The Woman on the Stairs Read online

  My curiosity was piqued. I went into a bookshop, and asked for everything they had on Karl Schwind. A few years before, the Frankfurt Art Association had organized an exhibition and published a slim catalogue – that was all they had. I know nothing about art and couldn’t judge if the paintings were good or bad. There were pictures of waves, of skies and clouds, of trees; the colours were beautiful, and everything was blurry, the way I see the world when I’m not wearing my glasses. Familiar, yet distanced. The catalogue listed the galleries that had exhibited Schwind and the awards he had won. He didn’t appear to be a failure as an artist, but he wasn’t established either – up-and-coming, perhaps. He gazed at me from the back cover of the catalogue, too big for the suit he wore, too big for the chair he sat on, too big for the back cover.

  Less than a week later, he was back in my office, again with the woman. He really was big, bigger than I had realized during his first visit. I am six foot two, slim, and have always been in good shape, and he was no taller than me, but so strong and angular that, next to him, I felt almost small.

  “He did it again.”

  I had an idea of what had happened, but I never put words in my clients’ mouths. “What did he do?”

  “Gundlach damaged the painting again. I worked for two days on the leg, and when I went to finish it on the third day, there was an acid stain on the left breast. The paint is streaked, swollen, blistered – I need to scrape it off, re-prime it, and repaint it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That it must have been me. He said he’d found a little bottle among my things, and that the liquid smelled just like the stain. He insists that the painting be restored, at my expense, but not by me. He’ll never trust me again.” He looked at me, distraught. “What should I do? I won’t let someone else near my painting.”

  “Are you ready to restore the new mark?” I was less and less sure what to make of the whole thing.

  “Mark? It’s not a mark. It’s the left breast!” He reached for the left breast of the woman sitting next to him.

  I was irritated, but she laughed – not embarrassed, not shy, but cheerful, her mouth a little crooked, a dimple in her cheek. She was blonde and I would have expected a light laugh. But her laugh was dark and smoky, and so was her voice. She said “Karl,” and she said it affectionately, as if to an overeager, clumsy child.

  “I offered to fix the painting again. I even offered to buy it back, even for double the price. But he wants none of it. He doesn’t want to see me again.”

  7

  This time I called Gundlach. He was friendly and contrite. “I don’t know how he could have let this happen. But it goes without saying that it’s as painful for him as it is for me, and that he wants to see the painting restored to its former beauty as much as I do. And no one can do that better than he. I neither accused him nor did I withdraw my trust. He’s particularly sensitive.” He laughed. “At least compared to people like you and me. Maybe for an artist, he’s normal.”

  Schwind was both relieved and despondent. “Hopefully, it will all go well.”

  For three weeks I heard nothing from him. For three weeks he painted a new left breast. When he came to apply the finishing touches, he found the picture overturned – it had fallen over in the night, struck the small iron table he had set his paint and brushes on, and had been torn.

  Gundlach called me. He was beside himself. “First the acid, now this – he may be a great artist, but he’s horrendously careless. I can’t force him to restore the picture yet again. But I have some influence, and I will make sure that he doesn’t get another commission until he restores the picture.”

  The threat was unnecessary. Schwind, who came into the agency that same day, was prepared to fix the picture, even if it would cost him another few weeks. But he was desperate. “What if he does it again?”

  “You mean…”

  “Oh, I know that it was him. You think a painter can’t lean a picture against a wall so that it stays? No, he knocked it over, and he made that tear with a knife. The table’s edge is too dull to make such a sharp cut in the canvas.” He laughed bitterly. “You know where the tear is? Here.” This time he ran his hand not over the woman, but over his own belly and crotch.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Out of hate. He hates the picture, because it’s of his wife, and he hates his wife because she left him. And he hates me.”

  “Why should he…”

  “He hates you because I left him for you.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t hate the picture. He doesn’t care about it in the slightest. He wants to get at you and he gets at you when he damages the painting.”

