Art of Murder (33 page)
She sat down and pulled the plastic cover off her tray. Her meal consisted of two triangles of sandwich with some kind of mayonnaise at the edges, grapes, wholemeal bread, margarine, cream cheese, a salad, a herb tea and an Aroxen juice with added vitamins. Before she picked up a sandwich, she took her prescribed pills with a sip of mineral water. Gerardo was busy devouring a slice of pizza.
They started to chat. He praised her quiescence, and asked who her teachers had been. She told him about Cuinet and Klaus Wedekind, and of the week she had spent in Florence working as a sketch for Ferrucioli. She could only eat very slowly, nibbling small pieces of sandwich, because the oil paint on her face pulled at her jaws, and she did not want to spoil it. As she was spreading a thick layer of margarine on the bread, she tried out a smile with her freshly drawn lips.
'Don't be mean. Tell me what you're doing with me.'
'Painting you,' replied Gerardo.
She stifled a laugh, but insisted.
'No, seriously. I'm going to be one of the works in the "Rembrandt" collection, aren't I?'
'I'm sorry, sweetheart, I can't tell you.'
‘I
don't want to know which figure I am, or the title of the painting. Just tell me if I'm going to be a "Rembrandt". '
'Listen, the less you know about what you're doing, the better, right?'
'OK. Sorry'
Suddenly she felt embarrassed at having insisted. She did not want Gerardo to get the impression she thought he was more malleable than Uhl, easier to get artistic secrets out of.
They fell silent. Gerardo was playing with the top of a bottle of Coca-Cola he was drinking. He seemed out of sorts.
'Did my question upset you?' she asked concernedly.
His reply cost him a great effort, as though it was a difficult but unavoidable question.
'No. It's just that I'm a bit annoyed
..
. not with you though, with Justus. The same old thing. I told you he has a very special character. I know him well by now of course, but sometimes I find it hard to take
...'
'How long have you worked together?'
Three years. He's a good painter - I've learnt a lot from him.' He looked towards the bright midday of the window. In profile, his face still seemed very attractive to Clara. 'But we have to do everything he says. Everything.'
He turned to look at her, as if those last words concerned her much more than him.
'He's in charge,' he added.
'He's your boss.'
'And yours, don't forget.'
Clara nodded, rather disconcerted. She did not know quite how to interpret what he had just said. Was it a warning? A piece of advice? She recalled the strange examination Uhl had given her the day before. When Gerardo said she had to do everything Uhl ordered, was he only talking about painting?
She finished the slice of wholemeal bread and picked up a grape in her shiny pink fingers. Seeing the curtains at the kitchen window, she remembered what had happened the night before. To change topics, she decided to mention it.
'Listen, there's something that
...'
She stopped, and pushed the pips out of the grape. Gerardo stared inquisitively at her.
'Yes?'
'Oh, it's nothing really.'
That doesn't matter, tell me anyway.'
He leaned towards her, elbows on the table. He seemed genuinely interested. Clara was touched by his apparent concern, and decided to tell him everything.
Tast night there was someone prowling outside the house.
Once when the timer went off I saw him looking in through the window. Then he vanished.'
Gerardo was staring at her.
'Don't tease.'
'I'm serious. It scared me to death. I went to the window and couldn't see anyone, but I'm sure I didn't dream it.'
That's strange
...'
Gerardo stroked his moustache and chin in a way Clara had already noticed. 'There are no other people round here, only farms the Foundation owns.'
'But I'm sure I heard footsteps close to the window.'
'And you went over but didn't see anyone?'
'Aha.'
The young painter looked thoughtful. He pushed around some pizza crumbs. Under the shirtsleeve at the top of his left biceps, she caught sight of a tattoo.
'Maybe it was someone from Security. They sometimes patrol the farms to make sure the canvases are all right
...
Yes, I'm sure it was someone from Security.'
'Are there canvases in the other farms then?'
‘Y
ou bet, sweetheart. We're full. Lots of canvases, lots of work.'
The thought that it might have been someone from Security reassured her, and did not seem at all unlikely. She was about to ask more when a shadow appeared between the light and them. Uhl had come into the kitchen. Clara realised something was wrong almost before she saw him. The painter was staring at her, face twisted with disgust, and muttering in unintelligible Dutch.
'What's he saying?' she asked.
Before Gerardo had the chance to reply, Uhl did something extraordinary. He took hold of the lapels of Clara's robe and tugged at them with all his might. His movement was so violent and unexpected that he pulled her to her feet, and she knocked the chair over. Uhl grabbed the robe belt and untied it. Clara's quivering breasts were exposed.
'Hey, what are you doing?' shouted Clara.
Gerardo had also stood up, and appeared to be arguing with Uhl. But it was obvious that the older man was winning. Stunned rather than angry, Clara closed the robe over her body. She could see that some of the paint on her stomach was smudged.
'No, no. Take it off,' Gerardo snapped. Take the robe off?'
'Yes, take it off. You're not supposed to be wearing anything, OK? The colours are very sensitive and could be damaged. I should have told you before. Justus is right. I
...'
Uhl interrupted him, slapping the wall impatiently right next to Clara's head, as though to hurry her up.
'What's the matter?' she said indignantly. 'What kind of behaviour is this? I'm taking it off, dammit! See?'
Uhl snatched the robe from her and stormed out of the kitchen. Clara was fuming.
'What's his problem?' she asked.
