I ran to the Studio along the pebbled path, swung open the wooden door which Oñé had not locked to find him sitting crossed legged on the floor. It seemed as if he had pulled one of my installations from its pegging and cut it into tiny pieces like a jigsaw.
He looked at me in disgust. “So you said ‘yes’. I knew you would. She can make any man say ‘yes’.”
I tried to imagine how I would have felt aged eleven. It was difficult because it didn’t seem so different from how I felt now aged fifty.
“I am not any man.”
Oñé threw a piece of a fragment from my installation into a bin. “I know you’re not.”
“How do you know that Sophia wants to marry me and that I had said yes today?”
Oñé raised his eyes to the Heavens as if he couldn’t believe that I was asking such a stupid question. “Ishmael told me. Have you not heard of mobile phones? She texted him and he came here to tell me.”
I knelt on the floor beside him and began gathering together the pieces of my work of art which was scheduled to hang in a ward in a hospital within weeks. I blocked out what he had said and continued with another question.
“You said in your text that I had to come home because there was an emergency. What was it?”
I looked around and could not work out what could have happened. He seemed calm.“What was or is the emergency?” I repeated in a firm voice without looking at him and examined a few of the fragments wondering if they could be salvaged and glued to another fabric.
Silence.
I raised my eyes to look at him. His eyes were closed as if he were in deep meditation.
“Ishmael came here. He cut up the installation. I didn’t.” He pointed to the scissors on the table. “That’s how he did it. That’s when I texted you. He left through the front door. I ran after him. But you arrived too late. You missed him.”
My head started to spin. I had a new sensation of a shortness of breath in my chest with a sense of panic in my gut. I rushed to the toilet without excusing myself.
When I returned, Oñé had retrieved the fragment of the installation which he had thrown in the bin and placed it on top of the other pieces.
I undid the black tie which I had worn to take Sophia to the airport and opened the top button of my shirt. I took a few deep breaths.
“Is he coming back then?”
Oñé stared at me in disbelief. “Unless you change the locks I imagine he will return whenever he chooses to.”
My head was churning. He was saying that Ishmael was alive. I reasoned that this boy was sicker in the head than I could ever have imagined.
I was prepared to play along with Oñé’s story to see how far he would take it. Referring to the blood on the ground, I asked, “Did you fight?”
“I tried to stop him destroying your installations.”
“Let me see you hand.”
He opened his hand and I could see that the small wound from the knife slashing incident had opened and a few drops of blood trickled along his palm onto the floor.
“You had that wound the day Sophia arrived. It has opened again because you’ve probably picked at it.”
“I didn’t pick at it.”
Oñé got to his feet and reached into his back pocket for his mobile phone.
“I took a photo of him as he was leaving. I didn’t manage to get his face. You can make him out.”
I snatched the phone from him and stared at the photo. There was only a blur of black which could have been a man exiting from the front door. I attempted to expand the image. It made it fuzzier. I rushed to the window to examine the wood stacked for the winter which I had covered with a black tarpaulin to keep the rain from soaking it. The tarpaulin was not on top of the wood as I suspected but was rolling along the path towards the house. Oñé had most likely pinned it to the door frame to create a silhouette which looked like a human being and deliberately shook the mobile phone as he took the photo. He is, after all, an artist.
For a few seconds I admired his ingenuity. I also felt a surge of relief and adrenalin. This boy was playing mind games with me that I knew I could win.
“Do you not think it’s hard to identify him? There’s obviously something there but I don’t think I could say it was definitely Ishmael. Good job, though, thinking about using the mobile.”
I looked at Oñé to see his reaction. He pressed his right hand against his left to stop the bleeding. He looked at me, shaking his head. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
I didn’t expect that response. I put my hands in my pockets and was aware that I was shifting from foot to foot. It was as if Oñé was putting me through a lie detector test of his own making. I coughed.
“I’m being honest. I don’t recognise him. Why don’t we catch him out? Let’s not change the locks on the doors. Instead we place a camera outside the Studio and obtain clear images of what he is doing. What do you think about that as an idea?”
He didn’t smile as he replied, “Why did he not come back openly and talk with you? Why is he hiding from you? Maybe he wants to hurt you. Do you not think it strange the way he is behaving?”
This was beginning to feel like a game of chess. I felt myself unable to move or to think. I heard myself say.
“What do you think of the camera idea? Maybe you have a better one? I imagine it must also be upsetting for you when you have spent quite a lot of time with him. He was an important part of your life. I don’t like to think of you fighting with Ishmael. Sophia would be extremely upset.”
My tone of voice was gentle. I was not accusing him of anything or defending myself. It sounded as if I was open to hear what he thought and felt. He gathered the remaining fragments from the installation into his hands and threw them into the air like confetti.
“It’s a good idea to put a camera outside the Studio.” I sat on a chair, resting an elbow on the table on top of the lacy confetti, placed my hand on my chin and looked down at Oñé who had returned to sitting cross legged on the floor,
“Now let’s change the subject. You’re back at school after Reyes on the 8th January aren’t you? How are you looking forward to that?”
