by Peter Stamm
They crossed the yard to a side building. The sky was still bright, and there was a thin sliver of new moon. As Hubert and Gillian approached the building, a security light came on. Hubert unlocked the graffitied metal door, switched on a light, and led Gillian down a narrow corridor past a number of doors. His studio was at the back, a big, almost empty room with a paint-spotted linoleum floor. The walls were in an uncertain yellowish color, in some places you could see gray marks where shelves had been once. On the ceiling there were halogen bulbs that bathed the room in a chill, garish light. On one side of the studio were tall windows, the blinds were down. Along one wall were metal shelving units full of bottles and tubes, brushes, stacks of books, and sketch pads. There was a sofa, a couple of old kitchen chairs, a mattress in a corner. On top of a small fridge was a single hot plate, with a beat-up aluminum saucepan on it. Side by side along one wall leaned three evidently recent pictures like those in the exhibition, one was still unfinished. Next to them were the backs of half a dozen canvases, protected by clear plastic sheeting. A large empty easel stood in the middle of the room. Hubert took a couple of folders from the shelf and laid them on a table improvised from two wooden blocks and a length of chipboard. He opened them one after the other and quickly flicked through sketches, begun and completed drawings, as if that wasn’t the purpose of their being there. Rooms, bodies, body parts, sometimes he turned one of the drawings around and looked at it as if for the very first time. He said a few words, perhaps he was talking to himself. The last folder he pushed aside unopened. Gillian saw the name Astrid marked on it. Then Hubert went over to the canvases that were propped against the wall, pulled off the plastic, and turned them faceup onto the floor, one after the other. Gillian stood next to him.
Most of my newer stuff is in the exhibition, of course, he said, all I’ve got here are a couple of older pictures.
All were of the same woman in various positions.
Who is she? asked Gillian.
He didn’t reply. They were both silent now. When she wanted a little more time, Gillian placed her hand on his to delay it. It felt like they were peering through the skylight of a strange apartment.
Very nice, said Gillian, when Hubert propped the pile back against the wall. Her phone rang again. She switched it off without looking at the display. Hubert coughed nervously and took a step away from her.
Are you interested in seeing the photographs as well? he asked.
She nodded.
He said he couldn’t offer her much in the way of refreshment. Beer, a glass of wine, tap water.
Beer is fine, she said, and sat down in an old armchair into which she disappeared. Hubert took a couple of cans of Czech lager out of the fridge and poured them carefully into two large glasses with gold rims. He looked concentrated, as though it were a very demanding task. He brought her one of the glasses, took a chair himself and moved it to about ten feet from Gillian. As he sat down, he took a sip of beer and then set the glass on the floor next to him.
She said again that she liked the paintings, but he seemed not to want to talk about them. He made minimal replies to her questions and took sips of beer in between. Finally he got up and fetched an old slide projector from the corner of the room and perched it on a wobbly old barstool. He switched off the overhead lights, moved his chair closer to Gillian’s armchair, and pushed the first slide tray into the projector.
Without a word, Hubert went through the photographs, one tray after the other. There were hundreds of nudes, women ironing, dusting, reading, making coffee. There were dozens of shots of each woman. To begin with there was an amused expression on many of the faces, later on they looked more serious and stopped staring into the camera.
Gillian got up, went over to the window, and sat down on the window seat. Hubert didn’t notice. She saw his silhouette and the images of the naked women on the wall. She imagined his face, pale in the reflection of the slides, his cold, critical gaze. She felt reminded of a photograph of a cinema audience she had seen once, incomplete faces with staring eyes and mouths opened in laughter. That was always how she had pictured her viewers.
In the next tray were pictures of a small woman with wide hips and large, pendulous breasts. She had short blond hair and hairy armpits. Both her posture and her facial expression had something theatrical about them. She hung washing on a low rack in a tiny bathroom, baby things and men’s socks. She took a book from a shelf, hunkered down on the floor, and swept up with a dustpan and brush, maybe crumbs from biscuits she had given her child. The apartment was cluttered and untidy. In the last pictures, the woman looked close to tears.
