She stood there, still with his arm resting on her shoulder, looking into his eyes and without thinking she laid a hand over his and stroked it lightly. She recognised his gaze, it was the same as in his car that evening a few months before, the same vulnerability, but also something wondering and sad, as if he was not merely looking at her but also observing himself from outside. He let go of her shoulder and sat down on a box under the cables and control panels on the wall. Just go ahead, he said, closing his eyes. I’ll sit here for a bit . . .
During the curtain calls after the première, as she stood among the other actors, each with their bouquet wrapped in cellophane, he finally allowed himself to be persuaded by the deafening applause to come up on the stage. He kissed all of them, even the male actors, on the cheek and when it was her turn he took her hand and walked forward on the proscenium with her in front of the others. The diva and the captain also started to clap, as well as they could with their huge bouquets, and soon all her fellow actors were clapping. Harry Wiener bowed one single time to the audience, still with her hand in his. She curtsied as she had seen the diva do, one foot behind the other, and when she straightened up the thunderous sound from the auditorium seemed stilled as he bent his face to hers. Thank you, he whispered and pressed her hand. When the curtain fell for the last time he had gone. The captain had been informed, the others crowded around him. Things were going badly with Wiener’s wife, her condition was critical. Lucca stayed at the party only as long as she felt necessary.
It had been a huge success, but there was nothing very strange about that. The Gypsy King was condemned to eternal success, as Otto had once said with a sarcastic twist. The special thing about it for Lucca was that overnight she was transformed from a promising fringe talent into one of her generation’s most shining dramatic lights, a new star in the theatrical sky, a brilliant cornucopia of emotional intensity, according to one critic. The newspapers were still fragrant with printer’s ink the following night when she leaned against her bicycle in the town hall square and feverishly leafed through the culture sections, greedy for more. She was almost run down by a bus on the way home. She woke Else. They sat in the kitchen reading the reviews aloud to each other. Her mother put her glasses down on the pile of papers and said: There, you see! There is more to life than love! Lucca did not know how to reply.
December passed, and the days were almost uniform. Even the weather was the same, murky, wet and raw. She slept all morning and spent the afternoons watching television before she set off for the theatre. The garlands of light and Christmas hearts seemed alien and irrelevant. Miriam went to visit her parents in Jutland with her jazz boyfriend, and Else flew down to a Greek island. Lucca said no thank you, slightly brusque, when Else invited her to go too. What would she do there? Be with me, her mother replied, pained. But they were together all the time! Else looked at her sorrowfully. Were they? Lately she seemed only to be together with herself. It was almost impossible to get a single word out of her daughter. She would have to watch out or her work would take up her whole life.
Lucca smiled ironically but she could see Else did not understand why. She was about to say something about all the evenings she had spent alone as a child with some nanny or other, because her mother was broadcasting or out with a friend, but she held her tongue. Fortunately, she thought afterwards, glad that she hadn’t allowed herself to be drawn into a quarrel she wasn’t even anxious to win. Else threatened to call off her trip, but in the end she did fly down to the white houses and the blue, blue water, as she used to say, apparently doubting whether the word would be blue enough on its own.
Lucca felt confused when she thought about Harry Wiener. She thought of him with a mixture of gratitude and suppressed anger. She had become a success only because of his genius, she knew that, but all the same he had been the one to whisper his thanks during the curtain calls after the première, when he took her hand and presented her to the audience, his discovery. Thank you and goodbye, he should rather have whispered, for the next moment he had gone. He had got what he wanted from her. With his gaze and his voice he had surrounded her with a chrysalis of attention, he had almost hypnotised her and then woken her with a snap of the fingers. Now she could flutter around up in the light. When she was on the stage she became one with her role, everything in her was pervaded with its movements, moods and colour changes, but when she went home she was no more than a listless body that collapsed in front of the television empty of all thought.
