The Painted Kiss (27 page)

We took Egon Schiele to the Cabaret Fledermaus, which the Wiener Werkstätte had conceived and designed as a sort of clubhouse for the Viennese avant-garde. It had only been open a few weeks and it was impossible to get a table, but Gustav had a standing reservation.

The cabaret was a Josef Hoffmann masterpiece. The walls of the bar were covered with brightly colored and individually decorated ceramic tiles; some people thought they looked like the work of a mental patient. The tiles clashed crazily with the black and white floor tiles. Those same critics who didn’t like the wall tiles said the overall effect was of the world’s fanciest lavatory; but then, there were still a lot of people in Vienna at that time who clung to the heavy drapery school of design. Some people were scandalized that food was served on white tables without tablecloths. Hoffmann loved the scandal and the notoriety; it was great for business.

It was hard to tell what Egon Schiele thought. When he came in the door, half an hour late and with his hair still wet from his bath, though there was a biting wind, he stopped and stared for a moment, then, catching sight of us, proceeded toward us. He said little but drank glass after glass of gin as a band played the latest popular songs. It seemed everyone we knew was there that night: August and Serena Lederer, Fritz Waerndorfer, Berta, Moll, Moser, Alfred Roller, Hoffman; and Gustav made sure that Schiele was introduced to them all as his new protégé. When Moll heard that Gustav had bought two of his drawings, he tried to sign the boy to Gallery Miethke without so much as a peek at his work. The boy said he would think about it. Moll convinced him to come to the gallery with his portfolio the next day. It struck me that the boy was not nearly as grateful or as eager as someone else might have been. It was as if he already knew that the power was all on his side, even though he was a poor drawing student. The sight of Moll, fat and prosperous in an expensive suit, cajoling the skinny boy in a filthy jacket, was quite amusing to me.

Berta appraised the boy and found him arrogant. She bet Hoffmann a set of teaspoons that he would disappear from our world within six months. Moser spoke to him about designing some postcards for the Wiener Werkstätte and he seemed interested in the idea. We ate pumpkin bisque and roasted capon with truffles. When we reached the brandy-soaked apples with ice cream, Gustav asked him what he thought of it all.

“It’s utterly decadent,” said Schiele. I couldn’t tell whether he meant it as a compliment or not.

“Well, that’s Vienna for you,” said Gustav cheerfully. “We’re not Puritans.” He winked at me. “At least not most of us.”

“Lutherans aren’t Puritans and you know it,” I said.

“Of course not,” he said. “Remind me again of the church of your childhood, that lovely empty box.”

“Hoffmann would have loved it,” I said. “Come to think of it, he should design a church.”

“The Palais Stoclet is his church,” said Gustav. “It’s going to cost more money than any church ever has, at least.”

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for it,” said Schiele. “Maybe I’d be better off somewhere in the country, in a little cottage, with plenty of time and space.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Gustav. “Everyone who can help you is here. I want you to submit some work to the show we’re having next year. As many things as you like. Just don’t run away now that we’ve found you.”

What boy, what young, untested artist could resist Gustav’s flattery and charm? Schiele blushed into his drink and promised he would work very hard over the next six months to pull together some work to show.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “About Reform dress. It’s just not selling as well as it should. What if a prominent artist were to design some dresses? Don’t you think more people would buy them?”

“It depends on who the artist is,” said Gustav. “Our friend here might do something really sensational that every lady in Vienna might want to buy.”

“I don’t like clothes,” said Schiele. “I don’t like to look at them, I don’t like to draw them. It’s only when you get someone out of their clothes that you really get something interesting.”

“Well said,” laughed Gustav.

“You could sketch the designs and we could decide together what materials to use. They could be made up at the salon and we could get a mannequin to wear them. Maybe we could have a show.”

“You should make them up for yourself,” Gustav said.

“Are you trying to make me into a model?” I asked. “Why not Elisabeth?” She was our house model. “She’d be a much better advertisement than I would.”

“Not true,” said Gustav. “A designer wearing her own clothes is always the best model.”

