Dystopia
Page 25
She could now feel warm breath on her neck, and a naked body beside her own, stroking it, just as in the painting. Her eyes closed completely and she could no longer see what she was painting. Nor could she separate what she painted from what she felt; the two places and moments merging.
Joining.
She felt sensual breathing lowering toward her mouth, and heard her name being whispered as her brush dipped into the last available paint.
The single drop of red.
In slow motion, her arm arced from the tray of paints to the canvas, and sought a specific spot.
As she painted in the man's lips with the single drop of red, she felt full lips lowering onto hers, warmly covering her mouth. As she looked up into the man's face, the room in which she painted went suddenly still.
On the floor, the brush had fallen.
There were also empty paint vials, which had scattered uselessly. Little else. Except for the empty gown, which lay beneath the easel.
Left behind.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" said a friendly voice, which approached the young woman.
"They're very strange," she said, studying the paintings. "You can't make out the man's face in any of them."
He looked at her, watching every detail, while a museum tour whispered by the small exhibit area. "Perhaps he preferred it that way."
She nodded and began to walk away.
"Excuse me," he said, "do you paint?"
She looked at him and stopped, a bit intrigued.
And as the dozens of paintings watched, with trapped eyes pleading for him to stop, Christian withdrew the golden box from his coat pocket.
Obituary
CHRISTIAN PIERRE
Mysterious and darkly handsome, French actor, Christian Pierre, died October 2, in a car accident near his home in the south of France. French police said Pierre's BMW sedan plunged off a cliff, into the Mediterranean around 2:40 a.m. He was reportedly 51, though his actual age was unknown.
Pierre starred in films by the directorial lions of European cinema throughout the 60's and 70's, appearing in legendary movies which defined the auteur movement and endeared him to the artists and intelligentsia of Left Bank Paris. A sullen fascination to his fans, Pierre was a reluctant icon whose mere presence in a film often promised of impulses amoral and sinister. Film critics took notice and celebrated his screen presence, which exuded unsettling subtext and sexual duplicity.
The son of a common thief father and an unknown mother, the star was raised in orphanages, where he was first encouraged to act. Later he was forced to abandon his acting in reform school, where he was sent for a year, following rape charges which Pierre consistently denied.
He revived his craft at the Cours Dullin Drama Academy, and embraced the visceral disciplines and techniques founded by the American acting legends Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.
Pierre was soon discovered in a production of Moliere, by renowned British talent agent Cecelia Lawson, who wed the young actor. Lawson died in a boating accident months later, near Capri, during the filming of Pierre's first starring role in Dosage: Hypnotic (1967), a psycho-sexual, noir thriller.
Pierre sought retreat in his leading lady, Veronica Lisi, an Italian beauty, and heiress to an airline fortune.
Tragically, Lisi committed suicide in the couple's Deauville home, under questionable circumstances, and Pierre emotionally collapsed while starring in his only western role, as a sadistic gunslinger in Luchino Bernardo's, Cannibali (1969). He was hospitalized for months and ultimately took control of Lisi's fortune, giving a sizable portion to charity and several of the orphanages in which he was raised.
After losing Lisi's fortune in a film studio he self-financed, Pierre married Simone Barbet, a wealthy widow who financed Pierre's small production company, RESILIENCE. The company went on to produce such classics as Saigon Affair (1971), in which Pierre starred with Yuki Osimo, and Black on Black (1979), in which he co-starred with stage Grand Dame, Dru Snowdin. The film earned Pierre his first Academy Award.
Attempts at starting a family were frustrated by Barbet's alcoholism and she disappeared for several weeks in Manaus, Brazil, during a location scouting trip with Pierre, causing authorities to question the star. Barbet later surfaced without explanation. She resides permanently in a Swiss sanitarium, undergoing treatment for manic depression.
In addition to films by Michel Devon, Charles Brel and Lillian Rivette, Pierre's later films, in which he perfected a casual malevolence, included Depth of Reason (1981), Hearts of Evil (1983), Sweet Child (1985), Blood Bay (1989), and The Mesmerist (1990), in which he played a manipulative hypnotist. The last film garnered him his second Oscar and was in Pierre's words, "an examination of eternal, Jungian archetypes: obscurity, excess, despair and re-birth." In researching the role, Pierre became expert in hypnotic techniques, and the little understood "methods of disappearance," a rare ability which allows practitioners to seemingly vanish while in plain sight.
Between 1974 and 1981, Pierre continued to write and direct experimental, underground films, of his own, which explored the brutality of love, contemporary madness and political deceit. These included Lies (1977), which co-starred Lee Dubone, and Man Alone (1979), which earned Pierre his third Oscar, for his role as a faithless priest suffering ex-communication. Newsweek called Man Alone "tragic and exquisitely airless." It is regarded as one of Pierre's darkest, most disturbing films, and during its production, the star suffered a severe nervous breakdown.
For a time, Pierre withdrew from family and friends and became fascinated by silence, obsessed by how traditional dialogue in film scripts was only a "vacant rationale" for true characterization. During this phase, he accepted minor roles, and his brooding, onscreen persona became nearly silent, rich with a grammar of glances and gestures. In his off-screen life, friends recall Pierre's silence as troubling and evidence of childhood damage.
