Louis sent it to me via courier. He said it was the kind of shot that would stop even the most jaded photographer in his tracks. And it was the strongest picture he had taken of anyone before. It was also, he claimed, the kind of picture that would make my career. I looked at it and it shocked me. I could not believe it was me.
The dark make-up around my eyes made me look ephemeral and sadly seductive, and my legs shot from below seemed flawless and endless. Pleased, I showed it to Geo. She took out her opera glasses and looked at it carefully. Eventually, she looked up and said, ‘You are the perfect illusion. You hide the emptiness of every fashion shoot.’
*****
It was after a quiet Christmas with Margaret and her children that Geo sent me to the dark prince of fashion photography. He was, technically, a German baron who had decided to pursue his fascination with strong, sexually charged and often shocking images. Italian Bazaar had hired him for the assignment and the shoot was located at an old ruined French chateau.
I sat in a makeshift dressing room and the make-up artist, a chatty French girl, got on with the long job of painting my face. Afterwards, I slipped into a slinky black mini dress with a plunging neckline and I was ready. The shoot had been set up in one of the bedrooms. The bed had been made with silk sheets and had animal print throws on it. The baron had brought shackles and wanted to shackle me to the bed. I froze at the sight of the irons and chains.
‘Come on, come on,’ he said impatiently.
His helpers snapped them onto my wrists and my ankles. And then tears began to run down my face. Oh, Guy! How I miss you. You pushed me away from you, but I haven’t forgotten you. I’m still so in love with you.
One of the make-up girls ran toward me, waving a tissue, shouting, ‘You’re going to ruin the make-up.’
But the baron said, ‘Leave her. She has tiger eyes.’ And immediately began clicking furiously.
Afterwards I asked him, ‘Tiger eyes? What do you mean?’
‘Tiger eyes are perfect and pure. They are like babies’ eyes. They have not yet been tainted by their parents’ thoughts, or acquired the filtration of how to perceive the world. They are not yet imprisoned by education, culture and religion. Given half the chance they will eat their own shit.’
When the photographs came out they caused an almighty sensation.
‘Maybe that is why you photograph so successfully. You have that look. An elusive quality of vulnerability—the face of a little girl and yet you project like a big cat. Full on,’ Geo said.
I looked at the image in the magazine spread. Manacled to the bed, I was looking out to the camera. The mascara had run. It was in black and white and it had a quality of timelessness to it. The old chateau with its celestial ceiling, the blonde hair spilling over the side of the Versailles bed. The red lipstick they attributed to Lancôme, but of course was not.
The magazine called it ‘crying in a highly provocative way while looking achingly beautiful’. They called me ‘a thing of beauty’. They declared me to be without fences. They thought I was ‘fragile’. I only saw myself shackled with both my hands over my pubic area, glaring angrily at those who would look at me.
*****
Three weeks later I leapt out of bed at the crack of dawn and ran to the little magazine kiosk in the Tube station. Mr. Patel beamed at me and lifted a magazine up high. I couldn’t believe it. There I was staring back at me.
‘You’re famous,’ he said loudly.
And I began to laugh. I laughed like a crazy woman. I grabbed the surprised Mr. Patel and whirled him around in a little mad dance. People started staring. He went dark red with embarrassment. I didn’t care. I was so happy. I ran all the way back to Margaret’s flat clutching five magazines. One compliments of Mr. Patel and the rest I had bought with my own money.
‘I made the cover of Italian Bazaar. I made the cover of Italian Bazaar,’ I screeched.
Margaret opened a bottle of champagne that she had been saving for her daughter’s birthday. We had pancakes with maple syrup and champagne.
‘My first ever cover,’ I said.
After that I made Vogue and Bazaar and GQ but nothing else ever came close to that morning’s sparkle. Oh! What a feeling it was. Just me and Margaret in her small flat, the sun pouring in through the window, and both of us talking in hushed, excited voices. But the money was very poor. At this rate it would be a long time before I could get Nikolai out of Russia. I went to see Geo.
