Tuesday, July 30, 2013

chapter Four


to read from the FIRST CHAPTER





EPISODE 7



A lie often enough repeated 
becomes the truth.

Or not.

(a chapter to the luxurious song Liar by Jay-Jay Johanson)




We ate in silence. My father concentrated on his food, and never looked at me, what gave me the impression he was avoiding me. His story had given birth to more questions... Why had he and Catherine hidden so many things from me? My father's poverty, his tough beginning as an artist... And if I had understood well, my mother had hidden something about that Armand de Montbelle... probably that Carlo had left us for him... Otherwise, what was the point in Carlo telling me a story about his relationship with that man who was a complete stranger to me? And that apparition thing? That revelation talk... what was that supposed to be?!!

'Ma che meraviglia! This food is really wonderful!' -- my father suddenly exclaimed. He was the typical Italian who enjoyed eating and appreciated good food -- 'How did you learn about this place, Laurent?'

'It belongs to a friend of Dan Charmand, who recommended it to me...' -- I dropped the bomb. Dan had been the director to Vice's Contemporary Art Museum, where my exhibition was opening the following day, for almost two decades now. His passionate, diligent work, along with his charisma and unstoppable determination, were responsible for VI/CAM being one of the most important and prestigious museums in the world, and consequently Dan was one the most powerful and influential men in the Olympus of Art. 

'You know Charmand!' -- my father exclaimed in dismay. Dan had also been my artistic mentor for almost a decade now, and the walls of the lounge were covered by Romantic portraits curated by him, good enough but not too valuable to be displayed in an ambient with the steam and smell of food. Is he trying to teach me another lesson in art?, I wondered as I had entered the lounge a couple of hours ago. The owner of the restaurant couldn't have paid Dan for his consultancy directly, since his position in the Museum did not allow it, but Dan was made free of charge at the lounge and he had extended that privilege to me for one night -- 'How come?! Did you meet him just now, for your show?'



'No, not really... I met Dan... Mr. Charmand, I called him at the beginning, haha... some ten years ago, when I was going to the university here... Dan has been... like a father to me...' -- I used that word on purpose, to watch Carlo's reaction to it.

'Dan Charmand... fatherly?!?' -- Carlo gasped -- 'That's the first time ever I hear anything nice being said about him! Dictator, despot, tyrant... that's more like him! Have I heard you call him simply... Dan?! How in hell have you met him?' -- I rejoiced at my father being a bit angry, perhaps jealous even -- 'Oh my God, will I see Dan in one of your portraits?!?'



'Haha, Carlo! No, Dan is not one of my ex-lovers...' -- and when Carlo raised his eyebrows I knew what he was thinking and I immediately clarified -- 'Nor is he my present lover, Carlo. I don't have one at them moment... But never mind. I met Dan through Angelo' -- I had to clean my throat as  I spoke that doomed name --, 'my boyfriend at the time... Dan owed Angelo a few favors, let's put it that way... And Angelo owed me many favors! Angelo was continuously cheating me at that time, but I loved him and would forgive him repeatedly... I was so afraid to lose him, I would do anything to keep him, and I think he felt guilty sometimes...' -- I confessed, but I knew Carlo was interested in Charmand instead of Angelo.




'Angelo had always insisted I was a better painter than I was a writer, and to prove himself right he arranged an interview for me with Dan. Contrary to my expectations for such an important figure in the Visual Arts world, Dan came one day to see my amateurish works... I was so scared during his visit, just waiting to that moment when he would spit on one of my paintings... He was silent and very solemn, but less arrogant and haughty than I had expected. "Bacon meets Gilbert and George" he commented about one of my nudes, a self portrait. Then he said my portraits were bold and crude -- that was all. I didn't get whether it was a compliment or a criticism, but I guess he liked them, haha, because since that first visit my career has been practically under his sole guidance...'

My father seemed at once disgusted and fascinated at my association with Dan Charmand, but before he inquired any further, I moved on with the subject and towards the point that interested me.

