most
infamous—and
richest—wanton made him famous overnight. Even the repro cubes you can buy today are impressive, but the original, with its original subtle circuits and focused broadcasts, is staggering.
A collector in Rome brought Cilento to my attention and when I had seen the Snowdragon cube I managed an introduction. We met at Santini’s villa in Ostia. Like most young artists he had heard of me. We met by a pool and his first words were, “You sponsored Wiesenthal for years, didn’t you?” I nodded, wary now, for with every artist you help there are ten who demand it.
“His
I smiled. “It was well received.”
“He did not understand that Aztec anymore than he understood Cortez.” He looked at me with a challenge.
“I agree, but by the time I heard it, it was too late.” He relaxed and kicked his foot in the water and squinted at two nearly nude daughters of a lunar mineral baron who were walking by. He seemed to have made his point and had nothing more to say.
Cilento intrigued me. In the course of a number of years of
“discovering” artists I had met all types, from the shy ones who hide to the burly ones who demand my patronage. And I had met the kind who seem indifferent to me, as Cilento seemed to be. But many others had acted that way and I had learned to disregard everything but finished work and the potential for work.
“Your Snowdragon cube was superb,” I said.
He nodded and squinted in another direction. “Yeah,” he said. Then as an afterthought he added, “Thank you.” We spoke for a moment of the cube and he told me what he thought of its subject.
“But it made you famous,” I said.
He squinted at me and after a moment he said, “Is that what art is about?”
I laughed. “Fame is very useful. It opens doors. It makes things possible. It makes it easier to be even more famous.”
“It gets you laid,” Cilento said with a smile.
“It can get you killed, too,” I added.
“It’s a tool, Mr. Thorne, just like molecular circuits or dynamic integration or a screwdriver. But it can give you freedom. I want that freedom; every artist needs it.”
“That’s why you picked Diana?”
He grinned and nodded. “Besides, that female was a great challenge.”
“I imagine so,” I said and laughed, thinking of Diana at seventeen, beautiful and predatory, clawing her way up the monolithic walls of society.
We had a drink together, then shared a psychedelic in the ruins of a temple of Vesta, and became Mike and Brian to each other. We sat on old stones and leaned against the stub of a crumbling column and looked down at the lights of Santini’s villa.
“An artist needs freedom,” Mike said, “more than he needs paint or electricity or cube diagrams or stone. Or food. You can always get the materials, but the freedom to use them is precious. There is only so much time.”
“What about money? That’s freedom, too,” I said.
“Sometimes. You can have money and no freedom, though. But usually fame brings money.” I nodded, thinking that in my case it was the other way around.
We looked out at the light of a half-moon on the Tyrrhenian Sea and had our thoughts. I thought of Madelon.
“There’s someone I’d like you to do,” I said. “A woman. A very special woman.”
