by Ronald Malfi
Jesus Christ.
Without hesitation, grabbing the first brush his fingers fell on, he climbed the ladder and smeared a streaking tread of paint across Myles Granger’s face. Black paint. Again, Myles Granger was dead.
A mortar burst directly behind him, and he was suddenly back, back, back in Fallujah.
He turned, nearly spilling off the ladder. Behind him, looking up at him, stood Isabella Rosales. She was holding her camera up to her face. As he turned toward her, she snapped a second photograph, a third. The flashbulb was an insult in the mostly dark corridor.
“I have captured you,” the darkly handsome woman said, smiling up at him. “For all times,” she said, “I have captured you.” And she drummed a single finger against the housing of her camera.
“You’ve caught my soul, yes,” he said.
Isabella laughed. “What soul?”
“True,” he said, climbing down from the ladder. Wiping his hands down his pants, running his fingers through his corkscrew hair, he took a step toward Isabella and paused beside her. She was looking up at the mural. He, too, looked up. It looked wider, longer. He tried not to look at the smeared, blackened, charred face of dead Myles Granger. “What do you see?” he asked her.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes running the length of the mural, “I see much.”
“Do you?”
“I see pain and anger and anguish,” she told him. “I see hurt mixed with absolution. All of it, trapped like buzzing bees in a jar, all within the heart of the artist. But,” she said just as quick, “I also see a lot of love and compassion.” She nodded and looked as if she were about to take a step forward. “Yes,” she said, “I see much love and compassion.”
“You see all that?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Is it too much of a contradiction?”
“All true and honest art is a contradiction. Didn’t you know? It can never truly be real, and can never be like real life, if it is to be honest to the art of it.”
“Art is capturing real life,” he told her. “That’s its purpose.”
“No, Nicholas, you are wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Art,” she said, “is lying for art’s sake. Purely, simply. Art is not meant to be truth but, rather, to be the lie we wish the truth to be.”
“That’s very nice,” he said, turning to look at her. She did not return his look; she was still examining the mural. He had time to admire her profile. She looked poised for him, knowing full well that he was taking her in, all of her, every single angle, soaking her up—this lifeblood.
“You painted out that man’s face,” she said, pointing to what remained of Myles Granger. The black swipe of paint was like a mark of sin across the dead boy’s face. Looking at it, Nick was overwhelmed with disgrace. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he half-lied. “It became too real, I guess.”
“It scared you?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t like it.”
“It is a face,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “A real face.”
“Michelangelo painted Minos with the face of Biagio,” Isabella said, “and painted his penis in a snake’s mouth while surrounding him by devils.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the painting,” he said.
“Minos was one of three judges of the underworld,” she said. “He was one of three judges in Hell’s court.”
“It was meant as an insult,” he told Isabella.
“To be a judge of the underworld?”
“No, no,” he said. “I mean, Michelangelo painted it in retaliation to Biagio de Cesena’s harsh criticism of his rendition of the Last Judgment. He put Biagio’s face on Minos and surrounded him with devils as an insult.”
“The Last Judgment is the one where the angels force the damned down to justice,” Isabella said.
“Yes.”
“You know much about it,” she said. It was not a question.
“Some,” he said.
“You’ve been to see the works?”
“I’ve seen pictures,” he said, “in books.”
“It is not the same.”
“No,” he agreed, “it’s not.”
“It is said that Michelangelo also painted his whore in a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”
“I’ve heard it.”
She was looking closely at the mural. “Where is your whore, Nicholas?”
Half smirking, shaking his head, he turned away from her and began rubbing the paint from his hands with an old, bleached washcloth. He tossed the cloth over one step of the ladder then bent and grabbed a bottle of Perrier, took a swig, set it back down. Almost unconsciously, he rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows. When he looked down (for whatever reason) and spied his ruined right arm, however, he quickly let the sleeves fall back down to his wrists even though it was something Isabella Rosales had already seen. They had talked about it, and had talked a little, too, about the war. He did not feel like having that conversation again.
“Every good artist,” she said, “has a whore.”
“You mean a muse,” he corrected.
Promoting what could have been nothing more than a passing casual disinterest, Isabella Rosales rolled her small, tanned shoulders and shifted her large, coffee-colored eyes in his direction. “Is there a difference?”
“The muses might think so.”
“Personally, I would rather be a whore than a muse,” she said. “Too much pressure to be a muse. People would expect too much.”
“Whores have it pretty rough, too, I would think.”
“Whores have it good,” she said. “Whores have it nice.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course,” she said. “They are never alone.”
“What about their pride? Their sense of morals?”
“Morals,” Isabella said, “are highly overrated. Sometimes,” she said, “it’s just better to not be alone.”
He proceeded to pack up his equipment.
“Do you disagree?” she said over his shoulder.
“That sometimes it’s better to not be alone? I suppose. But I don’t think one should have to compromise his or her morals.”
“Morals,” she said again. “Boo. What are morals? We have created them out of nothing to keep us in chains.”
“Christ,” he said, “where did you get all this from?”
“You do not feel the same way?”
