He had never stopped before. He refused to start now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
New York - August 5th, 1997
From Objet, August 1997 Issue
A Chair with Three legs
By Brent Metierra
To anyone interested in paint, Christoph Ossirian was a singular figure: at times frustrating, infuriating, exasperating, endearing, brilliant, petulant, and intriguing. The reams that have been written about his work and his life- such as is known- are more than complete. Indeed, if one is to learn about the man, his work should be all that is necessary. Pollock himself said that “Every good artist paints what he is.”
No, I did not commit an inadvertent gaucherie in invoking the allusions between Pollock and Ossirian. Both were revolutionary, both died in car accidents (if such a thing as an accident exists for drunks) alone. This is the extent of the similarities between the two men. Pollack was, in most accounts, an unreasonable, cranky, misogynistic old man, even when he was young. The drink made him even more bitter and resentful. If these characteristics contributed to his particular brand of genius, they were unique to his perversity. Ossirian suffered none of these faults. I never met him. I have the interviews, press, and apocryphal stories that spring up around public figures, especially notorious ones, but a clear picture can be constructed from the available data and hearsay.
By all accounts, Ossirian was charming, witty, and otherworldly. It wasn’t that he connected with another reality, but more like he lived in one, and returned often with pictures of what he experienced there.
His most famous work, the enormous House of Many Hearts, is a perennial favorite of the MOMA, drawing crowds by the thousands daily. The two dozen lesser canvases that surround it draw no less attention for their bold color and unusually brash style, but it is House of Many Hearts that captures the imagination with the ghost-like apparitions captured within seemingly-moving whorls and swoops of paint. One can (as I have) stare into the canvas for hours and never fail to discern new and captivating shapes and meanings. In Ossirian’s inexplicably generous donation to the MOMA one may lose and find one’s self, and if you look with the right kind of eyes you may catch a glimpse of Ossirian himself in the pigments.
Ossirian never failed to fascinate, of course, but it is the two relationships he spent the most time cultivating which define the man in full. The first was with contemporary and bitter rival Hans Toefler, the Munich-born artist whose work so captivated the French in the 70s and again in the 90s. Their rivalry has become the stuff of legend or the movies: each striving to outdo the other, each striving to out-quote the other. Using the media as their middle-child go-between, Ossirian and Toefler carried out a forty-year assassination of one another’s work, character, and lives. Scarcely a day would pass after Toefler’s embittered quip to a reporter regarding Ossirian that Ossirian would offer a rebuttal and often a painting as well. Toefler’s work has never lacked for context, meaning, and sometimes ponderous portentousness, but his output, while marvelous, could never match Ossirian’s possessed-by-devils-and-angels-both unrelenting production. While Toefler often managed to take the high ground with his clever insults and disparagements, it was with his responses on canvas that Ossirian showed the world that Hans Toefler would always be the second-best in their relationship.
But to balance every rivalry there must also be a friendship, a partnership, a source of hope and joy. To that end, the third pillar of Ossirian’s world would be Dr. Carolyn Delgado.
Gallery owner, art collector, CEO, fashionista, and unrelenting partner to the often incomprehensible Ossirian, Carolyn Delgado has become something of an icon herself, not because of Ossirian and his work, but because of her unique place in history beside the man himself. Manager, friend, lover, and advocate, Carolyn Delgado was singular in Ossirian’s world for any number of reasons, but the most important one is the nickname, pet name, or perhaps true name by which he called her: Muse.
If in fact Delgado were Ossirian’s muse in a literal sense, she was by far the hardest-working muse ever to urge an artist forward. In the forty active years of Ossirian’s career he gave the world a staggering number of paintings, second only to Pablo Picasso’s output (although unlike Picasso, Ossirian worked exclusively in paint, never sketched). This is made more impressive by the fact that Picasso produced for thirty more years than Ossirian.
