Great details of reproductions of famous paintings decorated the walls of his house; one eye of the Mona Lisa, a distorted eye from a blue Picasso creation, the eye of the Head with Lizard from Paul Klee, a few demonical eyes from the works of Hieronymus Bosch.
One day, he took me secretly to his study room, and opened a hidden safe. He took a small glass case from it, treating it as he would the Crown Jewels, and showed the two black points in it to me. Two very small eyes, black as ink, locked forever in a solution which one could see through, although it had hardened as stone to the touch. They looked like two fossilised insects in a block of resin. “A snake’s eyes,” he whispered almost reverently, “from a cobra. Noticed their expression? The cruel pain, the blind hatred? They were cut out while the beast was still alive, just after they had skinned her.”
I had to stop myself from retching. Casually, I had gotten used to his abominable collection of horrors, so far even that they didn’t touch me at all. But vivisection, cold-blooded sadism perpetrated on a helpless animal, which was more than my stomach could stand.
I gave it straight to him. He seemed hurt. “But I didn’t know,” he defended himself rather weakly. “They only told it afterwards, after 1 had bought and paid them, almost like a kind of picturesque detail. Surely, you don’t believe me being able to really cut a living beast apart, do you? No, you know me better than that. But wait, there’s something you just have to see. Something really special, and they arrived only this very morning.”
He reached deeper into the safe, and 1 heard the clicking sounds of a second lock being opened by the blind touch of his fingers. He took a second box out of it, also locked. Like tentacles, his fingers crawled into his pockets, from which he took a bunch of small keys. He had to use two different ones to open the box, almost making a ceremony from it. With eyes, small of greedy expectation, he looked up at me, and then pushed the contents of the small box under my nose.
Eternally staring into unseeing emptiness, a pair of light blue human eyes looked up at me.
“Paid for very expensively,” he whispered, “straight from the morgue. Aren’t they beautiful?”
That was the last time 1 entered his house, before ... but let me tell the story chronologically. I simply had enough of his mania. We didn’t become enemies; there was just a coolness between us and we didn’t meet each other regularly any more, except in clubs or as passers by on the street. But never again did I accompany him to his house, or invite him in for a glass of cognac at my apartment.
Just because 1 didn’t see him so often any more, I noticed the change in him sooner than most people who knew him. Something was plaguing him, and it wasn’t very difficult to find out what was the exact cause of his unrest. It was completeness, the death stroke to every fanatic collector. Collecting becomes a mania by itself, and when there’s nothing any more to collect, interest fails. Claes had arrived at a dead point, and couldn’t even hope to add another curious and rare specimen to his treasury. What indeed could be more rare and costly than a pair of human eyes? He became moody, was irritated by the slightest remark; he retired in his shell like a snail, hiding himself and his weird collection from the world.
And then, suddenly, a new metamorphosis came over him, changing him back to his old usual self. He started searching out company again, reappeared on private parties, started coming back at club evenings. He was like a reborn man, but the origin of that mysterious rebirth stayed hidden in secrecy. He never mentioned it openly, except the few times when he would whisper half jokingly about an enormous experiment in black magic, but he refused to give any details.
From a friend, an antiquarian, I learned that he spent masses of money on old and expensive volumes on magic and sorcery. During his vacations he went to London and Paris, visiting specialised dealers in the very rare and searched for books of the occult. He sought out well-known genuine mediums and serious students of the “old sciences”; he even attended a few seances. A few times he got me so curious that I asked him straight away whatever he had in mind. He just laughed, and “One day you will know, and I will see,” became his stock answer on such occasions.
Then complaints started filtering in. His neighbors didn’t appreciate the odd smells which sometimes came drifting from the cellar of his house. They also didn’t like being kept awake by his weird chanting at the unluckiest hours of the night. Stray dogs and alley cats mysteriously started disappearing in the neighborhood.