'You've never met Angelo, have you Carlo?' -- I observed anger and resentment rising in me with the memories of my ex-boyfriend -- 'I met Angelo a couple of years after you left, we were just teenagers... and we stayed together for almost 8 years... We both joined the Journalism School here in Vice City... We shared a room, we shared a bed, we shared a life... Pretty much like you and your Armand... Carlo, you haven't answered my question. Is it... "like father, like son"?'



'Haha, that's very skillful of you, to pose your question that way. About me and "my Armand", as you say it... He is a public figure now.' -- he paused. -- 'You might have heard of him...' -- Another visual artist? I thought --Professionally, he uses his mother's family name, Purlux Drurien.'

'You mean...' -- I gasped, and almost chocked -- "your Armand" is the famous architect Armand Purlux Drurien? Oh, I love his work so much!' -- I was elated -- 'So clean, elegant and contemporary. He's one of my best loved architects!' -- I did not hide my surprise nor my enthusiasm, and I also wanted to show off my knowledge and let Carlo know how I had grown to be a citzen of the world, so far from that frightened rural teenager he had abandoned. -- 'Didn't he win the Pritzker Prize a few years ago? His program of quality housing for the poor is so dignifying!' -- I had thought of studying Architecture myself, and Purlux Drurien had been one of my inspirations... And now I had just discovered my father had shared a bed with him in Paris?! -- 'Wow! Carlo, why are you telling me this story that involves Purlux Drurien? I'm getting more and more confused!'



'Confused how, son? It's about your own genesis... In a way, it is indeed "like father, like son", Laurent. Can't you see it?' -- Carlo smiled, and his glance drifted until he was looking right into his glass of wine, perhaps noticing its deep color or how it reflected the light, but he did not drink from it -- 'You've become a painter, like me. I haven't met your Angelo, but I know from your mother that he was the only relationship you've had so far...' -- that came as another surprise, that Carlo knew something about me coming from my mother? Had they been talking? And when? -- 'And it has ended for how many years already? I'm sorry, son, I see you suffer when we talk about him... The point is... Just like I've only had Catherine myself. She's been my only lover, can you believe that?' -- Carlo gave a sad smile, nevertheless a bit ironic too.

That remark from my father had hurt. He had just learned about my extensive list of lovers, yet, with acumen he clearly saw and pointed to the fact that Angelo had been my one and only love so far, the one I still hopelessly felt attached -- and perhaps even attracted -- to.

 'I'm a loner, and so are you, Laurent.' -- Carlo continued -- 'It is like father, like son indeed, but there is more, and you'll understand everything soon!'




'The next morning meditation...' -- he continued with his story -- 'the apparition was there again, standing in front of the sun, in a cloud of light.'

But since that pacifying dream I had had with the child, I was no longer afraid. My heart was beating really fast, and my body temperature seemed to have decreased, even under the tropical sun, but I was able to slowly stand to my feet -- and the apparition did not evaporate like the other morning.



I approached the child and was able to see his features better -- it was a boy, beautiful like a cherub... And suddenly I knew it... he did not belong to that island... he was not one of the spirits who had not been born, nor the ghost of some baby born dead... This boy did not come from the past... This boy was coming from the future to meet me! That boy who visited me at the beach on the Birth Island... I remember for sometime thinking that boy was me, the new Carlo, who had been reborn on that island and had a chance to begin anew... But to answer your other question....



That morning, Armand again met me at the beach. I'd usually swim after my meditation, and instead of going back to the house, I waited for him to join me. Like I said, I knew how he enjoyed his privacy, and I tried not to be too much of a nuisance to him, on that private paradise he had found for himself.

We just silently sat there, exchanging a reassuring glance every once in a while, to again rest our eyes on the vast horizon -- one could almost be sure that the earth was round, because the horizon resembled a curved line.

Ships slowly went by announcing our imminent farewell, and I thought we shared the same feeling -- another day together on the island also meant one day less to be together on the island, with Armand's impending departure... After all the excitement of the first two days, my heart had settled and I could sense Armand's melancholy so much stronger.



The silence between us had grown immense.

They say silence is an angel sitting between two people... Was that boy that had appeared to me... that angel of silence? And did Armand sense I was now hiding something from him?

