The Apartment A Novel(10)

We return to the cold and Saskia says there is something worth seeing nearby. It’s something she’s been wanting to show me since we met, but keeps forgetting. And now we are extremely close to it, so we must have a look. She links her arm in mine again, and walks a little more swiftly. I can’t believe I keep forgetting this, she says. We turn onto another road that is narrow, and that hooks sharply, and ascends. From here to the centre, there is nothing but a slow ascent. This street is full of people just standing around. Someone is playing a trumpet, slowly and plaintively. We turn the corner and arrive at a small Christmas market in a square. There are brown huts full of Christmas ornaments, wooden children’s toys, and jewellery. There is a stage where the man playing the trumpet stands. He’s warming up. People are eating pretzels and doughnut balls covered in icing sugar. They are drinking mulled wine. Parents have brought little children out in strollers. All you can see are little sleeping faces in beds of fur. Green turf has been laid all over the ground, but you see the green only where feet have stomped the snow into muddy slush. It is just like every other Christmas market I’ve come across, with minor differences. Is this what you wanted to show me? I ask. No, she says, this is. There’s a small fountain in the middle of the square. In it, there’s a statue of a man in a gown, with a halo over his head. Who’s that supposed to be? I ask. That’s a saint, says Saskia. Saint Nicolas – the saint of seafarers. She points to a brown Romanesque church that stands at one end of the square. That’s the church he’s buried in, in a catacomb, she says. We walk right up to the fountain, which is dry and full of soft snow. Around the feet of the saint, and leaping toward the edge, with their mouths open, are strange sea creatures. What do those look like? she asks. I think they look like a cross between a fish and a dragon, but I don’t say it. They have stubby whiskers and massive fins. They have spikes on their tails like dinosaurs. They have huge round mouths with fangs. I say, I suppose they are mythological. Saskia shakes her head. I give them another look. They look to me like something a boy would draw – the scariest fish he could ever imagine. I try to imagine them a hundred times larger, and swimming in the ocean. I imagine the swell they create on the surface as they approach old ships full of terrified sailors. I give up, I say. They are dolphins, she says. Those aren’t dolphins, I say. Well, they are supposed to be dolphins, she says, but the artist had never seen one. Are you sure that’s true? It’s true, she says. That’s funny, I say. The fountain has a name, but everyone calls it the dolphin fountain. So did everyone go around hundreds of years ago thinking these were dolphins? I guess, says Saskia, or perhaps they immediately realized the artist was a fool. I nod. Saskia then says, What kind of boats were you on? In the Navy? I ask. Yes, she says, if you don’t mind me asking. Submarines, I say.

The man playing the trumpet finally begins a Christmas song. It’s quick and happy. I feel really glad to have happened upon this place. It always seems a degree or two warmer inside Christmas markets. There are space heaters in huts and crowds generating heat. Saskia joins a line outside the hut for drinks. She looks back at me. I have a funny feeling she has brought me here in order to place me in this shot – the sailor under the statue of the saint of seafarers, and the demonic dolphins. She smiles, then turns back to the hut and waits. I squat down to see the dolphins eye-to-eye. I don’t think the sculpture really holds up as a work of art, but then again it is still here, and people are still, obviously, coming to look at it, not for the saint, I’d bet, but to marvel at the little dolphins, which are not dolphins at all, but examinations of the fantastic reality of human fear. Insofar as the statue is that, it’s nice to look at.

Saskia returns with two mugs of hot wine. We light cigarettes. Do you think this is art? I ask. She says, Of course, why not? Well, I say, I guess I don’t know. I never ask if anything is art, she says. If someone says something is art, I agree. She says this without changing the tone of her voice, as coolly as you could imagine. I don’t know how to have a conversation about art, because nobody I have ever met, until Saskia, considered it worthy of serious discussion. I have thought about art but I have not tested my thoughts. Well, what if you think it’s terrible? I ask. What does it matter if I think it’s terrible? she says. I take a sip of my wine. She says, Bad artists trade on people’s refusal to accept their work as art. I accept their work as art, so that there is nothing for their art to hide behind. That makes sense, I say.