by Roald Dahl
‘It wasn’t actually Minsk,’ the boy had said. ‘But quite near.’
‘Where?’
‘Smilovichi, about twelve miles away.’
‘Smilovichi!’ Drioli had shouted, embracing him again. ‘I walked there several times when I was a boy.’ Then he had sat down again, staring affectionately at the other’s face. ‘You know,’ he had said, ‘you don’t look like a western Russian. You’re like a Tartar, or a Kalmuck. You look exactly like a Kalmuck.’
Now, standing in the studio, Drioli looked again at the boy as he took the glass of wine and tipped it down his throat in one swallow. Yes, he did have a face like a Kalmuck – very broad and high-cheeked, with a wide coarse nose. This broadness of the cheeks was accentuated by the ears which stood out sharply from the head. And then he had the narrow eyes, the black hair, the thick sullen mouth of a Kalmuck, but the hands – the hands were always a surprise, so small and white like a lady’s, with tiny thin fingers.
‘Give me some more,’ the boy said. ‘If we are to celebrate then let us do it properly.’
Drioli distributed the wine and sat himself on a chair. The boy sat on the old couch with Drioli’s wife. The three bottles were placed on the floor between them.
‘Tonight we shall drink as much as we possibly can,’ Drioli said. ‘I am exceptionally rich. I think perhaps I should go out now and buy some more bottles. How many shall I get?’
‘Six more,’ the boy said. ‘Two for each.’
‘Good. I shall go now and fetch them.’
‘And I will help you.’
In the nearest café Drioli bought six bottles of white wine, and they carried them back to the studio. They placed them on the floor in two rows, and Drioli fetched the corkscrew and pulled the corks, all six of them; then they sat down again and continued to drink.
‘It is only the very wealthy,’ Drioli said, ‘who can afford to celebrate in this manner.’
‘That is true,’ the boy said. ‘Isn’t that true, Josie?’
‘Of course.’
‘How do you feel, Josie?’
‘Fine.’
‘Will you leave Drioli and marry me?’
‘No.’
‘Beautiful wine,’ Drioli said. ‘It is a privilege to drink it.’
Slowly, methodically, they set about getting themselves drunk. The process was routine, but all the same there was a certain ceremony to be observed, and a gravity to be maintained, and a great number of things to be said, then said again – and the wine must be praised, and the slowness was important too, so that there would be time to savour the three delicious stages of transition, especially (for Drioli) the one when he began to float and his feet did not really belong to him. That was the best period of them all – when he could look down at his feet and they were so far away that he would wonder what crazy person they might belong to and why they were lying around on the floor like that, in the distance.
After a while, he got up to switch on the light. He was surprised to see that the feet came with him when he did this, especially because he couldn’t feel them touching the ground. It gave him a pleasant sensation of walking on air. Then he began wandering around the room, peeking slyly at the canvases stacked against the walls.
‘Listen,’ he said at length. ‘I have an idea.’ He came across and stood before the couch, swaying gently. ‘Listen, my little Kalmuck.’
‘What?’
‘I have a tremendous idea. Are you listening?’
‘I’m listening to Josie.’
‘Listen to me, please. You are my friend – my ugly little Kalmuck from Minsk – and to me you are such an artist that I would like to have a picture, a lovely picture –’
‘Have them all. Take all you can find, but do not interrupt me when I am talking with your wife.’
‘No, no. Now listen. I mean a picture that I can have with me always… for ever… wherever I go… whatever happens… but always with me… a picture by you.’ He reached forward and shook the boy’s knee. ‘Now listen to me, please.’
‘Listen to him,’ the girl said.
‘It is this. I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always.’
‘You have crazy ideas.’
‘I will teach you how to use the tattoo. It is easy. A child could do it.’
‘I am not a child.’
‘Please…’
‘You are quite mad. What is it you want?’ The painter looked up into the slow, dark, wine-bright eyes of the other man. ‘What in heaven’s name is it you want?’
