The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach Page B

on the screen grew proportionately paler. In the end the only source of light was the plasma screen. Now the artificial woman was almost white. In swift succession she was transformed into the great beauties of art history: Titian’s
Venus of Urbino
, Velásquez’s
Rokeby Venus
, Canova’s
Paolina Borghese
, Manet’s
Olympia
, Picasso’s
Dryad
and Stuck’s
The Sin
. After that she returned to her original form, placed her hands on her back, knelt on the floor, opened her mouth and screamed. Her figure blurred and dissolved, leaving only a white line in the middle of the otherwise black screen. Above the line, translated into all the major languages of the world, appeared Nietzsche’s words:
     
    Smooth lies the soul and the sea
    The line shrank to a dot, grew pale, and the screen switched itself off. The gallery was left in complete darkness for ten seconds. Then the large Polaroids began glowing gently on the walls again, and the programme started running once more.
     
    Eschburg was invited to appear on a talk show the afternoon before the opening; the gallery owner said they could use the publicity. Before the interview, Eschburg smoked a cigarette on a balcony outside the TV studio. The back yard of the building was full of cardboard cartons torn open, empty flower tubs, and a chair with a broken back.
    It was hot in the studio. The presenter spoke fast. An animator signed to the audience, letting them know when to clap. Suddenly the presenter jumped up, flung his arms in the air, and called something out to the spectators, who laughed. The gallery owner had said that the presenter had won a television prize for his ‘infectiously human’ talk show.
    Eschburg saw Sofia. She was sitting in the front row of the audience; he could hardly make out her face.
    Then the studio fell silent; the spectators were staring at Eschburg, who seemed to have missed something. Now the presenter was sitting beside him again. He wore a striped yellow and white shirt, with the stripes on the breast pocket mismatched by half a centimetre. Eschburg forced himself not to look at it. The illumination from the floodlights was refracted by a mote of dust on the presenter’s rimless glasses.
    Eschburg thought of the note he had written in the dark last night. He didn’t know just what he had said in it, but he believed it had been important.
    Everyone was still waiting. Eschburg smiled because he didn’t know what else to do. He wished all this would stop.
    At last the presenter was speaking again, clapping his hands once more and turning back to the cameras. Now Eschburg saw a painting on a screen. He didn’t understand what the picture had to do with his installation. He heard the woman interpreter’s voice; it sounded metallic in the tiny receiver in his ear. ‘When is an installation finished?’ she was asking. ‘When is it finished?’
    ‘When it’s right,’ Eschburg said at last.
    The presenter shouted something at the cameras again; the interpreter didn’t translate it. The audience applauded.
    At last it was over and the big floodlights were switched off. A sound technician took the microphone off Eschburg’s jacket; the hairs on the back of his hand brushed past Eschburg’s chin. The presenter was signing autographs for the spectators. He turned round, shook Eschburg’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder. Sofia came up on the stage.
     
    At the hotel, Eschburg got under the shower at once. The water tasted of chlorine. He stepped out on to the small balcony with only a towel round his waist. Down in the square a fat man was laughing; he wore a brightly coloured sweatshirt with the words
International Golf Team
embroidered right across its back. He was eating something out of a bag. His wife had no neck.
    Eschburg went back into the room and dressed. He found the note he had written last night in a pocket of his jacket. He unfolded it, but the paper was blank.
     
    The exhibition opened the next evening. The models