'Go on eating and don't say a word. He has his ways, that's all.'
For a moment she caught Gerardo's gaze, and through her emerald-green corneas defied him to repeat that absurd phrase. 'He has his ways.' She did not know what most irritated her: Uhl's crazy behaviour or his assistant's submissive attitude. Then she decided to give in, reasoning that in any case she was only the canvas. She bent down, snatched up the chair and sat her sticky wet buttocks on the edge of the seat. She unscrewed the top of her Aroxen drink. Nothing has happened, she told herself. If the paint gets spoilt, that's their fault.
Gerardo did not say anything more. He finished his meal, and they went back to work.
The sun had moved round the window, so they lit the sidelight and tested the shadows and effects in silhouette. Clara was still stunned. Her initial disgust had given way to a sense of astonishment at Uhl's weird attitude. She seriously wondered whether he was ill. Neither of the painters said a word to her. It seemed obvious that the incident had affected the play of forces in their unstable triangle: Uhl was still hard as flint, while Gerardo had apparently taken on the role of shock absorber between the two of them. Although he did not speak, every time he came close to change her position he tried to smile, as if saying: Just be patient. If we're on the same side, it'll be better. But this newly discovered sympathy was even more unbearable than Uhl's ridiculous conduct.
In mid-afternoon there was another break. Gerardo told her there was a juice and an infusion in the kitchen. She did not feel like either, but Gerardo insisted quite forcefully. She, of course, made no attempt to put the robe on again. She went into the kitchen and found the juice, but the sachet of herbs was on the edge of the saucer, and the cup was empty. She filled it with mineral water and put it in the microwave. She did not feel at all cold or uncomfortable standing there completely naked, only rather strange: she was used to wearing some protection when she had a break and her body was painted, so the order to remain nude still surprised her. While the microwave hummed in the background, she looked at the landscape she could see out of the triangular gap in the curtains: she caught sight of tree trunks, a hedge in the distance, a path. It looked as though they were very isolated.
The microwave pinged. Clara opened the door and reached for the steaming cup.
At that moment, a shadow flitted past her.
It was Uhl. He was wiping his hands on a rag, and did not even look at her as he came in. She turned the other way as well. She put the cup in its saucer and tore the sachet open. Uhl was moving around behind her. She had no idea what he was up to. She guessed he had come to get something out of the fridge, but did not hear the door. She became edgy as the silence continued. She was about to turn round to see what Uhl was doing, when all of a sudden she felt a hand between her thighs.
She started, and turned her head. She saw Uhl's eyes deep in his glasses only an inch from her face. Almost at once, his other hand gripped the back of her neck and forced her to go on looking to the front. She heard his hoarse Spanish:
'Don't move.'
She decided to obey without asking anything. The situation did not surprise her too much. In theory, she was a canvas. In theory, he was a painter. In theory, the painter could touch the canvas he was working on at any time and in any way he felt inclined to. She had no idea what kind of work they might be doing: perhaps even the fact of seizing her so brutally in the kitchen was part of it.
She breathed in to relax herself, and stayed with her hands on the edge of the sink. The fingers were feeling the inside of her left thigh very slowly, but because she was covered in oil paint, the sensation she got was not one of fingers touching her. She did not for example feel the warmth or cold of someone else's skin, or the extra sensations she might get from being stroked: it was simply the presence of two or three blunt objects moving over her flesh. They could just as well have been paint brushes.
The hand continued to climb; the other one was still gripping her left shoulder roughly. Clara tried to distance herself from those fingers which were not fingers or human flesh, but jointed rubber tubes climbing - still very calmly and gently - up the most sensitive part of her thigh. She wanted to believe it all had an artistic purpose. She knew the boundary was very difficult to establish: Vicky, for example, was constantly crossing it in both directions. The other humiliating possibility - that Uhl was abusing his position - would have led her to violently reject it. But so far she did not want to imagine this was the case.
So she stayed as still as she could, controlling her breathing, even though she knew what was the final and obvious destination of those fingers. The blue of the window, which she looked at steadily, hurt her eyes.
He's in ch
arge. He's a very strange man, b
ut he's in charge.
Could Gerardo have been preparing her for something he knew was going to happen?
The fingers spread out over her sex. Clara clenched her muscles. The fingers brushed lightly against the lips, but hesitated, as though waiting for some kind of reaction. But Clara had made up her mind not to move, to do nothing. She stood still, her legs slightly open (a triangle), her back to the painter. She held her breath, and all at once felt the fingers move away. The hand on her shoulder also disappeared. She turned her head, wondering what he would do next. Uhl was simply staring at her. His thick glasses and prominent forehead made him look like some monstrous insect. He was panting. His eyes were wild. A moment later, he left the kitchen. She heard him talking to Gerardo in the living room. She waited a few seconds, finished preparing her drink still looking towards the door, and drank it as though it were a bitter medicine. Then she did a few simple relaxation exercises.
When Gerardo called her back to work, she felt a lot more composed.
Nothing else happened that afternoon. Uhl did not touch her again, and Gerardo only gave her brusque orders. But while she was posing motionless and covered in paint, her mind was racing. Why did Uhl behave the way he did? Was he trying to abuse her, to frighten her, to stretch her the way Brentano did?
The only way for an artwork to behave in this confused, almost dreamlike world of body painting was to stay stretched and develop strategies for not surrendering, if things got any worse.
