In the morning he prepared for work. ‘The good thing,’ he said, ‘about this job, is that you don’t have to worry about what to wear.’ Clutching a plastic bag he ventured out into the cold light of day. But all the time I knew all he needed was to be awakened. This self-destructiveness, this inability to seize various pregnant moments (moments which played tricks on time and existed outside it) would be discarded one day. His sinuous painting provided me with sufficient optimism. His was the problem of the introvert, the snail that cannot crawl out of its shell. He needed the light to come to him. But instead darkness fell, occasionally palliated by the prospect of love or bricks of chocolate. Of course, he had no real desire to go on life modeling. His vocation, truly, his calling, really, his purpose, utterly, was painting. He had once been approached by one of the most famous dealers in London, Barny Small, the latter having been stunned by two of his morbid canvasses. Small gave Oscar his card and Oscar tossed it into a washing machine. Maybe he felt the card was unclean. Or perhaps it was the proximity of success that scared him. He also had that suspiciousness of the world – the sticky world of narcissists and self-promoters, marketing and the Internet – that has always characterized the truly gifted. Deep down he had contempt for that dealer, because he did commerce with that world, felt at home in it, embraced the absurd injustices that being strong inevitably signaled. Oscar reasoned that if his work triumphed, someone else’s was bound to fail as a result. And to constantly fuss over minutiae and errands and duties was not enough for Oscar. And if it became enough, it would be accompanied by the lingering fear that he was a charlatan. Whatever he accomplished wouldn’t be enough. And he would remain unworthy in his own eyes, after the drinks had been dispensed and the journalists paid off with memorable insights and fished-after glimpses of his life. He would retreat to his hovel, close the door on the world and mumble, ‘I am a fake painter; I am a bogus manipulator of images; I am a voyeur.’ And so he threw the dealer’s card away and saved himself from all these dilemmas. After the machine’s rinse cycle was completed the card was beautifully atomized among his clothes.
But there was another – more simple – reason for this reluctance to engage, to get off his arse. He was idle, bone idle. That idleness drew him to that other idle creation of nature’s: the cat. So he retreated to his hovel and the consolations of his feline companion, as they both stirred with longing and the highest notes of Tristan and Isolde fulfilled some of their joint needs. But I always knew that Oscar was destined for great things, that he would someday triumph and see the light, and in doing so would have to rid himself of that inseparable cat of his. Only I knew this, however. He did not.
He put the pages aside, feeling faintly uneasy. Had he been writing about himself or about Oscar? Had he been writing about his own motivations and preoccupations?
It was coming up to one-thirty in the morning. Almost at the same instant of putting his head on the pillow, he fell into a deep sleep.
At the same time Oscar was watching a film finishing in the Eureka Cinema – the late show. He was thinking about the terrible prospect of going home. His little bedsit was the least enticing of places, he reflected. Its wallpaper was peeling, its bed sagged as much as a hammock, and the oven was encrusted in grime. He wondered when he had last changed his bedsheets and the thought appalled him. As he was thinking, his mind slowly being sucked into a mental quicksand, he heard a mournful wailing coming from outside. He walked up to the back door slowly, put his ear to it and listened. The sound stopped. He opened the door and saw a tiny cat perched on the steps. It began to whimper with heartbreaking pathos. It was about the size of his two hands laid end to end. He picked it up and murmured, ‘Hello, were you looking for me?’
2
Two weeks passed. During this time Oscar decided to adopt the cat, as it seemed to have no owner. He named her Dove. She gave him a new lease of life, and he grew very fond of her in this short space of time. He bought her a wicker basket and loaded it with rugs and blankets, for the cat was quite emaciated and had to be taken care of. But he had to make sure that Mr. Grindel – his landlord – didn’t find out about Dove, as the house rules stipulated that no pets could be kept in the tenants’ rooms. Despite the fact that the house itself was falling into ruin, Mr. Grindel didn’t lift a finger to improve the living conditions, while at the same time threatening with eviction any who failed to comply with his rules. He was perpetually unshaven in the attempt to give the appearance of destitution – which he considered a useful posture, allowing him to appear to be on the same footing as his poverty-stricken tenants – and he always wore a thick overcoat, even in hot weather.
On the one occasion Oscar had been inside the maisonette where Grindel lived, in the same building, he had been astonished to find the place baking in unbearable warmth. Equally unbearable, to Oscar’s ears, was the Wagner playing on Grindel’s old record player. Sensing Oscar’s surprise at the intensity of the heat, Grindel had muttered some words about not being able to turn the heating off. When Oscar offered to open all the windows he barked a brief cry of ‘Mind your own business,’ and added that the windows couldn’t be opened because they were stuck. Oscar concluded that the man, like a baby who had been born prematurely, needed to exist in an incubator of heat, hermetically sealed from the outside world. And yet when dealing with his tenants he displayed all the callousness of the hardened businessman. He was convinced that ultimately they were all out to exploit him. So Oscar was very careful not to give Mr. Grindel an excuse to have him evicted.
