The Fabrications

by Baret Magarian

‘Good. Why are you here then?’

  ‘I’m speaking about the future of painting.’

  ‘Shitty subject. What future? Maybe two centuries ago. Now the only paint that counts is the emulsion on your wall.’ Nargall examined the art work he had been allocated – a tiny cheese grater made of tin foil – scrunched it into a ball without hesitation and chucked it onto another table. It landed in a butter dish. He lit Oscar’s cigar and Oscar spent the next few minutes puffing and coughing in equal measure before finally giving up and stubbing the cigar out.

  The other guests for that table began taking their places with much chattering. A middle-aged, sun-baked woman moved in drunken orbit around the seats, searching for her name card. After she had found it she switched it with another at the opposite end and sat down breathlessly. Then she rang her hairdresser on her cellular phone and spoke to him for fifteen minutes about possibilities for new hair styles. Nargall, observing her closely, whispered to Oscar, ‘That old soak’s had more facelifts than I’ve had paychecks.’

  Oscar chuckled. Nargall had for some reason taken a liking to Oscar and continually nudged his arm to deliver more verdicts about someone dangerously close. The presence of Nargall was somehow comforting. His outspokenness weighted the evening, and as the others took their seats Oscar gradually began feeling quite good.

  A young woman, dressed in a sleek white dress of classic design, sat down next to him. He guessed she was a model. Her coal-lustrous mane of hair resembled a great snake coiled around itself. At either side, two pig-tails dyed in vermilion had been coaxed out of this fibrous loop and flopped outward. Eight large hair clips, inserted at vital points, kept the whole intricate structure intact. All around the circumference of her forehead, falling down to her eyebrows and ears, were isolated strands of a waxy fringe.

  There was no denying her beauty, though beneath her exquisite facade there ran an antiseptic strain and after some time Oscar found her studied perfection cloying. She was talking and laughing with a well-dressed man with lean, tanned features. There was something about the way they spoke to one another which announced their privileged inclusion in a club which coolly denied entry to outsiders. This made him want to deface her beauty, to rip out the invisible wall she placed between herself and those who weren’t part of her circle and that warned people not to come too close.

  When he had a chance to, he said, in his most resonant voice, ‘We haven’t been introduced. I’m Oscar.’

  She looked at him ponderously, with an air of indulgence but made no reply.

  So he asked someone for a cigarette.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said quickly, in a staccato rhythm.

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

  ‘I’m sorry; would you excuse me?’

  Her smile as she turned away was as hollow as the barrel of a gun. Then she was laughing and joking once more with her tanned companion. Oscar felt unreasonable pain. As he recovered from her snub, he almost marveled at how unfriendly she had just been. It was transparently obvious, he thought, that she was only prepared to talk to people she considered important. And those she deemed insignificant she swept away as she would an annoying insect.

  The food had yet to arrive, though no one seemed to mind. Instead, all around wine was being zealously, religiously poured and drunk. And as more and more tumbled down people’s throats less and less made it into the glasses, spilling decoratively onto the tables.

  As the master of ceremonies introduced the evening from a sleek, raised platform at the far end, Oscar began to find the whole affair faintly ridiculous and decided to concentrate on his menu. His eye gravitated toward the words that interested him: Grilled trout, rochette salad, avocado and prawns, white pickled cabbage and lamb, saffron-poached pears, orange creme brule. A waiter deposited a salmon about three-feet long on the table, surrounded by almonds and lemons. Little pots of tartar sauce wrapped in red ribbons framed the display. Nargall stared at the fish in deranged anticipation.

  ‘A handsome fish. Lots of room to maneuver with there. Pass me the garden shears.’

  Oscar chuckled. The waiters began serving little plates of hors d’oeuvres.

  Now the immaculate table was raped slowly and methodically. The fish was devoured, the wine bottles were drained down to their last drops, and the plates practically licked clean. By the time dessert approached the table cloth was a mess of color, stains and fragments of food. The waiters laid out a fresh cloth efficiently, like nurses changing bedclothes for a sick patient. They brought order and hygiene.

