Benchere in Wonderland

by Gillis, Steven;

  “What I found instead was that Peter cared little for the people we were living with and studying. There were six of us as part of the team and we had rented a small cottage. Each day we would observe and gather data and study how the poor in these outland areas survived. After a week or so, when people began to understand who we were and where we were from, a small group came to gather outside our cottage.”

  “Like the Africans,” Harper notes, to which Deyna says, “Yes, but with a slight difference. The Africans have not yet asked us for anything and it’s possible they never will, despite what we may offer. The jibaro in the barrio where we were in Puerto Rico came to us eagerly, not as beggars but with requests. They offered their services, wanted to sell us vegetables, labor, tours, protection, whatever we might need.

  “I spoke to Peter with the hope that he would be receptive to doing something for these people but he refused. Any involvement we had with the peasants would skew our research, he said. In a vacuum this was true. We couldn’t influence our study, I understood. But we could accomplish both. I argued that Eric Wolf’s theory defined all cultures as dynamic and every community changed because of outside influence. Peter reminded me that we were not a culture or a city whose economic and social construct impacted life in the barrio through a natural process, but rather we were six scientists and whatever aid we offered the people would be artificial and short-lived.

  “Again, I understood, but complained to Peter that he was being too rigid. I reminded him of the work Paul Farmer was doing, how it was possible to study cultural phenomena and still bring things like medicines and clinics and schools to a community. Peter didn’t want to hear. As far as he was concerned, the people we were researching were cold subjects, like fossil bones and pottery chips discovered in the ground. When he left the cottage in the morning and returned at night, he would push through the group that was gathered with an arrogance that was both deliberate and cruel.”

  Deyna stops for a moment, reaches for Benchere’s elbow to balance against as she lifts one leg and removes a small stone which had gotten inside the top of her boot. “One night a woman from the group knocked on our door,” Deyna resumes. “She had a small boy with her, sick with fever, his skin a wan yellow and his eyes halfway closed. She begged us for help. Peter in the doorway stood imperiously and sad no. His rejection had nothing to do with our study, I realized absolutely then. He simply wanted nothing to do with these people. Vete, vete, he said and tried to close the door.

  “I can’t say what happened first, whether the others in the group in front of Peter began to close in on us, or if I was already pushing past, the keys to our jeep in hand, and leading the woman with the boy away. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I got the child to the hospital. I stayed the night. When I came back the next morning, Peter had my bags packed by the door.”

  “Fucker,” Harper says.

  “Assholes are everywhere,” Benchere now.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Shit happens.”

  “Don’t it.”

  “I’ve been telling you,” Deyna still between the two, leans closer to Benchere who feels her there and, suddenly reminded of where they are and all that has happened, he slows his pace, turns and looks back across the field and toward the fire from the new group’s camp.

  IN THE MORNING, Benchere heads out to his sculpture and works on welding the first copper moon. A harness is connected to a wire pulley which Deyna and Zooie and the Iowa three use to raise Benchere skyward. Harper mans the crane, holds the moon steady while Jazz barks below. Deyna engages the safety locks, checks along the inner beam, uses a different winch to get the second lock to click in.

  The hose passing from the welding tank snakes up through the center of the sculpture. Benchere clamps the first quarter-moon in place. He lights the torch, applies the heat and welds the metals together. Tomorrow he will attach the second moon to the east side of the beam. When both halves are complete the moons will form a celestial head. Benchere adjusts his hold. His gloves are sweat stained, his face shield lowered, his arms bare and unprotected in a sleeveless blue t-shirt.

  As he works, he catches Deyna once, then twice, there beneath him. He shifts his shoulders, resettles his gaze, concentrates on the weld and looks for the work to distract him. Art is this. At times he asks no more of it. When Deyna appears again he doubles down and fills his head with Marti. He thinks of her involvement with Engineers for Humanity, the Rhode Island Urban League and RICADV, the many support groups in Providence, the time she organized a teaching forum for single mothers, connecting them with programs for daycare, healthcare, job fairs, educational opportunities all under one roof.

