Light is the very last touch. Gerardo and Uhl are installing it in the farm living room. They have been at it since early in the morning, because the equipment is very delicate. The chiaroscuro lamps have been specially created for the exhibition by a Russian physicist. Clara stares at the strange fittings: metal bars from which protrude arms with bulbs on the end. They look to her like steel racks. 'You're going to see something incredible,' said Gerardo. They closed the blinds. In the dense darkness, Uhl flicked a switch and the lamps gave off a golden glow. It was light, but it did not illuminate. It seemed to paint the air a golden colour rather than to reveal objects. Thanks to the flashing speed of electricity, the entire room had become a seventeenth-century oil painting. A minimalist still life by Franz Hals; pret-a-porter Rubens; postmodern Vermeer. Standing opposite her, the only figure in this domestic tenebrist canvas, Gerardo was smiling.
'It's as if we were inside a Rembrandt picture, isn't it? Come on, you're the protagonist.'
Barefoot and naked, Clara walked towards the light. It was a friendly, tempting light, the dream of a suicidal moth: she could stare at it endlessly without it harming her eyes. There were gasps of admiration.
'You're a perfect work of art,' Gerardo praised her. 'You don't even need painting. Do you want to see yourself? Look.'
There was the sound of wood scraping along the floor, and she could see one of the mirrors being brought over. She caught her breath.
Somehow, in some way, she knew this was what she had been searching for all her life.
Her silhouette stood out from the darkness of a classical painting as if painted with golden brushstrokes. Her face and half the curtain of her hair were incrusted with amber. Clara blinked at her gleaming breasts, the lavish crown of her sex, the outline of her legs. As she moved, she sparkled like a diamond under the light, and became a different kind of work. Each of her gestures painted a thousand different canvases of herself.
‘I wouldn't mind having you at home under these lights,' she heard Gerardo say in the darkness. 'Naked Woman on a Black Background.'
She could hardly hear him. It seemed to her that everything she had dreamt of ever since she had discovered Eliseo Sandoval's artwork in her friend Talia's house, everything she had scarcely dared say or admit to herself when she decided to become a canvas, was here now in the reflection of her body under the chiaroscuro lights. She understood she had always been her own dream.
*
That morning the poses were easier. It was what Gerardo called 'filling in'. They had already chosen the exact colours: a deep red for her hair, drawn up in a bun; mother-of-pearl mixed with pink and yellow for the skin; a fine ochre line for the eyebrows; chestnut eyes with a tinge of crystal; her lips outlined in flesh tints; the areolas of her breasts a matt brown colour. After she had showered, washed and returned to her original primed colours, Clara felt better. She was exhausted, but she had reached the end of a long journey. The previous fortnight had been full of harsh poses, colour experiments, efforts to concentrate, and then the masterly brushstrokes Van Tysch had used to define her expression as she stared into the mirror, the slow passage of time. Only the final detail was left.
'The signature,' Gerardo said. 'The Maestro will sign the works in the rehearsal room at the Old Atelier this afternoon. And you will all pass into eternity,' he added with a smile.
Uhl drove the van. They turned on to the motorway and soon saw Amsterdam in the distance. The sight of that city, which had always seemed to Clara like a pretty doll's house, lifted her hypnotised spirits. They crossed several bridges and headed for the Museumsplein along narrow, tidy streets, accompanied by never-ending streams of bicycles and the clanking procession of trams. They spied the impressive bulk of the Rijksmuseum. Beyond it, in the pearly-grey midday light, they could see a huge mass of dense shadows. The sun's rays filtering through the clouds gave the massive structure an opalescent sheen. It was as though a tidal wave of oil were sweeping over Amsterdam. 'Rembrandt's Tunnel.'
They had decided to have a look at it before they went to the Old Atelier for the signature session. Clara was excited about discovering the mysterious place where she would be exhibited. They parked close to the Rijksmuseum. It was not exactly a hot summer's day, but she did not feel at all cold beneath the padded light sleeveless dress she was wearing. She also had on a pair of lined plastic slippers as well as the three labels that identified her as one of the original figures for Susanna Surprised by the Elders.
They walked into Museumstraat and found themselves face to face with the Tunnel almost unintentionally. It looked like the mouth of a huge mine covered with curtains. It was a horseshoe shape, with the U open towards the rear of the Rijksmuseum. The main entrance was protected by two rows of fences, flashing lights and white and orange vehicles with the word Politic written on the side. Men and women in dark-blue uniforms were on guard at the fences. Some tourists were taking photos of the colossal structure.
