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Justiceby Painting: Collioure By: Raoul Dufy |
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Justiceby Painting: Collioure By: Raoul Dufy |
| "Did you rape her, Tony?" Harris thought he knew the answer, but he asked
anyway. The close, water-stained, windowless walls waited patiently. Harris breathed through his mouth, trying to get oxygen from the dead air. "No." The word came slowly, reflectively. "But you did have sex with her." "No." A little quicker this time. "Tony, you had sex with her. Why are you lying about it?" "I didn't have sex with her." "Tony . . . Unsuccessfully, Harris tried not to sound annoyed. It didn't matter. Tony didn't seem to be listening. "I made love to her." "That's kind of a fine distinction under the circumstances, isn't it?" "I made love to her." Tony said it with stubbornness. Or maybe conviction. He stared at his large, smooth hands, folded carefully on the table. "Semantics." "No." "I'm not understanding this. Maybe you'd better explain." "I made love to her." Tony's voice was low, but firm. He wasn't wavering from his story, which seemed to be cupped in his hands. "Yes, we've established that. I believe you. I want to know exactly what you mean by that." Not too exactly, Harris thought. Just enough for him to understand why. Tony's brown eyes became clear, almost glossy. He repeated his theme. "I made love to her. I made love to her hair . . . do you remember her hair?" "Yes." Harris remembered. "It was red." His ex-wife would have spent hundreds of dollars to have that kind of hair. In this case, it was natural-and framed the pale, lovely face of a dead woman. "It was red. And thick. And wavy. It was like the ocean, only the color was angry and the waves violent. I soothed it and made it my own. Like Poseidon." "Poseidon?" Dim memories of something stirred in Harris's mind. He looked for a clock on the wall. There wasn't one. There had never been one. He knew that. "Then what happened?" "I made love to her eyes. Her great, green eyes. The gold flecks in them responded to me to my touch, to my thoughts . . . they burned with life." Tony paused. He seemed to be thinking of something-something that was half memory, half conjecture. Harris saw the outlines; they disturbed him vaguely. Just as he opened his mouth, Tony spoke. Like those of his lover, his eyes glowed. Harris started to feel nauseated, as though he had never seen death before. Not like this. "I made love to her mouth. She had the most beautiful mouth-it was like that of a child-full, soft, shapeless . . ." Harris turned away and swallowed, then coughed hard. He tasted sour acid. Not enough food, not enough sleep. He picked up his coffee cup and looked into it. Dry, brown stains taunted him. He set it down again. The sound echoed metallically in the barren room. Tony didn't notice. "I made love to her skin. Did you notice her skin?" Harris nodded. He suddenly realized he did remember everything about her. Her hair, her eyes, her mouth, her skin . . . and he wasn't sure why. He had seen lovely women-but he had never experienced one. He probably shouldn't regret that. "Thousands of tiny pores in a mass of creamy white. I loved every one of those pores." Tony didn't say anything more. Harris hoped the anatomy lesson was over. He thought he understood more than he wanted to. "Yes, well . . ." Harris hesitated. One second too many. "I didn't stop there." "I didn't think so." He leaned back in his chair. His body ached all over. "I made love to her thoughts. I could feel them. They were wild, undisciplined, exciting . . . I've never known anything like that." Harris never had, either. Tony's eyes had become less brilliant . . . softer, more fluid. "I loved her past, my past, our past. Our past-we grew up together, like brother and sister, inseparable, two people, one mind. Playing together, reading together, discovering the world and ourselves together . . . I found her within me; I was in her. I believed. Two children with no thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow, just now . . . just us." Harris was relieved at the change in focus. He wasn't sure what this was accomplishing, but he couldn't stop it, either. It would come to its own conclusion, in its own time. He could neither hurry nor change the ending. "I loved her future, my future, our future." Tony stopped. Harris remembered the bed, the comforter brightly decorated with bloodstained roses and vines, the girl with the massive waves of red hair, and the 12-inch blade penetrating her heart. Not much of a future for either of them. Tony didn't say anything for a few minutes as he continued to contemplate his hands. Maybe Tony was remembering the future. Or