by André Alexis
These commissions led him further and further from his own creativity. He ate well and his business brought in more than enough for him to support his children and their mothers. But his attitude changed. He began to speak of ‘Art’ with a certain disdain. After a while, he spoke as if the word itself could only be said ironically. Finally, he used the word Art only in order to get better prices from his patrons. He became like the fox with its sour grapes. Art existed, he would admit in private, but rarely. It was a false lure, something futile to pursue. What counted was pleasing a patron, as Michelangelo or Raphael once had.
It was at this point in his life, somewhere around 2002, that he met Robert Azarian.
Why Mr. Azarian asked him to make the four – not just three – pieces, von Würfel never knew. He’d had no idea whom they were for or what purposes they’d serve. Each of the works was precisely described. Each had exact requirements, specific dimensions and materials. Some of the pieces – Fallingwater, for instance – were difficult in themselves. Others were intriguing because of their content. He had not asked about the meaning behind the pieces because Mr. Azarian let him know at once that he was to do as he was commissioned to do and ask no questions. That, in itself, had been intriguing. Most of those who wanted portraits of their wives or marble statues of their husbands were avid answerers. Azarian had been resolutely uninformative. For all of these reasons, von Würfel never forgot the pieces, nor ever destroyed the plans and descriptions Mr. Azarian had given him. Unsure what to do with them, he kept them in his safe, in a folder marked ‘Taxes 1998.’
Azarian having a small place at the back of his mind, von Würfel was not altogether surprised when Willow came to him seven years later, asking what he knew about the work her father had commissioned him to do.
– How do you know I’m the one who did those pieces? he’d asked.
– I didn’t know for certain until this moment, she said. I guessed. On the back of the screen you did, there was a signature.
– I didn’t sign any of the pieces, he said.
– Yes, you did, Willow had answered. On the last panel, there are two letters. One letter and another one in parenthesis: a(ա). I’ve asked every artist in town whose last name begins with W if they’d done work for my father.
– Well, congratulations, he said. You’ve found the right man. But that isn’t my signature. I made a number of pieces for your father, true, but I didn’t make a screen. So, I couldn’t have initialled any panel.
Von Würfel found this bit of pure chance intriguing. Just as fascinating: for some reason, Azarian hadn’t trusted him to make all five pieces. It made him curious. Nevertheless, Willow Azarian was the first of three to whom he lied about his involvement with her father. She was the first to whom he said
– I did three pieces for your father.
– Not five? There are five pieces.
– No, no, he’d said. He commissioned three from me. Someone else must have done the others.
Why had he kept his involvement with the fourth piece secret? Call it instinct, a sense that something interesting was afoot and he wanted some kind of leverage. Willow Azarian was also the first to whom he lied about keeping a record of the transaction between himself and her father. He told her he’d destroyed the plans her father had given him. Again, you could call this instinct or, perhaps, caution.
Yes, but he should have inquired about the fifth piece, the so-called screen.
Immediately after Willow left his shop, von Würfel began to take the Azarian puzzle – or conundrum or mystery or whatever it was – seriously. Though Willow had told him nothing of what she suspected or knew, he now took as given that the pieces he’d made for Azarian were meant to lead somewhere or point toward something. So, not one hour after Willow had gone, he’d begun the work of exactly reproducing (for himself) the four objects he’d made years before. A painstaking and expensive process, but one that had brought him diversion from his troubles – that is, from what he swore would be the last of his divorces.
Von Würfel took it for obvious that the framed poem was the place to start:
None of the dead are lonely,
or so the breeze would have it.
Rather, far, the civilized wit
than fortunes won without it.
Hours from you, my porcupine, though
four of your quills pierced
three of my vines.
When your fingers have plucked
each of the strings
south of my dying equator,
the oceans will wave their
seven blue veils but
nine will comfort you, later.
