Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  You and I don't know each other, but we have already formed an idea of one another. And you don't know yourself, but you've already formed an idea about yourself.' Clara nodded. Van Tysch went on.

  'Nothing around us, nothing we know or do not know, is either completely known or unknown. It's so easy to invent extremes. It's the same with light. Did you know there's no such thing as total darkness, even for a blind person? Darkness is full of presences: shapes, smells, thoughts ... And take a look at this summer evening light. Would you say it was pure? Take a good look. I'm not just talking about the shadows. Look between the cracks of the light. Can you see the tiny specks of darkness? Light is embroidered on a very dark canvas, but that's hard to see. We have to mature. As we do so, we come to understand that truth is an intermediate point. It's as if our eyes accustomed us to life. We understand that day and night, and life and death, too, perhaps, are merely different points in the play of light and shade. We discover that truth, the only truth worthy of the name, is shade.'

  After a pause, as though he had been thinking about what he had just said, he repeated:

  'The only truth is shade. That's why everything is so terrible. That's why life is so unbearable and terrible. That's why everything is so dreadful.'

  Clara could not hear any emotion in his words. It was as if he were talking aloud as he worked. Van Tysch's mind was spinning in a void.

  'Take off your robe.'

  'Yes.'

  As she was doing so, he asked her:

  'What did you feel when your father died?'

  Clara was folding her robe over a tree branch. The air enfolded her naked, primed body like a caress of pure water. The question brought her to a halt. She looked at Van Tysch:

  'What did I feel when my father died?'

  'Yes. What did you feel?'

  'Not a lot. I mean ... I don't think I felt it as badly as my mother and brother. They knew him better, so it was worse for them.'

  'Did you see him die?'

  ‘No. He died in hospital. He was at home when he had a crisis, a fit. He was taken to hospital, and I wasn't allowed to see him.'

  Van Tysch went on staring at her. The sun had moved round and lit part of his face.

  'Have you dreamed of him since?'

  'Occasionally'

  'What sort of dreams?'

  ‘I dream of ... of his face. His face appears, he says strange things to me, then he disappears.'

  A bird sang and then fell silent. Van Tysch screwed up his eyes to look at her.

  'Walk over there,' he said. He pointed towards the shade under a fake tree.

  The plastic grass bent docilely under her bare feet. Van Tysch raised his right arm.

  There is fine.'

  She stopped. Van Tysch had put his glasses on again, and was coming over. He had not touched her: all he had done was to outline her with his curt orders, but already she felt changed, as if her body were different, better drawn than ever before. She was convinced her body would do whatever he asked of it without waiting for her brain to agree. And she was determined she would lay her mind at his feet as well. All of it. Completely. Whatever he said, whatever he wished. Without limit.

  'What happened?' Van Tysch asked.

  'When?'

  'Just now.'

  'Now?'

  Tes, now. Tell me what you're thinking. Tell me exactly what you're thinking right now.'

  She started to speak, almost without the words needing to pass through her brain.

  'I am thinking that I've never felt this way with any painter before. That I have surrendered to you. That my body does what you tell it to almost before you even say it. And I'm thinking my mind has to surrender, too. That's what I was thinking when you asked me what had happened.'

  When she finished it was as though a weight had been lifted. She thought about it. She found she had nothing more to confess. She remained silent like a soldier waiting for orders.

  Van Tysch took off his glasses. He looked bored. He muttered a few words in Dutch, then took a handkerchief and a small bottle out of his pocket. Somewhere in the heavens a plane roared by. The sun was in its dying moments.

  'Let's get rid of those features,' he said, wetting a corner of the handkerchief in the liquid and approaching her once more.

  She did not move a muscle. Van Tysch's finger inside the handkerchief rubbed roughly at her face. As it came down towards her eyes, Clara forced herself to keep them open, because he had not told her she could close them. Distant images of Gerardo reached her like remote echoes. She had felt good when he painted her face, but now she was pleased Van Tysch was going to rub it all out. It had been yet another act of clumsiness by Gerardo, like a child scribbling in the corner of a canvas Rembrandt was considering using. She was amazed Van Tysch had not protested.

  When he had finished, Van Tysch put his glasses back on. For a moment, she thought he was not satisfied. Then she saw him put away the bottle and the handkerchief.

  'Why are you scared someone might break into your house at night?'

  'I don't know. It's true, I've no idea. I don't think anything like that has ever happened to me.'

  'I saw the night-time footage we took of you, and I was surprised at the terror on your face when my assistants came near the window. I thought we might be able to fix an expression like that. To paint it, I mean. And perhaps I will. But I'm after something better than that. . .'

  Clara did not say a word. She just went on staring at him. Behind his head, the sky was going dark.

  'What did you feel when your father died?'

  ‘I felt pretty bad. It was just before Christmas. I remember it was a very sad Christmas. Over the next year I gradually began to feel better.'

  'Why did you blink?'

