“You really are a fool. You know, ordinary people are all wimps.”
“Why?”
“They refuse to admit the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That I exist,” he raised his arms in the air, thrust out his chin, and shook his head as if declaiming.
Hamlet stared at him as if missing the joke, a chill creeping down his spine.
“I rule this place. I collect my taxes where and when I see fit, and you cannot scare me away, you miserable bastards, because then the other poor bastards will start questioning my authority. Whatever got into you? You’ve jeopardized my reputation. You are the ones who attacked me. I needed to send a message, as a caution to others.”
“I understand now. So what happened to my real father?”
“You won’t live much longer so I’ll tell you. I am not happy about killing the same man twice. When I first saw you, I thought you’d risen from the dead; do you know what that means? I thought he couldn’t be killed, that he’d been resurrected.”
Hamlet, disarmed, looked so foolish—he wasn’t thought to be overly intelligent anyway—that the king hadn’t realized he was deceiving him. But around the corner from the manor, Laertes waved to Hamlet and hid—he was brother to Ophelia who’d perished in the king’s castle. Hamlet found her last name and where she’d come from in papers he’d found in the junkyard. He never managed to forget, though he did try. So, thinking about his assistant in the deceit, he visited her town and found Laertes.
Like Hamlet, Laertes hadn’t known the truth.
“Your father was the first person I killed. He was my friend and, to be honest, afterward I felt distressed, feverish, as if convalescing. But once that passed I felt no fear. Then you came and reminded me. And I was honestly thinking of sparing you, because I thought this was a sign; I even thought about adopting you. But as you can tell, history will repeat itself.”
“What was my father like?”
“He tried to be both bad and good. To be feared, yet not do anything really cruel. You can put on a charade, but once they realize your threats are empty, it’s over. It’s the same with you coming here. He attacked me, too, for beating up a whore who didn’t survive in the end.”
“Wait, you said he was the first person you killed.”
“I wasn’t counting her.”
“And do you remember the woman, Ophelia, who perished in your castle? I came, you know, because of her.” The king looked at him, puzzled, so Hamlet described what had happened, as a reminder.
“Yes, I remember. . . . But here I am telling you this fine story, and you came here for a piece of ass you picked up along the way? What was she to you?”
“My sister!” said Laertes, coming forward and waiting for the king to see him, throw down his weapon, and look him in the eyes. Hamlet sat there, disarmed, unable to do anything but watch, which was a weak moment in his own play, but he couldn’t think of anything better; he watched the king spin around swiftly with his weapon, and then there was a thundering noise.
The king fell. He doubled over sideways, awkwardly. One of his legs miraculously remained in the air. The leg looked as if it were still trying to get away.
Laertes stood.
Hamlet sat.
There was no throne.
Hamlet was the accused, he couldn’t betray Laertes, there was no liberty for him. He made his peace with that, his freedom had deserted him years before—as soon as he’d attained it.
Sometimes he comes and stares into the abyss from the edge, through a gentle, clearing mist, fearing each time that he’ll find there is no longer any movement down there. That would, he thought, leave him imprisoned in the sky, a dead man.
35
“HELLO TIMA, IT’S Šeila.”
“Heeey, what’s up?”
“You somewhere abroad? Should I Skype you?”
“Yes, in London. Go ahead, I was just responding to emails on my iPad.”
Soon Šeila was looking at Tima in one of those cafés where everybody’s fumbling around on their computers, doing something, and there’s no telling whether what they’re doing is work or not.
Tima was looking good, but she seemed a little nervous: too much communication, she said, it never ends.
“It’s good as long as your phone keeps ringing,” said Šeila.
Tima had made it, so people said.
But only after leaving Šeila.
Collaborating with Tima was one of Šeila’s attempts at breaking into the global market, not something many people in her social environment had tried to do, but this idea was probably a carryover from her relationship with Michael. She’d tried her hand at being an art dealer after spending years working part-time in the midst of NGOs, culture, festivals, shows. She was twice on the team that arranged her country’s entry for the Venice Biennale, and she felt she understood the vagaries of the art market. She identified seven young visual artists in the hope that she’d represent them, marketing and selling their work, but she didn’t yet own a gallery: someday, she figured, she would. Tima was one of the seven—the only one for whom things were looking up: after a few unusual, provocative works, she’d met with a solid international reception.
But then Tima realized Šeila couldn’t help her move forward. The worst thing was that Šeila also knew this—she did what she could, but she couldn’t help Tima show her work at the best exhibition halls in London and New York nor could she guarantee sensational publicity. She wasn’t even close. Šeila accepted what she usually tried to deny: for this kind of job she lacked the know-how to pull strings in the world of culture: the power of the place and the power of the money spinning there. This was what was called “the market,” but the word “cash” would have sufficed. She’d tried to create an art market where there was no cash, and her efforts fared well with the critics and the media, but what was supposed to pass for a market was so miserable that you couldn’t actually quote the figures in the media; instead, an illusion had to be sustained, and behind it were art managers like herself and artists who could barely eke out a living. Everything was there except the cash, so local fame had to suffice in the realm of this simulation of success. And when ravenous egos were added to the mix, the whole thing tipped over into the grotesque. She saw her artists gossiping and badmouthing Tima, at first quietly, but then louder and louder, envying her success even though she—and Šeila knew this only too well—was earning no more than a low-level clerical worker.
