Back to Blood: A Novel

by Tom Wolfe

Now all four of them, Magdalena, Fleischmann, Norman, and A.A., squeezed through the door. The gristly woman in Art Black had wisely stepped back, out of the way of the pumped-up old men. It wasn’t a stampede exactly… not some utter loss of control such as pushing… but Magdalena could feel the pressure… One man was so close behind her, she could hear him breathing stertorously near her ear. She was being swept along in a tide of old bones dying to get in there, whatever there was.

  A little hallway opened up into the main exhibition hall. The place must have been the size of a city block all by itself… the ceiling was—what?—three stories high?—four stories?—all in darkness. The lights were below, like the lights of a city—the lights of incredibly long rows, streets, avenues, of booths—of galleries from all over Europe and Asia as well as the United States… must be hundreds of them! Art for sale! A gigantic bazaar… just lying there, spread out before these, the most important maggots… All theirs!… See it! Like it! Buy it!

  The clump of frenzied old men began to break apart… they began to regain their voices, but all were drowned out by a bellowing voice just inside the entrance.

  “Gedouda my vay, imbecile! I cromble you and your biece a baper!”

  It was Flebetnikov, trying to maneuver his big belly past a security guard who stood between him and all the irresistible treasures beyond… The guard was in a dark blue-gray uniform with all sorts of cop-look-alike insignia on it, including a shiny badge. Magdalena knew the type at a glance… Not just any security guard, but a classic Florida redneck… thick buzz cut of reddish-blond hair… meaty, fleshy… huge forearms stuck out of his short-sleeved shirt like a pair of hams… In one hand he held an official-looking document up before Flebetnikov’s face.

  Flebetnikov swatted it aside and stuck his face directly into the redneck’s and roared in his deepest voice, spraying spittle, “Now you gon’ ged ouda my vay! You onderstond?” With that, he placed the heel of his hand against the redneck’s chest, as if to say, “—and I mean it! You either get out of my way or I’ll throw you out of my way!”

  Big mistake. Faster than Magdalena would have thought he could move, the redneck bent the arm of the hand that touched him into some sort of hold that locked Flebetnikov up, his voice, his body, his soul. Not a peep out of him. He seemed to know instinctively that here was a good old country boy who would happily beat a fat Russian senseless and feed him to the hogs.

  Magdalena turned toward Fleischmann and Norman—but they were no longer beside her. They were three or four feet ahead. Fleischmann nudged Norman in the ribs with his elbow, and they looked at each other and grinned. A.A. was ahead of them, walking at a terrific pace, heading presumably toward the Jeb Doggses to nail down the advantage, now that the security guard had terrified Flebetnikov and stopped him in his tracks.

  Maggots were rooting and slithering all over the place with their advisers, scurrying toward the booths of their dreams. Over there!—a shoving match!… Looked like the two hedge fund managers—from someplace in Connecticut?—Fleischmann had pointed out… Even farther ahead of Magdalena now a HahaHHHHock hock hock hock cackle, and Norman’s looking back at the two chubby little pugilists… but not Fleischmann. He and his A.A., Miss Carr, are all business, about to head into a booth. A big, hearty maggot—Magdalena remembered him from the line—comes up from the side, smiles, and says, “How’s it going, Marilynn?” A.A. looks at him for a split second with a wary look that asks not who but what is this… creature?… attacking, assaulting her attention at a crucial moment like this? She ignores him.

  Norman follows them into the booth and stands beside them… them, and a tall man with gray hair, although he doesn’t look all that old, and eerie pale-gray eyes like the slanted eyes of a husky or whatever those dogs that pull sleds through the snow up near the Arctic Circle are called.

  A.A. says, “You must know Harry Goshen, don’t you, Maurice?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” says Fleischmann. He turns to the man with the eerie eyes and gives him a chilly little smile, and they shake hands.

  So pale, those eyes… they look ghostly and sinister… He wore a pale-gray suit, too, and a light-blue tie… the only man in a coat and tie Magdalena had seen all day… black shoes so highly polished, the crease between the toes and the arch of the foot shimmered. He had to be the owner of the gallery… or a salesman at the very least… Rich collectors, she had just seen, dressed in rags and sneakers.

