Art of Murder

Jose Carlos Somoza
INTRODUCTION

The teenage girl stands naked on the plinth. Her smooth stomach and the dark curve of her navel are at eye level. She is looking down with her head tilted to one side, one hand shielding her pubis, the other on her hip. Her knees are together and slightly bent. She is painted in natural sienna and ochre. Shading in burnt sienna emphasises her breasts and moulds her inner thighs and her little slit. We should not say 'slit' because this is a work of art we are talking about, but when we see her, that is what we think. A tiny vertical slit, stripped of all hair. We walk round the plinth and observe the figure from the back. The tanned buttocks reflect patches of light. If we step away, her anatomy acquires a more innocent look. Her hair is strewn with small white flowers. More flowers surround her feet – a pool of milk. Even at this distance we can still pick up the strange scent she gives off, like the smell of wood after rain. Next to the security rope is a little stand with the title in three languages: Deflowering.

A two-note loudspeaker chime breaks the spell: the museum is about to close. A young woman's voice says so in German, then in English and French. Everyone seems to understand, or at least gets the intended message. The teacher of a select Viennese secondary school gathers her uniformed flock and counts them to make sure no one is missing. Even though the exhibition is of nudes, she has taken the children to see it. It is of no importance, they are works of art. What matters to the Japanese is that they have not been allowed to take photos: that is why none of them is smiling as they file out. They console themselves at the exit, where they can buy catalogues for fifty euros with full-colour photographs. A nice souvenir of Vienna.

Ten minutes later, after the room has emptied of visitors, something unexpected happens. Several men arrive, wearing ID tags in their suit lapels. One of them goes up to the plinth where the young girl is standing and says out loud:

'Annek.' Nothing happens. 'Annek,' he says again.

The eyes blink, the neck straightens, the mouth opens, the body shudders, and the budding breasts heave as she takes a deep breath.

'Can you get down on your own?' She nods, but hesitates. The man holds out his hand.

Eventually the girl manages to descend from the plinth, trailing a cloud of petals in her wake.

Annek Hollech opened the first bottle from the rack by the chrome metal shower, and the water turned green. She opened the second and rubbed herself with red water. After that, she soaked herself in blue, then purple. Each of the liquids in the bottles took off only one of the four products which had been applied to her skin: paints, oils, hairspray, artificial aromas. The bottles were numbered and each showed their purpose by turning the water a different colour. The paints and sprays were the first to come off, in a shower of drops. As always, the hardest thing to get rid of was the smell of wet earth. The cubicle filled with steam, and Annek's body disappeared behind a rainbow-coloured curtain. Each of the other twenty cubicles in the room was occupied by a shadowy silhouette. The only sound was the hiss of the showers.

Ten minutes later, enveloped in towels and mist, Annek walked barefoot to the dressing room. She dried herself off, combed her hair, rubbed first a moisturising and then a protective cream all over her body – using a long-handled sponge to reach her back – and protected her face with two layers of cosmetics. Then she opened her locker and took out her clothes. They were all new, purchased in shops on the Judengasse, Kohlmarkt, the Haas Haus and the elegant Karntner street. She liked to buy clothes and accessories in the cities where she was on show. During the seven weeks she had been in Vienna she had also bought porcelain and glassware and sweets from Demel's, as well as a few trinkets for her friend Emma van Snell, who was also a work of art but was being exhibited in Amsterdam.

On that Wednesday 21 June, 2006, Annek had gone to the museum wearing a pink blouse, military jacket and a pair of baggy trousers full of pockets. Now she took these clothes out of the locker and put them on. She did not wear anything underneath – it wasn't recommended if one was on show completely naked (underwear leaves marks). She put on a pair of felt slippers in the shape of two little bears, fastened her black slimline watch on to her wrist and picked up her bag.

Sitting next to her in the labelling room was Sally, the work of art on plinth number eight. She was wearing a sleeveless mauve blouse and a pair of jeans. They said hello and Sally commented:

'Hoffmann says my purple's fading like Van Gogh's yellows. He wants to try a more intense colour, but in Conservation they're worried it might damage my skin. Wouldn't you know it? The same old contradiction: some people want to create you, others want to conserve you.' That's true,' Annek said.

An assistant came over carrying two boxes of labels. Sally opened hers and picked out one of them.

‘I can't wait to get to bed,' she said. ‘I don't think I'll go to sleep straightaway, I'll just lie there on my back, stare at the ceiling and enjoy being horizontal again. What about you?' ‘I have to call my mother first. I phone her every week.' 'Where is she now? She travels a lot, doesn't she?'

'Yes. She's in Borneo, taking pictures of monkeys.' Annek put one of the labels round her neck and fastened it. 'Sometimes she emails photos of monkey couples.' 'Really?'

'Yes, really. I'm not sure whether she's trying to tell me I should get married or what.' Sally laughed quietly behind two rows of perfect white teeth.

'At least she sends you something. My father in New York can't even be bothered to scan in a couple of hotdogs for me. He never liked the idea of his daughter becoming a valuable work of art.'

Silence. Annek did up the last label round her ankle. Her neck, wrist and ankle now boasted three 8 x 4cm labels, painted bright yellow and tied with black strings. Sally had also finished doing up hers. They watched as the first works of art left the room: Laura, Cathy, David, Estefania, Celia. A parade of athletic, labelled figures.

'I haven't had my period again this month,' Annek said expressionlessly. ‘It's been irregular since Hamburg.' Sally looked at her for a moment.

‘It’s not important, it happens to all of us. Lena reckons it's like an umbrella: first she has one, then she loses it, then she has one again, but then she loses it yet again. It's all part of being a work of art, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' Annek was still staring into the mirror. 'And anyway, I feel better when I don't have one.' 'Hey, have you got anything planned for next Monday?'

