A city comes alive in this book
IN Zagreb, Croatia, there is a Museum of Broken Relationships. It was established by two artists after their own relationship floundered. It struck a chord. The museum’s original exhibits were added to by the public, who donated objects with notes explaining their significance. The museum was a huge success, attracting up to 100,000 visitors a year. In fact, it was so successful that it went on a world tour and now has an imitator in Los Angeles.
In her acknowledgements at the end of this book, author Elizabeth Buchan mentions the Museum of Communism in Prague as her inspiration, rather than the museum in Zagreb, which seems a little surprising. But Communist Prague is the beating heart of this book and is the source of the broken promise that drives its protagonist, Laure, to establish her own Museum of Broken Promises in Paris.
The model for her Paris museum is clearly the one in Zagreb. Both house randomly donated articles. Unsurprisingly, these very personal items resonate with visitors – everyone, it seems, is a victim of broken promises. It is not unusual for visitors to break down in tears or for arguments to erupt and Laure is used to providing comfort and solace.
When the book opens she is happy with her (comparatively) quiet life. “Little else changed over a year, which was precisely what Laure craved. She wanted to look out at the same vista, open the same shutters and turn to inspect the glass cabinets in which were enshrined the disquiet of those who sought resolution.”
But then American journalist May arrives, anxious to make her name by writing a piece on the museum and its founder. And, of course, behind the question, “What made you want to establish the museum” lies the deeper issue of what in Laure’s past prompted her interest in broken promises. Laure is at first very guarded, but slowly May teases her story out of her. It starts in Prague.
Back in the mid 1980s, Laure was an au pair in Prague, working for Petr Kobes and his wife Eva. Prague is under grim, grey communist rule. And Petr Kobe is clearly a man of influence, which means that he must belong to the Communist Party. It is probable that he is a spy, despite his claim to be simply a businessman.
The scenes in Prague are one of this novel’s great strengths. Buchan very convincingly re-creates the claustrophobia of a city so tightly controlled that there are informers on every corner and in every cafe.
Laure is routinely followed, especially after she starts taking the Kobe’s two children to the puppet theatre and starts attending concerts by rock band Anatomie. Both are seen as subversive.
Laure becomes even more a “person of interest” when she falls in love and lust with Anatomie’s lead singer, Tomas. Her employer repeatedly warns her of the dangers of what she is doing. The puppet theatre emerges as the focal point of dissent and Anatomie’s concerts are watched with increasingly vigilant eyes until they are finally shut down.
Laure’s affair with Tomas rapidly develops into a full blown love story and this Buchan manages very competently and, in places, touchingly. What gives it an edge, however, is the ever-present threat of danger. Tomas and his friends, dissidents all, are very careful to stay just within the boundaries of what the authorities will tolerate. But they are living on borrowed time. When your every move is closely watched, there is a good chance you will make a fatal slip.
I very much liked the Prague sections of the book. Slightly less convincing, I found, were the scenes in contemporary Paris, despite Buchan’s attempts to give them authenticity. So too is the pushy American journalist who at times feels more like a plot device to unravel Laure’s past than a real flesh and blood character.
Despite these reservations. The Museum Of Broken Promises isa good read and Buchan writes well. But it is the Prague scenes that really bring the book to life, perhaps because they brought Laure to life too: “It was quite a story, her time in Prague. Full of love and fear and grief. But those three things were proof that she had been alive. Electrically so. Even the consequence, the on-going inner debate with conscience and recrimination, was a kind of proof.”