Skyscape (29 page)

“I couldn't be more willing to cooperate in any way I can.” He made sure that his voice sounded slightly bored, a trick he had learned from English friends of his youth who, pretenders to elegance, spoke in a slow, careless drawl, as though half-asleep.

But it was all pretense. He was as nervous as he had ever been, but more than anything, at the moment, he was eager to get out of the sun. The Italian summers could be heavy-handed, but this was punishing. Mirage began at one hundred feet away and quaked, mercury-bright, so dazzling that it reflected things almost perfectly, palms, the outline of the villa.

He was accustomed to the enclaves of the wealthy, the security-burdened Greek islet, the Montecito villa. But this place was different, more handsome and more remote than any place he had ever visited. His shadow pooled under his feet, an ugly shape.

They walked toward the shade, toward the big iron gates. The fringe of the oasis seemed to retreat before them, tantalizingly.

The shade, when they reached it at last, was cool. Loretta Lee led him to poolside, where a sparrow was taking a bath in a trickle of water. Bruno wondered if anyone had been swimming here just moments before. The thought was electric—perhaps Curtis himself.

She vanished for a moment, leaving Bruno in delicious shadow. She returned with Bruno's drink of choice, iced coffee, on a tray. She sipped a tall drink of her own, something clear and sparkling embellished with a wedge of lime, and they strolled for a moment with their drinks, enjoying the botanical cool.

Patterson was not to be seen. Bruno began to feel irritated. “What is this very difficult thing that Dr. Patterson is trying to do just now?” he asked.

“Did you see Dr. Patterson the other day? On TV? They had him sitting here for the video, right under this big aloe.”

“I heard about it, but I'm afraid I missed it.”

“You never in your life watched
Hollywood Midnights
, did you?”

“Of course I did,” he said, and, to spur the subject in a new direction, Bruno remarked on the beauty of the garden. The plant life included the bright green tines of cycads, and dozens of varieties of cacti. A fountain played somewhere, or perhaps it was the spring itself, the source that gave its name to the acres of green.

“All your doubts would have been settled if you'd just seen Dr. Patterson explain how well everything's been going.”

“I'm sure you're right.” The coffee tasted good, although already the melting ice was starting to dilute it.

“The difficult thing Dr. Patterson is doing is this: it has to do with you. He's with Mr. Newns right now, trying to talk him into seeing you.”

“I certainly hope he succeeds.” Although, Bruno did not add, I am much more interested in what Curtis has been painting than complimenting him on how well he looks. “Is he recovering from his injuries?” he asked.

“Mr. Newns loves the solitude,” she said. “He's a very private person. I hadn't realized that.”

“I think that's the value of art, don't you?” said Bruno. “Artists bring out of themselves, in solitude, what can become the colors of our lives.” Bruno regarded what he had just said. He liked
colors of our lives
.

The house itself was mock-Spanish, with wrought iron grilles over the deep-set windows. The walls were sand-pink, the pastel bleached in places where the sunlight coursed through the dense plant life.

They returned to poolside and sat, teak furniture creaking under their weight. Loretta Lee was one of those beauties common around the film and television world. She was not the product of education or good taste. Her presence was animal, all energy and good camera angles. You see men and women on the screen and you think: people like that don't exist.

“I used to like painting,” she said. “I didn't try to do it myself—I mean, I used to like art books and museums.”

“Really?” Bruno was being polite. Given the need he would be polite to Godzilla. But he wanted to get on with this meeting, and he was not prepared to engage in small talk with this healthy female mammal. He was thirsty for more iced coffee, and he wondered if the headache might be about to return. The thought that Patterson was this very moment in conference with Curtis made him eager and edgy. He was so close to the truth.

“I think Dr. Patterson looks at me and sees someone who has a lot to learn,” she said.

“He couldn't possibly think of you as ignorant.”

“I am, in a way, but I do okay. I take care of everything.”

This claim of universal husbandry confused Bruno for an instant. Her gaze was too steady, her air of simplicity both genuine and practiced. She was one of those seemingly straightforward people Bruno had always found enigmatic.

