...a deathly serenade...

Kofi Boamah

...a deathly serenade...

a novel

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© Copyright of Artist Kofi Boamah

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...a deathly serenade...

a novel

Kofi Boamah

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*This note was just left on the kitchen table next to a

bouquet of flowers, and was corrected for small errors,

typos and published as is.

…the rain is falling and awaits us all. the melody of

the sounds all bleed, and envelopes that which is

bleeding its last wounds. Like a flicker from a light:

the night now lingers still, just as life fails to

unveil. Like a serenade: the writing was on the

wall! From the wound bleeds this ink. From the

wound bleeds this ink. Although the deed has not

been done, I put myself in one of two categories.

Yashu and Leila were of the first category, that

which puts one’s place in life in a state of reluctant

purgatory — Oftentimes, Leila’s face expression —

a tearful laugh — seemed as if life was like a

person telling a joke and trying not to laugh. The

tears would rarely fall physically, but that which

remained was a tear in a life-form; Leila and I

differed in this sense. My disdain is conclusive; it

yields to the death that is inevitable, and this is the

second category: an agnosticism to happiness. This

second category enabled one to explore: a joke can

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still be a joke. But as the rain falls, the joke has

been said, and the water set. What festers are

these thoughts and this conclusion. Yashu was of

course of the first category, but with a painterly

slant. His brushstrokes spoke of this inclusion

into these realms: tortured and seeping of death

with wild blues and bloody reds. I, a novelist,

Yashu, a painter and Leila, the Poet — A prayer

here, a prayer there, everywhere a sermon. It’s

the swing of the black, Leila would say, it’s the

swing of the black! What this meant? I failed to

truly discern to begin with. But I knew of her

before our existences truly collided — she had

been published, Yashu and I had had little

response. Sat in the coffee shop, that would

eventually become a sort of refuge, I read her

book of poetry: A Deathly Serenade, of course, a

synecdoche for conflicted beauty. As It touched

my soul, for the beauty of the words sent shivers

down my spine, and even more now — I can

recite this poem, as if Biblical verse with a twist of

irony:

Took a minute to establish my own thought

Yours or mine? We, I or you?

I debate this still I eat, drink you could say

Fears bring prayers

Determinist thoughts bring sheers of necessity

And hedonist thoughts bring tears

If you must say? But, give me an action

Where you don’t receive the pay

And I’ll show you where thieves stay

Though aren’t we all?

Living in a pool

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Hoping to swim amongst doves and birds

Our dreams reign out the seams of our unconscious

minds.

...she sat there like a song; the violence of the first

acts in the play, which would become more than I

could have known, awaited me, awaited us, as the

rain falls. An empty bar, an empty night and as I

walked in, mostly empty handed, there sat Leila. Get

the fuck away from me, she violently flayed to a

hopeful lothario, how poetic, I remember. I knew

her face from the picture in her book, of course; A

Deathly Serenade — her long dark brown hair, big

eyes and black eyebrows. She looked so alive. In

reality, death happened yesterday for Leila,

therefore any form or veil of happiness was always

too late. That joke came too late, the rain was always

at the wrong moment and the milk was always spilt.

Instead, for Leila today was the over spilling or the

belated serenade, in that it’s all a forgone

conclusion, all that keeps one here is reluctant

distraction: distraction with a spouse, distraction

with a pet or distraction with perfection. Artistic

perfection was our bond, Leila, Yashu and I — we

became acquainted through this perfection, which

in a way acted in the eventual serenades we all felt

obligated to sing. Yashu and his masterpiece that

nine years later failed to materialise, illustrates this

more perfectly than any of our words could muster.

Always speaking with his rather oddly shaped head

fixed to one side, whilst stroking his head of hair —

the same hair that even at twenty—three he was

losing and sat with a bald partition. Are you that

Poet? spluttered the tipsy Yashu to Leila at the bar,

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that first night. Her eyes always full of

conversation; she looked at both of us with a

drowsy squint and said with a nod: Let us drink,

and sure I am that Poet, but now I’m mostly just

drunk, though not like Baudelaire! Just drunk!

Said Leila, I remember. I assumed the same

treatment as the hopeful lothario looking on,

alone at the other side of that Shoreditch bar, but

was met with the lady that would begin to define

much about my life. Her presence was as if death

from a kiss: her moods sauntered with anger in

one moment and joy the next, but seemed to

nestle into her somehow befriending Yashu and I.

Though not before she firmly placed Yashu in his

place by letting him know that she was a lesbian

and that she was: Just not interested, look at your

hair, she flippantly added for good measure — the

trinity that became us had said its first prayers at

an altar: a prayer here, a prayer there, everywhere

a sermon. Leila was like the holy spirit; in the

sense that a poet’s belief in the grandeur is that

which lubricates our eternal essence — the

sensitive nature of the poet; for everywhere exists

a sermon: to Leila, the trees spoke of a rainy day

and the creases on a person’s face told a story.

Yashu differed: he had a preoccupation with the

high—minded motifs of visual beauty with his art

containing rosaries, chapels and such religious

iconography, if I can remember. I perhaps

oscillate between both perspectives, as the rain

continues to fall. Though the roles would often

change between us, in hindsight, though this is

only apparent as the end is nearing. Maybe I have

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taken this time to establish my own thought,

because it has gone through much turmoil —

perhaps via osmosis a crisis that lived in Leila

would soon become known to us, and become us!

of course this crisis eventually led to her time at

the nunnery, but so much happened before and

so much happened after this occurred, that it

seems that what transpired only added textures of

narratives to that which already was fated, already

was told and already was predisposed to happen. I

kept insinuating to Yashu that he should just stop

with what was clearly only able to be deemed a

dead-end — This illustrious masterpiece, he

named Heaven was flawed in its inception: if it

were a mathematic equation it would’ve been the

cause of the mathematician spending years and

years formulating, but with the hope of full

completion of the equation, so tragically for

Yashu he treated Heaven as an equation. If I get

all the angles right, and everything correct it’ll be

perfect, said Yashu. And from observing Yashu’s

perspective I knew that he was always flawed, why

he chose to be an Artist was always a question I

would continually wonder, and insinuate to him.

This was the reason he had moved from his

hometown in Bedfordshire, and rebelled against

his Father, The Professor. The Professor wanted

him to be a mathematician and saw his decision to

move to London and become an Artist, Yashu

would initially say, as a despicable decision. The

Professor would constantly tell Yashu that he was

only digging his own grave with that paintbrush.

But certainly, that paintbrush could be replaced

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with a pen, but I knew that Yashu was aiming for

something that even he knew was not discernible.

Of course, Art is subjective, Yashu would say

anytime I or even Leila would mention that

perhaps he chooses a different project, we would

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both say, but our metaphors were simply masking

the obvious tragedy. It was his method that spoke

of this tragedy and anguish: he approached Art

like a mathematician approaches Pythagoras

theorem — perfectionism was something to be

worked on, it was just around the corner. Perhaps

his German roots played a part in this, as Yashu

once told me a few stories about his time as a

youngster spent in Dusseldorf and Munich with

his Grandparents. He would spend the summers

until he was eighteen living a regimented life, with

chores and rigid curfews. A regimented mind is of

the highest importance, even in its messiness, one

must have a consistency, this is what my

Grandfather, The General, would always teach me

in Dusseldorf, said Yashu on numerous occasions.

This, for me, made his choice to be an Artist even

more tragic; a tragic joke that the universe seems

to befall on us as he always sought to get

somewhere; Let us get there as soon as possible,

he would say every time we would meet to go to

Soho or to another Artist’s studio, he would drive

like a maniac, and of course amassed piles of

speeding tickets that would take chunks out of the

trust fund that would always be replenished. He

was always seemingly in a rush; bowlegged he

walked like a twelve-year old on his way to the

sweet shop. But this is what Leila and I advised;

that he may never reach that sweet shop, he may

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never chew that chocolate or suck that lolly: the

mystery that is Art and Life only brings

unreachable destinations, I conclude, as the rain

falls. Though I can’t hide my guilt in this sense, of

perfectionism; my fifteenth draft of the unfinished

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Vanity. Blue clearly speaks of this understanding,

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but Yashu was more guilty than I, guilt from a

holistic point of view: a total eclipse of guilt. The

Professor and I had many a conversation about

this guilt, despicable as it was; that his only son

was the prodigal son and an Artist, he remained

derisive, but slowly got used to this: with the

apartment Yashu’s Father bought in Islington,

apparently for work and to see Yashu, acting

merely as a disguise for The Professor’s

philandering’s and quickly became an ominous

reminder for Yashu — perhaps acted in his

untimely fate. As the apartment in Islington was

always too close to Yashu in Shoreditch, he would

complain, even though The Professor rarely

occupied the Islington apartment. In his mind he

couldn’t fully succeed in escapism with Islington

looming over his head. Though, of course, the

death of The General a few years after we met,

sent Yashu’s messy regimented nature into a

darker place — Leila prophesied much of what

came to occur. I also knew. On the days I would

visit the Islington flat, The Professor would often

speak of his son’s flawed persona: What is he so

doggedly getting at? What a waste of a trust fund,

he said one time, and I began to see through this

same kaleidoscope: A prayer here, a prayer there,

everywhere a sermon. What does it all mean? To

become, as Yashu would say. It’s obvious this is

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where Leila saw his guilt most severely naked. It is

obvious that there is no destination; that which

has occurred still occurs and happiness still

remains veiled, along with troubles and strife. This

is clear, even though the end is near, there is


much I am trying to discover, much I shall inspect,

in good time, or just in time, I should say, it really

is out of my control, this. Though it is clear that

the many years I could have left could be used to

ascertain the purpose of being under the sun, but

this is an allure I feel un—attracted to, powerless

as I may be. As all cries are, silence comes veiled

with screams; they’re heard everywhere from an

evening’s commute to the tearful laughs on Leila’s

face. However, Yashu’s screams were more primal

and what came from a place of reverence soon

beguiled. Heaven, Yashu said, it doesn’t make

sense, surely, I will have the same capacity for joy

and sadness? Perhaps, I think I mused in retort.

But it was clear that Yashu’s methods were

becoming undone by this expansive awakening.

The canvas (160 x 200 cm) was more than its

centimetre size, it occurred that his masterwork,

and that which he was to make his ultimate

statement, was an awakening of sorts. Leila had

similar problems: the conscious mind’s awakening,

but it worked at a more severe level, due to the

sensitive nature of the Artist as a poet! Levels of

sensitivity that leave nowhere to collude, nowhere

to lay and no lies to be swallowed! Lucid — an

attempt at the end game, myself and Yashu had

nicknamed it, was very much nothing alien for

Leila: being that life resided in a place of reluctant

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purgatory, of course. The first time we — Yashu

and I — became aware of this was the first night we

all met. After a few hours of drinking we followed

the drunk Leila as we staggered through the dark

London streets, her sensual but dark intense nature


A was seeping into my world at a rate of knots, I guess

with hindsight, hit me like a bus. Can it be simple?

Of course not, what is usually at play is a desire for

what will harm. Dangerous, Leila ended up in

hospital that first night, after what I deemed a

drunk accident, soon was revealed to be the

physical reality of her prolonged Deathly Serenade.

What if I throw myself into the road, will you love

me then? Yelled the drunk Leila stepping

convulsively into the road, as if a prayer: her arms

to the sky having fallen to her knees. The car hit

her and she rolled towards Yashu and I. Panicked,

the ambulance came and baring a broken rib she

turned out to be physically undisturbed, she even

joked that the rib was given to her from the evil

man so she needn’t desire it anymore. So, it was at

the hospital that we truly came to know Leila, the

long periods of quiet meant that many

conversations were had between us and an unlikely

friendship ensued. We soon came to find out that

Leila had no real affinity for life; the casualness of

her acceptance of pain reaffirmed her poetry, her

elegant screams:

And hedonist thoughts bring tears If you must say?

...as she said nothing, there were no screams or

tears, just a grimace as that vehicle collided with

her fluids and matter, I remember. Though

disparate and beautiful as I thought she was, the

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scream was intrinsic to her very being, and her

poetry: the nonchalance of her acceptance of pain

was her torture and her elegance, in my eyes.

Yashu’s scream was louder and more distinct,

being also of the first category: reluctant

purgatory. I can’t seem to get this work right,

Yashu would yell. So, The Professor would mock

Yashu: Why don’t you do us a favour? he said one

time after Yashu spoke of completing his

masterpiece, and stop all this heaven this and

heaven that, did I bring you up to think without

your brain? This was even after Yashu had

achieved some success in the London Art arena

— having had those two solo exhibitions by that

time, and allowing the move to Dalston, even

closer to Islington, less reliant on the Trust fund.

Even though, for Yashu, Islington loomed like a

cesspool: He is probably there with his bimbo that

he is keeping from my Mother, that bimbo,

probably deriding me without realising the

importance of the work, he said of The Professor,

maybe reading some Nietzsche, even, added

Yashu with a frustrated sigh, ironic in intention.

The Professor saw things not from the eyes of an

Artist but from the point of view of cause and

effect; mystery was merely an equation or an

irrelevance: I thought his Grandfather would have

beaten all this out of him, with those summers in

Dusseldorf, said The Professor. Instead,

Dusseldorf acted not in the way The Professor

had assumed as The General’s last words brought

an end to the positive affect of Yashu’s summers

in Dusseldorf, feared The Professor. Atheist,

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AA

surprisingly, The Professor would constantly

muse on the Penitent Thief and its meaning,

perhaps after he had read my novel, Vanity. Ares

and The General had said those last words: Life,

wheezed The General, it is all about love and

mystery, and religion, he said on his deathbed in

his last breath, in the company of The Professor,

Yashu and I. As I had gone to Dusseldorf to

accompany Yashu and was met with this final

entendre, if I can say. Religion! said The

Professor as the nurses tried to resuscitate The

General, but to no avail. How can his last words

be like this? said The Professor, with his jaw

nearly perched on the hospital floor, as if he had

forgotten that his Father had only just died. I

didn’t know why The General’s last words,

spoken in a gibberish fashion, I thought, with

even a little saliva drooling down his chin, would

be of so much importance, initially. But The

Professor still seemingly in shock at the edge of

the bed staring back and forth at Yashu, and then

at I, and then at The General, and then I and

then back at Yashu. I came to find that the

regimental and logical pillar he saw as The

General had in a way forsaken him, to use The

Professor’s own words! which was surprising for

an atheist, as The Professor, that night after his

Father passed, soon started to drink and was

drunk in the Dusseldorf apartment rambling:

Such last words. Those words. Why has he

forsaken me? Why has he forsaken me? The

Professor kept repeating, at least twenty times

that night, still reeling from The General’s last

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words, as opposed to the Death that had just

occurred; it seemed that The General’s last words

were an awakening for The Professor: As to him

The General had been seen as the regimental,

logical pillar that had set this benchmark for Yashu

with his summers in Dusseldorf and Munich, and

those words were a fatal contradiction; a Judas in

the wire! How could his last words make no sense?

Love, mystery and religion, no wonder Yashu is

like this, said The Professor at The General’s

funeral, as if Yashu was not sitting ten yards away

and able to hear. These last words, how were they

spoken? Asked this white-haired Aunt to The

Professor with a curious beady stare as if the topic

weren’t death but knitted sweaters or a walk

through the Dusseldorf fun fair. Completely

illogical, spluttered The Professor with one tear

falling down his eye, failing to hide his disgust.

Maybe the autopsy will show us something?

Comforted the white-haired Aunt with a highpitched

air of innocence, he was old, were there

not many drugs? Added the Aunt. No drugs, a

natural death, replied The Professor, before he

broke down and I saw his wife hug him like a new

born baby: sobbing with loud snot noises

emanating into the Dusseldorf living room from the

mezzanine. It became clear that he saw things from

a perspective of consistency, cause, affect and

rationale were key to The Professor, and The

Penitent Thief to him seemed wholly incorrect to

him and just like The Generals last words, he later

explained. So, the death of The General saw a

change in Yashu: I noticed that he started to


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become more pedantic about perfecting his craft.

If I can remember, as the rain continues to fall and

the night consumes the ether, Leila had released

her second book of poetry and Yashu was

competitive with this, he was failing to sleep and

would be constantly trying to eclipse that which I

saw as impossible: As Leila had named her book

of poetry, Elysium which is of course the hundred

and fifty page epic of ascension, heaven and

Elysium — the concepts getting more and more

lofty, even in my own eyes: it was as if the concepts

of life and death were dangling on thin ice, as our

work begun to take over our very beings. It is

about the swing of the black, Leila would say,

which was also the first line of Elysium, her poem.

With critical acclaim, Leila in a way reaffirmed her

position as one of the foremost European Artists,

one Art critic wrote. And by that time I had

written only Vanity. Ares, published by an

independent publisher, with the advance

providing me with enough money to live in the flat

in between Leila in Bethnal Green and Yashu in

Shoreditch, as the rains falls. Life being art, or art

as life, were concepts blurred as time went on, as

Leila, just like her work, had become more and

more pious. Although, it could be said that the

writing was on the wall in this sense: A prayer

here, a prayer there, everywhere a sermon — I

remember that first week at the hospital that

Madgelane the nun, Leila’s Aunt, had paid a visit:

Unlike the relationships I saw Leila fashion, even

with myself, her relationship with Madgelane had a

profound effect on her, it seemed. I remember

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Madgelane told Leila that she would need to read

the Bible, and Leila would do it in the days that

would transpire: she listened. How can I believe in

God if I don’t believe in people? said Leila to

Madgelane and the Father, I would come to know


as Theirocpy, as he sat at the edge of the bed

hearing Leila denounce their very essence as

concisely as only a poet could. You believe in me?

said Madgelane with a smile. Leila’s casual

submission to Madgelane’s will suggested that she

did believe in her aunt. I remember this, after

Madgelane seemed to curiously after she had

taken off her habit; complaining that It felt too

heavy, revealed a skirt that I felt was rather short,

especially for all her lips desires for Leila to

believe in her. Though I dismissed this as just the

effects of the June heat in London, and the warm

hospital room we were stuck in whilst Leila

recovered, but was slightly unsure nonetheless,

particularly as standing in front of me, as I sat

down next to the bed, Madgalane then bent over,

perhaps propping Leila’s pillows if I can

remember, whilst Father Theirocpy started

reciting bible verses to Leila, for our aunt to reveal

no underwear beneath her short skirt. I remember

wondering why Madgalane the nun would be

bending over like this, with no underwear on right

in front of me, to expose her bare bottom, to

overshadow the verses from Luke, and even

turning her head to smile at me, but I decided that

it was something that I should ignore as she soon

put her habit back on and the bare bottom

returned under its veil. At sea, Madgelane seemed

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like Leila’s anchor, and this seemed instantly

apparent. I wondered why, still perhaps with

Madgelane’s rather shapely behind in my mind

and asked: it seems your Aunt is important to

you? I said. She gives me hope, and always has,


AA especially since Mother has been in the hospital,

replied Leila always clearly pronouncing every

word in the way I would become accustomed to.

Hoping to swim amongst doves and birds, Leila

had this hope, of course, I then came to learn

more of Leila’s Mother’s residence in the mental

hospital and this was one of her conflicts,

especially in her desire to believe in Religion and

God: the notion of God or a higher power having

an element of crazy, consumed much of Leila’s

heart’s thoughts, which was even clear from, A

Deathly Serenade and Elysium a few years later.

Rather pragmatic at times Leila would sometimes

say things as: Is not health God? The straw had

long broken the camel’s back, though, Aunt

Magdelane, the lady that nurtured her through

the turbulence from youth acted as Leila’s needle

in a haystack: in the context of Madgelane there

existed excitation. Can you love an eagle? Her

favourite poem saunters on a melancholy note.

Perhaps, a reason for her beauty could be her

absence, and in a way this manifested itself in

more ways than one. Even at the hospital in the

presence of the broken ribbed Leila, asleep —

both Yashu and I accepted her allure as rather

fatal. We both agreed that her beauty was the

worst sort: that which should not be touched, as

if a person should live in a Museum. Mired in the

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acceptance of Leila’s allure was Yashu’s

competitiveness: it was clear that he saw both

Leila and I as threats. This is why he is of course

more guilty than I. For maybe six months after she

had published, Elysium, Yashu was unable to

paint, and unable to finish Heaven, his

masterwork, which meant that his position at his

galleries and with his Art dealers soon became

untenable and treacherous; because as a growing

force in the London scene Yashu’s work had

become highly desired and was being purchased

for upwards of £200,0000 — £300,000, at that

time, if I remember correctly, and he owed

paintings, but instead was becoming a more and

more absent. Immobilised from Leila’s Elysium, I

deduced, he then saw the name of my third novel,

Immortality, as a spit in the face, he said. Cooped

up in his Dalston studio and apartment he

worked, but refused to give paintings to his Art

dealers. At that time I failed to visit his studio in

Dalston, as I found his stance pathetic and

distinctly as The Professor would describe him.

