Only one of these messages appeared genuine. The young woman, or person using a young woman’s e-mail account, mentioned that Owen always carried a Loeb Odyssey. Her words were “little green book.” She claimed to know where Owen was and recommended that, before they met, he should research Kurt Wagener’s artwork at Art 35 Basel.
He searched.
Good God! He hoped this was all photoshopped.
The first page of image results showed Owen choking this poor young man. This young man in a wheelchair? There must be some mistake. It must be photoshopped.
The second page of results had a few new images. Owen was in some dungeon with a potato sack over his head and wires running from his fingers. These were clearly restaging that despicable prison torture. Every picture he saw was a grotesque trophy shot where Owen was the lifeless flesh held up in service of someone else’s vanity. And then it clicked that the “someone else” was Kurt Wagener himself, which brought a heretofore unknown level of cognitive dissonance. Vigilantism was far too barbaric, but, but dammit! The photographs were smut. They were undeniably cruel, and Owen’s response had been cruel—he learned that Owen had choked the artist unconscious and left him paralyzed in the process. Burr’s immediate thought was that no one had the right to do this to another human, and if Owen didn’t finish the job, he’d hunt this Kurt down and finish the job himself. His second thought was that this was far more humiliating than he could bear: the photos were humiliating, their exhibition even more humiliating, and Owen’s response, his own response, was humiliating in a way that he simply lacked the language to describe. And lying in wait on the other side of this incomprehensibility was the additional humiliation that the artist had treated the whole spectacle as some kind of joke, as some kind of trap, and had planned on Owen coming to Basel to confront him.
Burr wasn’t alone in lacking the wherewithal to process this event. The art community seemed equally divided about whether this was genius or psychopathy. Basel had drawn a line in the sand. Younger critics eagerly hopped over to the side of violence. Some argued that Kurt should not be prosecuted because he was making art, whereas Owen was nothing but a criminal. Others claimed that Kurt should be prosecuted for kidnapping because his performance was kitsch, and Owen should be pardoned because he transformed kitsch into art. One reviewer called Owen an important artist. Burr felt ill.
The art market had voted with the biggest sale for a contemporary photograph on record. Over a million dollars paid for torture and Owen’s violent response to torture. What barbaric world was he living in, where these events were not only valued but glorified? What barbaric world would allow the original event to happen? This was not the world he would have built for his son.
She shouldn’t have told him about Basel. It would have been better had she just mentioned the Loeb. He wasn’t capable of these things. He was a man who belonged in an office with comprehensive health insurance. He was a man whose chief provocation was to unveil the soul of ancient words.
He was. But the man they showed on Zeitgeist, thumping his hand on the side of the rostrum, wide-eyed with powerful hands—the Burr who would turn Athens into a signal fire—that man would relish confronting her. That man was capable of walking from this wreckage. That man was capable of finding his son.
That man was also clever enough to think that this might be an ambush, and suggested meeting this young woman, Brigitte, in a public place. She offered the name of a wine bar in East Berlin that Owen had supposedly frequented.
They had some tempting scheme for selling wine, but he needed to be ice-vein sober. Coffee mug before him, Burr let the steam moisten his eyelids. He warmed his hands and wondered where Owen would have sat. Burr had chosen a seat at the farmhouse table because most of the upholstered furniture looked flea-infested. It didn’t seem to bother all of the students who drank here. They all frowned and slunk away, opting for any disintegrating couch in a far-flung corner. He had apparently come on some sort of knitting day. Several acrylic needles clacked against the tables as the front door opened and closed. A wash of whispers followed the tall blondish redhead approaching his table.
She was aggressively attractive and surely on magazine covers or television. Everything about her beauty—her height, her angular face, accentuated by what had to be professional makeup—confused him, embarrassed him. It was as if the valet had mistaken his Volvo for a red sports car. How many engineers did it take to send a woman like this into the world? Dozens?
