Remember Why You Fear Me (70 page)

And that’s when I saw it. That tongue of hers. And that it was no single colour—the front part was quite a dark shade, even brown; it was connected to another piece of tongue that looked scarlet, fresher, younger; there was another patch next to that, red again, but a more faded more tired red. And I could see, I
thought
I could see, where these separate shards of tongue had been stitched together, I thought I could spot the little traces of black thread holding them locked in position. Then the tongue was back in my mouth—or rather, not a tongue, but pieces of tongues—and her tongues were touching my tongue, my tongue outnumbered maybe but in decidedly better shape, my tongue rubbing against hers—and I fancied I could trace where those different islands of tongue overlapped, the little coastlines fatter where the edge of one had been fastened on to another. And I fancied too that this hammering of her tongue inside my mouth wasn’t a kiss at all, not really; it wasn’t for pleasure; it was a means of lapping up water from me, of getting her makeshift tongue more moist—and then, she was out!—and then, she was back at my face, licking now at my lips and chin, that the spit I was being drenched in was in fact my own.

But I would add that I was very tired, and probably still a little jetlagged, and the stiffening below didn’t seem to mind, it was still holding out hope for a spot of fuckery regardless. “Were you in some sort of accident?” I asked.

“Bark, dog.”

“Yip,” I agreed.

My face was all licked now, every little part of it, she’d even sprayed up my nostrils, and so she rolled off me. And I thought this would be the moment she began to get undressed. (And at that, I decided, I would probably have to insist that the lights really
were
turned off, I didn’t want to see any more of her patchwork body than I could help. I fingered at my trousers, prepared to slide them over the raging bulge. But, no. No, she got off the bed, walked to the door.

I think I squeaked. “Is that it?” I asked her.

“Sleep,” she said, without even looking back. And she left.

I did sleep—I slept very soundly. But before I turned off the light I went to the sink. I washed my face. It didn’t seem to do much good, I could still feel her taste all over me. I wished there had been a mirror; my face was still tingling, I wanted to see.

But of course, you’d rather I’d talk about Miguel Saras, and his theory of art. Forgive me.

Saras and I discussed art only the once, and as with everything he said or did, I’m uncertain how much of it was sincere, how much of it was a joke, and how much it was something that started out as a joke but ended up sincere in spite of itself. I awoke late that next morning; it was nearly ten o’clock, and I leaped out of bed, I washed as fast as I could. I did not want to keep my host waiting for me. I did not want to get our business negotiations off to a bad start. In fact, it was another hour before Saras appeared in the breakfast room, and then in his dressing gown, unshaven, decidedly unkempt. For a moment he looked surprised to see me there, but he recovered well. He grinned, he folded me into a big bear hug. He looked more frail than he had the previous night, now shorn of his designer wardrobe and his hangers-on. But the hug was strong.

“My friend, my dear friend,” he said. “I trust you slept well?”

I assured him that I had.

“You must forgive the guest room, I do not often have guests. I do not like guests. I like to be able to shut the door on them, yes, shut the world out. But I did want you here. I did want to get to know you better, and that maybe you will get to know me better. I hope you would like that, I think you will. And so pardon my selfishness in taking you from your, no doubt, reasonably adequate hotel, with its minibar and pay for view television and continental breakfast room service options.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” I said.

I had whiled away my time waiting for him by eating a bowl of cornflakes—another disappointment, frankly, I had hoped that the great Saras would have had a more eclectic range of breakfast cereal—and by looking at the one solitary picture he displayed upon the wall. I had expected that the walls would be hanging down with art, that there’d be statues looming out of every spare corner, but there was nothing, the décor was spartan even. Save for this one picture, just a small one, framed behind glass, but not even painted on proper canvas, was it just on ordinary plain paper? It was hardly a complex piece, just a wash of green descending into blue. I had dismissed it out of hand at first, concentrated more upon the cornflakes, but with nothing better to do I had started looking at it from different angles, and it was a curious thing—it was impossible to work out where the green finished and the blue began, the distinction between the colours was lost within the shimmer. A pleasing effect, certainly, nothing of any depth, but skilfully enough done to afford some amusement, to give me distraction once the cereal bowl was empty.

“One of yours?” I asked Saras.

Saras said, “Of course, everything that comes into this house belongs to me. Do you like it?”

