The Fabrications

by Baret Magarian

  Somewhere under his bed he still retained an old portable cassette player. Like Bloch he had tried hard to resist acquiring the latest technology. He scrambled around for it, struck by the notion that if he heard Bloch’s voice all would suddenly grow clear, or he might gain some insight into this act of severance and be able to come to terms with it. He unearthed the battered and dusty machine, made a perfunctory attempt to clean it, then slotted the first tape in and pressed PLAY, turning up the volume above the sound of the drills.

  Bloch’s voice, cracked and old, sounded:

  Who will water me?

  I have decided to speak of light, to be positive, if disconnected. Therefore, please grab your parasols. It’s time for a sermon, because I have words huddled up in my gullet, eager to come running; because I have time to kill. Ah yes, that says it all: time to kill. Why is it that some fortunate souls experience time only after it has run its course, while for me time was always something to be lived through, to be killed?

  Oscar pressed the PAUSE button. No – there was nothing in that voice, those words, to reverse the effect of the note or to make things clearer. Clearly Bloch had done all the explaining he wanted to do; Oscar knew the recordings would not be touching on their relationship.

  And now he felt rage rise up and seize his insides and wring them as a pair of hands wrings a wet towel. He wanted to harm Bloch, to hurt him badly.

  He read the note for a third and a fourth time. On the fifth reading, one phrase stood out and he kept repeating it questioningly:

  ‘It’s up to you now. It’s up to you now. It’s up to you now.’

  The words, he thought, were like a call to arms. What was up to him now? But then, for an instant, Bloch’s rejection ceased to be painful, became in fact rather irrelevant while something else, ancient and mysterious, slid into view.

  As he was trying to keep a track on all these different, conflicting thoughts the drilling stopped abruptly, giving him some peace.

  He decided to telephone Rees but just as he was on the point of picking up the receiver the phone went again.

  ‘Hello,’ he said in a depleted voice.

  ‘Who is Oscar Babel?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s Najette. Why’s your name all over London? Literally?’

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘In the fortnight since I’ve last seen you you’ve turned into a product. What’s happening to you?’

  ‘I think I’m growing.’

  ‘Into what?’

  ‘I’m not sure; it feels like things are happening.’

  ‘Oscar, I’m not sure if it would be such a good idea for us to continue being friends.’

  ‘But...but I thought we were more than friends.’

  ‘The thing is...is it really you? Are you real or not? I’m not interested in shadows, because they have a habit of vanishing. I’m worried about you. You have to find out who you are. And I don’t think you’re a philosopher or a spiritual teacher and it’s going to burn you out if you try and pretend you are. I need sincerity, not playacting.’

  Oscar pushed his fist into his mouth and bit down so hard on it he drew blood. On moving his hand away he saw teeth marks enclosing the skin in reddish, scorched circles.

  ‘Najette, please...we all wear masks...now and then...,’ he said hopelessly.

  ‘Yes, but yours is getting stuck. Listen...I’m going away for a few days. I might give you a ring when I get back; that is, if you’re not in the East, studying Sanskrit. I’ll see you around.’

  She rung off.

  And now, as he sat there, dumbstruck all over again, he began to think loss bred loss, that Bloch’s rebuff had somehow brought about Najette’s rebuff, that this double loss was too unfair – it should have been spread out over days, not minutes, so he could have absorbed the blows, and he began to think that perhaps if he hadn’t opened the parcel and read the note, Najette might not have called just then to tell him what she had told him.

  That night he didn’t sleep at all.

  16

  The photographers standing in the foyer were like bees gathered around the entrance to their hive: they made a lot of noise; they were alive with appetite. The nominees for the Duchamp Prize were obliging some journalists with ad-hoc interviews, posing for the cameras, smiling and running their fingers through their hair ostentatiously. Cyril Vixen, a corpulent, prominent figure, clutching a bunch of white carnations (a further two were pinned in his hair), was elaborating on his non-existent theory of art. He talked in a heavy, droning voice which never seemed to have enough energy for the completion of sentences. Vixen had been nominated for a series of subversive photographs. He had managed, by some sleight of hand, to procure the feces of several very well-known female fashion models and taken pictures of their respective waste products. The names of the models had been inserted under the compositions, grainy and austere in black and white. He was, he claimed, trying to explode the myth of beauty by revealing the ugly underbelly of the body’s normally invisible mechanisms. After the exhibition had finished several of the models denied that they had ever taken part in the project; they claimed that they had never offered him their stools and that Vixen had likely photographed his own. Some writers had suggested that it didn’t matter whose waste products had been photographed because ‘it was all the same shit anyway.’ Vixen’s career had blossomed and he had been nominated. In fact he was the favorite.

  Another nominee was holding forth in a corner. She was a performance artist who would declaim, scream, sing, and speak her erotic verse while couples simulated what she called ‘symbolically charged sexual activity’ on stage. She said she was interested in the juxtaposition of the imagery of sex with the abstraction of poetry. She was famously promiscuous and never wore underwear because she felt it interfered with the flow of her artistic energy. Her mother had given birth to her in someone’s living room, while her boyfriend strummed the guitar. After being arrested once in Covent Garden for indecent behavior (she had fellated a man during her street show Menstrual Nights), she had acquired greater fame and more admirers as an artist who was categorically unwilling to hold back. Her name was Rada Bhat.

