The Autumn Castle (27 page)

Christine dumped the sheets on the sofa and did as he asked. The answer wasn’t encouraging.

“Basically,” she said, returning to the table where Jude was already filling in blanks, “if you want it there by the due date
we’ll have to post it today. This afternoon.”

“Today!”

“Can you fax it?”

“No, look . . .” He pointed to a bold-type line on top of the form. “Faxed applications not accepted.”

“Maybe you can call them and—”

“No, I’ll just get it done today.” He was out of his chair now, rummaging in the drawer under the bookcase. “I think I’ve
got photos somewhere.”

“Photos?”

“My paintings. They have to see my paintings.” Old letters, travel documents, and bank statements were dumped on the floor.
“Damn! I can’t find them. Only these.” He flung out a handful of photos that looked perfectly fine to Christine.

“What’s wrong with these?”

“The light’s bad, the color’s all wrong.”

“Do you want me to—”

“Mandy,” he said, suddenly whirling around. “Mandy will have my best photos from my application for this fellowship.”

“You sent Mandy your best photos? He’s color-blind.”

“I didn’t know that at the time.” His eyes darted from the photos on the floor, to the application form at the table, and
then to Christine. “Christine, would you mind going up and asking him for them? I’ve got to write this entire application
in, like, two hours.”

Christine cringed. She still hadn’t forgotten Gerda’s description of Mandy’s unexpectedly naked body:
molded by preschoolers out of old dough and copper wire.
But Jude was looking at her with pleading eyes. “Yeah, okay,” she said

“Thanks. Thanks so much.” He returned to the table, his head bent over the forms, his brow furrowed with concentration. Christine
left the apartment and headed up the stairs. The lamp in the stairwell was out, and Mandy’s door waited in dim gray light.
She raised her fist and knocked sharply.
Please let him have clothes on.
She had never been to Mandy’s apartment before. He had a monthly meeting for his artists—where they drank champagne and ate
expensive hors d’oeuvres—to which she had never been invited. Artists Only. Very Important Artists’ Business.

Mandy didn’t answer the door. She knew his apartment was large, extending up into the attic. She rapped harder, thought about
going back to Jude empty-handed, and decided she couldn’t. She tried the door; it opened inward. She stepped inside and called
out, “Hello? Mandy? Are you here?”

Mandy’s apartment was lavishly furnished in such an array of mismatching colors that Christine almost laughed. He had no idea
that he’d thrown an orange rug over a blue sofa on a green carpet. She imagined for a moment what this room must look like
to him: black and white. How sad that somebody who loved art so much couldn’t appreciate color. The heavy scent of sandalwood
hung in the air. A set of stairs led up to the next floor. Perhaps that was where he was, so involved in sculpting something
that he couldn’t hear her.

“Mandy?” She took the stairs slowly, feeling guilty and apprehensive and strangely curious. But he must be home, or at least
not far away, because he’d left the door open. “Mandy, are you around?” She found herself standing in his working studio.
Half-finished sculptures leaned unevenly on each other around the walls. A large mahogany desk sat under the window. In the
center of the room, one particular sculpture caught her eye. She approached, forgetting momentarily about Jude’s photos as
she admired the work.

It was the bottom half of a woman, so exquisitely carved Christine felt certain that if she touched it, it would feel like
warm flesh. But, no, it was cool and smooth. What was it carved from? It was neither stone nor plaster. The substance gleamed
like nothing she had ever seen before. For an instant, all her aversion toward Mandy disappeared. It was unbelievable that
he could carve something so beautiful and delicate from a hard substance. Christine knew nothing about art, especially not
Jude’s abstracts, or Gerda’s bewildering “installations,” or Pete’s videos, or even Fabiyan’s distorted clay nudes. Mandy’s
work was different: sheer beauty, pure perfected craft. Christine found herself tracing the contours of the woman’s knee with
her fingers, before realizing that Mandy wasn’t here.

