Sylvia Petter
Shades of
Schiele
© 1997 by Sylvia Petter and gangan books australia
Samantha went to the Kärtner
Café every afternoon of the next week. It hadn't rained for
days. On Friday, she sat in her usual place, opened her notebook
and stared at passers by. When the waitress brought her coffee,
she had only written the date. Her words had dried up as if her
eyes had sapped their energy searching for Fritz.
It was getting dark as she left the cafe for her hotel room. As
usual, she shunned the red trams on the Ringstrasse to walk by the
Gartenbau Kino. It was the only one playing English films - with
German subtitles. She glanced at the posters for "Easy Rider",
thought for a minute of going in, but kept on walking. She didn't
want to sit alone in the dark seats. 'Maybe I'll bump into him,'
she thought. She rounded the Parliament with its Greek columns and
statues pointing down at her with their gilt and gold-leaf
fingers, and strode past the Natural History Museum in Renaissance
style on to the Gothic Rathaus. Samantha realised that in fifteen
minutes she had passed through three ages of architecture. When
she got to the Town Hall, she crossed narrow streets until she
arrived at the door of Pension Czernik.
The wooden hall floor smelled of wax scoured with ammonia. She
entered the Beethoven room. It was musty and she opened the double
single-paned windows between which she kept some fruit and mineral
water. It was cold as an icebox on the ledge between the outer and
inner windows. She kicked off her shoes and flopped onto the
eiderdowned bed.
'On Monday I'm looking for a job,' she said to Beethoven's bust on
the dresser. 'I've wasted a whole week underground in the city of
music and waltz. What a bloody waste.' She crashed her foot
through the air trying to stamp it horizontally.
'You're right,' she said to Beethoven. 'I am hungry.' She washed
her hands, rinsed her face and patted it dry, then grimaced at
herself in the mirror above the white enamel wash basin in the
corner of the room.
'They could have put a loo and a shower in,' she said as she
turned on the two squares of tiles backing the basin.
Before pulling the door shut, Samantha winked a good-bye to
Beethoven. She took the staircase, ignoring the wrought-iron lift
and slipped through the smaller door inlaid in the massive house
portal.
Half a block down the road, yellow lamps glowed through the
glassblown windows of the Hirtenwirt. The Gasthaus door held a
menu in German and English. 'Wiener Schnitzel, that's what I'll
have.' Samantha pushed aside the heavy winter curtain still
hanging over the door to keep off the evening drafts. She saw an
empty table for two at the far end of the room and made her way to
the seat which would put her back against the wall. The wood
panelling with its ledges of country patterned plates just above
her head felt comforting.
'Sie wünschen, Fräulein?' the waiter said. 'Wiener
Schnitzel und Wein, bitte.'
'Weiss?'
'Yes, white.' She didn't touch the sliced black bread in the
basket on the table. Every slice added a Schilling to her bill.
And the bread would spoil her appetite. Apart from breakfast, she
realised that she had only had coffee the whole day. 'I'll have to
stop that coffee ...'
The waiter brought her breaded veal and Samantha squeezed lemon
over it, flicking the decorative anchovy roll aside with her
knife.
'Try it with a mixed salad, Samantha.'
She jerked her head up and her eyes met Fritz's. 'I'm sorry if I
startled you. I looked for you this afternoon.'
'Hallo Fritz.' Samantha concentrated on cutting the meat.
He eased his long body into the rustic wooden chair opposite her.
His hair stood even more on end as if electrified. His eyes
widened as if to draw her gaze to his.
'I've been caught up in a number of things - with the agency. I
think I told you I dealt in art photos, aesthetics, that sort of
thing ...'
'No, you didn't.' Samantha looked up. 'How did you know I was
here?'
Fritz stared at her, holding her gaze. 'You don't like riding
trams, do you?'
A tiny shiver ran through Samantha's mind. 'I followed you,' Fritz
said, a quiet smile cruising his lips.
She felt she could not escape. She felt she did not want to.
