Pentimento: a dystopian Beauty and the Beast (6 page)

It sounded like an awkward question, but Iris nodded. Of course, she
saw
it.

“Take a closer look, Iris,” her father said. “And tell me what you really see.”

“A beautiful boy and an even more beautiful girl holding hands and staring at the fountain in front of them,” she began. “They seem so curious, but also so happy.”

“So you’re sure they are both staring at the fountain?”

“Of course I’m sure, daddy!”

“Very nice,” he smirked. “Now look at this,” he began pouring the liquid onto the painting. Iris was going to stop him, so he wouldn't destroy the painting. She couldn't out of respect. “When I use this liquid on the painting and then scratch a little, then use a couple of other chemical components, the drawing starts to fade a little.”

Iris took one of her father’s magnifiers and neared it to the painting. Her father's words were true. “Stop,” she demanded finally, unable to hold back. “Why do you want to ruin this beautiful painting?”

Charles laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not doing it any harm. This liquid only peels off a very thin layer of the paint.”

“How thin?”

“So thin, you could barely see the effect with a microscope,” Charles said. “When you used the magnifier, you only thought you had seen it change because of the blurry liquid and your concern about the boy and the girl in the painting,” he winked at her, as he began moving the painting to another table.

Iris's face reddened. She was still confused. “Then what’s the point of all this liquid and scratching?” she asked.

“This is the point,” he signaled for her to follow him, as he pulled the painting gently out of its frame and folded it over a box on a third table. He clicked a button nearby and the box shone with white light from underneath the painting. “Now look at the painting again.” Charles said.

Iris craned her neck, inspecting the much brighter painting now. The light from underneath made all the colors glare and weakened their contrast. “Do we have to use the light?” she said, unhappy with how the painting looked.

“Of course, we do. Just look. What do you
see
?” he had that smirk on his face again.

Iris was about to rub her eyes to see more clearly, when the truth struck her like lightning. Her mouth stood open and she couldn’t make a sound. Under this condition, she saw that the boy and girl weren’t both looking at the fountain. In fact, the boy was looking at the girl. He was mesmerized by her beauty. Infatuated by her. The painter had captured all the emotions a boy could have for someone he’d loved with so much detail. It was an even better painting than what she’d seen before. Except that the boy wasn’t as beautiful. The look in his eyes showed great passion, but he himself wasn’t good-looking like she'd seen before. The boy was simply, a beast.

“Do you still think they both are looking at the fountain?” her father said in a voice that resonated with her long after that. It wasn’t a question. It was a celebration of some kind of magic.

“But how is this possible?” Iris wondered. “I’m sure I saw them both stare at the fountain back there. Is this magic?”

“Do you believe in magic?” her father raised a single eyebrow.

“I’d like to, but they say it doesn’t exist in school.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to forget about what the Council and the Beasts teach you?” Charles rambled. “If you believe in magic, then there will be magic. Anyhow, here is why you saw the boy and the girl looking at each other before,” he tilted the painting a little, so the light hit it from a different angle now.

That was the unforgettable moment when Iris saw what Pentimento really meant for the first time. And it forever changed the way she saw things. Iris saw there were two pictures on that painting. An older one, where the boy was a beast and looked at the girl, and a newer painted-over one, where they both looked in the same direction at the Fountain of Love. Without the light, her father’s liquids, and the scratching, it couldn’t have been possible to see the painting underneath the painting.

“It’s incredible,” Iris let out a tight shriek.

“The painter began the painting with the boy as a beast, and looking in the girl's direction, in the beginning,” Charles explained, staring at the picture. “Then for some reason, as the painting progressed, he changed his mind and decided to draw it from another perspective.”

“But why?" Iris wondered. "Why did he think of the boy as a beast in the beginning?"

"This one escapes me," Charles said. "Fragorand lived in The First, and possibly even before The First. He must have had a change of heart at some point."

"Do you think Fragonard knew how the Beasts looked?"

"I don't think so, because the Beasts hadn't arrived in his time."

