Jose Somoza - Art of Murder

He kept his bare black and bronze painted feet well away from the smooth track Habib's vacuum cleaner was making. He got on very well with the cleaning foreman on that floor. Before coming to Munich, Habib had lived in Avignon, and Weiss, who knew and admired that city (he had twice been exhibited in a gallery on the banks of the Rhone), liked to offer the Moroccan cleaner beer and cigarettes, and to practise his French. Habib the Great also went in for Zen meditation, which was guaranteed to endear him to Marcus. The two of them shared their books and thoughts.

That night though all he said to Habib was goodbye. He was in a hurry.

Would she be waiting for him? He hoped so, because he could not bear to think otherwise. They had met the previous evening, but Marcus had enough experience to know she was not the kind to take things lightly. Whoever she might be, and whatever she wanted from him, Brenda was serious about it.

He walked down the stairs to the bathroom on the second floor. Sieglinde, who was Dryad by Herbert Rinsermann, was already bent over the wash basin when Marcus came in. She had her head under the tap and was briskly rubbing her hair. Her athletic figure was like a flesh longbow, without an atom of fat. The fake brambles that were wrapped around her in the work were now propped against the wall, glistening with red points of artificial blood. The intricate swirl of Rinsermann's signature decorated her left ankle. Marcus and Sieglinde had met two years earlier during classes Ludwig Werner had held in Berlin for canvases of all ages. They had been friends ever since. Now they had coincided again in the Max Ernst gallery.

Marcus bent over next to her, taking care not to damage his plume of feathers, and boomed out a greeting.

'Good evening.'

Sieglinde's face emerged from the water, streaked with tiny pearls.

'Hi there, Marcus! How are things?'

'Not too bad,' he smiled enigmatically as he removed his crest. 'You're very pleased with yourself today. Has someone bought you?' In your dreams.' 'Another original in sight then?'

'Maybe.'

Sieglinde turned towards him, hands and buttocks pressed against the edge of the washbowl. Her short hair was like a wet golden helmet. She looked at Weiss with all the mockery of a smart nineteen-year-old.

'Hey, that's great. I'm fed up with seeing you painted bronze. And might I be allowed to know the name of the artist who wants to go down in history by doing something with you, Mr Weiss?' 'Mind your own business,' Marcus said, only half jokingly.

Sieglinde burst out laughing and carried on drying herself. Marcus went into the shower and hung a bottle of solvent on the taps. The oil paint on his body began to wash down below his knees. He turned and splashed in the welcome, pleasurable jet of water. Through the half-open door he caught glimpses of Sieglinde's anatomy, brief flashes of her youthful muscles. Ah youth, a point of no return, he thought. They buy you more quickly and pay more when you're a young canvas. He recalled that Rinsermann had been able to sell Sieglinde as a seasonal outdoor piece to an ancient Bavarian family. It's never easy to sell a seasonal work, because they are on show for only a few months each year, the summer in Dryad's case. Marcus had seen the work several times. He did not particularly like Rinsermann, but he thought Dryad was quite good. It was a sort of wood nymph painted in diluted orange, ochre and pink tones, and covered in brambles whose thorns were apparently caught in the naked body. The expression on the work's face was a triumph: a mixture of fear, surprise and pain. But in Marcus' opinion, the best thing about the work was its owner. One of those a painting only meets once every ten years or so. Not only had he decided to install Sieglinde in his garden for three years before he substituted her (which meant steady work for three months and the possibility of more the rest of the year) but he also saw no problem with lending her for temporary exhibitions in the city, like this one at the Max Ernst, which allowed Sieglinde to earn an extra one thousand five hundred and thirty-two euros a month as a sold work. Weiss was pleased for her, but could not deny feeling a sharp stab of envy. His friend's face radiated with the happy glow of a bought canvas. But no one wanted to play with Do You Want to Play With Me? He was convinced Kate would not manage to sell him this time either. Was that Kate's fault or his?

He turned off the shower and looked down at his body, feeling its contours with his hands. He kept fit, of course. His muscles, faithful, well-trained dogs that they were, continued their endless task of construction. People like Kate Niemeyer would go on painting him (or at least, so he believed) for a few more years, but he knew that at forty-three he should be thinking of a different career. The market for human ornaments was growing irresistibly. Collectors privately amassed Chairs, Pedestals, Tables, Flower Vases and Carpets, and firms such as Suke, Ferrucioli Studio or the Van Tysch Foundation designed, sold and used flesh and blood ornaments every day. Sooner or later it was bound to become legal for these objects to be sold openly, because otherwise, where did old canvases and the young ones who did not make it as works of art have to go? Marcus suspected he would end up being sold as an ornament for some merry spinster's home. Why not take a souvenir from Germany with you, madam? Here's Marcus Weiss, with lovely nacreous buttocks, a fine Aryan object that would fit in nicely alongside your chimneypiece.

Weiss had only a few more opportunities left. Opportunities are points too, atoms, interconnecting lines, tiny, invisible dots, the remains of nothingness. How many had he missed? He had lost count. He had been a model from the age of seventeen. He had studied HD art in his home town of Berlin, and had worked for some of the best artists of his generation. Then suddenly it had all gone sour. He started turning down offers, partly because he want to live in peace. He liked being a painting, but not enough to sacrifice all his love life for it. He was well aware that masterpieces live alone, isolated, and don't get married or have children, don't even love or hate, don't enjoy life or suffer. True masterpieces like Gustavo Onfretti, Patricia Vasari or Kirsten Kirstenman could scarcely be called people: they had given everything – body, mind and spirit – to artistic creation. Marcus Weiss missed life too much, and perhaps that was the reason he had slowed down. And now it was too late to change things. The worst of it was that he was still on his own. So he was not a masterpiece, but he wasn't the human being he would have liked to have been either. He hadn't achieved one thing or the other.

He got nervous when he calculated that what Brenda was going to propose that evening might well be his last real opportunity.

As he was leaving, he found Sieglinde waiting for him at the changing-room exit. They often left together. They walked down the stairs with their rucksacks on their backs: he was carrying his Aztec headdress of artificial parrot feathers, she had the brambles. The labels on their wrists clinked as they descended the stairs. Sieglinde did the talking: Marcus gave only monosyllabic replies. He felt increasingly nervous. If Brenda had not kept her word, if she was not waiting for him outside as she had promised, he could say goodbye to that last big chance.

He decided he should say something, to avoid any indiscreet question from his friend.

'Guess what? This afternoon a nine- or ten-year-old girl stood looking at me for half an hour at least. I don't understand what's going on. The laws against child pornography get tougher and tougher, but there's no one to prevent any kid walking into an adult gallery.'

'You know we're considered as artistic heritage, Marcus. Kids can go and see Michelangelo's David, so why shouldn't they see Do You Want to Play With Me? as well? That would be discrimination.'