How to Paint a Dead Man (27 page)

The rain has been keeping us indoors by the fire, but this morning the weather has broken and I am able to venture outside. I try not to dwell on my condition but I am asked frequently by the doctor and Theresa and Antonio to describe my discomforts. What can I tell them? Yes, it is uncomfortable. I have no appetite. I am thinner. Something dark consumes me from inside; it has multiplied and has entered the lymph system. There is no miracle. Everything has slowed–my writing, my movements, the paintbrush. I am full of sorrow for the loss of delicate fragrances. I can no longer smell the herbs or the rain or cinabrese. Even my old friend paper is too subtle with his cologne! But I am noticing other things more sharply. A cherry stone darkening on one side while the other remains pale and lit, like this remarkable planet. A piece of coral from the shelf is uncomfortably crisp to hold, as if baked almost to desiccation by salt kilns. I make these observations with a sense of wonder, and am only roused when Theresa comes into the room and asks what it is that I have forgotten or am looking for, and why I am stalled.

I am kindly forgiven for wearing this old robe, with ragged cuffs, when visitors arrive. Antonio limits the time of anyone wishing to call upon me, and now refuses to let me give interviews. This is a relief, and I am thankful. The newspapers are already commemorating my life, it seems, though the speculation about the motifs continues. More reporters would like to come, but the door of the studio is closed to them. One day one of them will write a simple sentence.

I must fortify myself and commit myself to putting the studies and canvases in order. They lean against the walls every which way and are not in series. Antonio is doing much lifting and carrying; he goes beyond his call of duty. The accounting has been done. The papers have gone to the solicitor. I know nothing of archives; needless to say, I am no clerk, and I leave much work for them to do! The house is to be left to my wife’s family. They will have to excuse its gardens. There is a sense of preparation here at Serra Partucci, and it is strange to think that I will not need luggage, or even a hat upon my head, for my departure. I strongly feel that I should fold my clothes, press my shirts and polish my shoes.

I have begun several letters to Peter. Each sounds too conclusive and too imperative, and each has been discarded. I have no wish to depress him, nor should I press upon him any methodology for working. I wish only to say his correspondence has given me great pleasure. He will find his way, I am certain. I was schooled with Nelo Ungaretti, the great mathematician and architect, a man of such vivacity that all who knew him were certain he would prosper in his field, and though the war sadly robbed us of him, he was indeed triumphant. I believe Peter has Ungaretti’s qualities.

I have sent my best wishes to the children in the school, and to Signora Russo I have donated many books. Upon my request, Giancarlo brought his small dog here and permitted me to stroke him. He has proved to be a good forager. Giancarlo and I talked fondly while the dog ran about, sniffing in the corners of the house. Theresa was nervous throughout the meeting and kept her hands tightly linked. Perhaps she thought our discussion would move on to politics or that I would embarrass her with praise. I have made small provision for the family in the will but I have not mentioned this in case they will not accept it. The doctor has given me a small supply of morphine for the coming days. I have not yet taken any.

My mind reaches back into the past. Today, as if finding a lost charm or trinket, I have suddenly recalled the infant nickname my mother gave me. Gyri. I have remembered my mother’s voice calling from the orchard of Via Lame, calling to me now, sixty years after she passed away. I recall the woven basket she wore over her shoulder with its red scarf under the strap, the pop and rustle as each fruit was snapped from the branches and placed without bruising into the container on her hip, and the pollen shaken down into her hair. One does not question God. One does not question a life beyond this. We cannot understand or predict. But if such a thing should exist, and if the beloved remain there, then how willingly I am gathered.

The voice calling is not my mother’s; it is Theresa’s. She has arrived early. She is keeping kind hours. She has rested her parched bicycle against the gate with its pedal between the railings. She has come into the house and has begun to prepare breakfast for her patient. I must extinguish my cigarette!

Now there are medical procedures to be endured, for which I need her help. I will pause and resume after.

The painting of the blue bottles is almost finished now. I am pleased with it. Standing at the easel is difficult, as I have less strength. I have tried sitting but it is an uncustomary position-the canvas is tall and awkward, as the artist must have been all his life! I am committed much of the time to my bed, and it is a comfort to look over and see this composition nearing completion. The bottles on the studio table collect and empty their bright tides as the light of each day arrives and passes. What can be said of them finally? I do not know. They are not consolation, but they have always been sufficient.