"Maybe he was painting the future." Iris suggested.

Charles laughed. "That's far fetched, Iris. If that is true, then who is the girl with the boy?"

"I am so confused, daddy." Iris couldn't take her eyes off the painting. "But I have a question. Why not paint from scratch, instead of painting-over?"

“My guess is that because canvases, the material they painted on, were incredibly expensive back then. Painters were usually poor folks all over history. At least that's what my father told me.” Charles pulled back the painting and walked to his main desk, where he’d left his glasses. "And before them, my great ancestors, whoever they were, said the same. I haven't met many people who knew much about Pentimento in my life.”

“I think I believe your ancestors,” Iris said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, especially if the painter could paint so good."

"There is one other interpretation though," Charles said reluctantly. Iris didn't say a word. She thought her father was going to say what was lurking in her curious mind. "Maybe the painter intended for this to be a hidden message, like you've been suggesting. Something he wanted to pass on, but had to be kept from certain folk too. I couldn't think of a smarter way to do it. You bury whatever you want to say underneath whatever you want people to think they see. How clever, to have a secret blurred in front of people's eyes."

"Especially if you wanted your secret to survive through history," Iris mumbled, and then looked around her in the basement, wondering if many things were just a cover for another truth buried behind them. That would have made the world a lot less boring. She could spend her days exploring and looking for those secrets underneath every wall and every painting. When she grew older, she learned that the same applied to the words people spoke. They'd say something when the truth--their Pentimento--was something else entirely. "So are all these paintings full of hidden paintings like these? Are they all Pentimentos?” Iris said.

Charles smiled. It was a serene smile, as if he was having the kind of conversation with his daughter he wished he had with his wife many times before. “Not all of them. And what you saw isn’t exactly called Pentimento, but a variation of it.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Pentimento isn’t usually when you just find an older painting underneath another,” he explained further. “But when the newer painting fades due to natural aging from years passing by, giving way to the older one to surface on its own.”

“Is that possible?” Iris suddenly noticed her father was actually much more fun than her mother.

“It happens every day,” he said, then shrugged. “Everything ages and peels off its layers until its bones are finally exposed, even humans. And only then, when we're able to see through those recent layers, right down there in the bare heart and soul of things, do we see what whatever we're looking at was meant to be in the first place. We see the truth.”

"The truth?" Iris held a finger to her lips. "Are you saying everything around us is a lie, daddy?"

Charles lowered his head for a moment, looking at his laced fingers. Iris had expected him to tell her, “No, Iris. Not everything around is a lie. Just some silly paintings we might come across every now and then.”

But Charles didn't say any of that. He said nothing, and his silence was puzzling. Iris waited for him to answer her, but then her mother's voice came interrupting.

Charles raised his head and winked at his daughter to go upstairs for now. "We'll talk about this in more detail later," he bowed down and kissed her. "Now I have to put on my boxing gloves. Your mom probably knows you know about my secret, and we'll have a little ‘conversation’ about you."

Iris tried her best not to laugh. She loved her mother. But her dad was right, one had to wear those gloves sometimes, when negotiating with her. Iris stopped by the door though and turned around, although she could hear her mother's footsteps stomping angrily down to the basement.

"Is it necessary that one figures out the layers underneath, daddy?" she thought this was a much easier question for him to answer. And she needed an answer before her mother arrived. "I mean, does the truth matter so much?"

Charles smiled. "I think it does. So we might have a chance to know who we really are."

"Your dad is really something, Iris," Colton said, standing in front of the building in the Ruins. "How come he wasn't hired by the Council? Such mentalities should serve the nation, and not be buried in a basement."

"My father isn't buried," Iris protested. "He does what he likes, and doesn't care about the Council."

"I didn't mean it that way," Colton shrugged, the sadness still pulling on his face. "So tell me, what does this Pentimento thing have to do with this building?" his eyes inspected all the wooden ladders climbing diagonally on the surface of the walls.

"The building is a Pentimento," Iris sighed. "Don't you get it?"

