‘It’s Alban,’ announced Alban Wouters. ‘I heard you’d be back tonight. I sold another drawing three days ago. No, a new client, never seen him before. Otherwise the gallery’s strangely quiet these days. What about you?’ Simone told Alban about the unsurprising symposium, some agreeable new acquaintances. And the sea, one never tired of the sea. ‘I wonder what I’m doing back here, in the cold,’ she said, half-joking. ‘Spring is just around the corner,’ the gallery owner informed her. ‘And how’s Faya?’ The conversation stumbled on and then Faya appeared in the living room like a genie from a bottle, her skin gleaming, a trail of steam in her wake.
‘I have to go,’ Simone notified Alban, before returning the black handset to its cradle.
‘You promised me a fire,’ Faya said.
‘Fire, fire,’ Simone said. ‘Go ahead and make it yourself if you’re in such a rush.’
‘No, no,’ said Faya, throwing on the bearskin that bedecked the couch. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
They’d seen the bottle of gin through to its conclusion, enjoyed another of rum as an epilogue, wolfed down pasta drenched in olive oil, and exchanged an embrace or three. Faya’s lower thighs certainly felt like the softest of silks upon which Simone might hope to rest her tired hands.
And her lover’s euphoria was to Simone’s ears a music no less sweet for its undertone of bitterness. But biologists have proven the matter beyond a reasonable doubt: only men fall asleep immediately upon orgasm. Long story short, Simone slept poorly. She not only slept poorly but also woke early, altogether too early and long ahead of the tardy winter-morning light she then awaited, in a foul mood, vexed by the utterly indecent hour alleged by her alarm clock, sixfifteen to be precise. And now what?
Nothing doing, no further sleep was forthcoming. Faya opened her eyes to find Simone perpendicular in her rattan chair in the corner of the room, distractedly darkening pages with one hand in a sketchbook she held in the other.
Faya was flattered.
‘Should I pretend to masturbate?’ she asked, never averse to mixing business and pleasure.
‘No,’ said Simone, polishing off her sketch with a hint of unnecessary violence in her strokes. ‘I was just trying to draw you sleeping.’
‘But I’m not sleeping anymore,’ said Faya, stretching.
Simone was running out of subjects for her drawings. She’d stopped inviting people over to model. It wasn’t that Faya was the jealous type, exactly, but how to put it?
‘Pierre-Luc’s coming to pick me up soon,’ Simone said.
‘The hapless suitor!’
‘It’s for his class,’ Simone clarified, pinching the bridge of her nose, ‘and do you think you could?’
‘Do I think I could what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Simone.
‘Old bat,’ Faya said, laughing as she got out of bed, naked as Eve. ‘I’ll make you dinner tonight if you want. And not pasta and olive oil. I just need a little money. For groceries.’
‘Did you leave the house even once while I was gone?’ asked Simone quite pointlessly.
Pierre-Luc soon appeared, shovel in hand. ‘I did the driveway,’ he said when Simone opened the door. ‘We’ll have to get a move on, though, we’re a little late.’
‘I’m ready,’ answered Simone, already in her turquoise coat. Faya, mute and invisible, had disappeared somewhere in the house.
Pierre-Luc’s rusty station wagon pulled out from behind the snowbank and rumbled away toward the art school where he taught drawing. That morning he had taken the time to trim his beard and even dabbed cologne behind each ear. ‘I hope it doesn’t smell too strong,’ he’d fretted. To top it off, he’d made his bed, a chore more often left undone since he broke up with – what was her name again? Simone drew a blank.
Whenever he found himself in Simone’s presence, Pierre-Luc was intimidated, incapable of uttering anything but the commonest of commonplaces, and this time was no exception. Syllables and sentences seemed to slip the coil of sense, emerging only as a broken rosary of drab grey beads. But he recovered his customary verve the moment he assumed his position in front of the class. Pierre-Luc’s brood sincerely admired their teacher, a model educator with a captivating sense of humour and the ability to acknowledge talent without jealousy and to bestow instruction without condescension. Perhaps it was to have Simone observe him in this state of grace that he so often invited her to his class.
In the theatre of Pierre-Luc’s mind, a passionate love story had long been unfolding in which Simone played one leading role and he had dextrously manoeuvred to secure the other, a saga that seemed forever destined to play to an audience of one. But living like this is no life at all. Sometimes Pierre-Luc had to wonder if his fixation wasn’t getting the better of him. Which did nothing to stop him from seeking out the company of his muse.
And what did the muse think? The muse was no dupe; she was aware of what was going on, and she shrugged it off. Simone knew all too well that at the heart of every friendship ambiguity lay. There was no avoiding it, except perhaps by staying home all the time – and how sad and small a life was that?
The students stood ready at their easels. Several pairs of eyes lit up at the sight of Simone. An older man entered after them, waved at Pierre-Luc, and, without further ado, disappeared behind a screen whence he emerged five minutes later dressed only in a robe. In the meantime Pierre-Luc greeted his class, needlessly introduced their visiting artist, and gave instructions for the day’s exercise. Two latecomers made their way toward their places with excuses mumbled as their teacher was already closing the classroom door.
You’ll never learn to draw by observing the bodies of young Adonises and Miss Universes, Pierre-Luc was fond of saying, so he insisted on hiring models of diverse ages and body types, normal folk you might bump into on the street. The man standing before them today was tall, thin, and wan. He had an aura of transparency, as if one might look through him and see every joint and sinew. To further assist the students in their labour of looking, he was standing with his hands on his hips and his torso slightly off-kilter, his left leg bearing all his weight, his back curved to compensate. The students got down to work. Pierre-Luc waited a couple minutes before beginning his rounds; Simone followed suit, counter to his clockwise.
The posture was a tough one to capture, and Simone felt only indulgence for these budding artists struggling with the model’s outslung hips and contorted hands. The degree of difficulty varied depending on the beholder’s standpoint. From behind, two segments of an obtuse triangle could stand in for each arm. The sideways approach was more arduous, demanding as it did a wholly counterintuitive perspective on this arrangement of angles.
The students murmured to each other, a sign of the pains they were taking, while Simone offered feedback and encouragement. Too many lines, she chastised one budding artist, find the one that counts and follow it through, start again if you have to. That’s good, she complimented another, but a little stiff, maybe soften up the angles? Not bad at all, she praised a third, you really have a feeling for the texture of the skin, well observed – but isn’t the rib cage a bit too much? Now that’s a great drawing, she said to the next, but it’s not our model here at all, imagination’s healthy, but respect the exercise. You gave him an odd face, she went on to the next, his gaze isn’t that hard, take a good look, he’s almost smiling. Ay! Ay! Ay! she exclaimed at the sight of a rather muddled drawing, he’s a hirsute man, for sure, but it looks like you just threw hair all over the place, like you’re trying to hide the shape of his body.
Two bodies travelling in opposite directions in a single orbit are destined to meet. Pierre-Luc pretended not to see the friendly wink Simone flashed him en passant. Then each continued in their circle.
Simone, unapologetic autodidact, felt ill-equipped to judge other people’s drawings. But she did