Lucca (30 page)

She pretended not to have seen him when he came into the bathroom, at first only a silhouette against the shining mosquito net. He stepped into the light from the lamp above the mirror and
embraced her from behind, laying his hands on her cool breasts. He gave a wry smile and met her eyes in the mirror. Beauty and the Beast, he said. She could feel his growing erection against her buttocks, through the linen trousers. She would have to go, she said. If she wanted to be on time . . . They had arranged for her to drive to Almeria and fetch their guest from the airport. He let go of her. She kissed his forehead and pulled the curls at his neck consolingly. Poor beast, she mumbled tenderly.

When she got into the car she realised she had no idea what he looked like, the man she was going to meet at the airport. She went back to the house. Harry looked at her ironically as she tore the lid from a cardboard box and wrote on it with a biro.
Andreas Bark
, she wrote. He nodded approvingly. Smart . . . She drove down the winding road from the village and out onto the main road. There was hardly any traffic. The landscape was grey and ochre-yellow in the sharp light. She put on her shades, stepped on the speedometer and turned up the volume on the radio.

S
he was on the stage in
The Father
. Half-way through the play she dried up. She could not remember a single line, and complete silence fell in the theatre, such silence that she couldn't even hear the prompter's whisper. The captain looked at her expectantly in the silence, and she felt her pulse beating softly behind her ear. The diva stood out in the wings gazing at her, dressed up as the white clown with a ruff, conical hat and white, painted face, smiling, with her head on one side. And suddenly a hole opened in her ear drum, that was how it felt when she heard Else's cultivated radio voice, reverberating like a loudspeaker at a railway station:
Take care with your consonants!

The dream left a hollow, crushed feeling in her stomach, but she could not eat anything and managed only to swallow a cup of coffee when she went down to the kitchen. She sat looking out at the neglected garden. It had rained in the night and the sky hung heavy over the stripped tree crowns. The gale tore at their outermost branches and moved the greasy leaves around on the grass. There were two hours left before she had to be at the theatre. She decided to go at once. She did not know what else to do with herself.

The set design had been finished some days previously and she wanted to see what it looked like from the auditorium. She found her way through the labyrinth of corridors and emerged in the dimly lit theatre with its empty seats. There was light on the stage. Harry Wiener sat on a Victorian sofa covered with black chintz, he was dressed in black himself. The set design had the effect of being both realistic and dreamily strange. It was very simple, designed in black and grey except for a single armchair covered with red velvet. He sat deep in thought with one arm resting on the back of the sofa and his hand under his
chin, looking down at the shabby stage floor. He had not seen her. She stood there gazing at him from a distance.

Again she remembered the sympathy she had felt between them when she was in his apartment, with rain foaming on the balcony and lightning brightening the sky above the harbour. The warmth of his manner when he spoke to her, and the frailty he exhibited when he greeted her, slightly dazed because he had fallen asleep on the sofa. It had made her forget her nervousness over meeting him. She had forgotten everything else as she sat there high above the city surrounded by his books, captured by the calm gaze resting on her as she told him about herself and listened to what he said about Strindberg in his subdued, hoarse voice. He had opened up to her, not only when he briefly explained that his wife was dying, but also when he talked of the captain in the play. Of man's unhappy love for woman and of how life belonged to women because they had the ability to pass it on. Of the deserted boy-child, who grew up to fear women and mistrust them because in his heart he cursed the mother who had once rejected him. Afterwards she had realised he hadn't spoken only of Strindberg and his captain, but of himself.

She had expected him to make some little sign to show her he remembered how they had sat and talked, but he kept her at a distance, as he did with all the others, kind, expectant and deeply concentrated on the work. With each week that passed she felt more defenceless, exposed to his eyes that apparently apprehended everything that stirred within her. He seemed to know her, but she herself knew so infinitesimally little about him. She felt in contact with him only when he occasionally came up to her and cautiously laid a hand on her shoulder as he put a question which took her unawares, anticipating what she felt without being able to express it clearly. But she was not the person he spoke to, it was the cavalry officer's daughter he had slowly drawn out in her from some forgotten, shadowy corner of her personality.