  Various luminaries delivered their speeches while the puddings were picked over, devoured or put aside by those who were too bloated to eat any more. Oscar knew that very soon it would be his turn to speak. He felt a cavity open up in his abdomen. He turned to Nargall and whispered a few words.

  ‘It seems a bit gratuitous, Mr. Nargall.’

  ‘My dear boy, I guarantee everybody here considers themselves terribly deep and complex and important. Little do they know how trivial they are in the grand scheme of things. Those picayunes and pygmies. I only came for the booze and grub. I won’t be staying for any more speeches and I couldn’t give a donkey’s testicle who wins the fucking prize. He or she won’t manage to string two sentences together anyway. I don’t care to celebrate further the abortions of these charlatans. I’m off. I feel ill and I’ve only had two bottles of inferior claret.’

  ‘But I’m next on the list. Won’t you stay to hear me?’

  ‘Well, if it will make you happy. But I know what would make me happy. If you could speak the truth. That would be a first. Imagine – someone for once getting off his talc-encrusted arse to tell these walking facsimiles that they don’t deserve to drink Picasso’s piss. Don’t sugar the pill, poison it.’

  The words were like the sting of a tarantula.

  A stopped figure came up to him, took his hand and guided him toward the platform. Oscar felt his body pulsing with adrenaline. He climbed the stairs to the platform and waited as the emcee spoke some words which were lost in the fog the place was suddenly immersed in. He took a few deep breaths. What did he have to lose? He wasn’t really anybody; he had no reputation that could be tarnished, no status to be stripped of. He peered into the gathered assembly, the faces slurred with alcohol, the brilliant lights, this group of sophisticated, beautiful people. He did not envy them. The scene before him swayed, perceived as it was through the distorting lens of his heated mind. Here he was, at the epicenter of London’s art world; by some miracle he had been accorded a place in it. He had marched in and no one had objected; no one had pointed to him and demanded he leave. Here he was, ensconced in privilege. He could see himself, standing on that stage, see himself as if he had separated into two entities and his doppelganger was monitoring him from afar. What world out there awaited him? Now was the time to find out.

  ‘Actually, I don’t want to talk about the role of the painter; I don’t think it’s important. Painting bores me. It’s light I want to speak about.’

  Willy Nargall’s head snapped up – a jump-started car. Others were roused out of their state of inertia, and their heads lolled around, as they tried to focus.

  ‘But first I want to tell you what I think of you all. You’re all a pack of frauds...and before you accuse me of being judgmental...mirror, mirror on the wall, I’m the biggest fraud of them all.’

  Murmurs of alarm spread across parts of the room like forest fire.

  ‘The light of the moon. A voice singing in a chapel. The reciprocal smile of a lover. The morning light of summer. And the dance of shadows.

  ‘There is no fraudulence in these.

  ‘In the beginning was the turd. Then followed the ichthyosaurus, the ice age, and now...here we all are in the Hilton, having forgotten our ancestry and animal urges, which crop up behind us from time to time, ambush us, and remind us, no matter how hard we try to cover them up with words and sweet perfumes and s
tained glass windows and art. Or should I call it fart? Is art just a big fart that’s been sweetened up? Is it just the whining and moaning of the uninvited guest dressed up as objective and detached? Methane wrapped in an outer shell of cinnamon? Perhaps.’

  Savage laughter issued from Willy Nargall. When he realized no one else was joining him – since no one else was anything other than appalled – he opted for silence. The room felt cursed suddenly, as if drained of oxygen. Oscar regarded the shocked faces fastened together in a frozen tableaux. He was determined to go on with his speech even if it killed him. Sheer willpower, coming from nowhere, pushed and drove him through the mounds of mute dissent.

  ‘I think we are dying, ladies and gentlemen.

  ‘I think we are dying. We need a new song to sing.

  ‘I wish there was something I could say. Not these tawdry words, not this crude flesh and bone, wrapped in scarves and eau de cologne. Somewhere in eternity buses carry free-floating souls across the ages, depositing them like nuggets of gold. These souls that float before and after time, before birth and after death, they are housed into mortal incarnations and frames, but diminished – their true nature distorted – by man-made dilutions, man-made pollutions, fixations. Hiding the luminosity within and without. Hiding the love.

