Gallery

in you go hoping for a Le Sérusier, but that's how it is in these places, next thing you know you pass a Vuillard, the Vuillard with the girl's hand on the door, predominantly brown, brown wood door, brown hair tied up, and you stop there, you can't walk past the picture with the girl's hand on the door because there's a mystery, she wants to open it and there's something crazy going on, you have read the girl is Vuillard's sister, rather the figure is Vuillard's sister, so not actually Vuillard's sister, this is not a painting of his sister, just someone with their hand on the door handle and there's fear in the air, the sight stops you continuing, there may be a Le Sérusier around the next corner but there's no moving on, even if you were hoping for a Le Sérusier, even though your wife as ever goes for swords and horses, big pictures with swords and horses, the last time you saw her she was heading over to one, she likes a good trampling, finds something fitting about a falling figure, halfway between a saddle and the ground, and the fact the two of you were twenty minutes queueing in the rain is now adding to the experience, her experience in witnessing the blood-filled scene, I'm in the mood for mud she thought, she said, I will just go over there she said, recognizing her thirst for swords and horses, and if there are fires and storms as well, for the horses to try and dodge, for the slain to fall into, better still, now that is not remotely like the door and the girl in a gown, brownish pink, pink made brown from the brown of the door, with spots or blobs, her clothing with blobs like a painting a leopard might have attempted, a black line round the collar and straight down the middle, possibly velvet, now you are, he is, only dimly aware that the figure with the hand on the door is keeping him from the Le Sérusier which was painted at almost exactly the same time, that is The Talisman, a work by Le Sérusier that is only 27 cm by 22, just paint on a piece of wood, such was the size of the painting prophesying the takeover by colour of Western art, suggesting the small may conquer where the big may not, and the girl is looking down, downcast in fact, and her other hand is in the pocket of her pinkish brown and blue gown, at the opening of the pocket, reaching for a note, a handkerchief, a sweet, a ring, a charm, a tooth, a hairpin, a ruby, a lone chess-piece, a clasp, a family seal, coin, tube of paint, shuttlecock, pipe, matches, a pocket-watch, a mouse, alive or dead, was it a decision by Vuillard to put her hand towards the pocket or did he simply see this, who knows, this is Vuillard, showing women with their heads down, clothes patterned like wallpaper, we are all wallpaper, coming and going like wallpaper, appearing one day, being busy brightly, then dimly, until another day blending back in, yet before that day the girl is hesitant but wants to open the door, on the other side of which could be what, who, her brother, in real life why not, although she was not herself was she, she was the model so to speak, herself but removed from herself, aiming to open the door on the other side of which could be her brother Edouard but her brother Edouard is at the same painting the scene from this side of the door, but he could be imagined on the other side, is possibly on the other side, is it a room, it must be a room, what room, what goes on there, studio work, cooking, sleeping, eating, bathing, lovemaking, lovemaking had to go on somewhere, if it didn't happen somewhere there would not even be a somewhere, certainly not be much of a somewhere, however it can be said, asserted firmly, that while there may be swords on the other side there will not be horses, the girl would have heard the horses, but she may have been anxious to open the door because of a clash of swords, not all fights and battles take place outdoors, she may have heard a cry, the stamp of a foot, a shout, a pistol shot, a groan, or just a sneeze, a call, causing her to want to enter, which is why her arm reaches out so pointedly for the door handle, shoots out, her other hand for safety reaching to her pocket and her favorite pebble, or just some thread, or tobacco, even the telegram with the news, wonderful news, dreadful news, loving, spiteful news, perhaps she should speak before turning the handle, say who she is, ask a question, impart the start of the information through the door before entering, wait for permission although that doesn't seem quite right, she has a right to go in, she lives there it seems, now this painting measures 32 cm by 22.8 cm, slightly larger than the little Le Sérusier which may be in the next room, it is even possible she herself and more likely still her brother Edouard had seen the Le Sérusier, which had been painted just three years earlier, just imagine if it even hung on the wall behind that door, it might, in which event it would after traveling a lot, outlasting everyone alive on earth the day it was created, eventually have moved from there to the next room here in the gallery, wait, my wife is alongside me after tiring or being satisfied with the horses and corpses on her battlefield, she has brightened at having seen them, now she is looking at the Vuillard too and asking me why the girl might want to open the door, the language of her body says she clearly wants to do so, and she has something in her pocket, if you ask me, she says, she will go in and is getting out the key

John Saul made the contribution from England to Dalkey Archive's Best European Fiction 2018 and had work in Best British Short Stories 2016. His short fiction has been published extensively in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, and in Australia and Canada.