Part 5 (1/2)

I jumped. Did she suspect? ”That's not settled yet.”

”Why isn't it settled? Mr. Megelbach didn't want to tell me either.”

”It depends on so many factors. On . . .” I shrugged. ”Factors. A lot of factors. As soon as possible!”

She looked at me thoughtfully, I hastily said good-bye, and set off. This time the descent seemed to go very quickly: everything smelled of gra.s.s and flowers, an airplane swam lazily through the blue; I felt cheerful and almost weightless. I got money from an ATM and a new shaver in the village drugstore.

I went up to my room in the boardinghouse and looked at the old farmer on the wall, whistling to myself and drumming my fingers on my knee. I must have been a little nervous. I lay down on the bed without taking off my shoes, and stared at the ceiling for a while. Then I stood in front of the mirror and stayed like that for so long that my reflection became a stranger and looked absurd. I shaved and took a long shower. Then I reached for the receiver and dialed a number by heart. It rang five times before anyone picked up.

”Miss Lessing,” I said, ”it's me again, Sebastian Zollner. Don't hang up!”

”No!” said a high voice. ”No!”

”Please, all I ask is that you listen to me!”

She hung up. For a few seconds I listened to the busy signal, then I dialed again.

”Zollner again. Please would you give me a short . . .”

”No!” She hung up.

I cursed. Nothing for it, it really did look as if I would have to drive up there myself. Which was all I needed!

In a restaurant on the main square, I ordered a miserable tuna fish salad. Tourists all around me, children crowing, fathers thumbing through maps, mothers sticking forks into huge portions of cake. The waitress was young and not hideous, I called after her: too much oil in the salad, please take it away again. She'd be glad to, she said, but I'd have to pay for it anyway. But I'd eaten almost none of it, I said. That was my affair, she said. I asked to see the proprietor. She said he wouldn't be there until the evening, but I could wait. As if I had nothing better to do, I said, and winked at her. I ate the salad, but when I wanted to pay my bill, it was a broad-shouldered colleague of hers who brought it. I left no tip.

I bought cigarettes and asked a young man for a light. We fell to talking: he was a student, visiting his parents during the vacation. What was he studying? Art history, he said, looking at me a little defensively. Very understandable, I said, particularly if one comes from here. What did I mean? I gestured toward the slope of the mountain. G.o.d? Hardly, I said, great painters made their homes here. He didn't understand. Kaminski! He looked blank.

Did he really not know Kaminski? No, he didn't. The last pupil of Matisse, champion of the cla.s.sical . . . He didn't concern himself with that sort of stuff, he interrupted me, his thing was contemporary art from the Alps. Full of exciting trends, you know, Gamraunig, and Goschl, of course, and Wagreiner. Who? Wagreiner, he said loudly, his face going pink. I didn't know Wagreiner? Really? He was only painting now with milk and edible substances. Why, I asked. He nodded, he was hoping for that one. Nietzsche.

Anxiously, I took a step back. Was Wagreiner a Neodadaist? He shook his head. Or a performance artist? No, no, no. Had I really never even heard of Wagreiner? I shook my head. He muttered something I couldn't catch and we eyed each other mistrustfully. Then we went our separate ways.

I went into the boardinghouse, packed my suitcase, and settled my bill. I would simply come back tomorrow, no reason to pay for a night when I wouldn't be there. I nodded at the proprietress, threw away my cigarette, found the footpath, and started climbing. I didn't need any taxi, it was easy for me now, even though I had the suitcase to carry, I was soon up at the signpost. Up the road, first bend, second bend, third bend, then the parking area. The BMW was still standing in front of the garden gate. I rang, Anna opened the door immediately.

”n.o.body home?”

”Only him.”

”Why is the car still here?”

”She took the train.”

I looked her straight in the eyes. ”I've come, because I forgot my bag.”

She nodded, went inside, and left the door open. I followed her.

”My sister called,” she said.

”Really!”

”She needs help.”

”If you want to go, I can stay with him.”

She inspected me for a few seconds. ”That would be kind.”

”Think nothing of it.”

She smoothed her ap.r.o.n, bent down, and picked up a well-stuffed overnight case. She went to the door, hesitated, and looked at me questioningly.

