He looked up at her again over his shoulder. “Tell me. Tell me how.”
She collapsed gracefully into a cross-legged seat and put her hands on her knees, as though she were meditating.
“What you need to understand is that Toefler, with an off-handed comment, stabbed Ossirian through the heart. He was bleeding; hemorrhaging purpose. He had no direction, no passion. He was inconsolable. He was never a man to turn away from an experience and he embraced his dissolution with the same energy with which he had embraced all the rest of his life.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He threw back the glass of caipirinha, downing the whole lot in a single gulp and slammed the glass onto the bar. Diego, Carolyn, and Miciela shared a glance. Ossirian had been drinking steadily since the disastrous party seven days ago, his waking hours and increasing frantic energy lubricated with a steady stream of alcohol. What had started as an amused rant had become a steady stream of invective and abuse, all of it heaped upon his own head. My talent, he said, is worthless. My soul, he said, is corroded. My heart, he said, is broken.
Of all the things he said, slurring the words far too little for an eighteen-year-old who had been drinking as long as it took God to make the world, these are the ones that Carolyn believes. His heart has been broken by the casual cruelty of a jealous rival.
“It’s useless!” He reached for the caipirinha. He eschewed the glass and downed a swallow right from the pitcher. “Worthless! Ridiculous!”
He thumped the pitcher down and stalked about the library, gesticulating and arguing half of a conversation they had difficulty following, as he lapsed in and out of English, Spanish, and Portuguese without slowing. He had begun to speak in literal tongues.
They were on their feet instantly as the angry young man tripped over a settee and pitched onto his face. Carolyn reached him first and cradled him in her arms. She rolled him over and gasped; his nose was streaming blood.
Diego and Miciela were at her side, Diego holding out a handkerchief, Miciela slipping under Ossirian’s head to help hold him still as Carolyn gently daubed at his nose.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “I’m sorry for this, and for him, and-”
“Nonsense,” Diego de la Luna told her in a kind, paternal voice. “It isn’t your fault. He’s in crisis.”
“I’ll… if you can call us a cab or arrange a car, I’ll take him home. You’ve been more than gracious, but it’s time we-”
“My Muse,” Ossirian muttered through the handkerchief, eyes closed, “I am home. I am in hell, but I am home. We are home. I have lost so much, do not take that from me as well.”
Diego put a gentle hand on Carolyn’s shoulder. “The lad’s right, Carolita. This is as much your home as any. We wish you to stay for as long as you like.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m grateful. But I don’t know what to do.”
“We heal him, of course. We give him what he needs to mend his soul.” Miciela brushed hair out of Ossirian’s tear-filled eyes.
“I don’t know how,” Carolyn said.
For the first time since meeting the stately, elegant older man, Carolyn heard in Diego de la Luna’s voice the bite of anger, bitter and searing.
“Perhaps not, but it’s not your wound to heal. We need something to soothe this brilliant, lost artist.”
“’m no’ an artist,” Ossirian slurred through the alcohol and the handkerchief. “’m a paint’r.”
“Yes, yes,’ Carolyn agreed. “And right at the moment you’re an exhausted painter who needs sleep, a shower, and ten gallons of coffee.”
Ossirian muttered something nonsensical. They managed in turns to get him on his feet, down the hallway, and into the room that he and Carolyn had been sharing since the night of the party, when it had become too late to go back down the mountain. It was plain to Carolyn that whatever was troubling the sensitive, wild young man’s mind, it was no mere crisis of confidence or even faith. He seemed to be shattering into pieces before her, and she could not help him. They wrestled his limp body onto the coverlet and all three heaved a sigh of relief. Ossirian seemed inclined to sleep. It would be a welcome change from the previous week, in which he drank, ranted, and slept where he fell, only to awaken minutes later and continue. None of them had ever seen anything like it, and even Carolyn, who spent her life around artists and students in all stages of debauchery, couldn’t for the life of her figure out how he kept going.
