The Mansion

It wasn’t until I had been alone in the house for some time that I became possessed by dispossession. When it was first mine, I stuffed the house on the hill with people every night.

I was young and rich, I had the means and I used them.

My house had the glow of money and pride, and all I had to do was wait for the moths to gather at its beacon. They poured up my marble steps like coloured steam expelled from a geyser, cramming the rooms with bright dresses, and flimsy, avian chatter.  I wore white in those days, and they drank my wine. I knew what they thought of me, that I was nothing but rich and feckless, not quite amiable enough to be a fool. I was cunning enough to keep my cunning hidden. They were not drawn by me but by my things, as though by dancing among them they could slow the process of their own tarnishing.

At dawn, there would always be some few remaining and I would choose one, or two, of the girls, with their dulled eyes and bruised mouths, to stay with me in the velveted darkness of my room. I forget who it was who said it, but I was standing in the hall one afternoon, trying to conceal my impatience as one of the creatures gathered herself to leave, and he came down the stairs behind me, in a crumpled shirt that gave off the sour reek of dried champagne.

“We should call you Gatsby”, he slurred, as though the thought was both clever and original.

I watched him.

“You know, Gatsby, like in the book?”

“Gatsby was a thief and a crook”, I answered.

I held the door for them and they lurched out into the light in their draggled fineries.

Then I closed it, and the house was quiet.

Lifeless marble

After that, no one came back. I was tired and could think of nothing I wanted. I walked in my empty rooms. I watched the light play across the cold marble of my pieces, but they never moved.

Laura

Then, when some time had passed, Laura came.

The gallery had sent her, she said.

Shrewd move, I thought.

I had stopped buying art for quite a while and now they were tempting me with bone and flesh.

A decent composition.

I stood behind my desk and watched the suppleness of her mouth. Her hands were rough and scarred.

Watching Laura

I agreed to look at her work, not because I was interested in acquiring any more, but because I liked to watch her.

Despite myself, I became fascinated by what she could draw from the stone.

This unexpected novelty in my hands awoke my old arrogance: perhaps I could use her to generate what I had never found in galleries and auctions.

Creating beauty, as once I created money, became my new endeavor.

And here they came

But another essential ingredient was needed to consummate my scheme and I had my man at the gallery to look for something else.

And here they came, my sharp-boned - high stepping beauties, all the lovelier in that they knew nothing of their own corruption.

Playing with the devil

I had given out that I was in search of inspiration, that one of them - oh come on down, my vicious little treasure-seekers - would become my muse. And they were enchanting, my three little harpies, so supple and persuadable - so malleable.

Exactly as Laura’s marble was not.

They had heard of the nights when my house was filled with lights, and each of them imagined herself presiding, owning, possessing. I arranged them like dolls, and how willingly their hollow eyes came alive. I posed them by my Spender pieces, finding an almost Sadeian pleasure in the contrast between the massive strength of the sculptures and their own fragile delicacy.

I was quite delighted with my new game. If I could not make beauty, then at least I could make it behave. And they were exquisite, my buccaneers, perfectly planed. They tip-tapped across my floors and their laughter sussurated through my dreams until my house was as cold and brittle as my heart.

I provided them with costumes, here I was expert at summoning the accessories of my old life. Wisps of pink chiffon from Fifi Chachnil in Paris, bracelets and necklaces from Ugo Cacciatori in Milan.

They cooed over a gold bag by Chanel, no doubt imagining they could stuff it with their pirate treasures, strutted for me in angry-heeled shoes by Sergio Rossi and Louis Vuitton.  I was Robin Goodfellow to my lovestruck Titanias, and it pleased me to drape them in shimmering fairy gossamer- a silver coat from Burberry so supple it might have been made of mercury, a corset of tiny, vicious chains.

I even began to believe myself, that I too was capable of creating.

Laura’s toil

How long this enchanted times lasted I cannot tell, but, then, poor Laura was just a forgotten shadow. She still kept hitting the marble, I still encouraged her work pretending enthusiasm or offering gentle critiques. My quick-fingered little devils were so much more amusing, though; what artist would choose the pursuit of eternal beauty over a cheap thrill?

Devil is the looser

One day, oddly, I began to think of Laura again. I remembered the strength of her, and thought she would despise me.

I wanted to watch her again, but I no longer dared go to her. I grew distracted, my game was becoming stale.

I could not know how it happened - perhaps I dreamed aloud, but my girls grew angry. They were confined, my little birds, and their plumage grew dull. They still believed I would choose among them, poor bright things.

The more I thought of Laura, the less the emptiness I had created pleased me. I had thought to strip my house of everything that was loud and vulgar and fill it with a ballet of statues that I could move at will, but I had been as deceived by the external as the drunk who had bestowed his misnomer on me. I had thought to find grace in a certain sincerity of desire, to take pleasure in the process of my own deception.

Reflections

I had believed that I could sculpt souls, that I could dispense with convention, become, if not an artist, a curator - beauty, after all, is ever for sale.

I had then deceived myself, believing that thoughtless young beauty was all I wanted, that play could be an endless fulfilling pleasure.

Now, for the last time, I positioned my sulky dolly and listened to my heart.

Watching, but no longer seeing.

I could now clearly see that perfection is useless and boring as money and play, that art can only thrive idealizing the beauty of imperfection.

Suddenly wise, I could now perceive what a fool I had been: I had to walk the dubious hallways of financial success, to execute all the rituals of wealth, to get lost in pretence and vacuity, only to find what Laura had always known.

I wish I could remember the name of the man that morning, to tell him I was sorry, that he had been right, that I had heaped up my money to build a trap for an impossible dream, an artist’s pathetic fantasy. Gatsby was a crook, but at least he was spared the pain of finding that what he wanted wasn’t worth the thieving.

Loving Laura

Finally, united in defeat, they gathered their bedraggled plumage and swept out on their tottering heels and what was left of their dignity.

Shall they miss me, my beautiful, beautiful girls? I felt that there was something sordid in me, the squalor of the vampire creeping in the stinking shadow, mouth dripping for the pulse. Perhaps it would have been kind to tell them that the canker was in me, not them, that my will was infected even while my spirit strained at something I could not fully apprehend. I told the girls nothing, but then they had not been led to expect kindness.

But it was Laura I wanted now and I didn’t care for anything else.

Imperfect, earthly Laura with her chapped hands and soft, soft flesh.

I would have to open my house again, I saw. I would have to go to Laura, lay the truth before her, speak to her even of love.

I waited a while though, in the stillness, a lonely Coppelius, mourned my hopes just a little. I knew that I could love Laura, if she would let me, but that there would always be a part of me that hated her for trapping me in the corporeal, a state that she could transcend through her work but to which I was condemned.

Perhaps she might sculpt me as Prometheus.

Perhaps she will forgive my tormented thoughts.

And I fall asleep dreaming of her sculpting me, of me finding rest in her compassionate arms; of when I will open the house again and the banal symbolism of the sun will finally parade across my pieces, Laura and me.

I paid them well, naturally.