Carlos looked at the sky and told us that we would have rain by four o’clock in the afternoon. We needed to start sailing before the winds became too strong for it to be safe.
Our first stop was a small cove with sandy coloured limestone eaten away by the wind and rain and riddled with small caves used by smugglers and pirates to bring contraband onto the island. We were given snorkel masks to help us navigate in the deep waters and the narrow ceiling of the first cave. Carlos dropped the anchor and Oñé, Friederike, Gunter and I plunged from the yacht into the turquoise water. I found it difficult once we entered the cave to breathe properly but Oñé and the others splashed happily ahead of me.
I found it claustrophobic that the ceiling of the cave was no more than centimetres above my head. We had to swim into a second cave, clamber out from the water, and jump five metres into the sea again below. As I scrambled up the jagged rocks away from the water, I lost track of the others, including Oñé. I looked around in a panic removing my snorkel and taking deep breaths of salty air. I thought that I saw a man watching me from the depths of the cave.
I rubbed my eyes as it was hard to see into the darkness. Perhaps it was only a sculpture from rock which looked like a man but then I smelt cigar smoke. It drifted towards me from the dark shape and I saw the orange glow from a cigar intensify in the darkness. I know that there are many people who smoke cigars but that particular smell was reminiscent of the cigars which Ishmael loved.
How did he get here, whoever he was? It would be too far to swim from Porto Cristo and too dangerous to scramble up the cliff face outside. I nearly dropped my goggles into the sea as I squinted to see who it was.
My concentration was broken by hearing a cry from Oñé outside the cave. I scrambled quickly up the jagged rocks. There was no obvious path. Rocks cut into my feet. I emerged into the light and looked around me. There was no sign of Oñé. I heard him cry out again for help. I realised that he was in the sea.
I felt dizzy as I tossed the snorkel into the water. Holding my nose with my fingers I plunged into the roughening sea. Ignoring the snorkel to my right, I splashed towards Oñé who disappeared under the water, surfaced and disappeared again. He screamed for help. As I swam towards him, the sun appeared briefly and I could see that I was swimming through a shoal of small blue fish that scattered to either side of the wake I created. They had two small circles like eyes on the sides of their flesh. I was shocked that I could be so distracted in my efforts to help Oñé by these small coloured fish. I gasped as I thrashed through the choppy water. Oñé had disappeared from view. I dived through the fish and saw his body drifting motionless towards the sea floor. I pushed strongly towards him, caught him by his hair and dragged him to the surface. His face was white and he did not seem to be breathing.
Carlos and I managed to drag Oñé on board the yacht. I noticed a red whip-like bruise with slight bleeding on Oñé’s lower right leg. I knew from the bruising that he had probably been stung by a Portuguese man-of-war. Oñé whimpered on deck, rolling from side to side in pain. He then stared in silence at the cumulous clouds which continued to build overhead. I knelt on the ground beside him and stroked his forehead. I asked Carlos for the special first aid kit which I knew would be on board and poured salty water over the wound, and then soaked it with ammonia before squirting shaving foam onto it and beginning to shave the wound.
I whispered to him, “This is going to be painful but it will remove any remaining venom.”
I cleaned the razor carefully in salted water after each stroke across the wound. Oñé bit his lower lip but didn’t cry.
I wrapped him in a blanket and as he slept, I thought about who it may have been who smoked that cigar in the cave. These caves were used by smugglers. Someone could drop a smuggler off in a boat and come back to collect him. Perhaps he was waiting for a small launch boat to take him back. Depending upon his level of courage he could have walked along the cliff path jumped into the sea and accessed the cave in that way. To return back by the same route he would need to be able to do deep water soloing – diving into dark and dangerous places. He would have to free climb up the cliff face with only the sea to protect him from injury if he fell. Deep water soloing is a popular sport in Mallorca and so someone interested in extreme sports might find it an exciting challenge.
