Belomor

by Nicolas Rothwell

  ‘I taught you well, I see—without knowing it. That grey smoke like the haze covering the Arctic sky. You can learn to see beauty and truth in anything. Any symbol will serve. What creatures we are! How much we need!’

  ‘Need?’

  ‘Need meaning. Need belief. Why else would you believe in me?’

  This harshly, with a sudden violence. He lifted his arm, as if to strike out—at something; someone: himself; me. He jabbed his cigarette against the column, into the carved grooving, just below the frieze of stone saints and angels, and stubbed it out.

  ‘Not, perhaps, the act of a man of God,’ I said.

  ‘He doesn’t care—care about caring,’ said Haffner.

  He gave a layered smile of ironies. His expression changed again. His mood swung.

  ‘And where have you been, my western friend? You who were so young, so fresh and wide-eyed when you came to Dresden, looking for enlightenment: looking in the darkest places for the light—and thought you found it with an old, played-out dissident, under state surveillance; and the moment that you left my apartment the Stasi came to call. Where have you been since? Where did it take you, through the years and decades, your jigsaw quest for fragments to piece together. Down to hell? I wonder. Is that where life took you? Is that where you’ve been? Is that journey what put those lines on your face: that fretwork stamped on your forehead like a brand?’

  He spoke these sentences sardonically. He spat them out and hurried on: ‘You know so much, now, of course. You’ve got so much wisdom since then, yes—so much gathered up from all the richness of the carnival of life, the ordeal you gave yourself. But there’s one thing you don’t seem to know. The game never ends: it doesn’t balance up. Lives don’t have shapes. There aren’t grand encounters when everything comes into focus—or do you think this might be one?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, in sadness.

  He scowled, and nodded: ‘You have to. I, though, want to expel meaning from my life. Defeat memory, not invite it in. People come to us, with all their intensities; they blaze before us, their brilliance lights us up—then they fade, they vanish. Recollection’s pointless: there’s nothing to retain.’

  ‘This was a non-encounter, then?’

  ‘Some appointments are best left unkept. We aren’t in life in a cheap movie plot. You took my knowledge. You took my stories. Now leave me: leave me be.’

  And with that, before I could summon up a word or thought, he turned and walked away through the dark of the evening, which quickly engulfed him.

  *

  Time passed, softening the blows of life: memory threw its veil over those events; new encounters and experiences took their place. Some months later, after a chain of flights, international and domestic, I reached the little airport at Alice Springs, tired, blearyeyed, stray thoughts running and dissolving inside my head. Heat, hot wind, bushfire smoke. I crossed the tarmac: I went through the terminal, looking, gazing, taking nothing in. Suddenly, a man approached me: he clutched my shoulder; he spoke my name.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you again,’ he said, and stared into my eyes.

  This individual was tall, fair-haired, with striking features; he was finely dressed—indeed, his clothes were exquisite: jeans of dark indigo, jet-black riding boots, a scoop-necked T-shirt, body-tight. He stood out in that terminal, full of thronging tourists and men in shorts and jeans and work uniforms. We walked out into the sun, he at my side, close, still clasping my shoulder, as if a mild form of arrest had been made, or the fabric of the world was on the verge of dissolution and he felt the need to cling to a kindred being. At that point, a noise in the sky became evident: it grew. There was a vibration in the air. A dark, broad form shimmered just above the rangeline: it gained shape and definition, it swept down, it neared the runway. The noise was deep, by now, a deep bass, a grinding sensation, a force, more than a sound: closer it came; closer—the shockwave reached the trees, their branches shook; the wheels scraped, the plane rushed by on its landing run; the engines whined and cut.

  ‘A Galaxy,’ said my companion, then, in a solemn voice: ‘I could feel it coming; I could feel the tension; I could tell. That’s the Pine Gap plane—the transport, from the States—or maybe it was sent from some strange supply base, far off round the world—Diego Garcia, or Hawaii, or Guam. Look at it—that deep grey, as if it was aiming at invisibility, obscurity, bringing secrets out and in. I’d love to know what it was carrying— wouldn’t you?’

