So Much Fire and So Many Plans

by Aaron S Gallagher

  “The ability to do a thing does not make one great at it. It takes many years of practice, decades of trial and error. To dance is simple. To be masterful? That is not. Creativity is not enough. Being creative does not make you an artist, it makes you a person. It’s what you do with it that opens the door to the possibility of being an artist,” Ossirian snarled. He finished his glass. He pointed at Toefler with the glass, his index finger jutting. “You of all people should remember that.”

  Toefler’s easy smile had faded. His hand came away from Carolyn’s arm. “What,” he said with care, “do you mean by that?”

  Ossirian snorted.

  “No,” Toefler insisted with Germanic stoicism, “explain yourself. Or were you casting about for something to say?”

  Ossirian glanced around, saw Diego by the wall, raised his empty glass. De la Luna nodded and went to pour another.

  “Well?” Toefler’s voice became silky with malice. “Are you man enough to address the comment, or are you a boy after all?”

  Ossirian turned to look at Toefler, his entire body still, head rotating like an owl’s. His eyes held a predatory gleam. Ossirian said, modulating his tone evenly, almost happily, “We are guests, and I would not insult our hosts by detailing the particulars of your failures and causing embarrassment to you. It would be rude… to our hosts.”

  Toefler’s face became smooth and unbroken, all the emotion drained from it. “Herr Ossirian,” he spat, his Portuguese becoming thicker with his accent, “if I did not know better, I would call that a challenge.”

  “Call it what you would like,” Ossirian said carelessly. De la Luna came up beside him and held out a full glass, he took the empty. “My thanks, Senhor de la Luna. You were right, your cachaça is without peer, in my experience-”

  “So you do have experience,” Toefler sneered.

  Ossirian smiled and sipped his drink without response.

  “Apologize,” Toefler said, bristling, “or finish your accusation.”

  Ossirian shrugged. “I do not apologize. Not to you. Everything I said is true. Everything I haven’t said is true as well. Leave it be, sir. We are guests. A conflict is unseemly.”

  Senhora de la Luna started to interject, but her husband put a hand on her arm. She turned to him, and the old man shook his head minutely, and smiled just as minutely.

  Ossirian looked at Carolyn. “My Muse, may I offer you something to eat? The food is over-”

  “Snot,” Toefler said distinctly. “Unctuous, mannerless, boorish little snot.”

  Ossirian smiled at her. Carolyn saw the joy in his eyes, and thought that Ossirian had pressed Toefler into a confrontation because of her. Because of the hand on her arm. She thought, That’s not the kind of relationship we-

  “Number Fourteen. Too much red in the left-hand rag,” Ossirian said, his eyes fixing on Toefler’s own.

  Toefler frowned.

  “A View from Black Forest,” Ossirian said. “Poor depth of field, specifically around the grazing deer.”

  Carolyn cocked her head. Toefler said nothing.

  “Hapsburg, July. The gilt on the domes did not reflect properly. Konstantin. The beads of the rosary on the monk’s hassock were incorrect in number.”

  “Incorrect…” Toefler muttered, bewildered.

  Ossirian continued. “Variations of Brahms, Heide, Holstein. The notes in the third bar of the sheet music were not accurate to the original piece.”

  Carolyn gave Ossirian a startled look. She hadn’t known he could read music, let alone that he knew Brahms well enough to distinguish false notes in a painting.

  “Das Haus Meiner Mutter,” Ossirian said, leaning close to Toefler, who had gone pale as whey, “your mother’s chair has three legs.”

  Ossirian shrugged and sipped his drink, face relaxed and voice calm. “That’s all I noticed. But I wasn’t in the gallery long.”

  “What gallery?” Carolyn asked.

  Instead of answering her, he said in the mildest of voices, “Are you hungry, my Muse?”

  Toefler’s mouth had become a narrow line, and his face flushed. Blotchy red patches of color accrued upon his cheeks and his forehead.

  Ossirian took Carolyn’s hand. To Mr. and Mrs. De la Luna, he said, “I humbly apologize for the rude display. Please forgive-”

  “How did you know?” Toefler demanded.

