Evrem was the portraitist of
death and pain.
When the camp guards lined him
up with his brothers and sisters and the black whips striped their backs with
scarlet, he later drew a picture of the scene. When the people were forced to
walk naked in the snow, even the sick ones, even the old men and women, Evrem
later made a picture of that, too.
Later, when his hands were
not so numb and his back had stopped bleeding, and when the pain inside had
grown to bursting, he found a stick to scratch in the earth of the hut floor.
On rare nights, the people
were passive enough to please the Borean guards and were rewarded with a small
fire in the clay hearth. On those nights Evrem waited, propped in a corner to
keep from falling asleep, until the fire was dead again. Then he used the
charcoal from its warm corpse to draw on the plank walls.
In his portraits, pain often
wore the shape of a guard: mountain-shouldered, armored like a lizard,
steel-studded, with muscular hands half clenched.
Sometimes pain looked like
one of the people: bony, swollen, grotesque, a skeleton puppet with hollow,
black eye sockets.
When Evrem gave pain a shape,
it became more real for others. Mothers looking at the charcoal puppet-figures
recognized their own children, and in a rush of passion rubbed the pictures
from the walls.
But Evrem kept on making
pictures. The lash wounds, the hunger, the cold, the dead look in his mother's
eyes passed out through his fingertips into the black images. If he had stopped
drawing he would have died of his hurt, or gone mad.
***
Evrem had reached the years
between boy and man by the time the rulers of Bor carried their war across the
sea of space to the people's home world.
They found they had made a
mistake.
Beaten back, forced to make
terms, and keeping in mind the victors' prejudices, the Boreans set out to
destroy all trace of the camps where they had penned the people.
Evrem saw his mother beheaded
and her arms and legs cut off, for ease of handling, and fed to the furnace.
The smaller children were thrown in whole.
Among others, Evrem was kept
alive to the last, since he was strong enough to work. His work was to carry
the pieces of his relatives and friends and throw them into the furnace. He
looked earnestly into the face of each head he carried, to say farewell and ask
forgiveness, but they only grimaced at him.
He was still alive when the
liberators swept unexpectedly into the camp. His heart leaped as he saw the
guards stripped of their whips and guns.
"When will you kill
them?" he asked a tall soldier.
"Kill? They're going to
be exchanged for prisoners."
Evrem broke for the first
time in his life. The tall soldier had to call two others to help pull the boy
from the throat of the Borean whipmaster. They needled Evrem full of drugs, and
he never saw that some of them wept.
***
He woke in a wilderness of
white. Soft whiteness under him, over him -- even the binding straps were white
-- snowy walls, ceiling, floor.
He remembered paper. This,
and not a mother's face, was the oldest of his memories, from before the time
of the camp. It was wonderful flat, white stuff that begged to be stroked with
the tips of soft, black pencils.
A woman came to his bedside.
Evrem stared. How round and red were her cheeks, how glossy her hair, how very
white her smock!
"Better, are we?"
"Better, yes. Please untie
the straps. I won't run away."
"Do you want
anything?"
"Charcoal," Evrem
said at once.
She studied his face, then
went away and came back with another woman, older, sterner, whiter, who studied
him again.
"Why do you want the
charcoal?"
"Only to make a picture.
Just a little one. On the wall, there, under the bed. Please. Nobody will
notice."
They brought him charcoal in
a box, and paper as well, a block of thick, cream-colored squares, so that he
didn't need to crawl under the bed.
As soon as his bindings were
untied he sat up and reached for the box of charcoal. It slid open and spilled
out smooth sticks of color, like a broken rainbow: the red of blood, the green
of new leaves, the purple of hyacinths.
But Evrem wanted only the
black. He drew the portrait of death once, twice, three times. The spiked fist
loosened its clutch about his heart.
He slept, and the papers slid
whispering to the floor.
***
Evrem was fed, wormed, dosed
with vitamins, rubbed with soothing salves, bathed in healing waters. On the
tenth day he was given a suit of brown overalls, so stiff and new-scented he
was afraid to put them on.
He was weighed, measured,
sampled, monitored. On the whole, the process of cure was painless. He never
thought of the future.
But something in his mind
woke up and stretched as his body strengthened, and one day he wondered what
would become of him when he was too well to stay in this place, which was only
for sick people.
That very afternoon the
white, stern, old woman took him firmly by the arm and led him to sector RJ,
floor 801, room 8206, and left him there.