‘The secret of the fashion industry is that the glamorous magazines that power the fashion world and launch the new faces of the industry pay shit money. Even supermodels get the measly industry standard to do their covers, but inside those covers is where the next Revlon girl, or the next face of Gucci is found. And that is where the real money lies.’
‘Right,’ I said worriedly.
‘Versace is looking for a new face.’ She stopped speaking and called someone.
‘She has gray almond eyes and blonde hair. And legs. She’s got acres of those. You’ve got to see her.’ She listened for a few seconds. ‘Tomorrow?’ She paused, and looking at me winked, then very sweetly said into the phone, ‘I’ll send her to you at midday.’
The next day I was on a plane to Milan to turn up at the great Donatella Versace.
‘I like you, and I am going to make you famous,’ she said gruffly.
That afternoon a reporter called. Things were about to get mad for me. The offers and assignments came pouring in through the bookers’ desks. My life changed so dazzlingly fast that I moved through it in a disbelieving daze. The only time the daze went away was when I sat down every night to write to Nikolai and afterwards to think of Guy.
Geo took me out to lunch to talk business. First we talked about the photographers and what I wanted from the business. The truth was I didn’t care for the modeling business, or my overnight success. I was not star-struck. This was not the kind of job I loved, or I could ever come to love. Everything and everyone seemed to be so fake and superficial. Only the parties were more extravagant than the flattery. I was only interested in the money I could make. My only goal was getting Nikolai away from Russia.
‘You’re doing great,’ she said. ‘The photographers love you. Just keep working with them.’ Her plan was for me to work in Europe for a few months. ‘I think it will be very good for you. How does Paris sound?’
‘Paris?’ My head spun. My mother had been to Paris many years before I was born. She said it was the most glamorous place in the world.
‘Yes. Have you never been to Paris?’
I shook my head. ‘I need to go to Russia first,’ I said.
She had never asked me about my past or my private life. Her eyes narrowed.
‘I need money. I need to pay for someone to come into this country.’
She frowned. ‘Who?’
‘My brother.’
She exhaled slowly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘No, I have to go myself and get him.’
Chapter 28
The taxi pulled up in the dirty road where I had once lived with my family and my heart began to hammer in my chest. I was so excited to see my brother again there was a hard knot in my stomach. It had been there ever since I had boarded the plane.
‘I’ve really, really, really missed you,’ I would tell him. Or should I say, ‘You didn’t believe me, but I’ve kept my promise. I’ve come to take you away.’
The driver stopped the car. Brian, who had insisted on coming with me, wished me luck, and I walked to the front door. The house seemed quiet. The door was unlocked so I lifted the metal latch and entered.
The stove was not lit. The house was cold. There was a stillness in the air. Something was wrong. For a moment I paused by the samovar. Memories came pouring back—my mother, my siblings seated around the table eating. And I was filled with feelings of loss and intolerable sadness.
I could see from the window that there was a figure sitting on the recliner chair in the backyard
. I recognized him instantly as my father. For a moment I walked to the window and stood watching him. I noticed that the tin of salt left between the windowpanes over winter so that the windows didn’t fog in the cold looked as if no one had replaced it for a very long time. The place looked abandoned. I frowned. My hand went to my forehead and rubbed it. The breath I took felt painful.
He has sold my brother. Now it will be so much harder to find him. I opened the back door. My father turned his face. It looked gray and startled. I walked toward him, my shoes crunching on sunflower seed shells.
He peeled another seed and threw the shell any which way.
‘Where’s Nikolai?’ I asked. My voice was strong. The truth was I was never really afraid of him. I obeyed him first because I was afraid for my mother and then because of my brother. There was nothing he could do to me. He had no more power. There was no one to hold over my head.
His eyes grazed my face. I knew instantly that he did not appreciate my tone. ‘He is dead,’ he said brutally.
