Amsterdam. 'Rembrandt's Tunnel.'
They had decided to have a look at it before they went to the Old Atelier for the signature session. Clara was excited about discovering the mysterious place where she would be exhibited. They parked close to the Rijksmuseum. It was not exactly a hot summer's day, but she did not feel at all cold beneath the padded light sleeveless dress she was wearing. She also had on a pair of lined plastic slippers as well as the three labels that identified her as one of the original figures for Susanna Surprised by the Elders.
They walked into Museumstraat and found themselves face to face with the Tunnel almost unintentionally. It looked like the mouth of a huge mine covered with curtains. It was a horseshoe shape, with the U open towards the rear of the Rijksmuseum. The main entrance was protected by two rows of fences, flashing lights and white and orange vehicles with the word Politic written on the side. Men and women in dark-blue uniforms were on guard at the fences. Some tourists were taking photos of the colossal structure.
While Gerardo and Uhl went to talk to the policemen, Clara stopped to get a good look at the Tunnel. From the entrance, which was easily as tall as any of the great classical buildings in Amsterdam, the curtains rose and fell, dipping down or rising up to the clouds in the sky like a majestic circus tent, snaking in among the trees and enveloping them, blocking streets and cutting off the horizon. In between the two wings of the horseshoe was the central area of the Museumplein, with its artificial pond and monument. There was something strange and grotesque about this vast black shape squatting like a dead spider on Amsterdam's delicate cityscape, something Clara found hard to define. It was as though painting had become something else. As though it was not an art exhibition that was involved, but something infinitely more challenging. The entrance was covered by one of Rembrandt's famous last self-portraits. His face beneath the cap – his bulbous nose, the scrawny moustache and the wispy Dutch goatee beard – peered sceptically out at the world. He looked like a God weary of creating. The curtain over the exit was a blow-up of the photo of Van Tysch facing away from the camera. We go in through Rembrandt's chest, and come out through Van Tysch's back, Clara thought. The past and present of Dutch art. But which of the two geniuses was more enigmatic? The one who showed his painted face, or the one who hides his real identity? She could not decide. Gerardo came up to her.
'They're checking our documents so we can go in,' he said, pointing to the Tunnel. 'What do you make of it?' 'It's fantastic'
If s almost five hundred metres long, but it's bent in the shape of a horseshoe so it will fit into the park. You go in this end, and come out over there near the Van Gogh museum. Some parts of it are forty metres high. Van Tysch wanted it erected near the Rembrandthuis, cutting off streets and even emptying buildings, but of course they wouldn't let him. The curtains are made of a special material: it blocks out all exterior light and keeps the inside as black as a well, so the works will only be lit by the chiaroscuro lights. We can walk through it. But keep close to us.'
'Why? What could happen to me?' Clara asked with a smile.
'Well, tramps spend the night in there. And drug addicts slip in under cover of dark. And then there are the protest groups, the BAH and the others… yes, the BAH, the Bothered About Hyperdrama. You must have heard of them, haven't you?… They're our most faithful followers,' Gerardo smiled. 'Tomorrow they're holding a protest outside the Tunnel, but there are always a couple of trouble-makers who try to get in to put up posters. The police are on patrol inside the Tunnel, and arrest one or two of them every day. Come on, let's go.'
Clara was pleased at Gerardo's concern for her. In other circumstances she might have thought he was worried about Susanna, but this time she was sure it wasn't that. It was her, Clara Reyes, that he was afraid of losing.
Uhl was waiting for them beside a small gap in the entrance curtain. It's as though we were going in under Rembrandt's head, thought Clara. Dim lights from bulbs fixed in the curtain showed them the way. But as soon as they were properly inside they were enveloped in an unknown darkness. The street noises had disappeared, too: all that could be heard were distant echoes. Clara could scarcely make out Gerardo's shape in front of her.
'Wait a moment; your eyes will get used to it.' 'I'm starting to see something.'
'Don't worry, there's nothing in the way. The path to follow is a gentle narrow ramp, indicated by the lights. All you have to do is walk forward. And once the works have been installed and are lit by the chiaroscuro lighting, they'll be reference points. Can you feel the guide rope? Stay close to it.'
