Imajica

  It wasn’t only the knowledge that, being such a soul, Gentle would be welcomed at the Klein residence, that took him there. He’d never known a time when Klein didn’t need money for some gambit or other, and that meant he needed painters. There was more than comfort to be found in the house at Ladbroke Grove; there was employment. It had been eleven months since he’d seen or spoken to Chester, but he was greeted as effusively as ever and ushered in.

  “Quickly! Quickly!” Klein said. “Gloriana’s in heat again!” He managed to slam the door before the obese Gloriana, one of his five cats, escaped in search of a mate. “Too slow, sweetie!” he told her. She yowled at him in complaint. “I keep her fat so she’s slow,” he said. “And I don’t feel so piggy myself.”

  He patted a paunch that had swelled considerably since Gentle had last seen him and was testing the seams of his shirt, which, like him, was florid and had seen better years. He still wore his hair in a ponytail, complete with ribbon, and wore an ankh on a chain around his neck, but beneath the veneer of a harmless flower child gone to seed he was as acquisitive as a bowerbird. Even the vestibule in which they embraced was overflowing with collectibles: a wooden dog, plastic roses in psychedelic profusion, sugar skulls on plates.

  “My God, you’re cold,” he said to Gentle. “And you look wretched. Who’s been beating you about the head?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You’re bruised.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all.”

  Gentle took off his heavy coat and laid it on the chair by the door, knowing when he returned it would be warm and covered with cat hairs. Klein was already in the living room, pouring wine. Always red.

  “Don’t mind the television,” he said. “I never turn it off these days. The trick is not to turn up the sound. It’s much more entertaining mute.”

  This was a new habit, and a distracting one. Gentle accepted the wine and sat down in the corner of the ill-sprung couch, where it was easiest to ignore the demands of the screen. Even there, he was tempted.

  “So now, my Bastard Boy,” Klein said, “to what disaster do I owe the honor?”

  “It’s not really a disaster. I’ve just had a bad time. I wanted some cheery company.”

  “Give them up, Gentle,” Klein said.

  “Give what up?”

  “You know what. The fair sex. Give them up. I have. It’s such a relief. All those desperate seductions. All that time wasted meditating on death to keep yourself from coming too soon. I tell you, it’s like a burden gone from my shoulders.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Age has got fuck-all to do with it. I gave up women because they were breaking my heart.”

  “What heart’s that?”

  “I might ask you the same thing. Yes, you whine and you wring your hands, but then you go back and make the same mistakes. It’s tedious. They’re tedious.”

  “So save me.”

  “Oh, now here it comes.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “So we’ll make some together. Then I won’t have to be a kept man. I’m going back to live in the studio, Klein. I’ll paint whatever you need.”

  “The Bastard Boy speaks.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  “It’s what you are. You haven’t changed in eight years. The world grows old, but the Bastard Boy keeps his perfection. Speaking of which—”

  “Employ me.”

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m gossiping. Speaking of which, I saw Clem the Sunday before last. He asked after you. He’s put on a lot of weight. And his love life’s almost as disastrous as yours. Taylor’s sick with the plague. I tell you, Gentle, celibacy’s the thing.”

  “So employ me.”

  “It’s not as easy as that. The market’s soft at the moment. And, well, let me be brutal: I have a new wunderkind.” He got up. “Let me show you.” He led Gentle through the house to the study. “The fellow’s twenty-two, and I swear if he had an idea in his head he’d be a great painter. But he’s like you; he’s got the talent but nothing to say.”

  “Thanks,” said Gentle sourly.

  “You know it’s true.” Klein switched on the light. There were three canvases, all unframed, in the room. One, a nude woman after the style of Modigliani. Beside it, a small landscape after Corot. But the third, and largest of the three, was the coup. It was a pastoral scene, depicting classically garbed shepherds standing, in awe, before a tree in the trunk of which a human face was visible.

  “Would you know it from a real Poussin?”

  “Is it still wet?” Gentle asked.

  “Such a wit.”

  Gentle went to give the painting a more intimate examination. This period was not one he was particularly expert in, but he knew enough to be impressed by the handiwork. The canvas was a close weave, the paint laid upon it in careful regular strokes, the tones built up, it seemed, in glazes.

  “Meticulous, eh?” said Klein.

  “To the point of being mechanical.”

  “Now, now, no sour grapes.”

  “I mean it. It’s just too perfect for words. You put this in the market and the game’s up. Now, the Modigliani’s another matter—”

  “That was a technical exercise,” Klein said. “I can’t sell that. The man only painted a dozen pictures. It’s the Poussin I’m betting on.”

  “Don’t. You’ll get stung. Mind if I get another drink?”

  Gentle headed back through the house to the lounge, Klein following, muttering to himself.

  “You’ve got a good eye, Gentle,” he said, “but you’re unreliable. You’ll find another woman and off you’ll go.”

  “Not this time.”

  “And I wasn’t kidding about the market. There’s no room for bullshit.”

  “Did you ever have a problem with a piece I painted?”

  Klein mused on this. “No,” he admitted.

