The Burnt Orange Heresy

by Charles Willeford

  “You’re probably wondering why I put the top back,” I said.

  “Yes, I am. But after the way you barked at me last time, I’m almost afraid to ask any questions.”

  I laughed and patted her leg. “If it gets too cold, I’ll put it up again. But I thought it would be best to get as much fresh air as possible to keep myself awake. It isn’t really cold, and there won’t be much traffic this time of night, so we should make fairly good time.”

  Berenice accepted this moronic explanation, and I increased the speed the moment we got out of the downtown area and onto the new four-lane highway that was still bordered by residential streets containing two- and three-story houses.

  From my examination of the map I knew that there were several small lakes between Valdosta and Tifton, and a few pine reserves as well, first- and second-growth forests to feed the Augusta paper mills. Most of the rich, red land was cultivated, however—tobacco, for the major crop, but also with melons, corn, peas, or anything else that a farmer wanted to grow, including flax. East of Valdosta was the Great Okefenokee Swamp, which filled a large section of southeast Georgia, and there were many small lakes, streams, and brooks that filtered well-silted water into the swamp.

  I was unfamiliar with the highway and the countryside, and I didn’t know precisely what I was looking for, other than a grove of pines, a finger of swamp, and a rarely used access road. I slowed down considerably a few miles north of Valdosta, as soon as I was in open country with only widely scattered farmhouses, and I began to keep my eyes open for side roads leading nowhere. Berenice, who had been as silent as a martyr, and suffering from my silence as well, finally had to open her mouth.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well, what?”

  “I’m waiting for the explanation, that’s what. You said you’d explain, what are you waiting for?”

  “I’ve been thinking things over, Berenice, and I’m beginning to come to my senses. You really don’t think it would be a good idea, do you, to send that painting to Mr. Cassidy?”

  “That’s your business, James. It isn’t up to me to tell you what to do, but if you’re asking me for an opinion I’d say no. But as you said, I don’t know all there is to know about what it is you’re trying to do—so until I do, I’ll keep my long ‘middle-western nose’ out of your business.”

  “I apologized for that, sweetheart.”

  “That’s all right. I know that my nose fits my face. What does bother me though is that I’ve been more or less forced to think that you set fire to Debierue’s house.”

  “Me?” I laughed. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

  “Well, for one thing, you didn’t show any surprise,” she said shrewdly, “when I told you about the news of the fire on television.”

  “Why should I be surprised? His villa in France burned down, too. It does surprise me, however, that you would think that I did it.”

  “Then tell me that you didn’t do it, and I’ll believe you.”

  “What would my motive be for doing such a thing?”

  “Why not give me a simple yes or no?”

  “There are no simple yes or no answers in this world, Big Girl—none that I’ve ever found. There are only qualified yes and no answers, and not many of them.”

  “All right, James, I can’t think of a valid motive, to use one of your favorite words, ‘valid,’ but I can think of a motive that you might consider valid. I think you’ve faked an article about some paintings that Debierue was supposed to paint, but didn’t paint. You looked at the paintings he did paint and didn’t like them, probably because they didn’t meet your high standards of what you thought they should be, so you burned them by setting fire to the house. You then invented some nonexistent paintings of your own and wrote about them instead.”

  “Jesus, do you realize how crazy that sounds?”

  “Yes, I do. But you can show me how crazy it is by letting me read the article you wrote. If there’s no mention of that weird orange—”

  “Burnt orange—”

  “All right, burnt orange painting in your article, then you can easily prove me wrong. I’ll apologize, and that’ll be that.”

  “That’ll be that, just like that? And then you’ll expect me to forgive your wild accusation as if you’d never made it, right?”

  “I said that I might be wrong, and I sincerely hope that I am. It’s easy enough to prove me wrong, isn’t it? What I do know though, and there’s nothing you can ever say to persuade me that I’m wrong, is that Debierue never painted that picture in your hotel room. You painted it. It was still wet when I touched it—including Debierue’s signature. And the only reason I can possibly come up with for you to do such a thing is because you want to write about it, and pass it off as Debierue’s work. I—I don’t know what to think, James, the whole thing has given me a headache. And really—you may not believe this—I actually don’t care! Honestly, I don’t! But I don’t want you to get into any trouble, either. Arson is a very serious offense, James.”

