The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  Rafik made straight for him and kissed his hand, which Clement, feeling more English than he would ever have expected, trusted was a traditional Arab custom.

  ‘You are saving my life.’

  ‘I’m only glad I could help.’

  ‘If is not for you, they are pushing me on the plane to Algeria where they must kill me.’

  ‘I promise you it won’t come to that. Mr Shortt said he was filing a claim for asylum. Which I’m sure will be just a formality.’ A hundred tabloid headlines rose up to mock him. ‘And I’ve spoken to Mike, who said you also have the right to claim residence under the Human Rights Act.’

  ‘Yes, I hear this thing from Mr Shortt. He says that Desmond and I can say to government we are lovers together.’

  ‘Which is brilliant!’

  ‘No, is not so much brilliant. Not for Rafik. Because I am come to this land with bad card, they do not permit me to say this here. First I must go back to Algeria and make claim. But when plane stop, they push me quickly inside prison or army. So I never have chance.’

  ‘Then applying for asylum’s the only choice.’ Clement baulked at the Lewis Carroll logic.

  ‘You are kind man… you are very kind man to pay money for Mr Shortt. But I pay you again. You must believe me! I work in bar. I work in two bars. This way I pay you again.’

  ‘That’s not an issue. There are far more serious things for you to worry… to think about.’

  ‘You won’t want Rafik now. Not for Jesus. But I clean. I wash dirty brushes. I brush floor, yes?’

  ‘Of course I want you for Jesus. I can’t think of anyone more fitting. He was condemned as a criminal. He was executed by a brutal occupying force… no, I mustn’t push the parallels too far.’ His mind, however, was spinning with possibilities. ‘If you’re sure you’re up to it, I’d like to do some sketching. While I do, maybe you’ll tell me how you came to end up here?’

  ‘Rafik speak and spoil your picture, no?’

  ‘Not unless I’m drawing your mouth.’

  Under the circumstances, Clement decided to work on the clothed Adam rather than the naked Christ. He watched while Rafik settled into position and then moved to adjust both his arms and the light. He picked up a pencil and made a few quick lines on the paper, filling them out as Rafik filled in his story.

  ‘I am come from north-east side of Algeria. Not good place for now. Many religious men with guns. The Groupe Islamique Armée. You hear of them?’

  ‘No. And, by the sound of it, I’ve not missed much.’

  ‘I have friend, good friend, who is teacher. Kind man. Old man. Like you.’ Clement felt the epithet like a punch in the guts. ‘My friend is in trouble from boy. He say if friend give him no money, he tell everything they do together. He make everything they do with smile sound bad. My friend afraid so he run away. My brothers, they hear I know him. They say Rafik do bad things too. They say they kill me if I speak to friend ever more. And they do; I know this to be true. So I take money from father and I sail on ship to France. I am safe in France but cold with much hunger. Then I meet man. Englishman. Justin. He tell me to come to this land with him. I say: “Yes, thank you very much, sir, I come. First, we go to English government. We say things very bad at home for Rafik.” But Justin, he say there is no chance. Persons there, they laugh at Rafik. They call him dirty man. So he buy for me card. French card.’

  ‘An identity card?’

  ‘Yes. With picture of Rafik. This person make it in Marseilles. Just like real.’

  ‘Which is how you entered the country?’

  ‘It is how, yes. I go with Justin to his house. 32 Rensfield Avenue, Bournemouth. But he not good to me. I wish to leave. I ask for card. But he hide it. I look all places through house, but I find nothing. So I run away. This is my mistake.’

  ‘Not if he treated you cruelly.’

  ‘I am safe there. I have tears but I am safe. I come to London. I must sleep on street. I ask persons if they give me money.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Some persons, they do not see you. Other persons, they laugh. They spit. They do many bad things. You know what is milkshake?’

  ‘The drink?’

  ‘The drink, yes,’ Rafik said with perplexing eagerness. ‘I sit on street when four men come near to me. Young men with big coats. Warm. Much money. “Do you like milkshakes?” one man ask me. “Yes sir,” I say to this man. I am not good understanding, but he has kind smile so I say yes. Then he pull box of milk from bag and he shake it like this.’ Rafik frenziedly waved his arms in the air. ‘He shake it all on me. Then four men, they laugh. They see Rafik all white and wet and they laugh.’

