Читать книгу Rose - Its shades of grey - Stephan Wellnitz - Страница 7

1st Chapter

Frankfurt am Main, February 2020

Sometimes our greatest talents are hidden in our darkest depths.

The beer bottle made a quiet hiss when Karl opened it. It was only after four in the afternoon, but it was a Sunday and the daylight outside was already clouded with fine threads of twilight. At this time of year, it was sometimes hardly really bright, especially on cloudy days like today.

Only the huge picture painted in intense red colors brightened the room. The canvas was much too big for the small room, dominated it, but that did not bother Karl. The house was too small for this picture, not the picture too big for this house.

“Karl? Can you bring me one of the big salad bowls from the cellar?” Claudia’s voice penetrated through the staircase from the kitchen to his study.

Karl sighed and took a deep sip from his beer bottle. The beer tasted tart and cold, pleasantly refreshing, but the alcohol missed its effect.

“Yes, I’ll do it right away!” he called and turned back to his laptop, which was standing on the desk in front of him.

Actually, he had never been the type to take homework or read his emails on a Sunday. For 21 years he worked at the same bank, had first learned to be a bank clerk after school, and then later put his master of business administration on top of it, a solid career without significant detours or leaps.

He liked to deal with numbers. Numbers were reliable, predictable, and followed a logic very different from people in all their inconsistencies.

But about a year and a half ago, his boss had approached him and informed him that his department would be closed. There was talk of austerity measures, of working more efficiently now, of lean workforce and outsourcing and other new German expressions to which Karl was not listening to properly. He knew what that meant. A lot of people suddenly got rid of their jobs so that „those up there” and especially the shareholders could earn even more money.

But he was lucky. Someone, perhaps his team leader or the department head, had recognized his ‘potential’ in the handling of numbers, as it was always called now so beautifully, and stimulated his transfer to the new subsidiary FinTech, where one dealt with products such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs for the customers.

Karl didn’t know much about cryptocurrencies before. He had picked up terms like blockchain or bitcoin once or twice, but on his first day at his new job, he realized that he had finally found his true calling here.

It was so wonderfully simple and logical. He would like to do nothing else than talk shop all day about NFT and the blockchain, which meant that he was now also available for his colleagues via e-mail at night and on weekends, much to his wife’s annoyance.

“Karl! The salad bowl!” Claudia just called again.

The smell of pot roast was in the air, along with steamed vegetables, Claudia’s specialty.

Karl rolled his eyes, took another sip from his bottle, and reluctantly got up.

Sunday was reserved for the family, even after the children were long gone. Tobias studied law in Marburg and was about to take his second state examination, but now he had moved to Frankfurt. Annika had taken her teacher training course in Heidelberg in the summer semester but was doing a traineeship here in Frankfurt.

Claudia insisted that the children came home for dinner on Sundays, at least most of the time. Tobias and Annika did her the favor of showing up, at least mostly.

Karl left the study, put his beer bottle on the sideboard in the hallway. He went down into the basement, where it smelled of heating oil, detergent, and the past. Somewhere between the Christmas decoration and the camping equipment, Claudia kept the part of her kitchen utensils had no place in her kitchen, although Karl occasionally wondered what was hidden in the seven kitchen cupboards. She had insisted on the cupboards in fitted kitchen at the time.

25 years ago, shortly after Tobias' birth, they had bought the semidetached house in the north of Frankfurt. It was still affordable then, however today it would probably not be because the property prices in the region had exploded. Actually, it was too big for him and Claudia, but at least it offered enough space for them to avoid each other.

He reached for one of the salad bowls which stood neatly lined up in one of the shelves, between the raclette and the fondue, and went up to the ground floor.

Claudia stood leaning over the steaming pots with reddened cheeks, while Annika diligently shredded salad at the sideboard. Karl put down the salad bowl and went into the living room to see Tobias, who was zapping through the sports channels.

Karl sat down next to him. For a while, father and son sat silently next to each other and stared at the flickering screen, while the two women in the kitchen chatted excitedly.

Annika just told her mother in an excited voice about the new boyfriend she had met at the beginning of her traineeship. Markus was already in the last semester and was a research assistant, a good catch obviously.

“He’s so smart, Mama, you have to hear him talk about history,“ Annika just raved.