Frustrated, The Professor saw Yashu’s erratic

behaviour as inevitable, especially in light of The

General’s last words: He has lost all his

intellectual capacity, to instead obsess about

nothing, said The Professor to me in Islington. I,

of course, lent an ear to The Professor, in London

on the weekends, according to his wife in

Bedfordshire, to see Yashu and for business, she

said when I answered the Islington house phone

once. What business? Instead, Islington acted as a

place I could stay in between situations, which


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meant that I would merely be a passive observer

to what occurred. The occurrences mostly

involved Olga, who of course was the real

business The Professor would attend to. She

would be around the flat, mostly on the

weekends — The blonde Swede with the huge

breasts acted as The Professor’s joy and what he

saw as the only higher power on this earth: This

woman is my little heaven with such soft

nipples, said The Professor of Olga. The

Professor was the first to be inducted into the

first category and in a way he pioneered this

viewpoint of this agnosticism to happiness. This

was why Yashu was fundamentally guilty; as he

firmly placed himself in the second category —

Reeling from what he called the deceit of

Elysium, he sat in his Dalston studio, denying

entry to his Art dealers, denying entry to the

truth, denying entry to world but with the door

ajar to perfection. He is not able to even

articulate a simple emotion of love, let alone

heaven and the masterpiece we have heard

about for years; his work is all style, said The

Times Art Critic. Angered and pedantically

rehashing the articles words, Yashu changed his

masterwork’s name from ‘Heaven’ to 'The Joke’,

at that time, and in a way life began to imitate

Art. This was even the case for Leila, still in an

existential funk after the huge success of her

second book, which I think was the number one

poetry book in the Europe; she could no longer

understand her reasons for writing: fame

sickened her and produced a recoil of action:

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instead of her pursuing more work and more

success, she slowly began to see herself as her life

work: I can’t allow myself to become like my

mother, said Leila when we would meet in the

coffee shop, that had become a refuge. At the time


conversations with her were becoming one woman

shows that I was merely granted attendance to: I

remember one time her speaking for one hour

about her thoughts and her problems writing a

new poem, once she finished she just got up and

left at once, as if she had forgotten I was

supposedly throwing the ball back, lost in her own

thoughts she mumbled to herself and only

acknowledged my presence when I called out her

name, for her to just wave whilst continuing to

walk out of the coffee shop. It is senseless to want

to be close to such a person, an eagle. And it was a

few weeks later that I found out that she had gone

to the nunnery. I had visited Leila’s apartment and

the landlord told me that she had decided to leave.

She was actually a good tenant, a loopy bitch, but

though they all are, but she had such nice breasts,

said the upset landlord shaking his head. I asked

the landlord where she could have gone and he

told me that she, in a rush, mentioned something

about a nunnery. I instantly knew where she was,

and received the news from her a few days later

when she called. The decision to become a nun

was a shock, but she had decided this was her only

real hope. Madgelaine had told Leila that her

secular life would lead her to the grave, and she

listened, of course. I wanted to visit her, being that

she was still in the city, in Tyburn, but she said

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that this was not welcomed or allowed and that it

was a place that promoted 100% devotion. In

hindsight, it was always difficult to have a simple

conversation with Leila, as the time of the day

would bring reminisces of a Max Ernst Painting or


A

a purple jumper would lead to an abrupt silence.

Her devotion was to perfect her life, said Leila,

and this was her chance to subdue the feelings of

loneliness and alienation, I gauged. I didn’t hear

from her for a while. As if a ghost, memories of

her words wafted often though, how could they

not? Like a vacated seat Ellis nestled into the

armchair of my existence…Ellis... Oh Ellis. From

the wound bleeds this ink, as the sun comes up!

From the wound bleeds this ink. Meeting at the

Tate Modern in front of Picasso's portrait of 'Dora

Maar’ Ellis avalanched into my life. Her

resemblance to Leila was not completely obvious

to myself, though this was only at an aesthetic

level, perhaps. She knew my face apparently and

had read my books, but preferred more cheerful

books, she commented after her introduction. Ellis

— The Administrator — became a complete force

due to her preoccupation with order. In a way she

makes me less guilty than Leila and Yashu as I

attempted life. Perhaps that first few weeks I had

one too many drinks, but it seemed Ellis and I had

aesthetically fallen in love. Our aesthetic falling in

love came as I gave her what she wanted and what

I needed was in discovery, as always. She quickly

moved into the flat I had bought in the same

building as The Professor; I had migrated earlier.

As if an observer Ellis concluded our love,

25

although she found my novel Immortality needed

more organisation. To Ellis the world could be

organised just like her job as an Administrator. I

had long nicknamed her The Administrator, after

she was particularly offended by her possible


presence in a draft of my magnum opus, Vanity.

Blue. But in spite of this within four months we

were married, the wedding came a day after

Yashu’s exhibition. It was obvious he was feeling,

based on his new dictum — Life as Art — that he

was being upstaged by my marriage to The

Administrator. It was clear that he hid the real

reason why he decided that he would reincarnate

himself the day before my wedding. Although I

oppressed these notions, as I knew he was trying

to best me and I arrived to his exhibition with a

huge smile, as if unaware of his guilty chess move.

At the exhibition all those in attendance were

confronted with what he long became to be

infamous for. Yashu failed to allow anybody to see

the work, protesting that if they wanted his ten

new works they would have to accept them the

way he wanted. It was either the ten new works

this way or nothing, he demanded. So, in a

ravenous bid to get their hands on any new

paintings or work his Art dealers agreed that the

exhibition would be their first unveiling of his

new works. It was perhaps only I who truly knew

that they were made because he was hiding his

obvious desire to upstage the wedding, so he kept

the works from me also. The Professor scoffed at

this, in the middle of motor boating Olga: If he

were a mathematician he would have been great,

26

he repeated instead. Yashu’s Mother tried to get

him some help and threatened him with the

removal of the Trust fund, but the stubborn

Yashu just allowed himself to go hungry for a

month or so and then his Mother relented. The


AA

Professor couldn’t care either way, but Yashu’s

Mother did force him to see the Psychiatrist,

Doctor Benway. With no money from the Art he

was not making and no Trust Fund, Yashu knew

something had to give. So, he saw Doctor

Benway once a week. The Administrator thought

this was a good idea as she thought Yashu was

creepy. How could he have this exhibition the

day before our wedding? She said. In a way she

was right, but I went alone and awaited the

unveiling of these works, hidden behind

curtains, Yashu was particularly pedantic about

this: nobody could see the work before the

exhibition, he kept repeating. On one large wall

of the Hayward gallery I didn’t know what to

expect, but knew that Yashu’s erratic behaviour

was due a spectacle: his eyes were glazed and I

knew that he had not been sleeping due to the

work and persistent dreams he complained of.

And quickly begun to notice that he started to

call his Art The Work, and this seemed

noticeable in his self-imposed exile. There, I

persuaded The Professor to attend and he

reluctantly accompanied me, with no expectation

and no hope, we chit chatted about Vanity. Ares

instead, the book he was most fascinated by, and

arrived to the exhibition. The curtain was

unveiled to see ten stark canvas’ which were all

27

seemingly empty, baring one canvas, the

masterwork (The Joke formerly known as Heaven),

which had the words: 'God told a joke, ////!!!!’

painted in blood red and dark blue. Bemused

there were utters and titters amongst the crowd as

we all gazed at the work with Yashu stood in front

of us with a beady smile. The Exhibition was

ironically called, Life. The Professor looked on as

if The General had come back to life to die and

repeat his last words. I assumed such an event

would occur, in a way I may have tried to stop such

happenings but was indignant by Yashu’s decision

to put on his exhibition the day before my wedding

with The Administrator. The whole Art scene in

attendance looked on and were seemingly silently

outraged as the frowned face expressions and

raised eyebrows were clear indicators. But within

ten minutes things seemed to have changed. This

change came like a Duchamp Consensus; In that

the crowd partook, and decided that the Art was

not as obscene as the titters and utters gave

evidence for. A gallant Avant-Garde conversation,

wrote one Guardian critic of the 'Life Exhibition'.

A conversation of what? Life? I wonder.

Nonetheless as the sun comes up it's apparent that

perhaps this could be true, but it could also be

false. Interviewed later Yashu was asked what the

four exclamation marks meant in his masterwork

and he said: What do you want them to mean?

Looking on, his Art dealers were nervous wrecks,

but what came was a staunch determination to

conclude Life (The Exhibition) as a success. We

live in a world where the consensus is the truth


28


AA

and it was The Consensus of the moment and

therefore the truth. It is really cutting-edge stuff,

said Mary Bine as I remember her biting her nails

with a nervous laugh as she spoke to whom I

assumed was a collector, and perhaps an owner

of one of Yashu’s new empty canvas. Whilst she

spoke she unbuttoned a few buttons on her shirt

and began to touch the collectors arm with a

stronger veracity. Yashu was now a polarising

force within the Art scene and therefore

ascending and descending in equal measure:

ascending as his exhibition garnered much press

coverage and even a conversation on Newsnight

about whether Modern Art was in ruins. But

descending as Yashu was in search of a specific

destination he knew not of. I told Leila about

these happenings when we spoke on the phone

but she seemed uninterested in the life she had

left behind, and spoke more about how blue the

sky was and how Madgelane had a beautiful

singing voice, and that her throat must have been

well exercised, she sings like an angel, she said...

Living in a pool

Hoping to swim amongst doves and birds

...her poetry simmers in my mind: from the

wound bleeds this ink. From the wound bleeds

this ink! I remember one long conversation,

mired in shouts from The Administrator though:

Are you talking to that crazy nun woman, she

yelled. I continued to listen as Leila told me that

Father Theirocpy seemed strange; apparently

amongst the Benedictine nuns Theirocpy was

quite the hero though, but Leila felt differently,

29

particularly when our Father kept telling her: You

can’t read the book — Bible — like this, you’ve got

to read it with the holy spirit and with your heart,

she said, he said, I remember. Challenged by this,

Leila wanted, longed and hoped for a poet’s

understanding. Madgelane’s presence kept her

from totally losing hope, though she said that she

felt bullied and that it was if she were being

painted over by God. I asked her what she meant

by this, but couldn’t fully gain an understanding as

The Administrator had scheduled a dinner date

with a few people in the London Literary industry.

It was at one of these dinner dates that I first met

whom I soon nicknamed, The Powers. The Powers

were full of Politicians, well known Artists and just

upper—class folk. The Administrator saw these

soirees as her opportunity and mine also, as the

way in which my life was supposed to be heading

apparently! Even though your books are just so

messy, but people buy them, maybe I should start

writing, rambled The Administrator. Aesthetically

our love brought patience, though as the sun

creeps through the window and my stomach

growls and my eye continues to twitch under this

Brandy, it was just a soiree, love; the patience was

my agnosticism to happiness, albeit the conclusion.

Pushed by The Administrator to attend, for my

career, I observed The Powers and it did tell me

much about life, as I nicknamed them so because

many of The Powers were those making the laws,

engendering the culture and in turn the lives

people led. But, the conversations were mostly of

gossip, sprinkled with quotes from James Joyce’s


30


AAA

Finnegan’s Wake: soweenybeenyveenyteeny. I of

course met the big politician Mr Blaie at one of

these soiree’s in Mayfair, this time. Mr Blaie,

another Novelist — that I can’t remember — and

I, all spoke that night about Art and literature.

And I actually remember the novelist holding to

the precept that Art was Politics, and Mr Blaie

agreeing, which seemed incongruent to me as

most of those I placed in The Powers — Mr

Blaie, included — I thought were saturated in

nothing that resembled freedom fighting, the

sublime or the beautiful, instead our

conversations told me this: that the deepest they

got where idiosyncratic quotes of James Joyce’s

Finnegan’s Wake: soweenybeenyveenyteeny. This

soon inspired the concept of the masquerade in

my novel, Vanity. Ares. The Administrator saw

this simply as The Game. In The Game you have

to ignore the simple truth that we’re all selfish,

said The Administrator, which actually helped

subside the feelings of detachment I would feel

towards her, though these moments were few

and far between, fleeting — mostly The

Administrator was busy; busy visiting her

parents, busy buying cats, busy wanting to take a

holiday here, busy taking a holiday there, busy

trying to host soirees, just busy, busy, busy

living. I think this realisation was the same time I

started to wake to write down the dreams,

recurring by that time. And what I came to

realise is that it is wholly flawed, words as

communication. The Administrator wanted

specific words organised in a manner she could

31

accept, but she couldn’t understand the meaning

of mine: my actions were manifestations of them.

I remember the evening when Leila called in a

panic. Breathing heavily she said: I’ve left the

nunnery and I have nowhere to stay, my literary


agent out of spite and anger from my decision to

stop writing complicated the money I should

have. I jumped at the opportunity and told her I

would meet her and that she could stay at mine

in Islington, or at least at The Professor’s, but I

doubted Olga would have taken kindly to her

presence. I drove her to my apartment and her

silent tears spoke more than any of her poems,

any of our conversations or her actions. I calmed

her down, now sat in my apartment drinking

green tea as she began to tell me what had

happened, in a tear-drenched quiver: I had just

walked in ready to talk to Father Theirocpy, she

said. About what I felt was a revelation in a

sense! In constant crisis since the first night we

met and we had gotten to know each other in the

hospital, Leila seemed at the end this time; when

she spoke she was as frozen as an eagle perched

on a frozen lake: the glint of hope had seemed to

be distinguished. What has happened? I asked,

as if I could reignite that which I didn’t have

myself, within her…in the next hour she of

course explained the reckoning of what she saw...

And hedonist thoughts bring tears If you must say

Anticipating a positive change in her perspective

of the decision to place her hope in the Church,

Leila walked into Father Theirocpy’s room to be

met with Aunt Madgelane climaxing on his lap

32

with him pulling at her white cowl, quivered

Leila. Yashu wept, in attendance as he did climb

from under his rock to see Leila in Islington and

observe The Eagle. The words they both uttered,

Leila sighed, Madgelane was screaming: I believe


AA

in this cock, can you believe? and our Father: Just

make sure you do your Bible study, first

Corinthians seven two…The disgust of that actual

Bible verse sent Leila completely over the edge

and she left the nunnery. Madgelane tried to get

her to understand but she said she couldn’t

believe any more, she couldn’t go on being the

person she was merely hoping to be. Although

she loved her Aunt Madgelane, the bitterness

came like an awakening: I feel as if I was being

painted over with deceit, said the exhausted Leila.

I feared reprieve in her end games, and so did

Yashu even; as we both agreed that it best if Leila

stay at my place. The Administrator arrived, back

from a soiree to be met with the creep, the crazy

nun and the glum novelist, as if a bar joke she

nervously laughed upon entering the scene. I

quickly took her to one—side and explained that

Leila would have to stay at our place, and The

Administrator knew that it had to happen this

way. Like always, her mind was already racing

away with plot lines and mess she yearned to

administrate, peering back and forth at the

crippled Leila and at me. But what came to

transpire was that The Administrator was keen to

observe whom she obsessively had a strange

feeling about: Did you and Leila ever sleep

together? I remember she repeatedly asked later

33

that night as The Eagle slept in the spare room. I

said: No we’ve never slept together, and this

seemed to be met with more miscommunication.

Apparently, these words were spoken in a

stuttered hesitation, according to The


Administrator. This meant that she couldn’t

understand why this would be so, being that Leila

was threateningly beautiful. In hindsight, in a way,

that night I also questioned why Leila and I had

never had this type of relationship; I wondered if

the subconscious possibility played a part in this

friendship with Leila, which always seemed

consumed by her essence as The Eagle and her

whimsical nature. I dismissed The Administrator’s

questioning, and I assumed it would be met with

indignation, instead she began to busy herself

with observing happenings. I also told The

Administrator that Leila was rather asexual and

this was met with total miscommunication of the

ramifications of the meaning of this; spurred onto

understanding I caught her having conversations

with Leila and she seemed totally engrossed,

staring intently and nodding her head. The

Administrator soon began to read more, and took

less holidays and less trips to meet her parents,

though she kept her job as an Administrator

which still kept her quite busy. It was actually The

Administrator that helped Leila organise her

career by harassing her literary agent to correctly

adhere to their contracts. Regardless of this The

Administrator felt there was something in mine

and Leila’s relationship, but couldn’t put her

finger on it, or how to go about organising her

34

actions: I caught her mumbling: There’s more

than one way to skin a cat. This was after I

mentioned that Leila should stay until she

received her advance for the third book of Poetry

and her life was more organised. By these


A happenings what I came to notice was The

Administrator’s entanglement in the allure of The

Eagle that was Leila; as after the first week of

complaining The Administrator seemed to warm

to Leila. Choosing to remain oblivious, over time,

Leila started to defrost and after a few weeks

where hope seemed to be hanging for dear life,

she began to talk about how the sky was reddish

blue and that the creases on an old woman’s face

at the coffee shop made her think that she was a

fly in her former life. Though, through sheer

comfortability, this housing situation continued

for months and it was even The Administrator that

organized Leila’s renting of the flat in the same

block as us and The Professor: A prayer here, a

prayer there, everywhere a sermon. What was

Leila hanging onto? I didn’t know; however, I

remember musing that perhaps she was distracted

by The Administrator’s administrating. The day

she moved into her new apartment two floors

above, Yashu seemed awakened, and he invited us

to his studio in Dalston. The Administrator and

Leila were busy organising things though, so I

accompanied The Professor, with Yashu’s Mother

making a surprise trip to Islington which had left

Olga angrily storming out of the building on that

previous Friday afternoon. The Professor was in a

bad mood by this, though he tried to disguise this

35


as business problems. What business? I sensed

his heaven and time amongst Olga’s breasts was

being rudely interrupted by his wife. Which

meant that The Professor lagged behind as we

walked up the stairs into Yashu’s studio. I realise

now that guilt played no role in The Professor’s

relationship with his mistress, as he never tried to

quell his indignation, even in the presence of

Yashu and I. Yashu’s Mother ignored everybody

else and instead mostly seemed concerned with

whether Yashu had been attending his

appointments with Doctor Benway. Yashu was

irritated by this and by his Mother’s surprise

presence. But he continued to show us his halffinished

masterpiece, formally known as The

Joke and now renamed Heaven. The halffinished

painting, horns and angel wings, seemed

more like the Yashu of old and less like that of

his work in his Life exhibition. The Professor,

scoffed from near the door. As if to one-up any

further competition for further Artistic

enlightenment, particularly from Leila, I thought.

Yashu then informed us that he had decided that

he would be traveling to Asia, China and Japan

for the purpose of achieving Satori: A prayer

here, a prayer there, everywhere a sermon. As the

sun sets in the sky, I remember his explanations

of the Gateless Gate and these Buddhist teachings.

Searching for a new beauty, The Professor was

more interested in finding out why Yashu had

not married yet. Yashu instead swatted away

these queries and changed the subject. I knew

Yashu had perhaps some regular sexual

36


A

encounters but he was always an addict; love in

the convention of a simple relationship seemed

beneath him. His work was his obsession, which

meant a person with his personality type was

guilty of setting oneself up for strife if he chose

to live in the abstract, which is the only true

existence of the Artist, as unlike a mathematician

or a Lawyer supernatural obsession could only

yield a need for more as opposed to an end

result. Perfection of Art became perfection of life

as the lines between the two became blurred to

Yashu, which was how the search for satori came

about, I muse as I sit here. As when he was

interested in something that is all he could do; at

first it was an obsession to become an Artist,

which was a notion Leila strongly rejected at the

time. Though this was something I only

understand now, and adds to Yashu’s guilt:

pretentious as it seemed, perhaps I see the true

wisdom in her words now, in that Leila held that

an Artist IS as opposed to BECOMING. Yashu

wanted to BECOME and when he did BECOME,

with critical acclaim in the British Art scene,

V.I.P wine, fame and money he didn’t truly need

with the Trust fund being wholly sufficient to the

life he wanted to lead, he still wanted more: a

higher motif of the beauty I felt he had

compromised with his ugly Life exhibition.

Yashu wanted to know how I felt about his

decision to leave London, looking at me with

bogle eyed anticipation, I told him that I felt he

should concentrate on getting himself together,

and he said I was more concerned with

37

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

nonsense, he said: I read your last book, A

Voyeuristic Supper, sheer aestheticism.

Indignant, Yashu knew which buttons to press,

so I soon left his studio and all his talk of satori.

Six months looking for what? Mocked The

Professor as he caught up with me on my way

back to Islington. Aestheticism! All style no

fabric! It did become apparent that I needed to

work on Vanity. Blue to correct this complete

sleight that could have only existed from the

spiteful tongue of Yashu and those absurd

critics. Mercenaries those critics are, complete

and utter mercenaries. All they do is sit beneath

their glass ceilings peering up at the mirror

above them looking for their perspective, their

stories, their Art, but realising they cannot see

themselves, so they complain, they critique for

bread crumbs and V.I.P wine. Yearning, I was

glad Leila had moved to her apartment, as my

dreams plagued my sleep, the same dream: Leila

sat on the floor with her naked back towards me

with an Eagle flying above her head, with The

Administrator’s body on Dora Maar’s face

organising rice on a large table and a portrait of

The Professor motor boating Olga. The dream

always ends with Yashu pointing to the portrait

of The Professor and speaking the words: Here is

my masterwork, Heaven. There is a reason for

all. All is nothing? Death to nothing! The

persistence of memory: Why has this dream

followed me? It keeps incurring more and more

additions as if life has decided to completely

38

mock me. This need to examine the human

condition is the curse of the self—assessed life,

I conclude as the sun rises, to soon fall. The self

—assessed life is that which I accept consumes,


AAA

though the alternative is just the way The

Professor perceived the Penitent Thief, in my

eyes…The Administrator became more aware of

the inner workings of her human condition only

after Leila had arrived in Islington did she

begin to read and take long walks by herself. A

practitioner of the self-assessed life just as Leila

The Administrator only recognised Leila’s

benediction not mine, and in a way her

conclusion that I was just messy, was a spit in

the face. I think your work is fine, but Leila is a

genius, she commented once. As if life had

become Art in a way The Administrator had

accused me of dishonesty, in a sense, with the

questioning of the authenticity of my conflict

and therefore the beauty of my Art and my life.

