extraneous, unimportant. Much better that he simply
You can’t mean that… ”) So he didn’t paint. He didn’t do much of anything, and he realized later that if not for the twinned love of Raffe and Merrimount, a love that he need not return, he might have died within a month. While they were helping him, he detested their help. He didn’t deserve help. They must leave him alone. But they ignored his stares of hatred, his tantrums. Worst of all, they demanded no explanations. Raffe provided him with food and paid his rent. Merrimount shared his bed and comforted him when his nights, in stark and terrifying contrast to the dull, dead, uneventful days, were full of nightmares, detailed and hideous: the white of exposed throat, the sheen of sweat across the shadow of the chin, the lithe hairs that parted before the knife’s path…
The week after Raffe had found him,Lake forced himself to attend Bender’s funeral, Raffe and Merrimount insistent on attending with him even though he wanted to go alone.
The funeral was a splendid affair that traveled down to the docks viaAlbumuth Boulevard, confetti raining all the way. The bulk of the procession formed a virtual advertisement for Hoegbotton & Sons, the import/export business that had, in recent years, grabbed the major share of Ambergris trade.
Ostensibly held in honor of Bender’s operas, the display centered around a springtime motif, and in addition to the twigs, stuffed birds, and oversized bumblebees attached to the participants like odd extra appendages, the music was being played by a ridiculous full orchestra pulled along on a platform drawn by draft horses.
This display was followed by the senior Hoegbotton, his eyes two shiny black tears in an immense pale face, waving from the back of a topless Manzikert and looking for all the world as if he were running for political office. Which he was: Hoegbotton, of all the city’s inhabitants, stood the best chance of replacing Bender as unoffi cial ruler of the city…
In the back seat of Hoegbotton’s Manzikert sat two rather reptilian-looking men, with slitted eyes and cruel, sensual mouths. Between them stood the urn with Bender’s ashes: a pompous, gold-plated monstrosity. It was their number — three — and Hoegbotton’s mannerisms that first rousedLake ’s suspicions, but suspicions they remained, for he had
The rest of the ceremony was a blur forLake. At the docks, commu nity leaders including Kinsky, Hoegbotton conspicuously absent, mouthed comforting platitudes to memorialize the man, then took the urn from its platform, pried open the lid, and cast the ashes of the world’s greatest composer into the blue-brown waters of the Moth.
Voss Bender was dead.
Is my interpretation correct? I would like to think so, but one of the great challenges, the great allures, of a true work of art is that it either defies analysis or provides multiple theories for its existence. Further, I cannot fully explain the presence of the three birds, nor certain aspects of “Through His Eyes” with regard to the ring of red and the montage format.
Whatever the origin of and the statement made by “Invitation to a Be heading,” it marked the beginning ofLake ’s illustrious career. Before, he had been an obscure painter. After, he would be classed among the greatest artists of the southern cities, his popularity as a painter soon to rival that of Bender as a composer.Lake would design wildly inventive sets for Bender operas and thus be responsible for an interpretive revival of those operas. He would be commissioned, albeit disastrously, to do commemorative work for Henry Hoegbotton, de facto ruler of Ambergris after Bender’s death. His illustrations for the Truffidians’ famous
What, finally, was the mystery behind the letter held in the screaming man’s hand, the mystery of
“Invitation to a Beheading,” we may never know. — From Janice Shriek’s A Short Overview of The Art of Martin Lake and His Invitation
A year passed, during which, as Raffe and many of his other friends re marked toLake, he appeared to be doing penance for some esoteric crime. He spent long hours in the Religious Quarter, haunting back alleys and narrow streets, searching in the dirty, antique light for those scenes, and those scenes alone which best embodied his grief and the cruelty, the dispassionate passion, of the city he had adopted as his home. He heard the whispers behind his back, the rumors that he had gone mad, that he was no longer a painter but a priest of an as yet unnamed religion, that he had participated in some unspeakable mushroom dweller ritual, but he ignored such talk; or, rather, it did not register with him.
Six months after Bender’s funeral, Lake visited Archmont Lane, new cane trembling in his hand. He found it a burnt out husk, the only recognizable object amidst the ruins the bust of Trillian, blackened but intact. At first he picked it up, meaning to salvage it for his apartment, but as he wandered the wreckage for some sign of what had occurred there, the idea became distasteful, and he left the head in the rubble, its laconic eyes staring up at the formless sky. Nothing remained but the faint smell of carrion and smoke, rubbing against his nostrils. It might as well have been a dream.
Later that month,Lake asked Merrimount — lovely Merrimount, precious Merrimount — to move in with him permanently. He did not know he was going to ask Merri, but as the words left his lips they felt like the right words and Merri, tears in his eyes, said yes, smiling for the first time since beforeLake ’s ordeal.
They celebrated at a cafe, Raffe giving her guarded approval, Sonter and Kinsky bringing gifts and good cheer.
Things went better forLake after that. Although the nightmares still affl icted him, he found that Merrimount’s very presence helped him to forget, or at least disremember. He went by Shriek’s gallery and took all of his paintings back, burning them in a barrel behind his apartment building. He began to frequent the Ruby Throated Calf again. His father even visited in late winter, a meeting which went better than expected, even after the guarded old man realized the nature of his son’s relationship with Merrimount. He seemed genuinely touched when Lake presented him with the twin paintings of his own hands covered with insects, and with thatapprovalLake felt himself awakening even more. There were cracks in the ice. A light amid the shadows.
Yet Ambergris — city of versions and virgins both — did its best to remind him of the darkness.
Everywhere, new tributes to Bender sprang up, for Bender’s popularity had never been so high. It could be said with confidence that the man might never fade from memory. Under the vengeful eyes of Bender statues, posters, and memorial buildings, the Reds and Greens gradually lost their focus and exhausted themselves. Some merged with traditional political factions, but many died in a final confrontation at the Voss Bender Memorial Post Office. By spring, Ambergris seemed much as it had before Bender’s death.
It was in the spring, one chilly morning, thatLake sat down in front of the unfinished painting of the man from his nightmare. The man smiled with his broken teeth, as if in warning, but he wasn’t fearsome anymore. He was lonely and sad, trapped by the green paint surrounding his face.
Lakehad snuck out of bed, so as not to disturb his still-sleeping lover, but now he felt Merri’s eyes upon his back. Gingerly, he picked up a brush and a new tube of moss-green paint. The brush handle felt rough, grainy, the paint bottle smooth and sleek. His grasp on the brush was ten tative but strong. The paint smelled good to him and he could feel his senses awakening to its promise. The sun from the balcony embraced him with its warmth.
“What are you doing?” Merrimount mumbled.
Laketurned, the light streaming from the window almost unbearable, and said, with a wry, haunted grin,
“I’m painting.”
THE STRANGE CASE OF X
The objects that are being summoned assemble, draw near from different spots; in doing so, some of them have to overcome not only the distance of space but that of time: which named, you may wonder, is more
