Sunday 21 November 2021

The Room Where It Happens (Dracula Dossier)


Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (BBC)

Standing, Sam sank his hands in his pockets, shook his head, and, rather as Jerry Westerby might have done, began meandering about the room, peering at the odd gloomy things that hung on the wall: group war photographs of dons in uniform; a framed and handwritten letter from a dead Prime Minister; Karla's portrait again, which this time he studied from very close, on and on.

John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy.

Portrait of Dracula (Dracula Dossier Item)

appearance: An oil painting on cheap canvas. Painted by the artist Francis Aytown, this painting depicts the faces of two men, one old and one young. The features of the two men are extremely similar, and might be father and son, or possibly even the same man at different stages of his life.

The elder has a strong, aquiline nose with oddly arched nostrils, a high forehead, thick white-gray hair and a white mustache. His heavy eyebrows and teeth are emphasized by the artist, and his dark eyes seem to follow the observer around the room. He has a livid red scar on his forehead. 

The younger figure has dark hair and a mustache, and appears full of youth and vitality. In contrast to the paleness of the elder, his face is ruddy. The artist appears to have been indecisive over whether or not the subject had a beard - the younger figure’s chin appears muddy and was painted over several times (Photography: X-ray analysis shows that the figure was originally bearded). The same scar is present, but much less noticeable due to the change in complexion. 

The neck and shoulders of both figures are merely hinted at. In both cases, the portrait is oddly unsettling, as the proportions and perspectives are subtly off ...

The Honourable Schoolboy is the second in le Carré's Karla trilogy. In the first, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Soviet spymaster Karla recruits a British agent who rises to the very top of the British spy establishment. Thanks to the efforts of George Smiley, Karla's man is knocked out of the Circus and the Soviet intrusion largely dismantled. 

In this second novel Smiley is now the Circus ringmaster, but the old place has fallen on hard times. Nobody knows who to trust; the networks and agents promoted by Karla's man were deliberately chosen to be ineffective, and the Americans - the Cousins - have no faith in the Circus now its lead performer has been exposed as a fraud. 

The Circus rebuilds - or at least it tries to. Thus begins The Honourable Schoolboy.

One of the recurring elements in that novel is Karla's portrait, which Smiley has deliberately placed at the heart of the Circus so everyone who visits Smiley in his offices can see it. The portrait is a slightly ghoulish reminder of the Circus' recent failings, and it appears again and again in the opening chapters. 

Which made me think of that mysterious portrait of Dracula, listed as one of the items the agents might find in the Dracula Dossier. As with all such items it might be Major, Minor or Fraudulent - that is, really useful, moderately useful, or bogus.

However the point le Carré makes is that the portrait on its own isn't worth a damn. What matters is how you display it, and where. 

Karla's photograph might have been put anywhere. It might have been on Smiley's desk, where only he could see it. It might have been in some secure vault, or hung in the lavatory. Smiley deliberately gives it prominence front and center, where everyone can see it. What's more, by hanging it in the same room as those wartime photographs of the old crew and the congratulatory letter from a dead Prime Minister (presumably Churchill, though it might as easily have been Clement Attlee) Smiley links Karla with the glorious past. It's a reminder to everyone who visits the Circus that the past is tainted, and hints that the Circus needs to redeem itself.

Which brings me back to that portrait of Dracula. Again, what matters isn't so much the portrait itself - though the portrait is important, and might be very important. What matters is where it is displayed, and by whom. A portrait doesn't exist simply to exist. Like all art it exists to be seen, and how it is seen determines its effect and thus its value to the onlooker. 

Dracula's portrait hung in a pub corridor that leads to the Gents is worth little. It might have been picked up as a job lot with half a dozen ink sketches of hounds at bay and a few ill-conceived bits of taxidermy. Dracula's portrait hung in the corridors of Edom has a completely different kind of significance, even if those corridors happen to be moldering and forgotten. 

Dracula's portrait hung in the ultra-modern offices of the new and improved Edom has a different significance again. 

So as an exercise in gamification, consider: what is that room like? What significance does it hold?

I'm going to assume for the purpose of this exercise that the room has the same significance as the portrait and might have similar, or related, characteristics. As you know, there are several different flavors of vampire chronicle: damned, supernatural, alien, mutant. I'm not going to delve into that here since exactly how that factors into your room will depend entirely on you. I'm simply going to say that it naturally will have an influence on the room. A Damned chronicle bears Damned fruit, after all.