  Ossirian regarded him with amusement. “How did you not?”

  Toefler’s mouth snapped shut. He shook with the effort to contain his fury. And then something happened which Carolyn, if given a year to guess, would never have believed would happen.

  Hans Toefler became stiff and straight, his chin rose, and he said, clearly and distinctly, “Sir, I offended you. I sincerely regret it. Please accept my most humble apology.”

  Ossirian sipped his drink again, eyes never leaving Toefler’s reddened countenance. He cleared his throat. “I accept. And thank you.”

  Toefler studied the boy. “How long?” he asked de la Luna from the side of his mouth. “How long did he have to observe my work?”

  Diego de la Luna leaned over with a twinkle in his eye, and said, “Ten minutes. No more.”

  Carolyn stared from one man to the next. She looked to Senhora de la Luna, but she seemed as puzzled as Carolyn felt. “What is this?”

  Toefler turned to her and said with dignity, “I had presented our host with an array of new paintings and asked his opinion. He has apparently shown them to…” he hesitated.

  “Ossirian is what I am called.”

  “I did not want to presume familiarity.”

  “Presume all you wish, I beg you,” Ossirian grinned. “Was I wrong?”

  Toefler colored again. “To my shame, I must admit you are not.”

  “There’s no shame. There’s no right or wrong. There just is.”

  Hans inclined his head to Ossirian. “Apparently our host showed them briefly to Ossirian, who spotted several instances where my technique is… lacking.” He looked at de la Luna again. “Ten minutes, you say?”

  De la Luna gave him a huge smile. “If that.”

  “Fascinating,” Toefler murmured, giving Ossirian a direct stare. “Fascinating. And you studied where?”

  Ossirian shrugged one shoulder. “Everywhere. There is always something to learn, is there not?”

  “No.” Toefler dashed the response aside with a shake of his head. Carolyn watched him, amused. “What school did you study?”

  “I have never studied a school,” Ossirian said. “I have painted houses, once a museum in Mexico City. Never a school.”

  “You are being deliberately obtuse.”

  “Not deliberately.” Ossirian glanced at Carolyn, a sly smile upon his lips.

  “At what university did you study painting?” Toefler growled.

  “Oh!” Ossirian breathed. “None, of course. I’ve never been to university.”

  “You…”

  “I was too young to be admitted,” Ossirian told him solemnly. “And I never graduated from high school. I left before graduation. Two years before, to be accurate.”

  “Too young-” Toefler cut himself off. He looked at Carolyn. “This is a joke.”

  “I assure you, it is not,” she said. “He has never studied formally.”

  “The work I saw tonight, it was not painted by an untrained amateur!” Toefler insisted. His eyes went from their host and hostess to the bland, gentle smiles of the Rojas’. “It’s… it’s not possible.”

  Carolyn shrugged and sipped her drink. “If you say so. You’re obviously an authority.”

  Toefler gave her a mild glare. “Aren’t you cute?”

  Ossirian stepped between them. His expression never changed as he stared into Toefler’s eyes. His words were even and untainted by anger, but there gleamed in his eye something dangerous below the surface. “Be careful, Herr Toefler. That is my Muse. Insult her at your very great peril.”

  Toefler’s snide expression gave way to chagrin. “You’
re right, of course. Muse or not, you’re right. I apologize, Ms. Delgado. That was out of line. I was out of line.”

  Ossirian stepped back, content to drink his drink and listen. Carolyn smiled at Toefler. “Accepted. It is remarkable, but it is true. The skill he carries is native.”

  Toefler shook his head. “I simply… the works I viewed tonight at the gallery were too accomplished for-”

  “What did they inspire in you?” Ossirian interrupted.

  Carolyn’s eyebrows climbed. Ossirian had never asked anyone else’s opinion. Not true, she mused. He hasn’t asked an opinion now.

  Toefler said without malice, “They didn’t.”

  Ossirian seemed to accept this, but Toefler, self-conscious of the answer, continued. “That’s not to say they aren’t technically dazzling,” he hedged, “just that they seemed… unfinished.”