The ferocity and violent psychology of his final film, Immoral (1998), outraged his loyal audiences and Pierre's box-office supremacy began to suffer. Attempts to film a sequel to The Mesmerist never succeeded and Pierre reportedly went into seclusion, after undergoing extensive plastic surgery.
Rumors of Pierre's romantic dalliances and bisexual liaisons were rampant throughout his career, though the notoriously secretive star never addressed these speculations.
Arrested in Cincitta, in 1999, on charges of heroin use and possession, Pierre spent two years in prison before being released, due to insufficient proof. Legal problems in his final years, included further bankruptcies, manslaughter charges, and allegations by his mistress, Noel Dures, of sexual depravity, black magic and cannibalism, all of which Pierre termed "obscene, absurd and creatively small-minded."
He is survived by his companions of several years, Henri Marchais and Claire Claudine, and one child, out of wedlock, Delphine Adriana.
Pierre's family will hold a private service in Paris.
French police report no body has yet been found.
Graduation
January 15
Dear Mom and Dad:
It has been an expectedly hectic first week; unpacking, organizing, getting scheduled in classes, and, of course, fraternizing with the locals to secure promise of later aid should I need it. I don't think I will. My room is nice, though it has a view which Robert Frost would scoff at; perhaps a transfer to a better location later this semester is possible. We'll see.
I had a little run-in with the administration when I arrived; a trivial technicality. Something about too much luggage. At least more than the other dormitory students brought with them. I cleared it up with a little glib know-how. As always. Some of the guys on my floor look as if they might be enjoyable, and if I'm lucky, maybe one or two will be interesting to talk to as well. But I can't chase after "impossible rainbows." That should sound familiar, Dad, it's from your private collection and has been gone over a "few" times. A few. But maybe this time, it's true. Anyway, the dormitory looks as if it
's going to work out well. Pass the word to you-know-who. I'm sure it will interest him.
The dinner tonight was an absolute abomination. It could easily have been some medieval mélange, concocted by the college gardener utilizing lawn improver, machinist's oil, and ground-up old men. And I question even the quality of those ingredients. I may die tonight of poisoning. Maybe if I'm lucky, it will strike quickly and leave no marks. Don't want Dad's old school to lose its accreditation after all. However, I'm a little concerned that the townspeople will be kept awake tonight by the sound of 247 "well-fed" freshmen looking at their reflections in the toilet bowl. Today, while I was buying books, an upper-classman called me green for not getting used ones. If he was in any way referring to the way my face looks right now, he should be hired by some psychic foundation. He can tell the future.
Anyway, Mom, I certainly do miss your cooking. Almost as much as I miss my stomach's equilibrium. Ugh.
The room gets cold early with the snow and all. But I have plenty of blankets (remember the excessive luggage? . . . you guessed it), so that poses no difficulty. I'll probably pick up a small heater next week, first free day I get. For now, I'll manage with hot tea, the collected works of Charles Dickens, and warm memories of all of you back home. Until I write again, I send my love and an abundance of sneezes.
Here's looking achoo. . .
Yours regurgitatively,
February 2
Dear Mom and Dad:
Greetings from Antarctica.
It is unbelievably cold up here. If you can imagine your son as a hybrid between a Popsicle and a slab of marble, you've got the right idea, just make it a little colder. In a word, freezing. In another word, numbing. In two other words, liquid oxygen. I may be picking up that heater sooner than I thought. I see no future in becoming a glacier.
I met my professors today, all of whom seem interested and dedicated. My Calculus class might be a trifle dreary, but, then, numbers put a damper on things any way you look at it. The other courses look promising, so far. Tell you-know-who that he-knows-who is genuinely excited about something. I'm sure he'll be cheered by that forecast of future involvements.
Burping is very popular in my wing of the dormitory, and some of the guys have been explaining its physical principles to me, complete with sonic demonstrations to validate their theories. One guy, Jim, who looks a little like a bull dog with slightly bigger eyes (and a much bigger stomach), apparently holds the record in two prestigious areas: he drinks the most and belches the loudest.
For your own personal information files, he also seems to know the fewest words a person can possess and still communicate with. I estimate that the exact number of words is a high, one-digit counting number, but I could still be going too easily on him. His belches, however, are enormously awesome. He is able (he whispered to me, when I bumped into his drunken body in the hallway last night) to make time stand still with one of his burps.
Furthermore (he said), that would be one of his lesser efforts. Were he to launch a truly prize-winning belch (he said) civilization as we know it would be obliterated and the earth's atmosphere rendered noxious for 2,000 years. Personally, I feel he exaggerates a bit. Maybe 1,500 years.
Jim doesn't stop burping until one or two in the morning, which makes studying a degree harder. It's like having a baby in the dorm, with Jim erupting and gurgling into the a.m. hours. Except that he weighs 300 pounds. But I'm learning to live with it. Occasionally, he gets to be more than a petty annoyance and I get upset, but it's really nothing to worry about. So tell you-know-who to not put himself into a state. I'm fine.