The diva had seen what was happening to her. One evening after the performance when they sat together in the dressing room, she suddenly laid a hand on Lucca’s arm. She really mustn’t look so sad, she was the best ever! Lucca turned to her. Was she? Now, stop that, said the diva, starting to spread cleansing cream over her face with deft movements. Wiener had been absolutely ecstatic over her. She just must not take it personally. She must understand that she was here to be used. Indeed, he had used her, squeezed everything out of her, and she should be glad of that. Glad and proud. The diva leaned back her head as she put cream on her chin and neck. But she knew it well. One day you had all his attention, and you wallowed in it, you gobbled it up, and the next day you stood there and had to cope on your own. That was how it was! She smiled optimistically and put her head to one side, her face all white with cream, and suddenly she looked like the white clown in Lucca’s dream.
Lucca smiled bitterly, thinking of the morning when she had met him before the rehearsal and seized his hand when he felt faint. As they faced each other in the wings there had been a moment when she believed he did look at her differently, and when he had whispered his little thank-you in her ear during the curtain calls, she had referred that to more than her performance. But what else should he have thanked her for? It was her place to thank him! How stupid she was! She felt ashamed when she thought how she had put her hand on his and stroked it as he leaned on her for support.
One morning a few days after the première Else knocked at her door. There was a telephone call for her. She said she was asleep. It was a journalist, said Else, something about an interview. On the way downstairs Lucca felt annoyed that Else had answered the phone. It must seem absurd for her to be living with her mother at the age of twenty-seven. The journalist wanted to come the next day, bringing a photographer. Her voice was irritatingly maternal. They arranged a time when Lucca was sure Else would not be in. She went through her wardrobe but couldn’t decide what to wear. The search ended with an old T-shirt stolen from Otto. He would recognise it, she thought, since she was being photographed.
The journalist was a hefty lady of Else’s age wearing a heavy amber necklace. She wanted to know what it had been like to be directed by Harry Wiener, and while Lucca was telling her, she had the feeling that it was really Harry who was being interviewed, through her. Harry Wiener was famous for never giving interviews. She was just as excited about the interview as she had been about the reviews of the performance, but everything was wrong, she felt, when she saw the picture of herself, which took up half a page, with her hands stuck out in the air like a jumping jack because she was explaining something. The printed words were not hers, but the journalist’s. She could hear the wheedling, motherly tone as she read, and how the amber necklace rattled between the lines. Everything she had said was stuck together with sugary adjectives. It almost sounded as if she was head over heels in love with the great Harry Wiener, and the description of her was even worse. The boyish, gazelle-like Lucca Montale, who opened the door in her washed-out aubergine-coloured T-shirt, casual and enchanting with her mercurial gaze, her honey glow and the sparkling black hair which revealed her Italian background . . . she hurled the newspaper into the waste bin.
The day before Christmas Eve she went into town in the afternoon to go to the cinema. When she left after the film it was dark. She walked through the pedestrian streets, where people struggled past laden with all the parcels that twenty-four hours later would be unwrapped again by other peopl
e who had toiled along with similar parcels, just as red in the face with effort and irritation. Now all she needed was to run into Otto and his divine photo-mulatto, or whoever he had replaced her with if Miriam was right that their affair had already ended. Once that had occurred to her she couldn’t get it out of her head again. Of course she would meet Otto at any moment with Christmas presents under one arm and a gorgeous doll under the other, and then she would have to stand and smile all over her face to convince him of what actually was the case. That for weeks she had hardly given him a thought and had already begun to wonder why she had loved him so much.
She went round Magasin du Nord’s food halls without finding anything to buy. Finally she decided on fillet steak. There were two steaks in each tray, obviously they thought no-one would be so extravagant as to buy fillet steak for themselves alone. But she could always eat the second one tomorrow, she thought, and now she was pushing the boat out she also put a tin of foie gras and a jar of caviar in her basket. As she approached the wine department she caught sight of a man standing with his back to her studying the labels. He wore a camel-hair coat and the grey curls at his neck fell over the turned-up collar.
