The Enigma Variations Ch.1 -- by Alex Ranieri

[August 27th, 2073, Chicago: Transcripts from my conversations with Leslie Jackson. (Rather one-sided!) I just started recording her at the bus stop cause she was talking to me and was such a weird old lady, and, voilà. Thought you might like to have them. Can’t wait to see you on the 5th. --Your loving Henry.]

L.J.: You know Eva Westerlich, no doubt? Eva Westerlich, the painter? No? No, of course, no one of your generation knows art anymore, I should have known. What do you do with your time? Google Glass. No, that’s too old, isn’t it? Whatever the fashion is. I don’t want to be recorded. Are you recording me? Good.

[Pause.]

She died recently. Eva. I only found out through the news on my email page. Why do they put the news on the page before you sign in? I’d forgotten about her completely. No, I had. But then, the fucking news page. It’s immoral. Disgusting. And the way they sang her praises, already a museum piece. That’s some consolation; she would’ve hated that. [Laughs].

Anyway, they had a picture of her. Have you noticed that once an artist dies, they start only showing pictures from when they were young? She was very young in the picture. With her little face, her dark hair and eyes. She was bending forward, in her red turtleneck, over the ashtray on the table. Smoking shamelessly. That little mouth, sneering. No, no, she wasn’t sneering. That’s something I’ve added out of spite. 

Teenagers for years will be falling in love with that photograph. They’ll see it before her paintings and love her at once, whether the paintings are any good or no. I fancied I liked Hemingway from his picture. But his writing was too insufferable; the illusion was shattered. I’ve always hated it when someone doesn’t live up to their aesthetics. It’s much worse to be a beautiful waste of space than an ugly one.

She smoked like a chimney. We could never stay at hotels, they got rid of all the smoking rooms, and then you couldn’t even do it on the balcony anymore. That was a triumph for me towards the end.

But the smoking didn’t kill her. She must’ve had lungs of steel. The article said natural causes. Not good news for me. Everyone seems to be dying of natural causes. Natural causes is coming closer and closer, I’m running out of opportunities to die of something less final.

She was alone, they said. [Pause.] She’d been alone for
years. They said.

[Pause.]

What? Yes, yes, of course I knew her. What a stupid question. Don’t you recognize me? [Pause. Laughs.] Another stupid question, on my part. Of course you don’t. I’m only an art history professor. How far the mighty have fallen!

I lived with her for years. You’ve probably heard my name from one of the biographies. A couple of paragraphs. I wasn’t even worth a phone call for most of them. Oh, no, of course, you don’t know her, I’d forgotten. I’m Leslie Jackson. What? You’ve heard of me? [Laughs.] Well, god bless artistic girlfriends. What’s her name? Ah, Janet. I like her already. God has certainly been gracious with her tastes. Tell her she’s very refined. That’s rare. Nobody cares about craft anymore; that’s why the old bat won out in the end. She was maudlin enough for them. You have to be maudlin in this world, it’s all robots and machines and technology at the touch of a fingerprint. How can painting compete? You have to make it pop like an advertisement. You have to be a
sellout. Disgusting.

Oh, sure, we had the Internet, but that was different. It wasn’t in your head, or right in front of your face all the time. People actually communicated. Now it’s just all these screens, and no one talks to each other anymore. [Pause. Laughs.] Oh, God. I sound just like all the alarmist magazines from when I was a kid. Millennials, we were going to destroy the world. Yeah, the apocalypse by 2050. Well, not quite. But it’s worse now. I bet it’s really worse. It feels that way. I bet it is.

[Pause.]

Did you know I took that photograph? Yeah. It was at a party, when we’d only been together a couple of years. She was still teaching at the college then, couldn’t get commissions, couldn’t get gallery space anywhere. I brought in all the income. My fifteen minutes of fame. Of course, it didn’t feel like fifteen minutes then. It felt like forever. Same thing, I guess. [Laughs.]

But that was before Helen came into the picture. What? You haven’t heard about her? Oh, yeah. Helen was the big blowup for us. She was a viper. Has your girlfriend really never heard of her? I guess she’s like Banquo for me, then; this thing I carry around and think everybody sees all over me, but it’s nothing. Died a while ago,
good riddance. 

I wish I could remember who she was talking to. Eva, I mean. She only looked like that when she was really absorbed. I remember seeing that and thinking, ‘damn, I’ve got to get the camera.’ And I managed to get a picture without her even noticing. God, I fucking loved her. Didn’t think much of her art; still don’t. Too messy. Not enough technique, not enough discipline. That’s always the kind that wins out, though, isn’t it? But when you talked to her, she just--

[Pause.] Oh. [Pause.] That’s my bus. Um... [Pause.] You know what? Take my card. Hang--hang on. [Pause.] Here. Give me a call. I’m an old lady, I need someone to talk to. And you can’t say no, because I’m old. Give me a call. I want to know more about your girlfriend. [Pause.] Oh, what’s your name? [Pause.] Henry. How pedestrian. Well, so long, Hal. [Pause.] I gave you a card, right? [Pause.] Good. Good. See you.