‘You could do it easily! You could! You could!’
‘You mean with the tattoo?’
‘Yes, with the tattoo! I will teach you in two minutes!’
‘Impossible!’
‘Are you saying I do not know what I am talking about?’
No, the boy could not possibly be saying that because if anyone knew about the tattoo it was he – Drioli. Had he not, only last month, covered a man’s whole belly with the most wonderful and delicate design composed entirely of flowers? What about the client who had had so much hair upon his chest that he had done him a picture of a grizzly bear so designed that the hair on the chest became the furry coat of the bear? Could he not draw the likeness of a lady and position it with such subtlety upon a man’s arm that when the muscle of the arm was flexed the lady came to life and performed some astonishing contortions?
‘All I am saying,’ the boy told him, ‘is that you are drunk and this is a drunken idea.’
‘We could have Josie for a model. A study of Josie upon my back. Am I not entitled to a picture of my wife upon my back?’
‘Of Josie?’
‘Yes.’ Drioli knew he only had to mention his wife and the boy’s thick brown lips would loosen and begin to quiver.
‘No,’ the girl said.
‘Darling Josie, please. Take this bottle and finish it, then you will feel more generous. It is an enormous idea. Never in my life have I had such an idea before.’
‘What idea?’
‘That he should make a picture of you upon my back. Am I not entitled to that?’
‘A picture of me?’
‘A nude study,’ the boy said. ‘It is an agreeable idea.’
‘Not nude,’ the girl said.
‘It is an enormous idea,’ Drioli said.
‘It’s a damn crazy idea,’ the girl said.
‘It is in any event an idea,’ the boy said. ‘It is an idea that calls for a celebration.’
They emptied another bottle among them. Then the boy said, ‘It is no good. I could not possibly manage the tattoo. Instead, I will paint this picture on your back and you will have it with your so long as you do not take a bath and wash it off. If you never take a bath again in your life then you will have it always, as long as you live.’
‘No,’ Drioli said.
‘Yes – and on the day that you decide to take a bath I will know that you do not any longer value my picture. It will be a test of your admiration for my art.’
‘I do not like the idea,’ the girl said. ‘His admiration for your art is so great that he would be unclean for many years. Let us have the tattoo. But not nude.’
‘Then just the head,’ Drioli said.
‘I could not manage it.’
‘It is immensely simple. I will undertake to teach you in two minutes. You will see. I shall go now and fetch the instruments. The needles and the inks. I have inks of many different colours – as many different colours as you have paints, and far more beautiful…’
‘It is impossible.’
‘I have many inks. Have I not many different colours of inks, Josie?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will see,’ Drioli said. ‘I will go now and fetch them.’ He got up from his chair and walked unsteadily, but with determination, out of the room.
In half an hour Drioli was back. ‘I have brought everything,’ he cried, w
aving a brown suitcase. ‘All the necessities of the tattooist are here in this bag.’
He placed the bag on the table, opened it, and laid out the electric needles and the small bottles of coloured inks. He plugged in the electric needle, then he took the instrument in his hand and pressed a switch. It made a buzzing sound and the quarter inch of needle that projected from the end of it began to vibrate swiftly up and down. He threw off his jacket and rolled up his left sleeve. ‘Now look. Watch me and I will show you how easy it is. I will make a design on my arm, here.’
His forearm was already covered with blue markings, but he selected a small clear patch of skin upon which to demonstrate.
‘First, I choose my ink – let us use ordinary blue – and I dip the point of the needle in the ink… so… and I hold the needle up straight and I run it lightly over the surface of the skin… like this… and with the little motor and the electricity, the needle jumps up and down and punctures the skin and the ink goes in and there you are. See how easy it is… see how I draw a picture of a greyhound here upon my arm…’
The boy was intrigued. ‘Now let me practice a little – on your arm.’
