Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

David was already shaking his head. “I’ll watch out for the little bastard.” He was already at the door. As he turned the handle, he looked back at her. “I’ll be fine, Camille. Right now, I just want to be by myself for a bit.”

  “That’s fine, and I’ll give you that space. Just let me be sure that you’re safe in your—our—apartment. I love you, David,” she told him, trying to smile. “Let me walk back with you, then I’ll come back here. Please.”

  He pressed his lips together, then opened them with a long sigh. “Fine.”

  They walked together, slowly, Camille holding onto his arm heavily at first, then less so by the time they reached the studio apartment and climbed the stairs. He opened the door. “See?” he said. “All safe. Now …”

  “Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, okay? I’ll bring Verdette and the rest of my stuff over, and we can talk some more. We’re going to be good, aren’t we, David?”

  “Sure. I just …” He sighed again. “I have to process all this.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers; it was the kiss a brother might have given her. Reluctantly, she released his emerald tendrils, let them fall around him like an unseen cloak. She stepped back into the hall, and he closed the door behind her.

  She left. Without David’s energy to speed the healing, she could feel the throbbing from the wound in her abdomen all the way home.

  INTERLUDE SEVEN

  Gabriele Tietze & Gustav Klimt

  1891

  Gabriele Tietze

  1891

  “DO YOU LOVE ME?”

  Gabriele smiled at the question. “No,” she told him. “I revel in your talent; I bask in your radiance. But love? No, Gustav—you love yourself too much for that. Besides, you already have more lovers than you can handle.”

  “You let me …” He stopped, grinning at her and leaving the rest unsaid.

  “I do, and I enjoy it, too. But that is sex. Love is something else. You have sex with many women, but you don’t have to love any of us. You love the one you won’t bed—and you know who I mean. Isn’t she a little young for you, Gustav? She’s what … all of seventeen? And your sister-in-law besides.”

  “You evidently know as little about love as you do about painting,” he retorted.

  Gustav Klimt was dressed in his painting smock, a pleated gray robe that covered him from neck to feet, dotted with flecks of color from his brushes; below the smock, she could see his bare ankles and his feet encased in paint-spattered leather sandals. She was not dressed at all, reclining nude on the bed in the studio, holding the pose he’d given her. He’d sketched her lightly in charcoal on the gessoed canvas, and was beginning to add washes of color to the painting now, blocking in her figure and the light. He peered at her through his viewfinder: an ivory rectangle the size of a hundred-kroner banknote with a square hole cut in it. She could see his eye through the hole, staring.

  His soul-heart was a luscious, delicious green, the color of wild spring grasses, and it flowed wonderfully from him, seeming to light up the studio for Gabriele. She had already touched in him a dozen new pathways for that creative energy, and in the few months she’d been here in Vienna, she already saw his work changing and growing under her influence.

  He would be one of the great ones, she knew.

  He would also be her bait.

  She’d come here chasing Nicolas, knowing after their London encounter with the Blakes that she must now become the hunter, not the hunted—because that was the only way she could ever guarantee her own sanity and safety. Eight innocent people had died in the flood of porter from the Horseshoe Brewery—she had caused them to die, and the guilt stayed with her. To kill him, must you also have to become like him? That was a question that troubled her.

  After the debacle at the brewery, she left London entirely for a few years so that Nicolas/Polidori would have no reason to further torment the Blakes—when “Polidori” didn’t vanish suddenly, she watched him to make certain that he left the Blakes alone. She’d followed Polidori’s brief career as a hanger-on in the Lord Byron/Shelley camp; then, in the spring of 1821, she returned to London herself to track him down. She intended first to disable him, then to cut off his head to kill him forever, no matter what the cost. She was near to doing exactly that, but somehow Nicolas realized that she was tracking him: Polidori “died” suddenly in August of 1821—evidently via the same enchantment that had saved Nicolas as Robespierre, since a body with his face was identified. Not surprisingly, perhaps, within two days the doctor who pronounced him dead and the mortician who buried the body also died mysteriously.

