The Museum of Modern Love(10)

If Lydia was having one of her episodes, she wanted to sleep alone and so he ended up in the guest bedroom. Then came the long weeks of recuperation that exhausted them both. She resumed her schedule and yet she was so tired each night.

‘Do you know,’ said Jane, after a long silence, ‘that Brancusi, the sculptor, for thirty years or more, worked almost exclusively with two forms—the circle and the square. Every sculpture was a marriage of the egg and the cube.’

‘Okay,’ said Levin.

‘They don’t look like eggs and cubes,’ she said. ‘But when you know, you can see it.’

He saw how her students must see her. This bird of a mind leaping from branch to branch.

‘And once you know,’ Jane went on, ‘you can never not see it. I think Abramovi? probably has the same thing in mind. She’s asking us to look at things differently. Maybe to feel something invisible. Mind you, I guess feelings are invisible. Funny how we don’t teach that at school. You know, how things that are unseen are nevertheless real. Anyway, what I’m meaning is that when you see the retrospective you’ll realise she’s always been exploring either intense movement or utter stillness.’

He nodded.

‘Are you an artist?’ Jane asked.

‘Musician.’

‘Oh, goodness,’ she said when he told her the names of the films he’d written the scores for. ‘I wish I could say I’d seen them all, but I’m sorry. This is one of those New York moments. You’re someone famous and—well . . .’

‘I like to think that the best is yet to come,’ he said. He had solitude now. He didn’t have to think about Tom or Lydia or Alice. He didn’t have to think about anyone. He knew there was a tsunami of young composers building behind him, trying to overtake him, but he had years on them, experience, knowledge.

‘Well, really, I’m honoured,’ Jane was saying.

He noted her wedding ring. Maybe she was divorced, maybe her husband had found someone else. She didn’t seem particularly married. But perhaps he didn’t either.

In front of them, the young woman who had transformed into a butterfly had slumped back into her usual self, as if the effort of expansion was all too much. She left the chair, disappeared into the crowd and reappeared by the two young women to Levin’s left.

‘You were amazing!’ Levin heard one of her friends say. ‘What was it like?’

‘It was scary,’ the young woman replied. ‘I was so nervous but she seemed really kind. Oh, God, I feel so silly because I cried.’ Her friends embraced her.

Jane leaned towards the girls, her scarf falling on Levin’s leg. ‘You looked like you were growing bigger,’ she said.

The three young women turned and looked at her and Levin.

‘You looked as if you were growing right out of yourself, becoming this strong, courageous thing,’ Jane continued.

The girl stared at Jane and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘That’s exactly how it felt.’

Her friends nodded, smiling at Jane, clasping the girl.

‘I’m amazed you could see that,’ the girl said to Jane.

‘Don’t forget it,’ Jane said. ‘That’s quite a thing. Thank you for sitting.’

The girl wiped her eyes with a tissue, laughing at her own emotions. Jane turned back to Levin, gave him a brief level smile, and without further comment, withdrew her scarf and returned her gaze to Abramovi?.





NOW , I DO NOT WANT YOU to expect a love story. That is not the sort of convergence I had in mind. This is not a story that begins with attraction and ends with a kiss. At least not between Levin and Jane.

It’s hard to imagine a man more capable of living in his own cocoon than Levin. Art creates a certain familiarity with loneliness. And possibly with pain. Physical, mental, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all a catalyst. I don’t like to admit that because it’s depressing, but in truth pain is the stone that art sharpens itself on time after time.

It would be easier if humans lived longer. The span is brief. It takes so long even to begin to understand the job ahead. Art is really a sort of sport. To master the leap is essential. It is the game of the leap. Practise, practise, practise, then leap. The starting point may be different for each, but the goal is the same. Do something worthwhile before you die.

Every idea is invisible until it isn’t. Love is invisible yet we can see it. Attraction is the same. Inspiration is invisible, though it sings and dances through every day.

In case you were wondering, I am one of many. We are here in the unseen, just as Levin’s mother suspected. We are here to help. Remember that when you are feeling uncertain.





THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON WATCHING Marina Abramovi? day after day. She has been dead for three years and she finds death rather as she found life—an inconvenience. Her name is Danica Abramovi?.

‘Quite a dress,’ Danica was telling the man beside her. ‘What, she thinks she’s a queen? Orthodox red. Blood red. So she remembers. She has not forgotten.’

Nobody can see Danica staring down at the square. Nor do they hear her or smell her. Danica is observing the photographer, Marco Anelli. She has watched him arrive every morning since the show began. She has observed the way he unpacks his equipment.