Even with Leila out of our apartment The

Administrator confronted me and told me that

she was afraid I was in love with Leila: She had

observed us, she had decided. Having done

nothing but tried to keep Leila from the end

games she played, I didn’t see it that way. But in

a way Leila’s presence didn’t completely disrupt

The Administrator and our relationship. I did

find it strange when she asked me to call her

Leila when making love once, but in a weird

ode to that which I can’t fully distinguish, I did

comply with The Administrator’s request,

39

although I did notice the veracity of our fucking

would increase. Wholly oblivious to all these

happenings, Leila, a few weeks after moving

upstairs started thinking of her third book of


poetry, still with The Administrator’s help, but

less so when all the paperwork had become more

organised. I haven’t written any of the words yet,

but I think I’m going to call the book, Love &

War, but I feel as if I have no muse, said Leila

before mumbling something more and then

disappearing with a wave. From the time Leila

moved upstairs, with the help of The

Administrator, it took three months to organise

her life in order to enable her to think about her

next book. The Administrator had decided to

take a holiday after another one of our heated

arguments, she said she wanted to go to India

with her friend Carly, and she did. She took a

month off from work and left. I mused that this

would keep her busy, and in turn give me a

chance to work on Vanity. Blue, feeling

particularly inspired by Leila’s tentative title for

her book and a few paragraphs of Albert Camus’

The Fall. This was also the month that Yashu had

arrived back to London from his trip in search of

satori. By that time The Professor couldn’t bare

his own son’s presence without someone else in

attendance, Yashu’s search for satori was not

even a conversation that could be breached.

Every time I mentioned this to The Professor he

would change the subject to Olga or

pragmatisms. I knew he was burying his head in

40

the sand, though I conclude that if it weren’t for

being an Artist I would have quickly seen The

Professor’s perspective as one in which I could

truly align with. The novels and the constant


AA

discovery of mystery in the sublime and the

beautiful hindered this allegiance, as the

conclusion reigns ever more loudly. Although I

spent most of my time in the Islington apartment,

and only some time at The Professors around that

time, I was still completely immersed in

perfecting Vanity. Blue, perhaps on the eleventh

draft, or tenth, I forget. Although Yashu hated

the Islington apartment, and would constantly

deride his need to be there, he decided to pay us

a visit a few days after his arrival. To The

Professor’s surprise Yashu’s trip to find satori

had garnered no rewards: It seems that life has no

meaning, eternity is perhaps just a made-up

illusion I can’t believe in, Satori means nothing,

said the disappointed Yashu. The Professor

smiled a smile I had only seen in the presence of

Olga’s breasts, a childish smile, that seemed

vindicated his Atheism and everything he tried to

instil in Yashu with the Dusseldorf summers with

The General. This is good, maybe a career

change? Perhaps you can help me at the

University? probed The Professor. Yashu sighed a

nod with a half—smile, retorting, as if defeated by

his Father’s smiles. Dangerous, in a way I only

saw a small semblance of the effect of Yashu’s

disappointed words. But feeling slight pity, even

though I was still reeling from what I deemed a

41

true sleight with Yashu’s assertion that my work

was complete aestheticism, I wondered what made

him come to this consensus that his Father was

fully supportive of: What brought this conclusion?


I said, what made you come to this consensus over

this Satori? At first Yashu seemed to not want to

answer, I thought, as he kept sighing and looking

at the door as if the Islington apartment made him

feel claustrophobic. I refrained from the cold

stance I was planning to give him and told him

that we should take a walk, as I knew that the

Islington apartment, and his Father often troubled

his spirit. The Professor even remarked that he

could join us, cheerily smiling and patting Yashu

on the back. But I told The Professor that I

needed to speak with Yashu alone however, and

he needn’t much more persuasion, I think Olga

was waiting in the other room. So I walked along

Islington towards Dalston with Yashu and he

finally opened up about his experience searching

for eternal enlightenment: Well, I was at this

temple in the Hunan Province in China, started

Yashu, where I was told I would meet a monk that

had entered satori and that he could help me

reach enlightenment through his teachings — his

name was strangely Zhaozhou. I looked at Yashu’s

troubled face and wondered why it was strange

that this was his name, I thought but Yashu

ignored my confusion and carried on: Well

Zhaozhou said we should take a seat inside the

temple, where I then asked him to teach me and

Zhaozhou asked: Have you eaten your meal? What

42

meal, I thought, but replied: Yes, I have. as I had

eaten before I arrived to meet him, for him to

then have said: Then go wash your bowl". What

bowl? Just as confused as Yashu at that point; I


AA

didn’t understand and thought: What does this

all mean? I then said this before Yashu went on:

Apparently this was to be all my teachings and

that the money I gave to the monastery was a

kind donation, but Zhaozhou had many places to

be, said his assistant to me, adding that he had

prior engagements in Beijing and maybe even

New York. Looking at the angry frown lines on

Yashu’s forehead I said: They basically ripped

you off? Yashu relaxed the lines in his forehead

and sighed. For me I just realised that it’s all just

a farce, all religion, and I think that is my

enlightenment, but what it leaves me with, I don’t

know? said Yashu. I still really didn’t understand

the whole story, especially the bowl and the upset

with Zhaozhou. Why was this Zhaozhou the straw

that broke the camel’s back? I said and Yashu

paused before orchestrating an answer: Well! I

knew of this very wise—tell, word for word, it is

part of the 48 Koans in the Gateless Gate, said

Yashu. And by then he had totally lost me;

Gateless Gate, koans, donations, I was so

confused…But I soon realised that Zhaozhou had

simply repeated what could have been read or

easily found without traveling to the outer

regions of Hunan, China: For me I just realised

that it’s all just a farce, repeated Yashu a few

times before I left him that day. What other

43

action can exist without motivation from self in

some way? But, give me an action Where you

don’t receive the pay And I’ll show you where

thieves stay Though aren’t we all? Before I left I

decided to change the subject as I had just

published Vanity. Key by that time — still

struggling to complete Vanity. Blue. He said that

he would read it and seemed to even insinuate an

apology, telling me that he found my work

exceptionally deep, and not at all flowery,

especially in hindsight, he said. I didn’t fully

understand what had brought this change, but he

seemed solemn, and like a bird without wings. As

when I asked him what he would do next, he said

he didn’t know, but found painting his only vice. I

still remember him using the word vice, which I

found odd for a reason I couldn’t pin point. I still

have my unfinished masterwork, so I think it may

become a triptych, Yashu added. I told him that I

would send him my latest book and that I would

visit him in the coming days, perhaps with my

own distractions preoccupying my mind. Yashu’s

will for beauty had long been disturbed, clear

from his Life exhibition fiasco, so this void never

seemed to be fulfilled, I thought on my way back

to Islington. An expressionist, I wondered how

expressive Yashu’s Art would become if he

continued. Though the Professor did try and

understand Yashu’s Art and would even ask me

questions of it and I remember reciting my

favourite poem by Leila to him when he asked if

her books were any good and What it was that she

was getting at. He stopped me just after I said the


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words: And hedonist thoughts bring tears, and

said: Well I’ve seen her in the block sometimes,

and she doesn’t seem all-the-way-there;

mumbling to herself, although she has great

breast’s, said The Professor. I could tell this talk

of Leila had touched a nerve as they didn’t align

with The Professor’s belief system, I thought, I

remember, albeit the mammaries. Instead, I

wondered whether The Professor was simply at

the behest of any given day’s happenings: too

much time with his wife equalled sadness or an

upset Olga equated to him needing to find a new

formula. The subsequent silence was broken only

after a few minutes: Surely, even this poetess nun

can accept that the desire for happiness is all we

are? Pragmatically probed The Professor with

rolling eyes. He had had enough, I thought. I

didn’t recite any more of Leila’s Poetry to The

Professor and I sensed that he was glad. Yashu

stretched The Professor’s capacity for Art to

unwanted degrees, I accepted, understanding

Leila would be a step too far. The voyage to

understand The Eagle, without the ability to get

close would constantly probe me. Lashing out,

The Administrator wanted to reiterate this lack

of understanding of Leila as we argued more and

more. She accused my friendship as secret love

for Leila but deemed this love — I was not

admitting to — as merely aesthetic, as I couldn’t

truly know Leila, said The Administrator. But

why always the need for love? As if a prayer here,

a prayer there, everywhere a sermon. I long

thought my love for The Administrator was the

45

real aesthetic love, though she saw differently...

Determinist thoughts bring sheers of necessity

...What else can happen? What I knew as fated,

due to my self-assessed life and ability for this

clear-sighted panoramic view of existence, was

Yashu’s decision. Disoriented he couldn’t

decipher his wants and needs and if any existed;

after his trip to reach satori he merely existed, I

think. I doubted whether he often left his studio

and he spoke about juxtaposing his expressionism

with Mark Rothko’s complex simplicity and one of

his last painting’s. Which seemed interesting, but

looking around his studio as he spoke, I noticed

all the empty bottles of V.I.P wine. And empty

Chinese takeaway boxes, being a surprising

remnant of Asian culture in his studio. And I

found his food habits peculiar as he mentioned

that he had a firm distaste for anything Asian;

throwing away all such books and paraphernalia

— as it would remind him of his failed attempt at

satori, he explained, I remember. I understood

this distaste, as if dealing with symptoms of posttraumatic

stress, but less so when he further

explained Zhaozhou’s assistant’s words. Who,

when subsequently asked by Yashu posed a

question: What is it that you’re looking for?

Zhazhou’s assistant asked, after mentioning that it

seemed he was so specifically in need. Yashu told

the assistant that he didn’t know what he was

looking for particularly, but that the little that he

received had to be increased, which prompted

Zhaozhou’s assistant to conclude: How could

somebody find something someone is not looking


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for? And although I was still trying to show

support to the shattered Yashu, I felt Zhaozhou’s

assistant words were the same words Leila and I

would speak of in regards to Yashu. Though I had

no conclusion on the matter at the time.

Saddened, his being as mortal water, melanin,

bones riddled his yearnings and his muse. I often

would think that Yashu’s biggest fear was the fear

of not having a fear, and realised this was just a

riddle.

I eat, drink you could say Fears bring prayers

Still eating, mostly noodles, it seemed Yashu must

of had some type of fear, or void he wanted to fill,

because he was still in his studio, half painting,

half cascading into this abyss: I saw my novel on

the top of a canvas and Yashu then told me he had

read it and was deeply moved by it, he said. I

invited him to the opening night of my play

Vanity. Key, which seemed to be met with less

competitiveness than the years before, as

surprisingly he said he would come. In a way

Yashu and Leila inspired the novel and play,

Vanity. Key and has left me in the middle passage,

but to where? This conclusion is apparent, and

final. Soon realisations came with the acting out

of Vanity. Key, the play, which put images and

words to those feelings inspired by Yashu and

Leila; and with both in congregation the trinity

had said another convulsive prayer at an altar. The

effect of Vanity. Key, in hindsight, is rather

dramatic, even in my relationship with The

Administrator. I remember the play finishing to

applause, quickly made bitter by the rekindling of

47

Yashu’s spite: Beauty is a whore, he said slightly

tipsy from V.I.P wine. Although I debate this still

— his tipsiness was exaggerated to hide the bitter

abyss Yashu had equated to by that time. Chiming

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA in, as they all do, my literary executor, who I may

say is wholly obsessed with the writings of Georges

Perec, felt that Vanity. Key was pretty, clearly

overhearing Yashu’s sleight after the applause,

clamouring to the fame. This was after he had

published it. Nonsense! V.I.P wine! Another

Duchamp Consensus! Distracted by interviews,

critics and members of The Powers I was not able

to make a response to Yashu that night as Leila and

Yashu left the stage and the West End Auditorium.

Though in Islington the next day I spoke to Leila

about how she felt about the play, with her eyes

glazed — perhaps insomnia ridden — she looked at

me as if she were looking straight through me and

hesitated to form a response… I hadn’t known

Leila to withhold an opinion on such matters.

Standing in the Islington hallway in silence I

became distracted by Yashu’s spite the night

previous and said that his behaviour was the final

straw. Of this Leila said that she could understand.

Who or what did she understand? In hindsight I

can’t remember what exactly or who she was

referring to, but she nodded that she understood

something. She then explained that in a bid to

complete his new work and become exactly the

Artist he wanted to be — against the wishes of the

providers of the V.I.P wine and his Art dealers —

Yashu had decided that he was no more a Public

48

Artist. Therefore he had begun refusing to take

commissions or give paintings to collectors. He

feared imperfection and that he didn’t want to sell

as much as I, he remarked, Leila said. I swallowed

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA his words, and knew better to allow them to bate

me into an abyss I refused. Leila ended this

conversation by saying that the opening night of

the play, Vanity. Key had troubled her, not in a bad

way, she added but it left her with much food for

thought. Troubled also, The Administrator saw

parallels in David — the protagonist’s wife in act

one of Vanity. Key and after she had a conversation

with Leila this notion seemed reaffirmed, which of

course started the cold war. Deciding that she, as

my wife, was merely a distraction in life for me, she

saw my naming of David’s wife as just The Wife as

a conceptual reflection of the way I felt about

marriage with her. So I could tell she had spoken

to Leila and I accused her of ignorance by this…Of

course The Administrator as an administrator was

wrong to conclude upon Art she had never

sacrificed for, of course she had brought a

formality to my life, with soirees and observations,

as the wound bleeds this ink, but she had no

business making such lofty conclusions.

Regardless, the cold war was long and arduous:

frozen in having to assess our every move, even sex

became a battle — the gentle talking soon became

silent stares as orgasms were had in silence…Like a

routine I begun to hide all my work on Vanity. Blue

in case she read it and decided to find more

notions to ignorantly conclude! We would then

49


argue more and Leila, still upstairs, was a spirited

relief, in hindsight. Though she still hadn’t

written a word of Love & War, as she felt Vanity.

Key had asked her more questions than she could

answer, she said in the coffee shop that had

become a refuge. I told her that I could explain

what I’d intended in the conceptual workings of

Vanity. Key, and tried to; telling her that it was

story that delved into some of the concepts

touched upon in her own work, Elysium, with

even my own poem in the novel version. She

nodded her head and said that she needed time,

but that she was still slightly consumed by the

problems with her literary estate, but was happy

that The Administrator was helping her at the

time. But I think I will go to Paris for a few weeks;

visit my cousin, said Leila in the stream of

conscious way she spoke, romantically staring out

of the window and then standing up to depart

with an abrupt goodbye, as usual. A Saturday, I

remember walking to The Professor’s apartment;

Olga opening the door. She said The Professor

was in the kitchen drinking coffee in a mood, in

broken English. I wondered why, and thought it

probably involved Yashu, whom I had heard from

Leila was becoming more and more erratic and

drunk on more V.I.P wine. But I soon found out

from The Professor that his wife in Bedfordshire

had decided that she would move to the Islington

apartment to be closer to Yashu, particularly as he

had not been answering his phone for the

previous few weeks. I was still indignant from the

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last words I heard him utter, beauty is a whore.

The Professor knew that he needed to go and

pay him a visit in Dalston, and was in a mood.

Cheering The Professor up, he decided that I

accompany him, as Olga just angered Yashu.

Even though I was reluctant, but I did have a

few words planned in order to dish some food

for thought in Yashu’s direction, as the private

Artist he had decided to BECOME. I do admit

this… I doubted this privacy, with all those Art

dealers, and V.I.P wine he had long accepted: A

prayer here, a prayer there, everywhere a

sermon. Leila was the true Artist, Yashu was

guilty of not being this. But the trinity that was

us had to persist. And so I went along to

Yashu’s, feeling intrinsically linked and a little

curious, perhaps masquerading as worry. We

arrived to his Dalston studio and knocked. We

heard nothing, but after five minutes frustrated,

The Professor was ready to leave. Just as we

were going to do so, still feeling slightly strange

about the loud music emanating out of Yashu’s

studio apartment, we both wondered why this

was. And was then met with Mary Bine, one of

Yashu’s Art dealers, I’ve been trying Yashu for

weeks, and this song must have been playing

since Thursday, she said. Maybe he’s gone out to

fetch more V.I.P wine, I said. What’s V.I.P wine?

said Mary Bine a guilty provider of much of the

V.I.P wine, unaware, of course. We all decided

that we would call the Landlord as the song on

repeat was at least an understandable reason to

51

see what was happening inside the studio. The

Professor showed the Landlord his I.D and agreed

to open the door. If I can remember Mary Bine

was the person that took the key and rushed to

open the door, I’m so worried, she said. Worried

about V.I.P wine? I thought, I remember. As we

entered there fate lay, as I had always known.

Yashu lay on his back in front of a triptych of

canvas with bottles of V.I.P wine laid next to him

and a Chinese noodle box on his stomach,

seemingly unconscious; as he laid as frozen as a

lake in the Arctic. Mary Bine quickly began to

wail; a scream I can still hear, over the trickling of

the V.I.P wine she pushed aside to get to Yashu in

an attempt to resuscitate him. The Professor

looked on with his head in his hands, but no

tears. The last words that Yashu spoke to me,

were unfortunate, particularly as Life as Art, the

rather ugly scene of his demise troubled me whilst

the Chinese noodle smell lingered amongst the

V.I.P wine and Vodka mix saturated with the

smell of Anti-Depressant tablets — given to him

by Doctor Benway. This meant that Yashu’s death

was classed as a suicide. Though with no note,

this was still disputed, particularly by his Mother,

who in the weeks leading up to the funeral

anxiously awaited every detail of the forensic

profile. I studied Yashu’s studio and knew what

was always fated, I noticed my own book open on

the studio table and saw the second afterword of

Vanity. Key had been underlined with his

paintbrush sat beside it: the foreword and quote

from Jean-Paul Sartre of illusion: Life has no


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meaning the moment you lose the illusion of

being eternal. In essence he had lost the illusion

of life having any meaning and in death the scene

he set mirrored his Art, in my eyes; beauty not a

whore, but misunderstood by him, I whispered to

myself. Yashu failed and is why he is guilty. I

looked at his triptych and saw the unfinished

masterwork, Heaven, still in the same state it was

in the last time I saw it, sat next to two more

canvas, one was sea blue with a depiction of a

character that fails me and another blood red

with the words: beauty is a whore written on it.

This is all I remember. More literary I saw this as

undecipherable in the desire to understanding

why. How the triptych got onto auction at

Christie’s confused me also, but with heavy news

coverage of Yashu’s death, they sold for more

than I can remember; I’m sure Mary Bine was

able to subdue her wailing to see that this auction

occurred, and The Powers would see to this too:

A prayer here, a prayer there, everywhere a

sermon. The funeral came and went, though The

Professor was noticeably tearless, particularly in

comparison to those shed for The General. I

attended the funeral but was in strife from the

cold war. Accusing me of being estranged The

Administrator had set in motion her departure,

threatening divorce in an argument in the car on

the way back to Islington with Leila quietly sat,

distant. Still living in Islington, it was perhaps

after a year or so had passed from the time she

had moved upstairs and Leila had decided to

move back to Bethnal Green deeming the rent as

53


cheaper, obviously becoming more aware of her

depleting bank balance, which still had not

motivated her to write a single poem of Love &

War. I’m writing it when my heart and mind is

ready, said she, plus I feel too distracted. The

Administrator, after her arrival back from India

had become more and more close with Leila,

though it would take an army to get truly close to

Leila. The Administrator was perhaps enabled

access due to the close proximity of Leila living

upstairs in the Islington apartment, which

provided this special circumstance. And The

Administrator was still helping Leila organise her

estate. But, on Leila’s return to Bethnal Green

she did seem more distant, and The

Administrator failed to get such access to The

Eagle that was Leila. The self-assessed life had

perhaps returned as closer to the reality of Leila’s

routine, though I can’t be so sure. I do remember

that The Administrator, busier with her own job,

still as an administrator, had started to spend

more time at the office and with Carly, perhaps

manifestations of the cold war. Now living in

Bethnal Green, Leila said that it helped her focus

on her poetry, although she still had not written

Love & War, I assumed her end games were

perhaps not an allure for her, though the void

Madgelane left hadn’t been filled, I accept this in

hindsight. Vanity. Key also had broken and

mended her, Leila shared in one of our phone

conversations I deemed cryptic. The

Administrator had decided to take another trip

and had left the papers on my desk! That bitch!

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Gone to Asia: The Administrator and I were both

distracted, Vanity. Blue still plagued my time, and

in a way I accept that Leila was just left in Bethnal

Green, as I sat in Islington and The Administrator

was granted less access. In my defence I wasn’t

even visiting The Professor even. Less distracted

by The Administrator, I assumed Leila would just

start and finish Love & War, but her conclusion

that she had no muse anymore, and no real hope

really had set the poetry in motion: However what

kept her from this realisation so long after the

whole disappointment with Madgelaine and

Father Theirocpy is still my guess, especially as

the time in between mostly consisted of The

Administrator helping organising her estate, and

The Administrator making ignorant assertions

about Art, in the Islington apartment. Though

Islington was no more and Leila resided in

Bethnal Green at the time. The day arrived and I

guess it must have been the swing of the black. As

I had failed to hear from Leila for more than three

weeks and knew I had disregarded her in my

attempt to perfect, Vanity. Blue, I assumed she

could be doing the same with Love & War when I

did finally allow my mind to think of her. But the

day came and I quickly gathered my things, as she

was not answering my calls, still saddened she

didn’t live upstairs anymore I made my way to her

apartment to pay her a visit: A prayer here, a

prayer there, everywhere a sermon. I had the

spare key she had left with us, strangely, as if a

vain ode to that which she resisted, distractions.

After six knocks and no answer on her phone, I

55


decided to use the key rather quickly. I thought

nothing of this at the time. Unable to see her upon

entering her apartment I walked around and

found her laid in the bathtub, drowned. As if

staring at Munch’s painting of The Scream, alone

in the apartment there was a scream, but no sound

came out, I remember, tears falling down my eyes,

the same tears falling down now, as I accept this

conclusion…Looking around the apartment

yearning, A Deathly Serenade sat next to Vanity.

