The Artist’s Muse. Kerry Postle

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      ‘Hello,’ I say again. Though it pains me, I smile still. ‘I could get you something to drink, if you’d like.’ I hold up the glass and mime my meaning. ‘Or find you a fresh handkerchief?’ I point to the one she holds crumpled in her hands. She frowns, sniffs, and raises her eyes heavenwards.

      ‘No.’

      Her accent is crisp and Austrian.

      I smile again. The sharpness unleashed by a word of one syllable is blunted by my blindness to see what is before me. I remain determined, entrenched in the erroneous belief that this truculent though unhappy woman could be my mother. Or me.

      I should have picked up the glass and fled.

      Instead I talk. To push out the silence. Decorate the cold, unwelcoming space with kind, warm words. If not for her then for me. I need to run away from what’s been done. Focus on the nice weather. The size of the glass. The prettiness of the flowers in the garden. About … Katze. Thank heavens for Katze. Katze pads into the studio stealthily and with purpose. I beckon her to me but she dismisses me now, too easy, and makes her way towards the prize. The real challenge that is the outwardly hostile woman. Grieving. Wronged. Abandoned. Forlorn. Neither Katze nor I know the reason for this woman’s unhappiness but where I have failed to console Katze intends to succeed.

      She arches her back on contact, rubbing her fur back and forth on the hemline of the woman’s skirt so that it pushes up to reveal the black leather of her lace-up boots. But the woman has no need to have them polished today. With a brazen kick of her foot, the woman nudges the surprised cat away. Defiant, Katze gives an angry miaow and jumps up on to the back of the woman’s chair. I quickly sweep her up in my arms before she jumps into the woman’s lap. I stroke Katze firmly into submission and today she lets me.

      Then I hear the door open, and a woman’s voice, crystal clear German cascading down and tinkling like a mountain stream in spring.

      ‘Oh, Emilie! What in heaven’s name are you doing in here? Gustav and I have been waiting for you in the living room.’ There is no mistaking the breeding as the voice turns into a body that walks towards the woman sitting in the chair.

      ‘Come, sister, whatever is the matter?’ With a tug on her hand, Emilie is led out of the studio. I still have no idea who she is. But, with a taunt from her sister about French lessons, I have it. Emilie. Emilie Flöge.

      As the sisters walk towards the door, Emilie throws me a withering look. ‘Know me now?’ it hisses. And just for a moment she lets her gaze drop to the hem of my skirt.

      I am left standing there, glass of water in hand, spots of blood on my skirt, hair dishevelled, eyes swollen. I sink to the floor. Emilie Flöge has seen me. I feel disgusting. Ashamed.

      I don’t know how long I lie there but it’s Katze who brings me to the surface. This cat has a greater instinct for compassion than the woman who’s just left. With the beating of her heart and warmth of her tongue this creature consoles me.

      Emilie Flöge. Now I have her name I can’t let it go. My anger towards her grows. I tell myself that it was nothing. She snubbed me; that’s all. I’m over-reacting because of … Well, I have good reason. You know that I do. I should blame Gustav. And I do. Oh how I do.

      But. Gustav. Since I came to Vienna I’ve long recognized how men treat girls in this city – there was never any secret about the danger he posed. No disappointment should come (though it does) when you get what you know has always been on the cards: he was always going to catch me. I knew. Yet the colour of knowledge, so recently cloudy and white, shrouded in a mist that I hoped would never lift, is now a burst bubble of red, pierced, its contents a trickle down the inside of my legs that turns to a red-brown stain on the edges of my dress that sweeps across the floor attracting dust, dirt. And the attention of Emilie Flöge. Emilie.

      Since I came to Vienna I’ve known only the kindness of women who’ve sought to protect me from the dangers of men. But Emilie Flöge. She saw, understood and said nothing. Treated me as nothing. When all I tried to be to her was kind.

      I go home that evening and let myself into the apartment as quietly as I can. I don’t want anyone to notice me, although soon everybody has. I thump and scrub my skirt – hard, furious. It’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re trying to kill something that won’t get out of your head. And no, I don’t want to talk about it. And yes, I feel ill. And no, I’m not hungry. I take myself off to bed. I’ve had enough of concerned looks and my fill of probing questions. I long for the oblivion of sleep. But tonight, even there, all I can do is remember.

      A wounded horse. An angry mob. A vixen. A cur. And a woman with a mirror pendant, her back to me: I call out her name. I know she hears but she does not answer. Her silence screams betrayal.

      When I wake up in the morning my mind is made up. I will wage war on Emilie Flöge. And all women like her.

Chapter 7

      Hilde said something strange to me a few weeks ago, the import of which I did not wholly grasp at the time. It must have been just before I discovered Consuela was pregnant. ‘You know, Wal,’ she sighed, ‘I pity the girl a man desires, because she’s never going to be the one that he goes on to marry. No. Society doesn’t like that at all.’ When she said it I took it as sour grapes at worst, feigned sincerity at best. But since I’ve joined the ranks of girls a man desires, Hilde’s words have replayed in my head, drumming their warning over and over again. ‘The girl a man desires …’ Hilde, Consuela. And now me.

      Though I’ve told no one and it’s been two weeks since it happened. You are the only one who knows. As for the military campaign I’d planned to wage on Emilie Flöge, this has not got off to the most brilliant of starts. Short of laughing when Hilde or Consuela make her the butt of a joke, my war hasn’t amounted to much, especially when you consider that the more knowledge I gather about her the less power I have to wield.

      Let me explain.

      What I’ve discovered so far is this: her sister Helene was married to Gustav’s brother Ernst – older I think – who died, leaving her a widow (she might have been the sister I saw). They say he looks after the whole family now: Emilie, his sister-in-law Helene, and another sister, Pauline. Hilde told me they were a millstone round his neck but, when I see them together, it doesn’t look that way to me. Doesn’t look as if Emilie Flöge is a drain on him financially, a burden on him emotionally – no, these truths are as certain as castles in the air on a windy day. These are not to be my trump cards in this battle.

      Though I have another battle to contend with on a still more personal front.

      Ever since that Thursday when he showed me I was ‘desirable’, I have turned up for work every day. It has not been easy. Forcing myself out of bed, I have pushed my body out into the street, dragged my feet over cobblestones, breathed deeply before entering the studio. I have done everything within my control to conceal the truth. Yet it is what’s outside my control that threatens to give me away. Oh my own treacherous body. Tangled and taut, it struggles to accept food, rejecting sustenance completely as the day and the time comes round again.

      Thursday afternoon: 3 o’clock. My insides tighten. The taste of bile surges up through my throat once again, fills my mouth. Oh no, don’t go thinking I’m pregnant. There could be no two women in more different states. While Consuela expands and blooms with new life, I dwindle and struggle to come to terms with the death of my old one.

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