THE BASHFUL COURTESAN

CHAPTER ONE

Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash

                -1-

Paris 1956

I’ve always lived my life rather vicariously through my art, which I suppose is an ironic way of saying that the circumstances of my life usually left me starving three days out of four. The major reason being that I frightened people—frighten I should say, let’s be honest here and use the present tense, because I still frighten them, no matter what they may say. I’m ugly by any man’s standards. First of all, I’m a dwarf, in case you don’t know me through my art. And as a dwarf, I’m disproportionate, my body misshapen by a twisted torso; my legs are bowed and my left foot clubbed. As disproportionate as my body is, so too my face with its mismatched eyes, bulbous nose and oversized ears; needless to say, I wasn’t a beautiful child. I once saw a poster outside a cinema where they were showing the Lon Chaney movie Notre Dame; that poster could’ve been me I used to think as I walked past it. As I said, not many people know of me if they don’t know me for my art; when people think of artists, they usually picture a solitary man standing in front of an easel and then think nothing more of him--except when he paints a self portrait, which I would never do unless it was a crowd scene at a freak show. I readily admit I was never as popular as Monet, or Matisse, but some art critics have been heard to say you can see similarities in our work. I’m not certain as to whether it’s the same colour dynamic, or the so-called innocence in my portraits they refer to, but tell me now I say, while I still have time to change. Anyway, I live in Paris now--we live in Paris I should say--because while everything in this story concerns me, it’s not so much a story about me as it is the people in my life. I left Russia when I was thirteen years old, swearing to myself that I’d never go back; that’s one promise to myself I’ve managed to keep, but Paris was always my goal--my end-game I think the expression is. Prior to moving to France however, I lived in Vienna for a number of years before the Great War--and by ‘I’, I mean ‘we’ of course. You’ll learn more about the I and we of my life soon enough, but first I have to tell you a few things about myself, so you’ll understand how it is I came to be where I am today.

As I said earlier, I lived most of my early life vicariously through happenstance. I began by selling water-colour sketches to patrons and servers in the taverns and music halls of Vienna--portraits in time I used to call them--as well as selling them to passersby on street corners where I sometimes sat under the cover of a nearby eaves painting street scenes lit up by dull city lights, or a melancholy mood. Needless to say, it was a hand to mouth existence that took years for me to establish anything even close to resembling a following; which made me the cliché starving young artist for lack of a better expression. Whatever fame I may have at this time in my life, I owe more to luck than anything else; trust me when I tell you that I’ve never been one to believe in fate. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been one to believe in much of anything. I do accept that success and fame have little to do with ones’ artistic talents, and I say this because I’ve known a great many men with talent who’ve fallen by the wayside. One would almost think that luck and fate conspired against them; or, one could just as easily say that they were fated to fail--if one were searching for a certain irony in life. Fate’s more a matter of hindsight I think; luck’s nothing more than being in the right place, at the right time.

Some would say it’s luck that brought me to where I am today. That may be true, but doesn’t that imply that my success is due to something I did; that my leaving Vienna and coming to Paris after the Great War were somehow the twin catalysts that set off a series of events taking half a lifetime to unfold? I seriously doubt if one has to do with the other. You can think that way if you want, but not me. As I said, Paris had always been my destination, even at a young age. And yes, while Paris is where I was discovered, or mentored if you wish, by that so-called lost generation of writers and artists who were no more than survivors really--men and women whose only need was to escape the memories of war by over-indulging in alcohol and cocaine--I can’t help but wonder what our lives would have been like had there been no war. I suppose the answer to that question is obvious, isn’t it? But we’d been taught from an early age--and by we I mean my generation--that Truth was Beauty and Beauty Truth, and that the object of life was to seek out the Truth as though it were some sort of mystical Holy Grail. All the songs the poets sang and all the paintings the artists painted--even our own religions--preached this tenet as though it were a promise made to us by our parents’ generation. But it seems that art and culture always suffer through times of peace, don’t they? It’s during those low periods--and only war can be thought of as a low period in a man’s existence--that any true advancement in the science of industrial art overwhelms all other discoveries made during times of peace. It’s nothing less than necessity that causes both art and culture to come to a halt while society’s thoughts lean toward victory and war. Everything pales in comparison when you take into consideration that by the turn of the new century we had such innovations as the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and even the cinema. But then, there was also the bicycle, the automobile, and the motorcycle; when you throw in the aeroplane for good measure you can see how all these inventions could be misused in one way or another as instruments of the Great War. It was never a question of what the future held for Mankind, but rather, how Mankind would shape its future. I’m not saying that art and culture came to a complete standstill, they didn’t. But any hopes a man may have had for attaining world-wide fame left him with little more hope than being hailed as a local celebrity, and nothing more--unless that man had a message as powerful as Picasso and his Guernica a generation later. I suppose it’s possible that at some future time there’ll be a system whereby ideas may be conveyed as easily as words on a wireless, but until that time, one need only look at the evolution of the aeroplane from simple flying machine into a weapon of mass destruction to see how far we can advance as a society, as well as a race. The specious idea of a war to end all wars was a dream thought up by idealists; Man is not meant to live in peace.