"How can a building be a Pentimento?" Colton scanned the building with his eyes, in case he missed something. "It's not a painting."

"Actually many of the brick and stone buildings in the Ruins are," Iris explained, ushering him closer to the wall. "Look," she pointed at a certain post that was shoulder-high.

"It's a wall, Iris," Colton began losing his patience.

"Look closer."

In spite of how absurd it seemed, Colton stared through the smoke surrounding them, unable to see something special on the brick wall. Iris pulled out one of her weird instruments from her bag, the one that looked like a silver torch. She clicked a button on it, and a purple light spread out on the wall.

"Can you see what the wall really is now?" she said, remembering when her father told her the same thing about the painting years ago.

"Actually yes," Colton grimaced, as his face shone with curiosity. "It's sort of painted. What is this?" he snatched Iris's instrument and strode back about ten feet, splaying the light on the wall, taking in the bigger picture. "It's an advertisement," he declared. His sudden excitement drew a small smile on Iris's face. The sadness on
his
face disappeared momentarily. She was glad for him. "It's an advertisement about The Council's bank, offering a great loan to better your life. The same advertisement that fills the streets of The Second," he strode back and gazed at Iris. "Why is there such an advertisement painted on a wall in the Ruins?"

"I’m not sure," she said, happy with Colton's enthusiasm. "My guess is that people still used to live in the Ruins when the Council first ruled. Maybe this place was a beginning, just before they designed our land. But that's not the point."

"It isn't? You're such strange girl, Iris," Colton pursed his lips. "Then what is the point of this building, and the ladders you designed yourself? Seriously, I thought you were going to tell me something that will help me know what happened to Eva."

Iris shrugged. Had she overdone the suspense? Or was it her subconscious trying to spend as much time as possible with Colton? After all, he wasn't here for her. It was for Eva. She should have respected that. "Switch that purple light on again," she told him. "And point it at the wall."

Colton shot her a criticizing look, but complied reluctantly. He found the button and switched it on again, pointing it at the wall, which was suddenly flooded with a purple light. "Wow." he mumbled.

"It's called a black light," Iris said. "Do you see what this is all about now?"

Colton didn't
see
at first. Iris had noticed that human eyes usually resisted the Pentimento when they first looked at it. It wasn't disbelief or stubbornness. Simply the habit of seeing things a certain way and the inability to change perspectives, all at once. She watched Colton's confusion wither slowly from his face. It looked like he wanted to say something, but was speechless. His eyes widened. His
irises
widened. The black light showed the older drawings beneath; the drawings covered with the Council's advertisement. "It's a Pentimento," Colton said. For a boy with such a confident voice, he sounded weakened and shocked now. He even touched the wall's surface with the tips of his fingers, to make sure it wasn't an illusion.

Iris nodded proudly, just like her father did with her. "The Council's advertisement runs as high as the building itself, probably covering older writings..."

"Which probably belongs to whoever inhabited the Earth before the Beasts came. The First." Colton cut her off, kneeling in front of the building, as if it were a holy temple. This was what he was looking for. A lead, however thin, so he could learn about the Beasts and find out what they had done to his girlfriend. "I knew it,” he snapped his fingers. "Those before us must have left a sign. I knew it!" Colton stood up and turned to face Iris. He shot her that damn look again. Her body felt the warmth of his eyes on her. "You're a genius, Iris," he held her by the shoulder. Iris freaked out. His touch and his looks implied he was going to do something crazy. He leaned his face closer and kissed her on the cheek. It was a clutchy kiss, as if kissing a soldier friend after winning the war. Nothing of what Iris had dreamed of. Still, his lips sent shivers through her spine.

Colton, confused by the awkward moment, turned around and ran up the diagonal ladders on the wall, pointing the black light at every part he came across on the wall. "So you’ve come here all this time without telling anyone?" he kept climbing. "How many hours did you work on this building? Did you use your father's liquids and methods to peel off the Council's advertisement? Are there other buildings? What do they say?"