A few months ago I began a new short story, something completely different to the theme and style of the Nights in Paris novel. It’s set in the present, and the narrator is a man — two things I haven’t done for a few years, since I wrote my first novel. It’s about the same themes as my first novel (the impact of the Holocaust), but in a much more subtle way. My first novel was the initial, therapy part of writing, and now it seems that I can finally move forward and write about the same issues in a less frenzied, less anguished way.
The title, Max and Lucia, is taken from the main characters in The Night Porter, a disturbing, brave, mesmerising film by Liliana Cavani. It was released in 1974 and stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, who are both chillingly beautiful and perfect in their roles.
In my story, Max, the main character, is in love with a woman he has never spoken to. She works in a salon, and he watches her obsessively from a café. He is tormented by the suspicion that his grandfather was a Nazi during the war, and this fear is heightened by the fact that no one in his family will talk to him about the past. He imagines that the woman is Jewish and that her grandparents survived the camps. He doesn’t know her name but he thinks of her as Lucia, after Lucia in The Night Porter, his favourite film. His imaginings about his past and hers become more and more real to him, until he is convinced that the only way for them to heal is to act out the past in reverse, for him to become her victim.
When I began writing, my initial plan was to write about a Jewish man whose grandparents were survivors of the camps and who is in love with a woman he doesn’t know, who works in a salon. He imagines that her grandfather was a Nazi, and feels compelled to go to her for a painful treatment, hoping that the pain will release some of his deeply-held issues. But then I thought how much more interesting it would be if it were the other way around: someone with a (possibly) Nazi background who wanted to exorcise his guilt and shame. It’s been a fascinating exercise: writing as a man is strangely liberating, empowering and exciting.
J’ai fini mon histoire Max et Lucia, inspiré par le film italien Il Portiere di notte – un film stupéfiant, courageux et beau.
