Читать книгу Scumbler - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 8

I work outside today, Saint Valentine’s Day. It’s cold but I’ll take any sunshine I can get. I feel all cramped up painting inside, as if I’m cut off from life. I’m happiest out in streets, fighting crowds, cursing cars, yakking with people; it all gets into the work.

My painting’s got to be part of life, not just about it anyway. I’m OK inside for a while, sharpening up my personal carving knives, digging into myself, getting close, but then I’ve got to break out and muck around. In some strange way, I have the feeling I’m most alive when I’m painting, as if the other time is a kind of waiting. I don’t know what I’m waiting for but that’s the way it feels.

I’m working down on the Rue Princesse in the Latin Quarter. I’ve just started on a woodworker’s shop, menuiserie-ébéniste. The owner of the place comes out. We get into some standard everyday talk about ‘lost-artisanship-craftsmanship, world-going-to-hell’, all that tired jabbering. He asks me to put his name on his sign; it’s weathered off. I think he wants me to climb up over his door and do some actual, honest-to-God painting up there, but he means in the painting; that’s fine with me.

The painting’s going to be mostly browns and some dark blue-grays, with a light bulb hanging inside, lighting raw wood and sawdust; yellow-ochre hollow spaces. I’m doing the place almost face on, slight angle left. There’s a big old carved doorway on the left I want to finagle in somehow.

The door’s closed when I do the drawing. Halfway through my underpainting, the concierge comes out, jams this door open.

She’s an old gal, new face painted on. New face has nothing to do with her real face; hair cut gamine, bright red. She looks terrific, like a clown. There’s still a good body there too; moves easily, holds herself straight; thin freckled legs. Nobody with freckles is ever old. She’s maybe seventy and packing some fifty pounds of libido; comes on and chums me with ‘Oh-la-la’ old-fashioned-girl-style press; hands all over me. I love it.

I ask if she’ll stand in the doorway so I can paint her into my picture. She runs her fingers through the red straw hair; bony, bent fingers. She leans in the doorway, arm cocked against the wall. She’s wearing a blue-flowered dress. I paint it orange, need an orange accent. I gussy the dress up and make her about forty. Wish I could do that for myself, for everybody. No, there’s a time for each of us.

EACH TO A TIME A TIME FOR EACH—

WE WADE THROUGH OUR LIVES, THROUGH

MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS, MONTHS, YEARS

TILL WE GASP FOR AIR, DROWN IN TEARS.

She can’t believe it when I’m finished; a thing like this takes me maybe five minutes. One thing, I really can paint: good, fast, powerful. I might just not have enough aesthetic, or maybe too much – somewhere in there. I can spin around, fall down and begin painting anything in front of me, wouldn’t shift my eyes. I love it all, can paint everything; no damned discrimination. There are fifty paintings within a hundred yards of anywhere I’m standing. I know it. I could spend the rest of my life painting self-portraits, or stone walls: I might just do that.

Take my milk pots. I’ve painted sixteen milk-pot paintings already this winter. Who the hell wants paintings of milk pots? Thank the Good Lord our weather’s getting better; get me away from those pots. I’m beginning to smell sour milk on my nostril hairs all the time. It’s like when I was painting fish and they kept rotting on me. I get to be manic about these things, find myself falling into them, out of control. It’s unreasonable.

THE ONLY FINDING OF SELF

IS LOSING IT SOMEHOW.

This old gal’s looking at my painting and crying. Her face is beginning to run off into the street, makes me want to take my brush and touch her up. I’m also afraid she’s going to ask the price. I’ve sold more paintings for less than canvas cost because people want them and have no idea what’s involved. Rich people should pay me five thousand dollars apiece for paintings; make up for the ones I sold at ten. Only trouble is rich people don’t usually like my paintings, remind them of a whole bunch of things they want to forget. This gal slips a five-franc coin into the paint box; makes me feel like a real turd.

LACK OF TRUST

SPIRITUAL RUST.

An American’s been standing behind me. He’s watching the whole show, smiling, very catlike, very dignified. He’s young but there’s much dignity there. His clothes are old: worn cuffs, bed-pressed pants, very neat; carries an umbrella on a sunny day.

The concierge goes away. I start painting seriously again, trying to forget those five francs.

‘That was really nice, man.’

I knew he was American all the way, even with the umbrella and all the dignity. He has swimmy blue blinking eyes; contact lenses. He tells me he likes my painting; stands in the sunshine watching me paint; not much talk.