'And Now that I've found you .... would you be free on Sunday? I'd
like to take you to an exhibition.'
Silently she sipped her wine and steadied her gaze, crossing her
legs under the table. 'Of your photos? I mean, the ones of the ...
agency?'
'No. Schiele. Egon Schiele.'
'A photographer?'
'No, Samantha. An Austrian painter. He died in 1918.'
'I've never heard of him. So he's not modern?' 'He is, in a way.
Shocking even - then and now.' Fritz smiled. 'So, will you
come?'
Samantha cocked her head to one side and let her gaze slip over
Fritz's face. 'Shocking? In which way?'
'You'll see. I'll pick you up at 11, we can have a bite to eat and
then go to the Belvedere.'
'The Belvedere?' The palace converted to an art gallery? Samantha
thought. 'Yes, I'll come. But you don't know where I live,' she
teased.
'So are you going to tell me?'
Samantha hesitated. 'Pension Czernik, ' she then said.
'Josefstädter Strasse. You can ask for me in the reception.
I'm in the Beethoven room.'
Fritz rose and gave her a look that could have held a wink, but
his eyelid did not move. 'Sunday it is then. Enjoy the mixed
salad.'
'But I ....' Samantha stared agape as Fritz left the restaurant,
turning once more to wave before he passed through the heavy
curtain. What had she got herself in to this time? she thought.
Sunday. Fritz. Egon Schiele. Well, she still had Saturday to do
some research.
He had followed her. More than once. She had sensed him near. She
had even willed it. Why did she feel drawn to him? She, too, had
been born in Vienna. Suddenly her mother's words flashed across
her mind. 'Never trust your own countryman abroad.' Was Fritz a
countryman? Was this abroad? Could she trust more than the
patchwork of her life's origins allowed? Where was that instinct
from the bush, the one that had always got her out of trouble?
Samantha finished her Schnitzel and called the waiter for the
bill. 'Bezahlen bitte, Herr Ober.' Why do research? she thought.
I'll just wait and see what happens. Why did I leave home anyway?
'Home' was becoming a word she was finding harder and harder to
define.
Lunch had been a simple affair in the same underground cafe they
had met. Samantha and Fritz alighted from the red tram at the
Südbahnhof and crossed the broad Wiedner Gürtel to the
top entrance of the Belvedere Palace.
The pebbles caught in Samantha's sling backs. She kept bending to
flick them out. The broad grey avenue leading up to the stairs of
the palace was flanked by lime trees, punctuated by wooden benches
and columns standing like exclamation marks. She waded through the
small stones, some smooth some sharp. Fritz adjusted his gait to
hers, smiling quietly at her discomfort.
The posters for the exhibition had been plastered on the columns
the length of the avenue to the entrance. Always the same sketch -
self-portrait of the artist with his mouth open.
'That one was done with black crayon in 1910,' Fritz said.
'His hair's almost like yours,' Samantha said. But I'm glad you
have more clothes on, she thought as she felt a tinge of heat at
the base of her throat. The drawing stopped just below a hand over
the artist's stomach. But it was obvious he had modelled in the
nude.
They went up the broad marble staircase to the first floor. Fritz
paid two entry tickets and with a sweep of his arm ushered
Samantha to the left.
'The exhibition starts here - his early works.' The shiny wooden
floors caught the click and clatter of shoes, Not many people.
three-metre high ceilings. Pictures spread out. The early works
were portraits - men in their stiff white stand up collars, women
with hats and lace choking their throats. Then followed interiors,
landscapes. Just like any old painting, Samantha thought.
'Schiele studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna,' Fritz
said. 'It was hard to get in. Someone now famous tried a few
months before him, but didn't make it. Guess who?'
'I don't know. Who?'
'Adolf Hitler.'
A waft of a smile touched Fritz's lips as he steered Samantha into
the next room. The style had changed. There were still portraits
and interiors and outdoor scenes - mostly of houses. But the style
had become more angular and the women's clothes were highlighted
by rings of gold and red.
