The Artist’s Muse

I wonder at the time it’s taken her to make me look as though I’m wearing not a trace of make-up. And yet …

I am pearly flawlessness. I am innocence. I am sugar-coated youth.

***

As I step outside into the street I turn to bid farewell to them all and see an expression of sadness cross Frau Wittger’s face. We embrace, though carefully. ‘We don’t want to be spoiling all that work we’ve done on that pretty face of yours now, do we?’ And as I turn to go, my hand reaching into my pocket to make sure that I’ve not lost the address of the artist for whom I am to model, I hear her exclaim, ‘What am I thinking? You’ve never been there before. Hang on there, girl, I’m coming with you.’

She hurriedly grabs her coat, gloves, and hat before following me out and taking my hand. As I wave to my sisters I look up to catch my mother looking down at us from an upstairs window. She blows me a kiss for luck.

I squeeze Frau Wittger’s hand twice, once for me and once for Mama. We are doubly thankful that this woman will be by my side on this important journey on the way to such an important meeting.

‘Destination – Josefstädter Strasse 21. Knock on the door and ask for Herr Klimt. He will be expecting you.’

Josefstädter Strasse 21 is in Vienna’s 8th district, home and studio of the artist Gustav Klimt.

To begin with, we walk there in silence. It’s late afternoon. Shadows lengthen as the day fades. And as the light goes down so my anxiety builds, my mind struggling to imagine what I don’t know.

Just as I start to feel that I am condemned, I see a girl stumble out of a side street. She’s swaying. I look away from her as something tells me I won’t like what I’ll see if I carry on looking. But it’s too late. I have seen too much already. There is still enough daylight for me to see her smeared bright pink lips and poorly hidden bottle of I don’t know what (though I have a good idea), the neck of which peeps out from beneath a scarf in her bag.

A well-dressed man wearing a top hat appears out of the same side street immediately behind the swaying girl. He pushes her aside with disdainful familiarity, storming past her without casting a backward glance. There is something between them. Her suppliant neck moves after him. I don’t fully understand what I have seen. But I know that it’s ugly.

‘He’s an artist,’ Frau Wittger says, breaking the silence. Changing the unspoken subject. I watch the back of the well-dressed man who pretends not to know the smudged-lipped girl. ‘Oh no! Not him, silly. Oh no. Not him at all. No, the man we’re going to see. He’s the artist. Very popular. Really very good. Gets a lot of commissions. Paints a lot. No, dearie me no. Nothing like that man. You’ll be secure there. If he likes you.’

I feel alarm at the possibility that he might not, especially after the disturbing scene I have just witnessed. Frau Wittger, sensing my concern, continues, ‘But he will, dear, of course he will. Adore you. How could he fail to? Just look at you. Yes, he will like you. You’ll get a lot of work there.’

She walks along, fiddling her coat buttons nervously, before adding, ‘Why, you will become his muse. Imagine that, an artist’s muse? And it’ll pay the bills. Certainly be a help to your mother.’

I have no idea what a muse is but assume that it’s preferable to what the girl with the smudged lipstick is to the man in the top hat. As for my mother, that’s why I’m here.

As the daylight retreats further so the streetlights come on. They add a comforting glow, eliminating the sinister. Though not for long.

As we carry on down the street, out fly the brightly coloured women. First one. Two. Three. Then whole flocks descend, feathers bold and beautiful, ready for the paid employment that Frau Wittger wants to protect me from.

A very beautiful girl spots us, recognizes Frau Wittger, and flags us down. Frau Wittger tries to keep her at bay by waving acknowledgement and turning sweetly with a ‘you-know-how-it-is; must-dash’ smile. But the girl is not to be deterred.

‘It’s Ursula.’ I hear the note of resignation in Frau Wittger’s voice. Sigh-deep. ‘We are going to have to stop or that girl will tackle us to the ground!’

As we approach her I recognize the rosy pink cheeks on a startlingly white skin, her bright eyes dazzlingly set in smokily shaded sockets and her lips daringly red. She should be on the stage.

‘You’re looking good, Ursula dear,’ Frau Wittger remarks.

‘Yes. All my own work,’ the brightly painted lady replies, leaning forward, sweetheart chin resting on open-petal-shaped palms, red lips puckering ready to blow us a kiss.

‘Yes. Very nice,’ Frau Wittger answers unconvincingly. ‘But you really don’t need so much. It’s heavy. And besides, remember what happened to poor Silke’s skin when she slapped it on every day? The lead’s not good for you.’

‘Yeah well, I agree,’ Ursula replies with a wag of her head. Don’t know why she bothered. Though you can’t blame the greasepaint for that. She was whacked around the head with the ugly stick was our Silk’. Whacked good and proper. A waste of good greasepaint trying to improve on God’s shoddy handiwork there.’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about and well you know it,’ snaps Frau Wittger before narrowing her eyes as if she’s just noticed something she can’t ignore.

‘But wait, hang on just a second. Come here, Ursula.’

Ursula laughs sheepishly. ‘Get off me!’ Her uncharacteristic coyness causes Frau Wittger’s eyes to narrow even more.

