Portrait of a Man

by Georges Perec

  “Why didn’t you manage it?”

  “Because it was too difficult … I wanted my own face and I wanted the light … I wanted my face and I wanted the Condottiere … Victory without combat, certainty without mediation, strength … I was cheating again … How could I know I would be that strength? I struggled to prove it … But I was frightened. Yes. But I already knew I was setting out on an impossible adventure … I knew, but I went on nonetheless … What did I have to lose? As good a way as any of coming a cropper? What did I have to lose in the game? But time went by … It really was my own face that I was putting on the canvas, drop by drop of sweat, but it wasn’t the Condottiere … I corrected, began again, paused, backtracked … But it could not be … There was not a chance it was going to work …”

  “Why did you go on?”

  “Because I wanted to know …”

  “Why did you need to come a cropper?”

  “No reason … Had to get it over …”

  “Is that why you started drinking?”

  “Yes, that’s why, and why not? I looked at myself in the mirror in the middle of the night. That was me. That was my face, and my year of struggle and sleepless nights, that oak board and that steel easel, that was my face too, and so were those pots and those hundreds of brushes and the rags and the spotlights. My story. My fate. A fine caricature of a fate. That was me: anxious and greedy, cruel and mean, with the eyes of a rat. Looking like I thought I was a warlord. Like I thought I was a master of the world at the crossroads of the universe. Like I thought I was untouchable, free and strong. That was me. Anxiety, bitterness, panic. You can keep up the illusion for a minute, but then it all falls down, in one go, everything goes haywire, under the impossible gaze of other people who come roaring over the walls, and they’re definitely the winners. So I started to drink, like an animal, like I’d never drunk before, not even two years ago when I was here, because I was in a panic at the mere idea of having to answer Geneviève. I started drinking and pacing up and down in the room. Drinking from the bottle. I broke my brushes, I tore up all the prints I could reach. I drank till I collapsed …”

  “And Madera didn’t say anything?”

  “No … He called Rufus. Rufus got there that evening. I was asleep. Next morning I left with him for Gstaad, where he was on holiday, for a week’s rest.”

  “Had they seen the Condottiere?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they say anything?’

  “No.”

  “How so?”

  “At first sight it didn’t matter if it was a mess or not …”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There weren’t any mistakes of technique. I had strictly painted an Antonello. All the characteristics were present: only they were crude signs. It worked for a little while; then you could see you’d been duped. It was too facile. Too instantaneous. Hey, look at me, I’m the fearless Condottiere! Ha, I’m a tough guy, have you seen the muscles in my neck? Or else distant in a way that was too artificial. If you just looked at the panel with the idea in your mind that it was not an Antonello, then the trick was easy to see. The rest of it came by itself. Do you see? That’s what a poor forgery is. If I’d done it right, you’d have been able to look at the panel every which way to try to prove it was a fake and not been able to do so. It was logical. It was the most logical thing in the world …”

  “Do you think you can be a competent judge of that, all by yourself?”

  “There’s not the slightest doubt. I painted that panel. I believed in it for a long time. I did my utmost with it for as long as I could.”

  “But during your stay in Gstaad, didn’t Madera often look at the painting?”

  “No. The panel wasn’t quite finished. The background needed another coat and it hadn’t yet been varnished so as to produce the craquelure. Before leaving I covered it with a canvas frame because some parts weren’t completely dry and I had to prevent dust from getting to them.”

  “If you’d had to have it authenticated by a specialist, do you think it would have passed?”

  “Certainly not. No art critic or expert would have taken more than thirty minutes to see through it …”

  “What did you plan to do?”

  “I don’t know … I don’t remember … Lots of things went through my mind. I wanted to have a rest and clear out …”

  “Did you expect to go back to Dampierre?”

  “Yes and no … I don’t know … I wasn’t planning on doing anything … Oh, I wasn’t even thinking about the disastrous thing at all … I didn’t give a damn … I slept, I went skiing, I read detective stories by the fire …”

  “Why did you go back?”

  “It’s too complicated to tell you … A bad memory … I got fed up with skiing …”

  “Was that a sufficient reason?”

  “As good as any other … When I left for Gstaad I was almost contented. I wanted to see the snow and go skiing. The snow wasn’t very good and there wasn’t enough sunshine … I was getting bored … I went back to Paris.”

  “Just like that? In the middle of the night on a private plane? Just because the snow wasn’t good?”

  “Yes … All because the snow wasn’t good … It sounds ridiculous, but that was just about the only reason … Gstaad had nothing to do with it … It was a different issue. The memory of Altenberg, a small town in Switzerland where I spent a few years at the start of the war … That’s where I acquired my passion for snow, odd though it may seem … I’m putting it badly … I mean that, in a certain way and in certain circumstances, I was perfectly happy … but in Gstaad I got bored … That’s all …”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Of course it doesn’t make sense, but did the desire for the Condottiere make sense? None of it made any sense … But all the same that’s what I was living in …”

  “What did you want to do in Paris?”

