The artist is very short. Sometimes Marie wonders whether she’s still in her right mind: the artist is much too short. She says to herself, You’ve lost your marbles, maybe because autumn is coming, or because the old restlessness is returning. The chill in her back, the rain?
The artist is really very short. At least three heads shorter than Marie. He is famous. Everybody knows him, at least everyone in Berlin does. He creates art with a computer and has written two books, and sometimes he talks on late-night radio shows. On top of that the artist is ugly. He has a very small proletarian head and is very dark: some people say he has Spanish blood. His mouth is incredibly small. Non-existent. His eyes, though, are beautiful, quite black and large; usually when he speaks he holds his hand in front of his face in such a way that you can see only those eyes. The artist’s clothes are awful. He wears torn jeans – a child’s size, Marie guesses – and always a green jacket, always sneakers. A black leather band is knotted around his left wrist. Some people say that regardless of all this the artist is incredibly intelligent.
Marie wants something from the artist. What it is she doesn’t know. Perhaps the glamour of his fame. Perhaps to look even more beautiful beside an ugly person. Perhaps to penetrate and destroy his seeming impassiveness. Marie asks herself in all seriousness, whether she is still okay. Don’t they look rather ridiculous together? Marie had always wanted to be only with beautiful people. It’s weird to have to look down at a man. It’s weird to imagine what it would be like if … Still, that’s what Marie wants.
They kiss on the very first evening. Or rather, Marie kisses the artist. Suddenly he’s standing in front of her, at this party, among all the Berlin celebrities, and Marie can’t decide on which of the celebrities to cast her long, long gaze first. The artist offers himself. Suddenly he is standing in front of her with those beautiful black eyes, and Marie, having seen him on television, recognizes him immediately. He keeps pouring vodka into her glass and asks difficult questions. What does being happy mean to you? Have you ever betrayed someone? Do you feel bad if you’ve achieved something only because of your looks?
Marie drinks the vodka, hesitates, says: – Happiness is always the moment before. The second before the moment in which I actually ought to be happy. In that second I am happy and don’t know it. I’ve betrayed a lot of people, I think. And I like achieving things because of my looks.
The artist stares at her. Marie stares back. She’s good at that. The people around her are growing restless; the artist is really too short and too ugly. More out of spite than solidarity Marie bends down, takes the artist’s head in both of her hands and kisses him on the mouth. He kisses her back, of course. Then Marie gives him her phone number and leaves, realizing only outside in the cold and clear night air how drunk she really is.
The artist waits three days, then calls her. Did he really – wait, that is? Marie assumes so. They spend an evening at a bar where Marie is freezing and has spells of weakness because the artist is constantly looking at her and doesn’t want to talk. One morning they go for a walk in the park, the artist wearing stylish sunglasses that Marie likes. For one whole afternoon they sit in a café, and Marie tells him a little about herself. Otherwise she is silent. The artist says he doesn’t like conversations on a meta-level.
Marie doesn’t know what meta-level is supposed to mean. Whenever she goes to meet him she puts on the only pair of flat shoes she owns. The difference in their heights embarrasses her. It is autumn. Dying wasps tumble through the open window into Marie’s room. She feels cold and wears gloves; the days are already short, and she is very often tired. Sometimes she tilts her head back and tries to laugh effervescently, but it doesn’t come out right. One day the artist asks whether she would like to drive to the Baltic Sea with him for a couple of days sometime. Marie says yes and minks of places like Ahlbeck, Fischland and Hiddensee, of a long white wintry beach, of shells and a calm sea. She does not think of the artist. She stands at her window, holding a cup of cold tea, and stares out into the street. She is confused nowadays, puts lighted cigarettes between her lips the wrong way round, leaves the water running, loses her keys. Once the artist calls her and actually says, I love you. Marie is squatting on the floor, the telephone receiver clamped between her head and shoulder, looking into the mirror. She closes her eyes slowly, and slowly opens them again. Now the artist isn’t saying anything else, but she hears him breathing, softly, regularly, calmly. He is not nervous. Marie isn’t either. Again she says, Yes, and is surprised that the answer comes so quickly. The artist hangs up.
When Marie thinks of his eyes she feels an ache in her back. His eyes are really beautiful. She is not waiting for him to call, she knows he will call. The artist seems to be quite content with his dwarfishness. He emphasizes it by moving in a fidgety and clownish way, walking like a tin soldier, sometimes doing a handstand in the middle of the street, making faces, doing magic tricks by putting coins into his ear and retrieving them from his nose. Since the kiss at the party he hasn’t touched Marie. Nor she him. When they say goodbye he acts as though he’s about to put his hand on her arm, but at the last moment he always draws it away again. He asks her, What does it mean when you look at me for such a long time? Marie answers, Closeness, aggression, also sexuality, and consent. She doesn’t know whether that’s true. The artist can’t smile. When he thinks he’s smiling, he’s only squeezing his eyes together into narrow slits and pulling up the corners of his mouth. Marie doesn’t find this convincing, and she tells him so, triumph in her voice. Could be, says the artist. For the first time he looks hurt.
