michaelbartram

[michaelbartram]

Illusion (earlier chapters in reverse order below beginning with Prologue)

Chapter 7

 Felicia took a long time getting ready for the evening entertainment. Bath, hair-wash, trim and comb. Calf-length ‘forties gown, elegant cast-off from a theatrical costumier. Mascara, rouge, lipstick. Gleaming, precious jewellery that had belonged to her grandmother. Finally, scent from Tchi-tcho in Paris, a gift from Claudio.

Already in his dinner jacket, Claudio was lounging on the bed reading. She turned from the mirror. He breathed in sharply. ‘Felicia… my goodness…You look… superb…’

He tossed the book on to the table and gazed at her as she turned back to the mirror, checking herself, shifting positions.

Claudio was a poet, a minor, perhaps a failed one, but a man whose habit was to spin conceits and allusions, particularly in response to beauty. He might have said, ‘Till now, Felicia, if I speak truly, you’ve been pretty and very sexy but, heaven help me, now I see it gives way to something serious. You are beautiful. Your beauty in fact staggers me. One could say you have become a woman but actually I tremble in your presence now as before a goddess, or creature from myth. Dressed – ironically I presume – like Eva Perón in her heyday, you are Aphrodite, Kali, Lilith… Circe, who at a stroke can turn your admirers into grunting pigs. I am in great trepidation, Felicia. I must beware as never before.’

But that kind of declaration would have both incited mockery and increased her power over him, so he merely repeated, ‘Superb… superb…’

This praise seemed to gratify her. Leaning across him, engulfing him in her Parisian scent, she patted the front of his dress shirt. ‘You’re smart in your tux, Claudio. You may partner me in the dancing. You’ve never seen me dance, have you?’

‘I’d rather kiss you.’

‘You’ll smudge my make-up.’

She dug him in the ribs as was her habit. ‘Come on, Claudio. You can show a leg. Back in the ‘70s when they all turned to rock I’m sure you stuck with Argentine tango.’

‘Hardly,’ he riposted, struggling to break free from her prodding fingers. ‘You know I don’t dance.’

While she went back to the mirror, he stepped through to the balcony, to the warm night air and the moon rising over the mountains. ‘What does she know about the ‘70s?’ he asked himself. ‘La Represión. Then the Malvinas tragedy, Alfonsἱn, the return to democracy after the dictatorship, mean as much to her as if they’d happened on Mars. She has no politics, no opinions. She knows nothing about the ‘70s.’

A few minutes later they joined the stream of guests heading down the poplar avenue. As they made their way round by the lake, reflections from the summerhouse lanterns pointed a path across the dark waters to their destination. There was much chatter and a great air of anticipation. Everyone arrived at once but with the efficiency of the practised restaurant-goer Claudio cut through and made sure of a lakeside table. They sat down. Instantly a waiter appeared and poured a concoction. The taste of fruit and spices was so arresting that Claudio scarcely missed the alcohol. The guest mingled and chatted. The waiters moved among them with trays of vegetarian canapés.

With a roll of drums, a man in crimson jacket and bow-tie leapt on to the stage.

‘I’m not going to make a speech,’ he declared, ‘but simply welcome you with a few well-chosen words. We hope you’ll enjoy your time here. We uphold a vision of how life might be. We ask you to surrender sluggish appetites and diseased preoccupations, to throw off your addictions and obsessions. Be happy and healthy. Return to the world changed. Four amazing weeks. Grasp it. Make it yours.’

The band started up: violins, guitars, bandoneons and some older instruments. The music pleased Claudio. It was melodic and plaintive, above all in keeping: tango and melonga rhythms but older perhaps, with even a touch of pre-Columban influence.

Felicia looked out across the lake. He scrutinized her fine profile, her shapely nose and sensual lips. Her shoulders were bare. Her necklace shone.

He took her hand.

‘Felicia.’

She turned to look at him with sparkling eyes.

‘I want to know…’ he began, but he noticed that her attention was elsewhere. The music had moved from its soulful beginnings to something livelier. Felicia was watching the band and tapping her feet.

‘Hey,’ she whispered, ‘come on…’

Guests were gliding on to the floor from every side. Those without partners were taken in hand by staff. Soon the floor was full.

Claudio shook his head. She pleaded with him. ‘Go on, Claudio I’ll show you how to dance.’

Still he refused.

The dancing continued. Felicia got up, strode from the table and disappeared right into the crowd of dancers.

As it happened, the music at that point quickened and turned raw. Now it was passion laid bare, more furious as the dancers formed units which expanded then teetered and snaked towards others to form yet larger groups.

The dance space was writhing: a single creature, it seemed to Claudio who alone sat at his table staring, aghast. He saw a monster whose name was Copulator, a rutting and roaring mass of pumping flesh, of sweat and streaming hair.

He ran trembling fingers across his brow. ‘Where is she in all this?’ He rose and prowled round the beast Copulator with narrowed eyes.

‘Where? Is she nowhere? Did she run off?’

He moved to the other side and peered out. His eye swept the lakeside path lit by the moon. ‘No…’

Turning back he saw her. He went forward. Not only was she there, she was the very heart of the writhing Copulator. To his astonishment a space had formed round her. She bent back in an acrobatic arch, pointed one toe-cap forward and lifted the hem of her 1940s gown. Knee, thigh, stocking tops. With all revealed she pulled back her head and gazing up swayed dreamily as if to say (it seemed to Claudio), ‘Where is the man who is worthy of feasting on me?’

She surveyed the crowd, gently gyrating her hips, lowering her hem then lifting it to tease again. She tapped her foot in time with the drum beats. The drumming grew fiercer. She stamped and called out, expressing a gypsy sorrow and impatience. The circle round her clapped the rhythm. They urged her on with shouts and whoops.

Samuel was there. Sabatini’s mousy wife had thrown restraint to the winds and was jumping up and down like a child. (Where was Sabatini by the way?) To Claudio, who had by now pushed his way to the front of the circle, they were all transformed. A field of donkeys braying at Felicia. It had all happened so quickly. It was inexplicable.

Still the queen was looking for her consort.

A man stepped forward. A tango dancer from the Perón era with suit and greying hair.  He clasped her waist. The band started up with a melancholy-sensual tune, Ilusión. The dancer led the queen-whore into the dance.

Paulus.

Claudio stared at the floor, breathing hard, temples pulsing, transfixed. Ilusión. That music, so haunting, which his mother and father used to dance to after guests had left, while he peeped down through the banisters, spoke to him like no other. It was the lilting heart of love and loss. Of hope dashed and mind broken. Of final abandonment, solitude, the abyss.

‘Ilusión…’ he murmured. ‘Oh Ilusión. You will kill me.’

Finally, he could not bear to watch. He went back to his table by the water.

After intolerable minutes, Ilusión drew to a close. The applause was thunderous. ‘Bravo Felicia! Bravo Paulus!’ Felicia appeared. Her mascara eyes came to rest on Claudio, then she re-joined him.

The music of Ilusión still ran in his head. Unable to look at her, he gazed at the moon high above the mountain crests. That night, as if by some cruel enchantment, besides becoming beautiful, she had revealed herself as that he admired above all else: an artist – despite her shallowness, materialism and ignorance. How could it be? How bear it?

A waiter, an old gentleman, made a flourish of pouring a drink for the star performer. ‘Magnificent,’ he said. ‘May I ask where you learnt to dance like that?’

‘Ballet school,’ Felicia replied, wiping the sweat from her forehead and gulping the drink down.

‘Yes,’ said the waiter, revealing himself as a man of culture, ‘I thought I detected the mild contempt of the classical dancer obliged to perform for tourists at the Crazy Horse.’

She shrugged. ‘We had Saturday night parties. The teachers were all dikes. They got off on teaching us to dance sexy.’

‘Well,’ said the waiter, exuding graciousness tinged with lechery, ‘in your case they certainly succeeded. To be candid, after seeing you dance I will find it hard to sleep tonight.’ He bowed and moved away.

Claudio took her hand. ‘The waiter was right, Felicia. Your dancing was fantastic.’

‘Thank you, Claudio. You see, I’m not entirely useless, in spite of your low opinion of me. Perhaps I should have been a dancer.’

‘Definitely, to judge by what I’ve just seen. But,’ he added with studied casualness, ‘I didn’t know you’d been to a lesbian ballet school.’

‘Oh yes.’

The party atmosphere, the darkness hovering over the waters, emboldened him. ‘Were you lesbian yourself at the time, Felicia? I know you aren’t now, by the way, because you told me so in connection with your gay friend Bel.’

‘I fooled around back then.’

Claudio tried to turn away from the images that came to him but was compelled onward. ‘Did you take drugs then?’

‘I smoked grass when I was thirteen.’

‘Who did you first have sex with?’

‘Claudio…’

‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

She threw her head back. ‘Claudio, it was a female if you must know but listen, what can I do to stop you asking me all this?’

‘I just like to know things. It’s quite innocent. I am a connoisseur of the human heart.’

‘No. You’re a pervert who likes to think of doped up schoolgirls getting into each other’s knickers.’

This picture, conjured on her sensual lips as she eyed him provocatively, caused Claudio’s heart to race. He turned away and pondered the glistening waters.

‘You mentioned that fellow Leman. Did you have sex with him?’

‘Leman? Did I tell you about him?’

‘Yes. He corrupted you apparently.’

She shook her head but this evidently didn’t mean, ‘No, I didn’t have sex with Leman’ as he hoped, rather ‘I despair of you.’ ‘Draw your own conclusion,’ she said. ‘and if you must know he gave me acid and, yes, fucked me when we were both tripping.’

‘Wasn’t that dangerous?’

‘It was something else, I can tell you.’

‘Dios mἱo.’

He looked down, rubbing his forehead to hide the eyes he sensed were near to tears. What did he know of sex on acid? Felicia: so much sex, so many lovers, the girls, the boys, the sexy dancing, the corrupters of youth, the drugs, how could he endure it?

‘Felicia, can we go.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t you want…’

‘I’m tired,’ he said.

She did not seem unduly upset. They sat on a little while with their drinks and then got up.

‘Goodnight… Goodnight.’

‘Are you going soon?’ someone said.

‘What a shame, Felicia,’ said another. ‘I thought you might give us more.’

Felicia’s heels clattered down the wooden steps and hand in hand they took the path back along by the lake. As the music faded the only sounds in the enveloping dark were their footsteps, the breeze rustling the trees, and the lapping water.

‘Felicia, over there is something strange.’

In the light of the moon shining through a gap in the trees a body hung from a branch. The head and trunk was hidden by foliage. All that could be seen was a pair of dangling legs. The owner of the legs appeared to be talking urgently, and without stopping. The listener, looking up with hands clasped, was dressed in full-length black, her hair streaming pale in the moonlight.

‘Elena,’ whispered Claudio.

‘Come on, leave her,’ said Felicia.

‘But who’s in the tree?’

‘Who cares?’

Claudio was happy to walk on. At that moment his curiosity about Elena was as nothing to his other concerns.

Once they were back in main building of Arcadia, the piano quartet in the salon restored him momentarily.

