"Come along then," said Peeperkorn, seemingly oblivious of the young man's objection. "The exhibition proceeds chronologically from left to right."
The canvases, each the size of a large handkerchief, rested against the base of the wall.
"How do you expect to see them from up here? On your knees!" ordered Peeperkorn.
Tintin obeyed as if on reflex, and in kneeling position he swept his eyes over the span of the sixteen tiny paintings.
For all their differences, each (except for those of the later period, in which the image was not distinguishable) was a painting of women and men, but one face repeated itself in differing contexts and costumes: Clavdia's. It is Clavdia who reclines, nude (except for a narrow black bow about her neck, a tasseled bracelet high on her forearm, a green shoe on her right foot), on a pillowed divan, her face serenely turned to some visitor, or to the painter himself, but almost certainly to the viewer facing the canvas. Behind the divan a thickset black woman in white robes extends a bouquet of flowers, probably a gift just arrived — for they are still wrapped in tissue paper — to this Clavdia, who, for the moment, takes no notice but who will perhaps momentarily turn in acknowledgment of both the black flower-bearer and the flowers.
And the smiling, youthful face of a ballet dancer, her body tilted forward slightly as if bowing to an appreciative audience, also belongs to Clavdia. In the background, other dancers are bathed, as is she, in the warm, burnished glow of the stage lanterns. Dancers whose faces are, on closer look, mere smudges of paint. What warmth, what happiness animate this moment for the performers, who, as Tintin imagines, must soon make their way backstage to change into ordinary garments (thick sweaters and burly cloth coats) and thence leave the theater to cross cold streets and frozen iron bridges.
Here in three-quarter view is Clavdia in blue silk high-necked dress and matching blue bonnet seated in a wicker chair at the seashore. The modeling of the upper body and face is precise, clear, while the cliffs behind her are a blur of autumnal colors, the sea a scumbling of blue and whites. There is a sweetness in her expression, the start of a smile as she looks out beyond the canvas, perhaps to one who has just called her name or voiced some endearment. This idea suggests itself to the enchanted Tintin as he turns to the next painting.
Clavdia, her skin dark cocoa, her long hair shiny black, reaches out for a turquoise-green banana hanging low on a purple stalk girded by an orange snake. About her waist a vermilion cloth falls to her knee, the black nipples of her full, naked breasts glisten, as does the narrow golden halo about her head. Beside her a thin lemon-yellow dog sleeps on a swatch of ocher earth. Smoke rises from palm-frond huts set in jungle clearings. This Clavdia neither smiles nor seems serene; her broad, masklike face is a surrender to blood, to deep pools and waterfalls, to the meat of near-raw fish braised by green sapling fires in early evening.
In the main sketchy, seemingly unfinished, the next painting takes solid form in the handling of the upper torso of the figure, in the modeling of the slightly inclined head. There the planes of the face seem to dovetail into rectangular shapes. It is a middle-aged house-tending Clavdia these shapes suggest. Clavdia of the kitchen, Clavdia of the scalded morning milk and pot of steaming coffee set on her husband's wooden tray. This is the Clavdia who keeps the household accounts and makes the butcher tremble and the maid's eyes tear. Yet, soon, under Tintin's insistent gaze, the domestic face now proposes nothing but the shapes that so subtly compose it.
He was growing dizzy with these sights and reflections, and the small of his back, his knees ached. He thought of rising, but at that very moment Peeperkorn's sharp voice brought him to attention.
"Too much for you? Tiring? At your age! Surely, Madame deserves more of your attention."
"Oh! Sir," cried Tintin, ''I'm neither inattentive nor remiss in my affection for you or for Madame."
"Well, rise then. Anxiety makes me gruff. I beg your pardon, my dear boy. So profound is my concern with these efforts that I'm apt to take any hint of less than unswerving interest as lack of approbation, a dismissal of all I've suffered to achieve."
"But they — they are magnificent!"
"Do you think so?"
"Stupendous," answered Tintin, genuinely moved.
"Not too eclectic, eh?"
"You at once capture and transcend the original sources; you synthesize and distill; from the old you create the new."
