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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

Everyone else was doing the same. How smelly it all was: what people had once cherished, and would have fought over, for the chance of an egg. Walter had not, I noticed, brought Charlotte’s boggy paintings.

At the dump he rid himself of everything that had made him rich. It was then that I noticed the whistling sound as he bent to his work. I tried to work out what it was, then I realised he was sobbing. He howled, as if some lesson had pierced him, or the whole dead summer had finally broken him. I didn’t know what to do, and so I stood by, letting him weep, in the fields and fields of Weimar’s old junk.

DESSAU, 1929

24

Dessau

A hundred miles north of Weimar, our new school in Dessau was an enclosure of wall and glass. Glacial in winter’s dark fields, everything about the building was essential: white walls, windows gridded in iron; no timber to speak of. It threw off light in great profusion; to stand beside it even on a summer’s day could take tones from your skin. The building aroused in us our devotion; to enter into it was to ascend skywards: it was held only skimmingly to the world. From the outside you could see many floors at the same time, and the way people disappeared and then materialised made them appear like actors in a jump cut. Outsized on the black plains, the building was a spaceship. Within a day of its finishing it was hailed as the Director’s finest monument.

I like to think the Director had imagined his building not when he had seen the plot in Dessau, not when he had designed it at his studio desk, but when those Reichswehr officers had turned up at the school, and he had thought: enough. If the Bauhaus were to survive, it would have to get out of Weimar.

When the Director opened the school to us in 1926 – his students, his Journeymen, his Masters, and a thousand others come to celebrate – he kissed his wife’s hand so that people would not see his tears. He had not lost a single person: not Stefan, not Masha, not Charlotte; not Paul Klee nor Wassily Kandinsky. And walking into its cool laboratories of art and design, the building did seem to exempt us from all the hardness of this world.

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