Kerry Postle - The Artist’s Muse

This woman must be here for a portrait. I must keep myself under control.

When I tumble in she barely registers my presence but I feel compelled to acknowledge hers in some way, particularly as my half-empty glass is just to the left of the elbow upon which she rests with her chin on her hand. Facets of mirrored glass catch my eye as her necklace dangles and turns in the light.

‘Hello. Excuse me. Sorry. I left a glass in here. I’ve just come to clear it away.’ I smile sympathetically at her, relieved to show kindness to another. Her body language suggests that she has all the woes of the world on her shoulders. I do too. She looks straight through me, unsmiling. Yet I see myself reflected in her watery eyes. She has a crumpled handkerchief clutched in a hand.

Perhaps she’s not here for a portrait. She has fallen on hard times. Her husband has died. She has children to support. She’s from Slovakia. Or Galicia. She can’t understand the language. Perhaps.

‘Hello,’ I say again. Though it pains me, I smile still. ‘I could get you something to drink, if you’d like.’ I hold up the glass and mime my meaning. ‘Or find you a fresh handkerchief?’ I point to the one she holds crumpled in her hands. She frowns, sniffs, and raises her eyes heavenwards.

‘No.’

Her accent is crisp and Austrian.

I smile again. The sharpness unleashed by a word of one syllable is blunted by my blindness to see what is before me. I remain determined, entrenched in the erroneous belief that this truculent though unhappy woman could be my mother. Or me.

I should have picked up the glass and fled.

Instead I talk. To push out the silence. Decorate the cold, unwelcoming space with kind, warm words. If not for her then for me. I need to run away from what’s been done. Focus on the nice weather. The size of the glass. The prettiness of the flowers in the garden. About … Katze. Thank heavens for Katze. Katze pads into the studio stealthily and with purpose. I beckon her to me but she dismisses me now, too easy, and makes her way towards the prize. The real challenge that is the outwardly hostile woman. Grieving. Wronged. Abandoned. Forlorn. Neither Katze nor I know the reason for this woman’s unhappiness but where I have failed to console Katze intends to succeed.

She arches her back on contact, rubbing her fur back and forth on the hemline of the woman’s skirt so that it pushes up to reveal the black leather of her lace-up boots. But the woman has no need to have them polished today. With a brazen kick of her foot, the woman nudges the surprised cat away. Defiant, Katze gives an angry miaow and jumps up on to the back of the woman’s chair. I quickly sweep her up in my arms before she jumps into the woman’s lap. I stroke Katze firmly into submission and today she lets me.

Then I hear the door open, and a woman’s voice, crystal clear German cascading down and tinkling like a mountain stream in spring.

‘Oh, Emilie! What in heaven’s name are you doing in here? Gustav and I have been waiting for you in the living room.’ There is no mistaking the breeding as the voice turns into a body that walks towards the woman sitting in the chair.

‘Come, sister, whatever is the matter?’ With a tug on her hand, Emilie is led out of the studio. I still have no idea who she is. But, with a taunt from her sister about French lessons, I have it. Emilie. Emilie Flöge.

As the sisters walk towards the door, Emilie throws me a withering look. ‘Know me now?’ it hisses. And just for a moment she lets her gaze drop to the hem of my skirt.

I am left standing there, glass of water in hand, spots of blood on my skirt, hair dishevelled, eyes swollen. I sink to the floor. Emilie Flöge has seen me. I feel disgusting. Ashamed.

I don’t know how long I lie there but it’s Katze who brings me to the surface. This cat has a greater instinct for compassion than the woman who’s just left. With the beating of her heart and warmth of her tongue this creature consoles me.

Emilie Flöge. Now I have her name I can’t let it go. My anger towards her grows. I tell myself that it was nothing. She snubbed me; that’s all. I’m over-reacting because of … Well, I have good reason. You know that I do. I should blame Gustav. And I do. Oh how I do.

But. Gustav. Since I came to Vienna I’ve long recognized how men treat girls in this city – there was never any secret about the danger he posed. No disappointment should come (though it does) when you get what you know has always been on the cards: he was always going to catch me. I knew. Yet the colour of knowledge, so recently cloudy and white, shrouded in a mist that I hoped would never lift, is now a burst bubble of red, pierced, its contents a trickle down the inside of my legs that turns to a red-brown stain on the edges of my dress that sweeps across the floor attracting dust, dirt. And the attention of Emilie Flöge. Emilie.

Since I came to Vienna I’ve known only the kindness of women who’ve sought to protect me from the dangers of men. But Emilie Flöge. She saw, understood and said nothing. Treated me as nothing. When all I tried to be to her was kind.

I go home that evening and let myself into the apartment as quietly as I can. I don’t want anyone to notice me, although soon everybody has. I thump and scrub my skirt – hard, furious. It’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re trying to kill something that won’t get out of your head. And no, I don’t want to talk about it. And yes, I feel ill. And no, I’m not hungry. I take myself off to bed. I’ve had enough of concerned looks and my fill of probing questions. I long for the oblivion of sleep. But tonight, even there, all I can do is remember.

A wounded horse. An angry mob. A vixen. A cur. And a woman with a mirror pendant, her back to me: I call out her name. I know she hears but she does not answer. Her silence screams betrayal.

When I wake up in the morning my mind is made up. I will wage war on Emilie Flöge. And all women like her.

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