At the wall-head of the central table was a set of three glue pots set in a heated water jacket. On either side of the pots was a line of small cans and glasses containing an assortment of brushes — glue brushes, paste brushes, watercolor flood brushes, sable-hair brushes, hog’s-hair brushes, natural thistle brushes.
Beneath each table was a leather-topped tavern stool on rubber-tipped legs. At the far end of the room was a standing iron board cutter with a guillotine arm that could slide through anything reasonable, an antique English standing press, and a smaller, solid iron nipping press mounted atop a matching iron bench. A variety of sewing frames leaned against the roughstone wall, resting on the floor next to a large, black-wood plan chest with narrow drawers. The top drawers were stocked with papers — decorative marbles and Japanese tissues and pricey Ingres. Wrapping papers and blotting papers and art papers and writing papers and drawing papers. All in a spectrum of colors, weights, grains, and pH values. The bottom drawers were stocked with a supply of preskived leathers in various qualities.
Wire drying lines were strung wall-to-wall behind Alicia’s head. The floor beneath her bare feet was poured concrete fitted in the center with a grate-covered drain. There were no windows. Adjoining the room, there was a private lavatory which supplied the running water. There was also a walk-in closet from which the doors had been removed and the interior remade with fitted shelving that displayed an impressive assortment of books in pristine and matching bindings. In the middle of the closet area was a wood-and-glass display case filled with two slim books bound in an ugly brownish-purple covering. Their installation inside the hermetic case was the only indication of their status above the shelved volumes.
Meyrink moved to a worktable without taking his eyes off Alicia. He picked up a pair of rubber gloves and made a production of stretching them over his hands.
“Everyone needs a release,” he said, contorting his fingers into latex. “A way of calming themselves. Of leaving the pressures of the job. Retreating from the jostling of the outside world in general. That’s my feeling, at least.”
He moved back to the girl and stood before her, examining her body as if it were a canvas filled with some difficult work of art, some new form that takes effort on the part of the viewer before it will give up its hidden meanings. He stepped back, moved his head from shoulder to shoulder, squinted his eyes. He walked a full circle around Alicia, slowly, stopping for a moment when completely behind her and making a number of snorting and sniffling noises.
When they came face-to-face again, he was nodding, smiling, pleased by something he seemed to have confirmed.
“Very good,” he said, probably to himself. “Just fine. Wonderful texture. No major blemishes. Tremendously supple.”
He lifted a hand to her cheek for the first time, brushed back to her ear, then adjusted her hair behind the ear.
“You are wonderful,” he said to her. “You’ve taken care of yourself. I can’t tell you how pleased that makes me. So many of the young people today, with the cigarettes, the sun worshiping. The alcohol while still in their teens. And then, these days, the body piercing. My God, not just the ears, mind you, but the nose. The tongue. I have even heard they desecrate the nipple.”
He walked back to a workbench, shaking his head as he went. He opened some of the cupboards and began to take down tools and place them on the table.
“I consider it a form of self-mutilation,” he said. “And I know all the arguments. The talk of expression and rebellion. But I think this is the nonsense of youth. I think we’re seeing the herd mentality. I will put a ring through my nose because Ottla down the block put a ring through her nose. So much nonsense.”
He stared up into a cupboard for a moment, apparently looking for something, then closed the cabinet door and walked back to face the girl.
“I would love to take the tape off. But I have neighbors, of course. And though the house is well insulated, I’m a man who does not enjoy taking chances.”
He ran a thumb across her covered lips.
“I know it can be difficult breathing this way. But concentrate and you will find a rhythm. It will begin to feel natural, I promise you.”
He took her face by the chin and turned it side to side, inspecting the neck. From here he began to run both his hands around the neck, poking mildly with the thumbs like a doctor checking swollen glands. He moved down her body, over the shoulders, down over the breasts, up under the arms, turning the arms back and forth as wrists rubbed against manacles, all of it very clinical and methodical, in much the same manner that the state nurses inspect the refugees at the border train stations.
“While I’m apologizing, I should also tell you how much I regret these gloves. A problem for both of us, in the tactile sense. So sterile and cold. But in this day and age, what can I say? It’s a matter of safety. Of hygiene. You must see that. An intelligent young lady like yourself. You can’t take the kind of risks that we would have disregarded in the past.”
He spent a good ten minutes inspecting her body, half of that time down on his knees and behind her. From time to time he pinched and poked, pulled skin out from its natural fall over the bones. He even ran a finger in and out between her toes. When he was finally done, he struggled back up to standing and gave her buttocks a playful slap before walking back to the work-bench and extracting two or three more implements from the cabinets.
“You look healthy as a horse,” he called from across the room, taking a grindstone down from a shelf and climbing onto a stool.
“I mean that, of course, as a compliment,” as he selected a midsize skiving knife and began to sharpen its blade against the stone. “Your color is exemplary. No sign of jaundice at all. You have to understand, we, on the outside — outside the Schiller, I mean — we’ve heard so much about the effects of a poor diet, the results of malnutrition and such. You begin to accept it as fact. But obviously, your environment did no lasting damage to your body.”
He stopped sharpening and turned his head to look at her, saying, “Nor your mind.”
He put the knife down gingerly and picked up the manuscript, slid off his stool and approached the girl once again.
“It’s a stunning achievement,” he said, holding the stack of paper up for her to see. “What you have done is simply amazing, my dear. You are a very talented artist. A writer of the first degree. This is my opinion and, certainly, I am not a trained critic. But as they say, I know what I like. I know what I am impressed with. Do you know the shock that would ripple through our city if others saw what you were capable of? A little guttersnipe from the Schiller, barely old enough for the violet passport? I’ll tell you this, they wouldn’t believe it. There’s a very prejudiced mind-set out there, darling. You must trust me on this. I have more experience. I have lived more years and traveled widely through the strata of Maisel society. The bulk of my people could not accept it. This kind of achievement from the vermin of the Schiller. Impossible. This is what they would say. I swear it. I have the proof here in my hands, but it would do no good.”