‘Salon music of the old Mitteleuropa played as it should be, under chandeliers,’ said Claudio. ‘Gypsy dance, Slavic yearnings. It’s right that we should find that here too.’

A night porter leant against the banister, cleaning his nails with a silver fork which he slid into his pocket as the couple approached. He was humming along with the music.

‘Good night sir, madam.’

Claudio stopped. ‘By the way, you seem to know it, what is this piece?’

‘The F minor.’

‘The F minor. Of course. I knew I knew it.’

They climbed the stairs. He turned to Felicia. ‘Even the porters are men of education. He knew the piece better than I – even though I’ve spent my life exploring music.’

Felicia glanced down at the guests scattered around the salon. ‘The F minor by who?’ she asked.

He smiled and lifted his hand towards his ear. ‘Listen to the music, Felicia. Some phrases edge upwards indirectly, refuse to resolve. The composer…’

‘Yes, but who is the composer?’

‘Just listen…’

‘You’ve no idea who composed it.’

‘Well I do, actually.’

‘You’re a fraud.’

‘I know music.’

‘And I know when people have to pretend at all costs even when it doesn’t matter shit to anyone else.’

He shrugged and reached for her hand. He lifted it to his lips. ‘Darling, you’re sweet.’

They walked along the corridor past gilded portraits of Hispanic military men and engravings of gauchos riding the plains. In the room he left the light off and pulled her down on to the bed. They sat side by side. He lifted his finger to her cheek. The music from the summerhouse wafted through the open window.    

‘The lake here,’ he whispered. ‘It reminds me of our first meeting. Do you remember that winter. Drinking maté at the deserted waterside café. The geese, the motorboats moored for the winter.’

‘I froze my butt.’

‘I’m going to make love to you, Felicia. Here. Important that it’s here. I’ve always imagined such a place. No rubbish or mess. No ruined landscapes, nor filthy rivers. No vile music. No machines. No… modernity… nothing… perfect.’

He stroked her back and kissed her neck.

Music from across the lake. Were they playing Ilusión again?

Gently he pulled her to him. But over her shoulder, by the chest of drawers, a woman was yielding to man. They were devouring, yes, almost eating each other. Felicia and Paulus. Teeth, tongue, nails, hair. Both with clothes ripped off and scattered, breathless lovers tearing at each other.

Claudio eased her down and edged himself on top of her. His eyes were tight shut. He had to get rid of the vision. He felt between her warm thighs. ‘Oh God… Lust…’  he murmured. ‘Lust… I want…’

‘Claudio… Wait… I can’t…’

He froze. ‘Why… what…’

‘I can’t…’

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Nothing. I just can’t… not tonight.’

‘Is it the dance?’

‘What?’

‘The dance… Paulus?’

‘What?’ she repeated. ‘No. You’re crazy with this Paulus thing.’

She shifted from under him. He stared over by the chest-of-drawers. Where Paulus and Felicia had lately panted and gasped – nothing.

‘Very well,’ he said.

Without a further word they undressed and prepared for bed like two people who hardly knew each other.

Claudio read. The music stopped before too long. Felicia was already asleep. He heard the guests come back. Some were boisterous, which annoyed him even though it the noise they made was ‘natural’. Silence descended on Arcadia. He switched off the light and fell asleep soon enough despite his broodings.

[michaelbartram]

Illusion (earlier chapters below in reverse order beginning with Prologue)

Chapter 6

 After lunch, though there was plenty of time, sex was out. He had pushed his luck by the windmills, reacted like a baby and got slapped down. Now he must convey repentance and manly patience.

They agreed on another walk. It was unexciting but unless they were to go in search of ‘Victorian’ activities – at lunch they had heard mention of ‘botanising’ and Scottish dancing, equally unappealing to both of them – there was little else. For his part Claudio was happy to keep Felicia away from the crowd. There was bound to be someone ogling her or whispering coarse comments. This was without his particular worry concerning Paulus.

Claudio hoped that in the days to come they would get into a rhythm of regular love-making. True, this had been absent from their lives of late due to stress and disharmony. But Claudio believed that under the dual influence of Arcadia’s atmosphere and Felicia’s availability, they would have sex perhaps as often when they first met. This would relax him. His touchiness would ease and he would consider joining in with whatever was on offer at Arcadia.

As they emerged from the house they saw someone heading along the poplar avenue.

‘That’s the bearded Samuel,’ said Claudio.

‘So it is.’

Claudio snapped his fingers. ‘Bright but earnest! On the journey here, so much ignored by Sabatini in favour of the pretentious Elena.’

‘She may be pretentious but I saw you looking at her.’

‘When?’

‘When she was reading in the alcove. You were dreaming of sniffing her sheets.’

His eyes were cold. ‘So you’re a mind-reader, Felicia, on top of your other talents.’

‘I can read your mind.’

They strolled on towards the avenue. She pulled him to her and squeezed his hand. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’m just having a laugh.’

With no plan of their own they found themselves following Samuel. Soon he was moving far away, just a shadow nearing the end of the avenue. Suddenly he was gone.

‘He’s turned off,’ said Claudio.

They walked along the avenue, which was bordered on one side by a field, on the other by a wood. The lake was some way off ahead. They reached the point where Samuel had disappeared. A path through the woods could just be made out.

‘He must have gone in there. Let’s follow him.’ Claudio led the way and they set off along the path. Creaking branches and birdsong echoed through the leafy gloom. They emerged into a clearing. On the other side they saw Samuel. He was rooted beneath a cliff which formed one wall of a defile. Claudio and Felicia crossed the clearing. The true character of the uneven vertical surface became clear.

‘Mierda…’ Felicia breathed. ‘Skulls.’

There were too many to count, stretching the length of the defile and up to the level of the bushes sprouting from the tops of the cliff opposite. A vast panel of cavernous eyes, lopsided noses and teeth-crammed mouths. Felicia stepped forward and ran her fingers over one of the faces.

‘Mierda,’ she repeated.

Claudio too was taken aback. ‘I once saw something like this. They were piled against a wall in rows. In a monastery. The skulls of dead monks.’

‘This is different,’ said Samuel. ‘These are people sacrificed. The gods had to be fed with human blood or they wouldn’t keep the world going. It was a privilege to be sacrificed.’

‘Perhaps that’s why they’re laughing.’ said Felicia.

‘Laughing?’ said Claudio.

She fingered the skull again, fondly it seemed to Claudio. ‘Well, smiling anyway.’

‘You’re smiling, Felicia. Why are you smiling at the skull?’

‘This one reminds me of someone.’

Folding his arms Claudio surveyed the entire wall. ‘I’m impressed. I know little about pre-Columbian South America. Europe is more my thing. But I can see that whatever the religious dimension, this is a work of geometry and art. To make the rows utterly regular a stone’s been cut precisely to size, to fill each gap between the skulls. It’s astounding.’

Samuel nodded in agreement.

Felicia having moved away to perch on a rock, Claudio tried to talk to Samuel but he wasn’t friendly. He busied himself with looking further at the skulls, finally glanced at his watch and said, ‘I’ve got to go. Scottish dancing at 5.30. The teacher’s from Inverness.’

‘Very well,’ said Claudio. ‘We’ll see you later.’

With no further eye-contact, Samuel sped off. Claudio went over to Felicia.

‘Who did it remind you of then?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘The skull. It reminded you of somebody.’

‘Oh… that… Just someone I used to know.’

‘Who was that?’

‘A guy who led me astray!’

‘I didn’t know you’d been led astray.’ It was so much a part of his thinking that she was permanently and eternally ‘astray’ that he was surprised to hear himself say this.

‘I think you did,’ she said.

‘Well, not by man with a face like a skull anyway. You told me about…’

He named one or two men she had mentioned in their early days together whose names he had never forgotten even though he had written them off as scruffy boys.

‘No, not one of them. This one was older. Anyway…’

‘What was this man’s name, the one who led you astray and looked like a skull?’

She shifted. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, but I‘d like to know anyway.’

‘As long as you promise to not go on about him.’

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘Leman.’

‘Leman who?’

‘Everyone just called him Leman.’

‘Maybe Leman was his surname.’

‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘Anyway Claudio, let’s go back. The skulls are starting to freak me now it’s getting dark.’ She got up off the rock and started across the clearing. ‘Are you coming?’

He was so perturbed by this exchange that as they left the skulls he omitted to do something he would otherwise have done. In the murk, at the last moment, he noticed (as it were without noticing) that at the far end of the skulls was a protrusion, a lever, by the look of it. When he thought about it afterwards it seemed strange that Samuel had not seen this and given it a pull.

He himself would definitely return soon and pull that lever. Surely there was a door and, behind the skulls, a cave maybe.

[michaelbartram]

Illusion (For previous chapters read below in reverse order starting with Prologue)

Chapter 5

 ‘Where am I?’

He opened his eyes. For a second... These walls, the shutter… Where? Of course. Slowly he breathed out. Morning. Linen lavender-fresh, heaven-smooth against the skin. Silence. Peace. A noise from outside. Tsk,tsk,tsk. Prodding, pushing. Tsk,tsk,tsk.

‘A garden hoe,’ he murmured. Brisk, workman-like intrusions into Mother Earth from just beneath his window.

Peace indeed.

He glanced at Felicia, asleep on her front. Hair falling wantonly across her cheek. Lips open. The restless sleeper had wrenched the sheet all night and in the last throes bared her buttocks.

He considered Felicia’s gorgeous culo. If he touched it now – could he without her muttering ‘Get off, pendejo’? – his fingertips would feel… Ah, the perfect curve and smoothness of it.

He advanced his outstretched hand.

From outside, a call, questioning, sharp. His homing hand stopped.  Playfully slapping it with the other hand, he fell back.

‘Peacocks.’

He smiled to himself, remembering a conversation with an elderly literary friend. They had been discussing Sanskrit love poems. The old man had said, ‘That showy bird, who when marooned in Europe, wanders the lawns of country houses without purpose, was in the East born to a task.’

‘Which was?’

‘He was the mount of the Hindu god of love. In arcane lore the peacock stood for impatient desire.’ The man of letters smiled mischievously. ‘Like yours, Claudio.’

‘Mine?’

‘Book-lover though you are, my friend, I believe you’re more interested in women than literature.’

‘Does one or the other have to come first?’

‘Assuredly.’

The friend’s stare conveyed a blend of guile and innocence. ‘All in all,’ he added, ‘women are probably a safer choice.’

Delightfully paradoxical, but how wrong. Women were far more dangerous to Claudio than any book.

Impatient desire. He glanced back at Felicia’s bare rump and was stabbed with both lust and annoyance that she, not he, would determine when he might next satisfy it.

The cry, sounding again, mocked him.

Best to get up. He reached for his dressing-gown, opened the shutters and with a flourish stepped out onto the balcony. His jaw fell. ‘Buenos cielos! Now that is something.’

The sun was rising over snowy peaks. Distant crags fell away to a wide patchwork of field and forest. In the middle distance, off-centre, was the lake. And just as Lazar had promised, there too was the summerhouse. The exquisite structure acted as the focal point of the panorama.

