Art of Murder

3

The 'terrible' is in the circle.

Slowly, menacingly, the Monsters of the Haus der Kunst come back to life.

Tine girl floating in the glass swimming pool full of foul water is called Rita. She is the first to receive help, because she has to make a huge effort: spending six hours a day as organic waste with her hair caught up in plastic and excrement is no easy task. The work has been bought by a Swedish company, and the monthly rental has achieved the impossible: every day Rita dives into this amnion of shit and is happy to do so. In her time off she even manages to enjoy what might be called 'a social life' (although she complains that her hair smells). Now she is breathing deeply in the pool, waiting for the water level to go down. We cannot see her face, but we can see how her long legs wave in the water like pale white strands of seaweed.

And if she complains about her hair, she should spare a thought for Sylvie. Sylvie Gailor is Medusa, a painting valued at more than thirty million dollars, and with an astronomical monthly rent. This is because she has ten live snakes painted ultramarine-blue writhing around her head which have to be fed and replaced quite often. They are about the length of an adult hand, and are held in place by a delicate network of wires disguised as hair, which allows them to move their heads and tails. Snakes in general do not know much about art, so they get very nervous if we force them to put up with being clipped immobile for six hours a day. Some of them die on Sylvie's head; others thrash about despairingly. Ecological groups and animal protection societies have denounced the exhibit and protested outside the doors of the museums and galleries where it has been shown. All of them are well known to the organisers, and are a harmless minority compared to the people who protest against the other works in the collection. But nobody thinks of poor Sylvie. It's true she is well paid, but what can compensate for her insomnia, the strange repugnance she feels at combing her hair, the ghostly feeling she gets sometimes when she is talking, laughing, having dinner in a restaurant or making love, a feeling that someone is caressing her hair, pulling at her curls, scratching her head with nail-less fingers?

Ten metres behind Sylvie stands Hiro Nadei, an aged Japanese man painted in ochres, who holds a small jasmine flower in his right hand. Hiro is a real survivor of Hiroshima; he is sixty-six years old. When his city exploded in an atomic hell, he was five. He was in his back garden holding a jasmine in that same hand. Rescued almost unscathed from the ruins, the hardest thing was to get him to open his right hand, which was clenched like a fist. A month later, he let go: the flower was crushed beyond recognition. Two years ago, Van Tysch heard his story and called him to do a small painting. Mr Nadei was delighted: he is a widower, lives on his own, and wants to close the circle of his life dying as he should have done at that dreadful moment. The painting, entitled The Closed Hand, has been sold to an American. At the other end of the gallery, Kim, a young Filipino, is in the last stages of AIDS. He is on show lying in bed painted deathly grey, with an intravenous drip stuck like a skewer in his shrivelled arm. He has difficulty breathing, and occasionally has to be given oxygen. He is the sixteenth substitute for a work whose continuing existence makes it art: a painting which lasts as long as human tragedy. Of course, he is not doing it for the money. Like all his predecessors, Kim wants to die as a work of art. He wants his death to have a meaning. He wants to make the work last, precisely so that it will not last. Stein has found a brilliant phrase to describe it (he is very good at that kind of thing): Terminal Phase is the first painting in the history of art which will be beautiful only after it ceases to exist.

Near Terminal Phase is The Doll. Jennifer Halley, an eight-year-old work, is painted pink and stands wearing a black dress, cradling a doll in her arms. But the doll is alive, and looks like one of those starving embryos with a stomach like a black grape that sometimes raise their head out of the well that is the Third World. And what is apparently a child is, in fact, an adult – a dwarf and achondroplastic canvas by the name of Steve. Steve is naked, painted in dark colours, and cries and squirms in Jennifer's arms. A little further on is the hanged man, swinging on his scaffold. Next to him are the tortured girls. The pungent stench that brings tears to the eyes comes from Hitler, dressed in skins from dead animals sewn together. The mental retards in executive suits appear fascinated by the colours of their ties and the saliva dribbling down them like diamonds. Today Tuesday 27 June, four thousand people have visited this incredible exhibition. Because the screening process is so slow, it is impossible to accommodate all those waiting in a long human line down beyond the steps of the Haus der Kunst. Those who have not got in will have to come back tomorrow. The Monsters are finishing their day. Those paintings which have a brain, consciousness, limbs and faces, manage to feel happy about it, and say goodbye to their colleagues. It is time to rest. But none of them looks over at the circular podium in the centre of the room. The 'terrible' is in the circle. This is where the real Monsters are kept.

