Picasso: Part 5

This story is a project by multiple writers – each writer volunteers to write one part of the story. I am honoured to raknax, the person who started it all, for this opportunity.

• Part 1 (by raknax) – here
• Part 2 (by malinverno) – here
• Part 3 (by lianchye) – here
• Part 4 (by hibbihey) – here
  

As Pablo sat in the train that was vibrating to the uneven metal tracks of the Paris Metro, he thought of two things – how amazed he was that he was now travelling through the hellish darkness of the Paris underground (surely, he thought, hell doesn’t come much closer than this!) , and how long he would take to reach the Arc de Triomphe.

Pablo heard the wheels screech for the third time, as the train pulled to a stop and the driver yelled “Étoile!”, and stepped out of the carriage to heave a rusty lever, about the length of his arm that was beside every carriage door, to let its passengers out.

At last. Pablo stepped out of the carriage and huffed and puffed as he walked up the stairs where he could see daylight again. God, he thought to himself, and then scoffed at his invocation of the supernatural. Well, God or not, at least I’m finally out of that bloody hellhole. The only place where he wanted to find himself claustrophobic, he decided, was with Lea in a broom closet. He made a mental note to suggest that to her later in the day.

As he stepped out of the station he made out the Arc de Triomphe. Such an irony of a name, Pablo thought to himself. Napoleon had commissioned the building of the Arc to celebrate his triumphs – but was defeated more than two decades before the Arc was completed. Stepping ever closer to the Arc, he found himself drawn by his occupational hazard. The intricacy of the carvings, the sheer grandeur that the architect Chalgrin was trying to express – he hated grandeur, but he loved the intention of Chalgrin (or Napoleon?) and how wonderfully it was carried out.

He was supposed to do something here – he remembered, clutching that flat, squarish object he removed from the hotel room – but he was dazzled by the architecture.

He was standing underneath the Arc when he heard a familiar rasp from behind.

“Enjoying triumph, Pablo?”

Pablo knew who it was before he turned his head. The silhouette had betrayed what the owner of the voice had certainly wanted to achieve – a surprise. The man was dressed in a well-cut dark suit with a matching bowler hat, covering his rotund figure and framing his rather round but unpleasant face. All dressed to match the times, thought Pablo to himself. Prim, proper, and boring. But this was no way to talk to a potential buyer.

“Monsieur Montmartre,” Pablo took off his grey flat cap and made a little bow, half in feigned respect and half in annoyance. “How nice to see that you are also here to take a little bit more glory away from Bonaparte’s legacy.”

“I am not,” growled Montmartre, adjusting his bowler hat with one hand that was attached to a very short arm and with his other arm fishing rather uncomfortably into the inside pocket of his jacket and eventually brandishing a cigar, “A man who basks in glory of any sort.”

“No, I presume not,” chuckled Pablo. “But you would allow your son on frivolous adventures with me so that he will be preserved in my painting and for you to show off to your friends and family?”

The hand on the cigar clenched a little too tightly and still-smouldering ash started spilling out. Picasso was not at all a humble man, despite his destitute beginnings, burning his own failed artwork to keep himself warm in a room without heating. Now, however, with Gertrude Stein as his ardent fan, Montmartre was facing stiff competition in buying the art that he loved. Pablo now had a newfound desire to speak to people willing to pay an exorbitant fee for his few strokes of a paintbrush.

Pablo was about to give what he thought would have been some choice words when something collided on his stomach and made him fall to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. After he finally caught his breath he stared at the cause of his falling down – a boy no older than twelve, wearing the same type of cap that Picasso loved so much.

And he realised something.

“They sent you?” Pablo whispered in disbelief.

The boy nodded. “They want it back,” he said, adjusting his cap and dusting himself as he stood up. “And I have a message for you. From him.”

“I was talking to him, boy,” Montmartre’s rasp sounded almost comical when he raised his volume, hardly what he intended to do. “Wait for your turn.”

