Patron of the Arts

by William Rotsler

  “He doesn’t tell me what to do, even when he wants to.”

  “Well, let’s just say he might like me better if we were married.”

  “I didn’t think you sought anyone’s approval for anything.”

  “I’m a very self-indulgent person,” I said. “I do only what I want to do. I want to go to Mars some day and I shall. I might have to pass on the stars, however. But right now I want us to be married, legally, and in front of whoever.”

  “And what will you want tomorrow?” she asked. “Not to be?”

  I pulled her down to me and kissed her. “You don’t seem to understand, my dear. I am a very powerful man and what I want, I get.”

  She looked at me through slitted eyes. “Oh? Really? Do I have anything to say about that?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “In that case, I say yes.”

  We were married atop the Temple of the Magicians, in Uxmal, Yucatan, two weeks later. It was sunset and the temple faces east. We had torches, and a few close friends. There was no particular reason for the Mayan pyramid setting, it was just that they had closed the monument for a month to handle the new digs and there were no tourists there. We drank and feasted half the night, toasting the ancients and getting toasted. Madelon’s father was there, a wiry tough man of fifty, who said little and saw much. He and I stood on the sheer western edge of the stone, looking down at the wide, steep steps, and listened to the song that Alison had written, coming from the other side of the temple. We looked out over the dark jungle, seeing the faint bulk of the rains to our right, and the white tent covering the new tomb finds.

  “Thorne,” said Sam Morgana, “if you hurt her, I’ll slice you to dogmeat.”

  I turned to look at him, a lean, hard face in the night. He took a swallow from his wineglass and looked at me without expression “I don’t like threats, Sam,” I said. “Not even that kind.”

  He nodded “Yeah, neither do I.” He finished his wine and went back around the temple, leaving me alone. After a little time Madelon came, and put her arm around me.

  “How do you feel about virgin sacrifices,” I asked.

  “I’m disqualified.”

  “Oh, drat, I knew we should have waited.”

  “It’s not too late to call Rent-A-Virgin.”

  We stood there for a time and the world was still: There was night and jungle, starlight and the crescent moon silvering a path across the glossy dark leaves below. The people started leaving, laughing and calling out good wishes, going down the steps, but holding onto the safety chain. Sam was the last to leave. He stood a moment, looking at us, then waved and started down. Madelon broke free and ran to him to kiss him goodbye, and then we were alone.

  Madelon and I walked back around to the eastern side of the temple and found that our friends had created a pagan couch for us just within the rectangular door. It was covered with fur and a gorgeous shimmercloth canopy hung down over and behind us. There were several large candles flickering in the cool predawn breeze, bowls of fresh fruit and a carafe of wine. The air was scented with exotic flowers and primeval jungle.

  As the first light of dawn lightened the east we made love in the spot where Mayan chiefs had stood, hundreds of years before, greeting their sun god.

  After our marriage Madelon Morgana became, not Madelon Thorne, but Madelon Morgana. She blossomed in a marvelous and delightful way. The instant status that was hers was something she handled well, and with dignity and tact. Being the wife or companion of someone rich, or famous, or powerful is often a troublesome position. It was interesting watching her test her wings. At first I was a convenient and attractive aid, a refuge, a teacher, a shoulder, an open door, a defender. She liked what I was, then later, even more, who I was.

  We became friends as well as lovers.

  In time, of course, she had other lovers, just as I knew women who interested me, in their own way.

  No one owned Madelon, not even I. Her other lovers were infrequent, but quite real. I never kept count, though I knew Control could retrieve the data from the surveillance section’s computers. It was not that I had her watched, but that she must be watched for her own protection. It is all part of being rich and how better to extract a few million from me than by the ancient and dishonorable means of kidnapping. Guarding against an assassin was almost impossible, if the man was intelligent and determined, but the watch teams gave me comfort when she was not close. Meanwhile. I studied mazeru with Shigeta, when I could, and target shooting with Wesley. Your own reflexes are your best protection.