The rattle of lifting gear, and the protective glass surrounding them is removed. Five technicians and as many security guards were waiting at the foot of the high podium. The glass is heavy, hermetically sealed, and takes a minute to be lifted off completely. It is a fifteen-centimetre thick cylinder of transparent glass, with a similar top. For the first few months the exhibition was on tour, there was no such top. A bullet-proof glass wall three metres high was thought to be more than enough to protect them. Then when Monsters was on show in Paris, a visitor threw shit at the exhibit. It was his own excrement (as he later confessed), which he had been carrying in his pocket, and which had passed unnoticed through the metal detector, the X-ray screen, the body doppler, the image analysis programmes used on bulky clothing, pregnant women's stomachs, and pushchairs.

In the twenty-first century, as a journalist wrote about the incident, it is still possible to be a terrorist by throwing shit. Who knows, perhaps in the twenty-second century it will have become impossible. Tossed with an expert arm when the visitor reached the front row and was standing next to the security rope, the excrement flew in an arc through the air. Unfortunately, it missed: the faeces hit the top edge of the glass barrier and bounced back onto the public. Have you ever felt -asked the same journalist in his article – when you were visiting a modern art museum, that you were having shit thrown in your face?

Ever since then, the barrier protecting the Walden brothers had a top as well.

'How do you feel, Hubert?' 'Fine, Arnold, and you?' 'Not too bad, Hubert.'

The grey exhibition clothes the two brothers were wearing came off easily thanks to hidden zips at the back. Stark naked, Hubertus and Arnoldus Walden looked like two huge sumo wrestlers fawned over by their attentive trainers. The technicians wrapped them in robes with their names on the back, and they tied them over their colossal stomachs, which overhung tiny genitals as bald as quails' eggs.

'One day you'll give us the wrong robe, and the price of the work will collapse.'

The technicians laughed as one at this shaft of wit – they had strict instructions not to get on the wrong side of the brothers.

'Pass me that cottonwool, Franz,' said Arnoldus. 'You're rubbing me as gently as though I were your mother.'

'Mr Roberston called again,' an assistant commented.

'He calls us every day,' Hubertus said mockingly. 'He's still thinking of making a film about us, written by that American Nobel prize winner.'

'He's part of the new intelligentsia,' Arnoldus said. 'He looks after us.' 'He wants us.'

'He wants to buy us, Arno.'

That's what I said, Hubert. Could you spray some more solvent on my back, Franz? The paint is itching.'

'We only interest that old bastard because he wants to buy us.'

'Yes, but the Maestro wouldn't sell us to that asshole.' 'Or maybe he would: who knows? He's made interesting offers, hasn't he, Karl?' ‘I think so.'

'He "thinks" so. Did you hear that, Arno?… Karl "thinks" so.' 'Be careful with the top step from the podium…' 'We know that, idiot. Are you new? Is this your first day in Conservation?… We're not new to this, you idiot.' 'We're old. We're eternal.'

Jennifer Halley's dress has been taken off. She was wearing only a pair of white socks with pompons (Steve, the achondroplastic model, was being wheeled away on a trolley). Several technicians were rubbing Jennifer's shiny body with cottonwool dipped in solvent. As the Walden brothers passed by her, Hubertus tried to bow his head, although all he succeeded in doing was to lower it into his triple chin.

'Bye, my virginal fairytale princess! May angels fill your dreams!' The girl turned towards him and gave him the finger.

Hubertus carried on smiling, but as he lumbered like a listing boat towards the exit, he screwed up his eyes until they were two dark hyphens.

'How uncouth our little whore is. I've a mind to teach her some manners.'

'Ask Robertson to buy her and put her in your house. Then both of us can teach her a lesson.'

'Don't talk nonsense, Arno. Besides, you know I prefer a good male lobster to a female oyster. Do you mind getting out of the way, miss, we're trying to leave.'

The girl from Conservation leapt out of their path, smiling and saying she was sorry. She was looking after the mental retards. The Walden brothers swept onwards, followed by a group of assistants. Hubertus' robe was purple; Arnoldus' carrot-coloured with green flecks. They had velvet hoods, with cords long enough to go round seven ordinary men. 'Hubert.' 'What is it, Arno?' 'I have to something to confess.'

'…? '

'Yesterday I stole your Walkman. It's in my locker.' 'And I've got something to confess to you, Arno.' 'Tell me, Hubert'

'My Walkman is completely fucked.'

Laughing their high-pitched laughs, the enormous twins left the gallery by an emergency exit.