"Your words gratify me, young sir. Quite," the older man interjected. "When all is said, my art so far would not exist at all if those whom you deem my models had not labored before me. But now I must explain that I've reached my crossroads — a momentous occasion. For either I shall continue to travel the route you've here witnessed, a worthy route, culturally wholesome and with honorable precedent, or I shall set forth to take the path to the new, the wholly virgin land, where only I shall have the moral and aesthetic authority to issue passports and visas to those who may wish to follow me there. And this is why I need you. For what is it to have struggled for the discovery of virgin lands only to suspect that others have trod those paths before and perhaps have even built their outposts in the very regions one seeks to claim?"
"I had no idea, sir, that you had such serious interests...."
"And indeed, why should you? To the world and at times even to myself, I am a gluttonous fop, distracted, senile even. That is, in fact, precisely how I wish to be noted, all the better to keep my dwindling energy intact. Show nothing of yourself to the world, my young man, for it is a jealous, vicious place. But I'm sure you know all this; one cannot be a lamb in your trade."
"One cannot neglect the devious side of things, yet I've fared well in this life with captain and dog by my side. No need of guile with them."
"You are fortunate, my boy," Peeperkorn said, falling suddenly into the whisper of an old man, "for obviously you've lost nothing in life. No need, then, to hold tightly to your heart."
At that instant Tintin's heart fluttered. Some dizzying apprehension seized him, and he returned to his seat by the easel. His voice was suddenly muted, distant, the voice of someone about to fall into a heavy sleep: "I think the world an endless seam of pain where loss and gain come around and around again; here the heart and there the mind and ever yet the world to find. When one lives well within one's skin, then all the world's in bloom again, but bloom, too, shrinks to death and nothing, and one's own skin encases mattress stuffing."
Peeperkorn, tenderly: "Count not the cycles of these things; bloom and shrink and nothing be, but feed the heart its fertile springs, grant the mind its wide periphery.
"But you're pale, my lad; I must have taxed you too hard. Yes, sit there a while, restore yourself. A glass of champagne to brace you, a sip or two of this blond tonic, and you'll be back with us again."
"Thank you, monsieur, but I think some fresh air will help more."
Tintin opened the window, thrust out his head, and inhaled. Blood slowly colored his cheeks; his eyes again focused sharply. In the distance he could discern Clavdia, in her long blue dress, strolling; some indistinct but male form accompanied her. She tossed back her head, as if laughing. Tintin longed to be by her side, to carry her purse, to offer his arm as she stepped over the outcroppings, to help her descend the ancient stone Inca stair, to say amusing things, to amuse her.
"You are wholesome once again! Air is your champagne, I see."
"Quite fit, and ready, with your permission, to examine the rest of your marvelous paintings," said Tintin, resuming his kneeling position on the floor.
"Well, then, consider these last few, the most recent, for here the problem lies."
Tintin inched away from the central paintings to the cluster terminating the exhibition, to come upon Clavdia standing alone on a tropical islet (the vegetation resembling none known to any botanist) in a calm lagoon. A fur cape that is draped about her shoulders falls to her manacled wrists. How more voluptuous and seductive that body as when now topped by a falcon's head. Indeed, in n
o other painting thus far has Clavdia's form been so beautiful and desirable.
To row across that silent lagoon, to beach boat and alight, to unchain those wrists and feel her grateful embrace, yet perhaps only to have her thrust her rapid beak into his pounding, love-filled heart. Bound and captive she must remain, Tintin mused, the words so loud in his mind he feared Peeperkorn might hear them.
Yet in the following painting, unbound, naked, joyous Clavdia wheels with other naked, happy, loose-limbed young men and women in a dance of life. Hand in hand, they spin in ovoid orbit on a field of timeless blue.
He would have remained at this painting had not Peeperkorn's sounds of impatience (or so the young man interpreted those huffs and throat clearings) urged him on.
Her mouth a jagged jack-o-lantern, her wide face seems to fly to the canvas edge, one eye already having left the facial terrain and leaped from its socket to seek an ear. The canvas sputtered and glided with paint. Clavdia, for he could only assume it was she, was the swirls and streaks and drips of yellows, reds, greens, zinc whites.