That day he had the evening shift at the cinema but had the afternoon free. He was getting ready to go out when there was a calamitous knocking at the door. He hurriedly stuffed Dove into a cupboard full of boxes of paint and dirty brushes, and, when he was ready, opened the door. His landlord had an annoying habit of dropping by whenever he felt like it. Oscar suspected it was because he hoped to catch him doing something wrong.
‘Rent’s due, Babel,’ he barked, his eyes darting around dementedly.
‘I know; I’ll have it for you tomorrow.’
‘You’d better have, weasel, or I’ll have you.’
Oscar noticed that he was giving off a peculiar unpleasant odor. He shut the door in a hurry and released the cat. Then he put Dove in her basket and said, ‘Sorry about that. Be good while I’m gone.’ He put out some milk for her, within easy reach.
He walked quickly. He was late for an appointment with Lilliana in a bar near her shop.
*
Inside the bar vast drapes shivered, disturbed by currents of stale air. The place was lit with tangerine light and strange, bodiless music was playing. All around, the walls were painted in blood-red and the eye found relief from their intensity only in the surface of the wooden, scratched floorboards. The bar itself was a baroque construction and out of it hideous gargoyles rose, as if trying to come alive. A thousand and one bottles were arranged in rows at the back, bottles of every size and appearance containing glossy green liqueurs, golden whiskeys and malts, transparent vodka and gin, rum as black as night, bottled brown beer of thundering potency. The vast mirror behind these begetters of oblivion reflected the feathered hats, the painted faces and the pallid splendor of the clientele, all lovingly, recorded by London’s ubiquitous and multiplying CCTV’s. Giant candles were planted here and there, half-used, with intricate lines of wax encrusted around them like stalactites.
Oscar hunted for Lilliana for a little while, then found a chair, presuming she hadn’t arrived yet, rather than that she had been and gone. A couple of identical twins were playing chess and sending text messages. A broker flicked and turned the billowing pages of the Financial Times with disturbing belligerence. Oscar turned around and was pleased to spot a woman seated on her own in a corner, beside a folding screen decorated with masked figures. She had abundant silvery blonde hair, tightly tied in a bun. As he watched her he wondered how Bloch’s story was progressing and made a mental note to call him. A newspaper lay near to
hand and he started to read it without much interest. When he glanced up again the woman wasn’t there, though a luminous pink coat signaled her claim to the seat.
Upon her return she had been transformed by a generous layer of green lipstick. More crowds drifted in. The noise they made immediately repelled him. He sensed the woman in the corner also shared his distaste, and as he looked over to her again for some sign of solidarity her face was partially hidden behind her newly loosened locks, which she proceeded to adjust. For a moment he was stunned. Her appearance was so different it was as though her face had actually been reshaped.
She finally noticed his somnolent staring.
‘You look confused,’ she said sweetly.
‘Yes, I am,’ he replied.
‘What’s confusing you?’
Oscar caught some words from a conversation at the bar. A voice said, ‘I can only eat salmon when I’m by the river, or better still when I’m in the river.’ There was a brief lunatic burst of laughter.
‘I have this feeling that something in my life is changing, something important.’
‘Would you mind telling me what?’
‘Everything. Nothing. I now own a cat. That’s all, really,’ he said.
‘That’s all?’
‘Well...not really.’
He wondered where Lilliana had got to. His face betrayed his agitation, despite his attempts at bullying it into composure.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Oh, I was expecting someone. But I think she’s slipped through my fingers. Everything, sooner or later, slips through my fingers, you know. Money, love, friends, painting.’ He smiled, trying to deflate the seriousness of his remarks. He suddenly had a feeling he wouldn’t be seeing Lilliana today. Resuming in a lighter tone, he asked, ‘Do things slip through your fingers? Or do you manage to avoid that, and if so, how?’
‘Sometimes: in answer to the first question, which means sometimes for the second as well. For the third: I put talcum powder on my fingers. Gives me a firmer grip with which to catch the customers when they fall. You see, I work in a hair salon but lately I’ve been feeling more like a therapist than a hairdresser.
‘But to go back to the first question. Something did slip through my fingers the other day. I mean really slipped. A plant. The woman in the shop was gutted. I don’t know what the hell happened. I’m not normally so clumsy. But...the thing was...her face, when she saw the damage...for a moment, just for a second as I watched her...I could have imagined falling in love with her...I don’t know if you can understand...that vulnerability...’
She stopped abruptly, and shrugged off the delicate demeanor these revelations had created. As if to cover up the cavity left by her honesty she started attending to physical matters, smoothing her skirt, folding her pink coat with care. Oscar averted his gaze, so as to give her room, and surveyed the others, who had become more and more animated. The search for pleasure was continuing, like some treasure hunt conducted in the night, in the capsizing chambers of the imagination, and on the dewy grass, wherein all pains and losses could be erased and the opiate of sensuality was at liberty to pursue its sweet, numbing agenda, the voices of human suffering barely reaching, and so dismissed as imagined and ghostly.
She stood up, a little self-consciously.
‘I hope you find a net to catch the things that are slipping. Just don’t get trapped in it.’ Her face broke into a smile and he watched her go with a grace he envied. He decided to telephone Lilliana on his cellular phone. But then he remembered the phone had no credit. He stepped outside and found a red phone booth.
