The 158-Pound Marriage

'This is Klimt's "Judith with the Head of Holofernes", 1901,' Severin said. 'His brother, Georg, made the frame with the inscription.'

'The Museum of Modern Art has not committed itself to a price,' Edith went on doggedly. 'In fact, they might only want one painting. But how much money do you need? Will you go straight to America? Would you consider traveling about first?'

'Schiele's "Sunflowers", 1911,' Severin said. 'Not what you'd expect of Schiele.'

'My mother and I might be able to buy one or two paintings ourselves, but what will you do with the money, exactly? I mean, will you work at some job? You're getting a doctorate? In what?'

'Do you like "The Kiss"?' Severin asked.

'What?'

'"The Kiss", 1908. It's one of my favorite Klimts.'

'Oh, mine too,' Edith said. They looked at it for a while but it was 'Judith with the Head of Holofernes' which prompted Edith to ask, 'Do you think Klimt liked women?'

'No,' said Severin. 'But I think he desired women, was tantalized by them, intrigued by them, attracted to them.' They regarded Judith's strong jaw, her open mouth, her wet teeth, her startling dark hair. Her flesh was gauzy, perhaps in decay, and her long fingers were in Holofernes' hair; she held his severed head matter-of-factly against her stomach, her shadowy navel almost in line with his shut eye. Her breasts were high, upstanding, girlish but soft. One was naked, the other covered by a filmy blouse; the gold gilt was carefully placed so as not to obscure the nipple. Fruits, vegetation, a possible forest and garden, grew over Judith's shoulder and framed her cold, elegant face. But the dead head of Holofernes was casually cropped out of the painting; his one shut eye and part of a cheek was all of him that was in the picture.

'Tell me what it means to you,' Edith said to Severin.

'She's a woman by whom you would not mind being beheaded. She wouldn't mind doing it, either.'

'"Doing it"? You mean the beheading?'

'Both.'

They laughed. Edith felt astonishingly wicked. 'She had him make love to her before she beheaded him,' Edith said. 'You can tell by her smile.' But there was something lewd about the painting which suggested more, or worse, and she felt like shocking Severin Winter. 'Or maybe she tried to after she beheaded him,' she said. Severin just stared at the painting, and she asked him, 'Which do you think she preferred?'

But it was Severin who shocked her when he said 'During.'

He took her next to the Museum of the Twentieth Century. They did not discuss Kurt Winter's paintings there, either.

'Is Frau Reiner going to America with you?' Edith asked.

'What are old friends for?' said Severin. 'Old friends don't travel with you. Old friends stay when you leave.'

'So you're traveling alone?'

'Well, I might have to take sixty or seventy Kurt Winters along.'

'My mother's position isn't very official,' Edith said. (She had never realized how sneakers make a man appear to bounce.) 'Does Frau Reiner live with you?' she asked.

They were looking at Gerstl's 'The Schoenberg Family', c. 1908. 'A minor painter who made it,' Severin said. 'Of course he had to die first. Not one of his paintings was exhibited during his lifetime. My father, of course, didn't get the chance to develop very much after 1938 ...'

'Will you hold on to your mother's apartment, perhaps for vacations?' Edith asked.

'Vacations?' echoed Severin. 'If you're living the way you want to, the concept of holidays becomes obsolete. Once mother and I took a trip to Greece. We were packing up when Zivan or Vaso asked her if she was going to do any modeling there. "Of course," Mother said. "If someone wants to paint, I want to pose." We were just going to Greece, you see, but my mother liked what she did; she wasn't taking a vacation from anything.'

'And what do you like?' Edith asked.

'Languages,' he said. 'I wish everyone spoke two or three languages and used them - all together. There are only so many ways to say things in one language. If we could only talk even more, make more description, add more confusion - but it wouldn't be confusion, finally; it would just be wonderfully complicated. I love complexity,' he said. 'Take food, for example. I'd like to be a great cook. I want to learn how to cook things better and better - subtle things, overpowering things, delicate and rich things, all things! I love to eat.'

'Would you like to run your own restaurant?'

'What?' he said. 'God, no. I want to cook for myself, and, of course, close friends.'

'But how do you want to make a living?' Edith asked.

'The easiest way possible. I can teach German. I'd rather teach cooking, but there's not much money in it. And I'd love to coach wrestling, but I don't have a doctorate in wrestling. Anyway,' he said, 'how I live matters more than what I do. I have ambitions for the quality of how I live; I have no ambitions for making money. Ideally I'd marry a rich woman and cook for her! I'd exercise every day - for the benefit of us both, of course - and I'd have time to read enough to be a constant source of information, ideas and language. Ah, Sprache! I'd be free to devote myself to the basics. I would prefer to have my income provided, and in turn I would provide quality talk, quality food and quality sex! Oh, forgive me ...'