how those hands had changed it. Harris looked at his cup again. Still dry. In the silence of their thoughts, Tony spoke again. His quiet, low voice became even quieter. "I was happy. Or I thought I was happy. I thought she was happy, too. We finally belonged to each other." Harris felt a conclusion coming. He straightened. The air moved a little in response. Silence. Finally, "What happened, Tony?" "I made love to her." Harris held his breath. "Or I thought I did." "You did. That was obvious." "She wouldn't let me." Harris exhaled and inhaled as quietly as possible. He thought he could feel his brain dying, one cell at a time. "But . . ." "She wouldn't let me." "Why did you kill her?" "She let me have everything but the one thing I wanted . . . the one thing I needed. She wouldn't let me have that." Harris didn't ask-he knew the answer was coming. Tony's voice was sinking slowly, but he seemed determined to hold on long enough to say what he wanted to say. "I wanted . . . needed . . . her soul." "Did you tell her that?" "I told her that her soul was mine. I told her it would be my life and our future." "What did she say?" "She laughed and said that I had to leave, that she didn't like anyone to spend the night. It was an unkind laugh, an ugly laugh." "Were you angry?" "I was . . . disappointed." "Then what?" "I took it. I had to." "How did you take it?" "I had her body, I had her thoughts, I had her. Why couldn't she give me that one thing? She always knew how much I wanted her . . . all of her." Harris wondered how much she had really known. "Now you have her. Soul and all." "No." "No?" "It was dead. It had always been dead. I could feel it. It was a decayed thing, lying under an ancient headstone, crushing my immortality." "Why did you kill her?" Harris repeated the question. He wanted a simple answer. His eyes were starting to throb. He glared at the empty coffee cup. "I didn't." "You did. You can't deny it." No more coffee, no more patience, no more time. Tony's voice rose a notch; he looked up sorrowfully. "I suppose that's how you see it. You can't help but see it that way." Harris waited. "I couldn't have killed her. I really couldn't have." "Why not?" "I've already told you!" "You haven't told me anything." "I couldn't have killed her. She was already dead." That night, finally in his own bed, Harris had no dreams. He woke up too early, tired and anxious. He didn't know why. His morning coffee made him vomit. He found Tony's body first thing. The dark mass of blood was a sickening gel. He shuddered involuntarily and shuffled off to report the incident. It would go down as a suicide. But Harris knew it wasn't that simple. Tony had robbed his lover of her dead soul. Now she had taken his. |
| BIO Diane Schirf Diane L. Schirf, 37, grew up in Hamburg, New York and, after graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in English language and literature from the University of Chicago, got stuck in the Windy City, pursuing happiness through editing and communications consulting. Good things (and bad) must come to an end, however, and she is now seeking a publications position, primarily to please the Illinois Department of Employment Security and her 14-year-old feline, Pudge, and to exercise her few remaining "little grey cells." Sheís had two poems published, "Revelation" and "You," which amazes her no end, poetry not being her forte. Hee home page is at http://www.mindspring.com/~slywy/ |
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Bio: Raoul Dufy Many think of seaside paintings, streets with flags and scenes of anonymous figures walking down the streets when there is a mention of Raoul Dufy. His seascapes are often an emerald green with patches of white, black and red depicting sailboats and people. Many of his works as embodying a sense of gentle gaiety and ephemerality. Dufy did several paintings of avenues in Le Havre where he was born, strewn with flags commemorating Bastille Day. Unlike Van Dongen, Derain and Vlaminck, Dufy encountered much animosity upon meeting with the Fauves. In fact, the only way Berthe Weill, the principal sponsor of the Fauve artists, could get Dufy's works to be exhibited along with the other Fauve artists was to show his works in a different room. Dufy was not fully accepted into the circle until the Salon d'Automne exhibition in 1907. He was forced throughout his life to take on odd jobs here and there to make a living, such as driving a van for the military postal service Dufy travelled often and was exposed to the many works of other artists. Many admire his talent for depicting architecture so eloquently through his use of color. This is especially the case in his work Le Trouville. Painting Located at Collioure |