“I’m not sure I understand it,” I said.

“That’s not what I asked.” But he was smiling, it wasn’t a rebuke.

I looked again. “Yes, I like it,” I said, and I did. “What’s its name?”

“My very first sold work,” said Saras, “back when I was a young student. Back when I had no idea what art was, and certainly no idea who
I
was. It took me so many years to find it, so I could buy it back. The best four million
reals
I have ever spent.”

“It must mean a lot to you, then,” I said, stupidly.

“We need to remember our beginnings,” said Saras. “Back when anything was possible, back when on a whim any day we could reinvent ourselves and become something brand new. Before we chose paths to follow that would deny all the other paths, shut off what might have been. We spend so much time obsessing about where we’ll finish up, what our legacy will be to the world, whether we’ll even leave a legacy, whether anyone will care once we’ve gone—and what does it matter, what does it matter. The Saras who created this, he did not know that, he did not know anything, but look what he could still do without knowing. No, this picture does not mean a thing to me. I can’t even remember painting it. I don’t even know what it was for. Maybe it’s just a bit of blue and green on some paper, who knows?”

“What’s its name?” I asked again. And he looked at me with genuine surprise.

“How can it have a name,” he asked, “when it isn’t even finished yet?” And his eyes bore into me, and he said softly, “Do you . . .  do you have a name for it?”

And I thought it must be another one of his games, but there was something desperate about that look, and for a moment I thought he was almost begging me for an answer, that Miguel Saras honestly wanted some junior contracts man from Gladwell, Green and Grant to give his painting a name, me, someone who could never paint, who could never draw, who took piano lessons until the age of eleven when he got bored, who didn’t understand art, who secretly didn’t even like art, its arrogance left me cold, I had never seen anything beautiful that would make me catch my breath the way the critics told me it should, but I was still looking, I was still out there looking, and each time I failed I thought there must be something dead inside me. That Miguel Saras was honestly letting me become part of the process, that he would let me be an artist too. And I was about to stutter something out, a name, I don’t know what, anything, and then, and then the moment was gone, the look was gone, it was wiped away and replaced with that smile, those teeth. And I felt sad, as if I’d lost something, and also relieved, and I realized I’d been shaking.

“I owe you an apology,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Well.”

“I’m quite sure I do. My little performance last night. But you see, it’s all a performance. My people expect it of me. For them I am a great man. To them I am a god. I have to act the part, do you see?”

I didn’t, but I said I did.

“I am Brazil,” he said. “I am Brazil through and through, its hopes and dreams and fears, they need me to be strong, to be fearless, even to be rude. But I shall tell you a secret, my friend, because I think you
are
my friend, yes, and this is a secret no one knows, not even my beloved wife suspects it. Really, I am just an ordinary man. No, it’s true. I am an ordinary man with man’s weaknesses, the same as you.”

“Really,” I said.

He sighed sadly, clapped me on the back. “Come,” he said, “I shall make you breakfast. Feijoada, yes? My own special feijoada?”

I told him I’d already had some cornflakes, that was ample. And that however much I had greatly enjoyed the feijoada the previous night, and I really had, I found it a little too piquant perhaps as a breakfast meal. “No, no,” he said, and laughed, and fetched me some anyway. “Feijoada is our national dish. Do you know why? It was invented by slaves. They gathered all the leftovers they could find, bits of meat, beans, scraps of anything, they’d mix it altogether. Brazil is proud of it, Brazil is expert at making something from the scraps. It’s the food of oppression, but it’s also the food of
surviving
oppression.” He handed me a mug. I sipped at it suspiciously. It was good, and warming. “And some people’s leftovers are better than others.”

He didn’t pour any for himself. He sat down with me.

“I am Christ to these poor people,” he said. “Do you think Christ was the same with the common herd as he was with his friends? Do you not think Christ didn’t want to sit down, and relax in his dressing gown, and take the weight off? But we expect our gods to be above us. We expect them to be cruel and angry, because if they’re not cruel, how do we explain the shitholes of our lives, those frustrations and depressions, the poverty, the pain, the death, the tedium of the day to day to shithole day. How, my friend? You tell me.”

I couldn’t tell him. I was too busy with my feijoada.