  Fleischmann and A.A. and Arctic-eyed Harry Goshen stood before a row of stout maple boxes, each three or so inches high and anywhere from nine to twenty-four inches long, unpainted, unstained, but lacquered with so many coats of clear lacquer, they screamed at you. This man Harry Goshen opened the lid of a big one… completely lined, lid and all, with chocolate-colored suede… and lifted out a big, round slab of transparent frosted glass, maybe two inches thick… you could tell by the strain on Harry Goshen’s hands and arms and posture, the damned thing was heavy. He turned it at about a forty-five-degree angle… the translucent glass flooded with light and there, somehow carved deep into the glass… exquisitely carved, in the smoothest detail—

  “Sort of, you know, Art Deco,” A.A. said to Fleischmann.

  —in bas-relief, a young woman with long curving locks—

  A.A. was holding up some photograph. “Pretty much like him, don’t you think?”

  —and a young man with short curving locks… were fucking… and you could “see everything,” as the saying goes, and “everything” was flooded with translucent light.

  Norman was so excited, a foolish grin spread over his face, and he leaned way over to get the closest possible look at “everything.” Fleischmann looked totally baffled. He kept switching his eyes from the pornographic carving to A.A.’s face and back to the glass and once more to A.A.’s face… What am I supposed to think, A.A.?

  Pale-gray-eyed Goshen takes a round slab from another lacquered box… turns it until… there!… it becomes a man and woman… fornicating in a different way… another slab… anally… another… three figures, two women and one man, fornicating in an anatomically improbable combination… another… two women and two men… fornicating… fingers, tongues, mouths, whole forearms, disappearing into filthy places… Fleischmann now frantically looking from the light-flooded glass to Marilynn Carr… back and forth… Time is of the essence… others will be here any moment… Flebetnikov, to be specific… Magdalena moves closer… Fleischmann looks at his A.A…. pleading… She turns her head ever so slightly, meaning no… Magdalena can hear her saying… in the lowest of voices, “Not iconic Doggs”… Another… fornicating… Fleischmann looking frantically at Marilynn Carr. Without a word she nods her head up and down ever so slowly… meaning yes!… Fleischmann immediately turns to the ghostly husky, who says in a ghostly low voice, “Three.” Fleischmann turns to Marilynn Carr, looks at her desperately… She nods her head up and down slowly again… Desperately Fleischmann turns to the ghostly Goshen and mutters from deep in his throat, “Yes”… and Goshen pastes a red dot on the lacquered box containing the slab… Now looking back and forth so rapidly… whispering, giving signals desperately… Goshen says, “Two and a half.” Fleischmann, hoarsely, “Yes”… another red dot on another lacquered box… Barely forty-five seconds have elapsed.

  A bellow! A roar! Here he comes. Flebetnikov’s T-shirt-upholstered hulk must have gotten loose. He’s heading this way. He’s furious; he’s roaring in Russian, for somebody’s benefit… then roars in English, “Anodder hole in his nose he vants, dad son ma bitch!”… Goshen acts as if he doesn’t hear it or just doesn’t care… No raging Russian is going to interrupt this streak! Flebetnikov growls and roars and vows to put yet anodder hole in the son ma bitch’s nose. He’s coming closer. Fleischmann seems calmer, but he still accelerates his mission… another red dot (“three and a half”)… another red dot (“one”)… red dots red dots red dots (“two,” “four” for the orgy scene, dear God!… then “nine one seven”—)… all these red
dots. ::::::That must be what they mean when they talk about the “measles.”::::::

  If those numbers meant what Magdalena was beginning to believe they meant, Fleischmann had just spent 17 million dollars, or $17 million minus $83,000, assuming 917 meant $917,000, in less than fifteen minutes. And if Marilynn Carr, with her fair white thighs and English bob, got 10 percent from the seller, the ghostly husky, and 10 percent from the buyer, Fleischmann, she had just made $3,400,000 for herself, assuming Norman had explained the commissions accurately.

  Flebetnikov’s Russian roar was drawing closer and closer.

  A.A. said to Fleischmann, “Why don’t we get out of here? I know Flebetnikov. He’s not a rational person.”

  For the first time since this whole thing began, Fleischmann smiled. “And miss all the fun?”

  Fleischmann insisted on waiting for Flebetnikov. He stood right outside the entrance to the booth. A.A. looked very nervous. Fleischmann was suddenly the picture of happiness.