  Carolyn had been looking at Ossirian, and she saw something in his face she had rarely seen: gratitude. Ossirian’s eyes blazed and he grinned at Toefler. “Just so!” To Carolyn he said, “You see? I told you they weren’t ready!”

  Toefler gave her a puzzled frown. “You exhibited his work against his wishes?”

  “Yes. He would never have an exhibition if I do not. Nor a sale.”

  Toefler gazed at her in thoughtful silence.

  She half-smiled. “If I did not intervene, he would never ‘finish’ a painting. “He works on them until he gets bored, within minutes, sometimes an hour. Rarely more. And then he destroys them, if I let him.”

  Toefler turned to Ossirian, startlement clear on his face. “This is true?”

  Ossirian shrugged. “Someday, I’ll finish something and it will be done. Until then, I’m just practicing.”

  Toefler glanced from Carolyn to Ossirian, certain it was a joke. Neither of them gave him any reason to believe it was.

  “I…” Toefler began. He trailed off, then said, “I must accept it. Paul Valéry did say that an artist never really finishes a work. He merely abandons it. But without training… it is unheard of.”

  Carolyn shrugged. “Not entirely. Many of the greatest painters were preternaturally gifted.”

  “You are saying he could be one of the greatest painters in history?” Toefler all but hooted in disbelief.

  “No, that it’s not unheard of to find that someone is naturally gifted. It’s those who’ve had to train for years to hone lesser talent that find it so, I’m given to understand.” She sipped her drink while maintaining eye contact, her expression too innocent.

  Toefler stared at her and then threw his head back with unbridled laughter, one hand on his belly. When he settled down, he took her hands. “My dear, you are as skillful with an insult as he is with a brush. I can see why he is in love with you.”

  “He doesn’t-” Carolyn started to argue, but Toefler turned from her to the amused Ossirian, who was draining his glass.

  “Would you do me the favor of walking with me? I would like you to show me more of my deficiencies.” Toefler gestured to the door of the small gallery.

  “With pleasure.” Ossirian handed his glass to Senhor de la Luna, who murmured, “I’ll bring you another.”

  “Lovely,” Toefler said, and gestured ahead, one hand on the back of Ossirian’s shirt as he led the younger man to the gallery door. As they went inside, Toefler’s eyes found Carolyn’s. The woman watched as Toefler smiled at her and closed the door behind them.

  “I shouldn’t leave them alone together too long,” Senhora de la Luna murmured in her ear. “There’s no telling what kind of fuss they’ll get up to alone.”

  “Whatever fuss they get up to,” Carolyn said judiciously, “is their business.”

  “Of a certainty, my dear,” the older woman crooned. “That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be entertaining to observe.”

  Carolyn blushed and tried to cover her embarrassment with a sip from her glass, but she found it empty.

  “I’ll fetch you another, shall I?” Senhor a de la Luna said, taking the glass from her hand. “One moment.”

  She watched the older woman glide gracefully away toward the sideboard. She turned to the rest of the assemblage. “Do excuse me. I believe I could use a breath of air just at the moment.”

  She walked toward the far door, which led out onto the wide balcony she and Ossirian had seen from the lawn their first day. She closed the doors behind her and stood at the rail, looking out over the city, the enormous kaleidoscope of colored lights and movement cradled in the cupped hands of the valley.

  A sound behind her and she turned to see the lady of the house with two water glasses in her hands, each full. They held caipirinha, almost to the rims. She joined Carolyn at the rail and handed her a glass. “You seemed to need something stronger, my dear.”

  Carolyn accepted the glass and sipped, making a face. “Potent.”

  “As is the man who poured it,” Senhor a de la Luna told her with that impish smile.

  “I’ve no doubt,” Carolyn murmured. “Would that be your husband, or the barman?”

  “Oh, both,” de la Luna assured her with open innocence. “Both.”

  “Not at the same time, surely.”

  De la Luna gave her a knowing smile and sipped her own drink.

  Carolyn blinked, and turned to gaze again out over the valley. “It is beautiful tonight,” she said, to cover her embarrassment.