  He thinks of what was and all he misses now, recalls how he reacted after Marti’s cancer returned. Once the tests and prognosis were in, after Benchere had wept and wailed and set off on a new course of reading and research, making phone calls and chasing down new experimental treatments, he went into his studio and lost himself in his art, banging on the metals for a fresh sculpted work. When Marti came to find him, Benchere buried his head and insisted he had to finish the piece. She gave him the day, and then another and another after that, until the time when she returned to the studio, she found him hammering still on the same raw sheet. Gently she approached him, gave him no warning, took his hand from the hammer knob and set it on her cheek, told him what he knew already but didn’t want to hear.

  The rope in Deyna’s gloved hands runs taut. The winches are locked but she keeps the pull in place just the same. Guarded, Benchere stares past Deyna, finds the base of the foundation posts and calculates how deeply beneath the girders are buried.

  For nearly an hour, Deyna eyes the ropes while Benchere runs the rod in steady strokes along the seam of the metals. He ignores the sparks against his skin, maneuvers the heat from the rod to set the vein. Leaning in, he commits himself to the moment, so much so that when Mindy and Heidi come and shout up at him, announcing what they have found, he doesn’t quite hear. Only after they insist and insist again does Benchere remove his mask and turn off the rod. What now? High up on his sculpture, he has them repeat what they are saying, pauses to consider as they dance below and sing like copper sunbirds there in the desert.

  13.

  ROSE SHOWS STERN, TURNS THE COMPUTER AROUND. “Photographs and everything,” he says.

  “Do you think it does justice?” Stern asks.

  “Justice?” Rose again.

  “Ha,” says Stern. “Yeah.”

  IN ZIMBABWE, IN the city of Mutare, in the middle of a peaceful rally by supporters of the MDC – the Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, orders his soldiers to open fire on the crowd. The carnage is swift. Through a spokesperson, Mugabe denies any wrongdoing, accuses the demonstrators of being insurgents intent on overthrowing a freely elected government. When the streets clear, a stone and wire sculpture some nine feet high is left behind. Fleeing, the men and women responsible for the sculpture are heard to chant, Vryheid! Vryheid! Bencheer, Bencheer. Bencheer! while soldiers on foot and in jeeps give chase.

  BENCHERE’S STUDENTS ARE giddy with the news from Mutare. By the fire now, Linda sits to Benchere’s left. Mindy and Heidi cannot sit at all. “You had us going,” they say to Benchere, laughing at the way he once claimed art should never be used to support a cause. “Things are different outside the classroom, aren’t they, Professor? We see now what you had planned from the start.”

  To this Benchere refuses to reply, gives his students their moment and leaves it at that.

  Linda wears a teal colored sweatshirt and black jeans. Harper sips his whiskey. Naveed and Julie share a crate. Mund is off on the far side of camp meeting with his supporters. Gabriella comes alone to the fire. In Valentino slacks and a thin wool sweater, her shoes are Dolce & Gabbana pumps, the pointed heels piercing the surface of the sand. As a woman of some height, Gabriella has learned to slouch in a way that appears almost natural when walki
ng with Dancy. Without him, she straightens, becomes statuesque, inhabits her space fully.

  Mindy stands beside the stack of wood. Heidi and Doran find room on the ground with the other students. Deyna sits in one of the folding chairs. The Africana remain in their camp, surrounding a fire of their own. Eager to discuss what they believe should happen next, the BAA students talk about Zimbabwe, about Dada, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, An-My Lê, and I.M. Bogad, Joeseph Delappe, Coco Fusco, Aaron Gach and Hans Hoacke, Eve Mosher and Dread Scott. All believe in art as a form of social activism, while Mindy and the others are convinced the sculpture in Mutare is a powerful force, influenced by the integrity of Benchere’s Kalahari project, which serves as a symbol for other movements to rally around.

  Gabriella ignores the students, addresses only Benchere. Standing with the fire behind her, she is lit in a red-yellow glow. Calm as a cobra, she grins and tells Benchere, “I think your sculpture is turning out just beautifully, Mike. It’s too bad what’s happened in Mutare. These jinais should not be connecting your name to theirs.”

