"Angelo Ballesteros." Alby was riveted now. "The face is the face of his mother."
"Is he cured?"
"No." Kellan was hedging again.
"But…"
"He's still blind. He's staying with Maddie and she wants to know if this is an act of God."
"Well, that’s your department. What’dya tell her?” Kellan had taken a cup coffee and stared into it like an Oracle. He should remember that look, passive searching—and capture it on canvass.
“Nothing yet. I don't know what to tell her. I mean, it's wonderful in a spooky kind of way." Chicken-crap Kellan. Afraid of his religion.
Alby was reading the scrawls on the back of the pictures: after Rodin's St. John, Mama, the horse. "Who took the photos? This isn't Maddie's handwriting."
"Father Gonzaga."
"You talk to him?"
"Sort of. His English is as good as my Italian. He says it's Francesca's doing."
"Who?"
"Francesca Grasinski. She's been beatified. You remember—The Persistence of Tragedy."
Lupe appeared from nowhere. "Si. Si. Blessed Francesca." She pulled a scapular from her blouse, pulled it over her head, and gave it to Alby. "The Polish Saint. Almost."
"How'd I miss this?" He looked at the two small felt squares, one displaying a woman with roses and potatoes at her feet, the other a woman kneeling on a swastika and staring up at a crucifix. “Then she needs to work miracles. Maybe Angelo‘s one of them." He passed the scapular to Father Kellan.
"Or maybe something more sinister," he said, taking his turn to examine Lupe's amulet.
“I doubt he’s devil spawn." Angelo was ten now. Things get nutty near puberty time. “Does he levitate? Vomit green doughnuts?”
Kellan winced. “Of course not. I thought you might be able to tell me, did you see anything artistic about him?" Lupe put the scapular around her neck and gave them both a disgusted look.
"This is a red letter day. A priest asking my opinion.”
“Art’s your department."
He hadn't paid much attention to the boy. Kids were the Wife's department. He’d dutifully written out checks to doctors, labs, and clothing stores while she talked to them. Maddie treated the kid like he was her own, but, whatever his talent was then, this was now. Now he was good. No, he was better than good. He felt his heart began to race. Maybe Angelo had creative blackouts like he had when he painted dream pictures. "His mother should get him a good agent."
"She's can’t even get him a teacher. He scares people. They think he's marked. Treat him like a freak. And you do have Lupe to help."
"You want me to take him? No, Maddie wants me to take him.” He looked around for the Maid. She’d conveniently disappeared, but her fingerprints were all over this. “You’re playing nuncio." It was an interesting proposition. The Maid might leave him alone if she had a child in the house to fuss over. “He’d be homesick.”
Kellan slowly shook his head no. “He’s been called. Gonzaga says the boy has no attachment to his home or his family. Like somebody with a vocation.” He was staring at the photographs like they were tarot cards. Put the crazy Sculptor with the crazy Painter. They’d take care of each other and everybody could write them off without guilt. Alby gave him a definite maybe and promised ‘to sleep on it’, and wrote out a check for $800.00 when the Priest returned from the driveway. His car had a flat, and it was the spare. He needed new tires.
****
Before Kha'zar could shed his human form, he was inside the Swallows once more confined. As a demon, he was unencumbered by clothing, but now, to add indignity to captivity, he was consigned to eternity wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts and sandals held tight by Velcro. He could still scream curses, but Death had soundproofed his cell and they went unheard, except that Death sometimes slid open a wooden slat in the door just to confirm there was one less demon in the world.
“Will you ever let him go?” Stoker said.
“Don’t be fooled by his appearance. He’ll never be human.” Death closed his current ledger, having recorded the last words of a retired wrestler: I’m ready to rumble. He replaced it on the shelf and returned to a table loaded with flowers and fruit. Apples from Seurat. Peaches from Angelico. Dozens and dozens of white roses in full bloom from Beethoven. And from Verdi, golden pears.
“Do demons grow old?”
“Older, but not wiser. Kha'zar is one of Satan’s favorite whipping boys, and he rewards him well. But has never bestowed upon him a grain of sense.”
“Not like Charles?” A grin appeared on the usually taciturn Stoker’s face.
“For however long he and Time sit on the same side of their mended fence, Charles will be assuaged.” For the moment, the Spirit World enjoyed its traditional calm, while Death and Stoker feasted on satisfaction. “See here what Angelico has written—hope these put some flesh on those bones!” Death leaned back in his chair, held up a bony hand and bent his fingers inward, making a claw that became a hand.
“I think,” Stoker said, “he has lost his fear of you. You did what he could not. He's grateful you defended Raphael.”
“Raphael's a man worthy of defense. He defeated Demeter’s design as much as he foiled Fate’s designations. His spirit refuses to be denied. For what God has given him, he will show his gratitude whatever flesh clothes his bones." Death paused, and Stoker could feel his eyes on him. "Modern men are a determined bunch. Give them a challenge and they seize it desperately. How is it the Guardian came by such tenacity centuries ago?” Death cast a pensive look towards the redwood door. “Bram, go to Angelico and deliver a message—ask him to come to the Fortress.”
