Jose Somoza - Art of Murder

As he talked, he drew his finger over Clara's features: her forehead, nose, cheeks. His elbow was still resting on her shoulder.

'What terror… what immense terror there will be the day a painter succeeds in making a true work of art of a human being. Do you know what I think that work will be like? Something the whole world will detest. My dream is one day to create a work for which I will be insulted, looked down on, cursed… that day for the first time in my life I will have created art.' He stood back and handed her the robe. 'I'm tired. I'll go on painting you tomorrow.'

He turned his back on her and walked off. Despite the almost total darkness he seemed to know exactly where he was heading. Hands in the pockets of her robe, Clara followed him. She stumbled along, teeth chattering with cold, her body cramped because of the length of time she had stood without moving. Gerardo and Uhl were waiting on the porch. The outdoor lights gave them a golden halo. It was as though nothing had happened: to Clara it seemed as if they were in exactly the same position as before. Gerardo stood with hands on hips. The silent shadow of Murnika de Verne, the Maestro's secretary, loomed in the darkness, in the Mercedes parked outside the house.

Suddenly, as if a thought had just struck him, Van Tysch halted and came back towards them. Clara came to a halt as well.

'Come closer to the car,' Van Tysch said. 'Not too close. Stop there.'

She walked over to the spot he was indicating. The top half of her body was reflected in the dark car door window. 'Look towards the car window.'

She did. All she could see was her own body wrapped in the robe, and her short red hair glowing dully in the darkness. All of a sudden, Van Tysch's wavering shadow appeared alongside her. His voice had an edge of despair to it.

'There! I've seen it again!… In the catalogue photo you are with a mirror. It's mirrors that do it! It's mirrors which produce that in your eyes! I've been a fool! A real fool!'

He grabbed Clara by the arm and dragged her towards the house. He shouted instructions to his assistants, who disappeared inside at full tilt. By the dme Van Tysch and Clara reached the living room, Gerardo and Uhl had placed one of the full-length mirrors in the centre of the room. The painter placed Clara in front of it.

'Was that it?… Was it something so simple I was looking for?. .. No, don't look at me! Look at yourself…' Clara stared at her own face in the glass.

'You look at yourself and you catch fire!’ Van Tysch exclaimed. 'You can't avoid it! You look at yourself and you… you become something else!… Why are you so fascinated by your own image?'

‘I don't know,' she said after a pause. 'Once when I was a child I went into the attic… There was a mirror in there, but I didn't know that… I saw it and got scared…' 'Move back.'

‘What?’

'Move back to the wall, then look at the mirror from there… That's right… perfect, when you look at yourself from a distance, your expression changes… It becomes more intense. When you came too close to the car, it disappeared… Why?… because you need to see yourself from a distance… your distant image… or perhaps it needs to be smaller?… But I also caught a glimpse of that expression when I came up to you in the Plastic Bosl But then there were no mirrors around…!' He stopped and raised his forefinger. ‘I was wearing glasses! Glasses!… What do they mean to you?'

Clara did not think she had jumped at the mention of this word, but Van Tysch had noticed it. He came up to her with his glasses on, took her face in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was almost gentle.

'Tell me, come on, tell me. We all have things inside us – tiny, fragile, domesticated things, like children. They are minute details, but they're more important than all the rest of our lives. I know you're struggling to remember something like that.'

A tiny Clara was staring back at Clara from the lenses of Van

Tysch's glasses. The words came obediently from her mouth, infinitely removed from her obliterated consciousness.

‘Yes, there is something,' she whispered. 'But I never gave it much importance.'

'That is exactly what makes it so important,' said Van Tysch. 'Tell me.'

'One night, my father came into my room… He was already ill by then…'

'Go on. But don't stop looking at yourself in my glasses while you're talking.'

'He woke me up. He woke me up and frightened me. But he was already ill…' 'Go on.' 'He brought his face right up to mine…' 'Did he put a light on?' 'A bedside lamp.' 'Go on. Then what did he do?'

'He brought his face next to mine,' Clara repeated. 'That was all he did. He was wearing glasses. His glasses were very large. Or so they always seemed to me. Very large.' 'And you saw yourself reflected in them.'

'Yes, I think so… Now I remember that… I could see my face in the lenses. For a moment I thought it was a painting: the glasses had a thick frame like a picture frame… and I was inside the glass…' 'Go on! What happened then?'

'My father said some things I didn't understand. "Is something wrong, daddy?" I asked him. But all he did was move his lips. All of a sudden, I don't know why, but I thought it wasn't my father but someone else who was with me. "Daddy, is that you?" I asked him, but he didn't reply. And that scared me even more. I asked again: "Daddy! Please, tell me it's you!" But he didn't respond. I started sobbing as he left the room, and…'

That's perfect,' said Van Tysch. 'You can stop now. That's perfect.' He signalled to Gerardo and Uhl to come over. 'Look at the expression on her face now… A mixture of terror and pity, love and dread. It's perfect. It's come to the surface. I've painted it. It's mine.'

He turned to them and began to give instructions in Dutch. Clara realised he must be talking about the painting. His attitude had completely changed. He was not angry or emotional any more. It was as though he were thinking aloud, absorbed in mere technical problems. Then he fell silent and looked back at Clara. Still fraught by her memories, she could only manage a weak smile.

‘I never thought that something that happened to me as a little girl could mark me especially… I… My father was very sick and. .. that was how he behaved. He didn't mean me any harm… In time I came to understand that…'

'I'm not concerned whether the experience marked you or not’ Van Tysch replied harshly. 'I'm a painter of people, not a psychoanalyst. Anyway, as I've already told you, you don't matter to me in the least, so spare me your crass observations. I've got what I was looking for. We'll put a mirror in front of you, one the public can't see but where you'll be reflected. And that will be it’

He said nothing more to Clara. He gave a few final instructions to Gerardo and Uhl, and left the house. The Mercedes started up. Then there was silence.

She returned from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her hair blonde again, with no eyebrows, her skin primed. Gerardo was sitting on the floor of the living room, leaning against the wall. When he saw her come in, he got up and handed her a folded piece of paper. It was a colour photocopy of a classical painting.

‘I suppose there's no harm you knowing now. It's Susanna Surprised by the Elders. Rembrandt painted it in about 1647. Do you know the story? It's from the Bible…'

He told her it. Susanna was a virtuous young woman married to an equally virtuous young man. Two elderly judges spied on her when she was bathing in the garden of her house. She refused to submit to their demands, and they accused her of adultery. She was condemned to death until Daniel, the wise judge, saved her at the last moment by proving the accusation against her was false.

'In Rembrandt's painting, Susanna, with dark red hair, has just taken all her clothes off apart from a sheet… The two old men can be seen behind her… They are about to fling themselves on her… One of her feet is in the water, as if she had been pushed by one of the old men…'