Green Plants
There are green plants everywhere in the apartment, with Sarah and Solange competing for the most attractive, the choice location, and of course Paul’s favourite cacti. Now, in mid April, the balcony is surrounded by pots and flowers. This is where Dr Martin and Paul are in deep discussion about Julian.
“Around end of 2012 early 2013 Julian writes about how well he did in 2012, the progress on his writing. He mentions The Page as being already on the third rewrite”, Paul explains. “What were the other main works, do you know?” asks Phillip. Paul thinks a little while. “My father was prolific, short posts, receiving awards on the blog, and many comments. He did not start on Viktoria Park until 2014 and the events in the East. But he was thinking of Berlin and the story of Francis, which, at the start was independent. He often commented on his progress, but the main topic regarding his work was the characters themselves, as I have shown you with several examples.”
Fiction or Tragedy
“Yes, all this points at literary creation, rather than a personal tragedy. It seems to me the character Melissa must have been a particular obsession of his, even before she started taking the role as centre of a sinister plot, from what he wrote much later.” Phillip thinks aloud.
“But what about Gabrielle, when did she she appear in his work?” They take a pause. Paul goes to get their cups refilled. “It’s not all that clear. The first chapters of the The Page are silent about anyone other than Melissa, coming out of nowhere, and Jane, Julian’s sister, who takes centre stage when she meets with Melissa’s avatar on that beach…” “Yes”, Phillip comments, “the Chi episode…”
A Model named Nina
“By the way”, Paul continues, Julian was also deep into photography at the time. In 2012, he met that model, Nina, in London, who may have influenced his character of Melissa, the red-hair ghost. I have the pictures he took of her at the time. I think there is some evidence that much later he tried to find about her own travels, I think she went to Berlin, and ended up doing work in the porn industry there.”
Phillip asks: “at this point, what do you think about the fiction-reality question, how does his writing relate to his illness?” Paul is silent for several minutes. Finally he replies: “I think my dad lives the end of his life at two levels, first he continued to write to the end. I am lucky I could retrieve his blog, as this was the way he kept some sort of journal.
Imagination
The first level was his imagination, how he romanticised my parents’ stay in Berlin, and the second level was a concern about events, real world events, and his interpretation of them. In that respect Viktoria Park is as, perhaps even more, important than The Page. In Viktoria Park he anticipated many events that followed later, the war, the US’ change of mind, the European crisis… Also he was writing the stories of the Owl, that coincided with the start of the pandemic, as it was then called. Of course Sarah is our prime witness, and there you can hopefully help to bring back her memories of Julian’s illness. Julian was already seriously ill in 2012, and appeared to recover well after his two operations in 2014 and 2016, just before they took a holiday in Arizona, and then went to Berlin. He then had the first symptoms of a neurological disorder in 2017, in Berlin, where he was training assiduously every day…”
Revival
Phillip asks: “So, may I assume you see his death as a normal outcome of his illness?” Paul thinks again: “Yes, I would agree, I haven’t worked out the hypothetical roles of Gabrielle and Helga. I see them as two characters out of my dad’s imagination, not as real life beings. Gabrielle is the necessary link to enable Melissa’s revival, and Helga is the alien out of Andromeda. Julian retained Andromeda as his bible, all his life.” Then Paul adds with a small laugh, “and a strong influence on my studies!”
Phillip looks at him, and says: “What about this call Sarah organised with Gabrielle, when you went to meet her in the UK?” Paul hesitates, then replies: “It may have been auto-suggestion of sort. Sarah was thinking about my dad’s death all the time, and this is one of the reasons for me making sure she came back here in Berlin, and exorcised the demons. She still thinks Gabrielle was Julian’s doctor.”
No publishing
“Yes”, replies Phillip,”But I did some research about Gabrielle and Helga, and they are nowhere to be found in any medical register. I tend to agree with you they were entirely products of Julian’s imagination. I now think your dad’s influence on Sarah and Jane’s understanding of events was very powerful, and durable. By the way, why do you think Julian never attempted to publish his novel?” Paul smiles. “It’s a difficult question. At some point in his writing, he engaged an American editor, who turned out to be clueless. I now thinks he gave up on standard publishing early, as soon as he was in Berlin and working every day on the novel. He saw The Page as an on-going story, that he would never complete, in a way. We are now in 2037, and we are still trying to figure out what he had in mind. For example with the old town, and the portal!”
“This is good literature”, replies Phillip,”a mix of youth’s memories, an old historical town and the cathedral, hiding a gateway to elsewhere. Pure fiction. Julian was brought up as a catholic and admired the latin mass, didn’t he?” Paul smiles again:”Yes, you’re right. As Julian grew older, these memories were, in some way, actualised, and his writing bears witness to how real they were in his mind.”
Heiligensee
They stand up. Paul says: “I invite you for a bike ride beyond the lake, on the other side, let’s go to the other lake, Heiligensee!” “With pleasure,” Phillip says, ”then, this evening I can interview Sarah.”
The cycling route follows the banks of the Havel, and then the canal. Both sides are a mix of urban and industrial settlements, around Neuerndorf and the border with Brandenburg. They take a break near the lake. The sun is now warmer, a light North-East wind creates little waves on the water. Then Phillip asks Paul: “Was your dad in severe pain, before he died?”
Paul was silent. In the end, as they were ready to continue their ride, he replied: “I was then mostly spending time with Jane, I was five when it happened. I don’t know. Ask Sarah.”
“Do we write to redesign all those actions that led to places we did not expect? Is our imagination of way of travelling back, and have our characters do what we did not dare? Looking at this the other way, from the viewpoint of the characters we create, what are their expectations, of us, of themselves? Are they constrained by our expectations, or are we by theirs? Should we as writers, write without expectation?
Those musings are a mere distraction from the serious business of… writing. I’d like to hear your views, dear followers…”
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