The Blazing World: A Novel Read online

  During the fast, Anton said that he could feel how nothing matters personally, how the personal is the wrong path. Mine and yours are equal. Mine and yours are the same. We don’t really own anything in this life, and nobody owns art either. Making art shouldn’t be about names or about selling; it should lead you somewhere better on your path to higher understanding. He said Harry knew that, that she didn’t want anything for herself. She was unselfish. She’s like another mother to me, he said. I didn’t tell Anton that Harry was awfully red for a totally unselfish person, because I knew he had to find his own way. On the last day of the fast, we ate potato soup, and Anton started crying, not loud crying or anything, just tears dripping down his face. I remember that really well. I was in the lotus position, and he was in half lotus, face to face, and his shirt was unbuttoned so I could see the little curls on his chest, just a few light brown hairs, almost like an angel’s, really. The archangel Raphael is the angel for healing and wholeness and unity, so I called to the angel in my mind. Sadness, Anton, I said, is because of self-grasping. We are all looking for things to satisfy this sense of want that we feel would satisfy our needs. We all know that the next want will appear, and we will chase that and so on, but when we recognize it and put it on the shelf, we can move beyond it. And he felt better, and then after the soup, we went higher than ever before into the non-self upper reaches of Tantric truths.

  We all saw it happening. Steve, Edgar, and I knew when that lady walked in, the one from the gallery—I can’t remember her name—but it doesn’t matter; she had a greedy face with money in it and lots of blockage in her, and Anton was very nervous. He could hardly breathe. And then it was bad to worse. Harry came in a lot, and she had this certain look. I mean, her eyes could do damage to you. She was quiet, really quiet, and stiff like she had just gotten extra starch at the dry cleaners. Anton was calling her Fairy Godmother, and then Edgar started doing it. I’m Cinderella. That’s what Anton said, but he was so keyed up, it wasn’t funny, if you know what I mean. The bad karma was building and building. So noisy! I had to meditate a lot. I had to cleanse my aura all the time. Auras are like magnets. They pick up all kinds of crap, and mine was getting mucky from the vibrations and negative energies. I was running my hands through my hair all the time and washing up, washing up. Sometimes I’d go outside and walk and let the wind from the water blow over me and clean me. I liked to walk by the water taxis and peek into the warehouse buildings and check out the Statue of Liberty from different angles. She looks so strong and centered. She always makes me feel better.

  Then the show happened. Anton’s mom and dad came, which seemed really nice to me, and they were really nice people, too. I talked to them for a while, and his dad said, “We’re very proud.” But Anton freaked. He was drinking red wine and getting drunk. His spleen chakra was completely shut down. Harry wasn’t there. He kept saying, “I thought she’d come even though she said she wouldn’t. I can’t believe she isn’t here.” He was slurring words. He bumped against the wall. The crowd of people were screeching and laughing; their sounds made me really sore in my arms and legs, as if they were beating on me with their energy—bang, bang, bang. I had to run out of there. So I went home and lit a candle and meditated for a while, and then I called my mom, and we talked for about an hour. She was in a good place then, and her voice was like a healing song.

  But it didn’t really get better with Anton. People were coming to talk to him in the studio. Tell us this and that, and oh, Anton, what were you thinking when you made the big nude? And blah, blah, blah, but the rest of us weren’t really doing anything there. Still, we were paid. Harry and Anton whispered together, lots of low conspiracy-type whispering. Harry read the reviews to all of us, laughing really loud, her eyes all glassy with tears. She thought it was so funny, but that didn’t make any sense. I could feel her from way across the room. Meanwhile, Anton got slicker and slicker. He talked different, walked different. His vibes went completely weird. He bought these really expensive shiny boots and some Japanese shirts, and he seemed to think they were going to protect him from what was going on with his inner being, which was shriveling up like a hard little peanut. I did a lot of breathing, a lot of aura cleaning, and I hoped things would change.

  One day Harry came in while I was there. She seemed sunken, low-energy. I asked her if she was okay, and she looked at me for the first time. I mean actually looked at me. She smiled, and her face wrinkled up, and I realized she was pretty old. I told her I had used abalone shells on people to clear their hearts of sorrow, that they were very good for soothing and working through emotions, that they might help her. She patted my shoulder but didn’t say anything. She talked to Anton for a while. Then they were fighting, and he shouted at her, “This is my life!” Before she left, she came over and talked to me. She asked me about where I grew up and how I got my name. I told her my mother named me after a clematis because her mom, my grandma Lucy, loved the vine more than any other flowers. She seemed to like that. I told her my father didn’t want me. He wouldn’t even sign the birth certificate. It’s funny, I don’t tell everybody that. It depends on their aura, you know, but that day, even though Harry was kind of low on the energy scale, it was okay. I told her about my sensing things most people can’t see or feel. Before she left, she said something I still remember. I can’t say it like she did, but she told me that people have different names for the same things, depending on what interests they have, but the words can also change how we see the things. I don’t really get the last part, but I can understand why Anton thought Harry was wise. That day she seemed wise, and when she touched my hand, I felt warm sweet energies coming from her.

