Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (10 page)

Anyone who paints portraits portrays himself. Therefore, the important thing is not the model but the painter, and the portrait is worth only as much as the painter himself and not a groat more. The Dr. Gachet painted by Van Gogh is Van Gogh and not Gachet, and the thousand different costumes (velvets, plumes, gold necklaces) in which Rembrandt painted himself are more expedients to give the impression that he was painting other people while painting himself in some other guise. I said I do not like my painting. That is because I do not like myself and I am obliged to look at myself in every portrait I paint, futile, weary, disheartened and lost, because I am neither Rembrandt nor Van Gogh. Which goes without saying.

But the person writing? Is he also writing himself? What is Tolstoy in
War and Peace?
What is Stendhal in
The Charterhouse of Parma?
Is
War and Peace
the whole Tolstoy? Is
The Charterhouse of Parma
the whole Stendhal? When they finished writing their books, did they find themselves in them? Or did they believe they had written nothing other than a work of fiction? And in what sense fiction, since some of the threads in their plots are historical? What was Stendhal before writing
The Charterhouse of Parma?
What did he end up being after writing it? And for how long? I only started writing a month ago, and it seems to me that I am no longer the same person. Because I have added another thirty days to my life? No. Because I have been writing. But what are these differences? Apart from knowing what they consist of, have they reconciled me to myself? As someone who dislikes seeing himself portrayed in the portraits I paint of others, would I like to see myself in this manuscript, an alternative portrait in which I have ended up portraying myself rather than someone else? Does this mean that I get closer to myself by means of writing rather than through painting? And this raises another question: will this manuscript go on even after I assume it to be finished? If the straits of the Tagus are located where I hoped to find India, will I be obliged to relinquish the name Vasco and call myself Ferdinand? Heaven forbid that I should die en route, as always happens to the man who fails to find what he is searching for in life. The man who took the wrong route and chose the wrong name.

O
NE OFTEN MISTAKENLY
describes oneself as a friend, or the name itself is misleading, and in this way and no other the word came into being. I am not criticizing my friends but the role we tacitly accept of looking after each other, of showing a solicitude the other person may not need yet expects to be shown, of exploiting presence and absence and complaining or not complaining of both according to our own best interests, which ignore those of our friends. Because of this bad conscience (remorse, moral disquiet or gentle rebuke from our so-called conscience), a planned reunion of friends is rather like a meeting of twin souls: everyone has abandoned whatever cannot be shared among those present, everyone becomes impoverished and diminished (for better or for worse) in order to become what is expected of them. For this reason, anyone who is anxious to keep up friendships lives in constant fear of losing them and is forever adapting to them just as the pupil of the eye responds to the light it receives. But the efforts made by groups of friends to adapt to each other (how would the pupil of the eye adapt to simultaneous lights of varying intensity if it could separate them and react to them one by one?) cannot last for any longer than the ability of each guest to raise or lower his or her own personality to a level agreed by all. It is always advisable, therefore, to curtail reunions before they reach breaking point and each of those tiny planets feels an irresistible urge to form another constellation elsewhere or simply to drop from sheer exhaustion into black, empty space.

Besides Adelina, who acted as hostess, eight friends of both sexes gathered in my flat. There were several steady couples among them, although I had my doubts about one couple (they were not together last time) and they had the same casual look Adelina and I were beginning to take on. But while they are still glowing (a banal expression which aptly conveys that aura of intense passion invisibly surrounding recent couples), we move about in a gentle glow and know it. Who are these friends of mine and what do they do? Several of them work in advertising, one is an architect, there is a doctor with his wife, an interior decorator who is really Adelina’s friend, a publisher, widowed and older than me (nice to know I am not the oldest person here), who is infatuated with the interior decorator but resigns himself to looking on as she flirts right and left. What distinguishes this group, apart from its ability to smoke, chat and drink at the same time (just like any other group), is their friendship toward me, which I reciprocate as best I can, know how to (or choose). If we were to try to find an explanation for this relationship, I am sure we would not find one; nevertheless we go on being friends because of our inertia, nourished by fear of that momentary solitude which we selfishly shun. What finally keeps us in that group is knowing that it will continue even after we have withdrawn. By continuing to take part, we can go on believing we are indispensable. It is a question of pride.

The same pride or fear of being inferior when compared with others provokes unspoken resentments and conflicts under the supreme justification of friendship and results in an unpunishable form of aggression for which the occasional or habitual victims are expected to appear grateful. This aggression is so blatant that even in a group such as ours, where people tactfully avoid touching on the whys and wherefores of our various professions (and just as well, since everyone knows I am a mediocre painter, not even a painter, since my paintings are not to be seen anywhere)—even in this group, as I was saying, misunderstandings and disagreements often arise when one of us suddenly finds he is being judged by all the others and an outburst of reciprocal sadomasochism erupts, almost invariably ending in tears and insults. And this is provoked by someone introducing into the conversation, either deliberately or simply because tired of pretending, some wounding remark about the profession of the victim of the day. And here, because of the professions we pursue, all of us define ourselves as exploiters and social parasites. The architect because it is true, the editor because that is culture, the advertising agents because it is obvious, the doctor because we all know what doctors are, as for the interior decorator, well! Adelina, well, well, well! And I, the portrait painter, well! As for me, I am usually spared any embarrassment, I repeat, because they are all competent at the jobs they have chosen to do, while my technical competence only serves to accentuate the poor quality of the paintings I produce.