With the buzzing needle he began to draw blue lines upon Drioli’s arm. ‘It is simple,’ he said. ‘It is like drawing with pen and ink. There is no difference except that it is slower.’
‘There is nothing to it. Are you ready? Shall we begin?’
‘At once.’
‘The model!’ cried Drioli. ‘Come on, Josie!’ He was in a bustle of enthusiasm now, tottering around the room arranging everything, like a child preparing for some exciting game. ‘Where will you have her? Where shall she stand?’
‘Let her be standing there, by my dressing-table. Let her be brushing her hair. I will paint her with her hair down over her shoulders and her brushing it.’
‘Tremendous. You are a genius.’
Reluctantly, the girl walked over and stood by the dressing-table, carrying her glass of wine with her.
Drioli pulled off his shirt and stepped out of his trousers. He retained only his underpants and his socks and shoes, and he stood there swaying gently from side to side, his small body firm, white-skinned, almost hairless. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I am the canvas. Where will you place your canvas?’
‘As always, upon the easel.’
‘Don’t be crazy. I am the canvas.’
‘Then place yourself upon the easel. That is where you belong.’
‘How can I?’
‘Are you the canvas or are you not the canvas?’
‘I am the canvas. Already I begin to feel like a canvas.’
‘Then place yourself upon the easel. There should be no difficulty.’
‘Truly, it is not possible.’
‘Then sit on the chair. Sit back to front, then you can lean your drunken head against the back of it. Hurry now, for I am about to commence.’
‘I am ready. I am waiting.’
‘First,’ the boy said, ‘I shall make an ordinary painting. Then, if it pleases me, I shall tattoo over it.’ With a wide brush he began to paint upon the naked skin of the man’s back.
‘Ayee! Ayee!’ Drioli screamed. ‘A monstrous centipede is marching down my spine!’
‘Be still now! Be still!’ The boy worked rapidly, applying the paint only in a thin blue wash so that it would not afterwards interfere with the process of tattooing. His concentration, as soon as he began to paint, was so great that it appeared somehow to supersede his drunkenness. He applied the brush strokes with quick short jabs of the arm, holding the wrist stiff, and in less than half an hour it was finished.
‘All right. That’s all,’ he said to the girl, who immediately returned to the couch, lay down, and fell asleep.
Drioli remained awake. He watched the boy take up the needle and dip it in the ink; then he felt the sharp tickling sting as it touched the skin of his back. The pain, which was unpleasant but never extreme, kept him from going to sleep. By following the track of the needle and by watching the different colours of ink that the boy was using, Drioli amused himself trying to visualize what was going on behind him. The boy worked with an astonishing intensity. He appeared to have become completely absorbed in the little machine and in the unusual effects it was able to produce.
Far into the small hours of the morning the machine buzzed and the boy worked. Drioli could remember that when the artist finally stepped back and said, ‘It is finished,’ there was daylight outside and the sound of people walking in the street.
‘I want to see it,’ Drioli said. The boy held up a mirror, at an angle, and Drioli craned his neck to look.
‘Good God!’ he cried. It was a startling sight. The whole of his back, from the top of the shoulders to the base of the spine, was a blaze of colour – gold and green and blue and black and scarlet. The tattoo was applied so heavily it looked almost like an impasto. The boy had followed as closely as possible the original brush strokes, filling them in solid, and it was marvellous the way he had made use of the spine and the protrusion of the shoulder blades so that they became part of the composition. What is more, he had somehow managed to achieve – even with this slow process – a certain spontaneity. The portrait was quite alive; it contained much of that twisted, tortured quality so characteristic of Soutine’s other work. It was not a good likeness. It was a mood rather than a likeness, the model’s face vague and tipsy, the background swirling around her head in a mass of dark-green curling strokes.
‘It’s tremendous!’
‘I rather like it myself.’ The boy stood back, examining it critically. ‘You know,’ he added, ‘I think it’s good enough for me to sign.’ And taking up the buzzer again, he inscribed his name in red ink on the right-hand side, over the place where Drioli’s kidney was.