She thought of turning round, he must have read that embarrassing interview, but she went on. The Gypsy King was not going to stop her drinking red wine on Christmas Eve. He glanced up from the bottle he held in his hand. He was pale and looked tired. She tried to smile but he did not smile back. Catching up with the shopping? he said finally. She held up her basket. My Christmas dinner, she said, launching into an over-elaborate explanation of why she would be alone, regretting she had disturbed him. He smiled wryly at her efforts and she stopped talking. Neither of them said anything, and when the silence grew too strained she found the courage to ask after his wife. She had not given her a thought since the première celebration. He put the bottle back on the shelf. She died this morning, he replied dully.
Afterwards Lucca could not have said how long they had been standing like that, looking into each other’s eyes, she with her plastic basket, he with his hands in the pockets of his coat. He cleared his throat. She shook her head rapidly as if waking from a trance. He looked down at his shoes and then back at her. His wife had been alone, he had overslept. He looked away. They had phoned, he had gone out there as quickly as he could, but too late. He had come too late for her death.
For a moment his face seemed about to collapse. He turned his back and took a step or two between the shelves of bottles, and she heard a half-strangled throaty sound. She went towards him but stopped as he turned back again. He dried his eyes with the backs of his hands and looked at her. I’m sorry, he said. She said he needn’t be. Would he rather be alone? He avoided her eyes and took another bottle from the shelf, desultorily studying the label. I don’t really have any choice, he mumbled. But she supposed he needed something to eat . . . the words tumbled out of her mouth. He looked at her blankly. She pointed at her basket of fillet steaks. There are two of them, she said. He looked at her in surprise. Did she mean it? She shrugged her shoulders. He had better find something drinkable, then. He walked slowly along the shelf, carefully inspecting the labels, suddenly shy at having her standing there.
She made a bowl of salad while he fried the steaks. To start with they were a little stiff with each other. He said he had read the interview. She had said some nice things. She told him what she thought of the journalist. He smiled. A journalist like that wants to show she is someone too. You mustn’t grudge her that . . . Now and again they fell silent and avoided each other’s eyes, as if they took it in turns to regret she had gone home with him. They spoke about the performance, he said she had earned her success. If she wasn’t too terrified he was thinking of asking her to work with him again next year. He felt like doing a new production of A Doll’s House. It was fifteen years since he had last worked on the play, and he had actually considered it was passé since, according to their friend Strindberg, marriage had long since become ‘a partnership with economic activity’. He smiled tiredly. But she had given him the courage to try. He had thought of her as Nora. She held her breath a moment. Yes, thank you, she said. He shook his head. She had nothing to thank him for.
When they had eaten they sat for a long time looking over the lights of the city. He told her about his wife, but not at length. They had lived apart for several years, she at the villa north of the town, he in the rooftop apartment. For years it hadn’t been a real marriage, he said. There had been too much . . . how to put it? Too much and too little had been said between them. He put down his wine glass and walked over to the French window at the terrace. Either she should go now, or stay.
She stayed. Everything happened very slowly, as if through water, with long pauses when they just lay side by side until they had to give in to what they had so hesitantly begun. His body was different from any other body she had known. His skin was looser, but very soft, and his arms and legs were more sinewy than she had imagined. He did not let go of her eyes as she straddled him, and she recognised the open, vulnerable expression that had made her speculate so much. As if he marvelled over what she was doing to him, at the same time taking hold of her buttocks. There was something unfeigned, at once reckless and completely stripped bare over his face when he groaned and she felt that he came. She lay awake while he fell asleep in her embrace. It was a terrible thought, but she did think it. She thought that she was glad his wife had died before this happened. Since she was dying anyway.