Was Antonio, the architect, drunk? I would say not. Our kind of drinking rarely ends in drunkenness. But if it is true that
in vino est veritas,
then in this type of reunion the threshold of truth is crossed by those closest to it. This must be the explanation. Despite the open windows, the heat inside the studio was almost unbearable. We had talked about a thousand different things, unconnected and absurd, and as the night wore on, the lively discussions began to wane. Sitting on the floor, Adelina rested her head against my thighs (people usually say knees, probably because it sounds better, but what they mean are thighs, because knees are invariably hard, as you can see from mine). Out of affection and for the sheer tactile pleasure, I slowly ran my fingers through her hair as I drank my Gin and Tony, an expression I often use when I get tipsy. The interior decorator, whom I shall refer to as Sandra although that is not her name, has started flirting again with the doctor, quite harmlessly, but enough to make Carmo, the publisher (older than me, I hasten to repeat), suffer greater pangs of jealousy than Shakespeare’s Othello. It is also enough to make the doctor’s wife allow herself to be courted (such a nice old-fashioned expression) by Chico, the advertising agent, who fancies himself as a lady-killer and cannot resist a little innocent flirtation without getting involved. Deep down everyone knows this is all meaningless. Anything more serious or risky would break up the group, and that is the last thing any of us would want. Ana and Francisco (who complete the group) also work in advertising. Still in their early thirties, they are head over heels in love and truly alarmed at the strength of their own passion. Sitting there on the sofa, they are waiting for us to attribute their obvious excitement to the influence of alcohol. I know Carmo disapproves of such behavior in public, and I myself do not encourage it, but I can understand the terror which has taken possession of those poor hearts, minds, veins and sexual organs, that metronomic oscillation between life and death, that frenzied need to proclaim as eternal one’s own definition of the precarious. Carmo does not accept these things, but what would he do should Sandra accept him one day and share her bed with him, even if only for an hour?

And what about Antonio, the architect in our group, who says he will design houses for all of us one day? Where can Antonio be? Antonio, who had gone to the bathroom, now appeared in the doorway of the studio with a fixed, determined smile on his face, which could have been mistaken for malice, unlikely in the case of Antonio, always so quiet and unobtrusive. On one forefinger he was holding up the second portrait of S., invisible beneath the black paint, and I thought he must have discovered it by chance, for the light was on in the storeroom and naturally he had peeped in; after all, it was after midnight and we were becoming bored (except for Ana and Francisco) or starting to get into silly arguments about culture (how the bourgeoisie love going on about culture), and also being my friend, avowed and proven, everything concerning me concerned him. For this and other reasons which could not be defined or confided there and then, Antonio asked me, “Have you moved on to abstract painting? So much so that you now use only one color? And what about those little portraits of yours?” What I thought of Antonio between the moment I saw him in the doorway with the portrait in his hand and the moment when I heard him speak, I shall only mention here because I do not want to rush things. It is important not to rush things but give things time to become clearer, and if they do not become clearer then it should not be for lack of time because time is the one thing I have right now, unless death decrees otherwise. And having got that off my chest, I can finally say that I leapt to my feet in a rage (sending Adelina onto the floor) and before reaching Antonio I was able to control myself sufficiently to simply snatch (yes, with violence) the picture he was now holding in both hands. I restrained myself from punching him because of that black picture which I would never be able to explain (Adelina herself knew nothing of its existence, her lack of curiosity assisted by the precautions I usually took to conceal it in a corner behind other recent paintings, so that the wet paint would come to no harm) and also because Antonio had deliberately infringed the rules of the group by classifying as “little portraits” paintings which I alone had any right to belittle behind locked doors and with my head under the sheets. As I carried the picture back into the storeroom, I could hear quite distinctly, as if he were speaking into my ear, Antonio’s voice repeating over and over again, “When is he going to start painting in earnest?” and the voices of the others begging him to be quiet in pleading tones, as if rebuking someone who had thoughtlessly blurted out the word “cancer” at the bedside of someone dying of the disease. Antonio had forgotten (or chosen to forget) that one never mentions the gallows in the house of a condemned man, nor speaks of “little portraits” to someone who paints nothing else. When I returned, Antonio had settled down, his expression obstinate but tranquil amid the anxiety and consternation of all the others, deeply absorbed in their own affairs (yet taking care not to hurt my feelings any further). Sandra, for example, was simply chatting to Ricardo, the doctor; Chico was simply conversing with Concha, the doctor’s wife; Francisco only had words for Ana, while Carmo was trying to engage Adelina in conversation, but nothing doing, she only had eyes for me, her face expressionless rather than glum, as if she were waiting for something to happen. No more was said on the subject and the night ended there. Ana and Francisco, poor things, rather than ask me to lend them my bed for a quarter of an hour, made some excuse or other and were the first to leave. Shortly afterward Ricardo and his wife, Concha, left because he was on duty next day. And Antonio quickly disappeared, mumbling words of apology: “Forgive me, I meant no harm.” Once people started leaving, Sandra made her departure, covering Adelina with kisses and taking Carmo and Chico with her as escorts, resigned to leaving me behind. I could imagine Carmo’s excitement, hoping that Sandra would offer him a lift (Carmo has no car, has never possessed one) and that rogue Chico insisting “Come on, Carmo, I’ll drive you home,” and so it would turn out unless Sandra decided to amuse herself by taking Carmo with her, watching him tremble and babble on about the weather before asking her if she would be interested in designing the jacket of a book. Chico could not care less, he is not one for beating about the bush. Anyhow, he suspects that Sandra is lesbian or on the way to becoming one (he has always told me so) and he wants nothing to do with lesbians. And he is almost certain to be magnanimous and allow Sandra to give Carmo a lift in her car, which smells of cigarette smoke and Chanel, so that Carmo may stretch out blissfully on his lonely widower’s bed.