The booth was saturated in graffiti and the receiver was off the hook, swinging like a pendulum. He replaced it, picked it up and dialed. He heard the neutral pulse of ringing. A man answered, which was odd, as Lilliana lived alone.
‘Hello...Hello.’
Oscar realized he had just dialed Bloch’s number.
‘Daniel, it’s Oscar.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything when I picked up?’
‘How’s the story going? Have you started it?’
‘Yes, it’s going. What’s new?’
‘I have a cat. That’s about it.’
‘What?’
‘I said I have a cat. She’s called Dove.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then Bloch said, ‘That’s nice. Well, I better go. I’m late for a doctor’s appointment.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I just need to pick up a prescription for some sleeping tablets. I’ll see you.’
He stepped out of the booth. Bloch had sounded strange on the phone. Oscar was so distracted he forgot all about the phone call to Lilliana. He walked aimlessly for a while and then finally hopped on a passing bus.
A few minutes later Lilliana walked in to the bar, holding his birthday present. In the dim, tangerine light the white skin of her face appeared tawny.
As soon as Bloch returned the phone to its cradle he felt an odd twinge of discomfort. He stared out of his window, watching the traffic as it crawled along at a snail’s pace. Noxious fumes spluttered into the air, and taxis throbbed, threatening to melt. The crowds wrestled with their shopping and the heat.
Turning away, he switched the radio on. A wave of brass band music blew up. He reached for the dial and jiggled it about until he had found something which pleased him: a string quartet, full of grief, the lowest notes sounding from beyond the grave, stirring in a slow bass rumble. As he lost himself in the music a male voice began speaking:
‘You know art can kill?’
Bloch’s immediate thought was that the dial had just managed, by itself, to turn around and tune into another station. Dismissing this theory, he scrambled around for a paper to check the radio programs, wondering if he might be listening to some kind of play with background music. But the guide just said: ‘1pm: Beethoven: Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. Belcea Quartet.’ It was then that he began to consider the possibility of an aural hallucination. He stared into thin air, stupefied. Had he imagined that voice? What’s happening to me? he thought. He switched off the radio, plodded wearily to his bedroom and spread his soft body out on the big double bed. The walls and ceiling moved in closer; his bedroom metamorphosed into the cabin of a boat, lolling lazily in the tide. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. He needed to work, to give his mind some ballast. He got up and walked unsteadily to his study.
The feel of his old typewriter’s keyboard stopped him from floating away altogether, from turning into a speck of dust, pirouetting like a spinning top and rising above London and Hyde Park.
Chapter Two
Modeling. This is the subject I have to tackle before I can do justice to the man’s significance as a painter. Why for God’s sake modeling? Perhaps it was the thought of exposing the external – the body – that attracted him, while keeping the internal – the soul – under wraps. When I spoke to him about it he would say he found the whole thing marvelously anonymous, even though he was so literally exposed. He was the center of attention but only in the way a patient is as he is scrutinized by acne-rich medical students in sanitized clinics. He never had to exchange words with anyone, never had to interact in any emotional sense. And that was the way he liked it, I’m afraid. He could observe. He also spoke about the cleansing quality of the process, spoke of how the cold and constant stillness offered wonderful openings for the mind. In that eternity of stasis the mind could dip its big toe into shores of the celestial, he claimed, then crawl back to shore as the break came. Then he could focus once more on the simple things, such as the cup of tea that would be his and his alone, a blanket draped over him, ignored by all the students, which was the way that he liked it, and there is nothing more delicious than the taste of reward that is deserved, and rest after labor is, in my opinion, only slightly less wondrous than warmth after cold.
‘ Well, Oscar,’ I said one evening, after he’d returned from the art school (I had lingered on in his flat, s
ampling the mythical kindness of his landlord, Mr. Grindel – he made me some limpid soup), ‘what happened today? Did some young lady step over the fine line that separates artist from voyeur?’
He ignored my question and reached for his cat. The cat melted instantly in his embrace, sickeningly responsive to his caresses. He turned to me and intoned slowly, ‘No, not today, but maybe tomorrow. Maybe in the oasis-mirage-stargate of tomorrow.’
The answer was stuffed with wisdom, somehow, as if he had found, in a phrase or two, the distillation of clarity that normally only a lifetime can deliver. Perhaps that is what wisdom is, I reflected, the ability to see change and accept that it might not come today but tomorrow, the ability to transcend time with a little nonchalance. I imagine that mountaineers and explorers are able to visualize time more easily than I can. As they climb Mount Everest they must in some sense be stepping over and above the usual patter of time’s motion, for how else could they do what they do? This seems obvious. I admire those fuckers. They manage to get the upper hand, all right. They manage to put time in its place. That tyrant, who never lets up, but forever taps at our shoulders, reminding us that life is finite, running after us with a whip and shouting, ever and again, ‘I go on, see, but you don’t.’ But I digress. Oscar shared some of these apprehensions of mine. But he had a reluctance to talk about things. Such as happiness, misery, love. Small-fry stuff.
The Fabrications Page 3