“It must be interesting to work so closely with Dr. Patterson,” said Bruno.

“If you had to pick one painting in the whole world as the most important, which would you pick?”

“You mean, if I was forced to pick—at gunpoint?”

They both laughed at the thought, but then Loretta Lee appeared to be sobered by some thought or memory.

“I thought that Curtis's painting of the sky was the finest single work painted by a living artist,” said Bruno. The thought of the painting saddened him for a moment. “Some people would say the painting by Velázquez at the Met, the portrait of Juan de Pareja, is the single most important painting in the world, but the very thought of picking one painting is so indescribably limiting I can hardly stand the idea. Besides, portraits are a category of their own, aren't they?”

Bruno's voice had started out in the tones of a self-guided tour, but his comment had ended with Bruno gazing about himself in disbelief. No one kept him waiting this long.

“Dr. Patterson will be with you very soon,” she said.

He must have betrayed his impatience with a twitch, a look in his eye. He didn't like that. He had learned long ago, bidding at Sotheby's, waiting for the display carousel to turn and expose a priceless dream: don't show the slightest anticipation. He had started out placing bids for people who could not be troubled to make their way to New Bond Street themselves. The experience had taught him much of what he knew. “I'm sorry. Please forgive me,” said Bruno. “I could sit here forever, it's so lovely.”

Loretta Lee knew better. “We have to cooperate with Dr. Patterson, Bruno. If he wants us to wait—then we wait.”

How odd it was to have this woman, still years from her first chin-tuck, speaking to him so frankly. Maybe he would find it refreshing, if he got used to it. “Tell me—” He was about to ask: what is the new painting like? But that would loosen a tangle of questions—where is it? When can I see it? He could not keep from asking. He was just about to lean forward and whisper
tell me something
—
anything
.

Loretta Lee stood and flashed a smile across the pool, and Bruno stood to follow her gaze.

Bruno had hoped to see Curtis. There, across the shimmering surface of the swimming pool, was Red Patterson.

Patterson was deep-chested, dressed in something vaguely cow-boyish and expensive, open collar shirt, denims, snakeskin boots. His face had the unmistakable, vital glow of a careful tan.

Patterson embraced Bruno, gave him a hearty, healthy hug, and then held Bruno at arm's length. “I am so happy to have you here,” he said.

Bruno had expected to dislike Patterson. He was surprised at his own reaction. He liked Patterson at once, and wanted Patterson to like him in return.

Patterson was happy. Bruno felt himself relax. This exuberance was so impressive, so capable of rolling away all that lay before it, that it was only as they were about to enter the house that Bruno stopped, and looked back at the palms and cacti around them.

“I want to see Curtis,” said Bruno.

But Patterson had already hurried away, into the villa. “Don't stand around down there. Come on,” said the energetic psychiatrist.

Bruno felt light-headed. The two of them were striding through the chilly interior of the big house.

“I know how you feel about this,” said Patterson, leading Bruno up another stairway. The famous man's boots clumped on the hardwood floors. “So why waste time?”

This was happening so quickly. “I realize what an intrusion my visit is,” panted Bruno.

“I'm delighted that you're here,” said Patterson over his shoulder. “I love your tape on Cézanne—pure brilliance.”

Bruno was out of breath. The broad dark oak door had to be unlocked, and Patterson held the door open so that Bruno could enter. He was ready to call a greeting, but then his instincts told him that the artist was not in this room, that this room had been abandoned to the merely physical—walls, floor, vaults of light.

But there was a presence.

A work of art stood at the far end of the room under the folds of a cloth.

This was a large room, a ballroom or a banquet hall, with dark wooden beams in the ceiling. The room could be well lit, but it was partly shuttered, the sunlight spreading across the wooden floor in irregular shapes. Dust motes, fine, subtle, spun in the shafts of light.

There was the intoxicating smell of oil paint, and a large glass jar containing a sheaf of brushes. Bruno liked this—a jar of economy-sized peanut butter, say, or institutional pack pickle relish spending its long retirement serving art. A tarp was rolled up neatly against the wall, leaving the floor unspotted.