Because ours was an uncomfortable silence, full of expectations -- you could sense the tension in the air, and no angel.

It was a silence born from fear as a father, and a secret as a mother -- I sensed Armand staring at me when I was not looking at him, and averting his gaze whenever my eyes tried to meet his. Had Armand seen the boy, too, and was just waiting for me to mention it? Because I sometimes sensed a new and intense curiosity from his part directed towards me, an expectation, as if Armand was silently questioning me...

I thought he might have seen the apparition, too. Little did I know.




Those moments wouldn't last forever, and no matter how uncomfortable they were for two loners on a lonely island, suddenly the seed of a conversation would spring up and our peaceful and pleasureable routine be restored.

Or was it that we had spoken about all that mattered to our souls, and then fallen silent?

Our only remaining conversation topics seemed to be Armand's restoration plans for the house -- he still had a few of them to share with me, and the corresponding instructions. I was more than willingly happy to engage in the labors he proposed me.



That afternoon, after another marvelous healthy lunch, we worked in the little garden by the swimming pool. Armand had bought several plants when he had been to the bigger islands, but his first attempt on trying to cultivate them himself had been a failure -- they had all died. I thought the problem was the sandy soil, and I proposed him to grow some compost to enrichen the earth. He loved my idea -- from classical he had turned into ecological. India had changed him so much, I thought, but the changes seemed to be not over yet.



And I loved his vision -- or more concretely, his plans -- of planting more bushes and flowers all around the house, like a colorful frame to the building he wanted painted white. And he wanted colorful patterns on all textiles too, "to bring the flowers and foliages inside the house", as he put it.

There would be plenty of work for me during the time my friend would be in France. I was excited about it!



Armand had painted some beautiful watercolors showing how he envisioned the garden, the flowers and bushes represented by spots of different colors on the paper, mingling and creating a circle around the square of the house. He had always been an amazing colourist, perhaps much more than me if I were to be honest, but now he was going beyond his many talents -- and putting them to work.



And that was my main impression about the new Armand, as we walked around the island and he pointed the spots where I was supposed to work at -- all that used to be in the realm of ideas and concepts for him was now becoming reality, turned into concrete expressions of the deep transformations he had undergone in the past few years, with the collective revolution in his family, and his personal revolution with the trips to Asia, especially India.



His personal transformation was so inspiring -- more than that, it was contagious! And since Armand had always been the utmost generous person, helping people around him -- and towards me his generosity had been superlative --, he was now integrating me in the most important and positive period of his life!



When Armand went for a nap, and after having slowly wandered around the island, I suddenly felt driven to paint. It had been a long, long time since that last canvas completed in the abandoned factory, that had turned out well, and that I did not want to burn with the others, having given it to the doctor. All that seemed to stand in another life, or someone else's life. Now I wanted to experiment with that glorious light that bathed the tropics.

I installed my easel right on the beach, and for a while I just stared at the blank canvas, so shiny under the sun that it almost blinded me... Where were the decadent themes I had been working on at the factory? All around me it was Nature in poignant bursts of colors and forms and textures...



Later in the afternoon, Armand had approached and for a while just stayed there, silently and contentedly watching me paint, like he had often done in Paris, when I'd bring to our room a canvas I wanted to go on painting after the École had closed. For I was not among the students who would break into the school in the evenings to continue working, or even as it was often told, make love.

'C'est magnifique!!' -- he was suddenly cheering -- 'I did not want to pressure il signore D'Allegro, but I'm very happy to see that the artist has decided to work again!' -- he had applauded.



I was so happy! Armand had always been my greatest supporter, and it meant a lot to be painting in his company again, just like it had been so usual for the five years of the École des Beaux-Arts. He had seen it all, and so I asked:

'What do you think about this, mon cher Armand?'

