Work Text:
Despite the grey and drear days that can come, it seems, from nowhere, London can be hot as spring heads for summer. It is worse, I think, when the sun is not shining, when one’s clothing sticks clammily to the flesh and nothing is comfortable. It is on such a day that Schuldig comes to the rooms where I paint, the first time he has agreed to sit for me for more than a few simple sketches. He pokes around in my paints, thumbs through my sketchbooks, snorting in mockery as he sees himself drawn over and over from memory.
“Missed me, did you? No one else wanted to come near you?”
“You have an interesting face,” I say with dignity, picking up a new book and beginning to make quick brief sketches to warm up. I am certainly not going to tell him I wanted no other model.
He looks at me sidelong as if listening to the things I have not said, then sets the books down and flings himself onto the small couch. He crosses his legs lazily and regards me with amusement.
“Silvia said she liked your pictures.”
“Hers were very interesting,” I say truthfully. “Her technique is good.” I ignore the beginnings of a smirk on his lips. “I must admit I have little experience,” – he laughs – “with her medium, but I can certainly recognize her talent with it.”
“Do I hear that sentence finish with for a girl?” he says archly.
“No,” I say, managing to sound surprised. “Why would I think that?”
“My mistake,” he says, “it must have been for a foreigner.” He thickens his accent so falsely that for a moment he sounds like a music hall German. It sounds nothing at all like I remember his voice, snarling imprecations I couldn’t understand, but even so I see the rough sketch I have half finished rearrange itself to show him dressed in field grey, a rifle in his hands. When I look up at him again he is frowning a little, and I wonder if much time has passed.
“Please take off your jacket,” I say, and sit opposite him. I settle to work, happy to erase the mistakes of memory now that he is truly before me. When he rolls up his shirtsleeves I spend long minutes capturing the details of the musculature of his forearms. His skin still retains a faint colouration from the summer before, unlike the winter white of my own limbs, although the hairs on his arms are not yet bleached golden by this year’s sun.
“It’s damned airless in here,” he says. “Open the window or I strip – which takes your fancy?”
“I think I’m ready for some full body studies now,” I say. He laughs coarsely and all but tears himself from his clothes. “As good as you remember?” he says, making a showman’s gesture.
He has excellent bone structure. It is a pleasure to draw him, to ask him to move into different positions, to note the fluid curve of his wrist, the wry twist of his smile. He holds the positions with careless ease, and I think of him standing naked before Silvia Lin, learning from her the pleasures of being a good life model.
“I need to make some colour notes.”
I open my watercolours and fill in areas, thinking of how I made his hair gleam in the oils. When I’m done I clean the brushes carefully until I realize the silence in the room has taken on a different nature. I turn to find him sitting on the couch, eyes shut, head resting in his hands.
“Don’t open the white spirits,” he says, his voice tight. “My head’s about to fucking split, I can’t take the smell.”
I belatedly note how airless the room is, how my own head is starting to throb.
“No,” I say. “I only used watercolours – is it warm enough to open the window, do you think?”
“Just open it,” he says, and falls silent. I force the window up and let fresh air in to the room, hoping it will not chill him. I look at the line of his neck and spine, and regret putting down my pencils. It wouldn’t be appropriate, I think. He’s not modeling now, he’s unwell.
“Can I get you something?”
He makes a noise that isn’t a word but that clearly means no. It’s odd to look at someone like this, I realize, so close and unprotected by an artist’s tools. His back and shoulders are those of a boy still reaching for manhood, his skin is unmarked and flawless. If this were five years ago he would be given a gun and sent to the front. I have barely the warning that I will do it before I reach out and put my hand on the back of his neck, feeling the warmth of his flesh.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I said ridiculous things to you before. You were rightly angry.”
He looks up, his eyes seeming tired, his face not as alert as usual. He reaches back and puts his hand over mine, holding mine in place until I slide it away from his neck.
“Do you want to paint me again?” he asks.
Yes, I think. “Yes,” I say.
He smiles and breathes deeply as a fresh breeze comes through the open window.
“All right, then,” he says. “I’m all right.”