In moments she had brought him an easel and several enormous canvases. She set them up as he pressed paints from containers onto the palette. He mixed them with his fingers, and reached for the brushes. He held four of them in his teeth and painted with a fifth. At first working hesitantly, he sped up as his confidence increased. His hand became steady, and he focused more intently. In half an hour, as Toefler and Carolyn Delgado watched from the side, he recreated the entire hall. He stared at the canvas. He shook his head as Carolyn bit her lip.
“It’s not right. It’s… wrong.”
“It’s beautiful,” Carolyn offered.
“That is the easy part,” Ossirian said absently. He threw the canvas aside and set another on the easel. He painted, hands sure and steady, his eye roving over the curves of the bannisters, the arc of the walls, as his hands reproduced the scene. After almost an hour he made a disgusted noise and tossed it aside.
Toefler caught Carolyn’s eye. He motioned her to the side and pressed his lips against her ear. “He’s dissatisfied… but he’s not angry,” he noted in a whisper. Her skin tingled as his lips grazed her ear. His breath on her neck caused a shiver to run the length of her spine. She nodded.
His hand pressed against the base of her back, and she leaned back a little. She turned to him and his lips found hers. She lost herself in his kiss for a moment. When she opened her eyes, Toefler and Ossirian were both staring at her. She looked from one to the other.
Ossirian, bemused, said, “I need more canvas. These are inadequate.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll fetch them.”
“Please.”
She stared at Toefler for a moment before hurrying to the workshop where Ossirian’s supplies were stored.
When she returned, Ossirian and Toefler were standing very close and discussing colors. She set the armload of canvases on the ground in front of the easel.
Toefler put an arm around her shoulders. “Let us go for a walk,” he said. “Herr Ossirian has work to do.”
She looked up at him with an impish smile. “I thought you were leaving.”
“How can I leave? I need to see the painting,” he said. “But he needs time to work.”
She glanced at Ossirian, but the man’s eyes were far away as he sorted the canvases for size. “Very well, sir. If you’ll accompany me, I believe you’ll enjoy the work we’ve done with the grounds.”
Arm in arm, she led Toefler out the front door of their house, around the side, and halfway down the rolling, immense lawn. She led him to a spot with which she was most familiar. As she pulled him down after her, Ossirian painted as feverishly as their movements under the hot jungle sunlight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Brent gave her a strange look. She met his gaze with an unreadable set of opaque eyes.
“I… okay. In the same place?”
She smiled a little.
“That’s…” he licked his lips. His eyes involuntarily went to the rolling expanse of lawn below the balcony. “…huh.”
“Would you like to see it?”
His head jerked as he turned to her. “Excuse me?”
“The spot. I can see it from here. I’d like to show you, if you wish.”
“Why?”
She slid a few inches nearer. “Call it… closure,” she purred, putting a hand on his chest. He felt the heat from her skin and he shuddered.
“Okay. Yes.”
She took his hand and led him down the stairs, her hips swinging as she exaggerated their movement. He stared, sure she knew he would, and by the time they reached the spot, by the time he realized she was slipping from her dress he was almost helplessly, blindly lusting for her. As she unbuttoned the loose cotton shirt he wore he took her in his arms and lowered her to the ground.
“This spot?” he asked, voice catching in his throat. She stared up at him through half-lidded eyes and smiled, the curve of her lips enticing enough that he kissed her then, unable to stop himself.
At last, when they lay panting and spent in the sun, he rolled over a little, and gazed at her. “Why? You and Toefler… you and Ossirian. You and I. Why here? Why me?”
She lay on her side, curled up and languid as a cat in a shaft of sunlight. She said, without moving her lips, “Dear boy… have you any regrets? Anything in your life you wish you had done that you have not?”
He half-shrugged. “I guess maybe. Everyone does, don’t they?”
She snuggled down a little, both hands under her cheek, prayer-fashion. “I do not. I regret nothing for I never miss an opportunity. Yield to temptation, Brent. It may not come around again.”