I say all of this with the benefit of hindsight, of course, but that’s neither here nor there, is it? It’s only through the passage of time that we can understand what we’ve gained, as much as we might lament over all that we’ve lost--and if anything, we’re a generation that laments its past. In fact, there have always been men out there--some even right now, I suppose--walking the streets with vacant, broken  hearts; men who fought valiantly for that holy trinity of God, King and Country, who feel that they’ve been bitterly betrayed, and remain resentful as they look for someone to blame. They think of themselves as the final remnants who fought for the sacred cause of Justice and Freedom in the world. There were a multitude of such men during the Great War who gave the greatest sacrifice that a man can give, life itself. But those same men--those who survived--became the Brown-shirted thugs rife with thoughts of revolution and anarchy, reasoning that their lives had not only been forgotten, but that they’d been forsaken as well; it was the ultimate betrayal in their eyes. And why’s that, you ask? Well, why does any society forsake those it once regaled as heroes? Is there even an answer to such a question? That’s how those embittered veterans--to all intents and purposes--evolved into preachers of the politics of hate. If the war taught us anything, it wasn’t that we’d killed the baser instincts of cruelty, blood-lust, and primitive savagery, no, if it taught us anything at all, it’s that our humanity had been broken. We’d lost that part of ourselves, so much so, that we truly were a lost generation. All it takes for history to repeat itself is not the failure of mankind’s collective memory, but the collapse of the world’s collective conscience. Even in America, while crops were failing and people were flocking to the cities in search of hope, those proselytizers of hate--those false prophets of doom--were determined to find someone they could blame; or, in failing that, find a scapegoat for some other invented cause. Is that what the future holds for us now? It has always been in times such as those when men we’d never deign to lead us willingly, step up from the mire so that they might lead us further into the darkness. Russia is a fine example of that with its nascent revolution giving birth to Stalin; and just as the France of old gave the world Napoleon, so the Great War gave us Hitler. I’d seen what he and his followers could do on newsreels at the cinema around the corner--add to that Mussolini’s rise in Italy, Franco’s victories in Spain, and Communism rearing its ugly head in both America and Britain--and you can see how people were willing to listen. And cheer for them. Hitler preached fear and hatred, and as much as he called for retribution against the past generation--against the Jews, Catholics, and even the Blacks of the world--I’ve often asked myself how it was possible for anyone to believe in him, and yet, they did; not all, but enough so that the people readily endorsed his new political party, and just as eagerly donned his brown-shirted uniform as though there was a new purpose to their lives. People have always been quick to follow someone who is willing to lead them into darkness, someone who is eager to preach violence and rail on about taking what they feel was once theirs, and while they dismiss the treaties of the past and exclaim a new world order that’s nothing more than an excrescence and a blight on the horizon of the future, they slip into a miasma of complacency. 

And why is it that, you say? With Civil War being fought in Spain and proving to be no more than a trial run for the modern war plans of the German High Command, it looked for a time as if it would spill over the borders and seep into France. Refugees cried to be let across the borders but were prevented; atrocities were inflicted on the populace; France became rife with strife as a result. There were no jobs to be had; poverty and the immigration of homeless refugees was just as much a problem in Paris as it was anywhere else. Jews were fleeing the continent like rats off a sinking ship, using French ports as a jumping off point while shipping treasures to relatives in Holland, or England, storing them in bank vaults as Hitler and his fervent followers--fresh from conquests both politically and militarily--were clearly laughing at the world as they pointed out the obvious failings of their fellow man. Nobody wanted the Jews, he said, and to prove himself right, he let them board ships with the hope of finding themselves a better life in America, or Canada--but even those havens of refuge were closed.

