‘Suit yourself. But I’ll find a pay phone and call her to say that I can’t make it if—’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Of course you must meet her. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling your evening.’ I hesitated slightly. ‘Will you be in the hotel bar later, do you think? After I return? We could have our usual nightcap.’
‘What time will you be back?’
‘Around ten?’
‘Let’s say that if I’m there, I’m there, and if I’m not, then I’m either still out with Clémence or I’ve gone to bed early. Don’t bother waiting up for me.’
‘All right,’ I said, feeling a sense of bitter disappointment. The waitress reappeared and I reached into my satchel for a Polaroid camera that I had brought with me to France. I’d bought it only recently and had been trying to find an opportunity to get a photograph of Maurice and me together.
‘Shall we have a picture?’ I asked.
‘Really?’ he said, his face frowning a little. ‘For what?’
‘For nothing,’ I replied. ‘For friendship.’
He shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said, pulling his chair closer to mine and, to my delight, throwing his arm around my shoulders and grinning at the young woman, who stood back a little and pressed the shutter button. She handed it back to me and, a moment later, the camera released its prize and I stared at it, enraptured, as our images began to appear. He was looking directly into the lens; I had turned my head at the crucial moment and was looking at him.
He moved back to where he had been and an uncomfortable silence ensued, but not wanting any further awkwardness to develop between us, I ordered some more drinks and when they arrived he mentioned that, since Madrid, he’d been thinking a lot about my friendship with Oskar and it saddened him to think of us growing up in Nazi Germany, the shadow of war across our future.
Of course, I told him, when I thought of those days I realized that I had been more focussed on my desire to possess Oskar than on the extraordinary events taking place around us. We knew that it would not be long before we were conscripted into the army and I dreaded that day, not because I feared death but because I didn’t want us to be separated. This was something we finally discussed one evening in Berlin, when I realized that Oskar was just as anxious about the future as I was.
‘I had hoped that some type of resolution would be reached,’ he said as we sat drinking beer in the Böttcher Tavern. Through the window I could see the red-haired guard standing outside the SS headquarters once again, scanning the street. The poor boy seemed as if he was always on duty but never got beyond the front gates. ‘But that’s not looking likely now, is it?’
‘My father says that the English don’t have the stomach for another war so they’ll allow the Führer to take whatever he wants as long as he leaves them alone.’
‘Then your father is wrong. Hitler will occupy the Low Countries and sail across the North Sea to invade. If he takes France, then it becomes even easier. Still,’ he added, ‘I think I’d rather be a sailor than a soldier. Have you decided which branch you’ll join?’
‘The Luftwaffe,’ I said, the first answer that sprang to mind.
‘Not for me,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘I don’t want to get shot out of the skies.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, too quickly. ‘Then perhaps I’ll be a sailor too.’
He offered me a look of displeasure and I blushed, knowing that flattery by imitation irritated him. Ever since that afternoon by the Scharfe Lanke I had felt a certain suspicion on his part towards my intentions.
‘The thing that worries me most,’ I said, ‘is the idea of dying without having achieved anything in my life. A writer is supposed to get better as they age but what can I possibly accomplish if I’m killed before I turn twenty?’
‘You need to get started on that novel right away,’ he said with a bittersweet smile. ‘The future doesn’t look good for our generation.’
‘But how can I when I have nothing to write about? I’ve seen nothing, I’ve done nothing. A writer needs experiences to draw upon. Love affairs,’ I added tentatively. ‘A painter does too, I’m sure.’
‘True,’ he said, reaching for his bag. ‘Actually, there was something I wanted to show you. Do you mind?’
‘Of course not,’ I said.
‘I’ve been painting a lot lately,’ he told me. ‘Into the nights and the early mornings, and I feel that I’ve finally hit on something. Take a look at this.’ He handed me a rolled-up canvas and I untied the string, unravelling it slowly while being careful not to allow any part of the painting to touch the damp tabletop. The picture revealed itself to me in stages. First a toe, then a foot. A bare leg. A torso. A pair of full breasts with dark nipples. And then a girl’s face, the same face I had seen in all of his sketches to date but for once not hidden in profile but staring out at me, a challenge in her eyes. Her left hand was stretched across her naked body, her fingers resting between her legs, which were parted just enough to offer a glimpse of her sex. There was nothing pornographic to the painting but there was an erotic charge to both the brushwork and the girl’s smile that left me disoriented. I looked across at my friend, whose expression was one of hope mixed with excitement.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘It’s quite shocking, don’t you think?’
‘Shocking?’ he said, sitting back in his chair, and I realized that what I, in my prudishness, might consider scandalous, he might define as art. ‘Do you mean the use of shade across her shoulders? Yes, I wasn’t certain about that myself, whether or not I’d overdone it. I think it works but I’m not sure. I’m happy with her hands, though, because I always struggle with hands, but they came out well, don’t you think? And the way she holds her fingers above her cunt? I really feel that I’ve captured her spirit as well as her physicality.’
I took a breath in surprise. We might have been discussing anything mundane – the weather, the time, the price of bread – for all the concern he had for his choice of words.
‘Of course, as you know, this is the most recent in a long series,’ he added. ‘But by abandoning my commitment to her profile, I really feel I’ve hit on something important.’
‘Simply by getting her to turn around?’ I asked. ‘That’s your big breakthrough?’
‘No, it’s more than that,’ he said, a wounded tone creeping into his voice. ‘It’s the defiance in her eyes. The manner in which she both conceals herself while, at the same time, inviting us to observe her most private moment.’
‘But it’s just a naked girl lying on a couch,’ I said, aware of how critical I sounded and trying to keep my discontent under control. ‘It’s hardly an original conceit. Haven’t artists been doing that sort of thing for centuries?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, his confidence fading a little now. ‘But I’m trying to bring something new to it. Painters search for beauty, and where else should we find it other than in the female form, the most beautiful of God’s creations?’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘More beautiful than a sunrise? Or an ocean? Or a sky full of stars?’
‘Yes, so much more beautiful!’ he cried, growing enthusiastic again as he raised his hands in the air. ‘Whenever I’m alone with a girl, whenever I make love to one, I find myself consumed by her in a way that I have never been by nature. You must have felt that too, surely?’
I stared at him, uncertain how to reply. Did he assume that I, like him, was experienced in matters of sex?
‘Of course,’ I said hesitantly. ‘But there’s more to art than—’
‘And every painter brings something new to the nude,’ he continued. ‘Just as if you were to write about, I don’t know, let’s say the Great War, then you would try to find a fresh perspective on it, a different point of view. That’s what I’m attempting with this portrait. Do you remember I said to you once that I wanted to paint the familiar in an unfamiliar way? I’m not there yet, of course. I still have a long way to go and much to learn. But I’m getting closer, don’t you think?’