The Last Western (36 page)

It was a strange and complicated story that Willie would think back to often, though he would try not to. When he did think back, he would see again the signs Joto made with his hands, wonderfully crafted signs, not quite as beautiful as Truman’s, but quick and deft, full of passion and life.

Looking at those graceful motions, Willie could understand how Joto Toshima had once been an artist, a citizen of that other kingdom he sometimes visited in his dreams.

I first met Herman Felder eighteen, nineteen years ago, Joto’s signs said, when he and Truman were making a movie about a stunt pilot, a cowboy-flier.

Felder hired Joto to do a painting for one part of that movie.

A few months later, Felder came to Tokyo, again hiring Joto to do paintings for a film. This was the short cartoon movie about the beginning of America.

“Herman have big name then—great commander of film, best in America. People say genius director. Leader of others. Understand hard things. Also, engineer and technical man—top.”

After the cartoon, the signs said, Joto Toshima, artist, lost track of Herman Felder. He understood, though, that Felder had invented a great camera—the first new camera in fifty years—a camera that reproduced reality better than any other camera ever made.

“Early version of that,” Joto said, and pointed to the camera swinging in its holster above Willie’s head.

With ordinary cameras, ordinary crews, Felder went on making movies about the West. Joto saw some of them. The movies were masterfully directed but most violent and very difficult to follow.

Somewhere, during this time of the strange Western movies, Felder met Father Benjamin—Joto did not know how—and became a Servant. But he continued making movies, movies so strange no one could understand them.

Soon Felder was making movies that he would not release or, if he released them, would suddenly withdraw from circulation.

Meanwhile, Felder worked steadily to improve the great camera.

Joto paused, carefully arranging his hands for a difficult sequence.

Two years pass. Felder again comes to Tokyo, again looks up Joto. Now Felder married but wife gone.

Earlier Felder hard to see now—replaced by another Felder, more brilliant but also near-mad.

Possessed man, the signs said, and possessing.

Felder drinking and talking—Willie caught the sense of a night and a day and still another night—Felder talking, talking, talking and Joto listening.

“He has plan to make movie about his father—why his father did what he did. But much more. Says movie will explain everything. Great movie to tell why of everything.”

Joto’s hand swept out across the whole history of man. His eyes went wild for a moment, filled with the memory of Felder’s dream.

“Why everything happen the way it happen,” he said again, as if trying to fathom it himself.

A pause, then mixed signs. The movie Felder planned would use painting, written words, sculpture, music, dance, every known art, new art.

His great camera and its accessories would animate it all, blending and weaving it together into whole cloth, so that the end could not be differentiated from the beginning.

The signs came quickly now, passionately: And the chief assistant blender, number one associate of the greatest movie in the world, would be the great—Joto’s hand came to himself—the world-famous artist, Joto Toshima.

The bald dome gleamed with sweat: pain.

I,
the signs said,
was—a dog, then the sign for offspring. Ego-ridden monster—artist! Great god-to-self.

Here Willie interjected with the sign that in the Society meant self-forgiveness. But Joto shook it off.

“Maniac!” he said aloud.

Now slow signs of the slow passage of years: one, three, four. Work, furious activity: painting, carving, polishing, sketching, etching, plating, filming—endless work on Felder’s all-explaining movie. Movie has name
Cowboys and Indians
.

Felder and Joto and crew traveling. Plane. Ship. Across desert. Riding camel somewhere. Desert nights. Felder trying to find place called Ur.

Then to Holy Land. Felder drinking in Holy Land.

To Greece. More painting, picture taking. A sea voyage. Felder quoting Saint Paul. Reading one letter over and over again. Drinking more.

“Herman, time to time, leave to make more perfect camera—leave for weeks, months. Whole crew idle.”

To South America. Different art. Joto cannot do this art. Other artists. Felder spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on film. A million dollars. Three million.

Back to Europe. Kings. Wars. Popes. England. Some man writing poem about sea voyage. A bird killed.

“Nether Stowey,” said Joto. “One month.” Felder drinking strange medieval drink.

