In the absence of more complete biographical information about Lake following this period, one must rely on such scanty information as exists in the history books. As is common knowledge, Bender’s death was followed by a period of civil strife between the Reds and the Greens, culminating in a siege of the Voss Bender Memorial Post Office, which the Reds took by force only to be bloodily expelled by the Greens a short time later.
Could this, then, as some critics believe, be the message of “Invitation”? The screaming face of the man, the knife blade through the palm, which is wielded by Death, who has just claimed Voss Bender’s life? Perhaps. But I believe in a more personal interpretation. Given what I know about Lake’s relationship with his father, this personal meaning is all too clear. For in these three paintings, beginning with “Invitation,” we see the repudiation of Lake by his natural father (the insect catcher) and Lake’s embrace of Bender as his real, artistic father.
What, then, does “Invitation” tell us? It shows Lake’s father metaphorically leaving his son. It shows his son, distraught, with a letter sent by his father—a letter which contains written confirmation of that repudiation. The “beheading” in “Invitation to a Beheading” is the dethroning of the king—his father … and yet, when a king is beheaded, a new king always takes his place.
Within days of this spiritual rejection, Voss Bender dies and for Lake the two events—the rejection by his father, the death of a great artist—are forever linked, and the only recourse open to him is worship of the dead artist, a path made possible through his upbringing by a mystical, religious mother. Thus, “Through His Eyes” is about the death and life of Bender, and the metaphorical death of his real father. “Aria…” gives Bender a resurrected face, a resurrected life, as the force, the light, behind the success of the haggard rider, who is grief-stricken because he has buried his real father in the frozen graveyard—has allowed his natural father to be eclipsed by the myth, the potency, of his new father, the moon, the reflection of himself: Bender.
In the end, these paintings are about Lake’s yearning for a father he never had. Bender makes a safe father because, being dead, he can never repudiate the son who has adopted him. If the paintings discussed become increasingly more inaccessible, it is because their meaning becomes ever more personal.—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.
* * *
The days continued on at their normal pace, but Lake existed outside of their influence. Time could not touch him. He sat for long hours on his balcony, staring out at the clouds, at the sly swallows that cut the air like silver-blue scissors. The sun did not heat him. The breeze did not make him cold. He felt hollowed out inside, he told Raffe when she asked how he was doing. And yet, “felt” was the wrong word, because he couldn’t feel anything. He was unreal. He had no soul—would never love again, never connect with anyone, he was sure, and because he did not experience these emotions, he did not miss their fulfillment. They were extraneous, unimportant. Much better that he simply be as if he were no better, no worse, than a dead twig, a clod of dirt, a lump of coal. (Raffe: “You don’t mean that, Martin! You can’t mean that…”) So he didn’t paint. He didn’t do much of anything, and he realized later that if not for the twinned love of Raffe and Merrimount, a love that he need not return, he might have died within a month. While they were helping him, he detested their help. He didn’t deserve help. They must leave him alone. But they ignored his stares of hatred, his tantrums. Worst of all, they demanded no explanations. Raffe provided him with food and paid his rent. Merrimount shared his bed and comforted him when his nights, in stark and terrifying contrast to the dull, dead, uneventful days, were full of nightmares, detailed and hideous: the white of exposed throat, the sheen of sweat across the shadow of the chin, the lithe hairs that parted before the knife’s path …
The week after Raffe had found him, Lake forced himself to attend Bender’s funeral, Raffe and Merrimount insistent on attending with him even though he wanted to go alone.
The funeral was a splendid affair that traveled down to the docks via Albumuth Boulevard, confetti raining all the way. The bulk of the procession formed a virtual advertisement for Hoegbotton & Sons, the import-export business that had, in recent years, grabbed the major share of Ambergris trade. Ostensibly held in honor of Bender’s operas, the display centered around a springtime motif, and in addition to the twigs, stuffed birds, and oversized bumblebees attached to the participants like odd extra appendages, the music was being played by a ridiculous full orchestra pulled along on a platform drawn by draft horses.
This display was followed by the senior Hoegbotton, his eyes two shiny black tears in an immense pale face, waving from the back of a topless Manzikert and looking for all the world as if he were running for political office. Which he was: Hoegbotton, of all the city’s inhabitants, stood the best chance of replacing Bender as unofficial ruler of the city …
In the back seat of Hoegbotton’s Manzikert sat two rather reptilian-looking men, with slitted eyes and cruel, sensual mouths. Between them stood the urn with Bender’s ashes: a pompous, gold-plated monstrosity. It was their number—three—and Hoegbotton’s mannerisms that first roused Lake’s suspicions, but suspicions they remained, for he had no proof. No telltale feathers ensnarled for a week to now slowly spin and drift down from the guilty parties to Lake’s feet.
The rest of the ceremony was a blur for Lake. At the docks, community leaders including Kinsky, Hoegbotton conspicuously absent, mouthed comforting platitudes to memorialize the man, then took the urn from its platform, pried open the lid, and cast the ashes of the world’s greatest composer into the blue-brown waters of the Moth.
Voss Bender was dead.
* * *
Is my interpretation correct? I would like to think so, but one of the great challenges, the great allures, of a true work of art is that it either defies analysis or provides multiple theories for its existence. Further, I cannot fully explain the presence of the three birds, nor certain aspects of “Through His Eyes” with regard to the ring of red and the montage format.
Whatever the origin of and the statement made by “Invitation to a Beheading,” it marked the beginning of Lake’s illustrious career. Before, he had been an obscure painter. After, he would be classed among the greatest artists of the southern cities, his popularity as a painter soon to rival that of Bender as a composer. Lake would design wildly inventive sets for Bender operas and thus be responsible for an interpretive revival of those operas. He would be commissioned, albeit disastrously, to do commemorative work for Henry Hoegbotton, de facto ruler of Ambergris after Bender’s death. His illustrations for the Truffidians’ famous Journal of Samuel Tonsure would be revered as minor miracles of the engraver’s art. Exhibitions of his work would even grace the Court of the Kalif himself, while nearly every year publishers would release a new book of his popular prints and drawings. In a hundred ways, he would rejuvenate Ambergris’s cultural life and make it the wonder of the south. (In spite of which, he always seemed oddly annoyed, even stricken, by his success.) These facts are beyond doubt.