The Art of Deception

By Sergio Kokis

Where is reality to be found: at the surface of things or behind it?

Max Willem, a young art student in Montreal at the end of the 1960s, becomes obsessed with outward appearances - with makeup, costume, and masks of all kinds. For him, outward reality, and in particular that of the opposite sex, is composed of many veils of illusion and artifice through which he must see if he is to feel fully alive. At the same time, Max discovers his exceptional talent for art forgery. Moving to New York, he becomes a tool in the hands of a powerful international ring dealing in forged art, and suffers from the loss of his own artistic integrity. Himself seduced as much a seducer, how can Max escape and redeem his artistic soul?

In The Art of Deception, Sergio Kokis has written a novel about mystification and illusion. His exuberant narrative provides a caustic insight into the undersides of art and of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: May 1, 2002
• ISBN: 9781554886272

Sergio Kokis

Segio Kokis is a bestselling author in Quebec. He has published five novels in French. Funhouse (Le pavillon des miroirs) was his first novel, published to critical acclaim. Born in Brazil, educated in Germany and France, Kokis is fluent in Portugese, German, French, and English.

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KANT

Prologue

I have finally managed to achieve some peace of mind, even if I still suffer from fits of paranoia from time to time. These attacks are silly, I know, since no one here has the least idea where I come from. Better still, no one pays me the slightest attention. I have money, the press card I bought in Mexico City lends credibility to my cover as a photographer, and my visa is good for another eight months — long enough for people to forget about me, I think. My landscape photos are in any case so insignificant that even the local authorities are reassured. In the beginning they were afraid I was one of those gringos fanatical about the environment and just out to cause trouble. But not any more. However, at times I still panic when I think I’ve spotted some of Rosenberg’s agents disguised as tourists. Obviously that bastard won’t be so quick to forget me. But on the other hand maybe I’m exaggerating the repercussions of my revenge, for when all’s said and done he made a lot more out of my forgeries than I was ever able to get out of him. Of course, there’s the little matter of honour, together with the fact that at any moment I could spill the beans on him. At least I’ve no need to fear the police! Rosenberg and his cronies will try to settle scores with me discreetly, if they ever find me.

But the most difficult thing is to have to live each day with the strange inertia that has affected me ever since I came to this place. It’s quite incomprehensible — almost as if my life had been shattered. This Mexican village is as comfortable as anyone could wish for; I have a beautiful, very private studio, and there are plenty of marvellous models. Yet I find it impossible to draw, and I’ve no desire to paint. I’ve lost touch with what I once set out to do. I have both money and peace, but these past ten years devoted to painting and drawing seem to have drained all the strength from my own desire. All that is left to me is a state of deep confusion. Perhaps I was too closely involved in the art world, or maybe I passed through the looking glass when I turned my back on life. The charm seems to have dissipated, and I can’t find myself anymore.

Sometimes the words of my old teacher MaÎtre Guderius come back to me unexpectedly, along with the memory of his knowing smile, like an echo of Antwerp or the mocking laughter of what once was. I also catch myself taking long, imaginary strolls through the churches in his city, among the multitude of saints carved out of wood, as though my soul — Guderius used to call it my ‘daemon’ — was trying to find its way back to a path from which it has strayed. But it’s no use. The old man’s wisdom is no longer any good to me, and even more than the actual object of its quest my soul seems to have lost even its desire to advance.

I have more than enough time to think, but I don’t know where to start. Guderius’s advice that I continue copying the Old Masters in search of their lost secrets is of no help. I even avoid looking at reproductions in art books, for I’m afraid of losing my direction even more. And in any case I can effortlessly produce superb imitations of the master artists I admire most. I think my problem is rather to rediscover myself — the Max Willem I used to be, the one who existed prior to all my forgeries and lies.

Instead, I’ve decided to recount for myself the narrative of how I have reached such a point, the story of how I came to confuse art and deception. Perhaps if I can manage to put exactly what took place into words and come to understand it, this paralysis will relax its grip. Also, if I can get Vera into some kind of perspective by making her a character in a story, maybe the wound will begin to heal. For I am still hurt by her indifference to my feelings, and suffer not to be with her. Other women can’t fill the void she created in me, even if more and more I experience this void as a kind of shame, accompanied by gnawing anger. Anyway, more than anything it is this sense of shame I want to eradicate by grasping every detail of the part played by this unusual woman.