  I said nothing, and prised his hand from my shoulder.

  ‘Where have you just come from?’ he asked.

  ‘Deep places.’

  ‘Truly! You cosmopolitan! I go to those kinds of places too—Basel, Antwerp, Malibu, Miami—and that’s not even mentioning the new destinations in the East. We’re fellow travellers. Don’t you remember me?’

  ‘I’m rather jet-lagged just now,’ I said.

  ‘But you were before, too, when we first met! It must be a permanent condition. It’s me—David Aster.’

  ‘The private dealer?’

  ‘The hawk of the art world, yes. You came into my gallery, actually, two or three years ago, in Sydney. Of course you remember me: we had a long talk! New perspectives. That was when I was just starting out.’

  A recollection stirred inside me, together with the familiar, unpleasant awareness that the record we preserve of our doings is partial, flickering: pools of intermittent light in a long oblivion.

  ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘I think: that vast showroom, down Parramatta Road—almost in Camperdown…’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘And it was impossible to find it; you had to spend hours in the search; it had no number, and no sign—getting there was like a test or challenge, and in an inside room you had those paintings from the new wave in the Western Desert: bright reds and yellows, the kinds of things no one had seen?’

  ‘That’s right—and I told you everything; I remember it exactly; it was a real confessional; I felt lightheaded for days afterwards—I told you all my hopes and schemes.’

  ‘How could I forget,’ I said: ‘You were going to stage a revolution in the desert art trade: take things in your hands; turn the old painters into stars of the contemporary scene; shape them, guide them, bring their work to new peaks of beauty; plunge in, become a true partner to the artists, learn their language, even—I remember thinking that was a quite a plan!’

  ‘And everything I said then I’d do, I’ve done. I’ve sold great, undying masterpieces to collectors round the world. I’ve turned the art market upside down.’

  ‘And how does that feel?’

  He gave a sardonic smile.

  ‘That’s not so important. Men don’t act from motives of gain, or fulfilment or happiness.’

  ‘They don’t?’

  ‘No—of course not. They act for reasons that are hidden from them.’

  We had made our way across the car park, past a row of ancient, ill-starred Fords, and Kingswoods, and dust-stained traybacks, and bush Troop Carriers in varying states of decay; past the fleets of hire cars: racy sub-compacts and sleek, new-model sedans. Aster paused, an uncertain look on his face. He reached again for my shoulder. I stepped back.

  ‘Time for me to head off,’ he said.

  Behind him was a four-wheel drive, new, metallic silver, glinting in the sun. There were three aerials of different designs and sizes on the bullbars, each one of them topped with a little pennant flag; two new spares and a kangaroo jack cantilevered from the rear door; mirror spotlights; a roof rack loaded up with neat-rolled red canvas swags.

  ‘What a vehicle!’ I said: ‘It’s like a work of art!’

  ‘It is one: I can take you through the extras if you want—and then there’s the interior!’ He opened the back, with something of a flourish. ‘Take a look. All customised. It’s my design. You won’t see anything like it on the road—not anywhere.’

  ‘That I can believe,’ I murmured. I glanced in: there were the standard splendour
s: chrome, flashing gauges, seats of nubuck suede.

  ‘The back,’ called out Aster.

  The rear compartment had been given over to a set of storage drawers of varying widths and depths, arranged in a pleasing, symmetric pattern, each one with its own lock and clasp: the whole assemblage very like an ancient steamer trunk, swathed in leather, and mongrammed. I looked more closely.

  ‘You have a Vuitton outback gear storage system?’ I said, rather accusingly.

  ‘Well, in a sense. It was made in Shanghai, by some craftsmen I work with: they have a strong preference for the counterfeit over the real; it’s an aesthetic with them; they don’t feel happy unless they’re copying, improving on an original.’

  ‘And what’s that lever?’

  ‘Don’t touch that: it cuts the power: there’s an Engel fridge in there. Full-size, hidden away, and all the navigation electronics as well—although out here you really don’t need much help to tell you where you’re going.’

  ‘You don’t ever get lost?’