Key on the living room table, but no suicide note,

just tears down my own eyes…I couldn’t bare

being in her apartment and soon the cavalry

arrived before I walked from Bethnal Green that

evening to Islington, in tears, alone…As if a

prerequisite of a poet’s suicide I assumed a suicide

note, I always assumed this, if such events

occurred. I looked in her apartment, using the

spare key that she’d given me a few days before

the funeral, and with a room full of books I

wondered if it could be inside one of them. Still

unfound, it seems that her suicide note was her

very existence, instead. Perhaps, I’ve been

preoccupied with this. Laid in the tub,

unconscious, all that played in the background

was that CD of Serge Gainsbourg’s song, Comme

Un Boomerang, in its rambunctious nature on

repeat. Come Un Boomerang. Not even Les Amours

Perdues, Chanson De Prevert or La Saison des pluis.

Any of these could have been more fitting Leila!

This was the wrong song Leila. The wrong song.

So now in a way I feel cheated and that Leila

didn’t fulfil the contract of the poet: the suicide

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note. I feel that my conclusion has to then right

this wrong of our story, of us. Death not on

installment plan, but with a note. This song plays

in my dreams now, as The Eagle files above the

only True Eagle. I can’t sleep, and sit here

empty...

Our dreams reign out the seams

Of our unconscious minds.

...Therefore, Leila’s suicide administered a ghost

into my existence: as broken, she was more whole

than any being walking the face of this earth! So

sure I may have acted wrongly at a subsequent

soiree or drunk more as a result, though that is

neither here nor there! But The Administrator

also felt Leila’s ghost strangely awakening a latent

sexuality. To The Administrator she felt Leila had

awakened the sensuality within her and she left

citing those irreconcilable differences that really

amounted to her decision to become a lesbian

and leave me here. Her quest to find out if I was

in love with Leila had slowly turned into The

Administrator falling in love with Leila, as if she

concluded: Why would I not be in love with The

Eagle? She said of Leila in a heated argument,

her every movement as if dancing as poetry! Now

I sit here and realise that The Administrator fell

in love with what Leila represented, as opposed to

women. But regardless of this she has gone, and

she has left me with these conclusions: Gone are

the distractions; its swing will never relent.

Somebody has to put a stop to this. Granted.

Perhaps my life yearns for order, but I feel

dissipated by this! Convulsive as my allure maybe,

57

the death of Leila concludes my observations: I

see heaven as simply a conversation postponed,

but realise that I don’t want to talk! As if riding

coattails the existential abyss consumes me: I have

nothing to wait for, the anticipation is more than

the sum of its parts, I realise this. It’s apparent,

yes, it will occur, yes, it needs to be this way, yes,

the sun will soon disappear but again reappear,

yes, I know. I have observed. Therefore, my

suicide is an ode to my desire to be with The

Eagle, and its note is Vanity. Key, which I now

rename, Vanity. Key — Love & War in memory of

us, the spirit I can’t denounce as if The Professor,

yes! This writing is my epigraph, yes…It’s clear

that there is a reason for all? All is nothing? Death

to nothing!

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and

poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” —

Leonardo da Vinci

58

The Afterword by Maximilian Brod, The Literary

Executor of Elysium Books

IT WILL begin this way, it seems, as a very

important man has ended his life and this is an


AA ode to the Artist, who during his lifetime amazed

and provoked in equal measure. Vanity. Ares is, of

course, an existential tale that quickly canonised

Franz and placed him alongside, Samuel Beckett,

Guy Deboci, Martin Amis and Fydor Dostoyevsky

as a pioneer [Footnote, insert]. Noted for his

absurdity that he provoked in his texts and now

his biggest scandal, tragically, his suicide and the

epigraph that soon followed.

As Franz's literary executor it is important,

that in the years that follow, there is an

understanding and this, firstly, can

occur―particularly vividly―from a forensic

analysis of the apartment he left behind. "Absurd

as it may be, but simply; know a man’s abode,

know a man," said Guy Deboci, which is a conceit

that coincides with Franz's own assertion made in

the foreword to his novel, Voyeuristic Supper,

"Coincides are just reasons unanalysed." he said.

Therefore, a description of the man’s apartment

seems correct. As it was I, or my assistant, who

came across the tragic scene that occurred, and

was instantly called to the scene. Instantly I

thought I should take this liberty―two days after

the Police assessment finalised the death as

suicide; I must say―to not only fulfil my role as

his literary executer, but as his dear friend, and in

59


turn deal with this posthumous work (epigraph

and this afterword in the form of a description)

perfectly in the light of all this coverage I see as

fitting. Though I will state that, I do reject the

possible claim, in regard to my obsession with

Georges Perec, but that is neither here nor there

and see it as a minor sleight and hold that I was

held in the utmost highest regard in the rest of

the writing that preceded his untimely death. I

must state this.

However, it is apparent that we shall

continue this ode as a eulogy. If I may start by

explaining why I have chosen to name the book

with the sub heading being, Marinated Words and

an ode to Utopia, as this will act as a serious eulogy

to the Man that was a court jester, and true Artist.

And so to begin with this introduction provided

by the young half-Arabic, half American Poet,

Romy Nervouso Cobain known by his nom de

plume Voltarr (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]) with the

beautiful words:

"Self admittedly 'a meticulous jester', with an iron will

for hard work, Franz Bema was a poet that perhaps

never got the chance to truly show or even know this.

In honour of the dark light that he shed on life, like a

shrine (that he would not want, as a very un-fussy

man) in an elegant garden with a waterfall, his work

is beautiful and creates an organism that does not need

to be sullied with too much talk. Put simply, some

people drink from the fountain of knowledge, but

Franz installed a fountain and enabled a well to

spring. He had something to say and he said it well,

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beautifully, if I may say so myself as the Poet I hope to

be. Misunderstood, his heart bleed words."

The apartment remained untouched and

exactly the way it was the day he died.

The Entrance

As we enter the Islington apartment, 14

Ciento Cuarenta Ycuatro mil street, (interestingly,

partially renamed after the Spanish Company

that owns much of the property — Ciento

Cuarenta) the door— number 6 — opens to black

fabric covering the walls in the hallway, with two

paintings either side of the entrance walls.

Though, firstly there is a tweed welcome mate

with red lines in its brown woven. It is rumoured

that Franz covered the walls in black fabric after

his wife, Ellis Bema, had departed. The reason

for this fabric could be due to his troubles with

insomnia and complaints of "a constantly racing

mind" and that "the black swings in a coolness"

(An Interview with The Black Humorist, by Steve

Powers — The Guardian, December 21st, 2008.)

The paintings in the hallway entrance consist of

one by his friend, the Artist Yashu, and the other

a copy of Edvard Munch's, The Scream in a red

frame on the right-hand side. Depicting, a green,

blue and red figure sitting in a red walled room

in a corner sitting on a chair, Yashu's painting, is

mounted the way Yashu demanded all his work;

in a gold frame, and is titled: Suicide, After Dali &

Doestoevsky 2007 and was initially considered a

masterpiece by Yashu, but after exhibiting the

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work felt that the work did not represent who he

was and discarded the works made that year —

(Illusions of Real Grandeur, 2008, Taschen). In light

of Yashu's public denunciation it is not clear why

Franz chose this particular work of his to hang on

the wall, given their close relationship and access

to each others work. But we know that The

Scream hangs in the hallway, perhaps, in

reverence to Franz' love of the beauty of old

master painters and expressionists, on numerous

occasions he would speak of this. Further

interpretation for the meaning of this is perhaps

not forthcoming as it seems that perhaps he just

enjoyed the painting, it seems.


Many handwritten notes are littered

throughout the apartment. Amongst those closest

to him, Franz made these notes to remind him of

things he needed to write, particularly for what

he saw as his magnum opus, Vanity. Blue. The

first of them is sat perched on the pinewood

hallway bookshelf on a white note card, below

Yashu's painting, and reads:

I hope on my deathbed I’m dressed appropriately

This note is one of the more easily

decipherable notes and is a verse from the book

of poetry Franz wrote a few years before he died,

at that time tentatively entitled: God Is An Eagle

To Me. As pretty as the words were, and certainly

touching, due to the economic climate and

because Elysium Books is, of course, an

independent publisher I was not able to publish

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this, particularly with the undertaking of

Georges Perec's biography and the important

publishing of Caroline Samo — the very

renowned T.V chef's book, OMG, I Love Food. A

Posthumous release would have been possible,

but feeling that he was struggling with the

perfection of this book of poetry Franz quickly,

and pointedly, physically destroyed the work I

read in physical form only. There remains no

history of this book of poetry as of yet.

Disappointing, as it may be― especially in light

of his death― he himself decided to move in a

new direction, he told me, particularly with

Vanity. Blue, which I always intended to publish

the minute he completed this work and he felt

that it was perfect and ready.

Set next to the note is a Guardian

newspaper article. Facing up, the article, folded

in half, contains a review of Leila's Poetry book,

Elysium, with the headline seemingly containing

the pun: Elysiumed Off; which has four red lines

through the words, assumedly scribed by Franz.

Protective of Leila this may be the pouring of his

anger for the words written in the article, which

were particularly derisive; calling Leila "a

wannabe Slyvia Plath", and ending with the

words, "perhaps her famous literary friend,

Franz Bema will help our lady in question and

show her how a true genius works, I don't

believe her and hope her next yet to be titled

book will be better." In the margin of this same

page is a small drawing of what looks like a

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crucifix with the words: "call her, remember

Steve Powers - fucker", messily, but just about

decipherable, written underneath it. Franz was

always noted to have messy handwriting that


slanted heavily to the right, when he made notes

of amendments to his manuscripts I would often

find it difficult to read what he had written, and

thought his handwriting was particularly

childlike. In this same newspaper; there is also a

red mark underlining an article about an

American woman with persistent genital arousal

disorder. He loved weird facts and would often

include these in his books.

In the hallway bookshelf there are three

rows of books with a balanced amount of empty

space of about a quarter on each of the shelves

and exactly thirteen books on each row. Which is

funny as the number 13 was the name of a short

story Franz had sent to me before I signed him to

Elysium Books, with his cover letter commenting

that it was his lucky number, which is humour

that I came to find as typical Franz.

Although the rest of the apartment has

more shelves of books, I find the selection of the

books in the entry hallway as being of particular

note, on the basis that they must have been the

books Franz would have wanted quick and easy

access to, being in the apartment's entry one can

deduce that they were the books often referenced

(and taken to the coffee shops Franz would

frequent etc). His work can give evidence to this,

(debatable as it can be) and is therefore of curious

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interest in understanding the literary influences

Franz gravitated towards, and perhaps give us

insight into how this affected his work. These

works will be listed to allow readers to decide

of its interest. They read from left to right:

The top row:

The Holy Qu'ran

Alton Gordunov - Port de bras

Leila Dios - Elysium

Leila Dios - A Deathly Serenade

Samuel Beckett - The Complete Dramatic

Works

Louis-Ferdinand Celine - Conversations with

Professor Y

The Bible - Saint James Version

Franz Bema - A Voyeuristic Supper

William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch

The Writings of Marcel Duchamp

James Thurber - My Life and Hard Times

Michael Cunningham - The Hours

The Gateless Gate - Zhaozhou

The middle row:

Maya Angelou - Just Give Me a cool Drink of

Water 'fore I Diiie

Arthur Rimbaud - Selected Poems and Letters

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF ZEN POETRY

Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song

of Despair

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Hart Crane - White Buildings

Allen Ginsberg - Howl and Other Poems

Poems of Andre Breton

Langston Hughes - The Collected Poems

Franz Bema - Vanity. Key - (The Novel & Play. 1st

edition)

Esteban Aurelio - The Monk Spirit

Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

Charles Bukowski - The Last Night of the Earth

Poems [Paperback]

Leila Dois - Elysium

The bottom shelf:

Virgina Wolf - The Waves

Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and The Sea

Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las

Vegas

Jean-Paul Sarte - No Exit

David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest

Cesare Pavese - Among Women Only

三島由紀夫 - 午後の曳航

Fydor Dostoevsky - The Underground Man

Slyvia Plaith - The Bell Jar

Franz Bema - Vanity. Ares

Kofi Boamah - Vanity. L'eveil

Eduoard Leve - Autoportrait

James Joyce - Ullysses

Of the books on the top shelf it seems, at

the point of his demise, that he was still reading,

Louis-Ferdinand Celine's, Conversations with

Professor Y, evidenced as there was a bookmark

left inside page 55, with the words:

66


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Elysium full of V.I.P wine - M.E in particular

such merce

— messily scribbled in pencil at the bottom of

the page in the margin. The understanding of

this note or why he was reading this book, in

particular, at the time, is not something I can

concretely ascertain with any confidence. He

held many feelings about the literary industry it

can be said, we will not go into these with the

aim to keep this, as intended, a eulogy. I would

never slander my own writer, of course.

It is rather strange that of these books

none of Guy Deboci's book were anywhere to

be found. Strange, as I often sent him these

books, the deduction of this can possibly mean

he simply borrowed these books to a friend, as I

know, from first-hand experience, that Franz

loved Guy Deboci's work: we talked a lot about

these books, particularly in our messages. Guy

Deboci's classic, The Powers That Be ―the

political novel―was a novel I know Franz

appreciated. Although it seems apt to call the

man apolitical ― as he usually decided against

speaking about his political assertions ― I

assumed a secret interest, rather than a

disliking of politics or politically inclined

novelists as Guy Deboci. An interest that I feel

secretly manifested in what I see as simply

writers friendly rivalry, especially regarding the

UNVERIFIED comments Franz made in the

UNEDITED version of his last interview

towards Deboci. Myself and Franz spoke about

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this after the time in the correspondence letters

that I am currently collating for publishing, which

I can quote him saying, "Deboci, of course, writes

work that pushes me to the pen." — and is a quote

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA used in Deboci's forthcoming non-fiction book.

Also, never one to talk about religion in

person, the three religious books on the top shelf

can therefore allude to more to his deep

knowledge, rather than his religious specification,

since it was never made apparent whether Franz

believed in any particular Religion. "I like to call

my belief as the belief in the grandiose mystery

and that we will all die," he quipped, in his to be

published interview with Godot Smith, 2013. A

firm interest in Islam, I often had my suspicions

that he followed this religion, and confronted him

on this, but he just changed the subject and

mentioned that he enjoyed the wine I had sent

him. I would often send him bottles of wine,

particular after all the success of Vanity. Ares,

Henri Jayer Richebourg Grand Cu was our inside

joke and his favourite. I think, it can be said, the

zeitgeist that has stemmed from his coining of the

phrase, "Duchamp consensus" was again a

misunderstanding between readers and the Artist.

To make things clearer I knew him as a firm lover

of the spectator as a participating component of

the Art. This concept was one he held dear to his

heart: His ownership of the book, The Writings of

Marcel Duchamp (on the top row) gives evidence

for this assertion, and makes it clear that this

section of the epigraph was merely what I liked to

call, the fictional aspects of the writing, which I

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would like to highlight, means that, at times, the

work should be read with the onus on allowing

dramatic licence and the realisation that, even at

dark times, Franz remained mercilessly humorous.


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Of course the epigraph is a serious work,

evidenced by the subsequent suicide, but I feel

that he should not be taken seriously in this

coining of the phrase "Duchamp consensus".

Known to be a flamboyant raconteur, when he

was not in the realms of what finally took him,

Franz often would exaggerate. Particularly in

regards to our relationship, if I may say, as

privately we would share many stories and jokes

that rarely consisted of any such "obsession" with

Georges Perec. I remember him reading the first

chapter of Vanity. Ares and it being met with tears

as I interpreted the words.

In relation to another of the books on the

top shelf it is pointed to highlight Franz's

possession of James Thurber's, My Life And Hard

Times, as it is not widely enough acknowledged

how witty Franz was and work is. More noted for

his "acerbic wit" (Mercy Nai-Li, The Times, 2009)

It should be corrected to deem him as ‘poignantly

witty’ instead, but this reputation is mostly due to

the now infamous Newsnight interview where he

was asked: "From your work it seems you have

this preoccupation with death, death is surely not

funny?" And Franz, of course, replied, poker

faced: "Depends who dies." Making all the

headlines the next day he was declared, dark.

Though it was always apparent that he was

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misunderstood, from this, in more ways than one,

with critics and readers constantly forgetting how

humorous he actually was. In hindsight, he was

rashly categorised as a poet or deemed a writer of

dark works. Neither labels I felt were correct. It


seems that the label, comic novelist, although one

he constantly refused, is a closer reflection of his

work at times. The essay by the famous critic,

Robert Howarth, entitled: Understanding The New

Black, published in the New York Review of

Books, fittingly said of Franz's work:

"Confronted with death, his work is as if, arriving at

a funeral, you are then overcome by the most riveting

conversations you've ever had, a gluttony of hilarious

jokes of the worst variety; as trying not to laugh

becomes simply futile, and, of course, the most

expensive V.I.P wine. You feel naughty when you

read his work, he tempts with images and words, then

makes you realise that you are still at a funeral. It's a

bit like life, or at least the best parts of it. Poignant."

On the same row, the presence of, Alton

Gordunov's, Port de bras, written in 1930's Soviet

Russia, is of significance for numerous reasons:

Firstly, this book was long known to be a

favourite of his, evidenced when he said of the

book, "quite possibly it's one of the most unsung

modern-day masterpieces, an authentically

elegant scream that resonates with me, and I

hope to help produce the screenplay as the studio

asked." – The Paris Review, 2013. Secondly, in

the same interview published in the Paris Review

he was asked why this book resonated with him

and he went on to give a long explanation that I

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find complicated: "The story is of course following

this famous Russian ballet dancer, living and

working in Soviet Russia, married to Jesu another

dancer he calls, throughout the novel, his muse

and reason for living…..The story unfolds and


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Gordunov's prose is like a Russian Jean Genet…

tough but subtle….beautiful….It seems that it is a

love story, but tragically, Jesu; his wife and muse,

when she is being held up whilst executing a port

de bras with the famous dancer Jeanne Sylvanie

Arnould-Plessy at the Mikhaylovsky Theatre, falls

and breaks her neck. But here's the thing,

Gordunov depicts these scenes with so much

poetry, it literally touches your soul…. but the

protagonist goes through this complete existential

meltdown, authentically, and spirals into poverty

and a change in career as a writer, but forced to

dance again because the Theatre needs him and

him being the Russian President's favourite

dancer. He eventually does and performs the

famous play, Lonerism, with so much veracity and

electricity that all those in attendance had shivers

running down their spine for most of the play—

can you see the imagery? But, yes, how this book

remains so relatively unknown is amazing. But the

final scene comes, which is a five minute solo

dance by this protagonist―who performs with so

much poise, it was said that it was the best solo

ever performed by those observing this beautiful

but completely broken man dance. The solo

seemingly ends with rapturous applause, everyone

can't believe what they have seen, the president is

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there clapping and smiling from ear to ear, but in

the applause the protagonist yells at the audience:

Who am I perfuming for? My muse is dead. Who

am I perfuming for? My muse is dead. Just like

that, completely perplexing the audience, though

they think it is perhaps part of the production and

continue to clap what was already the best

performance of his life. But totally serious the

protagonist leaves the stage, shaking and

convulsively mumbling what he yelled at the

audience and entered his dressing room takes a

gun from his bag and puts a bullet through his

head."

Upon reading this section of his Paris

Review interview, it seemed totally gorgeous,

especially since it had always been known that he

was famously "indifferent" to interviews and fame,

it is remarkable that the interviewer found him in

such a talkative mood, this was not always the case

and his wife would often―in subsequent excerpts

from Ellis Bema's upcoming book, My Life With

Franz―talk of his "withdrawn shyness." He did

not like talking to the press, and there are only a

few occasions that he did so, with this EDITED

VERSION of his Paris Review interview and

Godot's Smiths upcoming series, Selected Interviews

with Franz Bema (Published by Elysium Books)

acting as the rare occasions he openly

communicated and the only VERIFIED

SOURCE'S of information. To clarify for clarity

sake, unless stated otherwise the quotations of

Franz are taken from this EDITED and therefore


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legally VERIFIED 2013 Paris Review interview,

unless stated otherwise, and as his last interview

six months before his death provides much

insight into this complex character. Although, I

do not adhere to a few segments of this interview,

I categorise much of this in the realms of

exaggeration of a man I found sensitive to much.

"Rather sensitive," said Ellis Bema, in a

newspaper interview a few months before his

death, speaking of Franz as a person. Sensitive to

criticism, I markedly remember Franz taking

offence when, that same writer, Robert Howarth

of The Times, who had praised his work the year

before, one year later then declared his work,

"morbid" in another feature. Franz, infamously,

had many spats with famous journalists and for

long periods would not take any interviews,

deciding instead that the work, "should speak for

itself." Masterpiece after masterpiece it is

apparent that his Artistic convictions were always

right, "only with time to marinate can work of

such stature be truly understood," he said in one

of his letters to myself, and as mentioned in his

epigraph he saw many of the-powers-that-be as

"mercenary's" that look in the mirror and can't

see themselves, for their despondency and

constant desire to build Artists up and break them

down.

"If everyone is going left, I want to go right.

That's just the way I am an Artist," he said.

Rebellious, after the breakout success of Vanity.

Ares ― selling millions of copies, Franz decided

that he wanted to make a statement with the

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release of his next book. This book became, A

Voyeuristic Supper, which was heavily influenced

by another writer in the top shelf, William S.

Burroughs and in particular this novel, Naked


Lunch. "I decided to utilise the cut-up technique

that Burroughs used in his novel, Naked Lunch,

for sure, Andre Breton and the dadaist were

doing it too, but I really love Naked Lunch and

wanted to develop this form of narrative. Which

many people said was stupid, and that all I had to

do was carrying on writing books similar to

Vanity. Ares, so there was pressure. But I really

am authentically an Artist, so I knew I couldn't

do this," he announced before the release of, A

Voyeuristic Supper.

After the release of this book, he was

asked why he had made the decision and to

describe the work, as it seemed very avant-garde,

Franz conceded: "I admit that it is a book not for

everyone, but it reflects my perspective of the

way life really is. In the sense that things rarely

make sense, these happenings that occur in our

lives, just as you came here and decided to wear

that red top, for example, seem smoothly

interrelated, but in reality life is more cut-up.