  “Instead of having it out with me, he destroys the picture? What kind of man is that?” Schwind couldn’t contain his outrage and contempt, and leapt to his feet. Then he sat back down, and let his shoulders droop.

  I tried to make sense of what I had heard. She had modelled for the painter and run off with him? Traded in the old man for the young one? Squeezed as much out of the old man in the divorce as she could squeeze?

  But she wasn’t my client, he was. “Forget about him and the picture. Legally he can’t touch you, and I wouldn’t take his threat to use his influence seriously. Write the picture off, however much it hurts. Or paint it again. I hope, to an artist, that’s not an offensive suggestion.”

  “It is not. But I can’t write off the picture. And maybe…” He sat there, quietly. His face changed, and all its despair, contempt and outrage fell away; it became childlike, and the big man with the big face and big hands looked at us trustingly. “You know, maybe the damage to the leg really was an accident. When Gundlach saw it, he didn’t like the damaged painting any more. Then he thought that the damage kept his memories at bay, and that his life was easier without those memories. That’s why he defaced the painting again. But when he sees it restored to its original beauty, he loves it again.”

  “I don’t get the impression that Gundlach’s a man who can be seduced by art.” I looked at her questioningly, but she said nothing – didn’t nod, didn’t shake her head, only looked lovingly at Schwind, as if bemused and enchanted by his childlike nature. I tried again. “You’re playing into his hands. He can deface the painting again and again. You will never be able to do your own work.”

  He looked at me sadly. “In the last six months I haven’t finished a single painting.”

  8

  He’d estimated it would take a month or two to restore the picture, and I was sure I would see him back in my office afterwards. But summer went by and he didn’t come. In October I had an important case, and thought no more about him.

  But one morning the firm’s manager announced the arrival of Irene Gundlach. She came wearing a jacket, blouse, and jeans, and at first I thought she was underdressed for the autumn day, but then I looked out the window. The morning clouds had passed, the sky was blue, and the sun had lit the leaves of the chestnut tree with a golden glow.

  She gave me her hand and sat down. “I’m coming on Karl’s behalf. He would thank you personally, but he’s in a phase of utter concentration. Gundlach was in the US for the last few months and left him alone. Karl didn’t just restore my picture, he also started a new one.” She laughed. “You wouldn’t recognize him. Now that the burden of my painting has been lifted from his shoulders, he’s a whole new man.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  She did not stand up, but crossed her legs instead. “Please send the bill to me, Karl doesn’t have money, he’d have to give it to me anyway.” She saw the question in my eyes, even before I had thought it. “It’s not Gundlach’s money. It’s mine.” She smiled. “How must our story seem to you? A rich old man has his young wife painted by a young artist, they fall in love and run away. It’s a cliché, isn’t it?” She smiled again. “We love clichés because there’s truth to them. Although…is Gundlach already an old man? Is Karl still a young painter?” She laughed, and again I was surprised by th
e dark laughter of the blonde woman with the pale skin and the bright gaze. She squinted as she laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a young woman.”

  I laughed with her. “Well what else?”

  She grew serious. “When you’re young, you have the feeling that everything can still turn out for the best – everything that’s gone wrong, everything you’ve missed out on, everything that you’ve broken. Once you lose that feeling, once things are beyond repair, you’re old. I no longer have that feeling.”

  “Then I was never young. My mother died when I was four – how could anything have made that right? My grandmother didn’t bring my mother back.”

  She trained her bright gaze on me. “You’ve never been in love, have you? Maybe you’ll have to get older to become young. To find everything in a woman, to find it all again: the mother you lost, the sisters you missed out on, the daughter you dream of.” She smiled. “We’re all those things when we are truly loved.” She stood up. “Will we see each other again? I hope not – don’t misunderstand me, please don’t. If we do see each other again, that will mean everything’s come apart. Do you ever wonder whether God envies our happiness, and has to destroy it?”

