The Artist’s Muse

When I return from the art shop, keen to avoid Herr Klimt, I go straight to the materials cupboard to put everything away. Consuela is already there, bag at her feet, rummaging around on the middle shelf for I know not what. She leans back, sticks of charcoal in her hand, relief replacing worry on her face as she sees it’s only me. She says nothing about before.

Instead she bends down to place the charcoal in her bag. ‘Thanks,’ she says as she helps herself to three pencils and two sketchbooks followed by a wink and a finger to lips that say: ‘Sssssh!’

She pulls a well-used sketchbook from her bag and opens it to show me a sketch of a mother and child. At first I imagine it must be Herr Klimt’s work. Even when Consuela tells me it’s a picture of her landlady Wilhelmina and her daughter MargareteKlara, I still don’t get it. But then I do.

‘I have a mission, and that is to exhibit my work at the next women’s art exhibition – God, just to say those words gives me a thrill, Wally. Women’s art exhibition! So exciting! There was one last year. The works of Berthe Morisot and Eva Gonzales were there. Even Tina Blau agreed to exhibit her work in it. She usually makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to be judged as a woman artist and so …’ She sees the disbelief in my eyes, laughs, pauses, and takes my hand in hers.

‘B-b-but you’re a model,’ I stammer.

‘Yes, I am and I’m proud to be one,’ she tells me. ‘I inspire one of the greatest artists of our time. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be an artist too.’ I must still look confused, unconvinced, as Consuela retorts with rebellious passion, ‘When not even women believe that we can achieve the same things as men, that we’re simply frivolously fickle females –’ she flicks back her wavy hair and adopts a fashionable pout in self-mockery ‘– it makes me realize what a struggle we have on our hands.’ Her eyebrows arch upwards for her eyes to reach out and accuse me.

‘Consuela! Consuela-a-a!’ Herr Klimt is looking for her, and as she puts her sketchbook back into her bag, she asks if she can draw me some time soon. Of course she can. ‘Consuela-a-a!’ He’s calling out again.

With another flick of her hair and a right hand placed on her hip, she’s off: it’s ‘show time!’

From that time on I am rarely required to pose for Herr Klimt. Instead I am sent on errands for him, delivering messages, bills, receipts, buying more paints, pencils, paper, preparing refreshments, cleaning the studio, tidying up his materials cupboard. I hope that he doesn’t think that I’m the one who’s been stealing his pencils.

He even gets me to feed Katze. And so I’m kept busy. Busier in fact now that I’m moving for my money. Though I do feel, if not sad, then possibly uneasy that I’m not modelling for my living. And I wonder how long it will be before I will have to tell my mother the bad news that must surely be coming before too long.

I watch Consuela to learn from her as she learns from Herr Klimt: my dream is still to be a good model, as hers is to be a good artist. Though watching her brings me to an uncomfortable conclusion. She and Herr Klimt work well together in every way.

Yet recently I’ve observed a change in Consuela and Herr Klimt’s voracious appetite for her is making her look decidedly off colour. Her great artist with great appetites needs to vary his diet a little, feast elsewhere, although she’s careful to guide him away from me.

‘Go!’ ‘Fetch some coffee!’ ‘Buy some paint!’ and I am thankful that she pushes me as far away as she can from the artist’s tools.

‘You’re just a child, Wally dear!’ she whispers to me, as I pass her on my way out. Every night when I say my prayers I thank God for putting Consuela between me and my cloven-footed artist.

Then one day, Consuela’s performance fails to convince. No, that’s not strictly true.

Consuela fails to perform.

Over the next few weeks I notice a definite change in her. She is eating less though looking fuller, and has recently taken to turning up to the studio late in the morning with attractive young women she’s picked up on the way. Prospective models all.

Initially I imagine that she must be spending too much time creating her own art and worry that she’s running perilously close to the edge. But her light is dim, her enthusiasm flat. She no longer helps herself to the materials in the art cupboard. It can’t be that.

Then there are the women she brings in with her. Fresh, flighty, flirty. ‘Now what would your favourite old master do with these lovely creatures, Gustav?’ she asks him and seems delighted that the very suggestion of Giorgione has Herr Klimt strutting and rutting like a cock in a henhouse.

‘I can’t take too much pleasure at the moment,’ she confides.

Then, one morning, as I pass the bathroom, I hear her being sick. I ask her if there’s anything I can do. She begs me not to tell anyone.

No need as everyone knows.

When Herr Klimt discovers that Consuela is pregnant he is attentive, stroking her hair and rubbing her feet. He declares that he will fast but his giorgionesque appetite soon gets the better of him and Consuela begs that I attend her in his place. She still tries to protect me.

But just as she has failed to perform, so soon will she fail to protect. As I attend on the sleeping Consuela, her ankles swelling in the summer heat, I hear Herr Klimt’s voice calling, ‘Wally. Come here. I need a glass of water. Now.’ He has a thirst that needs to be quenched.

I walk into the studio and place the glass of water, half-full, down on the table so that it doesn’t get kicked over.

It’s all over very quickly. Not even ten minutes.

When he’s done, I pick up the glass; my hands shake, spilling tears that my eyes are too afraid to shed. Gustav, now studying his canvas with fresh eyes, turns for a moment and sees the wet floor. ‘Clean that up before you go, Wally,’ he tells me calmly, no trace of remorse or guilt in his voice. As though he’s done nothing wrong. No hint of intimacy either.

I put the glass back down on the table, my head bowed to hide my shame as I stoop to mop up the water with the skirt of my dress. Then I see it. Blood. Along the hem. I throw myself towards the door and hobble to the end of the dark and dusty corridor where I hide myself. And weep.

A tear-filled lake threatens to drown me, its waves of despair overwhelming me so that I am gasping for air in that dim and windowless space. My soul flails. What am I to do? Is this my life? My version of normal? Who am I to tell?

Instinctively I walk towards the light.

As I stand at the sink splashing water on my face and washing away the damage, I watch a wasp trying to burrow its way outside. It moves rapidly around the edges of the window in front of me, pushes itself into the corners, the tiny pinholes in the wooden frame, trying to get out. It feels then flies its way around, wings erect above its deep yellow and black striped body, ever ready. I’m so transfixed by it that I don’t notice Gustav come up behind me.

Whack! He slaps the window with a cloth and the wasp falls, drops onto the windowsill. It’s curled up, on its side, its wings bent by the impact between cloth and glass. No way out any more.

‘There’s a glass still in the studio that needs clearing up, Wally. I’ll be in the living room for a while if anyone calls.’ I rush back as quickly as I’m able to retrieve it.

When I get there I find, sitting by the table and lost in thought, a slim, dark-haired woman. From my young girl’s eyes she seems old. I know that she is respectable from the way she is dressed, covered as she is from neck to toe. And that she is wealthy I guess from the beautiful heart-shaped pendant that she wears around her neck. I have never seen such an unusual piece of jewellery and even in my distracted state I cannot help but notice it. Though the opals in the chain remind me of my tears.

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.