Art of Murder

A point is not really a shape. Anyone who thinks a point is round is mistaken. A point exists in so far as interconnecting lines exist. Yet lines and everything else, all other shapes and bodies, are made up of points. A point is the essential invisible, the unmeasurable inevitable. God himself may be a point, solitary and remote in His perfect eternity, thinks Marcus.

Marcus Weiss is holding up an invisible point between his closed fingers. Friends, this is more complicated than it seems. The gesture is: left hand held out, palm of the hand facing upward, five fingers forming a little summit. If the tips are close enough together, the hole in the middle disappears in the curves of flesh. And there, right in the middle, is the point Weiss is holding up. You think it's easy? Think again, friends, it's really complicated.

When she first started her sketches, Kate Niemeyer put a ping-pong ball on the tip of his fingers. In the next sketch, the ball was replaced by a marble; after that a bean, and then a pea, just like in children's stories. Finally, Kate decided there should be nothing. 'The idea is the ball is still there, but invisible. You're offering it to the public. People will look at you and ask: what's he got between his fingers? That will catch their attention, and they'll come closer.' Marcus understands that curiosity is a terrific bait for any artist who knows how to use it.

'That afternoon, he had been holding up the invisible point for several hours. A girl with blonde curls, orange dress and red glasses (one of the last visitors) had stood up on tiptoe to see what Marcus was hiding in his fingers. Weiss was unable to see her expression when she eventually realised there was nothing there – as a work of art, he was forced to continue looking straight out in front of him, his eyes painted white. He wondered what on earth such a small child was doing in the gallery, where the works were meant to be for adults. Marcus would have banned himself to children under thirteen. He had no children of his own (what painting could have?), but he felt a great respect for them, and considered his 'attire' as Niemeyer's work far from suitable for them: he was completely naked, his body spray-painted bronze, his penis and testicles (hairless, visible) a matt white colour, the same as his eyes. A crown of yellow and blue feathers with purple tips, shaped like an Aztec plume or a tropical bird's crest, covered his brow. His crafted muscles, shaped over the years with the patience of a carpenter, shone individually with a metallic bronze, throwing off shifting shadows and glints under the halogen lights.

Tired of holding up nothing, he was pleased it would soon be time to close. He realised the gallery had shut when he saw the maintenance man for Philip Mossberg's Rhythm/Balance come into the room. Rhythm/Balance was the painting on show opposite him. It was a seventeen-year-old canvas called Aspasia Danilou, painted in gentle, almost washed-out colours, which hid nothing of her anatomy. Her pubic hair was visible, because Mossberg always used non-depilated canvases for his works. Aspasia blinked, stirred, handed the satin sheet she had been holding in her left hand to the technician, and skipped off to the bathroom, waving to Marcus as she left. Until tomorrow, Marcus, see you then; of course you will, we'll be staring at each other all day – Beautiful Aspasia was not a bad canvas. Marcus thought she would go far, but she was only seventeen and this was her first original. When she had arrived in the gallery, he had tried to pick her up, but she had made several excuses and systematically refused his advances, until he was forced to realise that, in some areas of life, Aspasia already had considerable experience.

Marcus was Kate Niemeyer's work Do You Want to Play With Me? He was priced at twelve thousand euros, and was not sure he would be sold. He was the last to leave the gallery. There was no technician to help him, no one came to take his plume of feathers off: he had to make his own way out. The hand he used to hold nothing up with hurt a little. The whole arm, in fact.

'Au revoir, Habib.' 'Au revoir, Mr Weiss.'

He kept his bare black and bronze painted feet well away from the smooth track Habib's vacuum cleaner was making. He got on very well with the cleaning foreman on that floor. Before coming to Munich, Habib had lived in Avignon, and Weiss, who knew and admired that city (he had twice been exhibited in a gallery on the banks of the Rhone), liked to offer the Moroccan cleaner beer and cigarettes, and to practise his French. Habib the Great also went in for Zen meditation, which was guaranteed to endear him to Marcus. The two of them shared their books and thoughts.

That night though all he said to Habib was goodbye. He was in a hurry.

Would she be waiting for him? He hoped so, because he could not bear to think otherwise. They had met the previous evening, but Marcus had enough experience to know she was not the kind to take things lightly. Whoever she might be, and whatever she wanted from him, Brenda was serious about it.