“Count Montmartre,” Pablo said, “There is something important going on here, and if you are looking to buy my painting for what I believe is a pittance of what you can actually offer…”

“We’re running out of time,” said the boy nervously.

Pablo handed him the object, and bowed. “Thank him for my enlightenment,” he said, and smiled. The boy smiled back, and handed him the package.

Then, a gunshot.

The boy’s smiling lips were broken, in a sudden, ugly manner, by a trail of fresh red blood that spewed out from his mouth. As he collapsed onto the ground he saw an unmistakeable shape of a person’s body with one hand on a smoking barrel just outside a cafe across the road. He could make out that body from a mile away, and he still thought it a compliment.

Lea.

A second collapse; this time, Montmartre had fell, most likely faint from the entire experience. His lips were quivering in fear.

He was certain it was Lea, as certain as he had been inside her at 1.30 that morning.

Had she found out his secret? Did she now realise that genius could not possibly be created, that he had sought a shortcut out of his desperation to become famous?

Pablo Ruiz Picasso stepped away from the Arc, and bolted southwards, towards the River Seine. As he felt the whiffs of air that accompanied every bullet that was fired he knew he just had a very close shave. When can I ever trust a woman? He thought absent-mindedly to himself, as he tried to run faster than the bullets that tried to catch his heart.

Was it Lea? As he panted and thought about it, he started doubting his initial certainty. She’s got a figure, but I might have been mistaken… could have been a fucking whore from Pigalle. He did not have time to think. Pablo knew he wouldn’t die – not yet anyway – but he thought that there was no purpose in letting the world know yet.

The bullets stopped, and Pablo felt thoroughly relieved to see the faint traces of dawn spring out from the east end of the sky. She decided not to trail me. For now. Pablo allowed himself two deep breaths and slowed himself to a more comfortable jog, but stopped and clutched his sweaty head in horror when he realised that he had left something terribly important at the lion’s mouth.

The idol, he thought miserably. It’s in the hotel.

Wedding Day

Backs on Walls: Chapter 1

Lydia’s gown was shaped in such a way that would give any man an exercise in cardio. “It’s cut way too low”, were the five words that every friend of David said when they spoke. And most of them spoke about ten seconds after their jaws had dropped when they looked at the chest – I mean, the dress.

In any case, I think she looked beautiful. She stood outside the church, preparing for the entrance. She had always been, since she was in high school and David had first fallen head over heels for the girl in blue. The corny letters that he had persuaded me to help him write, the prickly roses he implored to help him purchase, the seats at the restaurant where he proposed – damn, I should have been the one snagging the bride instead.

The church, the flowers nicely tucked at the front of the seats, and the wedding singer blasting off – it looked pretty much like the kind of wedding I would have liked to have. Except, of course, this wedding wasn’t mine. But it got easier to imagine, I must say, once you started imagining.

“Lydia’s beautiful, isn’t she,” the ruffled voice at my side got me out of my half-slumber. I turned and saw the familiar face of Paul Hern and I laughed.

“Not half as beautiful as your bride,” I replied. Paul and Donna got hitched in what we would call rocket speed. It’s not exactly rocket science how they got together though. It happens on television all the time – and being a soap editor, I’ve seen my fair share of Friends to know that it is happening far too often. Guy sees girl. Both get drunk. They share a room. (And there is always this inexplicable part where everything just… fast forwards.) And then, either the guy or the girl awakes first, realises something’s wrong, I’m not in my room, why is there a warm entity beside me and HOLY COW! (S)HE’S NAKED! And a sudden Zen moment later, everything comes back to him.

Donna woke up first, screamed “You’re responsible!” and Paul shrugged and said, “Well, I am. Will you marry me?”

That was the third year of my communications class, and Paul and I had just finished a huge project to be submitted to Professor Dean Partridge that we knew we surely would fail. We named it the “Noose” and it was a six-page, 500-word essay that we fooled everyone into thinking was a proposal.

PDP took it, read it, and we didn’t know what happened to it – until we realised he had submitted it for the Children’s Essay Competition in the district and we had gotten first prize for it.