This is why I called the book, A Voyeuristic

Supper, like a tip of my hat to Burroughs', Naked

Lunch… because we're rarely able to swallow

what it is we really eat, which is the truth. The

Dr. character in the story for example, may seem

like a monster, feminists have decided to call me

a deviant for making light of what is simply the

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human condition, but the truth is that we have

similar thoughts, that's why people feel guilty

when they read my books sometimes, as the

laughter and poignancy comes without a polite


AA knock (laughs)."

It was always apparent to myself that Franz

was unique, I instantly knew this, and after the

third manuscript submission, found him

unflinching and a talent. Many others felt this way

too, especially after the feminist lobby found

sections of his work as misogynist, difficult, and

wrong. Answering the question of whether he felt

that a subject was just off-bounds, I found his

response typically veracious and perhaps the most

indignant he ever seemed: "I don't feel afraid to

touch any topic, if you can call it such, I've been

accused of many many things: you're assaulting

this, you're assaulting that, but it is apparent that

in reality, I of course provoke, but whom? Let me

tell you who I provoke! I provoke the hypocrites, I

provoke the feminist that reads my books and

laughs, but then reads one line can't differentiate

between fiction anymore and decides that I am

pig. Or that I am beautiful. Nonsense! Both ways.

Like I said before I don't care about critics, I

rarely read them…..as to me Art, or my Art is like

this: someone tells another a real happening,

maybe they were nearly knocked over whilst

stoking their pussy cat or touching their vagina,

and the person you have communicated this story

to turns around and says: "Well, I thought the

first section of this story could use some extra

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work….or maybe you could have said it like

this….but the end was magnificent, though I

think you have a bad pussy." This is how I feel

about critics! When I tell a story, beyond prose


style….grammar or what have you, which is

really a mute point if you think about it, I am

communicating through the metaphor of the

story how I truly feel, sometimes, whether you

like the middle or the end means nothing to me.

I write about the human condition and don't

discriminate any issue, in fact I'm a moth to a

flame if people decide that a slither of the

human condition is taboo. The human condition

is not just one of, but my muse."

A passionate man, his relationships with

women was constantly spoken about, especially

the eventual spilt from his wife, but his devotion

for "The Eagle" was consistent from the time

they met, with Franz reading Leila's poetry

religiously. Which is made more apparent as

Leila's, Elysium, is in the same bookshelf twice,

on the middle shelf and on the top shelf next to

Samuel Beckett's, Complete Works, who Franz,

speaking of said, "[Beckett] He is one of the top

five Artists that encourage me, I won't say

influence, because that can sometimes be

misrepresented, but his work prompts me, when

I feel that I may rest, his work, especially his

plays, always reminds me that I should be brave

and stick to my guns and decipher through the

shit storm." - I digress; returning back to the

point initially made, why two versions of,

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Elysium? Well, on inspection, this could possibly

be because one of these must have been his wife,

Ellis Bema's, who we can say had been reading

the book this is known as in the edition left on


the top shelf, there were neat handwritings of his

A

wife's on numerous pages. Plus, in the edition on

the middle shelf there was a sheet of paper with

an illustration tucked into the middle of the

book, illustrating, on a large sketch of a blank

page of white A4 paper, a larger version of what

was drawn on the Guardian newspaper, horns on

a cross with teeth in the middle.

It is not apparent what this sketch could

mean however, perhaps it conveys how whimsical

of a character that he was; "he was always

doodling", says an excerpt of Ellis Bema's

upcoming book, and known to make many

surrealist sketches, evidently, as many are

similarly scattered throughout the apartment.

Drawings and paintings were important to Franz,

not merely given evidence for in these sketches

and his close relationship with the Artist, Yashu,

but also in the essays he would write, the best of

them being the introduction to Yashu's Art book,

Illusions of Real Grandeur, (2008, Taschen) Where,

within Franz wrote:

"What Yashu's painting does is delve into the

fragmented realism of the mind, and provoke and

mystify in equal measure. His most famous painting,

to date, Portrait of Leila Dois 2008, depicting a lady

with a bird in one eye and a cage in another, is cutting

edge work and a comic epic of beautiful proportions.

77

This work acts as a metaphor for the eclectic world

Yashu paints: in that he unpacks complex imagery

into simplistic holes. His work depicts the human

condition, with the battleground being the vague

world within it, his need for perfection is rather sweet.


Work that Gestures to an expressionist but primal nod

to an array of Artists that have gone before,

including: Salvador Dali, Valsquez, Jean-Michel

Basuiat, Karel Appel, De Kooning, Francis Picabia,

Picasso and Andy Warhol, Yashu's Art is populated

with provocation, sex, women, religion, absurdity,

nothing, something and everything. A breast here, a

priest here, an empty colour block there, everything is

discussed through his childlike passion for visual

stimulation."

The media often portrayed Yashu, Leila

and Franz as intrinsically tied, often mentioning

each other in features, articles and press.

Complicated friends, professionally Yashu and

Franz seem to always have actively helped each

other with Introduction to books and positive

comments in interviews: "Franz is a great talent,

the onus is on talent more than anything else,"

said Yashu in an article for Interview Magazine in

2007. But, clearly, it can be said that they had a

strange relationship, particularly with such

statements Franz made as this; "Yashu was more

guilty than I." constantly repeated in his epigraph

to his final suicide note. Opposing this blanket

dissimilarity, it can be said that his relationship

with Yashu represented a personality trait his

more literary mind could not articulate. "It is

apparent that Yashu's paintings and Franz

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Bema's books have a direct symbiosis,

collaborating in Art work for the illustrative

version of Vanity. Ares (published by Elysium

Books) it is apparent that Yashu understands

Bema's work, it is no wonder they work well


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together. Regardless of all the titters about

hissyfits and raincoats." — (Adrian Seel, The

Guardian, 2011)

In a way Yashu articulated visually a lot

of what Franz tried to articulate with words,

with this seeming likeness left unspoken in his

fatal epigraph. The tense rivalry is very evident

when Franz, being interviewed after the

opening night of his West End debut, Vanity.

Key said, "I choose my enemies for their quick

wit and their intellect and my friends for their

stupidity," and then later on when asked about

Yashu's presence at the opening and what some

quarters of the media called "a hiatus" (Dean

Whetvan, The Sun) Franz said, "Yashu is a

person I take seriously and is talented. Genius

was the word you used." This statement should

be taken with a pinch of salt: in light of the

epigraph it is clear that Franz was still rather

angry about Yashu's comment, "Beauty is a

whore." Which is a statement that brings us to

Micheal Cunnighams book (Top shelf) and is a

direct quote that influenced Yashu and in turn

Franz. As I remember that night Yashu giving

Franz a copy of Michael Cunnigham's, The

Hours, before the play started with the words, "it

is an amazing work." Of course Franz accepted

it and it sits on his top shelf. I always

79

interpreted their sly tit for tat as a miniature

microcosm of the similar events that occurred

between Vincent Van Gough and Paul Gaugain,

at the Yellow House, but with subsequent tragic


suicides, instead of chopped off ears!

Inspired by Charles Bukowski's poem,

Dinosaur We, from, The Last Night of the Earth

Poems [Paperback] (middle shelf) Franz tentatively

wanted to end his now classic novel, Vanity. Ares,

with the first line of this poem. He debated but

did not want to be categorised as being overly

influenced by Aestheticism, and wanted to

announce his authentic allegiance to the raw,

with this ode to Charles Bukowski. "I did not

grow up with a golden spoon in my mouth, I was

not as lucky as Yashu, I grew up in London

where life was not always easy." He said.

This soon became a point glossed over

after the success of Vanity. Ares and he often

remarked, privately, that his decision not to end

the novel with Bukowski's poem was one of his

major literary disappointments. After the

publishing of, A Voyeuristic Supper, he became

more known as a writer that was completely

beautiful. As much as he loved writers such as

Lawrence Durrell and Oscar Wilde, whom he

quoted both in his introduction to 'Ares, he felt

"misread by the public at large."

From our own correspondence, Franz

always loved, White Buildings, and, prophetically,

Franz often quoted Hart Crane's reported final

words before he threw himself off a boat in The

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Gulf of Mexico, "Goodbye everybody!" when

departing a soiree or signing off on a message ―

and acts a minor significance, but a sad and

telling ode to the writer and his absurd sense of


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humour. What most stands out with the books

on the middle row is that they are all books

written by notable poets, albeit Franz and his

play Vanity. Key. How this came to be is rather

enigmatic, as a rather messy person, it seems

that one may wonder of this organisation being

due to, scathingly nicknamed, The

Administrator's (Ellis Bema's) organised

hands―this is the assertion here, because the

books have the scent of Franz's personal touch,

which is further, and even more tragically,

evidenced by the books on the bottom shelf,

which consist of nine (out of thirteen) writers

known to have reportedly taken their own lives.

Cesare Pavese's suicide was a popular anecdote

he would often tell, I remember more than one

occasion hearing the story of Pavese's suicide

mimicking a scene from his own novel, Among

Women Only, which Franz saw as a, "modern

day classic that is rarely mentioned." Asked

about his seeming preoccupation with death, he

said: "It is not a preoccupation but a

philosophical King Solomon-esque, let me say,

pledge of allegiance to the truth. The sun comes

up, a beautiful women causes a mess … a stupid

guy does something stupid … and the sun goes

down. People call it death or morbid, but my

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Art is really helping you to laugh and see

something new in the face of death. Death? What

is death? All that exists is what Leila talks about

when she wrote: I eat, drink you could say


(Elysium, Random Apartment) … we eat, drink

and this is all that really needs to be said, living

under the moon …" Heavily influenced by poetry

and Leila Dois, in particular, he often mused on

these poems though it seems that he has had not

ventured into Zhaozhou's, The Gateless Gate

because it still had a Waterstones receipt in the

middle of the book, that was obviously new and

by the looks of it, untouched.

On the bottom shelf, the book titled, 午後

の曳航 is the Japanese version of Yukio Mishima's

novel, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.

Having spent time in Japan teaching English,

Franz had a great affinity for all things Japanese

and this book was a gift from a lady called Miho,

who has written the words: "To Franz. A beautiful

man," she wrote, "just like you! xx" and signed

her name at the bottom. A handsome man that

was clearly popular wherever he went. Talking of

his status as a celebrity and part of the "beautiful

people", Franz words were scathing, "Look, what

I find particularly strange is that people want to

talk about how I look," he said, "which was rather

flattering to begin with. All the talk of writers

rarely being so handsome and how my work came

to be, slowly, like a woman at work given

promotions because the boss likes her breasts, it

started to take precedence, particularly in the

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interviews with the mass media I quickly

decided against fuelling… 'Ares was published

by an independent publisher after years of

difficulty to get my foot in the door, I am a

serious Artist. I'm not a wall flower.'

Miho's words are also strange as he is

not known as a sentimental man, the

complexity of Franz is an never-ending enigma.

Speaking of this sentimentally (or lack there of)

and the affect of the work of the existentialists,

such as JeanPaul Sartre's, No Exit (Bottom

shelf) Franz said: "It's like this," he said, "the

human condition is a multiplicity, soft edges,

hard edges, many edges you know? It's a case of

my Art aiming to get to the true essence of what

it means to exist, what it means to co-exist and

what it means to love. This reputation as, mean

or tough, is completely incorrect as my work is

not trying to pander to any such thing … and

that to me can't ever be bad. Have the

existentialist's, even though, they regularly were

reluctant to wear this badge, that the brigade

wants to slap on people's forehead, influenced

my work [?] of course. For one Jean-Paul

Sarte's, No Exit is perhaps one of my favourite

plays of all time, and for me his best work. As

in my eyes just as subtle as a Maya Angelou

poem is work such as No Exit because it tries to

illustrate a dark place, hell in this instance, and

shed light on the harsh realities, Harold

Pinter's performance on a BBC rendition ranks

up there as one of the best I've seen."

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The Kitchen

Moving from the hallway into the kitchen

the floor is marbled, and coloured grey with

black swirls. With light coming from large

windows positioned in both west and north

directions the kitchen is spacious, light and airy

and with all the contemporary mod-cons that one

would come to expect from a renowned Artist

and bon vivant: a chrome microwave, a large

aluminium Aga cooker, a top of the range washer

dryer and a green refrigerator that looks like a

spaceship from the 1970's. Facing the entrance to

the kitchen, is a silver Rotary clock, which hangs

on the wall and ticks a rather loud tock one is

noticeably able to hear. On the kitchen

countertop, which is dark black granite, and

beneath the clock is another clock, a gold version

of the same Rotary clock we came to find was

taken off the wall in the bedroom and placed

where it sat. A man that called sleep "a rumour"

often had bouts with insomnia, which deeply

affected his lifestyle said Franz: "… I write,

mostly at night …" he said, "…it's a forced

decision Dante-esque decision, one can say."

Franz was known as a light sleeper and therefore

can guess that the clock, that sits on the

countertop, may have disturbed his sleep and

prompted him to take it off its hanging mantle on

the wall.

In the fridge the food is as it was, untouched, and

consists of:

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4 x microwavable lasagne readymades

3 x microwavable fish cake readymades

A portion of microwavable chicken wings

A half eaten burrito wrapped in foil


AAA 2 x 1 litre bottles of milk

An Aubergine

2 x Open cans of Baked Beans

2 x Halal chicken in a plastic meal box

(Unopened)

A container full of noodles containing an

assortment of vegetables and beef

2 x cartons of orange juice

A bottle of fizzy cola

Four of the microwavable meals were sat

nestled on the right hand corner of the top shelf

and the other four of the microwavable meals

were found stuffed in the refrigerator shelf

positioned in what is usually set aside for drink

or milk; The milk was laid on the top shelf to

the left and slightly dripping placed next to the

burrito. The cartons of orange juice were

positioned in the centre of middle shelf; with

the rotten aubergine sat on top of both of these

cartons. The cans of Baked Beans sat open and

half eaten on the shelf below the orange juice,

next to this the container of noodles, that had

grown white mould. Sat in the left of bottom

compartment in the space usually used for

vegetables were the microwavable chicken wings

underneath the bottle of fizzy cola, which was

half full (or empty, depending on one's life

perspective). Finally, in the right side of the

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bottom compartment were the pair of very

questionable Halal chicken meal boxes. As the

thought occurred that my suspicions about Franz

and Islam were substantiated, the note on the


refrigerator —magnetised with a picture of Franz

and Ellis standing in front of the Jardin Des

Vestiges (Garden of Ruins) in Marseille— was a

yellow post-it note with the words:

"Don't eat my Halal boxes of Chicken! I need to

do yoga in living rm, I booked it. Ellis"

From this it is clear that, in fact, the Halal

food in question was not Franz's but Ellis',

fortunately. All in all, the refrigerator was very

messy and clearly looked bachelor - esque. It is

obvious that Ellis had long since departed the

Islington apartment and into his life as the

microwavable meals show that he was mostly

eating such foods. The disorganisation

emphasises the bout of depression he was

suffering from. Particularly defiant in his last

interview, of Ellis leaving him and the then

impending divorce, he said: "Love is a wolf, I

never talk about such things but, we had our

different traits; I am more free spirited and she is

more Hitler-esque. My life is perhaps just less tidy

(laughs)." Of course this caused the impending

divorce to become even more bitter with Franz's

estate becoming a topic of even more anxiety after

the publishing of this comment. I should also

mention another sketch drawn on the yellow

post-it note that depicts a woman, we can assume

as Ellis, with a prominent moustache above the

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lip and the eyes containing no pupils. The

moustache is clearly mocking Ellis and in

consequences of what was referred to by Franz,

as "the cold war". Leaving notes for one another


AA in this small apartment shows how tense their

relationship had become and the sketch acts as

an illustration of the way in which he dealt with

problems at times.

The fact that Ellis was leaving notes talks

much about how it was to possibly live with the

man, and highlights his eccentricity and the

intense reality of this unspoken war between the

married couple. Of this marriage he said, "A

mistake, do I love her? ha! I could never be

better," he said. "Does my life yearn for the

distractions that I did become accustomed to ….

I will live…" It is sadly apparent that these

comments should be taken with a Freudian slip

of tragedy in lieu of the spiralling affect the

departure of his wife had on his life. Finally the

note also contains the words: "rd herzog,

bellow". What these shorthand letters mean,

even to my well read mind, is not clear to me.

The half-eaten burrito is known to be a favourite

food of his, "I eat the same things as you, come

on, this whole celebrity culture is childish," he

said in an interview published in, Alright

magazine, "I like rice, chicken …. although,

admittedly I do love burrito's." Which is similar

to his character Ares (of Vanity. Ares) who also

enjoyed burritos and constantly alluded to this

affinity, blurring the lines between art and Life.

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This line between Life, Art and the Artist is one

that is interesting to investigate in regards to

Franz work - of this, when asked if it was possible

to separate the Artist from the Art and "whether

he was in fact Ares" interestedly Franz indulged

in quite a receptively long and unusually

descriptive answer (Quoting The Paris Review):

"Maybe you have asked good questions because

that is an interesting query… Of course, my work

is fictional, I write fiction and I don't like

nonfiction very much," started Franz, "When

readers can't differentiate between my work and

say that I am insensitive because a character like

Ares seemed this way, it is just lazy reading. I

won't say that it is wholly wrong as the feeling is

real: for example when Ares is talking about the

masquerade or when he can, perhaps, come

across as being totally devoid of feeling, it is a

metaphor for my really feelings. Alienation,

loneliness, absurdity are the issues my work deals

with, along with humour, sex, religion or a lack

thereof and the joys of life. The whole spectrum

of the human condition is discussed, but, and this

is a big but, not at the very same time. I've been

labeled as misanthropic, silly, ridiculous, morbid,

a jokester, an eternal jester… People call me all

these words, but where does it come from? The

reading of my work, or misreading of it, I should

say - as it is clear that the work is, for one, partly

social commentary and partly provocation,

excitation…But to specifically answer your

question, I am not Ares but at the same time Ares

is a part of me, or us, can I say… and a character I


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created to speak to an important part of us…

perhaps the wild part or the difficult part, but

definitely a part people shouldn't disregard and

is the reason I make these little ditty's. For the

love of the NAKED TRUTH. My work is all

about stripping God, or us, totally naked! If you

think there is one, in a sense… A full eclipse of

nakedness…

Interviewer

Do you think you have a God complex?

Franz Bema

No. Who is God, we? I? Or You? You tell me?

Interviewer

Well, along the same lines: you once said you

don't believe in Art, but that you believe in the

Artist. What did you mean by this? Who creates

the Art? What is the difference?

Franz Bema

The difference is fine, but if you look back in

history - this concept has always been

challenging from Doestoevsky to Knut Hamsun

to Duchamp and Dali… If you take Knut

Hamsun for example, who wrote Hunger, which

is one of my favourite books, he famously made

this defection with those strange political

leanings. A firm dislike of politics, I don't for

one minute agree with his decision … ha…. no

way jose will I defend that. But do I love his

books, certainly. Because he is authentic, it's not

about good or bad, it's about the beauty of life's

poetry as we're all merely instruments. Can an

Artist disappoint me, sure…I think some writers

are just scribbling, total scribbles…This thing I

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call Art and Life, is not your wife calling your

iPhone and you accidentally pressing FaceTime

naked next to your mistress…it's…more..."

The cupboards were well stocked with


luxuries, such as five bottles of unopened bottles

of, Henri Jayer Richebourg Cru —A multifaceted

character, regardless of his untimely demise, and

choice that he made, it is certain that his life had

elements which provide evidence for Franz as the

authentic Bon Vivant people envied. Speaking of

this reputed contradiction to his morbidity with

Godot Smith, he said: "I enjoy aspects of life,"

said Franz, "the notion of me being this mopy

character is all wrong …but I'm not saying I'm

not conflicted, because we all know that that

would be wrong, but I do, strangely enough,

enjoy good food, good drink and going to nice

places, sometimes. I'm human. My work is just

saying that it is all in the mind, granted; all due

respect for those who aren't able to eat. Hey … I

too have had a hard life, that never gets

mentioned, because I don't feel the need to

embellish this or hide the desire to look after

oneself."

The cupboards have the more basic amenities

too, including rice, pasta, couscous, corned beef

etc. Next to the huge aga cooker, which the oven

door was left open, sat six bottles of, Dom

Perignon 1991. Where these bottles came from is

not known, I guess they maybe from a fan; Franz

would often get sent a variety of things, many

fans would send to our publishing headquarters,

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with such gifts as: a dildo, a key (to where? we do

not know), burritos, chicken and letters. Franz

received an uncountable amount of letters,

particularly after the American release of Vanity.


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Ares with many asking if the fictional character

Ares was ok and when he was going to be

released. Some of these letters were obscene, for

example, a lady in Texas asked to marry Ares and

sent a picture of her 300 pound naked body to

persuade the character she clearly did not

understand to be fictional. We rarely informed

Franz of such activities, but did give direct

information of his contact details to very

important people, such as Sultans or celebrities

we knew he favoured, and can gauge that it may

have been one of these people who sent the

bottles of champagne.

On the light pinewood kitchen table - that

sat towards the left of the entrance, with three

chairs placed around it. On the table sat a

magazine still open with Edouard Leve's book,

Suicide sat in the middle of page 88 and 89 of this

magazine ― there seems no apparent reason for

this. The magazine is open to the start of an

article and feature with American Actress, Ines

Mavis, who's portrait appears on page 88 with

her seductively blowing a kiss towards the

camera, the feature, which starts on page 89,

starts with the words:

"Ines Marvis, 24, is yoga-toned and appears to

have the same sassy style she had when

American audiences were first introduced to her,

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in a brief nude scene in Boamah's 2012, Vanity.

