The Lovers

by Catherine Rey

  Anyway, I can’t blame anyone but myself. Money? I could have lent her money… I could have given her some money… I work full-time. I’m a high school teacher. So is my husband. I’m not that rich, but I have some money put aside… I didn’t offer any help. I feel terrible. I feel terribly guilty… Goodness, I could have given her enough for the plane ticket. The flight isn’t cheap, but how much is a life worth, especially the life of your own sister?

  We endured a long silence. I could still hear the “Macarena” song. It was so irritating. I didn’t even ask Lucie why her life was in danger. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to put an end to our phone call, hang up, go back to the veranda, finish my coffee, give a hug to my daughter-in-law who’s six-months pregnant. Then Lucie, in a cold voice, said, your happy little life has turned you into a selfish person, Sylvia.

  I was so upset by her words. I should have never said what I said next, but I couldn’t help myself: I don’t get you Lucie, what you’re telling me is so confusing, I don’t understand a word of your story. What exactly do you want from me? She countered scornfully, saying, yes, that’s right, you don’t understand. Well, it’s true that in many ways I didn’t understand because I didn’t want to understand. Lucie, she challenges you, she doesn’t give you any respite, and I don’t like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

  Neither of us said anything for a while. My husband had stopped calling out to me. Lucie, are you still there? I asked quietly after some time. What are you afraid of? Talk to me. Shouldn’t you call the police? In a flash she answered: look, forget about it, it’s not worth it, I’ll let you go now. What time is it in France? Five o’clock. It’s three here… No, three in the morning… The music, yes, we’re having a party… Oh, sorry, you haven’t finished your lunch. I know you like to take your time. Sorry for being such a nuisance… Give my regards to your family. Her voice was sad.

  I repeated without conviction, you must find a way to come home. Can’t you find a job over there? You’ve got a degree, it should be easy for you. Then she replied, that’s a good idea, Sylvia, I’ll look for a job. Bye now… And she hung up. I returned to the veranda. I felt like I’d let Lucie down. My husband asked what the phone call was about. I said it was just one of the neighbours waffling on. I couldn’t finish my coffee. It had gone cold. I just hope it wasn’t your sister, my husband said. He isn’t a bad man. But he doesn’t have much time for people like Lucie, people who aren’t like him, without children and a regular income… Lucie ran away from home when she was underage, yes, she was seventeen back then, and he’s always thought she wasn’t a good example for our two children. You know how teenagers are so easily influenced. And yes, my parents had to report her as a missing person. Everyone was very worried… But that was ages ago. Twenty-five years ago. Lucie has changed since then…

  As I was gazing at the red and white napkin I wondered if Lucie hadn’t spoken the truth. My tongue was like a piece of dry leather in my mouth. She said I’d turned into a selfish person. I looked at my children… My youngest son was planning a trip to China. He’s twenty-six. He’d never been overseas before. Would it be better to go through Dubai or Moscow? Moscow was a beautiful city worth a visit. What do you think, mum? I didn’t answer. Do you become selfish when you’ve got all that you need? We bought our house on a twenty-year mortgage. It’s paid off now. We’ve never had major health issues. Our children are good kids.

  As I was about to leave the table my husband caught my vacant look and said, next time your sister calls, I’ll talk to her myself. We don’t want anything to do with her, is that clear? I said, yes, next time you can talk to her.

  As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to think about Lucie anymore. My husband was right. She was too much trouble. If she needed money, she’d better look for a job. That shouldn’t be so hard. Things are easier down there. It’s supposed to be paradise… My Goodness, how heartless! Now I feel terrible…

  This mess, you see, this mess wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for my mother. Why? She pushed her to leave… Each time Lucie didn’t feel right about going to Australia, our mother urged her to go. It was always push, push, push. You’ve found the man of a lifetime, she badgered. He’s wealthy. He’ll provide for all your needs. You won’t have to worry anymore. You won’t have to work. Look at me, the tax department has raided everything. I have breast cancer. If I’m lucky I might live another two months. Go! Don’t hang around. He’s asked you to move in with him… Get going before he changes his mind. I told my mother so many times to stop haranguing her.