“Your clothes,” I said.

“Our clothes,” he said.

After dinner the resident acting company performed satire of current political events. After that, a woman with a rich, darkly colored alto voice sang sad songs until closing time, when Egon Schiele stumbled drunkenly back to his studio and stayed up all night drawing tableaus of the night from memory.

After I had convinced Gustav to put himself into the new painting of the couple embracing, he spent the next few weeks trying to get out of it. He said he could not draw himself.

“You have mirrors,” I said. “Lots of artists use mirrors. Or I could photograph you. Or someone could photograph the two of us and you could paint from the photograph.”

“No,” he said.

“Then I won’t do it,” I said. He pouted. He said he would get his new favorite model, Anna, to do it. He told me how lovely she was, how compliant.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s fine with me if you don’t want me to do it. You asked me, remember?” But after a week or so of this he capitulated.

“Only for you, dear silly,” he said. Dear silly was what he often called me. “Only for you would I subject myself to this torture.”

We worked on putting the pose together. We couldn’t both stand because I was too tall. He had me kneel in profile and then turn my head to face him. I angled my chin up as far as I could and brought my hands to my face. I closed my eyes. He made several days’ worth of sketches of me like that until I started to get impatient and reminded him of his promise.

“Just for a minute,” he said, “just to see what it looks like.” I could hear him setting up the mirrors, one against the wall behind me and one propped up on the easel. Then I felt a hand at the back of my neck and another on my chin. I felt lips on my cheek. Put your hand on mine, he said as he pushed my dress down, off of my shoulder. I opened my eyes and stole a glance in the mirror. I felt oddly detached, as if I were watching strangers courting in the park. I hardly recognized myself in the mirror. It was a calculated pose, a facsimile of love. Gustav wasn’t thinking of love at all when he created the painting. He thought about space and weight, a thousand elements of composition so familiar to him he only registered what was right and what was not.

“Why did you want me to model?” I asked him one day.

He shrugged. “Because it is perfect for you.”

“But why?” I asked. He thought for a moment.

“I wanted someone authentic, he said. “Not too perfect, not too practiced.”

“Thanks,” I say. “You wanted someone graceless and bovine and all your models are far too beautiful and perfect to work.”

He wadded up a piece of drawing paper and tossed it at me. It floated briefly before falling to the floor far short of where I was kneeling and thinking about massaging the awful crick in my neck. “Don’t be difficult,” he said. “You know exactly what I mean.”

And I did.

Gustav usually worked very slowly; some of his paintings took five years to finish, but this one was completed quickly because he wanted to exhibit it in the Vienna Art Show alongside the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. They were a pair, he said, because of the gold, because of the pattern, because of their Byzantine antecedents. I couldn’t help but think, though, that he was working quickly because this painting meant something more to him than the others, that it had personal significance. He wouldn’t let me see it, of course. He said I would have to wait for opening night of the art show like everyone else. Impatiently I waited for the day when I could see what he’d made of us, not just of these awkward modeling sessions, but of all the years that came before.

F
or the first time in a week, it is not raining when I wake up. Helene and I decide to pack a picnic and walk to Schloss Kammer, the nearby castle. Schloss Kammer is a red-roofed stucco villa in the hills above the town, surrounded by trees and carefully tended gardens. Gustav and I used to go there all the time, to paint or sketch. If we were lucky and the tourists stayed away, we could pretend that we were the lord and lady of the castle, inspecting our gardens, admiring our view, and lounging about our grounds. Gustav thought that people and the natural world were both endlessly fascinating, but that they did not belong on the same canvas, so when the tourists were there, we usually turned around and went home. There will be no one else there today, I feel sure. Helene and I will be mistresses of the castle. Though on summer days Gustav and I did not have to contend, as we do now, with the mud.

Helene throws together some bread and cheese sandwiches and we put on our sturdy boots and set off. Our trees have timidly begun to send out the first pale green shoots. The effect is a blurring, as if the bare tree had moved slightly while its photograph was taken. The air smells of manure and new grass. The earthworms have come up and I try not to step on any of them.