“Mandy?” she called again. She looked around her. A narrow door faced her, painted with black glossy enamel. Two lights—one
red, one green—hung above it. Three deadlocks lined its edge. She tried it anyway. Of course it was locked. Where did it go?
To the attic? If so, why did it have three deadlocks on it? Was he keeping his billions in barrels up there? She ran her fingers
over the edge of the door.

A creak from downstairs startled her. Mandy. And here she was snooping around his apartment. She dashed to the stairs and
started down, only to find Jude standing in the doorway.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” Jude said, holding up a handful of photos. “I found them.”

“Mandy’s not here.”

“Then what are you doing up there?” Jude smiled his wicked smile.

“Poking around. Come on, we should get out of here.”

They were halfway down the stairs to their own apartment when they ran into Mandy heading in the other direction.

“Hello, Jude, Christine. Were you looking for me?”

“We were, but we’re okay now,” Jude said.

Christine couldn’t meet his eye. What had come over her, snooping like an eight-year-old? His eccentricity didn’t preclude
his right to privacy.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t home for you,” Mandy replied with a nod of his head. “I was downstairs in the laundry.” Then he continued
up the stairs.

“See, you should have just let me wash the sheets. I would have found him anyway,” Christine said as they let themselves into
the apartment.

“Then you wouldn’t have got a chance to see inside his place,” Jude said, flinging the photos on the table. “I’ve never been
up to his studio, what’s it like?”

“Like a big room full of sculpture. He does nice work, doesn’t he?”

“Not particularly adventurous,” Jude said dismissively. “He’s not an explorer, he follows well-worn paths.”

“Oh . . . well, I like his stuff. Maybe I’m not an explorer either.” Jude wasn’t listening; he was arranging his photos and
Christine found herself wondering again where that narrow black door in Mandy’s apartment led.

Mayfridh woke to an empty apartment. Gerda had left a note saying she had been struck by early morning inspiration and was
going to exorcise it in the studio. This, despite her having promised to go shopping for new boots today. How unfair! Still,
Mayfridh wasn’t queen in this world and had to get used to people occasionally letting her down. Even though Christine wasn’t
as much fun to shop with, at least she was good to talk to on the bus. Maybe they could go out to Zehlendorf together and
visit Diana. She dressed in her favorite blue lace blouse and black velvet skirt, put on her makeup—she was an expert at applying
it now, and had determined to take a lifetime’s supply of liquid eyeliner back to Ewigkreis—and headed upstairs to Christine’s
apartment.

She knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Heard footsteps inside. Then the door opened, and a sleepy-eyed Jude stood there.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” she said, taking an embarrassed step backward.

“Um . . . yeah. But it’s pretty late. I should get to work.” He was wearing loose-fitting gray track pants and a pale blue
shirt, unbuttoned. His feet were bare.

“Is Christine here?”

“She’s at the bookshop.”

“Oh. I must have my days mixed up. I thought she was off today.”

“She was supposed to be. Somebody’s sick.” He ran a hand through his blond hair. “Do you want to come in? I can make coffee.”

Mayfridh knew she should say no, but found herself nodding anyway. No Gerda, no Christine. What else was she to do with her
morning? “Yes, thank you.”

He closed the door behind her, then scuffed into the kitchen, buttoning his shirt and yawning. She moved to the table where
a handful of photos was strewn. Jude’s paintings. She picked one up and studied it, astonished by its dark beauty.

“They’re the bad photos.”

Mayfridh turned around. Jude was very close, his dark eyes flicking from her face to the photo. “Sorry?” she said.

“I sent the good ones away with a fellowship application. The colors didn’t come out in these.”

She leafed through them. “I think they’re beautiful.”

“We’ve only got instant. You have milk and sugar?” He shook a half-f coffee jar in front of her.

“No, black, thank you.”