  ‘I don't know. Maybe it was your breath. When you speak, you breathe on my face. Do you want me to try not to blink?' 'What did you feel when your father died?' 'Very sad. I cried a lot.'

  'Why do you get so excited if someone breaks into your house at night?'

  'Because ... excited? No, it doesn't excite me. It frightens me.' 'You're not being sincere.'

  This took her by surprise. She responded with the first thing that came into her head. 'No. Yes.'

  'Why are you not being sincere?' ‘I don't know. I'm frightened.' 'Of me?'

  ‘I don't know. Of me.' 'Are you excited now?' 'No. A little, perhaps.'

  'Why do you always reply in two contradictory ways?' 'Because I want to be sincere. To say everything that occurs to me.'

  Van Tysch seemed vaguely annoyed. He took some paper out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it and did something extraordinary. He flung it in her face.

  It struck her and floated to the plastic ground. As it fell, Clara could see it was a crumpled catalogue of Girl in Front of a Looking Glass by Alex Bassan. The catalogue contained a close-up photo of her face.

  ‘I saw that photo when I was looking for a canvas for one of my "Rembrandts". I was immediately taken with the luminous quality of your gaze,' Van Tysch said. ‘I gave orders for you to be given a contract, I had you stretched and primed and paid a fortune for you to be brought from Madrid as artistic material. I thought that shining light would be ideal for my work, and that I could paint you a lot better than that fellow. So why can't I? I haven't found it in any of the footage we took of you in the farm. I thought it must be related to your nighttime fears, and ordered my assistants to make the leap into the void with you in the early hours of this morning. But I don't think it has anything to do with the tension of a moment, so I decided to come here personally. Just now when I was approaching you I thought I could catch a glimpse of it for a tenth of a second. I asked you what had happened. But I don't think that it has anything to do with you. I think it exists independently of you. It appears and disappears like some shy animal. Why? Why do your eyes suddenly light up like that?'

  Before she could reply, Van Tysch started speaking in a very different voice. It was an icy whisper, a galvanic curren
t.

  'I've grown tired of asking you questions to make it appear and try to fix it in your gaze, all you do is give idiotic replies so I can't find what I want anywhere. You behave like a pretty little girl with an eye on her opportunity. A beautiful body asking to be painted. You think you're very beautiful and you want to be noticed. You want to be made into something wonderful. You think you're a professional canvas, but you've no idea what it means to be a canvas, and you'll die without ever finding out. The video tapes from the farm have shown me that as a canvas, you're absolutely mediocre. The only thing that interests me in you is what you have in your eyes. There are things within us that are greater than we are, but even so are still minute. For example, your father's tumour. Tiny things that are more important than our lives. Frightening things. They are what art is made from. Occasionally, they come out: that's what we call "purging" them. It's as though we were vomiting. To me, you are less than your vomit. It's your vomit I want. Do you know why?'

  She said nothing. She was pleased somehow that she had no tears, because above all she wanted to cry.

  Tell me. Do you know why I want it?' Van Tysch repeated the question in an offhand way.

  'No,' she murmured.

  'Because it's mine. It's inside you, but it's mine.' He jabbed at his chest with his forefinger. 'That glow that sometimes appears in your eyes belongs to me. I was the one who first saw it, and so it's mine.'

  He stepped back, turned round, walked away a few paces. Clara could hear him fiddling with something. When he came back, she saw he was holding a pipe he had just filled.

  'So here we'll stay, just the two of us, until I see it appear.'

  He brought a match flame down over the pipe bowl. The darkness around them grew deeper and deeper. He tossed the match to the ground and put it out with his foot.

  'One of the advantages of a non-flammable plastic wood,' he said.

  It was this strange joke, precisely this wretched joke inserted into his frozen monologue, which seemed to her the worst insult of all. She had to use all her strength to avoid saying or doing anything, to keep looking at him evenly.

  ‘I’m going to chase that little shining animal in your eyes out of its hiding place,' said Van Tysch. 'And when I see it come out, I'll catch it. The rest is of no interest to me.'

  Then after another moment, he added:

  'The rest is only you.'

  Clara did not know how many hours she had been standing immobile on the plastic grass, with the night air on her smooth naked body. A cold north wind had sprung up. The sky was completely overcast. A slow, deep-rooted chill that seemed to come from within her body, was boring into her willpower like a drill. But she suspected that her suffering did not come from her physical discomfort but from him.

  Van Tysch came and went. Occasionally he walked up to her and studied her face in the growing darkness. Then he would scowl and move away again. Once he left the wood altogether. He was away for some time, and when he came back he was carrying what looked like fruit. He leaned back against a plastic tree and began to eat, ignoring her completely. Standing there without moving, she saw him in the distance as a dark stain with long legs, a huge, skinny spider. Then she saw him lie down on the grass and fold his arms. It looked as if he were having a nap. Clara felt hungry, cold, and had a tremendous desire to relax her pose, but none of that mattered to her at that moment. She was trying above all to hold on to her willpower.