Tobias snapped his tongue and the corners of his mouth twitched, knowing his sister’s mind all too well. Annika fell in love quickly and often and it was always ‘the right one’, of which Karl could also sing a song.

“So, my boy, how are things at university?” Karl asked to break the silence between them.

Almost imperceptibly Tobias shrugged and tightened.

“Um, good, good, I’m studying for the second state exam. The library has become my second home.“

Karl nodded. He, himself, had never studied at a university, but had studied courses at a private university while working. It filled him with pride that his son would become a lawyer or even a judge.

“So, what are your plans for the time after that?” Karl avoided looking at his son. He remembered all too well how unpleasant conversations of this kind had once been with his own father. Why did some things never change?

“Well, you know, I was thinking about specializing in environmental law.“ Tobias said, his eyes fixed firmly on the TV.

Karl raised an eyebrow. “Environmental law? I thought you wanted to do corporate law.“

Tobias nodded slowly. “Yes, of course, that was a consideration because of the money and so on. But you know, I realized that I don’t want to do something all my life just for the money. I need more in my life. A vocation or something alike.“

“Understand,“ Karl grumbled, even though he wasn’t sure whether he really understood. The young people today were somehow very different from him and Claudia back then.

They had longed to have a driver’s license, a car, just to get away from home, stand on their own feet.

Tobias, on the other hand, had traveled through South America with his backpack after graduation. Claudia had almost gone mad at that time. Now he was a good student, but he did not have a driver’s license until today.

Karl clapped him on his knee. “You’ll know what you’re doing,“ he said. It was supposed to sound encouraging, but somehow, he missed the right tone.

“Karl!“ Claudia’s voice sounded clearly reproachful.

Karl turned around to face Claudia.

Claudia stood in the passage to the kitchen with his open beer bottle in her hand and shook her head.

“Now I have a beer wreath on the sideboard in the hallway.“

Karl pulled a face. Crap, he had forgotten the beer when he came back from the hallway.

“I’m sorry,“ he grumbled, stood up, and took the bottle out of her hand.

“We can eat now,“ Claudia said, and it still sounded reproachful.

The family sat down at the dining table. The food smelled delicious and tasted even better which lifted Karl’s mood. Claudia’s cooking skills were second to none, a trait he still cherished after all these years. Maybe it was also the beer, which now, after the third bottle, finally had a small effect.

Karl joked and laughed, the mood was relaxed and laid back. Family Sunday was not only a mandatory event and the Sunday lunches had something for themselves.

His cell phone beeped and told him that he had received an e-mail.

Karl frowned. “I have to go to the study for a moment.“ he muttered.

Claudia frowned regretfully. “On Sunday?” she asked.

“It’s not work, it’s my stocks,“ Karl said mysteriously and stood up. “That was delicious, honey,“ he said and gave Claudia a kiss on the cheek, which made her slightly blush. It was no longer often that the two were physically close.

Tobias looked at his watch, and thought of his friends. “I don’t have much time, my train is leaving soon.“

“I can give you a lift,“ Annika announced, who never missed an opportunity to tease her older brother with the fact that he did not have a driver’s license.

“This is going to be very quick,“ Karl assured and hurried towards the stairs.

When he arrived at the study, he locked the door and turned on the laptop. He opened his email and read the new mail for the second time.

SUBJECT: BLACK ROSE

MESSAGE: I KNOW ABOUT YOUR BLACK ROSE IN MADRID. TRANSFER 5 BITCOIN TO THE WALLET ADDRESS BELOW BY FRIDAY, OTHERWISE I WILL SEND PHOTOS AND OTHER EVIDENCE TO YOUR WIFE AND COLLEAGUES.

Karl turned pale, suddenly he felt sick. He tasted bitter stomach acid on his tongue and for a moment he feared that he would retch out all the pot roast and side dish.

It had to be a joke, a terrible, tasteless joke, it couldn’t be real, it must not be real. He swallowed, but the disgusting taste simply did not want to disappear.

Again and again, he read the lines in front of him on the screen, but the content did not change.

Panicked, Karl closed the laptop, as if this could make the email and its horrible text disappear. When he got up, he felt the ground swaying under his feet. He took a few steps and then had to hold on to the back of his chair.

Karl gasped, the room around him seemed to be spinning, he was gasping for breath, his heart was racing, he was desperately trying to calm down. Under no circumstances could Claudia or the children see him like this, at least not before he had come up with a good explanation.

He closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. The blood rushed in his ears, but slowly, very slowly, his heartbeat calmed down. He regained control of his mind and body.

He sat up, took a few deep breaths, and went down to the dining room where the others were.

“So – are you a millionaire now?” Tobias joked, who just stood up from his chair and held out his hand to say goodbye to his father.

“Not yet,“ Karl said with a sour smile on his face and grabbed his hand.

Annika was standing in the hallway putting on her jacket.

“We have to go now,“ she said and embraced her mother to say goodbye. “Food was super delicious, Mama, as always. I am looking forward to the next time.“ She kissed her mother on both cheeks, then hugged her father.

The smell of lily-of-the-valley came into Karl’s nose. That’s how she always smelled, innocent and sweet. He took a deep breath. For a moment, he managed to forget the rift that ran through his world.

Through the window, they watched the children climb into the car and drive away. It had long turned dark outside.

Claudia sighed deeply and rubbed her arms. “They grew up so quickly,“ she said, her voice was filled with melancholy. “I’ll go and clean up the kitchen.”

Annika pressed the button on the car key and heard the clicking of the central locking. It had become dark by now and it was raining lightly. It was very cold.

“Hopefully, no ice,“ she thought and went to her small BMW at the street corner. Tobias followed her and checked his WhatsApp messages on his mobile phone. Annika turned around, looked at him, and thought that he looked like a ghost, so in the dark with the light from the cell phone display on his face. Pale and grey in color. She was worried about her brother. Since he had returned from the semester break in Argentina, he did not progress with his studies and hung out more with his friends rather concentrating on his studies.

Annika dropped into the driver’s seat and started the car. You could hear nothing but the quiet whirring of the I3. “The batteries are still almost full, so no problem for the commute in the coming week,“ the opening passenger door tore her out of the thought, Tobias fell into the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt. “This is getting worse.“

Annika did not answer. She focused on the outside world and switched on the windshield wipers. Just over zero degrees she thought and drove behind a truck onto the driveway towards the city. “What do you mean?”

Tobias looked up from his mobile phone display and murmured “So clinical the two, always these questions from dad.“

Annika joined the traffic on the highway and then replied “That’s how they are. Nothing new.“

“No, it is different from before. Ever since Dad started working at the new bank, he’s been acting differently, like he’s got a secret. The cryptocurrency thing is taking him down. Did you notice how different he was when he came back from the study? Crazy, totally crazy.“-

Annika stayed in the right lane and kept her distance. It had become quite dark by now and the ice symbol in the display of the I3 indicated that it could be icy on the road. The windshield wipers went back and forth monotonously and the oncoming traffic blinded her now and then.

Totally crazy, she thought, What’s that supposed to mean?

Instead, she said to Tobias, “Yes, well, since he has been managing the new bank and taking care of the numbers and no longer the customers, he is in his world. I don’t understand why you do something you don’t want to do for a whole professional life. Mom told me he always wanted to work with numbers and went to the bank. But then the two of us came into their lives and he had to make many compromises, she says, so because of the family and so on. But now he can build something completely new, something he enjoys. Numbers, Mathematics and Crypto. All right, blockchain and hashtags, that’s his world now. He’ll be fine there. Mom also likes it; she says he is much more relaxed than before.“

Tobias had put his phone into his pocket and looked into the wet darkness outside. Only a few more minutes to his apartment.

The guys in my shred apartment will laugh at me because I was with my parents on Sunday. They don’t understand it, went through his mind. For more than half a year now he lived in the shared flat. An interesting combination, being two men and a woman, Nara, good that she fancies women, otherwise it would be guaranteed stress, as hot as she looks.

But somehow it worked out well for the three of them, so far there had been only a small about rent money. However, the quarrel at that time had been a short one, they cleared the air after that. All three of them studied in Frankfurt, which worked out only with a part-time job in addition to Uni to cover the cost of living. He liked Nara, she and him had the same thoughts and opinions. Not at all bitchy, her views are more like a man.