He walked down the stairs to the bathroom on the second floor. Sieglinde, who was Dryad by Herbert Rinsermann, was already bent over the wash basin when Marcus came in. She had her head under the tap and was briskly rubbing her hair. Her athletic figure was like a flesh longbow, without an atom of fat. The fake brambles that were wrapped around her in the work were now propped against the wall, glistening with red points of artificial blood. The intricate swirl of Rinsermann's signature decorated her left ankle. Marcus and Sieglinde had met two years earlier during classes Ludwig Werner had held in Berlin for canvases of all ages. They had been friends ever since. Now they had coincided again in the Max Ernst gallery.

Marcus bent over next to her, taking care not to damage his plume of feathers, and boomed out a greeting.

'Good evening.'

Sieglinde's face emerged from the water, streaked with tiny pearls.

'Hi there, Marcus! How are things?'

'Not too bad,' he smiled enigmatically as he removed his crest. 'You're very pleased with yourself today. Has someone bought you?' In your dreams.' 'Another original in sight then?'

'Maybe.'

Sieglinde turned towards him, hands and buttocks pressed against the edge of the washbowl. Her short hair was like a wet golden helmet. She looked at Weiss with all the mockery of a smart nineteen-year-old.

'Hey, that's great. I'm fed up with seeing you painted bronze. And might I be allowed to know the name of the artist who wants to go down in history by doing something with you, Mr Weiss?' 'Mind your own business,' Marcus said, only half jokingly.

Sieglinde burst out laughing and carried on drying herself. Marcus went into the shower and hung a bottle of solvent on the taps. The oil paint on his body began to wash down below his knees. He turned and splashed in the welcome, pleasurable jet of water. Through the half-open door he caught glimpses of Sieglinde's anatomy, brief flashes of her youthful muscles. Ah youth, a point of no return, he thought. They buy you more quickly and pay more when you're a young canvas. He recalled that Rinsermann had been able to sell Sieglinde as a seasonal outdoor piece to an ancient Bavarian family. It's never easy to sell a seasonal work, because they are on show for only a few months each year, the summer in Dryad's case. Marcus had seen the work several times. He did not particularly like Rinsermann, but he thought Dryad was quite good. It was a sort of wood nymph painted in diluted orange, ochre and pink tones, and covered in brambles whose thorns were apparently caught in the naked body. The expression on the work's face was a triumph: a mixture of fear, surprise and pain. But in Marcus' opinion, the best thing about the work was its owner. One of those a painting only meets once every ten years or so. Not only had he decided to install Sieglinde in his garden for three years before he substituted her (which meant steady work for three months and the possibility of more the rest of the year) but he also saw no problem with lending her for temporary exhibitions in the city, like this one at the Max Ernst, which allowed Sieglinde to earn an extra one thousand five hundred and thirty-two euros a month as a sold work. Weiss was pleased for her, but could not deny feeling a sharp stab of envy. His friend's face radiated with the happy glow of a bought canvas. But no one wanted to play with Do You Want to Play With Me? He was convinced Kate would not manage to sell him this time either. Was that Kate's fault or his?

He turned off the shower and looked down at his body, feeling its contours with his hands. He kept fit, of course. His muscles, faithful, well-trained dogs that they were, continued their endless task of construction. People like Kate Niemeyer would go on painting him (or at least, so he believed) for a few more years, but he knew that at forty-three he should be thinking of a different career. The market for human ornaments was growing irresistibly. Collectors privately amassed Chairs, Pedestals, Tables, Flower Vases and Carpets, and firms such as Suke, Ferrucioli Studio or the Van Tysch Foundation designed, sold and used flesh and blood ornaments every day. Sooner or later it was bound to become legal for these objects to be sold openly, because otherwise, where did old canvases and the young ones who did not make it as works of art have to go? Marcus suspected he would end up being sold as an ornament for some merry spinster's home. Why not take a souvenir from Germany with you, madam? Here's Marcus Weiss, with lovely nacreous buttocks, a fine Aryan object that would fit in nicely alongside your chimneypiece.