The Haus der Kunst in Munich is a dull white oblong screened by columns, built next to the English Garden. Its detractors call it the 'Weisswurst'. It was inaugurated seventy years earlier with a triumphal procession by none other than Adolf Hitler, who wanted to use it as a symbol of the purity of German art. In the procession were young girls dressed as nymphs, who all moved like dolls and blinked their eyes at the same time as though being switched on and off. The Fuhrer did not like that very much. Coinciding with this lavish opening, another small but no less important exhibition was taking place. This was of 'Degenerate Art', where works by painters banned by the Nazis, such as Paul Klee, were being shown. The Walden brothers knew the story, and they could not help wondering, as they plunged on majestically down the museum corridors towards the changing rooms, which of the two collections the great Nazi leader would have put them in. In the one symbolising the purity of the German race? Or with the 'Degenerate Art'?

Circles. Arno likes drawing circles. He draws himself as joined-up circles: at the top, his round head; then a big belly for body; and two legs sticking out of the sides. 'What's the matter with you, Hubert?'

'My skin is very sensitive since they changed the glue they put on, Arno. After the shower it stings.' That's strange, the same happens to me.'

They were in the labelling room, fully dressed, combing their hair with a neat parting. The technicians had just fixed on their labels and served them an abundant seafood dinner, which they had attacked with gusto.

The Waldens were two symmetrical beings, one of nature's rare exact photocopies. As usual in these cases, they wore identical clothes (made to measure by Italian tailors) and had identical haircuts. When one fell ill, the other did not take long to succumb as well. They had similar tastes, and were irritated by the same things. In childhood, they had been diagnosed with the same syndrome (obesity, sterility and antisocial behaviour), had gone to the same schools, performed the same jobs in the same firms, and been in the same prisons together, accused of the same offences. Their clinical and criminal records said the same: pederast, psychopath, and sadist. Van Tysch had called the two of them up one afternoon in the autumn of 2002, shortly after they had been declared innocent in the case of the dreadful murder of Helga Blanchard and her son. He had made them both works of art simultaneously.

Helga Blanchard was a German TV actress, a former lover of a Bayern Munich fullback. She had a boy of five from a previous marriage, and was fortunate to have won substantial maintenance from the divorce. Nobody really knows what took place, but early on the morning of 5 August, 2003, the outskirts of Hamburg were very misty. When the mist cleared, Helga and her son Oswald were found naked and nailed with tent pegs half an inch thick to the floorboards of their country cottage. One of the pegs joined the two corpses (her right hand and his left). They also shared the fact that their tongues had been cut out, they had been raped with a screwdriver, and their eyes had been gouged out, or almost: Helga's right eye had been left untouched so that she could get a good look at what was happening to her son. The crime caused such a scandal that the authorities were forced to make an immediate arrest, without any proof: so they took in a lesbian couple who were Helga's closest neighbours, and who around that time had been trying to get official permission to adopt a child. A mob of furious citizens tried to burn down their chalet. Twenty-four hours later they were released without charge. The younger of the two appeared on a TV programme, and the next day a lot of people were imitating the stabbing gesture she made with her forefingers when she insisted she had nothing to do with what had happened, and that neither of them had seen or heard anything. The arrests continued: first Helga's former husband (an impresario), then his current wife, after that her ex-husband's brother, and finally, the footballer. When the footballer was taken in, news of the case spread beyond Germany and was talked about throughout Europe.

Then a surprise witness came forward: an old-fashioned painter who still used canvas for his paintings, and had been working that day on a countryside scene he was thinking of calling Trees and Mist. He was a doctor by profession, and a family man. That quiet holiday morning he had been working on his canvas when he saw two big circles rolling from tree to tree through wisps of mist; they did not seem to him to have a naturally healthy colour. He looked more closely, and could make out two naked, immensely fat men gliding through the woods very near Helga Blanchard's cottage. So fascinated was he by their anatomies that he abandoned all attempts to carry on with his painting, and instead started to draw them in his sketchbook.