The view was dramatic, yet superbly balanced: ‘classical’ in fact. To complete the effect, the foreground was peopled, as if painted by Claude or Poussin. Gardeners were hard at work with pitchforks and barrows amidst clusters of shrubs and colourful borders. Animating the pattern of paths, lawns and ponds, these early risers scythed and swept, watered and clipped.

Claudio’s eye was drawn back again to the summerhouse, its chinoiserie reflected in the placid waters.

Leaning on the balcony rail, he daydreamed.

‘I am a Chinese poet. The lake waters lap. The morning sun pierces the traceries. Under the pagoda roof I am penning verses. I write of the joys of wine, my mistress’s culo, the passing of all things.’

He lifted his hand to his neck. That scratch. Still it hurt to the touch.

He sensed Felicia stirring behind him. ‘Are you awake?’ he called. ‘Felicia, you must see this.’

Her grunting response hinted at a certain readiness. He moved swiftly through and perched on the bed. ‘Felicia. It’s incredible.’

She levered herself up. She seemed to force a smile. ‘You’re a happy boy then, Claudio.’

‘The v… view. Th… this… silence,’ he stuttered, ‘this… is how it must have been once. They did everything in this silence. Someone hoed and peacocks called across a lawn and nothing, nothing ever ruptured the pre-mechanical quiet.’

‘Mm...’ she said, knitting her brows.

‘You don’t like the idea, maybe, but don’t you see, there was still noise. They got drunk, shouted, brawled. People slammed doors. Then there was the tumult of war, cannons going off, muskets. Just no machines.’

‘Exactly what Lazar said, Claudio. Machines are shit. Oh well, we’ll soon see. I’ll miss my electric toothbrush.’

He reached for her hand. ‘Come outside and see the view. You’ve got to do that.’

She sighed. ‘Ok, but don’t rush me. I’ll be sick of the view by the end.’

He went back outside and gazed, again awestruck. ‘Young people, impressed by trash, utterly unable to recognise the stupendous. What a waste.’

When finally he went back in, he found Felicia, at last vertical, examining their en suite. She opened the chest of drawers releasing aromas of sandalwood and perfume. She ambled through to the bathroom, turned on the gleaming brass taps and watched the water gurgle away.

‘Claudio,’ she called, retrieving two pairs of shining shoes from the corridor. ‘Look.’

‘Just as I hoped,’ he said. ‘I can see my face in the toe caps. Superb service to add to the blissful surroundings.’

‘I thought that would please you.’

There was a knock at the door. A smiling woman in a starched pinafore came in.

‘Where will you be taking your breakfast? I can suggest the veranda. It’s nice and quiet. No cars, no motorbikes, juggernauts. No electric mowers or concrete mixers. No drills, no hedge-cutters, electric mowers, no motorboats.’

‘Just what I was saying,’ said Claudio ‘The silence out there is beyond belief. And indoors, I don’t doubt, a superb absence of radios, TVs, piped music.’

‘You may be sure of that. It’s heaven on earth here, but not,’ she went on, glancing at Felicia, ‘if you want to party. I’ll put the tray out.’

‘Bitch,’ muttered Felicia, as she closed the door. ‘She thinks I’m an airhead.’

Over breakfast, savouring the coffee and rolls, Claudio watched the gardeners come and go and the birds winging over the lake. Felicia had merely humphed when she saw the view but now she allowed her eye to wander and appeared appreciative.

‘Well, that cow brought us nice warm rolls, I’ll say that,’

Claudio touched her leg with his slippered foot. ‘You’re enjoying yourself, eh?’

‘I’m not complaining. I just don’t want to be patronised by a lot of snobs. I get enough of that from you.’

Claudio sighed. ‘Felicia… please… let’s not bicker… Let’s just allow the peaceful spirit of this place to spread balm.’

‘That’s up to you,’ she said, looking away.

‘Anyway,’ said Claudio, ‘that bitch, as you call her, has stepped right out of the Paris Ritz of the 1930s. She has pageboy hair like Garbo’s in certain studio shots. I would like to photograph her in black and white. For a moment I can regret we were not allowed cameras.’

Felicia shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you’d want to photo a snotty cow like that.’

Without rush they finished breakfast. Once dressed, they headed out. The staff were everywhere, tidying and polishing, gliding through with trays, easing trivial anxieties, answering queries.

‘It’s going to be lovely today, we can be sure of that.’

‘Did you have a good night?’

‘We can recommend…’

Claudio saw people he recognised from the journey. Paulus fixed them both with a graveyard stare. Claudio pulled Felicia quickly past. He had no wish to expose her to that lecher all the more since he believed the attraction was mutual.

Next, they came across Elena reading in an alcove. She wore a gown of crushed green velvet. The sunlight played on her long golden hair. As they walked on he murmured to Felicia, ‘A bit posed don’t you think? Look at me, the reader.’

‘She’s a phony,’ Felicia agreed.

Sabatini was in full flood on the front steps.

‘Let’s steer clear of him,’ said Claudio.

Hand in hand, they stepped out. The air was deliciously moist and scent-laden. Tangy smells drew Claudio to the herb garden secluded behind an old brick wall. Felicia picked some aromatic eaves and crushed them between her fingers, which she held up to Claudio’s nostrils.

‘There you are, Claudio, try that.’

He sniffed, then reeled back. ‘It’s disgusting!’

‘Valerian. It smells of tomcats. I grew up with it in our garden at home. That’ll teach you to be such a romantic.’

He eyed her breasts, full under her pale cotton shirt. Beads of sweat glistened in her cleavage.

‘Kiss me, Felicia.’

‘If you promise to stop ogling my tits.’

‘You like it.’

‘Do I?’

He moved towards her. She closed her eyes. She seemed ready after all.

Footsteps sounded on the gravel. Claudio cursed. They moved apart. It was Paulus, still wearing his dark suit, carrying two wicker baskets.

‘Good morning,’ he said, without smiling. ‘You missed the announcement. We are to wander at will through the orchards. Mulberry, pear, peach, apple and cherry. The real taste of uncontaminated fruit. It’s all here for us to enjoy. We are to pick what we want. They even handed out these baskets.’ He handed one to Felicia.

Paulus began picking and placing fruit in his basket. Felicia did likewise, too obediently, it seemed to Claudio, who hovered grumpily.

They moved on in this fashion, Claudio semi-detached, strolling a few paces then stopping and admiring the view, the other two stooping or reaching up to pick from overhanging branches. Paulus would say, ‘That’s a nice one, Felicia.’ Felicia would ask, ‘Can you reach that one for me, Paulus.’

Further up the hill, Felicia, mouth full of ripe peach suddenly cried, ‘Look, windmills.’

Vast white sails joined to clapboard circled grandly against the blue sky, about a dozen in all.

Paulus put his basket down. ‘That’s how windmills used to be. I hear they got a Dutchman here, not an engineer but a historian of science. He knew how it used to be done in old Holland.’

Claudio was damned if he was going to express any interest though in point of fact the windmills intrigued him. Not only did they remind him of Dutch landscape painting, but with his poet’s eye he saw the windmills taking off into the sky, sails cracking, pennants flying, riding the clouds like magical airships.

‘There’s hardly any wind today,’ Paulus continued, ‘but still they turn. It’s like navigation. Adapting the windmills to make electricity, they have to make the most of every breath out here. And store what they get.’

‘Like the Egyptians,’ said Claudio testily.

Paulus turned to him. ‘Eh?’

‘Like the Egyptians in the Seven Years of Plenty, they have to hoard for the lean years. Sometimes, I daresay, there is no wind. They’ve hoarded. They survive.’

‘I’m going down now,’ Paulus said suddenly. ‘I guess our paths will cross again.’

They watched him retreat down the slope, ever incongruous with his suit and fruit basket.

Claudio removed Felicia’s basket from her hand and pulled her to him. Running his hand up between her thighs and breathing heavily he managed at the same time to edge her towards a clump of bushes which in his impatience with Paulus he had already identified as a possible site for outdoor sex. How fortunate that that creepy predator had left them.

‘Hey Claudio, steady on.’

‘Felicia… I want you…’

‘No… Claudio…’

‘Yes, yes…’

She began to remove his hands. He clung on. ‘Dear girl… You don’t know what you do to me…’

‘No, Claudio.’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’  

Finally he pulled away and turned a sharp eye on her.

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Paulus.’

‘What about Paulus?’

‘You can’t get him out of your mind.’

‘What?’

‘There is attraction between you,’ said Claudio, ‘unlikely though it seems. He has this sexual allure to do with his seediness. He probably lives for the next polvo. Some women sense that in a man and it turns them on even when he’s not good-looking. All they want is a polvo with that man who thinks about a polvo so much.’

She shook her head, a picture of disbelief and scorn.

He went on. ‘I’ve met it before. It’s sick but true. You lie in bed dreaming of a polvo with that gangster. You might as well admit it, Felicia.’ He took her hand. ‘I will forgive you. If you confess, it might even turn me on in. We can incorporate it.’

She rounded on him. ‘Jesus, Claudio you’re crazy. I don’t know if I can deal with this. I’m serious. The deal might have to be off.’

‘Deal? What deal?’

‘Oh hell, Claudio. Just stop questioning me. Questions, questions. What deal? What this? What that? Who are you on the phone to? Who did you see? Do you fancy him? How much did you drink? What drugs did you take? You are not my father. If this holiday is to have any chance of success, just lay off me, do you understand?’

Her lips quivered. She was trembling. Her eye went to the windmill sails, turning and creaking. She seemed to be weighing things up. Grasshoppers and birds made merry.

He was contrite. ‘Felicia, you’re right.’

‘I am right. You’re an idiot.’

‘All will be well, my dear, I promise.’

She looked past Claudio, down at Arcadia, then beyond to the snow-capped mountain peaks.

‘Ok,’ she said, ‘I forgive you. Just don’t ruin it.’

[michaelbartram]

Illusion

Chapter 4  (for previous chapters see below in reverse order, starting with Prologue)

‘Yes, I travelled overnight too...’

‘A month, it’s a long time. We’ll all know each other pretty well by the end.’

‘For better or worse!’  

‘How did you hear of it?’

Talk had finally taken off. It soon spread to the other carts and the procession, inching its way across the plateau, sprang to life.

Claudio’s adversary now introduced himself as Sabatini. Next to him was his wife, middle-aged like her husband, a timid woman who seemed to hang on her spouse’s every word. That became impossible, however, when Sabatini turned away from her to talk to a fierce-eyed young woman with fair, flowing hair, Elena. He was clearly bedazzled and setting out to impress her.

Elena tried to escape from Sabatini by making overtures to Felicia. But the still washed-out girl barely responded.

Meanwhile Samuel, a bearded young man of the kind Claudio found unappealing – Lazar in his youth was the prototype – was saying something laboured about Free Will. His eyes darted between Sabatini and Elena. He too was clearly taken with the striking blonde.

Finally Sabatini, impatient with Samuel, resentful of Elena and oblivious to his wife, turned back to Claudio. ‘I’ve studied a great deal outside my profession,’ he confided.

Claudio nodded warily. He sensed that something tediously self-regarding was coming.

