance of the Zoology Department. It depicted the naturalist as an old man, seated and distinguished with his wing collar, bald head and flowing beard. At his feet were a pile of bronze books and rolled-up maps. He was frowning. ‘Been thinking for some time now that we don’t make enough of our connection with Darwin,’ Daniel said, pausing to stare up at the statue. ‘Follow me.’ He led the way through the building, down the stairs and along a dark corridor to a basement door marked
DRY STORE
. He turned lights on, felt in his pockets for keys and opened the door. Once inside, he flicked more lights. After a brief delay they came on, illuminating long tables laden with prehistoric bones and fossils. Along the length of the walls were glass cases filled with stuffed monkeys, specimens preserved in fluid and, in the centre of one
display, a giant mammoth skull. ‘I love this place,’ Daniel said. ‘No one ever comes here. Darwin himself collected most of it … Let me ask you another question. What was Darwin famous for?’

‘I believe he was the great-uncle of Ralph Vaughan Williams.’

Daniel grinned. ‘I was thinking more in terms of his trip to the Galápagos Islands in the
Beagle
.’

Wetherby ducked his head slightly to clear the doorframe. There was something about Daniel’s manner which he found especially annoying today. He was being ingratiating. That was it. Hadn’t stopped smiling. The smiling was making Wetherby want to punch him.