The Fabrications

by Baret Magarian

  ‘Lilliana.’

  ‘Lilliana. Charming.’

  He produced some tarot cards from his jacket’s inner pocket. They promptly fell all over the floor, and as he picked them up he muttered, ‘As above, so below.’ He handed her the reassembled pack, walked over to a stereo unit and the chanting suddenly stopped. Lilliana instantly felt better, as if the music’s cessation had relieved her of a physical pain.

  ‘I want you to shuffle the cards, and while you’re doing that I want you to think about the problems of your life, and what it is you’d like to learn about the future or the present. When you’re ready I’ll take the cards and lay them out in a spread.’

  She began the shuffle, long and drawn out since she hoped to regain her composure during it. He watched her for a moment and then turned his attention to the tapestries, focusing on one in particular. In it a woman knelt by a stream, the curves of her hair blending with the water’s waves. When he looked back to Lilliana some barrier which had been obscuring his view of her lifted. He had been too distracted earlier to notice the texture of her strawberry-colored hair, her white, unblemished skin, and her youth.

  She handed him the cards when she was ready. Ten were plucked from the top of the pack and laid out into an H-shape, remaining face down. Mr. Sopso’s hand moved toward the central card of the H and flipped it over. On the reverse side there was a picture of eight coins.

  ‘Ah, I see that you’re a banker, or are connected with finance in some way,’ he began confidently.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I’m not connected with finance. I own a flower shop.’

  ‘I see. But money is exchanged, isn’t it, when the flowers are sold? Let me see now, let me see; let’s have a look at the next card, which will describe the influences around you.’

  His hand moved toward the card to the immediate left of the one he had just picked. The picture on it was of the hanged man.

  ‘Now...this card tells me that it probably isn’t the right time to make any changes in your life. I can see you’re quite a cautious person. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  Mr. Sopso beamed, immensely relieved.

  ‘In addition I’d say that you are quite sensitive to beautiful things – witness your love of flowers.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose. Do I have to confirm the accuracy of everything you say?’

  ‘Only if I ask you to.’

  The next card had a picture of a red devil.

  ‘You feel trapped, but there might be a way out. Am I right?’

  ‘But Mr. Sopso, isn’t this a bit vague; I mean, doesn’t everyone feel trapped? I want something more...’

  In a hurry he came up with, ‘Love is just around the corner. You will meet a man...a theatrical man...with green eyes. He is adventurous, but he has a sad heart, and he has very little money. But I know that you don’t care about things like that; you’re not attracted to the external but to what’s inside and you have made the heart your own special territory. But you must be alert and watchful otherwise you’ll miss this opportunity.’

  ‘What kind of opportunity?’

  ‘The cards don’t tell me everything! Now wait a minute; did I see an Empress just now? Where’s it gone? Isn’t your best friend named Gilbert?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Geoffrey, Peter, Bartholomew?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Harold, Cameron, Ronald?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then, let’s move on. Obviously that was a little off the beaten track. We have to find the motorway again, as it were. But there aren’t many men with green eyes, and you have green fingers, haven’t you; I mean...’

  He managed a short, pathetic chuckle.

  Something clicked abruptly in Lilliana’s mind. How was it she hadn’t seen it before?

  ‘You don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about, do you?’

  ‘Wait, wait, the cards are clearing up. You’re at a crossroads, and you have to make a decision. A new business opportunity presents itself, but you have to be assertive and take on forces...’

  ‘You’re no more a fortune teller than I’m a brain surgeon.’

  There was a lull and then, suddenly, he gave up the struggle, his shoulders slumped, his head hung, and he muttered in a dirge-like undertone, ‘You’re right.’

  She was surprised by the speed with which the confession came. There wasn’t even the pretense of a denial. She stared into his sad eyes. He appeared completely vulnerable, a fact that touched her, despite his mendacity. He’s lost, she thought. She glanced around at all the bric-a-brac. She wondered if it was all there to create an air of exotic authority he himself conspicuously lacked. But she wasn’t going to stay to humiliate him. She stood up decisively.

  ‘Can I just explain? Won’t you stay for a minute longer so I can explain?’

  She had to admit she was curious. What could have driven him to take up something for which he was so obviously unsuited?

  ‘Please stay. I must explain.’

  She felt herself beginning to weaken.

  ‘Only for a minute.’

  ‘Well, then, won’t you sit down for a minute as well. Please?’

  She moved some papers from one of the armchairs and perched on the arm, smoothing her skirt out.

  ‘You’re right, I’m not really a fortune teller. To cut a long story short, I used to be an art dealer. I got arrested when they found out I was selling fakes. I didn’t know they were fakes; the paintings were supplied by my partner. He was buying them from small-time artists and getting me to sell them to clients for vast sums. When it came out they weren’t genuine there was a big hullabaloo. He ended up in Shanghai, and became a pimp. And I ended up in jail for three months. They thought I was selling these fakes knowingly. I couldn’t get any work in the art world again after I got out. So I tried my hand at bookselling. That went nowhere. Then I became a gardener but discovered I had an allergy to soil. The skin on my hands would start peeling. So I ended up fortune telling when a gypsy on Waterloo Bridge told me I had a gift. I worked it all out from a book called The Book of Light and Sight. I’ve tried to make it cosy in here.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘Well, I felt I owed you an explanation.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you did. I’ll be on my way then. Don’t worry, I won’t publicize the fact that you’re a charlatan.’