  “It is,” de la Luna’s quiet voice agreed, close to her ear. “It almost always is.”

  Carolyn swallowed two more mouthfuls of the liquor. The heat tracked down her chest to her belly, and she felt the sudden rush of alcohol spin her senses.

  De la Luna took the glass from her hand and set it next to hers along the wide rail. “Be cautious, my dear. You wouldn’t wish to become too drunk too early. Who knows what you might get up to.”

  Carolyn turned to the older woman. They were a hands-breadth apart, if that. Carolyn stared into Senhor a de la Luna’s large, dark eyes. “True,” she whispered. “I might do anything.”

  “One can hope.” The older woman leaned closer. Carolyn met her halfway and the night faded away as she lost herself in the moment.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The night became alive with the voices of the other guests as the party wore on and the libations flowed. After several hours Carolyn discovered Ossirian and Toefler in the massive library, sitting across from one another and chatting quietly. Ossirian’s face became alight with joy as he saw her.

  “My Muse!” He rose to hand her down into a chair.

  “Gentlemen,” she said serenely. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Of course not,” Toefler assured her. “We were discussing art.”

  “You’re not bored with it yet?”

  Seating himself on her right, Ossirian said, “Sex, painting, food, and talk. What else is there to life? And always necessarily in that order.”

  She glanced at Toefler and thought she caught a secret smile and a glance at Ossirian. She probed for jealously, found to her surprise that she had none.

  But why? she thought. Should I not be jealous of his attention?

  Ossirian sipped his drink. “As I was saying, Hans, the main problem now is motivation. I cannot seem to understand how to progress. I cannot grasp how to make the… the swine understand the point of my paintings.”

  “Perhaps it’s not a failing in them.” Toefler crossed his legs and folded his hands upon his knee. “Perhaps it’s you.”

  Ossirian seemed to consider this. “How would I know?”

  “Do your paintings thrill you?”

  “No,” Ossirian admitted. “Not many.”

  “Why? When you ascertain what it is about the ones that do thrill you, you’ll know what’s lacking. The ones that do… do the swine understand them? Do they clamor for them?”

  Ossirian shrugged. “They buy because that is how they can rate appreciation. They believe cost is the same as value.”

  “Of course they do. Most people see value where othe
rs tell them there is value.” Toefler looked trepidatious. “But… if you will permit me an observation?”

  “By all means.”

  “Your paintings are lifeless.”

  Carolyn’s eyes popped. She opened her mouth to rebuke Toefler when Ossirian said, “That is true.”

  She turned to him. His eyes were mournful and seemed to shimmer. “Ossirian, that’s-”

  “But it is. And I know it. But I do not know how to change it.” Ossirian appeared glum.

  “Your inspiration-”

  “My inspiration is a separate matter, my Muse,” he said. “It is the product of that inspiration that we are discussing. And the product is lifeless. Without heat. Without fire. Without that which makes greatness. Without that which makes… permanence,” Ossirian said.

  Toefler nodded. “Just so. The most imperfect rendering by a moderately-skilled hand can evoke joy in the viewer… provided the image is filled with life. With depth. But the most perfect hand that ever wrought a most perfect picture without the spark of joy behind it that makes art transcend is nothing more than a picture. One may as well take a photograph.”

  Carolyn cocked her head and gave Toefler a narrow glare. “Are you saying that photography isn’t art?”

  “I’m saying just that. It’s not a creation; it’s a view into a moment. Unlike a painting, there’s nothing there that wasn’t present in the moment. You cannot infuse a picture with a story, for instance. Either you capture a frozen moment in one click, or you arrange a tableau and kill any inspiration with your artifice. But a painting… nothing in a painting is accidental. Everything is under the control of the painter. The choices, endless and infinite, or his and his alone. It will tell you a story, it will inspire you, it will open your mind’s eye and breathe the fire of life itself into your very soul. And it does so on purpose, with malice aforethought. It must. The painter can only show what they intend.” He waved a hand at Ossirian, who studied the older man with intent, fierce eyes. “Or not, as the case may be.”