Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire (5 page)

Finally I was done. A gust sent yellow leaves blowing across the heap of wool and hair as I turned to retrieve my satchel. The greenflies followed me. I waved my hand impatiently and they darted off, to hover above the shallow pool that now spread beneath the beech tree. I had not consciously thought of water, but water is what came to me; perhaps the memory of the sea outside the window where I had painted Philip all those nights, perhaps just the memory of green water and blue sky and gray rock, an island long ago.

The small, still pool behind me wasn’t green but dark brown, with a few spare strokes of white and gray where it caught the sky, and a few yellow leaves. I got my bag and removed my pencils and watercolors and sketchpad, then folded Philip’s jacket and put it at the bottom of the satchel, along with the rest of his clothes. Then I filled my metal painting cup with water from the pool. I settled myself against a tree and began to paint.

It wasn’t like my other work. A broad wash of gold and brown, the pencil lines black beneath the brushstrokes, spattered crimson at the edge of the thick paper. The leaves floating on the surface of the pool moved slightly in the wind, which was hard for me to capture—I was just learning to use watercolors. Only once was I worried, when a couple walking a dog came through the trees up from the canal bank.

“Guten Tag,” the woman said, smiling. I nodded and smiled politely but kept my gaze fixed on my painting. I wasn’t worried about the man or the woman; they wouldn’t notice Philip. No one would. They walked toward the pool, pausing as their dog, a black dachshund, wriggled eagerly and sniffed at the water’s edge, then began nosing through the leaves.

“Strubbel!” the man scolded.

Without looking back at him, the dog waded into the pool and began lapping at the water. The man tugged at the leash and started walking on; the dog ran after him, shaking droplets from his muzzle.

I finished my painting. It wasn’t great—I was still figuring it out, the way water mingles with the pigments and flows across the page— but it was very good. There was a disquieting quality to the picture; you couldn’t quite tell if there was a face there beneath the water, a mouth, grasping hands; or if it was a trick of the light, the way the thin yellow leaves lay upon the surface. There were long shadows across the pool when at last I gathered my things and replaced them in my satchel, heavier now because of Philip’s clothes.

I disposed of these on my way back to the flat. I took a long, circuitous route on the U, getting off at one stop then another, leaving a shoe in the trash bin here, a sock there, dropping the flannel shirt into the Spree from the bridge at Oberbaumbrucke. The pockets of the tweed jacket were empty. At the Alexanderplatz I walked up to the five or six punks who still sat by the empty fountain and held up the jacket.

“Anyone want this?” I asked in English.

They ignored me, all save one boy, older than the rest, with blue-white skin and a shy indigo gaze.

“Bitte.” He leaned down to pat his skinny mongrel, then reached for the jacket. I gave it to him and walked away. Halfway across the plaza I looked back. He was ripping the sleeves off; as I watched he walked over to a trash bin and tossed them inside, then pulled the sleeveless jacket over his T-shirt. I turned and hurried home, the chill wind blowing leaves like brown smoke into the sky.

For the first few months I read newspapers and checked online to see if there was any news of Philip’s disappearance. There were a few brief articles, but his line of work had its perils, and it was assumed these had contributed to his fate. His children were grown. His wife would survive. No one knew about me, of course.

I painted him all winter long. Ice formed and cracked across his body; there was a constellation of bubbles around his mouth and open eyes. People began to recognize me where I set up my easel and stool in the Grunewald, but, respectful of my concentration, few interrupted me. When people did look at my work, they saw only an abstract painting, shapes that could be construed as trees or building cranes, perhaps, etched against the sky; a small pool where the reflection of clouds or shadows bore a fleeting, eerie similarity to a skeletal figure, leaves trapped within its arched ribs.

But nearly always I was alone. I’d crack the ice that skimmed the pool, dip my watercolor cup into the frigid water, then retreat a few feet away to paint. Sometimes I would slide my hand beneath the surface to feel a soft mass like a decomposing melon, then let my fingers slip down to measure the almost imperceptible pulse of a heart, cold and slippery as a carp. Then I would return to work.

As the winter wore on, it grew too cold for me to work outdoors. There was little snow or rain, but it was bitterly cold. The pool froze solid. Ice formed where my watercolor brush touched the heavy paper, and the ink grew sluggish in my Rapidograph pen.

