The Forgery of Venus (28 page)

A tapping on the door, or so it seemed. I lay very, very still and hoped it would go away. No, another tap and a voice. It said, “Chaz?” A familiar voice? How could I tell?

Sound of a door opening, and a click and the room was flooded with hideous light—I could see everything! I squirmed down under the covers to hide my face. A weight on the bed next to me, tugging at the quilt, a voice. It was Lotte’s voice, should have been comforting, I missed her so much, or somebody missed her, although it may have been someone else. She wanted me to get up, she pleaded, the children are upset. How long have they been here? I wondered. Are they really here at all?

She exposed my face and I didn’t try to hide it. Best to be completely passive. She looked a lot like Lotte my wife, but her face was blurry, not in focus, like the face of the dwarf in my painting. She touched my face. She said, “Oh, Chaz, what has happened to you?”

I’d like to know that too, I really would.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t want to ask her. I didn’t want to know who she’d been married to.

She said, “I have been so worried. Krebs said you had had a relapse, you were incoherent, raving. I came as soon as I could.”

I rummaged around for a while until I found my voice, one that sounded strange in my ears. I said, “I was painting the royal family. I am the greatest painter of the age.”

“Look at me,” she ordered. “You know who I am.”

I said, “You look like Lotte. Is this real?” and I laughed, a horrible sound. Lunatics are always depicted as laughing; we speak of maniacal laughter, and this is why. When the ground of reality is stripped away, when meaning itself takes a walk, what’s left is this monstrous hilarity.

And tears. I wept and she held me, and perhaps the reality of the familiar body, the smell of her hair, her perfume, worked on a brain level below the one that was screwed up so badly, and I calmed a little. She spoke slowly and gently as she often did to the children, about being summoned, about Krebs arranging everything, how he thought the presence of my family would help get me through this crisis.

And into my mind then, in the midst of the most extreme existential terror, came the thought that now my only course was to cleave to the wisdom of the sages and the bumper stickers and simply abandon all memory as unreliable, to discard the past and the future and simply try to exist moment to moment and see what happened. So, whoever this nice woman was, I was not going to ask her to confirm or deny anything about my past or about who Krebs was; I was just going to let her take the lead, and follow.

I said, “My memory is all scrambled.”

“But you remember
me,
yes? And the children?”

“Yes. How are the kids?”

“Oh, you know, all excited, the plane ride, this place. It’s quite lovely. There’s a little farm attached to it. They were down there all morning, ducks and goats and so on. Did I tell you, I’ve found a mar
velous clinic in Geneva for Milo? They think they can really do something for him.”

I said that sounded great, I said I was fine, not to worry. So, I made myself move like one of those robots controlled by a little remote, press one button for out of bed, another for the shower, and so on. I got dressed, greeted the world, and life, of a sort, resumed.

I
t was my daughter, Rose, who made the difference. I fell upon her with an intensity that amazed both of us, hugs and kisses and foolish talk. I spent unaccustomed hours with her over the next days, I’m not busy anymore, all the time in the world. She was the only person in my life who didn’t think I was crazy, she accepted me at face value, not caring for what the world thought. Could build your life on a kid, many people do, although it’s unfair as hell to the kid—they’re supposed to build on you. We walked through the woodlands, dabbled in streams, did little art projects. She found a shredder somewhere and made a big sheet of collage, the farm and its animals, but didn’t have enough pink for the pigs.

We were much at the farm, always accompanied by Franco. It’s where the Bienekes live, and there are some workers who actually do the farm work, very feudal arrangements hereabouts, the guys actually wearing lederhosen. This time of year we have young animals; Rose is entranced, it’s like her Richard Scarry animal book coming to life. Fine weather, fluffy clouds, a Constable painting, felicity surrounds us, except for our son dying in his room, but here’s the great part of being in the now: it doesn’t matter what’s
going
to happen or what
has
happened.

I believe I was as pleasant to others as I have ever been, a little shallow maybe, but no one seemed to mind. Lotte treated me very gently, like a live bomb, or no, more like she’s always treated Milo, like somebody who might disappear at any moment. Milo himself
was stiff and formal with me, he’s at the age when insanity in a parent is particularly distressing. For my part, I avoided him as much as I could. I couldn’t bear the expression on his face when he looked at me.

At the farm one morning Rose brought me a little duckling and I was able to focus my full attention on the squirming golden ball, and on my girl’s delight in the duck, and on the day, which seemed to last an amazingly long time, like summer days in childhood. Rose was able to drag me uncomplaining around the farm like a large rolling toy.

We entered the sheep barn. There were young lambs. As we inspected them, I knelt and said softly to my daughter, “Could I ask you a question?”

“Yes. Is this a game?”

“Uh-huh. I’m pretending I don’t know anything and you have to tell me stuff, okay?”

“What stuff?”

“Like what’s my name?”

“It’s Chaz. That’s a shortcut for Charles.”

“Very good! And where do I live?”