  Then all of a sudden Van Tysch approached her again. He came stumbling towards her, snorting like a furious beast.

  Tell me,' he roared.

  She did not understand. He gave a kind of furious groan. His voice broke in the middle of a word, like that of a veteran smoker.

  Tell me something?

  But she did not know what to say. She had been silent for hours, and found it hard to break free of her inertia. But she obeyed him. The words poured out as if it were just a question of opening her mouth.

  'I feel bad. I want to do the best 1 can, but I feel bad because you look down on me. 1 think you're mad or a sad bastard, or perhaps both at the same time. I hate you, and I think that's what you wanted. I can't bear you looking down on me. Before you excited me. I swear, I got excited feeling I was in your hands. But not now. Now I couldn't give a shit about you. And here I am.'

  When she finished, she realised Van Tysch had scarcely been listening to her. He was still staring at her eyes.

  'What did you feel when your father died?' he asked.

  'Relief,' Clara said straightaway. 'His illness was terrible. He lay on the sofa all the time and dribbled. He farted in front of me and grinned like an animal. One day he vomited in the dining room, then bent down and started searching for something in the vomit. He was ill, but I couldn't understand that. My father had always been such an open, cultured man. He loved classical painting. That thing was not my father. That was why I was relieved when he died. But now I know that...'

  That's enough,' Van Tysch said without raising his voice. 'Why are you so frightened that someone might get into your room at night?'

  'I'm frightened they might hurt me. I'm frightened someone might hurt me. I'm telling you all I know!'

  The wind had risen. Her robe shifted on the branch of the nearby tree, then fell off. Clara was unaware of this.

  'It's hard to be sincere, isn't it?' growled Van Tysch. 'We're always taught that it's the opposite of telling lies. But let me tell you something. For many people, sincerity is nothing more than the duty not to tell lies. So it's a pretence, too.'

  'I'm trying to be sincere.'

  'That's why you're failing.'

  The wind whipped at the hem of Van Tysch's jacket. He turned up the lapels to protect his neck from the wind, and started rubbing his hands. All of a sudden he pointed at Clara's head with his forefinger.

  'Something in there is moving, turning round, hiding. It wants to get out. Why are you so harsh with yourself? Why do you take all this as though it were a military exercise? Why don't you do something silly? Don't you need to empty your bladder?'

  'No,' said Clara.

  ‘But try. Pee right here.'

  She tried. Not a drop.

  ‘I can't,' she said.

  'You see? You said: "I can't". Everything with you is being able to do something or not. "I can do this, I can't do that" .. . Forget about yourself for a moment. What I want is for you to understand .. . No, not to understand . .. What I want is to tell you that you do not matter ... But what's the point of talking if you don't believe me.' He paused, as if he were trying to think of a simpler way to put it. Then he went on, speaking slowly and emphasising his words with his hands. 'You are simply the carrier of something I need for my work. Look, I'm the one being sincere now, I know it's hard to do, but think of yourself as a nutshell; I want to crack you open, not because I hate you or look down on you. Not even because I think you're special, but because I am looking for what you have inside. I'll throw the rest away. Let me do it.'

  Clara said nothing.

  'At least tell me you don't want me to do it,' Van Tysch said calmly, almost begging her. 'Fight me.'

  ‘I want to give you what you're asking for,' she stammered, ‘But I can't.'

  There you go again: "I can't." I set you a trap. Of course you can't. But see how you're making an effort? You won't accept that you're simply a vehicle. It's as if the nutshell could split itself open, without any kind of pressure from outside.' He raised his hand and placed it gently on her naked shoulder. 'You're freezing. And look how you're trembling. See how right I am? Even now you're making an effort. Making an effort! I think the best thing is to leave it.'

  He walked away again. When he came back he was carrying her robe.

  'Get dressed.'

  'No please.'

  'Come on, get dressed.'

  'Please no please.'

  Clara was perfectly aware that Van Tysch was using a fairly crude painting technique: false compassion. But his brushstroke had been masterl
y. Something within her had given way. She felt it as she might have felt the approach of death. That almost unbearable idea - putting her robe back on and ending everything at a stroke - had shattered something very hard inside her. Her shoulders began to shake. She realised she was crying without tears.

  He studied her for a moment.

  'That expression is good,' he said, 'quite good, but I still can't see anything special in your eyes. We'll have to try something else.'

  He fell silent. Clara shut her eyes tight. Van Tysch was still studying her.

  'It's incredible,' he muttered. 'You have enormous willpower, but you can't get rid of yourself. You're pulling at your face muscles, keeping the reins tight. Come on, come on . .. Do you want to be a great work? Is that why you agreed to be painted? Do you want to be a masterpiece? ... How wrong can you be. Look . . . Even now while you're listening to me, you're getting tense ... your will is whispering to you: "I have to resist!'"