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Before I can answer, she jumps up, giving her beautiful wavy orange-gold hair a shake before adding, ‘He told old misery guts Emilie that it’s her but she’s not the one who ended up with neck ache and creepy crawlies in her hair from all them flowers. Besides, it’s like looking in a mirror for me when I look at it. And have you seen her?’ Her already familiar chuckle tells me that Emilie, whoever she is, is no looker.
I assume – wrongly – that she has to be another of Klimt’s models.
‘If he likes you, you could be a Golden Girl too. And he pays good money. You’ll be able to pay your rent. Put food on the table. Think how happy you’ll make your mother. Oh yes, Frau Wittger’s told me all about your circumstances, dear. Now, let’s have a good look at you. If I like you, he’ll like you. Don’t worry, I know how much you need this.’ She pulls me towards her and moves my limbs as if I’m a jointed mannequin.
‘Ouch!’ I’m not used to another person controlling my body in this way and though I try not to cry out, Hilde’s hands are pushing my fingers back, apart, together. ‘Nobody said modelling for an artist was easy,’ she snaps. ‘We’ve got to suffer for his art.’ She cackles. ‘So you might just as well get used to it. Now shut up and let’s get that face of yours sorted. Remember, there are worse things you could do to earn a crust.’
As Hilde quickly makes good my tear-damaged face I think of Ursula and the birdlike girl I met on my way to the artist’s studio, I remember Herr Bergman with disgust, and I know that Hilde is right – there are far worse things than to be an artist’s model.
‘Don’t force the child, Hilde. Be gentle with her.’ From behind me booms a man’s voice. It’s his voice, the voice of the artist. He has entered the studio without our hearing his footsteps. His accent is strong, his tone gruff, yet his words are kind. ‘I don’t want her to do anything that she feels uncomfortable with.’
Hilde spins me round so that he can see me.
Wiry, uneven tufts of coarse, grey hair grow out of a parched skull. A messily pointed goat-grey beard straggles down to meet straying white-grey chest hairs that escape up and over the neck of a dress. No. It’s not a dress that he wears, more a paint-spattered grey-blue smock that ineffectively hides his stocky body. Bare, hoof-like feet protrude beneath. Part high priest, part satyr. The artist is an alarming sight. Old.
He walks up close to me, assessing me in turn. And as I breathe in deeply to steady my troubled mind I take him into me. A smell of staleness overpowers the gentle fragrance of my own cleaned and powdered skin, filling my nostrils, entering my mouth, a staleness so strong I can taste it. I start to cough. I cannot help myself and quickly clap hands to mouth.
As I do so he envelops my small, soft hands firmly in his, and pulls them to him, turning them slowly, looking at them silently, broodingly. He brings them to his nose, sniffing, snuffling. Instinctively I close my eyes and transport myself to another place. Yet the place to which I find myself transported is an imagined side street with the tiny fragile bird of a girl and the grunting man from that afternoon. I open my eyes again quickly.
I am a commodity, ripe for inspection. And I need him to pick me.
His small eyes wrinkle and crease in a smile as he turns away from me, moving towards a table, this one strewn with sketchbooks and crayons.
‘Sit here.’ He gestures to the bed in the window, and I do as he asks. I am relieved. Petrified.
‘Name?’ he asks me.
‘Walburga Neuzil, sir,’ I tremblingly reply. He continues to scrutinize me as I find the courage to add, ‘My family call me Wally.’
‘Well, Wally,’ he says while studying every part of me, ‘it would be a waste to lose such a delicate flower, but …’ He pauses dramatically. I anticipate rejection. ‘It is important that you want to be here.’
It’s need not want that has its hands at my back, pushing me forwards. Strong, Wally, be strong. I can do it. I must do it. I wilfully conjure up in my mind the image of the fragile bird-girl. Then of Ursula. I think of the care and time Frau Wittger has lavished on me. Of my mother feeling unwell back home at our rooms with my three younger sisters to look after. Her tired drawn face. Her disappointment if I’m accepted. Her devastation if I’m not.