”No worries!” I said softly.

She nodded, breathed audibly in and out, then closed the door behind her. Through the kitchen window I watched her as she walked across the parking area with small, heavy steps. The bag swung in her hand.

VI.

I STOOD IN THE HALL STOOD IN THE HALL, ears c.o.c.ked. To my left was the front door, to my right the dining room, and straight ahead the staircase went up to the second floor. I cleared my throat, my voice echoing oddly in the silence.

I went into the dining room. The windows were closed, the air stale. A fly was banging against a pane. I carefully opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers: tablecloths, neatly folded. The next one: knives, forks, and spoons. The bottom one: twenty years' worth of old magazines, Life, Time, Paris-Match, Life, Time, Paris-Match, all jumbled together. The old wood resisted; I almost couldn't close the drawers. I went back into the hall. all jumbled together. The old wood resisted; I almost couldn't close the drawers. I went back into the hall.

To my left were four doors. I opened the first: a little room with a bed, table, and chair, a TV, a picture of the Madonna and a photo of the young Marlon Brando. It must be Anna's room. Behind the next door was the kitchen, the one after that was the room where I'd been received the day before. The last one opened onto a staircase going down.

I took my bag and groped for the light switch. A single bulb cast its dirty light onto wooden steps, which creaked, and their downward pitch was so steep that I had to hang on to the banister. I hit another switch, spotlights crackled as they sprang to life, and I squeezed my eyes tight shut. When I'd gotten used to the glare, I realized I was in the studio.

A windowless s.p.a.ce, lit only by four spotlights. Whoever had worked here hadn't needed any natural light. In the middle was an easel with a painting in its genesis; dozens of brushes were scattered over the floor. I bent down to feel them: all of them were dry. There was also a palette, the colors on it were hard as stone and cracked. I sucked in a mouthful of air: a normal cellar smell, a little damp, a faint odor of mothb.a.l.l.s, no hint of paints or turpentine. n.o.body had painted here for a long time.

The canvas on the easel was almost untouched, only three brushstrokes cut across its whiteness. They began in the same spot down on the left and then pulled apart, in the top right was a tiny field crosshatched in chalk. No sketching, nothing to indicate what should have grown out of this. As I stepped back, I noticed that I had four shadows, one from each spotlight, that cut across one another at my feet. Several large canvases, covered with sailcloth tarps, leaned against the wall.

I pulled the first tarp away and winced. Two eyes, a twisted mouth: a face, curiously distorted, like a reflection in flowing water. It was painted in bright colors, red lines pulled away from him like dying flames, his eyes as they observed me were questioning and cold. And although the style was unmistakable-the thin layer of color, the preference for red-yellow, which both Komenev and Mehring had written about-it looked utterly different from anything else of his I knew. I looked for his signature and didn't find it. I reached for the next cloth; as soon as I touched it, it emitted a cloud of dust.

The same face, this time a little smaller, more of a ball, a slightly contemptuous smile playing in the corners of the mouth. On the next canvas there it was again, this time with the mouth stretched unnaturally wide, the eyebrows angled violently toward the nose. The forehead was creased into masklike folds, and individual hairs straggled thinly, like tears in paper. No beginnings of a neck, no body, just the detached head floating in empty s.p.a.ce. I pulled away tarp after tarp, and the face was becoming more and more deformed: the chin stretched and lengthened, the colors became harsher, the forehead and ears grotesquely extended. But each time his eyes seemed more distant, indifferent, and, I pulled the tarp away, more filled with contempt. Now it was bulging outward as if in a funhouse mirror, had a Harlequin's nose and puckered frown lines, on the next canvas-the tarp got caught, I tore it off by full force, dust swirled up, making me sneeze-it crumpled together, as if a puppeteer were clenching his fist. On the canvas after that it was a hint of itself, seen in a blur through driving snow-the remaining paintings were unfinished, just sketches with a few patches of color, a forehead here, a cheek there. In the corner, as if thrown away, lay a sketch block. I picked it up, wiped it off, and opened it. The same face, from above, from below, from every side, even once, like a mask, seen from inside. The sketches were done in charcoal, increasingly unsure, the lines became shaky and missed one another. Finally there was more of a thick patch of pure black. Tiny splinters of charcoal trickled down at me. The remaining pages were empty.

