Читать книгу The Supreme Orchestra - David Turgeon - Страница 9

Pierre-Luc soon appeared, shovel in hand. ‘I did the driveway,’ he said when Simone opened the door. ‘We’ll have to get a move on, though, we’re a little late.’

‘I’m ready,’ answered Simone, already in her turquoise coat. Faya, mute and invisible, had disappeared somewhere in the house.

Pierre-Luc’s rusty station wagon pulled out from behind the snowbank and rumbled away toward the art school where he taught drawing. That morning he had taken the time to trim his beard and even dabbed cologne behind each ear. ‘I hope it doesn’t smell too strong,’ he’d fretted. To top it off, he’d made his bed, a chore more often left undone since he broke up with – what was her name again? Simone drew a blank.

Whenever he found himself in Simone’s presence, Pierre-Luc was intimidated, incapable of uttering anything but the commonest of commonplaces, and this time was no exception. Syllables and sentences seemed to slip the coil of sense, emerging only as a broken rosary of drab grey beads. But he recovered his customary verve the moment he assumed his position in front of the class. Pierre-Luc’s brood sincerely admired their teacher, a model educator with a captivating sense of humour and the ability to acknowledge talent without jealousy and to bestow instruction without condescension. Perhaps it was to have Simone observe him in this state of grace that he so often invited her to his class.

In the theatre of Pierre-Luc’s mind, a passionate love story had long been unfolding in which Simone played one leading role and he had dextrously manoeuvred to secure the other, a saga that seemed forever destined to play to an audience of one. But living like this is no life at all. Sometimes Pierre-Luc had to wonder if his fixation wasn’t getting the better of him. Which did nothing to stop him from seeking out the company of his muse.

And what did the muse think? The muse was no dupe; she was aware of what was going on, and she shrugged it off. Simone knew all too well that at the heart of every friendship ambiguity lay. There was no avoiding it, except perhaps by staying home all the time – and how sad and small a life was that?

The students stood ready at their easels. Several pairs of eyes lit up at the sight of Simone. An older man entered after them, waved at Pierre-Luc, and, without further ado, disappeared behind a screen whence he emerged five minutes later dressed only in a robe. In the meantime Pierre-Luc greeted his class, needlessly introduced their visiting artist, and gave instructions for the day’s exercise. Two latecomers made their way toward their places with excuses mumbled as their teacher was already closing the classroom door.

You’ll never learn to draw by observing the bodies of young Adonises and Miss Universes, Pierre-Luc was fond of saying, so he insisted on hiring models of diverse ages and body types, normal folk you might bump into on the street. The man standing before them today was tall, thin, and wan. He had an aura of transparency, as if one might look through him and see every joint and sinew. To further assist the students in their labour of looking, he was standing with his hands on his hips and his torso slightly off-kilter, his left leg bearing all his weight, his back curved to compensate. The students got down to work. Pierre-Luc waited a couple minutes before beginning his rounds; Simone followed suit, counter to his clockwise.

The posture was a tough one to capture, and Simone felt only indulgence for these budding artists struggling with the model’s outslung hips and contorted hands. The degree of difficulty varied depending on the beholder’s standpoint. From behind, two segments of an obtuse triangle could stand in for each arm. The sideways approach was more arduous, demanding as it did a wholly counterintuitive perspective on this arrangement of angles.

The students murmured to each other, a sign of the pains they were taking, while Simone offered feedback and encouragement. Too many lines, she chastised one budding artist, find the one that counts and follow it through, start again if you have to. That’s good, she complimented another, but a little stiff, maybe soften up the angles? Not bad at all, she praised a third, you really have a feeling for the texture of the skin, well observed – but isn’t the rib cage a bit too much? Now that’s a great drawing, she said to the next, but it’s not our model here at all, imagination’s healthy, but respect the exercise. You gave him an odd face, she went on to the next, his gaze isn’t that hard, take a good look, he’s almost smiling. Ay! Ay! Ay! she exclaimed at the sight of a rather muddled drawing, he’s a hirsute man, for sure, but it looks like you just threw hair all over the place, like you’re trying to hide the shape of his body.

Two bodies travelling in opposite directions in a single orbit are destined to meet. Pierre-Luc pretended not to see the friendly wink Simone flashed him en passant. Then each continued in their circle.

Simone, unapologetic autodidact, felt ill-equipped to judge other people’s drawings. But she did love to watch these tender shoots at work. From time to time she came across one who truly knocked her socks off. In this group there was Sarah-Jeanne Loubier.

‘Oh,’ said Simone. ‘Wonderful!’

Sarah-Jeanne Loubier tucked her head deeper into her shoulders and accepted the compliment without turning around. Simone slipped away again. At any rate she didn’t have a thing to say: the drawing was so singular that all comment seemed beside the point.