“We are born with them, with morals. They are ingrained in us.”
“Even more ingrained than the desire to be with another human being?” she said. “Even more ingrained than the struggle to keep one’s self alive?”
“Do you have a point to this?” he said finally.
Simply, she said, “No. Do you?”
With his good hand, he grabbed the supplies trunk by one handle and slid it across the floor to the storage closet. As he worked, he could feel Isabella’s eyes on him, and he was conscious—too conscious—of the difficulty evident in his attempt to move the trunk on his own. Goddamn ruined hand, he thought—and, strangest of all, and for the first time since his crippling, he nearly laughed at himself. He didn’t, but he could feel the threat of laughter…could feel it bubbling up someplace deep within him. While he did not let it go, as it was unlike him to let it go, he realized at the same time that it might have done him good to let it go and be free of it. For that moment, anyway.
“Where will you be later tonight?” Isabella said once he had stowed the trunk in the supplies closet.
“Nowhere,” he said.
“Your wife?”
“She is doing her limbo,” he said.
“Will you paint me?”
“You want me to paint you?”
“Will you do it?”
He thought for just a second. Then: “Yes, all right.”
“Wonderful.”
“Tonight?” he said.
“Come to my room,” she told him, then told him t
he room number.
“Come tonight. Bring your paints. I will supply the canvas.”
“I haven’t painted a portrait,” he said, “in a very, very long time.”
“And I can tell you are scared about it.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not.”
“Why do you lie to me?”
“I’m not lying.”
“For so noble a man, you certainly find comfort in lying.”
—Chapter X—
He went to the hotel bar but Roger was not there. A robust, pink-skinned, heavily-browed woman tended the bar.
“Where’s Roger?”
“Shift’s over.”
“It’s that late?” He looked up, searching for a clock, found none. While the female bartender wore a watch, she did not bother informing him of the time.
“What can I get you?”
He ordered a glass of scotch on the rocks, clean cubes, and waited without sitting for the drink to come.
He had no intention of loving Isabella, of falling in love with Isabella. There were complications involved in such an exercise for which he was surely unprepared. He had been to war and had watched his friends die, and he was confident of his ability to resist falling in love, or even falling into mild admiration and longing. It was mathematical, really. He’d chosen Emma. But that went awry. So math had set him on a course for Isabella. It was truly that simple. There was nothing of love involved. She was available and he felt it was something that was here for him, and it was all that simple. He, Nick, was not afraid of falling in love with anyone.
So stop thinking about her.
Finishing his drink, Nick stood, stretched his back and popped tendons, then ambled out into the hotel lobby. He needed a cigarette. He could see Mr. Granger standing behind the bell captain podium. Stout, red-faced, bleary-eyed. Too happy to avoid the older man, he hurried down the far corridor toward the back of the hotel. Here, in the half-gloom (there were very few lights), he tripped the lock on the rear doors and pushed them open and stepped out onto the beach. Producing a brown-papered cigarette, he lit it and inhaled with vigor. He was aware of the strong, sea-smelling breeze rushing against his body, coming down from the northern part of the island. And faintly, through the walls of the hotel, somewhere hidden in one of the massive, gaudily carpeted rooms, he could hear pre-recorded calypso music playing. Limbo, he thought. How low can you go?
There were few lights out on the water. He smelled the near-mournful scent of the salt sea. In the distance, he could make out a few boats, all rocking on the waves, the name of one—Kerberos—clearly visible beneath the glow of moonlight. Having no ports on this side of the island at which to dock, the few ships simply drifted with lethargic contentment just beyond the breakers, silent and deeply contemplative out on the sea.
I could do that, he thought. I could get a boat and sail the hell away from this place and never look back. Then, on the heels of that, he thought, Coward.
“Yes.”
Hot against his lips, the cigarette tasted good in his mouth.
A lone figure, ghostly beneath the moonlight, was dragging a small johnboat down the beach toward the water. Nick watched with little interest. At the water’s edge, the figure paused, set the boat down, and seemed to consider his next course of action. A pair of oars were tucked into the belly of the johnboat; the figure, after some hesitation, removed the oars and slipped them into the rings on either side of the boat. As Nick watched, he could see the current was strong and hard against the nearby pilings. The slick, fingerlike outcropping of stone that had become something of a landmark to him was completely submerged now, too.
“Water’s a bit rough,” he called to the stranger.
It was a small boat. Who would take out such a small boat?
“It’s rough,” said the stranger. “Every night, it’s rough.”
“Night fishing?” Though he could see that, clearly, the man carried with him no equipment.
“No, sir, Lieutenant.”
“Roger?”
“Yes, sir?”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I’m out here every night, Lieutenant.” Not looking in Nick’s direction, the bartender added, “What are you doing out here?”
“Attempting to smoke myself to death.”
“There’s quicker ways to death, if that’s where you’re looking to go.”
“True.” He sucked at the cigarette. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well,” Roger said, “have a good night.”
“Be careful, will you?”
“Sure,” said Roger.
