It doesn’t seem right, he muttered, almost as if he were half-asleep. Then he turned over and grumbled something inarticulate and started to snore.
I wondered what it was that didn’t seem right to Harlan. Him being in the room while I paint, or being in the room at all, him or me? Or did he mean that my painting what I’m painting in that room was what didn’t seem right?
We used to communicate better, me and Harlan. Before Samuel left us, we talked all the time. About things that mattered. We talked about nonsense, too. And we laughed back then, too. Whatever Harlan meant, the statement stands and he’s right. None of this seems right. None of it at all.
• • •
The canvas getting most of my attention lately is the center canvas of a triptych, the kind of series that, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, would have been meant for an altar in some church where the prayers of people were connected to the fervent desire not to have to face the fires of hell. It would have been the center canvas for compositional reasons, not religious ones.
The fire in this one has just started to shatter glass. This is something I know about. A fire, left to burn within a structure, will fill that structure with gases, the oxygen and other gases burning, so an expanding bubble of heat builds around the flames themselves until the air around the fire is hotter even than the flames and at some point that heat produces a pressure that builds until glass, if it has not started to melt from the heat, shatters outward from the pressure. Shards of flaming glass burst out into the night.
In the painting I’ve been working on, the lower portion of a huge stained glass window is shattering from the fire. The upper portion of this composition of colored glass and lead bezels is starting to melt, the colors from the different portions of glass beginning to blur into one another, the lead bezels starting to warp out of shape from the heat. Whatever else the window once portrayed, only one clear subject remains.
In the one section of colored glass that isn’t shattering or blurring into unrecognizable shapes, the baby Jesus raises his right hand in blessing. This Jesus has Samuel’s face. His chubby hand is raised, the stubby fingers bent as if they had just let go of some rope that had tied everything in the world together and was now just ash at his feet or on the blue robe of the blurred Mary the Jesus baby with Samuel’s face is seated on the detailed lap of.
The fingers form a complex figure that could almost be a letter in some ancient and extinct language. Or maybe not a letter but a symbol, the symbol for water perhaps. Maybe this baby Jesus with the face of my son who burned alone in his crib is trying to call to water to come and stop the burning.
I like to imagine some critic writing about the triptych, installed in some church in some other town, a town where babies don’t go up in flames in their cribs. I like to imagine after he has gone on at some length about the beauty and the fury of the flames that consume much of the three canvases, the critic will focus on the role the baby Jesus plays in the mythology formed by the paintings. The critic will insist that everything, from the central placement of the child to the pattern of the shattered and burning glass below him, from the selection of colored glass, an illusion of the paint, an effect the critic will already have praised, to the blurring of color and the bending of shape going on around him, from the way the glass that comprises the body of the baby Jesus has a different feel than any of the glass surrounding him, Almost as if, in the fiction of the image, the critic will say, the baby Jesus has a kind of fleshiness to it, as if that image is more real, more substantial, than any other figure formed of colored glass and lead, from this kind of sacred earthiness of the child to the realistic texture of the flames, how all of this comes together in the critic’s view to suggest fire is a kind of judgment, a morality even, in the world suggested by the three panels of the triptych, but a judging that the baby with the very real face on the Virgin’s lap isn’t prepared to make yet.
The child, the critic will go on to say, isn’t Christ the condemner but Christ the healer, Christ the resurrector of the dead, Christ the resurrected. Despite all the ruin and the savage consumption that surrounds him, the critic will claim, this child offers those of us outside the painting, those of us not yet consumed by the flames but only singed, this Christ offers us the possibility of a life not governed by fire, not formed of pain and guilt and all the other punishments that often seem to be all there is for us in this world. Such hope, the critic will insist, is what the painter wants us to recognize and to cling to.
• • •
Harlan has begun hinting that maybe it’s time I went back to work. We could use the money, he said the other night from the table while I was washing the dishes, my hands disappearing under pale suds reaching for the next plate.
I wanted to tell him of all the money the paintings will bring in when I finish them, but I just washed the next plate and reached back into the suds. He didn’t push it. He never does.
But every now and then he slips, into some awkward conversation we’re having, or, more often, into some long silence, some mention of money and our need for more of it. Or he’ll mention the name of someone I used to work with, Carl say, or Gene, and wonder what they’re doing these days. Harlan may be awkward walking around outside but he’s got his own kind of grace when it comes to innuendo and suggestion.
It may not be fair, letting Harlan go off every day to his job out in the world while I stay in this house and spend my time painting these canvases of flame and madness. It may not be fair, but Harlan is not a mother. Harlan didn’t carry our Samuel inside him for almost a full nine months. Harlan didn’t feed Samuel with his own milk. I know Harlan loved our son, but love is only part of it for a mother, and I can’t make him understand this. I don’t have the words anymore.
It’s all there in the paintings, whether or not Harlan or even my imaginary critic sees it. The paintings aren’t just fires, after all. There are structures both containing the flames and being consumed by the flames. There are figures running through the flames, figures both on fire and not on fire. There are places the burning has not reached in some of the canvases, and there are other places that are all burning, nothing but burning. And all this burning isn’t about ruin or devastation of one kind or another. There is both literal burning and a burning meant to be seen as symbolic, as suggestive of other ways we speak of burning. And not all burning consumes.
