Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (16 page)

What has yet to be, what has come and gone, what no longer is. The place nothing but space, and not a place, the place occupied and therefore designated, the place once more space and the sediment of what remains. This is the most straightforward biography of a man, of a world, and perhaps even of a picture. Or of a book. I insist that everything is biography. Everything is life, lived, painted and written: to be living, to be painting, to be writing: to have lived, to have written, to have painted. And the prelude to all this, the world still uninhabited, waiting or preparing for the arrival of man and the other animals, all the animals, the birds of tender flesh, of feathers and songs. A great silence over the mountains and plains. And then, very much later, the same silence over different mountains and plains and over deserted cities, loose sheets of paper still being blown through the streets by a questioning wind which moves off into the countryside without any response. Between the two imaginings, the one the before demands and the other which the afterward threatens, there is biography, man, the book, the picture.

The water drained from the Mediterranean, Venice balanced on tall stakes as if they were her bones, so tall that only the birds visit the city. Broniatowski’s figures of men and women might be strolling the streets and squares, naked figures covered or dressed in newspaper, headlines covering their skin, mouth, limbs, sex and eyes. This is a possible afterward. I inhabit my obsession with these images but wish that it were otherwise. One has to imagine the desert, contemplate the desert like Lawrence of Arabia in the film, to strip away everything, to create perfect silence, that which only the sounds of our body inhabit, to listen to blood coursing through the undulating softness of our veins, the throbbing of blood, the artery of our throat pounding, our heart beating, ribs vibrating, intestines gurgling, air whistling between the hairs of our nostrils. And now is the moment. Now day may dawn, slowly, slower still, without haste. Lying on the ground, on one’s back, looking up where the sky will start to clear, then turning one’s head from side to side, because there is no certainty in this world that the sun will rise in the east, one has to catch the first glimmer of light, the first fringe, perhaps another bird, that spot on the mountain where the sky settles, a glance, a smile, two hands ready to build. In the end, it might just as well be the Scrovegni Chapel as the brotherhood of Tetrarchs, shoulder to shoulder, the common gesture of laying their hand on their sword hilts as they pursue a common goal. Daylight at last. Seated on the scaffold, Giotto paints Lazarus restored to life. And far, far away, in Egypt (or perhaps in Syria) one can still see today the enormous slab of porphyry showing the scar left by the block from which the Tetrarchs were carved.

Between life and death, between the spelling of death and the spelling of life, I go on writing these things, balanced on the narrowest of bridges, my open arms clutching the air, wishing it were more dense so that the fall might or may not be so hasty. Might not, may not. In a painting these would be two very similar shades of the same color, the color “to be,” to be precise. A verb is a color, a noun a symbol. In the desert, only nothingness is everything. Here we separate, distinguish, arrange things in drawers, storerooms and warehouses. We commit everything to biography. Sometimes we give an accurate account, but our judgment is much more reliable when we invent. Invention cannot be compared with reality, therefore it is more likely to be faithful. Reality is untranslatable because it is plastic and dynamic. It is also dialectic. I know something about this because I studied it at one time, because I have painted, because I am writing. Even as I write, the world outside is changing. No image can capture it, the instant does not exist. The wave that came rolling has already broken, the leaf has ceased to be a wing and will soon snap, withered under our feet. And there is the swollen belly which rapidly goes down, the stretched skin which contracts again, while a child struggles for breath and calls out. This is not the time for the desert. It is no longer time. It is not yet time.

I
HAVE BEEN OFFERED
another commission, but I have no intention of starting to paint just yet. In this profession of mine it is sometimes useful, without overdoing it, to show that one is not readily available. If someone expects to have his portrait painted and the painter says without a moment’s hesitation “At your service,” the client is almost certain to feel disappointed. We portrait painters must try to be more astute. The basic rule is to treat the person who wants his portrait painted like a patient. What does the patient do? The patient rings the doctor’s office, speaks to his receptionist, and makes an appointment three weeks in advance. Could anyone wish for better attention? During the weeks of waiting, the patient considers himself as important as the doctor who keeps him waiting. He takes pride in having a doctor who is in such great demand, preoccupies himself with the affairs of a man who will be unavailable for three weeks before finally being able to see him, listen to him, examine him and then arrange for tests and further analyses. And, if possible, cure him. But the waiting in such cases is almost as good as the remedy. As everyone knows, only the poor die from a lack of medical attention.

The same is true of portrait painting, although here there is the additional advantage that the person about to be portrayed still has a few more days to prepare himself. He will take care over his appearance, make every effort not to give the impression of being diminished psychologically, because this portrait is going to be an examination when the time for examinations has already passed. And when the time comes for the first sitting, the person about to be painted will look at the painter as I imagine the penitent must feel tempted to look at his confessor or the patient at his doctor: What secrets or mysteries are his secrets and mysteries about to encounter? What words will attach themselves to mine? What face existed before mine? Who inhabited this place before me? All of them good reasons for keeping the client waiting. And meanwhile, I need the money. Even this quiet life I lead, the rare outings, my painting (writing in recent months), simply breathing, eating, the clothes I wear, painting and writing materials, the car I hardly ever use, all of these things constantly require money. They are not luxuries, but the cost of living is steadily rising. Everyone complains. It is true that my needs are few. If necessary, I would be quite happy to settle for some writing paper, a bed, a table and a chair. Or perhaps two chairs rather than keep a visitor standing. And my easel, because I need it. Let me say here and now that my childhood and adolescence were not easy. I know something about privations. In my parents’ house (both of them are dead) there was little money and barely enough food to go around. And for some years (far too many in a child’s eyes) home consisted of a single rented room, in addition to what one referred to in those days as “use of the kitchen at mealtimes,” and that was precisely what it meant. It was only later that bathrooms were to become a common feature in the construction of houses. Here in Lisbon, at a time when there were few slums of any size and poor living conditions were confined to dilapidated tenement buildings and old farmhouses in the suburbs, there were many homes where the kitchen sink was used for disposing of all garbage and excrement. Each room had its own chamber pot, and the servant who cleaned out the rooms would empty the chamber pot in the kitchen after giving fair warning so that the other women and children had time to get out of the way. The chamber pot was covered with a cloth as it was carried to the kitchen, not because of the stench, which no cloth could ever suppress (everyone knew everyone else by their smell), but simply out of modesty and discretion, and even after all these years, just to think of it makes me shake my head and quietly smile.