  Despite Lilliana’s obvious reluctance to stay a moment longer something about her urged him to persist, to bare his soul. It was in her eyes – a serenity that spelled tolerance. He felt he could talk to her and she would listen, if only she would first stay.

  ‘Wait! Please, just a moment more. I have to tell you something; actually I have to ask you something. I can see you’re a good sport.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not mad as well.’

  He winced like someone with a toothache.

  ‘Look, just listen to what I have to say and then I promise if you don’t want to help me, I’ll understand.’

  ‘All right,’ she said at last.

  ‘The thing is, I’m, how shall I say, I...enjoy the company of men. The man who let you in – Milo – he’s my boyfriend. My parents – who’ve been living in Germany for the last ten years – don’t know this, and they keep saying, when am I going to meet a nice girl? They want me to provide them with grandchildren. The onus is on me because my brother’s a priest and he’s not the marrying type. But neither am I. Incidentally, they see fortune telling in the same light as Satanism. They’re both very religious, especially my dad.’

  ‘Do they know you went to jail?’

  ‘No, of course not; I told them I went to Ireland.’

  ‘So, what are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, because they keep banging on about my finding a wife, the other day, just to keep them off my back, I said I’d got engaged. I didn’t think there was any problem as they’re over in Germany and after some time had passed I could say the engagement fell throug
h.’

  ‘And you haven’t got engaged?’

  ‘No. You see, in a few weeks’ time they’re meant to be taking a trip to Toronto, and now they’ve decided to break the journey in London to meet my fiancée. I never imagined they’d do that. But I have no fiancée to present them with.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you want me to pretend to be your fiancée?’

  ‘Yes. Just for one evening. That’s all.’

  She was about to say, ‘No,’ but resisted, and, finding herself caught up in his strange history, pressed further into it by asking, ‘Why don’t you just ask a friend to pretend?’

  ‘I only have one female friend and I told her my parents know all about my sexual persuasions, so to ask her to be my wife-to-be might prove difficult.’

  ‘Why did you tell her your parents know all about your sexual persuasions?’

  ‘So she didn’t think I was a coward because I hadn’t confronted them with the truth.’

  ‘Couldn’t you tell your parents you broke off the engagement, now, rather than later?’

  ‘I told them I was madly in love.’

  Lilliana took a deep breath, her eyes widening in disbelief.

  ‘As far as I can see your life’s just a tissue of lies.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s my way of dealing with things. It’s because I’ve always had to hide the truth from my parents, so I started hiding it from everyone else as well, even when it didn’t need hiding. You don’t know what they’re like.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My parents. They’re monsters, irrational, hysterical.’

  ‘And you want me to spend an evening with them?’

  ‘They’re very sweet really.’

  ‘But why do you have to lie to them? Just tell them the truth.’

  ‘If I did that they wouldn’t support me anymore. They give me money, you see.’

  ‘Oh...I’m really sorry about your problems, Mr. Sopso, but I’m afraid the answer’s no.’

  ‘Really? But I mean to say, I’ll pay you and everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t really want your money.’

  ‘But I’m poor, I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Well, then, how are you going to give me any?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean; I mean this is a big deal for me. I’m making a sacrifice; can’t you do the same?’

  ‘This is ridiculous, Mr. Sopso; I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you anything either.’

  ‘But I’m not asking for an arm and a leg; I just want you to dress up and have fun.’

  ‘I’m sorry but...’

  She hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Will this really help your relationship with your parents, will it really solve the problems you have with them? Somehow I don’t think so. It’s time to confront the problems head on. Goodbye. Good luck.’

  She began to move toward the door. He scrambled to his feet and hurried after her, racking his brains, trying to come up with a convincing argument.

  ‘Look...don’t I count for anything in your eyes...I mean...just because we’ve only just met, don’t I have needs? What I mean is – yes, I’ve got it now – would it be different if I were your best friend? Yes, probably, but why’s that? Can’t you imagine we are friends? I mean friends are sometimes strangers, so what’s the difference really? We just have to be strangers who are sometimes friends. I mean, you can see that I’m all right. And then we might even become friends, if you gave it a chance. In a year from now we might be best friends, laughing about the circumstances of how we met, of how you pretended to be my fiancée. Why should a stranger’s need be any less important than someone you know? You see, if I tell them the truth my name will be mud, and that will be the end as far as my parents are concerned. Won’t you help me?’

  A pause and then, ‘Please?’

  Her mind drifted. Surprisingly, his words had touched her. Would it really be so bad after all? Might it not actually be quite amusing to pretend to be his fiancée? The extraordinary room was magnetizing, difficult to break away from. She realized it was fear that was stopping her, fear in the abstract, not fear of Mr. Sopso, but the fear that attaches itself to an unfamiliar experience. Even though she didn’t really trust Mr. Sopso and knew he was a liar, at the same time his pathetic request had triggered some need in her to abandon common sense, had awoken a long-forgotten desire to experience life as a carnival free of conformity.