The sketch was published as an exclusive in Der Spiegel. After that, it was easy: the Walden brothers lived in Hamburg and had lengthy criminal records. They were arrested and put on trial. The young lawyer nominated to defend them was brilliant. The first thing he did was to cleverly destroy the evidence put forward by the doctor-painter. The trap he set for the witness is still remembered: 'If your painting is entitled Trees and Mist, and you, yourself, say you are inspired by the landscape around you, how could you be certain of seeing the defendants in a place filled with trees and mist?' Next he played on the jury's sentiments. 'Are they to be judged guilty simply because we don't like their appearance? Or because they have a criminal record? Are we to sacrifice them so our consciences can sleep soundly?' There was no way to prove that the Walden brothers had been at the scene of the crime, and the case quickly collapsed. As soon as they were released, the twins were visited by a very friendly dark-skinned, sharp-nosed man who reeked of money. When he pressed his fingers together, he showed elegantly manicured fingernails. He talked to the brothers about art, and the Bruno van Tysch Foundation. They were secretly primed and sent to Amsterdam and Edenburg. There, Van Tysch told them: ‘I don't want you ever to tell anyone what you did, or what you think you did, not even yourselves. I don't want to paint with your guilt, but with the suspicion.' The work ended up being very simple. The Walden twins were posed standing face to face, dressed in grey prisoners' clothes and painted in diluted colours that emphasised the evil look on their faces. On their chests, like a row of medals, their criminal records were printed in small capitals. On their backs, a photo of Helga Blanchard hugging her son Oswald – standing out against a background of Venice, where they had had a holiday – with the obvious question: Was it them? Helga's family tried to stop Van Tysch using the image, but the matter was settled to the satisfaction of both parties thanks to a considerable sum of money. As far as hyperdramatic work went, there was no problem.

The Walden twins were born to be paintings. It was no accident that the only thing they had succeeded in doing in their lives was to stay still in a corner and allow humanity to heap abuse on them. They were two buddhas, two statues, two contented and unchanging beings. They were insured for an amount considerably greater than most of Van Gogh's creations. They had endured a lengthy calvary of being expelled from schools, sacked from jobs, of prison sentences and loneliness. The public, the same humanity as always, still looked on them scornfully, but the Waldens had finally understood that art can be born even from scorn.

There was still one question: Was it them? The killer of Helga Blanchard and her son had still not been found. Tell me, please: Was it them?

'When the answer to that question is known, our price will go down,' one of the brothers told a well-known German art critic.

So their stupid red-faced grins stay in place, their cheeks are like round bruised apples of rouge, and their eyes gleam with the memories of past orgies.

By now they had finished getting dressed and groomed, and put themselves in the hands of a larger than normal security team.

'That's Art for you, Miss Schimmel. Art with a capital "A" I mean

… The request doesn't come from me, it comes from Art, and that means you have to fulfil it.' Hubertus winked at his brother, but Arnoldus was listening to music on his Walkman and didn't notice. 'Yes, a platinum blond… I don't care if that's hard for you to arrange for tonight… we want a platinum blond, Miss Schimmel… don't argue, silly woman… bzzz… bzzz… I'm afraid I can't hear you, Miss Schimmel, there's a problem on the line, I'll have to hang up.' Hubertus' tongue flicked in and out of his tiny lips with reptilian grace and speed. 'Bzzz… bzzz… I can't hear a word, Miss Schimmel! I hope you can find a platinum blond. If you can't, you'll have to come up yourself… wear a mac, but nothing else underneath… Bzzzz… I have to hang up! Auf Wiedersehenl' *Who were you talking to?' asked Arnoldus, turning down his music.

'That stupid woman Schimmel. She's always causing problems.'

'We ought to complain to Mr Benoit. They should throw her out’

'She should be begging on a street comer.' 'Or working as a whore.'

'Or they could chain her up, put a collar on her, give her an anti-rabies shot, and hand her over to us.'

'No, I don't like puppies. I don't like cleaning up dog poo. Tell me, Hubertus.. ‘ 'What, Arnoldus?' 'Do you think we're happy?'

For an instant, the two brothers stared up at the dark roof of their van, where the bright cyclorama of the Munich night was flashing by.

'It’s hard to tell’ said Hubertus. 'Eternity is a huge tragedy’ 'And it lasts forever’

Shimmering, quivering, the windows of the Wunderbar hotel were reflected in the van's shiny paintwork as it drew up at the front entrance. The four guards took up strategic positions. Saltzer, the leader of the squad, motioned to one of his men, who poked his head into the van's open back door and said something. Hubertus ceremoniously deposited his massive bulk on the pavement, in front of a row of tasselled porters. Arnoldus got his jacket pocket caught on the door handle. He pulled as hard as he could, and the pocket ripped. Too bad: he had about a hundred more made by the same tailor, and he could always wear one of his brother's if need be.

The security agent used a remote control to switch on the lights in the entrance hall to the suite. Background music emerged from dark corners like a sinuously elegant dark fish.