L'eveil... "

Franz was known to be passionate about

film and movies and often enjoyed reading


magazine articles about such topics, mentioning

such like topics in our conversations. Of course he

helped produce this film, that Ines Mavis starred

in, but felt that he had more to give via this

medium: "… I have not made a conclusion that I

feel will affect this, but film is definitely a medium

I may delve into, the experience working on

Vanity. L'eveil was interesting, most definitely," he

started. There is a big quote in the middle of page

89 that reads: "I think the best Artists are loners."

The table, like much of the rest of the apartment,

can be considered "cluttered" to say the very least

- a camera, three ashtrays, another pile of

newspaper piled on top of one another, a stress

ball etc. As much as he was influenced by Japan:

"Feng shui is definitely a philosophy of life I hold

dear," he said to Godot Smith - at times, perhaps

in concentrated places, there contains a lot of

"clutter" and less of this philosophy he held dear,

perhaps he may have been drinking. He himself

spoke of his drinking "issue" in the forthcoming

interview with Godot Smith, "I wrote some poetry

about drinking and people call me an alcoholic,

it's that what you people want? An Excuse to say

my words are that of drunkard, take it … have it.

Here you are."

The Autumn — Winter 1959-1960 No. 22

Paris Review is sat atop the pile of newspapers

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with a bookmark at the start of Lawrence

Durrell's interview. Above the kitchen table on

the wall, the left side of the entrance, is a poster

of Jean Cocteau's of Les Enfant's Terrible.


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Fascinated by Durrell and Cocteau, it is a

wonder why, even for myself, but of this Franz

said: "They [Lawrence Durrell and Jean Cocteau]

make beautiful work … sometimes it seems that I

can't win when I say certain things," he said, "I

can appreciate a Durrell and a Bukowski in equal

measure, plus my adoration for French literature

is widely known, Cocteau was a master!"

Coincidentally, Caroline Samo's, OMG, I

Love Food, sat perched next to the Agar cooker

and in front of the metallic toaster, perhaps a

remnant of his wife's pre-departure, because

Ellis, at our soiree's, would often talk about how

much she loved some the recipes within the

cookbook, commenting that she found the book

(co-pioneered by Bonti Vanvan—that has 50

award-winning recipes, and advice on every

aspect of simple home cooking and the first

cookbook to combine eco friendly principles) as

a mainstay in her kitchen and thanked me for

delivering it to their home. Next to this on the

kitchen top was the The Paris Review, No. 199,

and the same issue that contain's Franz's

interview, with my ex assistant's handwriting on

a post-it on the front of the magazine. The ex

assistant that I wholly deny, in his bitter claims

made in that newspaper in regards to Franz with

this total amateur alleged that I said, "a famous

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authors suicide is a great business plan" and that

"if this happens at 27, even better with all the

conspiracies, cah ching ching" - these words are

completely flagrant and defamatory and opposed

to the very sensitive and close relationship

between myself and Franz, our

"misunderstandings" in relation to the nature of

the publishing industry, of which Franz made

comment of, in this same interview with The Paris

Review was completely a "miscommunication" that

was privately cleared up. Of course, people speak

of the eight book contract that I gave him, and one

critic, that I threatened with court action, said that

it was "modern day slavery". Which is completely

shameless and does not align with the affinity he

had for Elysium Books and what we published and

represent. It is a risk to sign a writer and it is only

via posthumus releases that Franz will even fulfill

the contract that enabled him, and us, great

success. At no point does this piece of literature

refer to the UNEDITED version of Franz Bema's

Paris Review Interview. I did not murder Franz,

instead he EVIDENTLY committed suicide,

despite all the nonsense that was spoken by this

ex-assistant. There are hexagonal tiles that have

Chinese calligraphy on the wall next to the door,

designed and fitted soon after Ellis had decided to

move in - who had the kitchen renovated to better

serve the wonderful soirees she would host.


The Living Quarters

This eulogy of a great writer continues into

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the living room through the doorway positioned

to the left of the front entrance. "Conflicted

beauty," said Leila Dois in her afterword to

Franz' novel, A Voyeauristic Supper, "him and is

Art is a complex moment of water and sunshine:

desire and need." Complex, his living room was

found in a state that reflected this, where the

marble floor runs in, and confronts you with the

same black fabric on the walls. A glass coffee

table sat slightly in the way of the entrance, just

in front of the black leather sofa that has a gold

trombone sat in the middle. The Professor's

book, Pragmatic Formula's, sits on the see through

coffee table, which was opened to page 66,

bookmarked - strangely enough - by an A4 print

of Yashu's painting entitled: God's & The Devil's -

Riding Coattails…?, 2012; strange, because Franz

would have had to have intentionally made a copy

- as, before Yashu's death, he partially destroyed

this cryptic work, that still sold well at Christie's

even though it had blank ink covering much of

the same painting (Christie's Auction - Modern

Expressionists, 2013).

Paraphrased from, Selected

correspondence of Franz Bema, in relation to this

reading of The Professor's book, Pragmatic

Formulas, Franz often spoke of his friendliness

with The Professor, his books and his "methods",

which, of course, influenced his move to

Islington, becoming closer to the man - even

evidenced by the epigraph, he built a close

relationship with The Professor. For a long time,

The Professor represented an aspect of discovery

95

for Franz, and from this friendship saw

intellectualism as that which elucidates much, but

that his feelings, particularly as an Artist

"conflicted" this approach to life. In private

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA correspondence between us, Franz often referred

to The Professor as his "mentor" and that he acted

sometimes as his "intellectual conscious" he joked.

Franz' system for gathering information was

always unclear, but from the first line of his essay

entitled: The Allure of Pragmatism, published in the

New Yorker, Franz sheds some light on this issue

and quoted a conversation with The Professor's

and his book. Here is an excerpt: "Just as Albert

Camus' mentioned in, The Myth of Sisyphus, the

true philosophical problem we humans have is that

of: 'Judging whether life is or not worth living…'

which I fundamentally agree with, but add that the

buck stops at a hundred percent belief in the

notion of evolution, for me. I am not here to

divulge publicly my love for a particular political or

philosophical affliction or offer my services to the

concoction of modern day Religion, which we all

know is in dire straights, and is need for what I can

say I believe in, an honest slap in the face. Please

the need to slap the truth into existence is more

and more apparent. Of course it is I who has been

classed as a madman, a poet and a provocateur in

equal measure know that society needs something.

I don't write this to provide any type of self. I don't

write this to seduce you with self help plans, (you

can read other writers for that seduction) that make

you want for more self help from somebody else

96

that happens to be the person writing it. No, this

is all a completely nonsensical distraction, as you

need to make your own conclusion, to life and

what it is actually worth, just as Camus

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA mentioned. I quote a book by The Professor I

AA

mentioned earlier in his book, Pragmatic

Formulas: "Life always has formulas." What I am

talking about is pragmatism, which is the topic

that I ravenously contemplate in order to make

my own conclusions on the topic at hand, life.

Interestingly, I am going to quote a

conversation myself and The Professor had on a

rainy day in London, which with his permission

after remembering the whole conversation, wrote

down, and it goes as so:

Me: So there is no heaven or God?

The Professor: You know I don't believe…but I

will say this Franz, the real question is not

whether there is a heaven it is simply, in heaven,

granted that there is one, will there be suffering?

Me: It is said you'll have no tears.

The Professor: No suffering…[scratches his grey

head of hair] How can you feel happy without the

need for pain? This heaven seems a cop-out, like

the whole penitent story, why didn't this God just

perfect the creation if he could?

Why all this talk of freedom and control? In

reality how much of life can we really control?

This conversation is one of many I have had with

a mentor, of sorts, I know better to believe in (a

notion I keep to for any man and Artist). He is my

friend, but he is in no way able to fulfil the void

97

that mystery allures us with. Is it pragmatic to

believe in nothing then? What is nothing? What

is something? Are queries that can usually be

heard with scoffs of: "give us a vice, give us


something else to believe in!" To end, of suicide,

I quote Albert Camus's, The Fall and say:

"through your mouth: "O young woman, throw

yourself into the water again so that I may a

second time have the chance of saving both of

us!" as with only one life, I say, as absurd as life

is, belief is not a blame game of tag but of

chances, and that it is beyond the realms of

pragmatism that existence lay."

Next to The Professor's book is a

pornographic magazine with a roll of toilet tissue

on top of it - Lonely in his last days it can be said

that he secretly missed the woman that I felt he

truly loved, but as he did not understand love, in

turn led to a failed marriage and this tragic end.

The coffee table also has an array of objects,

which are cluttered all over the table: trinkets of

small metal, bic pens, a DVD of E.T next to a CD

of the Artist Jay Z, Bhagavad Gita, a mobile

phone switched off etc.

The trombone that sits on the black leather

sofa was one of Franz most prized possession, as

he often spoke of it when reminiscing of his time

spent playing in the Jazz clubs of London, "It was

a lot of fun, but hard as I needed money," he said

- which again draws parallels to the protagonist in

his novel, Vanity. Ares. He remarked that "music

is life" and rarely went a day without listening to

98

his favourite songs. On the wall above this sofa is

another of Yashu's paintings entitled: After

Dostoevsky and Dali: Manic Depression. Vanity

II…, 2007, speaking in an interview with GQ


Magazine, Yashu said of the work, "This work

A

consists of a room and a window," he said. "The

figure in the middle is a surrealist piece that

incorporates influences of Dali, Dostoevsky's,

'Notes from Underground' and Franz' s Vanity series.

The work is further discussing manic depression

and the realms of the segmented mind and

perceptions of transfiguration and humour. One of

a set within a triptych of paintings." From his own

words Yashu was very influenced by Franz and

this influence is very reciprocal as this painting

was one of three editions used as covert Art for

Vanity. Ares. It would seem that Franz not only saw

Yashu as "flawed" but, in actuality his paintings

acted as an important muse for his Franz's own

work - it seems their relationship was shrouded in

competitiveness, that Yashu, in his own right, as

an internationally known visual Artist for many

years, also saw elements of Franz's essence and Art

he did not agree with.

It seems strange, considering that Franz

kept close to Yashu, this has most definitely got to

be for a reason, of which, we are not totally aware

of, because their disdain for each other has been

infamously noted, but they both evidently

appreciated each other's work. I deem this a

competitiveness, which was inflamed by the roles

Artist's place on the concept most dangerous,

99

perfection. The novelist, who is perhaps the most in

danger and naked of all Artists, cannot hide, unlike a

song writer, for example, who can make one hit song

or have a label engender an image, which may or may

not align with the reality of the Artists true Artistry.

Whereas, the novelist is given the most difficult job of

having to juxtapose the deeply technical and lofty

abstractions of the world around an image that,

regardless of how much it is garnished or

metaphorically asserted, is clear for all too see. Visual

Art and painting is difficult, but it's complexity lie in

the metaphysical reality of the work. Each medium

has to respected for what it is but the mechanisms and

craft do elicit truths in terms of which Artistry is most

difficult to 'perfect' (Modern Art's Relationships, 2000

Onwards, Ferud Fyrdor). " I personally can say I felt

Yashu was the visual eye to the same issues Franz

would write about confliction — in reality they were

one and the same; two peas in a pod.

In the corner of the room is a sculpture by

Tasanake Sukido (1929 - 1986) entitled: 1は、戦後愛 ,

which translates into English as, One Love After War.

Sukido was renowned for making a series of thirteen

works, of which this is one, which aims to "disturb the

senses," said Sukido (Japanese Art of Balance, Yukido

Tanizaki), "and shatter the illusion of there being a

difference between reality and dreams, death and

immortality, the female body and the male body." The

sculpture has elongated forms which echo Egyptian

art and the body has a primitive aspect with a spear

going through the top of the abstracted head. It can

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neither be instantly apparent whether this is a

male or female form, its stony black plaster cast is

powerful but sensual with features that could be

breasts. In the lap and place of genitals is a skull

equally balanced in the middle of the legs that are

short and reduce the possible size to its 5"1

height. Franz saw this after taking a trip back to

Japan and visiting a gallery in Nagoya, influential

to aspects of his work, he said of this sculpture

and influence, "All mediums of Art…I was very

influenced by a Japanese Artist, (Tasanake)

Sukido and this sculpture that I firstly saw in

2008, it resonated with me, because it gorgeously

disgusted me," said Franz, "The book Vanity. Ares

was basically a discussion of this gorgeous disgust,

as it played with forms you see? It provoked and

disturbed me to look at what gender really is, and

how to comically discuss this in the perspective of

fine art and literature. When 'Ares sold all those

copies and I heard it was being auctioned at

Christie's in London, I used most of the money I

had made in the previous four months to

purchase what is one of my most prized

possessions, which says a lot, and I remember at

the time Yashu falling in love with it too. Even the

name of is completely epic: One Love After War,

how poetic…Japanese Art has firm place in my

heart because it helps soothe my racing mind… "

The curtains on the big window facing east

were drawn, but lead to a spacious balcony with

brown decking overlooking Islington shops. With

cobwebs on the washing rail it can be assumed

that Franz, in the months leading up to his death,

101


did not go outside on the decking. Though there

are two large pot plants sitting on the floor to the

left of the decking, which were Ellis' who often

watered and nurtured these morning glory to

which she reportedly said she treated like the love

she had for Franz in that it was "it's always in

vain," commenting that he never noticed how

much she loved him, he was always too busy

wanting that apple in the garden" (Alright

magazine, Eve Morning, 2013). This comment,

made in the aftermath of their divorce going

public, reportedly touched Franz deeply - a

"sensitive" man, beyond the mud slinging, he felt

more affected then he himself knew, after this was

published the correspondence between us came

few and far between, for his disenchantment with

life.

In front of the window, sits a wooden chair,

that one can assume a person such as The

Professor sat down in when he visited Franz. A

pair of glasses were left on the stand next to the

chair, and neither Franz nor Ellis wore glasses,

they were The Professor's. Speaking of The

Professor Franz wrote that, "if it wasn't for The

Professor's Art hatred," he said. "And therefore

lack of belief in the mysterious I would certainly

have been a firm member of his school of thought.

But we still chat often, he has interesting views."

The wooden stand also contains a box of aspirin

and a half full glass of orange juice. Franz'

sufferings with headaches is something he

struggled to cope with throughout his life, unable

to distract himself from his contemplations he

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often, in his liaising with me; when in the middle

of a manuscript edit, would send an email

referring to headaches and needing time away.

For certain, just as in any industry the publishing

business can get busy, but in no way do I adhere

to any type of belief that I failed to manage a man

that for all intent and purposes was known to be

eccentric. Sadly this eccentricity is given evidence

for with the box of anti-depressants sitting on the

floor next to the wooden stand. Asked directly:

"What do you say to the people that say you're

mad?" Franz replied: "I'm not asking to be your

local MP," he said, "Or forcing any belief. I

merely make Art for myself and allow people to

enjoy it at their own discretion. I don't try and

seduce you with self help plans, you can read

other writers for that seduction, that want for self

help from somebody else, a completely

nonsensical distraction, as you need to make your

own conclusions. I'm perhaps dangerous…" The

interviewer replied, "You call yourself a danger?"

Franz then said, "I am a danger, yes, a good

danger, but this is all subjective, one man's

heaven can be another man's mess. That is what I

am trying to explain, regardless of allegations of

eccentricity, this danger works in a very Nietzsche

like manner with me, it's simply a case of,

approach my Art with care."

In the corner of the room, opposite

Sukido's sculpture, is a CD and vinyl player with

a large cupboard beneath the vintage woodgrain

stereo. Music was very much an important part of

Franz' world as his work remains lyrical and his

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prose is highly influenced by rhythm and song.

Tragically, he himself spoke about the

importance of music in Leila Dois' case and

therefore it would be unfair if we did not delve

into his music collection. No music played at the

point of his death. The CD in the changer is of

Allen Ginsberg's Howl, which Franz had a clear

affinity for; he also had the book version in the

entrance hallway. Culturally the size of the

Grand Canyon, spoken word poetry was

prominent in his life and I spoke to him

numerous times about helping him to publish

his own spoken word music, after being

influenced by the poet, Esteban Aurelio's

Extended Play, The Monk Spirit, which he

referenced in, A Voyeuristic Supper, asked why he

often included lyrics and poems in his work he

said, "I see poetry as the essence of all Artistry,

which is communicated in whatever medium or

circumstance an Artist gravitates toward. Song is

poetry. My novels are poetry, they take prose

form but its essence is lyrical and full of my

essence which I truly believe is that of the Poet,"

said Franz, adding, when asked about some of

the poems he favoured, "Ginsberg's Howl is

perhaps one of the poems I get, you know?

Especially watching the film version I

understand what Ginsberg is saying when he

say's: "I saw the best minds of my generation

destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked"

- it's no secret that I have had many bouts with

suchlike issues, with the all vultures circling

around any information they can throw on

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wikipedia, but regardless I get it you know? …Not

in the posing manner, that so many of these so

called Artists talk about in their social media

conversations or brand building, but in search of

truth, breaking in shame. Though I keep to

elements of discovery and excitation, I emphasise.

So when he (Allen Ginsberg) say's: “I’m with you

in Rockland…" ...I am really with him in that

place…"

Beneath the CD and Vinyl player is an

assortment of both CDs and Vinyls records in a

compartment with two shelves both large enough

to fit seven inch vinyls and allow about five

centimetres of space at the top, listed in order of

Vinyls and CDs (45 in total, 22 Vinyls and 23

CDs):

Vinyls:

Sidney Bechet - Petite Fleur

Fela Kuti - Confusion

Serge Gainsbourg - Gloomy Sunday

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black

Miles Davis - Blue Period

Nirvana - Come As You Are

The Doors - (Self Titled Album)

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You

Experienced

Piero Piccioni - Easy Dreamer

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

The Monk Spirit - Woman + Control & Freedom

Jay Z - Reasonable Doubt

Gil-Scott Heron and Brian Jackson - It's Your

World

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Madvillain - Madvillainy

Serge Gainsbourg - Confidential

Janet Jackson - Velvet Rope

John Frusciante - The Empyrean

Serge Gainsbourg - History Melody Nelson

Hector Lavoe El Cantante The Originals

Gil-Scott Heron - Spirits

George Michael - Ladies And Gentleman… The

Best of George Michael

Serge Gainsbourg - Lemon Incest

CDs:

Foo Fighters - ONE BY ONE

Thomas Ades - Ades: Anthology

Melody Gardot - My One and Only Thrill

Modeselektor - Monkeytown

Caribou - Swim

Mos Def - Black On Both Sides

Ryuchi Sakimoto - 1996

Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

King Midas Sound - Waiting For You

The Pussycat Dolls - PCD

Floetry - Floetic

M.I.A. - /\/\ /\ Y /\

Music From And Inspired by the Motion Picture

Babel

Nas - Untitled Album

Ghostface Killa - Supreme Clientle

Benjamin Biolay - La Superbe

Stereolab - Not Music

Koop - Koop Islands

Radiohead - The Bends

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

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The Monk Spirit - Esteban Aurelio

Ol' Dirty Bastard - N***ga Please

Portishead - Dummy

Bach

N*E*R*D - In search of...

2pac - Me Against The World

In a music feature published in Esquire

Magazine, Franz spoke of this clearly eclectic taste

in music and offered his take on many

surrounding issues. Here is an excerpt touching

on many of these records, in what he referred to

as only a "small physical collection" in his home

and that "Music means a lot to me, it's the

lifeblood of so many aspects of my Art," he said.

"I like to listen to every genre of music

imaginable, and spend a considerable amount of

time doing so." He later, in the same article spoke

of the Artists he had the strongest affinity for:

"M.I.A., Serge Gainsbourg, Jimi Hendrix and

Miles Davis are some of the Artists that truly stand

out to me. Perhaps, it is the London connection

that steers me into M.I.A.'s weird and wacky

world of convulsive beats and street slang, she,

like writer's as Samuel Beckett, encourage me to

challenge cliched systems of thought."

His taste in music was very influenced by

his time spent in Japan where he spoke of

"spending a year listening to Ryuchi Sakamoto's,

1996 album on repeat," adding that the song,

"Bibo no Aozara, brings tears down my eyes. That

whole album taught me a lot and I still listen to it,

even after Babel the movie made it so popular."

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Many of the albums in this collection can be

perhaps deemed music that a listener would

indulge in on a relaxed day, Franz always enjoyed

what he defined as, "soulful music and music

people sometimes call, melancholic, are probably

my staples; The Portishead album, Dummy and

Serge Gainsbourg's whole catalogue are probably

some of the music that most defines my taste in

music. Although I do like some commercial music

and have been known to enjoy a song by, The

Pussycat Dolls." Speaking of his great love who he

called a poet laureate, "Serge Gainsbourg, along

with Gil-Scott Heron, are the foundations of much

of the reason I like Artists as Nas and Mos Def, as

Gainsbourg was the ultimate provocateur but he

was groundbreaking and constantly making clever

songs that have always touched my heart, in

particular his song, La Saison des pluies is some

of the most beautiful lyrics you will ever hear. But

in the same token his known as this twisted social

commentator in France, and this attitude is what

draws me to some Hip-Hop Artists, an apologetic

authenticity."

Speaking of indie music, Franz commented

that it, "is the life blood of creativity in music.

Artists like MF Doom and M.I.A., to an extent, are

the ones pushing the boundaries. I remember

when Madvillain (Madlib's collaboration with MF

Doom) came out and it touched me." Speaking of

class systems in the taste of music he mentioned

Bach's, Brandenburg Concertos, "being the music

that I listen to in order to paint the imagery of my

books, and just as important as modern music, like


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Modeselektor or Caribou - in my eyes, I don't see,

or like, the snobbery that can exist in music,

which I spoke briefly about in my novel, A

Voyeuristic Supper. As lofty as my association is

in the ranks of literature, Janet's Jackson's, Velvet


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Rope is quite easily as influential to me as James

Joyce," he said in a somewhat defence of

contemporary Art, and music.