As he’d done with the original, von Würfel copied Azarian’s poem in black ink on a page of pale-blue handmade paper. The paper was the colour of faded chicory. It was smooth and thick and just fibrous enough that one could have spoken of its grain. It was pinned to a two-inch-thick rectangle of African blackwood, as if it had been a specimen of something that had once lived. The whole – page, wood and pearl-headed titanium pins – was then enshrined in a Plexiglas case to which the wood was secured (from beneath) by four stubby, flat-headed screws.
It was difficult to tell what had meaning and what had not. Was it significant that the titanium pins were pearl-headed? Did Azarian’s insistence on African blackwood point to something? What did it mean that the paper was blue? Not knowing anything about the poem’s meaning or origin, von Würfel ignored all but the obvious acrostic. The first letters of the first words of the first stanza made the word
North
while the final couplet gave you the number 43.
The first letters of the first four words of the second stanza made the word:
West
while this stanza’s couplet gave the number 79.
It took no skill at all to recognize that these were coordinates of latitude and longitude. On their own, they led to a point on Grand Island, New York. Von Würfel travelled to Grand Island and found absolutely nothing of interest, vacant space beside a highway. For a year – desultorily, occasionally – he tried to find other clues in the poem. Nothing. There were no Africans on Grand Island. There was nothing particularly blue about it and pearls were not on offer anywhere thereabouts. ‘North 43°, West 79°’ led him to a dead end.
It was not until he began thinking about the other pieces that he made what he was convinced was progress. The model of Fallingwater, for instance. How did it help find whatever was to be located at ‘43°N, 79°W’? For months von Würfel explored hints and possibilities. He drove to Fallingwater to look around. He added the numbers he got from Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday (June 8, 1867), his date of death (April 9, 1959), variations on those numbers and any number related to Lloyd Wright to the poem’s coordinates:
N 43.681°, W 79.867° (this was in Brampton)
N 43.6801°, W 79.8607° (more Brampton)
et cetera … (mostly Brampton)
He got nowhere significant, though he conscientiously explored each of the many dead ends.
Then it occurred to him how unusual it was to commission a reproduction of Fallingwater made from titanium and niobium. What were the elements’ atomic numbers, again?
Niobium 41
Titanium 22
Adding these numbers to those from the poem, he arrived at either
N 43°41', W 79°22' (Evergreen Garden Market on Bayview)
or
N 43°22', W 79°41' (somewhere in Lake Ontario, near Burlington)
What good luck! And as soon as he arrived at the Evergreen Garden Market he knew (he simply knew) that he was onto something. He explored the market as no one before him had ever done, and he found nothing of use. But the impression he had of the mind behind the puzzle was thrilling. The invisible creator – Robert Azarian – was suddenly with him. The place he sought was somewhere in Toronto. It was as if Azarian had told him this himself.
It seemed to von Würfel that all of the mementos would be needed to find the proper spo
t, that no single Azarian heir could get to it on his or her own. This created problems for him. First, the painting of the Emperor Nero standing beside a man with a crow on his shoulder did not have any numbers on it anywhere. (Azarian’s elaborate and precise description of the scene to be painted mentioned no figures or dimensions either.) And then, though he could find numbers related to three of the pieces – the poem, the model of Fallingwater, the bottle of aquavit – he was not certain what order the numbers should take. (Eldest to youngest made sense, but which piece had gone to which child?) Finally, there was the most difficult problem of all: he had no idea what the fifth piece looked like, no idea what kind of screen it was, no idea how it might contribute to the solution.
One day, as he was in the front of Von Würfel’s Animals and Birds, thinking about the painting of Nero, trying to divine what numbers might be hidden in a portrait of the emperor, two men came into the shop: an albino and a physically imposing young man who looked as though he meant to break something.
– Can I help you? he asked.
– Are you Alexander von Würfel? the albino said.
– Who wants to know? answered von Würfel.
– We’re friends of Willow Azarian, said the albino, and we just wondered, now that she’s dead, if you could help us with something.
– I met a Miss Azarian once, some time ago, said von Würfel. I doubt there’s anything I can help you with.