  “No shit?”

  “It isn’t funny, I’ll tell you that much. And if you did set fire to Debierue’s house, you should tell me!”

  “Why? So you can turn me in to the police for arson?”

  “Oh, James,” she wailed. Berenice put her face into cupped hands and began to cry.

  “All right, Berenice,” I said quietly, after I had let her cry for a minute or so, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” I handed her my handkerchief.

  She shook her head, took a Kleenex tissue out of her purse, and blew her nose with a refined honk.

  “You’re right, Berenice, on all counts,” I continued, “and I might as well admit it. I guess I got carried away, but it isn’t too late. Setting the fire was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. The old man had spilled some turpentine, and I accidentally dropped my cigarette and it caught. I thought I’d put it out, but apparently it flared up again. Do you see?”

  She nodded. “I thought it was something like that.”

  “That’s the way it happened, I guess. But painting the picture was another matter. I don’t know how I expected to get away with it, and the chances are I would’ve chickened out at the last minute anyway. What I’ll do is throw the picture away, and then rewrite the article altogether, using the information I’ve actually got.”

  “He told us lots of interesting things.”

  “Sure he did.”

  There was a dirt road on the right, leading into a thick stand of pines. I made the turn, shifted down to second gear, but kept up the engine speed because of the sand.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to drive back in here well off the highway and burn the painting.”

  “You can wait until morning, can’t you?”

  “No. I think that the sooner I get rid of it the better. If I kept it I might change my mind again. It would be possible, you know, to get away with it—”

  “No, it wouldn’t, James,” she said crisply.

  The sandy road, after more than a mile, ended in a small clearing. The clearing was filled with knee-high grass, and we were completely surrounded by second-growth slash pine. It would be another two years, at least, before these trees would be tall enough to cut. I left the lights on and cut the engine. Without another word I got out of the car, opened the trunk with the key, and picked up the tire iron. It was about ten inches long, quite hefty, and the flattened end, although it wasn’t sharp, was thin enough to make a good cutting edge. Rounding the car on Berenice’s side, I brought the heavy iron down on her head.

  “Ooauh!” She expelled her breath, clasped both hands over her head, and turned her face toward me. Her eyes were wide and staring, but her face was expressionless. I hadn’t hit her hard enough, or I had miscalculated the thickness of her hair, piled on top of her head, which had cushioned the blow. I hit her on top of the head again, much harder this time, and she slumped down in the seat.


  I opened the door, grabbed the thick collar of her polo coat, and dragged her out of the car. She was inert, unbelievably heavy, and her left leg was still in the front seat. I was working one-handed, still clutching the tire iron in my right hand, and trying to free her leg from the car door, when she convulsed, rolled over, and came up off the ground, head down, butting me in the stomach like a goat.

  Caught by surprise, I fell backward and my shoulder hit a splintered tree stump. At the same time my left elbow banged against the ground sharply, right on the ulna bone. My right shoulder felt as if it were on fire, and crazy prickles from my banged funny bone danced inside my forearm. I dropped the tire iron, rubbed my right shoulder with the fingers of my left hand, and the pain in my elbow and shoulder gradually subsided. Through the trees, and getting farther away every second, Berenice’s voice screamed shrilly. I picked up the tire iron.

  I turned off the headlights and started after her, judging direction by the sound of her screams, which were growing fainter, in the dark forest. Berenice ran awkwardly, like most women, and she was hampered by the knee-length coat. I didn’t think she could run far, but I was unable to catch up with her. I tried to run myself, but after tripping over a stump and sprawling full length on the damp ground, I settled for a fast walk.

  The screaming stopped, and so did I. The abrupt silence startled me and, for the first time, I was frightened. I had to find her. If she got away, everything was over for me—everything.

