The Artist’s Muse. Kerry Postle

in Herr Klimt’s work, she is sympathetic to his argument with the university, expresses an interest in his design work for the Flöge sisters. Indeed she has an opinion relating to everything Herr Klimt and a technical knowledge of painting seemingly equal to Herr Klimt’s own.

      I learn a great deal about the silent Herr Klimt from the talkative Consuela Camilla Huber. She is a thing of wonder to me. And confusion. She will be Herr Klimt’s muse. And it is clear that she wants to be his mistress.

      My fourteen-year-old mind cannot understand why such a glorious woman would deliberately seek out such a role. Yet the two, muse and mistress, are inextricably linked in her mind.

      She makes rapid inroads in her quest to secure her role as the latter. She sustains her performance before, during, and after her ten minutes with Herr Klimt. Where Hilde looks sheepish when her time is up, unable to hide her own distaste the moment she comes back in the studio, Consuela makes a regal entrance, standing in the doorway as if straddling two worlds, triumphant.

      I am surprised to see that she is more hunter than hunted. I love to observe her from the sleepy shadows of the studio, her strong, shapely body taunting that of her slow, squat victim. She stalks her grizzled, stocky prey, plays with him cruelly, sending paint pots crashing, stained water splashing, across the floor of the studio. And then she pounces. Within six months she is guiding Herr Klimt by the nose.

      I shall always be indebted to Consuela.

      ***

      ‘Where’s Hilde? She should have set up my paints by now.’ Herr Klimt’s ready to work on another version of his water serpents and there’s no Mizzi, no Devla, and no Hilde. Even Consuela is nowhere to be seen. His serpents have slithered away, upset because Herr Klimt shouted at them two days ago for not getting a pose right (though Herr Klimt has been so busy with Consuela that he hasn’t noticed). My suspicion is that they’re writhing round in the grass in the Schönbrunn woods somewhere.

      As for Hilde, I know that she went to sing in the chorus at the Burgtheater last night, though I’m not going to tell Herr Klimt that. Even she’s looking for another job. Especially after Herr Klimt spent the whole morning pleasuring Consuela last Friday. Putting paid to Hilde’s ten-minute theory as well as tingeing her relief at no longer having to endure Herr Klimt’s attentions with a shameful sense of loss.

      ‘I’ll just have to sketch you,’ he grumbles.

      As I get ready, I wonder at how much I’ve changed. I slip my clothes off and hang them up neatly. Though I still hold my petticoat to hide my nakedness I no longer cling to it. ‘Shall I do Mizzi or Devla, Herr Klimt?’ I ask.

      ‘Mizzi,’ comes the reply and my heart sinks.

      Mizzi’s made a lot of noise about how uncomfortable her pose is. Her oft wailed ‘It’s not fair,’ is ringing in my ears as I try to arrange my body as it needs to be.

      Herr Klimt walks in a semicircle around the bed. From top to bottom. I can’t get it right and Hilde is not here to help me. I wince and close my eyes. Herr Klimt has to touch me. Yet the sexual threat I anticipate is pure physical pain. I am taken aback at the roughness of his touch as he tugs and pulls at me as though I am modelling clay. ‘Oh! It’s no use,’ he exclaims, exasperated. If he could throw me out for the dogs to run after and chew on he would. But then he thinks again.

      Without explaining what he’s doing, he places a pillow under me so that the curve of my bottom rises and falls. I know that he wants the undulating line. I’ve seen Mizzi hold the shape so many times and he pushes me this way and that to get it. I close my eyes to pretend it’s not happening and imagine myself less water serpent more golden mermaid, shiny, and softly gliding through warm comforting waters, moving my tail up and down, rhythmically, keeping time with my heartbeat, warm blood pulsating within. Swimming away, far away from this humiliation.

      ‘Practice over! I will be your water serpent.’ It’s Consuela. To hear her voice is a joy and as I open my eyes she sees the depths of my misery. I want to cry but her eyes flash a warning at me. ‘Not now,’ they say. And I swallow back the tears, every one. Yet as I falter, the pins and needles causing me to bend and buckle like a newborn faun, so the pain of my failure wraps around my heart like a vice.

      Consuela says something to Herr Klimt and within minutes I am free, walking to the art shop to stock up on pencils and sketchbooks. And the paints that were missing from the cupboard earlier on.

      Materials keep going missing all the time at the moment. Hilde’s told me that she thinks it’s probably down to Consuela (‘Takes a lot of lead to get all of her in a picture!’ she quips), and indeed it is, but not in the way that she imagines.

      When I return from the art shop, keen to avoid Herr Klimt, I go straight to the materials cupboard to put everything away. Consuela is already there, bag at her feet, rummaging around on the middle shelf for I know not what. She leans back, sticks of charcoal in her hand, relief replacing worry on her face as she sees it’s only me. She says nothing about before.

      Instead she bends down to place the charcoal in her bag. ‘Thanks,’ she says as she helps herself to three pencils and two sketchbooks followed by a wink and a finger to lips that say: ‘Sssssh!’

      She pulls a well-used sketchbook from her bag and opens it to show me a sketch of a mother and child. At first I imagine it must be Herr Klimt’s work. Even when Consuela tells me it’s a picture of her landlady Wilhelmina and her daughter MargareteKlara, I still don’t get it. But then I do.

      ‘I have a mission, and that is to exhibit my work at the next women’s art exhibition – God, just to say those words gives me a thrill, Wally. Women’s art exhibition! So exciting! There was one last year. The works of Berthe Morisot and Eva Gonzales were there. Even Tina Blau agreed to exhibit her work in it. She usually makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to be judged as a woman artist and so …’ She sees the disbelief in my eyes, laughs, pauses, and takes my hand in hers.

      ‘B-b-but you’re a model,’ I stammer.

      ‘Yes, I am and I’m proud to be one,’ she tells me. ‘I inspire one of the greatest artists of our time. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be an artist too.’ I must still look confused, unconvinced, as Consuela retorts with rebellious passion, ‘When not even women believe that we can achieve the same things as men, that we’re simply frivolously fickle females –’ she flicks back her wavy hair and adopts a fashionable pout in self-mockery ‘– it makes me realize what a struggle we have on our hands.’ Her eyebrows arch upwards for her eyes to reach out and accuse me.

      ‘Consuela! Consuela-a-a!’ Herr Klimt is looking for her, and as she puts her sketchbook back into her bag, she asks if she can draw me some time soon. Of course she can. ‘Consuela-a-a!’ He’s calling out again.

      With another flick of her hair and a right hand placed on her hip, she’s off: it’s ‘show time!’

      From that time on I am rarely required to pose for Herr Klimt. Instead I am sent on errands for him, delivering messages, bills, receipts, buying more paints, pencils, paper, preparing refreshments, cleaning the studio, tidying up his materials cupboard. I hope that he doesn’t think that I’m the one who’s been stealing his pencils.

      He even gets me to feed Katze. And so I’m kept busy. Busier in fact now that I’m moving for my money. Though I do feel, if not sad, then possibly uneasy that I’m not modelling for my living. And I wonder how long it will be before I will have to tell my mother the bad news that must surely be coming before too long.

      I watch Consuela to learn from her as she learns from Herr Klimt: my dream is still to be a good model, as hers is to be a good artist. Though watching her brings me to an uncomfortable conclusion. She and Herr Klimt work well together in every way.

      Yet recently I’ve observed a change in Consuela and Herr Klimt’s voracious appetite for her is making her look decidedly off colour. Her great artist with great appetites needs to vary his diet a little, feast elsewhere, although she’s careful to guide him away from me.

      ‘Go!’