‘Geology, marine biology, astronomy, astrophysics. I devour one book, then another. I’m a very fast reader. I go to lectures at the university. Sometimes I’ve read more than the professors. Recently I’ve gone from big to little. Genetics, cybernetics, particle physics. I am always looking for God.’

‘I thought you were an atheist.’

‘I am – because I haven’t found him!’

Claudio twinkled at Elena. ‘Personally I’ve come on this expedition to get away from fretting about things like that. A month off from intellectualising. Enjoy myself, live, feel.’

Sabatini ignored this. ‘At first I looked in the sky. When I say that, it’s a metaphor. I mean that I at first imagined a transcendant God. Now I know that should God exist he would be immanent, not transcendant.’

Samuel interjected, ‘You’re an Aristotelian, not a Thomist.’

‘Quite,’ said Sabatini. ‘God would be hovering between the electrons, determining the fall of the electronic dice. We would find there was no other way to explain which way they jump.’

‘There is…’ faltered Samuel, ‘ubiquity. God is the ubiquitous all-underlying binary system.’

Felicia stirred and pulled at Claudio’s arm. ’Boring…’

Claudio craned towards her. ‘What?’

‘Boring horseshit.’

Claudio pretended he hadn’t heard.

‘The universe,’ continued Sabatini, ‘is an immense kinetic puzzle. And Sabatini?’ He pressed both palm against his heart. ‘He is an amateur sleuth. He may find God after all… But not just now. I’m on holiday! Though come to think of it, that’s a trope, is it not?’

Elena was puzzled. ‘Trope? I don’t even know what the word means.’

‘In detective fiction. The sleuth, on vacation in Amalfi or Biarritz, happens upon – guess what? – a murder. He astonishes the other guests – but not the reader – by solving it. But tell me young lady, let me ask why someone like you has joined the party.’

Elena eyed Sabatini intently. ‘Someone like me? What kind of person do you reckon I am? Are you such a sleuth you already know? Besides, such questions are taboo.’

‘I am curious. That was the point I was making. Always Sabatini is curious… about God… about young women. And young men!’ he added, no doubt both to flatter Samuel and mollify his wife.

‘Who cares?’ murmured Felicia as the carts bumped gently on.

Claudio saw Felicia’s eyes met those of another middle-aged man, who seemed out-of-place. With pinstripe suit and sallow face, this was a true city dweller. His gold cufflinks and black shoes gleamed. Claudio had already seen him staring at Felicia and had identified him, unlike the callow Samuel or voluble Sabatini, as a threat.

‘Perhaps,’ said this stranger, speaking for the first time, ‘the taboo extends to Arcadia itself.’

Now Claudio was confused. ‘What taboo? Why is everybody talking about a taboo?’

‘It was in the contract,’ said Elena.

‘Contract?’ Claudio had some vague memory of something coming through the post together with a receipt for his payment. He’d hardly glanced at it.

‘Ah yes,’ said Sabatini, ‘the interdiction. We are not to speak of our lives, back there. Before. We are in the Now. It’s fundamental.’

Claudio shrugged. ‘The first I’ve heard of it. But it suits me fine.’

‘It would be wiser,’ said the sallow man, ‘to go along with whatever Arcadia has in store for us. They’ve looked after us well enough so far. Too much curiosity’ – he looked meaningfully at Sabatini – ‘might make them nervous about us.’

‘I agree with you, Paulus.’ said Felicia brightly. Along with her knowledge of the man’s name, this interjection seemed to Claudio to come out of the blue.

As if to give instant backing to good opinions of Arcadia, the convoy halted and the drivers unloaded food and drinks from racks under the carts. They carried them over to a clump of bushes and laid rugs out. The guest herded over.

‘Even well-bred people behave like pigs if they’re hungry enough,’ Claudio muttered to Felicia. ‘It’s demeaning.’

‘Claudio, give it a rest. Stop being so superior.’

‘Well, look at them, Felicia. Elbowing each other to get to the trough.’

‘I’m ravenous – and look at it anyway.’  

The food certainly looked appetising: pies, pizzas, flan, dulce de leche, platters loaded with fruit, the best kind of country food.

‘Yes,’ Claudio said later, lying stretched out, replete, looking up at Felicia. ‘I can’t honestly imagine a better picnic. No meat. I could hardly believe it when Lazar said that.’

Sabatini came and sat by them. He too was satisfied. ‘An excellent lunch. I’ve been talking to one of the drivers, Incidentally he told me that they are under orders not to speak unless spoken to.  He tells me Arcadia is in the vegetarian vanguard. Argentina, whose pampa flows with the blood of a million cattle, is turning vegetarian at snail’s pace. But they are leading the way.’

‘Of course, as a vegetarian myself, I know it will happen eventually,’ said Claudio. ‘The doctors warn about the health risks of the national diet. Heart disease, bowel cancer, not to mention the psychological effects, the aggression and so on. It’ll come, believe me.’

‘On one thing I don’t agree with Paulus about,’ said Sabatini.

‘Our grey-faced friend in the suit?’

‘Indeed. About curiosity. I am always curious, and I’m not going to stop. Furthermore it pays off. Once addressed, this driver was like a dog off a leash.’

‘What did you learn?’ asked Claudio.

‘At lot about Arcadia. They grow what they need to eat. Income comes from selling corn and wine, and from visitors. The chief saving is in staff wages. Nobody’s paid. Everybody helps with the  harvest. No food is bought in. They have their own dairy, goat herds and chickens. Herbs and spices, chefs from around the world. They’ve got receptionists, cooks, cleaners, porters, gardeners, farm-workers, musicians. Middle-class people who’ve given up on the city and the modern age.’

‘Fair enough,’ murmured Claudio. He was not uninterested in what Sabatini had found out but the man grated on him.

‘However,’ Sabatini continued, ‘this is no collective, no social experiment as such. When it comes down to it, it’s simply a luxury hotel. The waiters will wait, the cleaners will clean. They are happy just to be there and maintain the place.’

‘I wonder where they come from, these middle-class people,’ said Claudio.

‘Everywhere, the driver said. Here. Abroad. Europe. The staff see themselves as a family. They provide a service for their less fortunate brethren out in the corrupted world.’

Sabatini rose to his feet. He appeared restless for a different audience. ‘The waiting list is growing by the way.’

Claudio sat up. ‘Do you know Lazar?’

‘Lazar?’ Sabatini shook his head.

‘Then how…’

But Sabatini had already turned and was gone.

Felicia walked over to a cluster of trees. Claudio supposed she was going to relieve herself and stayed where he was for a few minutes, then wandered over. She was leaning back against a tree trunk lost among foliage and trailing branches.

‘It’s cooler here,’ she said.

‘And what do you think of our talkative friend?’

She shrugged. ‘I stopped listening to him.’

‘And the other?’

‘Which other?’

‘Paulus.’

She shrugged again.

‘Only you seemed to be looking at him. I thought he might be rather your type.’

‘God, no.’

Despite her denial, Claudio fell to brooding about the way Felicia had responded to Paulus’s beady interest. Erotic feeling was so hard to make sense of in women. Paulus seemed such an antiquated type – a 1950s tango dancer, all shiny grey hair and cheap tailoring. Yet he was sure the tightening in Felicia when Paulus addressed her on the cart had been sexual. Like a flowerhead quivering when penetrated by an ugly bee. Was it the aura of criminality around Paulus? Was that what did it? And how did she know his name?

Still leaning against the tree, she beckoned him close. Cautiously, yet with a tremor of excitement, he moved towards her. Suddenly she took hold of the back of his neck and jerked him violently towards her. He felt her lips and warm breath on his temple. Her fingers were at his collar, toying with the back of his neck. ‘Come here,’ she whispered.

Her tongue curled round inside his ear.

When women did this Claudio had two anxieties. One, that his ears were unclean. Two, that they might whisper ill-timed obscenities. He was not prepared for what came.

‘Why are you jealous, when you are the cheat?’

He started. ‘No, no, my dear girl.’

She pulled him to her again, digging her nails into his neck. He jolted back. ‘That hurt!’ he cried. He lifted his hand to his neck, examined the blood on his finger and shaking his head, murmured, ‘You’re mad.’

‘You make me mad.’ She walked away. He ran after and grabbed her hand. ‘Felicia… darling…’

‘Fuck off, Claudio.’

Shouts came from the carts. ‘Everybody on board. We’re off. Not far now.’

The journey re-started. The lumbering procession passed beyond the plateau into a forest. In the midst of murk, dank smells and ceaseless juddering, a camaraderie emerged. Felicia was once again energised. Was it from her spat with Claudio? Or had she snorted a line in the bushes? She leaned forward, even touching people’s knees, and challenged the forest silence. ‘I will become Miss Relaxation,’ she declared to anyone who would listen, making Claudio cringe. ‘A new me. I’ll stop thinking about what’s going to happen. Stop worrying about mistakes I might make.  Live in the minute, that’s what you have to do. You know, like Buddhism.’

Paulus nodded his approval albeit with a lewd gaze. ‘This criminal pretends to be serious,’ thought Claudio, ‘but in his head he’s feeling her bare arse and licking her nipples.’

‘I predict success for you in this regard, Felicia,’ said Sabatini. ‘Whatever enigmas lie in store, there will be time, plenty of time.’

The track rose ahead and emerged from the forest. As they climbed further leaving the trees behind, light lingered along the western horizon. Then it was truly night. Claudio looked up at the stars. The dazzling array, so remote, made everything paltry – Felicia’s chatter, the lusts of Paulus and Sabatini, the scratch on his neck, his own desires and scruples. ‘What a wonder. Does one have to travel so far to see the night sky?’

There was a glow ahead. They reached the brow of the hill. Felicia, who seemed finally to have softened towards him, clutched his arm. ‘Look!’ Below, a shimmering line of light gashed the night.

‘Arcadia,’ the driver announced.

‘A lake of fire’ said Claudio.’ Could it be on fire? Are we about to enter the Inferno of Dante after all? Abandon hope indeed…’

‘It’s Arcadia’s welcome to you,’ replied the driver. ‘They’ve lit the torches, chandeliers and fountains.’

To murmurs of appreciation the carts rumbled on down the slope. Gaze fixed on the dance of light, Claudio leant forward, gripping the wooden rail. Arcadia ablaze, in its mysteriousness, matched the invisible terrain and night sky. It was all stupendous, tinged with a trepidation that merely enriched the moment.

‘What’s up, Claudio?’ asked Felicia. ‘Have you seen a ghost?’

‘No… I’m just… impressed.’

Leaning into him she reached up and patted his neck. ‘Don’t be cross about the scratch,’ she whispered. ‘We’re nearly there.’

[michaelbartram]

Illusion

Chapter 3  (previous chapters plus Prologue below in reverse order)

After the overnight train across the pampa, they changed to a branch-line. The rails curved through forest, gleaming in the morning sun. One or two windows were open. The air in the carriage was soon saturated with woodland scents. In time forest gave way to fertile valleys and flower-strewn meadows.

