Via Dolorosa (21 page)

“You see all that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Is it too much of a contradiction?”

“All true and honest art is a contradiction. Didn’t you know? It can never truly be real, and can never be like real life, if it is to be honest to the art of it.”

“Art is capturing real life,” he told her. “That’s its purpose.”

“No, Nicholas, you are wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Art,” she said, “is lying for art’s sake. Purely, simply. Art is not meant to be truth but, rather, to be the lie we wish the truth to be.”

“That’s very nice,” he said, turning to look at her. She did not return his look; she was still examining the mural. He had time to admire her profile. She looked poised for him, knowing full well that he was taking her in, all of her, every single angle, soaking her up—this lifeblood.

“You painted out that man’s face,” she said, pointing to what remained of Myles Granger. The black swipe of paint was like a mark of sin across the dead boy’s face. Looking at it, Nick was overwhelmed with disgrace. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he half-lied. “It became too real, I guess.”

“It scared you?”

“No,” he said. “I just didn’t like it.”

“It is a face,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “A
real
face.”

“Michelangelo painted
Minos
with the face of
Biagio
,” Isabella said, “and painted his penis in a snake’s mouth while surrounding him by devils.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the painting,” he said.

“
Minos
was one of three judges of the underworld,” she said. “He was one of three judges in Hell’s court.”

“It was meant as an insult,” he told Isabella.

“To be a judge of the underworld?”

“No, no,” he said. “I mean, Michelangelo painted it in retaliation to
Biagio
de Cesena’s harsh criticism of his rendition of the Last Judgment. He put
Biagio’s
face on
Minos
and surrounded him with devils as an insult.”

“The Last Judgment is the one where the angels force the damned down to justice,” Isabella said.

“Yes.”

“You know much about it,” she said. It was not a question.

“Some,” he said.

“You’ve been to see the works?”

“I’ve seen pictures,” he said, “in books.”

“It is not the same.”

“No,” he agreed, “it’s not.”

“It is said that Michelangelo also painted his whore in a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

“I’ve heard it.”

She was looking closely at the mural. “Where is your whore, Nicholas?”

Half smirking, shaking his head, he turned away from her and began rubbing the paint from his hands with an old, bleached washcloth. He tossed the cloth over one step of the ladder then bent and grabbed a bottle of Perrier, took a swig, set it back down. Almost unconsciously, he rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows. When he looked down (for whatever reason) and spied his ruined right arm, however, he quickly let the sleeves fall back down to his wrists even though it was something Isabella Rosales had already seen. They had talked about it, and had talked a little, too, about the war. He did not feel like having that conversation again.

“Every good artist,” she said, “has a whore.”

“You mean a muse,” he corrected.

Promoting what could have been nothing more than a passing casual disinterest, Isabella Rosales rolled her small, tanned shoulders and shifted her large, coffee-colored eyes in his direction. “Is there a difference?”

“The muses might think so.”

“Personally, I would rather be a whore than a muse,” she said. “Too much pressure to be a muse. People would expect too much.”

“Whores have it pretty rough, too, I would think.”

“Whores have it good,” she said. “Whores have it nice.”

“Is that right?”

“Of course,” she said. “They are never alone.”

“What about their pride? Their sense of morals?”

“Morals,” Isabella said, “are highly overrated. Sometimes,” she said, “it’s just better to not be alone.”

He proceeded to pack up his equipment.

“Do you disagree?” she said over his shoulder.

“That sometimes it’s better to not be alone? I suppose. But I don’t think one should have to compromise his or her morals.”

“Morals,” she said again. “Boo. What are morals? We have created them out of nothing to keep us in chains.”

“Christ,” he said, “where did you get all this from?”

“You do not feel the same way?”

“We are born with them, with morals. They are ingrained in us.”

“Even more ingrained than the desire to be with another human being?” she said. “Even more ingrained than the struggle to keep one’s self alive?”

“Do you have a point to this?” he said finally.

Simply, she said, “No. Do you?”