So I stayed at home in the studio, where the orbweavers again hung beside the windows, and used the watercolor studies to begin work on other, larger, paintings—oils on canvas, urban landscapes where a small, frozen woodland pool hinted that a green heart still beat within the city. These paintings were extremely good. I took some digital photos of them and sent them to Anna, along with the name of two galleries in Schöneberg and one in Kreuzberg. Then I went to visit Arethusa in Sicily.

I had planned on staying only a few weeks, but the Mediterranean warmth, the smell of olive groves and sight of flying fish skimming across the blue sea, seduced me. I stayed in Sicily until early spring and then returned briefly to Ogygia, my true island. I could not recall the last time I had visited—a steamship brought me, I do remember that, and the trip then took many hours.

Now it was much faster, and the island itself noisier, dirtier, more crowded. I found myself homesick—not for any island, but for the flat in Schöneberg and the quiet place in the Grunewald where Philip was. I had thought that the time in Sicily might give me other distractions; that I might find myself wanting to paint the sea, the bone white sand and stones of Ogygia.

Instead I found that my heart’s needle turned toward Philip. I breathed in the salt air above the cliffs, but it was him I smelled, his breath, the scent of evergreen boughs beside shallow water, the leaves in his hair. I returned to Berlin.

I’d deliberately left my laptop behind and asked Anna not to call while I was gone. Now I found a number of messages from her. Two of the galleries were very interested in my paintings. Could I put together a portfolio for a possible show the following autumn?

I arranged for my most recent canvases to be framed. The sleeping nudes I had done of him back in Maine had arrived some months earlier; I chose the best of these and had them mounted as well. All of this took some time to arrange, and so it was mid-April before I finally took my satchel and my easel and returned to the pool in the Grunewald to paint again.

It was a soft, warm morning, the day fragrant with young grass pushing its way through the soil. The flower vendors had baskets of freesia and violets on the sidewalk. On the Landwehrcanal, gray cygnets struggled in the wake of the tourist boat as the adult swans darted after crusts of sandwiches tossed overboard. The captain of the boat waved to me from his cockpit. I waved back, then continued on to an S-Bahn station and the train that would bear me to the Grunewald.

There was no one in the forest when I arrived. High above me the sky stretched, the pale blue-green of a frog’s belly. Waxwings gave their low whistling cries and fluttered in the upper branches of the beeches, where tiny new leaves were just starting to unfurl. I stopped hurrying, the sun’s warmth tugging at my skin, the sunlight saying slow, slow. A winter storm had brought down one of the larches near the pool; I had to push my way through a scrim of fallen branches, yellow hawthorn shoots already covering the larch’s trunk. I could smell the sweet green scent of new growth; and then I saw it.

The pool was gone: there had been no snow to replenish it. Instead, a cloud of blossoms moved above the earth, gold and azure, crimson and magenta and shining coral. Anenomes, adonis, hyacinth, clematis: all the windflowers of my girlhood turned their yellow eyes toward me. I fell to my knees and buried my face in them so that they stained my cheeks with pollen, their narrow petals crushed beneath my fingertips.

I cried as though my heart would break as the wind stirred the blossoms and a few early greenflies crawled along their stems. I could see Philip there beneath them. His hair had grown, twining with the white roots of the anemones and pale beetle grubs. Beneath rose-veined lids his eyes twitched, and I could see each iris contract then swell like a seed. He was dreaming. He was beautiful.

I wiped my eyes. I picked up my satchel, careful not to step on the flowers, and got out my easel and brushes. I began to paint.

Anemones, adonis, hyacinth, clematis. I painted flowers, and a man sleeping, and the black scaffolding of a city rising from the ruins. I painted in white heat, day after day after day, then took the watercolors home and transferred what I had seen to canvases that took up an entire wall of my flat. I worked at home, through the spring and into the first weeks of summer, and now the early fall, thinking how any day I will have to return to the pool in the Grunewald, harvest what remains of the windflowers, and set him free.

But not yet.

Last week my show opened at the gallery in Akazienstrasse. Anna, as always, did her job in stellar fashion. The opening was wellattended by the press and wealthy buyers. The dark winterscapes were hung in the main room, along with the nudes I had painted for those seven years. I had thought the nudes would get more attention than they did—not that anyone would have recognized Philip. When I look at those drawings and paintings now, I see a naked man, and that’s what everyone else sees as well. Nothing is concealed, and these days there is nothing new in that.

