Sea of Tranquility(10)

Then finally Vincent’s brother emerged, looking a little haggard, although in fairness no one looked especially healthy in the orange glow of the streetlights here.

“Paul—” Mirella said, at the same moment that the other man said, “Excuse me—” and then they exchanged apologetic glances and fell silent, Paul glancing back and forth between them. A third man was approaching rapidly, a pale guy in a fedora and trench coat.

“Hello,” Paul said, in a general way, to all of them.

“Hello!” said the newcomer. He took off his hat and revealed himself to be mostly bald. “Daniel McConaghy. Huge fan. Great show.”

Paul gained an inch of height and a few watts of radiance as he stepped forward to shake the man’s hand. “Well, thank you,” he said, “always great to meet a fan.” He looked around expectantly at Mirella and the guy in the oversized clothes.

“Gaspery Roberts,” the oversized-clothes guy said. “Wonderful show.”

“Hope you’re not offended,” the man in the fedora said, “I don’t think your hands are dirty or anything, I’ve just gotten really into Purell since this thing in Wuhan hit the news.” He was rubbing his hands together, with an apologetic smile.

“Fomites aren’t a major mode of transmission with Covid-19,” Gaspery said. Fomites? Covid-19? Mirella had never heard either term, and the other two were frowning too. “Oh, right,” Gaspery said, seemingly to himself, “it’s only January.” He snapped back into focus. “Paul, could I maybe buy you a drink and ask you a couple quick questions about your work?” He had a faint accent that Mirella couldn’t place.

“That sounds awesome,” Paul said. “I could definitely use a drink.” He turned to Mirella.

“Mirella Kessler,” she said. “I was friends with your sister.”

“Vincent,” he said quietly. She couldn’t quite parse his expression. Sadness but also a flash of something furtive. For a moment no one spoke. “Hey,” he said, with forced cheer, “should we all get a drink?”



* * *



—

They wound up at a little French restaurant a few blocks away, across the street from a park that looked from Mirella’s vantage point like a hill barely contained by a high brick retaining wall. She didn’t know Brooklyn at all so everything was mysterious here, no points of reference beyond a vague notion that if she were to step outside the restaurant door, the spires of Manhattan would be somewhere to the left. The initial shock of the news of Vincent’s death had faded a little, replaced by a limitless exhaustion. She was sitting next to the guy in the fedora, whose name she had forgotten, and across from Gaspery, who sat next to Paul. The fedora was going on and on about Paul’s brilliance, his obvious influences, artistic debt to Warhol, etc.; he’d loved Paul’s work from the beginning, that groundbreaking experimental collaboration with the video artist—what was his name again?—at Miami Basel, what a leap it had been when Paul suddenly started using his own videos instead of collaborating with others, and so on and so forth. Paul was glowing. He loved being praised, but who doesn’t. She was facing the window, and her gaze kept drifting over Gaspery’s shoulder to the park. If there were an earthquake and the retaining wall broke, would the park spill across the street and bury the restaurant? She returned her attention to the table when she heard Vincent’s name.

“So your sister, Vincent, she’s the one who filmed that strange video in your performance tonight?” This was Gaspery, his name memorable because she hadn’t heard it before.

Paul laughed. “Name one of my videos that isn’t strange,” he said. “I did an interview last year, with this guy who kept calling me sui generis, and at a certain point I was like, ‘Guy, you can just say strange. Strange, weird, or eccentric, take your pick.’ Interview went a whole lot better after that, let me tell you.” He laughed loudly at his own anecdote, and the fedora laughed too.

Gaspery smiled. “I meant that video with the forest path,” he persisted. “With the darkness, the strange sounds.”

“Oh. Yeah. That was Vincent’s. She said I could use it.”

“Was it filmed near where you grew up?” Gaspery asked.

“You’ve done your research,” Paul said approvingly.

Gaspery inclined his head. “You’re from British Columbia, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Tiny little place called Caiette, northern Vancouver Island.”

“Oh, near Prince Edward Island,” the fedora said confidently.

“Didn’t really grow up there, though,” Paul said, apparently not hearing this. “Vincent grew up there. Same dad, different moms, so I was just there summers and every second Christmas. But yeah, that’s where the video was filmed.”

“That…that moment on the video,” Gaspery said, “that anomaly, for lack of a better word. Did you ever see anything like it in person?”

“Only on LSD,” Paul said.

“Oh,” the fedora said, brightening suddenly, “I didn’t realize there was a psychedelic influence on your work.” He leaned forward, in a confiding way. “I went pretty deep with psychedelics, myself. Once you get into heroic doses, you start to have certain realizations about the world. So much is an illusion, right?”