  “I’ve got a Gauguin in New York. Those Fuseli sketches I did—”

  “Berlin. Oh, yes, you’ve made your little mark.”

  “Nobody’s ever going to know it, of course.”

  “They will. In a hundred years’ time your Fuselis will look as old as they are, not as old as they should be. People will start to investigate, and you, my Bastard Boy, will be discovered. And so will Kenny Soames and Gideon: all my deceivers.”

  “And you’ll be vilified for bribing us. Denying the twentieth century all that originality.”

  “Originality, shit. It’s an overrated commodity, you know that. You can be a visionary painting Virgins.”

  “That’s what I’ll do, then. Virgins in any style. I’ll be celibate, and I’ll paint Madonnas all day. With child. Without child. Weeping. Blissful. I’ll work my balls off, Kleiny, which’ll be fine because I won’t need them.”

  “Forget the Virgins. They’re out of fashion.”

  “They’re forgotten.”

  “Decadence is your strongest suit.”

  “Whatever you want. Say the word.”

  “But don’t fuck with me. If I find a client and promise something to him, it’s up to you to produce it.”

  “I’m going back to the studio tonight. I’m starting over. Just do one thing for me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Burn the Poussin.”

  He had visited the studio on and off through his time with Vanessa—he’d even met Martine there on two occasions when her husband had canceled a Luxembourg trip and she’d been too heated to miss a liaison—but it was charmless and cheerless, and he’d returned happily to the house in Wimpole Mews. Now, however, he welcomed the studio’s austerity. He turned on the little electric fire, made himself a cup of fake coffee with fake milk, and, under its influence, thought about deception.

  The last six years of his life—since Judith, in fact—had been a series of duplicities. This was not of itself disastrous—after tonight it would once more be his profession—but whereas paint
ing had a tangible end result (two, if he included the recompense), pursuit and seduction always left him naked and empty-handed. An end to that, tonight. He made a vow, toasted in bad coffee, to the God of Forgers, whoever he was, to become great. If duplicity was his genius, why waste it on deceiving husbands and mistresses? He should turn it to a profounder end, producing masterpieces in another man’s name. Time would validate him, the way Klein had said it would: uncover his many works and show him, at last, as the visionary he was about to become. And if it didn’t—if Klein was wrong and his handiwork remained undiscovered forever—then that was the truest vision of all. Invisible, he would be seen; unknown, he’d be influential. It was enough to make him forget women entirely.At least for tonight.

  Three

  AT DUSK THE CLOUDS over Manhattan, which had threatened snow all day, cleared and revealed a pristine sky, its color so ambiguous it might have fueled a philosophical debate as to the nature of blue. Laden as she was with her day’s purchases, Jude chose to walk back to Marlin’s apartment at Park Avenue and 80th. Her arms ached, but it gave her time to turn over in her head the encounter which had marked the day and decide whether she wanted to share it with Marlin or not. Unfortunately, he had a lawyer’s mind: at best, cool and analytical; at worst, reductionist. She knew herself well enough to know that if he challenged her account in the latter mode she’d almost certainly lose her temper with him, and then the atmosphere between them, which had been (with the exception of his overtures) so easy and undemanding, would be spoiled. It was better to work out what she believed about the events of the previous two hours before she shared it with Marlin. Then he could dissect it at will.

  Already, after going over the encounter a few times, it was becoming, like the blue overhead, ambiguous. But she held on hard to the facts of the matter. She’d been in the menswear department of Bloomingdale’s, looking for a sweater for Marlin. It was crowded, and there was nothing on display that she thought appropriate. She’d started to pick up the purchases at her feet when she’d caught sight of a face she knew, looking straight at her through the moving mesh of people. How long had she seen the face for? A second, two at most? Long enough for her heart to jump and her face to flush; long enough for her mouth to open and shape the word Gentle. Then the traffic between them had thickened, and he’d disappeared. She’d fixed the place where he’d been, stooped to pick up her baggage, and gone after him, not doubting that it was he.

  The crowd slowed her progress, but she soon caught sight of him again, heading towards the door. This time she yelled his name, not giving a damn if she looked a fool, and dove after him. She was impressive in full flight, and the crowd yielded, so that by the time she reached the door he was only yards away. Third Avenue was as thronged as the store, but there he was, heading across the street. The lights changed as she got to the curb. She went after him anyway, daring the traffic. As she yelled again he was buffeted by a shopper, on some business as urgent as hers, and he turned as he was struck, giving her a second glimpse of him. She might have laughed out loud at the absurdity of her error had it not disturbed her so. Either she was losing her mind, or she’d followed the wrong man. Either way, this black man, his ringleted hair gleaming on his shoulders, was not Gentle. Momentarily undecided as to whether to go on looking or to give up the chase there and then, her eyes lingered on the stranger’sface, and for a heartbeat or less his features blurred and in their flux, caught as if by the sun off a wing in the stratosphere, she saw Gentle, his hair swept back from his high forehead, his gray eyes all yearning, his mouth, which she’d not known she missed till now, ready to break into a smile. It never came. The wing dipped; the stranger turned; Gentle was gone. She stood in the throng for several seconds while he disappeared downtown. Then, gathering herself together, she turned her back on the mystery and started home.