Weiss had only a few more opportunities left. Opportunities are points too, atoms, interconnecting lines, tiny, invisible dots, the remains of nothingness. How many had he missed? He had lost count. He had been a model from the age of seventeen. He had studied HD art in his home town of Berlin, and had worked for some of the best artists of his generation. Then suddenly it had all gone sour. He started turning down offers, partly because he want to live in peace. He liked being a painting, but not enough to sacrifice all his love life for it. He was well aware that masterpieces live alone, isolated, and don't get married or have children, don't even love or hate, don't enjoy life or suffer. True masterpieces like Gustavo Onfretti, Patricia Vasari or Kirsten Kirstenman could scarcely be called people: they had given everything – body, mind and spirit – to artistic creation. Marcus Weiss missed life too much, and perhaps that was the reason he had slowed down. And now it was too late to change things. The worst of it was that he was still on his own. So he was not a masterpiece, but he wasn't the human being he would have liked to have been either. He hadn't achieved one thing or the other.

He got nervous when he calculated that what Brenda was going to propose that evening might well be his last real opportunity.

As he was leaving, he found Sieglinde waiting for him at the changing-room exit. They often left together. They walked down the stairs with their rucksacks on their backs: he was carrying his Aztec headdress of artificial parrot feathers, she had the brambles. The labels on their wrists clinked as they descended the stairs. Sieglinde did the talking: Marcus gave only monosyllabic replies. He felt increasingly nervous. If Brenda had not kept her word, if she was not waiting for him outside as she had promised, he could say goodbye to that last big chance.

He decided he should say something, to avoid any indiscreet question from his friend.

'Guess what? This afternoon a nine- or ten-year-old girl stood looking at me for half an hour at least. I don't understand what's going on. The laws against child pornography get tougher and tougher, but there's no one to prevent any kid walking into an adult gallery.'

'You know we're considered as artistic heritage, Marcus. Kids can go and see Michelangelo's David, so why shouldn't they see Do You Want to Play With Me? as well? That would be discrimination.'

'I still think children are a special case’ Marcus insisted. I don't like them as viewers, but I like them even less as paintings. No painting less than thirteen years old should be allowed.' 'How old were you when you started?' 'OK, lets say under twelve then.' Sieglinde laughed, then went on:

'I think the question of underage works is difficult. If you ban them, you'd have to ban children appearing in films and plays as well. And what about adverts? I reckon it's much more indecent to use a child's body to sell toilet rolls than to paint it and pose it as a work of art. Hey! Are you listening?' Marcus did not reply. Brenda was there, standing between two columns.

She nodded at Marcus; he smiled back. His heart was pounding, as if instead of walking down the stairs he had run up them three at a time. 'Hello there,' Marcus said, going over.

The girl nodded again. This time she was not looking at Marcus, but at his colleague. Weiss found himself obliged to introduce them.

'This is Brenda. Brenda, this is Sieglinde Albrecht. Sieglinde can give you a lesson or two about how to be an outdoor seasonal work and get bought.'

'Are you a painting too?' Sieglinde asked with a broad smile, raising eyebrows that were no longer there, and openly examining Brenda from head to toe. 'No,' replied Brenda.

'Well, you should be. You'd be bought very quickly, whoever painted you.'

Marcus was delighted to detect a hint of jealousy in his companion's voice.

'Brenda, you'll have to forgive Sieglinde's twisted mind,' he said with a laugh.

'It was meant as a compliment, you idiot!' said Sieglinde, slapping his shoulder.

Brenda looked like a doll programmed only to nod and laugh at everything said to her. Weiss thought there was no need for her to speak: her extraordinary face said it all anyway.

'You may not believe it,' he explained, 'but Brenda isn't a painting… she's more like a… dealer.'

'Oh, so it's business, is it?' Sieglinde planted a kiss on Weiss' lips. Then she winked at Brenda with an eyelashless eye. 'In that case, I'll leave you two to it. I'll see you the day after tomorrow, Mr Weiss.' 'Absolutely, Miss Albrecht.'

Although the gallery was open the following day and Sieglinde had to go to work, Marcus always took Tuesday off. Sieglinde did not know the reason for such unusual behaviour in a work that had not yet been sold, but her sly attempts to find out had met with a wall of laconic replies, so she had not dared enquire any further. She was sure though that Marcus had another job in a much less public (and much more scandalous) venue than the Max Ernst gallery.