But that period didn’t last very long, because one night, early in fall, he burst screaming from his house and ran through the empty streets, tried to climb a tree; and when he didn’t succeed, he tried to dig himself into the very street stones, hiding under fallen leaves. He screamed the whole neighborhood awake, crawled on his belly like a large black reptile. This impression was mainly due to the black coat he wore, full of strange and weirdly woven designs of astrological origin, and some others I’ve never seen before. A hospital car came, with four strong men in white jackets, but they also needed the help of two policemen to get him inside.
After a month, in which they analysed and psychically vivisected him, they gave up and sent him to a state asylum, where he still is confined. He is very inoffensive; in fact, and he likes nothing better than just sitting in his easy chair. He eats, drinks, goes to the toilet and sleeps; sometimes he is even capable of a few simple words.
But wherever he goes, in the garden in summer, or in the white corridors of the home in winter, by day or by night, always he carries his dark glasses. At first they tried to take them away, but he got so violent they had to let him keep them. But they have replaced the original ones by plastic ones, so he is unable to hurt himself by breaking them.
Now I know what destroyed his mind, what sent him screaming up the road like a lunatic. At first I assumed that he had brought madness upon himself (his mind was never very stable, and his dabbling in the occult sciences and magic formulas certainly didn’t help), until quite accidentally I found out the truth. God knows, sometimes I wish I had never known. My nights would be more peaceful. Now, whenever I stare into a mirror, I sometimes seem like an alien creature from another sky to myself. When I look up to the night sky, the stars look down upon me like a thousand hostile eyes. We are so small, so incredibly small and unimportant in this universe, a dust particle, a microbe, which can be crushed under one fingernail... and there is so very much we don’t know. Maybe there are worlds besides ours, only separated by a small layer of reality, worlds peopled like ours, only not with human beings.
However Claes succeeded in completing his collection with the missing item, that’s something we’ll never know. I found out when they emptied his house, and burned his macabre collection on authority’s orders. As I was still looked upon as his best (and practically only, I found out) personal friend, and he had no relatives left, I had agreed to be present at the burning; in fact, I threw some ingredients, which I’d rather not mention in detail, into the purifying fire, after we had taken them from the locked safe.
It was then that I found the painting back, and the hole in it, the circular hole into nothing. A dark emptiness, in which I thought I saw stars sparkle, and in which enormous shadow forms seemed to move and approach. At that moment, I understood which eye Claes had wanted to add to his collection. As soon as 1 touched the plate, I felt the weird suction from the hole, a slimy tearing movement, and I felt the almost irresistible compulsion-I had to look down into the hole, down in its depths and upon the face of whatever lurked down there.
Then 1 hurled the cursed thing into the flames. There was an enormous rain of fire sparks, a mass of green-blue fire curling in fat tongues upwards, accompanied by a hissing and crackling sound and a strange far-away wailing sound. The flames lowered and a disgusting soft-sweet smell started spreading. I ran away, still unable to understand fully what I had witnessed and almost seen, only knowing with dead certainty that 1 had destroyed something which didn’t belong to this world, something which should ne
ver have existed in it.
It had been the big painting, which had hung above his bed in his youth, the plate with the triangle and the eye in it, and the flame letters “God Sees You”.
But only the triangle and the letters were still there; the rest had been empty, the enormous black hole into nothing, as if there had never been anything there which had looked down on the world.
The Ashley Premiere
He stumbled into the cafe, and steadied himself against the wall. During a few seconds, he had to close his eyes against the painful tornado of light, which engulfed him in colored waves. The darkness was behind him now, a still beckoning protection. How easy it would be to let loose his last hold on the world, and drown in the waves of nocturnal obscurity.