Now to America once more. Arizona. Colorado. New Mexico. Back to Greece. Spain. Rome. Felder drunk, does something to a wall, a mosaic, in Rome. In jail. To trial. Barely escapes prison sentence.

To Paris. Felder and camera crew at great palace of French kings.

To Auschwitz. Ovens where people burned.

Back to U.S. Movie now cost $14 million. Movie runs thirty-seven hours.

Felder says
Cowboys and Indians
finished. (Joto here wiped his forehead.)

Then one day Felder changes mind. Decides movie needs more footage—different equipment. Goes away, has final camera made. Joto pointed to the great camera swinging in its holster above.

“He spend seven months having last camera made—one and half million dollars. When he come back, wants to do movie from beginning.”

The signs once more: Joto says tired of movie. Felder going away alone, to take pictures with his camera. Gone a year, two years. Then comes back and wants to mix in ten additional hours to movie. Joto sick of whole project. Felder insists.

A fight breaks out. Joto and Felder fighting. A real fight.

In the fight Joto breaks the following parts of Felder’s body (Joto sadly indicated them on his own person): back, right leg, left arm, nose, collarbone, interior parts. Willie shuddered.

“Still,” Willie said, “you remained his friend?”

In sign, Joto showed Felder hiring a lawyer who successfully defended him against attempted manslaughter. Joto gave up painting then, joined the Silent Servants, and immediately went to jail on a dome-passing sentence with Felder.

“We go from jail to jail, Brother Herman and I. Sometimes he go away. Take camera with him. He say he never film again and vow to not make film. But very difficult to give up. Easier for Joto because Joto lesser artist. Joto make vow. Easy. For him,” Joto said pointing to the forward cabin, “kind of death required.”

The plane droned on.

Willie tried to piece it together, the long story, the film, the man in the forward cabin. He seemed to recognize a part of the story and was about to say something when he saw how tired Joto had become. The tale had worn him out. Willie held out his hand.

“Brother Joto, it must have been hard to recall all those things, but you have nothing to hide from, or fear.”

“You see why mission only answer!” Joto said emphatically.

“He will die to the desire on our mission?”

“Yes.”

But when they went forward later, Felder had seemed to die not to his dream but to life.

Carefully they carried him down the aisle and propped him in the seat, under his shiny movie-gun.

“Oh Joto, his face,” Willie said. “We have got to get him to a doctor.”

Before them the face was withering quickly, like a print being lightened in chemical.

“Maybe in Angola,” Joto replied. “But useless unless he decide to come back—back to self.”

The cabin reeked of roses.

Night fell. Willie put a blanket over Felder’s shoulders. Joto prepared food, taking the first tray forward to Truman. Later they picked at their own trays. Neither of them was hungry.

They chanted vespers softly then and dimmed the lights.

Toward midnight the jet entered a storm.

Lightning flashed through the cabin where the men were sleeping, all lost in a tangle of dreams.

There was a cry from Felder. Willie and Joto went to him quickly.

He was half standing, half crouching in the seat; a bottle of Regent Morphinis had spilled on the cabin floor. He said distinctly, “We have carved the ape and he cannot speak!”

Joto had a small black bag, a needle, and now Willie saw him insert the needle in Felder’s arm. Immediately Felder slumped back, eyes glazed.

“I am—I’m your brother,” he said to Willie.

Willie reached out to touch him, assure him, but Joto restrained him.

“Now sleep. Better tomorrow. Try again tomorrow.”

“Want to help,” Felder muttered feebly. He pointed up at Willie. “Want to—”

“You will help, Brother Herman. You will help the mission,” Willie said.

But now Felder had fallen sharply away from them both.

Joto yawned, rubbed his eyes.

“I’ll stay up with him,” Willie said. “He might have convulsions.”

“He sleep and wake from time to time, and I am here. Surely you must rest.”

“No please, let me stay here with him.”

God’s mercy and tenderness
, said Joto in sign tongue.

As Joto turned to his own seat, Willie said, “What does he mean by the ape?”

Joto hesitated, seeming to remember something that had happened a long time ago.