In his Paris review interview Franz spoke

about his affinity for Jazz and his time, "bumming

around playing in Jazz clubs", when he opens up

about this music's affect on his Jazz like writing

prose-style, "I developed the style of course from

not just Jack Kerouc, but Jean Genet, who is an

unsung pioneer in this similar prose style, Miles

Davis, John Coltrane and even from appreciating

the paintings of Yashu and Jean-Michel Basquait,"

he said. "It's a concoction of rhythms and

cadences that derive from my poetic vision of life.

This balance of the meticulous and the wholly

abstract is meshed together with this texture that

is a bit like my outlook on life … you know? It's a

situation where I'm constantly searching for this

drama of the absurd, I like to call it … The

saxophone of a Bechet from his Paris merengue

period, are the songs layered into my fabric with

an edge, of let's say a John Frusciante or, more

fitting a Foo Fighters, and juxtaposed to create

what may seem complicated but my work is like a

walk through a rainy dessert, alone, drinking wine

eating and having a conversation with the women

you love. And finding laughter, even though

you're totally lost, but what you have is this wine,

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this food, this conversation. One of the most

influential concepts of my work is probably Andre

Breton's last words written in the fantastic novel,

Nadja, he said, let me remember…oh yes, he said,

Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.

So in essence, as manic as my work may seem,

particularly in, A Voyeuristic Supper -with the use

of the cut up technique, my writing is the smooth

convulsion in a sense, which is exactly the way I

am. People call me all types of vindictive words…

you know they just say anything, particularly when

you know the feminists and even the masculinists

called Ares a sociopath and that he was ugly. This

to me means people have failed to understand my

perspective or my smooth convulsion, which makes

my work very awkward if you don't know me… boy

aren't you really getting me to talk? Perhaps

because you're so pretty you see….but is this what

you want?"

Reflecting on his love of Artist's that he

thought illustrated his favoured "wild style" he

mentioned Ol' Dirty Bastard's album, N***ga

Please, as one his "favourite pieces of poetic

madness" and that, "I'm always looking for unique

more than anything when I look for music to listen

to. An element of the composition has to be

strange and perhaps can contain an element of wild

style," he said. "2pac is a great example of an Artist

that didn't care what he said. And it's this attitude

that resonates, plus he was a poet. But I do love

ODB and N*E*R*D because they are fun, which

fundamentally is how I perceive my own work, a

wacky expression of blistering fun, perhaps with


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wisdom found in places a person would never

expect. And as we venture into the future is it too

much to ask but for musicians to do something

strange?"

Speaking of Esteban Aurelio, Franz


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directed the award winning video, 'A Conversation

With God, After Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66', which

of course infamously has Esteban Aurelio, who

performs as The Monk Spirit, simply in an empty

room that just has a chair and a T.V,

predominantly sat in the middle of the room

facing the camera, with two women behind him

— in each corner; one wearing white spandex

with angel wings, and the other, red spandex with

horns. In the three minute video the women are

sensually dancing whilst The Monk Spirit seems

to be having a break down in one minute, and a

euphoric time the next — crying and dancing

towards the camera wearing round framed Ray-

Bans (which were, funnily enough, increasingly

popularised by Franz, who was often seen

wearing a pair — Alright magazine). This video

ends with The Monk Spirit, whom infamously

only performs wearing black balaclava's, is seen,

before cavorting amorously with the female

dancer wearing the red spandex, turning of the

light before gun shot is heard and the now

famous words, "We, I or you? If I'm guilty so are

You!" appear on the screen with bold red

iconography before it ends with the words, "Just

let me sit next to Cocteau." The video was

instantly banned and taken off all the music

channels, due to being rendered dark and

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cynically unfunny, it caused a huge storm yet

again, with people wanting to see the hard to find

video in order to understand what exactly Franz

meant in the scenes he depicted. Franz failed to

comment on the meaning of the only video he

ever made, calling the controversy, "a storm in a

teacup" in a brief comment to NME. A true

Artisan it is very unfortunate that this acts as the

only visual moving image directed by him.

Though why he directed the video does give

insight, as it has been said he did so because of

his love for The Monk Spirit, who he referred to

in a behind-the-scenes-video posted on Youtube

as, "Gil-Scott Heron with spasmodic elements of

the grotesque and elements that are completely

opposite to Gil-Scott Heron, conjuring a poetry of

violent serenity, that people will fail to understand

until it's all said and done. He is most definitely

the Artist I feel represents me, musically, which is

the reason I made the video along with the songs

referencing of Leila Dois' poem, of course." Made

just after Leila Dois had tragically committed

suicide it was rumoured that Franz made the

video as an expression of his lost place in life, as

many people commented, particularly after he

reportedly (by those in attendance) cried "like a

lost lamb" at Leila's funeral, beside himself with

pain this cryptic video made three months after

this, consists of her poetry in the song's lyrics and

can in turn act as Franz's eulogy to the woman

that people in the press saw as one part of the

duality of his muse. A feature on the famously

banned video written in Rolling Stones Magazine


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by Caroline Amenia called his muse, "a duel

between the now demised Poet Leila Dois and his

wife, Ellis, in that his work constantly develops

this concept of desire and need, as it is no secret

that Leila Dois was a lesbian, with her often

writing about this in some of her poems: "Pussy

Play" and "The SEx of my Mind *****Stars for A

Sexless Sexing" to name just a few. Franz's,

distraught to her death, makes this ode to the

woman he has referred to, on the back cover of

Leila Dois' book of poetry, Elysium as, "The

meaning of beauty." Particularly selective with his

words this is an obvious illustration of what Leila

meant to Franz, as opposed to his wife who, since

the most recent breakup, was referred to as, "the

ball and chain" in a perhaps off handed comment

made on TMZ.

Far fetched, as it may seem, to a person

who knew of these happening's first hand,

Caroline Amenia's take is an interesting

interpretation, particularly poignant was Amenia's

noticing that within the video, the female wearing

spandex dancing "deathly, sombre and sensually

in the corner" is seen at many points in the video

helping The Monk Spirit as he "spazzes out

basically" and tries to organise his attire. "The

concept of control is constantly discussed, even in

the song." This insight perhaps bares weight as

Franz admitted that, "many times my art is pure

freestyle and arrives from an unknown place. I see

myself as just a tuned instrument, attuned to

frequency where all I am trying to do is breakout

and sing my own freedom song." The Monk

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Spirits "bone chilling lyrics, spoken over a quiet

segment over the melancholic funky chords of:

"Do you love me? I'm talking to you God. Do you

want me?" Anyone with the smallest music

knowledge and an internet connection can infer,

knowing what Franz felt about, The Monk Spirit,

to use his own words, "represents" and therefore

the lyrics can give evidence for his existential

funk, if I can say…" He also went on to co-write

one song on The Monk Spirit's album, Water On

Skin, entitled: Chocolate on your lips - The

Guilts.

Consistently "devoted to death, he spoke of

Kurt Cobain and called him, "a Lazarus figure"

and that "Artist's like him and Jimi Hendrix were

Vinyl's he constantly listened to growing up, even

citing, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You

Experienced and the song on the same album,

Manic Depression, defining it as, "rain in a

dessert, and a song that means the most to me." A

beautifully cultured man, it is a shame he could

not find a reason to exist, as we have truly lost a

pioneer, a provocateur, an innovator and a truly

great writer. Asked why music was so important

he replied, "Art is my one true religion…" (Paris

Review). He often traveled and spent time in Cuba

where he became obsessed with merengue and

the work of Hector Lavoe, whose album sits in his

record collection with a cuban money sign written

on the corner of the vinyl.

Next to this music player is a 50" inch T.V

with a black sheet covering it, Franz rarely

watched the television, preferring newspapers as a


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source of news and research he would often tell

me he used in his novels when I would edit his

work. On top of the television is more "clutter"

and another note written, by pencil, with the

words:


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"Zebalda, Madgelane - Joaquin Phoenix - Cogito

Ergo Sum,"

Below these words is another sketch,

depicting a body with three heads, similar to the

painting by Yashu on the wall above the black

leather sofa, but the middle figure is seemingly a

distorted question mark.

Intense at times I knew of Franz to stop in

the middle of a conversation to write a note.

Descartes, Cogital Ego Sum is a concept he often

mused on: "I think therefore I am, Descartes

proposition remains at the epicentre of thought."

Though he had an irreverent side also, evidenced

by the two large piles of magazines, intermingled

with newspapers, sat in between the fireplace and

the leather sofa. The magazines mostly consist of

ID and Vice magazines - these show that he had a

multiplicity of persona's.

There is a fireplace close to the Television on the

right, opposite the black leather couch with the

trombone. Above the fireplace is another

painting, this time by Pablo Picasso, a copy of one

of his most famous painting's, The Three

Dancers, which, famously, depicts "jagged forms"

of Three Dancers" conveying "an explosion of

energy. The image is laden with Picasso's

recollections of a triangular affair, which resulted

in the heart-broken suicide of his friend Carlos

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Casagemas. Love, sex and death are linked in an

ectastic dance. The left-hand dancer in particular

seems possessed of uncontrolled, Dionysian

frenzy. Her face relates to a mask from Torres

Strait, New Guinea owned by Picasso, and points

to the artist's association of 'primitive' forms with

expressiveness and sexuality (Tate Modern, August

2004)."

Why this picture the largest and most

prominent in the whole apartment was chosen by

Franz to be the centrepiece of his abode is pointed

and totally enigmatic at the same time. The work

could be a representation of his relationship with

Leila and Yashu, which would be an extremely

enigmatic concept that would take essays to

explain, but rather poignant at the same time. As

dark as the room is (especially with the curtains

drawn and the light off) this Picasso illuminates

the whole room, like a dark light. The smell in the

room still has the scent of a woman - as if clear

sighted awareness of his death, things seemed

oddly "perfectly" performed. The Piano which sat

behind the smaller black leather couch (right of

the entrance) in the middle of a second

compartment of space. Atop the black Steinway

was a song sheet of the, Goldberg Variations and

the Art of the Fugue and two A4 sheets of paper

with these typed out words:


"A Big To-Do -- (Burgtheater)

Scene 1:

Bradbury & Smithus in a luxurious looking living

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A

room (London) - A chandelier, Persian rugs.

Summer. Enters Smithus through the door.

Bradbury stood next to the window on the far left.

[Smithus enters the room]

Smithus: There is chocolate all over your lips, and

you pertain not to know chocolate whatsoever.

(Moves towards settee) Ridiculous, you're as guilty

as guilt itself. (Smarmy look on his face)

Bradbury: Whom can answer one of chocolate

thievery? this is an outrage! (Plays with his tie and

seems a little dishevelled; surprised to see him)

Smithus: Bradbury, you must calm down, and

realise the fool proof evidence smeared somewhat

all over your face, (quipped, lifting his chin

indignant as he walked further into the living

room). What are you trying to say then?

Bradbury: What do you mean? (Watching him walk

in) If you accuse me in such a way, it will cause me

to have to really do something, something of fierce

action.

Smithus: Look, Bradbury, (Ironic to the turn of

events - expression) Lady Sherry shall be home

soon and I am sure she was looking forward to

those Valentines that you and I know are living

amongst's your stomach's acids and saliva's

detritus. (Taking a seat to then appreciate his

surroundings; looking around the room).

Bradbury: Smithus, I choose my enemy's for their

quick wit and their intellect and my friends for

their stupidity, I may say that you have now

entered a new realm…(taking a seat at the edge of

the desk to peer at him sitting on the settee;

seeming rather decadent in his self-indulgent grin).

This must be some sort of morbid triviality that you

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may try and ruin me with, hence such a bravado of

smile.

Smithus: Bradbury, Bradbury, Bradbury,

(Flippantly emphasising) It occurs to me that

simply; I have observed an observation that has

empirical evidence pointing in perhaps interesting

avenues, Lady Sherry would be appalled, aghast

even. What were you going to tell her?

Bradbury: The truth!

Smithus: And what is that? if I may politely ask.

Bradbury: That I am not sure whom had taken the

Valentine's in question, perhaps it was Victor.

Smithus: It is of much disappointment that the

acceptance of the chocolate consumed is not an

option you deemed necessary to take, but and this

is a big but, Bradbury, because we have had our

interesting moments in our turbulent relationship

and being that I have seen goings on in a timely

fashion wherefore you are perhaps not able to

instruct Victor to act as an alibi, (looking sure of

himself). Let us make a deal?

Bradbury: Smithus, you're a rascal aren't you? it is

only because of Lady Sherry's relationship with

you that it seems you have keys to all corners of

this house, my house at that. What is the deal that

you speak of?

Smithus: A rascal is rather a dismissive term used

to implicate oneself from those deemed: too-Eastof-London.

But, I do tell you because it seems that

the chocolate may have affected your grey matter,

perhaps gorging, I can assume on the Valentines

that were imported from Austria if I may remind

you, at a price and cost completely invaluable - it


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has been known for weeks that these particular

chocolates were a one of a kind, that even you're

money can't replace.

(Bradbury slightly fidgets, scratches his head and

then strokes his beard in what seems like a musing

stance)

Smithus: Before, we perhaps get to the deal that I

have just concocted, I have a question...

Bradbury: Folly, (pause) you're a man of many

talents Smithus, you're reputation really does

precede you like a black cat; the silk of your ways

is impressive, if I may so myself. (Sucking at his

teeth aloud and looking at the painting on the

wall). Look at this painting, that is older than your

twisted ways and concoctions. You have much to

learn, perhaps ascension into such ranks should

be noted for the frivolity you exercise. (Painting:

entitled: The Just Judges or The Righteous Judges

is the lower left panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, by

Jan Van Eyck or his brother huber Van Eyck, (145

x 51 cm) Oil on oak).

Smithus: Barbed comments Bradbury, how nice, it

really is nice that we bond with such great tete-atete…(Decisively)

To deny the guilt that is very

apparent

Bradbury: Apparent! (Indignantly)

Smithus: Yes. Apparent, it is obvious that the

original sin mounts like a rogue sweater.

Chocolate on your lips with all the guilts!

Bradbury: A shame… (Sighed) A real shame

Smithus…"

—The Just Judges or The Righteous Judges is the

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lower left panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, by Jan

Van Eyck or his brother Huber Van Eyck, (145 x

51 cm) Oil on oak.

This play (Tentatively titled: A Big To-Do)

is the unfinished work Franz was writing, having

been commissioned by the Burgtheater to write a

play for their 2013 summer season. An article

written in the Austrian press had a quote from a

member of the Burgtheater that said, "Franz is

going to mistreat us, just like the other ghost of

our countries literature. He is clearly a British

version of the humourist lineage. He will come

and secretly write a play that is not of our

parliaments agenda in mind. Parodies of parodies

of parodies, where will the jokes stop!" Upon

hearing of this in the newspaper, Franz decided

that he would not finish writing the play and

instead sent the commissioner of the Burgtheater

this unfinished writing, including the message:

"This is all you will receive, read into what you

will. I'm too busy being happily influenced by

your countries ghosts and eating chocolate to

finish! Keep your Euros and your politics!" This

message is like much else of Franz' work,

devastatingly original but constantly making

allusions to Artists he loved, what this excerpt of

the unfinished play means - or even the message

and subsequent refusal to complete this play - is a

mystery Sherlock Holmes would have struggled

to conclude. Original, he was gifted with an

ability to parody a parody with a nod to other

Artists and even cliches, his works are running

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puzzles and games that seem to have no end

conclusion, even when you think you have him

sussed.

The Steinway Piano was purchased by Ellis

after she had moved into Franz' apartment. A


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trained pianist in her youth, Ellis' Father, George

Szell Gould was a conductor widely considered

one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors

(George Szell Gould, A Life of Music, University

of Illnois Press). She decided against such a career

to become an administrator, of course, but still

asked Franz to purchase the Steinway, as a mantel

piece for soirees she had intended to orchestrate.

As she admitted this and that she never touched

the piano herself - which I noticed in the soiree's

I would attend, instead she would often have

other pianists play. After one of these

performances by the famous Jools Holland, she

once commented to me, one night, that she had

never told Franz that she could even play it or

about her father, who had died when she was in

her teens. Why Ellis did this, is not at all clear to

me, but they were known to have an impassioned

relationship full of teasing and psychological

games, as described forensically in the epigraph's

words that illuminated knowledge of their "cold

war". Their relationship clearly went a bit Picasso,

and is completely opposed to their wedding day,

where, with all in attendance, after Yashu had

finished his rather drunken best's man's speech: -

that seemed wholly devoid of anything other than

tipsy anecdotes of himself, Franz and Leila, (who

was not in attendance, but at the Convent) - Franz

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stood up and said: "I don't actually understand

love," he started, fidgeting and looking shy to

speak. "But see this as my better conscience and

my true love. But I won't ramble on about my

novel," which I remember being met with a

rapturous laugh at the chance happening of him

saying this whilst, one of his novels which I saw

Yashu sifting through earlier on in the day, now

placed on table, was picked up at the perfect point

of the joke, before he continued with the elegant

words: "I'm joking, I see this beautiful and stylish

woman, sat beside me, as my better conscience

and the reality of what I didn't know I needed."

They seemed totally in love with each other and

their wedding day was magical — the wine flowed

and the food was delicious, as Caroline Samo

(famous T.V chef) had catered the event.

Strangely enough, the section of the living

room with the Steinway Piano is completely tidy

and not "cluttered" at all. All that sits is a cream

woven chair a Karlskrona lounger, rattan in the far

right corner beneath a gold clock by the famous

company, Auteaur Rimboad but the hands stood

still, as it seemed to be unfixed, thus still correct,

albeit twice a day. Apart from this peculiar

disorder (as Auteaur's Rimboad's are known to be

the most expensive time keepers) the space only

had the first volume of, Winnie-the-Pooh stories

by A. A. Milne, 1926 sat onto of a cream Chanel

sweater. Weird, as Franz and Ellis had no

children, upon opening the cover of this rather

expensive antique contains the writing:

"From your Daddy to a one of a kind princess,


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Ellis. Love Dad xxxx"

It seems the book was a gift given to Ellis by

her father who I knew to be very sensitive and

sweet, she was an amazing host that was always

attentive. The Chanel sweater is, clearly, Ellis's too,


A

which is typical of the lady whose wedding dress,

made by Alexander McQueen, cost a reported three

hundred thousand pounds, stylish - tellingly within

her wedding day speech she finished her speech

with the words: "How do you give such a speech

when you're getting married to a famous author? I

worked on this a lot," she said, looking at a piece of

card in her hand and tearing up, "But to quote

Marianne Williamson…" which was met with jovial

titters, "Yes I know I'm not an Artist or I Poet guys,

but I will say that I have style and know that

perhaps our deepest fear is not that we are

inadequate, our deepest fear is that we aren't

stylish. This man right next to me is not only

talented, of course, but is amazingly beautiful

inside and out. My only hope through our

journey…no wait…I messed the quote up

somewhere…I know I'm just rambling like a bimbo

now, but I am madly in love with him and hope he

lets me into his heart, as I could not be with

another man if he didn't."

Although I do remember that, at one of our

soiree's held at Franz apartment, there was actually

a Jean-Michel Basquait artwork, that I remember

was entitled: (Untitled) Stardust, on the wall

opposite the lounger, which was subsequently sold

at a Christie's auction. An avid art collector Franz

had become averse to buying and selling and Art

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after his books began to sell millions of copies,

translated into over 67 languages. On one

occasion Ellis said she could not understand this

work and that Franz was so fascinated by the

work and that he would spend hours in "...her

area of the living room..." because of it...


The Master Bedroom

"Ir-resist-ab-le! I understand! Good God, how

dare you love me? What do you mean, how dare I

love you?"

These are the words handwritten and sat

on the front of the door of the master bedroom,

and is a quote from the French writer Fernand de

Beaumont's novel, Chocolat lips - which was a

book saturated in scandal when it was published

in 1986: as it was a book fully pioneering in

Avant-Garde Literature with many riffs and

aggrandisement's of a Dada nature and was a

book that provoked and entertained in equal

measure, but soon became a forgotten classic,

never bested as Fernand's next and final novel, A

Jamais Vu of Love, Loyalty & Ice cream which

was deemed vulgar, and even placed on the Index

Librorum Prohibitorum, subsequently died on

the day of its publishing anecdotally having a

heart attack whilst licking a lolly, with some

people claiming that he giggled on his deathbed

(Respecting The Life of a Jester, Fernand de

Beaumont, University of Cambridge). Why Franz

would choose such an eccentric quote to place in

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this manner it a bemusing wonder. Speaking to

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah of what she called his

"nerve-wracking sense of humour" Franz was

asked to comment on "how important this balance

between, you say, humour and seriousness?" Franz


A

responded with the words: "I laugh at death! ha!"

he said in this long exchange via The Paris Review,

"I consider other people in my work, yes you can

say that I respect the needs of people, but I reserve

the right to sing my own song…you know? My own

freedom and way to enjoy myself. Can I not enjoy

myself? You enjoy my work so much, but I can't

enjoy myself with you? Come on…I have never

asked anybody to believe in me.

Interviewer

Believe in you? What is it necessary to believe in?

Any religion?

Franz Bema

All this talk of God, let us not sully the mood with

an intimate conversation you want to have in an

awkward place, the media. Sure people need to

talk, but intimacy and marination. In my biased

opinion, I'm not greedy for such lavishes from the

people… I believe what you think is right and I'm

a utilitarian. That's all. The quote from Mr

Olatunde in Vanity. Ares, what you believe is true,

regardless is very much what I think. I believe in

the sublime and the beautiful and will reserve my

right to sometimes laugh and sometimes address

the hypocrisies…you know? hypocrisies here,

hypocrisy there everywhere a hypocrisy… Religion,

sure it is beautiful, why not? It's a nice riddle but a

riddle nonetheless, a riddle here a riddle there,

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everywhere a sermon…Devil…Good….Sure.

