Prochownik's Dream (14 page)

A small sound, rather like a suppressed sneeze, made him look around. Misty sat in the doorway, neither quite in the room nor quite outside it, regarding him with the same haughty disdain he'd seen on the features of the cat-headed woman. Toni returned the cat's stare until she blinked and looked away, as if, after all, it was not he who interested her. She began to lick her silvery fur. The house was quiet. He turned once again to the sketchbook. The next drawing was a full-page image of a naked young man lying on his back on a couch, his arms stretched out behind his head, his thighs spread, one knee slightly raised. The young man's wrists were loosely bound by a rope in a careless manner similar to that with which the woman had been bound to the tree. The rope was evidently not so much a physical restraint as an indication of the young man's state of passionate bondage. The young man's head lolled over the lip of the couch, presenting the delicate curve of his throat. Incongruously, his features were Theo's, his spectacles knocked sideways from his nose, hanging comically from one ear. His eyes were closed and his lips parted in an expression of sexual rapture. Marina, wearing the vestal robes of a priestess, knelt on one knee between the young man's parted thighs. She gripped the head of his erect penis in her right hand, and in her left she appeared to clasp his scrotum. The drawing had been devotedly overworked to an exacting finish with a fine hard pencil; here and there, but sparingly, a descriptive touch of delicate pastel colouring indicated the blush of naked flesh. It was only after he had been examining the drawing for a moment or two that Toni realised the woman was not in fact holding the young man's scrotum but was grasping a miniature reaping hook, or sickle, in her right hand, the inner curve of the blade lodged against the base of the man's penis. There was a faintly sardonic smile on her face. The caption read,
Nymphe Mutilant un Satyre
. Toni sensed a movement at his shoulder and caught an oily whiff of Theo's liniment. As he turned from the bench, Theo reached past him and delicately lifted the book from his hands.

‘There!' Theo murmured, and he laughed or coughed. ‘So what do you think of the innocent pastime of a dirty old man?'

‘I'm sorry,' Toni said. ‘I couldn't resist taking a look. They're some of the most impressive drawings I've ever seen.'

‘Thank you.' Theo was steady again. The formality of his tone not entirely self-mocking. He was wearing his loose robe, which was soiled and smelled of the liniment with which he dressed his ulcers. He stood admiring his drawing of the nymph and the naked young man. ‘That's high praise coming from a real artist.'

‘Now you're mocking me,' Toni said. ‘I guess I deserve it.'

‘Not at all. Robert has assured me that you are dedicated to the pursuit of the real thing. These are not the real thing. Unfortunately, they are not even original.' He tapped the drawing. ‘The Master L.D. After several centuries of scholarship we still don't know who he was or even what his real name was. There's magnificent anonymity for you. He concealed himself behind his work, which became his beautiful mask. So we still admire him and wonder about him. He borrowed his subjects from artists far greater than himself, just as I do. If you're going to be a thief, you may as well steal the best. Unlike you young people, I don't attempt originality. It can't be helped. I've been making pictures for German companies for more than thirty years. It's my trade.' He smiled. ‘I'm not an artist. I'm a tradesman.'

Toni said, ‘They're brilliant.' He waited. ‘You knew I was coming over to see Marina and yet you left your sketchbook lying about here. It seemed partly an invitation. I mean, you normally keep it close by you.'

‘I'm glad you like my little pictures. I was overdue for my life-saving drugs and was in a hurry. Then you rang the bell. But you're probably right. There are no accidents without intentions.'

‘It's kind of you not to be angry.'

‘And of you not to be offended.' He looked fondly again at the drawing of Marina as the mutilating nymph. ‘I worked with Wolf & Son in Hamburg. They were wonderful days. They were some of the great commercial illustrators of their time. They are all forgotten, except by the collectors, who will preserve their works and their memories for the day when fashions change and the young become eager to rediscover them. I'm very pleased you like my drawings.'

‘I do. I like them very much. But I should have asked you all the same.'