“Many thanks,” she panted. “Hopefully we can get some sleep.”
The de la Lunas shared a knowing look. “If he wakes in the night,” Diego told her, “be assured he will find no drink. I’m going to lock the cabinet.”
“Do you need help readying him for bed?” Miciela asked. Carolyn glanced at the woman, sure she had heard a sly inference, but the older woman’s wide-eyed gaze seemed to fairly ooze innocence.
“I can manage, thank you,” she said. She yawned enormously. She clapped a hand over her open mouth and her cheeks glowed pink. “I beg your pardon.”
“It seems we could all use a bit of sleep,” Diego said. He took his wife’s hand. “We’ll leave you to your rest. Until the morning.”
“Good night.” Carolyn closed it after them. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Ossirian, whose nose had stopped bleeding, and whose gentle snores caused her to shake her head in exasperation.
“What am I going to do with you?” she wondered aloud. She spent the next few minutes getting him undressed and under the covers. She stripped down herself, deciding that nightclothes were too much of a bother at the moment. She flicked the light out and climbed into the bed beside the young man. She cuddled up to him, her head on his chest. She listened to his heartbeat. She realized that his heart had begun to speed up almost the second after she had put her head upon it. As she realized this, his arms drew her close in a fierce, possessive envelopment. She sighed as he squeezed her. “My Muse,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m here, Ossirian.” Her voice was a rumble against his skin.
“My Muse,” he said again into her hair, and his hands began to caress her. Now, as always, her body responded, and although she tried to push herself up to bend over him, he rolled them over, pinning her to the bed with his delicious weight, his ardent lust evident against her. She opened her legs to him, her mouth to him; her heart was already wide open for him. He took her gently at first, and rougher as they both teetered on the edge.
“My Muse,” he panted again and again as their bodies cooled together, endearingly sticky in the hot, damp night.
She caressed his face in the darkness. “What can I do for you? What do you need?”
“I need… I need… I don’t know,” he muttered. “Who am I?”
“You’re Christoph Ossirian. You’re my painter.”
“Yes, yes. But who is that? Who is Christoph Ossirian?” His voice was peevish, irritated.
She blinked into the darkness, at a loss for an answer.
“Who is he? Who am I supposed to be?”
She had never heard him sound so lost. Even in his drunken anger he sounded furious that he should have lost his purpose, his sense of self. But now he sounded like a lost and scared sixteen-year-old boy, and it almost broke her heart to hear him pondering the nature of his existence without being able to give him an answer.
“I thought you were a painter. Is that not what you want to be?”
“I paint; I’m a painter,” he muttered. “But what kind of a painter? What do I need to say? What can I say?”
“Why, you can say anything in the world you wish to. With your skills and your hand and your eye, you can say anything at all.”
“That’s just it,” he slurred from the edge of a fitful sleep. “What do I have to say?”
His gentle snores and heavy, untroubled breathing soothed her. It would be better in the morning. He would be better. Still lost, but better equipped to cope with
it. She could give him a place to live, she could buy him food and clothing, she could introduce him to the world, but she could not give him a vision.
I’m a terrible Muse. I am letting him down. He needs a reason, a purpose, not just the skill to paint, but a desire to paint something. To show the world something he alone can see. Something more that he sees. Something unique and him.
Her skin prickled as she realized the crux of his problem, as it fell on her from that place beyond our conscious thoughts.
He needs to explain himself. But if he doesn’t understand himself, how can he?
She pondered this revelation all through the night until the first light of dawn peered under the shade of their east-facing window, as if checking to see if they were ready for the new day to begin.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He raged and stormed through the house, in turn angry and petulant. Diego had indeed hidden the alcohol away where Ossirian would not find it. When he snarled a response at Miciela in response to an innocent question about breakfast, Carolyn decided that she’d had enough of his bad temper and childishness. She knew both were momentary, and fleeting, but like a puppy that bites because it does not know its own strength, Ossirian snapped. And like the owner of that puppy, she needed to make her displeasure known.
