A less ambiguous link to “Invitation” can be found in the person of Voss Bender, the famous opera composer née politician, and the tumult following his death—a death that occurred only three days before Lake began “Invitation.” In later interviews, the usually taciturn Lake professed to hold Voss Bender in the highest regard, even as an inspiration (although, when I knew him, I cannot recall him ever mentioning Bender). More than one art historian, noting the repetition of Bender themes in Lake’s work, has wondered if Lake obsessed over the dead composer. Perhaps “Invitation” represents a memorial to Voss Bender. If so, it is the first in a trilogy of such paintings, the last two, “Through His Eyes” and “Aria to the Brittle Bones of Winter,” clear homages to Bender.—From Janice Shriek’s A Short Overview of the Art of Martin Lake and His Invitation to a Beheading, for The Hoegbotton Guide to Ambergris, 5th edition.
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The dusk had a mingled blood-and-orange-peel scent, and the light as it faded left behind a faint golden residue on the brass doorknobs of bank entrances, on the coppery flagpoles outside the embassies of foreign dignitaries, and on the Fountain of Trillian, with its obelisk at the top of which perched a sad rose-marble cherub, one elbow propped atop a leering black skull. Crowds had gathered at the surrounding lantern-lit square to hear poets declaim their verse while standing on wooden crates. Nearby taverns shed music and light in equal quantities, the light breaking against the cobblestones in thick shafts, while sidewalk vendors plied passersby with all manner of refreshments, from Lake’s ill-starred sausages to flagrantly sinful pastries. Few outside of Ambergris realized that the great artist Darcimbaldo had created his fruit and seafood portraits from life—stolen from the vendors, who arranged oranges, apples, figs, and melons into faces with black grapes for eyes, or layered crayfish, trout, crabs, and the lesser squid into the imperious visage of the mayor; these vendors were almost as popular as the sidewalk poets, and had taken to hanging wide-angle lanterns in front of their stalls so that passersby could appreciate their ephemeral art. Through this tightly packed throng, occasional horse-and-carriages and motored vehicles lurched through like lighthouses for the drunk and disorderly, who would push and rock them at every opportunity.
Here, then, in the flushed faces, in the mixing of dark and light, in the swirling, shadowy facades of buildings, were a thousand scenes that lent themselves to the artist’s eye, but Lake, intent on his map, saw them only as hindrances now.
And more than hindrances, for the difficulty of circumnavigating the crowds with his cane convinced Lake to flag down a for-hire motored vehicle. An old, sumptuous model, nicer than his apartment and prudently festooned with red and green flags, it had only two drawbacks: the shakes—almost certainly from watered down petrol—and a large, very dirty sheep with which he was forced to share the back seat. Man and sheep contemplated each other with equal unease while the driver smiled and shrugged apologetically (to him or the sheep?), his vehicle racing through the narrow streets. Nonetheless, Lake left the vehicle first, deposited at the edge of the requested neighborhood. The nervous driver sped off at top speed as soon as Lake had paid him. No doubt the detour to deliver Lake had made the sheep late for an appointment.
As for the neighborhood, located on the southeastern flank of the Religious Quarter, Lake had rarely seen one grimmer. The buildings, four and five stories high, had a scarcity of windows that made them appear to face away from him—inward, toward the maze of houses and apartments that contained his destination. Such stark edifices gave Lake a glimpse of the future, of the decay into which his own apartment building might fall when the New Art moved on and left behind only remnants of unkept promises. The walls were awash in fire burns, the ground level doors rotted or broken open, the balconies that hung precariously over them black with rust. In some places, Lake could see bones worked into the mortar, for there had been a time when the dead were buried in the walls of their own homes.
Lake took out his invitation, ran his hand across the maroon-gold threads. Perhaps it was all a practical joke. Or perhaps his host just wanted to be discreet. He wavered, hesitated, but then his conversation with Raffe came back to him, followed by the irritating image of Shriek’s face as she said, “Interesting.” He sighed, and began to walk between two of the buildings, uncomfortable in the shadow of their height, under the blank or cracked windows whose dust-covered panes were somehow predatory. His cane clacked against rocks, a plaintive sound in that place.
Eventually, he emerged from the alleyway onto a larger street, strewn with rubbish. A few babarusa pigs, all grunts and curved tusks, fought with anemic-looking mushroom dwellers for the offal. The light had faded to a deep blue colder in its way than the temperature. The distant calls to prayer from the Religious Quarter sounded like the cries of men drowning fifty feet underwater.
By the guttering light of a public lamp, Lake made out the name of the street—Salamander—but could not locate it on his map. For a long time, the darkness broken by irregularly posted lamps, he walked alone, examining signs, finding none of the streets on his map. He kept himself from thinking lost! by trying to decide how best the surrounding shadows could be captured on canvas.
Gradually, he realized that the darkness, which at least had been broken by the lamps, had taken on a hazy quality through which he could see nothing at all. Fog, come off the River Moth. He cursed his luck. First, the stars went out, occluded by the weight of the shadows and by the dull, creeping rage of the fog. It was an angry fog, a sneering fog that ate its way through the sky, through the spaces between things, and it obscured the night. It smelled of the river: of silt and brackish water, of fish and mangroves. It rolled through Lake as if he did not exist. And because of this, the fog made Lake ethereal, for he could no longer see his arms or legs, could feel nothing but the cloying moisture of the fog as it clung to and settled over him. He was a ghost. He was free. There could be no reality to this fog-ridden world. There could be no reality to him while in it.
Lost and lost again, turning in the whiteness, not sure if he had walked forward or retraced his steps. The freedom he had felt turned to fear—fear of the unknown, fear that he might be late. So when he became aware of a dimly bobbing light ahead, he began to fast-walk toward it, heedless of obstacles that might make him turn an ankle or fall on his face.
A block later, he came upon the source of the light: the tall, green-hooded, green-robed figure of an insect catcher, his great, circular slab of glass attached to a round, buoy-shaped lantern that swung below it. As with most insect catchers, who are products of famine, this one was thin, with bony but strong arms. The glass was so large that the man had to hold on to it with both gloved hands, while grasshoppers, moths, beetles, and ant queens smacked up against it, trying to get to the light.
The glass functioned like a sticky lens inserted into a circular brass frame; when filled with insects, the lens would be removed and placed in a bag. The insect catcher would then insert a new lens and repeat the process. Once home, the new catch would be carefully plucked off the lens, then boiled or baked and salted, after which the insects would hang from his belt on strings for sale the next day. Many times Lake had spent his evening tying insects into strings, using a special knot taught to him by his father.