She looks terribly lonely, said Gillian. Do you have any idea what you put these women through?
They agree to take part, said Hubert, switching the trays. Even in their nakedness they try not to reveal themselves. They hide behind their movements, their smiles, their way of exhibiting themselves.
Gillian was surprised that she didn’t seem to get used to nakedness, as in the sauna or the shower at the gym. The more pictures she saw, the stranger the bodies became to her. A big mole, a fold of skin, pubic hair shaved back to a narrow strip, everything acquired exaggerated significance. The bodies fell apart, looked disproportionate, ungainly, ill made.
Is it like that for you as well? she asked.
You’re starting to see them, said Hubert. That’s the way I paint them, detail by detail, surface after surface. Even when I’m taking the photographs, I try not to be overly present. That’s why I use a camera with a big viewfinder. When the models look into the camera, they see only their own reflection in the lens.
He had clicked rapidly through some pictures of a young, gangling woman, then stopped at one where she was looking at herself in a mirror. The woman’s arms were hanging down, and her stomach was slightly protuberant. Her gaze looked critical, as though dissatisfied with what she was seeing.
Could perhaps do something with that one, he said, although mirrors are tricky.
What good is it for the woman, if she never sees the picture? asked Gillian.
Nothing, said Hubert. She’s just the model. I’m not a portraitist.
And why do they take part?
I’ve no idea, he said. Maybe they have a need to be recognized in some way. He switched off the projector. Are you tired?
Gillian nodded.
I’m going to stay here awhile longer. Shall I walk you back to your car?
Yes, please, said Gillian.
It took her a while to find the way home. It was ten, later than she’d supposed, but traffic was still heavy. She felt disappointed, and annoyed with herself for being disappointed. He could at least have asked her to sit for him. The thought had a strange attraction.
While she was waiting at a light, she switched her phone back on. She got three text message signals. At the next light, she read them. Two were from Matthias, the third was from Hubert. She deleted them all without answering.
Gillian woke early. She was in pain again, but she didn’t want to take any more pills. She stepped out onto the balcony in her dressing gown to smoke a cigarette. It was raining, and a strong, cold wind was blowing. She could hear some birds, but not as many as usual. The thought of birds sheltering from the rain, cowering in shrubbery somewhere, feathers ruffled and heads tucked in, moved her in a sentimental way. It got sneakily brighter, but the sky remained gray and the rain kept falling.
The fear set in quite unexpectedly. It seemed to come from outside, but it had nothing to do with Matthias’s death or the accident, more the rain, the gray skies, and the shapelessness of the beginning day. Fear is the possibility of freedom, a sentence she had read once long ago and without ever understanding it, never forgotten. She still didn’t understand it, but it seemed to describe exactly what she felt. In front of the building was a sandbox, a dismal parody of a children’s playground, under a gray cover. The clattering of the rain on the polyethylene was very close and loud as the voices of the solo birds against
the city’s backing track. It was odd that rain always seemed to take Gillian back to her childhood, as though it had only ever rained then. She was ten or twelve, it was early morning, and she was on her way to school. She could hear the sounds of the rain on her hood, the drips splashed her face.
Gillian, she spoke her name out loud. She thought of the girl who had just graduated from drama school and had got her first engagement at an obscure provincial theater. She had played a dwarf in a Christmas pantomime, a serving girl in a comedy, and Rebecca Gibbs in Our Town. She told George about the letter Jane Crofut got from the preacher when she was ill. The envelope was addressed to Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America, Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God. You don’t say, said George, who never got anything. And still the mailman had delivered the letter. Each time she said that sentence, it brought tears to her eyes.
It was a time when everything seemed possible, but freedom unsettled and scared her. She didn’t suffer from stage fright, oddly, she never had, but a sort of fear that was worse after the show was over. Her boyfriend had been taken on at another theater, but they had never bothered to break up. They telephoned less, and then stopped entirely. Gillian was left to her own devices, she lived over a pizzeria in a little apartment where it was always too warm. She had no friends outside the theater, and none in it really either.