Sieglinde's hair became a golden dot quickly disappearing down Maximilianstrasse. Marcus gently put an arm on Brenda's shoulder and steered her in the opposite direction. It was the last Monday in June, and the streets were crowded. 'I thought you weren't going to come.' 'Why not?' Brenda asked. He shrugged.

'I don't know. I guess because everything happened so quickly yesterday. Look, you're not annoyed I told Sieglinde you were a dealer, are you? I had to tell her something. And besides, Sieglinde is not a nosey person.' 'That's OK. Where are we going?'

Marcus stopped and glanced at his watch. He spoke as if he were unsure of what to suggest, even though he had planned everything out the night before. 'How about having a drink and then going for dinner?'

He took her to a place called the Mini Bar. It was on a street corner near the gallery, but the paintings and sketches preferred to go to the bars on the avenue, so that with any luck the two of them could enjoy some privacy. The Mini Bar sold everything in small sizes: the drinks came in tiny bottles, just as in hotels. The ice cubes were as big as poker dice. It was self-service, and behind the bar (which reached up to the waist of an adult) could be seen an espresso coffee machine as big as a silver shoe box with three handles, shelves as narrow as skirting boards, notice boards advertising the dishes of the day in handwriting not for the short-sighted, and tiny lights hanging from the ceiling which after nightfall gave the bar the air of a puppet theatre. The background music was a tremulous violin solo. But apart from this, Gulliver suddenly found himself in the land of giants: the barmen were unusually tall, and the prices were much higher than average. Marcus knew the Mini Bar was way beyond his budget, but he did not want to skimp on entertaining Brenda: he wanted to impress her so that she would realise he was used to the best.

They found a quiet corner with a table and a couple of stools. Marcus had intended to start with a beer, but changed his mind and joined Brenda in a whisky. He ordered two delicious Glenfiddichs and two glasses full of ice so pure and clear it shone transparently. As he was returning to the table he had time to consider Brenda once more. He saw no reason to change the opinion he had formed the previous evening. She was quite slim, but undeniably attractive, and wore her wavy blonde hair in a ponytail gathered on her back like a bushy paint brush. She was wearing a short jacket and a dark-blue miniskirt (the previous day it had been a blouse and a pair of short blue jeans). Her clothing was creased and obviously not new, but this only attracted Marcus all the more. Her shoes had stiletto heels, a style he had never thought of as old-fashioned. He realised she did not have a handbag. Or stockings. He liked to imagine she was wearing nothing more than what he could see.

When he sat down again, he saw she was staring at him without smiling. Her blue eyes did not shine, but reminded him of something he could not quite place: they were penetrating, fixed points. Points like tiny black pools.

'And now,' he said, serving her the Glenfiddich, unable to take his eyes off those two points, 'you're going to tell me the truth.' 'I always tell you the truth,' she replied. That was the first time he was sure she was lying.

So the questions began. The customers in the Mini Bar came and went constantly without him noticing: he was concentrating on his interrogation. Marcus was an experienced painting, and nobody was going to pull the wool over his eyes, least of all using a doll like this girl. By the time he looked down at his glass, the Lilliputian ice cubes had watered down the taste of his whisky. She had not drunk much either: between answers she raised her glass to her lips, but did not seem to swallow. In fact, she did not seem to do anything. She just sat there crossing and uncrossing her pretty, bare legs and looking straight at Marcus as she replied to his questions. 'Why did your friends think of me for this job?'

'I've already told you that.' 'I want to hear it again.'

'They're looking for people. And as I told you, they sent me to Munich to see you.'

She spoke German perfectly, but Marcus could not place her accent.

'That doesn't answer my question.'

‘I don't know, I guess they liked you as a painting. You'd have to ask them. I'm just here to try to hook you.'

The girl seemed to be trying to be honest at least. Marcus took another sip of Glenfiddich. The Mini Bar violin began a tinny, musical-box waltz.

'Tell me more about the work.'

'It'll take a month to complete, but I can't tell you where. Then it will automatically be sold. In fact, it's a commission. You're not allowed to know who the buyer is either, but you'll be travelling south. To Italy, probably. It's an outdoor performance. It takes five hours a day, and will carry on until the autumn.'

'How many figures are there in it?'

'I don't know, it's a mural painting. I know there are adults and adolescents. I think it's a mythological subject.' 'Is there anything "dirty" about it?' 'No, it's entirely clean. Everyone is a volunteer' 'Kids?'

