Art of Murder

7

'What's this?' asked Jorge. 'It's me,' Clara said.

He could not believe it. The creature staring at him out of all that yellowness was a being from another planet, a devil from a traveller's tale, a sulphurous spirit. It was Clara, but less than her. Clara the egg yolk. Or a corrected Clara: because he could remember that the curve of her collar bones had never been quite so gentle, the shadow under her cheekbones so ill-defined. And her muscles looked different. And her silhouette. It was her, but not her. And whoever had drawn her like this did not have flesh-coloured pencils, but very pale lemon-yellow ones. He was used to seeing her in an unending carnival of works of art, and so part of his brain did not react. But this thing went beyond painting.

'If you like, I'll take my clothes off,' she said. Even her voice sounded odd – was there a distant crystal echo? 'But I warn you, the rest is more of the same.'

Jorge went cautiously over to her. In the creature's face, the slit of the lips curved upwards. 'I don't bite, you know. And I'm not contagious.'

She was standing there like a well-behaved schoolgirl, hands behind her back. Her clothes – a top with crossed straps that left her midriff bare, and a creased miniskirt, looked youthful and normal. 'But it's padding,' she explained, 'for works of art to be despatched.' Her shoes were flat enclosed sandals like bedsocks. 'What have they done to you?' 'They've primed me.' 'Primed you?' 'Aha.'

Jorge knew of the word, just as Clara knew what an endoscopy or a cardiac scan were. Your partner's language is the first thing you pick up, sometimes the only thing. But there was a slight difference. He always grimaced when he heard her mention things like hyperdramatic, prime or quiescence. He knew it was a bit unfair of him, but unfortunately it was unavoidable. Clara's profession was too much for him. His ex-wife Beatriz also had a job that did not exactly enthuse him (watching bacteria copulate, for God's sake), while that of his sister Arabia (interior design), not to mention his brother Pedro's (an art critic) seemed to him merely eccentric, but biology, design and art criticism are professions one can understand. Being a work of art, though, was beyond his comprehension.

'I'm sorry, but I seem to remember you've been primed before, or at least that's what you've told me, and it wasn't…'

'No, it was never like this Jorge, never like this. This is the work of specialists. It was done by F amp;W, the top people. If I told you all they have done…' 'Even your eyes…' ‘Yes, the irises, the conjunctivae, and the retinas. And all the rest of my body, including the holes and uumm… cavities’ she ended, sticking out her tongue.

A quivering stamen poking out from the flower of her lips. Jorge had seen orchids with reproductive organs the same colour as this thing. It was not just her tongue – it was her entire palate. Will it ever come off? was the macho worry that flashed through his mind. She loved producing astonishment like this.

'Don't worry, the priming is never permanent. I'm the same as ever underneath. But you still haven't seen the best.' What else could there be? He blinked, and moved closer.

'It's not my skin, it's what I've got hanging here’ Clara helped him.

It was then he saw it. A label dangling between her breasts, hung round her neck by a black thread. Another one similar on her right wrist, and a third round her right ankle. A strong, orange-tinged yellow, the yellow of a Chinese emperor. She had once told him that this colour, this and no other, belonged to labels from…

'Aha.' Clara smiled gleefully when she saw he had got it at last. 'I've been contracted by the Van Tysch Foundation!'

A suitcase – Jorge reasoned – also carries labels of the airline company it is being sent with, but after all, it is a suitcase, so that surprises no one. But what would anyone think if they could see this girl in her pearl-white top and skirt, her hair and skin like a plastic doll's, stripped of her eyelashes and brows, almost completely devoid of facial features, but attractive despite all that, yes, for some morbid and inexplicable reason even more attractive because of the three yellow labels hanging from her. The latest generation of Japanese toys? A female entertainer for long-haul flights? She could be anything, thought Jorge. A bell-flower with no dragonfly wings; a faery creature freshly painted by one of those Pre-Raphaelites Pedro hated so much, dressed in her summer best.

'Don't worry’ she reassured him, 'No one is going to see me. I was brought to Barajas in an armour-plated van, and we came in at the freight terminal rather than the one for passengers. They always treat their primed paintings as fragile freight items when they have to travel.' Her eyes gleamed yellow. 'This room is exclusively for artistic material transported by KLM. I have to wait here until they tell me it's time to get on the plane to Holland.'

There was not much furniture in the room: a yellow bench (where she had been resting before Jorge arrived) and a shelf like a narrow bar all along one wall. They preferred to lean against the shelf.