“Good advice.”
“Of course. It’s Brazilian. We know how fleeting our time in the sun can be. You’ll never find a people more willing to put off until tomorrow that which interferes with pleasure today.” She put a finger on his chest, traced it down, eyes following it. He watched her hand as it glided over his belly. He groaned when she grasped him. “Are you not ready to embrace the philosophy?”
“It’s growing on me.”
“No, dear boy,” she whispered as she pushed him back and swung a leg over him. She straightened up, the sun haloing around her hair as she arched and pressed against, pressed down, and sighed. “It’s growing on me.”
He wanted to chastise her for such a terrible play on words, but found his voice was quite gone as his hands found her breasts and she began to move over him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
They were sated, and curled up in big chairs in the library with steaming mugs of thick, rich coffee liberally laced with cachaça. She wore a flimsy robe of silk open to the waist, he wore a similar silk wrapped around his hips. She had continued the story.
“And when we came back, he was still unhappy with the results. He had painted the room in muted gray, in brown, and in black. The black canvas was the closest to happy I’d ever seen him. He had begun to explore using the paint as sculpture. Giving the image dimension as well as color”
“Oh,” Brent said. “Like-”
She gave him a withering look. “I’m coming to it.”
“Sorry.”
“I forgive you because you’re so… vigorous,” she told him with that curving smile. He colored a little.
“Toefler examined what he had done and asked him very pointed questions. Why he had chosen those colors, what the ghostly shapes meant. How he intended the painting to be viewed. And then he suggested that the canvases that Ossirian used were inadequate. The reason he was unsatisfied with the view of the hall was that he wasn’t showing the entire picture. So Ossirian set about making his own canvases. First the frames were traditionally square and rectangular. But eventually as he backed further into the foyer, he realized what he was trying to do. And so he built a canvas that would represent the view from the doorway of our house. The view inward to his trials. To his love. To the testament to his resolve and talents.”
Brent stared back down the hall toward the unusual gallery hall. He looked back at Carolyn. “You mean-”
“He painted that same canvas six times. Each a shade darker as the day wore on. until finally… finally it was too dark to paint with natural light. So he and Toefler and I… retired for the night,” she cleared her throat and gave Brent that smoky, half-lidded gaze again, “and he awoke before first light to wait for the sunlight to return. Inspired, he selected new paints. He began to paint again, from complete black to purest white. And the seventh time he painted the hall… he used two dozen shades of white. From titanium to chrome, to eggshell, to beige. And he created a painting of which he was finally not angry about. And when he was done, he was ready to begin painting other works again. He never again lost his focus. Never again had trouble. But…” she trailed off.
“But?”
“But he needed to sell more pieces. I arranged a showing for him that next month, and shipped all the canvases he designated as complete… or complete enough. And one extra. The one he almost burned.”
<
br /> “Why would he burn a canvas?”
“Because it was for technical appreciation, a test of his skills. A trial run, if you will. But I instead had it mounted in the gallery. And he was suitably indignant. But this time, both Toefler and I were there to calm him. He was ready to burn down the gallery to destroy the undeserving work. Instead, Toefler proposed an alternative to destruction.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I have a bet for you,” Toefler said.
“A bet?” Ossirian’s voice was diffident. “It is no joking matter. This is not worthy of being seen!”
Toefler soothed him. “Ossirian, dear, be easy. It’s a bet you’ll appreciate.”
He gestured Carolyn and Ossirian close. Behind them the crowd thronged at the doors of the gallery, eager to see the new work by the reclusive wunderkind.
Toefler’s voice dropped, became intimate. “I wager that someone in that crowd will understand what you have done. That someone will see it for the technical practice it represents, and not as a finished piece. If they do, I shall buy it myself.”
“And if no one does?”