  The pink champagne that went floating around the foyer was being consumed at lightning speed and waiters were hard-pressed to ensure its smooth availability. A dinner gong sounded in the distance but no one seemed in the least interested in retiring to the function room a little way down the aisle, where the speeches were to be made and the prize to be awarded at the end of the evening.

  A solitary figure, dressed in a cream suit, a white boater tilted stylishly on his head, stood apart from the fray, feeling slightly odd. This was Alastair Layor. Until recently he had been quite a prominent theater director, staging shows at off-West-End venues, particularly the plays of Jean Genet, and championing works by new playwrights. As a director he had sought to bring a shifting quality to the delivery of the text, a sense that each and every word was being articulated differently. He was trying to combine extreme stylization with spontaneity. But lately his productions had lost that quality of density he so valued. He found he no longer knew how to direct his actors; he no longer knew what they should be doing when they weren’t speaking. His staging had grown tired, and rehearsals never really came to life. So he had opted out of the theater and was now trying to make a transition into psychotherapy. He was poised on the edge of an abyss. So far he had managed to avoid falling into it. As he sipped his orange juice he was haunted by an image which had been continually surfacing in his mind: the image of the woman whose life he’d saved on Regent Street, a woman whose pocket had had a single amaryllis sticking out of it. Once again he found himself wondering who she was and what had upset her so much.

  Philip Crumb, the third contender for the Duchamp Prize, was dressed in a flamboyant orange silk shirt and a giant nappy. On his feet he wore tattered sandals. He had got into a lot of trouble recently for grave robbing. His primary purpose had been t
o try and obtain a different bone of the body from a different grave with a view to constructing a skeleton assembled from two hundred and six dead humans – the number of major bones in the body. He had managed to procure enough bones to piece together the upper half of a skeleton. The work – entitled “206” – was exhibited for a week at Tate Britain before someone heard about his nocturnal exploits. Crumb was promptly arrested and tried. After he had spent three months in prison he announced his new project to the world: to publicly slit his wrists while lying in a hot bath. This he referred to as “The Hot Toddy.” Unfortunately the project had had to be cancelled when he discovered he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. “206” had earned him tonight’s nomination, despite public outcries and much vilification.

  Pebald War, the final nominee, was telling someone about his latest work: a collection of ninety-nine coat hangers made out of different kinds of pasta. Later he had plans to construct a cutlery set out of his own frozen semen to be called ‘Life Utensils.’ The general consensus was that War was the weakest of the contenders for the coveted prize of £50,000.

  And standing on his own beside a small waiting area, away from everybody, was Oscar.

  After Najette had hung up he had listened to Bloch’s tape recordings, cobbling together a gargantuan transcript throughout the night, watching the reels of his old cassette player turning slowly. In the morning he tried calling Najette but her phone was continually engaged. Then he looked for Dove sleepily, but couldn’t find her. He placed adverts in local papers, on trees, even on the buses running through Elephant and Castle. By searching for Dove he could do something, take action; whereas there was nothing he could really do about the phone call with Najette, at least not until some time had passed; and the letter of severance from Bloch couldn’t have been more final.

  As he stared at the glamorous people in front of him he wondered whether his speech would be a complete disaster or whether he had an outside chance of winning the crowd over with eloquence, an eloquence derived from Bloch’s recordings. Though much of what Bloch had uttered on the cassettes made no sense and seemed to be on the edge of madness Oscar also came across words of great clarity and insight. The tapes were like the testament of a man who kept passing from light to darkness, from profundity to anarchy. Within the transcript he found material relevant enough to yield the basic content of the speech. He had cut, cleaned and curtailed, sanitized and summarized, stripped Bloch’s observations of their excess and incoherence, confident that he had at the end a striking, poetic, and meaningful statement.

  But Ryan Rees and Johnson Manger, his copywriter, had insisted on looking over the speech, like builders examining a wall for cracks. They then produced a series of damning observations on the nominees and their work. Rees had said, ‘Find a way of getting these comments in there; otherwise it’s a bloody waste of time.’ Oscar had had to completely restructure what he had until at last both he and Rees were happy with the final draft. Over the last few days he had learned it by heart and had rehearsed its delivery obsessively and painstakingly.

  He continued to study the crowd. There was something strange about the way people were behaving. After a few minutes he realized what it was. While everyone seemed interested in their interlocutors, they nonetheless kept one eye on the promenading figures in front of them, eager to acknowledge those who drifted along, watchful to identify and perhaps make contact with an especially famous or important person. This state of frantic receptivity paradoxically made everyone unreachable and detached in the end. Conversations were aborted before they had had a chance to move beyond tired opening gambits and introductions; remarks went undigested, and, like windswept leaves, people hurtled halfway across the foyer to greet someone else, only to leave them seconds afterward.

