plotted composition and detail.
Famke’s fall also made him realize how deeply dissatisfied he was with the pillows. They were solid, yellowish-white, soft—not at all the crystal daggers that a scorned nymph would erect around her ravisher. So when he came back from one of his wanderings, he was lugging a chunk of ice. He heaved it onto Famke’s platform and stood admiring it.
“I fished it out of the old harbor,” he said, pushing it a little to the left. “I’ll paint this for today—so you may continue to rest, my dear.” He was as excited as a boy with a new puppy, or a youth with a first love. When he pulled off his gloves, his fingers were purple. It took a long time to warm them enough for work.
“Fanden,” Famke said in a pleasant enough voice. She felt rejected, dejected, but the word relieved her feelings somewhat. Without bothering to hunt for her clothes, she climbed into bed. The cold had tired her out, and she told herself to be glad to have a cozy afternoon. It was nice to have pillows on the bed again.
“Fan’n,” Albert repeated absently as she sank her head in the downy softness. Curled on her side, she watched him gaze deeply into the ice, as into a crystal ball. He mixed several shades of blue-white and began dabbing at the canvas with them, lost in his new idea. Eventually, lulled by the soft brush-brush of his work and the little wet sounds on the palette, Famke fell asleep.
In sleep, her mind flew back to the orphanage. Now she was boiling soap again, as she’d been allowed to do that one time; all was just as before, except that it was Viggo, not the cauldron, that burst into flames. She felt the heat from his body, and she turned around to see the orphanage building was made of ice. Sister Birgit’s eyes filled with water and she was about to say something to Famke, but—
Famke woke when she heard a crash in the street, followed by a curse from the same general area. Albert had thrown the ice block out the window.
“It melted too fast,” he said with a shake of the head. “I couldn’t get the essence down—look, this bit will have to be painted out. I need you now.” Unceremoniously he dragged Famke from the bed and barely let her rub the sleep from her eyes before standing her up on the platform again.
Famke didn’t attempt conversation; she tried not even to think about Albert and his mood. As she stood still for the remaining hour of daylight, she wondered instead what it was that Sister Birgit had wanted to say. Famke was no more superstitious than she was religious, but she felt there was a message in the dream, if only her mind could see it. And she suddenly realized that she missed Birgit; since leaving the farm on Dragør, she had been in no position to turn up at the convent orphanage.
“Left leg bent,” Albert said crisply, and Famke came to attention. She had straightened her leg without knowing it; she’d have to focus on the pose or risk Albert’s wrath. So Famke made her mind a blank.
Kapitel 4
There were electric lights. They are one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Compared to an electric light a gas flame looks like a dismal tallow candle.
JULIUS PETERSEN,
LETTER, 1887
Over the next week, Albert spent an hour or so each day down by the water, observing ice and trying to sketch it. The harsh December weather made his work difficult because he couldn’t get his fingers to move as they needed to; he complained bitterly and refused to paint at all until Famke persuaded him to concentrate awhile on her and leave the ice for later.
“There will always be ice,” she said, feeling her English so improved she was able to make a little joke. “This is Denmark.”
So Albert painted Famke, day after day, hour after churchly hour in the loft at the top of Fru Strand’s house. Occasionally he brought in a lump of ice for her to pose with, and then they had to close off the fireplace and open the windows to keep it from melting. But Famke did not complain: She felt they were as happy as they could be.
One night near suppertime, when the streetlamps had long been lit, Albert returned sweating and full of ideas. “I ran all the way from Carlsberg brewery,” he panted, unfastening her hair. “I’ve solved the problem of the ice!” He seemed inordinately pleased as he turned to her bodice buttons.
“Why were you to the brewery?” she asked, shrugging docilely out of the sleeves. She did not allow herself to glance at the fried fish congealing on its plate; art would always take precedence.
“I watched the workers as they left for the day,” Albert said, tugging on her skirt. “All those faces, so tired, so cold, under that harsh light”—the brewery had gone to electric power that spring—“and I realized Nimue must have faces in her ice blocks. Her early victims. Isn’t it brilliant?” As the skirt came down, he looked up at her with the bright eyes of a schoolboy.
Famke hesitated, holding the string of her bloomers. The hair on her body was already standing stiff in the cold. “Did you not say your Nimue must be virgin?” she asked.
“Yes . . .”
“So if Merlin is her first lover, should—shouldn’t—he be her first . . . victim . . . as well?”
She saw immediately that she’d said the wrong thing. Albert’s face fell, and he himself dropped to the floor, where he sat bent-legged and plainly miserable. Famke cursed herself and then, to distract Albert, ripped away the cord of her bloomers and stepped out of them.
He noticed nothing.
“I think Nimue is beginning to bore me,” he mumbled into his lap. “I’ve nearly finished painting you, and the thought of rendering all that ice . . . Some faces inside would make it more interesting.”
“But then the painting would be . . .” Famke hesitated; she was not used to speaking in conditional tenses, any more than she was used to voicing opinions on matters of art—“. . . less good. For those who see it, I mean to say. In your first plan, as you have said, they will see the moment of Nimue’s transforming into a villain, as well as the transforming she makes for Merlin. If you put in other men, she is not a virgin, and she is not changing.”
In his glum silence, she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. During several long minutes, Albert continued to stare down at himself, until finally he drew himself up and said, “I am going out again.”
When Famke opened her eyes the next morning, the sun was already shining with a bright yellow light. One golden ray picked out a small silver box, slightly battered but gleaming, lying forgotten on the mantel.
“Christiansborg,” she said without thinking.
Her voice woke Albert up. He smelled sour as he yawned and stretched, reaching for her as if he’d forgotten their last conversations; perhaps he had drowned his frustrations more deeply than she had thought when he came home. He spoke as if he had a headache. “What was that, darling?”
“I want to go to Christiansborg,” she blurted.
“In the daytime? With all the guards about?”
“I am going,” she said, knowing she sounded childish. “And you may come. I have an idea.”
To her surprise, Albert yielded. Perhaps he knew she couldn’t be pushed too far this day, or perhaps aquavit (that was what she decided it had been, rather than the more prosaic beer) had set carpenters pounding in his head too hard for him to work. The two of them dressed and went out, breakfasting on fresh bakery bread.
It was a short walk, accomplished in silence. In an unexpected thaw, much of the recent snow had melted, and most of the slush was gone from the roads. Famke held her skirts up but sank to her ankles in mud. Albert’s boots were already dirty,