  Anton sold everything in the show. Steve and Edgar left, and I didn’t see Harry after that. Anton took a lot of pictures of me for an artwork he said he wanted to do, but he never did. Every once in a while, he’d bring in a box with a strange little story in it. He’d sell those, too. But I never saw him working on one of them. He used to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling a lot. He read some books, and he talked about Goya, the Spanish artist from the sixteenth century or something, and he showed me these terrible war pictures he made, and I said, “Anton, those won’t help you.” He talked about Harry. He said everything had gone wrong with her. He felt like a reflection in one of those fun-house mirrors. “You don’t get it,” he said. “She’s me. I’m her.” He was really imbalanced by now, and I tried garnets on him, but he got worse, and I explained that there were toxins in him, and sometimes there can be a healing crisis, and everything comes out all at once like an explosion. Then he started yelling, “You fucking little bitch with your stones and your energies and your auras. It’s garbage. It’s all garbage, don’t you know that?” I remember every word because what he said was so hurtful, even though I tried to center myself and understand that he was hurting more than I was; honestly, he was. He knocked over some tools, and he kicked the wall. He made a dent in it, and a piece of plaster shaped kind of like Louisiana fell on the floor.

  I stood really still and closed my eyes. It reminded me of Mom and Denny when they fought. Denny would yell and hit the wall, and Mom would cry. They broke lots of things in the house. Once, Mom’s nose was bleeding all over her shirt and the floor. Denny left us when I was ten, and I was glad. Then Alex came, and he was much more mellow. He would take me to the beach on Sundays, but that was when I was eleven, and then he left, too. I used to press myself against the wall in my room and close my eyes and try not to hear them—Mom and Denny, I mean. After a while, it really worked. I trained myself not to be there, and I wasn’t. Sometimes I could see everything from very far away. I was out of myself, looking down. It’s pretty easy to do after a while.

  Never mind. Never mind. Never mind, Sweet Autumn, I used to say. Float out and over the room and stay very, very quiet. After a while, Denny would leave—he would run out to his car yelling and drive away. I’d go to Mom and pet her head, and she’d cry and hold me for a while. I had to
take care of her and not let the sounds she made go inside me, and then we’d sleep in my bed together. You see, when I was a kid, I learned how to wait, so I waited for Anton. He said he was sorry. He said he didn’t mean it. Then he told me about Harry and that it was mostly really Harry’s work, and he was just the name on it. I think I kind of knew all along even though I didn’t have the words for it. Anton said he tried to give Harry the money from selling History of Art, to make a clean break, but she wouldn’t take it, and so Anton said he was going to travel around the world to look for answers to the big questions.

  I explained that it wasn’t good for me to be around him anymore. It was throwing me back and forth and bothering me, and I just didn’t need all the bad karma. So I walked out and didn’t come back.

  About a year later, I was visiting my friend Emily in Red Hook, and I was walking around down by the water, chanting to myself and feeling the wind blow on me, so purifying, and I went by Anton’s old studio, but there was another name on the door. That’s how energies work, you know, because just two days later, I got a postcard. I saved it.

  Dear Sweet Autumn,

  I’m in Venice sitting in a café. This morning I went to the art museum here and saw some pictures by Giovanni Bellini. There was a Madonna that looked so much like you, I had to write. She had your eyes, the kind of eyes that go straight into you. I’m okay. Thinking of trying California as a place to live. I hope you are well.

  Love, Anton

  I didn’t see Harry again until she was very sick. That’s when she gave me the name Clematis, but she liked to call me Clem and Clemmy, too, and sometimes Clammy, to tease me. She’d say, “Clammy, my dear, isn’t it strange how things come around?” And I’d say, “No, Harry, the wheel keeps turning.” It does. The wheel keeps turning, round and round.

  Anton Tish

  (interview from Tutti Fruity, “Just Checking In,” April 24, 1999)

  Anton Tish’s first show, The History of Western Art, made a splash at the Clark Gallery in New York City when it opened in September, announcing an edgy new voice in the art world. A twenty-four-year-old bad-boy geek with a mystical underside, he got people talking. Toby Bruner met up with the artist in his studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to get the dope on where he’s going from here.

  TB: So what does a guy do after he’s become such a hot property?

  AT: I’m thinking about photography. You know, a post-Warhol take on the icon. But not with icons, if you see what I mean, just regular people. There’s another twist to it that I’m still working on. I got interested in Mannerism. Bronzino is my favorite, and I keep thinking there’s something in his work that will help me frame my new direction.

  TB: Cool. And the story boxes? I heard you can’t make them fast enough.

  AT: I might make a couple more. I don’t know. The show was kind of a one-time thing, I guess. Cleared my system of the past, you know, and now I’m ready for a new conceptual path. It could take some time figuring it out, but that’s okay with me. Once the concept is really tight in my mind, I can move forward. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, thinking . . .

  TB: What are you reading, man?

  AT: This book called Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness. It’s really wild, man. I mean, these guys say that the way you look at something creates what you’re seeing. That’s quantum, and it links up to the brain and consciousness. They call it spooky, and it is. It weirds me out, actually. I keep looking at things and wondering what I’m seeing.

