The Beautiful Dream of Life

by Domingo Zapata

  She is sitting in my lap, beautifully nude, and we are sipping a particularly excellent prosecco from her own vineyard.

  “Well—?” she says.

  The steam is rising from the churning water. Carlotta gets up from my lap and moves opposite me to let me recount my story. She has asked me about my life, about my past and growing up. I have a feeling there is more to it than a simple question, that something specific is driving her curiosity, though I can’t be sure. Since I have no fear of discussing anything with her, I ask her about it: “Why do you want to know about my past life? Talks of the past can be so boring.”

  “Don’t make it boring, then,” she says. “I’m sure you can make it colorful.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Rodrigo, I love being with you, and I just want to understand what makes you who you are, how you became you. There are so many things I don’t know. But if you prefer not to, we can talk about it some other time, when you feel like it. Maybe you’ll even want to share your past with me someday.”

  “Amore, I want you to know everything about me. I don’t wish to hide anything. Some things I just can’t remember.”

  “I don’t hold you responsible for telling me those things, then,” she says with a smile that reflects silver off her white-white teeth.

  I’m glad she is asking about me. She really does want to know. And I want her to. Trust is the foundation of everything, and it starts right here.

  I tell her of my days as a schoolboy in Palma. That I wasn’t cut out for school, that it didn’t seem to fit me too well. I was always getting in trouble, being sent to the principal’s office. I smoked and chewed gum, and when it came to girls, I tried to round as many bases as I could get away with. Carlotta produces the mild beginnings of a smile at that.

  “One day everything changes. I’m playing hooky like usual, hiding behind hedges so the teachers don’t see me. I stay around the schoolyard because I still want to have fun. And I can’t go home. This big guy with huge hands sees me crouching there having a cigarette, and he taps me on the shoulder and catches me by surprise.

  “ ‘Hey, what are you doing out here?’

  “ ‘Nothing.’

  “He looks down and sees my sketchpad flapped open. It’s the one class I like—art. And I sketch a lot. I like to sketch faces. Especially of the pretty girls, and then I give the drawing to them. It often pays off with a kiss. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. I don’t do it exactly for that, but I see how it affects people. I like the way they smile when I give them a gift that is so personal; it makes me feel good. And the more I draw, the better I get. And then I start to paint. And that evokes an even bigger response from people.

  “ ‘Are you an artist?’ he asks.

  “ ‘Yes.’

  “ ‘What kind of art?’

  “ ‘I’m a painter.’

  “ ‘How long have you been painting?’

  “ ‘I can’t remember a day in my life without painting.’

  “ ‘Really? Bueno.’

  “Just then I twist out my cigarette, and I begin to sketch. This man. And he watches me. He says, ‘I’m an artist, too,’ but I’m too busy with my sketch to answer him.

  “ ‘What’s your name?’ he asks.

  “ ‘Rodrigo Concepción,’ I tell him.

  “ ‘My name is Heriberto Carrion.’

  “I look up from my sketch then. ‘I have heard the name,’ I say. Because he is a legend where I’m from. People talk about him, but I have never seen him before. I have seen his work, though—he’s a sculptor.

  “And he says to me, ‘I want to see everything you have done.’

  “ ‘Okay.’

  “ ‘Say—I need an assistant, too. To help me with my studio. And my work. Come around after school—’

  “ ‘How about now?’ I say.

  “The big man with the big hands does not turn around to answer my impatience. And my frustration with school. But he does spin around to say, ‘Nuance. That is your gift.’

  “That is how it all began. I went to his studio every day. I helped him in the preparing of the clay, and I swept up the floors. He made the most amazing creations. He’s not well known outside the region. He kind of does it for himself. He never seems to make it in the marketplace, because he won’t sell out. He will only do what he wants to do. But he gets by. Yet he has this huge amount of knowledge. And a library filled with works by all the masters.

  “He made me study art history from all his textbooks. It was like going to school—but this time it was a subject I loved. He taught me everything about painting, about usage of color, perspective, space, chiaroscuro, about choices of subject matter. And he encouraged style. You cannot teach style. But you can tease it, nurture it, and bring it out—once the basics are digested. And he fed me the food of art and made me digest everything. Big canvases, small canvases. And I started to paint at his studio. I had my first show at fourteen. And I continued to work with him for several more years.”

  “You owe a lot to him, no?”

  I have to pause. I feel a rush of tears to my eyes, not enough to run down my face, but the emotion sweeps over my body. Carlotta perceives my misty expression and extends her hand and places it atop mine.

  “Of course. I owe him my entire career.”

  “So he never makes it himself as a sculptor?”

  “He does,” I say, collecting myself and my thoughts. “Everyone knows him. But his work is considered intellectual. He’s so smart that he conceives of pieces with these layers of thought, rather than things that are pretty or aesthetically pleasing to the eye, things that people want to look at all the time and have in their homes. But he is successful enough to have occasional shows and make a living. And he is well respected in the Spanish art world because he’s so knowledgeable. Artists come to him for advice, that kind of thing. He’s an artist’s artist.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “I think so.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t know?”