  Flebetnikov arrived, roaring in Russian. A tall, dark, anxious-looking man was by his side.

  “That’s Lushnikin,” A.A. whispered to Fleischmann. “He’s the art adviser for most of the oligarchs.”

  Flebetnikov was growling like a bear. He roared at Lushnikin in Russian… something ending with “Goshen.” For the first time he noticed Fleischmann. He appeared startled; also wary. Perhaps guilty?

  “Comrade Flebetnikov!” boomed Fleischmann. “You interested in Doggs?” With his thumb he indicated the booth behind him. “I was, too. But all the good stuff is already gone. At Miami Basel you got to be fast. See it, like it, buy it.”

  From Flebetnikov’s expression you couldn’t tell whether he detected the sarcasm or not. He blinked. He looked bewildered. Without another word he turned and entered the booth, yelling, “Lushnikin! Lushnikin!”

  Fleischmann departed, chuckling to himself, no doubt envisioning the red-dot desolation and defeat awaiting the Comrade inside the booth. Norman was practically on Maurice’s heels, Norman and A.A. Norman had a hazy smile on his face, an interior smile so to speak. He was thinking of himself transformed into a rich man by just being there when it all happened, if Magdalena knew anything about it. He didn’t even look to see where she was, he was so deep into his imaginary world. He had walked thirty or forty feet down the row before her existence occurred to him. He didn’t want to get separated from his glorious friends, but he hesitated long enough to swivel his head this way and that. When he spotted her, he beckoned her with a big sweeping motion of his arm… without waiting for her, however. He wheeled about on one heel and continued in Fleischmann’s glorious wake.

  Not knowing what else to do, Magdalena began walking after him. On either side, within the booths near the entrance… red dots. It was astonishing. So many pieces had been sold so fast… Red dots, red dots, red dots… “The measles outbreak”… but of course—that was what they had been talking about! All the red dots… 17 million dollars’ worth in Fleischmann’s case. Who knew how many more millions all those other red dots represented?! Then it began to make her sick. Think of how shallow and wantonly wasteful these people were! These americanos! Think of Fleischmann spending almost 17 million dollars on seven obscene pieces of glass… $17 million in thirteen or fourteen minutes, for fear a fat Russian might lay hands on this idiotic stuff first… all for show!… a 17-million-dollar personal exhibition… Norman didn’t see that… He was absorbed by it. A little Cuban girl named Magdalena no longer existed, did she. Norman had put her out of his mind. Her resentment rose up like flames. Arson it became. She took grim satisfaction in feeding the fire. That bastard. ::::::Norman, you’re a disgusting suck-up to money. No display of money strikes you as trashy, does it. Insulted me! Why should I put up with him any longer?::::::

  Involuntarily, unbidden, four things popped into the Wernicke’s area of her brain: her BMW… registered in the name of Dr. Norman Lewis, since he, in strict point of fact, owned it; her pay… which she received in the form of a check signed by Dr. Norman N. Lewis; her apartment—her home, as she now thought of it—property of Dr. Norman Lewis; the extra money she needed in a clutch to keep up the payments on her student loan… providentially provided by Dr. Norman N. Lewis… The rebel streak in her was fading fast.

  She shucked off her pride and trooped on toward the VIP lounge. A row of four-foot-high modular partitions had been assembled to compel all who would breathe the same air as very important people to pass through an opening at one end manned by a security guard. Another big redneck. Suppose he wouldn’t let her in? He was like a caricature of the breed. What if he gave her a hard time?

  The man took a cursory glance at the laminated VIP ID around her neck and waved her in. This one had Couldn’t Care Less written all over him.

  The only symbol of one’s exalted status in the FIZ (Fuggerzberuf Industriellbank of Zurich) VIP room was the mere fact that one had been allowed in at all. Otherwise, the place was nothing but a sea of what is known in commercial real estate as “Contract furniture,” simple modern chairs and small tables made of as much plastic as possible. The very important people therein could sit down, take a load off, go get a drink, and tell war stories of the Miami Basel battles for hot items, which is to say, exchange very important gossip.