  In four years Madelon had only two lovers that I thought were beneath her. One was a rough miner who had struck it big in the Martian mines near Bradbury and was expending a certain animal vitality along with his new wealth. The second was a tape star, quite charming and beautiful, but essentially hollow. They were momentary liaisons and when she perceived that I was distressed she broke off immediately, something that neither man could understand.

  But Madelon and I were friends, as well as man and wife, and one is not knowingly rude to friends. I frequently insult people, but I am never rude to them. Madelon’s taste was excellent, and these other relationships were usually fruitful in learning and joy, so that the two that were distasteful to me were very much in the minority.

  Michael Cilento was different.

  I talked to Madelon, who was in the Aegean with a new lover, and then flew to see Mike at Nikki’s. Our meeting was warm. “I can’t thank you enough for the villa,” he said, hugging me. “It was so beautiful and Nikos and Maria were so very nice to me. I did some drawings of their daughter. But the island—ah! Beautiful . . . very peaceful, yet . . . exciting, somehow.”

  “Where’s the new cube?”

  “At the Athena Gallery. They’re having a one-man, one-cube show.”

  “Well, let’s go. I’m anxious to see it.” I turned to my man Stamos. “Madelon will be along soon. Please meet her and take her directly to the Athena.” To Mike I said, “Come—I’m excited.”

  The cube was life-size, as were all of Mike’s works. Sophia was olive-skinned and full-breasted, lying on a couch covered with deep fur, curled like a cat, yet fully displayed. There was a richness in the work, an opulence reminiscent of Matisse’s odalisques. But the sheer animal eroticism of the girl overpowered everything.

  She was the Earth Mother, Eve, and Lilith together. She was the pagan princess, the high priestess of Ba’al, the great whore of Babylon. She was nude, but a sun ornament gleamed dully between her breasts. Beyond her, through an arch of ancient, worn stone, was a dawn world, lush and green beyond a high wall. There was a feeling of time here, a setting far back beyond recorded history, when myths were men and monsters perhaps real.

  She lounged on animal furs, with the faint suggestion of a wanton sprawl, with no part of her hidden, and a half-eaten apple in her hand. The direct suggestion of Eve would have been ludicrous, except for the sheer raw power of the piece. Suddenly the symbolism of the Biblical Eve and her apple of knowledge had a reality, a meaning. Here, somewhere in Man’s past, there was a turning. From simplicity toward complexity, from innocence to knowledge and beyond, perhaps to wisdom. And always the intimate personal secret lusts of the body.

  All this in one cube, from one face. I walked to the side. The girl did not change, except that I was now looking at her side, but the view through the arch had changed. It was the sea, stretching under heavy clouds to the unchanging horizon. The waves rolled in, oily and almost silent.

  The back view was past the voluptuous girl toward what she looked at: a dim room, a corridor leading to it, lit with flickering torches, going back into darkness . . . into time? Forward into time? The Earth Mother was waiting.

  The fourth side was a solid stone wall beyond the waiting woman and on the wall was set a ring and from the ring hung a chain. Symbol?

  Decoration? But Mike was too much an artist to have something without meaning in his work, for decoration was just design with
out content. I turned to Mike to speak, but he was looking at the door. Madelon stood in the entrance, looking at the cube. Slowly she walked toward it, her eyes intent, secret, searching. I said nothing, but stepped aside. I glanced at Mike and my heart twisted. He was staring at her as intently as she looked at the sensatron cube.

  As Madelon walked closer, Mike stepped near me. “Is this your friend?” he asked. I nodded. “I’ll do that cube you wanted,” he said softly.

  We waited silently as Madelon walked slowly around the cube. I could see she was excited. She was tanned and fit, wearing a Draco original, fresh from her submarine exploration of the Aegean with Markos. At last she turned away from the cube and came directly to me with a swirl of her skirt. We kissed and held each other a long time. We looked into each other’s eyes for a long time. “You’re well?”

  I asked her.