‘Curiosity's not a crime. Not yet. Tricks. That's all it is. That's all I've got. A bag of tricks. Impressive only if you don't know how it's done. It's better to keep this stuff hidden, however. Perhaps we'd better not speak about it? What do you think?' He chuckled mischievously. ‘Now you've seen mine, you must show me yours. That's only fair. We must strike a bargain.'

‘I don't show my work till it's finished. Your drawings are finished.'

‘Show me anyway,' Theo said playfully. ‘Change your rule, it's a silly one. What's ever finished?' He reached and touched the tie on Toni's folio, as if he meant to unslip the knot. He lowered his voice. ‘I shan't tell a soul. I promise! No one need ever know. If you show me your drawings,' he lifted his hand from the tie, ‘I'll let you see the rest of these. You haven't seen the best yet. I have thirty books like this one. Yes! Thirty. One for each year. More than thirty. I've lost count. They deal with my struggle. My little journey. You know? A lifetime of desires and torments. The usual thing. But not only women. Other things, too. Even things that perhaps you've never thought of. So what do you say? Drawing has been my consolation.'

‘My drawings wouldn't interest you,' Toni said. ‘They're just private notes compared to these. Yours are real pictures. They're works of art, no matter what you say.'

‘So you found them pleasantly disturbing?'

‘Impressive more than anything. Yes, I suppose disturbing too, in a way.'

Theo gave a little smile of secret pleasure. ‘Marina is pleasantly disturbing, don't you think? But now I
am
offending you. No, you're right. We'll say no more about my son's wife. Anyway, think about my proposition. Robert tells me you're a fine draughtsman.' He waited, then added slyly, ‘I may die before you finish your pictures. Then I'll never see your work. Would that be fair?'

Toni laughed. ‘I don't think you're going to die that soon.'

‘So now you're a doctor? In my condition, believe me, death is already here. These days I'm just an onlooker. Would you like coffee? Life is still a great excitement for Robert and Marina. She wants to have his book waiting for him when he gets home. She knows how much he needs some good news at this moment to bolster his spirits. That's not being in the presence of death, that's being in mid-stride. I, however, just watch. But I still make good coffee. It's the one thing I can still do well.' He stepped across to the bench and looked into the coffee pot.

Toni watched him. ‘Your drawings make me realise what a beginner I am. They're really great.'

‘Not so! No! Not great. Nothing special. Great is not a word you should splash around.' He spooned coffee grounds. ‘I've been living between Paris and Hamburg for the past forty-three years. Since Robert was seven. I suppose he's told you what a cad his old man is?'

‘Robert has only ever spoken of you with respect.' It was a lie, Robert had hardly ever referred to his absent father in all the years Toni had known him.

‘Well, that's nice, but I don't deserve it from him. Mine's the old story. There's nothing unique about it. I fell in love with a beautiful Polish girl while I was visiting Paris and I couldn't resist her, so I abandoned Robert and his mother and returned to live with her in Hamburg. My beautiful Marguerite!' Theo made a sound somewhere between a throaty chuckle and a sob. He put the coffee pot on and lit the gas. ‘She died two years ago. I've been living on my own since. Without her I'm an empty man.' He looked at Toni. ‘She would have liked you. You are the young man I should like to have been myself once upon a time. Your situation would have interested her. She was a doctor. A psychiatrist. People and their situations interested her. She understood the transference of the artist and his subject. I told her I would take her to my old home one day. Well here I am! Alone!' He shook his head and turned away. ‘Two years is nothing. It's nothing! I have lost time. It's terrible. I'm not going to get over it. They told me it would take a year then I'd be okay again. But they didn't know what they were talking about.' He turned back to Toni. ‘I'm not a great moral example to anyone. This jumping disease is my just deserts. It's a lingering disease. You were right, and unfortunately it's not going to do for me any day soon.'

His dirty white robe swung open as he moved about attending to the coffee and Toni caught glimpses of his chalk-white body, the greenish phosphorescence of decay, the livid patches of ulceration. Theo's body was a scene of carnage and a fascination to his eye.

After a minute the coffee maker began to wheeze, the smell filling the kitchen.