Being the feast of the Epiphany on the 6th January, Reyes signalled the end of Christmas period and was also the day when Spanish children receive their big presents. I was conscious that I had not bought him anything for Christmas and had to do something to win him over.
Oñé read my mind again. “I’m looking forward to Reyes. I imagine that school here is boring from the few people I have met. It was much better in Malmo. The teachers there were inspiring. Here I will know more than the teachers do. I will be teaching them. They will not know what good looks like when it comes to art. They will want photographs of reality. I’ve seen the paintings that they are selling in the shops and in the Can Prunera museum. Those are not art. Maybe the work of Picasso and Miró up by the railway station is better. But even they don’t seem to know that colour doesn’t really exist. We invent it. Nothing exists apart from what we create. The problem with teachers here will be that they will make up rubbish and I will be expected to imitate them. I will feel imprisoned as if I am in a mental health institution rather than in a Studio like here. I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay here.”
“How do you know that you won’t like school when you haven’t yet been to it, met any teachers or friends?”
Even as I finished my sentence, I wondered why I hadn’t made an effort to introduce him to friends. He had been here for two months and the only person he had engaged with apart from Sophia’s visit, was me. That couldn’t be healthy for him, or for anyone. I imagined that was why he destroyed my installations. He was frustrated. I should be grateful that he didn’t burn the Studio down. I imagined that he was capable of doing that.
Saturday 6th January 2018 – The Feast of Los Reyes
I bought Oñé a present for Reyes – a drone. That meant that I didn’t have to put a camera outside the Studio because
Oñé now had the responsibility of watching what was going on. He would have to provide me with a better photo of the alleged Ishmael rather than the shimmering floating black tarpaulin.
I had to decide between the DJI Phantom 4 which is a best seller and the DJI Mavic Pro which you can fold up into your bag and take on holiday. It was slightly more expensive than the DJI Phantom 4 but I didn’t like the fact that the Mavic Pro was considered to be more ‘jumpy’ in flight than the Phantom and also had a narrower field of view. I didn’t want Oñé to have any excuses for having more blurred images to show me. The marketing experts say that the DJI Phantom 4 captures ‘silky footage’ and holds its position even in moderate winds. It can also track moving objects and considered aesthetically to be a ‘beautiful piece of sleek, white plastic’.
I wrapped the box in silver paper with golden stars and even tied a golden ribbon around it. I placed it on Oñé’s chair before he arrived downstairs for breakfast. I poured myself a coffee, made his hot chocolate and waited.
He delicately sat in his chair after setting the silver box aside and gave me a sideways look as if he mistrusted what would be inside. It seemed to take him an age to undo the bow and then to carefully remove the star spangled sellotape. His nails seemed to be too short to pick the sellotape away. I watched even though my deepest instinct was to rip the paper open for him.
When the drone was eventually unpacked, he jumped out of his seat and threw his arms around me. “This is the best present I have ever been bought in my life. You have read my soul.”
I felt a little choked up that I had picked a present that he genuinely liked. He had already worked out how he could use it. He spent the whole weekend getting it into the air, flying it to Barranc and then over to the Port of Soller. It was true that the footage was superb – clear images, stable – like a mini-satellite hovering around the valley of Soller. On Sunday evening, as we were having pizza in the Port of Soller, he asked an obvious question which I had not considered.
“How will we ensure that the surveillance continues when I am at school?”
I sighed at my stupidity. I should have worked out that he would ask that. I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer to play with operating the drone while I was getting a break with him being at school.
I gave in. “Well, let’s get a backup security camera pointed at the Studio.”
Sunday 7th January 2018
Gabriela arrived on her scooter which made its usual purring and crunching on the gravel before it stopped abruptly outside the door. I opened the door and invited her in. Oñé was still asleep.
I asked, “Would you like a coffee?”
Gabriela shook her head. “No thank you. I’ll start cleaning.” She looked around. “You have managed better than I thought you would on your own and with a child to take care of. It doesn’t look too bad.”
I pointed to the sofa. “Before you begin, let’s talk.” She looked even more distraught than she had done the last time I had seen her. Her eyes were heavily made up with thick eye liner but there were black streaks down her face as if she had been crying.
I went over to find my wallet.
“Here is the money for another two months of work.
My situation has changed. I am to be married on the 1st April to Sophia, Oñé’s mother. She is currently in Malmo continuing treatment for cancer.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Would you mind if I do have a coffee? How did you meet Sophia?”
I made us both a coffee. “You remember that I talked to you about an acquaintance called Gregoriano?”
“Yes. You told me that you first saw him when you were ten and he regularly appeared in your life since then.”
“Yes. Gregoriano, I have discovered, is also a friend of Ishmael.” I was pleased that I remembered to use the present tense. “I can explain. Ishmael is from Syria. His family were killed in the war there. He obtained a Visa, with the help of Gregoriano, to go to Sweden. Gregoriano is a Doctor who works in in the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Sophia was a Nurse working in Syria. In Malmo she helped Ishmael deal with his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He suffered some kind of PTSD episode, left Malmo, went to La Coruña and then came here. Obviously there is a lot more to understand about the situation. I thought it might explain why Ishmael left unexpectedly on the 5th October. What do you think about it all?”
