Kerry Postle - The Artist’s Muse

This is my first time and I don’t really like it. I don’t really like it at all.

There’s a knock at the studio door.

Nobody responds to it. Nobody moves towards it. But like the school bell at the end of a lesson I have now had my concentration broken. All I want to do is go out and play. ( Oh, if only .) My trance shattered, all I want to do is stop. Another louder knock follows. Still no response from either artist or Hilde – though as I look towards her I see that Hilde is now starting to look restless too. Then an urgent longer set of knocks hammers down upon the door, this time accompanied by a woman’s voice, shrill with anger, calling, ‘Gustav? Gustav? I know you’re in there. It’s time to go.’

At this, at last, the grizzled artist grumpily sets down his tools and holds up his sketches for inspection. He gets up and for a moment I am concerned that I won’t do. That he will rush off without a word. Relief that it’s over and panic that it might never happen again surge through me.

Hilde taps his arm. ‘She’ll do,’ she tells him, stroking the back of his neck affectionately.

‘She will,’ he says, before brushing her off and opening the studio door only to close it immediately after him.

For the moments that follow Hilde and I don’t move, concentrating as we are on the woman’s voice, which gets louder as she harangues the artist for making her wait, for not answering the door, for ignoring her, for making them late for their French class. ‘It just won’t do.’ Her voice continues to fill the space until it slips away along the corridor and – slam – out of the front door. And still we follow its shrill now wordless sound until it disappears completely.

And we laugh.

Chapter 5

As I leave the studio I run home in the dark, conscious of my limbs, my breathing, how I hold my head. I imagine that I am the most supple of dancers leaping her way effortlessly home. I will myself to ‘shine from within’ but rapidly think better of this as it occurs to me that it doesn’t do, even with my key clutched in my hand for protection, to shine too brightly down secluded side streets. Once home, I fall back against the closed front door, panting with relief. And I smile.

‘So, how was it?’ Frau Wittger shouts down the stairs, wanting to know how I’ve got on before she’s even seen me.

I leap up the stairs with excitement. ‘I’ve done it. I’ve done it,’ I shout. ‘I’m going to be an artist’s model.’ I can’t wait to see Mama’s face light up, if only a little, at the news and I bound into the bedroom. Olga and Frieda are asleep. Mama isn’t there.

For a moment I am worried until Frau Wittger calls out in a loud whisper, ‘She’s here with us in the kitchen.’ Frau Wittger and Mama are sitting around the kitchen table, a lit candle in the middle, shedding just enough light to reveal the pained look of anguish on my mother’s face. The flame flickers, accentuating the hollows of her already sunken cheeks, exaggerating her expression of self-sacrifice. Although it’s not herself she’s sacrificed. She says nothing.

‘So, girl,’ Frau Wittger asks, looking for details, ‘how was it at the studio?’ But as she pulls the tone up so my mother drags it down with her air of self-pity.

I can’t answer. The weight of expectation. The burden of disappointment. These are my mother’s gifts to me. I return home with news of a job but all she can do is sit and look sorry for herself. I’ve done it for her, all for her. Can’t she see how afraid I am of the cloven-hoofed, coarse-haired artist in the dirty smock? And to know that I’d brightened her life just a little, made her smile even for the briefest of moments, would make it all worthwhile.

‘What’s his name? What’s he like? Is he any good?’ Katya is still up. She should have gone to bed with Olga and Frieda three hours earlier, but she’s strong-willed, stronger-willed than our mother, and that’s why she’s sitting at the table asking the questions. Perhaps it’s my mother who should have gone to, or rather stayed in, bed. Katya is eleven years old, with light brown hair, her moon face a waxing, waning crescent as she shifts her head excitedly in the candlelight, waiting for my answers.

‘He’s the best artist in all of Vienna,’ Frau Wittger answers for me, trying to engage my mother. ‘His name is Gustav Klimt. Don’t you recall? I told you.’

‘Really?’ says Mother, vague. ‘I can’t remember.’ And distant.

‘You’ve heard of him,’ the older woman insists. And with that the licking flames from Frau Wittger’s tongue set about melting the frozen pinnacles of the iceberg that is my mother.

With burning promises and incandescent claims she makes me believe that I’m the luckiest girl in the world. ‘Vienna is plastered all over with his name … His work is everywhere. You’ve got to see his murals in the Burgtheater, the Beethoven Frieze in that new white building, then there’s the paintings he’s done for the university – although I think there’s been a little to-do over them. Anyway, he’s on his way to painting the entire city. Then there’s a list of society ladies as long as your arm all waiting to get done by him. Herr Bloch-Bauer, you know, the man who made his money in sugar – him – well he wants Klimt to do his wife an’ all. Not sure if he already has? But just think, our little Wally will be mixing with the likes of them!’

Mother pulls a face. I can tell she’s trying, though it’s not quite yet a smile.

‘Bottom line is – he’s famous,’ Frau Wittger concludes, sitting back and crossing her arms with finality.

‘Thank you for all that you’ve done for my family.’ Although it’s not pride, joy, happiness my mother expresses, I am touched by the gratitude she shows towards Frau Wittger. My kind mother is still in there somewhere behind the shattered pieces of herself.

Frau Wittger gently pats the back of my mother’s hand in quiet appreciation, acknowledging the effort it has taken for my broken mother to engage. Yes Frau Wittger has been far more than a landlady. She’s fed us, found work for us, kept us off the streets and out of the workhouse, but it’s not simply thanks she wants, it’s hope, for us to have the strength to cope and do something with our lives.

As I look at her illuminated in the candlelight, her every line shows a depth of understanding of a life well lived. The ugly, evil, old hag who opened the door of her home to us when we first arrived in Vienna, who I thought might push us in the oven, roast us, eat us, has vanished. She has been replaced by the woman whose light shines forth tonight, burning so brightly that I feel its warmth. She has done what I could not – got through to my poor, locked-in mother.

‘Aren’t you proud of your daughter?’ Frau Wittger asks her. I look at my mother. Her eyes are like watery pools. And she nods softly.

And I am overcome with joy.

‘Let’s have some hot chocolate to celebrate!’ Frau Wittger fetches her best cups, the ones with the elegant gold-painted handles, and sets about heating up the milk singing something in French as she goes. ‘I love this song. It’s by Gaby Deslys,’ she shouts.

‘Je cherche un millionnaire .

Un type chic qui voudrait bien de moi ,

Au moins une fois par mois .

Je cherche un millionnaire

Qui me dirait froidement ,

Tout ce que j’ai c’est à toi ,

Je cherche un millionnaire .

C’est pour ça que je fais le boulevard …’

As I look at the back of her head, bobbing in time to the song, I know that I owe it all to her – staying off the streets, making my mother proud. And that’s all I ever want to do.