It took her a while to discover that she wasn’t a good actress and never would be. She played women who gave themselves, who loved unconditionally, who sacrificed themselves, but she couldn’t take any of the roles quite seriously. A part of her always watched herself acting. I can’t regret, or flee, or stay, or live — or die! The little miss marched resolutely out the door, but the audience surely realized she wasn’t going to the barn to hang herself, but to the dressing room to take off her makeup.
Only after she had entered journalism did she start to feel more secure. She got the job in television and then she started playing the beautiful and successful cultural correspondent for the viewers, for the media, for Matthias, and for herself. She avoided making crass mistakes, Matthias played along, basically he was the better actor. They were continually in demand, giving information, playing themselves. Their voices were louder, they moved differently in public. When they got home, half soused and tired, and stood side by side brushing their teeth in the bathroom, Gillian sometimes had to laugh at the two faces in the mirror. Even the laughter was part of the performance.
Gillian felt slightly sick from her cigarette. She put it out and went inside. She stopped briefly in front of the coffeemaker, then she went into the bedroom and lay down again. The window was open a crack, and the rain was audible only as a steady hiss. She spent all day in bed, delaying trips to the kitchen or bathroom as long as possible. Her pains had let up, but that didn’t make it any easier, they had battered her back into her body, had made her boundaries all the more distinct. Gone with the pain were her points of reference, and now Gillian had to go to the trouble of finding them all again. She leafed through old photo albums. There were family albums, with pictures of her as a little girl, photos of holidays and birthdays, family portraits that barely changed over the years. These albums held the first pictures of elementary school productions, Gillian as Mother Mary, as Snow White, as a cat in a musical. Eventually her story detached itself from the family’s. Everything concerning her profession was in a separate album, which Gillian had started. Theater programs, interviews, photos taken at parties, reviews, all clipped and pasted. The first page, the one that in the other albums bore a name or dates, was empty.
She read an interview she had given shortly after she had taken on the television job. Every week the same questions were put to a different person. The journalist had been perfectly pleasant, they had met in a café. Each time Gillian was stumped, they had made up the answers between them. When did you first make love? One afternoon. What would you most like to know? What my friends really think of me. What was the saddest moment in your life? They were both stumped by that one. Then the journalist had suggested: My death. And that had to do.
The life in those magazine pictures was inexplicably more personal and more concrete than the interchangeable family snaps in the other albums. In the interviews Gillian was asked about things she never discussed with her parents. Alongside these compressed and edited conversations, those she had at home seemed alarmingly banal. Sometimes her mother would talk to her about things she had read her daughter saying. Is it true that you don’t believe in God? Gillian didn’t know. It’s just an interview, she would say, you have to tell them something.
Once or twice she had complained about becoming a celebrity, but in fact she had loved being recognized on the street.
At the back of the album were some clippings she hadn’t stuck down yet. A write-up of her wedding, a double-page spread with photographs of the service and the party afterward. Gillian was astounded that Matthias hadn’t made a fuss. The journalist and photographer hardly stood out, they integrated themselves better into the wedding company than some of Matthias’s friends or Gillian’s relations. And they were restrained too, only asking for the occasional shot or a few words. When Gillian saw the piece in the magazine a week later, she had the feeling the whole celebration had been staged. After that she became more wary. But then, after she had been gone from the magazines for a while, she missed the attention, and she agreed when asked for a feature about her home life. Matthias and her in their tidied apartment, reading, cooking, eating, or standing dreamily out on the balcony. We’ve been mugged, she thought, this isn’t our apartment, that isn’t Matthias, this isn’t me. When she saw Matthias’s expression, it suddenly seemed to her as though he was a part of the conspiracy, and had known about it all along.