I was aware that my leg was twitching – jumping up and down – and that my head was shaking slightly as I waited for her response.
She sighed. “That might explain why he doesn’t want to talk to me. He is ill.”
I nodded. My leg settled into stillness. I heard the sound of Oñé’s feet on the stairs.
“This is Oñé. He likes hot chocolate and sweet buns.”
He rushed into the room and threw himself into my arms. I hugged him and, untangling him, said, “Here is a new friend – Gabriela. You will really like her. She makes even better hot chocolate than I do.”
Gabriela embraced him.
“Lovely to meet you, Oñé. We have something in common. I knew Ishmael too. I know how you will be missing him. But he will return. He will have many adventures to tell us. I can’t wait to hear them. Can you?”
Oñé looked at her. “I want to hear them, but mother wouldn’t let him talk about his adventures. She said talking about them would make him ill. He got ill anyway. He got sick in Malmo and he got sick here. Maybe he is never going to be well again.”
Gabriela looked at me. “Of course he will get well. And he will come back. Your mother is going to be well in a short while. She is going to be better than she ever was in her life. Ishmael will come back, and he will be strong and happy. I promise you.”
Oñé held her hand. “How do you know?”
Gabriela laughed. “Women know things – the way your mother knows that she wants to marry Augustin and she knows that he will love you both.”
Oñé sat at the table beside Gabriela who sipped her coffee beside him. He drank his hot chocolate and nibbled his raspberry and white chocolate muffin.
Oñé wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked at Gabriela. “I’m going to school tomorrow for the first time. Do you think I will like it?”
She paused before replying. “It might take a little bit of time to like it and it a little bit longer to love it. If you like learning, which I think that you do, you will see that you can learn from what you like and what you don’t like.”
I could see that Oñé enjoyed that way of talking. It must have been the way Sophia talked with him. I would have been harsher. I would have told him that he was lucky to have a school and to think about the children in Syria who had no food and whose faces were pressed up against wire fencing and would have loved to have sat in a classroom, learnt a new language and had the opportunity to paint. I was glad that I had not said any of that.
Oñé looked at me. “Could Gabriela take me to school tomorrow? I would like to go on a motorbike.”
I looked at Gabriela. “Do you have an extra helmet?”
She laughed. “He can have mine. I will see if I can find another one. We will be okay one way or the other.”
Monday 8th January 2018
Gabriela phoned me after she had cleaned the house on Sunday. I was getting Oñé ready for school which included making sure that he cleaned his teeth. She said that she had something urgent to tell me which she would like to do either before or after taking Oñé to school but didn’t want him to be there. I said, “Why don’t we talk after you have left him to school? We have more time.”
She agreed.
When she returned after dropping him to school, I realised that I had made her a cup of hot chocolate instead of coffee. I apologised. “I’m sorry. I know you prefer coffee.”
She pulled her woollen hat off and sat it on the table. She looked more relaxed than she had done the day before. I offered her a muffin which again I had forgotten she wouldn’t like to eat.
She shook her head. I sat at the tab
le beside her. “Thank you for yesterday. You were so good with Oñé.
You’re a natural with children. How did he look when you left him today?”
She laughed. “I think he was a little nervous about not being able to speak much Mallorquin. But I was amazed how much he had learned in such a short time. He will pick it up very quickly. I could see one or two of the children approached him to say hello. I think he will be fine. It will be good for him not to be alone all the time.”
I took a deep breath. “What did you want to tell me?” She drank her hot chocolate hurriedly oblivious that it might be burning her throat.
“I want to clear the air and talk with you. You seem to be angry with me. I would like the atmosphere to be a happy one with Oñé here. I don’t want there to be ill-feeling in the air.”
I looked at the drinks cupboard and wanted to pour myself a large Jack Daniels.
“I didn’t believe your story about Ishmael leaving unexpectedly.” She wiped the chocolate away from her lips and pushed the cup away. “I was surprised that he was not here that day. He had told me that you were going to look for new roses and that when you were out, we could have a coffee together. He did not say anything about leaving.” She looked at me directly. “I liked him. We simply discovered that when we met on Saturday in the Plaza and had a coffee together, we could talk about things that were different from the things we would talk about when you were around. He told me about Syria, his life as a lecturer in Fine Art, his family being killed, his work in the refugee camps helping the children paint and creating gardens for them.”
“Why did he tell you that and not tell me?”
“Maybe because he felt safe with me, as Oñé feels safe. You don’t realise that you can be scary at times. If it is not too much trouble, a coffee now would be good.”
As the Nespresso machine bubbled, she walked from the kitchen towards the front door, which she pulled open and stared at the fountain.
I carried a coffee to her. “You’ll like this better than the hot chocolate.”
She sipped it, stepping outside into the January sunshine. She pointed at the fountain.
The Painter Page 19