While Gerardo and Uhl went to talk to the policemen, Clara stopped to get a good look at the Tunnel. From the entrance, which was easily as tall as any of the great classical buildings in Amsterdam, the curtains rose and fell, dipping down or rising up to the clouds in the sky like a majestic circus tent, snaking in among the trees and enveloping them, blocking streets and cutting off the horizon. In between the two wings of the horseshoe was the central area of the Museumplein, with its artificial pond and monument. There was something strange and grotesque about this vast black shape squatting like a dead spider on Amsterdam's delicate cityscape, something Clara found hard to define. It was as though painting had become something else. As though it was not an art exhibition that was involved, but something infinitely more challenging. The entrance was covered by one of Rembrandt's famous last self-portraits. His face beneath the cap – his bulbous nose, the scrawny moustache and the wispy Dutch goatee beard – peered sceptically out at the world. He looked like a God weary of creating. The curtain over the exit was a blow-up of the photo of Van Tysch facing away from the camera. We go in through Rembrandt's chest, and come out through Van Tysch's back, Clara thought. The past and present of Dutch art. But which of the two geniuses was more enigmatic? The one who showed his painted face, or the one who hides his real identity? She could not decide. Gerardo came up to her.
'They're checking our documents so we can go in,' he said, pointing to the Tunnel. 'What do you make of it?' 'It's fantastic'
If s almost five hundred metres long, but it's bent in the shape of a horseshoe so it will fit into the park. You go in this end, and come out over there near the Van Gogh museum. Some parts of it are forty metres high. Van Tysch wanted it erected near the Rembrandthuis, cutting off streets and even emptying buildings, but of course they wouldn't let him. The curtains are made of a special material: it blocks out all exterior light and keeps the inside as black as a well, so the works will only be lit by the chiaroscuro lights. We can walk through it. But keep close to us.'
'Why? What could happen to me?' Clara asked with a smile.
'Well, tramps spend the night in there. And drug addicts slip in under cover of dark. And then there are the protest groups, the BAH and the others… yes, the BAH, the Bothered About Hyperdrama. You must have heard of them, haven't you?… They're our most faithful followers,' Gerardo smiled. 'Tomorrow they're holding a protest outside the Tunnel, but there are always a couple of trouble-makers who try to get in to put up posters. The police are on patrol inside the Tunnel, and arrest one or two of them every day. Come on, let's go.'
Clara was pleased at Gerardo's concern for her. In other circumstances she might have thought he was worried about Susanna, but this time she was sure it wasn't that. It was her, Clara Reyes, that he was afraid of losing.
Uhl was waiting for them beside a small gap in the entrance curtain. It's as though we were going in under Rembrandt's head, thought Clara. Dim lights from bulbs fixed in the curtain showed them the way. But as soon as they were properly inside they were enveloped in an unknown darkness. The street noises had disappeared, too: all that could be heard were distant echoes. Clara could scarcely make out Gerardo's shape in front of her.
'Wait a moment; your eyes will get used to it.' 'I'm starting to see something.'
'Don't worry, there's nothing in the way. The path to follow is a gentle narrow ramp, indicated by the lights. All you have to do is walk forward. And once the works have been installed and are lit by the chiaroscuro lighting, they'll be reference points. Can you feel the guide rope? Stay close to it.'
Gerardo went ahead. Clara was in the middle. They went forward slowly over the smooth ground, groping like blind people for the rope at the edge of the track. All she could see of Gerardo were his feet and part of his trouser legs. The rest of his silhouette was swallowed up in the darkness. It seemed to her as though she was walking through the night of the world. ‘Is everything all right back there?' she heard Gerardo say. 'More or less.'
Uhl said something in Dutch, Gerardo replied, and the two men laughed. Gerardo translated for her:
'Some of the works say this place gives them the creeps.' ‘I like it,' Clara said firmly. 'This darkness?' "Yes, absolutely.'