If we could harness the secret of Jim's aberration, and regulate it at timed intervals, perhaps Yellowstone Park would be interested. Oh well, he'll probably quiet down soon. I miss you all a lot and send my fondest love.
Until I thaw out again, bye for now.
Bundlingly yours,
P.S. Avoid telling you-know-who I'm "cold" up here. He has this thing about that word.
February 22
Dear Mom and Dad:
An enlivening new roommate has entered my monastic quarters. He is slight in frame and says very little; a simple kind of person with a dearth of affinities, except for cheese, which he loves. I call him Hannibal, owing to his fearlessly exploratory nature. You see, Hannibal, while not easy to detect, is very much present. He comes out to mingle only during the evening. The late evening. More precisely, that part of the evening when I like to try and catch some sleep. Hannibal is evidently on a different schedule than I.
In short, I have mouse trouble.
Hannibal, in all fairness, is but one of the offenders. He is joined each evening by a host of other raucous marauders, who squeal and scratch until dawn, determined to disturb my rest. They're actually quite cute, but are, regardless of angelic appearances, a steadily unappreciated annoyance.
I mentioned my visitors to some of the other students in the dormitory, and they said I wasn't the only victim of the whiskered, nocturnal regime. They advised setting traps and, failing that, to use a poison which can be purchased from the student store. It is rumored to yield foolproof results. I know it sounds altogether like a cross-borrowing from Walt Disney and an Edgar Allan Poe story, but, regrettably, I must do something.
As an alternate plan, I thought of possibly speaking with a brainy flutist I know from orchestra class, who is quite talented. Whether or not he would care to revivify a Gothic tale simply for the benefit of my slumberous tranquility is something we will have to discuss. Also, the question of playing and walking at the same time may come up. But I'll try to circumvent that aspect. It's a slightly off-beat gig, but it seems an improvement on the other method. I'll speak with him.
My classes are going fairly well, with no serious laggings in any subject, despite the effects of Jim and Hannibal's henchmen upon my alertness. Thanks for the letter, and a very special thanks for those fantastic cookies, Mom. They were delicious. You really made my day.
And the travelling scent of your generosity made me quite sought after for a "little sample" of what food can really taste like. Jim went ape over them and said he wouldn't mind taking the whole next box off my hands. Which is something like a man with no legs admitting he limps. Good old Jim. He'll probably eat himself to death one day. Although it would take him at least two days to do it right.
In light of the popularity of your largess, I have determined that everybody else must have the same immense regard for the school cook I do. He is acquiring a definite reputation, the likes of which has been shared by a handful of historical figures. Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper. The man has no regard for the human taste bud. All in all, I'm convinced that our chef will most assuredly go to hell.
Anyway, Mom, thanks again for the cookies. They were eaten with rapturous abandon. And you may have saved several students from ulcers. What better compliment? All my love to everyone back home. Including you-know-who.
Thwarted by burps, squeaks, and bad food,
P.S. I think Jim (our resident sulphur spring) finally knows what it's like being kept up at night. He, too, has mouse trouble. (At least someone will visit him.)
March 9
Dear Mom and Dad:
Got in a small amount of trouble today as a result of being late to class, and complicated matters by arguing with my professor over a dumb thing he said about me.
You see, in Philosophy I, as it is taught by Marshall B. Francis, you are not allowed an impregnable viewpoint. It must always be open to comment. And he says he likes to analyze. I told him he likes to shred and butcher. Whereupon he requested a "formal presentation of my personal philosophy of life's purpose."
Since, as you know, my philosophy responds unfavorably to direct assault, I refused.
Mistake number one.
He told me if I didn't cooperate, he'd have me leave the class, and withdraw all credit from my participation thus far. I thought this unfair, so we started yelling at one another, and in the clouded ferocity of
our exchanges, I accidentally slashed him on the cheek with my pen. It wasn't deep, but it scared him a lot. It wasn't at all like it may seem; I say that only because I know what you're probably thinking. Believe me, it was just a freak accident with one lost temper responding to another.
We talked in the infirmary later, and he said he understood and would allow me a second chance. After that kindness, I volunteered my philosophy without hesitation (rather sheepishly), and he smiled at my completion of the apologies. He said that sometimes you have to be willing to fight for your beliefs and that he respected my actions in class, saving the accident, of course.
I think we'll be great friends by the end of the year (if he doesn't get infected and die). However, philosophers consider life to be a danger, so I guess it wouldn't surprise him too much.
It is still very cold, with no trace of warmth. Jim continues to noisily burn (or is it burp?) the midnight oil, much to the chagrin of everyone in the dorm. If a sonic boom occurred during the evening, it would be completely overlooked. Buried.
Once again, my love to all of you back home, and I sure would like to hear from you, so please write. Better not tell you-know-who what happened to me today. He'll get the wrong impression. He has enough people to worry about as it is.
With new-found philosophy,
P.S. Hannibal is no longer with me. He and his men are squeaking across those great Alps in the sky. That poison really was foolproof.
March 18
Dear Mom and Dad:
My social horizons are expanding here in Isolation City.
In one day, I met the remainder of my floormates (truly a rogues' gallery) at a party, and also, a very nice girl who works as my lab partner.