We meet no one on the road, and suddenly I realize that it is Sunday. We are the only ones not at church, praying for victory.

After a mile we turn onto the path that takes us up the hill to the castle. It’s a little bit slippery and I’m glad I’ve brought the oak walking stick I found in the greenhouse. Now I have to watch out for slugs. I have no qualms about killing them but I hate the feeling of them under my shoes. There are some limbs down along the path and patches of snow that have refused to melt. After a few minutes I turn around to look at the panoramic view of the mountains, circling Lake Attersee like the jaws of a trap. The clouds press in on the jagged peaks, smooth and white with snow. When it melts in a month or two the meadows will be carpeted with avalanche lilies and gentians, phlox and lady’s slipper.

When we step onto the allée of trees that lead to the entrance I shiver a little, though I’m warm from the climb. The rows of trees on either side of the road create a geometric exercise in perspective and frame the stucco and glass and red tile just beyond like a viewfinder. With each step I see a new picture. This was a favorite spot of Gustav’s. He painted the castle several times from this vantage point, and I can’t be there without seeing his paintings. The real trees are not quite as forbidding as the painted trees. They are spindly, and need pruning. No one is living at the castle now. It was built for a prince in the eighteenth century, and the prince’s descendants are riding out the war in Madagascar. The castle was once scrubbed creamy white, though in Gustav’s paintings it was often golden yellow. Now instead of glowing and beckoning magically it looks sad and ordinary, streaked with grime, the windows shuttered.

We find a spot on the muddy lawn. The grass is matted and yellow. Helene, ever handy, rolls out the canvas tarpaulin she brought.

“I wish we had the roadster,” I say. “The roads are desolate. We could easily reach top speed. We’d never have to brake.”

“What would we do for gasoline?” Helene says. “Even if the car hadn’t been requisitioned?”

“Details, details,” I say.

“We’d get stuck and there’d be no one to push,” Helene says. “That car weighed, what, two tons? We’d never get it out ourselves.”

That’s the difference between Helene and me. She seems content with what the days bring her, while I’m the one who is always wishing for something else, something I can’t have, something there’s no point in missing. She doesn’t remember her father but she looks like him, or what I imagine he might have looked like if he’d been allowed to reach the age of fifty. Her expression is intense and her salt and pepper hair is sliding out of its knot. I take her hand and feel its warmth, its strength.

We sit quietly for a few moments contemplating our little valley. A pair of goats wanders onto the lawn, nosing at the ground, searching for new grass. On the other side of the lake, in Unterach, church is letting out and they are ringing the bell. The tune is Stuttgart. From here the houses look like pastel candies. Everything, the lake, the sky, the air, is a tone of grayish blue. If I were a painter I would use Prussian blue, titanium white, burnt umber. Unlike Gustav I would paint the whole enormous sky, with its distant, icy clouds and its low, wide, blanketing ones. I would paint the reflection of the sky and clouds in the water. But I would include the people in my paintings. There would be a boat in the lake, or more than one. There would be girls bathing on the shore, and families out for a stroll in the town, wearing their Sunday best. The lake wouldn’t fight the people for the viewer’s attention, and the people wouldn’t distort the sky’s cold perfection with their worn shoes and tanned faces.

“Remember the motorboat?” Helene says. “Uncle Gust was so proud of it. The first motorboat in all of Austria!”

“I remember when he almost ran over Heitzmann’s mother with it,” I say. “And when he ran out of gas near St. Wolfgang and had to leave the boat and swim home.”

“How did you get it back?” Helene says, though she knows the story very well.

“I rowed him over,” I say. “He had told me that very morning that we should get rid of the rowboat, that it was obsolete and taking up space in the boathouse. But after that I never heard another word about it.”

Helene pulls out the sandwiches, some apples, and a few squares of chocolate wrapped in foil. God knows where she’s been hiding those. While we eat she asks me for more stories about Gustav, about her mother, about Ernst, and to oblige her I talk and talk until the afternoon is gone.