She could still feel surprised when she looked at her black hair in the mirror. One day after rehearsal Harry had taken her aside and, as if in passing, asked if she would consider dyeing her hair black. It would make her look like the captain, her father in the play. When he saw her terrified look, he immediately laughed it off. It was just a thought. She forgot it again, but a week or two later when she was standing in front of the mirror memorising her lines it suddenly struck her that she ought to have black hair. Only when she’d suggested it did she recall it had been his own idea, but he made no comment, not so much as a twitch. He merely gazed at her as he considered it, until he nodded agreement, as if it was something she herself had discovered. She was both fascinated and alarmed. He said nothing when the play had been performed for the last time and she had her hair dyed black again because her own colour had begun to show at the roots. But at that point she knew he liked her with it.
She pretended not to have seen him when he came into the bathroom, at first only a silhouette against the shining mosquito net. He stepped into the light from the lamp above the mirror and embraced her from behind, laying his hands on her cool breasts. He gave a wry smile and met her eyes in the mirror. Beauty and the Beast, he said. She could feel his growing erection against her buttocks, through the linen trousers. She would have to go, she said. If she wanted to be on time… They had arranged for her to drive to Almeria and fetch their guest from the airport. He let go of her. She kissed his forehead and pulled the curls at his neck consolingly. Poor beast, she mumbled tenderly.
When she got into the car she realised she had no idea what he looked like, the man she was going to meet at the airport. She went back to the house. Harry looked at her ironically as she tore the lid from a cardboard box and wrote on it with a biro. Andreas Bark, she wrote. He nodded approvingly. Smart… She drove down the winding road from the village and out onto the main road. There was hardly any traffic. The landscape was grey and ochre-yellow in the sharp light. She put on her shades, stepped on the speedometer and turned up the volume on the radio.
21
She was on the stage in The Father. Half-way through the play she dried up. She could not remember a single line, and complete silence fell in the theatre, such silence that she couldn’t even hear the prompter’s whisper. The captain looked at her expectantly in the silence, and she felt her pulse beating softly behind her ear. The diva stood out in the wings gazing at her, dressed up as the white clown with a ruff, conical hat and white, painted face, smiling, with her head on one side. And suddenly a hole opened in her ear drum, that was how it felt when she heard Else’s cultivated radio voice, reverberating like a loudspeaker at a railway station: Take care with your consonants!
The dream left a hollow, crushed feeling in her stomach, but she could not eat anything and managed only to swallow a cup of coffee when she went down to the kitchen. She sat looking out at the neglected garden. It had rained in the night and the sky hung heavy over the stripped tree crowns. The gale tore at their outermost branches and moved the greasy leaves around on the grass. There were two hours left before she had to be at the theatre. She decided to go at once. She did not know what else to do with herself.
The set design had been finished some days previously and she wanted to see what it looked like from the auditorium. She found her way through the labyrinth of corridors and emerged in the dimly lit theatre with its empty seats. There was light on the stage. Harry Wiener sat on a Victorian sofa covered with black chintz, he was dressed in black himself. The set design had the effect of being both realistic and dreamily strange. It was very simple, designed in black and grey except for a single armchair covered with red velvet. He sat deep in thought with one arm resting on the back of the sofa and his hand under his chin, looking down at the shabby stage floor. He had not seen her. She stood there gazing at him from a distance.
Again she remembered the sympathy she had felt between them when she was in his apartment, with rain foaming on the balcony and lightning brightening the sky above the harbour. The warmth of his manner when he spoke to her, and the frailty he exhibited when he greeted her, slightly dazed because he had fallen asleep on the sofa. It had made her forget her nervousness over meeting him. She had forgotten everything else as she sat there high above the city surrounded by his books, captured by the calm gaze resting on her as she told him about herself and listened to what he said about Strindberg in his subdued, hoarse voice. He had opened up to her, not only when he briefly explained that his wife was dying, but also when he talked of the captain in the play. Of man’s unhappy love for woman and of how life belonged to women because they had the ability to pass it on. Of the deserted boy-child, who grew up to fear women and mistrust them because in his heart he cursed the mother who had once rejected him. Afterwards she had realised he hadn’t spoken only of Strindberg and his captain, but of himself.
She had expected him to make some little sign to show her he remembered how they had sat and talked, but he kept her at a distance, as he did with all the others, kind, expectant and deeply concentrated on the work. With each week that passed she felt more defenceless, exposed to his eyes that apparently apprehended everything that stirred within her. He seemed to know her, but she herself knew so infinitesimally little about him. She felt in contact with him only when he occasionally came up to her and cautiously laid a hand on her shoulder as he put a question which took her unawares, anticipating what she felt without being able to express it clearly. But she was not the person he spoke to, it was the cavalry officer’s daughter he had slowly drawn out in her from some forgotten, shadowy corner of her personality.
Perhaps he had invited her for tea to study her at close quarters before he set out to make use of her for his own purposes. Why would Harry Wiener be interested in her as more than a tool for his art? That must have been what he meant when he said she was both talented and attractive, and that one could not be separated from the other. He had been attracted to her as a sculptor might feel towards a lump of clay. He had asked to kiss her simply because he wanted to see what she looked like when being kissed.
He rose from the sofa, pushed it a little so it stood more at an angle, and sat down again. As he leaned back he caught sight of her. He smiled and waved her forward. Sit down, he said and patted the sofa cushion as she walked across the stage. He looked at her attentively. Was she nervous about the première? She said she was. That’s how it should be, he smiled and looked down at his hand, carefully stroking the smooth chintz of the sofa. You’re good, he said, that’s why you’re nervous. It was the first time he had praised her directly. He looked at her again. Still living with her mother? Lucca was amazed. She could not remember telling him where she lived. It had become quite difficult to find an apartment, had it? He had bought a freehold apartment for his daughter in Vanløse. Of course it was a dreary place, but she could afford the regular expenses there. He smiled kindly. What about her? Couldn’t her mother help her with a payment? It was about the only way to get somewhere to live. Buying…