  “We haven’t been in contact. The last I heard, he was in some kind of hospital.” I pause and clear my throat. I cannot bring myself to tell her that I know exactly where he is.

  Carlotta seems to eye me in a funny way. “So what did you do after your early shows?”

  “At sixteen, I quit school and moved to Madrid. Had my own apartment. And I turned it into a little studio, hanging everything on the walls. Then Heriberto hooked me up with a curator who gave me a room in a gallery to show my work. And it sold. And then I got my own gallery for my own works. I was really young, but my paintings were selling. That is when I met my ex-wife, Maria. She was an aspiring opera singer, and was studying at a conservatory. We fell in love and planned a life together. We got a nice apartment in the city, not too far from where she grew up, and we had lots of friends. And dinner parties. And I continued to work, and she helped me with the finances. And things were going really well. And then . . .”

  I laugh now, a nervous laugh, almost out of embarrassment. I know I am getting to the tricky part of my story.

  “And then what?”

  “May I kiss you?” I maneuver across the tub and kiss her softly.

  “Continue, please . . . Tell me . . .”

  “And then I explode. My stuff begins to sell for a lot of money. And I’m all over the press. And I have shows all over Spain. Then France. And Italy and London. And I become the new-new thing in the European art world. Not as well known as I am now, but this is when it starts. And this is when I change.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I start to lose my respect for everything. All the temptations are there, and I stay out all night drinking, doing drugs. I’m an outgoing person, too, and I have enjoyed this kind of mind expansion. It feeds the art. But it’s a problem if you’re married. Women are throwing themselves at me. And it’s not that I don’t love my wife, but it’s just to have this little experience here, this one there, and each one
is kind of wonderful, and you get in a cycle. Did I get married too young? Of course. But we were in love, and that was the most romantic thing we could do. And I went with all of that, too, because I am a romantic, but . . .”

  “You cheated on her, yes?”

  “Yes. And I am ashamed of it, and of this part of my life. But, well, here it is. I want you to know.”

  “Go on,” she says more reservedly, and finishes her glass of prosecco.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  “No, please. Don’t mind me. I’m not judgmental. I understand. More than you know.”

  It’s nice to hear her say that. It’s perhaps the nicest thing I can hear at this juncture of my story.

  “So the affairs keep on, and I’m traveling, and she’s not coming on all the trips, and that leads to other things. Plus, I’m getting really well known, and that takes it to another level. Even the people who don’t normally want to be with you, want to be with you. And the snowball builds and builds, and before you know it, you’re in this wild, fantastical trip of total chaos. You don’t know which end is up, and you do things, silly things, irrational things, deceitful things, and you have to tell stories and fibs, and they get bigger and bigger as the snowball gets bigger and bigger, and, well—”

  “When did this all stop?”

  “One afternoon when my wife walks in on me and I am having sex with one of her best friends.”

  “Her friend?”

  “Yes. I know, bad. And my wife has had enough. She tries to cut off my balls. She misses and stabs me in the thigh and just misses the artery that would have killed me, and we decide to get a divorce.”

  I look at Carlotta, and I can see she is a little crestfallen. And I am crushed. And yet I can also see she is trying not to show this. We exchange some kisses, but we do not make love.

  We get out of the hot tub and put on robes and sit on the warm shaggy carpet in the living room. We each have another glass of prosecco and kill the bottle. I ask her if she has any Scotch. She points to the bar, and I pour myself a double shot before continuing my story.

  “And that is when I decide to leave Spain and move to Los Angeles and live in the Beverly Hills Hotel. I’m wearing a cast from my leg injury, and I hang out on the terrace and meet all the folks staying there, including many celebrities. I turn my bungalow into a studio, and I have parties and go to parties all over the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, and Malibu, and I meet all the actors and actresses, agents and producers. I sell my art, too, to famous people, and get their endorsements, and the word spreads, and I make more of a name for myself. I try to take America right from that hotel. And I do.

  “And there’s more partying and serial relationships and mind expansion, but now I am not married, and I am free to explore my new life in a fresh new setting with new experiences, and my art reflects this change. My art matures and so do I, in a certain sense. There are still the same temptations I experienced in Spain, but now it is on another level, with really famous people and on a global scale.

  “Things just continue to get bigger and more indulgent, but at the same time, I am able to handle it. And not. Because some things get wilder. People come to my bungalow and graffiti the walls, and there are girls, girls, girls—with L.A. agendas—girls who will do anything to gain status or money or access to rich and famous people—they are looking to get a leg up, and they end up getting, well, two legs up . . .”

  Carlotta is tipsy and laughing now, and she’s warmed back up to me. I hope she thinks I have come out of this dark tunnel I am describing, and I can’t wait to get to the end of the story to tell her that, to drive that point home.