“Ossirian!” she snapped. “You’ve been unforgivably rude! Senhora de la Luna did not deserve-”
Ossirian’s face justified her faith in him; it collapsed into remorse. He turned to the matron of the house, bowed, and said, “I apologize, my lady. You are not to be a target of my anger. Please forgive me. It shall not happen again.”
Miciela touched his shoulder. “It is quite all right. I under… well. I’m not sure I understand what troubles you, but I understand you don’t mean to sharpen your talons upon us.”
Disquietingly, Carolyn saw tears fall from Ossirian’s face to the thick carpet. His shoulders shook and he straightened. The anguish was plain on his open, innocent face. “I-I’m sorry,” he said in English. He switched back to his oddly-accented Portuguese. “I’m sorry. I don’t… I’m sorry.”
He turned from them all and stumbled into the hall, and from there to the back deck of the house. They heard the door close. Carolyn tore her gaze from the hall to stare at Miciela. The older woman gave her an unreadable look. “You want to help him.”
“Of course. But I don’t know how.”
“No. You are not an artist.”
Carolyn lowered her gaze. “I am not. I’m trained to study them. I’m trained to catalogue them, to interpret them. But I am not one.”
“That should not matter, but it does,” Miciela told her. “Artists are like priests. They are the link between the human and the divine. The interpreters of the holy messages. You do not send a human to heal a priest who has lost his faith, my dear.”
Carolyn nodded, still staring at the floor. “What do I do?”
Miciela’s hand touched under her chin, raised Carolyn’s head, and forced the younger woman to meet her eyes. “You do what you do. That is something I’m not sure you understand about yourself and your place in his world. You are his Muse. Your entire being is necessary to him.”
Carolyn stared at Miciela in shock. Then she laughed, a tiny, unbelieving laugh. “I… I’m necessary? Are you being serious? Miciela, I met him six months ago! I… I’m still a mestrada. I’m a masters candidate, I haven’t even graduated yet, and I’m in charge of… of him!” She flung a hand out, fingers wide, gesticulating at the direction in which Ossirian had vanished. “He gave me all his money! He gave me control of his art! I… I… I need to sit down,” she muttered, pressing a hand to her forehead. Miciela guided her to a chair. “I’m not ready for this. I’m not… I don’t have any idea…” she looked up, eyes wide and hunted. “I’m supposed to begin my advanced degree, start teaching first-years, start planning for my dissertation. This? This is- he is a full-time job. And I never dreamed that-”
“You love him.”
Carolyn felt as though she’d been plunged into an icy bath. Her skin prickled and her heart triphammered in her chest. She blinked to stave off the seeming darkness that threatened at the edge of her vision. Miciela pulled a low footstool over and sat, moving somewhat painfully, on the lower piece of furniture so that she could look up into Carolyn’s eyes.
“Is it so terrible?” Miciela’s voice was gentle. She put a hand on Carolyn’s knee. “To love him?”
Carolyn’s eyes brimmed with tears. Her voice became desolate. Cracked and dry, like a desert floor. “He doesn’t love me. He’s… he’s Ossirian. I’m not sure he’s capable of feeling something like love. He’s…”
“I know,” Miciela whispered. Her eyes were kind and held true understanding, Carolyn saw. “Diego spent over thirty years designing and building artworks. Making his visions a reality. His eyes saw his buildings, his bridges, the landscape of the world as he changed it. But I remained by his side because I loved him. And eventually when he was cured, when he had finished roasting in the holy fire of his divine gift, I was still there. He prays, do you know that?”
Carolyn shook her head.
“Every morning before the sun rises, he wakes and goes out onto the balcony he designed and built for me, he watches the sun come up, and he prays to the gods. He gives them thanks that I remained with him until he came to his senses.” Miciela smiled at Carolyn, and her whole face lit up with a joy that Carolyn could feel. And she realized that she felt that when she looked at Ossirian.