The following day the sun shone. It was cool outside but almost too warm in the flat. The doctor had told Gillian not to go out in the sun, but she didn’t want to go out anyway. For lunch she cooked some pasta. Afterward, she ordered food from an online grocery. She filled her virtual basket with things she had steered clear of so far, frozen meals, sausages, potato chips, pastry, white bread, ketchup, and mayonnaise. She bought enough to last her three weeks and paid with her credit card. Gillian started to sort through Matthias’s clothes and shoes. She stuffed them into big garbage bags. It was difficult, on crutches, to get everything into the spare room. She emptied the contents of Matthias’s desk into a cardboard box. Margrit had told her to do whatever she thought best. Sometimes she sat there for minutes, staring at a piece of clothing or some other item.
The deliveryman from the online store came toward evening. There was a ring at the door, and Gillian buzzed him in. When he rang again at the top of the stairs, she called through the door to leave the things outside. The man stood there for a moment and then went away. Only when Gillian heard the engine of the delivery truck downstairs did she cautiously open the door.
She ate a lot over the next weeks. She watched TV, surfed the Net, slept late. Her parents called her on the landline, and when she didn’t pick up, on her mobile. Gillian said she was fine, she needed quiet, and she promised to visit them, next week, or maybe the week after.
Will you call if you need something? asked her mother.
I need time, she said. It’s not about you.
She stopped answering the phone, she didn’t even look at the display when someone called. She deleted her e-mails as well, without bothering to read them. She waited for Hubert to get in touch, but he didn’t. Presumably he didn’t even know anything had happened to her.
At night, Gillian dreamed of men attacking her and raping her and violating her. Her body exploded, her flesh flew in scraps through the air, the walls were stained with her blood. It was dark in the rooms, and yet everything could be clearly seen. In the middle of the night she woke up. She listened to the darkness. It was perfectly still, but she heard th
e emptiness just the same. She thought about the times at the end of recording sessions when the soundman said, atmosphere, and everyone froze, so that he could record the silence for a minute.
The days went by like the weather in a constant back-and-forth. It got cold, then warmed up overnight. Once, a lot of snow fell in the space of a few hours, but it all melted away within a day or two. Gillian no longer felt bored. Some mornings she didn’t even get the newspaper out of the mailbox. She spent a lot of time thinking about Matthias and their former life together, but she still couldn’t deal with the fact of his death. Grief came quickly and unexpectedly, a sudden stab of pain that made her reel.
For days she had worn the same pajamas, she didn’t wash or shower, and she lived entirely on junk food. She watched her body change as she put on weight and developed spots on her back and her chin. For the first time in years she was aware of her body odor.
One sunny day she thought she would go for a trip. The late-afternoon light was as golden as it was in autumn. She rode the elevator down to the basement and followed the passage into the underground garage. She kept stopping to listen, but she couldn’t hear anyone. Her dark green Mini stood where it always stood. She drove to a wood on the edge of the city and parked near a recycling station. A man was coming out of the wood toward the parking lot with his dog. Gillian crouched down and waited. The man opened the door of his car, which stood a couple of spots away from hers, and the dog jumped in. When he had driven away, and there was no one else around, she climbed out and set off. The path led along the edge of the wood. In its interior there were still a few scraps of leftover snow. After a while, Gillian saw a couple approaching with Nordic walking sticks. They were perhaps two hundred yards away. She stopped and looked around. Behind her was a woman pushing a stroller. The underbrush beside the path was fairly dense and difficult to penetrate. She kept her arms up to shield her face, branches scratched her hands. Thereafter it got easier. The ground was thickly covered with dense leaf mulch that gave underfoot. Gillian heard voices, and then she saw through the underbrush that the couple and the woman with the stroller passed each other. She waited a moment longer and then plunged deeper into the wood. The light fell diagonally, making long shadows. Sometimes Gillian stopped and contemplated the silver bark of a tree that looked like the hide of an animal, or a piece of tree root that was worn smooth by the elements. She laid her hand on the cool wood, feeling tiny unevennesses. The terrain became flatter. It was already starting to get dark, from the nearby zoo she heard animal cries. When she got back to the parking lot it was dark and the streetlights were on.