The Painted Kiss (14 page)

“You would come after me?”

“Like Orpheus going to Hades to rescue Eurydice,” I said.

“Hades,” he said sadly. “I guess that is where I’m going, if there is a God. And if there isn’t I’m going to the same eternal nothingness we’re all going to, which isn’t really that much better.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said. “I need you.”

He stood up. I wasn’t sure whether he was going to strike me or bite my cheek, it really could have been anything, that day, but he kissed me, awkwardly, pressing his closed lips into mine as if they were a piece of overripe fruit I wasn’t sure wasn’t rotten. I didn’t know what to do, what he needed from me. I kissed him back, but gently, as I would my niece, or a kitten I found in an alley. His face was salty.

“No,” he said, “not like that.” He seemed angry at my mistake and grabbed me by the shoulders. The flesh of my upper arms ached with the pressure of his fingers. I would have bruises, thumbprints dark as plums. When he kissed me he breathed into me his desperation and his despair.

“Gustav,” I said, trying to push him back. “You don’t want to do this.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this. And what has stopped me? Propriety? Respect, restraint, honor? She’s just a little girl, I said to myself, I know her parents, I can’t betray their trust. Then, when you were no longer a little girl, I told myself, she’s not of my class, she’s meant to marry someone else and I can’t ruin her future. But what does any of that matter to me now? What does it matter to you?”

I wasn’t sure what mattered to me. Sometimes I still thought I would make a good marriage, have children, do all of the expected things. But home, family, marriage, all of that disappeared from my mind when he touched me.

There wasn’t anything else to say. He backed me toward the modeling platform, yanking off my coat and hat and dropping them to the floor. I thought briefly about dust and pencil shavings, then forgot about them because he was unbuttoning my jacket and pulling at my blouse.

I had thought about this moment a hundred times. It had taken place in the old studio, in his mother’s house, in my house, in a gondola in Venice, and on the back of an elephant in the Belgian Congo. In my imagination all of our lovemaking was characterized by exquisite choreography and calm, deliberate words. It was something like a Bernini sculpture I had seen at the Kunsthistorisches: smooth and cool as marble, soft and gentle, limbs perfectly placed. I had not thought it would be so ugly, so tangled, that his elbow would smash my fingers, that my hair would become caught in one of my fasteners; that it would be more like a disease, dark and insatiable, than a sculpture or a play.

I thought he would be disappointed when he saw me. He had looked at the bodies of so many women who were engaged professionally in the task of being beautiful. I was fatter and softer than Minna, more freckled than Helga. I had a yellow bruise on my thigh from bumping into a table and a mole on my left nipple. With someone else they might not be really looking, really noticing every imperfection, but of course he was, even in the dim light. He wouldn’t miss anything, and so I closed my eyes as he looked at me, not wanting to see his expression.

He moved quickly, smoothing me as if making a bed. His hands were on my cheeks and then around my neck and then pressing into my breasts. I thought I would stop breathing, but he stayed there just a moment before sliding down to my waist and belly. Then his hand was inside of me and I cried out when he stopped, but he rolled me over and examined the back of me, too, running his fingers down my spine. Then his hands were gone and I heard him pulling his smock over his head.

Then it began, and I couldn’t see, only feel, his feverish skin, his weight, a deep pain and tearing and then the rhythmic pounding of my forehead knocking into the floor. I put a hand there to pad it but he took it and slid it underneath me.

“Touch yourself,” he said. “Where I was touching you. It will feel good.” Of course to touch yourself is a terrible sin, but no more terrible than what I was already doing, so it seemed pointless to refuse. He was right. Immediately I felt as if my lower body was paralyzed. All went numb, but at the same time there was an electric charge, like being hit by lightning. And then with a final thrust that I thought would break my insides, his whole body tightened and shook and then he was slumped over me.

I felt that I should cry, it was the thing to do in all of the novels, but my eyes were as dry as bone. I felt scooped out, gutted as a trout. My skin burned where his beard had rubbed into it. I looked over at the ruined canvas. One of the torn flaps lay face up on the floor, and one of my sister’s cobalt eyes stared across the room at me. Gustav slid from inside of me and rolled onto his back.