  I continue, “And people are attracted to you because you’re famous, and they attach themselves to you to go along for the ride and see what they can get out of it, too, but you don’t care—it’s fun, it’s a blast, it’s L.A., it’s America, and this is where you can make it really big, so the show goes on for a while. Until that changes, too.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I am becoming a monster. I am more famous now, and the experiences are right at my fingertips. And I am an artist. I want to consume and produce, consume and produce, not people but experiences. All the experiences—good, bad, sexual, crazy—all to feed the art. Because in the end I am an artist—not a playboy, not a drug addict, not a hedonist; those are the vehicles you use to get your art where you want it to be. But it takes a lot out of me, and by the time I leave L.A., I am just drained. So I am looking for a new challenge, and what is the biggest challenge in the world for a modern painter?”

  “New York.”

  “So I move to New York and buy a loft apartment in SoHo with an amazing roof terrace, and hire a manservant named Alfonso. And my works are well received and I am a celebrity and I have a lot of money in the bank. And then I fall into the same patterns that others have, but now in a New York big-city way: you meet everyone influential, from old money to new money, and everyone you haven’t met wants to meet you, and there’s Page Six, blasting your fame. Then there are the great restaurants, and I have shows, and there are trips to Art Basel and shows there and trips to European cities, the Biennale in Venice, and back to Europe but now with a bigger name and better galleries to show my stuff, and it’s selling and I’m making more money than ever. And this goes on for years, too, until that changes . . .”

  “And what change is that?”

  “You come to a point where you see the artifice in it all and the empty nature of it, and it’s not fulfilling anymore. It can be fun, but, well, so many artists now are marketers, and it’s no longer pure art, like it was in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or even when Picasso painted in the twenties and thirties . . . It’s the twenty-first century, it’s a tech explosion, and everyone is an artist or a writer, and especially since I met you, I have come to the realization that I don’t really like what I am doing or how I am living—but worst of all, I don’t like myself because of it.

  “I want something more fulfilling. I am an artist who still wants to produce work, but my mind-set and perspective have changed. That’s the big difference—the change within me. I’ve done the other stuff, and I am depleted, emotionally spent, and perhaps spiritually starved. Not perhaps. Definitely.” I take another swig and finish my Scotch. I am getting drunk, and the looser I feel, the more uninhibited I am in my discussion with Carlotta. “You mind if I have another?”

  “Help yourself.”

  I make my way over and pour myself a triple shot. I take some ice from the icemaker and toss it in the filled glass.

  “Tell me more about Heriberto. Did it end well between you two?”

  “Well, no. Not from my standpoint. Not because anything bad happened. But once I hit it big, I never turned back. I never contacted him. I deserted him. Like I deserted a lot of people. But he was special to me in my life. And I rationalized my dismissive behavior by making myself believe he was jealous of me and all my success, when that had never been the case. The fact is, I didn’t need him anymore, and I threw him away.

  “He was a victim to my ambition. And ego. Because that comes into play, too. You want to believe all the great things everyone is saying about you, that you’re amazing, you’re a genius. And that twists your mind. It makes you forget. You forget where you come from when all the money and fame arrive. You don’t want to give credit. And people who helped you, you put them in that diminished box of ‘Well, he was lucky to have worked with me, because I didn’t need him. It could have been anyone, because I’m that great—I made him a star.’

  “And Heriberto, the wise, circumspect, savvy man he was, I’m sure he must have felt all that, that this was what I was doing and what I had become, and it must have hurt him. I am not proud of it. In fact, I am very ashamed. Because I owe everything to this man. My whole career. My whole life, for that matter.”

  She looks at me squarely for a beat, until I look away. It is a lot to take in. But I’m hopeful that she is encourage
d by my honesty, by the fact that I do not try to hide the deeds of my past.

  “Do you still take drugs, Rodrigo?”

  In Carlotta’s world, drugs are not a part of my life. “No, not at all. I quit all that. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in years. I’m ready.”

  “Ready for what? A new change?”

  “No. A new life.”

  “The next change . . .”

  “The next life. Ooh, that doesn’t sound so good.” I stand up then, a little wobbly, I might add. “Want me to spell it out?”

  “Spell what out?”

  “My whole life.”

  “If you want.”

  “Okay, I’ll spell it out for you. I’ve lived the high life. I’m acclaimed. Wealthy. Forty-nine years old. Lived all over the world. I’m colorful. Passionate. Tortured by a decadent life. And the trappings of money. And fame. I’m desperate. For something more. Out of my existence. I want the real love. To be able to trust and be happy. But I’ve been unable to break free. I have a gorgeous SoHo loft that doubles as my art studio—”

  “Hold on, caro, you live in Florence. Your studio is here—”

  “Wait a second, don’t interrupt me,” I say drunkenly, beginning to toss and slur my words. “Where am I? Was I? Oh yeah. I have an Italian butler, Alfonso. And Rafaela, a beautiful Colombian assistant. She’s more like a confidante. And life coach. I paint by day, wait for the night. My two employees clean up the mess I make in the process. I’m a classic lady enthusiast. Incorrigible playboy who parties till dawn. Consuming everything along the way. Waking up with assorted women, sometimes more than one. My ‘friends’ are a billionaire and a pimp. But I’m—as in me, Rodrigo—I’m Machiavellian. I’ll hang with the people who buy and support my art. And bring me ladies. And this hollow, hypocritical setup is, well, it’s my life . . .”

  “But that was before, when you lived in New York, right?”