“He has never realized, of course, that I was never going to leave. I understood him from the first moment I met him, Carolita. I knew what he was when I fell in love. And I knew what he was the entire time of our lives together and apart. I could hardly be upset at him for being who he was. And to change him would destroy everything. It would have either destroyed him, or it would have destroyed our bond. I accept him as he is, not as I wish him to be. And he accepts me as I am. That is why we are together still. He gives of himself what he can, and I give of myself what I can. And as you can see, that is the sum total of each of us now.”
Carolyn stared at her. Struggling to keep the hawkishness from her voice, she said, “That’s your advice? Give it time?”
Miciela shook her head. “Of course not. Not at all. You’ve missed the point. My advice, if I were offering any, which I am not, is make up your mind now if you can take him as he is. You cannot change him. You cannot sway him. You cannot make him be anything other than what he is. Make your peace with his madness. If you cannot, then you must remove yourself. Your well-being is more important than his. You are not his savior. His protection is not your concern. His happiness is not your concern. You are not a nurse or a guardian. If you choose to live this life, choose it for you. Because it makes you happy.”
Miciela put her hand over Carolyn’s heart.
“This is your primary concern. And if your love for him cannot outweigh the sacrifices you’ll make to be near him, then you must break it. You must sever the bond now before it becomes more painful for you both.”
Carolyn’s tears spilled over her cheeks. “It would destroy him.”
“Of course,” Miciela said. She shrugged. “That isn’t your concern either. Your primary concern is you. From the outside, many choices seem cruel or heartless or selfish. But you must serve yourself, foremost, first, and above all.”
“It sounds so callous, to be so selfish.”
Miciela shrugged. “No one in the world is going to make your soul’s health their priority. It is the failing of men and women that they think another can soothe all the ills, overcome all the unhappiness. The things that are necessary to you, the holes in yourself you must fill, the wounds you must heal, none of them can be healed by another, or with another. Other people are not bandages, or medicine to be taken for your ills. You must be at peace with yourself, my dear, or you can never be at peace with another.”
Carolyn gazed back at Miciela, misery plain on her face.
Unconvinced, Carolyn said, “Leaving that aside, how do I handle the business of Ossirian? How do I care for his money? How do I know what is best for him?”
Miciela spoke with confidence. “In that we can assist you, my dear. I have managed my husband’s business for a lifetime. I can introduce you to people, show you the best ways to invest. I will put wheels in motion for you. But that is for later. Right now we need to find a way to soothe Ossirian’s soul, if that is possible.”
They went into the kitchen to prepare a light meal. Diego had been strangely absent for the morning, but as the clock chimed eleven in the hallway, the front door opened and his booming voice called, “My love! My friends! We have a guest. Is there enough lunch for five?”
“Certainly, my dear,” Miciela answered with a smile. “We’ll be out in a moment. Please come in and offer refreshments!”
“Of course,” Diego called. “I have not forgotten my manners.” His reproachful voice was full of humor. Carolyn and Miciela prepared a tray of spicy picanha, the delicious smoked and grilled meat, piles of fresh mountain cheese, and cloud-like mounds of fluffy pao de queijo, the cheesy cassava rolls that had been gaining popularity for some time in the streets of São Paulo. Mouths watering, they carried the trays of food into the dining room.
Carolyn jerked to a halt as she saw Diego’s guest. The tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed Hans Toefler gazed at her. He was statuesque, almost casually posed, one hand in the pocket of his tailored suit, the other gesturing, apparently mid-conversation with Diego de la Luna. The tray thumped to the table as her hands opened almost by reflex.
“Ah, Senhorita Delgado,” Toefler greeted her in a smooth, mellifluous voice, his lips curling upward as they caressed the Portuguese. “It is lovely to-”
So Much Fire and So Many Plans Page 15