  “Call Madera, to tell him I wasn’t coming back to Dampierre, that the Condottiere was hopeless and I didn’t give a shit about it, and that he could go jump in a lake …”

  “Did you?”

  “No…”

  “Why not?”

  “I called Geneviève …”

  “Why Geneviève?’

  “The same reason I left Gstaad … the same reason that spurred me to paint the Condottiere … No obvious reason … They were just things I wanted to do …”

  “To provoke a disaster?”

  “Probably, but so what? What do you know about it? Why a disaster? It could have worked …”

  “Could Geneviève have responded?”

  “Why not? Since I was able to call her. What’s so special about picking up the phone? What’s so miraculous about answering?”

  “Would it have been a miracle if she had answered?”

  “Yes … yes and no … it wouldn’t have made any sense either … She didn’t answer because she understood that I was the person calling her …”

  “Maybe she was out?”

  “At three a.m.? No … She was there … She’d understood …”

  “How long was it since you’d seen her?”

  “A year and a half … At Rufus’s party …”

  “How did you know she’d be at home?”

  “It was February, and it was three a.m…. There was no reason for her to have changed her job or her apartment, so she was there …”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway … Why did you call her?”

  “To provoke a disaster, like you said … To have her start hovering over me, being present and imminent and reassuring, with all the spells and tyranny she would bring with her …”

  “Did you want to kill Madera?”

  “No … I didn’t want to murder anybody …”

  “What sort of thing was it, the disaster?”

  “It wasn’t anything … Things going on like they had, as if nothing had changed, as if nothing had happened … The eternal return, the same action done over
and over again a thousand times, the same pointless patience, the same useless effort … My own story written down once and for all, in a closed circle, with no way out other than dying ten or twenty or thirty years on. Needing to go on to the end without meaning, without necessity …”

  “Is that what you were thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything at all … I knew, as if I’d always known, as if I’d been trying to forget … that it wasn’t possible … I’d tried everything. But I’d been caught. Trapped liked a rat. I would go on piling up Grecos and Clouets and Goyas and Baldovinettis until death did us part, without believing in them, without wanting to do it, I would produce a heap of canvases and panels like my own shit, I would go on living off the dead. Until I was dead too …”

  “Why did you kill Madera?”

  “I don’t know … If I knew I wouldn’t be here … If I’d known, I suppose I wouldn’t have done it … You think it’s easy … You commit an act … You don’t know … you can’t know … you don’t want to know … But after a while it’s behind you … You know you did it … and then …”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing.”

  “Why do you say ‘you’?”

  “No reason … It doesn’t matter … I killed Madera … And then? It doesn’t make things any simpler … A last act, the least act of all …”

  “Just to see …”

  “As you say … Just to see what would happen …”

  “And what did happen?”

  “You can see that for yourself … Nothing yet … Perhaps one day something will happen … Something worthwhile …”

  “Are you sorry you killed Madera?”

  “No … I don’t give a damn … It’s hardly any business of mine … I’m not interested …”

  “What would have happened if you hadn’t killed him?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Try to use your imagination.”

  “I haven’t got any imagination … Nothing at all would have happened. He would have noticed – if not himself, then Rufus or Nicolas or somebody, or else I’d have told them – that the Condottiere wasn’t worth anything … They’d have given me something else to do … or else they’d have tried to get rid of it as it was …”

  “As an Antonello?’”

  “No … They’d have made a convenient discovery of a Master of This or That … The Man in Red or something of the sort …”

  “Would you have carried on after that?”

  “I don’t know … Maybe, maybe not …”

  “Why did you kill Madera?”

  “Because I was sick to the back teeth. Because it was as good a way as any of being shot of it all …”

  “Being shot of what?”

  “Of the crazy life I’d lived for twelve years …”

  “Did you want to give yourself up to the police?”

  “No.”

  “What did you plan to do, straight afterwards?”

  “Hide the body, clean up the blood a bit, and clear off …”

  “Here?”

  “Here or somewhere else … It wasn’t enormously important …”

  “How come Otto came back?”

  “I’ve no idea … In principle he spends every Monday afternoon in Dreux … He must have forgotten something …”

  “Had you been thinking about killing him for a long time?”

  “No … Not for long … Half an hour, three-quarters of an hour … I’ve no idea …”

  “Why not?”

  “It came to me suddenly, like a cramp … Almost like an idea out of the air … An image … to begin with … Something started hovering over me, something possible, something that started speaking all by itself … It was meaningless, it was babble, but I listened to it nonetheless … In the state I was in, one action more or less didn’t matter a damn …”

  “Were you out of your mind?”

  “You could say that … You could … Marginally insane … or rather, it was as if I had lost all will and all memory … Unwilled, that’s what it was. Anything was O.K., anything that came to me was O.K. … But then that’s what I’d been like for years …”

  “What was in your mind?”

