Berlin

"Madame," I said, struggling to find the words. "It's not a masterpiece."

"You are now a film genius?" she snapped, her eyes glinting and I shifted uneasily.

"It's terrible," I blurted out. "It will make you a joke."

"Fool!" she hissed and I flinched at her anger. "What do you know? This is my last chance, my last opportunity to make real money for my old age. You are young and stupid, what can you know?"

"It's wrong for you. That American is using you!"

"And you are not?"

"Madame!" I protested. "That's unfair! I love you!"

Her hand lashed out and slapped me hard across the cheek. "You don't yet know what love is," Caroline spat, her eyes filling. "You just do what I want, you do not think and you do not love!"

My hand held my stinging cheek as my eyes pricked. "I am thinking now," I said in a monotone, my heart heaving. "I think it is time for me to return to London," I said formally, studying the mark her hand had left on my cheek in the mirror over the fireplace.

"As you wish," she said softly, turning away as she lit a cigarette.

"Goodbye Caroline," I murmured as I walked out the door, half hoping she would call me back, say something, anything that would make me stay but, she did not.

I packed that night and slept fitfully, hoping that Caroline would come down for me but there wasn't a sound in the house, all was quite in my loneliness. The next morning I searched the house for her but she was nowhere to be found. A slender white note on the fireplace said simply, "James, safe journey. Thank you. Caroline."

As I sat in the airport, frozen and numb, a thousand memories crowded into my mind. Lost and solitary, I didn't know what to do so I telephoned Claire who said, "Come to me, James," and I detected a note of delight in her voice.

As the plane lifted off I wondered what life would be like with Claire and, at the same time, I knew I left part of my heart behind in Berlin with Caroline.

'Oh, honey it was paradise'

Part 10: All The Way
'when somebody needs you
it's no good unless he needs you – all the way
through the good and lean years
and for all those in between years – come what may'
(All The Way – Sam Cahn & James Van Heusen as sung by Frank Sinatra)

Eleven years had passed before I saw Caroline again. I was working on a small independent film unit in Paris when I saw a newspaper article that indicated she was very ill. The memories of my Berlin period, as I now categorised it, suddenly swept over me and I knew I had no choice, no other alternative then to drive to Berlin to see her again.

I had thought about her many times over the years especially after Claire but had not the will to make the journey, either mentally or geographically. Now, it was different, I felt I had no choice but to seize the moment of closure.

Caroline no longer lived in that splendid house but through vague friends managed to locate her apartment in the old east sector of Berlin. A nurse opened the door and didn't appear at all interested in my story and just let me into the dim bedroom to see Caroline.

I was shocked by how she had aged and I gazed down on her sleeping face, still containing hints of her beauty when she suddenly opened her eyes. The ice blue of her eyes remained and she looked me up and down in the dim light.

"Woher bist du?" she calmly asked and I smiled at the sound of that familiar voice, unchanged by the years.

"Good morning Madame," I said quietly, my heart fluttering in anticipation of rejection.

She strained her eyes and furrowed her brow in effort to see me. "Move into the light," Caroline said in English. "I can not see you when you hide in the shadows." I stood before her and smiled. "Ah," she said a faint smile of recognition on her wrinkled face, "the English boy, Claire's boy."

"Yes, Madame," I smiled in return and she patted the side of the bed.

"Sit beside me," she commanded and I perched on the stiff wooden chair beside the bell. "Tell me all your news, my little James. Are you still with Claire?"

I slowly shook my head. "No Madame, I am not." I didn't tell her I lost Claire in a car smash between Baton Rouge and New Orleans three years prior, which left me with a long scar on my side, one leg shorter than the other and no desire to live. I wanted to die for two years and there are some days when I still do.

Her ice blue eyes searched mine and her frail withered hand took mine. "Poor James," Caroline whispered sadly. "Life can so sad." I looked up, blinking back a tear, wondering if she knew. She smiled and for a moment I saw the Caroline of old. "Also, life can be so wonderful. Do you remember our time together, here in Berlin?"

"How could I ever forget Madame?" I said.

Caroline sighed dramatically and leaned back into the pillow. "Of course, I am no longer beautiful. Age does angry things to a woman's beauty."

"You are the same person, I see it in your beautiful eyes, Madame."

She smiled and squeezed my hand. "I never took that part you were so angry about. Did you know?" I nodded. "I decided to retire gracefully and then I was asked to do that stupid little film."