'No, only adolescents.' 'How old?' 'Fifteen and upwards.'

'Fine.' Marcus smiled and leaned closer to her. At times, the bar got so full it was difficult for him to speak softly sitting back. 'You've given me the excuse. Now tell me the truth.'

'What do you mean?'

'Adolescents and adults together in a mural performance that is sold even before it's painted… and as if that weren't enough, a girl sent to "hook" me.' He tried to give a knowing smile. Listen, I've been in this business a long while. I've been painted by Buncher, Ferrucioli, Brentano and Warren. So I do have experience, you know.'

He did not take his eyes off her face even when he raised his drink vertically to drain his glass. An avalanche of ice buried his nose. Was he a bit tipsy? He didn't think so.

'Let me tell you something. Last summer I worked in a clandestine art-shock in Chiemsee. They painted us in a Berlin workshop, then bought us and put us on show three days a week for the whole summer in a private estate by the lakeside. There were four adolescents and three adults, me included.' Marcus glanced down at the label on his wrist. 'It was a… how shall I put it? A terrifying experience. I mean, in the way art-shocks can be terrifying. But there was also a real risk. One of the figures was only thirteen…' 'You want more money,' Brenda interrupted him.

‘I want more money and more information. Enough of all that mythology crap. From time immemorial, art's excuses have been mythology and religion. The art-shock I did in Chiemsee was meant to be religious…' he wanted to laugh, but when he saw the girl was not joining in, he restrained himself. 'But deep down, it's always been about showing nudes and violence, whether it was Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel or Taylor Warren in his Liverpool cavern. That's always been the best, the most expensive art.' He lifted his forefinger to emphasise his words. 'Tell your friends I want precise information about what I will be required to do. And I also want a clause stipulating the limits beforehand, and another exonerating me from all responsibility. They're not much use when you're accused of molesting children, but they do mean if there are complaints, the artist has to take most of the blame. And I want proof that the painting will be clean and that there'll be no kids, volunteers or not. And I want twice the sum you mentioned yesterday: twenty-four thousand euros. All that's just a start – do I make myself clear?' 'Yes.'

They both fell silent. It suddenly occurred to Marcus he should not have told her about the art-shock in Chiemsee. She was going to think he was only contracted for marginal pieces, which in fact was partly true. At the peak of his career, Weiss had been sold in several great hyperdramatic originals. But nowadays almost all his earnings came from interactive performances and art-shocks.

Works such as Niemeyer's painting (or Gigli's, which he preferred not to bring up) were the exception. 'Shall we go?' he suggested.

When they left the cafe, almost all the shops still had lighted windows. The galleries along the Maximilianstrasse showed late-evening canvases grouped in paintings with two or three figures. Their outlines, clothes (or the lack of them) and their colours vied for the attention of an innumerable and very mixed public. There were paintings for almost every pocket, from the poor devils who were sketches by unknown artists at three or four thousand euros, to works by the great masters whose price was always agreed over dinner, and whose canvases were on show only for a few hours (and never in gallery windows) before they were accompanied back to their hotels or rented apartments by security guards. Girls on rollerblades were handing out catalogues from fringe galleries, or from portrait painters expert in the use of cerublastyne. Marcus collected whatever he was offered. As they reached the corner where the Nationaltheater was lit up for a first night, he turned to the girl and asked her: 'Well?'

'I'll convey your requests to my friends, and give you the reply soon.'

Marcus leaned down towards her ear to make sure she could hear him above the traffic. It was then he realised she had no smell. Or rather, she smelt like a point: lines of interconnecting smells (it is impossible to smell of nothing: there is always some scent, a faint trace of something). He was delighted at this new discovery. He couldn't bear the complicated olfactory filigree work some women presented him with.

'I wasn't asking you about the work, but about tonight,' he said with his best seductive smile. 'Where would you like to go now?' 'What about you?'

He knew of several things she might enjoy. Some of them, like the reunion in Haidhausen where everyone, model or not, got to be a work of art, were tempting. But his hand on the back of her jacket seemed to have a mind of its own.

'I'm staying at a motel in Schwabing. It's not a great place, but on the ground floor there's a wonderful vegetarian restaurant.' 'Fine,' said Brenda.

