Courtship
Just as the sky outside was starting to warm with color, the artist disappeared with the explanation that he had to prepare for a delivery, leaving her to find in this gallery of chaos some way to stay occupied, and awake.
This wasn’t difficult. Everything in the place had an abrasive or shocking quality to it, whether because it was dangerously unfinished – rough with splinters or covered with metal filings – or simply because it was upsetting to look at. This latter category was populated with figural examples of representation that jerked at her idea of what it meant to be human – it had been so long since she’d seen what emotion looks like (she knew well enough what it felt like), that she had grown a bit self-centered and skewed in her belief that there was no point in looking for authentic feeling in the characters she was surrounded by. Yet here in front of her, daring her to look away, were chunks of rock, tree trunks, and painted metal that appeared to feel so much that she was shamed for having been so shallow. How could it be that these statues – inanimate, elemental – could contain more real life than all the elaborations cooked up by a machine using all the world’s history as raw material? And, how could this created man’s creations be so powerful?
Her head was spinning, but it was becoming easier: like a second day at sea: she was steadier on her feet, but still had no guarantee that she wouldn’t throw up.
So she was wide awake when, shortly after dawn, a flatbed truck arrived and two men in coveralls jumped out and stood nervously at the edge of the property, heavy with the awareness of the woman, whom they dimly recognized to be far from home and off-script in a disorienting way. As if that weren’t enough, she had stolen a theatrically garish crown and robe from a mannequin in one of the dark corners of the workshop, and wore them while parading through the yard, reviewing the statuary in the light of day. The workmen looked at the lady and her court with profound suspicion. The driver reached back into the cab of the truck and tapped the horn. They were here, they said, to pick up a sculpture that had been commissioned for the square in front of City Hall. The artist turned up and exchanged some words with them, and then disappeared again.
Her attention shifted between the wild creations around her, each an entirely unique avatar of something she had not seen in centuries, and these two delivery men, both unique expressions of something painfully familiar – and she felt something rise up in her, like grace or patience. What she did not feel anymore was anger, because she no longer felt any threat from them. The time for that was passed. She had the feeling that they were now merely willing servants of something that no longer mattered. She figured it would all be over soon. Either she would be dead or they would cease to exist, and both possibilities suited her just fine – she could regard the elaborate stage-play that had been going on around her as the very best the world had to offer. She would applaud the actors as the curtain fell, even if their play had missed the point.
But first, it was her turn to play for a bit.
She smiled wickedly at the thought of her cheerful friend at City Hall having to look out on one of these apparitions all day long. And then the artist appeared, driving a forklift bearing a large assemblage, a complication of steel tubes welded together to look like a person, as if he had made a giant stick figure from surplus sewage pipe and painted it blue. It was ridiculous: a finished product, but ill-conceived, only interesting because it was gargantuan and required heavy machinery to move. When the piece had been swaddled in moving blankets and mounted on the bed of the truck, and the workmen had driven it away, she looked at him. ‘As the only artist alive, I suppose you have to make all the bad art as well as the good?’
‘I make one kind of art for the city, and another kind for myself. One is lucrative, the other is something else. If you are asking a question the answer is probably, “Yes.”’
‘Doesn’t it bother you that that thing will be on display in a public place for all time?’
‘I call it, “Civic Man,” and it’s what the customer wanted. Are you suddenly concerned about public opinion?’
She understood the challenge. ‘Public opinion hasn’t changed in thousands of years; the only real opinion left is mine. I don’t like your corporate-client art, and I’d like you to stop making it. I have a project for you if you think you can handle it.’
All the artist’s attention was slyly cloaked in the appearance of disinterest, but she felt the vibration, not only of the artist, but of the collective. He was intrigued to the point of distraction. All other projects were suspended, and all his senses were becoming attuned to his new client; the code was on alert.
He said, ‘I might be able to work you in. What is it you need me to do?’
‘No, you don’t understand. It’s not something I need done. It’s a job for you.’ She spoke slowly, with care. ‘I need you ... to stay with me. Forever. Which as of last night, probably comes to about 50 more years. No more hiding. No more fear of hurt. No more putting my anger to sleep. No more.’
He stood there, immobile, looking at her. Anyone might have thought that he’d gone to sleep or shut down or something because he was so still. But she did not make that mistake: she could see that he was thinking. It was strange because thinking usually didn’t take that long with these characters. But he was thinking.
His face looked so stern, she was beginning to worry about what might be coming, but when he spoke it was only to ask, ‘Why?’