  Oscar motioned nearer to the crowd, like someone lowering himself into a hot bath. At the same time a young woman broke free and walked up to him. She wore a crimson sarong patterned with images of dollar bills, and a brightly colored waistcoat, her exposed arms covered in a fine sheen of glitter. She smiled at him playfully and the way she raised her eyebrows suggested she might have been a little drunk.

  ‘I’m Anna. You’re Oscar Babel, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, how do you know?’

  ‘Someone pointed you out. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m meant to be making a speech later. I’m a bit nervous.’

  ‘Have you had enough to drink?’

  ‘No.’

  She intercepted one of the roving waiters, slid her empty glass onto his tray, picked up two full glasses and handed one to Oscar. She sipped at her champagne, her free hand gesticulating, chiming with the rhythms of her speech.

  ‘You need to unwind. Self-consciousness is fatal at this kind of do; they’ll show you no mercy. The only way you’ll get through this evening is by staying near the booze taps.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. Perhaps you could guide me around the hot spots.’

  ‘Tonight, I’m already acting as someone else’s nanny.’

  ‘Nanny? How do you mean?’

  ‘I’m hanging on to the tails of some of the fat cats.’

  Her smile seemed to be growing more tantalizing, her movements more exuberant. She was on the verge of breaking into dance. Oscar feared she might glide away from him. As he smiled back at her he sensed her eyes settling on his lips, and darting away again. He glanced from time to time at her waistcoat; it hugged her elfin form tenderly.

  ‘So, what’s it like being famous, Oscar?’

  ‘I’m not really famous,’ he said.

  ‘Your name’s plastered all over the underground. That’s the summit, isn’t it? Or do you have to get your face on postage stamps to really make it?’

  ‘I’m just holding the fort. I’m not sure I like being in the limelight.’

  ‘Then get out of it.’

  ‘You’re very frank, aren’t you?’

  ‘I just bring up the rear.’

  She grinned mischievously.

  ‘How do you happen to be here tonight?’ he asked.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Well, this is strictly between you and me. I shouldn’t really be telling you, but I feel I can trust you. You see that guy over there’ – she pointed to a big bearded man in a brocade jacket embroidered with silver galloping horses – ‘he’s my boss. I call him the Bear. He pays me to be seen with him. He’s as thick as pigshit.’

  ‘Do you have to go to bed with him?’

  ‘Oscar, I think you may be even franker than I am.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that question.’

  She pulled out a cigarette from a pocket of her waistcoat and lit it. After a long, languorous drag she exhaled and rotated her head slowly so that the smoke was released in a trail that moved in tandem with her head.

  ‘The Bear’s asexual; the only thing he cares about are his stallions. He’d rather ride those than women. He’s stinking rich.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have a wife or someone?’

  ‘He has a wife, but she’s divorcing him because he spends more time in the stable than the boudoir. I’m her public replacement.’

  ‘It sounds like a very bizarre arrangement to me.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I get to eat and drink at fancy places and meet exotic people. Ernst may be dull but he’s in with an interesting crowd.’

  A steward came out of his corner of deference and made a succinct announcement, requesting that people start making their way to the function room for the banquet. Practically everyone ignored him.

  ‘Anyway Oscar, I have to get back to him. And it’s feeding time. Good luck with your speech. Maybe I’ll see you later and we can chew the fat.’

  She slipped away, not before giving him a dazzling wink. He needed another drink, several drinks – she was right. But he didn’t want to get too inebriated. As she secreted herself into the crowd a man latched onto her predictably.

  He went up to the s
eating plan, which was propped up on a silver easel outside the function room, and, after studying it, strode in warily.

  His table, like all the others, had achieved a perfect marriage of kitsch and opulence. Twelve bottles of wine stood on it, forming a regal circle amid glittering plates and endless sets of cutlery. Starched cotton napkins, folded into hourglass figures, were planted in gigantic wine glasses. A bouquet of artificial flowers sat in the center, partially obscuring butter dishes and baskets of bread. Name cards were mounted in gold-plated frames. In the middle of each plate there sat a miniature work of art, offered to each respective guest: a statuette of Venus, a wax thumb standing erect on a slide, a three-dimensional version of Goya’s Saturn devouring one of his sons. Oscar’s plate gave a home to a tiny teddy bear wearing a dinner jacket. He noticed that his name had been spelled incorrectly: he was now Oscar Bubel.

  A small man, balding and energized by alcohol, slumped down next to him. Under his breath, Oscar said to himself, ‘From a hovel to the Hilton.’

  The small man said, ‘What was that?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘We haven’t met. I’m Willy Nargall. Hack.’

  ‘Willy Nargall Hack. That’s a funny kind of name.’

  ‘No. My name’s Willy Nargall. And I’m a hack, even though I say so myself. Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Oscar Babel. You won’t know who I am. Actually I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘Good, I like that. Shows you’re not afraid to be vulnerable. In the circles I move in vulnerability’s hard to demonstrate, so I like a bit of vulnerability in others. It keeps things in balance.’

  He produced two fat cigars, cut the ends off with an elegant looking clipper and handed one over to Oscar, taking it as a given that he smoked.

  ‘Married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Girlfriend?’

  ‘Well – no.’

  ‘Are you an uphill gardener?’

  ‘Eh...oh...no.’