It is obvious my reputation can hardly emerge unscathed from such a narrative exercise — if indeed I do emerge from it at all. But what else can I do, when the painter I am is unable to grasp the thread of my story, leaving me only intolerable memories for company? Who knows what may happen if, while attempting not to deceive myself too much, I seek the answer to at least one small question: at what point did I begin to go astray? The mask’s outward appearance — its convex exterior — should help me imagine its hidden side, the concave part of the soul.

1

It’s no good going back to my childhood. I’ve already looked too hard in that direction without any tangible result. My itinerary was a very normal one, with no traumatism or oddity to explain later developments. As far back as I can recall mine was an uneventful and untroubled existence. Even my decision to major in Fine Arts when my friends were going into law or engineering doesn’t seem significant, for I’d always liked to draw, and it never crossed my father’s mind that I should do anything else. He had made so much money in the days when Port Alfred was an international port — with the usual Quebec mafia, hand in glove with the politicians — that it became possible for him to manage his affairs discreetly from his vacation property near Bar Harbor without ever having to set foot in Montreal again. His artist son would no doubt bestow some letters of nobility on the questionable fortune amassed by the Belgian immigrant he had started out as.

My attraction for the underside of reality, for its hidden corners and ambiguous situations, was initially just part of my natural childish curiosity. This unusual tendency took shape without my being aware of it. One day I realized that everyday reality — the innocent, outward appearance of things — held no interest for me. I was already irremediably immersed in a fascinating world of dissembling and disguise. Henceforth I would see people as composed of layered veils of illusion, of artifices whose secrets I had to penetrate if I was to feel fully alive. I had to see without being seen, to scrutinize the hidden depths of flesh and of life in search of their essences, which I sensed were not what they appeared.

I can’t explain my fascination with the sort of things that are conceived to give a false impression. But in that respect I can remember one memorable epiphany, the meaning of which I’ve never quite been able to figure out. It had to do with the silicone-enlarged breasts of a wealthy woman I encountered in 1963, early on in my studies. Her name was… but no matter, since she was merely an appendage to her majestic breasts. Men were attracted to her like wasps to a jam pot. This woman could make the most stupid pronouncements, mangle her words, and even neglect her personal hygiene to the extent that you could detect a slightly rancid whiff beneath her clouds of perfume, but none of this was enough to deter a cohort of rutting males. She was no longer in the first bloom of youth, and was a little heavy-looking in her loose dresses. Having obviously expensive tastes, she never bothered to keep her promises and lied insouciantly with the most ingenuous of smiles. She knew she was fascinating and didn’t even need to try to take advantage of the fact. That’s just the way it was. Other women yielded to her and paid her homage without a hint of animosity — a rare phenomenon indeed — as if she were some kind of aristocracy. She was indeed in a class of her own, for no evident reason.

I was much younger than she, but like the other men who flocked about her I found myself gazing at her, completely mesmerized by her charm. No, I wasn’t in love, but captivated by her like an animal caught in the headlights of a car on the road at night. And this was despite the fact that at the time I was spending every day in the company of desirable young women, while the models who posed for the life drawing classes at Sir George Williams University provided me with ample opportunities to feast my eyes on the female form in every imaginable posture. I also had quite a few female friends, most of whom were extremely liberated and quite determined to prove women equal to men in every respect, including their sexuality. Girls seemed amazed to discover they had a vagina, and never tired of learning its uses, while convincing themselves in all innocence that this was just one of the many ways to hook a husband. My at once bohemian and pleasing appearance took care of the rest.

So it wasn’t sexual privation that attracted me to this platinum blonde in her late thirties, who always wore boots to add some extra bulk to her rather skinny calves. Without her clothes she looked a little like an enormous inflatable doll on stilts. But in normal circumstances you didn’t notice this. On the contrary, what completely dominated your first impression of her was her childish pout. Her nose had been remodelled, of course, but it was botched job, for a scar on its too-concave bridge dangerously accentuated her surprising air of immaturity. This little snout contrasted with the rest of her rather large face, particularly when the latter was red and sweating from the summer heat. During our steamy afternoon orgies on my mattress on the floor with the windows closed, her face turned such a deep crimson that I sometimes had the impression I was making love to some hybrid creature, half newborn infant, half old peasant woman from Normandy. My critical eye — which was unfortunately not as perceptive as it might have been because of the bump and grind and the excellent Scotch she brought with her — never managed to establish a stable impression of her features. Like in those illustrations of optical illusions I would flip continually from one image to the other without being able to decide which was correct.