  Mindy is several inches shorter than Gabriella, is built along Germanic lines, with thick legs and flat shoulders, her hair cut above her ears. Reactive, she issues her own salvo against Gabriella, calls her uninformed and says, “The whole purpose of our being in the desert is to inspire demonstrations like the one in Mutare.”

  “Now dear,” Gabriella yawns through three fingers. “The government in Zimbabwe was freely elected. Forming mobs to riot in the street won’t change that.”

  “What mob? What riot?” Mindy swings her arms behind her like a diver about to launch. “It was a peaceful demonstration.”

  “If it was peaceful dear, the soldiers would not have been forced to defend themselves.”

  “What?”

  “Defend.”

  “Jesus.”

  Gabriella runs her thumb under the nail of her index finger. She has a steelier demeanor than her husband. Where Dancy tries to cajole, Gabriella makes no such effort. She looks again toward Benchere and says, “The mobocracy in Mutare misappropriated your name and your sculpture’s image to create a blitzkrieg.”

  “A blitzkrieg?”

  “Did she say?” Harper nearly spits his whiskey.

  Mindy raises her shoulders, which have acquired a layer of muscle from the work she performs in the desert. She takes two quick steps toward Gabriella and snaps, “No one misappropriated a thing. Building the sculpture here is meant to show that anything is possible.”

  Gabriella looks between the students and says, “Including the killings, dears?”

  “But that was the soldiers.”

  “Fending off insurgents who started the attack,” Gabriella says smugly. “And here is poor Michael, caught in the middle.”

  “Who’s caught?”

  “What is your problem?”

  Mindy jumps. “You don’t get it do you?”

  “Tell her, Professor,” Cherry shouts.

  “Tell her.”

  Mindy lists the names of other artists, Lynn Chadwick, Norman Carlberg and Susan Crile, Willie Bester and Jane Alexander in South Africa. “Everyone in Mutare understands why Benchere came to the Kalahari,” she says.

  “The only way the world gets changed is when people who suffer and know about suffering confront those in power with the truth.” Heidi quotes Gandhi, then says, “Art is truth.”

  “Art shines a light.”

  “Art is the light.”

  “Art is freedom.”

  “Art is peace.”

  “And change.”

  “Art is possibility.”

  “Art is faith.” Mindy flicks all ten of her fingers in the air like stars and yells, “Amandla!”

  “Awethu!”

  “Power to the people.”

  “Uhuru!”

  Linda cheers the students on with her own chant of Awethu! Awethu! Uhuru! though caught up in the moment, she isn’t quite sure what it means.

  LATER, AFTER THE others have gone, Benchere and Deyna stay by the fire. He moves his chair so that he’s facing her, a crate between them. His green sweater has several loose threads along the sleeves. Daimon’s brown safari hat is worn at the back of Benchere’s head. The whiskey bottle is to the left of his chair, drained once and refilled now with sand.

  Deyna has her Carhartt sandstone jacket on, halfway zipped. Her hair is recently trimmed, exposes more of her face. She moves the collar of her coat away from her neck, puts her feet up on the crate. Jazz lays nearer the fire. From a distance, the top of the sculpture appears to rise above the hills. Deyna points out toward the field, flicks her foot so that it taps against Benchere’s ankle and says in reference to Mutare, “Look what you’ve done.”

  Benchere denies the connection. “It’s a stretch at best and has nothing to do with me.”

  “They chanted your name.”

  “They’re confused.”

  “Your students think otherwise.”

  “My students think a lot of things. They’re young,” Benchere reminds. “They make mistakes.”

  “And you?”

  “Sure, but not on this.”

  “You don’t feel what happened in Mutare is a good thing?”

  “I don’t think the demonstrators should have put me in the middle of their boil.”

  “So you agree with Gabriella?”

  “Hold on,” Benchere rubs at his chin, removes his hat, pushes his hair around and plops the hat back down. “Listen,” he attempts to distinguish, calls Gabby a self-absorbed clam. “While I’m warm and fuzzy and not without sympathy. I never called the demonstrators a mob and I don’t blame them for what happened.”

