“Um . . . I’m here to see Mr. Rasp.”
It sounded like a question.
The suited man did not react, did not take his eyes from Girder’s. He spoke with a hollow voice and an accent Girder couldn’t place.
“He does not take visitors.”
“But I—I have a painting here I thought he might want to buy.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Why?” Girder stammered. “Because I’m Girder Schill.”
Dark eyes slipped behind narrowed eyelids. Girder shuffled, paper-wrapped parcel at his feet.
“Should I know who that is?”
Girder frowned. His voice betrayed his irritation.
“Mr. Rasp bought some of my paintings from the Overground. I think he might be interested in seeing more.”
A noise, between a sniffle and a snort. A raised knotted hand.
“Wait here.”
The man vanished behind the closed red door. Girder’s anger welled; red patterns mixed and swirled with other colors as they crept over his eyes, abstract shapes betraying some secret. Girder willed himself to calm down. He had no conduit for the vision at hand. He could not allow himself an episode without documentation. No puzzles without all the pieces. Girder looked down at where his narrow hands must have been and willed them to appear through the haze. He visualized each digit, forced the vision back to the edges of his sight until it passed. His mouth tasted like a battery. His heart beat wildly. Every muscle in his body tensed and ached. It took ten cold minutes for the door to open and a pale tan hand to beckon, fluttering urgently like a wounded bird.
Through some strange refraction of light, the foyer appeared too large, too long. The ceiling was at least twenty feet from the ground, trimmed with ornate cornicing, and the walls were dark with paint or shadow, lined into nothingness with rows of artwork. A table lamp illuminated the foyer just barely, chasing the darkness to the corners to bide its time. The thin man materialized from the dark like a strange specter.
“Mr. Rasp will be right with you.”
Girder’s nerves jittered. Rasp could be his salvation. If so, betraying Raymond would be worthwhile, even if the gallerist had been the only one brave enough to show Girder’s work. He called it “a violent cacophony of nightmares.” For Girder, they were catharsis, rage and inadequacy painted on canvas; a conduit for his hallucinations, something he barely understood. “It’s automatic painting, dear,” Raymond said. “All the best do it. It’s a money-maker.”
Yet that money never came.
“No one likes looking at them, dear,” Raymond said, tipsy on champagne as the show closed, his tiny eyes glazed bubbles. “It unnerves them.”
And continued to unnerve them over the following days. At least, until Rasp arrived.
An unusual odor wafted into the foyer. Damp, meaty, stale; so subtle it might have always been there. A pale shape floated through shadows some distance away, hovering a few feet from the ground like a humming wasp’s nest. When further veils pulled back, Girder saw ill-defined features coalesce. From nothing formed what could only be the wrinkled face of the elusive Mr. Rasp.
He was rotund. Confined to a wheelchair pushed by the tall assistant, and cocooned in a heavy indigo robe, Rasp’s pale bulbous head was perched on the folds around a bruised throat. No other flesh was exposed. His gloved hands were attached to withered lifeless arms that rested at his side. The wheelchair stopped a few feet from Girder, and the artist had to stifle his reaction. Rasp’s flesh was nearly translucent, filled with dark spiderweb veins, and his red mouth was an open wound, revealing too many tiny discolored teeth.
“You are Girder Schill?”
The wound spoke with incredulity, the voice harsh, consonants accentuated yet wet. Doubt momentarily infected Girder. He favored his good leg.
“Yes, I am.” He belonged there; he repeated it to himself. “I’m sorry for showing up without warning you first.”
“Never mind. Never mind.” Rasp’s head rolled, threatening to fall off his rigid body. “You aren’t as I expected you. One builds an image in one’s thoughts.”
Girder knew that all too well.
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr. Rasp. I have a painting here and I—”
“Nonsense. You aren’t taking any of my time at all. Come, you could no doubt use something to drink. You look positively drained.”
“Well, I—” Girder started, but Rasp was gone before he could finish. The sound of rubber wheels echoed, voices fading. Only the rows of paintings remained.
Girder carried his package and found Rasp in the sitting room, his tall assistant by his side. The room was bigger than Girder’s entire apartment. Yet, in there, Rasp’s presence swallowed the space.
“Sit. Nadir will bring something to drink. Do you have anything in particular you’d like?”
