‘I am pleased, so pleased that you are here,’ he murmured.
Tawny eyes suddenly met his with a directness which startled him. ‘I’m married now, you know,’ she announced.
He laughed, the sound burbling inside him and then rising with a richness he no longer remembered. The laugh swept her up so that she joined him in it.
‘I know,’ he said, when the wave had subsided. ‘But I’ve never been a respecter of property.’
She considered him, ‘But you’re altered in other ways.’
‘Inevitably,’ he looked grim for a moment and then waved his arm, as if putting all that behind him. ‘You’ll restore me.’
‘How?’ she met him on it.
He wanted to take her hand, feel it’s softness, but Frau Trübl had come in, balancing a large tray.
‘Everything is so fresh here, you must eat and eat, Herr Bahr. Even the bread. I baked today.’ She fussed over him, heaping his plate with a thick fragrant soup, cut thick slabs, waited for him to taste.
‘Delicious, utterly delicious, Frau Trübl,’ he thanked her.
‘Not like the front, eh?’
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Nothing like.’
‘Perhaps you could bring Herr Bahr a bottle of wine, Frau Trübl,’ Anna intervened. ‘From the cellar. Herr Eberhardt would wish it.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ the woman scurried away.
Johannes looked at Anna gratefully, but she averted her gaze. They sat quietly for a moment, toying with their food. The atmosphere between them grew dense.
Anna was trying desperately not to think of the sensations he had aroused in her. She kept calling forth the figure of Bruno, a staunch bulwark, to stand between her and Johannes, but as soon as he spoke or she met his eyes, Bruno vanished.
‘You’ve started to paint,’ Johannes said now.
Anna felt a flush creeping up her cheeks.
‘Yes, just to pass the time,’ she shrugged away any serious intent.
‘I like what you’ve done. It’s fresh, distinctive.’
‘Really?’ Pleasure suffused her. ‘How kind of you to say that.’
‘I could help you, give you a few pointers while I’m here.’
‘Would you?’ Her face had a look of pure delight.
Johannes nodded, gazing at her. He drank in her pleasure, feeling like a parched man who had arrived at an oasis after a long trajectory through the desert. He felt he had never seen such a look of spontaneous joy on a woman’s face before.
‘We could start tomorrow if you like.’
‘Oh yes,’ Anna breathed.
‘Perhaps I could paint you, while we work. You wanted me to, once, do you remember?’ he laughed a little bitterly.
She nodded.
‘Though I’m not sure that I can any more. Paint that is,’ he turned away from her, stared into the shadowy darkness beyond the glass. The massed trees with their gnarled branches looked like ranks of clamouring skeletal figures howling their of pain.
‘Are you alright?’ Anna placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve turned white.’
He gripped her hand, holding it tightly as if it would save him.
‘One can’t forget. Of course, you can still paint.’ Tawny animal eyes looked into his unblinking.
‘You. Perhaps if I gaze only on you,’ he buried his lips in her palm. Peaches, she tasted of ripe, sun-warmed peaches.
Anna drew slowly away. ‘You can paint me, Johannes, but I think you musn’t touch me. It makes me forget who I am, makes me forget Bruno.’
‘I’ll try,’ he whispered.
It wasn’t altogether clear to her whether he meant the painting or the touching.
The next day Anna rose at dawn. Sleep had evaded her and now she wanted to clear her mind. Silently she stole down to the stables and saddled her favourite horse, a young golden mare who went by the name of Fanny. No more side saddle for her, since she had donned her trousers, though she had carefully considered whether she should wear them again today, now that Johannes was here. But the thought of riding had swayed her.
Anna led the horse out towards the gravelled drive and cantered towards the road away from the estate. In the wooded bridle path, she gave the mare her head, exulting in the animal’s energy. But thoughts of Johannes wouldn’t leave her. They had taken a short stroll together after dinner the previous evening. They had hardly spoken. Yet the sense of his presence by her side had been so acute that it was as if she were alive to his every footfall, every change of expression. She had asked him about his posting at the front. His voice had been so grim, his response so brusque, that she hadn’t pressed him. His leave, he had also said, would soon be over.