“In your loft.”

“And where do you and Mommy and Milo live?”

“In our house. It’s 134 Congress Street, Brooklyn, New York. I know our phone number too.”

I hugged her tight. “I bet you do, honey. Thank you.”

“Is this all of the game?”

“Yes, for now,” I said.

What a wonderful day!

It got better. We had lunch at the farm with the workers, big sweaty blondes who made much of my daughter and wife in German. Rose is bilingual in French and was delighted to discover that there was another language in which people can be sweet to her, and she
was able to communicate a little, with Lotte supplying phrases both amusing and useful. Such hearty laughter!

But after lunch it occurred to me that I might have hallucinated Rose’s answers. I was angry with myself for even thinking of such a stupid ploy, and in this mood I slipped down to the kitchen, chatted with the girls and Frau Bonner. They were making cakes, and busy, and I had no problem easing a six-inch chef ’s knife out of a drawer and up my sleeve. It was old and black and the wooden handle was cracked, so they probably don’t use it much and won’t miss it. Still razor sharp, though. It made me feel good to have a weapon. I thought that if I ever figured out who my real enemies were I would use it on them. I tested it on my own wrists too, just scratches. That was also a possibility that came to mind.

That evening we were having dinner with his excellency the evil magician, and we were asked to dress for it. Lotte thought it was a lovely idea, to dress up for dinner. I wore my Venice suit; she fetched out a wonderful sheath dress in a Naples-yellow fabric that sparkled. She looked terrific in the formal dining room too, along with the crystal and the polished mahogany and the silver champagne bucket and Krebs smiling in his white dinner jacket like Reichsmarschal Göring, but not as fat.

A nice dinner too, or would’ve been if I hadn’t had so much to drink. I’d forgotten that booze knocked you out of that state of just being, which is why drunks are always going on about the past and making promises about the future, and why AA is always preaching one day at a time. Anyway, we’d just finished the boar with red cabbage, and Krebs and Lotte were deep in a conversation about what was showing in New York, and Lotte was telling him about Rudolf Stingel, who apparently uses chipped Styrofoam panels and linoleum and industrial carpeting distressed in various ways and hung on the wall to make people forget beauty and really experience the fact that
everything is just total shit, and who was having his one-man at the Whitney, and Lotte turned to Krebs and said in a clear voice something about my own one-man show at the Whitney.

Krebs listened affably to this while my blood chilled, and then Lotte looked me right in the eye with a hesitant half smile and said, “It was a wonderful show.”

Yes, my Lotte.

Before anyone could stop me, I jumped up and ran out of the dining room and down the hall to Krebs’s office, where I entered and locked the door behind me. I started searching, I’m not sure for what, some
evidence,
some physical object that I could use to defend my memories of my life as an impoverished commercial hack, and funny, isn’t it, I hated it while I was living it, but in retrospect it seemed to be the most precious thing in the world; how we love what we take to be our true selves. And so much did I
not
want to be the painter of those sexy Teflon nudes that I looked for such an item. I looked a little roughly, I have to say; I think I broke some nice things in there. I used my knife on some of Krebs’s possessions.

Keys were rattling in the lock as I ran out through the French windows, around the house, and in through the kitchen door. There was a wall phone there, and I grabbed it and punched in my sister’s number, the number of her organization, surely there’d be someone there who would take an emergency message, get it to her in Africa, please, your brother doesn’t know who he is, could you tell him? But what I heard was “The number you have reached is not a working number, please try again,” which I didn’t have time to do, because they were coming through the house after me, so I ran up the back stairs. I had to find Rose, because she was the only one now, because maybe I’d made up Charlie too. If I could get to Rose and ask her a few questions again I’d be all right.

She was standing in the hallway holding her pink blanket. I dropped to my knees in front of her.

“Rosie! What are you doing out of bed?”

“I was scared, Daddy. I heard people shouting.” Indeed people were shouting, in German. Footsteps pounded below.

“It’s okay, Rose,” I said. “Look, I’m going to take you to bed again, but first I want to play that game again, okay? Just tell me where I live and where you live and I’ll take you to bed and tell you a story and it’ll be all right.”

“I don’t want to, Daddy. I’m scared.”

“Come on, Rosie—where does Daddy live?” I knew it was wrong, just like I knew blowing a grand’s worth of coke a week was wrong, but I’d done that too. I thought. Anyway, I had to hear it, I had to have that information that instant or die.

I can imagine what my face looked like at that moment, because I could see the terror in her eyes. She started to blubber. I grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. “Tell me, damn it!” I yelled. Rose cried out and I heard Lotte scream behind me, as who would not on seeing a maniac poised over a little girl brandishing a knife? And then I was jerked backward by an arm around my throat and the knife went flying and Franco and one of the Slavs held me down, screaming, and then Krebs came up and yanked down my pants and shot me up with something that switched off my brain.