'All clear in the hall, over’ he said, talking into the miniature microphone beneath his mouth.

The living area contained a heated swimming pool, a bar and the painting by Gianfranco Gigli. A promising disciple of Ferrucioli, he had unfortunately died of a heroin overdose two years earlier. Thanks to his death, the few works he had completed (androgynous masked figures dressed in ballet dancer costumes) had soared in value. This Gigli work lay on the floor next to the swimming pool like a silky black panther. The mask had only the absolute minimum of features drawn on it. The entire work was embroidered by the shifting web of light made by the reflections on the surface of the pool. There was a smell of noble woods, and the temperature in this part was much more agreeable than in the rest of the suite. 'All clear in the living room, over.'

The agent's voice echoed from the labyrinth of rooms in the suite. Hubertus had walked over to the steel bar counter and was serving himself champagne. Arnoldus was trying unsuccessfully to reach down to his shoes. He wished one day he could touch his toes. His failure spoilt all his good humour.

'I'll never understand,' he began in a surprisingly quiet tone (he never raised his voice), 'why Mr Benoit doesn't provide us with appliances to help us when we're on tour. I've had an arseful of all this effort I have to make.'

'Arses are round,' Hubertus said, refilling his glass. 'In some people, they are two circles; in others, only one. Bernard's arse, for example… is it one or two?'

Luckily, Arnoldus could easily get his shoes off without needing to use his hands, and he did so. His trousers also came off after simply undoing a button.

'Hubert, do you mind lowering the lights on that wall? They're shining straight in my eyes.' 'If you moved, they wouldn't bother you, Arno.' 'Please…' 'OK. I don't want to argue about it.' 'All clear in the sauna, over' a distant voice moaned.

'Haven't you finished yet, Bernard? We're expecting someone, you asshole.' 'All clear in Bernard, over.' 'All clear in Bernard's little asshole, over.'

The security agent did not even look at them while he checked the living room once more. Their cruel jokes had long since ceased to have any effect on him. He knew why they were so impatient, but he preferred not to think about it. He did not want to have to imagine what would happen in that room when their visitor arrived.

The visitor was almost always accompanied by an adult. If he was a little older, he might come on his own, disguised as a bellboy or a waiter so as not to arouse suspicion. But the normal thing was for him to be with an adult. Bernard did not know what happened afterwards, and did not want to know. Nor did he know when the visitor left, if he did leave, or how and where. That was not his responsibility. The problem… the problem comes from…

It's not that Bernard has moral scruples. It's not that he thinks he's doing something wrong by carrying out orders. He likes working for the Foundation. He earns more than he would anywhere else, his job is not difficult (as long as there are no complications) and Miss Wood and Mr Bosch are ideal bosses. Bernard hopes to save enough to be able to leave work and the city, this and all other cities. He wants to go and live in peace in some remote spot with his wife and small daughter. He knows full well he will never do it, but he thinks about it all the time just the same.

The problem with works like the Monsters, thinks Bernard, is that they can never be substituted. If the Walden twins were not there, who could replace them? Their biographies were essential to the painting just as light and shade were to a Rembrandt. Without their past, Monsters would not be worth a cent: it would not have given rise to all the rivers of ink, all the tonnes of computer bytes; whole books, or encyclopedia entries would not have been written about it; there would have been no TV debates, or ferocious arguments among theologians, psychologists, legal experts, educators, sociologists and anthropologists; no one would have tried to throw shit at them; there would not have been a whole legion of imitators; and nor would there be the astronomical profits generated by the exhibition loans the Van Tysch Foundation made to the world's most important museums and galleries. And that old Hollywood director, Robertson, would not be counting the days until Van Tysch made up his mind to sell the work.

Monsters was the goose that laid the golden eggs. The bad thing was, the goose knew it. 'All clear, over and out.'

'Leaving so soon, Bernard?' 'Don't you like us any more?' 'Of course he likes us, Arno. Bernard's little arse sighs for us.'

Whistling a show tune, Bernard shut the soundproof door between the living room and the hallway. He breathed a sigh of relief. His work was over for the night: Monsters, one of the most valuable works in the entire history of art, was safe and sound. And fortunately, he could no longer hear the twins.

As soon as art becomes divorced from moral considerations, it's on a slippery slope, thinks Bernard. Why can't the Maestro understand that? There are things which can't… which should not ever be turned into art, he thinks.

'I'm going to have a shower,' Arnoldus said. 'I'm still sticky with paint. I hope you haven't drunk all the champagne, Hubert.'