  Clement detected a new expression in Rafik’s eyes, no longer sadness but righteous fury. This was not the Christ of Turn the other cheek and the Beatitudes; this was the Christ who cursed the fig tree and purged the Temple. ‘But you managed to get away from the streets.’

  ‘This man… man from good family like you, he say to me how to find job in kitchen, washing dishes. Then he say to me how to find bed in hostel. I speak to man in kitchen of my story. He take me with him one night-time to club. Gay club. It is like dream. I say to him: “This cannot be real. All these men who take off shirt and kiss each other. It is dream.”’

  ‘I remember the feeling.’

  ‘It is here I meet Desmond. He is big man. He does not take off shirt. I like this… I like him. I like him very much. I think of him and I make tears. I meet him one time more, in café not club. We go to bed and we like us very much. It is so good. You understand Rafik, yes?’

  ‘Oh yes, I understand Rafik.’

  ‘Desmond, he ask me to live with him in Willesden. He has one small room in house. He is sad for this. He speak of it often. But I do not care; I like him so much. What I do not like is his jealous… very jealous. When I talk with man… any man, he say I want to go to bed with this man. He make world where small things are big. Rafik is young and good to look at. You think Rafik is good to look at, I know.’ He smiled for the first time in the afternoon but Clement refused to let it colour his image.

  ‘I think Rafik is good to draw,’ he replied sternly. ‘But I hope he won’t become big-headed.’

  ‘You think my head is too big for picture?’ Rafik asked in a worried tone.

  ‘Not at all, no. It’s just an expression. Please carry on. I’m sorry I distracted you.’

  ‘Desmond, he think Rafik is good to look at it,’ Rafik said tentatively. ‘He think everyone is wishing to look at Rafik and no one is wishing to look at Desmond. He say I have no love for him. I stay with him because I have fear of streets. But in little time I show him how I love him. I show him in ways you cannot trick. And he is happy. And Rafik is happy. Every one of us is happy. And then Steve moves inside house.’

  ‘Steve?’ Clement had switched his concentration from the sketch to the story. Even so, he wondered if he had missed a vital link.

  ‘Steve is man who work in bar. He like woman but he has not one now. He say he can find Rafik work in bar. Desmond does not wish it, but I say “yes”. I do not like work in kitchen. Too many Nigerians. It is there I meet Mike. He remember me of my teacher friend at home.’ Clement trusted that the resemblance was purely professional. ‘He come with friends at end of school. One special woman.’

  ‘Red hair? Deep voice? Chain smoker?’

  ‘This is she.’

  ‘Anita.’

  ‘I think at first they marry.’

  ‘No. Mike says they like each other far too much for that.’

  ‘This is English joke, yes?’

  ‘Well, it’s Mike’s.’

  ‘Mike is very kind person. Rafik is happy he meet him. But when I speak of him to Desmond, he is not happy. He remember me I come to England with bad card. He say Mike is maybe policeman.’

  ‘Some chance! He still thinks he’s the student rebel of thirty years ago.’

  ‘Desmond wish that I leave bar. He say he make enough money on sit
e. I say no. And he hit me. Not hard. Not like Justin. Not because he wish to see me with blood. But because he is hurt too. So I am understanding of him. But he is not understanding of me. He say I go to bed with Steve. I swear to him on Holy Quran this is not true. But he listen only to himself, not Rafik. This is why I never tell him I am coming here. He must kill me.’

  ‘Yes, you said so before.’ Clement felt nervous now that the threat was so much more real.

  ‘So I tell him I work more hours in bar. And I give him more money. Which make him happy. Then last afternoon he go to bar and find no Rafik. He think to himself I am with Steve. He is very quiet until it is evening and we eat. He tell me I go to bed with Steve all day when he is on site. He hit me when I tell him “no”. Then he pick up knife from table and walk into next room and he push knife in Steve’s chest. Like this.’ Clement was chilled by a gesture as poised as a fencer’s thrust. ‘There is too much blood. Everywhere. It fall on me and I am by door. I shout and persons from house they come and call hospital. I know then my time in this land is finished. I think to myself I must run away. But there is too much blood and I must not leave Steve.’

