Stanislavski was shocked. For a few moments I thought he would revise his terrible plan, as if the ghost of Irena had prompted him to relent. No, the mood shifted in him and he laughed. “Superlative,” he said.
I was glad when he took the thing away, no doubt to set it up in one of his private rooms where he could gloat.
I still harboured thoughts of nothing more happening, that Claremont would be unaffected by the painting. But I couldn’t escape the truth.
Three days later, Stanislavski brought the painting back to me. I stared at it in horror as he revealed it. Claremont’s face was perfect, just as it was in the photographs. They were my brush strokes, my deft touches, my interpretation, as if I’d done it under hypnosis without knowing.
So what in hell had happened to Richard Claremont?
I soon found that out.
It was in the press and on the television.
They passed it off as some kind of accident at home, something dire that had befallen him.
Just his face, apparently.
His body was unaffected.
He was still a fine athlete, a top rugby player.
There was no reason, once recovered from the shock of the accident, that he couldn’t continue to press for his international career. Of course, he would have to wear a mask.
I realised then the real extent of Stanislavski’s vengeance. Or so I thought.
“The painting,” he told me, “will go to the Claremonts. From an anonymous admirer. It depicts Richard as he was in his prime, in all his pomp and beauty. A reminder of what he has lost. They will know I am behind it. They may even know that I paid you to paint the picture. It will not matter. The truth will be too fantastic to be believed.”
I let it go at that. I didn’t want anything more to do with it. I would just get on painting what I wanted to paint and occasionally doing something for Stanislavski, revising nature’s handiwork on some unfortunate person, creating a bloom of happiness where before there had only been pain.
Evil never rests.
I thought I could focus on my own work, but something in Stanislavski had changed, as though the corruption in my portrait of Richard Claremont had leaked into him, too.
He grew restless, pacing about the studio where I was working, his eyes fixed on something dire, something that still tormented him.
“Once more,” he said at last, as if the words had to be dragged out of him.
“No. You said one painting. You’ve had your pound of flesh. I’ve done my bit.”
“Once more,” he repeated grittily, anger welling. “The father. I must deal him one last blow. I must know that he is in pain, suffering at my hands. He has not yet paid in full.”
“If I refuse?”
He glared at me, a hint of the demonic in his eyes. “I will show you.” I expected a verbal assault, threats, all the nastiness of which I’m sure he was capable, but he turned and stormed from the room.
I didn’t see him for three days.
Three hellish days.
Three days in which I lost my ability to paint the simplest thing. I’d been working on a street scene, a painting for a client.
Initially I had set it up and prepared the canvas for more detailed work, but as I painted I couldn’t get the perspective right.
The colours were faded, no depth. The houses were dull, flat. I put the thing aside and decided to work on something else, some preliminary sketches I’d done a few days before.
Each time I added something to them or tried to transcribe them to a new canvas, my hands were clumsy, the results amateurish.
I knew that Stanislavski was responsible. I don’t know how he did it. Mesmerism, maybe. It was too subtle for me. Some kind of psychological barrier had been set up. I could not draw or paint other than on the most basic level.
“What have you done?” I demanded when I finally got to see him. He’d been avoiding me.
“You know precisely what I have done,” he said in that cold, numbing way. “Think of it as a curse. One that will remain with you for as long as you defy me. However, if you agree to paint another portrait for me, of Alexander Claremont, the curse will be lifted. Think carefully, Louis. If you leave me – and I will not stop you – your life will be in ruins. You could live off your past work, but where would be the joy in that? With so much ahead of you.”
He knew me too well, my ambition, my obsession with my art. I could never throw it away. “One more,” I said. “One last painting.”
So I did as he asked. I painted Alexander Claremont, just as I had painted his son. Grotesque, a mutation of his real self.
A figure who, would be ridiculed, unable to stand up in public without the mockery of his enemies - oh, he had made many of them in his political life – snapping at him every day. I put everything into that painting, so that it was both monstrous and horrifying, but realistic, credible.