—Brigitte Hessen. I’m the one who wrote to you yesterday evening. Director of Timmons Projects. Intimate friend of your son’s. Your son Owen. Professor Burr?
—What do you have for me? The hospital only had records to the second of June. Is Owen still in Berlin?
—It’s a pleasure to meet you.
—Skip it.
Brigitte mumbled into her exhaled smoke. He didn’t catch what she said. Either German or Dutch. He caught “Americans.” She turned to face him.
—My lawyer has advised me that there are certain things I’m at liberty to say and certain things I, unfortunately, cannot say.
—Let me start over. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Where’s my son?
Brigitte smoked.
— Is there anything at all you can do to help me find my son, Owen Burr?
—Naturally. Anything I can do to help, Professor. I have long been a fan of your work. It seems like many, many years since I read your first article, but you are still so young. And then a friend saw you on Zeitgeist.
Burr wanted to accept the flattery, but he knew that no one in the world, excepting perhaps those within the LGBT community, had had an opinion of him before the past few months. And Brigitte didn’t strike him as the pink triangle kind.
—I can’t think of which one was more of a disaster, Athens or the news last night.
—I was shocked to see how rudely that journalist was talking to you. In a way it proves Kurt’s work at Basel. If art and politics weren’t so distinct, they would have put the two Burrs together—even if Kurt and Altberg did everything to keep your son anonymous and allegorical.
—The whole thing is a disaster.
—Naturally. It is hard to put oneself into media for the first time. It is swimming in the shark’s water. You realize there are bigger powers than you who will come and snap you up.
She clapped the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette to indicate a shark bite.
—Hmmph.
—Trust me, there’s no one in Berlin who can help you more.
—Is this where you met Owen?
—We met at a bar, not this bar, though he was at this bar that night. I could tell at once that he wasn’t an average American tourist.
—Of course not. He’s a 6'8" Olympic athlete!
—Naturally. What I mean is, he didn’t seem interested in the usual things. He seemed kind.
—He is kind.
—Maybe he was kind. Now he’s world-famous for the great unkindness he showed my fiancé, Kurt Wagener.
—There must be some misunderstanding here. Those pictures. That’s not Owen.
—Perhaps you should look at these.
Brigitte thumped ten pounds of glossy art magazines onto the table. The top cover showed Owen, still wearing an eye patch, using his jacket sleeve to choke a young man, Kurt, while hundreds looked on in horror. The heading blared: THE RESURRECTION OF KURT WAGENER. The printed pictures looked more permanent than the digital ones he’d paged through in the cybercafé.
—I’ve seen this.
Brigitte just looked at him and lit a cigarette, blowing her first drag over the pages.
Burr fanned out the five magazines. The images were all the same, but taken from different angles, with a varying number of people between the photographer and the violent tableau. The headlines were also much the same: KURT WAGENER, ALL IN; KURT WAGENER, THE REBIRTH OF RELEVANCE; THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF DEATH IN THE MIND OF KURT WAGENER; THE NEW ART.
When the wor
d art gives you a sinking feeling, what’s left for you in the real world?
—Owen is not a violent person by nature.
—We’ll leave that an open question. What did you learn about Art Basel, Professor?
—It’s a sort of Armory Show?
—It is the most significant event in the art world. Each June the world meets in Basel to determine which galleries and which artists are relevant. Art Basel 2004 will forever be remembered as the beginning of twenty-first-century art.
—Impossible for me to care less about art right now. Where’s my fucking son?
—Your son thinks he is a fugitive. There’s only one person who knows where he might be.
—Wait. What do you mean, “thinks he is a fugitive”? He was pardoned? Is it official? How does it work here—they decided to not press charges? Do you understand me?
—I understand you perfectly well. I can tell you that it is my understanding that no one at this time is pressing charges against Owen, provided he has no intention to press civil or criminal charges, and I can connect you with the one person who could tell you where Owen is hiding, but you have to keep your voice down.