Lightning ripped over the mountains to the left as the Mambia slowly moved towards its mooring place and Kike dropped anchor. Carlos carried Oñé down the gangway where a doctor was waiting.
When we arrived home, after putting Oñé to bed I phoned Sophia to explain what had happened. She seemed to be calm and had trust in the care that Oñçe was receiving.
I said, “I have been thinking, Sophia, that my life before meeting you was not something that I was proud of. I need to tell about it so that we can have total honesty in our relationship before we go ahead with our wedding. You deserve to know the truth.”
There was a silence on the end of the phone which I had become used to in our conversations.
She laughed. “It doesn’t matter, does it; to know the truth? There is only today. That’s what matters. How we respond to this moment. Whatever you have done – it’s not going to be anything worse than I have already seen in Iraq or Syria.”
She changed the subject and began to talk about my paintings and the art exhibitions. She praised me for my paintings. All of her kind words seemed empty to me. My paintings were not good. My sculptures were of even poorer quality.
It had to be a joke that the King and Queen of Spain thought that the sculpture which held the corpse of Ishmael was my best work of art. Apart from the fact that I made it in a few hours – whereas I had painstakingly spent months working on my installations – I had to think about how I would respond to their request to send it to the palace of Marivent. I couldn’t risk Ishmael’s body being discovered and so I would have to attempt to make a duplicate which wouldn’t be easy. I had never managed to recreate any work of art before. I know that there are those who are master imitators of great artists but that is not a talent I have.
I let those thoughts drop as I opened the door into Oñé’s bedroom. He lay curled on his side in the bed, with only a sheet over him. I walked to the other side of the room to see his face. He was very still and looked peaceful – a peace of nothingness I thought, a peace of death beating within him with every heartbeat. I walked slowly back to the door, descending to the sitting room and sat on the sofa with my head in my hands.
Would I ever escape this nightmare of constantly being obsessed about Ishmael? I remembered him saying in the weeks before he died: “Your life isn’t over yet. You have many things you can do to redeem your past. Shame and guilt will not go completely away. They will remain with you like healed wounds. Letting those wounds be seen will help you realise that you are loved. Someone will be sent to you to give you strength to complete the rest of your life using your talents to the full.”
I remembered trembling, not wanting to look into his eyes. “Who will it be who will be sent to me?”
He laughed. “How would I know? I’m sure you will be sent someone.”
I was sure Ishmael had been sent to save me.
As Oñé coughed upstairs, I was brought back to the present and was aware of a hollowness within me which I recognised for the first time as loneliness. I had so many ways of escaping that feeling of being alone – my painting, parties, travels to exhibitions and being the centre of attention when I entertained others. With Ishmael gone, I had been stripped bare. There was no Painter within – only a void, a darkness as deep as that within the well in the labyrinth.
The next day I awakened at five o’clock. From the bed I looked through the open windows at Boulder Hill. The black night sky was lightening but not enough for stars to disappear. The mountains were covered in candyfloss clouds changing from grey to cream. There wasn’t a sound. Monica, my mother, told me that silence was the voice of God. I find silence a fearful experience. Perhaps it is
the contrast between the noise in my head and listening to this blanket of silence emanating from Nature which frightens me. Silence is an echo of something I don’t know, something which resides within me in the space around my expansive internal chatter. It’s there at the edges. My obsessive thinking cannot completely wipe it out, any more than the stars and planets are capable of filling quantum fields and dark energy.
Although I am the Painter and create silence in the white spaces around splashes of colour, I do not look at the whiteness within my work. In that glowing whiteness, I see only darkness.
I was pleased by the distraction of Ulysses who had been sleeping at the bottom of the bed. He walked towards me with a wave-like movement and patted me gently on the nose. He wanted to be let out. We humans should be so grateful for animals. They never judge us. They forgive us and give us drops of water in a burning Hell.