  I moved ahead, walking slower now, searching every foot of ground, now that my eyes had become adjusted to the dim light. A light mist hovered a hundred feet above the trees, but there was a moon, and I could see a little better with every passing moment. The trees thinned out and the wet ground began to get mushy. I was on the edge of a swamp, and after another fifty yards or so, I came to the edge of a lake of black, stagnant water. I knew Berenice well enough to know that she wouldn’t have plunged into that inky water. The way was easier going toward the left, and I took it, figuring that she would do the same.

  I found her a few minutes later, catching sight of her light-colored coat. She was in a prone position, with her legs spread awkwardly, partially hidden under a spreading dogwood tree. Afraid to touch her, I rolled her over on her back. A pale shaft of moonlight filtered through the tree branches, lighting her bloody face and wide staring eyes.

  I didn’t know whether she was dead or not, but I had to make certain. There was one thing I did know. I wouldn’t have been able to hit her again. As I knelt down beside her and opened her coat, an aroma of Patou’s Joy filled my nostrils with loss. I put my head down on her chest and listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. Berenice was dead, but my blows on her head hadn’t killed her. She had died from shock. No one, mortally wounded, would have been able to run so far. On the other hand, both of us for a few moments had been gifted with superhuman strength. She was a big woman, stronger than hell, and she had been fighting for her life.

  But so had I.

  I dragged her to the edge of the water and wedged her body under a fallen tree that was half in and half out of the swamp. By leaning dead branches and by piling brush over the unsubmerged part of the tree, she was completely hidden from view. Debierue knew that she was with me, and if she were to be found, and if he learned that she had been killed, he would tell Cassidy immediately. That is, he would tell Cassidy if her body was found before he received the tear sheets of my article on his American Harvest period. He would be so delighted by my article he wouldn’t risk mentioning Berenice’s name to anyone. His reputation, as well as mine, depended upon that article. But there would be time, plenty of time. Months, perhaps years, would pass before her body was found.

  Suddenly I was weak and dispirited. All of my strength disappeared. I leaned against the nearest tree and vomited my dinner—the corn, the tomatoes and okra, the stringy chunks of sirloin, the biscuits, everything. Panting and sobbing until I caught my breath, I returned to the dogwood tree and picked up my tire iron. It had my fingerprints on it, and in case I had a flat tire on my way to New York, I would need it again.

  I started back toward the car, and after walking for five minutes or so I discovered that I was lost. I panicked and began to run. I tripped and fell, banging my head against a tree, scratching a painful gash in my forehead. As Freud said, there are no accidents. Fighting down my panic by taking long deep breaths, I calmed down further by forcing myself to sit quietly on the damp ground, with my back against a tree, and by smoking a cigarette down to the cork tip. I was all right. Everything was going to be all right.

  Calmer now, although my hands were still trembling, I managed to retrace my path back to the swamp and Berenice. I now had a sense of direction. I started back in what I thought was the general direction of the car, and hit the sandy road, missing the clearing and the car by about fifty yards. My face was flushed with heat, and I was shivering at the same time with cold. Before setting out, I put up the canvas top, and then kicked over the engine.

  Two weeks later, back in New York, when I was cleaning out the car in order to sell it, I found one of Berenice’s fingers, or a part of one—the first two joints and the Chen Yu-ed fingernail. She must have got it lopped off when she had put her hands over her head in the car. I wrapped the finger in a handkerchief and put it safely away. Perhaps a day would come, I thought, when I would be able to look at this finger without fear, pain, or remorse.

  4

  The photograph of Debierue “reading” the flaming copy of the Miami Herald, which illustrated my article in Fine Arts: The Americas was republished in Look and Newsweek, and in the fine arts section of the Sunday New York Times. UPI, after dickering with my agent, finally bought the photo and sent it out on the wire to their subscribers. The money I made from this photo provided me with my first tailor-made suit. Coat and trousers, four hundred dollars.

  I had made one side trip off the superhighway to Baltimore, on my way back to New York, where I checked Berenice’s luggage in two lockers inside the Greyhound bus station (including her handbag and traveler’s checks, knowing that her mother could use this money someday, if and when the bags were ever claimed). Except for this brief stopover, I drove straight through to the city.