In a café one evening, when Marie is already very drunk, she asks him whether he ever considered going to bed with her. She knows it’s wrong, but she can’t help herself, she’s wanted to ask him for days. The artist says, I guess there have been women with whom I’ve made a greater effort. Marie is indignant, crosses her arms over her chest and decides not to say another word. The artist drinks his wine, smokes, looks at her, and says, You’d better leave now. Marie rides home on her bicycle, furious.
Later she phones him. I don’t feel like being observed by you, says the artist: nevertheless he says he is willing to see her again. In a way he reminds Marie of an animal. A small animal. A black, hairy, creepy little monkey. She puts her low-heeled shoes into the closet, puts on high-heeled boots, and for the first time cycles to his apartment.
The artist opens the door but only after she has rung the bell three times. He’s wearing his sneakers, torn jeans, his black sweater. He once told Marie that he always buys fifteen small-sized sweaters at a time and dyes them all black. It’s warm in the apartment. Strangely neat and tidy. The walls are painted orange, with huge quantities of books, CDs, records. Would you like tea, the artist asks. Yes, says Marie sitting down at his desk – which isn’t near the window but against the back wall – on the only chair in the room. Postcards, newspaper comic strips, photos, letters are pinned to the wall above the desk. Small pieces of paper layered on top of each other. The artist somewhere in the sunny South, a blond, puffy-cheeked child in his arms. Theatre programmes, a book review, neatly cut out. A strip of passport photos of the artist, shot from above because of his size, the flash creating a white spot on his forehead. A sentence in large letters on yellow paper: ‘In times of betrayal landscapes are beautiful.’ In the kitchen the artist is clattering around with the cups. Marie, biting her lower lip, is self-conscious and nervous. She hears his approaching steps rustle on the cork rug and turns around to face him, putting on a wooden smile. The artist sets the cups on the glass surface of the desk and asks, Music? Marie shrugs and clings to her cup. The artist puts a CD into the player. There is crackling in the loudspeakers, P.J. Harvey’s voice is heard from very far away – Is that all there is? Depression music, Marie thinks, wondering whether she should say it out loud. The artist circles around her, looking very self-satisfied and sure of himself and observing her with a mocking expression. Marie clears her throat. The artist says, How about some computer? Marie replies, I don’t know anything about that; the artist says amiably, That doesn’t matter.
He switches on his computer. It hums softly, the black of the screen turning a bright clear blue. A smiling miniature computer appears and in the left margin of the screen various small icons open up. Marie twists her hands in her lap and feels very uncomfortable. The artist taps on the keys and circles around gently with the mouse; he pulls a fist-sized grey sphere out from behind the computer. In its centre is a gleaming black eye. He places the sphere in the middle of the desk and adjusts it so the black gleaming eye is focused directly on Marie’s face. Marie stares at the sphere and the artist circles softly with the mouse. The screen turns white. Now, in its upper left corner, tiny light and dark grey squares appear, a grid of small dots spreading silently and quickly over the surface of the screen. The parting in Marie’s hair, Marie’s forehead, Marie’s eyebrows, her eyes, her nose, mouth, chin, neck, the top of her breasts, an eerie black and white Marie-face.
That’s hideous, Marie says. With a time delay and silently, the Marie-face on the screen repeats the words, That’s hideous. It opens and closes its eyes and mouth, fishlike, horrible, dreadful. The image hasn’t fully formed yet, the artist says. He keys in something, and the Marie-face becomes sharper, its contours clearer, and in the background the bookshelves on the right-hand wall of the room come into view, the window, the sky outside, grey on the screen, grey also in reality. You can shoot almost anything with it, the artist says, smiling unconvincingly and pleasantly at Marie. Marie smiles back, unconvinced. It is quiet. Marie endures the stare of the artist, who is no longer smiling. A third, black and beautiful eye has grown between his eyebrows. Marie blinks and the eye disappears again. The computer whirrs. Marie doesn’t dare look at the screen, afraid of the grey and eerie Marie-face. The cork rug rustles because the artist is now coming towards her. Marie presses her back against the chair and stares fixedly into the artist’s eyes, as though this might help keep the terror at bay. The artist puts his right hand on Marie’s cheek: the hand is cool and soft. Marie briefly closes her eyes. Then his face is directly in front of hers, Marie stops breathing, and he kisses her on the lips. Marie is very sober. He probably is too. The kiss appears on the computer screen, with a time delay and silent, a grey repetition of an instant. Now Marie looks, past the face, past the closed eyes of the artist, at the screen on which his face snuggles up to hers, replacing her face: she opens her eyes, in black and white.
Something is turning in Marie’s head. The artist takes a deep breath, presses against Marie, pushes his hand around to the back of her neck, down her back, inside her dress. Marie concentrates. Instead of seeing herself as usual from above, from a sort of bird’s eye view, she looks at the screen, at this silent strange entwining of two human beings, and it is bizarre. It is warm in the room. Layered small pieces of paper hang above the desk, the artist somewhere in the sunny South, a blond, chubby-cheeked child in his arms. Too bad, Marie thinks, that you can see things for the first time only once.
The artist pulls Marie off the chair and onto the floor. At some point Marie is wearing nothing but her high-heeled boots, and then not even those. On the computer screen you see a wall of bookshelves, the back of an empty chair, a window, and outside, a darker sky.