“Donate it,” Toefler said breezily. “Refuse a price. Donate it to a museum or a gallery that clamors for it. Let them appreciate it for what they make of it, not for what it is. After all, my dear Ossirian, if they can’t tell a joke from the real thing, they don’t deserve your respect, do they? Hanging this as a joke will be their reward for failing to understand you.”
Ossirian was struck by this, his eyes wondering, and then he threw his head back and laughed hard. Even Carolyn chuckled, although she wanted to object to the part about no income. She would never tell Ossirian, but they were close to broke. Even the allowances that the de la Lunas had willed them, her, were run out. The gallery showing wasn’t just an announcement of Ossirian’s return to public life, but a serious grab for operating capital. Renovating the casa had been costly, and making real Diego de la Luna’s plans had broken them.
“Very well,” Ossirian said. “You have a bet. If someone recognizes the piece for what it is, you buy it. And should no one puzzle out the hidden meaning, and I give it away?”
Toefler shrugged. “I owe you a beer.”
Ossirian shook Toefler’s outstretched hand. “It is a deal.”
Carolyn sighed. She would never be able to control her boys, and she was fine with that. They were much better off to each other and more useful to her out of control.
She nodded to the gallery owner, and he threw wide the doors. The throngs of art lovers, curiosity-seekers, and genuinely curious poured in as though from a bottle. The reclusive Ossirian’s first show in five years. Throngs enveloped them. Soon Ossirian and Toefler were surrounded by the critics, the serious buyers, and several reporters. They spent the evening sniping pleasantly at one another, their quips stunning in their derangement and biting in their insinuations.
Several museums and national galleries were represented at the gathering, for Ossirian’s reputation drew those who felt his art would appreciate in value. The event of the year, papers would call it later. The triumphant return of the enfant terrible after five years sequestered in the hills of Brazil. And after six hours, once the gallery had emptied and every canvas in the building had been purchased, as a drunken Toefler, a puzzled Ossirian, and a wordlessly stunned Carolyn Delgado sat on a bench, staring in disbelief at the huge, oddly-shaped canvas.
“I can’t believe it,” Toefler muttered. “It… I mean…”
“I told you,” Ossirian said somberly. “They are provincial louts with not an ounce of talent or appreciation for art between them.”
Carolyn said faintly, “Ossirian.”
“But… but I cannot believe even the most educated of the critics did not see through your cleverness,” Toefler protested. “They are the most savvy, most savage of all the… the rabble that accumulate at galleries such as these!”
“Ossirian.”
“I told you,” Ossirian said again, swigging from a bottle of champagne. He finished the bottle, looked around, and threw it in the corner. The gallery owner winced but said nothing, watching as he was from the front room where he gathered in the paperwork and prepared to lock the evidence of the showing away in his safe.
“Ossirian.”
“I’m so disappointed,” Toefler muttered. “I’m let down. Take thy beak from out my heart and thy form from off my door.”
Ossirian grinned at him. “You owe me a beer.”
“Ossirian.”
“I’ll pay up, of course. But for now, where do you think this beauty could find a home?” Toefler looked around for the drinks trolley, but it was empty.
“I was accosted by the acquisitions manager from the Museum of Modern Art earlier. He wished to build his reputation on my back by inviting me to display my work. Perhaps they would care for a donation?” Ossirian suggested.
Toefler’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Perfect! The right place! New York,” he scoffed, “the center of culture for those who wish their art and a bagel at the same time. Those puerile buffoons, with their-”
“Ossirian!” Carolyn snapped.
Toefler and Ossirian both turned to look at her. She stood a few feet away from them. Her face was white as a sheet. In her hand was a piece of paper the gallery owner had presented her after the crowds had left.
“My Muse?” Ossirian asked, standing and going to her. “Are you well?”
“I…” she stared down at her hand, at the figures written upon the listing. It was the preliminary bill of sales. “You sold out.”
