The show opened at 7:00 PM and by 8:00 there were only twenty-three people, eleven of them the artists themselves, twelve if you included Novak. It peaked at 9:00 with forty, forty-one if you included the janitor who had stepped in leaving his mop and bucket in the corridor. When Novak saw Cyril’s mother he insisted on taking her arm and touring her through the gallery, expansively acknowledging the virtues of every piece on the walls. She looked at Novak as if he was a talking cat, simultaneously intrigued and appalled. When it came to Cyril’s pictures he was especially effusive. His mother sucked her teeth and regarded the line drawings of fat naked men and skinny naked women. Her experience of art had been the blunt brutalities of Russian Formalism: smoke stacks, hammers and anvils, the fists and forearms of burly men, the sweaty breasts of bullock-shaped women. She began to weep. Novak opened his arms wide and embraced her and for a moment the two of them sobbed together while Cyril and Paul and Della and Gilbert stared. Then their mother shoved Novak away, sniffed once, elevated her chin and resumed her tour of the gallery alone, a solitary ship at sea.
Only half the students showed up for the next class. Cyril presumed they were home sobbing in their rooms or hiding under their beds, or plotting revenge for the review that had appeared.
While the work cannot be criticized for being what it is, that is to say amateurish, it can be criticized for being displayed. All the more so for being displayed in a gallery subsidized by taxpayer dollars.
“Jesus Christ,” said Gilbert, reading the review aloud to Cyril in case he’d missed it.
Cyril, scalded, feigned indifference.
“We should find this bastard,” said Gilbert, whose tone of sincere concern could not mask a hint of sheer delight.
Cyril understood. He hated him but he understood.
“What did what’s his nuts say?” asked Gilbert, meaning Novak.
“Fail better next time.”
PART TWO — 1972
In Which the Match Burns Twice
ONE
SITTING IN THE BEER parlour of the Europe Hotel before his drawing session one evening, Cyril paged through The Province. It had been a lively spring. Howard Hughes was holed up in the Bayshore Inn, George Chuvalo had gone twelve rounds with Muhammad Ali right here at the Coliseum, and Novak’s buddy Elek Imredy had unveiled his statue Girl in a Wetsuit on a rock off Stanley Park. Cyril was intrigued by the hermit billionaire, admired the indomitable Chuvalo, and wondered if the statue shouldn’t have been holding an umbrella given its perpetual smear of seagull droppings.
Cyril had discovered that two beers went down well before class. He grew relaxed yet not sloppy, adventurous yet not irreverent. He reached the Entertainment Section and spotted an ad for a live theatre version of The World of Suzie Wong. The West Bay Theatre Troupe of San Francisco was touring and Connie Chow had the starring role.
“You want front row?” The clerk showed him a laminated card depicting the seating plan.
Cyril didn’t want front row, he wanted to hide as far back in the shadows as possible, yet be close enough to see everything. He pointed to the last row in the Lower Orchestra. “How about here?”
He arrived early and drank two beers in the carpeted lobby. It was an older crowd, well-dressed, lots of jewelry and perfume, the conversations murmured and polite. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. He’d filled out, having grown broad across the chest and shoulders due to his carpentry work. He had thick dark sideburns as well as a blackened thumbnail where he’d been whacked by a board. The last time he’d been to the theatre was in high school when Connie was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That audience had smelled of B.O. and bubblegum; this one smelled of dry cleaning and cigarettes. He was twenty-seven, ten years had passed since he’d seen her. These numbers stuck like poisoned darts and a bewildered confusion seeped through him: confusion at how quickly the years had passed and bewilderment that he’d let it happen while accomplishing so little. Each time he took up a pencil—never as often as he should—it seemed his fingers had thickened and he had a new blood blister. And there was the fact that Connie had not called, and he’d learned about the performance by accident.
He’d responded to her first letter in truthful if enigmatic blandness: Hey Connie, good to hear form you. Glad you’re doing so well. I love I Spy! I wish you all the best and hope to see you sometime. (No, not stealing any art but I am doing a lot of drawing.) She’d sent him three postcards since, including one of a famous hot dog stand in the shape of a hot dog, the Eiffel Tower from a European tour, and the Statue of Liberty from her time in New York in an off-Broadway show. He’d responded to each. A postcard of Lumberman’s Arch, one of Lions Gate Bridge all lit up at night, and one of the fat neon figure of The Smilin’ Buddha. The word us did not appear in any of her cards, though one did mention her and someone called Guillermo going to Mexico City. Cyril felt compelled to mention how he and Jaclyn had been to Seattle and gone up the Space Needle. It wasn’t much but it was the best he could do. Jaclyn was a sweet and attractive and sensual girl. They might have lasted longer than one summer—she liked to dance naked while wearing his carpenter’s belt—but she’d been obsessed with the word get. She’d wanted Cyril to get serious and get his shit together, and get his own business going so they could get married and get a house and get on with having a family. His mother thought she was a good influence.
A discrete bell ushered them to their seats. Cyril followed the crowd into the Lower Orchestra and discovered he had the row to himself. Would she spot him? Again he felt stung at not having heard from her now of all times. The bell tinged once more and the patrons settled themselves. Cyril couldn’t have been more anxious if he was going on stage himself. As the lights went down he slid lower in his seat and held his breath. Bar music. The clamour of drunks. Then red lights went up and there she was, jiving with a sailor in a hazy Hong Kong tavern. To one side, Robert Lomax, the aspiring painter, sips a beer and admires her as she dances. He wears a suit, smokes a cigarette, and has hair as slick and shiny as an oiled LP. Suzie wears a high-collared knee-length dress of tight white silk, her hair long and loose. Watching in envy and admiration, Cyril tasted orange on his lips and vowed right there in the theatre to work harder at his drawing, but it wasn’t just that, it was trickier than mere labour, it was taking himself and his drawing—his art, his work—more seriously. Isn’t that what Connie had done? Is that not why she was on stage and he was in the audience?
During intermission he stepped outside into the cool clear night and listened to the city racket around him. There’d been a moment when he was sure she’d recognized him. She was alone on stage addressing the audience, her gaze travelling from side-to-side as if appealing to each individual about her fate. When her gaze crossed Cyril it seemed to stagger and made her speech stutter. Or had he imagined it? He went back in and had another beer and asked the bartender for a pen and wrote his name and number on a napkin. Approaching the Manager’s door he hesitated then knocked. It opened instantly upon a cozy group that ceased talking and stared. A goateed man in a gold bow tie and owlish glasses waited for him to state his business.