I must have slept because when I opened my eyes there was a blanket on me and Gustav was sitting cross-legged next to me, stroking my arm.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“I’m not sick,” I said, though I was beginning to be. The enormity of what I’d done was sinking in.

“You do know what to do?” he said. I knew what he meant and I turned away from him, ashamed.

“To prevent pregnancy,” he said. He was going to teach me the trick that whores knew.

“This is very important. When you get home, you must fill a bottle with vinegar and douse yourself inside. Do it again tomorrow. Do you understand?” I moved my head up and down, and he patted me on the back, through the blanket, as though we were talking about a telegram I must send to Franz or a cake I must order from the bakery.

“I’ll light the fire and we can sit awhile before we dress.” He got up and walked naked to the fireplace. I couldn’t help watching him; after all, he had studied me but I had not had as much as a glimpse of him. He was beginning to be heavy in the middle, not fat or misshapen, but solid, like the chief of a tribe who gets the choicest parts of the kill. There were gray hairs mixed with the dark ones on his chest. His penis dangled between his thighs, small and tender-looking now, pink and innocent as a newborn puppy.

He came back to the platform and sat down with his back to me. I was afraid to touch it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was insanity, what I did. Please forgive me.”

“It was grief,” I said. “But don’t be sorry.”

“It won’t change anything,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a consolation or a warning.

“No,” I said.

H
ow could we go on with the drawing lessons after that, as if nothing had happened? We could not. I had finished school, and Gustav was extremely busy. I was far enough along in my training that I could sketch on my own. But it was equally unthinkable that we should not see each other, and together we found a solution: we would take French lessons together. Gustav was worried that his bad French would make his travels more difficult, his correspondence with French artists more awkward, and compromise his work in Belgium. My French was competent, but I was unhappy with my pronunciation. And so we went weekly to Madame Czerny on Karntnerstrasse. Afterward we always went to a café for a couple of hours, and Gustav talked about his work.

He pretended that nothing had happened, and returned to his old ways, brother to my sister, uncle to my niece, teacher to my pupil, and I tried to pretend that it was what I wanted, too. It was as if the grief were an opiate and now that it had worn off a little he wanted to believe that it had been the drug and not himself that was to blame.

I was going to say that it was easy, effortless, but of course that is a lie. I’m forgetting how he came to me in my dreams, night after night, real as life: red smock, thick fingers, an inexplicable daub of titanium white on the back of his neck. Night after night he came. He was painting in the studio with his back to me. I talked to him and he didn’t answer. He just kept painting. Or, I was at the window of the apartment, waiting for him. He was late. Anxiously I watched the street below. I contemplated sending a telegram. It was not like him not to let me know if his plans changed. And then I saw him, parading below with a circus menagerie of models and prostitutes and washerwomen around him. They were dressed in every conceivable color and style of costume, flounces, ruffles, trains, leg-o’-mutton sleeves, batwing sleeves, petticoats, every possible embellishment and waste of fabric. They held his hand, tugged at his coat, hung on his shoulder. They laughed with painted lips. I called down to him. For a moment he looked up and saw me. He waved. And then he walked on. Over and over I dreamed about him rejecting me in a hundred different ways. Each time I would wake up terrified, the tears I refused to shed while I was awake leaking onto my pillow in sleep.

I really should have guarded my propriety even more carefully than ever after what had happened, but the hypocrisy of it all exhausted me. If people were whispering they were only saying what was true, so why try to pretend?

After Ernst’s death Gustav became even more impatient with the politics of being a successful academic painter, and bored with what was expected of him. He seemed almost reckless in his disregard for his more conventional clients, including the Ministry of Education. At the same time, he had not fully shaken the desire to be liked, and the desire to be lauded and praised. He worried that the committee the ministry had picked would dislike his sketches. My usual role was to listen and try to reassure him.

“They picked you, didn’t they?” I said one day as we sat in the Café Sperl. I put a piece of marzipan on my tongue and let it slowly dissolve.