'Egon's teacher at the academy said the devil had sent him,' Fritz
said.
'Doesn't look too devilish to me,' Samantha smiled. She wondered
why Fritz used Schiele's first name. No one called Picasso
Pablo.
'Wait. Here you see Gustav Klimt's influence - you know that
famous picture, don't you? The Kiss?'
Samantha had seen prints of the opulent gold and colourful spirals
enfolding the lovers in a cloak. It was flaunted on calendars and
postcards in the tourist shops. She nodded. 'Did Klimt say that to
him about the devil?'
'No, Klimt wasn't his teacher. In fact he told Schiele that he was
the better one.'
'Klimt does have more gold - I don't understand,' Samantha
said.
'You will.'
As they moved into the next room, the style had changed yet again.
'Egon and his model, Wally, had moved to Krumau in Bohemia when he
did these,' Fritz said.
A water-colour and crayon picture of a little girl sleeping on her
stomach was the first thing Samantha saw. The blues, greens, reds
and whites of her checked blouse and striped skirt contrasted with
the black coverlet on the bed and with the flesh of her naked
buttocks and legs. Another showed two teenage girls locked in each
other's arms, the black of their garb offsetting the white of
their faces and the flesh above their stocking tops.
'They banished him from Krumau ... for 'public immorality'.'
'No wonder,' Samantha said. 'What's next?' 'Ah, these ones are
special. You know, many people didn't understand poor Egon. He
shocked them, of course, but he lived for his art. These are all
of Wally, his ... lover.'
Samantha felt a sudden prickling inside her. Warmth crept to her
face. The pictures had become fine angular line drawings on a
gouache background. Embracing women, almost nudes but for red or
black stockings, or a hitched up bodice. Most half clothed. An
orange mouth to match taut orange nipples worn above blatant pubic
hair. Two crayon drawings of reclining nudes with fingers darting
into nether parts. One nude wore boots.
Samantha turned to Fritz, her cheeks hot. 'Is that all?' She tried
to keep her voice steady as if it was something she did every day,
look at Egon Schiele's works.
'I hope you're not shocked, Samantha,' Fritz said, his thumb
gently rubbing her nape.
'No,' Samantha said and shook his hand off as subtly as she could.
Fritz dropped his arm. 'How about some
fresh air? A coffee on the terrace perhaps?'
'That would be nice.' Samantha felt the warmth in her cheeks
fading as they traced their paces back to the entrance. She had
seen nudes before, had been to galleries, but Schiele troubled
her. Or did he touch something in her?
They sat at a small round wrought iron table on the small terrace
overlooking the Schwarzenberg Platz, the spires of St Stephen's in
the distance. The Viennese coffee steamed through the lashings of
cream and the sprinkle of chocolate dust.
'He was grossly misunderstood, you know,' Fritz said. 'One of the
greatest artists of our time.'
'He's awfully ... erotic,' Samantha said. 'And tortured.'
'You've understood, Samantha. He was tortured ... by his art. He
left Wally soon after the incident in Krumau, married and lived
happily ever after until ..'
'Until?'
'He died in 1918, three days after his wife, Edith. Spanish flu.
An epidemic. He was twenty-eight.'
'How old are you, Fritz?' Samantha heard herself saying, Fritz's
features washing in with those of Schiele she had seen on the
photos at the entrance.
'Twenty-eight.' Fritz's laugh was shot with surprise.
That night, Samantha had a dream. In the morning she could only
remember snippets: a man with Jake's eyes, with Egon Schiele's
hair, with Fritz's voice. Following her in a maze not unlike the
gardens in which the aristocracy of bygone days played hide and
seek. Then she was alone, huddled in a dark forest glade,
feverishly gnawing at some raw meat.
It was Monday and the nozzle of her hot morning shower in the
communal bathroom washed the last remnants of the dream
away.
Extract from TILLANDSIA
E-mail 100103.3141@compuserve.com