When the painter and the boy pass themselves off as father and son, they are received more favourably.
Martin likes the notion that the painter could be his father. The painter doesn’t hit him. He has not raised his voice once towards the child. Martin trusts him. The only thing he keeps to himself is that the rooster can talk.
It rains often. The wind is piercing. The painter struggles to keep his paints and papers dry. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and loden coat to wrap up his materials. Walks bare-chested. The rain runs down his shoulders. He swears and checks his bundle incessantly. Martin feels sorry for him. Even though he is just as drenched. He carries the rooster next to his skin. He carries the rooster and the painter his things. And he wonders whether the things speak to the painter as the rooster speaks to him.
The moment they reach a town, the painter grows restless and has to visit one of the garishly made-up women. While he lies with them, Martin guards the bundle.
Martin is fascinated by the painter’s ability to capture faces, scenes and feelings in such a way that they tell the story for all time and the drawing does the remembering for him.
He too begins to draw. But the trigger is not beauty or the desire for something great. He wants no lament nor any legacy. He is interested in the scars of the war-wounded, whom they encounter in the city’s alleyways and taverns.
He borrows paper and charcoal from the painter, who watches the boy struggle to draw bulging scars and incisions, empty eye sockets or the stump of an arm. The war-wounded don’t mind. They get drunk and tell their stories. They like to tell the boy with the gentle eyes of their suffering. They rail about the war and grouch about the masters. They complain about the terrible food and the lumpy bodies they inhabit. There has never been enough of anything. Except for wounds, now.
‘Doyouunnerstanthaboy?’ they slur, and yes, Martin understands and becomes ever more absorbed in the sights and the wounds, until even the painter has had enough and drags the child out by the collar from whatever tavern they’re in and searches for something pleasing, because somehow he believes he is responsible for the education of the child’s heart.
But it is not that easy to find something pleasing in the midst of these foul alleys, among piss buckets, rats and rubbish. This makes the painter melancholy, because his painter’s soul needs things that are pleasing.
The painter is given two new commissions. One is to paint the daughters of a draper, but they are so ugly that he has to drop the project. He is offered double his fee, the father even apologises, but the painter can’t bear to look at them.
The other commission is an intimate painting for an older man. A seduction scene, set in harmless surroundings.
The painter has to find a model to train his eye for the female body. They are allowed to paint and live in the client’s backyard. They are given straw sacks to sleep on. The straw is lumpy and smells of mould, but for Martin it is still a lot softer than anything he has ever known, since he has only ever slept on the floor. With nothing but a blanket and a rooster.
The painter now encounters other painters. They tell him about the young women who are willing to pose naked for a couple of coins; the women definitely prefer that to sleeping with men. But if you ask them, he is told with a wink, they won’t say no either. Or you just don’t listen.
Martin doesn’t trust the other men. He doesn’t like it when his painter drinks with the others, and later there are paints or brushes missing from the assortment. But when Martin remarks on it, the painter brushes his misgivings aside.
‘But they don’t want you here,’ Martin says. ‘They are worried that you’ll take their commissions.’
‘Of course,’ the painter says. ‘Because I am better than them.’
‘You may be good enough, but you look like a pig.’
‘And you can judge both?’ the painter asks.
‘You need to wash and get yourself a clean shirt,’ Martin continues. ‘Rich people like that. They stink just as much as we do, but they look clean. If you want to paint the rich more often, you need to act as if you fit in there.’
‘But I don’t want to paint the rich more often.’
‘But then you would earn more money.’
‘And what am I to do with it? I have enough to eat, drink and whore with. What would I do with more money?’
Martin is stumped for an answer. He doesn’t know anything about desires that require money. He doesn’t know anything about money at all. Nor about desires. He shrugs his shoulders.
‘But I still don’t like the others,’ he mumbles quietly.
This makes the painter smile, because he realises that the child is jealous. He wants to have him for himself and look after him. He is touched.