  There were five message slips in my office telling me to telephone Joseph Cassidy, collect, immediately, so I called him before I did anything else.

  “Did you get the picture?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good! Good! Hold it for a few days before sending it down. I want to get Mr. Debierue settled in a good nursing home, you see—he doesn’t know that you have the painting, does he?”

  “No, and it’ll be better if he doesn’t. I’ve mentioned it in my article, although I won’t run a photograph of it. Before sending it to Palm Beach I intend to take some good color plates of The Burnt Orange Heresy for eventual publication, if you get what I mean . . .”

  “Naturally—is that the title, The Burnt Orange Heresy? That’s great!”

  “Yeah. It’ll probably have an additional title, too. Self-portrait.”

  “Jesus—James, I can hardly wait to see it!”

  “Just let me know when, Mr. Cassidy, and I’ll send it down to you air express.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll call you. And listen, James, I’m not going to forget this. When the time comes to exhibit it, you’ve got an exclusive to cover the opening.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My problem right now is to persuade Debierue to enter a rest home. He’s much too old to take care of himself. If he had been asleep when the fire started, he would’ve been killed you know. And when I think of those paintings that went up in smoke—Jesus!”

  “Did he tell you anything about them?”

  “Not a word. You know how he is. And nothing seems to faze him. He spends most of his time just sitting around watching old movies on TV and drinking orange juice. He can do that in a rest home. Well, you’ll hear from me. This is a long distance call, you know.”<
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  “Sure. Later.”

  He didn’t call me again, however. He sent me a special delivery letter after he had settled Debierue in the Regal Pines Nursing Home, near Melbourne, Florida. I sent Cassidy the painting, air express collect, although I had to pay the insurance fee, in advance, before they would agree to send it collect.

  The critical reaction to my article, when it appeared in Fine Arts: The Americas, followed the pattern I had anticipated. Canaday, in the Times, had reservations. Perreault, in The Village Voice, was enthusiastic, and there was a short two-paragraph item in The L.A. Free Press recommending the article to would-be revolutionary painters in Southern California. This was more newspaper coverage than I expected.

  My real concern was with the concentric ripples in the art journals and critical quarterlies. This reaction was slow in coming, because a lot of thought had to be put into them. The best single article, which set off a long string of letters in the correspondence department, appeared in Spectre, and was written by Pierre Montrand. A French chauvinist, he saw Debierue’s “American Harvest” period as a socialistic rejection of DeGaullism. This was an absurd idea, but beautifully expressed, and controversial as hell.

  With my photograph of Debierue, many newspapers printed sketchy accounts of Debierue’s mysterious immigration to the United States, but I kept my promise to Cassidy and the old man. I never divulged Debierue’s Florida address after Cassidy had him admitted under a false name to the Regal Pines Nursing Home, and Cassidy had covered his tracks so well the reporters never found him. I mailed Debierue the tearsheets of my article, a dozen 8" × 10" photographs of the burning newspaper shot, and an autographed copy of my book, Art and the Preschool Child. He didn’t acknowledge the package, but I knew that he received it because I had mailed it Return Receipt Requested.

  For the first week after my return to New York I bought a daily copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (it “covers Dixie like the dew”), and searched through the pages to see if there was any mention of a body being found near Valdosta. But I disliked the newspaper, and searching for such news every day was making me morbid. I quit buying the paper. If they found her, they found her, and there was nothing I could do about it. Inevitably, though, a reaction appeared in my psyche, caused, naturally enough, by the death of Berenice. It wasn’t that my conscience bothered me, although that was a part of my reaction. It was a second-thought overlap of self-doubt, a feeling of ambivalence that vitiated my value judgments of the new work I witnessed. I overcame this feeling, or overreaction, by compartmentalizing Debierue in a corner of my mind. I was able to rid myself of my ambivalence by setting Debierue apart from other artists as a “one-of-a-kind” painter, and by not considering him in connection with the mainstream of contemporary art. It didn’t take too many weeks before I adjusted to this mental suggestion. I was able to function normally again on my regular critical assignments.