But the other ones, the windflower paintings, the ones where only I know he is there—those are the paintings that people crowd around. I’m still not certain how I feel about exposing them to the world. I still feel a bit unsure of myself—the shift in subject matter, what feels to me like a tenuous, unsteady grasp of a medium that I will need to work much harder at if I’m to be as good as I want to be. I’m not certain if I know yet how good these paintings really are, and maybe I never will be sure. But the critics—the critics say they are revelatory.

He thought he could brave the flames of the cat goddess, but he was wrong, and finds himself consumed.

The most beautiful women in the world have a cat-like quality. They slink, they purr; claws sheathed in silken fur. In the privacy of their summer gardens, in the green depths of forests, I believe they shed themselves of their attire, even to their human flesh, and stretch their bodies to the sun and their secret deity. She, the Queen of Cats, is Pu-ryah, daughter of the Eye of the Sun; who both roars the vengeance of the solar fire and blesses the hearth of the home. Given that the goddess, and by association her children, has so many aspects, is it any wonder that men have ever been perplexed by the subtleties of females and felines? Yet even as we fear them, we adore them.

When I was young I had a wife, and she was a true daughter of Pu-ryah. It began in this way.

When my father died, I inherited the family seat on the edge of the city, its numerous staff, and a sizable fortune. The estate earned money for me, administered by the capable hands of its managers, and I was free to pursue whatever interests I desired. My mother, whom I barely remembered (for she died when I was very young), had bequeathed her beauty to me: I was not an ill-favored man. Yet despite these privileges, joy of the heart eluded me. I despaired of ever finding a mate. Thirty years old, and romance had always turned sour on me. I spent much of my time painting, and portraits of a dozen lost loves adorned the walls of my home; their cold eyes stared down at me with disdain, their lips forever smiling. It had come to the point where I scorned the goddess of love; she must have blighted me at birth.

It was not long past my thirtieth birthday and, following the celebrations, my latest beloved, Delphina Corcos, had sent her maid to me with a letter, which advised me she had taken herself off to a distant temple, where she vowed to serve the Blind Eunuch of Chastity for eternity. Her decision had been swayed by a dream of brutish masculinity, in which I figured in some way—I forget the details now.

The banners of my birthday fête still adorned my halls, and I tore them down myself, in full sight of the servants, ranting against the whims of all women, to whom the security of love seemed to mean little at all. The letter in all its brevity was lost amid the debris. I dare say some maid picked it up in order to laugh at my loss with her female colleagues.

Still hot with grief and rage, I locked myself in my private rooms and here sat contemplating my hurts, with the light of summer shuttered away at the windows. Women: demonesses all! I heard the feet of servants patter past my doors, their whispers. Later, my steward would be sent to me by the housekeeper, and then, after hearing his careful inquiries as to my state of mind, I might consider reappearing in the house for dinner. Until then, I intended to surrender myself entirely to the indulgence of bitterness.

In the gloom, my little cat, Simew, came daintily to my side, rubbing her sleek fur against my legs, offering a gentle purr of condolence. She was a beautiful creature, a gift from a paramour some three years previously. Her fur was golden, each hair tipped with black along her flanks and spine, while her belly was a deep, rich amber. She was sleek and neat, loved by all in the house for her fastidiousness and affectionate nature. Now, I lifted her onto my lap, and leaned down to press my cheek against her warm flank. “Ah, Simmi, my sweet angel,” I crooned. ”You are always faithful, offering love without condition. I would be lucky to find a mistress as accommodating as you.”

Simew gazed up at me, kneading my robes with her paws, blinking in the way that cats show us their affection. She could not speak, yet I felt her sympathy for me. I resolved then that my time with women was done. There was much to be thankful for: my health, my inheritance, and the love of a loyal cat. Though her life would be shorter than mine, her daughters and their children might he my companions until the day I died. Many men had less than this. Simew leaned against my chest, pressing her head into my hand, purring rapturously. It seemed she said to me, “My lord, what need have we of sharp-tongued interlopers? We have each of her.”

Cheered at once, I put Simew down carefully on the floor and went to throw my shutters wide, surprising a couple of servants who were stationed beyond the window, apparently in the act of gathering flowers. I smiled at them and cried, “Listen for my sorrow all you like. You’ll not hear it.”

Embarrassed, the two prostrated themselves, quaking. I picked up my cat and strode to the doors. “Come, Simew, why waste time on lamenting? I shall begin a new painting.” Together, we went to my studio.