'So who's going to paint you…? Jorge muttered, as if he were dreaming, too frightened to pronounce the magic word. 'Will it be Van…?'

Clara, busy fixing her top, stretched out a yellow finger and placed it on his lips, in the centre of his grey moustache. Jorge smelt of chemicals.

'Don't say it. If you do, it'll be sure to bring me bad luck. Anyway, I'm still not sure. Remember, there are many artists in the Foundation. It could be Rayback, Stein, Mavalaki…' 'What about the "Rembrandt" collection…'

'Yes, yes that's it! It's his collection and there's still time for me to be one of the paintings. But please, don't talk about it! I'm so happy with what I've got that I don't want to think of anything else…'

They stared at each other. Clara was radiant under the neon lights. Jorge felt dull in comparison. There was nothing he shared with that tiny alien figure, that half-finished piece of porcelain (God, it set his eyes on edge just looking at her, all that yellow was like scraping a fingernail on a blackboard; how he would have loved to be able to add the missing layer of flesh pink). He could understand how excited she was, but he could not go along with her. Who could blame him? He was a forty-five-year-old radiologist, with hair as white and fluffy as the cottonwool used for snow in Christmas cribs. This was, in fact, one of only a pair of bright spots in his life. His moustache, for example, was grey. And five years of a failed marriage to biologist Beatriz Marco had been enough to convince him that his life was no brighter than his moustache. Clara was the other exception. He had met her the previous spring, on a day when it seemed the sun was determined to paint everything yellow. His brother Pedro had invited him to a cocktail party of a collector, a Belgian woman who had settled in Madrid by the name of Edith, who was anxious to show everyone her most recent acquisition: The White Queen, the latest work by Victoria Lledo. At that time, Jorge was preoccupied with his divorce proceedings. He had no shortage of work (his radiology practice was satisfyingly busy) but he was more lonely than the losing chess king. He had no idea that meeting The White Queen would change his life completely. An infallible sixth sense ('You inherited it from your father,' his mother used to say) led him to accept the fateful invitation his brother had made simply to take his mind off things.

Edith Whatever-weke, resplendent in tunics and perfumes, showed them round her hovel in La Moraleja, pointing out her complete collection of HD works: painted men and women in poses in the living room, the library, on the balcony. What on earth are they doing standing there like that? Jorge wondered, fascinated by the weary beauty of their faces. What are they thinking of when we are looking at them?

Then she led them out to the garden, where the work by Vicky Lledo was on show. It's an outdoor performance,' Edith explained. 'What does that mean?' Jorge wanted to know.

'They are HD works in which the figures move and carry out actions planned by the artist,' Pedro said, adopting a professional tone. 'They are called outdoor because that's where they take place, and performance because they follow a plan and are repeated in a continuous cycle with or without the presence of the public. If they were shown like any other dramatic work and the public had to arrive at a certain time to see them, then they would be reunions.' 'So is this a kind of art-shock?' Edith and Pedro exchanged knowing smiles.

'Art-shocks, dear brother, are interactive reunions, that is, dramatic works put on at a specific time and in which the owner of the work or his friends can take part if they so wish. Most of them involve sex or violence, and are completely illegal. No, don't pull that face, Jorge, because you're not going to be that lucky today: The White Queen isn't an art-shock, it's a non-interactive performance. In other words, a work that will perform an action according to a schedule, but the public will not take part in any direct way. As innocent as can be, isn't that right, Edith?' The Belgian woman agreed with a giggle.

Jorge got ready to be bored. He had no idea of what he was about to see.

It was a big garden, protected from prying eyes by a high wall. The work was to take place on the lawn. It consisted of a roofless box with three white walls and a floor of black-and-white tiles. At ground level on the back wall, there was a rectangular opening through which the green grass could be seen. Inside the cubicle were a table, chairs, sandwiches, water and a clothes hanger, all of them painted white. A girl with a glorious mane of blonde hair, wearing a starched white wedding dress, was lying sprawled on the floor tiles. Her face and arms glowed with an ethereal brightness. All of a sudden, as Jorge was taking all this in, the work turned onto all fours, crawled over to the slit in the back wall, put her head into it, withdrew it, put it back again. All this produced a very striking image, like a surrealist film.

'See?' Edith explained. 'She wants to get out through the hole, but she can't, because her bride's dress won't let her…'

'It's a simple metaphor,' Pedro added. 'She's tired of living a bourgeois marriage.'