  TB: Heavy stuff, but then, that’s what got you where you are, right?

  AT: Yeah, that’s what they tell me.

  Stay tuned for the next spooky installment of Anton Tish, art world phenom gone quantum!

  Rachel Briefman

  (written statement)

  On Sunday, February 28, 1999, Harry told me about Anton Tish. I remember the date because, after she left, I recorded the details of our exchange in my journal. I have edited those invaluable notes here.

  Although it was chilly and gray outside, I had put on a fire, and we were warm. Harry was wrapped up in a dramatic hand-knit purple sweater and had removed her shoes so she could rest her feet on the sofa cushions. Ray had left the city to give a paper at a conference in Washington, and the two of us were alone with Otto, our Yorkie, who was such a nervous little beast the vet had put him on Prozac, a drug that had absolutely no effect as far as we could tell but gave us the comfortable feeling that he was being “treated.” Otto rudely and repeatedly sniffed Harry’s crotch as we sat in the living room, which made Harry joke that Otto, who had been named after Otto Rank, was merely doing further research on his “pet subject, birth trauma.”

  Before that afternoon, I knew nothing about the show at the Clark Gallery or its success. Although I regularly take in museum shows, I do not follow contemporary art closely, and a great many battles are fought and banners raised in that insular world without my knowledge. Harry, however, had come armed with reviews and photographs, so I was able to see her illustrated woman, as well as the boxes that were, as she said, the “real” work, the ones that counted.

  Once I had understood exactly what Harry had done, I wondered aloud what good it did to give credit to someone who didn’t deserve it. Why? Harry stubbornly insisted that the deceptive game was being played for a reason. It wasn’t merely a sleight-of-hand trick; the magic had to unfold slowly and eventually be turned into a fable that could be told and retold in the name of a higher purpose. At some as-yet-undisclosed moment, she would stride forth out of the shadows to expose and humiliate “them all.”

  Their humiliation did not strike me as a higher purpose, and I told her so, but she countered that it was just a small, if inevitable, part of the plan. Harry had long talked about them. They had persecuted or ignored her for years, but someday they would regret it. After her parents and then Felix died, this monolith of adversarial forces seemed to grow rather than diminish. An enemy with a masculine, not a feminine face, it swatted the likes of Harry away like a mosquito. She had fantasized about her revenge for years, and now it had come—sort of. What did it mean that an amorphous they had celebrated her work when it arrived in a twenty-four-year-old body with a cock, to borrow Harry’s words? What were the enthusiasts actually seeing, I asked, her work or just Anton, the portrait of the artist as a young hunk? How many people really looked at art? And if they did, could they see anything in it? How did people actually judge it? Since my interests ran more in the literary direction, I mentioned to Harry that Beckett’s Murphy had been rejected forty-three times and pointed to the many stories of literary journalists typing up manuscripts of celebrated novels, sending them off to publishers, and receiving standard rejection letters (or worse) in return. Without the aura of greatness, without the imprimatur of high culture, hipness, or celebrity, what remained? What was taste? Had there ever been a work of art that wasn’t laden with the expectations and prejudices of the viewer or reader or listener, however learned and refined?

  Harry and I agreed there had never been such a thing. She said that her idea was not just to expose those who fell into her trap but to investigate the complex dynamics of perception itself, how we all create what we see, in order to force people to examine their own modes of looking, and to dismantle their smug assumptions.

  After this foray into the ambiguities of vision, Harry fell silent as she often did, her large eyes focused on her inward narrations. I nudged her to tell me what she was thinking about, and she began another disquisition. We are all mirrors and echo chambers of one another. What actually happens between people? In schizophrenia people lose their boundaries. Why? Because I knew Harry well, I understood that this was not a digression but a circling device to home in on a more personal confession. Finally, I said, “What is it you are really trying to tell me, Harry?”

  After another minute or so of not speaking, Harry leaned toward me, put her hand on my arm, and confessed that during their adventure Anton had gone a little crazy. In the
beginning, it had been fun, she said, a grand joke the two of them were going to perpetrate on shallow, preening art world types who could make or break reputations, the pompous asses who knew so much about so little. Harry and Anton had worked everything out between them. She had set him up in a studio, had offered him the proceeds from any sales, and had given him a crash course in Western art, an idiosyncratic survey of what really mattered since the Greeks, according to Harriet Burden. In Harry’s class, Duccio di Buoninsegna, the Siennese master, gets more space than Michelangelo, and the perfection of Raphael is relegated to a footnote. This was fine with Anton, of course, who knew next to nothing to begin with. As they worked on the Venus, Anton started calling Harry at all hours to ask questions about the work: Why is the graffiti on her elbow again? Tell me about David and the French Revolution again. Which one is Emil Nolde again? Before long, she said, her answers and comments became his. No one owns language. Do we remember the sources of our own ideas, our own words? They have to come from somewhere, don’t they? Anton read books and essays Harry gave him, watched films she recommended, and eagerly digested her opinions.