The Artist’s Muse

Chapter 3

It’s Tuesday the 5th of November, 1907, and nine months since we turned up at Frau Wittger’s door and gave her something to worry about; she says her life was a walk in the park before we turned up, although the strange way she laughs as she says this makes me wonder if that was as good a thing as it sounds.

And she’s already worrying before she starts to work on me today. I am too. We have a lot riding on it. ‘Come here!’ she cries, grabbing me more roughly than she’d intended by the arm.

‘Your skin’s so pale – it shows every mark!’ Tut-tut-tutting, she places her hands, cold and rough, around my jaw and turns my face to the light.

It’s a sunny day. The sort that shows up the filth on the windowpanes. Whose low-in-the-sky late autumn sun blinds you for your foolishness in daring to face it. Hitting you. Blasting you with searchlight force, and any other object in its way, against the facing wall. Too bright. Woe betide the poor ordinary mortal who gets in its way.

‘You two! Get out from under there!’ she cries as Olga and Frieda come out of their hiding place under her bed and run out of the room. ‘But be careful not to disturb your mother,’ she whispers after them. ‘She’s trying to sleep!’ She closes the door after them. Then, in the unforgiving light, she scrutinizes me.

Tut, tut, tut!

As she releases me from her searching grip Frau Wittger retreats to the only upholstered chair in the room, momentarily overcome by the magnitude of the task. Now she too is in full beam. Irritated, she shields her eyes and face from its cruellest revelations. Yet she cannot conceal herself completely. Her hands and neck take a heavy hit.

I suppose you could say she is well dressed. Certainly the weight of the deep blue wool from which the dress is made gives her an air of respectability. And its design – square-necked bodice, decorative buttons centre front, pinched in at the waist, white lace collar – gives a pleasing shape to the parts of her body that it contains. But as the white lace collar frills and froths in the sunlight its uneven pure white edges cast shadows on an already interesting neckline, seemingly squeezing out a well-filled strudel and giving it an exceedingly flaky crust.

And though her hair – piled high upon her head in the pompadour style – glistens with streaks of white and silver, this only serves to blind me, causing my eyes to seek sanctuary in the brittle, grey dullness of her hands. Those rough hands she has just laid upon me. Hands that thirstily drink in the sun that seeps through every crack and flake, rendering the fault lines ever darker and deeper.

A carriage passes by on the street outside. Horseshoe on cobble. Its clack-clacking disturbing the dust motes in the shaft of light. I follow snakeskin scales as they fall away from the backs of Frau Wittger’s hands, crumbling away, swirling, eddying upwards, before vanishing into the kindly, forgiving shade. I pull my gaze back to the hands. They drain the light, sucking it in behind every crease and fold, its energy magnifying as it goes. Skin knots and ridged-nail trunks on gnarled tree-bark hands.

I blink. Refocus. My kaleidoscope stare makes out yellow spots beneath dead-dull thick claws.

I have come to have her prepare me. I imagine the scraping of desiccated fingertips, traces of Frau Wittger, on the surface of my skin.

She stands, bringing her hands by her sides, slowly moving towards the coolness of the dressing table upon which are displayed an attractive array of pots and potions in all sizes and colours. Tissues. Books of papier poudré. Sable hairbrushes and bright-coloured ribbons. Timely and pleasing distractions all, upon which to rest my eyes after the trauma caused them by Frau Wittger’s hands.

As if she knows what I’m thinking she positions herself with her back to the window and presents her hands for my inspection. No longer grotesque out of the sunlight, they just look pale and small. And possibly a little dry.

She sets about her tricks.

She opens a tub, plunging her fingers into the glistening white peaks contained within. Wringing, kneading, rubbing, patting, she works cream into the crevasses and creases of her hands. White. Translucently melting. Vanished. And not just the cream. Like a magician she raises the palms of her hands and wriggles her fingers. All, all gone. The creases are softer, the skin now smoother. The flaky, brittleness now plump and moist. She takes a tissue and blots the residue before offering the back of her hand for my delectation. Not sure what to do I kiss it. I have heard my sister Katya say that that is what ladies do – give out their hands to be kissed. That’s why I do so.

She laughs.

‘No need to kiss the likes of me, silly girl. Just smell it.’

My nostrils breathe in Frau Wittger’s floral-scented skin.

‘There. Geranium oil.’

I smile in surprise then wonder at its delicate fragrance.

‘Now touch. Touch my hand, girl.’

I touch her hand, unable to stop myself turning it in awe. I caress its dewy softness as she glides the back of her other hand lightly across my cheek. What sort of magic is this? Then ‘Clap!’ she puts her hands together dramatically before whipping them away, back now turned to me.

This most elaborate of hand moisturizing rituals is still not finished. I hear another lid removed. An unctuous squelch. Fingers in jam. Not a minute later she has rubbed in and buffed up the jellylike stuff on her nails. She removes the excess with a tissue, which she leaves scrunched up on the side.

‘There.’ She holds her hands up once again, walking back into the sunlight. Pink nails. A healthy sheen. Soft, generous, plumped-up skin. The metamorphosis is complete. I have witnessed a miracle.

She turns her attention to me. It is my turn to be transformed from a pale and blotchy thirteen-year-old girl with messy red hair to an ideal of female perfection.