One day, Tima invited her for coffee and then, with delight she could hardly hide despite her best efforts, she admitted she’d received an invitation from a powerful art dealer, a man from London who’d turned a few so-called Neurotic Realists there into international celebrities. I guess he also needs some postwar neurosis in his portfolio, thought Šeila, trying to feel that the news was a shared success. “He doesn’t want a third player in the game,” stammered Tima. That small piece of information, then silence.
In the silence Šeila saw how, like when you push the wrong key on the keyboard, a mass of files is deleted, whole folders of her illusions went up in smoke.
But she tried to keep this to herself. “All right, my friend, good luck! You’ve earned this.”
Tima looked at her with gratitude, and then added cautiously, “And our contract?”
“We’re terminating it orally, okay?”
“Orally?”
“Tima, this is not the best day of my life. But I’m moving on. I’m telling you, you’re free.”
Šeila’s coffee was left unfinished. She remembered Tima’s look, with its mingling of hope, guilt, gratitude, and the fear of what all this really meant.
As she was leaving, Šeila thought, I’ll contact you again only if you’re superrich and I have nothing to eat.
She also thought, Fuck it, there’s no point in doing this job, we’re done h
ere.
She hadn’t called Tima since.
Perhaps that is why Tima was looking a little nervous over Skype, she thought.
“Tima, this isn’t related to our contract. That’s been voided. But I have a story to tell you. And you must pass the story on.”
She did not want to say “You owe me” as she watched Tima, who nodded.
“Art, today, is a story, not a skill. Proportion and perspective were discovered a long time ago,” said Šeila, smiling. “Instead of discovering perspective, today we have a story . . .”
“ . . . that broadens the perspectives,” finished Tima in that café far away, with a smile reminiscent of lost loves. “Our old mantra, I know.”
Skype seemed frozen for a moment. There are smiles which are sadly warm, like a memory of parting. Šeila watched Tima’s frozen image.
Some more voice crackling, and then nothing.
She waited, and saw Tima again, running her fingers through her light, tangled hair.
“So, I have a story that needs to be passed on. To the person who markets stories.”
“Oh? Yeah . . . Hmm.”
“Is there a problem?”
Šeila started to question the point of the call. Nothing will come of it, she thought, this woman has forgotten everything.
“Šeila, this is strictly between you and me. . . . Lately Malcolm’s attention has not really been focused on me.”
Šeila saw in her grimace that Tima still dared be honest with her.
Okay, failure—much better than refusal.
“My lips are sealed, Tima. I assure you. Besides, I don’t run in the same old circles. I’m far away. . . . Tell me, how’re things going?”
“Well . . . not bad. But . . . I came here and now I’m part of the scene. We’ve met a few times at exhibits and once he said, ‘Wait a minute, you’re actually here? What’re you doing here?’ I realized then that he’d taken me on to represent me as an artist from away. . . . But I wanted to be here. And I’ve made some things, but . . . Damn it, Šeila, I don’t know, I started thinking about what people expected me to be making. I didn’t used to think that way. Before, things came to me naturally, pure audacity, and that was that. Now I feel like I’m faking it, selling, overthinking. . . . There’s no playfulness. I’m an artist here, with a career. And there are billions of others like me. What do they think about? They scheme about how to make a name for themselves. They’re full of shit. Now I’m here. I guess I’m full of shit. But you can’t do that, you can’t go around plotting how you’ll become famous. Pricks like Malcolm will see right through you. Everything’s this big brouhaha over nothing and sometimes I don’t know where I am. I need to collect my thoughts. But I can’t go home, because the local assholes will gloat, and I still won’t have peace. Where are you? I want to go to the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“That’s right where I am,” said Šeila, and laughed.
“You are, eh?”
“You should come here. Then you’ll know where you stand. Exactly where you said. I’ll tell you a story. You’ll tell it to him. You can get involved in it with your work as well. You’ll think of something when you get here. There is no competition, no usual suspects . . . The idea is so twisted that it requires a shift in perspective. I keep track of what’s going on: after Princess Diana with blood dripping from her lips, all those dead animals and the Virgin Mary made of elephant dung, there isn’t much room left for provocation. This is something else. I have an audacious story and it needs to be passed on to him fucking audaciously! Because this is exactly what he wants—this will be unheard-of audacity if he does it!”
“All right, the story . . . But is there something concrete?”
“Yes.”
“You have an artifact?”
“Yes. It’s very, very large.”
36
WHAT WOULD OLEG say? I imagine this, I imagine his laughter reverberating from the last row of this bright hall that smells of the future and spaceships, supposedly it, too, was a factory before—of course, when you look around, what else could it have been?
