That hit home.
“Sorry,” Maja said lamely. “I’m just not very familiar with the terminology here. So really it’s something positive, this grant?”
“Of course! It’s what everyone hopes for.”
“Well, I don’t get a state subsidy.”
“That would look good,” said Eva grinning.
“I’ll get some more coffee.”
Eva fished out another cigarette and followed the full figure with her eyes. She couldn’t take in the fact that Maja had done this. The Maja she thought she knew so well. But earning a couple of million, that wasn’t exactly peanuts — could it really be true? Was it that easy? She thought of all the things she could do with two million. She could pay all her debts. Buy a small gallery. No, two million couldn’t be right, she was probably laying it on a bit thick. But she didn’t usually tell tall tales. They never used to lie to each other.
“There you are! I hope your coffee won’t go down the wrong way, now that you know where the money’s coming from.”
Eva had to laugh. “No, it tastes just as good,” she said, smiling.
“That’s just what I thought. It’s strange, isn’t it, Eva? To put the whole thing in a nutshelclass="underline" we’re driven on by the things we need, the things we want. And when we achieve our aims we’re satisfied for a short while, and then we set ourselves new objectives. At least, I do. And in that way I feel I’m alive, that something’s happening and that I’m getting on. I mean, how long have you been stuck in the same rut? Artistically and financially?”
“Ah, quite a long time. At least ten years.”
“And you’re not getting any younger. I don’t think that sounds too good. What is it you paint? Landscapes?”
Eva drank some coffee and prepared herself for a long defense. “Abstracts. And I paint in black and white, and the shades in between.”
Maja nodded patiently.
“I’ve got a special technique that I’ve developed over the years,” Eva said. “I stretch a canvas of the size I want, paint it with a white foundation, and add a coat of light gray, quite a thick coat, and when it’s dry I continue with a darker gray. And when that’s dry, I add an even darker layer, and I go on like this until I end up with pure black. Then I let it dry. Really thoroughly. Eventually, I’m standing in front of a large, black surface, and now I have to delve into it to bring out the light.”
Maja was listening with a polite expression.
“Then I get to work,” Eva went on, and now her enthusiasm began to show, it was so rare for anyone to sit and listen like this, it was glorious, she had to make the most of it. “I scrape out the picture. I work with an old-fashioned paint-scraper, and with a steel brush, or possibly with sandpaper or a knife. When I scrape gently I find shades of gray, and if I scrape hard, I get right down to the white and bring out a lot of light.”
“But what’s it supposed to represent?”
“Well, I don’t know if I can answer that. The viewer must decide what they see. It kind of forms by itself. It’s simply light and shadow, light and shadow. I like them, I think they’re good. I know I’m a great artist,” she said defiantly.
“Well, that certainly wasn’t particularly modest.”
“No. It was ‘the productive egoist’s essential brutality.’ As Charles Morice called it.”
“I’m not quite with you. It all sounds very exciting, but it’s not much good if no one wants to buy them.”
“I can’t paint the pictures people want,” Eva said despairingly. “I have to paint the pictures I want. Otherwise it wouldn’t be art. It would just be doing things to order. Illustrations that people wanted to hang over their sofas.”
“I’ve got some pictures in my apartment,” Maja said with a smile, “I’d love to know what you think of them.”
“Hmm. If I know you, they’ll be pretty, colorful paintings of birds and flowers and things.”
“They are. Should I be embarrassed about them, d’you think?”
“Maybe, especially if you paid a lot for them.”
“I did.”
Eva chuckled.
“I thought artists used paintbrushes,” Maja said suddenly. “Don’t you ever use a brush?”
“Never. The way I do it, it’s all there ready when I begin to scrape. All the light, all the darkness. I just have to reveal it, seek it out. It’s thrilling, I never quite know what I’m going to find. I’ve tried painting with a brush, but it didn’t work, it was like an artificial extension of my arm, I couldn’t get close enough. Everyone finds their own technique, and I’ve found mine. And they don’t look like anyone else’s pictures. I’ve got to go on with it. Sooner or later I’ll break through with somebody. Some art dealer who’s excited by what I do and who’ll give me a chance. And lets me have a one-woman exhibition. I need a couple of good reviews in the papers and perhaps an interview, and then the ball will be rolling. I’m sure of it, I’m not going to give up. Not on your life!”
Her own stubbornness grew as she talked, it made her feel good.
“Can’t you work a bit, I mean, at an ordinary job, so that you’d get a regular income, and then paint in the evenings or something?”
“Two jobs? And looking after Emma alone? I’m not someone with a vast amount of surplus energy, Maja.”
“I’ve got two jobs. I have to put something on my tax return.”
“What do you do?”
“Work at the Women’s Refuge.”
The absurdity of the situation made Eva laugh.
“There’s no clash of interests in that. I do a good job,” Maja said stoutly.
“I don’t doubt it. I bet it’s right up your street. But I don’t suppose your colleagues have an inkling about what you do.”
“Of course not. But I’m better equipped than most girls. I understand men, and I understand their motives.”
They carried on drinking coffee and took no notice of what was going on around them, the people who came and went, the tables that were cleared and retaken, the traffic that hummed outside. It was the way it had always been when the two of them were together, they forgot everything else.
“D’you remember when we sprayed hairspray into Mr. Strande’s beehives?” said Maja. “And you got stung seventeen times?”
“Yes, thank you,” Eva said smiling. “And you pushed me all the way home in a wheelbarrow, shouting and telling me off because I was howling so loudly. Those were the days. I got a temperature of forty-one. It was about that time that Dad contemplated keeping us apart. Anyway, I don’t know how you managed to put up with me, why you didn’t get fed up towing me around. I couldn’t even manage to get my own boys.”
“No, you made do with the ones I managed to find. Maybe they weren’t all of the best quality.”
“Course not. You took the best-looking one yourself, and I got his friend. But if it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably still be a virgin.”
Maja gave her an appraising glance. “You’re really pretty good-looking, Eva. Perhaps you should be an artist’s model, instead of painting yourself?”
“Ha! Have you any idea what they get paid?”
“At least it would be a regular income. You certainly wouldn’t have any problems getting customers, if you were to succumb to the temptation of joining forces with me. I’ve never seen a girl with such long legs before. How do you find trousers long enough?”
“I only wear skirts.” Suddenly Eva began to giggle hysterically.
“What is it?”
“Do you remember Mrs. Skollenborg?”
“Talk about something else!”
There was complete silence.