Back at the house, she had told him that Frau Trübl had prepared the second bedroom in the left wing for him. He had turned to face her so abruptly that she had jumped away from him. His laugh had been a little bitter. ‘If I’m not to touch you Anna, it’s better that I sleep in the boathouse.’ With a single finger, he had slowly traced the line of her cheek, then nodded and set off across the grounds.
Anna dug her heels into the horse’s flanks and pressed her to greater exertion, before turning back towards the house. Strange how she could still feel the precise trajectory of Johannes’s touch. Why? Why should it be so? It was true she liked the way his nose flared at the base, liked the clarity of his eyes with the dark rim round the centre, liked the set of his jaw and his lithe, easy walk. But she liked so much about Bruno too, his handsome solidity, his chocolate eyes. No, it was madness to think this way. She must stop.
There was great activity in the stables when she arrived. Trübl was spreading fresh hay and for once his truculence seemed to have deserted him. ‘Fine morning, Frau Adler,’ he took the reins from her. ‘It’s good to have one of our boys back with us, eh?’ he patted the horse’s rump.
Anna turned to see Johannes, carrying a large bale through the doors. She greeted him, averting her eyes. What if he could read her thoughts?
‘Riding early?’ he looked at her.
She smoothed her shirt, nodded.
He smiled, a wide easy smile which made her pulse leap, ‘And I like your riding outfit.’
‘It’s easier to work in this,’ Anna mumbled.
‘You tell her, Herr Bahr,’ Trübl intervened, ‘It’s not right for a young lady to be going around dressed like that.’
‘Nothing’s quite right these days, Trübl,’ Johannes winked at her. ‘And I suspect Frau Anna’s garments are the least of our worries.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, but…’
‘Here, let me help you with that,’ he stood on the other side of the sweating mare and started to brush her down, keeping time with Anna’s movements.
They worked silently. The smell of the fragrant hay coupled with the heat of the animal rose to Anna’s nostrils. A dreaminess pervaded her, a slowness of time, so that she felt she had been standing here, brushing rhythmically, the man opposite her, since time began. Trübl’s voice, when it came, startled her.
‘I’m off to the orchard now. Are you coming? Remember, Frau Adler, the pick-up comes this afternoon. And there are still the potatoes to do.’
‘I’ll help, of course,’ Johannes offered.
Having Johannes alongside them meant that by the time the sun was high in the sky, they were well ahead in their work. Frau Trübl set out a picnic lunch in the arbour, and once they had eaten, Johannes suggested in a completely matter-of-fact voice, that Anna come to the boathouse now for her painting lesson.
‘We’ll be back in good time for the afternoon shift,’ he reassured Trübl.
‘No need.’ The old man waved them off. ‘She deserves a break and I’m certain you do as well.’
‘Are you sure?’ Anna was hesitant.
‘Off with you.’ Trübl was genial after his beer. ‘I’m going to have a little nap myself.’
In the boathouse, Johannes selected one of her pictures and stood it on the easel. Cocking his head, he look
ed at it first from one position, then another and yet another. Only then did he turn to her. ‘Whatever I say, Anna, you musn’t take offence. I’m just going to try and make you see certain things about composition.’ He took a sheet of white paper and covered up a portion of her painting, then drew a triangular form on it. ‘You see how if I place this here, it changes the entire weight of the painting. The pull of the eye is in the opposite direction. Now, watch,’ he turned the paper over and traced a free hand circle, covering another portion of the painting with it. He repeated this several times with different shapes.
Watching what at first she thought of as incomprehensible antics, Anna gradually began to discern a dynamic tension at work between weight and proportion and line.
‘I see,’ she suddenly breathed excitedly. ‘I see,’ so if I had taken the hat off her head and instead painted a basket here,’ she gestured swiftly at the canvas, ‘then the whole thing would have been far more satisfying. And the mood different.’
‘Got it in one,’ Johannes nodded, ‘You learn quickly. His eyes suddenly grew dreamy. ‘Now let me show you something else,’ he murmured. He started to draw quickly. A forest took shape, dappled light through trees, falling on bracken, darkness beneath. ‘What do you see, Anna?’