But in the penultimate canvas Clavdia, or rather the image symbolic of her, was once again restored, her face occupying almost the entire canvas. It is a face boldly outlined, as are all her features, suggesting an enlargement from a cartoon or bande dessinée; and no less indicative of that archetype was the "balloon" above her head, embracing in its wavy closed circuit the motto Non mi toccare.
The final picture (a mechanical reproduction of a silk screen) was the word "Clavdia," stenciled letters frozen in a flat field of gunmetal gray. The gray letters glistened dully and with what seemed to Tintin a transcendental shimmer.
Tintin rose and thrust his hands into his pockets. Peeperkorn's voice broke the silence.
"There you have it, and there I rest. There on the easel a newly primed canvas, and here, in my imagination, a blank. I've mastered the technique and spirit of every modern movement and every modern artist's modality right to the present, and now I am off on my own, all alone, all me, into future history. But I have a minor problem, which you may help me solve. In short, what shall I paint next?"
"But why ask me?" implored Tintin, drawing his hands from his pockets and clasping them before him.
"You have a strange mannerism there," said Peeperkorn, staring at the youth's hands, "much like a beseeching schoolboy. But it is I who am beseeching, I assure you."
"How shall I answer such a question?"
Peeperkorn paced about the room, turned to the easel, studied the tiny handkerchief-size blank canvas, frowned, smiled at it, caressed its surface, inclined his head toward it, and whispered. He placed his ear close to the canvas as if waiting for a voice to reply, and hearing none or dissatisfied with what he may have heard, he withdrew and once again addressed the youth.
"Why, here is the problem. I have explored all forms of Clavdia in all forms. Will my subject, this Clavdia or my ostensible subject this same Clavdia, be the subject — present, willing, able — of my next work? Will she be there, I ask, to go with me, hand in hand, so to speak, to that land where I shall have sole dominion, issuing there those passports and visas mentioned earlier, or must I, subjectless, terminate my career and retire, with only this small museum to show for all my efforts?"
"I suppose," answered Tintin, more baffled than before, "that I would do anything to aid and satisfy you, to answer your question even. But I know nothing else to say except what says my heart. Yes, yes, cher maître, travel where you will, and should you conquer that terrain — of which you speak so beautifully, may I add — grant me a visa there, for I shall be an early applicant."
Peeperkorn, his cheeks flushed, his eyes glowing, regarded the youth for some time, while Tintin stood awkwardly in the center of the room, his hands still clasped before him.
— Chapter XVI —
When finally he did speak, Peeperkorn had so mastered himself that in voice and features he once again resembled the affable old charmer of the dinner table.
"This devilish vanity," he said, stepping forward and putting his arm about Tintin's shoulder, "crops up even at my age. Quite ludicrous this vanity of the aged; it is a kind of forgetfulness of our true station to assume, as we often do, that saplings heed the downward fall of ancient oaks, and obviously nothing I've said is clear to you. Your sweet nature touches me and reassures me."
"To be in the orbit of your attention is what I hope," Tintin answered gravely.
"You ask for so little," said Peeperkorn slyly. "Yet it is not an untoward hope. There is so little I know of you, my dear young man. Of your exploits and adventures, naturally, I know as well as any who follows the press, but you and your thoughts, your inmost history, and I quote myself earlier, these were and remain the constant aim of our morning interview, if I may call it that without seeming impersonal."
''I'm unused, sir, to speak this way, not even with the captain, my life's companion. My natural diffidence, my aversion to examine the personal self — I never read autobiographies and may have missed much in dismissing from my education the great Rousseau or St. Augustine — retards the flow of my response. I wish with all my soul to meet your wish and to share with you what little I know of my small life and thus to win your sympathy and perhaps even your affection."
"Oh, my dear boy, do not wrench yourself. I hate to see you rip against your natural grain. Perhaps some vodka or a jug of champagne would stimulate the flow of your blocked nature."
"Alcoholic drinks! So early?"
"What does the body know of the hour of the day? Is not time merely a human artifice? Is soul not present at all minutes?" inquired Peeperkorn as he handed Tintin a glass of champagne. "Now, then, doesn't that taste good?"
