He raised his hand and touched her breast. He did it without any emotion, as if he were touching a gadget to see how it worked. Clara moaned: her breasts were cold and sensitive.
'If I touch you, if I use you, you become a body again, do you see? Your expression changes, and I like the way your mouth falls open, but that's not what I'm after exactly ... No, it's not what I'm after ...' He took his hand away. 'A lot of painters have created works with you, and very beautiful they were too. You are very attractive. You've done art-shocks. You like challenges.
As an adolescent you were part of The Circle. You went off to Venice last year to be painted by Brentano. So much experience,' Van Tysch said ironically. 'You've become an icon of desire. You've been used to excite people's pockets. You were trying to be a work, and they've turned you into a body.' He pushed her hair out of her eyes. Clara could sense his pipe tobacco breath on her face. 'I've never liked a canvas that's been in the hands of lots of other painters. That way it gets to believe it is the painting. But a canvas never, ever is the painting: it is only the painting's support.'
‘I know perfectly well what I am!' Clara exploded. 'And now I know what you are, too!'
'Wrong. You don't know what you are.'
'Leave me in peace!'
Van Tysch was still staring at her.
'That expression is better. Wounded pride. Self-pity. The way your lips tremble is interesting. If only your eyes would shine, it would be perfect! ...'
There was a long pause. Then Van Tysch leaned over her and put his elbow on her left shoulder. His jacket brushed against her naked body, and the weight of his arm on her shoulder forced Clara to remain tense. She sensed he was looking at her simply as an interesting problem of painting, a drawing difficult to pull off which he still did not feel satisfied with. She looked away from his eyes. An eternity went by until she heard his voice again.
'What miserable wretches we human beings are. Whoever said we could perhaps be works of art? My "Rowers" have backache. My "Monsters" are cretinous criminals. And "Rembrandt" is like a joke version of real paintings by a real painter. I'll tell you a story. Hyperdramatic art was invented by Vasili Tanagorsky. One day he went to a gallery where they were holding the opening of a show of his. He got up on the platform and said: "1 am the painting." What a joke. But Max Kalima and I were very young in those days, and we took him seriously. We went to visit him. By then he had senile dementia and was in hospital. From his window you could see a beautiful English sunset. Tanagorsky was staring at it from his armchair. When he saw me, he waved towards the horizon and said: 'Bruno, what do you make of my last painting?' Kalima and I laughed, thinking this time it was a joke. But no, this was serious. Taken as a whole, nature is a much more admirable painting than man.'
As he talked, he drew his finger over Clara's features: her forehead, nose, cheeks. His elbow was still resting on her shoulder.
'What terror . .. what immense terror there will be the day a painter succeeds in making a true work of art of a human being. Do you know what I think that work will be like? Something the whole world will detest. My dream is one day to create a work for which I will be insulted, looked down on, cursed ... that day for the first time in my life I will have created art.' He stood back and handed her the robe. 'I'm tired. I'll go on painting you tomorrow.'
He turned his back on her and walked off. Despite the almost total darkness he seemed to know exactly where he was heading. Hands in the pockets of her robe, Clara followed him. She stumbled along, teeth chattering with cold, her body cramped because of the length of time she had stood without moving. Gerardo and Uhl were waiting on the porch. The outdoor lights gave them a golden halo. It was as though nothing had happened: to Clara it seemed as if they were in exactly the same position as before. Gerardo stood with hands on hips. The silent shadow of Murnika de Verne, the Maestro's secretary, loomed in the darkness, in the Mercedes parked outside the house.
Suddenly, as if a thought had just struck him, Van Tysch halted and came back towards them. Clara came to a halt as well.
'Come closer to the car,' Van Tysch said. 'Not too close. Stop there.'
She walked over to the spot he was indicating. The top half of her body was reflected in the dark car door window. 'Look towards the car window.'
She did. All she could see was her own body wrapped in the robe, and her short red hair glowing dully in the darkness. All of a sudden, Van Tysch's wavering shadow appeared alongside her. His voice had an edge of despair to it.
'There! I've seen it again! ... In the catalogue photo you are with a mirror. It's mirrors that do it! It's mirrors which produce that in your eyes! I've been a fool! A real fool!'
He grabbed Clara by the arm and dragged her towards the house. He shouted instructions to his assistants, who disappeared inside at full tilt. By the dme Van Tysch and Clara reached the living room, Gerardo and Uhl had placed one of the full-length mirrors in the centre of the room. The painter placed Clara in front of it.
'Was that it? ... Was it something so simple I was looking for? . .. No, don't look at me! Look at yourself ...'
Clara stared at her own face in the glass.
'You look at yourself and you catch fire!’ Van Tysch exclaimed. 'You can't avoid it! You look at yourself and you . .. you become something else! . . . Why are you so fascinated by your own image?'
‘I don't know,' she said after a pause. 'Once when I was a child I went into the attic ... There was a mirror in there, but I didn't know that... I saw it and got scared ...'
'Move back.'
