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Back The Hiding Game
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Naomi Wood
  3. Dedication page
  4. Epigraph page
  5. 1
  6. WEIMAR, 1922
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 18
  24. 19
  25. 20
  26. 21
  27. 22
  28. 23
  29. DESSAU, 1929
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. 28
  35. 29
  36. 30
  37. 31
  38. 32
  39. 33
  40. 34
  41. 35
  42. 36
  43. 37
  44. BERLIN, 1932
  45. 38
  46. 39
  47. 40
  48. 41
  49. 42
  50. 43
  51. 44
  52. 45
  53. 46
  54. 47
  55. 48
  56. 49
  57. 50
  58. 51
  59. 52
  60. 53
  61. Thank you
  62. Praise
  63. The Hiding Game
  64. Also by Naomi Wood

That spring I often stopped to look inside the old gallery in Dessau. I always dreamed I’d find a Steiner painting there. And then, some time in May, I did. All the Steiner hallmarks were there: frolicking girls, trees flourishing, and then (obvious, now I knew the trick) those double loops of light which I knew now were Walter König’s signature of guilt from a summer spent betraying his friends. I had finally worked out what the painting signified: his confusion, which was total, and his anguish, which was the same. After seeing it, though, I walked quickly away. I forced myself to say the words aloud, as if making a promise to myself: I would not give him back our friendship. Not for anything.

36

England

I realise now how much my self-portrait is similar to Walter’s double painting. How its light streams from everywhere and nowhere. I wear such a strange expression; costive and cowardly. The portrait has hardly said what I thought it would. Though it’s unfinished – I have hardly a neck and the eyes are approximations – I don’t want to carry on. It won’t sell, and I look a clown. I play with blurring my gaze: Elaine de Kooning did this to her friend Fairfield Porter: as if, in the picture, floodwater has reached his eyes. This might be the only way around it. This might be the only way of getting it done.

I should have known figurative painting just wouldn’t work, which is why I’ve lost myself in abstraction all these years. Figuration can’t get close. Anni knew that in Six Prayers, the Jewish Museum commission she did a few years ago. Six Prayers is a woven wall hanging, but its colours suggest stone. There are six columns in cotton, linen, bast, and silver. The threadwork on the panels is uneven. I won’t say one of Anni’s pillars is for Charlotte in Buchenwald or Otti in Auschwitz, because I don’t know if that’s true. It’s enough that I see them memorialised there.

I wrote to Anni after seeing it. She was in Connecticut by then, still with Josef. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I wrote on functional blue airmail paper I thought she’d like, ‘I keep coming back to what you have expressed in the colours. Your prayers are six poems.’

Anni never replied. Maybe she couldn’t remember who I was. Or I had signed off Brickman rather than Beckermann. Part of me thinks Anni just couldn’t say any more. Who knows who else she’d lost; which family, which friends. The threads had said enough.

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