There were all sorts in the carriage. Old and young, smart and shabby. Some wore trainers and sported logos, others had tailored coats and expensive luggage. Besides being all apparently middle-class, what they had in common was enjoyment of the passing scene and a sense of anticipation.

‘Look at that!’

‘Can’t complain yet.’

‘Exactly what we wanted.’

The train rumbled on. After a while, the pointing out and chatting subsided. People read quietly or did the crossword. In time most, including Claudio and Felicia, dozed off.

Around midday, after a long, gentle climb, the train finally juddered to a halt. There were murmurs of ‘We’re here.’ Those still sleeping awoke to a charming and novel scene. An old Spanish colonial town with tiled roofs and painted facades lay cradled in the mountains around whose peaks clung wisps of cloud.  

‘All change for Arcadia!’

Assembling themselves, the travellers got down from the train. Luggage was loaded on to a truck. They were informed that they would be re-united with their bags in the main square. Would they kindly make their way there on foot, the point of departure for the final stage of the journey. Claudio and Felicia’s group headed down the street, slowly coming back to life. Taking in delightful details, one or two pointed and murmured.

‘I’ve never heard of this place. Why isn’t it in the guidebooks?’

‘So well preserved.’

New people appeared from side streets. Had they left the station by another way? Or had they come to this distant outpost by bus, or perhaps even car? Whatever the explanation, together with Claudio and Felicia’s companions, these others soon formed a silent throng which caught the attention of the townspeople, who broke off conversations and lowered their shopping bags and stared as if they had never seen anything like it in their sleepy town. Motorists wound down their windows and had a good look too.

Finally the newcomers reached the square. Primitive carts fitted with solid wooden wheels and crude platforms for luggage were neatly lined up. The air was filled with horsey champing and the clinking of metal shoes on cobble stones.

Claudio peered underneath one of the carts. ‘As I anticipated,’ he said, ‘No suspension. We’re in for a bumpy journey.’

‘But there’s all that,’ said Felicia pointing to straw bales and cushions. ‘Don’t worry about your precious arse, Claudio.’

Office workers crowded at the upper windows, shouting down.

‘You lot! Do you know where you’re going?’

‘There’s nowhere after here.’

‘It’s bandit country.’

‘Hey townies, stay and spend your money here. Then you can fuck off.’

A menacing mood was starting to prevail as some of the travellers began to shout back. A dustbin lid was thrown from a top storey. It was only plastic but it could have hurt somebody. A group of policemen stood by, fingering their revolvers.

Claudio shook his head. ‘Look at that, Felicia. Provincial cretins relieving the boredom of life in the sticks. Their Spanish is practically incomprehensible.’

She dug her fingers into his ribs. ‘Come on, you old snob. Live and let live. Remember, we’re here for something different.’

‘Not this, I trust.’

At a signal the cart-drivers jumped down from the pillions, helped the guests up and loaded their suitcases and boxes. With everybody on board, at last all was ready.

‘Holloah!’

‘We’re off.’

‘Hold tight!’

With shouts and whip-cracks the carts rumbled out of the square. The office workers let go parting insults, then turned from their windows.

Up at the main road, the police held up the traffic while the carts crossed. The file wound through back streets and, after a climb through a suburb, came to open country. The carts trundled through scrubland for twenty minutes. At a turning marked ‘Private Road’ the file peeled off.

Further up they went. The country opened out on to a plateau dotted with bushes and wind-bent trees, with scraggy cows and sheep.

Claudio, like everyone else, was stunned into silence. The lumbering carts and primitive discomfort annoyed yet intrigued him. This was what travel used to be. The carts had the authentic note. Perhaps they really were going to be stepping back into the past.

He glanced at Felicia, who, after a lively interlude, seemed to be glazing over with tiredness. How could that be? She had slept for hours on the train. Was this some wretched comedown from the cocaine that she wasn’t supposed to have with her? At this point he would have liked to have a conversation with a historically-minded person, not be with a woman who could only dig him in the ribs or lean over him in drug-induced exhaustion. He reflected that there were people in the world who would appreciate just how ‘pre-modern’ this holiday was already turning out to be. But not Felicia. She knew it was ‘different’ but she couldn’t have been less interested in the historical perspective. She and her generation had no grasp of the past.

Against hope, he murmured to Felicia, ‘These carts are pretty damned authentic, you know.’

‘Mm?.. I’m sleepy, Claudio.’

‘Felicia, you lack…’ He broke off since every word could be heard. ‘Oh, never mind,’ he whispered. ‘You can sleep for a week if you want to once we’re there.’

His spirits sagged. If only his wretched sexual obsession didn’t determine everything he did. Then he could be here with a woman more on his level. He reflected that his desire had to run its course, which it would, except that he couldn’t imagine it.

And with that thought, the landscape which a moment ago had delighted him pulled him down. He glowered at the sky beyond the barren scrubland. For the first time he began to experience real doubt. Where were they going? What would they discover? What was he doing there with Felicia? Who was in charge?

When he came to himself, the terrain had changed. There was still an impression of vastness but softer undulations, grassy verges and tidy clumps of trees suggested a domestication confirmed by crops laid out in fields of comfortable proportion, separated by neat tracks. They passed a carefully stacked pile of tools and equipment. Wheat had just been harvested. The sun came out and spread a golden carpet at far as Claudio could see. Now, from all around came shouts from gleaners grouped round circulating oxen. The animals lumbered round, brushed by the whips, casting shadows against the yellow stubble.

The scene took his breath away. The biblical illustrations from his childhood had come to life.

The unresponsiveness, not just of Felicia, but of all his companions annoyed him. He had noticed that that they had seemed happy enough when they got off the train. Couldn’t they get over the discomfort and appreciate they were looking at something like Palestine in the time of David and Solomon? To Claudio, an experience like this was beyond price.

‘Wild,’ he said out loud to anybody who might be listening. ‘Primitive.’

An over-dressed man with a small moustache who had led the field in groaning and tutting with each lurch of the cart, fixed him quizzically. ‘Primitive? These people work for Arcadia. Don’t they, driver?’

The driver nodded.

‘I meant it in a complimentary way,’ replied Claudio. ‘You know, like the illustrated Bibles of our childhood.’

He aimed at friendliness but everyone could see the two men were about to lock horns.

‘My parents were atheists and I went to a progressive school,’ said the moustache.

‘Ah, well, lucky you. My parents were Jewish, come to that.’

‘A little patronising, don’t you think.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Claudio, ‘I am not patronising you.’

‘I didn’t say you were patronising me. No, it’s the “primitives” you are condescending to.’

Claudio bridled. ‘I wasn’t saying the people were primitive. The scene, maybe… in some sense.’

‘They are people like us. We are safe in the hands of familiars, don’t you worry about that.’ Was this man being sarcastic or did the gleaners really make him feel secure?

‘If that’s your attitude,’ Claudio responded with a shrug, not in fact fathoming the man’s attitude at all, only that it was flavoured with hostility.

The other drew himself up. ‘I have no attitude. I am only interested in facts, rather than romantic distortions.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Claudio, ‘distortion is your strong suit. You’ve read plenty into my simple observations.’

This unfriendly exchange was a signal for everyone else to start talking if only from embarrassment.

[michaelbartram]

Illusion

Chapter 2

 Originally Claudio had persuaded Felicia to live with him (at some inconvenience given their differences) to discourage her from sleeping with anybody else.

He did not love Felicia. He was fixated on her. Obsessed. Above all, he dreaded losing his young girlfriend.

But the cocaine nights were getting to be a problem. The chaos was making their life together untenable. ‘Out with friends’: what a mountain of youthful idiocy the phrase conjured.

It was 8 o’clock in the morning. Felicia had just come in, still off her head. Yet to come down, when she would lie with her face to wall, so bleak and guilty.

Before she’d arrived back, despite anxiety about her night-long absence, he had been shaved and showered, his maroon silk dressing gown on, coffee ready. He’d been about to start the day. She stumbled in, half-falling off her heels, traces of white powder up her nostril, flinging her jacket over the kitchen stool.

Then the high-speed monologue. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’ve been enjoying myself! We had such a laugh. The cab driver was an idiot. He tried to overcharge me, said it was a night fare because I’d been out for the night. Idiot. Bel was there. She’s come out. Her parents have banned her. Well, you know what they’re like. They’re such good Catholics they’d lick the Pope’s bare arse. She’s in love – not with me, don’t worry! With this woman – she was there for a bit till she punched this girl who was coming on to Bel and the bouncers came for her. Bel asked how you were – you know, how we were. She’s of the firm opinion, Claudio, especially now she’s a militant lesbian, that all men are idiots. But I said, what can you do – I meant what can I do – if I don’t fancy women. Do you know what she said, she said that she only started fancying women when she was seventeen. A woman hit on her and she liked it – a whole lot! And when they did it, you know, she was much better than any man. Think about that. I might try it. Only joking! Anyway, after this first demon girl lover, Bel said she found men’s picos ridiculous, that’s before you even get to what men are actually like, I mean their characters. I said, they’re not all bad but I have to admit Claudio is a bit of a shit!’

‘Ah, well that’s nice,’ said Claudio. ‘How very edifying it all sounds.’

Felicia twisted her face into a mask of clichéd scorn – a ‘new’ expression – Claudio could swear it didn’t exist in his youth, a generational tick for cynical times.

‘Darling,’ he said, ‘your opinions when you’re this far gone aren’t worth a dime. That’s all I’ve got to say.’

‘Don’t come over all moral with me, Claudio. You like a drink with your fancy friends when it suits you.’

‘Felicia…’

‘Anyway,’ she went on, biting into an apple she had snatched from the fruit bowl, ‘at least I’m faithful to you.’ She sat down and flung her feet up on another chair.

He turned away on the pretext of pouring his coffee. This he hadn’t expected.

He prepared his own mask and turned. She fixed him fiercely. ‘You, on the other hand, Claudio. Do you know what you are – a love cheat, a typical porteño. You don’t see yourself as a generic Buenos Aires skirt-chaser. You’re too “civilised”. Precious vegetarian in a country of meat-eaters. Poet. Novelist – except that you haven’t had a novel published for years. Living off the income from your grandparents….’

‘Leave my grandparents out of it. They were hardworking Jewish immigrants who…’

‘I will leave them out of it!’ she shouted, thoroughly fired up. ‘I’m talking about you.’

‘What about me?’

‘You’re a cheating, middle-aged ponce, with your out-of-date grooming… your shiny shoes, your manicure. Your hair with grey flecks all done up in a sweep to make it look thicker.’

‘I’m not listening to this.’

‘You better listen, cheater!’  

‘You’re contemptible,’ he muttered.

‘Deny it, hijo de puta! You know all the tricks. You did it with me. Some low-lit bar, you all world-weary. Putting your head to one side. The flickering eyelashes. The candlelight gleaming in your slimy, cheating eyes. You toy with the stem of your glass. You swirl the wine with trembling hand. You utter some deep and meaningful bollocks. Next thing it’s back to her place. And then she’s in for a real disappointment. But Claudio has another one to write in his little book. I bet you’ve got a book by the way. I’ll find it… I bet…’ She slowed, looked down to the floor and suddenly seemed to fade before his very eyes.