I decided I would paint a likeness of Simew, in gratitude for the comfort she had given me. It would have pride of place in my gallery of women. I arranged the cat on a crimson cushion, and for a while she was content to sit there, one leg raised like a mast as she set about grooming her soft belly. Then, she became bored, jumped from her bed and began crying out her ennui. I had made only a few preliminary sketches, but could not be angry with her. While she explored the room, clambering from table to shelf, I ignored the sounds of falling pots and smashing vases, and concentrated on my new work. It would be Pu-ryah I would paint; a lissome, catheaded woman. Simew’s face would be the model.

Pu-ryah is a foreign goddess. She came to us from the east, a hot land of desert and endless skies. She is born of the fire and will warm us, if we observe her rituals correctly. I had no intention of being burned. My brush flew over the canvas and I became unaware of the passing of time. When the steward, Medoth, came to me, mentioning politely that my dinner awaited me, I ordered him to bring the meal to the studio. I could not stop work.

I ate with one hand, food dropping from my fork to the floor, where Simew composed herself neatly and sifted through the morsels with a precise tongue. Medoth lit all my lamps and the candles, and even murmured some congratulatory phrase as he appraised my work. He made Pu-ryah’s sign with two fingers, tapping either side of his mouth. “The Lady of the Hearth will be pleased by this work,” he said.

I turned to wipe my brush. “Medoth, I had not taken you for a worshipper of Pu-ryah.”

He smiled respectfully. “It comes from my mother’s side of the family.”

I laughed. “Of course. She is primarily a goddess of women, Medoth, but perhaps because she knows the ways of her daughters so intimately, she makes a sympathetic deity for those who suffer at their hands.”

Medoth cleared his throat. “Would you care for a glass of wine now, my lord?”

I worked until dawn, given energy by the fire of she whose portrait I made. Simew lay on some tangled rags by my feet, her tail gently resting across my toes. Sometimes, when I looked down at her, she would wake and roll on her back to display her dark golden belly, her front paws held sweetly beneath her chin. She seemed to me, in lamplight, more lovely than any woman I had known, more generous, more yielding. If I were a cat, I would lie beside her and lick her supple fur with my hooked tongue, or I would seize the back of her neck in my jaws and mount her with furious lust. This latter, inappropriate thought made me shyer. Perhaps I had drunk too much wine after my meal.

As the pale, magical light of dawn stole through the diaphanous drapes at the long windows, I appraised my work. Fine detail still needed to be added, but the picture was mostly complete. Pu-ryah sat upon a golden throne that was encrusted with lapis lazuli. She was haughty, yet serene, and her eyes held the wisdom of all the spheres, the gassy heart of the firmament itself. She gazed out at me, and I felt that I had not created her at all, but that the pigment had taken on a life of its own, and my own heart had imbued it with soul. I had depicted her with bared breasts, her voluptuous hips swathed in veils of turquoise silk. Her skin was delicately furred and brindled with faint coppery stripes. Her attenuated, highcheekboned face had a black muzzle, fading to tawny around the ruff, then white beneath the chin. Her eyes were topaz. Around her neck, I had painted a splendid collar of faience and gold, and rings adorned her slender fingers. Her claws were extended, lightly scraping the arms of the gilded chair. Behind her, dark drapery was drawn back to reveal a simmering summer night. I fancied I could hear the call of peacocks in the darkness beyond her scented temple, and the soft music she loved so much. Her taloned feet were laid upon flowers, thousands of flowers, and their exotic perfume invaded my studio, eclipsing the tart reeks of pigment and solvent. She was beautiful, monstrous, and compliant. If I closed my eyes, I could feel her strong arms around me, her claws upon my back. No woman of this earth could compare.

Weary but content, I went out into my garden to sample the new day. Dew had conjured scent from the shrubs and gauzed the thick foliage of the evergreens. Simew trotted before me along the curling pathways, pausing every so often to look back and make sure I was following. I felt at peace with myself, at the brink of some profound change in my life or my heart. Delphina Corcos seemed nothing more than a thin ghost; I could barely recall her face. Let her deny her womanhood and seek the stone embrace of the Eunuch. The day itself was full of sensuality, of nature’s urge to procreate. The woman was a fool to deny herself this.

