Monument Maker, page 47
“The camera isn’t a key. I became more and more despondent. Mariella spent more time on her own in our quarters. She had taken to knitting obsessively, knitting clothes that we would gift to the prisoners and we would film them as they tried them on, pathetic attempts to capture a few short frames of joy and hopefulness, when we knew as soon as the camera turned away the prisoner would be beaten and his clothes stolen or removed.
“Then Y____ achieved a breakthrough. First, he successfully brought a dog back to life, a dog that had belonged to a camp warden, a faithful companion. Working with X____ and W____, they had succeeded in giving it a new face and reinforcing its frame with mechanics. But what of the spark of life? They had used arte, they said, art with an E, they said, the ancient artes, the black artes. Magic was afoot.
“Then they successfully transplanted the face of a dead boy onto one whose face had been eaten away by the pox. After several weeks with his face held in a cage we were able to conclusively say that the face-swap was a viable option. This will be our redemption, X____ said, our first step towards a form of immortality. Would the face age as normal? Would it break down? Would it eventually reject or be rejected by its new owner? What were the psychological ramifications? The boy was twenty-one years old and had the face of a fourteen-year-old. Who knew? He himself seemed grateful, though he spoke a Gypsy dialect that was difficult to understand. But he had trouble using his new lips at first. He should be freed, I insisted, he should be let go. What is the point of a new face if every day is spent in a camp counting down your own doom? But it was impossible. We were artist-doctors, we were not the jailers; really, we were as trapped by this point as they were. Our animals, our art, we were forced to set free, our early experiments in new life, in kinetic sculpture, in savage new art, we gave up to the elements, and even now they are crawling in awkward circles or rotting in the rain or haunting dark forests, and here, new life, a human being with a blank slate for a face, we were forced to hold behind bars. It was no better than a zoo.
“Soon I was initiated into the artes myself. The process involved a form of transubstantiation that Y____ had chanced upon and that is subtle and that is difficult to achieve but one that must take place on all the planes simultaneously. Part of the living must be gifted to the dead. Sacrifice, the making of an offering, was key. I began to vision myself as an animal.
“Then the systematic killing of prisoners began. Previously there had been beatings, even executions, but there was always an attempt to keep some kind of order. Now, as the population of the camps filled to bursting, and with the majority unfit for work or incapable of being productive, the decision had been made, by whom I don’t know, Hitler himself, perhaps, or Himmler, more likely, to begin a programme of mass extermination. One by one, prisoners were led into a specially constructed compound with a series of rooms. In the central room they were left alone with their head against the wall. A slot was pulled back and the executioner delivered a single bullet to their head. The door in the furthest room opened and closed as the body was removed for future burial.
“Everyone in our unit was assigned to help with the digging of the mass graves. The graves were at the north end of the camp but could be clearly seen by prisoners in certain sectors. The guards would force them indoors, but you could still make out their ghostly disembodied faces, pressed to the glass with a look that was beyond horror. People became uncomfortable being seen entering what everyone knew was the extermination block and being seen shovelling corpses, so much so that a special masked uniform was instituted, although not everyone insisted on wearing it. I did. X____ and Y____ and W____ chose not to. I didn’t judge them. Rather, I judged myself.
“A pecking order soon established itself. People looked down on those whom they deemed cowardly enough to disguise their faces. Comments were made. Soon, when it became our turn to dig a new grave, we would notice that our suits had been doctored. Bits of fur had been attached to them, long tails. Monkey suits, they called them. Some people protested but to no avail. The upper echelons felt the same. With our sentiments we were evolutionary throwbacks, mere animals, monkeys of men. I imagined the view from the barracks, a fleet of monkeys digging a mass grave for everyone you ever knew. I felt sick. But still I practised the arte. The monkey was the first step, I told myself, the arte was working, and by night I worked long, solitary hours re-editing my films until I had the perfect loops, the perfect repeating moments. I isolated single sections, single sections that I felt manifested a certain power, demonstrated a certain gravity, but that were also gaps, gaps that I could escape through, gaps that I believed offered ingress, that uncovered tunnels, that revealed the subterranea of the moment, the very scaffolding of reality, just briefly, just in the corner of the frames, frames that were the equivalent of the mythic tree that falls in the first forest without anyone seeing or hearing it.
“Then I told the others of my plans. I am going to escape, I told them. But first I must become a new animal. At first they were horrified. This is too much, Mariella protested. This is insane, W____ said. I will redeem this project if it is the last thing I do, I told them. Though honestly, if we succeeded, I knew it would be the first thing that I would do. Then I explained what would happen on the other side, once I had successfully disappeared, once I had made my escape. Everyone marvelled, they couldn’t believe the audacity of my belief. I thought we had lost you with our work, X____ said, but truly you have taken it further than any of us. I arranged for the removal and the storage of my face. We had the facilities to make it possible. I gave instructions for the final film, how it was to be made, what it would consist of, the perfect document of my escape, the capturing of it, if you like, of what I had become and why. I am writing this the night before I intend to submit to the knife. I hail you over the years. Hail, brave friend. I am making my way towards you even now. We are reunited at last, you and I, while the rest of me I send off as a black stork picking its way through the wreckage of the dying years.”