I
came to in a small white room, tied with soft restraints to a hospitel bed, my mouth parched, foul tasting, and dry as old newspapers. I croaked a little and someone must’ve heard me, because a nurse (or someone posing as a nurse) came in and took my pulse and gave me a cup of water and a straw to sip from. She said what I supposed were soothing things in German, and shortly thereafter a brisk young man appeared in my field of view. He had on a white lab coat
and those fashionable slit-type black eyeglasses, and he said his name was Schick and that he was the psychiatrist in charge of my case.

I said, “The world is whatever is the case.”

He blinked, then smiled. “Ah, yes, Wittgenstein. Do you study him?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just a bit that floated up.”

“Ah! Well, no matter. Do you know where you are, Mr. Wilmot?”

“A hospital?”

“Yes, it is a small hospital near Ingolstadt, and this is the psychiatric ward. Do you know why you are here?”

“I’m crazy?”

He smiled again. “Well, you have had a breakdown of some kind, delusions and amnesia, and so forth. In such cases, where there is no history and rapid onset, we look for organic causes, and I am happy to tell you that we have found none. You were given a CAT scan while you were unconscious, and your brain is perfectly normal in all respects.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

“Yes. And could you tell me what is this implant you have? It showed up on the scan.”

“I don’t have an implant.”

“Oh, yes. Very small, at the back of your left arm.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, this may be part of your amnesia, yes? In any case we will have it out and then we shall see what is what. Now, tell me, do you know now who you are?”

I didn’t, but I told him the story I thought he wanted to hear, successful painter goes berserk, thinks he’s an unsuccessful painter, and as we talked it suddenly made a lot of sense. What a strange thing to have concocted, I thought then, fantasizing myself as a bitter failure instead of the prosperous painter I clearly was. I felt calmer than I’d
been for a long time. They had me on some drug, obviously, and it was working. The implant? Well, I was sure there was some explanation, some necessary medical procedure that had slipped my mind. I hadn’t been myself lately, and so I might have forgotten I’d had it put in. Really, nothing seemed worth getting excited about. When he saw how calm I was he released the restraints. Quite a pleasant talk with Dr. Schick, and then he went away.

I had lunch and a pill and dozed for a while, and a nurse came in and shot some local anesthetic into my arm and did something with an instrument and went away. I asked her if I could see what she took out of me, but I couldn’t make myself understood, or maybe it wasn’t allowed. In a little while I fell asleep again.

When I awakened it was dark, darker than a hospital usually is, and that hospital smell was gone. I rose from my bed and walked out of the room to find myself in a wide hallway, high ceilinged, the walls covered in tapestries, with an occasional large painting. By the dim yellow light from candles set in wall sconces I see there are people there too, guards with helmets and halberds, and men and women dressed in black, with lace collars. None of them pay me any attention. There is a room from which comes the sound of weeping and muttered prayer. I go in and pass through several rooms, all richly furnished and lit with many candles, and at last to a bedroom, and a deathbed. There I see the soon-to-be widow, and the daughter and the son-in-law, and the priests, and those who have come to pay their last respects, and on the high draped bed is the dying man. The air is heavy with the scent of cloves.

I stand at the foot of this bed and stare at the wan, exhausted face, and the man opens his eyes and sees me.

He says, “You! I know you. I’ve dreamed about you in my dreams of hell. Are you a demon?”

“No,” I say, “just a painter like you. And it wasn’t hell you dreamed of, it was the future.”

“Am I dreaming still, then?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps I am dreaming you. No one else here can see me and this is real, at least to you.”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Then go away. I am sick.”

“You are dying, Don Diego. This is your last day on earth.”

“Then why are you tormenting me? Leave me in peace!”

“I had no choice in the matter,” I say. “I took a drug that comes from the Indies and the drug brought me to you. I can’t explain it, even though in the future we are more clever about these things than they were in your time. In any case, here I am, and I would like to ask you a question.”

He opens his eyes, waiting.

I say, “What became of the last portrait you painted of Leonora Fortunati, the one with your own portrait in the mirror?”

“You know about that?” he says, and his sunken eyes grow wide.

“I know everything, Don Diego. I know about you chasing the seller of red carnations when you were a child and how the priest brought you home, and how you learned to paint, and your visit to Madrid, when you were rejected, and how you went another time and became the king’s painter and how you felt when he first touched you, and your conversations with Rubens and your voyages to Italy, the first and the second, and I know about Leonora, how you painted her for Heliche and how she taught you about the art of love.”

It is a while before he speaks again, nor am I sure that he speaks at all. Perhaps it is a more subtle communication. “She died,” he says. “The plague struck in Rome and the boy died and she became sick as well and she wrote to me. She said she burnt it. I burnt her letter.”

I say, “This may be so, but the painting lives again. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“Well, since I am conversing with a phantom, which is impossible, then I suppose that it is also possible that a burnt painting can come
back to life. It was a wicked painting, but a good one. What you saw, however, was a forgery. The woman did not lie, I think, not when she saw the marks of death on her body.”