As I sit there, my red hair in pigtails with black ribbons, my clean skin glowing pink all over, the odd tearstain here and there, I look over at Hilde, who stands at the artist’s shoulder, mouthing words of praise and encouragement at me. ‘You do want to be here?’ he asks me. And I nod in assent. Slowly.
The artist mistakenly reads my reluctance for modesty, though in truth it’s both.
‘Now, my beautiful child, I want you to sit for me, that’s all. Due to the hour the light is not good and so it can only be for a short time.’ For what seems to be a very long and uncomfortable time to me, Hilde bends my legs, folds my arms and turns my head, much as she did before, while the artist draws sketch after sketch of me. I experience a burning sensation as I hold my left arm in the air. The suffering for his art has begun. I waver and wobble as my upheld arm throbs and twitches, Hilde silently whispering, ‘Keep still,’ at me.
This is my first time and I don’t really like it. I don’t really like it at all.
There’s a knock at the studio door.
Nobody responds to it. Nobody moves towards it. But like the school bell at the end of a lesson I have now had my concentration broken. All I want to do is go out and play. (Oh, if only.) My trance shattered, all I want to do is stop. Another louder knock follows. Still no response from either artist or Hilde – though as I look towards her I see that Hilde is now starting to look restless too. Then an urgent longer set of knocks hammers down upon the door, this time accompanied by a woman’s voice, shrill with anger, calling, ‘Gustav? Gustav? I know you’re in there. It’s time to go.’
At this, at last, the grizzled artist grumpily sets down his tools and holds up his sketches for inspection. He gets up and for a moment I am concerned that I won’t do. That he will rush off without a word. Relief that it’s over and panic that it might never happen again surge through me.
Hilde taps his arm. ‘She’ll do,’ she tells him, stroking the back of his neck affectionately.
‘She will,’ he says, before brushing her off and opening the studio door only to close it immediately after him.
For the moments that follow Hilde and I don’t move, concentrating as we are on the woman’s voice, which gets louder as she harangues the artist for making her wait, for not answering the door, for ignoring her, for making them late for their French class. ‘It just won’t do.’ Her voice continues to fill the space until it slips away along the corridor and – slam – out of the front door. And still we follow its shrill now wordless sound until it disappears completely.
And we laugh.
Chapter 5 (#ulink_09147d7f-669b-5d7e-a9cc-6618aade574e)
As I leave the studio I run home in the dark, conscious of my limbs, my breathing, how I hold my head. I imagine that I am the most supple of dancers leaping her way effortlessly home. I will myself to ‘shine from within’ but rapidly think better of this as it occurs to me that it doesn’t do, even with my key clutched in my hand for protection, to shine too brightly down secluded side streets. Once home, I fall back against the closed front door, panting with relief. And I smile.
‘So, how was it?’ Frau Wittger shouts down the stairs, wanting to know how I’ve got on before she’s even seen me.
I leap up the stairs with excitement. ‘I’ve done it. I’ve done it,’ I shout. ‘I’m going to be an artist’s model.’ I can’t wait to see Mama’s face light up, if only a little, at the news and I bound into the bedroom. Olga and Frieda are asleep. Mama isn’t there.
For a moment I am worried until Frau Wittger calls out in a loud whisper, ‘She’s here with us in the kitchen.’ Frau Wittger and Mama are sitting around the kitchen table, a lit candle in the middle, shedding just enough light to reveal the pained look of anguish on my mother’s face. The flame flickers, accentuating the hollows of her already sunken cheeks, exaggerating her expression of self-sacrifice. Although it’s not herself she’s sacrificed. She says nothing.
‘So, girl,’ Frau Wittger asks, looking for details, ‘how was it at the studio?’ But as she pulls the tone up so my mother drags it down with her air of self-pity.
I can’t answer. The weight of expectation. The burden of disappointment. These are my mother’s gifts to me. I return home with news of a job but all she can do is sit and look sorry for herself. I’ve done it for her, all for her. Can’t she see how afraid I am of the cloven-hoofed, coarse-haired artist in the dirty smock? And to know that I’d brightened her life just a little, made her smile even for the briefest of moments, would make it all worthwhile.