He watched as the bartender pushed the johnboat out into the surf, coming up behind it and wading through the tide in his bare feet. He had rolled his cargo pants up past the knees. In the sand behind him he left two deep tracks parallel to each other and spaced roughly three feet apart, like the ties on a railroad. Between the tracks, Nick could see Roger’s footprints. The footprints, like the tracks, disappeared as they entered the water. Smoking, Nick watched the waves overcome the boat, Roger’s feet. Roger climbed in the boat and situated himself with the oars. He began rowing due south, right along the cusp of the beach. Amidst the silent and rocking sailboats and cruisers, Nick had never seen a human being look so hopelessly unimportant.
Back inside the hotel, he stood by himself for some time, listening to the faint, phantom croon of calypso music coming from somewhere, somewhere.
Sometime later, outside Isabella’s hotel room door, he found himself still smoking a cigarette and holding a bottle of shiraz. Slung over one shoulder was his portable nylon case containing what painting supplies he’d anticipated needing. Standing before the door, he may have knocked…though he could not recall; regardless, the door opened and he was suddenly aware that Isabella was completely naked beneath the terrycloth robe she wore. It was a white, full robe, loosely tied, and most evident was the shadowed cascade of cleavage bending into the V-shaped part in her robe. Her upper chest was fully exposed: as he had studied that day on the beach, her collarbone was smooth and dark like obsidian, yet prominent and perfectly symmetrical. A light smattering of brown freckles claimed the territory just beneath her neck. She wore no makeup and had done nothing with her hair. Still, she looked dangerous and alluring. For a second, standing helpless in the hallway, a half-smoked cigarette limp between his lips, the bottle of shiraz nearly sliding out of his grasp, he could only look at her and not move. Blessedly, after a moment, she spoke.
“There is no smoking in the hotel,” she said.
“You’re the smoking police?”
“Since when do you break the rules, Nicholas? You are certainly not the type.”
“Yeah?”
“You know you are not the type. It does not agree with you.”
“All right.”
“Come in.”
She shut the door behind him as he crossed the floor and set the shiraz on a small wooden desk. He looked around the room—unmade bed, clothes strewn haphazardly about, a careless stain of something dark and fresh and nearly like blood on the carpet.
“Did I come too soon?” he asked.
Isabella laughed. “I love a man who asks the poignant questions.”
“I meant I could come back if you’re not ready for company…”
“Pour your wine,” she said. “There are glasses in the bathroom.”
Obediently, he carried the wine into the bathroom, flicked on the light. Froze. Everywhere—every available space (and where space was not previously available, she had made it so)—hung glossy photographs: from the retractable clothesline above the tub; clothespinned to the shower curtain; tacked or taped to the walls; pasted to the mirror above the bathroom sink. The toilet seat, he saw, was up, and there was even a single photograph taped to the underside of the lid. Numerous, countless photographs mostly of the island—the trees, the abundant spread of golf courses, the beaches, the date palms and wooded hillocks—loomed everywhere. On the counter he c
ould see a spread of eight-by-ten glossies, black and white, of the swans from the hotel fountains. On the floor, strewn about like a spilled deck of cards, lay photographs of the island cottages that had been recently destroyed by the storm. Standing in the doorway, still smoking, he could only stare and not move. Some of the pictures taped along the frame of the door were of dead bodies. He peered curiously at these, and at one in particular: what appeared to be the long, scissor-like nylon legs of a woman bent at impossible angles as she lay, lifeless and dirty, in a darkened, rain-swept alley. The woman wore what appeared to be a tight-fitting halter beneath a suede vest studded with rhinestones and fringe. Her face was not visible, but Nick could make out a tributary of black blood seeping away from where her face must have been, trickling down the alleyway and filling the fissures in the cement.
From behind him, Isabella’s voice drifted out of the room: “Unfortunately there are only drinking glasses. They do not stock the rooms with proper wine glasses anymore, and I haven’t had a chance to steal any yet.” He heard something bump into something else, followed by a hiss of white noise through stereo speakers. A moment later and he recognized the music from Russell “Goat-Man” Claxton’s set at the Club Potemkin.
He went to the sink and gathered up the two drinking glasses, setting them both upright. They wore paper hats, which he peeled off.
“Bottle opener?” he called out.
“Look in the tub,” Isabella called back.
Half the shower curtain was already pulled back; he could see photographs clipped to the retractable clothesline over the tub. Gently, he pulled aside the remainder of the curtain (heedful not to disrupt the photographs that were pinned to it) and peered into the tub. What he saw: a portable telephone; two empty beer bottles without labels; a scattered assortment of ketchup packets from the hotel restaurant downstairs; a pink brassier; a lawn rake propped up against one tiled wall; the Holy Bible; a neatly folded pair of khaki slacks; twelve unwrapped bars of soap (he counted them); a plank of whitewashed wooden fencing with what appeared to be a face painted on it, causing Nick some reflection; a pillow case apparently filled with various footwear—sneakers, sandals, heels, boots, and the like; a silver football helmet with a green shamrock etched onto one side; a tattered paperback novel titled Sangria Espresso; a set of keys; a pair of Hammeroy sunglasses with one of the lenses missing; and the corkscrew.