I threw the sheet from me and opened the door into Oñé’s room before going downstairs. He surprised me by being seated upright in the bed, also looking out of his window towards Boulder Hill. I walked towards his bed, followed by Ulysses.
“Are you in pain?”
Oñé pulled a sheet around him as he turned to look at me. “No. The sting is no longer painful. It looks red and lumpy. I think I will have an impressive scar. That will be something to talk about at school. The conversations there are normally boring.”
I took his hand. “Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s too early to get up.”
“I remembered the drone you bought me for my birthday present. I haven’t really used it as I know that the stranger who visited the house was Ishmael – even if you don’t believe me. Although I know I could try to find out the identity of the other man in the labyrinth who I didn’t recognise the day we fed Christian. But he doesn’t interest me. I want to use the drone to find Christian. I want to know that he is well.”
He stroked Ulysses on the back and tickled him under the chin. Ulysses began to purr and rolled over onto his back. “Can I get up now and fly the drone? I imagine that Christian will be like Ulysses and be nocturnal. He might be prowling around looking for something to eat. If I wait until later, he may be asleep. Although, he liked to play with me during the day, he was mostly sleepy.”
“What about school? You know I promised your mother that you wouldn’t miss any classes.”
Oñé pulled up the leg of his pyjamas. “Take a photo and send it to the teacher. I have a good excuse for at least two days off. She will understand.”
I laughed at the way his mind worked. “Okay. I will speak with the school. You can have two days off school but not a day more. I’ll get breakfast and you go find the drone. I think you left it in the Studio.”
I made Oñé a banana and raspberry smoothie and placed his favourite granola cereal on the table. I heard the drone gently circling over the labyrinth and then around the house. There wasn’t anyone to be disturbed as our nearest neighbours were a few kilometres away. It didn’t make much noise even when it flew directly overhead. As I made coffee for myself, I noticed that I couldn’t hear it at all. Oñé must have sent it further afield. I drank my coffee before Oñé burst into the kitchen, ignoring breakfast.
“You must look. I have found something I think you will recognise. Have a look.”
We watched the drone video together. The drone had flown towards the Barranc. After taking a turn to the right, the drone now hovered motionless.
“Don’t you know that house?”
I peered at a small castle with three turrets and tiles shaped like giant leaves on the roof. It was where I had met Gregoriano when I was ten. I had searched for it many times over forty years and could not find it.
Oñé drank his smoothie, looking at me expectantly. “Will we go there now and find him?”
I felt dizzy. I sat down and ate a piece of Oñé’s toast which I cut into four. I found it difficult to eat anything but I knew that I had to eat something or I might faint. I talked with a mouth full of toast. “Find who?”
Oñé continued to eat his toast. “That’s Gregoriano’s house isn’t it? Isn’t that where you told me that you had met him when you were young? You can help me find my father.”
“Yes, that is the house but we have no guarantee that he still lives there. That was a long time ago. We know that he travels with work, but we can go there if that is important to you.”
Oñé’s jumped to his feet. “Let’s go.”
I replayed the video before getting into the car. I could see exactly where I needed to park the car and the small path which we would have to take to find the castle. Oñé brought a pair of binoculars and his drone, placing them in his rucksack.
It was seven o’clock. The clouds over the mountains were tinged tangerine. There were no cars on the road. I was breathless. Oñé sat upright in the seat beside me scanning to the left and right with the binoculars in the hope that he might see Gregoriano walking along the road. We reached Biniaraix. I swung the car into a parking spot beside a stone bath where in the past, women would have washed clothes. As I jumped out, I heard the gentle trickling of water flowing along a grey stone pipe which filled the bath. Two turtle doves were sipping an early morning drink.
Oñé pulled at my shirt. “Which way?”
I turned left and scrambled up a stony cobbled path on the right. I heard Oñé following behind. The path looked familiar; overgrown, rocky, with no views of the town below or the mountains above, hidden by the pomegranate and wild blackberry bushes. We turned a corner. I laughed out loud. The castle was there. I really didn’t believe that I would find it after all these years. Oñé shrieked.