“I am a cruel man,” said Saras. “But I do not
want
to be cruel. They need me to be cruel, and I make you bark like a dog to make them happy. But sincerely, I do not want it.” He took my hand, and he squeezed it, and I had to hold the feijoada in the other hand, and that was difficult because the feijoada was hot, and I wished he’d leave me alone to my feijoada. And his eyes were watering with earnestness. “And my art,” he said, “it is cruel, it is so cruel. And it is getting crueller, so savage, so unkind. And I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. And maybe I can escape it soon.”

“I like the picture of the dog,” I said.

He looked at me blankly.

“The dog in my bedroom. I like it.” I didn’t. “It’s nice.” It wasn’t. “That’s not cruel.” And that, at least, seemed true. It was sad, misguided, I think, but it wasn’t cruel.

“Oh, the dog!” He laughed. He laughed loud. “The dog isn’t one of mine.”

“But it’s signed ‘Saras.’”

“My wife is also called Saras. It’s her picture. She does love her pets. It’s a pity, she has no pet at the moment. The last one died.”

“Oh,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what to say about that.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, she broke it. I said, you’ll have to be more careful, or I won’t let you keep any pets at all! She didn’t like that. She didn’t speak to me for a month. Not for a whole month! . . .  I think that pet was a dog, yes, it was a little hard to tell.”

“Where is Mrs. Saras?” I asked, but he didn’t reply.

“I am better than Christ,” he suddenly said. “Do you think Christ bought back his first bits of carpentry when he hit the big time? Do you think he paid four million
reals
for his stools and spice racks? I don’t think so.”

“You do all seem very keen on Christ here,” I said. “What with that big statue on that mountain and everything. We’re not all that keen on him at home, not unless it’s Christmas, and even then, only if he’s in a manger. Can I have some more feijoada? I’ve run out of feijoada.” I offered him the mug, but he wouldn’t take it. “Maybe we could visit the big statue?” I said. “I think that might be fun.”

“I shall never visit that statue,” said Saras quietly, “I shall never visit that monument to gutlessness, to picture postcard bland tourist pleasing gutlessness. Until they have chopped off Christ’s head and replaced it with my own.”

“I see.”

“Because I am their Christ, I am their Redeemer. The other Christ, he’s a lie, opening his arms out in, what? Benevolence? Care of some sort? But you look at his face, and there is nothing on it, no expression, not a thing. Do you think
my
face has expression? Look at my face! Look at what I can do with it!”

“Right, I am, yes.”

“And it’ll take the greatest artist in the world to replace Christ’s head with mine, and I shan’t do it, so it shall never happen, so I shall never visit the statue. So.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Do you have more feijoada?”

“Business first,” he said. “Then there’ll be time for all the feijoada in the world.”

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Make your pitch, little dog,” he said. “What will you give me for my work? Yip yip!”

And I launched into what I had prepared. I told him how proud Gladwell, Green and Grant would be to host his work, and the great plans they had for him, but I was distracted, I think I called them Gladwell, Grant and Green, or I may have called Gladwell Gladgreen and Grant may have disappeared altogether, it was all a bit confusing—and Saras listened for a little while, then got bored, then began to study his nails, then at last just put his hand up to get me to shut up. “What is the largest sum of money you are authorized to offer me?” he asked. I gave him the figure in pounds sterling, he interrupted impatiently. “In
reals
, in
reals
.” I told him. He considered. “It’s a fair price,” he said at last. “So I shall demand just one
real
more.” I told him I accepted. That if it came to it, I would gladly pay the extra
real
out of my own pocket. “That’s the idea,” he said, “that’s exactly what I want you to do, I want that final
real
to be yours, little dog of mine.” I asked him if we could shake on it, I held out my hand. And he took my hand, but then he pulled me towards him, he yanked me hard towards his cheeks, I wasn’t sure what to do, I kissed him on one, I kissed him on the other. And there we were in this embrace, and his arms were trapping me, I couldn’t move, and his face was so close to mine, and his beard was tickling at my chin, and his eyes were boring into me, and I could see that trademark sneer of his playing across his mouth, the lips parted so the sneer could be given full rein, and I thought, oh God, he’s not going to start licking me as well, is he?, and that feijoada made my stomach gurgle at just the wrong moment. And he whispered, “It’s a deal then, it’s a deal,” and I agreed it was a deal, also in a whisper, and then he whispered back, “What do you make of my wife?”