  “Yes.” She looked at me a long moment more, a soft smile on her face, searching my eyes for any hurt she might have caused. In that shorthand, intimate language of old friends and old lovers, she questioned me with her look.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and meant it. I was always her friend but not so often her lover. But I still had more than most men, and I do not mean my millions. I had her love and respect, while others had usually just her interest.

  She turned to Mike with a smile. “You are Michael Cilento. Would you do my portrait, or use me as a subject?” She was perceptive enough to know that there was a more than subtle difference.

  “Brian has already spoken to me about it,” he said.

  “And?” She was not surprised.

  “I always need to spend some time with my subject before I can do a cube.” Except with the Buddha cube, I thought with a smile.

  “Whatever you need,” Madelon said.

  Mike looked past her at me and raised his eyebrows. I made a gesture of acquiescence. Whatever was needed. I flatter myself that I understand the creative process better than most nonartists. What was needed was needed; what was not needed was unimportant. With Mike, technology had ceased to be anything but a minimal hindrance between him and his art. Now he needed only intimacy and understanding of what he intended to do. And that meant time.

  “Use the Transjet,” I said. “Blake Mason has finished the house on Malagasy. Use that. Or roam around awhile.”

  Mike smiled at me. “How many homes do you have, anyway?”

  “I like to change environments. It makes life more interesting. And as much as I try to keep my face out of the news it keeps creeping in and I can’t be myself in as many places as I’d like.”

  Mike shrugged. “I thought a little fame would be helpful, and it has, but I know what you mean. After the interviews on Artworld and the Jimmy Brand show I can’t seem to go anywhere without someone recognizing me.”

  “The bitter with the sweet,” I said.

  “Brian uses a number of personas as well,” Madelon said. Mike raised his eyebrows. “The secret lives of Brian Thorne, complete with passports and unicards,” she laughed.

  Mike looked at me and I explained. “It’s necessary when you are the center of a power structure. There are times you need to Get Away From It All, or to simply not be you for awhile. It’s much like an artist changing styles. The Malagasy house belongs to ‘Ben Ford’ of Publitex . . . I haven’t been there yet, so you be Ben.”

  4

  People have said that I asked for it. But you cannot stop the tide; it comes in when it wants and it goes when it wants. Madelon was unlike any individual that I had ever known. She owned herself. Few people do. So many are mere reflections of others, mirrors of fame or power or personality. Many let others do their thinking for them. Some are not really people, but statistics.

  But Madelon was unlike the others. She took and gave without regard for very many things, demanding only truth. She was hard on her friends, for even friends sometimes require a touch of nontruth to help them out.

  She conformed to my own definition of friendship: friends must interest, amuse, help and protect you. They can do nothing more. To what extent they fulfill these criteria defines the degree of friendship. Without interest there is no communication; without amusement there is no zest; without help and protection there is no trust, no truth, no security, no intimacy. Friendship is a two-way street and Madelon was my friend.

  Michael Cilento was also unlike most other people. He was an Original, on his way to being a Legend. At the bottom level there are people who are “interesting” or “different.” Those below that should not be allowed to waste your time. On the next step above is Unique. Then the Originals, and finally those rare Legends.

  I might flatter myself and say that I was certainly different, possibly even Unique on a good day. Madelon was an undisputed Original. But I sensed that Michael Cilento had that something extra, the art, the drive, the vision, the talent that could make him a Legend. Or destroy him.

  So they went off together. To Malagasy, off the African coast. To Capri. To New York. Then I heard they were in Algiers. I had my Control keep an extra special eye on them, even more than the usual protective surveillance I kept on Madelon. But I didn’t check myself. It was their business.

  A vidreport had them on Station One, dancing in the null gravity of the big ballroom balloon. Even without Control I was kept abreast of their actions and whereabouts by that host of people who found delight in telling me where my wife and her lover were. And what they were doing. How they looked. What they said. And so forth.

  Somehow none of it surprised me. I knew Madelon and what she liked. I knew beautiful women. I knew that Mike’s sensatron cubes were passports to immortality for many women.