He half-listened to Annika, but was thinking of Nara. “Yeah, I thought so, too, but now I think there’s something else. Dad is now travelling more. That has changed him.“

Annika turned into the street on the Main bank and looked for a place to let Tobias get off. Right in front of the house where Tobias lived, she found a gap and stopped the car. In the apartment of Tobias' shared apartment, the light was burning and she could see Nara standing in the kitchen looking out the window, the window stood open and Nara was smoking a cigarette. Annika looked at the window and saw that Nara had recognized her. She waved briefly and Nara waved back. The glow of the cigarette glowed brighter than before.

Tobias opened the door and got out. “Thanks for the lift, and see you Sunday. We’re on the phone. Hasta luego!“

Annika kept looking at Nara and replied shortly “You’re welcome, big brother. We will talk on the phone. Adios!“

Tobias went through the light drizzle to the house and disappeared into the hallway behind the heavy wooden door.

Actually, Annika wanted to leave long ago, but she continued to look at Nara by the window. Nara pulled the cigarette and the light red glow of the embers briefly lit her face. Annika could see that she was looking at her and noticed that the interior lighting had just gone out. She saw Nara slowly exhaling the smoke in her direction. She didn’t seem to look away. The smoke blurred Nara’s face, but Annika did not want to avert her gaze. She had only met Nara once in the summer in the apartment at the welcome party for Tobias and learned that she was South American and studied in Frankfurt.

It was only a few words she had spoken to her at the time, but Nara’s slight accent had captivated her. And this woman’s smile. The flashing in her eyes when her eyes met. And this little tattoo on her shoulder, a little rose, quite inconspicuous but still burnt into Annika’s memory. Several times, she had thought back to this first run-in, but had never found the courage to continue the conversation. She thought back to the encounter and remembered that Nara was not wearing anything under the light tank top at the time, and her firm breasts were clearly visible under the thin fabric. With these thoughts of Nara’s tattoo, her tank top at the party, and Nara’s gaze on her body, a comforting feeling made itself felt in her stomach and slowly rose until she could feel it in her chest. “It would be so easy to get to know her better, after all, my brother lives in the shared flat,” she heard herself say and then let go looking at Nara.

She drove off slowly and then it took only a few minutes to get to her apartment. Annika knew that nobody was waiting for her there, only the small cozy apartment, and the large empty bed. “But maybe there was a message from Markus,“ she muttered on the way to the front door, “Why doesn’t he have a mobile phone? This rejection of technology was very strange, always only landline and answering machine, never a WhatsApp, I’ll ask him.” Annika went up the stairs and opened the door to her empty apartment.

In the suburbs, the rest of the evening passed in silence with another beer and an animal documentary on TV. Later, when Karl lay next to Claudia in bed and listened to her slow, even breaths did he remember the e-mail and he suddenly lay wide awake in the dark.

His thoughts flew back to a day in fall two years ago, the day when everything had started and he had finally begun to live.

Dortmund, September 1990

When he woke up, he immediately felt it had happened another time. Like several times before, he had had these dreams full of fear and had not got up at night, but remained lying down and now the pajamas and the bed linen were completely wetted.

Peter started crying because he knew what was going to happen. His father would shout at him despicably and his mother would only look away sadly. Tears ran down his cheeks as he slowly walked into the kitchen to his mother in his wet pajamas. She looked at him silently and began to cry.

“Down to the cellar now! You zero, you looser, you complete failure!” His father, who had stood up from the kitchen table and slowly pulled the leather belt out of the flaps of his heavy work trousers, shouted. Peter felt that it would get worse today than usual because he could smell the bad odor of alcohol in his father’s breath. Whenever his father drank in the morning, he beat him and his mother.

Again and again, the leather belt clapped on Peter’s naked back, “I won’t scream, I won’t scream, I won’t scream!“ Peter, whimpering, pressed through his closed lips, while his father stood over him and struck his son with his belt.

Peter felt the biting pain of every hit on his body and more tears ran down his face.

“I will not cry! Never, never!” he shouted now in his head, and suddenly he felt something break inside of him. Peter no longer felt the pain. He only heard the clapping of the belt on his skin, but it was not his body that was hit by it.

Peter M. lost consciousness and slumped down on the cold cellar floor before all became black before his eyes.

Madrid, October 2018

Gleamingly bright, the sunlight shimmered over the colorful mosaic floor of the hotel lobby, which was located under a high, arched glass roof.

Although it was already late October, the temperatures here were still pleasant. Karl wore a polo shirt, a fine sweat film was on his skin despite the ubiquitous air conditioning in his hotel room and the conference rooms, but he felt pleasantly light, somehow carefree.

