Angelica's Grotto (18 page)

Klein phoned Melissa several times and got her answering machine; he left messages but she never phoned him
back. Sometimes he imagined her writhing naked in steamy orgies; sometimes he imagined her in the bosom of her family somewhere in the provinces, eating and drinking and sleeping with whoever was handy without a thought for him.

When the partridges had left the pear trees and the lords had ceased to leap, Klein emerged blinking and unshaven into the Christmas-New Year interval. The ghost of New Year’s Past now came to visit with clanking chains of memory and action replays of champagne, soft words, and kisses. Sometimes it hunkered down beside his bed and improvised sad songs of happy times departed; sometimes it rocked back and forth and moaned.

‘How am I going to get through the time between now and the auction?’ said Klein to himself. ‘I don’t want to call Melissa until I have something to tell her, some bargaining power.’

He went to his computer, put his last Klimt page up on the screen. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m no longer interested in Klimt.’ He went to his shelves and got
The Drawings of Bruno Schulz,
edited and with an introduction by Jerzy Ficowski. The first drawing he turned to was the
cliché-verre
engraving,
Eunuch with Stallions.
There was the naked woman prone on the tousled bed, indolently looking back over her shoulder as a white stallion, rampantly crouching, licked her bottom. Rearing up beside the white stallion was a black one. Little pariah-men watched from behind the bed, and in front of it the dwarfish eunuch, face black with lust and impotence, grovelled on the floor.

‘Is there anything new to be said about Schulz and sado-masochism?’ said Klein. ‘Is there in all men a secret desire to abase themselves at the feet of a woman who has contempt for them? Or is it simply that I’m naturally depraved and losing control of myself?’

Wild thing,
said Oannes.

‘Are you taking the piss or what? You think I should lose control more than I already have? Speak, Oannes.’

No answer.

‘I’m getting tired of your one-liners,’ said Klein. ‘Why do you always chicken out of a real conversation?’

No answer.

Klein turned the pages, looking at drawing after drawing of the ghastly little wretch at the feet or under the feet of beauties naked and clothed who spurned him. He turned back to the introduction, in which Ficowski explained:

The mode of expression and the subject matter of this early cycle of engravings
[The Book of Idolatry]
are governed by the principal idea of ‘idolatry’ – veneration of a Woman-Idol by a totally submissive Man-Slave. That motif dominates all of Schulz’s graphic works – the proclamation and celebration of
gynocracy,
the rule of a woman over a man who finds the highest satisfaction in pain and humiliation at the hands of his female Ruler. Suffering does not kill but nourishes and intensifies love.

‘Of course,’ said Klein, ‘I’m not in love with Melissa: what I feel for her is nothing more than some kind of kinky impotent old-man thing that makes me replay that night with her over and over – what she did and what she said when I was face-down on the floor. The feel of her nakedness against my back! Her not-to-be-questioned authority, her physical strength, and her utter contempt!’

He put on a new CD,
Garbage: ‘I’m only happy when
it rains,’
sang Shirley Manson, sounding naked under her mac,
‘I’m only happy when it’s complicated.’

‘Me too,’ said Klein.

Days passed, each one with hundreds of hours in it, but Klein held to his resolution and did not phone Melissa. She phoned him one rainy evening, and at the sound of her clear academic voice all of his senses instantly replayed the unforgettable night. ‘Hello,’ he said, choking a little over the word.

‘Hello, Harold,’ she said, sliding a leg between his, tango-fashion. ‘I haven’t heard from you for a while.’

‘I know. I’ve had nothing to tell you yet and I know you don’t like me to waste your time.’

‘Ah! I think I may have been a little unkind when I saw you last. I’m not really a very nice person but I was nice to you that time I came to your place, wasn’t I?’

‘Are you playing with me?’

‘Yes, but you like it when I play with you, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you
were
serious about funding my study, right?’

‘Absolutely. I told you I’d be working on it and I am.’

‘How?’ Her leg was around his waist, pressing him to her.

‘I’m not ready to tell you.’

‘But why make such a secret of it?’

‘I’m superstitious – I don’t want to jinx it by saying anything before it actually happens.’

She moved her leg so that her knee was in his crotch. ‘Before
what
happens?’

‘Can’t say yet.’