More fruitless attempts to push the flounces of the dress through the hole. Back again. Another push. Her waist wriggling, backside in the air, hips stuck in the frame. Looking at her, Jorge felt a stab of sympathy – he could identify with how Beatriz felt.

'Now the girl understands,' Edith went on, 'that to get out she has to take off her dress… yes, there she goes, she's taking it off and hanging it on the hanger… she's overcome her prejudices, she's stripped naked and can escape.'

She paused to speak to all her guests: 'Let's go to the other side, shall we, to see what happens next?' Jorge's brother had to prod him with his elbow. 'He's never seen a real live performance,' he laughed. 'It's good, isn't it?' Edith said, winking at him.

Jorge felt he was sleepwalking as they moved to the far end of the garden, behind the cubicle. Here there was a square patch of wet sand which was also part of the work. The girl was stretched out on it. She looked happy. The sun sparkled on her painted body like a pointillist painting by Seurat. An open-mouthed Jorge had never seen such a perfect nude. The breasts were not especially large, but they were in perfect harmony with the body and the gentle staircase of her ribcage. The gentle curve of her stomach was real, not the effort of her holding it in. He thought he could encircle her whole waist in his two hands. Her legs went on and on: it is easy to be mistaken when glancing at a pair of legs, but Jorge explored them in slow motion with a radiologist's trained gaze, and could find no fault as they stretched out endlessly like a highway. Not even feet and hands (always so difficult for a painter or for genetics to get right) sounded a jarring note: long, tapering finely, with tendons that stood out to emphasise they were alive, and nothing more. Her cultural archetypes, perfectly in tune with the ideas of beauty held at the end of the twentieth century and early in the twenty-first, were unanimous: it was a masterpiece.

But beyond the shape were the gestures Clara made: the contradictory effects produced by a face that was mischievous and disingenuous at the same time; the highlighted joint movements, and the use of muscles which in bodies like Jorge's lay dormant all their lives until finally awakened (perhaps) in death throes. It was the most harmonious composition Jorge had ever seen. The girl was rolling in the wet sand. She stood up and began a wild dance – her hair converted into a frenzy of whipcords – and then began to make a loincloth out of mulberry leaves, placing it round her sinuous waist. Throughout all this furious activity, her body gave off flashes of paint: the light, shiny colour of squeezed lemons which his brother defined as 'gamboge yellow'. In Jorge's feverish state, the word made it sound like a sacred dance. As they went back into the house for a drink before returning quickly to see what was to come next, he muttered to himself: Gamboge. Gamboge. It became an obsessive beat.

Evening was drawing in. The work had been performing for an hour and a half. As an appendix to her private bacchanal, the girl masturbated: slowly, imperiously, on her back on the sand. Jorge did not think she was pretending.

'So then,' Edith continued her commentary in her foreign, musical Spanish, 'after the ecstasy she starts to feel hungry and thirst v. Cold as well. She remembers the food, water and her dress are back in the room. So she crawls back through the slit, gets into the cubicle, eats, drinks, puts her wedding dress on again, and becomes the chaste, well-educated young woman she was at the start. It's full of meaning, isn't it?'

'A typical Vicky Lledo piece,' Pedro gave his verdict, stroking his beard. 'Women's liberation will not be complete while men keep on blackmailing them with the apparent benefits of the welfare state.'

That night, the canvas was returning to Madrid by taxi. Jorge offered to take her instead – fortunately, Pedro preferred to go on his own. Dressed in jersey, jeans and with a scarf round her neck, she seemed to him just as exciting as when she had been naked, dishevelled and glistening with sweat and sand. Her lack of eyebrows and the sheen of her skin caught his attention. She explained that she had been primed. It was the first time he had heard this expression. 'To prime means to prepare a canvas for painting,' she told him. During the journey, with his hands tight on the wheel, he asked many questions, and obtained a few answers: she was twenty-three years old (about to be twenty-four), and had been an HD model since she was sixteen. Jorge was delighted at her self-assurance, her intelligence, the way she waved her hands as she spoke, the gentle but determined edge to her voice. She told him some extraordinary things about her work. 'Don't get it wrong: the HD models are not actors: they are works of art and do everything the artists decide they should do -yes, everything, without exception. Hyperdramatism is called that precisely because it goes beyond drama. There is no make-believe. In HD art, everything is real, including the sex when there is sex, and the violence.'