She could hear Gerardo and Uhl's footsteps and the flapping of the labels on her wrist and ankle. All of a sudden the atmosphere changed. It was as if the space had suddenly got bigger. The sound of their footsteps was different. Clara stopped and looked up. It was like peering into an abyss. She felt a kind of upside-down giddiness, as if she was in danger of leaving the ground and plunging up into the heights of the tent curtains. Whole choirs of silence converged in the pitch-black air above her head. She suddenly remembered Van Tysch's pronouncement that absolute darkness did not exist, and wondered whether the Maestro had not been trying to contradict himself with the design of the Tunnel.
'They call this part the "basilica".' Gerardo's voice floated in front of her. 'It's the first dome. Almost thirty metres high. There's another even higher one in the other wing of the U. In the centre of this one they're going to put The Anatomy Lesson, and further on The Syndics and The Slaughtered Ox, which has several figures hanging from the roof by their ankles. You can't see the background now because there's no lighting.' 'It smells of paint,' Clara murmured.
'Oil paint,' Gerardo said. 'We're inside a Rembrandt painting, after all. Had you forgotten? But come on, don't get left behind.' 'How do you know I'm being left behind?' 'Your yellow labels give the game away.'
Clara's legs were shaking as she walked. She thought it must be that her muscles were unused to this perfectly normal exercise after all the tough days of holding poses, but she suspected as well that it was because of the emotion this infinite darkness aroused in her.
'We've still a way to go before we reach the spot where Susanna will be exhibited,' Gerardo said. 'But look, can you make out those dark struts in the distance?'
Clara thought she could see something, but perhaps it wasn't what Gerardo meant. She could barely make out his hand pointing into the darkness.
'We've almost reached the bend in the horseshoe. That's where The Night Watch will be: it's an incredible mural, with more than twenty figures. Beyond that, Young Girl Leaning on a Window Sill and the small portrait of Titus, Rembrandt's son. On this side there'll be The Jewish Bride… and now we're coming to the spot where they'll show The Feast of Belshazzar.'
As they edged forward, Clara suddenly saw something amazing in the depths of the darkness: will-o'-the-wisps, glow-worms moving in straight lines. 'The police,' Uhl explained behind her.
It must have been one of the patrols Gerardo had told her were on duty in the Tunnel. They passed by them. Ghostly forms with berets and light flashing off their badges. Clara made out smiles and words in Dutch.
Then they continued on into the bowels of an abandoned universe. 'Do you believe in God, Clara?' Gerardo asked all of a sudden. 'No,' she replied simply. 'What about you?'
'I believe in something. And things like this Tunnel prove to me that I'm right. There is something more, don't you agree? Otherwise, what led Van Tysch to build all this? He himself is the tool of something higher, even though he doesn't know it.' 'Yes, he's Rembrandt's tool.'
'Don't try to be funny. There's something above and beyond Rembrandt, too.'
But what? Clara wondered. What was there above and beyond Rembrandt? Unintentionally, almost unconsciously, she looked up. She saw darkness curled around a shadowy light, a light so dim she was not sure if her eyes were inventing it, as weak as the light from a remembered image, or a dream. A shapeless mass of shadow.
Uhl interrupted her thoughts with a sentence behind her back. Gerardo laughed and answered him.
'Justus says he'd love to know Spanish so he could understand what we're talking about. I told him we're talking about God and Rembrandt. Ah, look… on that wall is where they're going to put Christ on the Cross, and further on…'
Clara could feel fingers touching her own. She let herself be led to the guide rope. The feeble glow from the lights helped her make out the contours of a fabulous garden.
'This is where Susanna will be. Can you see the steps at the edge of the water in the pool? The water won't be real, it'll be painted, like everything else. The lighting will be from above, and the main colours will be ochre and gold. What do you reckon?' 'That it's going to be incredible.'
She heard Gerardo laugh, and felt his arm going round her shoulders.
'You're the incredible one,' he murmured. 'You're the most beautiful canvas I've ever worked on…'
She did not want to pause to consider what he might mean by that. Over the past few days she had hardly spoken to him in her breaks and yet, however strange it might seem, she had felt closer to him than ever. She remembered the evening a fortnight earlier when Van Tysch had appeared, and Gerardo had painted her features, and the way he had looked at her while he was holding up the mirror. In some unfathomable way, she thought, both of them had helped recreate her, give her new life. But whereas Van Tysch had solely painted Susanna, Gerardo had also helped define Clara, to sketch a new, still diffuse Clara, still dark and undefined. At that moment, she did not feel she had the strength to consider all that this discovery implied.