“Oh,” Ossirian said, shrugging. “No matter. I can paint more. I have ideas for-”
“Ossirian!” she snapped. She held out the paper. “You sold every painting. Do you understand? And they… they were bidding. They fought to pay more and more, and-”
He smiled at her. “It’s no matter.” He turned to Toefler. “I require my payment, Herr Toefler. I have a thirst.”
Toefler grinned and stood, swaying. “Then, honorable gentleman I am, we shall venture forth to penetrate the heart of the evening to procure for you your winnings.”
“Excellent! And perhaps food? I find I am hungry-”
He broke off as Carolyn grabbed his arm and spun him back. Her eyes were alive, her breath coming in panting gasps. He frowned, brow furrowed, and took her in his arms. “My Muse, what is it?”
“Carolita?” Toefler asked, stumbling toward her.
Carolyn held out the piece of paper the gallery owner had given her. Ossirian glanced at it and shrugged. “So?”
Her mouth dropped open as Toefler took the paper from her. “So?” she echoed. “So?”
Ossirian gave her another shrug. He turned, uninterested. “I wish another drink,” he said, and wandered off.
Toefler read the figures presented on the paper. He looked up at Carolyn as she stared in disbelief after Ossirian. “Ossirian,” Toefler said. “You’ve sold every canvas.”
“I heard,” the painter said. He rummaged amongst the empty bottles of the cart. “I wish a drink.”
“Ossirian… you’ve… you made more than four million real this night!” Toefler exclaimed.
“So I can buy a drink?” Ossirian asked. He gave Carolyn an unconcerned look. “You keep it.”
Her mouth fell open. “B-but I-”
“Keep it,” he said again. “You care for me. You care for our house. You care for my paintings. It should be you to care for this. I don’t care for money.”
Ossirian left the gallery, not acknowledging the gallery owner, and walked away down the street.
Toefler handed her the paper, bemused. “Well.”
She stared after Ossirian. “Well.”
“We’d better get after him, you know. God alone knows what he’ll get up to without an escort.”
She snorted. “He’ll end up at the palace. Probably be king before sunrise.”
Toefler grinned. “And excommunicated before nightfall, in all likelihood. Shall we,
my lady?”
He extended an arm and she took it. “We shall, good sir,” she told him primly. They went to the door. Ossirian was down the street, animatedly engaged in conversation with a cab driver. As they watched he shook his head, patted his pockets, and shrugged. The cab driver glared at him, but jerked his head toward the back. Sharing a horrified look, Toefler and Carolyn nodded at the gallery owner and rushed after him, managing to stop the cab before it spirited Ossirian into the night.
Scratching his head, the owner of the gallery watched them go. He stared at his records. He ran a finger down the list of names, stopping at the bottom. The one unsold canvas. A Casa de Muitos Corações. The House of Many Hearts. A beautiful piece, could have been worth a million real on its own, after the word got out about the sell-out. But he’d donate it instead? The gallery owner shook his head and muttered, “Artists.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Brent sat up in the chair, horror etched upon his face. She felt a pang of sympathy for him. He struggled to find the words. His head whirled. He gestured helplessly.
“…a joke?” he whispered.
She said nothing, but nodded.
“The House of Many Hearts… a painting beloved by millions. My favorite work. The piece that cemented his reputation in the world of art. In history… a joke.”
“A joke, yes,” she said. “But a joke shared by three people in all the world. And now four.”
He stared at her in horror. “A joke. It was an… an elaborate prank. A slap in the face to everyone who doesn’t understand anything about art. And I fell for it.”
“Everyone fell for it, Brent,” she in a kind voice.
“I’m not everyone!” he snapped. “This is my job. I’ve been studying art my entire life. A roomful of doctors of the subject granted me my doctorate after I defended a thesis about Ossirian! This isn’t just… a joke, Carolyn. It’s… it’s crushing.”
Brent turned away and stared out the window into the jungle of trees that surrounded the house.
Carolyn said nothing else for an hour. They sat in silence as she sipped her coffee and he gnawed his lip. He asked no more questions and she could see tears in his eyes. She stared at the floor.
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