“Sit down,” he said, returning to the kitchen bench. “I’ve got an old Danish in here, if you want to share. I know it’s not
much to offer a royal faery but . . .” He laughed to himself, uncomfortable.

Mayfridh barely noticed. “Hmm? No, I’ll have breakfast later. I’m never hungry in the mornings.”

“Me neither. But if I don’t eat I can’t seem to paint.”

One by one she studied the photographs. Every single painting was a masterpiece, a shadowy enchantment. How she longed to
see them for real.

Jude set down a cup of coffee in front of her, then sat beside her. “You like them?”

“I love them. Where are they all?” she asked, placing the photos carefully on the table.

“Mostly in New York. In galleries. A couple are in Washington. I’ve got one in London but it’s not hanging. Two downstairs,
and . . . I’ve forgotten where the others are. Oh, yeah. One in a university in Barcelona, and four in some merchant bank
office in Texas. They put them in glass frames. I hate that. It changes the texture.”

She raised her eyes to steal a glance at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was concentrating instead on his Danish. His
hair was messy and his hands looked warm.

“Could I . . . buy one of your paintings?” she asked. To take with her; to hang in the great hall so she would have some small
piece of Jude forever, even though winter would obliterate any memory of his face and voice and personality.

“Really? You want to buy one? They’re expensive.”

“I have a lot of . . .” She was bragging and she knew it, but couldn’t stop herself. “Money isn’t a problem.”

“Real money? Not magic faery money that will disappear when you do.” He was smiling, teasing her.

“Yes, real money,” she said. “I’d pay any price to own one of your paintings.”

“Well, sure. But I’ve already sold the two I’ve done here. You might have to wait for the next one.”

“I can wait.” She felt embarrassed now, as though she had said too much. She bent her head to the photographs once more, spreading
them out on the table in front of her.

A few moments passed, then Jude said to her softly, “Which one do you like best?”

Mayfridh caught her lip between her teeth. This was like a test she had to pass to make Jude like her. From the corner of
her eye, she could see him finish the Danish and dust his fingers off. His hand stole out and he plucked one of the photos
from the spread.

“This one?” he asked. “This is Christine’s favorite.”

Mayfridh shook her head.
Christine’s favorite. He belongs to Christine.
“I think I prefer this one.” She reached for the picture that had touched her heart, a scratchy white line not perfectly
centered on a canvas of dark swirling colors.

“Really,” Jude said, his voice gentle. “This one?”

“Why? Don’t you like it?” Her gaze met his. His eyes were dark and deep.

“The opposite. It’s my favorite too.”

Encouraged, she continued: “Can I tell you what I see in it?”

“Of course. I’d love to know.”

“It reminds me . . . it reminds me of how I feel back home at an official banquet, when I’m surrounded by people and they’re
all telling me how much they love and admire me, but I feel completely and utterly alone.” She pointed to the white line.
“This is me. I hear them saying my name, but I don’t even know who I am and why that name should fit me. I’m as lonely as
a distant star.” She indicated the swirling gray and brown patterns around it. “This is them, and they’re all pushing at me
and wanting something from me, stripping me bare, and never knowing the delicate core of who I am. Never caring that they’re
obliterating it in every second.”

She ventured a glance at him. His expression was unreadable. At first she thought he was in pain, but perhaps it was confusion.
“Jude?”

“Mayfridh, that’s
exactly
it.”

Mayfridh repressed a self-satisfied smile. “Really?”

His hand reached toward hers on the table, then drew back. She glanced from his fingers to his eyes.

“Mayfridh, can you promise me something? If I ask you what I’m going to ask you next, will you promise that you’ll tell me
absolutely the truth?”

The weight of his words sobered her. “Yes. Of course.”

“Do you
really
see that, or have you used some kind of faery magic to read my mind?”

Her heart fell. He thought she was trying to manipulate him. “It’s not possible for me to read minds,” she said, knowing she
sounded irritated. If only he knew how often she had tried to get inside his head without success.