  Way out in the sea, Magdalena sat at a table with Fleischmann, A.A., and Norman, whom she was now pointedly ignoring. She figured she owed herself at least that much self-respect. Madame Carr was suddenly the life of the party. Magdalena wondered if Norman or even Fleischmann had any idea, out of 3.4 million possible answers why. At the moment, she was answering a question from Norman… Norman, who had once told Magdalena, “Be careful asking questions. Asking questions is the surest way of revealing your ignorance.” Be that as it may, Norman had asked a question, and Marilynn Carr was saying, “How did Doggs learn how to work in glass? He doesn’t work in glass or anything else. Don’t you know about No Hands art and De-skilled art?”

  “Oh, I guess I’ve heard about it—but no, not really,” Norman said lamely, or lamely for Norman.

  A.A. said, “No cutting-edge artist touches materials anymore, or instruments.”

  “What do you mean, instruments, A.A.?” said Fleischmann.

  “Oh, you know,” she said, “paintbrushes, clay, shaping knives, chisels… all that’s from the Manual Age. Remember painting? That seems so 1950s now. Remember Schnabel and Fischl and Salle and all that bunch? They all seem so 1950s now, even though their fifteen minutes came in the 1970s. The new artists, like Doggs, look at all those people like they’re from another century, which they were, when you get right down to it. They were still using their hands to do little visual tricks on canvas that were either pretty and pleasant and pleased people or ugly and baffling and ‘challenged’ people. Challenged… Ohmygod—” She broke into a smile and shook her head, as if to say, “Can you believe the way it used to be?!”

  “Then how does Doggs do it?” said Fleischmann. “I guess I never really asked.”

  “It’s actually fascinating,” said A.A. “He got hold of, Doggs did, this call girl, Daphne Deauville, the one who cost the governor of New Jersey his job?—and on the strength of that she gets a job as a columnist for the New York City Light? I couldn’t believe it! So anyway, Doggs gets a photographer to take some pictures of him… well, fucking her brains out”—lately it had become daringly chic for women to use fucking in conversation—“and doing this and that… and sent the photographs off to Dalique, and Dalique got their elves to reproduce the photographs in three dimensions in Dalique glass, but Doggs never touched the pieces—never. He had no hand at all in making them. And if he touched the photographs, it was just to put them in an envelope and FedEx them to Dalique, although I’m sure he has an assistant to do things like that. No Hands—that’s an important concept now. It’s not some artist using his so-called skills to deceive people. It’s not a sleight of hand. It’s no hands at all. That makes it conceptual, of course. That way he turns
what a manual artist would use to create… an effect… into something that compels you to think about it in a deeper way. It’s almost as if he has invented a fourth dimension. And there you’ve got the very best, the most contemporary work of the whole rising generation. Most of Doggs’s work in this show is iconic. Everyone who sees one of yours, Maurice, will say, ‘My God! That’s Doggs at the outset of his classic period,’ because I’m convinced that’s what his work is. It’s cutting-edge, and at the same time it’s classic. That kind of work isn’t available every day! Believe me!… Maurice… you have… really… scored this time.”

  Really scored… Fleischmann looked very pleased, but his smile was the baffled smile of someone who can’t explain his own good fortune. Obviously he hadn’t understood a word of A.A.’s explanation. That made Magdalena feel better, because she hadn’t understood a word of it, either.

  Rather than just sit there looking like 17 million dollars’ worth of bafflement, Fleischmann stood up and excused himself to A.A. and said he’d be right back. Fleischmann was hemmed in by other tables, and so Magdalena stood up and moved her chair to give him room. She happened to look about. Her heart jumped inside her rib cage. There he was, about four tables behind her chair—the Russian she had met so briefly, so profoundly! after dinner last night—and he was staring straight at her. She was so startled and excited, she couldn’t think of what to do. Wave? Run over to his table? Get a waiter to take a note? A flower? A handkerchief? Her tiny heart-on-a-string necklace? Before her mind stopped spinning, he had turned back to the six or seven people at his table. But she was sure. He had stared right at her.

  What? Now it was Norman. He stood up and asked A.A. if she by any chance knew where there was a men’s room. ::::::Maybe he doesn’t want to just sit there while I beam black rays at him.:::::: A.A. pointed way off in that direction, the direction Fleischmann had headed in. “It’s over in the BesJet lounge,” she said. “This lounge doesn’t have one.”