“I’ll—I mean, I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Oh, I won’t be drinking with you. Despite how I look I’m on a very strict diet.” Yellow smile, dark gums revealed. Still, Girder tried to laugh, though he was certain it sounded forced.
“Just a beer, I guess. If it isn’t any trouble.”
“None at all. Nadir?” The thin man nodded, almost bowed, then slipped through the doorway. “Now, while we wait, let’s take a look at this painting. I’m rather excited, as you can imagine.”
Girder stood. Everything rested on how Rasp reacted to the work. Without his patronage, Girder’s future was dire. His leg wobbled long enough to catch Rasp’s eye. He put it out of his mind and focused on the string tied around the painting’s frame, and how it had become knotted. He worked the knot with the tips of his nails, knowing they were far too short, but also that he had no other way of opening the package. The panic was sour in his throat.
“I’d help you but—” Rasp looked down at his own thin withered arms. Girder nodded, then struck upon an idea. Keys from his pocket found the twine, and there followed the sound of a bowstring being plucked. Girder carefully removed the flat brown butcher’s paper. Rasp stared hungrily. Girder’s stomach growled.
“This one is called ‘The Empty House.’ It’s oil on canvas.”
Girder held the painting at arm’s length. Rasp’s voice wheezed, “Higher, please.” Girder lifted until his face was covered. “Nice, nice,” Rasp said, then a wet sound like lips being licked. Girder lowered the painting. Rasp looked beatific.
“It’s a wonderful piece. Wonderful. Just as I expected. The color, the emotional fury; it’s like a late-period Gotlib, or even a Munch—if Munch were any good. Compared to you, though, the two were finger-painting. I can
see
the emotion here, so much it hurts. Tell me, does it have a story?”
Girder’s father’s fists. Insults, jeers. A beating that irreparably loosened something in Girder’s brain. A cultured veil of fury; abstractions hinting at unfulfilled secrets. Vision that had to be fixed in place with paint to be understood, to be made real. It was his father’s dying gift.
“No, there’s no story. It’s just a painting.”
The fat man’s laugh sounded like wet choking. Tiny brown teeth bared, a dozen pale lumps struggling for escape against indigo folds. Girder became worried, but as Nadir returned, beer on a small platter, that mirth ebbed.
“It’s not customary for me to take visitors here, Mr. Schill, which is why I can’t offer you anything more exotic to drink. In truth, Mr. Raymond should not have provided you with any information about me. It causes too many ethical conflicts.”
Girder nodded but said nothing. He did not want to accidentally dissuade Mr. Rasp from the purchase. Instead, he slowly sipped at the beer he had been given and tried to keep his sensation of biliousness at bay.
“Normally, I’d have you sent back to Mr. Raymond to arrange the transaction, but your work is something to behold—so emotional!—that I’m willing to cut out the middle man, as it were, so I might get new works more expediently. I assume the rate I paid at the Overground would suffice here? Good! Nadir, take this piece and bring me a check for the normal amount. It seems Mr. Schill and I have come to an agreement.” Another smile full of ugly brown teeth. Girder questioned whether what he felt was happiness, especially when he held the check in shaking hands. It was more than Mr. Raymond had ever given him.
“You look pleased, Mr. Schill.”
“Oh, I am. Yes. This will help me out a lot.”
“Good. I trust then there will be more pieces coming?”
Girder had no doubt.
Girder returned home, energized. Why had he needed the gallery when the direct approach was so lucrative? Rasp would be his salvation, not smug, thieving Mr. Raymond. Girder’s work was finally being recognized for its worth; neither Raymond nor his dead idiot of a father could tell him otherwise.
The money paid Girder’s outstanding bills, and what remained paid for supplies. Canvases were stretched, paints were mixed; Girder’s specters hovered close, revealing themselves only when finally he held his brush. An opaque veil dropped, his eyes clouded. A landscape of colors clashing, a Rorschach of emotion. He worked hard to commit the essence to reality. Weeks passed, but the anger did not. The colors didn’t run, didn’t move. Instead, they leapt from the brush. Never had the euphoria been so cathartic. Never had the muse guided his arm so exactly. From him pains and sorrows flowed onto canvas. At the end of the fourth week, he awoke on the floor, paint outlining him, muscles aching. The work was done, though he couldn’t remember when. Exhausted, he staggered to bed, slept more than a day. His dreams were monochrome.
