Beautiful Blood

While visiting with Meric Cattanay on his tower one sunny, blustery afternoon, he brought up the subject, asking the artist if he had ever thought much about it. Cattanay was belted into a sturdy chair atop the platform, dabbing paints onto blank pages in a sketchpad, mixing colors together and adding linseed oil, then gauging the effect. He had aged markedly during the previous decade—his hair had gone from mostly gray to mostly white, the lines on his face had deepened into seams and his movements were stiff and halting, so much so that whenever the tower creaked in the wind, Rosacher would imagine the creaking issued from Cattanay’s joints. He required assistance in order to ascend and descend from the tower—thus the chair. “I used to think a great deal about things of that sort,” he said, wiping off a brush with a rag. “I never got anywhere with it. Too busy, I guess. And now I don’t have the time. If the mural’s going to be finished before I die, I’d better work swiftly.”

“You’re being overly dramatic,” said Rosacher. “You’ve long years ahead of you.”

Cattanay dunked the brush into a jar of cleansing solution. “I wish I could believe you, but I listen to what my body tells me…and it’s telling me I don’t have much longer. Both my parents were dead by their early sixties. Unlike yours, I’d wager. The years have been extremely kind to you.” He selected a finer brush. “When I used to wonder about Griaule, whether he was a god, all that, I concluded that of course he was. What else could he be? He’s the most godlike being I’ve ever run across and if there’s a consensus about the question, which there seems to be, who am I to argue? I’m a simple craftsman and not a deep thinker—I’ll leave that to you and Breque.”

“You must have gone round and round about Griaule,” said Rosacher. “I mean, you didn’t just make a snap decision.”

“I gave it due consideration.” Cattanay dipped the brush in indigo, daubed it onto the page, and mumbled something that Rosacher didn’t catch. “The truth is,” he went on, “once I stopped thinking about Griaule as a metaphysical problem, I became more content. I realized that a lot of what had been bothering me…you know, woman troubles, logistical matters, and so forth. I had complicated them by paying so much attention to Griaule. It was more satisfying to focus on questions I had the ability to answer. For instance.” He showed Rosacher the page on which he’d been painting—a splotch of gold partly limned in indigo. “I’ve been debating whether or not to edge the lower right quadrant of the mural with indigo. It wouldn’t serve as a border. It wouldn’t be this neat. Just a ragged evolution of the paint from gold to indigo in this one area. What do you think?”

Rosacher studied the page. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t. To make a judgment, you’d need to have some expertise, you’d need to understand how the color would work on the scales. You’d have to learn about varnishes. I’ve been using beeswax to fix the colors, but I’ve been considering a more conventional finish on the indigo.” He chuckled. “You’re not qualified to make that sort of decision. And none of us are qualified to assess Griaule’s mystical potential. Let it go. Concentrate on the things you’re expert in. You’ll be much happier.”

“I’ve become expert on how to handle whores.” Rosacher said glumly. “And drugs. I know how to create a demand for drugs.”

“You’re a businessman,” said Cattanay. “And a scientist. Perhaps you should focus on science for a while. Stop worrying about Griaule.”

Rosacher suppressed a laugh. “I’m afraid that science is entwined with metaphysics in this case.”

The old man’s white hair lashed about in the wind and he groped for his beret, lying on the platform beside the chair. Rosacher handed it to him.

“When you go down,” Cattanay said. “And I’m not trying to run you off. But when you do go, you may see a redheaded boy standing by the tower. Ask him to bring up a blanket, won’t you?” He turned to a fresh page in his sketchbook and looked toward the lowering sun, halfway obscured by Griaule’s majestic head. “Astonishing…to be sitting here. I hoped I might open my own gallery, sell a few of my paintings. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be fortunate enough to have witnessed all that I have. You ever think you’d see anything like him?”

“Yes, I did,” said Rosacher. “But I thought it would be different.”

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