When we left Vienna in 1921, Stanza said if my plan was to travel across Europe in hope of seeking out a better life in Paris, then she insisted I call her by her real name, Constanza Leismuller. Her reasons were entirely selfish she said, the main one being that she no longer wanted to be the woman she was; the name she’d used while living in Vienna had not been her real name. She said she chose it simply because it sounded lyrical. If we were going to start our lives anew, she said, she wanted to cut off all ties with her former self and use the name her parents gave her. I told her that I’d change my name as well, and from that day forward, whenever I sign my paintings, I use the name Pumilio.

You may think it’s nothing more than a clearing of my conscience when you realize that I blame myself for not leaving France when we had the chance. We should’ve left Europe years before, I know that now; have I told you that I’m pretty good at reliving my life in hindsight? But instead of leaving in 1936--leaving with the last of the crowds who attended the Berlin Olympics--I elected to stay, thinking now that Hitler had his moment in the sun, things in Europe would settle down. The writing was on the wall as they’re wont to say, I simply didn’t read it. Stanza could see what was coming, but she left it up to me. I never made the decision. When the Germans finally invaded, we were still in the city; I was more concerned with helping document and pack up the treasures of the Louvre, than I was in leaving my beloved Paris.

There were no questions asking me when we were planning to leave Paris; it seemed as if Stanza simply accepted what was coming and understood long before I did that I’d waited too long. She steadfastly resigned herself to the inevitable. Her blindness has always prevented me from doing what’s right, choosing instead to do what’s right at the moment, which it turns out is never right for either one of us. And now that the world had plunged itself into yet another war--a Second World War (as if numbering them allows us time for growth), we lived our lives accordingly. The Germans entered Paris on 14 June, 1940; by 16 June, the Prime Minister resigned, and on 17 June, the new acting head of State, Marshall Petain, called for an immediate cease-fire.

How did I let this happen, you ask? How did I allow us to become victims of yet another World War? I’ve asked myself that same question many times over the years. It may be as simple as the fact that I’ve always been a victim; unknown to me, my life has never been my own to live. After all, ours was a generation distinguished by its coinciding with the opening of the twentieth century--an age of promise, wealth and luxury when one considers the great technological advances that were made, but an age bifurcated by the Great War--a truly world war of untold magnitude. Those of us who survived--those of us who lived through the horrors of the battlefield, and those of us who starved in the cities--divide our lives into separate categories: before, during, and after, while those of us who grew up and matured in an age of such loss can never reconcile ourselves to the fact that we let our fathers’ generation dictate how we were to live our lives.

So, how did all of this happen you ask? It began with a knock at my door.  And while I can’t say how everything I say from here on in is the truth, or how everything I say we did is exactly how it happened--or how it came about--there’s little I choose to leave out. This isn’t as much an autobiography as it is a search for one’s self; whether that search results in self-loathing isn’t the question to be asked, nor is it the answer I seek. Nothing in life makes any sense if you leave out the details, no matter how small; there’s always someone that will show up out of the blue to remind you of your failings, and in your failings, how you caused others to fail. I’ve had my share of failures.

But back to the knock at my door before I change my mind.

Vienna 1914

It was loud and forceful; the kind of knock that echoes through an empty room and makes your heart stutter at the sound of it. Glancing up from the painting I was working on, I knew it was too early to be my client. I wasn’t expecting anyone until later in the afternoon, so I climbed down off my perch and waddled toward the door, hastily throwing a paint-covered smock over my head.

“What do you want?” I called out, re-arranging the folds of the smock so that I was completely covered. All I would allow anyone to see of me in those days were my dark eyes.

“We’re looking for the man they call Dwarf. They sometimes call him Yevgeny the Dwarf,” a voice called out in response through the door. I pressed my ear up against the rough wood and could hear two voices on the other side--the one voice calm, and the other sounding somewhat impatient.

“Tchochevsky. We’re looking for Yevgeny Tchochevsky,” the second man called out, now sounding irritated as he rattled the doorknob as if expecting me to let him in because he’d somehow stumbled on the magical words and cried out, “Open Sesame!”

“He’s a dwarf. You must know him! I’m told he lives in this building,” the first voice called out gently, sounding almost embarrassed having said it.