If Delgado was Ossirian’s muse, she was also his manager. From the beginning of his career in Brazil Delgado managed his money, at first just his personal accounts, but ultimately the entirety of Muse, Inc, which oversees curation of the vast majority of his collection as well as administers the donations, scholarships, and serious study of artistic learning to students and universities across the globe.
Carolyn Delgado then, may have been the most important person in Ossirian’s life. What would one learn if she had been of a mind to sit and talk about her client, friend, and lover?
Sadly, the opportunity is now past. Carolyn Delgado died in a car crash in São Paulo, Brazil in May of this year, silencing forever this unique woman. Her loss is a loss to myself, those who knew her, and the world.
In fact I had the great fortune of meeting her, finding her outside Bellini’s Uptown in New York City, and shared a quiet lunch with her. Although she feigned ignorance, she knew who I was and what I was after, and still had the grace to allow me to join her and we shared a long conversation, some of the details of which I had planned to relate. Shortly after Carolyn Delgado’s death (bitterly ironic, a car accident on a mountain road at night) I took a moment to reflect on the experience of meeting her and spending time talking about life, love, and art, and I have decided that the details of my encounter were all personal, even the trivial ones.
In the short time I knew Carolyn Delgado I found her to be charming, graceful, and elegant of manner and person. She was singular. Not defined by her relationship to Ossirian, or her acquaintance with Hans Toefler, but a unique person in her own legitimate right. Dr. Carolyn Delgado will be missed. I miss her now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
São Paolo, Brazil
August 15th 1997
He sat on the porch sipping a caipirinha, watching the sun set over São Paulo. It had been two months since her death and he still couldn’t believe it.
He finished the drink. He’d learned to make them and make them well. The bar was well-stocked, and even if he drank every day until the day he died, he wouldn’t run out.
Staring down the long, rolling lawn, his eyes found the spot. The spot she had taken him, the spot she had taken Toefler, the spot Ossirian had taken her. Four of them, intertwined by a simple twist of fate and something so complex as sex.
His stomach growled, and he thought about asking Efigenia what she had decided they would cook for dinner. He refused to change anything about Carolyn’s household, and he’d reasoned Efigenia had at least as much right to the house as he. Besides, Carolyn relied on her and so he knew he could, as well. Efigenia tolerated him, fussed over him, and moved through the house in an unnerving, ghostly manner. He never saw her, never caught a glimpse of her cleaning or cooking or straightening the Library, but she kept the house in perfect order. And she had agreed to teach him how to cook proper Brazilian cuisine, beginning with feijoada.
Well, he thought. The first thing was how to mix a proper caipirinha. Then feijoada.
As if by telepathy, Efigenia cleared her throat behind him to let him know she was there. She said in Portuguese, slowly, because Brent was new to the language, “You’ve a visitor.”
Brent sipped, frowned, and puzzled out the meaning. Haltingly he said, “Thank your. Carry her in.”
Efigenia hid a grin, corrected his grammar, and left. He repeated what she’d said in his mind when he heard a footstep. He turned, incurious. Brent knew no one who would know where he was, and if he didn’t know them he didn’t care.
He was tall, taller than Brent had realized. His hair was more white than blond n
ow, but still handsomely tousled. His eyes were blindingly blue even in the late afternoon dusky light, and his teeth were white as a pearl when he smiled. He climbed up the stairs and stood a few feet from Brent, smiling.
After a moment of concentration, Brent said in Portuguese, “Would you know a drink?”
“Always and always,” the man replied in English, not correcting the Portuguese. He held out a hand. “Hans Toefler, of course. You must be Brent.”
Brent shook the hand, the grip firm and dry, and said in English, “Metierra. Welcome.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve been here before, of course, but welcome nonetheless.”
Toefler nodded. “True, but it is yours now, and it’s my first time in your home.”
Brent shrugged. “Come inside. I’ll make you that drink.”
They went inside to the bar. Brent handed him a glass and Toefler waited while he built the second drink. He held it up. Toefler touched the rim, and they drank.