She told him.
‘Look again,’ He hand traced out a pattern at the base of the picture. Where she had previously seen trees, she now saw fawns, their hides dappled, growing out of bark.
‘You see?’
She nodded.
‘This is what I love about drawing, about painting when it works. The interconnections of things. A world of correspondences.’ He smiled a little bitterly. ‘But now I rarely see them.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s go out and try some sketching.’
Anna followed him out of the boathouse.
‘Right here will do. You see those shrubs, that hawthorn, the taller tree behind. See what you can do with that.’
Anna started sketching busily, only realising after some minutes, that Johannes had thrown his pad to the ground and was walking about restlessly.
‘Don’t you want to draw, too, Johannes?’ she asked softly.
He gazed back at her. ‘No.’
She thought she saw a tremor pass over his lips.
‘But you said, said you would paint me,’ she murmured.
‘Will you swim with me Anna?’
She looked at him aghast. ‘No, no, I couldn’t.’
‘Please Anna, no one will know. And I need to see you, want to see you,’ he suddenly rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘I need to forget, Anna. I can’t paint until I forget.’ There was a tortured look on his face. ‘Yesterday, I thought you helped me…’ He stopped in mid-sentence, shrugged, began to walk away listlessly.
Watching him, Anna felt tears bite incomprehensibly at her eyes. She shivered, despite the warmth. Slowly she walked towards the sheltered grassy knoll, stepped out of her trousers, began to unbutton her shirt, thought better of it, and jumped into the water.
It was only when she was some way out that she heard him and then before she could turn, a sleek head came out of the depths beside her. There was a rapturous smile on his face.
‘Thank-you,’ he mouthed. And then he dived below the water, sending waves round her, only to surface again at a distance, wave and disappear again. In a moment he was back at her side. ‘Race you back?’
She nodded, responding to the impish challenge, the childlike glee in his face. She pounded through the water, keeping pace with him, the exertion wiping away residual worries, until breathless, they reached the shore line together. Only as she clambered up the grassy knoll ahead of him, did it occur to her that he might be as naked as that day when she had first observed him.
Anna flung herself down on the ground and clenched her eyes shut. Above the sound of her own breath, she was acutely aware of the swoosh of the water as he lifted himself ashore, the sway of the grass as he moved through it. Then nothing, except the rustle of the grasshoppers in the tall grass, the chirrup of the birds, the buzz of a plump bee nestling into a poppy. Anna lay there, hardly daring to breathe, letting the earth’s warmth seep into her, the sun burn into her back. Drowsiness overcame her.
And then, she felt fingers at her neck, gently lifting her damp hair, the flutter of lips. A tremor ran through her. Fingers, lips, as delicate as Katarina’s, she thought sleepily, only remembering when she arched her shoulders in response, that there was no Katarina here.
‘Please don’t touch me, Johannes, please,’ she murmured. ‘You promised.’
He let out a short sharp sound, not quite a laugh. ‘Once I thought I was capable of the superhuman,’ he muttered, ‘now I’m not always even sure I’m a man.’
Anna lifted her head to look back at him. He was sitting at her side, his chest bare, a sketch pad balanced on his crossed trousered legs.
His tone changed as he met her gaze, ‘Please turn over Anna,’ he said softly. ‘Your eyes will remind me.’
‘Are you drawing me?’, she asked.
‘I’m making a beginning.’
She bent to look at the drawing, but he sheltered the page with his hands, ‘No, not yet.’
Anna lay back, balancing her head on an arm, looking at him through lowered lids. Below his right shoulder, she saw the thickened ridge of flesh, the blue-black pin points. She winced. He hadn’t told her he had been wounded.
‘What is it, Anna?’ he noticed her disquiet.
‘Nothing,’ she closed her eyes, listening for the scratch of his pencil. It came, but then stopped after a moment.
‘Just this, Anna, for the composition,’ his tone had a light irony and before she knew what he meant, he was unbuttoning her shirt, pushing it back so her breasts were half-bared. She heard his sharp intake of breath, her own. He caught her lifted hand, met her eyes. His gaze burned into her, stopping her motion.