Nor was it a matter of physical desire, since she had very quickly consented to making love in my studio, at first pretending to be surprised and then to be in love, flattered to find herself the object of a young artist’s lust. Actually I was quite taken by surprise by her consent. I had hung back for quite some time, hesitating, a bit intimidated, overawed by such a collection of feminine assets united in a single whole and surmounted by a beatific smile, as her tongue played continuously with an imaginary strand of hair as she mumbled, with a gleam in her large, avid eyes.

I hadn’t wanted her the way I usually wanted my girlfriends. I merely observed her from a distance, relishing her presence in quite a different way, and it took me a long time to catch on to what was happening.

One day when I chanced to be sitting beside her at a restaurant table, I felt an irresistible urge to put my hand on her thigh. She went along with this while I went on chatting nonchalantly with the other members of the party. A little later, almost without exchanging a word, we hastily left the party together and got into her car. She had to drive fast or we would have made love right there in the middle of the traffic. All the way to my mattress I held the object of my desire cupped in my hands — these things that were to reveal to me a previously obscure recess of my artistic passion: her heavy, inflated, taut, misshapen breasts, with a strange consistency that allowed me to locate the pockets of silicone.

I had touched, stroked, nibbled, imagined, and contemplated so many breasts of every shape and size, but never any that had been cobbled together like hers. They must certainly have been the work of the same surgeon who had made a mess of her nose. Just looking at her I could picture some big fat doctor with jaded tastes, a lover of thick, rare steaks, dirty stories, and Cadillac convertibles. He would like to either hunt or stay in one of those Florida hotels decorated in pastel shades, or go on frequent cruises in the Caribbean. He had created her in the image of his own desire: the ideal prototype of the North American woman, with a daring architecture that defied the law of gravity. The downward drag of her heavy thighs didn’t make them pull away from her broad pelvis nor encroach on her skinny legs, but merely allowed them to float like natural counterparts to her suspended breasts looking for all the world like balconies laden with snow. And crowning it all was this insubstantial little rabbit’s snout. The overall impression reminded me of a kind of crude sketch done with an overloaded palette knife or some almost obscene, utterly expressionist daub, vaguely reminiscent of its real subject, Marilyn Monroe.

This was the work of a real artist. With limited means, using fatty tissue and flesh as his only materials, this sculptor had conferred life on the most recalcitrant of materials to express his dream of a sexual object — at once the eternal Lilith, Eve, and the Whore of the Apocalypse, surmounted by the face of a youthful slut whose innocent lisp hinted at a whole sink of sensuality. Here was indeed a past master at forgery!

At that particular moment and for the next few months I was still unaware of what I had discovered. My sole occupation was to knead and weigh her breasts as I immersed myself in their innermost nature. Their mysterious essence wasn’t easy to define, particularly since they were not in the literal sense assets intended to be seen unclothed. On the contrary, they were at their best framed by a generously plunging neckline, without a bra, and set off by her cascade of golden hair — just like a master-painting, intended only for a passing glance, and to be viewed from a reasonable distance. Indeed stripped of their adornments her breasts seemed to be artificially supported by an invisible structure whose presence was betrayed by the tension of the skin over her ribs. What is more, they looked grotesque, for the too-perfectly centred nipples made you think of suction cups applied to prevent the flesh from imploding beneath their lifeless surface. The most remarkable thing was the lack of that downward sag you see in water droplets and that makes the full-bodied female breast so attractive. No: they were held erect over invisible pockets, without that luscious roundness underneath that cries out for a pair of hands to cradle and support them, so that in their nakedness they looked like disused stage sets left abandoned in a warehouse.

Not only was I intrigued by this woman’s breasts, the artificiality of which I had divined, but her lovemaking also took me by surprise. With her my body acquired an energy I had never thought it capable of, and I abandoned myself to a new-found, almost compulsive and insatiable lust. As she lay naked beneath me, her open thighs offering me her shapeless underbelly bathed in sweat, this modern portrait of Marilyn Monroe manifested the viscosity of a Medusa and the vitality of an octopus. Her breasts were actually just an appetizer for a much more exquisite repast. When she displayed herself to me, wideeyed, with radiant features and a euphoric smile, it wasn’t my body that aroused her to ecstasy, but my eyes. Proud and voracious as she was, it was my gaze and my fantasies — my desire — that made her palpitate. She was instinctively aware that a passionate gaze never penetrates the surface of appearances, but merely skims it. This is what allowed her to transcend her earlier personality and previous nose and breasts, as well as her earlier feelings of ugliness or unfulfillment. It transformed her body and the attitudes she struck into a focus of symbolic desire and conferred on the viewer a powerful sense of potency and insatiability. This woman was a work of art — a spectacle and a feast that she offered with shameless extravagance.