How did she feel doing all this? What she was supposed to feel, what the painter wanted her to feel? When she was doing The White Queen it was claustrophobia, complete freedom, unease, then claustrophobia once more. 'It's an incredible profession’ he admitted. 'What do you do for a living?' she asked. I'm a radiologist, he told her. After that there were dates, evenings out, shared nights.

If anyone had asked him to define their relationship, he would have responded without hesitation: strange and exciting.

Everything about her fascinated him. The way she sometimes made up. The exotic essences she occasionally used as perfumes. The rich elegance of her wardrobe. Her complete indifference when it came to showing herself off naked. Her unabashed bisexuality. The scandalous exercises she had to do for some painters. And in spite of all this, her incredible naivete. Contradictions were the norm for her. He savoured her qualities until he was full of them, and then found himself wishing for a little bit of simplicity. After spying on her copulating bacteria, Beatriz became simple again. Why couldn't Clara be the same after she had wiped all the paint off? Why did he always have this terrible sense of fetishism, as if sleeping with her was like kissing a luxury shoe?

Recently he had been forcing her to argue with him – it was his way of trying to rediscover this simplicity. All couples argue. We do too. Conclusion: we are like all couples. The logic of this argument seemed to him watertight. Their last fight had been on her birthday, 16 April. They went out to eat in a new restaurant – candelabra, accordeons and dishes their tongues had to do yoga to pronounce – he had discovered. Jorge closes his eyes and can see her just as she was that night: a Lacroix leather dress and a choker with the designer's name on a silver ring. This and nothing more – no underwear, because in the morning she was appearing naked in a work by Jaume Oreste. Jorge kept glancing from the ring to the curve of her breasts pressed together by the dress. As she breathed, her breasts looked like two white whales, and the ring swung to and fro like a ship's porthole. He was excited of course (he always was when he went out with her), but he also felt a strange desire to destroy all this magnificent harmony. Like the temptation a child feels to smash the most expensive piece of crockery. He began stealthily, without revealing his real intentions.

'Did you know "Monsters" was the most popular exhibition the Haus der Kunst in Munich has ever had? Pedro told me so the other day.' 'I'm not surprised.'

'And in Bilbao they're wetting themselves trying to get "Flowers" to the Guggenheim, but Pedro says it'll cost them an arm and a leg. But that's nothing: everyone is saying that the new collection they're putting on this year, "Rembrandt" by Van Tysch, is going to top "Flowers" and "Monsters" both in visitors and in the price of the works. Some are even saying it's going to be the most important exhibition in history. In other words, your Maestro has succeeded in making hyperdramatic art one of the most lucrative businesses of the twenty-first century…'

A good line to throw, Captain Achab! The two symmetrical whales rise up as one. The silver ship trembles. 'And you, as always, reckon the world has gone mad.'

'No, the world always has been mad, it's not that. The fact is, I don't agree with the opinion most people have about Van Tysch.' 'Which is?' 'That he's a genius.' 'He is.'

'I'm sorry, Van Tysch is very smart, but it's not the same thing. My brother says that HD art was created by Tanagorsky, Kalima and Buncher at the start of the seventies. They were true artists, but they starved. Then along came Van Tysch, who as a young man had inherited a fortune from a distant relative in the United States. He invented a system for buying and selling the works, created a Foundation to manage his production, and he devoted himself to lining his pockets thanks to hyperdramatism. A brilliant business idea!' 'So what's wrong with that?'

As usual, Clara was imperturbable. She was accustomed to controlling all her impulses, and used this power to her advantage against him. It was hard for Jorge to make her lose her patience, because a canvas' patience is boundless.

'What's wrong is that it's a business, it's not art. Although wasn't it your beloved Van Tysch who once came out with the definition "art is money"?' 'And he was right.'

'He was right? Was Rembrandt a genius because today his paintings are worth millions?'

'No, but if Rembrandt's paintings weren't worth millions today, who would care whether he was a genius or not?'

Jorge was about to respond when a dollop of cream (from the dessert-rolled crepes stuffed with cream) fell on to his tie (plop! Captain Achab, a seagull just shat on you), which meant he had to busy himself with his napkin while she carried on.

'Van Tysch understood that to create a new kind of art all you need is for it to make money.' 'That line of argument only applies to business, darling.'

'Art is a business, Jorge’ she declared, unmoved, while the candle flame blinked, photocopied by her blue eyes.

'My God, listen to the opinion of a work of art! So according to you, a professional painting, art is a business?' 'Aha. Just like medicine.'

Aha. That dreadful habit of hers when she spoke. She opened her mouth and arched one of her false, painted eyebrows as she pronounced the symmetrical word: Aha.