‘Please, Anna,’ he repeated. ‘I know, pretend you’re someone else. We don’t know each other. You’re a model I’ve hired,’ he laughed, ‘Yes, my model.’
The notion tickled her. To be someone else. Yes. She lay back, tasting the sun on her bared flesh, feeling his touch even though it was no longer there.
‘You know,’ he said after some moments, ‘there is no shame in the body, Anna. How could there be any shame in such beauty. A little modesty perhaps, but no shame.’
She sat up abruptly. ‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said adamantly.
He looked at her oddly. ‘No, perhaps not.’
‘It’s just that…you know, Bruno. It’s not right.’ She moved to pull her shirt round her.
He stayed her hand, ‘You’re not Anna, remember,’ he laughed.
‘No, not Anna,’ she joined him in it, ‘Not Anna,’ she lay back, stretching out, luxuriating in the feel of the grass, the whisper of the breeze.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but suddenly, the scratch of the pencil was gone. ‘Am I Anna again?’ she asked, raised herself on an elbow, saw him stretched out beside her.
‘Yes,’ he turned glowing eyes on her. ‘Anna again,’ he smiled lazily.
She looked at him, the face relaxed, boyish again, as she first remembered seeing him, the long graceful neck, the bunched muscles at his shoulders, the tufts of curling hair at his chest, the taut skin where the trouser belt played loosely at his waist. Suddenly she murmured, ‘May I touch you?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. Her hand rested on his warmed skin, smoothing, skimming.
Johannes, letting her, felt the rush of wings over his body and then the blood pounding through his veins with a heat he didn’t remember. He stayed her hand. ‘Anna,’ his voice cracked. ‘If you touch me, I must touch you.’
Her eyes looked down into his, dark now, flecked with yellow. ‘Just this once,’ she murmured, lowering her lips to his.
He folded her in his arms, tasting her kiss, moist, fragrant, like peaches again, feeling the silken skin of her back, so firm, yet soft, her weight on him, the rounded breasts, ta
ut against his flesh. She seemed to purr, like a supple cat. He groaned, arching against her, despite himself, feeling that mound.
She edged away from him, her mouth open, panting a little, pouting. ‘That’s enough, Johannes. I shouldn’t have.’ She pulled on her rough, shapeless trousers. ‘No more touching Anna,’ she smiled dreamily. ‘But you can paint your model.’
The next days took on a recurrent pattern. They woke early, working with Trübl until lunch; then having eaten together, they went down to the boathouse, swam or rowed out to the centre of the lake. Afterwards in the grassy knoll, Johannes drew her. He worked his way from pencil, to a variety of inks, to pastels, learning the shapes and curves of her body, the sudden impulsive changes of mood, the play of expressions on her face as she buried her nose in a hawthorn blossom or couldn’t bring her pencil to capture the form she wanted. For often she worked beside him, taking his suggestions in good stead, laughing that wild laugh of hers, concentrating herself totally.
‘You’re not a model, but a muse,’ he told her, and she smiled radiantly. He didn’t touch her, keeping to his side of their bargain, but sometimes his fingers would skim her skin, as he moved her heavy hair back from her face, or guided her pencil.
In the late afternoon, if there was no work to be done in the gardens, they sometimes rode or walked, exploring the countryside. And in the evenings, after dinner, they would return to the boathouse and Johannes would give her lessons in the application of oils. Or they would simply chat.
As the days passed, Johannes felt the memories of war receding, a kind of inner healing taking place. Of the future he refused to think. It was as if time had stopped, here in this garden, their own little paradise. He was slightly in awe of her. Not a fear, but a respect for her beauty which she seemed wholly unaware of, almost a greater respect for what he named for himself her naturalness, her impetuosity. It was as if she had been unspoiled by social graces and everyday hypocrisies. She had an inner integrity, unrelated to any spoken principles and he always took what she said to be what she meant.
Sometimes he thought that what she had above any person he had ever met, was a gift for life itself.
Dreams of Innocence Page 19