A Ladder to the Sky(98)

I nodded and drank some more. A roomful of students intimidated me more now than it would have in the past. And, of course, they would probably want me to speak in the middle of the day, which would be a problem, as it was important that I was in one of my pubs every day by eight minutes past two.

‘I’ll let you know,’ I said.

‘Thanks,’ he replied, and he looked down at his pint, staring at it for a few moments before lifting it to his lips.

‘How’s the thesis coming along, anyway?’ I asked eventually. ‘I hope our meetings are proving helpful to you.’

‘They are,’ he said. ‘But it’s important to me that I create a work of scholarship and not just a lazy trawl through your catalogue.’

‘Of course.’

‘Which means that I might have to be critical as well as complimentary. I hope you can understand that. I just don’t want you to read it one day and feel that I’ve been duplicitous.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything less,’ I said. ‘I daresay not every word I’ve written over the years has been perfect, after all.’

‘I’ve been doing some work on Two Germans, you see,’ he continued. ‘Reading back over old reviews and some of the subsequent commentary. I suppose you’re aware of the criticisms of the book.’

‘Vaguely,’ I said. ‘Which, in particular?’

‘Well, there are those who feel that you took advantage of Erich Ackermann. Seduced his story from him as a way to build your own career.’

I nodded. I’d heard that one before, of course, many times, and had a stock answer. ‘Erich’s actions were his own to account for,’ I said. ‘For whatever reason, he chose me as his confidant and never once suggested that our conversations were supposed to remain private. I was free to use them in any way I chose. You must remember that when Erich and I originally met I knew nothing about what had happened during the war. I had never even heard the name of Oskar G?tt. I simply made the man’s acquaintance and one thing, as they say, led to another. It wasn’t a set-up. I can hardly be blamed if he revealed things to me that, later on, he came to regret saying.’

His trusty notebook was out again and he was scribbling away.

‘So you felt no guilt about what happened to him?’ he asked.

‘Not particularly, no,’ I said, frowning. ‘Why, do you think I should have?’

‘There are those who say that you deliberately targeted Ackermann. And that if it hadn’t been that story, then it would have been another. That he was doomed from the moment he met you. Is that unfair?’

‘Totally unfair,’ I said, feeling a little unsettled by the accusatory tone he was taking. ‘He was a grown man, after all. He could have walked away from me at any time but he chose not to. The fact was, Erich Ackermann was in love with me.’

He stopped writing for a moment and looked up.

‘He told you this?’ he asked.

‘Not in so many words, no,’ I admitted. ‘But it was obvious. He wasn’t very good at hiding it. The poor man had tied himself up in emotional knots over so many decades, cutting off any potential romantic attachments, that when the dam broke, so to speak, he was absolutely incapable of dealing with the subsequent psychological trauma. But I never led him on, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Sorry, Maurice,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to get to the heart of the story, that’s all.’

He took off his jacket now, revealing a T-shirt featuring a band that my son Daniel had loved. I stared at the familiar faces that had once adorned a poster in my son’s room.

‘You like them?’ I asked, pointing down at the image.

He glanced down and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why, do you?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’m a little too old for bands like that. But my son did.’

He said nothing for a few moments. ‘How intimate can I be with my questions?’ he asked at last.

‘You can ask me anything you like. I don’t mind.’

‘All right. Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘No,’ I said, surprised that he should be interested in my personal instead of my professional life.

‘Are you gay?’

‘No. Why, have I done something to give you the impression that I am?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, you understand,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to understand you better as a person so I can more clearly contextualize your work.’

‘Well, I suppose if I’m anything, I’m straight,’ I said. ‘Although I don’t feel an enormous pull in any direction these days. I never really did, if I’m honest. I was never a terribly sexual person, not even when I was your age. Perhaps I’m missing a certain hormone, I don’t know, but it was just something that was never very important to me. Are you driven by sex, Theo?’

He blushed a little and I felt pleased to be able to discombobulate him, for he had been too in control of today’s meeting for my liking.

‘Well, I mean I like it,’ he said. ‘When I can get it, that is.’