"Yes, sir, it warms me. It feels so grown-up to gulp champagne. It gives me hope of conquering timidity. I think it shall make me voluble and bold. And so boldly, sir, I shall meet your inquiries and boldly I shall examine and reveal my heart."
"Where were you boldly born?"
"In Brussels, I think. I know little of my earliest days."
"And your parents?"
"Both dead, I think. My mother is dead. I never met my father. He may be alive. I remained the same size since the day — the night actually — mother died. It was about that time I began to receive letters from Brussels advising and directing and instructing me toward my various criminal investigations over these years. Somehow these instructions conformed to my youthful dreams of adventure, to my sense of justice, for in all I had read, the world had many wrongdoers, and their elimination would bring our planet some measure of calm and happiness. I set out, alone at first, to rid the world of these persons. Hélas! I have learned that wrongdoers are as numerous as the stars.
"But life is long, I reasoned, and what better way to spend it than in action for the good. The captain and the dog my most chief-most comrades, but even in their pleasant and devoted company I have felt lonely and frequently sad. Often I have tried to see the bright side of things and have said to myself that it isn't so bad to be always small and unaffected by things that sway larger human hearts. I have argued this way with the captain. 'It is not a matter of my choosing; I cannot will myself to grow, to sprout hair and elevate my stature, so leave the matter to itself,' I would say.
"But now, cher maître, here in these enchanted Inca mountains, a new life seems coming. Startling and wholly new these sensations and feelings. Each hour I discover a change, a deepening of my voice, an increase in height. Yesterday, I'm embarrassed to speak so plainly, I woke in bed to find my penis stiff and tall, rising up like a pole, and I rotated it against the cloth sheet. How good it felt at the root and the top. Snowy leaped upon the bed and followed the movement and pounced. No, no, Snowy, it is me here, not some mouse or snake. And I thrust back the blanket to show him. He was frightened at first and jumped off the bed, but after some moments of hanging back in a corner he returned and looked appraisingly as if to say, 'Now, there, Tintin, see how it is? See how it feels when it comes over
me and I'm moved to rush off to find a place to plant my pink shaft.' Of course, I didn't know what Snowy was thinking. But I gave him a hug of sympathy and kinship. 'My dear Snowy,' I said, 'forgive me for having been so unkind and arch with you in the past when you have swayed from duty or from even your normal stroll beside me to bound away after some lady dog.' Then, suddenly, I thought I could hear Snowy's thoughts, his internal dog voice.
"Ah, Tintin, oh, how much more I love you now. At last you've entered the human station and joined the rest of your kind, and in doing so have come closer to knowing me, though beneath you as I may seem to be in my doggy ways.
"'Beneath me,' I replied. 'Never! Your nature is fine and your courage great. But I do not understand how you can go off after dogs of any and every sort. I've seen you sniff about stunted and manged strays as well as great elegant creatures leashed to the most fine, aristocratic hands. Do your promptings recognize no distinctions, style, rank, beauty? Or do you simply go about in the catholic lust, a true democracy of uncensored longing?'
"For me, Tintin, there are only fellow dogs. We dogs do not say of our kind, 'This one is fat or this one thin; this one is graceful and this awkward.' We need no aphrodisiac of scene or costume, no illusion or mystery. When my pinkness emerges, I wish to mount, to do my doggy plunge without attention to refinements.
"'Well, dear Snowy, have you ever loved?'
"Yes, twice. But I soon learned that love was not for me. Attachments, especially in our detecting trade, cannot bear permanency. When one has taken up the life of pursuing criminals, as I have done in following your service, there is little hope of long connection. Once I thought of leaving you and remaining with a bitch I met in Madrid. She and I discussed this often in our little strolls along the Paseo del Prado ... but I could not forsake you, who would not understand my disappearing. And how could she abandon her master to follow me to the derelict back streets where sooner or later we'd be rounded up and motored to the pound — then, saffron, onions, and lethal gas? Oh, Tintin, she was the one to snap my castanets! Those dark eyes of hers, her moist snout, her well-bred aroma!
Tintin in the New World: A Romance Page 16