‘I need some coffee,’ she said.

He poured her a cup. She put her feet down, sat up and sipped slowly and thoughtfully. Staring down she whispered into the cup, ‘Little cup, why does he cheat on me? Aren’t I good enough for him?’

He moved over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Felicia… these nights out… the drugs… you get things all wrong… it’s got to stop.’

And that Claudio did believe – even if mainly for selfish reasons.

Felicia said, ‘Claudio, I’ve been thinking about Arcadia…’

‘Oh, not that…’

‘Yes, that.’

Later, as she came further down and grew sad and anxious, a better atmosphere arose between them. They went through to the bedroom. His love-making was intense. Her response was tender. Afterwards they lay quietly together.

‘I’ll get clean there,’ she murmured, burying her head in his naked chest. ‘Then I’ll make a new start back here in Buenos Aires. I’d already thought of that when Lazar was here but I wasn’t ready. I was in denial. Now I’m ready... Oh God, I shouldn’t have gone out last night… Never again.’                                                                                                                                                                             He murmured approval, suppressing his scepticism.

Nevertheless… Might there be something to be said for Arcadia? Did the abstinence rule offer hope? Maybe if the two of them could be away from everything in a place where she couldn’t get cocaine, she could find out she was better off without it and be a little more amenable.

They continued to lie side by side. Claudio stared up and saw… Arcadia.

He projected on to the ceiling the image of a graceful mansion set in a natural paradise. In the centre of it all, a ‘clean’ Felicia, devoted, available day and night. His heart beat faster. Perhaps, with plenty of time at their disposal, they would feel relaxed enough get into some seriously interesting sex games. He closed his eyes.

‘By the way, Felicia, did you already know Lazar?’

‘No. He’s your friend. What makes you ask?’

True answer: suspicion of Lazar; suspicion of Felicia; jealousy of any man in Felicia’s vicinity.

‘Nothing… just a thought.’

‘Do you think I’ve met him somewhere and fucked him?’

‘Felicia. No.’ It was precisely what he was wondering. ’You know, my love, I’m coming round. I have to say Arcadia beckons to me now. It could be good for both of us. Truth to tell, I’m a bit jaded myself.’

‘You’ve changed your tune. That’s good.’

He needed her again. He moved his hand ‘expertly’ between her thighs. There was a pause. He smiled his winning smile. As he lifted himself on to her she looked up past his shoulder at the pale ceiling which had held his dream.  

Afterwards he said, ‘You call Lazar, will you? I don’t always feel like talking to him.’

The call was made and Lazar visited the next evening.

As soon as he had settled himself at the table with maté Lazar picked up where he had left off.

‘There’s no clear definition of what to take with you to Arcadia. You use your taste and imagination. You wouldn’t be invited if you didn’t have taste and imagination!’

‘Isn’t it a bit… boring?’ asked Felicia.

‘It depends how you define boring. Competitive games are not allowed. I know some people would hate that. Their main idea of a holiday is to find someone to thrash at tennis or golf and while away the evening at billiards or poker. No, no golf course, no tennis or badminton courts, no croquet, no bochas.’

‘So what is it,’ asked Claudio, ‘meditation and yoga, all that stuff?’

‘Absolutely not. Climbing, riding, boating, collecting flower and rock specimens. Theatricals. Flirting – with the utmost decorum. Do you enjoy flirting, Felicia?’

‘What Argentine doesn’t flirt?’ she replied. ‘Men are worse.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Lazar, ‘The idea is to re-create the way the English aristocracy entertained themselves in their grand houses a century ago.’

Lazar and Claudio had studied English literature at the boarding school they had attended together which, though Jewish, had been modelled on British lines. Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Agatha Christie had always been a shared reference.

‘Then why no croquet or billiards?’ asked Claudio. ‘Surely they’re essential along with drink – tea-time Madeira, port when the ladies have retired after dinner.’

‘A good question. I will swiftly answer it. Significant as is the Victorian, Anglo-Saxon “dream” at Arcadia, there is another idea which is even more important. From this there can’t be any loss of focus due to people messing about or getting drunk.’

‘Good heavens,’ murmured Claudio, ‘what is it?’

‘I mentioned it to you before, Claudio. No machines.’ Lazar leant forward and spoke with sudden intensity. ‘No cars, No gadgets. No transistor radios, calculators, electric razors and hair curlers.’

‘What about watches?’

‘The exception. A modern thing allowed at Arcadia because, like Yorick’s skull in Hamlet, a watch is silent and helps philosophical thinking. Apart for that no post, no telephone, or cameras of any kind,’

‘What about the Victorian masters of photography: Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron? They did all their work in country houses.’

‘Wait, Claudio, I’ll explain.’

Felicia was fidgeting. ‘Come on you two, this is getting boring. We don’t need the finer points.’

‘Felicia is right,’ declared Lazar. ‘There is only one central point. The machine. Arcadia is fixed in the past, but, let me tell you, a past that was heading for a different future from what actually happened. A past that said no to machines except the simplest. Any machine that is incapable of being understood or repaired, come to that, by an ordinary person is an enemy. Alienation. Marx, Marcuse and all that. Remember? None of this “harnessing science” rubbish. Computers: shit. Machines that we can’t understand are shit. They make idiots of us. People are slaves to them.’

Felicia got up and, leaning her forehead against the window, stared down at the traffic-choked street. ‘Rush hour… Look at them all.’

Lazar, sitting across from Claudio, was drumming his fingers on the table. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘if you take binoculars to look for that condor, they will have to be antique. An ancient brass telescope might be more in keeping.’

Felicia turned from the window. ‘Let’s decide once and for all, Claudio. After a day like today I’m feeling that computers are shit too. Let’s get away from this pollution, from all this noise and mess. The city stinks. We can’t get rid of the cockroaches here in the kitchen. I need a break. It sounds all right.’

‘Well…’ Claudio rubbed his chin.

‘While you’re thinking about it,’ said Felicia, ‘why don’t you offer Lazar a tinto.’

Claudio silently cursed that this would mean he would have to endure Lazar’s company for longer, but he was not averse to a drink. ‘I’ll open a bottle,’ he said.

He got up and headed for the wine rack. He busied himself. The cork popped.

‘Tinto, Lazar?’

They drank. Before long they were on to a second bottle.  Claudio rustled up some food, partly to get away from the intensity of discussion with Lazar. While he cooked, Felicia and their guest went into the other room and seemed to be swapping Buenos Aires gossip.

Outside, darkness fell. The moon pushed its way up over the muddy Plata into a sky rancid with police sirens. The windows were wide open but Claudio felt no trace of a cooling breeze. Staring out, spatula in hand, he thought again about Arcadia. A contrast… luxury, quiet… Heaven maybe…

‘Lazar,’ he called out, ‘Are you hungry? I will be honoured if you will sample my vegetarian stroganoff.’

When they came through Claudio asked Lazar casually, ‘By the way, will you be at Arcadia this summer?’

‘No, I’m staying here in town.’

This decided Claudio. ‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ he murmured.

He put the food out. Felicia poured more wine.

‘Buen provecho!’ said Claudio. ‘Thank you for your idea, Lazar. We have overcome our doubts. We cannot resist your blandishments. We are ready.’

The three raised their glasses to Arcadia.  

[michaelbartram]

Illusion

Chapter 1 

(Preceded by Prologue, posted below. Read this first if you haven’t already.)

  Claudio heard about Arcadia from his old school friend Lazar.

He remembered Lazar as slim and pale. Then one afternoon, on his way to a favourite second-hand bookshop, Claudio saw walking towards him a plump, bearded man. By instinct Claudio looked away. He didn’t say to himself: ‘Lazar. Avoid him.’ There was no time for that. Already his old friend had passed before he breathed, ‘Mi Dios!’

Claudio kept on, not turning his head. He had no need to check anyway. It was Lazar. No doubt of it. Iron Maiden T-shirt. The flushed face and tangled hair. Above all the eyes, those miss-nothing blue eyes.

Claudio walked on, away, as he thought, from the complication. A tap on the shoulder electrified him. The finger of God, or the devil. He saw the cracked pavement, the rubbish in the gutter, the cheap goods in the shop windows as if for the first time. He turned to face a grinning Lazar.

‘You thought you could get away with that, did you?’

‘Oh… No… I…’

‘Yes, you did,’ said Lazar ‘You looked away and hoped I’d miss it.’

Helplessly, Claudio shook his head. ‘Lazar… what can I say?’

Lazar patted Claudio’s arm. ‘Never mind. Where are you living these days anyway?’

‘In San Telmo.’

‘Well, well! Me too… anyway, near enough.’

Claudio nodded warily. Again, Lazar’s grin. ‘Look at you, Claudio, standing there in your English jacket clutching a book. What are you reading these days?  I hear you’re a poet. Hombre de letras.’

Claudio wondered whether to ask Lazar what happened to the ambitious novel he’d been writing in the old days but decided against. He wanted the encounter over.

‘Well,’ said Lazar, ‘perhaps we’ll bump into each other again, in San Telmo, or thereabouts.’ He looked steadily into Claudio’s eyes. ‘I hope so, Claudio. I do hope so.’

They shook hands, said good-bye and that, for the moment, was that.

But a few months later, in early summer, the further encounter Claudio dreaded came to pass. Lazar was cycling past Claudio’s flat.

‘Claudio!’ Lazar called above the noise of the traffic. He pulled his bicycle into a narrow doorway. Claudio hovered out on the pavement. A road drill started up.

‘It’s quieter here,’ Lazar shouted. ‘Cars! Autogeddon, eh?’

Lazar beckoned. Still Claudio hung back. Lazar watched him from his niche, grinning. ‘Anyway,’ he called, ’I’m on my way to see you.’

‘Really?’ said Claudio. ‘How did you know my address?’

Lazar’s answer was hard to hear. The drill numbed Claudio’s brain, He wished the traffic would pull Lazar away in its wake. ‘I’m rather busy just at the moment,’ Claudio shouted.

Bicycle in tow, Lazar stepped out. ‘It’ll only take a minute… if I can just pop up.’

Claudio glanced across at the elegant but dilapidated mansion block across the road. ‘OK, but my girlfriend is working at home. We mustn’t disturb her.’

The unlikely pair, one dapper, the other down-at-heel, jaywalked across the street. Lazar chained his bicycle to a jacaranda and they went in.

‘Hola! sweetie,’ Claudio called, ‘I met someone.’

‘Sorry,’ said Felicia, looking up briefly from her computer, ‘things are mad here. Wall Street’s in a tail spin.’

Lazar stood in the doorway. In Felicia’s glance Claudio thought he saw suspicion of his old friend’s beard and worn jeans. One of the local homeless. Dragging him in here? I don’t need this.

‘Do you remember Lazar?’ said Claudio. ‘I told you about him.’

‘Er…’

‘A representative figure, an influence, though not on me, I hasten to say. I was always too…’

Lazar supplied the word: ‘Reactionary?’

‘Come on, Lazar. I’m a liberal. Perhaps we might both agree I was basically non-political.’

‘No such thing,’ came from the doorway. How quickly the smouldering coals of ancient differences had flamed.