  ‘I begin from an assumption of universal, primordial loss,’ he said. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you—before we say goodbye.’

  I made a gesture. He went round to the driver’s side, and came back with a dark, soft-covered book: it was a sale catalogue, in familiar livery: Important Aboriginal Art, said the spine.

  ‘Always important, isn’t it?’ I said: ‘Never just mid-grade, or of qualified significance. You can’t hide from the pressures of the market.’

  ‘Auctions!’ Aster scowled: ‘They’re just a first approximation to reality. A guide to sentiment. The real art market’s elsewhere: it’s in the minds of men and women—a handful of them: a club. You have to be initiated into its mysteries to know. But sometimes even a public sale catalogue produces jewels—like this one. There’s a sculpted piece in here—a desert object—old. And a detailed entry on its background—by Kim Akerman.’

  ‘I know him,’ I said, and was about to explain the link, and its intriguing convolutions, but Aster cut me off.

  ‘You’re a high roller,’ he said, in an admiring voice. ‘How I wish I could meet a man like that, and sit and talk. What a scholar. The depth in the things he knows—he’s the real deal. Just take a look at this.’

  He flicked the book open to a marked page—there was a lengthy curatorial essay, and, facing it, an image of a figurine, twice illustrated: long, thin and dark. The gloss paper caught the light and dazzled me: I shielded my eyes. The pose was striking, almost classical: the figure wore some kind of tall head-dress; its upper half was painted in bright colours; it was standing with one leg slightly bent, seeming caught in motion.

  ‘So—what do you think?’ said Aster, and then ran on himself at once. ‘I think it’s the most majestic, most enigmatic thing. Look—just look at the pattern in the colours—those reds, and swirling oranges, and yellows: the jet-black of the skin, the smoothness of the carved surface, the dark void where the eyes should be. I was overwhelmed when I first saw it. I couldn’t stop myself. I took a flight down to Melbourne the week before the sale.’

  ‘It’s already been held?’

  ‘It was a year ago. When I saw the statue, at the viewing, I knew, at once, for sure.’

  ‘You had to buy it?’

  ‘No one else much paid it any mind. All the usual connoisseurs were clustered round the usual expressionistic canvases and early boards and fashionable barks. With the statuette, I was alone—and I could hear it, speaking to me.’

  ‘Did you just say the sculpture was speaking to you?’

  ‘Yes—it happens to me, from time to time—I could hear sounds, noises, like whispers, half-spoken words.’

  ‘And what were they?’

  ‘No idea. I had a similar feeling, once, years ago, near the Stock Route, when I was driving with an old man—a man from Punmu, and we were out beyond the far shore of Lake Disappointment. It was a hot day, late in the year; there were dogs howling in the distance; the sky was full of smoke plumes—mirages everywhere: the moment you stepped out from the Toyota into the heat you felt on the verge of passing out. We climbed up to a cave in the flat-top ranges; he showed me old carved wooden figures hidden there—the creator-heroes of the lake, with lines and markings just like these: bands, and curves, and snake-meanders running up and down their head-dresses—I knew this statuette must be a companion piece of some kind. Take a look at what the essay says: it goes down the same path.’

  I leaned against the white trunk of the gum tree beside us, and tried to find a patch of shadow, and coaxed my eyes to focus on the page, and read the words before me. It was a mazy text, more hints and clues than anything. Description of the object, origins, provenance.

  ‘But he thinks it came from Docker River!’ I said.

  ‘He does—and I’m sure he’s right. Max Brumby—that’s the name he throws up: a famous carver of wooden figures, from long ago, almost in mission times.’

  ‘Any relation to Daniel, and to the Wild Brumbys? You know—the group that used to play at Docker, years ago—country rock, duelling guitars—sweet, pure, full of rhythm—something like the New Riders of the Purple Sage?’

  He stared at me blankly.

  ‘You’re not familiar with them, either? The Bay Area psychedelic scene—the ’60s? You look like you could have stepped straight off one of their early album covers.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with any mass-culture reference points,’ he said, with a note of pride buried in his voice: ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’

  ‘At the auction with the speaking statue—of course—who wouldn’t!’