That’s a heavy story, the young man with the patch said to me. We’d just delivered a solid beating to a pair of punks who were trading cigarettes on our territory in the stables. We were back in prison, again. It is heavy, I said to him. It is heavy. I feel privileged to see your face the way it is right now, he said. Knowing it will change, I mean. Knowing you will be stuck with a new face. Stuck with a new face, that’s the exact phrase he used, stuck with a new face and that’s exactly how it felt. That is, he said, presuming you don’t have it removed or replaced again, he said, I mean who knows what’s up ahead. That was exactly what he said. Who knows what’s up ahead. I know what, I said to him. I know what’s up ahead. What have I been doing this entire time but telling you what’s up ahead. I raised my fist and brought down a crashing blow upon his head. He fell to the ground and whimpered for a bit. Then he clung to my leg for dear life. What’s up ahead is escape, I informed him in no uncertain terms. What’s up ahead is escape.
I gathered my belongings together. I rose early. I told Mariella I was taking a walk with my new face, not my new eyes, I didn’t say my new eyes, but with my new face, my new face in the terrible flora and fauna of this nightmare island. I had a bagful of painkillers. I was still in much pain. I walked through this terrible flora and fauna, flora that seemed alive, the way flesh is alive, like a zombie, a zombie come back from the dead again and again. I made my way to the harbour, the harbour with the boats bobbing almost silently, almost silently but not quite, my new ears told me, my new ears, although of course not really, I listened with the same ears, the same eardrum, the same auditory ossicles, the same cochlea, the same cochlea curled like a snail in the auditory canal, I thought, but there was no denying it, it was as if a new level of silence had been revealed to me, because it was clear that the boats were moving silently, not rubbing up against each other, not caught in a breeze, but all the same the silence of their movement made itself heard, quietly, of course, which is the speech of silence, quiet, quiet speech but without wind, without a breeze, what was it that troubled the waters, something deep, it could only be, something deep below the waters troubled the waters and moved the boats in the waters, something below spoke silently as I moved towards the boats, as I clambered into one of the small boats and laid my pack down, my pack filled with food and drugs and money, I had gone through Mariella’s purse and I had stolen her money, and I had a knife, I had a knife with me because after all who knows, though really I know, really, I know, I know what’s up ahead and up ahead is an island, up ahead is an island, a twin island, an island like a mirror of the first island only completely denuded of flora and fauna, an island that does not include a plague hospital, an island that has no surgeons or monkeys, an island that does not have a great mansion in its heights, a converted mansion with a dark swimming pool, lit up from below, in its depths, an island whose waters are silent, whose waters speak in the voice of silence, an island whose quiet waters deposited me on a sandy shore not two hours later, an island from which the original island could be seen, an island that provided a vista from which the first island could be viewed, an island from which, on the third day of my vigil, my solitary vigil eating fish on an island, eating fish and surveying an uninhabited island, eating fish and planning, planning my next move, though not thinking, not thinking too deeply, waiting, more like waiting, that was the plan, an island from which on the third day I was able to observe smoke rising, smoke rising from the first island, the mirror island as I have come to call it, smoke rising in great black funnels, flames following in great torrents, flames taking off for the heavens and flora burning, flora burning too, and fire spreading, fire spreading across the mirror island, an island which I became aware was not entirely uninhabited, an island that I had the uncanny feeling I was sharing with what could only be described as disembodied entities, disembodied entities that seemed to crowd around me to watch the razing of the mirror island, disembodied entities that seemed cheered at the sight, cheered at the sight in the same way that silence was capable of speaking, in the same way disembodied entities were cheered at the sight of this island in flames, this mirror island, sinking beneath the waves, which is how it appeared to me, as if the island would go down, in flames, like a ship, like the ship that I had been captain of myself, like the ship that went down in the beginning, I told myself, which was my fate, which was the name of my fate, I said, as I was rescued once more, as I was rescued by a ship that had been drawn to the smoke and the flames and that had passed close by the island I was on, a small fishing boat with a crew of three men who were amazed to find me in such good repair, that was what they said, such good repair for a castaway, they said to each other as they looked me up and down, and I explained that I had lost my way, that I had taken a small boat out from Athens for the day and become disorientated and they said, that is impossible, that is practically impossible, that we were a day’s sailing from Athens at this point, unless the tides got him, one of them said, unless he was taken by the tides, they said, and were you alone, they said, and what became of your companions, but I told them I was alone even as the three of them looked around themselves and sniffed the air and stared back into the trees as if my companions would reveal themselves and overthrow them at any minute, even as I felt the entities swarm all around me, even as I felt the return of the dead, who have yet to overthrow anyone, I thought to myself, but then I had a sudden swooning feeling like the beginnings of vertigo and I changed my tune, my companions are dead, I told them, my companions died in the fire on the island, I told them, and they asked me to accompany them, come with us, they said, we can look for survivors, and I climbed into the boat and we made for the island, which was now a smoking husk, with clumps of blackened vegetation floating out to sea and on the top of the hill the grand mansion, now a skeletal ruin, and I told them there was no hope, that no one could have survived, and to push on to the mainland, where we could best avail ourselves of help, and as we went to push away from the island the mangled body of an animal could be seen floating silently towards us, an animal that was impossible to identify, and one of my shipmates said, it must have been some kind of zoological gardens, he said, it must have been one of these rich men’s follies, and he looked at me and I nodded, grimly, and we turned away from the island and made our own way silently back to port.