When Stanislavski came to view the finished item he was overjoyed. His body shook with emotion. I understood then that he was not entirely sane. I wondered about my own sanity.
“Go and rest,” he said; his hand on my shoulder as though I was a son of whom he was immeasurably proud. “Have another holiday, far away. Come back in a month. You shall have everything you need.”
I wasted no time in making the most of his offer and took off for the sun, joined by wealthy friends and we drank ourselves into oblivion, the nightmare of my sordid paintings temporarily forgotten.
We weren’t interested in the news about politics or what was transpiring in the City. It was a glorious orgy of self-indulgence.
Like all such things, it had to end.
I returned to Stanislavski, who made no comment about my appearance. I had a unique tan, a contrast to my usual slightly pasty colouring, but I looked more than a little wrecked.
“You have heard the news? About Claremont?”
I shook my head. Something clammy was reaching out for me and I drew back.
Stanislavski laughed softly. We were in his study. There was a painting on an easel nearby. He went to it and removed the sheet that covered it.
It was my portrait of Alexander Claremont.
Perfect, flawless.
The figure stared at us from brilliant eyes as though we were looking through a window at a living being. I had captured his essence.
“Like his son, he suffered some kind of accident,” said Stanislavski, his mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “Even his wife – his third – couldn’t bear to look at him, much less continue to share his bed. I sent him my condolences, naturally. He knew, Louis. He knew I was somehow responsible. You cannot imagine how that makes me feel.”
I masked my disgust.
“Yes, he realised. And he killed himself. One of his priceless antique duelling pistols. He blew his brains away.”
I felt sickened, not only by the horror of what had happened – my handiwork – but by Stanislavski’s attitude. He was like a child, revelling in this business.
Alexander Claremont had meant nothing to me. For all I knew he had been a bastard, a monster in a world of monsters. Yet we’d killed him with a clinical indifference, like swatting an insect.
“Then it is over,” I breathed.
“Over?” said Stanislavski, strutting about the room, a military dictator preening pompously, impervious to anything. “No, no. This is just the beginning. There is so much we can achieve!”
I felt as if I’d been thumped in the gut. What was he saying? There was to be more of this madness?
What of his promise, to free me from it?
Alexander Claremont was to have been the last of his victims. Now this?
I was about to snarl my rejection, but I could see that Stanislavski had crossed some terrible line. Whether it was insanity or not, I can’t say, but he was sunk into his thoughts of murder, revenge, whatever. His course was set and I was trapped.
Over the next few days, he said nothing more, leaving me to return to my own routine. I was relie
ved to discover that he had lifted his curse on me, because I could draw and paint again, as well as I had ever done. I finished the street scene and sold it to a delighted customer for a substantial sum of money. For a while I wondered if Stanislavski had changed his mind, possibly content with what he’d done.
I got that wrong.
He came back to me, hell-bent as ever on extending the madness, cajoling me, threatening me, becoming more aggressive to the point where I couldn’t take it. I ended most days in a drunken stupor, as if the booze would shield me. I became withdrawn. My friends knew something was drastically wrong. Naturally I couldn’t tell them anything, not that they would have believed me. Who wouldn’t think I was nuts?
Stanislavski had me by the balls. I had no choice but to paint for him.
Then I saw a way out of it. Drastic, devastating, but it was that or face what could be a lifetime of duplicity, the absolute horror of painting to Stanislavski’s orders, maiming, distorting, even killing.
I couldn’t do it. It was too high a price to pay for success. Success that should have meant freedom, the world my oyster, as he’d put it.
Instead I’d be in a cage, an emotional straightjacket, a living hell.
~~~
Grapelle slid back into the shadows and Lewington understood better now why he clung to them.
“Open the painting,” said the artist. “It’s the last portrait I ever did.”