  The whole thing was kind of too good to be true. I had a strange feeling. I didn’t think Lucie had thought things through. What did we know about Ernest Renfield? Nothing. And my mother thought Lucie had found Mr Right. How could I guess what was going to happen? Who knows where Lucie is? Who knows if she’s still alive? It’s such a terrible thing to have done. To your own sister… I feel awful. What if he’s keeping her locked up somewhere? What if she’s been murdered? It’s my little sister, for heaven’s sake. She’s far away, on her own. And that man… I’ve seen him… There’s something funny about him… Who knows what he’s capable of. He could be a serial killer. They look like normal people, you know… You’ve seen them in your job, haven’t you? They could be your next-door neighbours. You’ve got to be careful, especially in a foreign country. If something serious has happened, I’ll never get over it.

  Act IV

  Ernest Renfield

  Longland

  New South Wales

  Now please, Officer Lawson, can you ask your men to leave my studio? Why are you tormenting me? Your search warrant won’t bring you any closer to the truth. You and your men are wasting your time here…

  You think I’ve killed the poor sod and dumped her body in the forest? Think I’m a nutcase and a rapist? But I haven’t done anything, I’m not a murderer. Someone’s told you that I’m unhinged… Or would you prefer to tick another box, such as deranged… depraved… manic… sicko… pervert?

  You smashed the door of my studio and violated my sacred space. This is the reward for my honesty and hospitality? You took the liberty of looking at my paintings without my consent, when they were not meant to be seen. That’s abuse of power! What sort of a man are you, Lawson? How would my paintings have anything to do with Lucie’s disappearance? It’s preposterous! And as for this bloody search warrant, you ought to know that having strangers hanging around gets on my nerves… Thank you, gentlemen…

  Should I follow you to the police station for interrogation? Will your judicial tribunal condemn me for what I’ve painted? I haven’t got blood on my hands… Thanks for your concern, my head is alright, it’s just a small cut. Your brutes didn’t muck around, did they? Look at the mess they’ve made in here.

  How dare you question my sanity? Oh, I can see on your face that you believe I’m mad. Because of what you have seen here. My work repulses you.

  Why did I paint these pictures? Good question. It’s only fair that you ask, Lawson. Remember the parable of the tight-rope walker? Well, I am a funambulist and every day I cautiously start on that rope, pulled taut. I get half-way across, an unforgiving wind catches me unprepared, and my head spins, my legs shake. And that jester appears; he shouts, laughs, teases me; he knows how weak I am, how pathetic I’ve always been and like a crow about to pick out someone’s eyes, he goes, nark, nark, nark. Then he yells, you ought to be locked up, Renfield, you ought to be locked up! And every day I fall, crashing to the ground. Without painting, Lawson, without my studio, I would go insane.

  Each morning I wake up with a blissful heart, ready to forgive my good old friends who once upon a time loved me… They would have done anything for me. I thought they would have gone up the holy stairs of the Scala Sancta on their knees for me. One can be so naïve when it comes to being loved… When your market value plummets, when the circus is about to leave town, when the bear is too old for the show, your good brothers and sisters do a runner
.

  I’ll have been dead for years and yet my work will prevail. All my cockroach friends will be dead, buried and forgotten. The art dealers will be forgotten too. Who out of Picasso and Kahnweiler do we remember? No one even knows what Kahnweiler looked like. My courtiers loved me once, but they took their love back as if retrieving a cheap watch from a pawn broker. By the end of the day, I am a sad clown, desolate and bereft…

  These days I stand before my easel with the best of intentions. I should see, sitting here, young Emma, or Kate, or Julia, the shop assistant from Watooga Fruit and Veg, as some hieratic Goddess who presides over us. I should see Emma, Kate or Julia as essential beings rather than physical ones. A god somewhere, after all, has given the artist the task of making perfect what he could not.

  But when I look at them, I can’t resist the evil pull. I turn beauty into abjection, for to me the girls smell of death. See in this one, Lawson, Emma looks like a dead fish. And look, if I turn the painting upside down, she looks like a set of rotten teeth.

