A Ladder to the Sky(18)

He said nothing for a long time, bowing his head over the table as he considered my words. When he spoke again, all the pleasure had gone from his tone, and there was a look of humiliation on his face.

‘I thought I had captured something new,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve worked so hard on it.’

‘Of course, I know nothing about painting,’ I said, attempting to sound casual now. ‘And I could be wrong. But I would not be a true friend if I did not share my honest feelings with you. Do you remember the weekend that we went to Potsdam?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘What of it?’

‘There was so much to capture there. The landscapes. The lake where we swam. The cows. Couldn’t you focus on something like that for a change?’

‘Cows?’ he asked, looking at me as if I were crazy. ‘You think I want to paint cows? Cows have no soul. Alysse, at least, has a soul.’

‘Alysse?’ I asked. ‘And who is Alysse?’

He nodded towards the canvas. ‘My model,’ he said.

‘So, she is a real person then, not a fantasy?’

‘Of course she’s real! I could never paint something like this from my imagination. I’m not that creative.’

I could bear it no longer; I had to ask. ‘And are you in love with her?’ I asked.

‘Very much so,’ he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘We are in love with each other.’

I sat back in the seat, staring at him in dismay. ‘If that’s the case,’ I asked, ‘then why have you never mentioned her until now?’

‘Well, I didn’t think—’

‘We’re friends, I thought? Although if it’s just a silly summer romance—’

‘But it’s not,’ he insisted. ‘It’s a lot more than that.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I just am.’

I shook my head. ‘If you loved her that much,’ I said, ‘then you would have talked about her to me.’

‘If these were normal times, perhaps yes,’ he replied. ‘But they’re not normal times, are they? I have to be careful. We all do.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of everything. And everyone.’

I looked around. Suddenly it seemed to me that the entire tavern was listening in on us, watching us, aware of Oskar’s feelings for this girl and my feelings for him. In my heart, I had always known that Oskar did not share my romantic longings but it wounded me deeply to think of his being intimate with another.

‘I’m not certain that you’re right,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t the artist remain true to his own instinct?’

‘I can’t tell you what you should think, Oskar,’ I said. ‘I can only tell you what I feel.’

‘And you believe that I should destroy it?’ he asked.

‘I do. Not only that, but I don’t think that you should paint Alysse any more. Perhaps you’re too close to her. You should reserve your talent for something more appropriate.’

He blanched but I felt no remorse. I wanted him to burn the painting, to feel that it was so worthless he would abandon the concept entirely and, with it, the girl. Paint cows, I thought. Paint all the cows you like. Diversify into sheep if it satisfies your artistic needs.

‘And did he?’ asked Maurice, who had remained silent as I told him this story. ‘Did he destroy it?’

‘Yes, he did,’ I replied, unable to meet his eye. ‘We stayed in the B?ttcher late into the night, becoming very drunk, and, as was his way at such moments, he turned maudlin, hanging his head and weeping for what he considered his lack of talent. And then, finally, he reached for the painting and ripped it in half, and then in half once again, and again and again.’

Maurice said nothing, but finished his drink while looking out towards the street.

‘I hope you don’t think less of me now,’ I said finally, and he shook his head, reaching over and placing his hand on mine, just as Oskar had done some fifty years earlier in Berlin.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘What you did, you did out of jealousy but also out of love. And you were just a boy at the time. None of us is in control of our emotions at that age.’

I glanced at my watch and sighed. ‘Anyway, we should get back to the hotel,’ I said. ‘I need to change.’

He didn’t show up in the bar that night after I returned from the publishers’ dinner. And, despite his instructions, I did stay up, hoping he might arrive later. But as the clock reached midnight I finally gave up on him and decided to return to my room, a little the worse for wear, pressing my ear against his door for any sounds from within, but it was silent. When I climbed into bed I was tired and ready for sleep but, before I turned the light off, I noticed the magazine that he had given me earlier sitting on the night stand and picked it up to turn to his story. It was not good. Not good at all. So bad, in fact, that I began to question whether he had sufficient talent to be a writer and if I was doing him a disservice by encouraging him. I flicked through the rest of the magazine and my heart sank as I noticed the credits on the final page, for the Editor-at-Large was none other than Dash Hardy, the American writer we had met in Madrid. It was he who had commissioned the piece, he who had seen merit in it and he who had published it.