I must be getting old. Because life is becoming costly I find myself remembering things from a difficult past. Perhaps I am giving the impression of being the sort of man who thinks the world owes him a living, but I do not believe this is helpful for one’s psychological stability. No one should feel sorry for himself. This is the first commandment of human respect (contradiction: no man can take pity on others unless he has taken pity on himself). But this facility for recalling episodes of no significance and long since forgotten is clearly a sign of old age (if what we read in books is true). I can still see, even after all these years, that drunk old woman who lived in the tenement, sprawled out amid the skirts of the other women, who were both scandalized and amused as they watched her lying there, plastered, singing to herself and masturbating on the highly polished floor (such incongruity: plastered, polished). At that age I only knew about singing. And I only caught the briefest glimpse. The women closed ranks and screened the entrance to her room and one of them (not my mother) led me out onto the veranda, where I can remember feeling much more indifferent than I am today. I was expelled onto the veranda of another house after being given two hard smacks (or was it three? or four?) when I was discovered in bed with a little girl who was not much older than myself (by now she must be ancient). What were the two of us up to? Obviously, nothing. We were simply experimenting, trying to imitate what we had both seen our parents do in bed when they thought we were asleep and our hearts beat furiously as we were confronted by this mystery from which we were excluded. Seated on the long veranda at the back of the house, which looked onto a vast expanse of yards, one for each tenement (how often I flew over those yards in my dreams), she and I wept, not because of our interrupted lesson but because of the sting of those smacks and the shame those shrieking women tried to inflict on our souls. Those same women who, in the privacy of their bedrooms, sighed and moaned once they and their husbands (our fathers) had made up their minds that we were fast asleep and there was no danger of our waking up. Childhood is full of so many little episodes.

I have not been out much. Adelina went back home, as one would say, to spend her holidays with her mother. She cultivates this tranquil, bourgeois habit of going home for a fortnight (the third week she reserves for us, as we agreed, not the entire week but the odd day here and there) to a village where she was either born or brought up. She gets back to her roots, as that man would say who, after being set down on the moon or Mars to live and work, returns to earth for a holiday or simply to readapt (if worth his while) to customs here and bring himself up to date with the ways and passing convictions of the inhabitants of this third planet of the solar system, counting from the one closest to the sun to the one farthest away. In short, back to earth. Summer is over and I am alone. It is still easy to find parking space, the gutters can be seen again, the streets seem to have regained their appearance of old, the traffic moves without difficulty. But I am alone. Nearly all of my friends are away. Some said goodbye. Others not even that. And why should they? Carmo and Sandra are probably in the Algarve, or were they heading for Spain? I’ve forgotten. Chico is still infatuated with an English dancer appearing at the Casino in Estoril, and no one sees him these days. He calls me now and then to brag. As for Ana and Francisco (it is easier for me to refer to the other Francisco as Chico), I get the impression their affair is cooling off. Probably no bad thing. They gave everything they had, perhaps convinced that in this way they would satisfy those forever vague precepts about love, and prove to friends and acquaintances that they took their affair seriously. And it was serious. It continues to be serious but different. They still go around holding hands, but this is a role they learned to play, which an appreciative audience once acclaimed, but now all they can expect is the occasional handclap. I can sense their disquiet, how anxious they are to keep up the pretense, to smile as they put a brave face on things, and my heart goes out to them. I think of them with affection and put it in writing. As for Antonio, he has not been seen ever since that disastrous scene (or episode) of the canvas covered in black paint, which I alone knew was hiding a portrait I had been unable to finish. I would like to see him, to talk to him. There is probably a masochistic streak in my nature. At this moment (just at this moment, for I am sure to change my mind almost immediately) I would like to hand him these written pages. Perhaps to take my revenge, perhaps to throw down the gauntlet once more. A challenge I might lose, but the gesture itself would ensure me some kind of irrefutable victory. Of this I am convinced.

It is already night. Not too far advanced, eleven o’clock, perhaps a little later. I always remove my watch when I am painting, I also take it off to write and usually hang it from one of Saint Antony’s fingers or respectfully put it around his wrist so that he will stand out even more from the other saints and at least know how the time is going while I go in search of myself by writing or painting. This Saint Antony is made of wood which could be described as worm-eaten. A trunk for the rigid body, a block for the head, two branches (from a tree) for the arms, a lot of gouging, painted in the conventional manner, a hole in the nape of the neck to secure his halo, everything that is required to make Antony a saint. I took care to place him against a white wall reminiscent of his monastic cell, when miracles were no longer spreading faith in the outside world. With this wood (all from the same tree? or from trees which grew side by side? or from others which could only be found here?) other saints could have been carved, the entire Golden Legend, one of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, Eve, Magdalen, Mother Eternal and Earthly Father, the angel of annunciations, the first proclaiming life, the second death, none proclaiming resurrection. I look at the saint and start writing and it is as if I were painting. I fidget in my chair, can hear it creak, and everything about this world strikes me as being as simple as the fact that this chair in which I am sitting and this saint I am looking at are both made of wood. The greatest irreverence and the most sublime veneration.