“Jodl mentioned the School of Athens as a model,” Gustav groaned. “He’ll be the worst.” We wrote down the names of the committee members on a damp paper napkin. We were in the process of ranking them, from most supportive to most contentious, when the door to the café opened and a blast of cold air carried in a thin man with a stiff, pointed mustache. He glanced about the café and when he saw Gustav, gave a little bow and headed toward our table.

“Well, Herr Klimt,” said the man. He waved the
Neue Freie Presse
at us as if nothing more needed to be said.

“Herr Hoffmann, Emilie Flöge, a friend of the family. Emilie, may I present Josef Hoffmann, architect,” said Gustav. “He works with Otto Wagner.”

“The great Otto Wagner,” corrected Hoffmann, “and I only work for him, though one day I do hope to be able to say that I work with him. I’m sorry to say that the day does not appear to be imminent. May I sit down?” Without waiting for an answer he slid into one of the wrought iron chairs and hailed a waiter. “Mocha,” he said. “With three sugars and extra whipped cream. And a piece of this torte the young lady has. I have the constitution of a hummingbird,” he explained to us. “I have to eat continually just keep the flesh on my bones. Now. What I wanted to discuss. This last meeting we had, when the officers rejected the idea of bringing some of the work of the Nabis here.” He paused for breath. “What did you think?”

“I thought it was even worse that they refused to sponsor a show of younger artists,” said Gustav. “Vienna is already backward, now it is getting a reputation as being hostile to artists.”

“Exactly,” said Hoffmann. “The last thing we want; all the talent will leave, go to Paris or Berlin. The Kunstlerhaus is completely moribund, and why not? The same white-haired men have been running it for fifty years! The last French painting they looked at was a Bouguereau. They still think of themselves as young artists!” His mocha and cake arrived, and he began to take large bites and wash them down with long slurps.

For some time Gustav had treated me as an intellectual equal and so I was not afraid to speak my mind. “Why don’t you overthrow them, the old men?” I asked.

“It’s not that simple,” said Hoffmann, with a surprised look at Gustav. “They’ve been elected to their positions. The next election is two years away.”

“With enough supporters you could stage a coup,” I said. Both men stared at me with bemusement, and, was it admiration? “Why not?” I said.

“You didn’t tell me your young friend was a revolutionary,” said Hoffmann, laughing. “She has the right spirit.”

“Some of us have been meeting separately,” said Gustav. “Me, Moll, a few others. You should join us.”

“You’re a step ahead of me,” said Hoffmann. “I was going to ask if you wanted to get some people together. I’d be happy to join you, and I’ll ask Olbrich to come, too. I think he’ll have some good ideas.”

His plate as empty as mine, he drained his coffee and stood up. “I have to meet with a construction crew for an apartment building over by the Naschmarkt. What a bore, they always tell me what I want can’t be done.” He waved his hand and was gone. We sat for a minute and caught our breath.

“Well done, Emilie,” Gustav said. “I’ve never seen Hoffmann look so flabbergasted. You’ve become quite the provocateur.”

I asked if I could come to the meeting, but Gustav said he was afraid to bring me, for fear I’d be running the group by the end of the evening. It was an affectionate joke, and I smiled. But what he meant was that I was a girl and not an artist, not a real artist. I was a dilettante who made pretty sketches. As such, I was not invited.

It took a week and two pieces of caramel cake for me to forgive Gustav. It shames me now that I was so cheaply bought. Gustav knew that downcast eyes, sorrowful mea culpas, and an artful application of cocoa and sugar could not fail to melt my heart. Then he left on a trip to Italy. He was gone for several months, but he wrote me postcards constantly, sometimes five or six in a day. The weather in Italy was terrible: infernally hot and dry. It irritated his lungs. The bread was excellent but the sweets left a lot to be desired. He did not like ricotta cheese. The art was fine, but he couldn’t wait to return to Vienna, he said.

The day after he got back we meant to go to the opera. He had very good seats and it was
La Traviata,
one of my favorites, but that afternoon a card came from the studio, saying that it was going well and he had to stay there. It was typical of him, and though I was disappointed, I was not surprised. I went instead with Pauline and two of her friends.