The model took a few other poses. For the last, Simone drew while the students gathered round to watch and Pierre-Luc did a play-by-play. Not the most congenial set-up, but Simone was a good sport and even answered questions after. Then the students and models packed up and left, it was time, and the teacher invited his guest to grab a bite in town.

They walked in silence to a pizzeria they both liked and in fact went to every time. Sparse cottony snowflakes drifted hesitantly groundward. A table by the window had just opened up. They watched the people walking by outside, each enveloped in their tiny halo of mist.

Pierre-Luc began stammering again – he was powerless to control it, even after Simone gave him a warm look that would have put anyone at ease.

‘There’s one,’ Simone said suddenly, ‘who’s really something.’

‘You mean Sarah-Jeanne,’ said Pierre-Luc.

‘That’s right. It’s like she sees everything inside out. Like she’s outside looking in, just barely grazing her subject. I don’t really know how to explain. How does she do it?’

‘Well, I don’t know. And I don’t dare ask her to change her style. She’s stubborn. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.’

‘It’s like she’s drawing ghosts.’

‘You’re right,’ Pierre-Luc agreed. ‘What a lovely way to put it.’

Pizza came, conversation tapered off.

Pierre-Luc insisted on paying. They parted with a kiss whose tenor might be plotted not far from the midpoint of a median connecting love and friendship, though as we know all too well the path between those particular two points is anything but linear.

An hour later Simone set off on foot. On the way she bought a blouse with white and pale-grey checks, how to resist such a sale? The boutique’s bag alone was chic enough, and it wasn’t without pleasure that she scurried down to the port where a cruise ship and two icebreakers were moored. The north wind tickled her cheeks. Then she climbed into a tram that would take her to the terminus, Porte du Midi. There she procured a few bottles of wine and took refuge in a café, awaiting her order while admiring the afternoon’s purchase. She saw her bus, paid, left the restaurant, and was home by four.

A crepuscular house greeted her: it was that time of year when day cowers briefly and then beats a quick retreat. Faya wasn’t there; at least, her jacket and boots had taken leave. A cursory inspection of the fridge told Simone that no groceries had been purchased; would she not have done better to take matters into her own hands? She removed a few layers and headed toward the living room fireplace to rekindle yesterday’s coals. This mission accomplished, Simone stretched out on the couch, took off her reading glasses, and flipped through a few magazines. With a touch of coquetry she donned her new blouse and admired herself in the bathroom mirror.

This is the kind of piece, she thought, bemused, that Faya’s sure to snap up. Five-thirty rolled around. Faya, Simone thought, will surely be here soon. They must have just missed each other. Faya’s reading materials, mostly borrowed from the Bruant Public Library, were spread out all over the small living room table: Architecture and Utopia, by Gustave Alexis Pauk; The Third World and After: The Political Economy of an Awakening, by Limane Vieira; Functions of Art in Emerging Societies, by Teresa Sliman, and Beyond Misunderstanding: Feminism and Politics in the Era of Revolutions, by Leanne Boole – seminal works all, covered in a mushrooming overgrowth of Post-It notes dense with handwriting. Simon flipped through at random. At six she decided there was no point waiting for her aperitif after all. At 8:17, after single-handedly emptying a bottle of Chablis, Simone inspected the pantry and resigned herself to another plate of pasta and olive oil. Still no sign of Faya. She ate without much appetite, at once worried and annoyed that she felt thus.

At 2:28 a.m., Simone awoke to a kerfuffle below. A door closed; then laughter, whispering, clanking of bottles and glasses, what sounded like a drawer opening and shutting. Simone recognized Faya’s laugh, and in response the voice of a man – no, two. She heard old floorboards creak under percussive footsteps on the main floor, heading toward the living room where, who knew, a few coals perhaps smouldered still. Someone closed the living room door, and of what then ensued only a muffled version reached Simone’s ears. She spent several minutes with her head under a pillow, which blocked out noise imperfectly, and with eyes wide open she listened, what else could she do? The sounds came into focus. The fireplace grille was squeaking. Enthusiastic yelps could be heard, followed by Faya’s calls for silence. Then one man began to recite a text that rapidly garnered bravi from his audience. My collection of erotica, Simone surmised. The reading dragged on. Simone couldn’t quite recognize the text – she hadn’t read those for a while, and it wasn’t the type of writing whose every sentence stayed etched in your mind. She then became aware of rumblings of another nature, closer in register to moaning, and that’s when she remembered the earplugs in her handbag that lay, as chance would have it, on the chair next to the bed.

Simone was woken again at 5:38, this time by the creaking of stairs on which someone was treading, quietly and carefully, up to the second floor. Faya came into the bedroom, got undressed, slipped into bed, and nestled up against Simone in a cloud of exogenous odours: beer, marijuana, mansweat.

‘I didn’t know you were here,’ she lied in a cooing voice into Simone’s ear. ‘You should have joined us. I even brought one back for you.’