I'm also going to assume three kinds of room: modern Edom, decayed Edom, other non-Edom. The other non-Edom could be anything from a superyacht's stateroom to a Legacy's apartments in Rome to a museum or art gallery. The precise location is up to you as Director.

With all that in mind:

Major    

In his obsession, Aytown captured something more — he caught some psychic essence or echo of the Count ...

Modern Edom (eg. the map room at HMS Proserpine, the conference rooms at Seward's Asylum). 

This portrait is among a collection of valued trophies, diagrams, schematics and satellite photographs of recent areas of operation. It is deliberately placed there by D as a reminder to the modern Edom of the kind of asset they are dealing with - cruel, implacable, and dangerous. Fort and Tinman have rigged its glass case with explosives as an anti-theft measure; if anyone tries to remove the painting the detonation should destroy the painting but leave the rest of the room more or less intact.

Decayed Edom (eg. some forgotten offices near Whitehall, an abandoned military installation, Ring). 

These dusty offices had some importance back in the 1970s, which is probably the last time any of the Dukes visited this place. The place stinks of mold and rats. Old filing cabinets long emptied of their secrets loll like hanged men, their tongues - the cabinets - swinging free. Photographs from the Second World War and old silver trophies and cups from some regiment still shine in their cabinets, but that regiment was amalgamated and forgotten back in the 1960s and not even the most dedicated military historian bothers to remember the regiment once had its home here.

Other Non-Edom

This is a peculiar collection put together by someone with an amusing mind. The portrait is in a place of honour where everyone who enters by the main hall can see it, but it is matched with Surrealist masterpieces and a rather nasty-looking portrait of the inmates of a a lunatic asylum, either a Goya or someone heavily influenced by the old Spaniard. The effect is dizzying; there is no corner of the room any observer can look at, and find comfort. 

Minor

Aytown’s portrait can be used to recognize the Count, but it has no other supernatural powers.

Modern Edom

This hangs in the offices of the commandant, perhaps D or the officer in charge of E Squadron. These are spartan rooms, and the portrait is the only art in the place; there isn't even a photo of the commandant's family on their imposing desk. It hangs there sullen and silent, like a child summoned to the Headmaster's office. All meaning seems to have been surgically removed, as if so many uncaring eyes having stared at it for over a century has sapped the painting's will - always assuming it had one in the first place.

Decayed Edom

At some point some forgotten bureaucrat thought it would be a good idea to strip the place of its valuables and put them in storage, but the plan never got quite so far as 'storage.' The portrait is in a back room along with a score of other items, carefully labeled back in the 1980s, and there are packing crates here in which the job lot was clearly meant to be sealed up. Whether money dried up, the bureaucrat lost interest or some other minor disaster happened, who can say? It's all a bit King Tut's Tomb, though if there is a curse it probably hit its expiration date long ago.

Other Non-Edom

The white patches on the wall indicate what happened to the actually valuable art. What's left are the dregs of a collection, some moderately interesting modernists, some Scots Baronial stuff, and a rather odd collection of statuary all jumbled together with no sense of order or style. Whoever acquired this portrait mislabeled it at Jacobethan, and (if this is an art gallery) is trying to sell it for at least twice its actual value.

Fraud

The portrait was actually painted by Viv Aytown-Baptiste, in an attempt to copy her great-grandfather’s style.

Modern Edom

This hangs in the offices of an Edom underling and was bought as a joke that didn't quite come off. It shares space with two Gantt charts and a dartboard, and has acquired several unfortunate holes in consequence. The dartboard has a photo of one of the Edom princes at its center; who can say why?

Decayed Edom

Once upon a time someone thought this was the real deal, and paid rather a lot of government money to purchase it. Embarrassment followed on swift and noisy stamping feet, and the prize was hurriedly moved somewhere where nobody important had to look at it. The typists in the pool, who have to look at it every day, sometimes wonder what happened to that high-flier who thought he was on to something good. Rumor has it he occupied that office at the end of the hall, the one that's now used for storage, until his dismissal in the middle 1990s. Or perhaps he was moved to the offices in Edinburgh. Or perhaps shame killed him. 

Other Non-Edom

It's odd what some people think ought to hang in the second lavatory, the one used by guests. Maybe it was meant to be a joke. It looks more valuable than, perhaps, its owner thinks it is. 

Enjoy!

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