But no! He had to hold on, he had to accept the weakness and the pain, and fight them. Slowly, he opened his eyes, letting the light come in in small shards, glittering daggers thrust in his pupils. He waited until he was able to control all his muscles completely, before He risked moving his feet again. Careful, he said to himself, a whispered draught, very careful now. He started concentrating on the difficult art of walking. First the left foot, yes, like that. Very slowly. God, his knees felt like rubber, they threatened to melt under his weight and flow away over the floor. His feet were as two enprmojus lead blocks, trailing behind him. Now the right foot, move it forward, slowly, easy, yes, yes! That's it. Now again the left one. He stumbled again, cursing himself. Don't give up, damn you, damn the weakness and the hurt. But DON’T give up. Carefully, foot by foot, moving forward as an automation, a will-controlled machine, he walked to the bar.
A few customers looked at him curiously, wondering. Don’t think about them; let them look and think whatever pleases them in their cursed narrow minds. Probably they all thought he was dead drunk. But he wasn’t, no matter how he looked or acted. It was a week since he had tasted anything else but water. That was why he had come to the cafe in the first place, because he NEEDED a drink, more than anything else in the world right now.
This evening was the premiere. HIS premiere, the first showing of the latest creation of Gordon Ashley, world famous actor, well-known playwright and connoisseur of the classics, who had made his word-fame by his disputed modern interpretation of some of Shakespeare’s works. This evening, for the first time, he, Gordon Ashley, would play the leading part in one of his works, The First Thunder of May, a violent satire on Hamlet. He had reached the bar now. He took a deep breath, the air hissing between his bared teeth. His lungs hurt dreadfully. He tried to control the waver in his voice, without much success. He asked for a strong cognac, knowing in advance that the stuff he’d get would only be a weak substitute. Still, it was better than nothing.
The barkeeper took a good look at him, and asked for immediate payment. “It is usual here, sir,” he apologized; “too many customers, you know” And too many drunks, no doubt, Gordon completed the unspoken thought for himself. He paid, and pocketed the change loosely. He reached for the Napoleon glass, constraining the tremor of his hands. Concentrate, his mind whispered, concentrate, make your brain a computer, your body a machine. You must strengthen your muscles, as wheels of that machine; you must form metal claws in which you hold your weak body prisoner.
His arm became a level, his hand a forceps. Concentrate, that’s it He was going to make it, all right, weakness or not. His fingers stopped trembling. He took the glass and drank, not in one draught, but with small sips, rinsing his palate. He felt the fire drip down into his inside, burning, giving his body the force it needed so badly. He paid for a second drink. His speech became more easy, less painful, less hurting. A numbness settled over his stomach, and slowly the world stopped spinning around like a madhouse.
How had he arrived here, in fact? The last thing he clearly remembered, was seeing the light of the cafe in front of him. And before there was a vague memory of a long walk, of crawling, of a constantly mounting tiredness, and the nagging weakness of his body.
“Well, what a surprise,” a voice said behind him. He didn’t know, or maybe didn’t recognise the voice. He half turned, groaning inside, Oh no, not again, not now! Not another autograph hunter, or a reporter, or one of those who wanted to be able to say, “You Know Whom I Talked To Last Night?”
“Sorry, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” the stranger said, “but you ARE Gordon Ashley, THE Gordon Ashley, aren’t you? The man who never missed a single performance. You don’t know ME of course, I’m Marvin Destanberg, a great admirer of you.”
“That’s fine, thanks,” Gordon Ashley murmured, ignoring the offered hand. His mind was in turmoil—no, please, no conversation now, He had to .concentrate on that part he had to play within the next hour. And therefore he needed alcohol, to keep him upright, and not leaning against the bar as he was doing now, to bring some strength into those damned weak legs. To keep his mind on the act, not on what had happened.
The stranger was not to be offended so easily. He just kept on spilling words in a steady, drowning flood of meaningless sounds. “Just imagine when I tell my wife I’ve been speaking with THE Gordon Ashley, the actor whose name will tie all over town tomorrow. Gordon Ashley, the man who disappears mysteriously during a few weeks to study his part, and who reappears the evening of the show. You’ll give me your autograph, will you?” God, if he only could get rid of this nuisance, shake him as he would an annoying insect.