‘Harold,’ a slight pressure from the knee, ‘you’re not getting beyond yourself, are you?’

‘Oh dear, I hope not.’

With her thigh between his legs she lifted him a little. ‘Because it seems to me you’re being very naughty.’

‘I don’t mean to be but I can’t help it.’

Supporting him with one hand, she bent him back and brought her face close to his. ‘Some discipline might be in order at this point, eh?’

‘I know I need a firm hand to keep me in line.’

‘Yes, and the sooner we get you sorted, the better. When should I come over?’

‘Whenever you like – your time is scarcer than mine.’

Her hand was clamping the back of his neck. ‘How about right now?’

‘Whatever you say,’ said Klein.

When she rang off he felt giddy from the swiftness of the changes in the dance. It suddenly seemed terribly important to have the right music going when she arrived – tango wasn’t right for the occasion nor were rock, pop, jazz, or blues. He rejected various modern albums, at length chose
Olympia’s Lament
as sung by Emma Kirkby to the accompaniment of Anthony Rooley’s chittarone.

There were two versions of it on the CD, one by Monteverdi and the other by Sigismondo d’India. ‘
Voglio, voglio morir, voglio morire,’
began the Monteverdi: ‘
I want, I want to die, I want to die,’
sang Olympia, abandoned by Bireno on a rocky and pitiless shore. ‘Another one
of Ariosto’s hard-done-by women,’ said Klein, listening briefly to the measured outpouring of her woe and deciding that it would go better with the evening’s activities than the more overt emotion of the d’India. ‘For our visiting feminist,’ he said.

He scanned the room, moved
The Drawings of Bruno Schulz
from the littered couch to the little table by the TV chair and left it open at the spread with
Eunuch with Stallions
on the left; on the right was
The Feast of Idolaters,
in which a whole grovel-group queued up on hands and knees to kiss the foot of a seated woman who was showing a lot of leg.

He was busy adjusting lamps and rearranging clutter when the doorbell rang. Melissa was wearing a long and baggy black pullover, her usual black stockings, thigh-high shiny black boots, and nothing else that he could see. Klein moved back from the door to let her in but when he moved towards her again in the hall she stopped him with an outthrust arm. ‘Don’t try to approach me as an equal, little man – it’s time for your spanking. Trousers down!’

Klein obeyed, first putting on the Monteverdi track. Melissa sat in the TV chair, exposing her thighs and suspenders, took him across her knees, and smacked his bare bottom hard, again and again while the golden voice of Emma Kirkby rose and fell on behalf of all hard-done-by women.

‘What a miserable-looking bum you’ve got,’ she said as she spanked him.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Klein. ‘I wish it were nicer for you and I wish it were raining.’

‘Little pervert!’

I’m only happy when it’s complicated,
said Oannes.

‘Get me a drink,’ she said when she’d finished: ‘whisky, and don’t get dressed – I’m not through with you yet.’

When Klein came back from the kitchen she had the Bruno Schulz book open on her lap. She accepted the drink without a thank-you and extended her booted left foot. ‘Put your neck under my foot,’ she said.

Klein obeyed and she rolled his neck back and forth for a few moments. ‘You can imagine me being mounted by a stallion,’ she said. ‘You can imagine my screams and the neighing of the horse.’

Klein imagined. ‘Who ever thought we’d get this far this fast?’

‘You obviously did. I notice the wall’s bare where the Redon used to hang. Tell me about that.’

‘I’m still not ready, Lola.’

‘I see. There’s no rest for Lola, is there. Face-down on the floor with you, Prof.’ She removed her pullover and her bra, took the necessary equipment from her shoulder bag.

‘Please be gentle,’ he said.

‘No way, Prof.’ She buckled it on and went to work.

‘Right,’ she said, fastening her bra and vanishing into the pullover, ‘you can pop your things on now.’

‘Have you ever trained as a nurse?’

‘No. Why?’

‘No reason, it just popped into my head.’

‘Pour me another drink and have one yourself, why don’t you.’

He poured. He drank. He admired her stockinged legs, her shiny black boots, her white thighs and black suspenders,
l’origine du monde
between her legs.

‘Poor little Prof! Would you like a kiss now that your punishment’s over?’

‘Yes, please.’

