[64] You have lived

That drawing of Emma I made while we were waiting for Emil at the Griensteidl. I’d posted it on my way out, on their notice board by the business cards and theatre bills. I regretted that, because it was a specially good one, so I went back the next morning to retrieve it if I could, but no. Outside, half a block towards the Artillery School, a penguin waiter came running after me, telling me the owner wanted to see me.

We walked back, and he pointed me upstairs to an office and I walked in.

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr …’

I tell him.

‘I don’t see you in here very often.’

‘I’ve been in here once.’

‘More’s the pity, Mr Karsch. Karsch is a famous name.’

‘If you’re a steelworker.’

‘Or own a steel mill. Would you be any relation, perhaps?’

I sit there and say nothing and wait for him to keep coming at me. A contented-looking man. Eating all your meals from your own pastry table will do that to you.

‘Such as may be,’ he says. ‘You left us a small gift yesterday. A sketch of our interior, one could say, or one could also say a sketch of a beautiful young woman enjoying herself at our table.’

‘That’s why I returned today. I want it back.’

‘That makes me wonder why you left it with us, what your motives might be if you entertained others. Would you perhaps settle for this?’ He opens his desk drawer a crack, reaches down, and drops a taped bundle of bank notes in front of me.

‘A rare talent, I assure you,’ he says to break my stare. ‘One client of my brother’s offered 200 for it, the next offered 250. There’s something about the public nature of her abandonment that … Who can ever know what will inspire men of the world? Well, I thought to ask you first, assuming you’d come back. We prefer to be gentlemen about such things.’

‘Or perhaps I want the drawing back.’

‘Perhaps you do, Mr Karsch. I don’t pretend to understand artists, but my brother has a friend who knows when a gifted man crosses his path. Would you settle for 300? Beyond that price, my brother’s friend would have to forgo his own pleasure at having found it. He’s willing to give you back this specific drawing. Not that he has to, since you abandoned it here unsigned. But he would want to ask: Do you have any similar? Such as open-minded men would find pleasure in holding?’

‘I perceive a benefit from meeting his needs,’ I say.

‘Oh, yes. But can you offer my brother that woman specifically? Something about her … but I’m sure you know just what I mean.’

I think first. ‘Her body,’ I tell him. ‘Not her face.’

‘Really, it’s the physical … culture … of her that appeals. A woman still young, barely formed, yet with a heightened sense of self-awareness and from whom shame has recently relaxed its grip. Understand that friends of my brother will be quite specific about what they want, but mainly, they want to see women who have no regard for the old restrictions. They want proud, modern women of the new century. And they’re wealthy enough to be generous.’

‘And you can get such photographs of women on any street corner, in your own coffeehouse, I’m certain.’

‘Photographs,’ he shrugs. ‘Of prostitutes with sagging breasts and pimpled faces, who have welcomed half the world through their gates. Women who look too much like …’

I stop him before he says wives.

‘So what your friends want,’ I say, ‘is proud young women of the world, of a better class, who are eager to express their modernity.’

‘Exactly! Who was this one, Mr Karsch?’ He takes yesterday’s sketch from his desk, and doesn’t let go till I pull it from him.

‘Someone I know.’

‘And what’s that like?’

I only stare at him until he sighs.

‘What age do your brother’s friends want these girls be?’ I ask him.

‘What is age anyway? They need a mouse to play with, that’s all.’

‘Do you need me to sign them?’

‘My brother’s friends, when they look at them, they don’t like to think about a man who was there before.’

‘Name a price.’

‘That size and detail, three or four colours, pencil and charcoal – ’

‘Watercolour,’ I say. ‘And I’ll want an advance.’

‘Watercolour would be best of all. But it takes so much skill.’

‘I can get you watercolour.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I don’t use much of it. Only for highlights.’

‘Yes! Highlights! Exactly!’ He mops his face again. ‘Three thousand kroner for twelve acceptable, an advance of five hundred. Acceptable may be difficult. Your artistry must not get in the way of the woman’s … forthrightnes. It isn’t completely a question of drawing skill, but – ’

‘The first one,’ I say. ‘What do you want her doing?’

‘Bent over a bed,’ he says. ‘Red stockings, looking back between her legs. Do you know what I see, Mr Karsch? A man who knows what women really want. Who knows what love means to the person receiving it. So let’s not fail each other. And let’s not fail them.’