I set aside the sketch block and began to search the paintings for a signature or a date. In vain. I turned one of the canvases around to examine its wooden stretchers, and a shard of gla.s.s fell onto the floor. I picked it up with the tips of my fingers. There were more; the entire floor behind the pictures was carpeted in broken gla.s.s. I held the shard up to the spotlight and closed one eye: the light jumped a tiny distance, and its black housing bulged. The gla.s.s had been ground.

I got the camera out of my bag. A very good little Kodak, a Christmas present from Elke. The spotlights were so bright that I wouldn't need either a tripod or a flash. A painting, the photo editor of the Evening News Evening News had explained to me, must be photographed head-on, to avoid any foreshortening of perspective, if it is to be usable for reproduction. I photographed each canvas twice and then, standing back up and propping myself against the wall, the easel, the brushes on the floor, the shards of gla.s.s. I kept clicking till the memory card was full. Then I put the camera back in the bag and began to cover the paintings again. had explained to me, must be photographed head-on, to avoid any foreshortening of perspective, if it is to be usable for reproduction. I photographed each canvas twice and then, standing back up and propping myself against the wall, the easel, the brushes on the floor, the shards of gla.s.s. I kept clicking till the memory card was full. Then I put the camera back in the bag and began to cover the paintings again.

It was hard work, and the tarps kept on getting hooked on things. Where did I know this face from? I started to hurry: I didn't know why, but I wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. How in the world could it be familiar to me? I got to the last painting, met its contemptuous stare, and covered it up. I tiptoed to the door, switched off the light, and let out my breath involuntarily.

I stood in the hall again, ears c.o.c.ked. The fly was still buzzing in the living room. ”h.e.l.lo?” n.o.body answered. ”h.e.l.lo?” I went up to the second floor.

Two doors to the right, two to the left, one at the end of the landing. I began on the left. I knocked, waited for a moment, and opened the door.

It must be Miriam's room. A bed, a TV set, bookshelves, and a Kaminski, one of the Reflections Reflections series:three mirrors-at their center a discarded duster, a shoe, and a pencil, arranged as a parody of a still life-that organized themselves into a perfect system of surfaces; if you looked at it out of the corner of your eye, it seemed to s.h.i.+mmer faintly. It must be worth a fortune. I looked in the cupboards, but they held nothing but clothes, shoes, hats, a few pairs of gla.s.ses, silk underwear. I let one of the pairs of panties slide slowly through my fingers; I'd never met a woman who wore silk underwear. The drawer of the night table was filled with boxes of medications: Baldrian, Valium, Benedorm, various kinds of sleeping pills and tranquilizers. The instruction leaflets would have made interesting reading, but I didn't have time. series:three mirrors-at their center a discarded duster, a shoe, and a pencil, arranged as a parody of a still life-that organized themselves into a perfect system of surfaces; if you looked at it out of the corner of your eye, it seemed to s.h.i.+mmer faintly. It must be worth a fortune. I looked in the cupboards, but they held nothing but clothes, shoes, hats, a few pairs of gla.s.ses, silk underwear. I let one of the pairs of panties slide slowly through my fingers; I'd never met a woman who wore silk underwear. The drawer of the night table was filled with boxes of medications: Baldrian, Valium, Benedorm, various kinds of sleeping pills and tranquilizers. The instruction leaflets would have made interesting reading, but I didn't have time.

Next door was a bathroom. Pristine, smelling of cleaning stuff, there was a sponge, still damp, lying in the tub, and three perfume bottles in front of the mirror. One of them was Chanel. No shaver, so the old man must use another bathroom. How did blind people shave, anyway?

The door at the end of the pa.s.sage led into an unaired room. The windows hadn't been cleaned, the cupboards were bare, the bed wasn't made: an unused guest room. A little spider sent a tremor across the web she'd spun over the windowsill. On the table was a pencil with an almost-worn-down eraser and teeth marks in the wood. I picked it up, rolled it between my fingers, put it back, and went out.

Only two more doors. I knocked on the first, waited, knocked again, and went in. A double bed, a table, and an armchair. An open door led to a small bathroom. The blinds were down, the ceiling light was on. In the armchair was Kaminski.