Marcus hailed a taxi, even though he usually took the metro in Odeonsplatz. The restaurant was small and packed at that time of night, but Rudolf, the owner and main chef, smiled when he saw Marcus and led them over to a quiet table. There would always be a table for Mr Weiss, and a bottle of wine of course – Marcus was delighted to be received so warmly in front of Brenda. He ordered vegetable strudels and some delicious seasonal asparagus. Throughout most of the meal he talked to her about his love of Zen, meditation and vegetarian food, and of how all this had helped him become a painting. He admitted his was a pret-a-porter Buddhism, a tool, something to help him put up with life, but at the same time he doubted whether there was anyone in this twenty-first century who had more profound beliefs he had. He also told her stories about painters and models, which led to those mysterious, perfect lips of hers relaxing still further. But as the evening wore on, he found himself running out of things to say. This hardly ever happened to him. His friends thought of him as a good talker, and he had an excellent memory for his stories. Now I'll tell you about a girl called Brenda I met in Munich. If only Sieglinde could see me now… All at once he realised he was crazy with desire for Brenda. This annoyed him, because he knew she had been sent to hook him, and here he was not only taking the bait but savouring it as he did so. And yet he had to admit that her friends, whoever they might be, had made a good choice: Brenda was the most tempting woman he had met in a long while. Her passivity, her way of staying mysterious while suggesting the door was half-open, only inflamed his passion still further. Listen, I'll tell you what she was like. He tried to conceal his feelings – he did not want her to know she had achieved her goal so quickly. But could she really not tell? Wasn't that a mocking gleam he could detect in the midnight blue points of her eyes? 'You're not German, are you?' he asked over dessert. 'No.' 'North American?'

She shook her head. 'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to’ Marcus said. 'I won't then.' 'I couldn't give a damn where you're from.'

His lips were trembling. Hers looked as though they were carved in wood.

He settled the bill quickly, and they left. The punk on the desk at the motel seemed to have his key ready and waiting for him. His room was small and smelt of damp, but at that moment they could have been in the salons of the Residenz or a public lavatory for all he cared. He pushed Brenda into the darkness, then sought her mouth with his own. She wriggled out of his caresses, bent her knees and began to slide effortlessly down his body. Marcus groaned with pleasure when he realised what she intended to do.

It was not what he had been expecting. He had hoped to prolong things while she undressed, or while he undressed her, perhaps on the floor the way Kate Niemeyer liked it. The painter was one of his most stable recent relationships, and during her visits to Munich they had made love in his motel, her hotel or even occasionally in a museum, canvas and artist intertwined on the gallery floor. Brenda was in too much of a rush. Marcus was sure he would explode before he was even able to touch her.

'Wait’ he murmured anxiously. 'Wait a minute…'

But what he was fearing did not happen. She knew when to pause or to increase the rhythm, and what areas to leave untouched. After the anxious start, Brenda's mouth slipped round his penis like a scorching leather sheath, while her hands grasped his buttocks and drew him towards her. My God, but the girl was a real suction pump. Kundalini, the serpent of sexual energy, raised her bicephalic head inside him and asked what was going on. Marcus groaned, clawed at the whitewashed wall, bit his lip in a moment of complete loss of control. When it was all over, the two of them were still in the same position: he was standing leaning his forehead against the wall, the unmistakable taste of his own blood in his mouth – his lips were cracked from the solvents he had used, and he had Bitten them raw – and she was on her knees, also tasting something belonging to Marcus.

This synchronisation of fluids in their mouths struck him as having a kind of artistic symmetry.

Brenda stood up, and Marcus switched on the lights. 'Christ,' he said. 'That was good.'

There was no reply. Friends, you can't imagine how silent this girl is. Brenda's eyes were staring at him without blinking: black round points in a circle of blue nothingness. There was no stain on her lips. Her features – perfect, etched – had a strangely detached air to them, seemingly so independent of all emotion and involvement that Marcus could find only one word to define them: symbol. All of a sudden Marcus thought of her as symbolic, a sort of archetype of his desire. He missed only one thing in her: some slight sign of individuality, of imperfection. Questions he could find no answer to flitted through his mind: was the individual better than the archetypical? Imperfection better than perfection? Emotional than intellectual? Natural than artistic? When he realised all these musings had been provoked by having his cock sucked by her, he could almost believe he understood the tragic destiny of mankind. He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her head away. 'Shall we sit down?'