'You charge for your X-ray plates just like a painter does for his paintings’ she went on. 'Aren't you tired of always saying that some colleague or other ought to realise that medicine is an art? There you go.' 'There I go what?'

'Medicine is an art, which means it's also a business. Today it's all the same: art and business. The real artists know there's no difference. At least there isn't nowadays.'

Tine, let's admit art is a business. So then hyperdramatic art is the business of buying and selling people, isn't it?'

'I can see where you're heading, but we models are not people when we are works of art: we're paintings.'

'Don't talk such nonsense. That rubbish is fine to pull the wool over the public's eyes. But people are not paintings.'

'Now you sound like those experts who at the end of the nineteenth century said that impressionist paintings weren't real paintings. But art history finally accepted impressionism, and then cubism, and now it is accepting hyperdramatism.'

'Because it's a profitable business?' She shrugged without saying anything. 'Look, Clara, I don't want to be an iconoclast, but hyperdramatic art consists of putting young women like you naked or semi-naked in "artistic" poses. Young men, too, of course. And a lot of adolescents, children even. But how many mature men or women do you see in HD works of art? Go on, tell me! Who would pay twenty million euros to take home a painted fat old man, and stand him there in a pose?'

'But the work that gave the title "Monsters" to Van Tysch's collection is of two hugely fat people. And it's worth far more than twenty million, Jorge.'

'What about the HD ornaments? Converting someone into an Ashtray or a Chair, what's that? Is that art too? And what about art-shocks? And "dirty" paintings?…'

'All that is completely illegal, and has nothing to do with legitimate hyperdramatism.'

'Let's drop it. I know it's a sin to take the name of God in vain.'

'Would you like another crepe, or is the one you're dripping down your front enough?' She pointed to her plate, where the rolled-up crepes lay untouched. This was another consequence of her work: she kept a tight rein over her calorie intake, and controlled her weight with portable electronic gadgets – the latest fad. She often dined only on high-vitamin juices, but never seemed to be hungry.

That night they made love at his place. It was as it always was: a delicately pleasurable exercise. She was a canvas, and he had to be careful. Sometimes he would ask her why she was not so careful with herself in the brutal interactive reunions known as art-shocks she sometimes took part in. 'That's different, it's art,' she would reply. 'And in art anything goes, even damaging the canvas.' 'Ah!' he would say. And go on adoring her.

He was crazy about her. He was fed up with her. He never wanted to leave her. He wanted never to see her again.

'You won't be able to give her up,' his brother Pedro warned him one day. 'It's always the same when we fall for a painting: we've no idea why we like it so much, but we can't get rid of it.'

*

Clara was not sure what she felt for Jorge. It was not love, of course, because she did not believe she had ever felt true love for anyone or anything except for art (people like Gabi or Vicky were facets of that diamond). And she guessed Jorge was not in love with her either. She could understand that for him it was very satisfactory to have made it with a canvas: it was the same kind of status symbol as buying himself a Lancia or a Patek Philippe, having an appartment in Conde de Penalver, or being the boss of a profitable radiological institute. 'Going to bed with a painting is a kind of a luxury, isn't it, Jorge? Something your social class likes to do.'

Naturally she found him attractive: that shock of white hair, and that moustache standing out in his huge frame, those grey eyes of his, his manly chin. It excited her to think he was an older man she was perverting. She loved it when she made him blush. But she also enjoyed thinking the opposite was true: that it was he who was perverting her. Her white-haired master. The sunbed-tanned mentor. And on top of it all, Jorge was not part of the art world – a detail rare enough to make him extra special.

On the other side of the balance was his complete vulgarity. Doctor Atienza was of the ridiculous opinion that hyperdramatic art was a kind of legalised sexual slavery, twenty-first century prostitution. He could not understand why someone might want to buy a naked minor whose body had been painted, simply to put them on show in their house. He thought Bruno van Tysch was a playboy whose sole merit had been to inherit a stupendous fortune. When she heard Jorge's pronouncements, she felt bitter. What she hated above all in this world was mediocrity. Clara longed for genius like a bird longs for the infinite air. But she could understand the reason for all this mediocrity. Unlike her, his profession did not demand he give his heart and soul to it. Jorge had never felt that shudder of emotion, the sense of fragility and fire that a model felt in the hands of an expert painter; he knew nothing of the nirvana of quiescence, the wing-beats of time in a paralysed salon, the gaze of the public like cold acupuncture on the body

Neither of them was sure where this relationship of dates and shared nights might lead. Probably nowhere. Jorge wanted children, and occasionally said so. She looked at him with pitying compassion, as a martyr might look at someone who was asking: Does it hurt? The only life she wanted to reproduce, she would tell him, was her own. 'Don't you see, every time I'm a painting, it's as if I'm giving birth to myself?' Of course, he couldn't understand her.