They ask for Gloria. She is one of those willing to be painted naked. The painter sets up his studio in the back of the client’s house. Martin lays out the brushes and paints for him, with sheets of paper and charcoal. Then they wait a long time for the model. And when Gloria finally arrives the room is immediately filled with her beauty and with the cries of her baby, which she carries on her hip.
The baby has its little fists buried in Gloria’s hair, which is curlier than anything Martin has ever seen before. Gloria smells beguiling. The painter is pleased and scratches himself sheepishly. He loves and worships beautiful women. He becomes very polite and obliging. Gloria remains suspicious. She scrutinises Martin and the rooster. The boy cannot interpret her expression. He doesn’t realise that it is just the same the other way round. No one can read Martin, with his friendly, mild gaze.
While the painter and Gloria talk, the baby stuffs its mother’s curls into its mouth and chews on them. The painter counts the money into Gloria’s outstretched hand. It disappears into her skirt pocket. Then she places the baby on the ground, where it sits precariously, waves its little arms around and starts to cry. Gloria slips out of her dress, picks the baby up and puts it to her breast. It drinks and smacks its lips, and the sound of the baby sucking makes Martin feel strangely content and tired. The painter immediately starts to draw them.
It is raining, but that does not bother them. They have a roof over their heads. There is work and food. The rooster sleeps in Martin’s lap, Gloria hums a melody for the baby, and the charcoal scrapes across the page. The boy feels secure.
The young woman now comes every day. She increasingly entrusts the baby to Martin, who holds the little creature carefully and lets it play with his hands. Sometimes it reaches for the rooster and grabs its feathers. Then Martin has to carefully release one finger after another while the rooster curses quietly.
When Gloria poses provocatively, naked – because, after all, the painter has a job to do – Martin is embarrassed and lowers his gaze so as not to jeopardise the feeling of security he has only just found.
It seems that the painter is able to separate the two. For although he usually never misses an opportunity to talk about the merits of women, he does not utter a single lewd word towards Gloria. He does not touch her. His gaze never rests covetously on her body. He only perceives her as what she is in the context of his work.
It is clear that she appreciates it. Gloria is currently also modelling for other painters. She has to make ends meet for the baby, who is thriving and has rosy cheeks. When Gloria needs a break, the painter draws the squealing baby, who is always chasing the rooster and crawls after the creature. The way the baby tries to follow the rooster and the way the rooster furiously stalks away makes everyone laugh. Martin laughs until tears run down his cheeks. And he is surprised. He is not accustomed to this.
And then, one day, Gloria doesn’t show up. They wait. It is raining outside and the light is bad, so the painter has to get the candles ready. The day passes without Gloria appearing. Martin lies awake at night and worries. The next day Gloria does not turn up at the agreed time either. They wait for several hours, then Martin goes to look for her. Perhaps she is sick. Perhaps it’s the baby. But by now, Martin already suspects that something has happened.
The stench in the streets is terrible. Martin presses his sleeve over his mouth and nose. He asks for Gloria everywhere, but for a long time no one knows anything, until the boy unexpectedly steps into the centre of the misery.
‘The painter’s bastard!’ an old woman suddenly shouts. ‘Here he is.’
And they have grabbed him. A roused pack of elderly whores with an iron grip. Boys not much older than him are headbutting and kicking him. Martin is shaken; something hits him on the eyebrow. Blood trickles down his temple, and the rooster is tossed around inside his shirt as if in a storm. They drag him across the mud into a dark alley.
Martin does not put up a fight; it’s obvious that they are stronger, so he has to just let it happen. His heart is pounding, not because he is scared for himself, but because he senses it is about Gloria.
Then the mob tries to squeeze through a dark entrance with him. This proves challenging because no one is willing to let go of Martin, but they can’t all fit through at the same time.
Eventually some are pushed aside and stay behind, grumbling. Up a flight of stairs. The old woman pushes him up the stairs so forcefully that he barely feels the steps under his soles. She too has Gloria’s wild hair; perhaps she is her mother, he thinks. There is a room. He needs a moment to understand what he is looking at.