Before she moved away, Marcus' fingers had finally managed fleetingly to touch her wonderful skin. He realised with a shock that this was the first time he had felt her naked flesh. Its texture was like a baby's, a little firmer than normal. A rather grown-up baby. On his fingertips there was a point (because that is what everything finally ends up as) of smooth oil, a viscous nothing. He did not think it was a skin cream: Brenda must have greasy skin, that was all. He had known several people like that: they always stayed young. The secret of eternal youth and of early death are one and the same: grease. Perhaps this simple, tiny reason is the origin of the sad fact that the only people who stay young«forever are those who die young.

Yet the world could not be such a bad place after all, if nature could produce beings like Brenda. Marcus promised himself he would enjoy every inch of her through that endless night.

He remembered he had a small bottle of Ballantine's. He busied himself preparing two whiskies. Brenda sat back in the only armchair in the room, and crossed her legs. She was sitting beside the bedside table where Marcus kept all his daily requirements: firming lotions, cosmetic creams, disposable lenses, sprays and hair dyes. Next to all these tubs lay a black mask. Brenda picked it up.

'Be careful with that, I need it tomorrow,' Marcus said. He was bringing over the whiskies when he suddenly came to a halt. 'Oh, shit…!'

He had just realised he had left his bag of paints (together with the catalogues and the feather headdress) in Rudolf's restaurant. Too late now to go and get them. Oh well, he told himself, Rudolf will keep then) for me. Brenda put the mask back where she had found it. 'I thought you were only on show at the Max Ernst.'

Still half-thinking about the bag he had left behind, Marcus replied in an offhand way:

'No, I'm in a work by Gianfranco Gigli as well, but I'm only a substitute on Tuesdays. I'm due there tomorrow afternoon. In fact, it's mostly thanks to Gigli that I'm here in Munich. Like some more?' 'I'll have whatever you're having.'

Marcus liked her reply. He poured two large glassfuls. This was going to be a long night. Tomorrow morning I'll drop into the restaurant and pick up my bag, he thought. It's no problem.

'What gallery are you on show at for the Gigli?' Brenda wanted to know.

He was about to tell the usual lie (I go from one to another) but when he saw how untroubled she looked, he decided he had nothing to hide. 'None.' 'Have you been bought?'

"Yes, by a hotel,' he smiled (my big secret he thought, with a stab of shame). 'The Wunderbar, do you know it? It's one of the newest and most luxurious hotels here. And its main attraction is that the decorations are hyperdramatic works. That may be common enough nowadays, but when the hotel opened it was just about the only one of its kind in all Germany. I'm the painting in a suite. What do you think of that?' 'That's OK, if you're well paid.'

She was perfectly right. With that one comment, Brenda had shown him there was nothing to be ashamed of.

'I'm very well paid. And the truth is I don't in the least mind being in a hotel. I'm a professional painting, so it's all the same to me where I'm on show. The problem is the guests staying in the suite.' He twisted his mouth, then took a sip of whisky. 'How about if we change the conversation?' 'Fine.'

Brenda did not want anything, did not ask for anything, did not show the least curiosity. She was like a hermetically sealed box, and this completely disarmed Marcus.

'Well, I guess there's no harm in your knowing. But don't tell anyone – nobody would be interested anyway. Do you want to know who those guests are?… It may sound ironic, but they're considered one of the greatest paintings in the history of art.' He had said the words with calculated disdain, dripping with irony. 'They are no less than the two figures in Monsters, by Bruno van Tysch.'

If he had been trying to provoke some reaction from the girl, he was disappointed. Brenda was as quiet and calm as ever, her legs crossed; the perfect gleam of her naked thighs, just like the shine of her shoes. Nature is more artistic than art when it imitates art, isn't it, Marcus?

Marcus was giving in to long-suppressed emotions. Now he had revealed the unpleasant side of his work to someone, there was no stopping him.