'Of course not, of course not. How could you think I'd be so fucking inconsiderate?'

There's steam in the room: why don't you turn the temperature of the pool down a bit?'

'I like it hot, hot, hot. Mmm.'

Arno flapped his arm dismissively, and walked down the corridor to their luxurious bathroom. The shower taps were turned on, then came the sound of his castrato voice singing an aria.

Hubertus tested the water with his fingers. It was an enormous, circular pool. That is what they had demanded. The Walden brothers adored everything round. Everything that was geometrically in tune with their anatomies. Psychologically in tune with their preferences: the juvenile works from The Circle, for example. One of their favourite fan clubs (they had thousands of fans all over the world) was called The Circle of Monsters. They sent the brothers their round stickers with slogans defending artistic freedom of expression and attacking intolerance.

With Arnoldus' fight with the opera in the background, Hubertus bent forward into the water, and floated off like a buoy that has lost its moorings. His yellow neck label floated on the turquoise water, tugged along by the blubbery cylinder of flesh. In the centre of the pool, Hubertus Walden felt like the Primordial Egg, the solitary Ovule at the supreme moment of fecundation. The water was the same depth all round: if he stood up, it came to just above his belly. Grandpa Paul did not want there to be the slightest chance of them drowning. He half-closed his eyes, sunken in the rolls of fat like a pair of signet rings, as the shimmering light of the water dissolved into white stripes. It was fantastic to live surrounded by luxury, to be caressed by the waves of that immense tank heated to just the right temperature. He wondered if the head of naturally platinum blond hair would reflect up to the ceiling when the light from the walls fell directly on to it.

His brother was massacring another aria in the bathroom. As he listened, Hubertus thought what an abject, perverse, cowardly and vicious person Arnoldus was. He hated him profoundly, but could not live without him. He thought of him the way he did his own inner organs: as something intimate, unavoidable, repugnant. At primary school, it was Arno who was always getting into trouble, but both of them were punished. 'If one of you is to blame, the two of you will pay,' Miss Linz used to say, eyes shining. And that was how it had been all his life: with their father, the judges, the police. That fat, soft, sickly creature singing out of tune in the bathroom (although still without raising his voice) was the one who had led Hubertus astray. Wasn't it Arnoldus who had thought up the plan to amuse themselves with Helga Blanchard and her son?

A quell'amor… quell'amor die palpito…

He remembered it all only in fragments, as though wrapped in golden mists, almost like a fascinating sweet: the mother's eyes widening in terror, hmmm, the ear-splitting cries, the small agonising hands…

… Dell'universe… Dell'universo intern…

… flashes of fragile flesh, hmmm, mouths opening in perfect circles, a roundness drained of blood…

… Misterioso, misterioso altero…

At first it seemed as though they had messed up again. That amateur painter working with his easel near Helga Blanchard's house had seen them. But the defence lawyer with dandruff had been extraordinary. What had looked as though it could be the end of their lives had suddenly become a wonderful fresh start.

The serpent biting its own tail. The perfect circle. What a beautiful harmony the circle is, especially when it doesn't move, when it's dead or paralysed and a finger can slip easily all round it. And what a great man Bruno van Tysch was. Thanks to him they led the life they dreamed of, and beyond that a good chunk of immortality, too. How marvellous it was to be a work of art.

He turned round in the warm velvet. It was then he noticed that the Gigli work had moved.

… Croce e delizia… delizia al cooor…

Drops of water in his eyes blurred his vision. He rubbed them. Looked again.

Croce, croce e delizia, croce e dclizia… dclizia al cooor…

The painting, a flexible shadow in a black mask with the silhouette of a fencing master in mourning, was walking slowly over to the bar. It moved so naturally that at first Hubertus thought it must simply want a drink. But it can't! he realised all of a sudden. It's a work of art! It's not allowed to move!

'What are you doing?' he asked. He raised his voice so high the question ended in a squawk.

The Gianfranco Gigli work did not reply as it walked round behind the bar, bent down and got something out. A small case. Then it came back round the bar, sat behind Hubertus' back, and snapped open the metal clips on the case. They sounded like gunshots in the almost completely silent room (ah, aaahhh-ah-aaaaaaahhh came Arno's tremolo voice from the bathroom).

Hubertus thought about calling his brother, but hesitated. His curiosity kept him silent. He heaved his massive bulk to the edge of the pool. The Gigli was fiddling with something on the table. What could it be? Something it had taken out of the case. Now it was putting that to one side and picking up something else. It did everything in such a delicate, gentle, clean way that for a moment Hubertus approved. There was nothing he enjoyed more than the subtle delicacy of shapes: a ballet dancer; a young boy; an act of torture.