• • •
We haven’t made love, Harlan and I, since the night I found Samuel charred and smoking in his crib. Oh, we touch, and we hold each other every night before Harlan drifts off to sleep and I turn over and lie there listening to his gentle snoring. He even kisses me when he comes home in the evenings from his time outside in the world. It’s not that there isn’t tenderness between us, or even desire. Though desire might not be the best word for what there still is between us.
It’s not that it’s the end of the world, I know that. All those murders in Uganda, for instance. That was nonsense, that kind of violence in the name of the coming of Christ for the second time. Those prophets and prostitutes offered their followers only loss. There’s still more to the world than loss. Or at least I still want there to be more.
Harlan said something the other night I can’t shake. Harlan was standing in the doorway of my studio, Samuel’s old room. He was leaning against the door frame and looking around the room at all the various conflagrations. This is still a place of burning, he said and shook his head before turning away and heading off down the hall, where, in a few minutes, music started to play, something gentle and melodic on a saxophone.
• • •
Tonight the music is piano, and classical. Something by Mozart, I believe. My brush seems to want to move in rhythm to the concerto I can just make out. Though the piano is clear, the violins and other strings don’t as easily make it this far. The music sounds incomplete. Though the piano is beautiful on its own, the music it mak
es longs for the accompaniment of the violins and violas and cellos. Still, it’s enough, even alone like this, to give the lie to what I’m doing here, to make me think of turning my back to all this burning I’ve built up in this room where Samuel caught fire.
The music has been joined by the sound of a storm. It’s a deluge, enough rain coming down with enough force to put out all the fires anywhere. No child tonight will catch fire in his crib, the sound of the rain coming down and the Mozart down the hall has me thinking.
I will put these brushes in thinner and clean the paint from my hands. I will take off these clothes spattered with paint and walk naked down the hall to where Harlan is listening to the piano insist that joy is possible even in this world. I will put my finger to his lips for silence as I undress him and slip him inside me as I settle over him, and the music will be inside us both and the rain will keep coming down in torrents.
Outside there will be worries of flooding. Inside me, Harlan will let go and, despite all the fires, life will start again.
The Detective Mute behind the Mirror
DeGreco insisted on going alone into the interrogation room the self-proclaimed prophet had been taken to. I want you behind the mirror, he told me, watching. One of us has to be out of the heat of that room, he said. DeGreco didn’t call me kid. He was going into that room without me, but DeGreco trusted me to catch what needed to be caught. The heat, as they say, was on, and it was the two of us, together in this. I had to see what DeGreco would be too close to see.
DeGreco offered the prophet a drink. Coffee? a Coke? he said. The prophet smiled and shook his head. That smile of his could scrape paint, was my thought. It was the kind of smile you’d expect on the broad face of a used-car salesman on the one commercial he can afford. You’ve seen them, the local used-car lot ads that come on several times in a row around three in the morning. That kind of smile. Though what it was the prophet might have for sale I had no clue, and didn’t think I wanted one.
DeGreco gave the mirror a quick side glance before sitting down across the table from the prophet, being sure to leave me easy access to the prophet’s face.
Do you know why we asked you to come in today? DeGreco said.
Knowledge, the prophet said, smiling, is a rare and precious possession, best not taken for granted. What I might say I know is that an officer came to my current residence and made it clear I had no choice but to come with him, and it was this officer who brought me to this room and left me here alone until you came in. I also know that officer didn’t know why he had been sent to bring me here. Beyond that, I could make some educated guesses about why someone wanted me brought here, but can I be said to know the reason for this particular coerced visit? To that, I would have to say, No.
The entire time the prophet was going on about knowledge and his lack of it in terms of DeGreco’s question, what I noticed was the incantatory nature of his speech. There was a music just under the tone of his words that had a rhythm that was not the rhythm of what a man might say in response to being asked a simple, benign question like the one DeGreco had asked. It was more like the rhythm a primitive tribe of sun-worshippers might beat out, in an elaborate communal ceremony, on their tribal drums at sunset. This guy, this prophet, was no enigma; he wasn’t even trying to hide that he was enjoying this.
Cute, DeGreco muttered. The mike picked up every sound in that room. I could even hear the sounds their clothes made when they moved. There have been times, with some suspects we were sweating, I could swear I’ve heard the beating of their hearts. Not with the prophet, though I was beginning to think I could hear DeGreco’s heart and thought I should call the whole squad of detectives in and say, See, he does have one.
Okay, DeGreco said, let’s get past the question of knowledge, then. Do you have any guess as to why you were asked to come down here today?
I hope, detective, I wasn’t brought here to try to guess why you brought me here. That would seem to be an awful waste of time, especially when I gather you’re under considerable pressure to, what is it they say, solve the case? DeGreco’s arm pits and his back, I could see when he bent forward a little in his chair, were already dampening and the back of his shirt stuck a bit to his chair.