  “But?”

  “But that doesn’t give them the right to drag me into their mess. It’s wrongheaded. If I want to get involved on my own, fine. If I want to march in the streets and throw eggs at the castle, that’s good for me, but don’t go using my name and my art without permission.” Benchere stretches his back, shifts his feet on the crate and says of his sculpture, “That’s not what this is for.”

  “What is it for then?”

  Benchere frowns, states for the record, “Art is open to interpretation, but that interpretation is personal. People are free to interpret my art any way they like. But people can’t use my art to assert their own shit and pretend that their assertion comes from me. You can’t hoof-tie art and drag it around in a gunnysack, yanking it out in order to tell people what to think or not think.”

  “No one’s doing that.”

  “Sure they are. That’s exactly what they did.” Benchere flicks Jazz’s ear. In the distance, Rose listens through the Lithium powered Electromax EPM parabolic microphone hidden inside a tiny casing that looks like a rock. Last week Stern snuck down in the dark, used a Marksman 3040 slingshot to shoot the mic against the side of Benchere’s tent. The fire now is too far away for much to be heard though Rose keeps his ear trained just the same.

  The wind at night sends sand into the fire, which causes the flames to sizzle and shift. Deyna tugs at the zipper on the front of her jacket. She studies Benchere’s face, the round underside of his chin, his whiskered clef, his eyes keen, softer than others tend to see; mischievous even when he howls. His hair beneath his hat is wild, his green sweater ancient, the cuffs loose and collar frayed. Disheveled, his appearance is endearing. Deyna thinks of the story he told before, about the man making trinkets on the street. She switches the direction of their conversation just slightly, references the group of Africana and says, “These folks are here because of you.”

  “Are they now?” Benchere doesn’t care to admit.

  “This is a good thing,” Deyna says, but much as Mutare Benchere denies, says of the new group, “They don’t know me from butter. They’re here because they heard this might be a safe place to stay.”

  “Of course they did. And why is that?” Deyna gives her voice a soft accounting. She speaks of social evolutionism, of consequence and setting things in motion.
“Being here is not a static condition,” she tugs her jacket sleeves down over her hands, places Benchere in the center of both the new group and the 100-plus people in the main camp. “This may not be what you expected,” she tells him, “but that doesn’t mean what’s happening isn’t notable.”

  “Notable you say? Ha. What sort of word?” Benchere rubs at his chin and goes, “Believe me, I’ve noticed. These new folks,” he says of the Africana, “it’s all fine by me, but the rest has worn thin. All this chatter clash is not what I came here for. What’s important is this,” he points out to his sculpture. “Everything else is annoyance.”

  “Really Michael?” After so many weeks, Deyna has a way of addressing Benchere which is both scolding and amused. She gives him a telling look, intentionally open to interpretation as she says, “You can’t go around treating the world as an irritant just because it gets in the way of your art.”

  “Who says I do?” Benchere remains defensive. “I didn’t come here to be caretaker to a bunch of mealy knockers. I’m tolerant enough but all of this isn’t real.” He waves his hand this time in the direction of the two camps and says, “It’s just temporary.”

  “Everything’s temporary.” Deyna extends her argument outward, calculates again how far she wants to go before saying, “It’s what makes each moment meaningful.”

  As best he can, Benchere ignores. Deyna talks about her own work, how when examining pieces from a dig, a bit of pottery or the handle from a tool, “It’s never the artifact I care about, never the temporary status of the social order from where the piece came, but that someone made it and that it was part of a life.”

  “That’s all fine,” Benchere sets his heels in the sand on the sides of the crate, “but there’s a huge difference between examining things after the fact and being stuck in the middle. I’m here to make a sculpture,” he repeats. “What happens around me is irrelevant.”

  “People are not irrelevant, Michael.” Deyna gives him this in quick return. She knows his bark is just that, has seen him carry the food to the Africana, and more before, understands him well enough and all he’s trying to tell her.