A man behind an enormous
steel desk picked up a piece of paper. "Well, now. Evrem Kai, age about
17, interned about 12 years, no surviving relatives, education level H,
literacy level G, psycho-physical assessment 74 per cent. Hmm, hmm."
The man laid down the piece
of paper and fixed kindly eyes on Evrem. "So, young man. You have your
life ahead of you. What do you want to do with it?"
Evrem could only look
confused, for what was he to do with his life except hold onto it as tightly as
possible?
"No plans yet? Then you
might consider this. A certain art dealer of Arbro ... you know where that
is?"
Evrem shook his head.
"Arbro. It's a worldlet
in the next system over but one. A very civilized place. This dealer will give
you a home and an education, and enroll you in the Arbro College of Art. An
exceptional opportunity: I'd take it if I were you."
Evrem stared.
"Art?"
"Art, yes. Those
drawings of yours -- Mr. Enco was most impressed."
Evrem remembered that an
artist was a person who created beautiful things, things that gave pleasure
when you looked at them. Somebody, somewhere, had made an awful mistake. But
who was he to spit in the face of fortune?
***
Like a diamond on burlap,
Arbro lay framed by the rough hills and plains of an empty continent. This
isolation was deliberate. Arbro was set apart, a treasure that deserved a
museum to itself. It was The City. It was the apex of civilization, the ideal
made visible. So Evrem learned from his new protector.
Jerem Enco, a plump little
man with a trimmed beard and measuring eyes, was neither kind nor cruel. He
replaced Evrem's sturdy overalls with silken shirt and trousers, a fresh set
every day. He provided food that was fragrant and delicious as well as
nourishing, and a studio whose equipment, if sold, would have paid a thousand
times over for all the meals Evrem had ever eaten in his life.
On their walks about the city,
Enco showed him the finely proportioned buildings, the squares with their
fountains of water-glossed silver, the public museums packed with the
masterworks of the ages and the private galleries (including Enco's own) where
perfect forms stood submerged in light and silence. Evrem never tired of these
wonders.
"The boy is a
genius," Enco told his friends. "Who knows what he'll achieve in his
prime?"
The prison camp pictures
passed from hand to hand until they came to Rille. She studied them a while, then
laid them face down and refused to look at them again. Her ivory features gave
nothing away, and as always, Enco could not resist seeking her opinion.
"The pictures are
horrible," she said.
"Horrible, yes, but
magnificent!"
"But what must the child
have suffered to draw such things?"
Enco smiled. "Out of
suffering -- art!"
"I always felt that
sentiment was obscene."
This touched off a fierce
aesthetic debate among the other guests. Rille listened but took no part, while
her short dark hair swung in slow negatives about her face.
***
"Is he content?"
"He says so."
Arm in arm, they crossed the
blue-tiled Square of Summer Sky on their way to the college.
"I don't understand
it." Enco frowned. "He lacks nothing, I've given him every
encouragement."
"Perhaps he's
lonely."
"Far from it. He seems a
simple, good-natured lad -- too simple for my taste, but he's made friends.
They play football together after classes, so he tells me. And besides there
are the concerts, the plays, the classical cinema, the water-music
competitions, the masquerades. Not to mention my salons. He likes to meet my
friends, enjoys their talk. Especially yours, Rille." He gave her a
knowing twinkle, before lapsing into glumness.
"Now, you," he
said. "You were an artist, once, and you gave it up. Why?"
"I married a better
artist. That stopped me for a time. Then I came to Arbro for a new start."
She laughed quietly. "Bad choice! Here, I live surounded by greatness. Why
be second-rate? So I gave it up entirely. Now, I simply enjoy."
"I wonder, is that the
boy's problem? Is he overawed?"
She shook her head. "Not
Evrem. He seems utterly at peace."
"Then what in the name
of God is the matter with him, that he won't touch pencil to paper?"
"Leave him alone. It's
been only -- what, two months? Remember what his life has been. I'd guess it's
all he can do to cope with comfort, security and beauty on a daily basis."
"Still, I dread hearing
what the masters at the college will have to say to me."
***
"You've been
hoaxed," they said. "Look at this, and this, and this!"
"I don't understand. You
saw those charcoals -- "
"Not by the same hand!
Those are startling, powerful, alive. These are -- pah!" The master tossed
the sheaf of drawings aside.