'Haha, if you hadn't asked I would have told you anyways...' -- and Armand dismissed his cheerful tone -- 'Mon cher Carlo!' -- he began, with his rich, silky and sweet voice -- 'I see you have come a long and beautiful way... The time spent as a hermit, fasting in that abandoned factory, has given your strokes an intensity they did not usually have... Look, even your posture, standing there before the canvas, has changed! Your chest is broad where it used to be narrow and your neck is straight up, when it used to curve in anxiety towards the easel... You don't seem to be suffering anymore, when you paint. That's a great change, I think, and how this new posture reflects on your paintings! Great things await you, Carlo, I'm sure about it. And I hope your art will profit just as much from the time that you are going to spend on your own on this island...'



With his generous heart, Armand soon devised a scheme to turn my paintings into money: he would buy them from me, hang them in the rooms and inform the future guests -- "the European aristocracy, not the backpackers, haha!" -- they were for sale... His guesthouse would then double as an art gallery for my paintings.



And I finally found the courage to unroll and show him the paintings from my Parisian "hermitage", like he had so elegantly described the abandoned factory where I had starved.

'Mon cher, cher Carlo...' -- Armand had tears in his eyes -- 'You must have suffered a lot...' -- he was impressed with how dark and gloomy my paintings were, and how they focused and cirurgically portraited decadence -- 'They are very impressive, my friend... And surprisingly  contemporary! What would your teachers from the École have said... They would have called you a traitor, to say the least! What a wonderful traitor you have become!' -- it sounded funny that, from his perspective, Armand had always thought I was the conservative one.

He then chose one of the paintings I had brought with me to hang on the wall of his bedroom, 'buying' it from me -- it was his way around the fact that he wanted to pay me for the work I'd do for him in the house, when I actually wanted to pay him for housing me.




Another sunset at the beach, but it was not the same from the past days. Having shown my paintings to Armand had drawn us even nearer -- he had transformed a lot, but in the meantime I hadn't completely frozen like I had thought... I had beautifully evolved, he assured me.



Those were the new days for a new Armand, but for a new Carlo as well.



Nightswimming, deserves a quiet night... And we had them all!

The night sea welcomed and blessed our new old friendship.



And because Armand had always been so honest and generous with me, I decided to tell him about the apparition. I thought he was expecting it, for he was clearly expecting something else from me.

'I have something to tell you, mon cher ami... And I don't know how you'll take it...' -- I introduced the subject as skillfully as I could.




Armand looked at me attentively, expectantly. And I thought he knew what I was going to talk about, which made that weird confession much easier to me.




'It must have been one of the children that was unable to incarnate since they have forbidden giving birth on this island.' -- he dismissed it immediately.



'No! It's nothing like that. It's not a lost soul, not a soul coming from the past. And it doesn't look like a native boy at all! He's very pale, even his hair is white...' -- as I tried to explain it to Armand, the apparition seemed to make more sense to me -- 'It's a child with a very antique soul... It's coming from the future to meet me... It's like... This child... He is my future!'

'If you say so...' -- it was Armand's only comment. By his look of dismay to my mention of the apparition, I immediately knew he had never witnessed anything like it on the island -- and he probably was frustrated because he had been expecting something much deeper and much broader than that.

I was continuously hurting my best friend, unaware of it.



But I was hurt, too, more than I was worried about his reaction -- or lack of  -- to my story. His apathy to my confession was alarming. There was really something wrong with him.

'I think I'm going to paint a bit more...' -- and I was ready to explain how I had become fond of the night light to work on my paintings, but he didn't seem to have heard me, absorbed by his own feelings.

I just left him sitting by the fire pit. And I don't remember it happening before -- I was mad at Armand!








10 comments:

  1. Poor Armand. He was hoping that Carlo's story was about how he felt about him. It must have been really disappointing to hear about some apparition on the beach :( And blind Carlo has no idea that he's hurting him because he can't see how Armand feels and is now mad at him! It's a shame Armand can't come out and openly admit his true feelings towards his friend. Not wanting to pressure him with even the slightest thing it has to be so hard.

    And had Carlo admitted there to Laurent that it was indeed "like father like son"?

    I think that child is a future glimpse of Laurent. It does look like him anyway. But then that means at some point Carlo left the island to become a father, but then returned? :( Hopefully he wasn't living a double life as well with both Catherine and Armand!

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    1. Thank you for showing interest in Armand, Daijahv! He really appreciates it!