“Frankly, Mr. Schill, I feared you wouldn’t return.”
Girder’s face could not contain his smile.
“Of course I was going to. I painted this for you.”
“Oh, I should hope not. I hope you painted it for yourself. That’s where the choicest pieces originate.” And Rasp laughed, though it was strange and stuttered. His perched head rolled. Girder averted his eyes, but it was too late. He’d already seen it.
“Nadir, if you’ll do the honors.”
The tall assistant nodded, then reached to peel the butcher paper from the canvas. As he did so, his sleeve pulled too far back and a flash of skin stained different colors caught Girder’s eye. Just as quickly it was gone, replaced with the sight of Rasp expectantly dampening his lips with a sliver of desiccated tongue.
“Well, stand back, man,” he urged, and his assistant withdrew a few steps. Rasp looked at the canvas, then at Girder. The look on his face was inscrutable. Girder’s mouth was drier than it ever had been.
“Mr. Schill,” Rasp began slowly. “What appealed to me most about the pieces of yours I purchased from your friend, Mr. Raymond, was the
emotion
expressed in that work. It was as though your feelings had free rein. Love, hate, anger, jealousy, betrayal—it was all on display in brutally honest detail.” Rasp’s pale eyes were glassy, a thread of spittle crept from the corner of his bloodless lips. Then his eyes cleared, and he looked hungrily at Girder. “That is the kind of work I’m looking for from you, Mr. Schill, and I have little use for anything else.”
“I don’t understand.” Girder’s voice quavered. His father’s voice echoed from the caverns of the past. “Is there something wrong?”
“Wrong? Indeed, not. This is perfect.”
Perfect
. Not a word he’d heard before. The sound of it was strange and joyously unnatural. His father would never have used such a term. He might instead have laughed if he’d heard it uttered, especially in reference to Girder. “You?” he’d say amid drunken punches. “You’re joking!” Even in the haze of morning, when the fumes of his father’s drinking lingered like an uninvited guest, he might croak, “Sorry, Girder. Nobody’s perfect.” Years later, Mr. Raymond, who ostensibly worked to promote Girder’s art, would echo the sentiment. “Nothing is perfect, love. Your work challenges people because you
bleed
on the canvas; you fill it with your turmoil to exorcise yourself. But that’s why no one is buying your paintings. It’s because sometimes something nakedly displaying another man’s soul is unsettling at best. And at worst, repulsive.” But Mr. Rasp had since arrived and offered salvation. A corpulent angel with a lolling head, laughingly making easy what had always been difficult. All Girder deserved was finally handed to him without question. For a moment he almost believed that everything might one day be . . . no, he would not say the word.
“Perfect,” Rasp repeated on seeing the unwrapped canvas. “It’s absolutely perfect.” Girder exhaled and hunger returned to his limbs.
Not long now,
he told them, but they shook in doubt. The painting was a culmination, and those emotions painted an intricate landscape that even he could scarcely believe had been reproduced by his brush. Yet there it was. No doubt the painting looked better than he did: as the paints were mixing in his mind and subsequently drying on the canvas, he did not see a single mirror. Had he, the haggard man staring would have likely been unrecognizable. It came at a great cost to him. Wasn’t it reasonable to pass those costs on?
“I’m happy you like the piece, Mr. Rasp, don’t get me wrong, but the price on the work in the past— What I mean is, I feel
this
particular piece is bit beyond those in quality, and should maybe command something higher?” Girder’s voice wavered and body shook. The speech hadn’t been practiced enough, and it was too late to snatch the words back. The white of Rasp’s eyes narrowed, his small puckered tongue ran slowly over his lower lip. Nadir remained motionless, but Girder suspected he was affecting a lack of interest. Finally, Rasp bellowed, body rippling with laughter.
“Of course, Mr. Schill. Of course. I wouldn’t dream of cheating you on this most exquisite piece.
This
is true genius. Nadir, wouldn’t you agree?”
The assistant’s eyes barely grazed the painting; instead, they were focused on its nervous painter. Nadir again wore that inscrutable look upon his face. Was it pity? Jealousy? Whatever it might have been, it caused him to utter a few forced words under his breath before he snatched the canvas from Girder.