She takes Ursula by the hands and gently pulls the young woman towards her to get a closer look at her face. Ursula winces and lets out a poorly stifled ‘ouch!’ The older woman pulls up the girl’s sleeves to reveal bruises the size and shape of large fingers about her wrists. As the girl pulls her hands away she looks down and the streetlight catches her face, revealing a raised surface on her left cheek, bumpy and rough.

It becomes apparent why Ursula has resorted to such heavy make-up. The greasepaint has successfully served to mask the discoloration of her badly beaten cheek. But lead can’t eliminate the scabrous contours caused by knuckles breaking skin. Even I can see that.

Ursula rolls her eyes defiantly. ‘Well it’s nothing. It really is nothing. I can look after myself. I can.’

Frau Wittger puts her arm around Ursula’s shoulder, taking care not to hurt or damage her in any way. Who knows where else the girl might have been beaten? There is a sensitivity and strange quietness in the scene as the beautiful girl places her head on the older woman’s shoulder. They melt into one.

‘Please, please come to see me. You know where I am if you need any help. Or just to talk.’

I see flickering looks. Love, sorrow, gratitude. Inevitability. They gently pull apart from one another.

‘And who’s this young ’un here then?’ Ursula turns to me as if suddenly aware of my presence. She flicks one of my hair ribbons dismissively in an attempt to deny the undeniable truth of her situation.

‘Looks like you’re off to Josefstädter Strasse. Am I right?’ She laughs.

I nod as Frau Wittger says, ‘Yes, Wally is going to be a model. A muse, isn’t that what we said, dear?’ She chuckles affectionately.

Ursula throws her beautiful head back so that a tendril of curled hair falls loose and cascades around her temple, giving her a cavalier, almost rebellious air. ‘Nice work if you can get it; don’t you forget that. But make sure you don’t go and spoil it for yourself like what I did.’

She sees my look of surprise before continuing, ‘Yes, I did try out as a model but – it’s hard to credit I know –’ and she looks at me, eyes wide open and a can-you-believe-it expression on her face, before explaining ‘– but I was, let’s say, a little too chopsy, if you gets my drift. Too many ideas of my own when it came to what he should and shouldn’t have been painting. Even offered to help him one day what with all that colouring in he likes to do. But he didn’t like it, ungrateful old goat. An’ I’ve always been good with colour. I could have been a great help.’

She snorts and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Always been great with colour as a matter of fact.’ She snorts once more before rolling her hands up and down her clothes as if displaying the proof. ‘Green dress. Brown boots. And just look at my face. Nice touch of green on my lids and my lips, inspired by a dancer I saw at the theatre last month. Could spot her right from the back of the gods. Said to myself that’s what you need, Ursula love, and that’s exactly what I’ve got …’

Amused and enchanted by the colour-conscious Ursula, I am also horrified that she could be my future. But before she can say any more Frau Wittger takes my trembling hand and reclaims control of the situation before Ursula – she who can only speak loudly, no internal check, she who just opens her mouth and says whatever she wants to whoever she fancies – throws any further verbal fireworks. ‘Well, really, all Ursula is trying to say is that as long as you don’t go shooting your mouth off (just like what Ursula’s so good at) then you will be fine. Really fine.’

‘Yes, that’s my advice. What I was going to tell you. But …’ Before Ursula can finish her sentence she starts to vibrate. She’s bending at the knee, her pinned and curled hair bouncing and flouncing loose still further as she makes o’s with her painted red lips, alternately covering them then pointing to a short well-dressed man with a walking cane heading towards us.

‘Oh my! Oh my lordy! Oh! Oh!’ Before either I or Frau Wittger can answer she rushes off, smoothing her hair to make sure the escaped tendrils aren’t waving Medusa-like from her head, hands hiding momentarily her battered cheek. She’s swinging her hips excitedly and teetering forward, towards the man who is much older than she is. And as she walks away I can tell from her girlish figure that she is not much older than me.

She turns and mouths back at us by way of explanation, having suddenly discovered the facility of volume control, ‘Oh it’s Klausy. He’s a good ’un. I’ve got to go.’ And with that she calls to him.

We look at one another, Frau Wittger and I, and do not say a word.

Ursula links arms with the short well-dressed man with a walking cane and they turn into a side street and disappear into its darkness, the tinkling of her young, shrill, sing-song voice lingering long after she has vanished from sight.

I want to go and pull her back to us but I don’t. Can’t. In my head I am crying, ‘Don’t go!’ I blame Frau Wittger. Why isn’t she helping her? We walk on in silence along the street of light and shade.

And I am aware of yet more solitary-predatory men. Brooding and hungry, causing the flocks of women innocently clucking in the light of the streetlamps, which have just come on, to cease their noise. Menace and fear before show time.

With a theatrical wiggle of their hips, and a come-hither glance cast towards the vague shapes of their audience, faceless in the descending darkness, countless Ursulas make some last adjustments to their hair before flying off, solo, wheezing softly into the unknown.

Frau Wittger keeps me out of the spotlight and I know not to draw attention to myself in any way. No solo flying. No soft wheezing. Yet a beast of a man is tracking us. As he lurches towards us I see that he is corpulent, whiskers failing to disguise his folded, falling face, and the night unable to mask his enlarged, pickled nose, the nostrils of which flair, breathing us in. He is old. At least forty. And he stares at me, saliva dripping, drooling. ‘How old?’ he asks Frau Wittger of me.

‘Not old enough, sir,’ she answers.