"I remember it. 'Süsse Träume' You were brilliant." And she had been and Claire and I had seen it many times. The critics also agreed. "I saw you on television at the Academy Awards. Claire and I thought you were beautiful."

"A silly American nightmare," she dismissed the awards with a wave of her hand like Caroline of old and I smiled to myself.

We sat in that dim room listening to the traffic in the street below until she squeezed my hand lightly. "Will you stay with me James?" she asked tremulously and I gently kissed her frail fingers.

"Always."

Epilogue: A Man of Colours
'There's a noise upstairs in the attic
it's the shuffle of worn out shoes
and the scent of the oil and brushes
drifts down like a pale perfume
and he says
I am a man;
a simple man
a man of colours
and I can see
see through the years
years of a man,
a man of colours'
(A Man of Colours – Iva Davies & Icehouse)

My studio is perched on a tropical hillside where I can see the rolling Pacific Ocean across the tops of the trees and the golden sand of the beaches that greet the blue water. All glass and polished floors, the walls are lined with paintings I could not bear to sell. All of my works have 'James Hargreaves' painted in gold in the bottom right corner, my small private joke in my adopted country.

The sounds of the birds and the dull roar of the ocean carried into the studio as I moved the brush slowly and delicately onto the stretched canvas until the low buzz of my telephone interrupted the calm.

"Hello," I answered, still staring at the outline of the face I had just inscribed on the canvas. Mozart played softly in the background, a perfect accompaniment to the sound of the surf and my memories.

"James," Nicky enthused, her voice booming in my good ear and I held the phone slightly away from it. "You are a brilliant man and New York loves you!"

"I'm assuming the showing went well?" I said calmly as I watched a bird circle lazily in the clear blue sky, almost in time with Mozart.

"We've sold eleven and four more have options. You are going to be rich for the rest of your life!"

"That won't take a lot of money."

"What do you mean?" Nicky asked, puzzled.

"I'm an old man, Nicky," I said patiently. "I won't need a lot of money for the rest of my life."

"Crap," she said succinctly and I smiled at her brassy New York ways. We had never actually met but had formed a friendship solely based on our telephone conversations. "Listen Crocodile Dundee, I should fly down to Australia and drag you back here to civilisation."

"You wouldn't find me," I said mildly. "I'm good at disappearing."

"Don't bet on it sweetheart!" Her tone became serious. "Listen, I need to know some history of the paintings. I know it adds to the mystery but I can't keep shrugging stupidly every time a buyer asks me who the subjects of the paintings are. You only paint two people, all in different poses but it's always the same two women."

"People from long ago." The bird had disappeared and a small white boat was chugging up the coastline.

"One blonde and one dark and the titles don't give anything away. 'Portrait of a Lady' or 'Portrait of a Mistress' followed by a number. Not very imaginative, James," she reproached me. "We could have used more imaginative and enigmatic titles."

"Best I could do at the time, I'm afraid."

She waited for moment. "So you're not going to tell me?"

"Nothing to tell."

"Ok, have it your way, you stubborn shit," she laughed. "So where is
Portrait of a Lady # 4 and 'Portrait of a Mistress #3? They're missing from the numbered sequence."

"I burnt them, I didn't like them."

"You are kidding, right?"

"I'm afraid not," I lied.

"You crazy bastard. Ok, I got to run, I expect the others to sell tonight and the art papers want to interview you. Is that still a big 'no'?"

"No interviews Nicky, that was the deal."

"You just make my job harder," Nicky sighed, "but I'll manage. Keep painting." She rang off and I replaced the phone.

Slowly, I dragged my stiff leg across the floor to stand in front of Portrait of a Lady # 4 and Portrait of a Mistress #3, which were hanging on the wall next to my small bed. Caroline's haughty face sneered down at me from of Portrait of a Lady # 4, pearls at her throat and falling from her ears. Ah, I remember that night so well.

Claire's beautiful smile filled the room from Portrait of a Mistress #3, her wide eyes and laughing lips always brought an ache to my heart. They were my best works and my most perfect memories of Caroline and Claire. I would never let them go, never, as I wait to join them.

'he says
I keep my life in this paintbox
I keep your face in these picture frames
and when I speak to this faded canvas,
it tells me I have no need for words anyway…
and he says
I am a man;
a simple man
a man of colours
and I can see
see through the years
years of a man,
a man of colours'
(A Man of Colours – Iva Davies & Icehouse)