‘What?’
'Move back to the wall, then look at the mirror from there ... That's right ... perfect, when you look at yourself from a distance, your expression changes ... It becomes more intense. When you came too close to the car, it disappeared ... Why? ... because you need to see yourself from a distance . . . your distant image ... or perhaps it needs to be smaller? .. . But I also caught a glimpse of that expression when I came up to you in the Plastic Bosl But then there were no mirrors around ... !' He stopped and raised his forefinger. ‘I was wearing glasses! Glasses! . .. What do they mean to you?'
Clara did not think she had jumped at the mention of this word, but Van Tysch had noticed it. He came up to her with his glasses on, took her face in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was almost gentle.
'Tell me, come on, tell me. We all have things inside us - tiny, fragile, domesticated things, like children. They are minute details, but they're more important than all the rest of our lives. I know you're struggling to remember something like that.'
A tiny Clara was staring back at Clara from the lenses of Van
Tysch's glasses. The words came obediently from her mouth, infinitely removed from her obliterated consciousness.
‘Yes, there is something,' she whispered. 'But I never gave it much importance.'
'That is exactly what makes it so important,' said Van Tysch. 'Tell me.'
'One night, my father came into my room ... He was already ill by then ...'
'Go on. But don't stop looking at yourself in my glasses while you're talking.'
'He woke me up. He woke me up and frightened me. But he was already ill...' 'Go on.'
'He brought his face right up to mine ...'
'Did he put a light on?'
'A bedside lamp.'
'Go on. Then what did he do?'
'He brought his face next to mine,' Clara repeated. 'That was all he did. He was wearing glasses. His glasses were very large. Or so they always seemed to me. Very large.'
'And you saw yourself reflected in them.'
'Yes, I think so... Now I remember that... I could see my face in the lenses. For a moment I thought it was a painting: the glasses had a thick frame like a picture frame ... and I was inside the glass ...'
'Go on! What happened then?'
'My father said some things I didn't understand. "Is something wrong, daddy?" I asked him. But all he did was move his lips. All of a sudden, I don't
know why, but I thought it wasn't my father but someone else who was with me. "Daddy, is that you?" I asked him, but he didn't reply. And that scared me even more. I asked again: "Daddy! Please, tell me it's you!" But he didn't respond. I started sobbing as he left the room, and ...'
That's perfect,' said Van Tysch. 'You can stop now. That's perfect.' He signalled to Gerardo and Uhl to come over. 'Look at the expression on her face now ... A mixture of terror and pity, love and dread. It's perfect. It's come to the surface. I've painted it. It's mine.'
He turned to them and began to give instructions in Dutch. Clara realised he must be talking about the painting. His attitude had completely changed. He was not angry or emotional any more. It was as though he were thinking aloud, absorbed in mere technical problems. Then he fell silent and looked back at Clara. Still fraught by her memories, she could only manage a weak smile.
‘I never thought that something that happened to me as a little girl could mark me especially . .. I ... My father was very sick and . . . that was how he behaved. He didn't mean me any harm ... In time I came to understand that...'
'I'm not concerned whether the experience marked you or not’ Van Tysch replied harshly. 'I'm a painter of people, not a psychoanalyst. Anyway, as I've already told you, you don't matter to me in the least, so spare me your crass observations. I've got what I was looking for. We'll put a mirror in front of you, one the public can't see but where you'll be reflected. And that will be it’
He said nothing more to Clara. He gave a few final instructions to Gerardo and Uhl, and left the house. The Mercedes started up. Then there was silence.
She returned from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her hair blonde again, with no eyebrows, her skin primed. Gerardo was sitting on the floor of the living room, leaning against the wall. When he saw her come in, he got up and handed her a folded piece of paper. It was a colour photocopy of a classical painting.
‘I suppose there's no harm you knowing now. It's Susanna Surprised by the Elders. Rembrandt painted it in about 1647. Do you know the story? It's from the Bible . . .'
He told her it. Susanna was a virtuous young woman married to an equally virtuous young man. Two elderly judges spied on her when she was bathing in the garden of her house. She refused to submit to their demands, and they accused her of adultery. She was condemned to death until Daniel, the wise judge, saved her at the last moment by proving the accusation against her was false.
'In Rembrandt's painting, Susanna, with dark red hair, has just taken all her clothes off apart from a sheet... The two old men can be seen behind her ... They are about to fling themselves on her... One of her feet is in the water, as if she had been pushed by one of the old men ...'
That had been the idea behind all the sketches they had made of her, Gerardo explained: her mahogany hair, her nakedness, the spying on her at night, the way the two of them had preyed on her and insulted her. That was the basis of the hyperdramatism.
'The sketch is finished,' said Gerardo. 'Now we have to put the finishing touches to the painting. From now on we'll delineate your pose and the colour of your body, and fix your hyperdramatic expressions. The work will still be hard, I warn you, but the worst is over.' He sounded very relieved. 'Then we'll place lamps to illuminate you with light and shade, and put you in the spot the work has been allotted in the Tunnel.' He paused, then asked with a smile, 'How do you feel after the storm?'