‘What’s his name? What’s he like? Is he any good?’ Katya is still up. She should have gone to bed with Olga and Frieda three hours earlier, but she’s strong-willed, stronger-willed than our mother, and that’s why she’s sitting at the table asking the questions. Perhaps it’s my mother who should have gone to, or rather stayed in, bed. Katya is eleven years old, with light brown hair, her moon face a waxing, waning crescent as she shifts her head excitedly in the candlelight, waiting for my answers.
‘He’s the best artist in all of Vienna,’ Frau Wittger answers for me, trying to engage my mother. ‘His name is Gustav Klimt. Don’t you recall? I told you.’
‘Really?’ says Mother, vague. ‘I can’t remember.’ And distant.
‘You’ve heard of him,’ the older woman insists. And with that the licking flames from Frau Wittger’s tongue set about melting the frozen pinnacles of the iceberg that is my mother.
With burning promises and incandescent claims she makes me believe that I’m the luckiest girl in the world. ‘Vienna is plastered all over with his name … His work is everywhere. You’ve got to see his murals in the Burgtheater, the Beethoven Frieze in that new white building, then there’s the paintings he’s done for the university – although I think there’s been a little to-do over them. Anyway, he’s on his way to painting the entire city. Then there’s a list of society ladies as long as your arm all waiting to get done by him. Herr Bloch-Bauer, you know, the man who made his money in sugar – him – well he wants Klimt to do his wife an’ all. Not sure if he already has? But just think, our little Wally will be mixing with the likes of them!’
Mother pulls a face. I can tell she’s trying, though it’s not quite yet a smile.
‘Bottom line is – he’s famous,’ Frau Wittger concludes, sitting back and crossing her arms with finality.
‘Thank you for all that you’ve done for my family.’ Although it’s not pride, joy, happiness my mother expresses, I am touched by the gratitude she shows towards Frau Wittger. My kind mother is still in there somewhere behind the shattered pieces of herself.
Frau Wittger gently pats the back of my mother’s hand in quiet appreciation, acknowledging the effort it has taken for my broken mother to engage. Yes Frau Wittger has been far more than a landlady. She’s fed us, found work for us, kept us off the streets and out of the workhouse, but it’s not simply thanks she wants, it’s hope, for us to have the strength to cope and do something with our lives.
As I look at her illuminated in the candlelight, her every line shows a depth of understanding of a life well lived. The ugly, evil, old hag who opened the door of her home to us when we first arrived in Vienna, who I thought might push us in the oven, roast us, eat us, has vanished. She has been replaced by the woman whose light shines forth tonight, burning so brightly that I feel its warmth. She has done what I could not – got through to my poor, locked-in mother.
‘Aren’t you proud of your daughter?’ Frau Wittger asks her. I look at my mother. Her eyes are like watery pools. And she nods softly.
And I am overcome with joy.
‘Let’s have some hot chocolate to celebrate!’ Frau Wittger fetches her best cups, the ones with the elegant gold-painted handles, and sets about heating up the milk singing something in French as she goes. ‘I love this song. It’s by Gaby Deslys,’ she shouts.
‘Je cherche un millionnaire.
Un type chic qui voudrait bien de moi,
Au moins une fois par mois.
Je cherche un millionnaire
Qui me dirait froidement,
Tout ce que j’ai c’est à toi,
Je cherche un millionnaire.
C’est pour ça que je fais le boulevard …’
As I look at the back of her head, bobbing in time to the song, I know that I owe it all to her – staying off the streets, making my mother proud. And that’s all I ever want to do.
***
Mama hasn’t always been this way, withdrawn and weak. And I’ve not always done my best to help her. She annoys me, to show so little fight, but I know it’s not her fault.
Life’s changed her, changed me, pounded us like lumps of clay, soft matter, so that we’ve lost ourselves for now. For some, life may be for living, but, for me, the only thing it’s good for is for learning, as I have no choice, no power, to do the former. I may not go to school but I have a brain and know how to use it when I get the chance. And in the most extreme times, I’ve learnt the greatest lessons. That’s why I owe it to Mama, to you, to put a few things straight.
