The True Deceiver (17 page)

They had been sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the little table that stood against the wall. Anna stared at Katri, and it suddenly seemed to her that she had never seen a sadder human being than Katri Kling. “Are you trying to be nice to me?” she asked.

“Now you’re suspicious,” Katri said. “But there’s one thing you can believe. I never try to be nice. I’ll repeat what I said until you believe me.”

“But then I can never believe you again?”

“No. You can’t.”

Anna leaned across the table and said, “Katri, there is something about you that’s too…” she searched for the word “… absolute. And it leads nowhere. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to go and lie down for a while?” She put her hand on Katri’s. “Just for an hour or two. Then maybe we can make sense of all this.”

“Too absolute?” Katri said. “And it leads nowhere?” She put out her cigarette. “If anyone is absolute, it’s you. And it leads straight where you want it to lead. I know it. I’ll write you a letter.”

“No more letters…”

“Just the one. And you’re not allowed to stuff it in your cupboard. I’ll prove to you that I was wrong. You said so yourself. I can calculate and I can prove. You’ll be convinced right down to the last detail that I was wrong.”

“Katri,” Anna said. “Couldn’t you go and take a little nap? It’s been a long day.”

“Yes,” Katri said. “It has been long. I’ll go.”

W
HEN
K
ATRI RETURNED TO HER ROOM
, she pulled her suitcase out from under the bed. She opened it, then just sat on the edge of the mattress and listened. The evening was very quiet. But the tranquil silence gave her no help in deciding what she had to do. Words and pictures – unspoken or hasty words, unseen or overly explicit pictures – tumbled through her mind and the only image that ultimately stuck was the dog, a dog running on and on without rest under the ominous ensign of the wolf skin.

One important and carefully considered morning, Anna went out very early to work. She had picked the spot the day before and carried out a stool low enough to sit on and still have her paintbox and her water cup within reach. Anna didn’t use an easel. Easels seemed to her an altogether too assertive aid, too obvious. She liked to work as unobtrusively as possible, the paper spread on a board in her lap, close to her hand. The light is best in the morning, or in the evening when the colours deepen, and one has to work fast before the shadows fade and vanish.

Anna sat and waited for the morning mist to draw off through the woods. The silence she needed was complete. And when every bothersome element had departed, the forest floor emerged, moist and dark and ready to burst with all the things waiting to grow. Cluttering the ground with flowery rabbits would have been unthinkable.