The plane from Madrid had landed when she entered the arrival hall with her cardboard placard. She placed herself at the front of the group of people waiting. The first passengers came in sight with their luggage and looked around them, searching. People called out greetings and kissed each other. She recognised him at once, before he caught sight of her placard, it must be him. Andreas Bark looked pale, as Danes do when they emerge from winter and screw up their eyes against the bright light. He wore black jeans and a shabby leather jacket of the kind sported by the Copenhagen in-crowd of young artists and film-makers. But at least he wasn’t shorn like the really hard-boiled arty types with their cropped pates that made them look like convicts. In fact he was not bad looking with his dark, unruly hair and prominent chin.
She waited until his gaze lit on her. His smile expressed surprise in a boyish, slightly flustered way. He knew very well who she was but he had not expected to meet her here. Andreas Bark probably did not read glossy magazines and obviously did not go in for gossip. He talked a lot as they drove, but his voice was pleasant. It had been snowing in Copenhagen when he left. I ask you! No wonder there was something abject, somehow aggrieved about the Danes. Each time you stuck out your nose for a whiff of spring you were put in your place with a shock of cold. He took off his leather jacket, he was sweating. He had spent the winter in Rome. His arms and wrists were surprisingly slender. Rome . . . wasn’t it a place for old ladies? He laughed, but made no reply. He said he had seen her in The Father. The production had impressed him, its rhythm and clarity . . . And she had been good, he hastened to add, like something he almost forgot to mention.
They left Almeria behind them. At the end of the stony plain you could see the snow-clad ridge of the Sierra Nevada. Andreas gave free rein to his delight, genuinely bowled over. He caught sight of one of the mock-up towns left among the furrowed rocks after being used for a spaghetti western. Couldn’t they stop by there? They walked among the wooden houses consisting of mere façades, with name-plates reading Sheriff or Saloon in faded lettering. The façades had wooden pillars and planked walkways, where the sheriff and the loafers of the town had sat tilting their chairs with their hat brims pulled down over their eyes. In the middle of the set there was a gallows with a rope that swung lightly back and forth in the wind. Andreas put the noose round his neck and stuck out his tongue. She laughed. He beckoned her with a familiar gesture, as if they already knew each other. From where he stood, beneath the gallows, you couldn’t see the supporting beams agains
t the backs of the flats. It was an authentic scene from a western, where the dust had just subsided after a horseman had ridden off.
Harry was disgruntled when they finally arrived back and joined him on the roof terrace. Did it really take so long to cover the hundred kilometres? Andreas was disconcerted at the grudging welcome and politely tried to defend her. He talked about their visit to the wild west town. He had led her astray, he said apologetically. She was annoyed that he was suddenly so smarmy. He had been more himself as they drove, she felt, but how could she tell? After all, she didn’t know him. Well, Harry growled, it was time for a drink, anyway. Did he like white wine? Andreas shrugged his shoulders with an embarrassed smile. He liked everything. Harry stopped on his way across the terrace and turned towards him. Everything? That was quite a lot . . . They sat on the parapet while he went down. Andreas was less talkative than he’d been in the car. He avoided her eyes and studied the view. The riverbed was in shadow, the pink flowers of the oleander bushes glowed on the steep cliff sides. The cicadas rattled away as usual. Why were they suddenly lost for words?
Harry came back with a tray of glasses, a dewy bottle of white wine and a bowl of black olives. He placed the tray on the stone table and turned towards them. Come along then, children! He had recovered his good humour, and Andreas seemed more relaxed, but she could tell from his tone of voice how much he respected Harry, and took pains to find the right words. He spoke in a different way here on the terrace, his voice was more cultivated, and he did not smile boyishly as he had done at the airport. It was the master and his apprentice sitting in the flickering light under the canopy, drinking white wine and chatting about a Verdi opera Andreas had seen in Verona. Harry knew the director, a German. Andreas listened intently as Harry talked about the German director’s staging of Schiller’s The Robbers at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Lucca Page 31