  ‘How much will you pay me?’ she asked rather solemnly. She was not really interested in a figure; she only asked the question because at that moment it seemed like the thing to do. Mr. Sopso immediately recovered some of his energy and enthusiasm.

  ‘Two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Two hundred. That’s quite a lot. Make it one-hundred-and-fifty, I don’t want to rob you.’

  ‘Are you sure? You’ll really do this for me?’ He couldn’t refrain from dancing a little jig. But his toupee fell off. As he scrambled around for it, Lilliana exploded with laughter.

  Ignoring her laughter, too happy to let it worry him, he babbled, ‘This is great. You’ve saved my bacon.’

  Suddenly, his head snapped up, as if some great thought had just been born.

  ‘To show you how grateful I am – I want to give you something in addition to money. See, I don’t want this to be just a transaction – I want this to be special, personal. I want you to see I’m really a good egg.’

  He took her hand, and led her through the silk curtain; his happiness was infectious and she wished he would perform his dance again. They climbed a flight of stairs and, passing through another door, found themselves in a large room full of statues and rails of clothing and tailors’ dummies. The room felt very different to the one downstairs; it might have sprung from another century. After rummaging around in a mass of fused-together junk Mr. Sopso pulled out a dusty painting with an intricate golden frame. He blew on it and dust fizzed into the air.

  ‘Here it is; I want you to have this. This is so right for you.’

  He wiped the canvas with a cloth and she made out a consoling image in the dim light of the room’s oil lamps. Two saints were standing side by side, one clutching a lily in a pose of fragile resignation and the other reading from a book of scriptures. The figure on the left was dressed in humble robes, while his companion wore a resplendent cope and vestments that obscured his feet. They seemed weightless, incorporeal.

  ‘This is one of my favorites. It’s an exact copy of a panel from an altarpiece by Fra Angelico: St. Dominic and St. Nicholas of Bari. I don’t know who did it, but it’s beautiful, isn’t it? And very very old. I’ve had it for many years, as the dust suggests. It was given to me by an Armenian bishop in San Lazzaro, a little island off Venice, in return for saving his life by slapping him on the back after he’d swallowed a chicken bone. So now it’s yours because you saved my life. You can see St. Dominic is holding a lily. I think it pleases you, doesn’t it? I want you to have it.’

  Lilliana suspected that this story was another of his fabrications but she was too drawn by the painting to say anything, so she just stared into it. The saints’ exquisite poise, the shimmering, golden texture of the background, the beautiful lily that was sunken, yet illumined with life. For once at least his instincts had turned out to be uncannily accurate; the work was mysteriously enticing, and as she stared into it, contemplated it with quiet ardor, she seemed to see within those forms and lines and colors the unravelling of some unnamed enigma, and its resolution deposited her into a place of baffling peace.

  ‘I want you to have it,’ he repeated.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘There isn’t always a why about these things.’

  He found some paper, wrapped it carefully around the frame and canvas, secured it with string, and handed the painting to her. She raised both hands in a gesture of polite refusal. He mimicked the gesture with his one free hand.

  She gave in. It was no good. She had fallen in love with it.


  *

  That morning Najette was sketching Oscar. She was using compressed charcoal, creating deep black shadows from which the white of the paper peered. The charcoal felt tender and cool in her fingers. Oscar sat in an armchair, his face turned in profile, staring out of Najette’s bay window.

  By now he had left the cinema and didn’t miss it in the slightest. It had been quite easy to hand in his notice. He wondered why the prospect had seemed so daunting back in May.

  He had brought Dove with him; she was wandering among baskets full of dirty laundry. Every now and then he glanced over to her and then turned back to the window. He found his cat’s presence comforting. She provided visible evidence that his life was improving – she was like his talisman.

  Outside the day was overcast and the clouds were grey and diseased. But Oscar felt very comfortable, unmoving, scrutinized, silent. Though he couldn’t see Najette’s face as she worked he sensed that she had altered in some way as her hands made intermittent contact with the paper through the charcoal. In her embrace of art, her fluid movements, and finally her proximity Oscar found delicious arousal, golden provocation.

  ‘Am I allowed to talk?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Afraid not. That’s the rule.’

  She applied a new piece of charcoal briefly to her tongue and tested it on a separate piece of paper. Her hair fell in cascades that alternately hid and revealed her eyes, her long, flickering eyelashes. There was anger in her face when she worked, a defiance that made her eyes sparkle and whitened the sinews of her knuckles. At such moments she was indomitable and supreme.

  ‘Will you talk then, if I’m not allowed to?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘What should I talk about?’

  ‘Anything. I’d just like to hear the sound of your voice.’

  She watched him, then resumed her sketch, unbroken arcs of black forming the line of his nose and lips, creating a semblance of delicacy, which became more august, as she went over the lines again, and a new part of him slipped into place, in the way in which the moon becomes more rounded and distinct as the sky tumbles into darkness.

  ‘When I work,’ she said, ‘I tend to smoke. But with you I don’t feel the need. The work’s enough.’