His words hit me like a blow to the stomach. It sucked the breath out of me.
He narrowed his eyes at my reaction. ‘I told the men who came to ask.’
‘How?’ I gasped.
‘He hanged himself on the day you left.’
I closed my eyes and fought to corral the shock to my system, but it was impossible. I had never even once felt that he had left this world. I had written countless letters. I had dreamt of him. I had thought I could feel him, his presence over thousands of miles. I had never suspected. The connection had never felt as if it was broken. It had never ever crossed my mind that he had been dead for so long. My whole world felt as if it was crumbling. I felt myself sinking to the ground. I will not cry in front of this monster, I thought. I put my palms on the ground and with my legs folded underneath me faced him.
‘You’ve always hated me?’
‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation in his answer.
‘Why?’
He made a careless movement with his shoulder.
‘If you hated me so much why did you sell me last?’
‘For Nikolai. He told me he would kill himself if I ever sold you.’ Even though he had tried to appear nonchalant, Nikolai’s death had affected him deeply.
‘But you still did it.’
‘I didn’t believe he had the guts to do it.’
For a moment neither of us spoke. I thought of Nikolai, gentle Nikolai. It was his job to skin the animals my father brought, but he could never do the head. He could never stomach their glassy eyes. It was always me who did the heads. And yet, he had had the courage to take his own life.
‘Why did you do it?’ I asked him. And in that one sentence was all my hurt and pain. It was about my brother. It was about my mother, my sisters, me. Why did he do what he did? Why did he destroy every single person who loved him? Why was he here alone in a cold, empty house? What good had the money done for him?
He shrugged carelessly and cracked open another seed.
I watched him put it into his mouth and chew it slowly. He did not intend to answer me. I stood slowly. As if I was an old woman. I turned away to leave and then I turned back to him.
‘What men?’
‘The men that the man who bought you sent.’
I frowned. Confused. Had Guy sent someone to get my brother for me? I turned fully toward my father.
‘When did they come?’
‘About a month after you left.’
My brain scrambled around trying to assimilate this information. Guy had sent someone and then lied about it, because he did not want me to know that my brother had hanged himself. And that day after I had given him the first envelope he had stroked my hair. There was a strange expression—a pity in his eyes. I remembered it clearly. No wonder he did not send my letters. He should have told me. It was worse like this.
I began to walk away.
‘Don’t come here again,’ my father called out to me. I heard the crack of another sunflower seed split in his mouth. The hiss as it hit the ground.
I had never intended to come back here and he knew that, but even that tiny victory he had to take away from me. He could not even allow me that small decision. I walked into the house and noticed all our chairs. My father had left them against the wall. On my brother’s chair was a pile of envelopes. I went and picked them up. The sight of them unopened and unread made me feel sick. It was too late to put things right. The two saddest words in the English dictionary. Too late. And it was too late. Death always made it too late.
Pressing my lips together I ran to the taxi. I could see Brian’s face turned in my direction. And then I heard the wind in the apple tree. It was like my mother’s whisper. And suddenly I felt as if my brother’s young body stood inside mine and ordered me to go back. To where he lay. I walked toward the side of the house. I could see another gravestone beside my mother’s grave. I went and sat beside it.
‘You should have waited for me,’ I whispered woodenly.
I took my shoes off and he was in the grass that tickled my feet. I dug a hole in the ground with my bare hands and buried the letters. Then I went back to the taxi.
‘Are you all right?’ the taxi driver asked me in Russian.
‘Take me back to the station,’ I said, too numb to cry. I sat and stared out of the window, my hands covered in the dirt from my brother’s grave. One fingernail was broken and bleeding. But I felt no pain.
Chapter 29
I changed after I went to Russia. The model’s job is essentially to encourage a lot of people to sleep with her. And the more successful she is, the more products she sells. While I posed and smiled and traveled the world pretending to be that fantasy woman—too young, too thin, too vulnerable—peddled by the fashion world to sell wonderland, I actually felt as if I was the creation of a being who had closed his eyes and dreamed up a woman who most closely resembled dust.