  ‘We should choose love over fear; I want to be plain about this.

  ‘If, as many men have pointed out, we are asleep then it is important to wake up. But maybe it is too late and the sleep is all about us, like a viscous fluid.’

  Oscar was settling into his rhythm now, finding some measure of composure; and his assurance acted like a sedative on the crowd, which was actually starting to listen to what he had to say. And as he said it, as the speech moved on, parts of the audience grew intrigued. Feline women slid their designer glasses on and studied Oscar curiously, jaded men pondered the meaning of life. The mood became tinged with something approving, something congratulatory, very faint and yet unignorable.

  ‘Perhaps we have lost the sense of wonder that should accompany our acts of love, our prayers. But we have to reach out and grasp wonder, hold it close, court it, keep it flowing like a stream.

  ‘But now, after all – it can’t be helped – it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty, the specific. The nominees and their works. I’ll begin with spirit. There seems to be a fundamental lack of it – in photographs of people’s shit. Yes, it’s amusing; a nice little gimmick. But does Cyril Vixen really think he has anything to contribute? The best that can be said of him is that he’s shallow; but the truth is that, at the end of the day, his images are as bloated and dull as he is.’

  Cyril Vixen muttered under his breath, ‘What a little cunt; how dare he?’ Someone at his table grappled with a bottle of port.

  ‘Mademoiselle la Bhat, on the other hand, likes to recite poetry while couples couple. It may be edifying for her but it isn’t for the rest of us. Let’s not confuse hobbies and charming eccentricities with something which is meant for public consumption. She is a talentless anachrid who should think about a career change, and perhaps open up a brothel – ’

  Rada Bhat stood up and shouted, her face very red: ‘Who the hell do you think you are?! What gives you the right to – ’

  But she was cut off as more parties joined the debate. Others pulled out their smartphones and began to film the proceedings with impeccable indiscretion.

  ‘He’s right; what the hell is the point of what she does, or what any of us do, for that matter?’ Alastair Layor, the retired theater director, shouted. He welcomed this friction, this conflict – it was infinitely preferable to the usual lassitude of prize-giving ceremonies. He welcomed Oscar’s unfashionable endorsement of wonder, his willingness to risk making a fool of himself. It was the same kind of risk-taking Layor had once championed as a director. He felt something very like excitement, like danger at the moment. And the crowd also was turning volatile, getting into its stride.

  ‘Get stuffed! Are we all turning against ourselves now, the only ones who ever supported us? We have to stick together; we’re all in the same game...,’ a plump woman squealed in response to Layor’s uncomfortable question.

  ‘Mr. Babel’s only attacking the charlatans amongst us, not those with talent,’ Mark Redhill pronounced. He was a film director, whose debut Tea and Valium had been received catastrophically by critics and crowds alike, turning him embittered. Willy Nargall shouted, ‘Hear! hear!’ and clapped, solitary applause that drew attention to his table for an instant, before promptly dissipating.

  Redhill continued, ‘Yes, after all, pictures of shit are still, when all is said and done, pictures of shit. I suggest that Cyril just confines himself to not flushing his toilet.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please let Mr. Babel finish!!’ the emcee yelled in a slightly strangled voice. For a moment the hubbub, the anarchic energy of the room was contained. But then there were sharp intakes of breath all round as Mark Redhill and Cyril Vixen strode up to one another. People couldn’t quite believe their eyes. Things were getting out of hand. As if to reward himself for trying to establish order, the emcee sipped on a liqueur but unfortunately it went down the wrong way and he proceeded to cough with much self-consciousness. Oscar, who was at his side, stared at him for an inert time, realized that he should try and help him, and began to pat him on the back as his face turned a shade of burnt sienna. As he continued to gag Redhill and Vixen gazed into each other’s eyes like gladiators in the moments before a bloody conflict.

  The emcee settled down and Oscar poured a glass of water for him, but he did nothing but look at it, too worried now about a repeat performance. Then he turned his attention to the distressing scene down below. Cyril Vixen had poured his saffron-poached pears all over the director’s head, and the sauce was now mingling with his hair wax. In retaliation the film director produced a tiny can of deodorant from his inner pocket. Cyril Vixen stared helplessly, rooted to the spot, for some reason unable to move when he should have been bolting.