They emerged from the far end of the horseshoe, out through Van Tysch's dark back, and stood blinking in the daylight. It was not a sunny day, far from it: the sun was having difficulty breaking through a grey veil of clouds covering the sky. But compared to the sublime pitch-black darkness they had just left, Clara felt she was looking at a blindingly hot summer's day. The temperature was perfect, despite an unsettling wind.
'It's almost noon’ said Gerardo. 'We should go to the Atelier in the Plantage district to get you ready and have the Maestro sign you.' As he gazed at her, an inscrutable smile stretched his cheeks. 'Are you ready for eternity?' She said she was.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow was the day.
She could feel the sheets rub against her labels, and the signature like a child's hand on her ankle: something that neither hurt nor pleased her, but was simply there.
'Tomorrow I'll begin eternal life.'
After the signing session, she had been taken to her hotel. There was a security guard keeping watch on her, even in her room, because now she was an immortal work of art. And they have to prevent at all costs any immortal work dying, she thought, smiling to herself.
It had happened around five in the afternoon. Gerardo and Uhl had taken her to the Old Atelier, the sprawling complex of buildings the Foundation used in the Plantage district. There they had painted her in one of the cabins with two-way mirrors in the basement. They had let her dry, then put on a padded dress and led her to the signing room. Nearly all the 'Rembrandt' works were there. Clara saw some incredible sights: two models hanging by their ankles next to a constructed ox carcass, a regiment of bloody riders; a wonderful dream mixing Dutch Puritan clothes and the nakedness of mythological flesh. She saw Gustavo Onfretti nailed to a cross, and Kirsten Kirstenman stretched out on an operating table. She met for the first time the two old men of Susanna; one of them gaunt, with a penetrating gaze, the other as solid as a wardrobe. She recognised the first of them immediately, despite the paint obscuring his face: he was the old man she had seen being checked in the room next to hers at Schiphol airport. Both of them were wearing flowing robes, and the tones of their faces denoted lasciviousness and liver problems. She hardly had time to speak to them, because she had to be placed in position on the podium: naked, crouching at the feet of the First Elder, completely Susanna, completely defenceless.
A long time went by before Van Tysch and his assistants appeared. Clara thought Gerardo and Uhl were among them. Perhaps also there was the black assistant she had seen getting out of a van a fortnight earlier. Curled up on the ground, she saw a procession of women's calves, and barefoot men and women go past: probably sketch models. Then the dark tubes of Van Tysch's black trousers. Phrases in Dutch. Van Tysch's voice. Other voices. The sound of implements. Someone had switched on a bright light and was shining it on her. Then the buzz of the electric tattoo needle.
Clara had been signed on many occasions. She was well aware of the physical sensation when a painter signed part of her body with any kind of delicate instrument. But this was completely different. It was like the first time. To be a Van Tysch original was different. She felt as though she had reached an end, had been finished. At twenty-four, she was complete. But beyond this ecstatic feeling of being finished, who would understand her? Who could go with her in her journey into darkness? Who would help make her transition to the sublime an easy, quick one? All at once, in the split second before the tattoo needle touched her, she stopped thinking and wishing. She felt a kind of empty dark sensation inside herself, as if she had stepped outside her body and had switched off the light. Now I'm thinking like an insect: she remembered Marisa Monfort's advice when she was priming her memories. Now I'm a real work of art.
Something was tickling her left ankle. She could feel the needle circling round as it drew 'BvT' on her bone. Of course she did not even look at Van Tysch while he was doing this. She knew he wasn't looking at her either. And now in the hotel, on that first night, she was waiting.
Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow she would be on show for the first time.
When at last she fell asleep, she dreamt that she was once again outside the door to the attic in the Alberca house, except that she wasn't an eight-year-old girl, but a twenty-four-year-old woman who had been signed on the ankle by Van Tysch.
Even so, she was desperate to get into the attic. 'Because I haven't seen the horrible yet. I'm a Van Tysch painting, but I still haven't seen the horrible.' She went up to the door and yanked it open. Someone stopped her with a hand on her arm. She turned, and saw her father. He looked terrified. He was shouting something as he tried to prevent her going into the room. Gerardo was standing next to him, shouting as well. It was as though they wanted to save her from a mortal danger.
But she struggled free from all the hands keeping her back, and ran towards the dark depths.