Yevgeny the Dwarf.

Even with all my success today, they still call me The Dwarf--only now, as I said earlier, it’s Pumilio, the name I chose for myself because it sounds like a tragic character from some neglected Italian opera; in reality, it’s Latin for Dwarf. Millie, who used to live downstairs from me, they called the Whore, and Simon the tailor, was known as the Jew, as though it were a title he’d somehow earned; it’s something those who have called those of us who didn’t, as though giving us a name, or a title, somehow precludes any need on their part for using manners, or addressing us with respect. No need to respect someone once you’ve qualified them as Jew, Dwarf, or Whore, is there?

“What do you want?” I asked again.

I could almost imagine the quizzical look on their faces as I spoke through the door. It was easy to imagine the first man--he of the kindly voice--turning to his friend and shrugging his shoulders the way a man sometimes accepts a stranger’s rudeness. Back then, people were inclined to think of me as cantankerous, instead of being simply disagreeable as they think I am now. If being cantankerous and disagreeable means I don’t have to wear my smock anymore, I’m happy to let them think what they will.

“We’d like to see him,” the first man called through the door again.

“Are you here to collect money? I don’t have anything for you if you are. I won’t have anything until the end of the week,” I added, hoping my expected client would be satisfied and willing to pay for the painting I was working on; I was satisfied with it.

“Look, we just want to talk to you,” the other man said quickly, roughly; again, as though his saying it would be enough to convince me that I should open the door. “Stop playing games.”

“Talk to me about what?” I asked, suspicion running along the edge in my voice like a tightrope walker skirting a crowd.

“Ha! So you are him!” the second voice called out as if it were a declaration, and I wondered if he was voicing it as a victory cry, or denouncing me as a liar.

“A commission,” the first man responded gently.

“A commission?” I asked, suddenly wary but unlocking the door anyway. I looked up at the two men staring down at me through the crack of the door, my foot jammed up against it in case I had to push it closed in a hurry. It was a moment before I stepped aside to let them enter.

The first man pushed his way through the door and surveyed the room with a quick nod as he proceeded to remove his hat and gloves. He was tall and thin--angular would be a good word to describe him--and so obviously aristocratic with his haughty airs and ill manners. You can tell a lot about a man by the clothes he wears and the way he stands; I can still spot his type, even after all these years. I don’t see many of his kind out this way anymore, and if I do, they’re usually Russians, who are the worst of the lot as far as I can see--but there may be some bias on my part toward anyone who claims to be a Russian. It seems as if the world has thankfully moved along and left his sort behind--almost as though they were a bad memory from an even worse dream. But they’re all the same, these aristos, with that haughty conceit of theirs; I sometimes think it must be some sort of disdain they have for the common lot, something bordering on contempt and arrogance as far as I’m concerned, because it’s a look I’ve seen too often in my life--a look more often than not, directed at me. He was carrying an ebony walking stick which he swung about with what he probably thought was a swaggering sort of grace. The knob on the end of it was thick and bulbous, shaped into an Imperial Eagle. He was wearing a dark grey suit made of worsted wool--English, I think--and had a gold fob watch tucked into the left pocket of his waistcoat, suspended on a chain that slipped through one of the button holes. His hair was close-cropped, dark, and oily, with a touch of grey at the temples I couldn’t help but notice as he took his hat off--the perfect coiffed hair one might have expected from an officer in the Imperial Guards.

The man probably looks imposing in his Guard’s uniform, I thought to myself, and probably cuts a dashing figure as well. He was handsome--if I’m any judge of that sort of thing--with his straight Roman nose, small, pert mouth, and thin, upturned lips. His eyebrows arched delicately over dark, smouldering eyes, and his cheeks had just the right amount of pinkness to match the briskness of the day outside. If I were to guess his age, I’d have put it at thirty-five--certainly no more than forty.