      This is a very difficult moment for him, and he seems unable to make a choice -- either he opens his heart and comes out to Carlo, expressing his love and being truthful to himself... and risks losing Carlo's friendship, or he keeps his forbidden love in silence, to keep his friend. Will Carlo accept his love? And if not, will Carlo accept his sexuality? No matter what, such a revelation would have an impact on their friendship... Will it survive? It won't remain untouched, for sure.

      Armand invited Carlo to the Île du Blanchomme with the strong determination to come out to him. But now that his friend is actually before him, words don't come so easily... Theirs is a beautiful friendship, with strong and sincere bonds, and both treasure it. What Armand sees is not so much Carlo's blindness for his feelings, but his total confidence and satisfaction in their relationship as it is now. When they hug, for instance, Armand perceives that is the culmination of their brotherhood for Carlo, while he is no longer satisfied... He wishes to caress, not just touch Carlo's body.

      That's what troubles Armand -- should he risk losing what he has, precious, genuine and deep as it is... for something he's not sure Carlo will be able to give him? Does he really think Carlo will make a better lover than a friend? Is it romantic love so much better than friendship in their case? But when Armand looks at Carlo's strong arms, he longs to be nested in them… At the same time he is deeply tormented at this desire, wishing he hadn't these feelings for his best friend.

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    2. "at some point Carlo left the island to become a father, but then returned? :( Hopefully he wasn't living a double life as well with both Catherine and Armand!"

      this is a comment coming from another writer (well, they all are :)... this is totally different from what I had envisioned for the plot, but so interesting! It could have been another book! thank you for sharing your ideas!

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  2. Their lack of communication is causing hurt on both sides. :(

    Thank you for the wonderful explanation in your reply to Daijahv's comment. It gave me additional insight to Armand's inner conflict.

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    1. Carlo and Armand are communicating just on the level they have accustomed themselves to during years of a long and nurturing friendship... Which sufficed for their relationship before, but now there are too many words left unspoken, and emotions left hidden, and they will both suffer as long as they don't create a new channel and new intensity in their communication.

      But this is not so much for Carlo to do -- as he says, he keeps bringing out the sincerity in Armand, which is not spountaneous... So it's up to Armand to overcome his fears and set a new path for their empathy. That's tough on Armand, and he knows it. Often his heart comes up to his throat, blocking the words, bringing tears instead...

      I think I've said it before... maybe someday I'll share Armand's journals so we can have an insight on the deep waters he's been moving for a long time now...

      thank you for reading and commenting, Lily -- it really makes me happy!

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    2. I'm a hopeless romantic, so your story is right up my alley. I'm enjoying it so much that I stayed up later than I should've last night to read just one more chapter. :D

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  3. I'm having to skip the comments, lest I spoil the storyline for myself :D It's always one step forward and two back with these fellows, isn't it ... the poor dears.

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    1. I'd say Carlo and Armand are trying to dance together, but to different songs, of very different rhythms, and then "it's always one step forward and two back".

      They go both through the same day, doing the same things, yet their experiences, and their needs, their longings, their expectations are so different. Let's hope they can harmonize!

      whenever I reply to the comments, I try to avoid spoilers, yet adding more detail to the characters and their feelings, if that is the case.

      But I see your point, here, and I'll try to be even more careful! Thank you!

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  4. Oh poor both of them! LOL. It was so sad they became closer through Carlo's paintings, only to be pulled further apart from things gone unspoken. It's too bad Armand was so lost in his own thoughts that he couldn't have a discussion with Carlo about the future boy. I wonder how or if Armand will ever go about telling Carlo... XD

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    1. It's the first time they have a grievance in their relationship, and both Carlo and Armand might be lost in their wrong perceptions of the moment the other is going through.

      They have so little time to spend together that it's a pity to see their hearts sinking while they are going apart -- though they will have to resolve this, for they cannot stay away from one another on such a tiny little island, sleeping in the same house and sharing the meals.

      Thank you for reading and commenting, LKSimmer!

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All comments and questions shall be answered, thus adding more details to 'the last canvas' :)

cheers!