—Then please tell me why I’m talking to you and not this other person?
—Professor, due to the delicate legal matters of your son’s assault on my fiancé, there are several releases my lawyer needs you to sign before I can give you my friend’s contact information.
—Just hand me the papers.
Both father and son had an alarming habit of signing anything put in front of them. After Brigitte left, Burr read the release of responsibility he’d signed as Owen’s next of kin. He looked at the shaky signature on the release Owen had signed and made it through half of the clauses on the contract before dialing the number that Brigitte had scrawled on a napkin.
The Pergamon Altar, after a decade of extensive renovation, had reopened to the public in June. A pilgrimage to the friezes of gods battling giants, the Gigantomachy, was a must on the summer itinerary of every grad student in classics. This made the Pergamon Museum the one place in Berlin Burr should assiduously avoid, for fear of running into hyperaware twenty-six-year-olds, who might even be with senior faculty, his former friends, now eager to string him up for his newfound barbarism.
You chose a life in ruins, he thought.
He stood waiting for Stevie by the eastern frieze under the relief of Hekate. The Pergamon goddess had three human heads rather than the more commonly depicted animal heads of dog, horse, and snake. He couldn’t see the statue at all with these ridiculous sunglasses. At least sun was pouring in through the skylight so they didn’t look doubly ridiculous.
Who was this girl, young woman, who’d run off with Owen? A disc jockey? Burr was now a Voice for the Left, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around Owen having meaningful conversations with a disc jockey. She must have had some role in making his son think he was a fugitive. Why Berlin? He couldn’t have chosen Edinburgh or Dublin? If Burr was the fugitive from justice the media made him out to be, this could be the last city he ever saw before being extradited to a maximum-security prison. How serious was Jean when he said “See you in Guantanamo”?
His gaze drifted from pinions to sandals and hems. Someone was at his side. She looked at Hekate and spoke:
—I have a hard time imagining all of these painted. Is that true, or is it just something they tell you in school?
—Are you Stephanie Schneider?
—Call me Stevie.
—Call me whatever. And unfortunately these shapes were once in Technicolor, but it wasn’t as bad as what you’ll find in art books. Shall we sit?
Burr led her to the highest step of the Pergamon Altar. A crowd of American tourists mingled behind them in the Telephos frieze. Burr, trying to seem as nonrevolutionary as possible, continued his exposition on ancient color.
—Of course these statues had to be seen from a great distance, so I’m afraid they were quite garish. It is dreadful to imagine all of these were in pigment—earth pigments, mind you, but pigments nonetheless. I vastly prefer the blanched forms; it’s easier to see them emerging from the marble, which seems to me to be a central point.
Burr stretched out his legs and lightly nudged the man in front of him. The man stood up. Burr apologized. The man moved down several steps.
—Just because the colors are bright doesn’t mean they have to be garishly painted. Maybe the statues wore a light mist of carmine or peridot.
Burr squinted.
—Owen talked to you about his therapy? I have more difficulty seeing him mention this sober than drugged.
—I wasn’t talking about therapy. I was talking about Owen’s way of seeing things.
Burr unfurled the rolled-up art magazine that had kept his hands occupied.
—What do you know about all of this?
Stevie looked at the cover photo of Owen strangling Kurt.
—He thought he’d killed him.
—Who thought who had killed whom?
—Owen. Owen was sure he’d killed Kurt. He didn’t know he was walking into a trap. He thought he killed him.
—No. He paralyzed the man by cracking his vertebra on a wheelchair. Which. Well . . .
—Yes, but it was a trap.
—Where were you in all this? Were you in Basel? In June? Where is Owen now?
—Owen’s in Iceland. At least, when I left him, that’s where he was headed. He seemed headed there for good. He was sure he killed Kurt. I seriously doubt he knows Kurt is alive. I only found out in Amsterdam.