The second man was dressed in a dark brown, pin-striped suit, with a water stained derby set on his head at a rakish angle, giving him the jaunty appearance of a modern-day Pantalone. He was the sort of man who when you looked at him, you knew you’d feel comfortable getting to know. He was so obviously at ease with himself; you could see it in how he cared so little for fashion trends, style, or the accoutrements of wealth. He was wearing a dark grey muffler he left half wrapped around his neck as he casually pulled off a pair of soft, doeskin gloves. He looked up and down the narrow hallway before following the first man inside, carrying an umbrella hooked in the crook of his right arm; I doubt if he’d ever thought to open it. He struck me as one of those people who enjoyed the rain and carried his umbrella as an accessory rather than by necessity--perhaps it was something he might offer a woman caught unawares in a sudden, or unexpected, rainfall. He dropped his hat and gloves on my divan without a second thought, unmindful of the clutter I’d placed on it earlier, but kept the umbrella, using it like a poor man’s walking stick. He appeared younger than the first man, and I thought he might be an officer as well--a thought I quickly dismissed.

He had an interesting look though, and I knew that if I told him that, he’d be disappointed. No one wants to hear they have an interesting look about them. People want to hear that they’re handsome, or beautiful--pretty comes to mind; beguiling if you wish--so that hearing they have an interesting look about them they come to think of themselves as average, or even less so. His eyes were a mottled brown, speckled with amber under eyebrows that were large and bushy. He had a shock of long, reddish hair tied up in a small knot and hanging on his collar as though he were some Bohemian poet from a by-gone age. His lips were large, both of them fat and dry, although his smile was quite disarming. His nose appeared flat and broad, the nostrils wide and distended, which made me think it had been broken a time or two earlier in his life. And like a typical red haired man, his skin was stained with fine freckles. He wasn’t handsome when you looked at all of his features separately, but neither was he ugly, not when you looked at his face as a whole; as I said, he had an interesting look about him.

Before I let them in I warned them both to duck their heads as they stepped in through the door. You have to approach the aristocratic sort with a sense of wary trepidation I’ve learned over the years--not so much caution, but more or less with a sense of vigilance that borders on self-preservation. I watched as they both made their way to the center of the room where the ceiling levelled off enough for them to stand upright. They both took in the sparse furnishings as I pointed at the divan as a place for them to sit. The first man looked at it with the trace of a sneer, but sat down anyway, tossing the other man’s hat and gloves to the side as he pushed the few boxes I had set down earlier off to the side. I stood in front of him and waited for him as he eyed me curiously while I watched the other man inspect the paintings leaning against the walls.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the way people examine me when they meet me for the first time. There was something about the man’s indifference toward me however, that made me feel as if I’d been scrutinized and dismissed--but to be honest, it felt as if he’d dismissed me before I’d even uttered a sound--and I found myself disliking him immediately. I pulled at the smock I was wearing to better adjust the eye holes for me to see.

“I’m sorry, please forgive my appearance,” I said with what I’m sure sounded like a plea and only made worse by me holding my palms out as I gave up a simple shrug. “Most people are shocked when they meet me for first time,” I added.

The man smiled, but there was no welcome to it--there was no warmth in it--no tiny laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. His face remained impassive and I told myself things would go a lot easier for both of us if he let himself relax.

“Are you a member of the Guards?” I asked quickly, perhaps thinking I could maybe mollify him with a little light banter. “You look like you could be--or should be, I mean--in the Guards.” I added, stumbling over my words clumsily as he unbuttoned his jacket and brushed at his waistcoat as if he were dislodging some imaginary speck of dirt only he could see. He undid the top two buttons of his waistcoat and stared at me, although all I could see was a large diamond stickpin stuck through his tie. The man shook his head as he smiled at me again. Again, it wasn’t a warm smile, but as cold and calculating as the sneer he’d tried hiding from me earlier.

“The Hussars,” he said in a calm voice, and I felt an involuntary shiver going up my back. “I’m with the Hussars. Forgive me. Where are my manners? Count Milan Novak,” he added, without offering a hand, or acknowledging me in any way.  And why should he, I asked myself. I was nothing to him at the time, nor would he expect that I’d be anything other than a commissioned artist. I should be used to the cold, calloused manners of the aristocratic.

“That explains the look,” I said graciously, grateful for the smock covering my face.

“And what look is that?” the other man asked, turning from the paintings lined up along the walls as he approached me, his head bent low because of the ceiling. I had no idea the man was even paying attention to us, so intent was he in the scrutiny of my paintings.

“The aristocratic warrior,” I said with what I hoped was poise.

The man laughed outright, smiling down at the Count. He stood beside me--as far as the low ceiling allowed him to--with his head bent to one side. He draped a relaxing arm around my humped shoulder and I shrugged him off in consternation and some degree of panic. I don’t like people reaching out and touching me as though I’m some sort of toy, or their own personal pet.