The question puzzled Annek. She never planned anything for the day the museum was closed, apart from her frenetic shopping sprees with her inexhaustible credit card. Everything else -the solitary walks in the Hofburg, Schonbrunn, or Belvedere – which were not in fact so solitary because she was always accompanied by bodyguards – or visits to the Art History Museum or Saint Stephen's cathedral, even the ballets and performances put on for Vienna's June festival left her feeling bored and slightly nauseous. She wondered what a work of art like her was doing in this kind of city, where everything was art. She was looking forward to the time when the tour left Europe. The next year, 2007, the Foundation had promised them they would be travelling to America and Australia. Perhaps she could find something there she would really enjoy doing. 'Nothing,' she replied. 'Why?'

'Laura, Lena and I thought we might spend the whole day at the Prater fun fair. Want to come along?' 'OK.'

A warm surge of gratitude swept over her. At fourteen, Annek Hollech was the youngest work of art in the exhibition (Sally, for example, was ten years older). On their day off, the others all did their own thing. Nobody worried about her. To anyone but Annek – who was used to the solitude and silence of museums, galleries, and private houses – the situation would have been intolerable. That was why she was so moved at Sally's offer. But her face betrayed nothing of this: it only ever showed the emotions a painter put there.

'Thanks’ was all Annek said, gazing at her companion with her greeny-blue eyes.

'Don't thank me,' Sally replied. 'I'm doing it because I enjoy being with you.' Her friendly reply made Annek feel doubly grateful.

They took the lift down together. Two tall and slender Anneks, with straight blonde hair and two yellow labels tied round her neck, were reflected in Diaz's dark glasses. Oscar Diaz was the guard on duty with orders to accompany her back to the hotel. He always had a friendly smile and a polite word for her. That Wednesday, however, he was unusually laconic. Annek felt very relaxed after her talk with Sally and would have liked to start up a conversation, but remembered that works of art were not supposed to talk to their guards, so she decided to ignore his silence. She had other things on her mind.

She had been Deflowering – a Bruno van Tysch masterpiece -for two years now. She had no idea how much longer it would be before the painter decided to substitute her. A month? Four? Twelve? Twenty? It all depended on how quickly her body matured. At night, lying naked in the ample hotel beds she slept in, she would run her finger round the edge of the labels attached to her neck or wrist, or feel for the tattoo on her right ankle (an indigo BvT) and mouth a silent prayer to the distant God of Art for her body to stay calm, for it please not to start changing in secret, for her breasts not to grow, her legs not to rise like clay on a wheel, pray that her hands stroking her thighs would not have to travel a longer, more curvaceous route. She did not want to have to give up being Deflowering.

It had taken her six years to become a masterpiece. She owed everything to her mother, who had discovered her talents as an artwork and taken her to the Foundation when she was only eight years old. Her father would have forbidden it, of course, but as he no longer lived with them, he did not count. Her parents had split up when she was four years old, so Annek's memories of him were vague. What she did know was that he was a brutal, unstable alcoholic, an old-fashioned painter who still worked on canvas, insisted on making a living by painting, and refused to admit that non-human works of art had gone out of style. Ever since Annek's mother had gained custody of her, and especially since Annek had begun her studies in Amsterdam with a view to becoming a work of art, this irascible stranger had done nothing but pester them, except of course during the frequent periods he was in hospital or jail.

In 2001, when Annek was being shown as Intimacy at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam – the first work that Van Tysch had painted using her – her father had suddenly burst into the room. Annek recognised the ghastly wild look and bulging red eyes staring at her from the other side of the security rope, and realised what was going to happen moments before it did. 'She's my daughter!' he shouted, beside himself. 'She is being shown naked in a museum, and she is only nine years old!' A whole team of security guards had to be summoned. The incident caused a scandal, then a brief trial, and her father was locked up again. Annek preferred not to recall that dreadful episode.

Apart from Intimacy, the Maestro had painted two more works using her: Confessions and Deflowering. The latter work was considered one of Bruno van Tysch's greatest creations; some of the specialist critics even went so far as to call it one of the most important paintings of all time. Annek had become part of art history overnight, and her mother was very proud of her. She kept telling her: 'This is nothing. You have your whole life before you, Annek.' But she loathed the idea of 'a whole life before her': she did not want to grow, she hated the idea of having to leave Deflowering, of being substituted by another adolescent.

Menstruation had burst upon her like a red stain on an empty canvas. It was a warning sign. 'Be careful, Annek, you're growing up, Annek, you'll soon be too old for the work', was the message it brought. She was so happy it had stopped, at least for a while! She prayed to the God of Art (she detested the God of Life) – but the God of Art was the Maestro, who would not lift a finger except to announce one day: 'For the work to last, we have to replace you.'

The car park was dark and haunted by the sound of engines. That evening a Turkish immigrant by the name of Ismail was on duty. He waved to Diaz. As he smiled, the tips of his black moustache lifted. Diaz waved in return and opened the back door of the SUV. Ismail could see Annek's body bend over to get in, and the ochre shadows of its interior gradually swallowing her up: first her shoulders, then the outline of her hips, her behind, her long legs, one felt slipper and then the other. The car door slammed, the vehicle moved off, swung towards the exit, then disappeared down the street. The Vienna Marriott was in the Ringstrasse, only a few blocks from the MuseumsQuartier complex, the city's cultural centre: it was a short, safe journey, there was no reason for Ismail to suspect that anything bad or even out of the ordinary might happen.

He could never have imagined that would be the last time he would see Annek Hollech alive.