“Spectacular,” Toefler pronounced. “Just as I remembered.”
“Thank you. I’ve worked hard at it.”
“And it shows.”
They stood for a moment. “I want to be outside,” Brent said. “This time of day is special and I never miss it if I can help it.”
“But of course. Lead the way.”
Brent took them back out onto the wide porch and they watched the sun set in silence, sipping.
“You’ll be staying the night,” Brent said. “It’s too dark to drive back down the mountain.”
“Yes. I know well how treacherous these roads can be.”
Brent’s jaw flexed.
“Please and thank you for the invitation, Mr. Metierra.”
“Brent, Lord Toefler, please.”
“Then it’s Hans to you, Brent.”
“Agreed.” Brent sipped while gazing over the valley. “Why did she do it, do you think? Leave me the house, I mean. And the plane. And everything else.”
A month after Carolyn’s death Brent had been summoned to a lawyer’s office in New York City to attend the reading of her will. The request had come with a phone number that, when called, gave him Louise, who asked when they would depart.
In New York he’d avoided the places he and Carolyn had gone. At the lawyer’s office Carolyn’s will was read to him and a couple of people he didn’t know. The entirety of Muse, Inc. had been left in trust, to be overseen by a board of trustees Carolyn had named. Two of them were in the room with him. One of the named was Hans Toefler, who was not present.
“‘The rest of my personal estate, including my accumulated wealth and belongings, I leave to Brent Metierra,’” the lawyer had read to them, “‘in the hopes that he will use them wisely and enjoy his new home.’”
Her estate, when presented in an enormous hand-bound leather book, represented forty years of Carolyn and Ossirian’s wealth. The wealth of a great artist as well as that of an extremely savvy businesswoman. He hadn’t guessed to the nearest million how rich she had actually been, and the idea terrified him. He thought about giving it away, but then he remembered the driver, Charles. Louise and Helen. Efigenia. Countless others that he hadn’t met. The family Carolyn had constructed for herself. The family she’d left in his care as much as she’d left Muse to the care of others she’d trusted. He had assumed, incorrectly, they were employed by the corporation but they had all been Carolyn’s personal staff. And so now they were his. In the end he’d given his condo in Chicago to Meredith, who still hadn’t forgiven him for quitting, and left the city. Left the state. Left America.
And came home.
He spent his days and nights in a pleasant fog of timelessness, drinking, painting, exploring São Paulo’s food, people, and museums. For the first time he didn’t feel like he was waiting for something to interest him. He felt like he was living.
“If I had to guess,” Toefler said, “I couldn’t say. But in this instance, I know. It’s because she loved you as well as she could. And she knew you’d care for it. That you know what it meant to her.”
Brent shrugged. “I don’t mind it, of course. It’s magnificent. And the money’s nice. Being able to go anywhere is a perk. But I had all I needed.”
“She knows that. That’s why she left it for you.”
Silence again.
“What can I do for you, Hans?” Brent asked. “You’re welcome as long as you wish. I’m flying back to Chicago in the morning, though, to see some friends.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Toefler said smoothly, a hint of playful regret in his voice. “That won’t do. Not at all.”
“Why not?”
Toefler turned the full volume of his blazing blues eyes on Brent and said in a husky voice, “I’ve come to proposition you, Brent Metierra.”
Brent eyed the handsome man. “Oh?”
“Very much so. Are you interested?”
Brent shrugged. “Intrigued, I would say. Please continue.”
Toefler grinned, and in the dying light it was all Brent could see, those white, even teeth, a Cheshire cat in the Brazilian jungle. “I wish you to accompany me to a formal gathering, of sorts. My plus-one, as it were.”
“You’re asking me out?” Brent asked, startled.
“I am, in fact,” Toefler said. “It is the height of bad manners to arrive unaccompanied. I would like you to be my date.”