“You find it amusing?” I asked.

“I do! Because I’ve always thought of him as ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’,” he said with a laugh, and I saw a look of anger flitter across the Count’s face.

“‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ only had one leg,” I reminded him. “According to the story, that is. He was a bit of a freak if you ask me. The only freak in here, is me.”

“Does that mean you only have one leg under there?” the Count’s friend asked, trying to hook the bottom of my smock with his umbrella handle. I slapped it away out of reflex and the man laughed again.

“George!” the Count said in alarm, as George went on with his laughter, this time, at the Count’s reaction.

As I slapped the umbrella away, I asked the Count, “Is he always this rude?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he replied with a sigh, sitting back against the divan and crossing his legs--not so much a contrived movement as it appeared calculated, if that makes any sense. It seemed as though every movement the man made was a cautionary tale against the dirt and squalor he found himself locked within. If a man like that can never be comfortable in such surroundings as he found himself there in the confines of my studio, I wondered how he would have done on the field having been given the orders to march. He should be grateful Austria-Hungary had not found a reason to join the war recently concluded in Serbia.

“Normally, I wouldn’t have come along, but Novak here, he insisted I come out with him,” George said, fishing for a cigarette in a silver case he pulled out of his inside breast pocket.

“Well, it was George who recommended I look you up,” the Count confessed, and though he was directing his remark at me, it seemed as though he’d said it more for George’s sake.

“Are you English?” I asked George, for lack of anything else to say.

“I am. And you’re a Russian, I believe?” George said it plainly, tapping his cigarette against the silver case and switching to Russian, which jarred me out of my stupor to say the least.

“I’m going to make you a rich man,” he said, offering me a cigarette. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t understand,” he added, seeing me look at the Count.

“Yes, well, thank you,” I said. “I’ll save this for later if you don’t mind,” I added, putting the cigarette in a pocket Simon the Tailor was thoughtful enough to provide me with when he’d made me the smock.

I turned to the Count again. “You said something about a commission? Perhaps I can interest you in buying a painting instead?”

The Count appeared uncomfortable for a moment, and looked up at George briefly before turning his attention back to me. “I want you to paint a portrait for me,” he said, trying to sound casual as he brushed another imaginary speck of dirt off his silken waistcoat.

“A commission,” George reminded him.

“A commission--a portrait--does it matter which, as long as it’s a large one?” he said quickly, flashing a temper I told myself it would be wise for me to remember having seen.

“Of yourself?” I asked. An assumption of vanity among aristocrats helps to pay the bills, I’ve learned; his wouldn’t be the first portrait I’d painted.

“No, no,” he smiled. “Someone less domineering,” he said, and looked up at George again.

I nodded thoughtfully, thinking I understood. After all, it’s not unusual for an artist to paint someone’s lover--even a male lover--and as I turned to study George in the light, George smiled at me, winking at the Count.

“Which is my best side?” George asked, turning his profile to me and letting the cigarette hang out of his mouth at a natty angle. I turned and looked up at him, not wanting to disappoint him by saying one side of his profile was as good as the other. It all harkened back to the idea of telling him he had an interesting look. But I could see from the angle of his pose, with his hand slid into his jacket pocket as though it were a smoking jacket and the way he jutted his chin out, that it would be an excellent portrayal.

“You don’t think that I mean...? You sick little bastard!” the Count growled of a sudden, looking up at George and then back at me. He jumped up immediately, almost hitting his head against the low sloping ceiling as he reached down to where I suppose his sabre would have been. He grabbed his walking stick instead, and I froze in terror.

“Oh, sit down!” George said, stepping in between the Count and myself and knocking the walking stick away with his umbrella. “You’re lucky you didn’t knock yourself out, jumping up like that. Can’t you see I’m just having a little fun at your expense? You’re so serious all the time.”

“That little bastard thinks I mean you!” the Count said angrily, pointing his walking stick at me as though it were a weapon.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Stepping behind George, I felt as if I were hiding like a child behind a tree--the same way I’ve hidden from people my entire life.

“Well of course he does! What’s he supposed to think if I don’t tell him any different?” George said with a laugh, holding the Count back and telling him sit down again.

I watched the Count try to compose himself, pulling at his shirt cuffs with a succinct snap before sitting down again.