To Professor Burr, Amsterdam meant drugs.
—Was he involved in anything sordid? How do you know he went to Iceland?
—Everything about Kurt and Altberg is sordid. They exhausted him, drugged him at least twice, and took lurid photos to bait Owen to go to Basel. Kurt’s idea was that Owen would crash Art Basel, make a scene, and maybe punch him in front of the crowd. Kurt was always trying to sell the performance.
—But he didn’t punch him. He choked him.
—Going into Basel, Kurt didn’t consider what happens if someone won’t tolerate being used.
—Kidnapped is more like it. Who is this Altberg?
—Kurt’s lawyer.
—Will you testify against them?
—I have no loyalty to Kurt or Altberg. I saw the state Owen was in when he signed those waivers. Of course I’ll testify against them, but my testimony would be thrown out.
—These waivers? You’re saying these were coerced? There has to be someone else who will testify to that. Why would your testimony be thrown out? Because of drugs?
—What? No. Because I gave up my savings to find Owen and make sure he got out of Basel.
Burr’s eyes widened. She continued.
—I tried to get him out earlier.
—To where exactly?
—Anywhere, just away.
—You seem nice enough, but the only reason you’re here is because of your connections to this . . .
Burr was nearly apoplectic, but tried to bottle up his voice in the echoing hall.
—This corps of shadows doing horrible things in that broken tower. You expect me to believe you’ve been looking out for Owen’s best interest this entire time?
Stevie took a deep breath and looked at Burr.
—I love your son. You can doubt anything about me, but don’t doubt that.
It was as if Stevie had just attached a torso to the fragments of his son that remained vivid in Burr’s head. He remembered every detail of his son’s face, his arms and kicking legs, but the extremities had been free floating, unanchored until now. Burr looked at the frieze. He loved it here because of the incompleteness of the gods—missing limbs, missing bodies, creating a space for imagination, a space for him to make things beautiful and whole. Hearing Stevie say that, he realized he had made the same mistake with his son: imagining him perfect instead of seeing the broken thing he was. The last remnant of Burr’s stern expression dropp
ed. She leaned toward him.
—All the other money I had went to getting him out of Basel and on a ship to Iceland.
—You put him on a ship bound for Iceland? Was that the only stop?
—I’m not sure. It was headed for Iceland, then Greenland, and then New York. Our concierge on the river cruise out of Basel arranged for Owen to stow away on a container ship from Rotterdam.
—Where was this? Surely he was apprehended.
—My bigger concern is that he would hurt himself.
—Why would he hurt himself?
—He was sure that he’d murdered someone and would never be able to escape those pictures. By the fourth day of the trip, he was really not well. That’s when we arranged for his passage to, shit, Star-hvar-something. It’s a port on the east coast. I have it written down.
Stevie fished through her bag and pulled the note from a CD case. Burr copied the name onto his notepad. While she was digging through her purse, he caught sight of a manila envelope addressed to her in Owen’s hand. Burr tried not to compare it with the Post-it note Owen had left for him. Stevie noticed him looking.
—This is the first artwork he made in Berlin. It’s designed to only be opened once.
—What is it?
—Memories on a transparency. Memories of the day we met.
She handed it to Burr. He handed it back.
—It’s safer with you.
Someone walked upstairs with a copy of the International Herald Tribune under her arm. Burr strained to see, but didn’t take off his sunglasses.
—Is that the reason for the sunglasses? Don’t get me wrong, they suit you. Very James Coburn. But I think you’re fine. Everyone here is a tourist.
—I suppose I’m fortunate that your friend caught the broadcast.
—She’s not a friend. And she saw the clip online. It made the rounds over e-mail. There’s a gif of you doubling over when the interviewer says that the State Department is after you.
Burr wasn’t sure what a gif was. It sounded like pornography.
—Good lord.
Burr took off his sunglasses.
—So you know everything about Athens?
A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall Page 28