Perhaps he had invited her for tea to study her at close quarters before he set out to make use of her for his own purposes. Why would Harry Wiener be interested in her as more than a tool
for his art? That must have been what he meant when he said she was both talented and attractive, and that one could not be separated from the other. He had been attracted to her as a sculptor might feel towards a lump of clay. He had asked to kiss her simply because he wanted to see what she looked like when being kissed.

He rose from the sofa, pushed it a little so it stood more at an angle, and sat down again. As he leaned back he caught sight of her. He smiled and waved her forward. Sit down, he said and patted the sofa cushion as she walked across the stage. He looked at her attentively. Was she nervous about the première? She said she was. That's how it should be, he smiled and looked down at his hand, carefully stroking the smooth chintz of the sofa. You're good, he said, that's why you're nervous. It was the first time he had praised her directly. He looked at her again. Still living with her mother? Lucca was amazed. She could not remember telling him where she lived. It had become quite difficult to find an apartment, had it? He had bought a freehold apartment for his daughter in Vanløse. Of course it was a dreary place, but she could afford the regular expenses there. He smiled kindly. What about her? Couldn't her mother help her with a payment? It was about the only way to get somewhere to live. Buying . . .

He stood up, the audience was over. She followed him into the wings, wondering what all that talk about owning property was for. Did he think the town was full of millionaires? Or had he asked about her accommodation situation because he wanted to be kind or had no idea what else to talk to her about, now she had burst in on him as he sat meditating before the rehearsal? He walked with head bent so she only saw the famous grey curls at his neck. Suddenly he staggered and stretched out a hand as if to find something to support him. She took his hand, just as he seemed about to sink to his knees. He put his arm round her shoulder and hid his face with the other hand. Everything went black, he said and removed the hand. He looked at her and smiled faintly, pale as paper. He wasn't getting enough sleep at present . . .

She stood there, still with his arm resting on her shoulder,
looking into his eyes and without thinking she laid a hand over his and stroked it lightly. She recognised his gaze, it was the same as in his car that evening a few months before, the same vulnerability, but also something wondering and sad, as if he was not merely looking at her but also observing himself from outside. He let go of her shoulder and sat down on a box under the cables and control panels on the wall. Just go ahead, he said, closing his eyes. I'll sit here for a bit . . .

During the curtain calls after the première, as she stood among the other actors, each with their bouquet wrapped in cellophane, he finally allowed himself to be persuaded by the deafening applause to come up on the stage. He kissed all of them, even the male actors, on the cheek and when it was her turn he took her hand and walked forward on the proscenium with her in front of the others. The diva and the captain also started to clap, as well as they could with their huge bouquets, and soon all her fellow actors were clapping. Harry Wiener bowed one single time to the audience, still with her hand in his. She curtsied as she had seen the diva do, one foot behind the other, and when she straightened up the thunderous sound from the auditorium seemed stilled as he bent his face to hers. Thank you, he whispered and pressed her hand. When the curtain fell for the last time he had gone. The captain had been informed, the others crowded around him. Things were going badly with Wiener's wife, her condition was critical. Lucca stayed at the party only as long as she felt necessary.

It had been a huge success, but there was nothing very strange about that. The Gypsy King was condemned to eternal success, as Otto had once said with a sarcastic twist. The special thing about it for Lucca was that overnight she was transformed from a promising fringe talent into one of her generation's most shining dramatic lights, a new star in the theatrical sky, a brilliant cornucopia of emotional intensity, according to one critic. The newspapers were still fragrant with printer's ink the following night when she leaned against her bicycle in the town hall square and feverishly leafed through the culture sections, greedy for more. She was almost run down by a bus on the
way home. She woke Else. They sat in the kitchen reading the reviews aloud to each other. Her mother put her glasses down on the pile of papers and said: There, you see! There is more to life than love! Lucca did not know how to reply.

December passed, and the days were almost uniform. Even the weather was the same, murky, wet and raw. She slept all morning and spent the afternoons watching television before she set off for the theatre. The garlands of light and Christmas hearts seemed alien and irrelevant. Miriam went to visit her parents in Jutland with her jazz boyfriend, and Else flew down to a Greek island. Lucca said no thank you, slightly brusque, when Else invited her to go too. What would she do there? Be with me, her mother replied, pained. But they were together all the time! Else looked at her sorrowfully. Were they? Lately she seemed only to be together with herself. It was almost impossible to get a single word out of her daughter. She would have to watch out or her work would take up her whole life.