Though I didn’t play or sing especially well I was a typical Viennese: passionate about the opera. The opera house was brand-new and bright with gilt. The carvings were so intricate that each time I came I chose a column or a ceiling panel to study at intermission. The opera was an event and I enjoyed every part of it: my hand running along the cool yellow marble of the grand staircase; opening the red velvet door to our box and hanging my cloak in the vestibule; looking out across the crowd at faces familiar from newspapers; looking out at the city from the balcony and in at the crowd through my mother-of-pearl opera glasses, a gift from my parents on my last birthday.

Once settled in my seat I scanned my program excitedly to see who was playing. Then Katharina, to my left, whispered in my ear.

“Isn’t that Klimt over there?” she hissed. I turned my opera glass in the direction she had pointed. Gustav was in a box with a young woman in a very large, very ugly green tulle hat. She lifted her chin and laughed at something Gustav said. The light reflecting off her bright hair made her gleam like a Christmas tree ornament. Her lacy dress was very snug. She lifted her eyes and stopped as if she recognized me. I was temporarily blinded by a piercing ray of malice.

“Who’s he with?” someone asked me. “She’s stunning.”

“I don’t know,” I said, not hearing myself speak.

“It’s Alma Schindler,” Katharina said.

“You know her?”

“Not personally, but she’s the talk of the town these days.”

“What has she done?” asked Pauline, knowing that I could not ask.

“It’s mostly what Klimt did. You don’t know about it? I thought you would since you’re such friends of his.”

“Perhaps he was embarrassed to tell us,” said Pauline. “It sounds scandalous.”

“I should say it is,” said Katharina, obviously enjoying her role as storyteller. “He followed her to Italy against the wishes of her family and declared his love on the steps of some church or other and would have run off with her if her stepfather hadn’t put a stop to it. They are forbidden to see each other. Isn’t that romantic?”

Mahler had entered and everyone was applauding. I felt my sister take my hand.

“I heard they were engaged,” said the girl on my right. “Maybe they’ll have to elope. Maybe the scandal will drive them to leave Vienna and live abroad.”

I hardly noticed the music during the first act. I unpicked all of the trimming on the left sleeve of my dress, until there was a ball of blue silk floss in my lap. I told myself that Gustav was free to fall in love, and with whomever he chose. What had happened between us was a mistake, an aberration, a dream. The opera was a kaleidoscope, indistinct shards of color. My eyes returned again and again to the box on the other side of the theater. Alma Schindler. I began on the other sleeve.

At the intermission I led Pauline out to the balcony for fresh air. I had been going to look at one of the frescoes in the drawing room, but now I couldn’t. I couldn’t even breathe properly. Across the Ring I could see the lights of our district. I looked in the direction of home, trying to pick out which was ours. More than anything I wanted to jump off of the balcony and fly there. Pauline must have sensed what I was thinking because she was holding my wrist so tightly she stung the skin.

On the stairs we ran into Gustav. He was getting a drink for his companion, who was waiting in the box.

“Miss Schindler is writing an opera based on Nietzsche’s writings,” he said, smiling nervously. “She wants me to design the sets and costumes.”

“So this is research,” said Pauline.

“Yes,” he said neutrally.

“Well then, we won’t keep you.” Pauline bowed and led me out onto the terrace.

“What do you want to do?” she asked. “Do you want to leave?” I could only nod. She left me there and went back to our box to collect our coats. She told her friends that I was ill, and if they exchanged knowing glances among themselves she didn’t mention it. We waited on the terrace until the house lights went down and then slipped through the empty lobby and away. On the carriage ride home I stared unseeing out of the window, lost in my thoughts.

So Pauline had been right after all. I was in love with him. I didn’t want to be; I wanted to be in love with someone my own age, someone shy and earnest who would send me flowers or try to ingratiate himself with my father, not someone old and libertine, someone who would never marry me, someone who would doom me to a childless life of spinsterhood. Hadn’t Gustav said that I was too sensible for that?

Pauline, to her credit, didn’t gloat, but led me up the stairs and put me in bed. She rubbed my back until I fell asleep, and in the morning got up early to make cinnamon bread for me. She brought me magazines and chocolate-covered cherries and a bouquet of irises, as if I were an invalid.