“Of course, with pleasure,” he heard his own voice murmur hoarsely. He saw the strange expression on his listener’s face. He must be thinking I'm loaded, Gordon thought. Let him think, let them all think what they like, and curse their damned minds. Just let them come and watch First Thunder of May this evening, then they’ll see real acting.
His shaking fingers searched for his pen, without finding it; and finally he grabbed the ball-point his admirer offered him. He scribbled his name on the piece of paper, loosely torn from an old note-book his admirer had in his pocket.
The world around him was turning slowly, very slowly. There were immense black holes in the world, and he feared falling through one. He had to get out of here. He couldn’t concentrate here, and it was so necessary for the piece. This show just had to go on; it was his own, all his very own flesh and blood and mind. He had carried it as a pregnancy, and now he had to give birth and life to it. Never he had missed a premiere, and he wouldn’t now.
He excused himself and reeled outside, followed by the soft whispering from the crowd, from which he catched a remark here and there, sticking on his mind, like flies on flypaper: “disappointing... such a personality... I wonder how he will ever be able... just drink... they all drink, my dear, my mother always said...”
The idiots, the damned poor idiots, if they could only know. But let them laugh, let them whisper behind his back. He, Gordon Ashley, would stand before them this evening in the cold-burning lights, and the theater an empty hole before him, and he would be as calm, as powerful as ever.
Night was a protecting cloak, gathered around him as he walked. He looked at his watch. The glass was broken and wet; the hands stood still. He must have bumped into something on his way to the cafe. Perhaps he had fallen... His eyes searched—yes, there was a jeweler’s shop, with a big clock outside it. Half-past seven already; he’d have to hurry—he’d never get there on time if he walked. He needed a taxi, quickly.
Luck was with him. He gave the driver a large tip. Staggering into the artist’s entrance, he again tried to steady himself against the wall. Another actor saw him and tried to help, but Ashley rejected the offered hands. He managed to get into his dressing room on his own, and seated himself before the large make-up mirror. With trembling hands, he sought the bottle which was in the lowest drawer of his desk, and drank from it. If he could only get rid of this weakness, he’d manage the evening, although he could feel something of his confidence leaving him.
For a few seconds, the alcohol brought back some of his strength; but then the coldness returned and left his body
shivering, as if icy water ran through his veins.
He started making up. In the mirror, he saw Rena enter and look at him. She wrinkled her nose, one of her annoying habits, which he had put to excellent use, however, in the play, in which she was his opposite number this evening.
“They told me you were drunk,” she said, “and I can smell it till here. Drinking is not one of your bad habits, whatever the rest are. What’s going wrong, Gordon? You think you’ll manage the show this evening?” He went on shading his eyes and adjusting the small moustache. He didn’t trust his voice enough to answer her; he only gave her a short nod.
“You DO look sick,” she said. Another nod. She waited, but he didn’t yenture further explanations. He waited for her to ask if she should get a doctor, but she only shrugged and went out. He tried to stop the shaking, which was spoiling his delicate make-up. But he couldn’t; his hands seemed to possess a life of their own; they were like trembling, pulsating jelly fish, boneless. He closed his eyes, and concentrated. He almost felt his own will-power gliding through his nerves and steadying his hands. He got up and managed to walk, without stumbling too much. Through a tear in the curtain, he took a look into the house. Completely full. Good. This evening they would see what real acting was like. He’d finished his make-up just in time.
The music started, and the buzz faded away into an expectant silence. He gave a short sign to Rena. The curtain opened, and The First Thunder of May began. Rena gave an excellent introductory performance as the slightly neurotic woman. He caught himself making content little nods with his head; she really WAS the woman he had written in his play.
With steady steps, he walked onto the stage, in the blinding lights. He was full of confidence now. This was his creation, every word of it; each little movement of his hands was his very own. He had given them to the public, he was giving them now. This was no stage, this was his reality. He played for himself, as he would for an empty house. The words, the sentences that came rolling out, his movements weren’t made, they were HIS. Nobody even so much as whispered in the auditorium.
Selected Stories Page 19