  9

  I wanted to dismiss her and her talk. Whether Gundlach’s or her own, she seemed to have enough money, and no need to work: an idler. But she wouldn’t be dismissed. She sat in my mind with her crossed legs, tight jeans, tight blouse, her bright gaze and dark laugh – relaxed, defiant, confusing. I was confused enough while we sat across from each other, and even more so the next day, when I went to Gundlach’s house and saw the painting.

  No, I thought, as Gundlach approached and greeted me. This is not an old man. He could have been forty; he was slender, had a full head of black hair and graying temples, and he moved and spoke with vigour. “Thank you for coming. Your client and I don’t get on well. I’m sure you and I will do better.”

  Had it been up to me, I wouldn’t have driven up to the Taunus to visit Gundlach. I would have insisted that he, who wanted something from me, come to me. But Gundlach had called the firm’s manager and the firm’s manager had promised a visit. “Refuse to visit Gundlach? You still have a lot to learn.” He told me about Gundlach’s business, fortune, and connections. So I drove there, was let in by the butler, and had to wait in the foyer like a supplicant.

  That Gundlach took me by the arm was another blow to my pride. He led me into the drawing room. To the right, a row of windows with a view over the plain; to the left, a wall of books; straight ahead, on a white wall, the picture. I stopped in my tracks, I had to, and Gundlach let go of my arm. You’ve never been in love…when we’re truly loved…the happiness God envies – all that she’d said the day before, she now promised as she walked down the staircase naked.

  “Yes,” Gundlach said. “A beautiful painting. But it’s as if it’s cursed. Leg, breast, crotch – it’s one thing after another.” He shook his head. “Is the damage over with? I wonder. What about you?”

  “I—”

  “What if it goes on? Should Schwind keep coming back, again and again? I don’t want him in the house any more, and he’d rather paint new pictures than restore old ones. But he has to, he has no choice. And I have to let him into the house to restore it, because the law demands it. Isn’t that how it is?”

  He looked at me, his eyes friendly but mocking. He had his lawyers, and knew that Schwind’s legal position was weak. But he also knew that I had to act as if it were strong. I could not betray my client. I could not tell Gundlach that he was playing a vile game. I nodded.

  “Schwind would like the picture back. He feels that, as long as the picture is at my place, it won’t come to rest – and nor will he. Wouldn’t you agree that everything has a place where it belongs? If it isn’t where it belongs, it won’t come to rest. Paintings don’t come to rest, and neither do people.”

  “If rest is a concern – not just for my client but for you as well – he’ll gladly buy the painting back.”

  “He said as much to me. But it isn’t just about the painting. You see how she descends the stairs? Collected, relaxed, peaceful? When she came to the bottom, her peace was done with. Because it’s a place she doesn’t belong.”

  “Your wife doesn’t give me the impression—”

  “Don’t interrupt me!” He needed a moment to recover from his agitation at my impertinence. “Impressions can be deceiving. Doesn’t the painting make a good impression, though it’s cursed? What matters is not the impression that my wife makes, but that she’s lost her peace. And that she finds it again.”

  I waited to see if he would continue. But he stood there and looked at the painting. “I don’t understand.”

  He turned to me. “Schwind comes tomorrow. I’m supposed to give the restored painting my approval, as it were. If something happens to the painting before tomorrow, if Schwind then comes to you, if he comes without my wife, if he asks you to prepare a strange contract – do it. Even if you find it unsettling, it’s the right thing. Don’t we live in strange times? And contracts can be important, even if they can’t be enforced in court.”

  I didn’t understand him, but didn’t want to say again that I didn’t understand him. He looked at me, laughed, took my arm again and led me back to the foyer. “Don’t take this personally, but lawyers tend to lack imagination. When I meet one who takes on challenges, I take note.”

  10

  On the drive home I knew I had fallen in love with Irene Gundlach.