“Mystery,” he said finally. “In old days he speak of ape often. During time we work on never-made movie. In Middle East. In days reading Paul. Especially when drinking. Now when crossed over, again see ape.”

“You have a guess—what it means?”

Joto shook his head. “Man stuck. Everybody fixed. Brother Herman fixed. Only guess.”

Willie tried to hold a picture he had then, but Joto went on.

“In prison Joto made vow not paint. But broke vow one time. In prison Joto thought maybe help release Brother Herman if Joto paint what he dream. If he understand demon of dream, he be Herman again. So Joto study Herman’s dream. Listen when he rave. Paint what he say and scream.”

“You did this painting?”

“Did painting of strange white dreams. Herman’s dreams all white. So painting all white. When Joto finish, show him painting. See nothing—only white shapes.”

Willie thought back to the night at the Servant camp in Texas.

Joto said, “Sent painting to Truman, who took it to Servant places, showing to all brothers and sisters. No one see anything but white. Truman then destroy painting.”

The storm raged on.

The plane dipped in the sky. Sitting next to Herman Felder, Willie looked down on the world. When lightning spread out over the sea, it looked like a print from an old Bible.

He tried to think of where he was going and what he should do and what they expected him to do.

Then the faces came up to the window of the jet. He saw Clio opening his mouth and saying something he did not want to hear and there was that other face, too, that he couldn’t bear to look at and that he had asked God to take out of his dreams, and there was also the sad, smiling face of the man at the top of the world.

He felt the red badge next to his heart.

Then he felt Felder’s head slump against his shoulder. He said aloud, “Let him be free.”

It was close in the cabin suddenly. He fell asleep.

In his sleep the red ink of the stop-sign badge mingled with the sweat on his chest so that his very flesh now was signed with blood, and the first word of an old argument was already written there.

The plane
came down in a light drizzle and they could see the airport coming up fast, and beyond the airport a fringe of palm trees and beyond the trees, stretching back to where the rain clouds broke against the hills, the city of Luanda, still as a dream.

“It looks peaceful,” Willie said. “It looks beautiful.”

“We are far away,” Joto said.

Then they were taxiing forward and Willie could see the officials all lined up. One man was wearing the robes of a cardinal.

“The great liturgical expert, Cardinal Torres,” said a cheery voice behind them. Just awake, Willie could not connect it with anyone on the plane.

Felder, emerging from the aft cabin, was young and fresh again—just as on the previous morning.

“Brother Herman!” Willie cried. And inside he said the thanksgiving prayer, thinking that Brother Herman had been released. “You look—you look marvelous.”

Dressed in a light tan suit of elegant cut, Felder did look marvelous, like a genial broker, all crackling with energy and life and purpose.

“Sleep well, Will? How about you, Jo?”

Willie turned to Joto, who had turned instead to the window, for he knew what Willie did not know.

An hour before Willie woke up, Felder was already drinking his breakfast—synthetic liquid cocaine mixed with champagne and B vitamins, a mixture that Joto himself had fixed when Felder had come trembling back to wakefulness. It was an old ritual that could sustain him an hour, maybe two. On the other hand, he might be drunk getting off the plane.

Now, as Felder went forward to get coffee, moving lightly up the still taxiing aircraft, Willie gave Joto the thanks sign, and Joto, not having the heart to tell him the truth, returned it.

“It is a miracle,” said Willie.

“Willie—” Joto began, but here was Herman handing coffee around.

They were still moving down the runway, turning a little now.

Felder said, “Torres—he’s the cardinal archbishop of Luanda; then the fat guy—his name is Borges—he’s governor general; the other man I don’t know, there in front. The other dudes are Portuguese generals, of course, and… .”

And then the plane came to a stop and the door swung to, and they were going down into the rain to meet the ruling elite of Angola.

The men were kneeling to kiss Willie’s ring. A sibilance of names.

“It is wiser to get into two cars,” the fat man, Governor Borges, said. “The madmen are in the hills and may try to shoot you.”

He pointed to the line of hills where the rain fell.

Cardinal Torres took Willie’s arm.

“Please, Excellency, let us not get wet. This way.”