I’m up on the sidewalk leaning against the Hôtel Princesse; painting’s coming along fine; beautiful shadows falling across the wall. I’m painting a GAZ box now; lovely things those GAZ boxes, especially in early, almost spring morning, clear light.

The American comes up beside my paint box, wants to get something with the five francs. What do I care? Five francs; if he wants them, OK. I nod, smile, trying not to break the magic; I’m deep in the middle of things; I’m lost, floating in light and air, thinking and dreaming at the same time. But I might have to wipe out the old gal after all, too sharp and the top right feels blank. I’ll work on it; try to save her. The American’s disappeared with the francs.

Then he goes past with flowers, yellow daisies; slinks into the concierge’s doorway; comes back without flowers, very catlike. He’s a cat all right – big one, has all the marks. I like cats, usually; dangerous, but something. Wolves and dogs like me can usually make it with cats. We’re different but we respect each other.

I SLINK THROUGH MY PRIVATE FOREST,

SNIFFING TRACES, SEARCHING PLACES

TO HIDE MY KNOWINGS, LUSTING FEAR.

Next, the concierge comes gliding out with the flowers in a vase. She perches them on the back of my box, next to the turpentine. She’s probably some kind of small cat, too; clean little feet, sure sign. Here I am, surrounded by cats, trying to paint. Holy God!

A FEINT AT DEATH:

LAST BREATH. I PAINT.

The American invites us both for coffee. What the hell; I hate losing light but it’s OK; this is what my painting’s about, being close with people. We go into a small café next to the hotel.

The bartender here used to be a bullfighter. Every tiny Spaniard I’ve ever met in Paris is an ex-bullfighter the way all big Americans are ex-football players or boxers. No, that’s not true anymore. Today they’re all black-belt judo or karate or kung fu experts. Times change, stories change, but men’s stupid lies about themselves don’t change much.

We have coffee, then a cognac. The concierge – her name is Blanche – is turned on. She’s about ready to lock both of us between those skinny thighs of hers. Probably be wonderful. Ben Franklin knew what he was talking about; one of my all-time heroes. He was seventy years old when the Revolutionary War started, and they couldn’t’ve won it without him. But he never fired a shot. I wonder what kind of pictures Ben’d’ve painted if he’d turned his fantastic mind that way?

LOST BODIES, LOVING SOULS:

WE SPRING FROM NOW TO WHERE

BELLS TOLL FOR THE LIVING.

The painting’s standing out there in the sunshine alone. There’s maybe an hour more before the light shifts. Light’s important when I’m leaning into impasto. This time of year I can’t afford to let any light get away; I’m running out of time no matter how fast I run.

I go out. My American and the concierge stay in the café and talk; his name is Matthew, calls himself Matt. I get by without telling my name.

I work madly. I want to paint in the rough impasto, then let it dry a few days. Afterward, I’ll work on glazes, scumbling and accent some lights. Painting has a rhythm of its own; I just follow it. I’m only a man chasing after a magic Pied Piper who’s playing haunting tunes, tunes I can just barely hear.

A TINGLING, CLANKING OF MULTICOLORED WHITE;

THE COWBELL RINGING OF MOURNING IN THE NIGHT.

An hour later I stop. The American’s standing behind me; he could’ve been there all the time; he invites me to lunch. I’m beat but I say OK. I’m beginning to think he’s one of those rich Americans playing hooky in Paris, checking out French language, French cooking, French living, French loving, French potatoes, French dry cleaning.

We eat in a little friterie around the corner. I’ve never tried this place before. It’s good, cheap. We feast on aubergines, pork, wine and tart for twenty-two francs. I find out he’s not rich; poor, living on less than a hundred and fifty bucks a month. He’s in a fifteen-franc-a-day hotel; does without heat to save a franc; that’s rock bottom. He’s studying at the Sorbonne; doing a master’s about some 1870 Socialist named Jean Jaurès. To live, he teaches English to French businessmen at IBM.

We begin talking motorcycles. He has a 1950 Ariel; now that’s a truly vintage bike. He takes me up onto the Place Saint-Sulpice to see it. It’s covered with a black tarp. We unwrap and this bike’s beautiful enough to bring on tears. A good well-cared-for thought-out machine like that is a delight. I’d love to paint just one painting as perfect as this machine. We check oil, set magneto and turn her over. Two kicks and a lovely deep sound.

He bought it from a woman in Versailles for only five hundred francs. It’d been sitting on blocks in a garage for twenty-five years. She’d talked her husband out of driving it thirty years ago because it was too dangerous. He died ten years later of diabetes.