  ‘It was early evening: in the saleroom, over-airconditioned—cold. A full house: new money, fast buyers, the conspicuous crowd. I sat alone. I always do. That’s the best way to gauge, and judge. There was a run of old barks and Gija works, from Jirrawun, all being sold off—the standard profit taking going on—then up came the piece, quite early in the sale: there it was, on the plinth, in the spot beams; it looked like some strange creation from distant stars. The big guns and the gallery collectors were catching their breath after the first flurry: no one made a move. I launched in: a start-out bid. I was alone.’

  ‘And that was it?’

  ‘It looked for a while as if it would be that way: then, after a prompt or two, another bid came, and another; they were nothing—I would have paid ten times more—but at that moment I felt a languor spreading over me, a dizziness. It was different feelings mixed into one effect: such beauty, so paraded—a contempt for buying and selling had taken hold of me.’

  ‘Bad timing!’

  ‘Of course, I’d always had a secret loathing for that scene, just as much as I was caught up in it: I loathed its appetites and falsities, its inability to distinguish mode and fancy from permanence and truth. And there was the sense of shame in me, too, for being there, and at the same time a longing to buy everything, to sweep up every work on view.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Have them—hold them—burn them—I don’t know. At that instant it was as if I heard the figurine, the statue, like a voice inside me, saying: Be still; freeze yourself; be still. I did nothing. It was knocked down to a low bid. The next pieces were all desert works, I remember, and it felt as though each one of them was drenched in suffering and grief. I was walking out on my own at the sale’s end. There was High Street, Armadale, choked with Land Cruisers and BMWs, lit up by the shopfront lights, and beside me was one of the collectors I deal with—a real horse trader. Nothing for you, tonight, I could see him thinking, and he smiled at me. You have to wait, I told myself, wait, when something’s looming before you—never buy until the signal comes. And it did. It always does. I was at home, days later, sleepless, beside myself. I was in the despair that comes from wanting beauty—a despair like love.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Yes—that piece was in my head. I was in some kind of delirium. That morning there was a sudden downpour, sharp, from nowhere, l
ike a flash storm in the desert ranges, sheets of water tumbling down—and in the middle of it, as the rain was lashing at the windows, a call came, and I knew at once what it would be. The department head from the auction house was on the line. Did I remember that little carved wooden figure I’d looked over for so long at the viewing before the sale: it had been passed in. Did I want it, he asked me, and I told him quietly that want wasn’t quite the word. And here it is!’

  With a dramatic gesture he reached down, pulled out a long carrying case, laid it on the ground, undid the locks and lifted out the statuette. He held it up to me: the paint was chipped; the sun’s glare seemed to bleach the colours out.

  ‘It’s perfect, isn’t it?’ he said, in a proprietorial voice: ‘Every time I see it it’s as if the breath is struck from my body.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just show me the real thing and skip the catalogue?’ I asked him.

  ‘Object and image are different,’ he said: ‘You know that. Sometimes it’s easier to sense the aura of an artwork from its photo, rather than from the piece itself. Besides, I was just testing you out, feeling my way.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘What a question! What do you think—now you see it face to face?’

  Aster cradled the figurine in his arms: he turned it, slowly. ‘See the way the bands of red and orange wind around the head-dress? Feel the weight: it’s heavy. Hardwood—it’s carved from Docker River desert oak.’

  ‘And what are you doing with it here? Do you always carry your choicest treasures round with you?’

  ‘The most talismanic ones, of course, yes—like old desert men with their magic objects stuffed down their swags. I carry this with me everywhere. It’s brought me joy—and sadness, too. I’m getting onto terms with it: coming to know it. I’ve been told things; I have my own ideas—about what it is, what it means. I show it to the old people, in the bush, around the fire, sometimes—in the evening, when the right time for talking comes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Oh—down the track,’ he said, with studied vagueness. ‘Through the eastern Pitjantjatjara lands: that’s where I’m headed; that’s where the real experts are for this kind of thing: men who see the past.’