  Redhill, having shaken the can with incredible vigor, pressed its button, releasing its fragrant spray into Vixen’s eyes. Vixen doubled over and started to scream in agony, shouting out something about blindness. He then assumed a fetal position on the floor, growing smaller all the time as friends flocked to his aid. These friends took one look at Redhill’s demented eyes and backed off, sensing that they were about to meet the same fate. One man, however, who was uncommonly big and strong, remained undaunted and walked straight up to Redhill, snatched the can of deodorant, and crushed it in his bare hands. Redhill stared in amazement. He was about to speak when another very large man, deciding that the first very large man was showing off, resolved to teach the latter a great and edifying lesson. A meaty hand sliced through the air, and slammed into the first giant’s chin. This sent him reeling and crashing into a nearby table, which shivered under his immense weight, its contents flying here and there colorfully. Redhill made a furtive bid for the exit. During all this time Cyril Vixen was in convulsions on the floor, great porky knuckles thrust into his excoriated eyes.

  The first giant picked himself up and in the manner of a sumo wrestler, charged his opponent, arms akimbo, his fists locked into plier shapes. He found his opponent’s stomach and heaved both arms around it, squeezing tightly. In a few seconds the two were locked into a single unit of trembling, thwarted movement. The expended energy was tremendous but they didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere, rearing up like two bulls, their legs locked into the floor by virtue of the opposing force coming from the other. As the two continued their monumentally pointless grappling, a succession of grunts and angry cries issuing from them, other men tried intervening; but their efforts were just as pointless and the two central titans barely even noticed their ineffectual pawing and pulling at their legs and shoulders. A further set of men then joined the original set to assist them. It was like some multiplying tug-of-war. In the end some ten or twelve bodies had fused into a fragmented lump reminisce
nt of a rugby scrum. They heaved, they shoved and still the central hub of force held. All the while Cyril Vixen lay slumped underneath, half-crushed, moaning and gnashing his teeth. The orb was being assailed by centrifugal forces that threatened to tear limbs from limbs, to dismember bodies. Something had to happen, something had to give way.

  The crowd, having been shocked, fascinated, and appalled in quick succession, had now lapsed into utter silence, trying not to look, but looking; trying not to be caught looking, trying to temper their eye-popping gawking and failing to. This was insanely compelling and fatally addictive. People squeezed their legs together, so that their distended bladders wouldn’t release their contents, desperately trying to postpone the moment at which they would have to go to the toilets. Camera flashes ricochetted around the room. TV producers’ minds buzzed with ideas for new programs, journalists scribbled notes – there was no way of embellishing this story. It was already thoroughly mad. The final debasement of art, the end of civility, ladies and gentlemen, dear readers, last night I was privy to what must rank as the single most extraordinary media spectacle I have ever beheld, a debacle of such proportions, a fiasco so farcical in its character and yet so terrible in its implications, no play, no film could have matched the blood, sweat and tears, the viscera, the drama, the conflict as a fisticuff turned into human meltdown at the Hilton, as centuries of evolution went down the drain in one fell swoop as...

  ‘For God’s sake, somebody stop them! Somebody do something!’ somebody shrieked.

  Whereupon, momentarily letting down their guard, the two giants keeled over. The others tumbled onto each other, and legs and arms fanned back and forth, dissipating all the detonated energy and pain. There were cries and curses, shrieks and moans.

  Finally, Mr. Vixen’s bulldozed form was carried out by the now repentant giants.

  The others staggered to their seats, walked away in search of water and collapsed in heaps.

  Then, exploding in a frantic jumble of sound, everyone boiled over. They all spoke at once, practically at the same instant, all at once, and a great tapestry of words was instantly weaved with lunatic dexterity and speed. Everyone had an opinion, everyone had a point of view. Some expressed mere incredulity, others tried to put the thing into a proper context. But one thing emerged that was consistent: No one listened to anyone else; they pretended to but just waited for the other person to finish so that they could start again. Roughly one-thousand text messages were sent in the space of two minutes. Alastair Layor watched it all dispassionately...