Felicia glanced at Lazar for the second time and shook her head. ‘No, I don’t remember…’

‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ said the visitor, arm raised. ‘Is there another room? I won’t stay long.’ He leant towards Felicia. ‘But if you’re stressed out you might be interested in what I came here to tell Claudio.’

He laughed, a forced, ugly laugh that broke the interior calm. Felicia smiled and went back to her screen.

‘Never mind,’ said Lazar, ‘I’ll tell him and he can tell you.’

Through in the kitchen-diner Claudio overcame his nerves and his distaste by preparing maté and making small talk. ‘Felicia is making money via the great whore, the computer, or trying to. It’s hard. She’ll get there if she keeps at it. But she only goes in bursts.’

‘She’s a charming girl.’

Claudio shrugged modestly. Lazar sat down on a chair which creaked under his weight. ‘Claudio, my old friend, to cut to the chase, can you take a holiday?’

‘We might do something at the last minute.’

‘Let me tell you about Arcadia,’ said Lazar.

‘Arcadia?’

‘A place in the mountains way up in the northwest near the border. A kind of retreat. It’s run on holistic, environmental principles.’

Claudio winced. Preparing the maté with his back turned, he reached for the gourd, his thin poet’s fingers toying agitatedly with the bombilla.

This is the old Lazar. He comes at you with half-baked schemes and tries to make you feel bad – ‘reactionary’ – if you turn him down. It’s all so adolescent. As if only he has found the true path and you’ve sold out.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ came from behind. ‘This is some boring hippy commune. Believe me, Claudio, I wouldn’t be wasting my time talking to you of all people if that were the case. This is far from being a commune. Let me tell you, this place was made for you. It’s luxurious, grotesquely luxurious you might say.’

Just as Claudio turned, curiosity mildly piqued, Lazar changed the subject.

‘Domesticity suits you,’ he beamed. ‘I half-wish I could settle myself but you know how it is. We freer spirits resist the pull of convention.’ He took the gourd proffered by Claudio and sucked the bombilla. ‘Well, however comfortable you are, I’m sure like everybody else you need a break at this time of the year.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’m sure of it,’ said Lazar passing the gourd back to Claudio, who re-filled it and said, ‘I’ll just take this through to Felicia.’

Returning, Claudio left the door ajar since he liked to observe the sun drop over the dusty rooftops through the window in the next room, above where Felicia was working.

‘Spectacular,’ said Lazar.

‘What?’

‘Seeing the late afternoon sun, I’m reminded how it falls over the turrets of Arcadia. The thing about Arcadia is… is… the isolation, the wildness of the nature all around, the barren mountains and…’ – he paused dramatically – ‘…  the key point.

‘Mm, the key point. What might that be?’

‘Something, let me tell you, right after your own heart.’

‘Really.’

‘No machines, Claudio. No machines… Machines are the death of us... You and I can surely agree on that.’

Claudio nodded reluctantly.

‘That apart,’ continued Lazar, ‘imagine turrets, mullioned windows, balconies: a miracle of art and nature such as only Renaissance Italy or a Chinese emperor might have dreamt up. An avenue lined with Lombardy poplars lead to a grand sculpted entrance. There are Dutch gardens with statues, colourful borders, peacocks. Beyond, a lake with flamingos, a summerhouse. It’s like a picture on an old Chinese plate. A line of mist separating the lake and the mountain peaks. The condor hovers high above.’

‘Have you any photographs of this wonder?’

Lazar hadn’t, but to make up for it he was willing to sound more and more like a travel agent.

‘Your quarters are en suite. All the rooms face the sun. Wow! The view! Inside Persian rugs run the length of panelled corridors, banisters curl down elegant stairways. The climate is excellent by the way. Arcadia is an oasis in the semi-desert of the Andean foothills. The vegetation is kind of…  English. The garden was laid out in the English style by Charles Thays. Lawns surrounded by clipped box hedges, and so on. You get elms and oaks, and hawthorn in the spring.’ Lazar smiled. ‘You’ll come, Claudio! Eh?’

Claudio had no inclination to take up anything connected with Lazar. ‘Well, for myself, maybe,’ he lied, ‘but I can’t imagine Felicia signing up to something like that in a hundred years. She hates going out of town. Her idea of a holiday is a resort with discos and high-rise hotels. I…’ He broke off.’ And what is your connection with the place?’

‘Let’s say I help promote it.’ Lazar looked embarrassed. ‘One question.’

‘Go ahead?’

‘Just suppose you were to come – you will in the end, I know – do either of you do drugs?’

‘Drugs?’ blustered Claudio, thinking of Felicia’s cocaine habit. ‘You were the only person who ever got me interested in drugs, Lazar. We drink wine of course. I have the occasional whisky.’

‘Ah… Now that’s a thing. If you went to Arcadia, would you mind not drinking? Alcohol is right against what they are trying to achieve.’

‘It’s academic since I can’t see us going there, but I’m no alcoholic, I would survive – though I can’t say teetotalism exactly enhances the appeal of this holiday home you’re offering us. As for Felicia,’ he added, with partial truth, ‘her drug is ambition. Her school friends are bankers. She feels she’s lost out. Now it’s the banking system, Reuters, futures – whatever they are – Tokyo, Hang Seng, God knows what…’

‘So with you two it’s high culture versus the casino, is it?’

Claudio laughed ruefully. ‘Up to a point. At the moment I’m the one with the money. I bought that damn computer. Second-hand, still… She’s broke, poor dear.’

Felicia glided in. She had showered and changed into a lime green silk gown which flattered her figure and signified the end of her day’s labours.

‘How do you decide what to take to Arcadia?’ she asked.

‘Felicia!’ exclaimed Claudio. ‘You’ve been listening.’

‘Sure, the door was open, and now I know how you talk about me behind my back, Claudio. Don’t worry, Mr High Culture. You’ll get your money back from me. I’m a good investment.’

‘Oh, come on, Felicia…’

Lazar repeated in brief what he had already told Claudio about Arcadia, wrote down a few details and at last, to Claudio’s intense relief, got up to leave.

‘Hey, you two,’ he said. ‘Arcadia. Don’t forget. You have a week or two to decide. I’ll be back in touch. You’d kick yourselves to miss it. Especially you, Claudio. You hate this century. You were born to live in a previous one, and here’s your chance!’

Claudio smiled thinly.

Suddenly he saw an opportunity to knock the idea on its head. Leaving Felicia, he went with Lazar to the lift. As they stood on the darkened landing and the ancient conveyance trundled up the shaft he whispered to Lazar, hardly concealing his urgency. ‘Felicia may seem keen, but she’s terribly impulsive and wayward. She’ll change her mind in the morning.’

Then like a bad actor, he slapped his thigh. ‘Ah, besides, Lazar, I’ve just remembered. I can’t. I don’t know how I could have forgotten. It’s my uncle’s golden wedding. Big family party. We’re off to a place near Mendoza. Clearly with the expense, that’ll have to be our holiday this year.’

The lift arrived. Lazar hopped in. The door slid shut on a final grin and a wave. ‘I’ll be in touch, eh Claudio?’

Claudio raised his arm. ‘N… no… I don’t think…’ But the door was shut.

[michaelbartram]

ILLUSION by Michael Bartram

  Prologue

 Flown out over the huge estuary of the Plata in helicopters, the young men and women were dropped, sometimes dead, more often still alive, frequently mutilated. The disappeared, the desaparacidos, counted in their tens of thousands. During Argentina’s dirty war a rumour circulated in Buenos Aires that one man had survived this ordeal. His would-be murderers, having pushed his companions out, were taunting him, slapping him, throwing cheap brandy down his throat. The pilot gave a shout. Have you lot forgotten? The football. Our team’s in Europe. It’s on TV. Time to wind things up and get home.

The last victim was dropped when the helicopter was approaching land in thick cloud. The pilot misread the altitude. He was much lower than anybody realised. The survivor was picked up by a fishing boat at first light, his brain still addled by brandy. Everybody talked about this escapee but nobody could find him or even put a name to him.

I can’t remember where or when I heard this story, but I connect it – you’ll see why – with an Argentinian I met at an academic conference in Lugano in the later ‘80s, some years after the fall of the dictatorship in his country. He was Jewish and cultivated an air of mystery. I sensed personal torment; also frustrated literary ambition, something I know about myself as a busy college lecturer with no time to write. I guessed the Argentinian would have given his life to rank with the great writers he studied – Dostoyevsky, Kafka, his own countryman, the not long dead Jorge Luis Borges.

‘Can you ask some book-trade type over in England to peruse this,’ he said in his excellent but over-punctilious English, slipping me a foolscap envelope over a late-night cognac in the hotel bar. ‘It’s in English. I write verse in Spanish but for fiction I have turned to the language of my nanny and my maternal grandfather. It’s just a hobby. I’m not seriously interested in publication at this stage, but I’d like some reaction from “fair Albion.”’ He laughed, mentioned one or two names, and gave me his address. And then he was gone – quickly – as if to put a distance between himself and what he’d written. By breakfast the next morning he’d left for Argentina.

I felt burdened by his request. I had no friends in publishing. I thought about sending the manuscript to an ex-student of mine, a young woman with a serious interest in South America. Then I forgot all about it. I felt I’d been put upon.

The foolscap envelope lay in a drawer. Curiously, the ex-student became my wife a few years later. During her second pregnancy – so I can date this to 1998, the year my daughter was born – I suddenly remembered the manuscript. On impulse, I said over breakfast, ‘Can you look at something for me? It’s on my conscience.’

She replied distractedly but before long stretched herself out on the sofa and began reading. At lunch a few days later she said, ‘I’ve finished that piece you gave me.’

‘And?’

‘It’s weird, but pretty good.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘part of the strangeness is that it’s in English. You feel you’re reading a translation, then you remember you’re not. It’s unsettling… gives it an ironic, post-modern feel. You should read it anyway, dearest. I don’t know what stopped you.’

I did not enlighten her. I knew that what had really kept it in the drawer all those years was fear that it might be better than anything I could write myself. Literary envy – what an absurdity. But now I was curious. I started reading the manuscript straight after lunch.

I was soon caught up in the story and, as I read on, began to be concerned for the writer. A few hours later, having reached the end, I felt I should contact him.

I tried post and telephone with no luck. Later, when the internet came in, I emailed The World Literature Society of Buenos Aires (www.soclit@axio.arg). They did not reply.

Had my Lugano companion died? It was possible, but he would only have been in his early fifties. Or just gone to ground? Disappearance was the theme of his narrative and now he himself had become a desaparacido. Did his manuscript hold the clue? I read it again like someone looking for a key in a heap of fallen leaves.

[michaelbartram]

Works of art in Portrait of a Lost Boy

Works of visual art were an important part of my inspiration for writing Portrait of a Lost Boy. See below for 6 paintings mentioned or evoked in the novel (with page numbers).