This was her mystery. In her presence, confronted with her enthusiasm at being different from the person she feared she was, the most reticent of male organs would acquire hyperbolic dimensions and the most reticent of males would feel like a satyr on being given the mistaken impression he was the one who had brought such a glow to her face and provoked the tectonic upheavals of her ancestral pelvis.

It took me several months to free myself from this servitude. Fortunately it isn’t my nature to consider the penis the instrument of happiness, so I finally became nauseated with her. A compulsive quest for the ideal viewer was also one of this woman’s basic tendencies, so our break-up caused no problems, for she was already drawn to other much more imposing benefactors.

Sometimes even now I think of her as a kind of revelation. Yet I avoid dwelling on the havoc time must have wreaked on such an unreliable physical edifice. I’m glad to think I knew her at just the right moment, when the poor creature was neither too firm nor too flabby to the touch.

This encounter taught me an essential lesson about the relationship between the viewer and the work of art. Although I was still not entirely aware of the fact, the relationship between another person’s gaze and the representation contained in a depicted object had become a daily obsession for me. Of course, a good likeness hadn’t been essential to the appeal of the work, and indeed once I escaped from the hold she had over me I asked myself how it could possibly have been Marilyn I held in my arms when I was making love to such a pathetic creature. And even later when I saw her in the distance I would be overcome by almost a feeling of shame, preferring to attribute my fantasies to an excess of alcohol and to the powerful hash one of my friends had brought back from Morocco. But I couldn’t fool myself, and recognized that this ecstatic experience would take me much further.

My painting got a new boost from all this. In my drawings my models became transformed in a new way, with much less restraint. Their flesh acquired a sometimes sinister intensity; their faces were distorted in peculiar ways, and their genitals were displayed with all the reserve of meat in a butcher’s window. However, in this age of abstract art I met with only moderate success. In class, the teachers made lengthy detours to avoid my easel. My friends, while not broaching the matter head on, were beginning to warn me about the flashback effects of certain pills and mushrooms fashionable at the time. The girls, more prosaically, expressed their alarm with grimaces of disgust, and completely renounced any desire to visit my mattress. Only a few of the plumper ones, who were in little demand, still welcomed my company and in bed seemed to quiver with a peculiar tension when I made the effort to express my admiration. One of them in particular, who vacillated constantly between bulimia and anorexia, actually achieved some kind of stability at around seventy kilos as a result of my scrutiny. I recall, moreover, that this girl subsequently set up house with a member of the Hell’s Angels. The last time I saw her she had become something of a mystic with a beatific smile and had dropped out of Fine Arts to devote herself to the discipline of Krishna.

I discovered an original expressive power by modifying my drawings according to what was naturally suggested by my models’ appearance. The likenesses I massacred in this way radiated a strange beauty, with the result that some quite ugly females saw themselves as natural, unspoiled beauties after posing to be sketched by me. This fresh impetus was both reassuring and stimulating, for my drawings had always been too perfect, too realistic, almost photographic, making them appear anachronistic in comparison with the art of the times. After my encounter with Rosemont Marilyn I thought enthusiastically that I had become receptive to the modern aesthetic. And there was some truth to this, after all! It’s easy enough to draw an attractive portrait of a pretty girl, but a stroke of genius is required for the artist’s vision alone to endow an ugly one with vitality.

My modest studio was filling up with works, while it grew ever more devoid of human presence. But things weren’t that bad. I felt I needed to be alone to reflect on this discovery I was still unable to comprehend — particularly since my new attitude towards reality sometimes caused me problems. Indeed it was difficult to get rid of certain females who, feeling they were neither ugly nor stupid, gazed at me distraught, ready to follow me through hellfire. That is why for a while I took an interest in lesbians and radical feminists, who at the time were beginning to combine into a fighting force. But my freedom wasn’t assured for all that. Maybe I didn’t choose very well, and the look of admiration I had cultivated — a look that conferred aesthetic meaning on its object — sometimes produced genuine miracles in seemingly impervious individuals. Such excesses confirmed me in my certitude that reality counts for nothing compared to the desire of a person who has made up their mind to believe.

