out with the definition 'art is money'?' 'And he was right.'
'He was right? Was Rembrandt a genius because today his paintings are worth millions?'
'No, but if Rembrandt's paintings weren't worth millions today, who would care whether he was a genius or not?'
Jorge was about to respond when a dollop of cream (from the dessert-rolled crepes stuffed with cream) fell on to his tie (plop! Captain Achab, a seagull just shat on you), which meant he had to busy himself with his napkin while she carried on.
'Van Tysch understood that to create a new kind of art all you need is for it to make money.' 'That line of argument only applies to business, darling.'
'Art is a business, Jorge’ she declared, unmoved, while the candle flame blinked, photocopied by her blue eyes.
'My God, listen to the opinion of a work of art! So according to you, a professional painting, art is a business?' 'Aha. Just like medicine.'
Aha. That dreadful habit of hers when she spoke. She opened her mouth and arched one of her false, painted eyebrows as she pronounced the symmetrical word: Aha.
'You charge for your X-ray plates just like a painter does for his paintings’ she went on. 'Aren't you tired of always saying that some colleague or other ought to realise that medicine is an art? There you go.' 'There I go what?'
'Medicine is an art, which means it's also a business. Today it's all the same: art and business. The real artists know there's no difference. At least there isn't nowadays.'
Tine, let's admit art is a business. So then hyperdramatic art is the business of buying and selling people, isn't it?'
'I can see where you're heading, but we models are not people when we are works of art: we're paintings.'
'Don't talk such nonsense. That rubbish is fine to pull the wool over the public's eyes. But people are not paintings.'
'Now you sound like those experts who at the end of the nineteenth century said that impressionist paintings weren't real paintings. But art history finally accepted impressionism, and then cubism, and now it is accepting hyperdramatism.'
'Because it's a profitable business?' She shrugged without saying anything. 'Look, Clara, I don't want to be an iconoclast, but hyperdramatic art consists of putting young women like you naked or semi-naked in 'artistic' poses. Young men, too, of course. And a lot of adolescents, children even. But how many mature men or women do you see in HD works of art? Go on, tell me! Who would pay twenty million euros to take home a painted fat old man, and stand him there in a pose?'
'But the work that gave the title 'Monsters' to Van Tysch's collection is of two hugely fat people. And it's worth far more than twenty million, Jorge.'
'What about the HD ornaments? Converting someone into an Ashtray or a Chair, what's that? Is that art too? And what about art-shocks? And 'dirty' paintings?…'
'All that is completely illegal, and has nothing to do with legitimate hyperdramatism.'
'Let's drop it. I know it's a sin to take the name of God in vain.'
'Would you like another crepe, or is the one you're dripping down your front enough?' She pointed to her plate, where the rolled-up crepes lay untouched. This was another consequence of her work: she kept a tight rein over her calorie intake, and controlled her weight with portable electronic gadgets – the latest fad. She often dined only on high-vitamin juices, but never seemed to be hungry.
That night they made love at his place. It was as it always was: a delicately pleasurable exercise. She was a canvas, and he had to be careful. Sometimes he would ask her why she was not so careful with herself in the brutal interactive reunions known as art-shocks she sometimes took part in. 'That's different, it's art,' she would reply. 'And in art anything goes, even damaging the canvas.' 'Ah!' he would say. And go on adoring her.
He was crazy about her. He was fed up with her. He never wanted to leave her. He wanted never to see her again.
'You won't be able to give her up,' his brother Pedro warned him one day. 'It's always the same when we fall for a painting: we've no idea why we like it so much, but we can't get rid of it.'
*
Clara was not sure what she felt for Jorge. It was not love, of course, because she did not believe she had ever felt true love for anyone or anything except for art (people like Gabi or Vicky were facets of that diamond). And she guessed Jorge was not in love with her either. She could understand that for him it was very satisfactory to have made it with a canvas: it was the same kind of status symbol as buying himself a Lancia or a Patek Philippe, having an appartment in Conde de Penalver, or being the boss of a profitable radiological institute. 'Going to bed with a painting is a kind of a luxury, isn't it, Jorge? Something your social class likes to do.'
Naturally she found him attractive: that shock of white hair, and that moustache standing out in his huge frame, those grey eyes of his, his manly chin. It excited her to think he was an older man she was perverting. She loved it when she made him blush. But she also enjoyed thinking the opposite was true: that it was he who was perverting her. Her white-haired master. The sunbed-tanned mentor. And on top of it all, Jorge was not part of the art world – a detail rare enough to make him extra special.
On the other side of the balance was his complete vulgarity. Doctor Atienza was of the ridiculous opinion that hyperdramatic art was a kind of legalised sexual slavery, twenty-first century prostitution. He could not understand why someone might want to buy a naked minor whose body had been painted, simply to put them on show in their house. He thought Bruno van Tysch was a playboy whose sole merit had been to inherit a stupendous fortune. When she heard Jorge's pronouncements, she felt bitter. What she hated above all in this world was mediocrity. Clara longed for genius like a bird longs for the infinite air. But she could understand the reason for all this mediocrity. Unlike her, his profession did not demand he give his heart and soul to it. Jorge had never felt that shudder of emotion, the sense of fragility and fire that a model felt in the hands of an expert painter; he knew nothing of the nirvana of quiescence, the wing-beats of time in a paralysed salon, the gaze of the public like cold acupuncture on the body
Neither of them was sure where this relationship of dates and shared nights might lead. Probably nowhere. Jorge wanted children, and occasionally said so. She looked at him with pitying compassion, as a martyr might look at someone who was asking: Does it hurt? The only life she wanted to reproduce, she would tell him, was her own. 'Don't you see, every time I'm a painting, it's as if I'm giving birth to myself?' Of course, he couldn't understand her.
Perhaps what she valued most of all in him was his calm nature, his ability to give her good advice. Even when he was asleep, Jorge was therapeutic: he breathed steadily, was not troubled by any nightmares, did not get afraid in dark rooms (she did), was a lesson in the perfect way to rest. His words were like creams prescribed by an amiable doctor, his smile an instantly effective sedative. All this was far removed from her world, and immensely welcome. Right now, she needed a large dose of Jorge.
'Are you sure you're not being duped?' he asked, trying to appear doubtful.
'Of course I am. This is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Not only am I going to earn more money than I ever dreamed possible, but I'm going to become… I'm sure I'm going to become a… a great work of art.' Jorge noticed she had hesitated, as if anything she could say would be far beneath the reality of what was to happen to her. 'Today they told me that in another twenty-four thousand years, they would still be talking about me’ she added in a whisper. 'Can you believe it? The Foundation woman told me so. Twenty-four thousand years. I can't stop thinking about it. Can you believe it?'
She had just given him a brief summary of all that had happened. She told him about the two men visiting the GS gallery, and her interview with Friedman on the Thursday. After that, she had been primed by five experts: Friedman himself examined her hair and skin; a Senor Zumi her muscles and joints; Senor Gargallo prepared her physiology; and the Montforts fine-tuned her concentration and habits. Friedman received her in the basement of the Desiderio Gaos building once they had stripped her, destroyed her clothing, and taken photographs of her for the insurance company. He felt her all over. Her hair, he said, needed cutting. Then it had to be coated with a gel that would allow it to be painted. He did not consider her skin soft enough, so prescribed creams she would need to rub on. He noted any abrasions or wrinkles. He observed the movement of her Adam's apple when she swallowed,