She took him in her arms. Her whisky-flavoured mouth was delicious, her tongue inventive. When she released him he said, ‘It’s just business for you, though, isn’t it?’

‘Everything’s business in one way or another, Harold. Now let’s talk about the Redon. Where is it?’

‘How can you be so cynical so young, Melissa?’

‘I’m not cynical, I’m educated, that’s all.’

‘Do you really think you can be impartial in your study of emotional dysfunction in male/female transactions?’

‘I don’t have to be – my questions will be there with the answers they elicit, so I’m not hiding anything and my conclusions are admittedly subjective. Now, where’s the Redon?’

‘At Christie’s.’

‘You’re going to auction it?’

‘That’s what they do.’

‘Aha! And what’s their estimate?’

‘Give me another business kiss.’

She gave it. ‘Now tell me,’ she said.

‘Five to seven hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Nice one, Harold!’ She kissed him again. ‘How soon will it happen?’

‘Ten weeks.’

‘I’m so excited!’ She hugged him.

‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ he said, clasping her bottom.

‘Actually,’ Hannelore had said two or three centuries ago, ‘I don’t like that painting all that much. I don’t like pictures that are symbolic of something. If you’re going to paint a horse, study horse anatomy and do it the George Stubbs way. The best thing about this painting is the money it’ll be worth when we’re old. We can sell it and do some travelling on the proceeds.’

‘You’ll never be old,’ said Klein to Hannelore.

‘Why not?’ said Melissa. ‘Do you think I’ll die young?’

RRRRAAAAARRGH!
said Oannes, and flashed a picture through Klein’s brain.

‘No!’ said Klein.

‘Or did you mean age cannot wither me, nor custom stale?’

‘What?’

‘Pull yourself together, Harold. We were talking about the Redon.’

‘Five to seven hundred thousand pounds.’

‘You said that already.’

‘What was the question?’

‘I haven’t asked the next one yet. Are you all right?’

‘Would you excuse me while I whisper into my hand a little?’

‘Private thoughts, eh? Carry on – I’ll do a little more drinking while you’re thinking.’

Klein went to his desk, whispered, ‘Stop it, Oannes,’ and hurried to put another picture in his mind. He loaded his
National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue
into the CD-ROM drive, put Ingres’s
Ruggiero and Angelica
up on the screen, then slid over to
Oedipus and the Sphinx.
‘I’d forgotten how shadowy she is,’ he whispered. He went to the shelves, took down
Meisterwerke der Erotischen Kunst,
turned to
Der Kuss der Sphinx
by Franz von Stuck, contemplated the powerful beast-woman crushing the naked traveller to her breasts as he yielded to her kiss. ‘What happens next in this picture?’ he wondered without whispering, ‘Why am I thinking sphinx?’

‘Why don’t you give art history a rest, Harold?’ said Melissa as she freshened her drink. ‘There are practical matters for us to talk about.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in a moment.’ There were various things leaning against a wall in the order of their last viewing; he moved a portfolio to reveal a framed black-and-white wet pastel:
Sphinx
by Quentin Blake. The artist had first brushed water on to the paper in the approximate shape of the figure which he then drew with black pastel; he pushed the drawing about with his finger, then further defined it with his fingernail.

The figure was that of a naked young woman, three-quarter front view, her knees on the floor and her hands on a bed. The drawing stopped at mid-thigh; the bed was only a darkness that she leant on. From the waist up she was in shadow, her head and shoulders and arms shaped of darkness, her face lost in obscurity. The curve of her back, the lithe roundness of hips and bottom drew the eye to the animality of her body; the darkness and thickening of the upper parts suggested a minotaur. The figure seemed as if it had been made to appear by the stripping away of its invisibility.

‘Looks as if she’s about to be buggered,’ said Melissa.

‘Thank you for that penetrating insight. Can you see anything else in it?’

‘Well, she looks as if she might be wearing half of a crop-top gorilla suit.’

‘Good job you’re not running an art-appreciation website.’

‘Why? What do you see that I don’t?’

‘Never mind – let’s get back to whatever you were saying before I took time out for thinking.’

‘Hey, listen, Prof – don’t do me any favours. You sound a little bored now that you’ve had your geriatric jollies. Maybe I should leave.’