A bed with some people kneeling by it. There is hardly any air in the room and it is very warm. Candles are burning unprotected. Martin immediately hears the baby babbling. When it sees Martin, it laughs and reaches out its little arms towards him. Jealous, a girl picks up the little one and turns it away from Martin.
Gloria is lying on the bed towards which he is now pushed. Martin recognises her by her dress and her hair, but her face carries a wound. The right cheek is disfigured by a slash, which runs swollen and flaming red from the top of her cheekbone down to her chin. Her eye above it is swollen shut and her lip is bleeding. Gloria moves her head. She has a fever and is sweating. The old woman shakes her by the shoulder and shouts at her forcefully, asking whether it was the boy who did it. Gloria opens her healthy eye, but her gaze immediately disappears again, returning to her fever dreams. Perhaps she has taken a glimpse of Martin with her.
‘No,’ says Martin. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Then your father,’ the old woman shouts in his ear. Martin shakes his head.
‘Who wouldn’t lie about that?’ a voice says. The people make way, revealing a man sitting by the window.
Martin has seen him before and recognises him as one of the artists who welcomed them to the town in quite a friendly manner. He is a painter too. He recommended Gloria to them; he had already painted her himself. The man bares his teeth.
‘But when I found Gloria, I swear to God, she called out your names.’
He seems content and quite calm. Martin hasn’t trusted him since the first time they met.
‘You should have killed her off properly,’ the old woman hissed. ‘Now she is disfigured. She won’t even earn enough as a whore now. Did you take a proper look, you bastard? Have you taken a good look?’
The old woman punches Martin in the ribs and presses him down by the neck. He takes a good look. He looks at the deep cut in the face of the restless sleeper and would like to make a drawing of the gaping flesh, but of course he cannot request that. And yet the cut is nothing less than a perfect example of an angry and forceful slash with a long, thin blade. Martin can easily compare the wound with those he has copied down; the sheets of paper are in a safe place, but he doesn’t actually need them any more, as he has them committed to memory. The deep cut. The clean edges. So deep that the wound won’t close on its own. Not so deep as to damage the muscles underneath. Gloria will still be able to eat and speak, provided the scar doesn’t get infected.
Martin looks on, and he no longer hears the old woman. And the scolding, jeering, spitting, pushing folk – who even are they? But the man at the window has some sketching materials and puts a few lines down on the paper. Probably a mourning scene. The mob at the bedside. He scrapes the charcoal over the paper, and Martin watches, and he feels as if there is only this man in the chair, and he himself has the task of seeing something. Something very simple. And then he sees it. The man is holding the charcoal with his left hand. And the wound, the high slash in Gloria’s face that was carried out with anger and force from top to bottom, is on her right cheek. That can only be done by someone who grasps, reaches and does everything with his left hand.
So it was him. And not Martin’s painter, who guides his paintbrush with his right hand. The rooster wriggles beneath Martin’s shirt, and the boy imagines the man getting into a fight with Gloria, the shining star of this filthy gutter. Gloria, who cannot be hurt because the whores, scoundrels and poor will kill anyone who takes away the most beautiful thing they ever saw. This treasure.
Martin understands. How clever the painter was not to try and hide what he did; on the contrary, he immediately called for help. No sooner had he beaten, injured and strangled Gloria than he let go of her, shaking. Consciousness returned to his throbbing head. His mind said to blame someone else. Place yourself in the midst of the calamity and become invisible in it. Right here with Gloria, with the scolding old woman, with the angry folk; Martin realises this is where the culprit is safest.
‘He has the knife,’ Martin says to the old woman, who of course does not want to listen to him and instead pinches his arm.
‘It must have been him,’ Martin says calmly.
The old woman is not paying attention.
‘He is carrying a long, narrow knife in his left pocket,’ Martin says.
The old woman slowly starts to take notice. The others too stand with their mouths open.
