was Arnoldus' way of explaining it. The shadow of an offence they had never committed, and which by that very token they would never be able to forget, because there is nothing more indestructible than things imagined. Perhaps they were not even guilty of the crimes they had done penance for in jail. After all, painting is itself deception: you think you can touch that fruit bowl, that bunch of grapes or the nymph's swelling breast, but when you stretch out your fingers you are brought up short, you realise that what looked like spheres are only circles, what looked like volume is a flat surface, the fingers' desperate desire to squeeze and fondle is left unassuaged. Arnoldus had a suspicion that the two of them were one of the Dutch painter's most successful illusions. Come to me, monstrous canvases, and I'll make you into an optical illusion.
The Maestro had been so clever in painting that terrible lie on their minds that his brother Hubertus had been completely taken in. Hubert really believed they had done it. Worse still: he believed that Arnoldus was the one deceived! 'You want to blindfold yourself with that explanation so you can forget what we did, Arno,' he used to tell him. And he added: 'But we really did what we did. Do you want me to refresh your memory?…' It was so unpleasant that Arnoldus no longer even tried to argue about it. What use was there trying to tell Hubert he was the one mistaken, that they had never committed such an atrocity, that it was all the product of Van Tysch's sublime art?
He looked down at the signature on his right ankle: BvT. A new worry had been preoccupying him for some time. Could Van Tysch be responsible for the hatred, the ferocious antipathy he felt towards Hubertus? Had he tried to awaken the Cain within him so that he could paint it? Be that as it may, the
Maestro was not very concerned about them any more. He had lost interest in them. It was said he was about to sell them.
Perhaps it was best to forget about Van Tysch and even about Hubertus, and to enjoy himself while he could. He opened the door and entered the living room. 'Here I am, Hubert. I hope you haven't-'
He stopped in his tracks. There was no one in the pool. In fact, the whole room looked deserted.
Tut, tut, this isn't very polite of you, Hubert.' Arnoldus looked all round him. The suite was like an endless basilica: columns, a domed ceiling; stone walls; indirect light; a long sacrificial altar in the shape of a bar counter…
It took him a second to spot the trail of liquid just to his right, a small trace of a darker colour on the fitted carpet, a trail of water from the pool, some god or other's zigzagging piss on the floor. Twisting his massive neck, Arnoldus followed it. At the end of the trail, belly in the air (a perfect sphere), lay his brother.
And standing next to his brother was a slight, masked creature: the black tiger of his infant terrors, his lithe, devouring nightmare.
When it leapt on him, Arnoldus – like an obedient child – did not cry out.
4
An isosceles triangle of light. Legs apart.
Time for a break,' said Gerardo. 'Afterwards we'll try another effect.'
Clara closed her legs and the triangle disappeared. She was standing with her back to the two men, facing the window, her hair a flaming red, her body edged in rays of sunlight. She was painted in pink and ochre tones, with highlights of ivory and pearl. Her spine, the perfect 'V of her lumbar region and the fleshy cross of her buttocks were a natural earth colour. Gerardo and Uhl had chosen these tints after careful study of the lines they had painted on her skin. They gave her a porous swimsuit and a colour cap, which she put on in the bathroom. Her primed skin and hair absorbed the colours perfectly, there was no need for varnish or fixing agents. Gerardo warned her that all the colours were provisional, and that they could all be modified over the next few days. So were the colour of her eyes – brilliant emerald green – that he had painted with a corneal spray, and the deeper pink lip outline he had drawn on her face. Finally, with gloved hands he swept her wet hair up into a small bun. When he threw the gloves into the wastepaper basket, they spattered the floor with drops of fake blood. 'You're done,' he said.
Clara left the bathroom and walked towards the living room, trailing the smell of oil paint in her wake. The first thing she did was to examine herself in the mirror. She could see the figure they were aiming at beyond the sketch: a young girl by Manet, tall, slender, red-headed, and with muscles clearly distinguishable from one another, but not violently so: as if drawn by an expert. In the sunlight, her hair was a shiny haemorrhage. She liked what they had done. She wished this was not just a sketch, that the unknown work they were painting with her would be exactly the same.
They had set up a video camera on a tripod and a powerful photographic studio spot, but to begin with they filmed her adopting different positions in natural light. It must be a beautiful day outside, Clara thought, as she stared at the open window in front of her, but in the room, with its cream walls and parallel lines of the floor, everything was bathed in a bright glow, as if she were inside a prism. She longed to have some free time to be able to explore outside. 'Your food is in the kitchen,' Gerardo told her.
She walked carefully back to the bathroom in order not to crack the paint on her body, and put on one of the robes hanging on the door. She usually liked to wear something when she had been painted so she would not spoil it while she ate or rested.
In the kitchen, a surprise was waiting for her. Her food tray was in the same place as the previous day, but this time Gerardo was sitting opposite her. He was taking the top off a pizza he had heated in the microwave. So it seemed they were going to eat together. She wondered where Uhl was, and why he had not joined them. She guessed there must be serious disagreements between the two men. Throughout the morning, this had been obvious from their raised voices, terse orders, and long periods of uncomfortable silence. It seemed obvious to her that Gerardo gave in to his older colleague, either because he admired him, or perhaps simply because Uhl was a rung higher on the Foundation ladder than he was. Clara decided it was best to be discreet.
She sat down and pulled the plastic cover off her tray. Her meal consisted of two triangles of sandwich with some kind of mayonnaise at the edges, grapes, wholemeal bread, margarine, cream cheese, a salad, a herb tea and an Aroxen juice with added vitamins. Before she picked up a sandwich, she took her prescribed pills with a sip of mineral water. Gerardo was busy devouring a slice of pizza.
They started to chat. He praised her quiescence, and asked who her teachers had been. She told him about Cuinet and Klaus Wedekind, and of the week she had spent in Florence working as a sketch for Ferrucioli. She could only eat very slowly, nibbling small pieces of sandwich, because the oil paint on her face pulled at her jaws, and she did not want to spoil it. As she was spreading a thick layer of margarine on the bread, she tried out a smile with her freshly drawn lips. 'Don't be mean. Tell me what you're doing with me.' 'Painting you,' replied Gerardo. She stifled a laugh, but insisted.
'No, seriously. I'm going to be one of the works in the 'Rembrandt' collection, aren't I?' 'I'm sorry, sweetheart, I can't tell you.'
‘I don't want to know which figure I am, or the title of the painting. Just tell me if I'm going to be a 'Rembrandt'. '
'Listen, the less you know about what you're doing, the better, right?' 'OK. Sorry'
Suddenly she felt embarrassed at having insisted. She did not want Gerardo to get the impression she thought he was more malleable than Uhl, easier to get artistic secrets out of.
They fell silent. Gerardo was playing with the top of a bottle of Coca-Cola he was drinking. He seemed out of sorts. 'Did my question upset you?' she asked concernedly.
His reply cost him a great effort, as though it was a difficult but unavoidable question.
'No. It's just that I'm a bit annoyed… not with you though, with Justus. The same old thing. I told you he has a very special character. I know him well by now of course, but sometimes I find it hard to take…' 'How long have you worked together?'
Three years. He's a good painter – I've learnt a lot from him.' He looked towards the bright midday of the window. In profile, his face still seemed very attractive to Clara. 'But we have to do everything he says. Everything.'
He turned to look at her, as if those last words concerned her much more than him. 'He's in charge,' he added. 'He's your boss.' 'And yours, don't forget.'
Clara nodded, rather disconcerted. She did not know quite how to interpret what he had just said. Was it a