Theo poured coffee into two cups. ‘If you want good coffee, don't go to Hamburg, go to Vienna.' He handed a cup to Toni. ‘Let's sit down before my knees give way. My hips too. Everything aches. We all get our share of pain before this game's over. I'm not complaining.' He slipped the rubber band over his sketchbook, slid the pen between the band and the cover, and preceded Toni through into the dining room. They sat opposite each other at the round table. ‘Marguerite suffered.' He fell silent, gathering his resolve. ‘We were never closer than during her last night.' He looked up. There were tears in his eyes. He struggled to continue. ‘Then, suddenly, she was gone and I was alone.' He sat a moment. ‘The silence is something you can't imagine.' He sat gazing into his coffee. After a while he said, ‘They had two teams of rats. One team they fed on caffeine. The equivalent of a hundred cups of coffee a day. The other team they fed with normal rat food but no coffee. They couldn't induce Alzheimer's in the rats to which they fed the caffeine.' He smiled, a boyish smile suddenly, in which there was a ghost of the spirited young man he must once have been. ‘We're only complicated rats. So I make it strong. She was a beautiful woman. Without her I've become a garrulous old man.' He laughed and sat looking at Toni over the rim of his cup, the red flash under his left eye gleaming moistly. ‘You know why old men talk so much? They don't mind dying, that's not it. They hate seeing their experience go for nothing. It all dies with them. They'd like to pass it on, make it real again, give it a touch of immortality. You're not a big talker yourself.'

‘I get going after a few drinks.'

‘There's nothing interesting about dying.' He leaned back and regarded Toni, the fingers of his free hand playing over the cover of the sketchbook. ‘These are drawings. Don't confuse them with life. Art makes life bearable, not the other way around. Look at the rest of them, if you want to.'

‘That's very generous.'

Theo shrugged. ‘Promise you won't tell Marina and Robert?'

‘Of course not. I was wondering what my father would have thought of your work.'

‘Was your father an artist?'

‘Yes. I believe he was a very good one.'

‘What was his name?'

‘He never showed his work. He was unknown.'

‘Anonymous, like the Master L.D. I like that. His work might outlive his name. Did anything survive him?'

‘My mother collected all his work.'

‘Good! Then he has outlived himself.'

‘He used to say the purpose of art is to resist the world's ugliness.'

‘That is beautiful in itself without the art. All such sayings are true, even when they contradict each other. That is the mystery. Art is instinctive. It's primitive. The learned man sacrifices his instincts to reason. The most dangerous time for an artist is after his work has found favour with the public. Then he is tempted to stop struggling. And that's what finishes him. He stops taking risks. Not Picasso. He knew he was a god. He risked everything to the end. That is divinity. Picasso was the exception. Great art, like great music, comes from struggle. There's no easy way.'

Toni had noticed that Theo's hands had begun to jump and twitch again, his long wispy hair floating around his head as if it were charged with the static of his thoughts.

‘If you and I are going to be friends, then I had better tell you the real reason I came back.' He waited a considerable moment, as if he were debating with himself whether to confess his secret to Toni. ‘I wondered if over here, where I was born, my old memories of home and my youth might return and overwhelm the pain of losing Marguerite. I came back because I was hoping to distract myself.' He sat staring at Toni for a time. ‘It was a futile hope. You won't tell Robert, will you?'

‘No. Of course I won't.'

‘But he's your friend? Sometimes we tell friends things we didn't mean to tell them. It would hurt him to know I had not returned to spend my last days with him. And I don't wish to hurt him. He calls me Dad. Marguerite would have said that is his denial of the futility of his own hope, the hope of having a real father. But denial is sometimes our only refuge against despair. All our consolations are based on illusions. To the artist, illusion is everything. Illusion is the artist's sacred ground, not religion. Robert is a stranger to me. How could it be otherwise? But he is my son, and I see him struggling to make sense of his life. I've finished with that. That's over for me.'

‘I shan't tell Robert what you've said. I promise.'

Theo pushed his sketchbook across the table. ‘I want you to have this. I've finished with it.'

Toni hesitated.