  People, especially women, think I worship women. Ask them! I declared many times in television interviews that the “second sex” is more honest, more gifted and more sensible than men. I’ll tell you in confidence, Lawson, I never believed a word of it… I need girls to pose for me. They are the raw material of my work. Women’s curves sell better. But like most men, I never looked at women as more gifted and more sensible. Come on, women, I love them young, good-looking and silent. Yes, I’m typical of so many men of my generation, and I’m not ashamed of it. Women’s beauty has always fascinated me, as a painter and a man, yet by the same token I’ve always feared it. Emma is like a venomous flower, enticing you before trying to swallow you whole.

  The vagina dentata, ever heard of it? The vagina is like a toothed hole, well, like a spiked pit trap in the jungle, if you prefer. That’s what women are… What about this one, here in the corner? Do you recognise her? It’s Nicole, our dear old Nicole with her saggy tits and her fat thighs, her dried up, deterring cunt. And over there… Look at that one. Don’t move, I’ll bring it closer to you. Do you recognise her? It’s Lucie, yes, that’s her! Charming on the outside, but inside a pack of lies, lies I could see after I’d cut her open…

  I have no illusions regarding mankind. You, for instance, Lawson, if I had to paint a portrait of you, any idea of what it’d look like? Messed up? Repulsive? Four of your men forced their way into my studio… Yes, indeed, with an axe, if you please… Is that fair play? Do you understand me any better now that you’ve pulverised my door and violated my works? No, you don’t.

  I sent a hundred and twenty printed invitations in immaculate white envelopes for that fucking party. Cost me a fortune in printing, drinks, food, flowers. You’ve seen the list of guests, haven’t you? I invited my brothers and sisters openheartedly. Do you know how many of my good old pals came along? Well, fifty-seven… Fifty-seven turned up. And sixty-three did not.

  After my New York exhibition, my place would have been too small to welcome all my brothers and sisters. But today, I’m not good enough. That’s what the life of an artist is: he becomes a ghost before his own death… Renfield? You mean Renfield, the painter? Is he still alive? I thought he died years ago. Oh well, we haven’t heard much from him lately. You think he’s still painting? Can you hear them? Well, I can.

  Lucie has messed up my life. She never says anything. She never complains about anything. She takes it all in without protest then stares you out with her teary eyes. She feels sorry for me like some Sister of Mercy… By the way, did you know that Domenico Veneziano painted the martyrdom of Saint Lucie? Saint Lucie is silenced by the soldier with a dagger to her throat, blinded when her eyes are gouged out… Lucie who sees everything, who wants to save me from myself, who wants to love me but doesn’t know how, who wants to give her life up for me without knowing the meaning of martyrdom.

  “Women, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out.” Isn’t that true? You know who wrote that? Oscar Wilde. Lucie inspired me to start with, oh yes, she was so pure and fresh, I loved that girl when she rang from the other side of the world. That sweet voice gave me a hard on. Loved that girl when she slipped her little hand down my groin to unzip my pants, calling me her fat bunny rabbit, her old fat bunny rabbit, while giving me a blow-job. She made me forget my age, my old creaky bones, my painful joints. Be gone, pot-belly! It was as if I had found myself in the time machine and become Rod Taylor, younger, stronger, a fucking stud. I was forty again, like her, at the beginning of life, when you still have time to waste.

  Loved her when she made me think I could start again from scratch, and all my fuckups and lies would be forgotten, forgiven, wiped out. Loved her when she said I was going to paint again, that time had no value, how the greatest artists reach their peak late in life. Loved her when she said she was going to give me a special kind of love, she was going to teach me baby steps in the art of loving, that age didn’t matter, when she said that my old age wasn’t a threat because she couldn’t see my spots, my warts and my furrows, because she only saw my smile, my cheeky smile, she said, and my jokes, she said, made her laugh. I loved her because I believed her.