Was it because of the topics of the conference? For five days, it was all about cryptocurrencies and the potential to make money from it. Experts from all over the world came together here in Madrid to talk about trends, developments, and possibilities of use and although Karl was still quite new to the topic, he already felt at home in this area. -

He went to the hotel bar, ordered a tonic water, and drank it in big sips. As he looked around, he noticed the woman sitting in the middle of the room, where the sun shone most brightly, in front of a screen.

She seemed completely absorbed in her actions. Everything about her was flowing, her long black hair struggling her back in gentle waves, her wide, colorful clothes flattering her petite womanly body, her fine, elegant movements with which she moved the brush over the canvas.

Fascinated, Karl watched her. As she sat with her back to him, he could not see her face and it was impossible to guess her age.

On the canvas, there were many strong brushstrokes, some in vivid dark blue, others in green and black, in between red.-

“Who is that?” he asked the bartender, a bald man in his early 20s, who was polishing a glass.

“That’s Rose,“ he said with a strong accent. “She comes here to paint. She says there is no place in Madrid where the light is as perfect as in the lobby. The guests like to watch her, she is even mentioned in a tourist guide.“

Karl continued to observe the petite woman. Something about her captivated him. Was it the way she painted? As if there was nothing else in the world around her, no hotel, no guests, no one watching her?

“What is she painting?” he asked, more to himself than to the bartender.

The bartender laughed. “You have to ask her yourself. Only Rose knows that.“

Karl approached cautiously.

The woman’s shoulders barely remained still for a moment when she registered his proximity, but she did not turn to him. She kept painting as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

After a while, Karl couldn’t wait any longer.

“What is it that you are painting?” he asked in English.

The woman paused in the middle of the movement, the brush in the air, the view continued straight.

“An abyss,“ she said.

This was not the answer Karl had expected, and first, he wondered if he had been wrong.

Slowly, with a cat-like smooth movement, the woman turned around to face him.

Karl looked into a narrow-cut face with large almond-shaped eyes, in which a dark fire burned, a finely curved nose over full lips with a headstrong chin. She was young, but not too young. He estimated she was in her mid-30s.

“What kind of abyss?” he wanted to know.

“The abyss that Nietzsche meant.“ she said with a gentle voice and an adorable Spanish accent. “The abyss that lurks in each of us and that can devour us at any time.”

Karl swallowed. Something about her words disturbed and fascinated him at the same time.

“I am Karl,“ he said.

The look of her black eyes pierced into him, right into his soul.

“What is your abyss?” she asked.

Karl’s throat was suddenly dry. He considered whether he should return to the counter and order another tonic water, but rejected the idea. He didn’t want to stop the conversation, not until he knew her name, her whole name. Actually, he wanted to know everything about her.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“I am Rose.“ she said. “Rose Negra.“

“The black rose?”

“Exactly the one.“

With these words, she turned back to her canvas and continued to paint, with energetic, almost furious brushstrokes, she applied new paint line by line. She seemed to have forgotten Karl’s presence.

After this encounter, Karl found himself in the lobby to watch Rose at lunchtime on all the following days. Most of the time she barely registered him, occasionally giving him a short nod with her head or a smile by raising the corners of her mouth a little. Rarely could he stay long enough to see her finish one of her paintings.

After all, it turned Thursday. The next day, in the afternoon, his flight was to get him back to Frankfurt. The thought of it was unbearable for Karl. He didn’t want to lose Rose. He had to find a way to see her once more. And so, he took all courage and went to her.

“I want to buy one of your paintings,“ he said.

Rose put down the brush. Dark red paint in the color of dried blood dripped down on the color palette she held in her left hand.

She looked at him in amazement, and then a mocking look hit her face.

“Is that so? Which of my works would you like to purchase?”

Karl had to clear his throat. He hadn’t thought about that part of his plan.

“Any,” he said.

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Well, then I suggest you come to my studio tonight and choose one.“

She wore an oversized men’s shirt in dark green that she had tied at the waist with a wide leather belt in which she looked absolutely gorgeous. She reached into the chest pocket and pulled out a card.

It said: Rose Negra, Artista, and an address in La Letras, the artists' quarter of the city.

