Aaron's Leap by Magdaléna Platzová

Author:Magdaléna Platzová [Platzová, Magdaléna; Cravens, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781934137710
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

CHAPTER 6

Vienna

BERTA MOVED BACK TO VIENNA in the fall of 1927 and with her inheritance established her own design studio: Berta Altmann—Tapestries, Textiles, Interior Design. She placed ads in the newspaper, began meeting with old acquaintances, and slowly built up a clientele that would ensure a steady supply of customers. She would meet with Meinlich and his Communist cell, sometimes go to their meetings at the Workers’ House, and agreed once a week, on Saturday afternoons, to lead graphic art lessons for children of blue-collar workers. She was quite satisfied with this decision. The class preparation obliged her to think back to her own experiences and create some sort of method. She taught for free, on her own time, and no one could tell her what to do. Meinlich left everything up to her; he had entirely renounced his own artistic and pedagogical activities. He had ceased to believe that art could save humanity, and everything that did not lead directly to this objective was a waste of time.

The invitation came in the mail.

The card of expensive handmade paper was inscribed in a sweeping hand: Recently I acquired a statue of yours, Saint Anne, from the estate of an acquaintance, a Viennese art collector. The more I come to know the work, the more I long to make the acquaintance of the artist. I would be exceptionally delighted if you were to stop by for a visit! I receive visitors every Thursday from four to seven at Elizabethstrasse 22, fourth floor.

Berta sniffed the card; it gave off a faint aroma. Not unpleasant.

The mention of the statue was odd. For her, Saint Anne remained fixed in her consciousness like a boundary marker separating the period before Jauner’s betrayal and after it. Berta had already grown used to its presence; it was a symbol. The actual form of the statue, she could recall only with difficulty.

She was flattered that the famous Viennese lady wanted to meet her, even though Berta and her friends looked down on the society to which she belonged. People who gathered at the salon of the Immortal One were “old”; their internal makeup did not correspond to the new era. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire they felt homeless, nostalgic, forever tuned to a minor key. And all the more seriously did they occupy themselves with trivialities.

The perverse bourgeoisie, Meinlich used to say.

Berta belonged to the young.

Nevertheless, the redolent card had arrived from a vanished paradise where even she had her share of memories. And to be honest, those memories were dearer to her than all the meetings, all the engaged art and social justice put together.

The Meyers’ voluptuously furnished home. Irena at the piano, music by Chopin and Mahler, days in which there was nothing but art, art that was sacred. Beauty was sacred. Beauty that was inaccessible, unique and unequaled, lofty and edifying, exclusive, unjust to the core.

She continued her reflections: the summer in Semmering.

How had they imagined their future back then? As art and love.

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