Lewington’s eagerness to do so had not quite faded, but he undid the string that bound the canvas packing with trepidation.
When he pulled out the painting, he gasped.
It was a self-portrait, a beautiful work, a depiction of Louis Grapelle as he must have been ten years ago, full of youthful zeal, the obsessive drive – he’d caught these things as only he could.
“It’s extraordinary,” said Lewington. “As good as anything you ever painted.”
“I’m glad you like it. It’s yours, in exchange for your silence. Forget everything I told you. Above all, forget the book about me. Enjoy what you have.”
Lewington glanced up. The artist was undoing something at his ear, unhooking a mask, which he held in his lap as he leaned further forward into the light.
“There’s no question of my painting anything else,” he said.
Lewington almost dropped the painting as he stared at Louis Grapelle’s face. It was lined, prematurely haggard, but more than that, it had no eyes...
THE JAR BY THE DOOR
Icy Sedgwick
The old stairs creaked with every step. Joseph grimaced; unable to decide what made more noise – the staircase or his joints.
He cursed the building between each laboured breath. Six floors of crumbling apartments above his own dingy quarters – that was six floors of leaking pipes and irritating tenants, including 5B.
Make that especially 5B.
Joseph paused for breath on the landing below the top floor – home to 6B.
The current inhabitant had taken one look at the place seven weeks ago, and declared it perfect for her needs. Her long legs and narrow waist told Joseph she’d be perfect for his needs, but he was old enough to be her grandfather. Not that it had ever stopped him before. Joseph never considered that his wandering hands might be the reason he had such a high turnover of tenants.
He hoped he might catch the leggy blonde stepping out of the shower, just like he had with 2A three weeks ago when he casually dropped around to check the radiators.
Movement scuffled inside 5B, and Joseph snatched at the bannister. Too slow to escape, he stared as the door swung inward and 5B poked her head into the hallway. A silk headscarf covered the rollers in her auburn hair, and she pursed her already-pinched lips.
“Mr Petersen, I thought I heard you.”
“Indeed you did. If you'll excuse me though...”
“Are you going upstairs?”
“Well that was my plan but right now I'm standing here talking to you.” Joseph couldn't resist the snide comment. She mentioned her ‘important work’ and bandied around terms like ‘research’, ‘imperative’ and ‘funding’ every time she spoke to him, so insulting her intelligence became a small victory for Joseph.
“He's getting worse.” She glared at him but didn't bother to conceal the ice in her tone.
“Who?”
“6B.”
“You must be mistaken; a woman lives in 6B.”
“I'm never mistaken.”
Joseph shrugged and placed one foot on the bottom step. “Well I'm here now, and I've got a list of your complaints, so I'll head up to see what's going on.”
“They aren't complaints, Mr Petersen, they're issues. And issues need to be resolved.”
Joseph nodded, and turned away. Her glare bored into his back as he mounted the stairs. All thoughts of catching 6B in the shower melted away, replaced by irritation with 5B.
What did she mean, saying a man lived in 6B? There was no way the delectable blonde was a man – and he should know who he rented out his apartments to. True, there was always the chance she was sub-letting – maybe it was a man causing all the problems for 5B, and 6B didn't even know about it.
He nodded, satisfied that his theory allowed 6B to remain unblemished while putting the blame onto a stranger that he could evict.
He reached the top of the stairs, crossed the landing to 6B, and rapped his gnarled knuckles against the flaking wood.
“Miss? Are you in? It’s just me, Joseph,” he called. Everyone else in the building called him Mr Petersen but she could call him by his first name. He decided that she would appreciate a gesture like that.
He knocked again. No reply. How typical – he'd come all this way for nothing. He glared down the staircase in the vague direction of 5B, aware that her door was still open. The nosy snob complained about everyone in the building, but she had been complaining about 6B more than anyone else for two weeks now.
