As if it weren’t enough to face the fact that he was descended from someone who had fought on the wrong side in the war, and who, judging by the severed finger, had done so with relish, he also now had to accept that this same person had worked for a full fifteen years as a spy for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, responsible for passing on information about the leftists and Communists among the Croats and other immigrants from Yugoslavia. He knew, he said, that there were plenty of people who would have put his grandfather on a pedestal for this postwar activity and who even would have felt that his involvement in containing the spread of evil communism would absolve him of guilt for his part in the Ustasha scourge, but he, the grandson, was unable to think that way; he couldn’t and he didn’t want to, for evil is evil, and victims are victims, especially when they suffer for ideas, not actions. He would have had a great deal to say on that score, he said as he checked the time, first on his wristwatch and then on the large wall clock, but it was high time he got going, for he still had the drive to Calgary ahead of him and a business dinner that evening, but if we two or just Daniel Atijas were willing, we could get together again tomorrow evening, or better yet, he said, over the weekend. Then he’d have time to finish telling us the story of his grandfather, and we could, he winked, have a repeat performance of some of last night’s fun and games. As far as he was concerned, said Daniel Atijas, that suited him fine, but Ivan Matulić’s grandson should keep in mind that Daniel Atijas would be traveling on Monday, and though he didn’t have a lot with him, he liked having time to pack.
At his words, which he tossed off with a cavalier indifference, my heart clenched and I thought it would never release. I thought about them again, the words and the heart, when I got back to the studio. First we said good-bye to Ivan Matulić’s grandson and agreed we’d get together again on Saturday afternoon while at the same time declining his offer to give us a ride back to the Banff Centre, mainly because Daniel Atijas said he would enjoy the walk, though only a moment later, as Ivan Matulić’s grandson’s car was pulling away, he added that we would have to split up because, he said, he still had shopping to do, last-minute shopping; time was zipping by, and since shopping always got on his nerves, he said, it was better if he did it alone, without me, though, he remarked, he would rather be doing it without himself, he had so little patience for shopping, but hey, there was no way around it, especially because he had promised things to many of his friends: books, CDs, tea, nylon stockings, felt-tip pens, exotic spices, and who knows what else, a thousand odds and ends, but even if there had been only one thing to get, he would have felt a special obligation to do so because of the dire situation in his country and because there were many things they couldn’t get, and if they were available, they cost more there. In short, once we had crossed the bridge and reached the intersection of Buffalo and the main street, he continued straight while I turned right, deciding, in my despair, to take the long way to the Banff Centre, as if the length of the route or the magnificent view stretching from the road across the Bow River to the hotel where Ivan Matulić’s grandson had just told us his story, or part of his story, as if the length of the path and the surrounding beauty would brighten my mood, my sour mood, caused by those words and the clenching of my heart.
Had I run into Mark Robinson or the president of the Banff Centre, for instance, who knows what I would have said, or maybe I would have said nothing, but would have walked by in silence despite their smiles, as if they weren’t there and never had been. I met no one, not even tourists; nevertheless, as soon as I reached the Banff Centre area I walked, culprit-like, head bowed. I wanted to get to my studio as fast as possible — that was all I had in mind — and it would be awful, I thought, if something or someone should stand in my way. For the first time I passed by a dozing elk in the woods on the path leading to the studios without a shiver of fear. I never even turned, a little later, when I heard it snort and, most likely, clamber to its feet. I entered my studio and closed the door behind me as if this guaranteed a modicum of safety. None of us can guarantee anything for ourselves, I thought, let alone for others. Everything is self-deception, I thought, every drawing, every hue, every word. I looked into the face that watched me with its many eyes as if it were some sort of rare breed of animal, a newly discovered species, an interloper from outer space, from another planet. Every one of these determinants was true; I should have seen it earlier, understood that what at first looked like an ascension was, in fact, a plummet. I was falling like Icarus, and I didn’t know which was more painfuclass="underline" the feathers ripping off, the fall itself, or the hot tar pouring over my flesh, leaving juicy blisters.
I tried to calm myself, I tried to reassure myself that everything is an illusion anyway: this used to comfort me, but not now, perhaps because I was among mountains and not on the plains, where everything, even misfortune — and this thought now felt like salvation — would be so different. I said all sorts of things, I know, but I am a painter, not a writer, and I couldn’t feel an obligation toward words, at least not my own, though I realized that not a single one of my paintings offered the force of despair that sprang from the words of Ivan Matulić’s grandson: there was no comparison. In any case, I was not even working to depict despair in my paintings and drawings. Perhaps I don’t really know what it is that I work to depict, but despair has, most certainly, never occurred to me. Again I arranged the face sketches on the table, floor, and chairs, and again I wasn’t satisfied. Perhaps I had succeeded in catching the true lines of the face, but I was still far from expressing what I was carrying inside me, from drawing into the face what I felt toward it. I was not sure whether something like that was even possible: to draw yourself onto someone else, into someone else, not as if the face was yours, with your lines, but with your feelings, your inklings, your hopes. This is gibberish, I thought, and gathered up the sheets and put them back into the sketch pad. Just as I was flipping the pad shut and was about to stow it on a shelf, someone knocked. I wanted to rush over, and then I thought to duck behind something, and finally I waited for the knocking to repeat. Up till then I had managed to evade a visit from Daniel Atijas, having literally dragged him away from my studio on two or three occasions, fearful that if he saw the drawings of the face he might distance himself from me, a little at first, and then further and further, until he had disappeared over the horizon, but now it didn’t matter because he was distancing himself anyway; he no longer belonged to me, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t alter the slender line of the horizon or his movement, slow but sure, in that direction.
At the door, however, when I opened it, Daniel Atijas was not the person standing there, so I needed a few moments to collect myself and exchange his facial features, already drawn in my mind, for the features of the person who was there, Mark Robinson. Troubles never come singly, of course. It was not enough that Daniel Atijas was fading away toward the horizon; now Mark had to be standing in front of me, obstructing my view. I rose up on my tiptoes and peered over his shoulder. There was nothing to be seen, not even an elk on the path. I am on my way out the door, I said to Mark, to check in at the Banff Centre office and see whether the canvas I ordered from Calgary has come, and without waiting for him to say a word I slammed the door of the studio and set out on the path strewn with pine needles. Mark plodded along after me, rumbling about a literary gathering later that evening, at which, or so he’d heard, Daniel Atijas, too, was supposed to be reading. He didn’t know what. Nor did I. Had I not already been stung by Daniel Atijas’s imminent departure, the fact that he hadn’t mentioned the gathering would have pained me even more, so ultimately, in an odd way, I could be gratified, but I still had to press my left fist to my chest, to the spot under which beat my heart, pounding as it never had before, while behind me, ambling along like a bear, was Mark Robinson, uttering unfamiliar words and meddling with the silence.