  Mike was not the only artist working in the medium, of course, for Hayworth and Powers were both exhibiting and Coe had already done his great “Family.” But it was Mike the women wanted. Presidents and kings sought out Cinardo and Lisa Araminta. Vidstars thought Hampton fashionable. But Mike was the first choice for all the great beauties.

  I was determined that Mike have the time and privacy to do a sensatron cube of Madelon and I made it mandatory at all my homes, offices, and branches that Mike and Madelon be isolated from the vidhacks and nuts and time wasters as much as possible. It was the purest ego on my part, that lusting toward a sensatron portrait of Madelon. I suppose I wanted the world to know that she was

  “mine” as much as she could belong to anyone. I realized that all my commissioning of art was, at the bottom, ego.

  Make no mistake—I enjoyed the art I helped make possible, with a few mistakes that kept me alert. But I am a businessman. A very rich one, a very talented one, a very famous one, but no one will remember me beyond the memory of my few good friends.

  But the art I help create will make me live on. I am not unique in that. Some people endow colleges, or create scholarships or build stadiums. Some build great houses, or even cause laws to be passed. These are not always acts of pure egotism, but the ego often enters into it, I’m certain, and especially if it is tax deductible. Over the years I have commissioned Vardi to do the Fates for the Terrace Garden of the General Anomaly complex, my financial base and main corporation. I pressed for Darrin to do the Rocky Mountain sculptures for United Motors. I talked Willoughby into doing his golden beast series at my home in Arizona. Caruthers did his “Man” series of cubes because of a commission from my Manpower company. The panels that are now in the Metropolitan were done for my Tahiti estate by Elinor Ellington. I gave the University of Pennsylvania the money to impregnate those hundreds of sandstone slab carvings on Mars and get them safely to Earth. I subsidized Eldundy for five years before he wrote his Martian Symphony. I sponsored the first air music concert at Sydney.

  My ego has had a good working out.

  I received a tape from Madelon the same day I had a call from the Pope, who wanted me to help him convince Mike to do his tomb sculptures. The new Reformed Church was once again involved in art patronage, a 2,100-year-old tradition.

  But get
ting a tape from Madelon, instead of a call, where I could reply, hurt me. I half-suspected I had lost Madelon.

  My armored layers of sophistication told me glibly that I had asked for it, even had intrigued to achieve it. But my beast-gut told me that I had been a fool. This time I had outsmarted myself. I dropped the tape in the playback. She was recording from a garden of martian lichen in Trumpet Valley, and the granite boulders behind her were covered with the rust and olive green and glossy black of the alien transplants. I arranged for Ecolco to give Tashura the grant that made the transfer from Mars possible. The subtle, subdued colors seemed a suitable background for her beauty, and her message.

  “Brian, he’s fantastic. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

  I died a little and was sad. Others had amused her, or pleased her lush golden body, or were momentarily mysterious to her, but this time . . . this time I knew it was different.

  “He’s going to start the cube next week, in Rome. I’m very excited. I’ll be in touch.” I saw her punch the remote and the tape ended. I put my man Huo on the trace and found her in the Eternal City, looking radiant.

  “How much does he want to do it?” I asked. Sometimes my businessman’s brain likes to keep things orderly and out front, before confusion and misunderstanding sets in. But this time I was abrupt, crass, and rather brutal, though my words were delivered in a normal, light tone. But all I had to offer was the wherewithal that could pay for the sensatron cube.

  “Nothing,” she said. “He’s doing it for nothing. Because he wants to, Brian.”

  “Nonsense. I commissioned him. Cubes cost money to make. He’s not that rich.”

  “He told me to tell you he wants to do it without any money. He’s out now, getting new cilli nets.”

  I felt cheated. I had caused the series of events that would end in the creation of a sensatron portrait of Madelon, but I was going to be cheated of my only contribution, my only connection. I had to salvage something.

  “It . . . it should be an extraordinary cube. Would Mike object if I built a structure just for it?”