Fair enough, DeGreco said. Are you aware that a number of babies have died recently, all in the same grisly fashion?
If you’re talking about the babies found burned in their cribs, yes, I am aware of them, detective. What I don’t know is why you brought me here to tell you I’m aware of something that’s been on the local news almost every night. The prophet was most assuredly enjoying this, and was not going to hand us anything. DeGreco, at his best, would’ve had trouble cracking this guy, and DeGreco didn’t seem to be anywhere near his best.
Do you know, sir, that some people are saying there’s a connection between these babies and the legends of the red diver out in the gorge? DeGreco had lost me. I didn’t understand why he was bringing this up. What I did notice was that DeGreco was sweating, and showed every indication of starting to let his anger take over. I had never seen DeGreco like this. DeGreco, it seemed to me, was losing it.
Really, detective? Are you telling me that the ignorant ruminations of the local rabble are being accepted as some sort of evidence by the police? If that is the case, the prophet said, then truly the world has gone mad.
Let’s cut to it, shall we? DeGreco said. You and your followers claim we are living in what is called, I believe, the end time, correct?
First of all, detective, I don’t have any followers, that I know of, nor do I make any claims. I am not the head of an organized church, or cult. I believe in what the Bible tells me, especially when things in the world reiterate what the Bible says. But unless things have drastically changed while I wasn’t paying attention, belief in the teachings of the Bible is not a crime.
No, DeGreco said. Not unless that belief causes you to do something which is against the law. If that happens, then Bible or no Bible, you’re still a criminal.
Ah, the prophet said, as if something had just occurred to him. You suspect me of having committed some crime. I assume, due to your previous comments, you suspect me of killing the babies in town who have burned in their cribs.
It doesn’t seem completely out of the realm of possibility, prophet, DeGreco said. Religion has often been involved with the torture and slaughter of innocents. In the Old Testament, God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son to him, doesn’t he?
Yes, detective, he does. But he also stops Abraham when it looks like he’s actually going to do it. Remember, God sends down an angel to stop the knife coming down and the angel brings along a ram to be sacrificed to God. The slaughter of true innocents is a rarity when it comes to God’s actions, the prophet said. No, detective, the random slaughter of innocents sounds more like the work of a man to me. Some very sick man, I’d say, detective. Wouldn’t you agree?
Do you mean to ask whether I think God or man is sicker, prophet? DeGreco said. Wouldn’t you agree that’s a false dichotomy? I was trying to concentrate on the prophet’s body language, what he might reveal, but where this interrogation had headed was making that difficult. What was this, a theological debate? Where the hell DeGreco was going with this, I couldn’t say.
Wouldn’t you agree, prophet, that since we are created in God’s image, we share any sickness with our creator? That the sickness is within us because we are like God?
The prophet leaned forward, his smile the inescapable feel of dogma. What you call sickness, detective, seen from a different perspective, might be a kind of mercy, evidence of God’s compassion, his love. Who is to say which view is correct?
When it comes to murder, prophet, I’ll accept the responsibility for saying. A responsibility I’ll gladly share with a judge and a jury. The rule of law, in other words, prophet. The rule of law.
Ah, but whose laws should govern us, detecti
ve, the laws of man or the laws of God?
The laws of man are derived from God, prophet. And I know of no conflict between them when it comes to murder, DeGreco said. Oddly, DeGreco seemed to have calmed down. Neither he nor the prophet were sweating under the hot lights in that room. And neither man was looking at the mirror. Tell me, prophet, why do you still swim in the gorge, despite the No Swimming signs posted?
Are you going to arrest me for swimming in the gorge, detective? How many years can I get for that?
Actually, it is against the law to swim there. But I’m not going to book you, prophet, for swimming in the gorge. But I am curious why you swim there. You must know it’s bad for you. My ex told me not too long ago that our son got an awful rash from swimming there. What with all the chemicals that have been dumped into that water in the dead of night, it’s impossible to say just how dangerous it is. So why take the chance, prophet? Why swim in it?
The gorge, if you must know, detective, is a sacred place for me. The prophet actually seemed a little nervous. It is a place of mystery and of signs.
And the red diver, prophet? Is the red diver a sign?
Do you not think it a little odd, detective, that a man would paint his entire body red and quote scripture before throwing himself into the gorge?
So, you were there when he dove into the gorge? I could tell DeGreco thought this meant something, that he was onto something.
Yes, detective. I was a boy, but I was there, and I remember him standing up on the edge of the highway and shouting scripture, and I remember him falling like some demented angel into the gorge and slipping under the water. You see something like that as a boy, detective, and it’s kind of hard to forget. But what I believe the meaning of the red diver to be is personal, detective, something I don’t share with others. I will say this, though. Read the Revelation of St. John. The red diver, as you call him, is there. I don’t mean to claim that he’s the only manifestation of that figure in the scripture. I believe the scripture reveals its truths to many of us, and the ways in which it manifests itself in the world is unique for each person.
Report from a Place of Burning Page 13