“I’ll be home after eight o'clock.“ she said and turned back to her work. The big shirt slipped slightly and Karl could see the small tattoo on her shoulder. A little black rose.

For a moment, Karl stood there, unable to move, as if he had just received the key to another universe, then he restrained himself and turned away with the card in his hand.

He walked slowly out of the lobby towards the elevator and drove up to the fourth floor. His room was there and after a week in the hotel, he would have found it in his sleep.

Arriving in front of the door, he looked at the card that he still held in his hand. There was printed Rose Negra on it and the address in La Letras, an inconspicuous card without any art or ornaments. “Not really an artist’s card,“ he thought and opened the door to his room. He went in and put the card on the small table by the mirror.

The door slammed audibly behind him. He took off the jacket and hung it on the hanger, took off his shoes, and lay down on the bed to relax for a few minutes. He had learned this in recent years; his former boss had explained it to him and called it ‘power napping’. With a little practice, Karl managed to forget everything for a few minutes and find new strength. In the last few months, he had often needed this, the change to the new task had worn him out, he felt that he needed a vacation. There was a tiredness he hadn't felt before. But also, an energy that drove him to get to know new things. Karl felt vulnerable if he did not have full control over the situation.

“Loss of control, such a stupid word,“ he thought and closed the curtains with the remote. The sun nevertheless penetrated through and it only became a little darker in the hotel room.

It was a few hours before the meeting with Rose, and he felt excited, like a little boy. Karl closed his eyes, but could not switch off the thoughts. The look of these black eyes had been so intense and penetrated him with so much power that he still saw her face in front of him.

What is she doing to me?, he thought and sat up. He picked up the card from the table and smelled it. He didn’t know exactly what was happening at that moment, but he not only wanted to see the card, but also to feel it and smell it. It smelled slightly of roses and something else. Perhaps earth or the oil of colors, he thought as he closed his eyes for a brief moment.

“No, it’s something else.“ It went through his head, and kept the card in his hand while he sank back onto the bedspread. He held the card against the light and saw a small black symbol in the corner of the card. Karl could not see it exactly in the dim light in the room and thought, “Of course, this is a rose.“

Without knowing how wrong he was, he put the card into the chest pocket of his shirt.

After a few minutes without really finding peace, Karl got up and went to the bathroom, took a shower, and freshened up for the evening with Rose.

“It is long ago,“ he thought when he shaved, “that you had a date. Is this a date?” His reflection did not answer. He dressed casually and went to the telephone at the desk and called the reception to order a taxi for 19:30.

“It’s time to go to the hotel bar and have a drink before the taxi arrives. And a glass of wine can’t hurt,“ he said to himself, and even the reflection in the hallway did not contradict him when he threw a short scrutinizing look in the mirror before he opened the hotel room door and went out.-

At eight o'clock sharp, the taxi arrived at the specified address. Karl had left nothing to chance. He now was wearing jeans and a button-up shirt with his sleeves rolled up. He had used the new after-shave that Annika had given him for Christmas and that Claudia had claimed was far too sweet for a man his age. But what did Claudia know?

The building seemed to him like a former factory. There was no bell, the door on the ground floor was not locked.

Karl went up the wide stairs. It smelled of spicy food and colors, and of something else he couldn’t name, an intense, exciting smell that made his skin tingle. His heartbeat became imperceptible.

When he got to the top, Rose was standing at the door. She wore a kimono and had the long black hair twisted into a chignon so she looked like a geisha.

“Bienvenido Carlos!” she said.

When he heard her breathe his name, Karl’s heart stopped for a few blows. He knew at that moment that he was lost, but he did not resist. If this was his abyss, then he was ready to be devoured with skin and bones. He did not know when he had made this decision, but it did not matter anymore.

Rose occupied the entire floor, well over 200 square meters, with ‘inhabited’ being the wrong word. Everywhere he saw canvases and sculptures, colors, tools, even furniture, tailors, and other objects he could not name. Large windows let the warm rays of the evening sun into the room and filled it with a pleasantly warm light. Everything was colorful, creative; A wild chaos in which there was still a kind of order.

Claudia would lose her mind here, Karl thought and immediately rejected the idea of Claudia, but this place fascinated him, this moment electrified him. An immediate erotic tension emanated from this place, which Karl felt on his skin and in his entire body.

“Do you want wine?” Rose asked.