– I’m sorry, said the albino, I should have introduced myself. My name is Errol Colby. I was a friend of Willow’s. We were very close and she told me once that you’d made a few artworks for her father. When she died, the work her father left her was stolen. So, we were wondering if you could help us recreate the piece her father made for her. It’d be a reminder of Willow.
– Oh, I see, said von Würfel. I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. Miss Azarian came to me years ago asking about those pieces. I made three of them for her father but I have no idea which piece was for whom. Mr. Azarian didn’t tell me. And why would he? It was none of my business. He paid me and that was that.
– But you remember what they were?
– Do you know how many commissions I’ve taken for artworks? Hundreds and hundreds. The only reason I remember what these three were is that Miss Azarian told me. Beyond what she told me, I don’t know a thing. I don’t even remember making them: a painting of something, a poem mounted in Plexiglas and a model of a building.
– You didn’t make a Japanese screen?
A Japanese screen? Despite himself, despite not wanting to betray any interest, von Würfel said
– A Japanese screen? What do you mean? Something that folds out?
The albino, who was wearing dark glasses, seemed to stare at him a moment, as if there was something he couldn’t bring himself to say.
– Sorry to bother you
is what he said at last and the two left without another word.
A strange encounter, in the end. Nothing untoward had happened and yet there’d been a barely hidden threat in it. The Azarian business now had an unpleasant edge. The encounter was frustrating as well. The albino had brought von Würfel confirmation of the fifth piece but told him nothing useful about it.
No, that wasn’t quite true. After hearing about the ‘Japanese screen,’ von Würfel felt as if he’d got an insight into Robert Azarian’s logic, his playfulness. What a range of references! When, shortly after the albino’s visit, the numbers hidden in the ‘musical painting’ of Nero and Consul Corvinus (the man’s name meant raven!) suggested themselves to him (the 58th consul serenaded by Bach’s 48), it was again as if Robert Azarian had spoken. Von Würfel took it as granted that the poem and the numbers associated with Fallingwater were in order, because they led to somewhere in Toronto. He then slotted in the numbers associated with the painting and with the bottle of aquavit, juggling them, changing them around until he got the exact coordinates – latitude and longitude – of a plot of ground in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. An electrifying moment! A eureka moment that only a dedicated puzzle-solver would understand.
It was at this point, however, that a (metaphorical) shutter came down. Without the fifth piece, with no idea what the fifth piece looked like or felt like, von Würfel could get no further than this: ‘Plot 22’ in the rectangle of ground bounded by Merton Street (north), Moore Avenue (south), Mount Pleasant Road (west) and Bayview Avenue (east), a little north of a parking lot, north of the Garden of Remembrance’s conservatory, north and east of the cemetery office, by the graves of Millers and Smiths, and close to a mausoleum over whose door the name Weiden was carved.
By the time Detective Mandelshtam came to ask him questions – that is, a week after the albino – von Würfel had already spent hours in Mount Pleasant examining headstones and ground, pacing around the Weiden mausoleum, wondering what, in the patch of land around Azarian’s coordinates (N 43° 41' 48.1889", W 79° 22' 58.4185"), was meant to be precious or to lead to something – if something there was.
In fact, von Würfel spent so much time among the graves and by the Weiden crypt that he struck up an acquaintance with Delmer McDougal, a man he saw there often and who he assumed worked at the cemetery.
– Recently bereaved? the man asked him one day. I’m sorry for your loss, eh.
– Not recent, answered von Würfel, but I’m paying my respects.
– It’s the thing to do, for sure, said the man.
He was much shorter than von Würfel, stocky with a modest paunch, and his hair – what was left of it – was wispy and greying. Strands of it sometimes rose up – spidery – in the wind. Von Würfel took him for a contemporary and, as it turned out, they were around the same age, but the man was evidently from the Ottawa Valley, his accent sounding vaguely Irish. Had they been in England, Alex Luck might have looked down on him, but Alexander von Würfel was pleased to be reminded, however vaguely, of his homeland.
– Well, said the man, life’s one of those things, eh.
– Thank you, said von Würfel
not knowing what else to say.