Simew and I came to the water garden, where a low mist lingered over the linked pools. Simew crouched at the edge of the nearest pond, her whiskers kissing the surface of the water. I gazed at her with affection. “Oh, Simew, how cruel it is we are separated by an accident of species! If you were a woman, we might walk together now with arms linked. I might take you in my arms and kiss you.”

The fire of the goddess ran through my blood. As the sun, her father, lifted above the trees to sear away the mist, I spoke a silent prayer to Pu-ryah, declared myself her priest. Yet, in her way, she was a goddess of carnality, so how could I worship her alone, without a woman to help express my devotion?

I pressed my hands against my eyes, and for a while all the grief within my heart welled up to smother my new-found serenity. I had riches, yes, and a loyal feline friend, but I was essentially alone, devoid of a companion of the heart, with whom I might make love or talk about the mysteries of life.

Then I felt a soft touch upon my arm, of gentle fingers. Alarmed, I dropped my hands and uttered a cry of shock. I beheld a young woman, who backed away from me, her eyes wide. She crouched down before me, utterly naked, her skin the color of honey, her body hunched into a position of alertness.

“Who are you?” I demanded, while within me conflicting emotions made war. My male instincts were aroused by the surprise of finding a naked girl in my garden, but she was still an intruder. What was she doing there?

The girl held up her hands to me, and now her expression was pleading. She shook her head slowly from side to side. Her face was small and heart-shaped, utterly enchanting.

The girl’s face was puckered with anguish. She shrugged her shoulders in an ophidian motion, which seemed to indicate impatience, then touched her mouth with her fingers. I realized she could not speak.

I reached down and took her forearms in my hands, lifted her to her feet. She did not seem at all ashamed at her state of undress, and I could not help but admire the trim conformation of her body. “Are you lost?” I asked her.

She smiled then and shook her head. It was a fierce smile, quite without fear, and a strange tremor passed through me. She held my gaze without blinking, pushing her long amber hair back behind her ears. Then, she dismissed me from her attention and held out her arms before her, twisting them around as if to examine them for the first time. After this, she shrugged and began to walk away from me. Aghast, I called out and she paused and glanced over her shoulder, before resuming her walk back toward the house. I felt that she knew this place well, but how? I think perhaps it was at that moment I realized Simew was nowhere to be seen. A chill coursed through my flesh. No! I called her name, scanning the trees and bushes, but of course it was my lovely visitor who turned her head to answer the call.

Pu-ryah had heard my prayers and answered them. As I had dedicated myself to her, so she rewarded me. Simew had been transformed into a woman, the most lovely woman I had ever seen. I caught up with her by the cloister that flanked the back of the house, and here took hold of her arm.

“We must be discreet,” I said. “The servants must not see you undressed.”

She shrugged, as if to imply she would concur with my wishes, but didn’t really care whether someone saw her or not. I went into the house before her, and led the way back to my private chambers, checking round every corner beforehand to make sure the coast was clear. In my rooms, I turned the key in the lock, and leaned against the door to gaze upon this magical creature. She stood in the center of the room, looking around in curiosity. Now, the world must appear very different to her. Then she turned her attention upon herself, and began to stroke her body in long, slow movements. She raised her hand to her mouth and licked it. I was entranced by her, my cat woman.

“You can no longer wash yourself,” I said. “The human body is far less supple than a cat’s.”

She gave me a studied look, as to contest that remark. Her mouth dropped open and expelled a musical, feline cry. She was not mute, then. My flesh tingled.

She slunk toward me, her eyes half-closed. I heard her purring. When she was very close, she butted her head against my cheek, uttered a chirruping sound. I seized her in my arms. She wriggled away, still purring, and ran nimbly to my bedroom. I followed her and found her crouched on all fours, on the bed. She turned round in a circle a few times, before collapsing gracefully in a curving heap, peering up at me seductively through a veil of hair. The invitation was unmistakable. I approached her and she rolled onto her back, as was her custom. I reached down and stroked her belly, conjuring louder purrs. Her skin was softly furred by tiny, transparent hairs. I ran my hands up over her firm breasts and she arched her back in delight. Emboldened, I continued this tactile investigation, sliding my fingers down between her muscled thighs. All I found was welcome. Lust overtook me and I tore off my robes. Simew positioned herself on all fours once more, her glistening vulva displayed provocatively, her hands kneading the bedclothes before her. When I entered her, she screeched; her whole body became rigid. Never had coupling been so swift for me.