  ‘Be sure to say that to Mr Shortt. It’ll count in your favour.’

  ‘The police come and they take away me and Desmond. They ask questions… so many questions. They find out soon I must not be here. And their faces change. And their voices change. It is like I am man with knife. This is when I make call to you. Now you know story of Rafik’s life.’

  Clement knew that it was an outline rather than the story, nevertheless he found it both poignant and enlightening. He returned to the sketch while Rafik lapsed into silence. At four thirty, having waited as long as he could to see Mike, Rafik left for his shift. Clement dismissed his offer to remain, assuring him that Mike and his friends would call in for a drink very soon. ‘Try keeping them away,’ he said brightly. After confirming the next day’s session, he showed him out. He decided against ringing Mike who was sure to have been caught in traffic, hoping that Rafik’s presence in the drawings would make up for his absence in the flesh.

  Even after eleven years he remained uncertain of Mike’s opinion of his work. Friends related his pride in commissions and prizes, but that spoke of love for the artist rather than the art and, unlike Clement, he was able to divorce the two. He played the devoted consort at dinners with collectors and curators but showed little curiosity about the creative life, viewing Clement’s ten-foot mosaic of Jacob and the Angel as if it were a Victorian lady’s languid pastels. Clement never complained, since he knew that Mike spent his days among children who would as soon burn down a gallery as step inside one. Nevertheless, he could not shake off the suspicion that his reluctance to engage with his work owed less to his self-professed ignorance than to a distaste for Clement’s themes. Magritte-style jokes or Matisse-style decorations would have been fine, but God was beyond the palette.

  Mike arrived and, as ever, Clement found that the studio seemed to shrink in his presence. He passed on Rafik’s regrets, to which Mike responded with a tirade against redundant roadworks. Stifling a cyclist’s smug smile, Clement asked if he wanted some tea, adding that they could pop to the community café across the road, but Mike preferred to take full advantage of his ‘private view’. Clement busied himself at the sink, surprised by his keenness to defer the verdict.

  ‘You are aware how much you give away in these?’ Mike asked, leafing through the sketches of Rafik.

  ‘How much of what?’

  ‘I think the polite term is ardour.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Clement said, trying to wrest them from him, unsure whether to feel insulted or relieved by Mike’s amusement.

  ‘Don’t knock it. At least it’s something real.’

  ‘He’s sitting for Christ.’

  ‘Oh well then, ardour’s out! I remember your story about the Renaissance painters who used women models for Christ because they were afraid to show his masculinity.’

  ‘I said that that was the practice, not the reason.’

  ‘I’ve never understood why Christians are so scared of the body.’

  ‘Says who? I’m perfectly happy with my body. But, unlike some – ’ he glared at Mike who continued to hold the sketchbook out of reach, ‘I maintain that a person is bigger than his body. Just as a painting is more than a set of pigments, so a person is more than a set of cells.’

  ‘If I were to choose an official symbol for Christianity – ’

  ‘Dream on!’

  ‘I’d ditch the cross for a pillar.’

  ‘Why?’ Clement asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

  ‘Not Christ suffering to save the world but St Simeon Styletes running away from it. Stuck on top of that giant erection for God knows how many years!’

  ‘You may have turned your back on the Brethren – ’

  ‘As I recall, I didn’t have a great deal of choice. “I wish you were dead” – no, I tell a lie: “I wish you’d never been born” – is fairly unambiguous. So much for the Prodigal Son! But then, of course, he didn’t send a few mildly racy love-letters to a seventeen-year-old classmate.’

  ‘Your parents were mad. Believe me, I’d never defend them – ’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

  ‘But you must still know to respect other peoples’ faith.’

  ‘Why? We don’t respect any other delusion. We lock up people who believe they’re Christ, yet we’re supposed to humour those who believe in him.’