Rille picked one up. Side
view of a partly draped nude. Technically competent but pedestrian in feeling.
Dead as plaster dust.
"It took weeks of
coddling and coaxing to persuade him to produce that." The master snorted.
"No wonder! He knew we'd spot the deception at once. No genius, Jerem, I'm
afraid. Not even a spark of talent. It looks like you sponsored the wrong
boy."
Enco snatched up the drawings
and marched out, his round face flushed.
Classes were over for the
day. They found Evrem playing football with the other boys on a field of leaf-green
carpet near the college. When he saw them he came at a run, bright-eyed and
laughing, his brown hair in a mop over his eyes and his shirt pulled out at the
waist.
Enco held out a shaking
fistful of paper. "Are these yours?"
The boy peered at them, then
nodded. "Why, yes.
"Then you've been lying
to me!"
"Come, Jerem, there must
be some explanation." Rille touched his arm.
Evrem was suddenly
blank-faced. "I never lied. I never said I was an artist. Somebody made a
mistake."
"But, Evrem," Rille
said. "Those other drawings, the ones you brought with you from the
refugee centre. Weren't they yours?"
"Yes. I made them."
"Then why," Enco
implored, "why won't you draw like that now?"
"Because I'm
happy."
Enco clutched at his head.
Rille met the boy's puzzled eyes, frowned, then smiled. "I see! You were
unhappy then, so you made unhappy pictures."
"Right. And after, I
felt better."
"Well then! Now that
you're happy, why not make happy pictures?"
"I can't."
With agonized patience Enco
asked, "Why not?"
"Because happiness
doesn't hurt."
***
"What am I to do, make
him miserable? It makes no sense!"
"Patience, Jerem!"
"A non-functioning
genius is worse than a mere technician: the technician at least is useful. What
am I to do with the boy?"
"Leave him in peace.
What's in him is bound to come out sooner or later, even here."
"What do you mean, even
here?" Enco swept his wine glass in a circle to indicate the room with its
treasures set like icons in glowing niches.
"I mean Arbro. This room
is a microcosm of it."
"But, my dear, there
isn't a park or square in the city that isn't more beautiful than nature. Look
at Obi's lapis trees! Can random vegetable life compare to one of those? There
isn't a formless space or a meaningless line anywhere!"
"I know. The city is a
work of art in itself. It is complete. There's nothing left to shape."
"I don't agree, but
that's beside the point. The point is, what to do about that boy!"
"Well, you're rich enough
to support him indefinitely. Give him a few years at least."
"To play football,"
Enco said bitterly. "Why don't you support him? You're almost as rich as I
am."
"Perhaps I will, if he's
agreeable." Rille reflected, then decidedly tossed back her hair.
"Yes, I'll take him off your hands, Jerem. You've grown mud-minded in your
middle age. Utility, economy, that's all you can think of!"
As she rose and crossed the
room, a new energy quickened her step. Enco looked after her with a cynical
smile.
Evrem's rooms were dark and
empty. In the bedroom, in the studio, everything lay as neatly as it had done
the day he arrived. Only one sheet of paper had been marked and pinned to the
drawing table.
"I never lied but I
guess it was something like a lie. Thank you for the food and clothes."
***
"But where could he go?
How will he survive?"
"Just tell me, does he
know the way out of the city?"
"Of course, I showed him
the all the gates. He seemed to admire the one by Avian, on the western
side."
"Then that's where he's
gone. Oh, Jerem, don't fuss, and don't look so shocked! It's not a howling
wilderness out there, and if it were I think he'd get by. He's a
survivor." She pointed. "Give me those."
"The photochromes? Why?
They're the least likely things to tempt him back."
"Perhaps, away from the
city... well, we'll see. Now that jacket -- and a hat. Good. Now I'll need
food, something warm. Are you coming with me?"
"Out there?" Enco
took a step back. "Good God, no!"
***
Beyond the gates of the city
there was nothing. No buildings, no fields of grain, no trees, no people. And
no road. Rille's air-propelled car hissed over the hummocks and hollows of the
plain. The sun was nearly gone. The faraway mountains showed dark faces under
radiant haloes.
I painted mountains once,
Rille thought.
Topping the next rise, she
spotted a white speck on the dark shoulder of a hill. Next time up she looked
again. The speck was fading. The land ahead of her was soaking up darkness as
the blaze on the peaks intensified.