The artistic efforts of men are indicative of our human openness, our inquisitiveness, I think. When we attempt to evaluate, or to obviate, we seldom guess correctly. Our minds are born nervous, in darkness. We are subterranean beings. We must learn by the senses and continue to be instinctual, to use the antennae. The oils of lavender bring sleep when we apply them to the pillow. Aniseed stirs us. In the museums, we must believe in the Dutch trick, the red deer, and the monk beneath the vast sky. We must look at the reality, and then look again at the illusion. We must see beyond. For what shakes the eye but the invisible?

Theresa is calling for me to come inside and eat. I must obey her or there will be unrest in the house and the broom will come out. I cannot be responsible for the decimation of our lizard population! But the view from the veranda is marvellous, and I linger.

I abhor catastrophe in all forms. There has been much I have wished to retain and repair. There is so much still to order. Yet I wait for the snow to arrive on the mountains.

You hold the thin plastic device in your hand, watching the strip for a blue line, which may or may not appear. The bathroom door is locked. The blinds are drawn. Opposite you is your reflection. Nathan is in the kitchen–you can hear the gonging of pans as he lifts one out of the cupboard, the hiss of the tap, and the bowing of water as the metal hull fills. The lid of the toilet seat is cold on the backs of your legs. There are small hexagonal tiles under your feet, the edges of which you trace with your toes. This is a scenario you were never sure you would experience. You have always been ambivalent about children. But here you are. You’ve followed the test instructions with clinical precision. The box tells you the percentage of accuracy is high. You are in the hands of trustworthy science. Science will scout out the correct hormones, distinguishing them, or declaring their absence. The tiny portable laboratory in your hand is, at this moment, going about its business.

It should only take a few minutes, and then you will know. The world will arrange itself around this information. It will make way for another temporary pulse, or it will retain its position, adjusting the count elsewhere around the world as people pitch in and out, headlong, hundreds of them by the second. The indicator paper is clear and prepared. You think of bromide emulsion, light sensitivities, of waiting for a face to develop in a photograph. It’s like waiting to know if the image has succeeded or failed. The device is a viewfinder, an observatory. And in a few minutes you will know who is or is not there.

You feel no discernible emotion either way, and you are not sure what you will feel when the result comes in. Terror? Elation? Disappointment? Or something in between? You will have to wait and see.

The funny thing is, you’ve been thinking so long and hard about death that you’ve lost sight of its fraternal twin, its obverse pole. This is the prerogative of grief you suppose. There have been times you’ve not realised you were crying, until you put your hand to your face and it came away wet, until you noticed that someone was looking at you curiously, the concerned stranger on the train, or the woman in the supermarket who offered you a tissue. You have been so consumed that you’ve almost forgotten about the other side, the affirmation, the positive stroke. Life.

What is it really? A term. A condition. A state of being, for a while, animate. A state that is no longer radically felt, perhaps, that has no hard mortal slap, day after day, no jeopardy, nothing hanging in the balance–at least not in this safe little bolthole of the globe. There is no requirement to kill, no murdering for the scraps. Even the bloody bookends of birth and death are dulled with morphine, epidural, euthanasia. The occasional reminders of what it is to be anatomised, what it is to be made of particles, neurons, nerves, and senses, what it means to be homo sapiens–the car accident, the toxic oyster, the bolt rattling out of the rollercoaster–are few and far between. Ecstasy and agony are now on sale. Pay for the ride, pull the parachute cord, pop the pill, there will be insurance of some kind, a safety net below. The brain fires but the true biological impetus, of pain and desire, of hunger and fear, is missing. Because human beings can’t be given happiness, after all. They have to fight for it, sprint for it, get close to the edge for it. They have to rut for it, permit the striking of those dutiful, savant gametes. So you go on, in abstraction, until something wakes you up–a bomb, an accident, a close miss. So you fuck him, not for love, but because you both understand that death equals life. Perhaps.