'Fine,' she said. And burst into tears.
She felt a thin, strange wetness course down her cheeks. It was such a strange sensation that at first she did not realise what it was. As she moved into Gerardo's arms for protection, she discovered that, for the first time since she had been primed, she was crying real tears.
3
The woman striding purposefully towards the house has short hair, is very slender and is wearing expensive casual clothes: jerkin, blouse, tight jeans and boots; she has sunglasses on, and is carrying a small bag in her left hand. Her determined manner seems out of place in this peaceful scene. On both sides of the gravel path she is walking along, there is a perfectly trimmed lawn, the precise shadow of a line of trees and a hedge separating the garden from a meadow where several skewbald ponies can be seen. Further off, the landscape is one of gentle hills, carpets of tufted grass, with darker clumps of bushes and woods, the endless luxuriant reaches of Dartmoor in the southwest of England. The afternoon is drawing to a close, and the sun is dipping to the horizon to the left of the woman. The house she is headed towards has two wings: the main part is long, with two chimneys and eight windows; the second, perpendicular to the first, is not as grand. A maid in impeccable uniform is waiting at the front door. She is plump and has waxy white skin. She smiles as the woman approaches, but her smile is not reciprocated. A virtuoso bird, of a kind that would no doubt intrigue an ornithologist, is singing somewhere.
'Good evening, miss. Please, come in.'
The pleasant, ruddy-cheeked maid had a Welsh accent. Although Miss Wood did not reply, this did not seem to perturb her in the slightest. The house was comfortable and spacious, with a smell of noble woods.
'Be so kind as to wait here, miss. The master will attend you immediately.'
She was in an immense living room; three semicircular stone steps led down into it. Wood stepped down them very slowly, as though she were taking part in a spectacle. Her Ferragamo boots resounded on the stone. At first she considered taking off her sunglasses, but then the glinting glass wall at the far end of the room made her change her mind. Her Dior glasses matched her short hair with its cinnamon highlights. Her beauty adviser in the New Bond Street salon had suggested she wear sports clothes in brown and cream. Wood chose a fine cotton jerkin, a collarless blouse with ribbons and tight jeans. To go with this, she had a small, light, many-sided bag: it was as if the fingers of her left hand were holding nothing.
She cast a quick glance around her while she stood waiting. Sober, spacious, comfortable and rustic was her verdict. 'He has more money, but his tastes haven't changed,' she thought. Big native rugs, a three-piece suite in neutral colours, a huge chimney-piece and a glass wall at the far end, with a double door leading out into a kind of magnificent garden of paradise. There were only two works of art in the room: one next to the far doors, the other close to the right-hand wall, beyond the enormous rug. The latter was a blond young man of around twenty. He was naked, and shielded his genitals with both hands. He had not been painted, only lightly primed. He was openly breathing, blinked frequently, and followed Miss Wood's movements closely. It was as though he was not a painting, but a perfectly normal and attractive boy, standing naked in the room. He was called Portrait of Joe, and was by Gabriel Moritz. Moritz was one of the French natural-humanist school.
Wood knew all about them. Natural-humanism rejected any attempt to turn a person into art, and so was utterly opposed to pure hyperdramatism. To the humanists, works of art were first and foremost human beings. Their models did not have their bodies painted and were put on show exactly as they were in daily life, naked or dressed, posing almost without taking up quiescence.
The natural-humanists were also determined not to hide any of the body's blemishes: Wood could see the scar from what must have been a childhood scrape on Portrait of Joe's right knee, and the curl of a distant appendix operation. The boy seemed a little bored with being on show. While Miss Wood was looking at him, he cleared his throat, puffed out his chest, and ran his tongue over his lips.
The other work was better, but was from the same tendency. Wood already knew it, and had no need to go closer and read its title: Girl in the Shade by Georges Chalboux. The body of Girl in the Shade was less appealing than the Moritz. It looked like a university student who had decided to play a joke on its friends by taking all its clothes off and standing still.
The stands by the side of the two works displayed all the accoutrements for maintaining humanist paintings: small trays with bottles of water and wafer biscuits that the works were allowed to turn to w
henever they liked, signs they could hang on the wall to say that the painting had gone for a rest or was absent for a while, even one which said: 'These people are working as a work of art. Please respect them.'
Miss Wood finished studying the works and swung her tiny bag from side to side as she walked round the room. She detested French humanist art in all its forms: from Corbett's 'sincerism' to the 'democratism' of Gerard Garcet and the 'absolute liberalism' of
Jacqueline Treviso. Works that asked permission to go to the bathroom or simply went without asking, outdoor pieces which ran for cover when it started raining, paintings which haggled over how many hours they should work, and even the poses they should adopt, who butted in to your conversations with other people, who had the right to complain if they were upset about something or to share your food if they saw you eating something they fancied. April Wood definitely preferred pure hyperdramatism.