In the darkness she would
lose him. Rille made the car soar, clearing the ridges with a metre to spare.
Up, down. Up, up, down. And up again. The hill rose like a wall ahead. Rille
clung to the seat at a frightening angle. A fan of white light swept the slope
to its summit: rock and turf and no Evrem.
She found him just on the
other side of the crest. He stood motionless at the edge of a stone platform
that dropped away into a deep valley before him. All below was empty darkness
and all above was arching light.
The car bobbed to a stop and
settled on the crest.
"Evrem!"
No answer. He hadn't heard.
He was all eyes.
Rille looked, at last,where
he was looking. The hidden sun was bleeding. Its lifeblood seeped upward until
it soaked every wisp, bank and streamer of cloud. Overspilling, it flooded down
to touch the iron-stained rocks behind Evrem, and the tiny yellow flowers at
the edge of the chasm, and the skin of Rille's hands, and all warm-toned
things. All were flushed like lovers: they seemed to shine from within.
The whole world was engorged
with light.
Evrem raised his hands to his
face, fingers crooked. His spine bent back, his face stretched in agony. But no
scream came.
Horrified, Rille slammed at
the wrong button and pitched the car forward. Too sharp a drop, too fast. The
car flipped in midair and landed upside down on the rocks. Rille felt herself
fly free, and then she felt nothing.
***
A strange awakening. The sky
was ashes of roses, yet colored light blazed around her. She was lying on grass,
cloth bundled under her head. A rough crescent of stone rose about her for
twice a man's height. The stone walls glowed like the coals at the heart of a
furnace. Colors of noon sun and cremation, of roses and blood. Every cranny was
lit.
"You're awake? All
right? Good." Evrem peered at her for half a moment, then his attention
snapped back to the rocks before his face. He stood at the midpoint of the
crescent, a pot of photochrome in one hand, while with the other he painted.
Rille climbed to her feet and
limped closer to watch.
At the heart of the burning
color stood a naked man. The light seemed to radiate from his body. His arms
spread wide; he strained as if to burst upward in flight. Rille longed to free
him from the rock.
Evrem added a streak of light
to the left thigh. Then his hands relaxed. He wiped them on his shirt and
turned away from the rock picture as if it meant nothing to him. His look at
Rille was wary.
"I don't know what to
say. I used all your paints."
"Your canvas was large enough!
But they weren't my paints, they were yours."
He flung himself down on the
grass and closed his eyes. Rille sat down beside him. She studied his face: a
man's face, with strength in the cheekbones and jaw, but the mouth was still a
child's.
The man had pillowed her head
on his jacket; the child had overlooked the possibility that she might be badly
hurt, consumed as he was by the need to paint.
Her fingers twitched. She
reached for a sketch book that lay on the grass, picked up a pencil that had speared
the earth, swept a hand over the paper in what had once been a habitual caress,
and began to draw. The hand still knew its business.
"I thought I was happy
in the city," Evrem said suddenly. "But this -- " He stammered
to a halt.
"That wasn't really
happiness. Call it contentment."
"This hurt. I thought I
was going mad. Till you flew down with the paints."
"Is the pain gone?"
"Not all of it. I don't
want it all to go," he added in a tone of surprise.
She tore a sheet from the
book and dropped it onto his chest. He sat up, caught it and held it up to the
glow of the painted rocks.
"It's me! Was I hurting
you?"
"You stung me to life,
you set me going again. But hurt -- no. Not everyone is like you, Evrem."
"Yes, you're an artist;
I'm not. All I can paint is screams. All I know is pain, and no-pain. There
must be so much more!"
He scrambled up, stared this
way and that into the darkness. "I'll find it. All of it." He headed
for the edge of the drop.
"Wait, not that way! Oh,
Evrem, you're a child, a savage!"
"Where, then?" He
sat on the brink, still feeling downward with his feet.
"Eastward."
"Back to the city?
There's nothing there for me."
"There's money,
clothing, a spaceport." She held a hand up to stop his tongue. "And
I'm going with you."
"But Arbro is your
home!"
"Arbro is nobody's
home."
She urged him up and firmly
turned him eastward. They returned to the city, then, after a short time, left
it.
Evrem Kai was never seen there
again. But the citizens of Arbro often heard his name, as if the sound of it
blew across a vast gulf from the land of the living.
-end-