  It didn’t leave her thoughts, of course. She was a woman who trusted her senses, and to discover them so deceptive distressed her. But more vexing still was why it should be that particular face, of all those in her memory’s catalogue, she’d chosen to configure from that of a perfect stranger. Klein’s Bastard Boy was out of her life, and she out of his. It was six years since she’d crossed the bridge from where they’d stood together, and the river that flowed between was a torrent. Her marriage to Estabrook had come and gone along that river, and a good deal of pain with it. Gentle was still on the other shore, part of her history: irretrievable. So why had she conjured him now?

  As she came within a block of Marlin’s building she remembered something she’d utterly put out of her head for that six-year span. It had been a glimpse of Gentle, not so unlike the one she’d just had, that had propelled her into her near-suicidal affair with him. She’d met him at one of Klein’s parties—a casual encounter—and had given him very little conscious thought subsequently. Then, three nights later, she’d been visited by an erotic dream that regularly haunted her. The scenario was always the same. She was lying naked on bare boards in an empty room, not bound but somehow bounded, and a man whose face she could never see, his mouth so sweet it was like eating candy to kiss him, made violent love to her. Only this time the fire that burned in the grate close by showed her the face of her dream lover, and it had been Gentle’s face. The shock, after so many years of never knowing who the man was, woke her, but with such a sense of loss at this interruptedcoitus she couldn’t sleep again for mourning it. The next day she’d discovered his whereabouts from Klein, who’d warned her in no uncertain manner that John Zacharias was bad news for tender hearts. She’d ignored the warning and gone to see him that very afternoon, in the studio off the Edgware Road. They scarcely left it for the next two weeks, their passion putting her dreams to shame.

  Only later, when she was in love with him and it was too late for common sense to qualify her feelings, did she learn more about him. He trailed a reputation for womanizing that, even if it was ninety percent invention, as she assumed, was still prodigious. If she mentioned his name in any circle, however jaded it was by gossip, there was always somebody who had some tidbit about him. He even went by a variety of names. Some referred to him as the Furie; some as Zach or Zacho, or Mr. Zee; others called him Gentle, which was the name she knew him by, of course; still others, John the Divine. Enough names for half a dozen lifetimes. She wasn’t so blindly devoted to him that she didn’t accept there was truth in these rumors. Nor did he do much to temper them. He liked the air of legend that hung about his head. He claimed, for instance, not to know how old he was. Like herself, he had a very slippery grasp on the past. And he frankly admitted to being obsessed with her sex. Some of the talk she’dheard was of cradle-snatching; some of deathbed fucks: he played no favorites.

  So, here was her Gentle: a man known to the doormen of every exclusive club and hotel in the city; who, after ten years of high living had survived the ravages of every excess; who was still lucid, still handsome, still alive. And this same man, this Gentle, told her he was in love with her and put the words together so perfectly she disregarded all she’d heard but those he spoke.

  She might have gone on listening forever but for her rage, which was the legend she trailed. A volatile thing, apt to ferment in her without her even being aware of it. That had been the case with Gentle. After half a year of their affair, she’d begun to wonder, wallowing in his affection, how a man whose history had been one infidelity after another had mended his ways; which thought led to the possibility that perhaps he hadn’t. In fact she had no reason to suspect him. His devotion bordered on the obsessive in some moods, as though he saw in her a woman she didn’t even know herself, an ancient soul mate. She was, she began to think, unlike any other woman he’d ever met, the love that had changed his life. When they were so intimately joined, how would she not know if he was cheating on her? She’d have surely sensed the other woman. Tasted her on his tongue, or smelled her on his skin. And if not there, then in the subtleties of their exchanges. But she’d underestimated him.When, by t
he sheerest fluke, she’d discovered he had not one other woman on the side but two, it drove her to near insanity. She began by destroying the contents of the studio, slashing all his canvases, painted or not, then tracking the felon himself and mounting an assault that literally brought him to his knees, in fear for his balls.

  The rage burned a week, after which she fell totally silent for three days: a silence broken by a grief like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Had it not been for her chance meeting with Estabrook—who saw through her tumbling, distracted manner to the woman she was—she might well have taken her own life.

  Thus the tale of Judith and Gentle: one death short of tragedy, and a marriage short of farce.

  She found Marlin already home, uncharacteristically agitated.

  “Where have you been?” he wanted to know. “It’s six-thirty-nine.”

  She instantly knew this was no time to be telling him what her trip to Bloomingdale’s had cost her in peace of mind. Instead she lied. “I couldn’t get a cab. I had to walk.”

  “If that happens again, just call me. I’ll have you picked up by one of our limos. I don’t want you wandering the streets. It’s not safe. Anyhow, we’re late. We’ll have to eat after the performance.”

  “What performance?”

  “The show in the Village that Troy was yabbering about last night, remember? The Neo-Nativity? He said it was the best thing since Bethlehem.”

  “It’s sold out.”

  “I have my connections.” He gleamed.