  I was under her spell but then the demons caught up with me. See, that woman turned out to be a pain in the arse. I’ll tell you what, Lawson, I will paint my ultimate work. See, what you’re looking at now is rubbish, it stinks, it’s rat shit. It was not my hand moving the brush, it was someone else’s hand, someone who’d snuck into my studio. I didn’t paint that picture! From now on, I’ll keep well away from these dark visions, fix my gaze on the sublime blue sky. I haven’t got much time left but I’ll come back as the leading light of the post-modern avant-garde…

  Come closer, Officer Lawson, I’d like to show you a real beauty, a piece of art, that is sure to perk you up. Look, over here, on the wall, see the red velvet curtains. Look carefully now, I’m going to open them just for you… I see you recognise the painting. I knew you had the true soul of an artist… Yes, L’Origine du Monde, a wonder, isn’t it? Gustave Courbet painted it and I have reproduced it. Back in 1988, I was in New York, at the Courbet retrospective in Brooklyn. The masterpiece was there, a great bushy pubis revealing a young and inviting vagina. I knew the curator and he let me in after-hours so I could be with my nude. Over many nights, I set my easel six feet away from Courbet’s work and endeavoured to reproduce it. I gave it my best shot. It’s now my consolation prize…

  I’m sure Courbet truly worshipped women. I might not love them enough, who knows? I can’t imagine my parents fornicating sixty-three years ago to conceive me. Knowing that I came out of that place, well, it’s upsetting.

  But I must move on, make an effort to complete my definitive work. It will take time and I’ll have to find the right model. Silly Lucie promised she would be my last muse. It didn’t work, Lawson, she’s tense, prissy and too intellectual. I can’t stand women who are always questioning what I do.

  When my last painting is done, I’ll be at peace. And I’ll go quietly, like a tiny bird, a fairy wren, fschuuut… Like friar Brett Whiteley, see, what a final adventure! Just like him, I’ll book a room in a motel, an ugly-looking red brick dump on the side of a busy road, and then lights out, gone!

  What now, Lawson? Are you taking me? You’ll handcuff me and I’ll get taken away like a lunatic, a criminal, a convict, on a cart pulled by a skeletal horse. Past the hateful crowd and then up onto the scaffold. To be one of Goya’s ghosts… You’re leaving? Already? Is that it? No scaffold yet, Officer Lawson? See you next time then. I won’t leave town, I promise. I won’t leave this house, I won’t even leave my tower. Where would I go?

  Nicole Letourneau

  Australian Federal Police

  Sydney Headquarters

  New South Wales

  Sorry, I don’t understand… I’m not familiar with the Australian criminal justice system… I could be charged? Along with Mrs Barth and Mr Goszyns
ki? Who is Mr Goszynski? Oh Gary, so that’s his name… Charged for withholding crucial information? But why? What information? You want me to read this statement? Okay.  

  “Australian Federal Police. Canberra. Case R/B 17630-360. Mrs Virginia Hackton, (38) bank clerk in Canberra, declared that on 30 October 2000 she stayed the night at Mr Ernest Renfield’s house, 220 Longland Road, in Longland. Mrs Hackton was woken up around 5.00 a.m. by the sound of gunshots, leaving her bedroom immediately thereafter. Mrs Hackton declares that Mr Renfield’s bedroom door was ajar and that Mrs Nicole Letourneau, (39) shop assistant in Sydney; Mrs Rose Barth, (50) art dealer in Sydney; Mr Gavril Goszynski, (65) art dealer in Sydney, were standing inside. Statement recorded on 20 November 2000 by Officer Samuel Douglas.” 

  I don’t know what to say… Mr Pietro Negri’s statement corroborates Mrs Hackton’s… Really? Do you mean that I might go to jail? But I am a single parent, with a little girl to look after. I haven’t done anything wrong, Officer Lawson.

  What time was it when I picked up the brooch? Four-thirty… How can I be so sure? I looked at my watch, with the full moon above, there was definitely enough light to see the time. I was worried about June being so close to the lake. It was really a stupid idea to have brought her along…

  Anyway, as we were approaching the car, Gary appeared. He was squeezing something under his arm. As he got closer to us, I figured it was a tweed jacket. What are you doing with Lucie’s jacket? I asked. I found it there, he muttered, pointing towards the lake. Suddenly June cried out, look Maman, here she is, here she is again. Gary went berserk. He looked over towards the far bank of the lake and asked whom June was talking about. Have you seen someone over there? I asked. Yes, I just saw her, replied June, here she is again. Gary seemed to now be in quite a state of agitation. I tried to keep hold of my daughter but she’d started running towards the lake.