Death met the priest in the foyer, shrinking his human self to the humbler height of the gentle man who served as spiritual guide to the Guardian. “Your peaches did the trick,” he said. “See how filled out I am.”
“You do not seem as looming.”
“I appreciate the gift. Now, I have a gift for you.” He escorted Angelico through the redwood door to the maze of corridors where terminal despair resides, to the holy place that Death had made a shrine for his own prayerful reflections, to the site of Judas’ deliverance.
At the sight of the Precious Blood, Angelico knelt and struck his heart three times in heartfelt confession. On the other side, he knew, was Raphael’s Resurrection, a painting so wondrous it could inspire hope–a picture that all held to be fashioned by holy hands. “You need only desire it, and you can enter,” Death said. “Raphael would want your eyes to see sweet hope. I will wait for you in the Great Hall.”
When Angelico joined them, his face was alive with light. He looked at the two spirits who relaxed at the long wooden table, and held up a glowing hand. “I command you,” he said to Death, “Build a chapel around the stone so that all may see this thing God has wrought from His servant. This is not your gift to give, but the Spirit who is greater than us all.”
****
As he often did, Alby rose from his bed around eleven o’clock and wrapped his green terry-cloth bathrobe around his naked body. He ignored his day-work and stood before the empty mural canvass. On the 10X16 foot white shield, he began to draw his figures with a #2 pencil, lightly sketching the forms he saw before him, dream-like beings who formed a tableau in front of him. While he sketched, the figures talked among themselves of how wonderful it was to have the Fortress Resurrection inside the chapel where all could see it. How magnanimous was Death to give them the stone slab, to transport it without a chip or crack in its entirety.
“Stay still,” Alby reminded the wild-haired man playing a piano. The man’s eyes burned, then softened.
“He’s not using a camera, you know,” Death said. And everyone left themselves and gathered at one side of the canvass while Alby sketched their abandoned forms. By dawn he’d finished his outline of The Art School of Utopia.
“Put down your pencil,” Dali said, “and join us.” Alby walked toward the crowd of Spirits as the forms disint
egrated. They seemed a convivial lot, dressed in odd finery that included diadems and tiaras. Dali wore a toaster around his neck. “We were all mentored by someone, why not take Angelo in?”
Magrite erased an inch of one side of Dali’s pointed moustache and curled it upwards. “You’re going to hurt someone with that dagger if you’re not careful.”
“Now, I’m lopsided.”
“Very well.” Magrite altered the other side to match.
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” Alby recognized many of the artists, but some were unfamiliar. Kalo and Claudel were admiring his drawing accompanied by a woman in a blue tunic.
“Ah, the three sisters making their appraisal. They look pleased.” Death nodded in the direction of the canvass.
“Who is the woman in blue?”
“Artememisia Gentilesche.”
“Not contemporaries...”
“No, but friends here in the Spirit World and equally manhandled. Gentilesche raped by Tassi, Claudel rebuked by Rodin, and Kalo abused by Rivera. See the three men standing near the Guild Masters? They are more respectful of the ladies now.”
“I’ll paint the men contrite and subdued, I swear,” Alby said, and thought of Maddie. As long as the blind artist needed help, he’d have that part of her that would give without taking. The prerogative of the gifted is to ask the impossible and be slighted if denied.
“Better you promise to paint the women beautiful and Genius as kind. They are alike in that vanity. Twist the logic, and they’re entitled. Do let the Guardian keep his vow to stand by you. He’s paid a king’s ransom to honor it.” Death moved on, and, one by one, the Spirits danced away.
Servants
Angelo pressed his palms against the five foot cube of Carrara marble, feeling its whiteness. Somewhere inside was salvation. “These are your tools,” Alby said, guiding his hands to a tray of neatly laid hammers and chisels on a table off to his right. He picked up each one, noting its shape, its weight, its voice telling him where he must make the first cut. Let me out. Let me out. He heard a voice calling to him as he slept in a cave so dark the bats said good-bye as they fluttered past him. Who had buried her in the stone? A jealous lover. A grieving family. Or had she fallen asleep and Time thought she was dead so raised up a mountain over her, putting her body in the marble along with other trapped sleepers—Caesar, Winston Churchill, Daphne.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Six taps then a rest, as his fingers slid over the stone. Tap. Tap. Tap. Inching away the debris that held her tight. Hour after hour. Frantic to wrench her out of the grave.
“Careful, Pygmalion,” Alby said, “you’ll exhaust yourself.” He sounded like Maddie. When the boy didn’t answer, he went to his studio and picked up his brush.
“Tell Angelo to slow down. Rest. Eat,” Lupe said. It must have made the Maid feel important to bark orders at two people now.
“I’ve told him. You tell him. Better yet, have Maddie tell him the next time she calls.” At the mention of the holy name, the Maid scurried away to the phone. He could hear her complaining to someone. Then she took the phone to Angelo. The tapping stopped for over an hour. It must have been Maddie. There was something wrong with the universe when women told men what to do from twelve thousand miles away and they did it.