“We’ve found it. We’ve found it.”
I didn’t feel like a man of fifty years of age but more like Oñé’s brother as we ran towards the front door. I hammered it with my fist without even thinking that it was too early to disturb anyone. There was no reply. The persianas downstairs were closed. I couldn’t see inside. I looked towards the roof. The green leaves which I remembered curling over the edge of the roof were there and as I lowered my gaze I saw that the upstairs persianas were open with the windows closed.
Oñé whispered, “There is someone watching us.”
I took his hand. “Let’s find out who.”
He said, “Does he not want to talk to me?”
A shape appeared at the window. It was dark inside and it wasn’t easy to see who it could be. We listened. There was the sound of feet descending the stairway. We heard four bolts being drawn back on the solid olive door and the sound of a heavy chain falling against the wood. The door opened.
It was Gabriela.
She wore a green silk dress which was unusual for early morning. It was as if she was dressed for a wedding. Her legs were tanned and she had diamante flat sandals. Her hair, which she would typically scraped off her face or let hang unkempt on her shoulders, was curled into long waves which glistened and shone in the early morning light which now flooded the doorway. She wore crimson lipstick, makeup and false eyelashes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I live here. The question is what are you both doing here at this hour of the morning?”
I stepped towards the door. “Are you not going to invite us in for a coffee?”
She shook her finger at me. “No. No. No. I think that would be inappropriate do you not? As you can imagine I have plans for today.”
I looked over her shoulder to see if there was anyone else inside. There was a long dark coat hanging over a bannister with a leather hat sitting on top of it.
I asked Gabriela. “Are you alone?”
She smiled. “What do you think? Am I the kind of woman who would be alone?” She then giggled. I had never heard her laugh like that before – like a little girl. She continued. “I would recommend it to anyone.”
“What?”
“Being with someone who tells the truth and who is capable of loving.”
Before I could stop him, Oñé pushed pas
t Gabriela and ran inside the house shouting. “Gregoriano are you here? Please talk to me.”
Gabriela ran after him, grabbed him by the arms, and pulled him towards the front door. “Oñé, you know that I like you but this is unacceptable behaviour.”
I followed Gabriela into the house and saw the fireplace with the same chairs which Gregoriano and I had sat in all those years ago. Gabriela looked at me with a hint of fear twitching around her lips. “Please take him home. You have no right to be here.”
I squeezed Oñé’s hand. “You know that she is right. We have to leave here now.”
I gave him a hug and Gabriela looked at the stairway as if afraid he might run upstairs. He insisted. “I want to see my father.”
I felt my eyes stinging as I said, “You will see him. I promise you. He will turn up. He always does.”
I struggled to my feet and gathered Oñé into my arms, letting his arms fall around my neck. I turned to say goodbye to Gabriela.
“I want to apologise. I made a mistake. I’m sorry for embarrassing you at your party,” Gabriela said.
Oñé wriggled in my arms and I let him down. He was too big to be treating him like a two-year-old.
“What made you change your mind?”
“This isn’t a conversation to have in front of Oñé.”
I turned to Oñé and asked, “Would you like to sit for a few minutes in that special chair which I told you about? It’s a magic chair and you can tell me what you learn from being in it or you can play with your drone. Gabriela and I have a few words to share in private.”
Oñé walked back into the house. “I’ll sit in the chair.”
I checked that he had climbed onto the chair rather than go upstairs. Gabriela linked me in a friendly way by the arm as we walked outside. I asked, “Why are you changing your mind? One minute you tell me that Ishmael is alive. Then you tell as many people as you can that Ishmael has been murdered by me. Now you say that Ishmael is alive again. That incident at the party when you ran towards Boulder Hill was quite insane. You almost got yourself killed. You know that Boulder Hill is dangerous. What’s going on?”
The Painter Page 23