“The Count, like so many others of his class, has a mistress,” George said, turning toward me as he began to explain. "Well, who doesn’t, really? In this day and age? I suggested that he have a portrait of her done. But he doesn’t like what he sees--”

“They call it Expressionism,” the Count said with a bitter laugh--it was a short, dismissive bark really--but he seemed relaxed now that his previous outburst was nothing but the memory of a bad aftertaste. All the same, I told myself that I’d have to watch this man’s temper. I’d have to watch what I said as well as how I said it. He was a man who was quick to anger and probably used to having his own way.

“I showed him something you did, in a bistro,” George added, “while we were having lunch the other day--on the other side of town,” George went on, “and he was impressed--well, as impressed as a man like him will allow himself to be,” he added with a laugh. “He said he’d only allow you to paint her portrait, and asked me to help him find you. I didn’t even know where to begin to look.”

“How hard can it be to find me?”

“Harder than you think,” the Count was quick to answer.

“This woman?” I asked--trying to ignore the Count by turning my attention to George instead--“do I get to meet her, or will I be working from a photograph?”

“Which is easier?” the Count asked.

“Obviously the live subject,” George said, turning around to look at him.

George was examining the paintings against the walls again, the unframed ones I’d been unable to sell and which there was no room left for me to hang them.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, waving a tiny hand at the Count. “I’ve worked from photographs before--mostly with children though. They have a difficult time sitting for me. I prefer using live models, of course, because it’s easier to capture the essence of a person’s soul through their eyes if they’re sitting directly across from you.”

“Naturally, it’d be easier if she didn’t have to come here,” the Count said gently.

“Easier? For whom? You, or her?” George asked, and spun around. He looked down at me and didn’t seem surprised to see me standing beside him.

“I see you’ve been to the Opera House?” he said as he dropped his cigarette on the floor.

“Not really,” I replied, watching blue smoke seep out of his nostrils as if it were steam.

“You have, because you’ve painted me,” he laughed.

“I have?”

“I recognize the decorations hanging from the Imperial Box,” he added, pointing to a large painting partially hidden behind two others. He bent down and moved the other paintings aside. “This was painted during Franz Joseph’s Jubilee, back in ‘08. See? There he is up in the Imperial Box with those fuzzy muttonchops. There’s Franz Ferdinand, and Sophie behind him.”

“I’d managed to slip in through the back door. Someone did me a favour,” I said with a nod, wondering if he could determine my movements under the smock.

“Really? Well, that’s me. There. See? First chair, violinist. At least, it should be me,” he added, taking a closer look. “That is Mahler up there, isn’t it? You have the glasses and the hair, but little else in the way of his features. It’s really quite amazing how the figures are all smudged, and yet, with nothing more than the tilt of a head, or the stoop of a shoulder, you have the--what was that word you used? Essence? Yes. You have the very essence of them--like the Emperor and his muttonchops.”

“It’s quite amazing actually--the perspective, I mean,” the Count was quick to point out as he crouched down beside George and looked at the paintings. “You’d almost think you were hiding in a closet somewhere, watching.” He looked up at me as if he expected an explanation, and I felt compelled to say something.

“I’m not comfortable setting my paints up in a large crowd,” I said. “For obvious reasons. I do it, but I don’t wear my smock when I go out, and so I often find myself the object of attention from a great many people--not the people around here, they’re used to seeing me--but elsewhere. It’s because of that I like to find a vantage point and sketch as much as I can from there...off to the side,” I added. “The more distinct the perspective is, the better the painting usually is.”

“It’s so strange, seeing something like this,” George said as he began sorting through the other paintings. I supposed he was looking for more of the same, thinking there were others of him, but I knew there was only the one painting. “These are quite good. I’ve never seen the Ringstrasse in the rain like this--looking out from an alley like that, I mean--or looking down at the city from a rooftop--except for that Frenchman I met that time in Paris--Pissaro I think--but he painted that looking out of a window.” He gave me a serious look. “You should have your own show.”

“I’m sure there are other, more talented men, out there,” I said. “In fact, I know there are.”

“Nonsense! You’re just being modest,” George said with a laugh. “You’ve got a style that’s hard to describe. I mean, I want to see Romako in what I want to call Realism, but the lines are blurred, like looking through a foggy lens. You see it better when you stand at a distance. It’s that new movement you see in France. Have you been to Paris?”

“No,” I said softly.