  Nicolas vanished again, wrapped in some new identity. She knew his obsession, and knew what drew him—wherever there was death and suffering in plenty, he might be there. Since then, she’d nearly caught him twice more: in 1846 in Roscommon County, Ireland, as over a million Irish peasants succumbed to starvation in the midst of what the Irish called an Gorta Mór, the Great Hunger; in 1866 after the end of the Caucasian War in the West Caucasus, as the victorious Russians slaughtered untold numbers of the native Circassians. In both cases, Nicolas managed to slip the traps she’d set for him and vanish under a new identity.

  Last year, she’d read about a sequence of strange deaths and suicides in Vienna, including that of Crown Prince Rudolph and his paramour. The suicide rate in Vienna, it was whispered, was higher than anywhere else in Europe despite the city’s prosperity, and the city was also said to be obsessed with death. The accounts were compelling enough that she’d come to the city again after a century and a half away. She was certain he was here; she was certain she could feel it in the strange, morbid, churning energy of the city in this last decade of the 19th century. She saw it in the Tarot whenever she laid out the cards to read them.

  He was here. He was living amongst the gentry somewhere.

  She knew that what had most often brought her to Nicolas’ attention in the past had been her relationship with a single prominent artist. She was vulnerable when she was with someone who stood out and who had a rising reputation with his or her creative endeavor—that was the spoor that called to Nicolas. After London, she countered that as she had before: avoiding the truly massive soul-hearts and great talents, instead taking what sustenance she could from groups of lesser talents and diminished soul-hearts. It left her feeling hungry and tired and irritable, but they could sustain her while she searched for Nicolas.

  But now … She wanted to bring him out from wherever he was lurking—and one way to do that was to make her own presence known. And of the burgeoning artists in Vienna, just beginning to make their reputations, none was better known that Gustav Klimt. It was easy enough to become one of the many models he hired. It was easy enough to seduce him. It was easy enough to take the vast soul-heart within Klimt, already radiant with talent, and begin to fully release the potential inside him.

  The satisfaction she felt in blending with a soul-heart this full after so long was nearly enough to drive away the guilt that plagued her for using him so callously.

  Do you have to become like him to kill him?

  “I’ve done all I can do today with this,” Gustav said to her, setting down his palette; one of the boys he employed as an assistant hurried over to take away the palette, the jars of pigments, and the brushes, stealing several lingering glances at Gabriele’s reclining figure on the bed before leaving the studio. She heard him in the small prep room off the studio, a rattle of glass and the scent of mineral spirits as he cleaned the brushes. Gustav cocked his head, staring at the painting before draping it with a cloth. He went to the door of the prep room and closed it as Gabriele stretched muscles tired and stiff from maintaining the same position for so long.

  Gustav unbuttoned his painting smock and let it fall over his shoulders. He stepped out of the pool of paint-spattered cloth; underneath, he wore nothing at all, and she could see his arousal. He hung the smock on a hook, unbuckled his sandals, and came over to the bed as Gabriele sat up. He leaned over toward her.
He kissed her, a hand on either side of her face, and she curled her arms around his neck, pulling him down on top of her. “You’re so beautiful,” he gasped when he finally lifted his face from hers. The glow of his soul-heart wrapped her like a second body, arousing her more than Gustav himself.

  “Not as beautiful to you as she is,” Gabrielle whispered in his ear.

  “Be quiet,” he answered, his voice gruff. His hand cupped her breast, then drifted lower. She gasped. “Be quiet …” he repeated more softly, then his lips found hers again.

  *

  Pauline Flöge ran a dressmaking school just off the Ringstrasse, the wide boulevard that encircled old Vienna and which also served as the promenade for the wealthy and royalty of the city. It was there that Gabriele bought most of her dresses: the prices were reasonable, the quality excellent—Pauline ran her school with a strict overseeing of her pupils’ work—and unlike the more proper clothing establishments, all Pauline cared about was that Gabriele paid well and often for the dresses produced by her students. It didn’t matter to her that Gabriele was a model who often posed nude for the Klimt brothers—one of whom, Ernst, had married Pauline’s sister Helene only two months ago, while the other, Gustav, paid an inordinate amount of attention to the youngest of the Flöge sisters, Emilie.