Perhaps what she valued most of all in him was his calm nature, his ability to give her good advice. Even when he was asleep, Jorge was therapeutic: he breathed steadily, was not troubled by any nightmares, did not get afraid in dark rooms (she did), was a lesson in the perfect way to rest. His words were like creams prescribed by an amiable doctor, his smile an instantly effective sedative. All this was far removed from her world, and immensely welcome. Right now, she needed a large dose of Jorge.

'Are you sure you're not being duped?' he asked, trying to appear doubtful.

'Of course I am. This is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Not only am I going to earn more money than I ever dreamed possible, but I'm going to become… I'm sure I'm going to become a… a great work of art.' Jorge noticed she had hesitated, as if anything she could say would be far beneath the reality of what was to happen to her. 'Today they told me that in another twenty-four thousand years, they would still be talking about me’ she added in a whisper. 'Can you believe it? The Foundation woman told me so. Twenty-four thousand years. I can't stop thinking about it. Can you believe it?'

She had just given him a brief summary of all that had happened. She told him about the two men visiting the GS gallery, and her interview with Friedman on the Thursday. After that, she had been primed by five experts: Friedman himself examined her hair and skin; a Senor Zumi her muscles and joints; Senor Gargallo prepared her physiology; and the Montforts fine-tuned her concentration and habits. Friedman received her in the basement of the Desiderio Gaos building once they had stripped her, destroyed her clothing, and taken photographs of her for the insurance company. He felt her all over. Her hair, he said, needed cutting. Then it had to be coated with a gel that would allow it to be painted. He did not consider her skin soft enough, so prescribed creams she would need to rub on. He noted any abrasions or wrinkles. He observed the movement of her Adam's apple when she swallowed, and how her ribcage showed with her breathing, how her nipples reacted to pressure or cold, the character of all her muscles. After that, he probed each and every hole and cavity with his fingers and light. 'Spare me the details,' Jorge begged her.

Zumi, a mysterious Japanese man of few words, saw her on the first floor once Friedman had finished with her. For hours, it seemed, Clara had to hang from various pieces of apparatus in the gym there. Zumi discovered a certain laxity in her cervical vertebrae, and a tendency to accumulate lactic acid in her legs. Through beads of sweat, she could see him smile silently at each successive torture: balancing on one leg, being strung from the ceiling by the ankles, standing on tiptoe on a bench, bending over backwards, raising her arms with weights attached to her biceps. Two hours later, the exhausted material was passed on to Senor Gargallo on the third floor. Gargallo was an expert in the canvas' physiological reactions. He had a huge collection of his experiments on film, an absolutely repugnant DVD library. He was convinced of his own uselessness.

'The only organ that matters is the one I'm not expert in,' he told Clara, tapping his forehead. 'Fortunately, I am expert in the second most important one.' He pointed to his groin.

He was a plump, affable fellow, with a yellowish complexion, goatee beard and round, smudged glasses. He began by warning her that his job was 'an unavoidable mess'. 'Naturally, we'd like to be a pure work of art like a piece of canvas or a lump of alabaster,' Gargallo philosophised. 'But we are alive. And life is not art: life is disgusting. My task is to stop life behaving like life.'

The exercises he put her through were yet another nightmare: the material – her, naked and immobile – had to put up with drops being spread under her eyelids; feathers tickling her in remote folds of her body; drugs which activated her bowels and her bladder at the same time, or changed her mood, increasing or decreasing her libido or simply gave her a headache; pills that suddenly made her blood pressure collapse, or made her feel cold, hot, or itchy all over (my God, the desire to scratch, forbidden in any painting); the dizziness of intense hunger; the raging curse of thirst; the stinging threat of insects and other creatures -'in outdoor pieces they often crawl up legs', Gargallo explained; extreme tiredness and sleep, that steamroller of awareness that can flatten the willpower of any permanent work of art. Gargallo tried out further tests, made adjustments here and there when he saw the material was suspect, prescribed a few pills, noted down problems.

