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Authors: Paul Quarrington
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in any strictly commercial sense. There were no tiers of flea-infested bunk beds; the furnishing was second-hand but comfy, long settees and big fat easy chairs. People did smoke opium, true, but they smoked many other things besides, marijuana and Turkish hashish and pipefuls of a rare Tahitian stuporific. Neither were the young women prostitutes,
really
. They referred to themselves as artist’s models, and when they achieved the summit of the staircase they stripped off their clothes and stood in the middle of the living room while the people in the room painted them, or photographed them, or composed poems dedicated to their physical beauty. Anna Thielmann was actually the custodian of a Salon, and the people who came to visit were
artistes
. They were unabashedly third-rate artistes, gleefully turning out childish drawings, blurred prints and clumsy rhymes, but they were artistes all the same.
Things could get pretty wild. There was a huge humpbacked piano in the living room, and it tended to herald the debauch. At some point near midnight, someone (usually Heinrich Gissing, near-blind and proudly consumptive) would leap upon the machine, savaging the keyboard, playing jazz, which signified a careless admixture of white and black keys. The naked artist’s models would break pose and posit certain transactions. The artistes, uniformly penniless, would undertake the negotiations with vigour and conviction. It was often some time before things were hammered out, at which point the charge of nymphs and satyrs would commence. Around two a.m. the drugs wouldkick in, and Kramgasse 49 would ring with howls and half-forgotten lullabies. There were fights, often a stabbing. On one occasion someone flew through the front window and ended up a small crumpled pile on the cobblestones below, but this was a failed experiment in flight rather than foul play.
Rudolfo had his own room; rather, there was a large walk-in closet which had been allotted to him, his crib pushed into the corner and his stuffed animals spread out around him. Little Rudy had an astounding number of stuffed animals, because, let’s face it, if you were an artiste intent on getting cross-eyed and rutting in the middle of the living room, you would bring a stuffed animal to the little boy who would no doubt be standing in the corner, sucking his thumb, wide-eyed with horror. Rudolfo soon had hundreds of them, bears, lions, tigers and rarer things besides, parrots with multi-coloured plush beaks, a well-crafted baboon, its rump a quilting of vibrant satin.
Rudy had trouble—understandably—sleeping through the night. Sleeping at all, really. Sometimes he drifted away into a fitful trance, but there was always some loud noise to pull him back. He would sit up in bed, wailing, but his cries could never be heard above the piano, the grunts, the shrieks of hilarity. He sought comfort in the glass eyes of his menagerie, grabbing one of the plush pussycats and pulling it into bed.
Some nights were more sedate. Some nights, Anna Thielmann would invite a youngish, long-haired man, whose name Rudolfo remembered as Flowers. Flowers was slender and incredibly vain, always throwing his chin high into the air and twisting his head so that he showed a full profile. Flowers affected black tails and, although his suit was shiny and the elbows put out, he did raise the tone of the Salon. The artistes were quieted by his presence; they sat placidly in the corners and picked things off their sweaters, or rubbed at the luminous nicotine stains that coveredtheir hands. The models drew long scarves out of tiny handbags and draped them over their naked shoulders like prayer shawls.
Flowers would sit down behind the keyboard and, after cracking each finger meticulously, begin to play. He favoured the music of the Great Romantics, and he played with a grand knuckle-rolling style that involved grunting. Flowers was, by most standards, awful, a hammer-handed dilettante who closed his
really
. They referred to themselves as artist’s models, and when they achieved the summit of the staircase they stripped off their clothes and stood in the middle of the living room while the people in the room painted them, or photographed them, or composed poems dedicated to their physical beauty. Anna Thielmann was actually the custodian of a Salon, and the people who came to visit were
artistes
. They were unabashedly third-rate artistes, gleefully turning out childish drawings, blurred prints and clumsy rhymes, but they were artistes all the same.
Things could get pretty wild. There was a huge humpbacked piano in the living room, and it tended to herald the debauch. At some point near midnight, someone (usually Heinrich Gissing, near-blind and proudly consumptive) would leap upon the machine, savaging the keyboard, playing jazz, which signified a careless admixture of white and black keys. The naked artist’s models would break pose and posit certain transactions. The artistes, uniformly penniless, would undertake the negotiations with vigour and conviction. It was often some time before things were hammered out, at which point the charge of nymphs and satyrs would commence. Around two a.m. the drugs wouldkick in, and Kramgasse 49 would ring with howls and half-forgotten lullabies. There were fights, often a stabbing. On one occasion someone flew through the front window and ended up a small crumpled pile on the cobblestones below, but this was a failed experiment in flight rather than foul play.
Rudolfo had his own room; rather, there was a large walk-in closet which had been allotted to him, his crib pushed into the corner and his stuffed animals spread out around him. Little Rudy had an astounding number of stuffed animals, because, let’s face it, if you were an artiste intent on getting cross-eyed and rutting in the middle of the living room, you would bring a stuffed animal to the little boy who would no doubt be standing in the corner, sucking his thumb, wide-eyed with horror. Rudolfo soon had hundreds of them, bears, lions, tigers and rarer things besides, parrots with multi-coloured plush beaks, a well-crafted baboon, its rump a quilting of vibrant satin.
Rudy had trouble—understandably—sleeping through the night. Sleeping at all, really. Sometimes he drifted away into a fitful trance, but there was always some loud noise to pull him back. He would sit up in bed, wailing, but his cries could never be heard above the piano, the grunts, the shrieks of hilarity. He sought comfort in the glass eyes of his menagerie, grabbing one of the plush pussycats and pulling it into bed.
Some nights were more sedate. Some nights, Anna Thielmann would invite a youngish, long-haired man, whose name Rudolfo remembered as Flowers. Flowers was slender and incredibly vain, always throwing his chin high into the air and twisting his head so that he showed a full profile. Flowers affected black tails and, although his suit was shiny and the elbows put out, he did raise the tone of the Salon. The artistes were quieted by his presence; they sat placidly in the corners and picked things off their sweaters, or rubbed at the luminous nicotine stains that coveredtheir hands. The models drew long scarves out of tiny handbags and draped them over their naked shoulders like prayer shawls.
Flowers would sit down behind the keyboard and, after cracking each finger meticulously, begin to play. He favoured the music of the Great Romantics, and he played with a grand knuckle-rolling style that involved grunting. Flowers was, by most standards, awful, a hammer-handed dilettante who closed his
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