Mouthful of Birds(31)

Aníbal, who is my representative and the guy in charge of putting my paintings in galleries and deciding the price of each thing I do, says that the woman thing isn’t good for us. He says that masculine energy is superior, because it’s not scattered and it is monothematic. Monothematic means you think about only one thing, but he never says what that thing is. He says that women are fine at first, “when they’re really fine,” and also at the end, because he saw his father die in his mother’s arms and that’s a good way to die. But everything in between “is just hell.” He says that for now I have to concentrate on what I know how to do, which is saying nothing and painting. He’s bald and fat, and no matter what’s happening, he’s always talking nonstop and panting as if he were out of breath. Aníbal used to be a painter, but he never wants to talk about that. Since I spend all my time in my studio and he persuaded my mom not to bother me, he usually stops by at noon to bring me food and take a look at what I’m working on. He stands in front of the paintings with his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans, and he always says the same things: “More red, it needs more red.” Or: “Bigger, I need to see it from across the street.” And almost always, before he leaves: “My man, you’re a mega-genius. A me-ga-ge-nius.” When I don’t feel good because I’m sad or tired, I look in the bathroom mirror, hook my thumbs in my jeans, and tell myself: “You’re a mega-genius. A me-ga-ge-nius.” Sometimes it works.

And now comes the important part of the story. So, I’d always had a terrible hole between my back right two molars, in my “superior maxilla,” and at some point I started getting the food I ate stuck in there. I ended up with some unbearable cavities. Aníbal said I couldn’t go to just any dentist, because after women, dentists were the worst. He handed me a business card and said: “He’s Korean, but he’s good.” He got me an appointment for that same afternoon.

John Sohn looked young and I thought maybe he was my age, but it’s hard to guess Korean people’s ages. He gave me a little anesthesia, drilled my teeth, and filled the holes he’d made with paste. All with a perfect smile and without hurting me at any point. I liked him, so I told him how I painted heads against concrete. John Sohn was silent for a moment, which turned out to be like a moment of “illumination”—which made me think we had something important in common—and he said, “That’s just what I’ve been looking for.” He invited me to have dinner in one of those real Korean restaurants. I mean, not a touristy one, but the kind you enter through a little door you wouldn’t think led anywhere, and then inside it turns out there’s a whole Korean world. Big round tables even if you have only two people, and the menu in Korean, and all the waiters are Korean, and all the customers are Korean. John Sohn chose a traditional dish for me and gave the waiter precise instructions on how to prepare it. John Sohn needed someone to paint a gigantic painting for his waiting room. He said the important thing was the tooth. He wanted to make a deal: I’d paint the picture, and he would fix all my teeth. He explained why he wanted the painting, how it would affect the customers, and the value of advertising in his culture. He talked nonstop, like Aníbal, and I like it when someone else does all the talking. When we finished eating, John Sohn introduced me to some Koreans at the table next to us, and we had coffee with them. Now, I don’t speak Korean, so I didn’t understand anything. But watching them talk helped me realize that now I had a dentist friend, and I had an important deal with my dentist friend, and that that was very good.

I spent many days working on John’s picture, until one morning I woke up on the sofa in the studio, looked at the canvas, and felt a deep gratitude: his friendship had given me my best picture. I called him at his office and John was very happy, I know because when something excites him he talks even faster, and sometimes he talks in Korean. He said he would come over for lunch. It was the first time a friend had come to visit me. I organized the paintings a little, making sure to leave the best ones in view. I picked up my clothes and carried them up to the bedroom, and brought the used plates and glasses to the kitchen. I took food from the fridge and set it out on a tray. When John arrived he looked all around for the picture, but I told him that it “wasn’t time yet,” and he respected that because Koreans know a lot about respect, or at least that’s what he always said. So we sat down to lunch. I asked if he wanted more salt, if he preferred something hot, if I could pour him more soda. But everything was fine with him. I thought how maybe he could come over some night to watch movies or chat about whatever. We could take a photo together to display somewhere, like people do with “family and friends.” But I didn’t say anything about that yet. John ate and talked. He did it all at once, and it didn’t bother me because that’s intimacy, it’s part of being friends. I don’t know how he got on the subject, but he started talking about “Korean kids” and education in his country. Kids start school at six in the morning and they leave at noon the next day; that is, they spend almost a day and a half in school and they have only five hours free, which they use to go home, sleep a little, and return. He said those are the things that distinguish the Koreans from the Argentines, that set them apart from the rest of the world.

I didn’t like that, but you can’t like everything about a friend, that’s what I believe. And I think that all in all, in spite of his comments, we were fine. I smiled. “I want you to see the painting,” I told him. We walked to the center of the room. He took a few steps back, calculating the distance, and when I felt the time was right, I pulled off the sheet that covered the picture. John had small, fine hands, like a woman’s, and he was always moving them to explain what he was thinking. But his hands stayed still, hanging from his arms like they were dead. I asked what was wrong. He said that the painting was supposed to be about the tooth. That what he wanted was a gigantic painting for his waiting room, a painting of a tooth. He repeated that several times.