In a few minutes you will know. You will know the consequences of your actions, the result of your programme to fulfil yourself, the primitive attempt to establish your presence. Here you are, waiting for a sign, waiting to know something more about yourself. What you already know is this: you reside at a privileged set of coordinates. You have a partner who loves you, employment, a house. You have parents, talents, a salary, a vote, and firing synapses. Hitherto your body has not let you down–breasts, cervix, eyes, ovaries, cerebral functions, immune system, lungs, and heart: nothing has yet malfunctioned, no dire failure has occurred, beyond the gentle degradation of ageing. If you choose to, you will live. And in your hands might be another life.

When you came home from the gallery an hour ago you thought about telling Nathan everything. You thought about telling him that you are no longer you, the woman he knew and trusted, that you are a different person now, capable of the worst possible damage. You thought about confessing, telling him about Tom and your dark obsession, the hotel rooms, the test kit in your bag, everything.

You took out your key, opened the flat door. Nathan was home, of course.
Hiya, love.
He came out of the kitchen holding a glass of wine.
Not staying late tonight then?
He passed you the glass stem, kissed your cheek.
You have this. I’ll make dinner.
You shrugged off your coat, sat on the couch. You looked around the place. Everything was familiar, the Victorian fire with its trivets and tiles, the flax-green walls, bookcases, furniture, your photographs, hanging in meaningful series, all of which you had chosen, all of which you could leave.

The door of the second bedroom was open. Sitting on the corner of the table was your Leica, and a folder of contact sheets for an overdue commission. Steam was coming from the kitchen, the smell of garlic. You put your bag on the couch beside you, took a sip of wine, reached for the remote and turned on the television. On one channel was a film set in the Australian outback. An aboriginal woman had had her child stolen; she was beating her head with a rock. On another was a programme about trepanning; people were drilling into their foreheads, blazing in towards the tender frontal lobes. They thought it would bring them wisdom. The hundred sexiest music videos. A hospital drama, someone’s hand about to be amputated.
You can’t do it, you can’t do it to me,
the patient was screaming.

You kept pressing the arrow key on the remote, passing up through the channels until you reached those that were blank. In the corner of the screen was the word
scrambled.
You wondered if this was what Nicki saw behind her eyelids-a dark visor, a projection of nothing. You wondered how her life feels. Like an endless intermission perhaps, a continuation of those forty-five airless minutes on the moor, lying in the winter snow. The nurse once told you her muscles are so wasted that if she woke she would not be able to use them.
Imagine a moth carrying a tractor on its back,
she had said to you. You turned off the television and thought of Nicki’s hair, kept glossy by solutions of proteins and minerals dripped down into her, and by the brushing and brushing of her family.

You thought about going for a run. You imagined the cool twilight slipping past you on the heath, the city rotating under your soles. You drank your wine quickly, stood up, and went into the spare room. The phone was flashing red. The console told you there were three new messages. You picked up the rangefinder, dusted it off. Inside the heavy case you knew Danny would be sitting outside the railway station surrounded by birds. His arms would be stretched along the back of the bench. He would be smiling. You shut your eyes and thought about his first bike, the one he’d had when he was a kid, the one with the long handlebars that had rattled over potholes on the farm roads and flung him off into the thistles when he hit a ditch on the moor. You thought about him laughing, even as he lay there getting stung. Danny.

Nathan called from the kitchen.
You’ve got a few minutes, I’m just about to put the pasta on.
You took the film cartridge out of the bottom of the camera, worked the casing open and drew the thin plastic strip out into the light. You laid it on the studio table, where it re-curled, set the Leica down next to it and went back into the lounge. You took the paper pharmacy packet out of your bag and locked yourself in the bathroom.

You hold the plastic device in your hands. It weighs almost nothing. The floor tiles are small and cold. In the bathroom mirror your reflection is returning your gaze. London is outside the window. The streetlights are coming on, making the sky orange, and the traffic is continual, planes and helicopters passing overhead. Either side of this building, millions of people live, and millions die. The world can accommodate your situation, as it accommodates all situations. And your body will keep explaining to you how it all works, this original experiment, this lifelong gift. Your body will keep describing how, for the time being at least, there is no escape from this particular vessel. These are your atoms. This is your consciousness. These are your experiences–your successes and mistakes. This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography. This is the existential container, the bowl of your life’s soup, wherein something can be made sense of, wherein there is a cure, wherein you are.

You look down. In the window of the test there is a faint blue line. You watch it grow stronger and darker. Outside the bathroom door, Nathan calls softly.
Susan? Susan?

Yes,
you say.
I’m here.