'Sometimes an odd thing happens to me, Brenda. I don't understand modern art. Can you believe it? That exhibition… "Monsters"… I suppose you've seen it somewhere, or heard about it. It's on now at the Haus der Kunst. To me, one of the great mysteries in art is trying to figure out how the creator of "Flowers" could then devote himself to creating a collection like that… live snakes in a girl's hair, a terminally ill patient, a cretin… and those two slimy criminals I am a painting for.' He paused, took another sip of his whisky. 'It's wrong for a work of art not to understand art, don't you think?' She smiled fleetingly with him, but then Marcus' face turned serious again. 'But it's not that. It's those two pigs. I only have to put up with them one day a week, but I find it harder and harder… Just listening to them makes me want to… to throw up… I find it unbelievable that those two degenerates can be one of the greatest paintings of all time, whereas canvases like me end up having to act as ornaments in the rooms they stay in.'

The thought so outraged him that he raised the glass to his lips again, only to discover it was empty. Brenda was listening to him without moving a muscle. Marcus was slightly ashamed at having poured his heart out to a stranger (however hard it was for him to believe it, Brenda was still a stranger, after all). He looked down at his glass, then up at her.

'Well, we're not going to spoil a night like this by talking about work, are we?' he said. 'I've still got paint all over me. I'll have a shower and be back straightaway. Pour yourself some more whisky. Get comfortable.' Brenda smiled faintly. 'I'll wait for you in bed.'

Under the shower, Marcus suddenly recalled what Brenda's eyes reminded him of: she had the same gaze as Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Venus Verticordia. He had a framed copy of the Pre-Raphaelite painting hanging in the living room of his Berlin apartment. Holding an apple and an arrow, the goddess was staring straight at the viewer, one of her breasts uncovered, as if suggesting that love and desire can sometimes be dangerous. Marcus liked Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Holman Hunt and the other Pre-Raphaelites. He thought there was nothing to match the mystery and beauty of the women they had painted, the sacred aura they gave off. But as Marcus knew, or thought he did, art is less beautiful than life, even though he had rarely found such convincing proof of this assertion as Brenda. No Pre-Raphaelite could ever have invented Brenda, and that was the reason – he suspected – why life would always have the advantage over art in their race towards reality. Who knows? Perhaps for him it was not too late for life, even if it already was for art. Perhaps life was waiting somewhere: children, a partner, stability, the bourgeois nirvana were he could find eternal rest. Let's enjoy life, friends, for this one night at least.

He came out of the bathroom and picked up a towel. He had taken off the Niemeyer label – he would not need it the next day. He experienced another fierce erection. He felt, if anything, even more aroused than before, when they had rushed into the room. And the drink had not affected him either. He was sure he could keep going until dawn, and with a girl like Brenda, that should be no sacrifice.

The room was in darkness again, apart from the faint light from the neon signs outside that filtered through the blinds. In the flashing gloom Marcus could make out Brenda's shape, waiting for him in bed as promised. She had pulled the sheets up to her neck, and was staring at the ceiling. Venus Verticordia. 'Are you cold?' Marcus asked.

No reply. Brenda still did not move, staring up at a point in the darkness. This seemed like a strange way to start another love-making session, but by now Marcus was well accustomed to her odd behaviour. He went over to the bed and knelt on it.

'Do you want me to uncover you bit by bit, like a surprise package?' he smiled.

At that moment something happened that Marcus could not comprehend at first. Brenda's face trembled and turned, twisting itself at an impossible angle, like a shroud sliding off a corpse. Then it moved. It crawled towards Marcus' hand like a limp rat, a dying rodent. A second or two of panic, enough to provide Marcus with more than enough material for another of his anecdotes. Now I'll tell you about the day Brenda's face came off and started moving towards my hand. It zvas some sensation, let me tell you, friends. As though in a trance, Marcus stared at the deflated nose, lips and empty eyes scurrying across the pillow to his fingers. He drew back his hand as if he had been burnt, and gave a strangled scream of horror before he realised he was looking at some kind of mask made from a plastic material, probably silicone. The mass of blonde hair and its ponytail lay empty across the pillow, like a roof without walls.

I'm going to tell you about the day Brenda became a marble, a green pea, a nothing. I'll tell you about the horrible day when Brenda became a point in the microcosm.

He pulled back the sheets, and discovered that what he had first thought was the girl's body was nothing more than her clothing (jacket and skirt, even the shoes) twisted and screwed up. Like a schoolboy joke to make you believe someone was asleep in the bed. But the mask

… The mask was what he could not understand. He shuddered repeatedly, and his teeth chattered. 'Brenda…' he called out in the darkness.

He heard the noise behind his back, but he was kneeling naked on the bed, and his reaction came too late.