  Pauline didn’t treat Gabriele as a common cocotte, but as a valued customer.

  Pauline tucked a curl of stray ash-blonde hair back into her coiffure as Gabriele entered the house that served as the school, looking up from a dress pattern laid out on a table. Emilie, her sister, stood alongside her: a smaller, thinner image of her older sister, with delicate features and a body still rounding into full womanhood. “Ah, Fräulein Tietze,” Pauline said. “You’ve come to try on the dress you ordered? Emilie, please escort Fräulein Tietze back to the fitting rooms and help her try it on. I’ll come and check the fit in a few minutes.”

  Emilie nodded. “Fräulein, if you’ll follow me …” Gabriele followed Emilie from the front room and up the stairs. They passed open rooms where women were sewing at treadle machines, marking dress hems on forms, or stitching intricate embroidery patterns. At the end of the hall, Emilie opened the door of one of the rear fitting rooms. Gabriele’s dress was hanging there, next to others made by the school: a décolletage in white tulle, a fichu made of brilliant white lace, and a faille dress with darkred roses on curling stems, the flowers matching the color of her hair and nearly vibrating against a saturated green background that was the color of a soul-heart.

  Emilie closed the door and gestured to the brocaded screen in the corner. “If you wish to undress in private …”

  Gabriele nearly laughed. “I just came from Herr Klimt’s studio,” she said, removing her shawl and starting to unbutton her blouse in front of a large, freestanding mirror. “Modesty is hardly an issue of mine.” She paused. “Unless you prefer that I disrobe behind the screen.”

  “No,” Emilie breathed, then repeated the word again with a shake of pale, fine curls. “No.” Gabriele saw a hint of color in the young woman’s cheeks, and she looked quickly away from Gabriele. “How is Herr Klimt?”

  Gabriele smiled at the woman as she removed her blouse. “He is painting madly,” she said. “Now that the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s staircase paintings are done and he’s joined the Künstlerhausgenossenschaft, his work has become so much more expressive and free. I think it’s wonderful.”

  “You must be an excellent subject for him.” Emilie took the dress from the hanger and held it open for Gabriele to step into. Gabriele could see Emilie’s face in the mirror. “You were the model for ‘Girl From Tanagra,’ weren’t you?”

  “I was.”

  “It’s a beautiful painting. Very different from his other work. Perhaps he needed you as his muse.”

  Gabriele could hear the hint of jealousy in Emilie’s voice, and she shook her head. “No, my dear. He has a much prettier daemon than me. In fact, Herr Klimt showed me his portrait of you the other day.”

  That garnered a helpless smile from Emilie. “It’s finished?”

  “Yes. And it’s very striking. I imagine Gustav will show it to you tomorrow.” Gabriele pulled her arms through the sleeves of the dress as Emilie began to button the rear closures. “I watched him working on it for hours, so gently, as if his brush were his hands stroking your own face and caressing your neck. When he’s with me, I sometimes wonder if he’s imagining you there with him instead.”

  She heard Emilie’s intake of breath, felt her hands stop moving at her back. For a moment, in the mirror, their eyes met. “Fräulein …” she gasped, but her voice was neither as shocked nor aggrieved as it might have been. Emilie’s gaze fell away again, and Gabriele felt her tug harshly on the dress as she began to button it once more.

  “I’m sorry, was that too forward of me? I do apologize. I know Herr Klimt is never anything but respectful and proper toward you, as he should be, nor does he ever express anything but admiration for you to others. But I also know his deeper feelings toward you—and those are identical to what his brother feels toward your sister Helene.”

  Emilie’s head came up, and again found Gabriele’s eyes in the mirror, though this time there was no protest, only a hopeful look. “Die ist die Wahrheit,” Gabriele whispered to her.

  “What is the truth?” another voice intruded as Pauline entered the fitting room.

  Emilie’s eyes had widened in the mirror, her mouth open as if to protest. Gabriele swept a hand down the side of the dress. “The truth is that I believe your students are blessed to be working and learning with you, Fräulein Flöge. The dress is exquisite. Far more beautiful than I expected.”