My life continued in an untroubled way, and I came to think I was coming to a clearer understanding of how I perceived the artist’s task. It was a question of transforming objects so as to turn them into simulacra capable of exciting sensual passion. I took art to be an expressive deformation, an exaggeration, or untruth, in an unusual guise — hence the attraction I felt for the grotesque and illusory effects of cosmetics and makeup. However other experiences would soon follow to teach me how far I still was from true aesthetic consciousness.

I was in the final year of my BA and feeling ready to launch myself into the world of art. At the time my studio was located in the basement of a warehouse belonging to a clothing factory on Boulevard Saint-Laurent near Rachel — a pleasant neighbourhood, with a foreign accent and exotic shops that still hadn’t become fashionable. The rent was reasonable, and I could melt into the crowd of Portuguese, Jews, and Ukrainians, who paid no attention whatsoever to the other Québécois.

I would work till late into the night. Occasionally one of my pals would come by to visit after the bars closed. This didn’t disturb me; far from it. They were tactful, good talkers, and never came without beer and pizza. So my mornings would begin around noon: the noise of the seamstresses and delivery trucks composed a reassuring lullaby to accompany my slumbers. A bigcity artist always feels secure, and even avenged, when he knows everyone else is at work. This is one of the rare privileges that compensate for the penury, lack of respect, and social insecurity.

Then, one day, just after dawn, Caroline knocked on my door. She had to raise quite a racket to get me out of bed. Wrapped in my blanket, with my eyes half closed so I wouldn’t wake up entirely, I managed to open the door. The girl stood rooted to the spot without speaking, looking upset, and hanging her head.

It’s me, Caroline, she finally managed to stammer out while I went back to bed, unable to understand the intrusion.

She came in, slamming the door behind her so loudly it startled me. Since her silence persisted, I finally stuck my head out from under the blanket. Caroline was standing there beside me, still mute, and showing no inclination to leave.

What’s the matter, Caroline?

Oh, Max, forgive me. I shouldn’t have… Are you feeling ill?

No, I’m OK.

Caroline seemed sorry she had come, and said nothing more. It was a most unusual situation, for I scarcely knew her. She’d come around a couple of times in the company of one of her friends who was posing for me, but we’d barely exchanged two words, so I wondered what had brought her. Had there been some kind of a disaster — a death, an overdose, or maybe just an arrest? I was looking at her, waiting for her to say something, when she started to cry — just like that, quietly, without sobbing, the tears running down her cheeks.

Caroline, come now, Caroline… Come; sit down here. Take a deep breath; there’s no hurry. I’ll get up and make a nice cup of coffee. Stay right there.

She sat down on a corner of the mattress like a little girl, hanging her head.

These female things sometimes take time, and I’ve never been too sure what to do on such occasions. I just know you’ve got to give them time and not rush them, and in the end everything usually turns out to be much less serious than it seemed. Even so, I was quite intrigued, and stayed in the tiny bathroom until I was thoroughly awake. When I re-emerged she hadn’t moved, so I was able to get dressed, make coffee, and put a few slices of bread in the toaster.

Caroline was a completely nondescript young woman, neither fat nor thin, dressed in the common or garden hippie style, with long straggly witch’s hair, a rather pallid complexion and eyes of indefinite colour, sandals on her feet, unremarkably dressed in a skirt of raw cotton and a fringed poncho. She gave no hint of sexuality, desire, or imagination. She seemed to be one of those girls who go with the flow and conform to their times, relying on others to show them how to behave. Just fifteen or twenty years earlier she’d have worn a nun’s habit, or a Red Guard’s uniform if she’d been Chinese. Maybe she was even still a virgin. I seem to think she was studying sociology or art history. No doubt she followed her more daring girlfriends around like a cringing puppy, never taking any risks nor above all exhibiting any feelings. There were thousands of Carolines, as there are in every age, and this one too would end up finding her niche somewhere or other.

Here, drink this coffee. It’ll make you feel better.