She was left to rest for a few hours and then, still exhausted, she was taken up to the fifth floor and handed over to Pedro Monfort. ‘I started in a cellar and I'm going to end up in the loft,' she thought, her brain weakened but still determined to fight back. The Monforts were brother and sister: he was very young, she was older. Their speciality was to prime thoughts (a noble enough task, surely) and yet they did not seem happy. In fact, Pedro Monfort regarded Gargallo as the real specialist. He was a badly shaven, intellectual-looking man who liked lengthy silences and stuffing his phrases with obscenities.

The only things that matter are the cunt and the prick,' he suddenly declared to a weary Clara. 'And I'm telling you that as a brain expert.' He also insisted that concentration was impossible.

'We can only concentrate by letting our attention wander. I know you canvases are taught differently in the academy, but I couldn't give a fuck about the methods you learn in academies. Just look at children while they're playing. They're completely concentrated on what they're doing. Why? Because they're making an effort to concentrate or because they're playing? Shit, it's obvious: they are concentrating because they are absorbed, because they're enjoying themselves. It's absurd for you to concentrate on quiescence. What you should be doing is enjoying yourself.'

This was his favourite word: 'Enjoy,' he kept saying as he submitted her to yet another mental test.

Marisa Monfort, middle-aged, with dyed hair and eyes buried in mascara, received the last remains of Clara on the seventh floor. Her office was gloomy, and she did not look happy either.

The backs of her hands were tattooed with two snakes, cut up into segments by innumerable yellow bangles. She pressed fingers to her temples as she spoke, as though pressing two bells. 'I'm the memory woman, my girl’ she said. 'The habits anchored in our ego that get in the way of hyperdramatic art so much.' She made Clara come into her office three times, and analysed her gestures. She was concerned by her excessive tendency to repeat the same thing. Fortunately, she did not discover any of the faults 'which ruin good material': a nervous tic, nail biting, a niggling nervous cough, other defence mechanisms. She bombarded her with imaginary situations. Showed her obscene or terrible photos. Praised her for not feeling ashamed. But she was damning over Clara's squeamishness over illegal behaviour.

'My child: to be a great work of art you have to overcome all obstacles,' Marisa Monfort reproached her in a voice like an oracle. 'You've no idea of the world you are entering. Being a masterpiece has something… inhuman about it. You have to be a lot less involved. Imagine it's a science-fiction film: art is like a being from another planet which manifests itself through us. We may paint pictures or compose music, but neither the picture nor the music belongs to us, because they are not human things. Art uses us, my child, it uses us in order to exist, but it's like an alien being. That's what you've got to think: you're not human when you are a painting. Think of yourself as an insect. A very odd insect. Think of yourself as an insect capable of flying, sucking flowers, being fecundated by a male proboscis, poisoning a child with your sting… Go on, think of yourself as that insect right now.'

Clara tried, but found it impossible to understand what the insect might be thinking.

'When you discover what the insect is thinking,' Marisa Monfort said, 'then you'll be a great work of art.'

On the eighth floor was the priming workshop. It was decorated with blown-up photos of F amp;W's past triumphs: an aquatic work by Nina Soldelli, the fabulous Kirsten Kirstenman standing in someone's salon, the amazing flame-haired female figure of Mavalaki, an outside piece by Ferrucioli on a cliff top. All of them had been primed by F amp;W. It was here that Clara finally received Friedman's icy verdict: they accepted her, with reservations. She was good material, but would have to improve. A woman with a South American accent (Clara recognised the voice – it was the woman who had stretched her on the telephone) handed her the contract. Four sheets of turquoise paper, with the letterhead 'The Bruno van Tysch Foundation, Department of Art'. Clara was so overjoyed, she could scarcely believe her eyes. The contract was for one year. The fee (five million euros) was to be paid in two instalments: half had already been put into her bank account, the rest would follow at the end. She would also receive a percentage of the sale price of the work, and of the monthly rent. There was also a comprehensive insurance and two appendices. One of these stated she would work exclusively for the Foundation; the other a commitment that she would not allow herself to be used as a fake. A third appendix required her to leave everything in the hands of the Department of Art. Art could do what it liked with her, because Art was Art. Only Art knew what it was going to do with her, but whatever that might be, she would have to accept it. The painter contracting her was from the Foundation, but she would not discover his identity until the work began. Clara signed the four sheets. 'That's crazy’ Jorge scolded her.

'You haven't the slightest idea of how this scene operates. Everything is kept a complete secret. Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Rubens and other great masters had their professional secrets, didn't they? The way they made their colours, their choice of canvas… well, modern painters have secrets, too. It stops others copying their ideas.' 'What did you do after signing?' 'I was free until the final priming session.'