***
A time before Vienna
There was a time when we were happy: my father, my mother, my sisters, and me. A time before Vienna, in a village called Tattendorf, far, far away. My mother was a happy soul, always laughing, and she adored my father who was a much-loved teacher in our local school. Our lives were good and the only poverty we knew was the poverty of others. And every Christmas, rich factory owners from Vienna would come and make it go away. Or so it seemed.
Once a year they would arrive, compassionate, immaculate, god-like in demeanour, and they would shower upon the poorly dressed and damaged food and clothes, sweets and treats. And I would admire them.
The poor themselves, I admit to my eternal shame, I would regard with great disdain for no other reason than their poverty and what it had reduced them to: accepting cast-offs, begging for money, grovelling, having no self-respect. I did not understand, at the time, their agonizing humiliation at having to kiss the shoes of the very people who had made them poor in the first place. I suppose few of us ever do. Until it happens to us.
But Fate generously gave me that opportunity when Mama and I worked in the factories after we arrived in Vienna. Some of the owners were the very same rich men who used to visit the poor children in our village, arms laden with presents. They didn’t remember us, their benevolent smiles now replaced by demands and gripes for not coping with the twelve-hour days and a pittance of a wage.
Like sinners in a hell of never-ending toil, we worked and worked. And if the toil should accidentally end in one place, then we would scrabble around so that it could start up all over again in another. We were infinitely dispensable, disposable, replaceable, as we frequently discovered. And you know the story about Herr Bergman and me.
That’s part of the reason why Mama is as she is now. Employers don’t want weak workers or those who speak out when rights are wronged. But it’s not the whole story. The main cause for our fall started back in our village. Sometimes I can’t understand it. Can life be so unfair? Sometimes I even think it was my fault because it certainly wasn’t my mother’s. Perhaps you can decide.
That last Christmas in Tattendorf we were happy. To have lost paradise – that’s how it seems to me today when I think about it.
The fall was swift and brutal.
Christmas had come to an end. As we were putting the decorations away, one of the gilded walnuts rolled towards me. Father had warned us girls not to touch them, but, calculating that he would never find out, I removed the nut from its shell and put it in my mouth. Anticipated pleasure turned into unforeseen pain. A taste of putrefaction invaded my mouth. Instinctively I spat out the rot.
I waited for the consequences, as Mama was always quick to deal with us when we’d done something wrong. And though she quickly gestured to Katya to help me clean up the saliva-drenched pieces, she barely turned away from the conversation she was having with Papa.
I held up the gilded shell and wondered how such a perfect surface could have hidden something so disgusting. Something wasn’t right.
Father stopped working at the school very soon after Christmas. Several months later mother screamed at me: ‘Wally, run. Get Father Neuberg. Hurry!’
Father Neuberg came immediately to hear Papa’s last confession and while we sat with him he repeatedly said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Now I know why.
When my mother’s sobs exploded I knew Papa was dead. We were alone. My sisters and I without a father; my mother without a husband. We were appropriately devastated, dressed in black and grieving as we should. Losing Father was hard.
Though (please don’t think me callous) being poor was harder. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing could have prepared us for the devastation of being poor. At first, the neighbours were kind, coming round with pots of soup and loaves of bread. But as the demands came in: ‘You still owe me for three prescriptions …’; ‘You owe me for the groceries …’; then propositions addressed to Mama – the neighbours retreated so far back into their cottages that they disappeared from sight, no longer even answering their doors to us.
Then it came. ‘Notice to quit’ in a letter from the school authorities.
Dear Mrs Neuzil,
We would like to extend our warmest sympathy to you and your family at the loss of your beloved husband. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for your husband’s faithful service as a much-valued teacher at our school. His hard work and devotion were examples to us all and greatly appreciated. His passing has been a genuine loss to the community and it has been very difficult to replace him.
Yet replace him we must, for the sake of our children. Thus, it is with great respect that we thank you for appreciating that we must house our new teacher.