“Then where did you get this style from? Who did you copy?”

“I developed it myself. It’s my own. I didn’t take it, or borrow it, or steal it from anyone. I don’t even know how it works. It just does. I use liquid wax and mix it in with my paint and linseed oil so that I can build it up in layers. It presents a challenge with cracking, but as long as the wax stays liquid when you apply it.”

“It’s sheer genius. It’s not Moll, or Klimt--I think it’s even better. I can’t believe they haven’t asked you to join their movement.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “The Secessionists? They’re pretty well finished now. Besides, I sell my paintings for practical reasons.”

“Practical reasons?” the Count asked as he sat on the divan once again.

“My paintings pay the rent and buy my food. That’s all. A show? I doubt if I could generate that much interest. I’m too much of a freak for Klimt and his Secessionist Movement. I’ve met him several times over the years; he knows very well who I am. Believe me when I say he’s very familiar with me.”

“You mean he feels threatened by you?” George said quickly.

“I wouldn’t say that!” I laughed. “I’m a freak. I paint from behind that screen over there, so people don’t feel horrified at the sight of me,” I said, and the turned to the Count. “Which is why I won’t feel insulted if you want me to paint the portrait from a photograph.”

“Nonsense! I’m sure Anna would love to see these paintings herself,” George said, and then stood up, remembering the low ceiling at the last moment. “She has a good eye for beauty. She might even buy a couple.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” the Count said, shaking his head. He stood up cautiously and looked around the room once more.

“Why not? You should buy some of these! They may be worth something one day,” George said. “Think of it as an investment in the future.”

“And how would I explain that to my wife? ‘I’ve found this little artist to paint my mistress; he’s really quite the talent. Why don’t we support him?’ I think one painting’s more than enough,” he said.

“Well, I’m buying this one. After all, it isn’t everyday you come across a painting with yourself in it,” George laughed, and then reached into his pocket pulling out his silver cigarette case and offering me another cigarette.

“You said you wanted this to be a large portrait?” I reminded the Count as I put the second cigarette into my pocket. “How large of a portrait do you propose?”

“Three meters by four.”

“Impossible!” I said as I barked out a laugh.

“Impossible? Why?” the Count asked as if his asking the impossible was an everyday occurrence.

“I haven’t got that much room,” I said with a shrug. I pointed up at the ceiling. “Or that much paint! It would cost a fortune in paint alone, not to mention the canvas. It would take weeks for me to prepare something that big--just the preliminary sketches alone would take that long. It would take months to work on something that big. I wouldn’t even be able to start until late spring or early summer.”

“And why so long?” George asked.

“For practical reasons alone,” I said in protest.

“We’re not looking for practical here, are we Count?”

“Nothing I do is practical,” he replied with a forced laugh.

“Just the light alone, for one thing,” I said. “You can’t expect me to do a painting that large and paint it by candle light.”

“All the old Masters painted by candle light, but lighting aside,” George said, “what if you had all the paint and canvas you needed?” he went on. “What if you had everything you needed--your rent was paid; you had food, supplies--all of it. What would you choose for you subject?”

“The subject? A portrait that big?” I asked.

“You must have something in mind?” George smiled.

“I haven’t said I would take it yet.”

“Of course you will. How can you not? It’s the challenge that draws in someone like you.”

“What do you suggest for a subject?” the Count asked.

“Something epic, something in the way of: ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’; ‘The Raft of the Medusa;’ or even ‘The Night Watch.’ Something grand.”

“Those are too large,” I smiled.

“But that’s what I want! Something done on a grand scale! Something heroic! A battle sequence, or something chivalrous--something from the Golden Age! I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s big,” the Count said. “I’ll get you all the paint and canvas you need--you can get that for him, can’t you George? You choose the subject; you’re the artist after all. You know what will work and what won’t. As long as it’s big.”

“Why so big?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“There’s a wall I want to cover up,” the Count said, matter-of-factly.

A wall he wanted to cover up.

Well, what did I care where he wanted to hang the damn thing? I suppose a great many men who have paintings of their mistresses never let them see the light of day, and here the Count was proposing to hang my painting in his hallway. I wonder how the Countess would’ve reacted had she seen it? Circumstances never allowed that she would, of course; the Great War spoiled that for all of us--but that’s not to say that I didn’t finish the commission; I did.

It’s just, as I said, the war got in the way.