With his good hand, he grabbed the supplies trunk by one handle and slid it across the floor to the storage closet. As he worked, he could feel Isabella’s eyes on him, and he was conscious—too conscious—of the difficulty evident in his attempt to move the trunk on his own.
Goddamn
ruined hand,
he thought—and, strangest of all, and for the first time since his crippling, he nearly laughed at himself. He didn’t, but he could feel the threat of laughter…could feel it bubbling up someplace deep within him. While he did not let it go, as it was unlike him to let it go, he realized at the same time that it might have done him good to let it go and be free of it. For that moment, anyway.

“Where will you be later tonight?” Isabella said once he had stowed the trunk in the supplies closet.

“Nowhere,” he said.

“Your wife?”

“She is doing her limbo,” he said.

“Will you paint me?”

“You want me to paint you?”

“Will you do it?”

He thought for just a second. Then: “Yes, all right.”

“Wonderful.”

“Tonight?” he said.

“Come to my room,” she told him, then told him the room number.

“Come tonight. Bring your paints. I will supply the canvas.”

“I haven’t painted a portrait,” he said, “in a very, very long time.”

“And I can tell you are scared about it.”

“No,” he said, “I’m not.”

“Why do you lie to me?”

“I’m not lying.”

“For so noble a man, you certainly find comfort in lying.”

—Chapter X—

He went to the hotel bar but Roger was not there. A robust, pink-skinned, heavily-browed woman tended the bar.

“Where’s Roger?”

“Shift’s over.”

“It’s that late?” He looked up, searching for a clock, found none. While the female bartender wore a watch, she did not bother informing him of the time.

“What can I get you?”

He ordered a glass of scotch on the rocks, clean cubes, and waited without sitting for the drink to come.

He had no intention of loving Isabella, of falling in love with Isabella. There were complications involved in such an exercise for which he was surely unprepared. He had been to war and had watched his friends die, and he was confident of his ability to resist falling in love, or even falling into mild admiration and longing. It was mathematical, really. He’d chosen Emma. But that went awry. So math had set him on a course for Isabella. It was truly that simple. There was nothing of love involved. She was available and he felt it was something that was here for him, and it was all that simple. He, Nick, was not afraid of falling in love with anyone.

So stop thinking about her.

Finishing his drink, Nick stood, stretched his back and popped tendons, then ambled out into the hotel lobby. He needed a cigarette. He could see Mr. Granger standing behind the bell captain podium. Stout, red-faced, bleary-eyed. Too happy to avoid the older man, he hurried down the far corridor toward the back of the hotel. Here, in the half-gloom (there were very few lights), he tripped the lock on the rear doors and pushed them open and stepped out onto the beach. Producing a brown-papered cigarette, he lit it and inhaled with vigor. He was aware of the strong, sea-smelling breeze rushing against his body, coming down from the northern part of the island. And faintly, through the walls of the hotel, somewhere hidden in one of the massive, gaudily carpeted rooms, he could hear pre-recorded calypso music playing.
Limbo,
he thought.
How low can you go?

There were few lights out on the water. He smelled the near-mournful scent of the salt sea. In the distance, he could make out a few boats, all rocking on the waves, the name of one—
Kerberos—
clearly visible beneath the glow of moonlight. Having no ports on this side of the island at which to dock, the few ships simply drifted with lethargic contentment just beyond the breakers, silent and deeply contemplative out on the sea.

I could do that,
he thought.
I could get a boat and sail the hell away
from this place and never look back.
Then, on the heels of that, he thought,
Coward.

“Yes.”

Hot against his lips, the cigarette tasted good in his mouth.

A lone figure, ghostly beneath the moonlight, was dragging a small johnboat down the beach toward the water. Nick watched with little interest. At the water’s edge, the figure paused, set the boat down, and seemed to consider his next course of action. A pair of oars were tucked into the belly of the johnboat; the figure, after some hesitation, removed the oars and slipped them into the rings on either side of the boat. As Nick watched, he could see the current was strong and hard against the nearby pilings. The slick, fingerlike outcropping of stone that had become something of a landmark to him was completely submerged now, too.