It’s marked in miles and has a grand total of 6,021. There are saddlebags and two old-style helmets. I guess the old guy even thought he’d get his wife to ride with him sometimes. There’s a high-mounted back seat so a passenger can see over the driver’s head. In those days riding a motorcycle was supposed to be a pleasure.

He takes me for a nice, slow tour around the Place; I’m sitting up high with a great view, no helmet. Matt says he never goes over thirty; in no hurry at all. It’s rare to find a young person, especially a man, so smart about those things. If you go fast, you can’t see anything; if you can’t see anything, why go? We park the bike, carefully cover it again and shake hands.

A RACE THROUGH LIFE. QUICK

GATHERING OF FOOD, SHELTER,

WIFE, CHILDREN: ALL THE SPACES

CLUTTERED: SOME FACES, A BITE OF

SONG. ONE LONG LAST TRICK.

I’m late. I pack my paints and drop in at Lotte’s, just around the corner. I need to fix her heater. It’s an electric job, the kind that heats oil in a radiator; gives fine heat but expensive, big electric bills. I always keep a tool kit in my bike. I unpack it, go through the courtyard on Mabillon and into her place.

Lotte’s not happy. I was supposed to eat lunch with her today and forgot. I could kick myself. She’s an Austrian woman and can really cook. She gets great food from home, like weisswurst and stollen.

Lotte’s very quiet, wears mostly black; about thirty-five, teaches German at a French lycée. Smart woman, sensitive; loves paintings, one of those people you have in mind when you paint, someone to paint to, like my Kate.

I met her in the street; she stood behind me the way the American did today. She has quiet eyes, Egyptian eyes, green. She tells me, in French, how she likes my painting. I start playing ‘mad artist’. There’s something challenging in her old-maid look. She listens. I spread more crapola in my personal, fractured French. I’m romancing; definitely not seducing. Most people don’t understand the difference. One’s for fun, the other’s serious business, distinctly not for clowns like me. She nods and looks into my eyes.

‘You may speak in English.’

Not much accent. I’m painting in front of Chardin’s house on the Rue Princesse, just up from where I worked today, nearer Rue Canettes.

I enjoy feeling the lonely master Chardin peering over my shoulder while I’m painting in that street. He lived at number 13. It sort of kills time, talking to a lovely young woman and having him there too. It sort of kills time not in the meaning of wasting it but really killing it, making the seeming reality of it go away.

I invite her for a cup of coffee. She says no, leaves. I figure that’s the end of it; just as well, back to work: balancing light, space, the illusion of objects. I’m communing with Jean-Baptiste Chardin, an almost ignored master in his time.

LEVELING TIME, MY MENTAL SHOVEL

LABORS TIGHT BETWEEN GOD AND DEVIL.

I’m just packing up my box, dead tired, when she comes back, invites me for a cup of coffee at her place. I’m out of the painting enough now to catch the great overwhelming black waves of sadness she’s giving off. I follow. Am I being seduced? No, it’s mutual induction like electric current. Probably nobody’s ever really seduced or seduces anybody. Seduces are only excuses.

Her place is a little attic room on the Rue Buci, two streets away. The room is neat as a pin; clean, more Austrian than French. There are two beds and a small room cut off for a kitchen; john’s in the kitchen, curtained off. Old building, thick walls, sun coming in through a window, flowers in the window.

We eat some tasty home-baked cakes with coffee. She makes good coffee, not instant: filtered. We talk about Chardin, reincarnation, death, vibrations. This is a serious woman, nothing of sex here at all. I can relax, just enjoy.

Then we’re talking about something else – I don’t remember what – and she’s crying. Just like that, from talking to crying, no bridges.

TEARS BURIED IN EACH

OF US; WELLING UP UNBIDDEN.

TO TAP THIS SOURCE IS, FOR

ME, THE LAST RESOURCE.

My motherly juices begin flowing. I move my chair closer, take her in my arms. She fades into me, cries harder, sobbing now. Says she’s sorry, been walking around all day trying not to think, working on some painless way to kill herself. My maternal glands are in full operation, but I’m wary. I’ve been fooled by too many women with this ‘kill myself’ business, but this time it’s important; this woman wants tender, loving care: love, not sex. I hold on and let her cry. I’m running out of even simple ordinary love lately, and there’s hardly enough sex left to fill a hummingbird’s nest.

