There’s something mysterious that Lavinia is searching for in her painting of this girl. This little Jewish meydl from the Prenzlauer Berg. Cette belle créature rouge. Perhaps it’s the essence of human beauty? Could she be searching for such a thing as that? Or perhaps it’s simply the mystery of her own art. Her quest to capture that which cannot be captured. The flatheaded brush roughs up the edge of a shadow that outlines the warmth of the painted flesh.
There’s a noise of a door from behind, and a confident baritone voice bursts in the air like a cannon shell. “Shalom! My brilliant sister!”
She frowns but does not turn even as she listens to her brother’s footsteps approach. “And so, he arrives,” she replies. “Shalom, little brother.”
Fritz steps up behind the artist at work, a stylish bamboo cane in hand, and kisses her cheerfully on the temple. As usual, he is impeccably clothed and coiffed. Dressed in a coal-black Rudolf Hertzog suit and a diamond stickpin in his cravat. He scrutinizes his sister’s canvas with interest and, as is his custom, offers his opinion unsolicited. “Stunning but disturbing. Just what I want to see,” he announces.
Lavinia still dabs at the canvas. “Tell Herr Möller you have a painting for him. All he must do is spend a king’s ransom to obtain it.”
“That’s what I
A laugh or a grunt. It’s hard to tell which. “Yes. ‘Stunning but disturbing,’” she confirms.
“And speaking of both. Won’t you introduce me?”
Lavinia looks up and frowns as she sees her brother drowsily eyeing her model. “Fräulein Rosen. My brother, Fritz Landau. Who is
Now Angelika has regained an interest in posing. Aware of the power of her beauty, she unblushingly casts a smoky-eyed look at this man. Fritz is obviously captivated.
“
“If you’re going to stay, then allow the girl to put on some clothes,” the artist suggests, but Fritz certainly doesn’t wish to interrupt.
“
In response, the girl draws a long, lazy breath that causes her breast to heave slowly before she expels it. “I would murder for a cigarette, Herr Landau,” she announces.
Fritz grins, but he defers to his sister. “Lavinia? May I be permitted?”
Lavinia, however, is a wall. “She can smoke when I’m finished with her,” she decrees.
“Then I should be going. I only wanted to confirm that you’ll be in Wannsee tomorrow.”
“Wannsee?”
“The Lieberman villa? The Akademie luncheon?”
“Is that really tomorrow?” Lavinia asks.
“It is. And, Sister, you must be there.”
“The only woman in the room.”
“I thought you considered that an honor.”
“I consider it a travesty. But fine. I’ll be there.”
“One o’clock,” says her brother with a smile. A smile he then raises to Lavinia’s model. “So very pleased to meet you, child. Lavinia, what did you say is this charming young woman’s name again?”
“Rosen, I said. Fräulein Rosen.”
The girl jumps in. “
“Of course,” Fritz agrees, still smiling. “A name for an angel.”
Afterward, when Fritz has taken his leave and Lavinia is soaking her brushes in glass jars of spirits, Angelika glares frowningly at the tarp covering the canvas. “Why can’t I see it?”
“It’s not finished, that’s why. Here,” Lavinia tells her. “Have your reward.” She lifts the copper lid of a box stained with fingerprints of paint. It’s filled with cigarettes. And when Angelika grabs one to smoke, Lavinia lights it for her with an equally paint-stained table lighter. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” the artist tells her.
Expelling smoke. Eyes languid. “Do what?”
“Flirt with my brother.”
Angelika raises her eyebrows. “Was that what I was doing?” she asks. A question that ratchets up a sudden tension between them. It’s a certain magnetic force that has been powering their connection. An intimacy between artist and model? Or something more? Angelika does not move. She permits the tension to build, and then she breaks away. Scooping up the lazy yellow cat, she waltzes it across the room, calling it her precious treasure.