‘There must still be blood on it. He was only able to wipe it down.’
One of them goes over to the man, who clears his throat nervously and starts pushing when they come too close. But they quickly find the knife. The man is sweating, but the blade is clean.
‘I can’t see any blood,’ the old woman says.
‘The flies will find it,’ says Martin.
‘There are flies everywhere,’ the old woman grumbles.
‘Why are you even listening to him?’ the man asks, and makes a move to leave. There is a tussle. He is pushed into the corner of the room. Gloria sighs in her sleep. The baby claps its hands, and everyone looks at Martin. Yes, why are they listening to him? Why does the boy make them so curious? Why don’t they just wring his and the rooster’s neck? And, ultimately, does it even matter who disfigured Gloria, because, since her beauty has been destroyed, the few laws that count in these alleys are also suspended? The comforting beauty. She should never have been allowed to leave the neighbourhood, then all hope would not have been lost.
The old woman thinks of the young man, the father of the baby, who asked for her hand in marriage. He was from a different neighbourhood. Wealthy, attractive and brave. He wanted to marry Gloria and go away with her. But the old woman didn’t agree, because then she would lose her life insurance. Gloria made enough for everyone. So she sent the lover away, but he kept coming back and finally said very kindly that he was taking Gloria with him without the blessing of the obstinate old woman, in order to give her and the baby, which was already bulging in Gloria’s belly, a nicer and above all better life. Without the old woman. Without the gutter.
That’s when the old woman killed him. Stabbed him with the big scissors. Many times. He was stunned. He died stunned. Not a single scream.
She had him buried afterwards, by those who have no opinion on anything. And then the flies danced on her scissors for days. That is how the old woman knows that the boy might be right when it comes to the painter’s knife.
Gloria waited for the young man for weeks and then a whole year, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t return, despite the old woman telling her day after day that that was just how men were. No one was ever going to liberate her from poverty. She had been born into poverty and would die in poverty, especially as she had been stupid enough to have got pregnant. Talking Gloria round had been quite tiring, and now this. All that work, for nothing.
Martin asks if the others also carry knives. No one moves until the old woman hisses an instruction. Then they come out with their knives, which may have been bought, found, inherited or stolen. Blades thin from sharpening. Some with notched handles.
They are to put them next to each other on the ground, and put the painter’s knife with them. They do it, and step back into line. They cough, scuffle their feet and wait under the supervision of the old woman. The flies that constantly settle on Gloria’s wound wanting to lay their eggs there are fanned away, but keep returning, again and again. But now, after they have been shooed away, they circle indecisively over the bed of the fevered woman, before finally moving away and buzzing around in the small room until they find their way to the blades on the ground. And they choose the painter’s blade. Sit on it, while all the other blades remain empty.
Now of course the culprit tries to flee, but does not make it out of the door nor to the window. In any case, the fury towards him is great and his knife is returned to him several times over. Martin does not look. He just sees Gloria and he feels sorry for her.
When it is done, Martin is allowed to leave. The old woman snorts. He stumbles down the stairs and pushes the door open. He hurries to get back to his painter, and when he finally arrives, he throws himself into the painter’s arms and sobs.
The painter pats his back and makes soothing noises and is happy that the boy is back. Martin is not crying because he was afraid for himself. He cries for Gloria, and because the peace and comfort of the studio is irretrievably gone. Martin recounts what happened and the painter listens to it all. Then he rubs his face for a long time, as if he were washing it, and then packs his things.
‘We had better go,’ he says. ‘Everyone will know that you are clever, but no one will like it.’
‘But the painting,’ Martin says.
‘That’s not a painting,’ the painter says. ‘It’s just stuff. Stuff that you get money for.’
Martin understands and does not even want to look at the presumed painting. Because he will see Gloria there. And the memory of the comfort goes hand in hand with the way she is portrayed, whole and intact.
While the painter wipes the brushes and packs away the paints, Martin draws Gloria’s wound and also the knife next to it so as not to forget anything. But how could he forget?