  “I don’t know … it doesn’t matter … I picked up a razor, folded it in my palm, I started up the stairs, I went into his office …”

  “Didn’t you hesitate?”

  “No … It came all by itself … With no apparent effort … With no difficulty … Why not? It was Madera. He was alive. He was going to be dead. I was dead, I was going to be alive …”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, it’s obvious …”

  “He had to die for you to live?”

  “Yes …”

  “Weren’t you alive?”

  “Yes, it would seem that I was alive … You’re wearing me out with your stupid questions … Of course I was alive … So what? He was alive as well. Now he’s dead and I’m still alive. That’s it.”

  “Did he have to die?”

  “Yes, sooner or later, like anybody else …”

  “But it was you who had to kill him …”

  “You worked that out all by yourself, did you? Very clever, you are … No, it did not have to be ‘you who had to kill him’ … But since I did it, heigh ho, it’s just as well …”

  “You’re not mounting a good defence …”

  “I don’t want to defend myself …”

  “What were you after? What were you trying to do? What have you got to lose now by giving an explanation? You know full well that you can’t turn the clock back. You’re standing there stock still, like a statue. You don’t even realise …”

  “What’s it got to do with you? You want to understand. I’ve told you a hundred times already that there was nothing to understand. I was the one who ought to have died. That’s what would have been logical. It would have been normal. I should have committed suicide. I had every reason to do so. I was dishonoured. I was a forger who hadn’t managed to make a forgery. Fakers breakers. How about that? Couldn’t come up with my own Condottiere, so I should have committed hara-kiri. I should have taken my razor between thumb and index finger and run it oh so delicately over my throat. Lost. Done in. Done for. That’s what you won’t grasp. That everything had hit the rocks, was smashed to smithereens, dead. My hope to live, my hope to be me, my face. Gstaad wasn’t what I wanted. Geneviève wouldn’t answer. The Condottiere was a mess. Jérôme was dead. I thought I was free but I was being exploited. I thought I was in disguise but my disguise was another face, one that was more true and even more pathetic than the other one. I thought I was in a place of safety but everything was falling on top of me. I had nothing to hang on to. I was alone in the middle of the night in the middle of my prison in front of my own face that I did not want to recognise. You must understand it. Understand that. What was I supposed to do? Run away, right? Run away where? What planet would have me? Tell me that! The only thing I could do was get rid of myself, throw myself out with the rubbish. What difference did it make if I made a bit more wreckage? What difference would it make to me if I blew everything up? He was in his office, the fool, he had no idea. He should have. He should known there was a barrel of high explosive in his basement … He did nothing about it. He let me come in. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t hear me come closer. It was his fault. It was his fault … He’d never helped me … He’d lumbered me with a Condottiere … He’d shut me away … He’d taken advantage of me for twelve years, fifteen years … He’d turned me into a docile instrument … Do you understand him? Do you understand that? As for me I’d been taken in, hook, line and sinker. I didn’t exist, I didn’t have the right to exist … So all of that was rushing around and jostling and exploding somewhere inside my head, like overloud music it was all bursting and disappearing and coming back … I was the one who should have died … It was me who’d done it all … who’d ruined it all … But I wasn’t alone. He’d looked at m
e, he’d toyed with me. I didn’t give a damn about dying … It hadn’t occurred to me … It didn’t matter any more. What I was could never matter anymore. But first, before dying, before dying from it, before it was all over, the ineffable Anatole Madera would be repaid to the last cent for everything he has helped make happen to me. It was cowardly. It was intentional. So what?”

  “But you’re still alive …”

  Questa arte condusse poi in Italia Antonello da Messina, che molti anni consumò in Fiandra; e nel tornarsi di qua da’monti, fermatosi ad abitare in Venezia, la insegnò quivi ad alcuni sui amici …

  Antonello da Messina was the son of the painter Salvatore d’Antonio, who was his first teacher. He left for Rome when still very young to complete his education, then went back to Palermo and finally to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of Antonio Solario, known as Lo Zingaro, “The Gypsy”, who like him was an apprentice in the studio of Colantonio del Fiore. From then on, Antonello and Lo Zingaro were great admirers of the Flemish and Dutch Schools and tried to imitate their manner, but didn’t know what procedures they used and obtained only unsatisfactory results. The sight of a Van Eyck canvas belonging to Prince Alfonso of Aragon made up the young Sicilian’s mind. He abandoned all his work in progress and, despite the length and cost of the journey, set off straight away for Flanders to seek out the Master of Bruges, declared his passionate admiration for his work with such convincing enthusiasm that Van Eyck, though initially rather cool, was soon won over by the fiery Mediterranean youth and took Antonello on as a disciple. Antonello’s respectful affection and good faith as an artist, allied to his exceptional abilities, soon made him Van Eyck’s most favoured pupil, and the master came to have fatherly feelings for the young man who had come from Italy to learn from him the secret of an art that he felt unable to rival. So he revealed the technique of painting in oils, or rather, the practical means of applying it …