He was letting himself notice these little details because he was stalling. The longer he waited, the longer he would delay what would almost certainly be disappointment.

Patterson was poised like a showman, a stage magician. The painting was a broad rectangle covered with a sheet, completely disguised by the folds of muslin.

Bruno had traveled to see this—and now he could not bear to look. He gave a nod.

Patterson stood to one side, lifted a hand, and gave a tug.

The sheet gave way and spilled to the floor with a soft sound, a sound that altered the pressure in the room like the pulse of distant thunder. Bruno stepped back.

Patterson opened a pair of shutters, and then another. The sun was so bright that it took awhile to get used to the radiance, the great empty expansiveness of the canvas sending the afternoon sun right back into the room.

So I am disappointed, after all, thought Bruno.

The canvas was empty.

He put a finger to his lips.

Wait.

He took a step. He was wrong—the canvas wasn't empty. There they were—the skeletal lines, the reach of colors, the depth pin-pricked in with dabs, faint, deft, of azure.

There was a sweep of feeling in Bruno, unmistakable: this was it.

This was what he had been waiting for.

This canyon of blank space fell away from him, rolling to a horizon, a world only Curtis could envision, that other, newer world, keener than the one born every day.

Bruno slipped on his reading glasses. He stepped to the canvas, so close the weft and fiber of the surface was vivid before him. The smell of the oil was strong, and yet he wanted to see the cut and smear of the painting knife, and identify the touch, as sure as a signature, of the brush against the fabric.

Curtis had begun a masterpiece.

But the work was so lightly touched upon the canvas, and the canvas so big, that Bruno needed a few more moments to take it all in.

The shroud rose back into place.

32

Patterson locked the studio door behind them. “You will want to fly to San Francisco tonight,” said Patterson. “To reassure Mrs. Newns.”

“Of course,” said Bruno.

“And then I suppose you'll return to Rome—what a wonderful city.”

Bruno agreed that this was his plan.

“I'm afraid you may have to hurry just a bit. I arranged to have a few members of the media meet you at the airport in San Francisco.”

“Why not?”

Patterson laughed. “You're good at this, aren't you?”

Bruno laughed, too. He made a sideways motion of his head, acknowledging the compliment.

“I'd ask you to dine with us,” said Patterson, “but I think the world is eager to hear from you.”

“Actually, I was reluctant to tell you that I wanted to leave right away,” said Bruno. “I was afraid you'd be offended.”

“There is no need to be afraid of anything,” said Patterson. “Ever again.”

After a sip of iced coffee, and a brief chat about Curtis's past, his foster families, his mistrust of anything European and fondness for everything American, Bruno rose to leave.

And to think, thought Bruno, that I had begun to consider myself a force that might be fading, someone with a interesting history and a dullish future. Bruno laughed at himself. How fresh everything looked, the spikes of the sego palms, the glorious saw-tooth edges of the aloes.

It was still afternoon, but shadows were lengthening. The desert beyond was golden. Patterson saw him to the edge of the airstrip, then walked back to remain at the very edge of the shade.

Bruno ducked inside, happy to seclude himself in the cool interior of the aircraft.

It was quick and easy, thought Bruno. This is how they do things in the New World. Easy in, easy out, and I have a future again. He waved at the figure at the edge of the oasis, the glowing man Bruno would have recognized anywhere, the way the famous have of weighing into us. You can close your eyes, Bruno thought, and there they are, the well-known celebrities living and dead, tattooed on the psyche.

This icon was waving at Bruno once again, and Bruno waved back, health and farewell, a true physician.

However, as the jet taxied, Bruno's delight began to fade. By the time they were airborne Bruno began to reconsider the image of Patterson. That tan, that exuberant, confident smile.

What sort of man was he, really?

But soon Bruno was lost in an optimistic reverie, and it was easy to forget Red Patterson altogether. The man was not important, really. He was a mere midwife, an attendant upon the creation of this new future.