“What's he working on?” Cupertino wanted to know. He tried to hide his greed, but two money-making artists in his stable had decreased his debt to income ratio rating to ten percent.
“I never ask. He covers it at night and I never look because there’s honor among artists—thieves no longer having a corner on the market.” It was a horrendous lie. Angelo often asked him for sighted direction. Were the proportions right? The ears too large, the lips too full? For the first three years, he’d worked only with clay, then moved on to soapstone and alabaster—the soft carving stones—then to limestone. But it was marble, the hardest to shape because of its density, that challenged them both. Alby had to make sure the sand bags were packed close around the rock so it wouldn’t break, that Angelo had his nose mask, gloves and goggles—though blind a chip could still cause a lot of damage, and that he had a variety of sand paper from 500 to 1600 grit for smoothing. He had to prepare the stone with a circular saw, cutting off small blocks without damaging the bulk. And make sure the room was properly ventilated.
Art wasn’t only line and design, color and texture. It was about technique. Execution. Science. It was about work and choosing what to use, when. God made the Grand Canyon. He let his artists make art. Tap. Tap. Tap. Rest. Tap. Tap. Tap. Rest. Angelo felt the woman emerge from the stone. Alby heard it. A long and laboring birth of beauty. The Weeping Woman. Her shoulders so huge and heavy with grief, they almost swallowed a veiled head that turned to heaven for mercy.
Cupertino gasped when Angelo pulled off the shroud. “It’s marvelous, Ballesteros! It’ll fetch a fortune.” He begged for a photograph, but Angelo said no.
“It’s not finished. This Magdalena. I still have Mary and St. John to do. And the Body of Christ for the cross. I'll need more marble.”
“It’s on the way,” Alby said.
****
The Priest was back. It must be Sunday. Alby could hear Lupe calling Angelo to the kitchen to receive communion. “I thought you only brought the Eucharist to dying people,” he’d said to Kellan when they met in the driveway. Alby was meeting Cupertino for eight-teen holes at Torrey Pines and was putting his golf bag in the trunk. Kellan was carrying a leather case that he tucked under his arm and held close to his side.
“I tend the sick as well.”
“Angelo’s sick? News to me. He felt fine last night.”
“And those blessed by God.”
“Oh, so I’m tending a saint now?”
Kellan had set the case on the front seat of his car and walked over to Alby, who was calculating a way to drive around Kellen’s car. The Priest had parked at an angle in back of him. He’d have to wait.
“You might try a little humility, Rector." Rice's admonition might work on this heathen. "Do you really not see anything miraculous in this boy’s talent?”
“You ever stop to think maybe he’s faking blindness so he can appear miraculous? Cupertino says it’s one lucrative gimmick.” Of course Angelo was blind. But if the Priest had been any good at his job, he would have found a way to keep Maddie in line. Maybe threatened her with excommunication. The Kids assured him she was happy with the Baron, but to be gone ten years to make the point he was a neglectful bastard seemed excessive. They’d also told him he needed to get out once in a while. He was too pale. The doctors said it was anemia. He took iron pills and took Angelo to the beach three times a week. Maddie told him to eat more spinach.
“He’d have to be a saint to put up with you.” Kellan turned away, leaving his words hanging in the humid air.
“Yeah, well, tolerance is a two-way street.” The Priest was already inside his car and probably didn’t hear although Alby thought he was yelling. It left him sucking in gulps of air. He called Cupertino and cancelled their game. He couldn’t catch his breath. He slid to the ground, leaned against the wheel well, and closed his eyes to the sunshine.
Ex-wives didn’t give nutritional advice unless they still loved you. They didn’t send you birthday cards and choose to live in sin rather than marry and become a baroness. Maddie once said he needed groupies not a wife and family. Sure, it was true, but where was he going to get groupies at fifty-seven? Sunshine, pills, spinach—he’d had enough of them over the past year to turn him green and leafy. But he was still tired.
The young man who stood over him offered him a hand. “You need help?”
“No. Hate pretty patios. Prefer asphalt drive ways. Thanks.” The stranger seemed familiar. “Do I know you?”
“Sort of. Met a few years ago at a party.” He sat down on the pavement. “You’ve been working hard. Two more murals for the Chinese. They’re making a habit out of you.” Californians were like that. Lightweights when it came to formality. W
herever they met you, there they were, and always at liberty to get into your business. Intimacy, like karma, was instant.
“One Albion Rector and you want another in a half hour. You saw the article in the LA Times? ”
“Very impressive. You’re a regular one man cultural exchange committee.” He might be the new gardener. Blonde. Tan. He belonged outside.
“I’m a hack. In the house behind me—lives a real artist.”
“Kind of letting this leukemia thing get to you, aren't you?” If he was a doctor, he should’ve said so. Why did everyone look so young now?
“I was going to tell the Ex-wife. Don’t want to worry her or the Kids.” That was another lie. He hadn't told Maddie because he was afraid she’d say I told you so, and wouldn’t come to take care of him. Why should she. “You here to deliver bad news?” He closed his eyes and waited for the worst. For all the blood the hospital took from him, this young guy could be Doc Dracula. Maybe he should call 911.
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