After Detective Mandelshtam’s visit, the problem for von Würfel – the source of his anxiety – was the idea that he had rivals for Azarian’s secret. Was Detective Mandelshtam a rival? No, not Mandelshtam so much. He seemed legitimate. But the albino was almost certainly looking for whatever Robert Azarian had hidden, and if the albino was looking, there could well be others, others who might have had access to the final piece, the Japanese screen. If he – that is, von Würfel – had guessed that Mount Pleasant was part of the solution to Azarian’s puzzle (if indeed it was part of the solution), others could guess it as well.
On a Saturday, two weeks into his (as he thought) absurd vigil – absurd because he was not in the cemetery long enough on any given day to effectively watch over the graves and crypt – von Würfel asked McDougal if he was always around the Weiden crypt.
– Well, hereabouts, said Delmer.
– You mean you work here?
– I do. That I do.
Von Würfel then asked if Delmer had seen anyone around the Weiden crypt ‘lately.’
– If I seen anyone? said Delmer. Jeez, I don’t think so, buddy. I see all kinds a people, but I can’t say I seen any ’round here lately. You’re not counting yourself, eh? So, no, not really. I mean, I see more people ’n you can shake a stick at. It’s a cemetery, so people’re just dyin’ to get in, eh? But, like, ’round here? Today? It’s just you, buddy. I don’t think your Weidens were all that popular. That’s what I tell myself when there’s graves nobody goes to: Jeez, I bet youse weren’t dancing at the prom. But then you come along and I had to apologize to your people here, ’cause now at least they’ve got someone. I’m not sayin’ anything weird or anything but you get a kind of feelin’ for the dead, eh, like you know ’em.
– I mean anyone suspicious-looking, said von Würfel, interrupting him. Not mourners.
– Suspicious? You know, there’s mostly two types that com
e here, eh. It’s the ones that’re in mourning or it’s the ones that come for to do what nature makes ’em. Them’s pret’ near the only suspicious ones. You’re just mindin’ your business and all of a sudden there’s young people just goin’ at ’er on people’s graves. I don’ know what’s wrong with ’em! I guess mostly they’re drunk, so I don’t like to judge ’em. But jeez an’ aitches! It puts you off the whole idea a dyin’, havin’ some guy puttin’ the blocks to ’er, right on top a you. Not sure that’s suspicious like you mean but that’s as suspicious as she gets ’round here. Course that’s summer I’m talkin’ ’bout, eh. No one likes to do ’er outdoors in winter.
As if winter were a thing to contemplate, Delmer was suddenly quiet.
– I wonder, said von Würfel, if you’d do me a favour?
– Somethin’ legal? asked Delmer.
– Yes, said von Würfel, legal. I’ll give you a hundred dollars a month if you keep an eye out for people coming around here. To be honest, part of the reason I started coming here so often is that someone told me the Weidens’ mausoleum was vandalized and I wanted to see for myself. It hasn’t been vandalized, but now I come around so that people won’t think no one comes around. If you could look out when I’m not here, I’d pay you for whatever you saw.
– Well, that sounds like a deal, said Delmer. You sure that’s all there is to ’er?
– Yes, I’m sure. I’m interested in anyone who comes to the mausoleum or any of the graves around it, especially if you haven’t seen the person before.
Apparently satisfied that von Würfel was no kind of deviant, Delmer agreed and von Würfel gave him a hundred dollars on the spot, to show his good faith. He also left Delmer a cellphone number at which he could be reached.
Their arrangement was, thought von Würfel, only slightly less absurd than his coming to the cemetery himself. Delmer, too, could miss important incursions by … well, by whoever else was on the Azarian trail. Handing over the hundred dollars was, however, a great relief to von Würfel. He had now done something. He was being what his daughter Frieda called ‘proactive.’ He was taking the next step along a road that had become a kind of obsession. He wanted – perhaps even needed – the answer to this puzzle. If the answer came at the cost of a few hundred dollars, fine. Having puzzled over Azarian’s clues for what now amounted to years, he felt compelled to do all he could to find what Azarian had left to be found.
