The Blue Door by André Brink

Author:André Brink [André Brink]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2005-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

nine

BUT I DO not fall asleep. My thoughts remain preoccupied, thinking of what has happened and not happened. Of what may yet happen.

I know that much of what has gone wrong tonight – no, that is not it: nothing has gone wrong, it has merely not gone right – has not to do with us, here, in this bed, but comes from very far back. Memories which I thought – hoped – had long been laid to rest. Lydia, of course. But also Embeth. Perhaps Embeth above all.

It was pure coincidence (but what is coincidence?) that we met. Initially, I had not even been selected as one of the artists invited to participate in the South Africa? exhibition in the new gallery at the top of Hout Street that November, but then somebody dropped out and I became a last-minute replacement, not even featured in the catalogue. Two of my paintings were accepted. The first featured a young woman, the left half of her body naked, the other half clothed very formally; the second showed two women, one seen from the back, the other from the front, one white, the other coloured. The pose was not erotic; it was merely a study in contrasting colours (even if I had used the same woman as a model for both figures). My style, I suppose, had initially been strongly influenced by the Nabis and less obviously by German expressionists, Otto Mueller in particular, still one of my favourites, although by that time I think I had begun to find my own vernacular. Those two canvases actually marked a new beginning.

For me, the exhibition opening represented a significant milestone as it was the first time I was exhibiting with more-or-less professional artists. The swirling, milling, sweat-smelling, wine-swilling crowd on the rainy afternoon of the opening included a fair number of visitors lured from the street primarily by the free drinks.

It was a heady experience. I even sold one of my two paintings, the one of the two women, titled Sisters. For the umpteenth time I dared to think a thought which has been hovering in my mind for most of my adult life: that, perhaps, teaching need not be the only career choice open to me.

Somewhere in the course of the afternoon she came to me. The young woman with the smoky dark eyes and the long lashes and the provocative mouth, dressed in faded denims and a stark white long-sleeved shirt with most of the buttons undone. Her skin a smooth, even brown that became paler where the shirt was folded back. I had noticed her earlier in the crowd – it was impossible not to – but in close-up she was devastating.

‘You done this?’ she asked point-blank, with a swing of her head to indicate my painting.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Why “afraid”?’

‘Just a way of putting it.’

‘A very white way.’

‘Why should it be a white way?’

She shrugged, as if it would be too boring to attempt an answer. After a moment she asked, ‘They’re not really sisters, are they?’

‘I suppose there are many ways of being sisters.

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