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“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t give a fuck who your brother is. And I don’t give a fuck if you hate soccer. Just like you obviously don’t give a fuck that I hate museums, so…”
I catch a smile as I follow Sophia over an arched bridge toward another large, majestic building with a sign in German in front. I spot das Museum among the unfamiliar words and surmise this is the museum we’re visiting.
I focus on Sophia as we enter what turns out to be a massive lobby. It’s startling, both the temperature shift from warm to cool and also the sunshine and activity outside to muted voices and lots of white. The floor is white, the walls are white, and there’s nothing to distract from any of it. It’s like standing in the center of a blizzard.
Sophia exchanges rapid German with the woman sitting behind a white desk. I glance around at nothing, basically, then stare at her while she speaks. Every time I hear German, it’s a harsh cacophony of syllables that sound like they’re fighting for space. Sophia manages to make the language sound melodic, the flow of words much faster than when she speaks English.
The conversation ends, and she glances at me. “Come on. Galleries are this way.”
“This place reminds me of my apartment,” I say, glancing around as we walk toward the opening on the far side of the lobby.
“White walls?”
“No furniture.”
She glances at me, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t have any furniture?”
“Place came unfurnished. I bought a mattress, but that’s it so far.”
“Why haven’t you bought anything else?”
I rub the back of my neck. “This wasn’t exactly my idea.”
“I know. You already said you don’t like museums.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I mean Kluvberg. Coming here, playing here. Buying furniture seemed like…accepting it.”
There’s no way Sophia doesn’t know how I ended up playing here. She works for a local paper. Her brother is Adler Beck. But she hasn’t said a word about the scandal that made this move necessary. And she still doesn’t mention it now.
She just says, “You should buy some stuff,” before we enter the first gallery.
The paintings in here are all colorful and vibrant, which is a welcome change after the minimalist lobby. I’m still mostly studying Sophia, though.
After she catches me twice, I make an attempt to look at the artwork.
“Do you paint?” I ask her.
“No, I just take photographs.”
There’s a dismissiveness to her tone I’m surprised to hear. Like it’s frivolous or trivial.
“You don’t think that’s art?”
“No, of course it is. But anyone can point a camera and click a button, right?”
“Anyone can slap some paint on a canvas too. I mean, what even is this?” I nod toward the nearest painting.
A middle-aged woman standing near us shoots me a nasty look that makes me think she understands English and doesn’t appreciate my disdainful tone.
“It’s a haystack,” Sophia tells me. Her lips are pressed together, but I think it’s to hide her amusement, not because she’s also annoyed.
“Huh.” The longer I look, the more I can see the distinction between the brown and gold shades. The shifting texture of the strokes.
I stare at it for a while longer, long enough that Sophia is smirking when I glance away.
“What?”