  ‘By definition, faith is irrational: a belief you hold against the normal rules of evidence.’

  ‘In which case I believe in Jedi.’

  ‘There’s no point discussing it. You’re just out to make me look loopy.’

  ‘That’s because there’s no one I’d rather see sane.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘You don’t. You excite me. You intrigue me. You delight me.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject!’

  ‘But for such an intelligent man you have this extraordinary blind spot. Religion is the triumph of tradition over truth.’ Clement feigned a yawn as Mike mounted his hobby-horse. ‘The relic of an age when superstition was enough to explain the universe. We’re living two centuries after the Enlightenment.’

  ‘It’s a miracle, all things considered, not just that we’re still together but that we haven’t murdered each other. Oh I forgot; you don’t believe in miracles.’

  ‘Says who? I just look for them in different places. Take these wonderful sketches –’

  ‘You like them?’

  ‘I don’t know which is the greater miracle: the beauty of the model or the drawing.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Clement savoured a compliment which showed that, however much they disagreed about God, they shared a deep and abiding faith in humanity. ‘Shall I lock up and meet you at home? We can both use the journey to cool down.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with me a little longer. If you ask very nicely, I might give you a lift.’ Clement looked at him in bemusement. ‘I passed your bike on the way in. Somebody’s nicked the saddle.’

  5

  ‘Noli me tangere doesn’t apply to painters,’ Clement said with a forced grin. The Dean and his allies laughed, while Major Deedes and Sir Brian MacDermott sat with faces as stony as the cathedral bosses. Clement shifted in his seat and thought of all the indignities heaped on artists since the first cave painter had seen his antelope mistaken for a bison.

  He was in a fusty Roxborough consistory room to present his sketches to the Dean and Chapter. The Dean had described it as a mere formality, but so far the formality had been shown in their treatment of him rather than their endorsement of his work. The committee consisted of two lay canons and three clergy and their degree of support for the project reflected the professional divide. The first stumbling block was the fee, which the Dean assured them would not come out of cathedral funds. Nevertheless Sir Brian, a local poultry tycoon, was appalled by the
figure of £75,000. ‘For one window?’ he asked, glowering at Clement as if he had caught him stealing lead from the roof. Struggling to stay calm, Clement cited the expense of his fabricator and materials. ‘We’re in the wrong business, eh?’ Sir Brian said to a neighbouring canon, who looked outraged at the thought of being in business at all. The Dean took it as a grudging acceptance and moved on to discuss the design.

  It was now Major Deedes’ turn to take the offensive with his claim to be deeply disturbed by the juxtaposition of the clothed Adam and the naked Christ. It reminded him of a painting, whose title he failed to recall but which, from the self-revealing description, Clement identified as Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe. He had anticipated such objections and outlined the thinking behind the image, explaining that he did not accept the existence of Hell, either physical or metaphysical. Just as his father believed that the concept of God was God (a statement that sent the Major into a fit of coughing), so he believed that the concept of Hell was Hell. Human beings were condemned to eternal suffering in a doctrine of their own making. They could be freed from it by their faith in Christ, not the traditional Christ who came laden with two thousand years of baggage, but the essential Christ, unvarnished and free.

  ‘And this Christ will be – how shall I put it? – in a state of nature?’ the Major asked.

  ‘Absolutely. Although I’d prefer “a state of grace”.’ Clement thought he heard the Dean suppress a snicker. ‘What’s more, it avoids setting him in any particular period. Or would you prefer him in biblical robes?’

  ‘And why not?’ the Major asked.

  ‘Because it immediately restricts his meaning. It makes him remote to ordinary visitors who may not possess your grasp of history.’ Clement bit his tongue. ‘Adam wears a suit because he’s our contemporary, but Christ will be clothed in nothing but light.’

  ‘Yes, let’s not forget, Major,’ the Dean added in voice at once unctuous and steely, ‘that we’re talking about a window. I might take a very different view if it were an altarpiece or a statue, but this will be as insubstantial as air.’ Clement smiled, grateful for the backing if not the analogy.