The Museum of Modern Love (33 page)

Until at last there was Klaus. Dear Klaus. He was her cue. After Klaus it was the end. It was day seventy-five and there was only one thing to do. Still, she took in his eyes, the sense of no time and all time and the infinite words of silence. She loved him. She loved everyone in the room. She loved everyone alive and everyone who had ever lived to bring them all to this time, all the millennia that had gone before and the millennia of people yet to come. She felt enormous.

Klaus dropped his head. He stood.

Don't go, not yet! It is too soon, she thought.

But Klaus was walking away.

Suddenly she sensed her mother high on the balcony looking down at her. She heard her voice as if Danica was right beside her.

‘You must step away from the fields and forests, from the voices and tears, Marina,' she said. ‘I wave you a farewell. You must slip back into the skin of yourself. And I go on. I will see you when you are ready. But not too soon. That place you have in the country, spend time there. Take a new lover. This is your great work. You have added a thread to the great tapestry of art. This is what they will write about. So rest now. Be happy. You're not getting any younger. And believe me, you are dead a long time.'

Marina didn't want it to end. She wanted to stay in this place. She didn't want to surrender to the wild wind of life. But it was time.

She dropped her head and for a moment pure grief struck through her. She must let it go, this room, this story, this work. It was over. She must relinquish this atrium where she had lived from spring until summer. She must give up the faces that had shown her a mystery that had no explanation. But how to stand? How to rise and meet this room?

She felt her legs trembling. Would she stumble? She was the sadhu walking from the cave. She lifted her head and opened her eyes. She summoned the strength in her legs and back. She felt the floor beneath her feet. She breathed in once and then again. A rush of cold burned through her.

Then she was standing. Her arms were outstretched. She felt the welcome of the crowd swelling inside her. Cameras were flashing. Applause was rising up into the atrium. It was pure cacophony, a study in simple, unbridled delight.

Klaus was beside her. Davide too. Francesca. Marco. Dieter. Everyone was clapping, crying and cheering. The square had
become a great circle of people. They were calling her name. They were calling to her. She was burning with return. She was inbound, flying home, white with light, bright, bright, brighter. She was laughing and crying and every face she looked into was doing the same.

AND SO WE COME TO
the part that might break your heart. Certainly, I cannot bear such moments, because there are days beyond this even I cannot see, and they are not always good or easy days. Yet this is also art. The things that sear a heart. Make of it what you will, and hold on to it, as the days beyond appear and there is no turning back. A human life is short and yet filled with moments of wonder and convergence.

Lydia Fiorentino is seated in a wheelchair by the window. Her hair is drawn up away from her face. She is wearing a white kimono embroidered with gold butterflies. The room is warm and quiet. She is staring out to the silvered evening sea. The hue of sunset is beginning to mark the sky from west to east.

‘I'm here,' Levin said as he sat down beside her. He took her hand.

‘Hello, my darling,' he said. ‘I'm here. It's Arky.'

She blinked.

‘Lydia. Sweetheart. I'm so sorry. I didn't understand. I've been in a sort of hell.'

She continued to stare at the sea and her hand was limp in his, her skin cool.

‘I have missed you so much. I want you to know I do understand. You were right. I have no way to take care of you. I don't have a part of me that can do it. But I want to try. It isn't home without you. It isn't my life without you. There is no one but you who matters to me.'

She gave no indication of hearing or seeing him.

‘This is our moment. One of us needs care. Both of us need care. I'm here. I'm not ready. But there isn't time to be ready.'

Her face was the face of night. Tranquil, vivid, startlingly empty. Her gaze was unfocused. Carefully, he angled her chair to face him.

In this fragile world there is so much to despair of. When certainty can be so frightening, uncertainty can be a form of protest, a sort of passive resistance. Levin gazed into her face. In that moment she was the whole world and all women and one woman and his wife, and he was her husband and all men and one man in the whole world.

There was the murmur of the facility about them. The distant breath of waves. And her face was as pale as moonlight. But he had come.

Levin did not know who he would become with Lydia to care for. There were questions that terrified his sense of order. His deepest sense of how live should be lived.
Ought
to be lived. But
should
and
ought
were words for certainty. What words belonged to uncertainty? Today, he thought. Today is uncertain. Now. Now required something. I feel . . . I feel could be the most uncertain of beginnings. It was what happened when he waited for an arpeggio, a melody . . . as if all creative ideas were simply feelings waiting to be plucked from some flowering sky. He understood with vivid clarity that the best ideas came from a place with a sign on the door saying I don't know.

I don't know . . . that's what made things happen. His thoughts abhorred a vacuum but his heart responded to the blank canvas. Every song, every painting, every book, every idea that changed the world—all these things came from the unknowable and beautiful void.

And then, as if a conductor had indicated the beginning of a symphony, Lydia shifted her eyes and gazed back at him. She continued to hold his gaze and now there was intensity in her eyes as if she was reaching out, pulling herself up, drawing herself in. Perhaps it was a trick of electricity running through her brain. But he would take it.

IN GRATITUDE

TO MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ, TO WHOM
it is dedicated. Thank you for your remarkable life and for your trust in allowing me to represent you in fiction.

To David Walsh, to whom this book is also dedicated, for extraordinary generosity in so many things, but in particular for providing me with a studio at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, where I was surely the happiest writer in the world.

To Marco Anelli and Davide Balliano, who also agreed to be represented in fiction.

To Sean Kelly of the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, Marina's real long-time representative and gallerist, for an invaluable interview, and for setting the bar very high.

To my father Kevin, my mother Dawn, my sister, Melinda, and my many friends who consider art and literature to be of such vital intent. In particular, Caroline Lawrence, Harrison Young, Delia Nichols, Genevieve de Couvreur, Brigita Ozolins, Christine Neely, Katherine Scholes, Roger Scholes, Caroline Flood, Mary Dwyer, Amy Currant, Brett Torossi, Cath Maddox, Jane Armstrong, Mark Clemens, Ross Honeywill, Greer Honeywell and Tania Price.

To Mary Lijnzaad—the finest companion (and librarian) while I worked at MONA.

And John Kaldor for his passion for art and generous hospitality.

To Simon Kenway for help with musical composition. And Felice Arena for last-minute Italian.

In loving memory of Wendy Weil, for early encouragement. And in loving memory of Neil Lawrence, who reminded me at a critical point that creativity was my purpose. You are missed.

To Beth Gutcheon, Martine Gerard, Milton and Denyse Kapelus, Hugh and Elizabeth Hough, Hank Stewart, Jimmy Stone and Fernando Koatz, who have all helped to make New York feel like my other home.

To Gaby Naher, my long-time agent, and Jane Palfreyman, my publisher, two women of extraordinary heart and capacity.

To the editor Ali Lavau, who has had my back over many novels. And editor Siobhán Cantrill, for seeing this book to completion. Also Sandy Cull, for the beautiful design, and Louise Cornegé, for publicity. And all the marvellous people at Allen & Unwin who have guided this book into the world.

My gratitude to Varuna and the Eleanor Dark Foundation for continued support for Australian writers.

To Danielle Wood, my other half in the world of Angelica Banks, and my finest writing mentor. Danielle, Liz Caswell and Kate Richards all read this work in various drafts and offered vital insights and encouragement.

To all the beloved women and men who have offered enthusiasm at just the right time.

To my children Alex, Byron and Belle—three more artists for the world.

Most importantly, to Rowan Smith for love, life and music.