Suspicious noises, foul smells, dubious visitors – 5B filed a new complaint every day about the same things. Joseph knew he should have ignored her, but he wanted an excuse to ogle 6B’s cleavage. Besides, he hadn’t been inside the flat since she moved in, and he liked checking on his property from time to time.
Joseph raised his hand to knock again when the first whiff caught in his nostrils. He screwed up his face and bunched his fist up to his nose. Perhaps a rat had died inside the wall cavity. Or maybe he’d stepped in something.
Against his better judgement, he sniffed again, and retched. The stench of rotting meat and rising damp came from beyond the door. Whatever it was needed fixing…which meant he’d need to pay for it.
There again, 6B hadn’t informed him of any problems and that worried him, especially in a fleapit like this where something was always going wrong. Maybe she was hurt – something might have happened to her. Or this elusive male tenant might be hurt, and she didn't even know about it.
“Mr Petersen?”
Joseph groaned as 5B came up the stairs. She wore a shapeless green cardigan and a disapproving expression. Joseph guessed she was annoyed at having to abandon her beloved research. Well she didn't need to interrupt writing her book to babysit him.
“Yes?”
The words on 5B's lips died as she reached the smell on the landing. Her face twisted, and her nose screwed up as though it could crawl up her forehead away from the stench.
“What on earth is that smell? Really, these incidents have been getting worse but this really does top them all!”
“I was about to find out what it is when you came upstairs.”
Joseph rummaged in the left pocket of his worn corduroy trousers and found a crumpled tissue. He stuffed it up his nose and fished his jangling bunch of keys out of his right pocket.
He fumbled with the correct one, eventually getting the ancient metal bone into the lock. The keyhole protested for a moment, as if aware that it was not 6B entering the apartment, but the door ignored the keyhole’s misgivings and eased inward an inch. Joseph gave t
he door a final hard shove, and stepped inside.
He shuffled down the narrow hallway into the living room. Newspapers covered the windows, with narrow shafts of light penetrating the occasional gap between already-yellow sheets. The sunshine fell across bare floorboards covered in tattered old clothing. Joseph glared at the mess, furious with her lack of housekeeping but blind to the fact the clothes were not the style he’d seen 6B wear.
“Is he home, do you think?” 5B called out from the doorway, clearly unwilling to step inside. Well, Joseph didn't blame her.
“You can go back downstairs, I can take it from here,” he replied.
He listened for a moment but heard no footsteps on the stairs. The nosy cow isn't leaving until I do.
The tissue in his nose came loose, and Joseph realised the smell came from the bathroom. He felt his way through the apartment, stumbling over assorted junk and rubbish.
He peered into the gloom and realised that 6B had very little furniture; in fact, there was nothing of her own, simply the battered basics he’d provided. He’d had students like this, who left discarded plates of food dotted about the room, although he couldn’t see any leftover meals lying around. If anything, the kitchenette was an oasis of relative calm in the chaos of the apartment.
He groped across the wall and found the light switch. The bathroom light sputtered into life, casting its weak glow into the hallway. Joseph looked down, his gaze caught by something dark and sticky that covered the floorboards in front of the bathroom door. He gagged, and forced himself not to vomit. He pushed the door open with his elbow, desperate not to touch anything with his bare hands. Not even 6B herself.
Mental note, I’ll serve her a termination in the morning. Just hope she tidies up before she goes.
Joseph paused in the doorway, jaw slack and eyes bulging, as he saw a sticky, red mess in the bath tub, all sinews and awkward angles. Crimson handprints stained the wash basin. Three suits hung from coat hangers dangling from the shower rail. More bile rushed up Joseph’s throat when he realised they weren’t suits – they were skins.
He stumbled backwards, willing himself to look away from the skins hung up to dry. He glanced in the mirror and saw rows of jars lined up on the shelves behind the bathroom door. Joseph urged himself not to turn around, but he was facing the other way before he realised he’d moved. A multitude of eyeless faces stared back from inside the jars, floating in dark green liquid.
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