I had lost my entire family and both the people I loved most in my life—my brother and Guy. And the longer the desperate days went on, the more pathologically isolated and lost I felt. I knew I had to either forget Guy or die myself. It felt impossible to carry on with such intense sadness.
One day it got so bad that I found a dark scarf in the cupboard and tied it around my eyes. Immediately the feelings of loss and pain subsided. Suddenly I felt comforted in the darkness and the quiet. At peace I felt my way to my bed and sat on it. A soft contentment stole over me.
‘The best place for you is France,’ Geo said.
So I went to France.
Jacques came to the airport to meet me. He was a model too. Good-looking, charming, and gay. ‘You are to live with me and Helena,’ he said.
‘Great.’
The flat was small but cheerfully decorated. Helena turned out to be another model signed to the French arm of Models101. She was painfully thin with large, soulful brown eyes. I liked her instantly. I loved her accent and how easily she laughed.
‘We are having student food for our first meal together,’ she said with her charming accent. We sat down to spaghetti with butter and tomato purée followed by rabbit flambéed with nearly half a bottle of alcohol. I sat with them and for a while the dull ache that was Guy lay quiet.
‘Tomorrow I will take you to the Champs-Elysées,’ she said. ‘You will love it.’
And she was right: I did, until I thought I saw Guy’s broad shoulders, and leaving her, I dashed up to him and touched his arm. A stranger turned.
‘Excusez-moi, excusez-moi,’ I mumbled, and walked back to a surprised Helena.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, but the day was ruined.
*****
That Friday I was scheduled to leave for the south of France to do a bikini shot. Helena looked at me wistfully. ‘You are so lucky,’ she said.
‘Do you want to come with me? It’s a private plane so it won’t cost any more if you come with me and stay in my room,’ I offered.
> They sent a limo for us and we climbed in. There was champagne on ice. Helena opened it and we giggled all the way to the airport.
The photographer was a mischievous-looking Italian man. His eyes widened when he saw that I had brought a friend.
‘I am a playboy,’ he confessed. ‘But the word playboy means a different thing in Italy. A playboy is a charming man. Not a bastard who fucks girls and leaves them broken-hearted! No, no, the Italian playboy, he is not so rude or cruel. He falls in love with the girl. He is romantic. He can sleep with ten girls and be in love with all ten girls.’
‘Good,’ I told him, totally unimpressed.
On our first night, Helena stole out of our room, and slept with him. At breakfast he ordered an omelet with truffles for her, and after that she became invisible to him. When we were out to dinner it was sad. She was so beautiful and he was just a fat fuck. All that talk of falling in love with ten women… Just bullshit.
He breathed down my neck.
I smiled politely at him. Work the photographers, Lena.
When we went back to France, Helena was subdued. I didn’t know what to say.
*****
Another Christmas passed and I inhaled the crisp January air. I had just returned from an assignment working with Sascha Bourdin, a master photographer, in Seychelles. When I opened the door to the flat, Helena was lying on the couch. There was an empty bottle of red wine on the table. She looked wasted. Her eyes were red and swollen.
‘What’s the matter, Helena?’
‘I’m just so fucking sick of having to suck shriveled cock just to get a gig,’ she spat bitterly.
I sat beside her. ‘Helena, you are so beautiful. You don’t need to do that to get a job.’
‘Nobody told you what modeling really is, did they? Not that bitch Carangi. Here’s a free lesson for you. Modeling is very glamorous at the top, lucratively tedious at the middle, and unspeakably sleazy at the bottom. Guess where I am?’
She was so bitter and so different from how she usually was, I didn’t know how to react.
She looked at me sadly. ‘I was in Vogue once. Did you know that?’
Disfigured Love Page 15