  I knew it though I had no experience in love. I’d liked our mathematics teacher, a small woman with lively eyes, a clear voice, and short skirts. Once I secretly stuck a red rose in the clamp on her bicycle rack. Then there was a classmate I couldn’t take my eyes off. Wherever I was in town, I hoped I would run into her, would talk to her – something I dared not do in school – and she would happily respond. Sometimes, day after day, I could think of nothing but her, what she might be doing, what I could do to be noticed and liked by her, and how it would be to be together. But when a difficult test loomed, for which I had to thoroughly prepare, I decided I would think no more about her until after the test. After that I thought of her no more. At law school, there were hardly any women students, and I did not meet women from other departments. Between semesters, I earned money for my studies working in a spare parts warehouse where, besides the forklift operators, and the other students, only women worked. They cracked lewd jokes about us men, and made obscene advances that left me embarrassed, and helpless about how to react. One of the women, I liked, quieter than the others, young, with dark hair and soulful eyes, and on my last day I waited for her at the warehouse gate. When she came out, she went straight across the street towards a young man who was leaning against a tree.

  Maybe you get it, about women and love, if you have a mother and sisters. When my mother died, my father gave me to his parents, who might have liked to spoil me, the way grandparents like to spoil grandchildren, but didn’t feel like raising me. This duty, they had fulfilled with their own four children, and they found no joy in repeating the experience; with me, they got through it as efficiently and matter-of-factly as possible. Not that I lacked anything. I had piano and tennis lessons, went to dance classes, learned to drive. But that was as far as it went; beyond that, my grandparents let me know that they preferred to be left alone.

  Here is how I’d imagined falling in love: I’d get to know a woman, we’d like each other, meet up, like each other more and more, meet up again and again, grow ever closer, then finally fall in love. And that’s how it went, a couple of years later, with my wife. She started at the firm as an apprentice, she was dedicated and cheerful, and she accepted my invitations to meals, the opera, and museums, first once a week, then more frequently. We grew ever closer and married after she passed her second state exam. Once the children were older she went into local politics and became a city councilwoman. Just after her re-election, she had a car accident. It’s ten years since sh
e died, and to this day, I do not understand how, in early afternoon, she could have had a blood alcohol concentration of .16, and driven off a country road into a tree. Had she been an alcoholic? the police had asked. My wife, an alcoholic?

  The force with which my desire for Irene Gundlach overcame me – nothing had prepared me for it, and luckily, it never happened again. On the drive back to Frankfurt I had to stop and get out of the car because I was so dazed. So it existed – a happiness I wouldn’t have dreamed of, and all it took was this one woman, her closeness, her voice, her nakedness. She hadn’t taken the last step from the staircase of her old life into a new life – if only she would take it into mine, and if, every morning, she would step into my arms!

  11

  By Wednesday evening, the head of the detective agency hadn’t called, so I called him Thursday morning. I couldn’t reach anybody. Only after ten did I get a secretary, who connected me to his cell phone. I’d thought a good detective agency would be staffed round the clock, or at least from early morning.

  “I told you it could take a couple days.”

  “I have to go back to Germany today.”

  “I have your telephone number. Can you give me your email address? I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.”

  “And then I’m supposed to fly back here?”

  He laughed. “That’s up to you.”

  It was an easy laugh, and I pictured an older gentleman with a belly and bald head. Was I supposed to fly back – what a foolish question. I gave him my email address and hung up. Then I stood at the window and looked at the harbour, the Opera House with its billowing concrete sails, the blue bay with ships large and small and, at the end of the bay, the green strip of land, behind which lay the open sea. The sun was shining. I could skip breakfast, eat lunch early at the restaurant in the Botanic Garden, and then lie down in the grass again. I could buy a backpack at the leather and luggage place I had passed near the hotel, a book from the bookstore, a bottle of red from the wine shop, and read, and drink, and fall asleep, and wake up.