  “I’m so pleased, Fräulein Tietze,” Pauline answered. “You flatter me.” In the mirror, Emilie’s mouth closed again, and her head ducked down as she finished buttoning up the dress. Pauline walked slowly around Gabriele, her mouth pursed as she examined the dress, occasionally plucking at the fabric to test the fit. “The dress works very well for you, I think,” she proclaimed at last. “That green is a wonderful color for your complexion and hair. Very striking. You will turn heads at the balls.” Pauline clapped her hands together in satisfaction. “I don’t see where any alterations need to be made, though of course, we’ll do them for you if you wish. Emilie, if you would assist the Fräulein in removing the dress and box it for her, I’ll have it sent over to her apartments and prepare the bill.”

  With that, Pauline curtsied politely to Gabriele and left the room. Emilie moved behind her once more. “Emilie,” Gabriele said, daring to use the young woman’s given name, “you should know that I’m not a jealous woman, and I’m not in love with Gustav—nor is he with me. We’re simply, well, convenient for each other. All you need do is tell when you want me to step aside, and I will. It’s you he wants—at least for the moment.”

  “You are very … modern, Fräulein Tietze.”

  Gabriele laughed gently at that. “Please, call me Gabriele. And no, I’m not modern at all. These ideas of morality people call modern are mostly old ones that have just been rediscovered. Gustav is a good man, but I’m afraid that if you’re genuinely interested in him, you’re going to have to be ‘modern’ yourself. I’ll also tell you this: he won’t be faithful to you, no matter what he says, and I say that only so you know what awaits you. He is a fascinating person, a loyal friend, and a fabulous talent, but when it comes to women, he’s only the weakest of men. He’ll be yours and yours alone in everything but physical intimacy—and you will need to accept his flaws as well as his virtues if you wish to keep him.”

  Emilie had unbuttoned the dress, and Gabriele turned to Emilie as she slipped the sleeves down her arms. “Gustav wants you, Emilie, more than he wants anyone else.” Emilie was staring at her. Gabriele reached out to softly touch her cheek, as an older sister might. “What is most important is whether you want him. That’s what you need to decide.”

  She let her hand drop, and Emilie blinked. “I’ll pack th
e dress for you, Fra—” She stopped, gave a shake of her head. “Gabriele.”

  “Thank you,” Gabriele said. “I’ll tell Gustav that you’re looking forward to seeing your portrait, if you’d like.”

  “Do,” Emilie said. “And thank you, Gabriele, for talking with me.”

  Gabriele laughed again. “We muses must lean on each other,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s a lonely life.”

  *

  Vienna, as it approached the 20th century, could have supplied a thousand muses like Gabriele with sustenance. The old fortifications of the ancient city had been demolished, replaced by the wide boulevard of the Ringstrasse, fringed with grandiose public buildings and private palaces, a magnet for Vienna society, where all flocked to see and be seen.

  It was as if the destruction of the last vestiges of Vienna’s medieval past had somehow ripped open its artistic consciousness to expose riches buried underneath. Creative endeavors flourished everywhere in the rich humus of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even as the empire floundered in unstable European politics, even as her people continued to mourn the terrible death of their beloved Crown Prince Rudolph two years previously, boundaries in the arts were being pushed and bent and shattered: in the Fine Arts, Gustav Klimt was very popular, certainly, but no less was his brother Ernst and their usual companion Franz Matsch, as well as Koloman Moser, Max Kurzweil, and dozens more. The architects Adolph Loos, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Otto Wagner were bringing a new vision to the buildings being designed and built. In music, there were always the old lions Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, but there were also the new lights in the musical landscape: Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and Richard Strauss, whose operas seemed to recapture the muscular strength of Richard Wagner. In literature, many of the writers of Vienna gathered in the Café Griensteidl: Arthur Schnitzler, Hermann Bahr, Felix Salten, Karl Kraus. There was the new alienist, Sigmund Freud, whose theories on the mind were fascinating many of the intelligentsia.