Adele Astaire

Visiting Kokoschka….

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On the sofa, her arm unfinished, it hangs lazily from a rag body, losing itself into light, an oversized doll this man once carried around. We look again. Wood transformed to flesh becomes a woman, whose face, carved into a mask, expands into rigidity; the body shrinking into the cushion’s comfort. Exposed to Kokoschka’s radioactive gaze Adèle raises a defensive shield. It refuses the penetration of that dangerous look. Ignores the long black hair unfurled to soften and caress her pasteboard cheeks. She will not slacken. So long to arrange that black waterfall, now frozen inside a head that will not stir. That rejects the Bacchic delights of this painter’s brush. Adèle is adamantine. She calls it a visage! and says you won’t excite it so easily, my dear Oskar. She prides herself on her intelligence, her morality, her toughness; these monuments to withstand the darts of time. I will not be undone by this hysteric, she has told herself many times already. He stares at Adèle. His eyes blue furnaces. She looks away, cooling herself down with a thought: can friendships be spoiled by paint? She thinks back to last night’s party, a tingle of a hand upon her waist, a sudden rush to melt and flow; those dreams she leaves behind in the dressing room. There is silence. While Kokoschka fills in the dark ominous green. Finished, he makes a joke. There is movement inside the blue armour: the breasts sag. He does a little waltz around the canvas. And stops to tell tall tales of his adventures in Vienna, Paris, London. She does not move, though the body seems lighter; those reds, oranges and blues a sea and its sunset. Less a person than a finished portrait, he thinks. And thinks of Somerset Maugham. Do you know that one? He speaks out loud. The story where the Russian heroine, travelling on a busy tram, rips her knickers off to make a bandage for a wounded man. I’ll not forget that American: shocked at the impropriety! Are you American, my dear Adèle? The body relaxes; it is a slow landslide; a smile slips around the lips, her eyes flash - a thought quicksteps behind them - the cheeks subsiding into submission. He laughs aggressively. At last! I’m past that damned guard dog… Yes, my dear darling Oskar. But must you always play the thief. Are our bodies never safe from your cat burglary?