Finally, she pushes away. She goes into the kitchen and comes back with more cakes. She’s beginning to watch me as if I might jump up and rape her.

There’s not much experience with trust here. She sits down and begins telling how she has to get out of this place. The French guy she’s been living with is kicking her out; that’s why she’s going to kill herself; not so much losing her apartment but the Frenchman dumping her like that. She really cares, still thinks she loves him.

I start feeling sorry. Here’s a nice domestic mother type with no man and now no nest either. I feel like a pig with all my places, all my family. I tell her about one nest I’ve got. It’s not far from where she is now. I can let her have it for seven hundred francs a month; that’s less than she’s paying the Frenchman. This place has terrific potential; I’ve been using it as a studio sometimes, a place to store my box when I’m painting over here. It’s not quite finished, but I can whip it into shape in a week.

I found this space last fall when I was painting in a courtyard off the Rue Mabillon. It’s on a deep court; you actually go through almost like a tunnel and come out in the court, away from traffic noises. In back is an ébéniste, Monsieur Moro. I painted the inside of his shop on a large, 50P canvas. Painted it like a still life: all the saws and lathes and equipment quiet in the feeling of wood. I’d come home nights smelling almost as much of wood and sawdust as I did of turpentine. Kate asked if I’d given up painting and taken to carpenter work. Could be; my dad was a carpenter.

I talk a lot with Monsieur Moro. He’s a peculiar character; lives alone; part queer but doesn’t like it. His wife divorced him ten years ago. She’s remarried, has children. He goes Sundays to play with her kids; another natural mother with the wrong plumbing. I try to tell him about my good friend Ben Franklin who was such a fine mother, but he doesn’t understand.

Moro has a huge room where he stores wood; he hardly uses this space at all. I talk him into letting me build a mezzanine storage deal for his wood, then close off the underneath part. I tell him I’ll rent that bottom section from him for two hundred francs a month. After a lot of wiggling and niggling he agrees and I cut myself out that space, build him a staircase using his great tools.

The space I hack out has its own door and windows along one side. The building’s an old carriage house for the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I get fifty square meters; it’s only two meters high but a great location, right on the rez-de-chaussée, opening directly onto the courtyard.

I find an old stove and fridge. I build in a toilet with one of those garbage-disposal units to grind the shit and paper so it can go out a water pipe. I put in a portable shower and buy a used chauffe-eau water heater. I find the oil-electric space heater at a flea market in Montreuil for eighty francs. My whole investment is under four hundred bucks. I could probably rent this hole for a thousand francs. I’m letting her have it at seven hundred. Lord, I need a keeper.

I’m a sucker for damsels in distress; I should learn to distrust distress. Getting involved in other people’s distress only leads to stress for me and stress is probably what’s going to kill me in the long run; or short.

I MUDDLE IN OTHER PEOPLE’s

PUDDLES, THEN FIND IT’S ALL

ONE BIG, LONESOME OCEAN.

Lotte moves in the next week. She does appreciate the place, a true homemaker. I begin going over once in a while for lunch. She loves to cook and is good at it. She plays a little harpsichord, plays it well, a real artist. There’s no sex or even vibrations. We’re like brother and sister or father and daughter.

That Frenchman made a big mistake; this is a natural wife. I think she’d make a great mother, too, only she doesn’t want to. Says she wouldn’t bring anybody into this mean, vicious world; people dangling nuclear bombs in the air, underground and in the oceans.

That’s the kind of talk breaks this old Scumbler heart. What the hell else is there except life? Sure we have to be afraid of the crazies with the bomb, fight them with all we’ve got; but we’ve also got to love and be loved, or we’ll get to be like them. They don’t know about love, so they don’t know how to fear; that’s the real trouble.

I fix the heater. Oil’s leaking out one of the elements. Lotte warms up the meal I missed. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve already eaten. I can always eat anyway; should probably be a fat guy, might be one yet if I live long enough. The painting knocks five pounds off me every day. I come home nights sweating as if I’ve been running a marathon. It takes two showers a day just for people to be able to live near me.

We finish off with Steinhager and Bauern shenken. Then I sit under the pale, struggling spring sun falling softly through her window while she plays and sings a few of those German lieder. It’s healing time for my beat-up, turpentine-shriveled, Y-chromosome-cursed soul.

PUTTING TOGETHER AGAIN WEATHERED

WOOD, RUSTED NAILS, PITTED STONE,

TO BUILD ANEW THIS DWELLING CALLED

ME. PERHAPS A CAVE – OR A TREE HOUSE?