Karl nodded.

She went to the dark dresser opposite the huge windows and poured him a glass of Vino Verde, light, delicious and cold. Karl took a small sip and immediately felt like he was getting drunk, or was it because of her presence?

“Come, I will show you my works.“ she said.

With swaying steps, she walked in front of him and he followed her as if pulled on an invisible string.

She showed him various paintings, some on oversized canvases, always with strong colors, always a little gloomy.

“What is this?” he asked.

He stood in front of a 2 by 2-meter large canvas, which was completely painted in blue and black tones.

“This is the Leviathan,“ she said.

“The what?”

“The Leviathan. A sea monster. It lurks in the dark depths of the ocean, ready to emerge during a storm and devour any ship and its crew.“ Rose said. “Thomas Hobbes used the term to describe a powerful state that tames the chaotic natural state of man, which would plunge us all into ruin.”

“Aha.“ Karl said and looked at the picture.

Rose smiled at him. She seemed to be amused.

“The sea represents the powerful subconscious, the place where all our memories and experiences are stored, including those that we collectively possess as humanity, all the horror and the terrible, that we as humans try to repress and prefer not to know or want to have, even our urges, our lust, our sexuality.”

The way she uttered these words sent Karl shivers down his spine. A tremor ran through his body and he hoped that she did not notice.

“The Leviathan rises as an ambassador of this subconscious, as the personification of all this repressed and breaks to the surface,“ she said and went on.

Karl looked at the painting for a moment, then followed her.

The next picture was all painted in black, black torn strokes forming shapes that seemed to suggest people, people who seemed somehow threatening. The image had an unpleasant aura.

“I can’t sell this picture,“ Rose explained. “It has a special meaning for me. It’s the shadows of my past, all the men I loved and who hurt me. I locked them in this picture so that they could never hurt me once more.“

Karl looked at the picture. The idea of being imprisoned in an image of Rose was more than unpleasant, causing him an almost physical discomfort, even if he was not otherwise very receptive to such things.

“This is how my art works. I give her everything that is in me. Whatever moves me, worries me, hurts me, or excites me. It gives it its strength.”

She looked Karl straight in the eye, her gaze seemed to blaze. For a few seconds, time stood still, the world around him seemed to disappear. There was only her and him, but then she interrupted the connection and went on.

Rose now stood in front of another painting, also large, but painted in bright red and pale pink, twisting into each other.

“What is this picture about?” he wanted to know.

“The liberation of my Kundalini,“ Rose explained.

Karl looked at her.

Rose placed her left hand on her body above her pubic mound, slightly touching Karl’s forearm with the outside of her right hand. “I have healed and purified my root chakra from all the violations of patriarchy and the past and freed my feminine primal power. I’ve been a whole woman ever since.”

Karl swallowed and had to clear his throat.

Rose smiled.

“I want to buy this picture!“ Karl said hastily.

Rose seemed surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.“

“It is expensive.“

“I don’t care.“

“It is big. Sending it to Germany will be expensive.“

“It doesn’t matter.“

“All right then.“

Rose placed her wine glass on the marble top of the small table next to the easel, a piercing, clear sound.

Slowly she approached Karl, stretched out her arms, and reached for the collar of his shirt.

Feeling her so close almost overwhelmed Karl. His breath was heavy. Excitement rushed through his body like an unknown power. Rose smelled seductive, feminine, and animal-like at the same time, foreign and familiar.

“I know why you’re here, “ she said, and her voice was rough, exciting, and a little threatening.

Karl felt her lips on his lips and her arms laying lightly on his shoulders. A few moments later, Karl forgot everything around him and what had brought him to her place.

While a loud thunderstorm broke out outside the windows of the old factory building, Rose pushed Karl to her futon, which was in the middle of the room, stripped off her kimono, and then they made love, desperately, passionately, and truthfully. Lightning, thunder, and storm accompanied the next hours of a deep devotion like Karl had never experienced before.

***

“What is this?” Claudia asked horrified about four weeks later when the forwarding company delivered the picture.

“I will hang it in my study.“

“Since when are you interested in art?” Claudia wanted to know.

“I bought it in Madrid. Madrid is a city of artists.“

“But…it is so big.“

“It’s perfect,“ Karl replied, feeling the memory of this quake running through his body that he had felt during that particular night in Madrid.