Gerardo went ahead. Clara was in the middle. They went forward slowly over the smooth ground, groping like blind people for the rope at the edge of the track. All she could see of Gerardo were his feet and part of his trouser legs. The rest of his silhouette was swallowed up in the darkness. It seemed to her as though she was walking through the night of the world. ‘Is everything all right back there?' she heard Gerardo say. 'More or less.'
Uhl said something in Dutch, Gerardo replied, and the two men laughed. Gerardo translated for her:
'Some of the works say this place gives them the creeps.' ‘I like it,' Clara said firmly. 'This darkness?' 'Yes, absolutely.'
She could hear Gerardo and Uhl's footsteps and the flapping of the labels on her wrist and ankle. All of a sudden the atmosphere changed. It was as if the space had suddenly got bigger. The sound of their footsteps was different. Clara stopped and looked up. It was like peering into an abyss. She felt a kind of upside-down giddiness, as if she was in danger of leaving the ground and plunging up into the heights of the tent curtains. Whole choirs of silence converged in the pitch-black air above her head. She suddenly remembered Van Tysch's pronouncement that absolute darkness did not exist, and wondered whether the Maestro had not been trying to contradict himself with the design of the Tunnel.
'They call this part the 'basilica'.' Gerardo's voice floated in front of her. 'It's the first dome. Almost thirty metres high. There's another even higher one in the other wing of the U. In the centre of this one they're going to put The Anatomy Lesson, and further on The Syndics and The Slaughtered Ox, which has several figures hanging from the roof by their ankles. You can't see the background now because there's no lighting.' 'It smells of paint,' Clara murmured.
'Oil paint,' Gerardo said. 'We're inside a Rembrandt painting, after all. Had you forgotten? But come on, don't get left behind.' 'How do you know I'm being left behind?' 'Your yellow labels give the game away.'
Clara's legs were shaking as she walked. She thought it must be that her muscles were unused to this perfectly normal exercise after all the tough days of holding poses, but she suspected as well that it was because of the emotion this infinite darkness aroused in her.
'We've still a way to go before we reach the spot where Susanna will be exhibited,' Gerardo said. 'But look, can you make out those dark struts in the distance?'
Clara thought she could see something, but perhaps it wasn't what Gerardo meant. She could barely make out his hand pointing into the darkness.
'We've almost reached the bend in the horseshoe. That's where The Night Watch will be: it's an incredible mural, with more than twenty figures. Beyond that, Young Girl Leaning on a Window Sill and the small portrait of Titus, Rembrandt's son. On this side there'll be The Jewish Bride… and now we're coming to the spot where they'll show The Feast of Belshazzar.'
As they edged forward, Clara suddenly saw something amazing in the depths of the darkness: will-o'-the- wisps, glow-worms moving in straight lines. 'The police,' Uhl explained behind her.
It must have been one of the patrols Gerardo had told her were on duty in the Tunnel. They passed by them. Ghostly forms with berets and light flashing off their badges. Clara made out smiles and words in Dutch.
Then they continued on into the bowels of an abandoned universe. 'Do you believe in God, Clara?' Gerardo asked all of a sudden. 'No,' she replied simply. 'What about you?'
'I believe in something. And things like this Tunnel prove to me that I'm right. There is something more, don't you agree? Otherwise, what led Van Tysch to build all this? He himself is the tool of something higher, even though he doesn't know it.' 'Yes, he's Rembrandt's tool.'
'Don't try to be funny. There's something above and beyond Rembrandt, too.'
But what? Clara wondered. What was there above and beyond Rembrandt? Unintentionally, almost unconsciously, she looked up. She saw darkness curled around a shadowy light, a light so dim she was not sure if her eyes were inventing it, as weak as the light from a remembered image, or a dream. A shapeless mass of shadow.
Uhl interrupted her thoughts with a sentence behind her back. Gerardo laughed and answered him.
'Justus says he'd love to know Spanish so he could understand what we're talking about. I told him we're talking about God and Rembrandt. Ah, look… on that wall is where they're going to put Christ on the Cross, and