She obeyed mechanically. I was able to observe her at my leisure, detachedly, the way you might observe an insect. The morning light entering through the filthy little windows did actually light up my studio in a way I rarely had the opportunity to observe. I was almost glad I’d been wakened so early. Coffee, toast and jam, and a cigarette soon make up for such a rude awakening. When all’s said and done, getting out of bed is the most difficult part.

Max, I’m so ashamed to have come… But I’ve no one to talk to. It’s so stupid!

She fell silent and I waited paitiently for her to continue.

And anyway, I’m so afraid people will laugh at me. I’m always scared people will laugh at me.

That’s not important, Caroline. Tell me what’s the matter, please.

I felt a bit like a father confessor, except that the longer her silence lasted the stronger became my urge to laugh. What was it all about? An abortion?

I need your help, Max. I don’t know where to turn. So I thought of you… You seem more mature, you see?

Are you pregnant?

Of course not! What are you thinking? she retorted, visibly wounded. I’m on the pill.

Oh!

That’s not what it is. It’s more personal, more intimate… more difficult to talk about. The thing is, Max, I trust you. You see, I’ve been invited to a party this evening. By a cousin. I don’t see much of her. She’s a student at McGill. You know the kind of people? Very stuck up. I don’t know what to do.

Well, Caroline, I answered, unable to conceal my disappointment. Just don’t go; it’s that simple!

After a lengthy silence during which she stared at her sandals, she went on. But that’s just the thing. It’s stupid… I want to go. I want to, a lot.

I said nothing but just watched her, with an empty head and an overwhelming urge to yawn.

You see, Max, I want to go. It’ll be a posh do. OK: Bourgeois. Reactionary, you could say. But it’s stronger than me. I’ve got to go. It’s going to be a fantastic party!

Well, go then. What’s stopping you? I retorted a little aggressively, for I had a vague, growing suspicion that she was getting round to inviting me to go with her.

I’m afraid people will laugh at me, that’s what it is. I hate it when people treat me like an idiot. So I can’t talk to my friends, or at home, or anyone. And I just know I’m going to look ridiculous. They’re really stuck up, those girls. How can I put it? People lacking any consciousness, you know? They’re not artists, either. They’re completely alienated, that’s what they are! Very wealthy, middle-class, conservative, English people.

It was disarming in its simplicity. The woman in Caroline wanted to go to the party, but being the person she was she wasn’t prepared to face real women of her own age. Worse still, she had to ask a stranger like me for advice, for she didn’t have a friend in the world to turn to. Why me? It’s anyone’s guess what kind of person I’d been transformed into inside her little head. She was afraid of making herself ridiculous in her attempt to act the part of a woman, and needed my reassurance.

I understood her problem little by little, without her being able to explain everything. Even so, it was affecting to look for the young woman beneath the hippie costume that totally concealed the attributes of her sex.

Don’t worry, Caroline, I’ll help you. I know what kind of parties these rich people throw. My father moved in that kind of society when he lived here. There’s no need to feel intimidated, you’ll see.

I found the idea amusing, like a kind of prank: I had to dress her up as a woman. I even succeeded in making it seem a routine undertaking by telling her to go straight to the hairdresser and then come back bringing a makeup bag and a dress borrowed from her mother.

And don’t forget, the most low-cut one you can find, right? A dress, not a skirt. High-heeled shoes, nylon stockings, and a very simple little piece of jewellery. Oh, one more thing! Please don’t mind my telling you like this… You know, Caroline, they shave their legs and armpits — that’s what they do.

I know, she stammered, on the verge of tears. My legs are OK, and my armpits too, more or less. I’ll take care of it.

And no hippie or Indian stuff, understood? Everything as simple as possible. Sexy underwear. Look through your mother’s stuff. I’ll fix you up, and I won’t tell a soul, I promise.

I’d have to do her makeup, as well. Caroline had never used blush or lipstick but she assured me her mother had everything I’d need. I wondered what kind of a good-for-nothing her mother must be to have such a clueless daughter. Oh well. I was a painter, wasn’t I? A canvas or Caroline, what was the difference? If I messed things up, or if it was a lost cause, the Spanish hairdresser across the street would lend a helping hand.

Caroline went off reassured, promising to come back in the afternoon with her hair done, bringing all the gear, and ready to confront this stuck-up cousin she admired so much.

But my day was ruined. Complicated thoughts ran through my mind, confused with projects for drawings of her mother flayed alive, her father masturbating in front of a group of hippies, and other ideas along similar lines.

She returned at