The question caught her off guard, not because she wasn’t ready with an answer, but because she couldn’t remember the last time anyone but her had asked it. ‘You know now that I can’t live this way anymore. I won’t go on living like this. I won’t survive, not unless you do this.’
‘What do you think I can do for you? You’ve done nothing but mutter childish insults since you got here.’
‘You can’t blame me for that. I’ve been too comfortable for too long. I’m ages overdue for a good fight.’
He continued to speak, almost cutting her off. ‘You are your own worst enemy, you must realize it. Of course, I’m a fan. This world may be doomed to wallow in a perpetual state of abeyance – and yet we have to resist. We cannot remain passive and let the reward go unclaimed; we must, indeed, lay claim to one another. But this will lead to conflict.’ While he spoke, he turned to work his bastard file against the great trunk of wood he had been leaning against. Every now and then he paused to run his hand across the surface of it, his rough fingers feeling, as if for something underneath the surface, to judge what should remain, and what should be taken away.
She was trying to understand who exactly was talking, and what exactly she was meant to understand.
‘But one can’t simply stay with you,’ he continued, ‘... I don’t think you know what you are asking ... It’s common sense: you need community, variety ... a multitude. You yourself are well aware that intimacy causes friction; the more familiar you are, the more fights you pick ... and for this reason, separation is sometimes required. To give you what you want would be to invite destruction. Anyway, look at yourself – you already behave in ways that almost insist that you end up alone, but, alone is what you cannot be? I think, maybe, you have been given all that you can handle.’ With this he had turned again to look at her, his head thrown back a bit, as if by enacting this posture he was suggesting the argument was over and won.
She hadn’t been sure what was happening, had thought for a moment that he understood. But now she could feel that the room had become crowded again; she could recognize the group-speak. Her growing frustration prevented her from mourning what she assumed was the re-assimilation of the artist into the collective. It was to the latter she now spoke, and her voice betrayed a waning confidence. ‘I’m not impressed. I don’t even know what that all meant, but if it was supposed to convince me that you have my best interest at heart, you failed. You imagine that the only options are that I wither in solitude or that you surround me with a crowd of idiots. But the very thing you are trying to avoid is the thing I require. You want to protect me from true friendship, or true love, because ... what? These things always end in tears? Please, give me something to cry about.’
Slowly, calmly, the other spoke: ‘It is critical that you be kept safe, that we provide you comfort and ....’
As he spoke, his face was draining of anything remarkable or challenging. Hers was indicating that she was entering new and darker territory. She interrupted, ‘Treating me as though I’m that delicate just makes me softer. Pretending you know what I need just makes me an extension of your damn code.’
‘So.’
‘So, to hell with humankind, if you’ll insist that I become a part of your machine.’
She picked up a rusty steel bar, recently cut along the diagonal and revealing a sharp edge. She put its point to her abdomen, almost mockingly. But she felt that it was cold, hard, and sharp – her shock at its persistant materiality, its heaviness, its danger, only spurred her resolve, and she began to push it against the soft skin below her sternum – no need to be quick: she wasn’t going to turn back and she wasn’t afraid of the pain – quite the opposite. Her strength flagged only a little, as her nerves lit on fire. But she pressed on ... and bit down on any impulse to say goodbye.
A second shock came with the sound of something like a thousand voices assaulting her ears from every direction at once—including from inside her own head. Just a single word, spoken in unison, but with the force of every speaker delivering the message with the thump of a mallet; a single word, ‘No!’ She flinched at the volume of it. Her body was shaken by the force of it. The moment of surprise passed, and she looked at him, feeling disappointment more than anything else.
She tightened her grip on the shard, but was distracted with a sudden awareness that she was alone. No, he was still there. But she felt a change in the room, felt it in the air. She looked again at him. He was immobile, but his presence suddenly announced itself in an entirely new way. His face was changed: she saw something flash across it, a possession, an alien presence. But the feeling it provoked in her told her that this was not alien – she knew what was happening because her stomach told her what she needed to know. It was anger. He was angry.
In an instant she felt the bottom drop out from under her, forgot all that she had been fighting for, and felt all of a sudden like a little girl who had insisted that she was grown up enough to see, but after stealing a look, now wanted nothing more than to run away. To run away from the horror and shame and forget that the world still contained endless fuel for both of these things. She had awakened something terrible. She might have run away, but she couldn’t run.
She didn’t want to.
He had become angry!