He concluded it must be an alteration Gigli had called for. Perhaps the artist had decided to make the work into a performance. At any rate, it must be something to do with art. Anything goes where art is concerned, nothing has its own intrinsic value.

Things are art just because, because artists say they are and the public agrees. Hubertus recalled a work by Donna Meltzer entitled Clock, which was attached to the wall and moved round by the hour, except that the artist had decided that it would lose ten minutes a day, and by the end of a fortnight would come to a complete stop. Paintings do not always have to do the same thing. Some evolve according to a pre-established plan their creator has devised. So this one? It had changed. It must have fresh instructions. What was the symbolism behind that? Our mechanised society (which would explain the strange appliances it was laying on the bar)? The symbol of authority (a pistol)? The mass media (a portable recorder and a miniature video camera)? Violence (a set of sharp instruments)? Maybe it was all of those. Whatever Gigli wanted. After all, he was the painter and the only one who…

Suddenly, he remembered that Gianfranco Gigli had been dead for over two years.

A heroin overdose – they had told him so in the hotel when they showed him the painting. deliziaaa aaaal cooooooooor… ah-ah-ah-ah-aanaaaaaahhhh…

Hubertus stood quite still, hands on the marble edge of the pool and his body covered to the waist by water. Trails of it trickled like ants down his head and upper body. He looked like a wax mountain starting to melt. Could a work of art alter itself after the death of its creator? If so, was the result a posthumous work or a fake? Strange questions.

Then all at once Hubertus stopped worrying about what the Gigli figure was doing (Who cares what it's up to?) and felt a brutal rush of happiness. The sensation shot through three trillion molecules of body fat and produced a whirlwind in his mind similar to a powerful orgasm. He was overjoyed at being part of such a complex world, an existence that only rarely (if ever) could be explained or described in words, the secret, unending golden well-spring, the select circle they all belonged to – the Gigli painting, Van Tysch, the Foundation, the twins themselves and a few other chosen ones (well OK, let's leave the sad Gigli figure out of it, because it has to renew itself to stay up-to-date), the marvellous life which allowed them to indulge their fantasies and to become the stuff of fantasies for others. Even the fact of being so enormously fat was an advantage in this world. To be as monstrous as a monster, Hubertus understood, could go beyond the limits of everyday reality and become a symbol, the res of art, an archetype, philosophy and meditation, theories and debates. Bless you, world. Bless you, world. Bless your power and possibilities. Bless all your secrets as well.

The Gigli painting appeared to have finally completed its preparations, whatever they were. It turned round calmly and headed off for another point, another destination inexorably chosen by a dead artist. Hubertus watched it expectantly. Where? Oh, to where are you directing your harmonic footsteps, divine, radiant creature? Hubertus Walden asked himself.

Overcome with planetary harmony, it took him a moment to realise that the work was heading for him.

When he was a child, Arnoldus was attacked by a tiger.

Infallible, precise, powerful, deadly. A black tiger with glinting eyes born of his dreams. It was his nightmare, his childhood terror. He would cry out and wake up Hubertus, and then inevitably the tiger would turn into his father's belt as it flew through the air and lashed his naked behind over and over again. CI didn't mean to cry out, papa, please believe me, I couldn't help it.') The only thing their father hated was when they shouted. 'Do whatever you like, just don't shout,' he always told them: it was his constant obsession.

Unlike his brother, Arnoldus did not believe he had been compensated for his past. He thought that life was a commerce owned by someone different every day, which never pays you back if you have overpaid. It was true they were immensely rich now. They were considered a work of art of incalculable value. Mr Robertson, who might well become their new papa, loved them: Arno knew that Mr Robertson would never think of thrashing him with his belt if he heard him cry out in the middle of the night, while the bitter saliva of his worst nightmare slid down his chin. Now they were adored, respected and admired as great works of art. But could this new life give them the happy childhood they had not had? Was the worldwide reknown they now enjoyed retroactive? Could it transform their bad memories into good ones? No, it did not even change ways of behaviour. As an adult, Arnoldus still did not raise his voice. The tiger was dead, and so was his father, but life never gives anything back.