‘You’re tired. Shows in your face.’ Tut. ‘This is going to take me ages.’ Tut, tut! ‘Now if only I could slap on some proper colour …’ Tut, tut, tut! I scan the table, responsive to her words, searching for bright and bold. I am excited and afraid. Will she give me red lips? Strong eyes? Vivid cheeks? Will I look like an actress? Dear God, let her not make me look like a prostitute.

With brushes and powders and lotions and potions she massages, creams, and daubs me for the next hour.

She talks me through her materials. Pots of colour. ‘Pinks for the cheeks and lips. Browns and yellows for the eyes.’ Books of papier poudré: ‘face powder for a matt and natural complexion’. Lemon juice: ‘a tonic for the skin. And to lighten it. It can tingle.’ Cream: ‘to both soften and massage in. Gets the blood circulating for a nice, healthy glow. And if it doesn’t then there’s always a stronger rouge. But I will avoid that if I can.’ Petroleum jelly: ‘to make the lips juicy and the nails’, wiggling hers once more to demonstrate the point, ‘lustrous’. Materials spread out on the dressing table, the artist sets to work, her only tools her fingers, one small brush, and some blotting paper.

She begins with the lemon juice. Fingers sweep deftly across my face. Then cream, her now soft and firm hands massaging upwards and out. ‘Up the neck – two, three. Circle round the nose – two, three. Up the side of the face – two, three. Up the forehead – two, three. ‘Supposed to help a girl’s face defy gravity – not that you need it yet.’

I look up at her and I smile. It feels heavenly. Not the cream. But to feel the warmth of her hands, to be touched with such care.

She goes over to the dressing table and looks at the pots of eye colour. My eyes are tight shut. My nose flares involuntarily to keep fine powder dust out as she dabs soft brown on my lids, followed by face powder held between sheets of a pretty little book, on its cover a white silhouette of a woman against a black background.

I hear her move back. Say ‘Yes.’ No tuts.

‘Now for just a tiny pinch of rouge. Tiny, tiny, tiny.’ Her fingers massage peony pink into my cheeks using small circular movements as I breathe with pleasure.

She picks up the mirror to show me two shiny pink apples. To me they are the prettiest of cheeks in the loveliest of pinks. She sees my joy.

‘No, love. No.’ She laughs. ‘Madness perhaps, because you look lovely, but this look says, well, let’s just say, sweetheart, that a look like this can get you into trouble. Attract the wrong sort of attention. This look says danger.’ She looks into my eyes with sadness. She is not smiling. ‘Besides, it’s not the fashion.’ I look at my reflection again. It’s enchanting. But having already received the wrong sort of attention I am in no hurry to court it again. Pink rose blush takes its place, giving the final look a delicate sugar coating.

I take care not to wrinkle, sneeze, or in any way disturb the work Frau Wittger has created. She is beaming as she holds up the mirror.

‘You need just a little something on your lips.’ She fusses, adding peony pink then rubbing it off to leave a delicate stain. ‘Now you can’t get that colour biting them.’ She laughs, her head pulling back and causing her Apfelstrudel neck creases to disappear momentarily.

‘Nearly done.’

With tiny pieces of blotting paper it’s as if she’s wiping away everything she’s done. Yet she’s so gentle, so careful. I’ve not felt so safe for such a long while. Not since before father stopped teaching.

‘Now to make this God-given red hair dazzle.’ Her voice is so happy, her touch so enthusiastic, as she plunges her fingers playfully though my lawless hair, that even I start to believe that this is possible. To change the curse that has been my unruly red hair into a blessing. Can that be? I hope that she’ll pin it up, turn me into a Gibson girl. Instead she pulls out two black satin ribbons. I shudder. I hold my tongue and let her tie my hair in childish bunches.

‘It’s me who’s the real bloody artist,’ she says proudly.

She offers me the pretty silver-handled mirror so that I can fully appreciate her finished work before opening the door. All three sisters tumble in. Though there’s no sign of Mama.

‘She’s ready,’ Frau Wittger tells them as they gasp in appreciation.

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.

I pant with terror. I dare not move. He looks at my ribbons, my hair, my virgin skin. Frau Wittger’s body stiffens and bristles, soft arms rendered implacable weapons to keep the foe at bay. The man sneers, giving a low, deep, dismissive laugh that is suddenly broken by the soft coo-cooing of a delicate birdlike creature. She swoops and falls around us advertising her wares.

The sight of this fragile, tiny girl, weighing not much more than a bag of cherries, so easily available, catches his attention. He puts out his bearlike hand and grabs her before she flies on. She twitters with the excitement of the young girl that she is before singing a more disturbingly seductive song – gay bright young chirrups dropping to rollingly suggestive coos. My senses pound in pointless rebellion as I hear his low, grunted response.

I sense danger.

My breath leaves my body in despair as he leads her roughly away. But as they fade into the distance I feel relief. Gratitude. I see a tiny, fragile, young girl hanging off the arm of a fat, ageing man. A repulsive sight. But I don’t look away. I watch them. I make myself watch them, as they find their chosen side street where she will allow herself to be snapped. Broken. I am sad for her. Glad for me. What am I to do with this unpalatable truth? Do you think you would have helped her? I thought I would have too. But I didn’t.

I cannot look Frau Wittger in the eye and she does not look at me. ‘How can she?’ escapes from my mouth. As if she’s got a choice. I hold tightly on to my guide. Seeking protection.

She lets out a sigh. ‘Poor cow.’ She rubs my arm reassuringly in return. ‘The modelling work will pay your bills.’