That had been on Saturday. It took all day. A haircut, shower in cleaning acids, then creams applied to her body using huge rotating brushes like in a carwash, the removal of scars and other marks (including Alex Bassan's signature), the shaping and moulding of her muscles and joints with flexing agents and more creams; then the dyeing of her skin, hair, eyes, holes and cavities with the white-coloured base, followed by a thin layer of yellow paint. And finally, the labels, which showed only her name, the Foundation's logo, and a mysterious bar code.

It was Sunday 25 June, 2006, and the priming was finished. Clara was dressed in the padded top and miniskirt, driven to Barajas airport, and stored in the room. They asked her if there was anyone she wanted to say goodbye to. She chose Jorge, who was just back from a radiology congress and had heard her message.

'So there you are,' she concluded. Jorge interpreted all this from his point of view. 'Five million euros is a lot of money. You'll have no more worries.'

'You're forgetting the percentage on the sale and rent. If they make a masterpiece out of me, I can easily treble my earnings.' 'Goodness me.'

Clara's golden eyes opened wide as she smiled: two Jorges were reflected in the yellow irises. 'Art is money,' she whispered.

He stared this glowing golden apparition up and down. 'She hasn't even been painted yet, and she's already worth a fortune.' In the silence, all they could hear was the muffled distant sound of the airport's loudspeakers.

'Twenty-four thousand years,' said Jorge in a tone which made it sound as though it were negotiable, like a sum of money. 'But can an HD work last that long?'

'All you would need are twenty-four thousand substitutes, one a year. But I would go down in history as the original model.'

What about a million years? A million people, Jorge calculated. Just with the inhabitants of Madrid, at a rate of one person per year, the work could last as long as the life of mankind on Earth, including his anthropoid ancestors. Of course, it would take many generations, but what are three or four million people? All at once it seemed to him he was no longer looking at Clara: he was staring at eternity.

'That's incredible.'

'I'm a bit scared,' she confessed. Then she added, with a shy smile: 'Only a bit, but the highest quality' Impulsively, Jorge held out his arms.

'No’ she protested, stepping back. 'Don't embrace me. You could damage me. I feel like crying, but I don't want to. And anyway, they told me I don't have any tears or sweat any more. I've hardly even got any saliva. That's the effect of being primed.' 'But do you feel all right?'

‘I feel wonderful, ready for anything, Jorge, anything. Right now I'd be able to do anything with my body, anything a painter might ask of me.'

Jorge had no wish to enquire just what that meant. At that moment, a man in a dark-blue pilot's uniform came in. He was tall, attractive, with a sensual mouth, and had slackened his tie. 'Plane now’ he said with a strong Spanish accent.

Clara looked at Jorge. He would have liked to say something earth-shattering, but he was not much good at moments like these. 'When will I see you again?' was all he could think of. ‘I don't know. Once I've been painted, I suppose.'

They stood looking at each other for a second or two, and Clara suddenly realised she was crying. She could not tell for certain when it had begun, because there were, in fact, no tears, but the rest of the mechanism continued to function: the lump in the throat, heavy eyelids, irritated sensation in the eyes, butterflies in the stomach. She told herself the artist would have to add the teardrops if he wanted them – perhaps he could paint them on her cheeks, or imitate them with tiny crystal shards, like in some statues of the Virgin. Then she controlled herself. She did not want to get emotional. A canvas should always remain calm.

She walked away from Jorge without looking back. She followed the other man down a metallic corridor throbbing with the roar of aeroplanes. With each step she took, the label banged against her ankle.

It was a sudden flash. Perhaps it was his sixth sense ('You inherited it from your father') which raised the alarm as he saw her disappear through the door. Clara should not be going, she should not accept the job. Clara was in danger.

Jorge hesitated for a moment, thinking he should call her back, but his absurd premonition vanished as quickly and calmly as she had done. He soon forgot it.

She had never felt such a combination of fear and happiness. Both the feelings were there, distinct and contradictory: an immense fear and an ecstatic sense of joy. She remembered her mother had said something similar about the way she felt as she went into church on her wedding day. She smiled at the memory as she followed the man in pilot's uniform down the deafening passageway. She imagined there were people on both sides watching her as she glided in a silky gauze towards an altar decorated with golden or yellow objects just like her: tabernacle, chalices, the cross. Gold, yellow, gold.