Listening to his brother splashing in the pool, Arnoldus wrapped a towel round his massive waist and began a belly dance in front of the mirror. Given the part of his anatomy involved, these dances were for Arno something more than a mere pastime: they became a kind of subtle attempt to understand the universe. The low, pseudo-Egyptian whistle that accompanied them came from his own lips, and he clicked his fingers as he gyrated. Oh, dulce huri? me complaceras esta noche? Looking at his porcelain fingers – he thinks as he sways his belly first one way, then the other – no one would suspect the presence of the huge bag of foul intestines hanging from its centre, that hungry anaconda curled up in a sack, that thick ship's rope covered in lard. How was it possible to be so fat? My God, what have you done to me? His mother told him she screamed (or was it his father?) when she saw them come into the world, when she saw their fantastic beauty, those creatures born with more flesh than her flesh. 'Aaagh!' Mrs Walden had cried. Their father (so she said) was equally horrified, and scolded her:

'Don't shout, Emma. Yes, they are monstrous, but don't shout, please. Above all, don't shout…'

Arnoldus Walden's vast pan-anatomy waddled its way down the lengthy corridor between bathroom and living room. He was still absorbed in his thoughts. He could no longer hear his brother's splashes. Did that mean that Platinum Blond had arrived? Had his brother broken his promise and started without him? Oh Hubertus, despicable being, the worst of all, vulgar, vile. Perverse mammoth, cruel bear. His brother loved to blame him for everything, and to claim he was responsible for all the good that happened to them. Arnoldus woke up every day trying to change. Trying to be more friendly, more human, more obedient (seriously, please, believe me) but, when he looked round at his brother, hatred oozed from his pores like flames from a ball soaked in alcohol. Having to stare at this reflection of himself disgusted him so much that he sometimes felt like smashing the mirror. Oh, yes: it was Hubertus who turned him into a horrendous being. Hubertus who pushed him down towards the abyss, forced him to dream of atrocities.

Take Helga Blanchard and her son, for example. Arnoldus had tried time and again to explain to Hubert that they had never done that family any harm. They had not even met Helga and her sweet son: it had all been a false memory planted in their minds by Van Tysch, a shadowy colour added to their bodies. 'Something like original sin,' was Arnoldus' way of explaining it. The shadow of an offence they had never committed, and which by that very token they would never be able to forget, because there is nothing more indestructible than things imagined. Perhaps they were not even guilty of the crimes they had done penance for in jail. After all, painting is itself deception: you think you can touch that fruit bowl, that bunch of grapes or the nymph's swelling breast, but when you stretch out your fingers you are brought up short, you realise that what looked like spheres are only circles, what looked like volume is a flat surface, the fingers' desperate desire to squeeze and fondle is left unassuaged. Arnoldus had a suspicion that the two of them were one of the Dutch painter's most successful illusions. Come to me, monstrous canvases, and I'll make you into an optical illusion.

The Maestro had been so clever in painting that terrible lie on their minds that his brother Hubertus had been completely taken in. Hubert really believed they had done it. Worse still: he believed that Arnoldus was the one deceived! 'You want to blindfold yourself with that explanation so you can forget what we did, Arno,' he used to tell him. And he added: 'But we really did what we did. Do you want me to refresh your memory?…' It was so unpleasant that Arnoldus no longer even tried to argue about it. What use was there trying to tell Hubert he was the one mistaken, that they had never committed such an atrocity, that it was all the product of Van Tysch's sublime art?

He looked down at the signature on his right ankle: BvT. A new worry had been preoccupying him for some time. Could Van Tysch be responsible for the hatred, the ferocious antipathy he felt towards Hubertus? Had he tried to awaken the Cain within him so that he could paint it? Be that as it may, the

Maestro was not very concerned about them any more. He had lost interest in them. It was said he was about to sell them.

Perhaps it was best to forget about Van Tysch and even about Hubertus, and to enjoy himself while he could. He opened the door and entered the living room. 'Here I am, Hubert. I hope you haven't-'

He stopped in his tracks. There was no one in the pool. In fact, the whole room looked deserted.

Tut, tut, this isn't very polite of you, Hubert.' Arnoldus looked all round him. The suite was like an endless basilica: columns, a domed ceiling; stone walls; indirect light; a long sacrificial altar in the shape of a bar counter…

It took him a second to spot the trail of liquid just to his right, a small trace of a darker colour on the fitted carpet, a trail of water from the pool, some god or other's zigzagging piss on the floor. Twisting his massive neck, Arnoldus followed it. At the end of the trail, belly in the air (a perfect sphere), lay his brother.

And standing next to his brother was a slight, masked creature: the black tiger of his infant terrors, his lithe, devouring nightmare.

When it leapt on him, Arnoldus – like an obedient child – did not cry out.