Kerstin once told me how nonplussed she’d been, arriving in Paris to pursue her medical studies in 1967, at the mixture of Gothic eroticism and dogmatic Marxism in the French intellectual milieu. Aged twenty-four, she’d already undergone a fair number of sexual initiations in the hippy communes of Stockholm, and had had to repress her laughter when a Leftist high school teacher announced his intention of showing her what was what, sex-wise.
‘Alain-Marie, his name was,’ she told me as we ate out together for the first time, washing our food down with liberal amounts of wine. (Our relationship had swiftly moved from professional to personal and the acupuncture sessions had had no effect on my insomnia.) ‘Alain-Marie took The Revolution very seriously. To show his support for the future dictatorship of the proletariat, he wore a red neckerchief. The son of a Catholic family from the provinces, he got a big kick out of blasphemy: his favourite book was Nietzsche’s The Antichrist, and when he saw a nun or a priest walk down the street he couldn’t refrain from going “Bang-bang, you’re dead!” For weeks on end, though I was dying to make love with him, he gave me lectures on Bataille’s theory of transgression.’ ‘“You bitch in heat, you dare to want,” that sort of thing?’ I asked. ‘Exactly. To my Swedish mind, all this was fascinating but also terribly frustrating.’ ‘Yet you desired him in spite of it?’ ‘Well, he was a Frenchman, right?’ Kerstin answered. ‘I mean, he spoke such beautiful French! I was turned on by the mere idea of making love with a Frenchman, given their worldwide reputation in the field.’ ‘It’s an overrated one, wouldn’t you say?’ ‘Unfortunately, my sample is too small to do the statistics.’ ‘Well, from my experience, intellectuals are the worst by far. Same problem as with French novels. They spend so much time holding forth on literature and eroticism that they’ve forgotten how to tell stories and make love. Hyperintellectualism is an STD specific to France.’
Having endured an entire semester of lectures on the subject of desire qua transgression, Kerstin had all but given up on getting laid by this man. At long last, however, Alain-Marie decided she was ready to move on from theory to practice. They were walking side by side down the Rue Mouffetard, it was a gorgeous spring day, a market day, she was wearing a flimsy dress, and suddenly Alain-Marie caught her by the hand and dragged her into Saint-Médard Church. ‘What’s up?’ she asked him. ‘Shhh!’ he said, putting a finger to his lips. And then, gluing his body to Kerstin’s, he started caressing her through the silky material of her dress. Apart from a few little old ladies kneeling in prayer and an organist doggedly practising Bach, the church was empty. ‘Come with me, I want you,’ Alain-Marie whispered into Kerstin’s ear (fortunately one of her erogenous zones) — and, so saying, he pulled her into one of the small side chapels, where the confessionals were.
Though she knows this story off by heart, Subra is in seventh heaven.
The confessional turned out to be locked, foiling what must have been Alain-Marie’s plan — but they slipped behind it, into the furthermost corner of the chapel. Glancing up, Kerstin noticed that the painting on the wall across from them (chosen in advance or just surrealistic coincidence?) was none other than an Education of the Virgin. ‘I’m going to look after your education today, little one,’ the Marxist-Leninist muttered. Kerstin found this a bit ludicrous, given her age — but if it could help him, who cared? Turning her around and pressing up against her from behind, he lifted her pretty dress and pushed aside her panties with his fingers. ‘What sins have you committed this week?’ he asked. ‘You must tell me every one of them without exception…Sins in thought, word and deed…’ Sensing that something was about to happen at long last, Kerstin repressed a titter and blurted out, ‘Yes, Father, yes, Father…’ And he: ‘So you’ve been naughty? Very naughty?’ And she: ‘Yes, Father, very, very naughty.’ She wracked her brain in search of a nice juicy sin, but her imagination always failed her at critical moments like this, and she drew a blank. Luckily, though, she saw that Alain-Marie didn’t need it anymore, the Education of the Virgin would be enough — and since she herself was slippery with desire, things went smoothly from there on in. He continued to berate her in time with the organ music: ‘Ah, ah! You naughty little girl, here’s your punishment, here’s what you deserve, and if you go on sinning it’ll be worse next time, yes, much worse, I’ll take a candle and shove it…aaaaah!’—within a few seconds the inundation took place. ‘And you never enlightened him on the subject of your virginity?’ I asked Kerstin. ‘Of course not. If we spoil their pleasure we spoil our own, don’t we?’…
‘Yes,’ Rena acquiesces, nodding. ‘It is dreadful.’
Putti
There are limits to her spinelessness, though. She’s got to draw the line somewhere. Here in the Pitti Palace, she decides to draw it at the putti. Where the putti are concerned, she’ll refuse to go along with her stepmother. She’ll speak her mind.
Catching sight of a group of plump, ruddy, naked cherubim, Ingrid begins to coo. ‘Look, Rena — aren’t they sweet?’
‘No,’ snarls Rena.
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, Ingrid, but I can’t stand putti. They make me sick. They embody everything I abhor. Vapid smiles, smooth pink skin…’
‘Rena! How can you say such a thing? You’re a mother! Don’t they remind you of your own boys when they were little?’ Ingrid bites her tongue, trying to take her question back — but it’s too late. The words are out; they hang there in the air between the two women…
‘No.’
‘Sorry.’
‘My kids are black.’
‘I know. I apologise. Well, they’re not black, really…More like café-au-lait. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about skin colour…’
Rena decides to go no further in that direction, though words of fury are stampeding in her brain. Well, let’s talk about it! Let’s talk about skin colour! Why do all those cute little angels have white skin? Why do Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the apostles all have white skin? Weren’t they Palestinians? Swarthy-skinned Semites, in other words? It’s a scandal! It’s racist propaganda, that’s what it is! She says none of this because it’s certainly not Ingrid’s fault if European painters hired local girls to pose for them, rather than importing more plausible-looking models from the East.
‘I meant the kids themselves,’ Ingrid goes on. ‘The babies themselves. All babies are cute, aren’t they? Don’t you find them irresistible?’
‘No, not those ones. Not babies with harps and wings. They make me want to puke.’
‘Rena!’
Seeing her stepmother’s eyes fill with horror, Rena breaks off, blushing.