I imagine him sneaking toward us, like Van Gogh with no ear, and watching the contorted miracle we’re about to perform. I know he’d be delighted with us for trying. I know he’d chuckle at the very idea and say, Yes! Run with it!
That’s why I agreed.
That, and because we didn’t have many aces up our sleeves after the time in Switzerland when I stood on the hotel balcony, holding a bottle of whisky and watching the lake in the night. I repeated several times, aloud, “Wow Lipša sure is a smartass! Can you believe it?” I really meant that, while chugging the whisky straight from the bottle. “You can’t even throw yourself off a balcony! What an amazing woman!” And then I laughed at myself.
When a garbage truck rolled past the hotel before dawn, I thought I saw Oleg standing on the rear steps with the garbage collectors, waving.
I waved at them from the balcony, without a sound.
We’ll see if the Malcolm guy can pull off this miracle.
Apparently, he already has.
He’s a groundbreaker, he’s expected to make shocking moves, Šeila used to say before I even understood who she was talking about. When he says something is art, everybody comes to believe him, she said as I stared at her. He sold some of the work of a few artists for vast sums of money. The artists he has promoted no longer do their art on their own. They have assistants and an entire machinery. What matters is the idea, the story. If we were to tell it on our own, there’d wouldn’t be much of a splash, but with him our story is set forth in the context of his other audacious works. And this turbine is art, Šeila said like she feared her thoughts might escape her, so I thought she felt unwell that morning as I watched her groggily, realizing she hadn’t slept at all.
“You said we should keep it real.”
“Hey, since it was completed after the client had been killed and you found no way to sell it on the industrial market, and since it’s, so to speak, an antique, we have to explain all that to him.”
“Perhaps there’s no chance, but I’ve dug everywhere to find contracts signed after 1985, to see if there are any other options left,” I said. “There are even a few clients who vanished into thin air, there’s no trace of them on the Internet, but perhaps the names of the companies changed.”
“That is your rational excuse. You know there’s no buyer,” Šeila said. “You went ahead and built it with other motives. You couldn’t stop. You thought you had to go all the way, otherwise everything would have been pointless. Right?”
“True. But don’t blame everything on me. I told them—”
“And yet, you finished it.”
“We did.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You don’t need to justify yourself to me and undermine my story. This is a would-be commercial product. Actually, it’s less of an industrial product than what most of Malcolm’s artists sell. They wouldn’t even make their art if there were no market. That’s the difference in motives. And since things are as they are, we’ll generate a great debate by presenting art that’s allegedly an industrial product. That’s what he’s looking for, debate about art.”
I watched her, trying to figure out where this torrent of words was coming from.
During our conversations, after Šeila came up with the idea, as she was preparing to call Tima, she paced around the house frenetically, she drank coffee and smoked, and I feared that, after all that had happened we were so desperate that we were succumbing to madness; seriously I didn’t think the turbine could become art, and that angered the misunderstood genius in her, so, trying to convince me, she planned her concept out loud and mentioned Duchamp’s urinal, which he boldly titled Fountain. At the time, she said with fire blazing in her eyes, even his avant-gardists didn’t think the piece was art. But eventually it did become ar
t, she continued, smoking one cigarette after another. It’s the context, the presentation—there are so many more ways to present this, and believe me, Malcolm knows the ropes. I see you’re not bad at it yourself, I said as I began to see a logic behind it, although by then I didn’t know whether we were trapped in our thought bubble or what was even real outside the rented guest worker’s mansion where I owed rent.
“This is the last card, so we might as well play it,” I said. “But honestly . . . I don’t think it’s art. Can I say that or should I keep my mouth shut?”
“See, this is the debate, what you and I are talking about,” her thoughts latched on to each other. “You don’t think of it as art, because it hasn’t yet become art. It will be art if we place it in the right context, if Malcolm places it in the right context, that is, because I don’t have the power or the reputation he has. The fact that many people think what Malcolm is selling is not art, that, too, is part of the game, see?”
“I’m with you . . .”
“Hey, Nikola, you manufactured the 83-N turbine that we’re going to make into a global sensation,” she said, adding to her smile a spark of jest and a boatload of enthusiasm, the smile of someone with an idea. I’d already seen that smile, even on Oleg whose ideas got me into this hopeless mess, so I trembled inside, afraid I was going to believe her, not knowing if the two of us were merely two sleepwalkers from N. sinking deeper into chaos, or actually finding a way out.
“Don’t exaggerate,” I said. “I didn’t do the manufacturing.”
“I know, dear. All of you did. So much hope in the midst of ruins. Pure art.”
“Now you’re messing with me.”
“A little. But actually, I’m not.”
The first time we talked to Malcolm on Skype, he was sitting next to Tima. As an introduction she told us—while he listened to our language as if he were absorbed in it—that she had not really had the time to pitch the whole story to him, because he was always in such a hurry. She had set out for him a general outline in five minutes just before the call. But he was intrigued. Tima informed us we had an hour. From that moment on, she sat to the side, her arms crossed.
No-Signal Area Page 35