Kinsky offered a smug smile, stood, stretched, and said, “I’m going to the opera. Anyone with me?”
A chorus of boos, accompanied by a series of “Fuck off’s!”
Kinsky, face ruddy, guffawed, threw down some coins for his bill, and stumbled off down the street which, despite the late hour, twitched and rustled with foot traffic.
“Watch out for the Reds, the Greens, and the Blues,” Raffe shouted after him.
“The Blues?” Lake said, turning to Raffe.
“Yes. The Blues—you know. The sads.”
“Funny. I think the Blues are more dangerous than the Greens and the Reds put together.”
“Only the Browns are more deadly.”
Lake laughed, stared after Kinsky. “He’s not serious, is he?”
“No,” Raffe said. “After all, if there is to be a massacre, it will be at the opera. You’d think the theater owners, or even the actors, would have more sense and close down for a month.”
“Shouldn’t we leave the city? Just the two of us—and maybe Merrimount?”
Raffe snorted. “And maybe Merrimount? And where would we go? Morrow? The Court of the Kalif? Excuse me for saying so, but I’m broke.”
Lake smirked. “Then why are you drinking so much.”
“Seriously. Do you mean you’d pay for a trip?”
“No—I’m just as poor as you.” Lake put down the drink. “But, I would pay for some advice.”
“Eat healthy foods. Do your commissions on time. Don’t let Merrimount back into your life.”
“No, no. Not that kind of advice. More specific.”
“About what?”
He leaned forward, said softly, “Have you ever received an anonymous commission?”
“How do you mean?”
“A letter appears in your post office box. It has no return address. Your address isn’t on it. It’s clearly from someone wealthy. It tells you to go to a certain place at a certain time. It mentions a masquerade.”
Raffe frowned, the corners of her eyes narrowing. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never gotten a commission like that. You have?”
“Yes. I think. I mean, I think it’s a commission.”
“May I see the letter.”
Lake looked at her, his best friend, and somehow he couldn’t share it with her.
“I don’t have it with me.”
“Liar!”
As he started to protest, she took his hand and said, “No, no—it’s all right. I understand. I won’t take an advantage from you. But you want advice on whether you should go?”
Lake nodded, too ashamed to look at her.
“It might be your big break—a major collector who wants to remain anonymous until he’s cornered the market in Lake originals. Or…”
She paused and a great fear settled over Lake, a fear he knew could only overwhelm him so quickly because it had been there all along.
“Or?”
“It could be a … special assignation.”
“A what?”
“You don’t know what I mean?”
He took a sip of his drink, set it down again, said, “I’ll admit it. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Naive, naive Martin,” she said, and leaned forward to ruffle his hair.
Blushing, he drew back, said, “Just tell me, Raffe.”
Raffe smiled. “Sometimes, Martin, a wealthy person will get a filthy little idea in a filthy little part of their mind—and that idea is to have personalized pornography done by an artist.”
“Oh.”
Quickly, she said, “But I’m probably wrong. Even if so, that kind of work pays very well. Maybe even enough to let you take time off from commissions to do your own work.”
“So I should go?”
“You only become successful by taking chances … I’ve been meaning to tell you, Martin, as a friend and fellow artist—”
“What? What have you been meaning to tell me?”
Lake was acutely aware that Sonter and Merrimount had fallen silent.
She took his hand in hers. “Your work is small.”
“Miniatures?” Lake said incredulously.
“No. How do I say this? Small in ambition. Your art treads carefully. You need to take bigger steps. You need to paint a bigger world.”
Lake looked up at the clouds, trying to disguise the hurt in his voice, the ache in his throat: “You’re saying I’m no good.”
“I’m only saying you don’t think you’re any good. Why else do you waste such a talent on facile portraits, on a thousand lesser disciplines that require no discipline. You, Martin, could be the Voss Bender of artists.”
“And look what happened to him—he’s dead.”
“Martin!”
Suddenly he felt very tired, very … small. His father’s voice rang in his head unpleasantly.
“There’s something about the quality of the light in this city that I cannot capture in paint,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“The quality of light is deadly.”
“I don’t understand. Are you angry with me?”
He managed a thin smile. “Raffe, how could I be angry with you? I need time to think about what you’ve said. It’s not something I can just agree with. But in the meantime, I’ll take your advice—I’ll go.”
Raffe’s face brightened. “Good! Now escort me home. I need my sleep.”
“Merrimount will be jealous.”
“No I won’t,” Merrimount said, with a look that was half scowl, half grin. “You just wish I’d be jealous.”
Raffe squeezed his arm and said, “After all, no matter what the commission is, you can always say no.”
* * *
However, once we have explored Lake’s own exploration of the post office as building and metaphor, how much closer are we to the truth? Not very close at all. If biography is too slim to help us and the post office itself too superficial, then we must turn to other sources—specifically Lake’s other paintings of note, for in the differences and similarities to “Invitation” we may uncover a kind of truth.
We can first, and most generally, discuss Lake’s work in terms of architecture, in terms of his love for his adopted home. If “Invitation to a Beheading” marked Lake’s emergence into maturity, it also inaugurated his fascination with Ambergris. The city is often the sole subject of Lake’s art—and in almost every case the city encloses, crowds, or enmazes the people sharing the canvas. Further, the city has a palpable presence in Lake’s work. It almost intercedes in the lives of its citizens.
Lake’s well-known “Albumuth Boulevard” triptych consists of panels that ostensibly show, at dawn, noon, and dusk, the scene from a fourth-story window, looking down over a block of apartment buildings beyond which lie the domes of the Religious Quarter (shiny with the transcendent quality of light that Lake first perfected in “Invitation to a Beheading”). The painting is quite massive, the predominant colors yellow, red, and green. The one human constant to the three panels is a man standing on the boulevard below, surrounded by pedestrians. At first, the architecture appears identical, but on closer inspection, the streets, the buildings, clearly change or shift in each scene, in each panel further encroaching on the man. By dusk, the buildings have grown gargoyles where once perched pigeons. The people surrounding the man have become progressively more animallike, their heads angular, their noses snouts, their teeth fangs. The expressions on the faces of these people become progressively sadder, more melancholy and tragic, while the man, impassive, with his back to us, has no face. The buildings themselves come to resemble sad faces, so that the overall effect of the final panel is overwhelming … and yet, oddly, we feel sad not for the people or the buildings, but for the one immutable element of the series—the faceless man who stands with his back to the viewer.