The old man who was called Drioli was standing in a sort of trance, staring at the painting in the window of the picture-dealer’s shop. It had been so long ago, all that – almost as though it had happened in another life.
And the boy? What had become of him? He could remember now that after returning from the war – the first war – he had missed him and had questioned Josie.
‘Where is my little Kalmuck?’
‘He is gone,’ she had answered. ‘I do not know where, but I heard it said that a dealer had taken him up and sent him away to Céret to make more paintings.’
‘Perhaps he will return.’
‘Perhaps he will. Who knows?’
That was the last time they had mentioned him. Shortly afterwards they had moved to Le Havre where there were more sailors and business was better. The old man smiled as he remembered Le Havre. Those were the pleasant years, the years between the wars, with the small shop near the docks and the comfortable rooms and always enough work, with every day three, four, five sailors coming and wanting pictures on their arms. Those were truly the pleasant years.
Then had come the second war, and Josie being killed, and the Germans arriving, and that was the finish of his business. No one had wanted pictures on their arms any more after that. And by that time he was too old for any other kind of work. In desperation he had made his way back to Paris, hoping vaguely that things would be easier in the big city. But they were not.
And now, after the war was over, he possessed neither the means nor the energy to start up his small business again. It wasn’t very easy for an old man to know what to do, especially when one did not like to beg. Yet how else could he keep alive?
Well, he thought, still staring at the picture. So that is my little Kalmuck. And how quickly the sight of one small object such as this can stir the memory. Up to a few moments ago he had even forgotten that he had a tattoo on his back. It had been ages since he had thought about it. He put his face closer to the window and looked into the gallery. On the walls he could see many other pictures and all seemed to be the work of the same artist. There were a great number of people strolling around. Obviously it was a special exhibition.
On a sudden impulse
, Drioli turned, pushed open the door of the gallery and went in.
It was a long room with a thick wine-coloured carpet, and by God how beautiful and warm it was! There were all these people strolling about looking at the pictures, well-washed dignified people, each of whom held a catalogue in the hand. Drioli stood just inside the door, nervously glancing around, wondering whether he dared go forward and mingle with this crowd. But before he had had time to gather his courage, he heard a voice beside him saying, ‘What is it you want?’
The speaker wore a black morning coat. He was plump and short and had a very white face. It was a flabby face with so much flesh upon it that the cheeks hung down on either side of the mouth in two fleshy collops, spanielwise. He came up close to Drioli and said again, ‘What is it you want?’
Drioli stood still.
‘If you please,’ the man was saying, ‘take yourself out of my gallery.’
‘Am I not permitted to look at the pictures?’
‘I have asked you to leave.’
Drioli stood his ground. He felt suddenly, overwhelmingly outraged.
‘Let us not have trouble,’ the man was saying. ‘Come on now, this way.’ He put a fat white paw on Drioli’s arm and began to push him firmly to the door.
That did it. ‘Take your goddam hands off me!’ Drioli shouted. His voice rang clear down the long gallery and all the heads jerked around as one – all the startled faces stared down the length of the room at the person who had made this noise. A flunkey came running over to help, and the two men tried to hustle Drioli through the door. The people stood still, watching the struggle. Their faces expressed only a mild interest, and seemed to be saying, ‘It’s all right. There’s no danger to us. It’s being taken care of.’
‘I, too!’ Drioli was shouting. ‘I, too, have a picture by this painter! He was my friend and I have a picture which he gave me!’
‘He’s mad.’
‘A lunatic. A raving lunatic.’
‘Someone should call the police.’
With a rapid twist of the body Drioli suddenly jumped clear of the two men, and before anyone could stop him he was running down the gallery shouting, ‘I’ll show you! Fll show you! I’ll show you!’ He flung off his overcoat, then his jacket and shirt, and he turned so that his naked back was towards the people.