No one turned up for the prize giving ceremony.

Anyway, Paul and Donna. She obviously didn’t agree to the initial proposal after the accidental cop-out, but what happened after that was that Paul struck jackpot on the first shot.

She got pregnant.

And it got difficult to hide. Donna wanted to keep the baby, so they kept it. And then, Donna agreed to the proposal – three months after rejecting it. And it’s kind of been like this ever since – Paul would suggest something, Donna would say no, and just between three hours to three months later she would back off and say that maybe, just maybe, it could be done that way.

So Paul was alone today, which meant that Donna was having the “no” day. And on “no” days, we are permitted to joke about the bride.

“Pretty but pretty much an explosive that repairs itself,” Paul muttered. But he was understating it. In fact, I had been understating Donna’s “no’s”. They aren’t the normal kind of rejections. It’s the squealing, bitching kind of rejections that kind of tears at you because she’s got one hell of a voice that can keep a man awake even a couple of blocks down the road. Then you say that “I’ll come back on Friday!” and on Friday, she absolutely transforms herself. It’s Jekyll, Hyde, and Hulk and pre-Hulk all rolled into one. We’ve tried astrology, to kind of figure out a calendar by which Hulk and Hyde take control of Donna, but thus far the consultation at Mystic Meg’s have been futile – and I’d say bloody expensive.

“Don’t matter, that,” Paul said, then looked at me and winked. “Perhaps you might be the one feeling troubled.”

“Trouble? Come on, Paul, I haven’t been happier for David my entire life!”

“Eric,” He looked at me with his eyebrows furrowed. “In just about half an hour this is going to be over. It’s not just the wedding that’s going to be over, I highly suspect that you are, too. And if you’re not gonna own up to me, that’s fine. I don’t need a confession. But you should least be honest with yourself.”

Lydia’s smile was ravishing. “I’m an honest guy, Paul.”

“Honest guy doesn’t always equal honesty to yourself,” Paul said. “Think about that, there’s still time. You get it off your chest, you feel better. You don’t, you never will.”

I think that was when a strange force came over me, and made me realise something that I should have been enlightened a bloody decade ago – that I loved Lydia Sommers, and that I had chosen for myself a path that I would regret for myself, seeing her walk down the aisle with another man.

Lydia with her father. David with his – and David, smart, chiselled looks, winning smile and all, was standing before the priest. I, the scriptwriter with eyes peering through overly thick glasses, trying to make an impression with my words and making a hash of myself at clubs and dates, was trying in vain not to think how David’s shoes would have fit me, in the metaphorical sense.

“We are gathered here…”

To witness a holy matrimony. When you realise something and the worst thing is you know it’s too late, it bites at you and bites at you until there’s nothing left inside of you. But at that point in time when I decided that David was going to be the man who would marry her, I had placed myself in a supporting position. The untruths I spoke to myself were far louder than the honest, true voice of mine spoke in my heart. And damn, I didn’t want this to happen. Not now.

“Should there be any objections…”

“Yes, I do.”

Shocked voices in unison, and faces turning to look at who might have dared to make such a suggestion – and I realised that I had done something that I could not turn back. I had stood at the wedding of my best friend and said that I objected to his marriage with a girl, the girl that both him and myself loved.

“I object to the marriage, because I love this woman,” I stared at Lydia until she stared back at me, wondering what in the world I was thinking. “At least, I have loved her for approximately ten years.”

I never thought I would get myself involved in such a soap. Even Paul, who was seated beside me, looked the most shocked of all.

“I was only kidding, buddy,” he said, the tone consoling, but deep within I knew, whether he was trying to kid me or not, that he had found my soft spot – and I had revealed it after a decade of denying it was there. My face flushed, I stepped out of the beautiful church doors back into daylight.

Shit. What’s next? The words appeared in no particular order, but these were the three that flashed most in my mind, was I wondered and I wandered in my battered Lancer. Get me somewhere. I need to think. Think about what the hell I am supposed to do. Next.