We do not expect you to vacate the property immediately and so we have agreed upon what I’m sure you will see is a very generous offer. That is, that you will be allowed six weeks starting from the receipt of this letter to find alternative accommodation for you and your family.
Good wishes for the future,
The School Authorities
I took the letter out of my mother’s hand as she prostrated herself, sobbing, across the table in front of her. No husband. No home. Four daughters.
I hope you see it now – that no one is more deserving of kindness and pity than a mother of four young girls. Hard lessons to learn for all of us. And although I know it has nothing to do with that silly rotten walnut, part of me wishes that it did, as at least then it wouldn’t seem so random, so unfair, what’s happened to Mama. At least it would have meant that the gods had a plan. Even if we didn’t understand it. That someone was responsible.
***
But back to me. One week I’m counting sheets of glasspaper, avoiding paternally disposed salesmen who want me to call them Daddy, and the next I’m counting my blessings for having found a job as a model. Oh, so I’m making light of the attack. But don’t think that I found it funny at the time because I did not.
In fact, it was only after something Hilde said to me at the studio when I’d told her about it that I decided to laugh about it at all. She told me that a hard life can seem like a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think and so, challenging though it may be, I’ve decided that I’m going to be doing a lot more thinking from now on. And, if you think about it (as I have), then you’ll realize that it’s Herr Bergman I’m mocking, not me.
So, now, I’m here. Modelling. Or rather learning how to model. And I’m not finding it very easy. Even the seemingly simple poses are proving to be a physical challenge. ‘Start her off with something easy to hold, Gustav,’ Hilde tells him. ‘It’s pretty tough for beginners.’
And so he does. Asks me to sit for him. Just sit. Now you mightn’t think that you’d have any trouble, just sitting down. But I do. Maintaining the same pose for sometimes over an hour can be agony. The muscles in my neck hurt from the effort not to move. I can’t even feel the nerves in my buttocks, as I’ve been clenching them so tightly in my attempt not to slouch. It’s not easy work.
Herr Klimt makes lots of sketches, showing them to me as he goes, and although I don’t consider them to be great likenesses they are well executed. He even lets me take one home. It becomes my most prized possession – little matter that it is my only one (apart from my black satin ribbons).
When I’m not modelling I’m watching others model while the artist paints. He is a quiet man. Quiet as he works. Yet he likes to touch as he draws. His gnarled hands, paint hardened under fingernails, gently stroke what he sees before committing it to paper. His thumb, rough-skinned, outlines the contours of cheeks, the line of a jaw, the sweep of a forehead. When he does it to me I don’t like it but Hilde says, ‘Imagine you’re just fruit in the fruit bowl. And don’t squirm if he comes close to sniff you.’ I flinched the first few times. But now I am getting used to it, finding it almost reassuring.
I see Hilde every time I am at the studio; she’s always there, and the two girls I recognize from the large canvas in the corner have become familiar faces. And bodies. With a nod of Herr Klimt’s head they both take off their clothes and get themselves into position on the day bed in front of the window. They’re pretty, a year or two older than me, though far more experienced.
I chant Hilde’s reminder: ‘it’s just a body; it’s just a body’ over and over again. I think of fruit in a fruit bowl. Objects. Things. Shapes. Textures. Smells. Break it down, Wally. Break it down. Lines. Contours. Shapes. Break it down still more, Wally. She sees me – Hilde – as she’s draping the sea serpent models in sheer green and as she passes she leads me into another room, drawing the door to as quietly as she can.
‘Now look,’ Hilde tells me.
We sit at a table upon which Hilde has placed a small pile of sketches.
‘Go on,’ she commands.
I leaf through them. Pictures of girls. Women. Of all ages. Not all beautiful. Not all whole. Body parts. Sketches of heads, hands, legs, breasts. Some bodies – completely naked. Some are beautiful. Others unnerve me with their detail. I’ve never seen anything like it, sketched or in real life, and I blush just to look at them. ‘Never look down at your body,’ my mother always says. And I never do.