Lucca smiled ironically but she could see Else did not understand why. She was about to say something about all the evenings she had spent alone as a child with some nanny or other, because her mother was broadcasting or out with a friend, but she held her tongue. Fortunately, she thought afterwards, glad that she hadn't allowed herself to be drawn into a quarrel she wasn't even anxious to win. Else threatened to call off her trip, but in the end she did fly down to the white houses and the blue, blue water, as she used to say, apparently doubting whether the word would be blue enough on its own.

Lucca felt confused when she thought about Harry Wiener. She thought of him with a mixture of gratitude and suppressed anger. She had become a success only because of his genius, she knew that, but all the same he had been the one to whisper his thanks during the curtain calls after the première, when he took her hand and presented her to the audience, his discovery. Thank you and goodbye, he should rather have whispered, for the next moment he had gone. He had got what he wanted from her. With his gaze and his voice he had surrounded her with a chrysalis of
attention, he had almost hypnotised her and then woken her with a snap of the fingers. Now she could flutter around up in the light. When she was on the stage she became one with her role, everything in her was pervaded with its movements, moods and colour changes, but when she went home she was no more than a listless body that collapsed in front of the television empty of all thought.

The diva had seen what was happening to her. One evening after the performance when they sat together in the dressing room, she suddenly laid a hand on Lucca's arm. She really
mustn't
look so sad, she was the best ever! Lucca turned to her. Was she? Now,
stop
that, said the diva, starting to spread cleansing cream over her face with deft movements. Wiener had been absolutely ecstatic over her. She just must not take it personally. She must understand that she was here to be used. Indeed, he had used her,
squeezed
everything out of her, and she should be glad of that. Glad and proud. The diva leaned back her head as she put cream on her chin and neck. But she knew it well. One day you had all his attention, and you wallowed in it, you gobbled it up, and the next day you stood there and had to cope on your own. That was how it was! She smiled optimistically and put her head to one side, her face all white with cream, and suddenly she looked like the white clown in Lucca's dream.

Lucca smiled bitterly, thinking of the morning when she had met him before the rehearsal and seized his hand when he felt faint. As they faced each other in the wings there had been a moment when she believed he did look at her differently, and when he had whispered his little thank-you in her ear during the curtain calls, she had referred that to more than her performance. But what else should he have thanked her for? It was her place to thank him! How stupid she was! She felt ashamed when she thought how she had put her hand on his and stroked it as he leaned on her for support.

One morning a few days after the première Else knocked at her door. There was a telephone call for her. She said she was asleep. It was a journalist, said Else, something about an interview. On the way downstairs Lucca felt annoyed that Else had answered
the phone. It must seem absurd for her to be living with her mother at the age of twenty-seven. The journalist wanted to come the next day, bringing a photographer. Her voice was irritatingly maternal. They arranged a time when Lucca was sure Else would not be in. She went through her wardrobe but couldn't decide what to wear. The search ended with an old T-shirt stolen from Otto. He would recognise it, she thought, since she was being photographed.

The journalist was a hefty lady of Else's age wearing a heavy amber necklace. She wanted to know what it had been like to be directed by Harry Wiener, and while Lucca was telling her, she had the feeling that it was really Harry who was being interviewed, through her. Harry Wiener was famous for never giving interviews. She was just as excited about the interview as she had been about the reviews of the performance, but everything was wrong, she felt, when she saw the picture of herself, which took up half a page, with her hands stuck out in the air like a jumping jack because she was explaining something. The printed words were not hers, but the journalist's. She could hear the wheedling, motherly tone as she read, and how the amber necklace rattled between the lines. Everything she had said was stuck together with sugary adjectives. It almost sounded as if she was head over heels in love with the great Harry Wiener, and the description of her was even worse. The boyish, gazelle-like Lucca Montale, who opened the door in her washed-out aubergine-coloured T-shirt, casual and enchanting with her mercurial gaze, her honey glow and the sparkling black hair which revealed her Italian background . . . she hurled the newspaper into the waste bin.