Wow, you could do anything at this point, the young boy said to me, as we sat up late at night in the stables in the dying years of the war with the prison silent all around us. What do you intend to do with your new face? Try it out, he said. Try it out on the ladies. I had no money, I reminded him, no documents of my own. I returned to Mariella’s apartment and climbed through a high window on the landing. I bathed and changed my clothes. I took what was left of the money that Mariella kept hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. Take my painting with you, the boy said, go on. It stays where it is, I snarled at him, and he quickly dropped the matter. I took a train through Greece and having no identity papers I got off just before the border and made my way across a dusty mountain pass and into Albania. From there I was able to secure passage on a boat to Lecce in the heel of Italy. This is when my face came into its own (at last, the young boy said, some kind of pay-off). I was picked up by a young woman at the train station (here we go, he said), a local whore with a kink (yes!), and we returned to her apartment, which was in a stunning old building with wide colonnades and turreted windows and with a rooftop garden where the residents met to dine beneath the stars and to play with their dogs.
How is it to make love with the face of another man? the boy asked me. It is as emboldening as with a mask, I told him. You mean like S&M? he asked me. There is an element of performance to it, I said to him. An element of showing off or of self-display, rather.
You mentioned she had a kink, he said to me. Yes, I told him, yes, she was a dog-lover. This whore was known as a dog-lover. She and her lover would parade the streets together, this black dog, this old black Labrador, the dog wearing leather studded collars and a harness of silver chains while she wore an auburn wig and red stilettos and heavy make-up and with a cane and a see-through umbrella.
Hardly a kink, the boy said, you led me on. Plenty of women are dog-lovers. Dog-fuckers, I said to him, are plenty of women dog-fuckers? Oh shit, he said to me. Oh wow. Did you see them do it? I saw them do it, I told him. I saw them do it in pictures at first. She was a fetish star, she appeared in the magazines alongside her dog. What was the name of her dog? Amour. Amour? Amour is a female name. Not on this dog, I said. How did they do it? the boy asked me. Doggy style, I said. Were you appalled? No, I told him. I was amazed and in awe at the things that were being presented to my new face. I was able to watch them from behind a mask so that it did not seem disgusting to me. Did she blow the dog? She blew the dog most artfully, I told him. Then the dog mounted her. It mounted her and dominated her. She had taught it well. Can a woman become pregnant with a dog? he asked me. It’s a biological impossibility, I told him. But biological impossibilities were now my field, if you understand me.
And did you both fuck her? Not at the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to. Ah, so there are limits even to a new face. It would seem so. And how did you feel about putting your penis where a dog’s penis had been, if you don’t mind me asking? the young boy said. I enjoyed it, I said to him. I confess that I enjoyed it. I asked her if it was degrading, do you enjoy degradation? I asked her. It is ennobling, she said to me. It is elevating, she said. Wait, the young boy said to me, is this because of the war? Do women take to dogs because all of the men have been killed in a holocaust? No, I told him, this is the preserve of the elite.
But then a terrible thought came to me. What? I began to suspect that I had in fact created this dog. That I was, in fact, its maker. What? She had found the dog as a stray, as a stray that had come to her on the street one day. I imagined that it was one of the dogs that I had loosed, one of the dogs that I had loosed in my other life, my life as a Januist. I thought, these are hybrid dogs, these are dogs that have developed a taste for humans and for human sex and for the female. These dogs are anomalies. What dogs, I thought there was only one dog? One dog that I had come across, I told him. But what of all the dogs that we had set free? What of all the dogs we had reanimated? I thought that the experiments were a failure, on the whole? Yes, but we had never given them time, we had never monitored their behaviour, we had never seen how they readapted to the wild. You mean dogs with the faces of rats? What was this dog’s face like? As seamless as my own, I told him. But I had to know. I had to know.
One day while my companion was out whoring on her own I fed Amour some steak with a sedative in it. I lifted its body into the bath and I cut open its belly. You did what?! I cut open its belly and I slid my arm into its innards, all the way to the elbow. What on earth were you looking for? Parts. Evidence. I cut slits in its paws and peeled back its skin. That was when I discovered it. Amour had a metal construction around one of its legs and a steel plate in its side. But that tells you nothing, the young boy protested.
It was a stray dog, I said to him, why would someone put a steel plate inside a stray dog? From kindness, the boy said to me. It must have had an injury at some point, perhaps its first owner had beaten it and someone had looked on it kindly and had it rebuilt. I know all about that kindness, I told him. I built it myself. Then I left the dead dog in the bath and I fled the apartment. Perhaps you will think me insane, I said to the young boy. He said nothing in reply. He didn’t dare to.