Brent smiled wanly. “I’ve had enough drinks to make me curious, I suppose. I’ll bite-”
“One hopes,” Toefler murmured with a smile.
Brent coughed, continued. “I’ll bite and ask; accompany you where?”
“Have you a tuxedo?”
Brent raised an eyebrow. “No. I don’t even wear shoes most of the time anymore.”
“I assumed as much. No matter. I have brought my tailor. We will have you fitted on the way. Incidentally, I took the liberty of phoning Louise and making the arrangements. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve hijacked your plane.” Toefler’s smile was radiant.
“Did you now? Piratical of you. Not in keeping with the regal appearances of a Lord at all.”
“One does what one can. We shall leave in the morning.”
They leaned against the rail, side by side. “Very well. Will you tell me where we’re going?” Brent asked.
“Oh, it’s a surprise,” Toefler said, smiling.
“I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime.”
Toefler’s smile faded. “I suppose you’re correct. In fact, you’re accompanying me to a wedding.”
“Are you wearing a tux as well?”
“Naturally.”
“Should I have a fancy gown, then?” Brent smiled, joking. But Toefler looked him up and down.
“Hmm. Perhaps a purple brocade. Something off the shoulder. Such a gown flows well with nothing underneath, naturally-”
“I was kidding.”
“Mmm.” Toefler grinned at him. “I wasn’t.”
Unsettled, Brent cleared his throat. “A wedding, you say?”
Toefler smiled widely at him again.
“Whose?”
Toefler said nothing.
Frowning, Brent asked, “Okay then. Where?”
Toefler’s smile widened, his teeth again shining in the evening. He put an arm around Brent’s waist, pressed closer, and leaned over to whisper in his ear.
Epilogue
Isidro Ayora, Ecuador
August 20th 1997
It was a longer walk than she remembered. But the smells, the sights, the sounds of the children, they were the same. She walked up the road, left at the block of stores that had grown from one tiny village corner store, at the crossroad that had sprung from a dirt-and-mud wide spot to grow proper pavement and even a stoplight. She waved to several people, some of whom were familiar. They grinned and waved back, whether they knew her or not. Two shirtless, shoeless children clad in faded shorts pelted past her laughing, their skin browned and fine, soles of their feet black as coal. They
whooped; chasing something she couldn’t see. But then, children were half in and half out of the world anyhow.
That’s one of the things it took me too long to realize about him, she thought. That he was always childlike in the most basic-
Her thoughts broke off as her house came into her view. It hadn’t changed at all. Not from her memories, not from Ossirian’s painting. As she got closer, she realized a man was standing in the side yard, a brush in hand, painting the wide outside wall of the ramshackle house in which she’d been born.
His hair had gone a little gray, and he was more solidly muscled than she remembered, but the curls were-
The curls were the same.
Her skin prickled with gooseflesh as she studied him.
He stopped painting as he heard her footsteps. He didn’t turn. He studied the wall intently.
She stood next to him and examined his work. She said, “Painting houses still.”
He said in clear, unaccented English, “It’s fitting work.” His voice was plain, unpretentious, devoid of the flamboyance and verve she had known.
She nodded.
The sun shone down on them, and they said nothing. He turned to her, and she him, and his eyes were different. The same color, but less ethereal, more focused and solid. They were green still, but the harder jade of a cats-eye marble shooter than the bright morning green of the misty jungle.
She was unsurprised. Toefler had told her. She had called him from Brazil after Brent had gone home. She had told him that she had seen it. The final work. The masterpiece. A photorealistic painting of her childhood home. That and a small note to the side, written by finger, his finger, in the same paint that now tinted the wall of her childhood home. ‘Call Hans. Now. Answer his questions. -O’ And when she did as the note bade her, to contact him immediately, he had asked her if she had learned where Ossirian had obtained a 1948 Tucker, an antique vehicle that had formerly resided in Toefler’s own garage in Germany.
And then he asked her what kind of car she would most like to be driving.
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