[michaelbartram]

'Are you seduced... like Delacroix in Algiers?' p68

[michaelbartram]

'...You frescoes... the pinnacle of grace and art... a gold tooth in the mouth of a cadaver, Venice...' p197

[michaelbartram]

'If you want your work to live, to express the modern age, you must release something else. It's twenty years since Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon... p213

[michaelbartram]

... she responded to the young man's curiosity with passion. 'The work is a re-working of Tintoretto's "Flight into Egypt..."' p236

[michaelbartram]

She no longer saw Derain's red and purple trees. They were a screen on which she projected grim thoughts. p248

[michaelbartram]

'It's a great work, Sfefan... A young life caught in time, yet timeless... like Velasquez in Las Meninas...'  p264

[michaelbartram]

How I became a social media trollop in a fortnight

Alliance Publishing Press, the publisher of my novel Portrait of a Lost Boy, advised me to get active on social media to promote awareness before publication later this month.

I was convinced of the need for this as well as being contractually obliged. But to be honest my heart wasn’t in it.

Facebook - byword for banality? Twitter - how to find out that people you previously admired have desperately ordinary thoughts? Tumblr - what the hell was that?

I started slowly. A facebook post here, a tweet there, my tentative new blog on tumblr. Before posting I would stare at the Enter key. I was embarrassed to think what self-importance was implied by wrapping up an oddment from the cluttered cupboard of my mind into a little parcel; then posting it like some cheapskate seasonal gift to all and sundry.

Enter: it’s away now. A present for the universe.

How shaming. How shaming too - since I am trying not to be a fogey or Luddite - that I am shamed.

Then, a few days in, something strange happened. I began to enjoy it. I was coming out of my writer’s shell. I could see how everything could link together in a process I want to call fractal - but first I must check exactly what ‘fractal’ means. Here we are: ‘partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth and galaxy formation.’

That’s it!

A tweet is linked to an fb post that is connected to a blog on account of which people ‘follow’ you and you ‘follow’ them, plus those of their followers that you also like, who might ‘favorite’ you then you follow them and they follow and re-tweet you and pretty soon you’re thinking people need to know what you’re thinking about UKIP and Farage, about Scottish independence and loads of other stuff.

Perhaps the universe would like a quote from my guru, who happens to be Carl Jung: I will supply one - daily. Perhaps I am not just a tweeter but a writer of haikus - 4-a-day no less. There we are, I’m a Japanese poet.

And then back they come without end, and I come back to them without end, and so it mushrooms, following and being followed, tweeting and re-tweeting and being re-tweeted, favoriting and being favorited, posting and blogging: the forming and re-forming of interlocking galaxies of thought - for ever.

Man, this is a universe we’re talking about here. Without anyone planning it, we are mirroring fundamental processes. We have fallen into echoing the universe itself. Perhaps we can’t help it. Perhaps it is fated.

Far from being shaming, what an honour, what a project.

Let’s come down to earth for a moment. Truth to tell, I have found I really enjoy sounding off about a handful of things I feel strongly about.

Once Zionist, I am passionate about justice for Palestine.

I am following the Scottish independence debate with huge interest. I suspect I might vote yes if I were Scottish - to maintain a left-of-centre hegemony there - but I have a visceral dislike of nationalistic ways of thinking. My tweets emerge unbidden, cut through the fog of my doubts and say No. (But really it’s up to them…)

Other subjects pop up in a fractal way: Stonewall’s anti-bullying campaign, the shit which is the English boarding school system, and always Farage - that pint, that grin, that saloon bar Toryism - basically he’s a sick-to-his-guts Tory. I remember his shtick from home-counties pubs in my youth.

Jung quotes. Later when I’ve tweeted enough of those I can move to other idols, Kafka, John Ruskin, Mahatma Gandhi, Basil Fawlty, David Brent.

Link to fb.

Link to tumblr blog.  

Wisdom in a bite, the writer comes out of his shell and writes haikus (4 times a day), endless fractal universe-creation.

What’s not to like?

[michaelbartram]

A propos Portrait of a Lost Boy: Israel, 1968 and all that

One of the chief inspirations behind my novel Portrait of Lost Boy was the year I spent on an Israeli kibbutz in Galilee in the late 1960s. The stay gave me a lifelong interest in the Middle East. This beautiful part of the world lived on in my imagination, finally finding its way out into fiction.

There was another side to this experience, however: the spur it gave to my interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is my subject here.

My views on this continuing tragedy have changed. Somewhat pro-Zionist back in 1968, I am now completely opposed to the racist, apartheid state of Israel, my worries running deeper than mere objections to the policies of the Israeli government.

I have come to see that long before the recent decades of discrimination, illegal land-grab and occupation, the state was both misconceived and misbegotten. I now see that before we knew the phrase ‘ethnic cleansing,’ the Jewish state established itself through a conscious policy of expelling the pre-existing indigenous population. I will not rehearse the evidence here. There are innumerable studies, many by courageous Israeli/Jewish historians, which make the facts all too clear.  I do not even believe in the two-state solution with ‘Palestine,’ a mere rump, even if it should ever emerge, existing side by side with Israel.

This altered view has changed the way I look back on what was once a glorious memory. The ‘golden time’ in Galilee has been tarnished.

How excited I was to be heading for Israel in 1968. I will never forget our first arrival as volunteers. The kibbutz was set in the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen with tall eucalyptus trees lining the empty road, whispering in the desert breeze. A parched and rocky scrubland the colour of straw, stretched to the horizon beneath an arching blue sky. Some way below lay the calm expanse of the Sea of Galilee, cradled among softly contoured hills. How often after that first enchanted glimpse, as the bus descended the hills from Safad, I turned to look again. The vision was breath-taking and fed by the associations I had brought with me, some dormant, some new.

Since my childhood, stories from the Old and New Testament and from post Biblical history, in particular the crusades, had thrilled me. When walking or driving in the kibbutz truck with fellow volunteers, a signpost pointing to Capernaum, Tiberias or the Horns of Hittin, would make my heart miss a beat. Further off lay places of yet more enchantment, some reachable, like Acre, Nazareth and Jerusalem, others like Tyre and Sidon, Krak des Chevaliers and even Damascus itself only to be dreamt of as they lay across impenetrable political borders. Was the road that passed the kibbutz the very one on which Saul saw the blinding flash which led to his conversion? Could he have fallen from his horse on the very spot on which I stood? Why not?

Surveying the view from the top of a nearby ruined khan, once a staging post on the ancient caravan route to Damascus, I remembered Gideon’s routing of the Midianites, Elijah and the ravens, Saladin and Richard ‘Coeur de Lion.’ There, across the Sea of Galilee, was the very cliff over which the Gaderene swine and their ‘Legion’ demons had cast themselves.

Before arriving I had read widely about the rebirth of the Jewish people in their historic homeland. How inspiring seemed the battles of the so-called War of Independence of 1948-49. Once there I took my knowledge to the places I visited, dismissing as an aberration such events as the 1948 Irgun massacre of Arab villagers at Deir Yassin. Here was the solution and balm to two millennia of persecution and the still recent catastrophe of the Holocaust. What fair-minded person could dispute it? Furthermore, less than a year before, the small Jewish state, ‘the size of Wales’ as was always said, had in six days fought off the Arab threat and ensured its security by more than doubling the territory it held, with some justification, I then felt.

How heroic were the kibbutzniks who made the desert bloom. How admirable their socialism; what a contrast with the conservatism and manifold oppressions of the Arab world. I was moved by the presence of history, European history, in the kibbutz. Some members bore the indelible Nazi death camp numbers on their forearms. On special occasions a group of kibbutzniks dressed up as shtetl Jews and danced to Klezmer music. We were invited to join in the hora and other dances. To take part felt a privilege, an honour. I had the profound sense of being connected to something raw and tragic, hopeful and beautiful, which had eluded me in my sheltered English upbringing.

Yigal Allon, a then prominent Israeli politician, who became interim Prime Minister in 1969, came to give us a talk. He seemed a modest, reasonable man. He was a Labour man, which I liked him all the more for.

Gazing across the valley from the kibbutz to the Golan Heights I felt relieved that they were now in Israeli hands. I welcomed the naked expression of Israeli power, the Phantom jets as they screamed overhead. At night from the Jordan valley to the south came the thud of explosives as Arabs and Israelis pounded each other with heavy artillery. Somehow I contrived to think of myself as neutral while at the same time willing the Israelis to prevail and shoot down the invader.

I now realise that I had completely bought into the Zionist myth. Through a mixture of ingrained philo-Semitism and inability to see beyond the horror of Holocaust, I had blinded myself to reality. That for the Jews to find a home another people had been forced out of theirs. I now see that this was not merely ‘unfortunate’, as even those as wise as Isaiah Berlin were saying at the time, but rather a calamitous injustice.

Now when I think of that landscape I read a different meaning into its beauty. It was empty because the people whose home it had been were driven out.

I once had a very happy memory of visiting a friend at Kibbutz Sasa. Now it is a bitter one. Sasa is perched on a hill in a particularly lovely setting near the Lebanese border.  The day was idyllic with perfect weather. After we were taken around the kibbutz we sat chatting on the grass, drinking tea. I can’t remember whether we talked about the history of the kibbutz but I doubt it. Perhaps I was aware of some ruins nearby.

I recently read something in Ilan Pappé’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)that horrified me. It concerned Yigal Allon and Sasa. Allon, Pappé wrote, was implicated to the full in the Ben Gurion policy of deliberate ethnic cleansing, both in his ideological support for the policy and in practice as a commander of the elite Palmach forces that blew up houses, killed civilians and drove Arab populations away.

Pappé writes: ‘The order to attack Sasa came from Yigal Allon... and was entrusted to Moshe Kalman… Kalman’s troops took the main street of the village and systematically blew up one house after another while families were still sleeping inside. “In the end the sky prised open,” recalled Kalman poetically, as a third of the village was blasted into the air. “We left behind 35 demolished houses and 60-80 dead bodies” (quite a few of them were children).’

A mere 20 years before my idyllic visit, just a stone’s throw from where I had sat and drunk tea, a massacre of innocents had occurred, ordered by a man I had met and liked.

The world has learnt about these things now. Ignorance can no longer be an acceptable excuse, if it ever was.

I conclude that for reasons which no doubt lie deep in the collective psyche of a persecuted people, Israel refuses to see the justice of the Palestinians’ case. The Palestinians have already ‘won’ just as surely as the Soviet dissidents and campaigners for a non-racial South Africa had won in the sixties and seventies before they triumphed politically.

The world has grown resigned after the failure of so many talks and initiatives. But fortunately ‘miracles’ do happen in history - or rather, illegitimate force reveals its essential hollowness and something that feels like a miracle happens. The oppressor caves in because irrefutable arguments eat away at his confidence.

In the end, and however long it takes, Israel will see that it has no alternative but to acknowledge the Palestinian grievance and share the land. Something comparable to the ‘miracles’ of South Africa and Northern Ireland will occur. Israelis will realise that they do not have to forgo their own right to live in the land, only accept that for their own peace of mind they will need to share it on a basis of equality with those to whom it once belonged. Palestinian Arabs will win the right to live in peace with their Jewish neighbours in the whole of historical Palestine. A unitary secular state of Palestine/Israel with equal rights for all will come to pass.