Disbelief, why not? But if there is this belief, who

started the riddle before the riddle got riddled? I

can only respect the General that is on the front

line in the war. In the sense that I don't believe in

doing the hokey-pokey unless you are at a dance

with a beautiful women…so people that are not

loyal are the people I like to make realise the

humour in their ways and have a laugh with

them…you know? I would like to play with you…

you in the universal sense….

Interviewer

Very original. What inspires such an interesting

view of your Art?

Franz Bema

I say: I am with you when you howl, I am with you

when your infants are terrible, if I can say, I too

have felt the feeling of a Journey to the End of

The Night. To play, someone has the be the bigger

person for the big Utopia, the delight, the sublime

and the real beauty. Boom for real, to quote

Basquiat, yes, boom for real. That is what inspires

my Art."

Interviewer

Not to go back to Religion, a topic I know you

despise talking about, but you have quite a few

allusions to Jesus Christ in your work, in your

book, Vanity. Ares for example?

Franz Bema

Look, for me I'm no saint. I think about the

forgotten man, from my time living inner city

London. Someone has to be the forgotten

man..you know?

126

Interviewer

Do you think you're Art is cryptic? People talk

about your past…

Franz Bema

-I have what I even call eccentric moods, but as

crazy as I may seem, these guilt-less people will

talk about all my ghosts, if I can say, of the past.

But, I don't suffer fools gladly nor do I deny not

being foolish. If there is a Man upstairs, Jesus,

Buddha, what-ever, I say: give me a secret,

between socalled chums or enemies, so I can

spare both our blushes…It's all tricks. I do not

trust anything or anyone. We all know whatever

intrigues you or makes you laugh is the real juice

of life this is what my Art is trying to explain in a

simple, manner that people will enjoy…help me

help you as it's clear things are not what they

seem nor are they otherwise. This is why I choose

to remove myself for situations, because people

always want to put something on you! Simply, and

this is the final final word on this ok, I believe in

God, what his name is: I do not know, but how

about some water for an idea? Allowance of

attitude…I'm not any of these words they call me

sociopath, this that and the other, I just accept

that things are what they are, regardless…

Cryptic…I throw mud on myself before someone

throws a stone I evid-ently know too well…I

understand that a little needs to be broken off,

this is information you learn from the pain…you

know….a few hungry days…for a good idea. This

is what my Art is trying to discover.

Interviewer

127

What do you get or want from this exchange? Art

and life?

Franz Bema

In this regard, I am a very technical finisher… you

know? A freewheeler… but I don't trust a soul,

nor do I want anything but to do what I want to

do, a bar in the realms of the law…you know? I

am not into all this chaos in this sense, I prefer

the beautiful chaos…you know? So when it comes

to knowledge…I'm school but not school, in this

exchange it's about excitation, to quote Thomas

Bernhard, but with a limit. I get a chance to live as

and when I want to..excitation yes, but excitation

that is what I want to learn and discover but my

true want or fear, shall I say, is no limit in this

exchange. Just take take take, give us more you

beautiful son of a bitch…(laughs) death is merely a

choice of ocean."

Interviewer

Beautiful. What inspires this? You always make

these statements that seem neither negative nor

positive, is this even able to be categorised?

Franz Bema

Come on….

Interviewer

Just one more question before the penultimate,

you give so much at once, it's hard.

Franz Bema

To entertain you one last time…I'm just a decent

man who knows that I need to give an idea for

water… I don't know what inspires me, those that

distract me from the many deaths we all die..you

know?…before the final big death…that some take


128


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early…or late depending on how you look at it…

Just last week I was looking through my things

and I found a private painting by Yashu that he

called: "Irresistible Fannyboner - we’re not

bodies. We’re waters and Sunshine." Which to

me is Art that SHOULD live on FOREVER just

like Leonardo's Last Supper, because his work

stimulates sanity in my mind, will it help another,

maybe, maybe not….Another of his painting he

only painted for me was the painting Elysium,

which was an endless supply of information, data,

feelings, news, wit…aesthetics, social

commentary...

But just funny stuff and in the case of Yashu, who

I felt, smooth as he was, particularly with women

or men, I don't really care to comment, or both at

the same time, perhaps a Brazilian hermaphrodite

on a night out in Rio, who knows? But I doubt he

was Gay…he of course made that amazing work,I

AM A GAy fish, that people did and do not

understand because of the mediums you see…

neither do I fully nor Yashu, who as a painter saw

things from the perspective of a SERIOUS

VISUAL, VISIBLE AND INDIVISIBLE manner,

that's why his paintings were, in hindsight, so

honest. Perhaps he is not here because he overedited,

or under or maybe it was just this

completely sad moment that we will understand

in good time. Time is relentless, just like Dali's

masterpiece, The Persistence of Time, but at the

same time we need to give or take time to truly

allow work to marinate…marinate, marinate,

marinate….But, being a painter he had the look

129


of a cool autistic version of the very cool Artist

Andy Warhol, which is where there was a

division. I saw guilt, he saw my guilt, but we both

knew we were guilty. Of what? Nothing you see,

just Artists hiding their pretensions and the fact

that we all judge….It is the juice of life…to enjoy

a good judge, really bury someone with elegance,

which is why I love Hip-Hop you see - if you

understand that coming from inner city London,

I know the pain that these Artists feel, as it is

coming from a place that is full of righteous

pain…you know? a few days without food, a

forced meditation, is very useful because it comes

out in the Hip-Hop you know? It's too funny

some of these guys, people that have not felt this

think they understand but in reality they don't

they read Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare, tell a

lie, I think his work is very loved and very

intriguing in equal measure…I'm more into

modern prose, of course, Celine and those darkly

funny writers. Vonnegut….Tommy Can the

Nineteen-Thirty Irish writer of Lucky Bonus…

who some say was a bit of an alcoholic, was an

amazing writer very Flann O'brien esque writer,

very funny….who else? Victor Lavalle's, The

Ecstatic… A lot of times a sculpture or a painter

can influence…. But in my lifetime Yashu's

paintings do mean a lot to me, especially since he

died, R.I.P to a man that if I am honest, his

methods are a complete mystery to me, which is

why perhaps we were friends you see….you

know? I choose my enemy's for their quick wit

and their intellect and my friends for their

130

stupidity, were we true friends, though this is

all talk for the birds…The wound bleeds

through my words. But his work remains….let

me choose the specific word, because the

minute I don't I'm accused, people are waiting


AAA

to accuse, which is why I like the gentlemanly

sport of literature, but loved Yashu, but we

were suspicious of one another just as much as

we loved each other's friendship….we knew

better than to overstep the polite boundaries…

that of course the media spoke often about

whether he (Yashu) was autistic or this or that,

his methods were not clear to me, though they

don't have to be, simply he kept me interested

in these mortal waters…if I can be allowed

poetic licence?

Interviewer

Please, you're too polite, way too polite. You

seem to have this weird way of fusing so many

things at once. But continue please…

Franz Bema

So yes, those I appreciate around me, The

Monk Spirit album, You're a Smoothie was an

album I loved…What else? I loved Infinite Jest,

by David Foster Wallace, who sadly took his

own life, but I am with him, his prose style is a

bit tense, but there is something there. So

Artists that are suspicious… That's why I like

Hip-Hop and Jazz, it's full of attitude… I like

beauty in strange places, weird

happenings….And those who went before…you

know? The many, many, serious Artists,

Vincent Gallo, Jean Cocteau, Dalí, Picasso,

131


Cesare Pavese's a forgotten man, Valasquez, the

monk that sits in the forest who we question if he

is heard, William Gaddis…The man in the

street…. The crazy conspiracy maker…Boris

Vian…the high rollers…Edgar Allan Poe…

Although I'm not into Horror novels, they're

obvious to me, but each to his own…though in

this regard, I do like Stephen King and Poe's

poem, "To Silence", is beautiful to me: (Begins to

quote this poem, Poe, 1937) 'LISTEN to me," said

the Demon as he placed his hand upon my head.

"The region of which I speak is a dreary region in

Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there

is no quiet there, nor silence.' Yes, Poe, Bolano,

Jean Genet, The prostitutes I met in Asia, the

Righteous priest, the crazy priest…the avoidance

of martyrdom and creating pandemonium,

B a s q u i a t ….S h a k e s p e a r e ...L a w r e n c e …T h e

classicists…"

This rather long exchange, which continues

with an even longer eulogy of Franz's appreciation

of many Arts and is the longest I have curated —

is provided as I feel it gets to the classical part of

the Man, without all the procrastinating of his

contracts, which was clearly down to catching the

man in what he accepts as "his eccentric moods".

In the middle of the bedroom there is a

large master bedroom with silk sheets, the walls

are not black, but instead a rather sensual blue - it

is obvious Ellis' touch is still apparent in this. The

room is extremely tidy and still contains some of

what would be Ellis' clothes in the walk-in

cupboard. On the bedside table is a note that read,

132


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"£ brings divisions - finish poem, the mania".

Which is perhaps a work Franz had not finished.

But we won't continue further into what were his

private living quarters any further.

The Bathroom

The all black bathroom seems influenced

by his lifestyle habits, often known to work in a

hurry sometimes, he would use the bathroom in

this way perhaps, as there were towels and a few

pieces of worn underwear on the floor. The

bathroom was modelled on the same bathroom

Serge Gainsbourg had in his Paris apartment

when he died. I always felt that Gainsbourg

played an important part in his decision to

become an Artist and acted as a jamais vu, in a

sense, as it is something that he rarely spoke

about, but I infer. An oddly cheerful man, that

was known to even call Adolf, "rather smart" a

neutrality was his prognosis on judging any man.

He was shy about his nakedness, it is rumoured

he had a a tattoo on his left arm with the words:

"Ellis my wife in Holy matrimony, Leila, God,

Yashu honour me a deathly chocolate". A

complete jester, this is a rumour incessantly

debated in the tabloids.

The Spare bedroom

This room has the distinct smell of

perfume. It was neatly decorated and contained

nothing but some sparing clothes, men and

133

women’s. And a notebook with these writings

typed up, the first could perhaps be written by

Franz, or Leila, of which, we can't be too sure,

and it is entitled 'flowers, flowers, flowers' and the

second, of which we can be sure of, is entitled

'Vanity. Blue' and is of course the unfinished

manuscript of Franz Bema at the time of his

passing:


flowers, flowers, flowers

part one

“Only in chaos are we conceivable.” — Roberto

Boláno, 2666

loose threads...

...fabric loosened draped against the wind

blowing in through the window, whilst a

theatrical sound emanates from the other room,

first a Spanish song and then the sound of

excitement of an arrival...though Maria launches

into a tirade about the necessity for something

she refers to as the piraledies, of which she

describes as a form of passion, a desire, a

declaration, stood naked and gesticulating...as the

nighttime glisten saunters into the room where

then an Eagle perched against the windowsill, the

soft touch of its feathers nestled right next to the

134

fabric, whilst the man from 83 moves through the

dark alleyway opposite...the smell of kiwi fruit

simmers from within the kitchen...the light roar

of a nearby train hurtling along instigates ideas

on forlorn characters going into a myriad of

schema all rather disparate but also exceedingly

similar in the London glare...

...I chance the thought that I have

escaped, though Maria marinates this escape into

a feeling that amounts to melancholy, though not

outright sadness, instead a gentle sigh reduces

the happenings to a lightness, that I soon joke of

by telling Maria that I am becoming deaf, the

heart is often ransacked by the daily dose of

antics that sojourn, the absurd remnants of the

town’s manifestations of indifferences, rough

handlings, opportunities...

...sat up against the leather bedrest, the

Eagle manoeuvring around the window sill,

Maria now amounting to reflections on Leila, the

dry taste of whiskey on the tip of the tongue

alleviating a further seriousness to Maria’s

continuing dictum, the nestle of wind against a

tall tree just outside 83’s garden soon governing

the idea that observations of this kind elicit a

bewildering feeling about the weight of the

world, the exactitude of chaos that reigns and

instigates...

...though the candour of the rustling

leaves penetrates throughout the rest of the night

into dawn...where Maria is mumbling

incomprehensible words...

135

latent Desires Of...

...I walk along the canal as I head back to

the flat, the water swells against a boat anchored

as I sit on a bench looking out into the water


where, I soon, think I’ve seen a dead body

floating on top of algae, dead leaves,

water...though I soon realise it’s a rather large

doll, which I suspect, I thought, to perhaps be an

art piece gone wrong as it was brightly coloured

red and purple with paint all over it, splattered

haphazardly, though I don’t go close, I merely

speculate still sat on the bench, half thinking of

Leila...a nasally voice soon sounds from behind of

a man calling out to a running Rottweiler, it’s

dark brown skin furnishing a hanging burgundy

leash blowing in the wind...Chancie (the name

being loudly called) soon slows down and allows

the man to catch up...I then vanish...

...arriving to the flat a pile of letters greet

footsteps stoked in lethargy, physical notebooks

of too many days wandering around at odds with

so much, the soft rupture of the morning light

leering in through the open curtained windows in

the living room seems voyeuristic just as I saw

Maudelene walk around naked through the

directly opposing window...she would usually

spend the mornings walking around her bedroom

naked or at least topless dropping Benzedrine,

drinking a large mug of Coffee and writing what I

would assume was her weekly article, usually

about some type of anthropological concern, and

sometimes interviews with Art folks she once

136

deemed as wholly unworthy... though she soon

fixes a bright orange bra over her rather corpulent

breasts and exits the bedroom...

...the seamless desire to orchestrate a way

to be seemed to hover around in the ether as the


AA

day moved along, mostly by way of the weed that

sat on the living room counter, the memories of

the odd malaise of happenings off sprung from a

walk to Kingsland Road... where, after purchasing

alcohol from the only off licence open, a lady I

would come to know as Leila stood, apparently

waiting for a friend, she said in a rather haphazard

manner. Eyes darting side to side, hand

scratching head, and slightly mumbling as if we

had known eachother all along... the sounds of

cars floating by in the late night mass, random

shouts from the abyss, cats...I asked if she needed

anything, knowing what I could offer, I asked if

she were troubled, perfectly informed that I could

barely offer anything much... for I had very little

in the way of anything, just a flat, paintings that,

of course had yet to take off, and this body...skin,

bones, fluids...

...it was very soon that Leila soon came

around to the idea that this phantom person, that

I would subsequently wonder whether existed at

all, would not turn up...and that forty minutes had

passed where we had stood talking about a

Transexual we both knew, Olivia, a mysterious

letter that she had received from someone in

Buenos Aires, etiquette at Turkish baths, the

death of the ego...which seemed rather strange, to

be in deep conversation at this time of night, I

137


thought, but it was not in reflection to what was

to come...the ardent desire to deceive the notion

of existence seeming repetitive, overwrought in

the weight of monotony...memorably she said

that the perspective of indifference was an

underestimated coda to live by, and that this way

of thinking was useful in lieu of the amount

happenings often came to...though I couldn't

ascertain any sentimentality in her words—they

were spoken in a clear direct tone as if assured of

what seemed a lofty assertion to make, the smell

of weed smoke sifting off two passer-bys in

cahoots about some sort of burglary somewhere

in Dalston...

...we soon walk the dark London streets

(an occurrence that would often happen)...down

Kingsland Road, observing the latent happenings

of the night: a staggering man walking by and

taking on the appearance of a Clown, nose red

(for unknown reasons, we agreed), and wearing

one shoe, shouting about the need for the

downfall of the Conservative Party...the tear

dropped eyes of a lady outside the Supermarket

clutching at a yellow sweater...a stray labrador...

...the frivolous pursuit of ordaining

meaning, commented Leila as we turned down

into Labernum Street into the twilight flash of a

parked car, where two men sat awaiting the

arrival of that particular drug addict...the bogle

eyed stares at us give this away, as we continue

down onto Queensbridge Road...the undulations

of impressions soon cascading...emerging...and

articulating the night with serial episodes of

138


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respite from the abyss, the dry hum...though

bumping into Alex along the canal, Leila escaped

my vision and slipped into the night air foggy with

our conversation still on the tip of the tongue...

vanish towards

candle lit pursuit towards death

soft tissue of passing away

the taste of the back of the eyelids

now forever

the hue of nothingness personified in matter

the smell of the sky...

the reap of daylight?

...the night seemed to just appear, the

casual flicker of the street lights switching on, the

sound of the clock now becoming louder, and the

thought of escape descending into a slight

realisation... where has the time gone..? it would

seem a question that could taste the light of solid

manifestations, I know, such as spending an hour

stroking a pussy, or maybe time working...though

beyond the candor lives the oily residue of time

amounting to very little, I thought...

...she was alone at the edge of the canal,

eyes staring out into a world reflected inside her

soul, catapulting the algae, bits of paper strewn

here and there in a gentle panorama of

universe...she couldn't see where I stood, as I was

on the corner of the entrance from Queensbridge

Road, close to where she vanished into the dark,

139

watching her caress the pavements fiddling with

her unzipped mauve jacket...summoning

reckonings as only a poem could, as opposed to

a poet, of which that night I had spent in the

company of, Alex, Grant and Maria's roommate,

Talia...the remnants of remorse sat at the back

of the throat as if an exasperated piece of meat

as I watched feeling the freshness of world

through Leila's wide eyes...I immedietly thought

to interrupt, though soon stopped this from

instantly occurring, stood peering at her in front

of a turned over shopping trolley with a flutter

of birds picking at a few bits of bread closer

towards the railings...the light drip of a

lamppost light sauntering on her moving body,

silhouette...

...I must have stood there, more still than

I meant to, for a quite a time just watching Leila

before she threw herself into the water, as if

death just a dunk of a biscuit...

140

141

142

Vanity. Blue [Introduction]

At the time of printing Franz Bema's Vanity.

Blue remained written in a series of papers all stacked

on the desk, with post it notes written on many pieces of

paper for corrections, and is published as is...not much

can be ascertained in terms of meaning, although he

wanted the work to follow a distinct 'anarchist path' he

mentioned in our correspondences the year before his

death, so this meant a lack of paragraph breaks, strange

ideas seeping out of lonely estranged characters, difficult

subject matters and perhaps many ideas related to time

spent years before in Tangier Morocco, although it seems

to end in a manner befitting quite an apt end, there were

many more pages, mostly written, that were very

insinuating of a complete other half of the novel that was

slightly too haphazard to publish at the time of

printing...

Max Brod

143


Vanity. Blue

[the unfinished manuscript]

“Art like life is an open secret.”

― Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet

An Assortment of Happenings

A wide spectrum of truths become apparent as

time moves along; it is like an undercurrent: some

aspects of these truths may have always been

apparent or then suddenly change, and some

things keep changing even amongst the imperative

notion that things rarely alter, as if scribed in

Ecclesiastes—though ageing seems to unravel the

literal-concept that there was more to this thing

however. Just like the previous Monday morning I

laid still slightly drunk from the previous Sunday

evening. It had become a somewhat religious

experience, in a sense; that need for a bond,

wrapped in ritual, prerogative—is there ever a

relationship disarmed by the desire to exercise

control? I didn’t exactly want to consciously control

Lucia though, looking at her naked body the

thought alone quickly became worthless, but would

I try? As her wants and desires can live amongst

those society would consider rather disparate, I

144

thought, a petite young woman, only five feet and

some change, fiery with many of her inclinations

being incongruent to the natural impression a

person would come to expect, especially here, as if


AA illuminating against a phosphors of religious,

political and cultural expectation; a vagabond too,

she acted freely: doing whatever she wanted and

knew this as one of her truths, a word she would

constantly repeat: Truth, truth, truth! The air in

the room felt quite fresh, though it remained as

destitute as the day I had arrived. It was cheap: a

hundred and eighty Dirhams a night, but I just

paid Yasin, the landlord, seven hundred a week

and he seemed to be fine with that. It had a small

stove too. Plus, it was close enough to Central

Medina. Though the window could be slightly

opened, the traffic from the nearby road was not

particularly audible. The room, very much silent

now, unbothered, as she awakened in a stir. How

was I supposed to react after what she had told me

the night before? Was it something her family had

to deal with? Had I become family? She had a

brother that was also living in Tangier too, near

the Pier, she had said. How aware was he of the

way his sister was living at this time?

Fundamentally, all that she had told me of him, by

this time, was that he had become extremely

religious as the years went by. —To him Allah is

more important than anything, even me, she had

said ironically. Especially since he lost his arm you

know. And that was about the most information

she had given me, beside the strange story of how

145

he lost his arm. Have you told Ahmed? I asked in

her stirring; her eyes remaining glazed over, oily

black hair covering the other half of her face,

bare butt cheeks careening into an upright

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA yawning... Clearly, the night had been met with

more than just this retelling (of the violation) that

I was still trying to understand, as it had affected

the night in its entirety in numerous fashions: in

an unlikely turn of events the eggs were truly the

greatest taste I had ever encountered, I thought,

truly remarkable and significant for a myriad of

reasons. It was so strange that I had this feeling

of wanting to put whole atmospheres, inanimate

objects, people, in my mouth in order to taste

them in this very same way. I am funked in a way,

at the time. Am I hedonist you wonder? Can you

really say? I don’t think so no, not in totality, but

perhaps psychologically I was what I called

elsewhere— because those eggs tasted like the

way in which you would consume a wet dream;

waking up with the evidence, like an accomplice,

left with a gun that had avenged a wrongdoing—

Like a taboo, they smelt ravenous in my mouth,

and so this is a memory I toyed with even as it

was happening, I remember; like I am in the

troughs of depersonalization. This very simple

happening seemed an epiphany, so much so that

I called the happening the experience. But

physically I am still here, I thought, in an

indulgent woe. It was dispiriting that I lost my

sense of taste, but I think I felt the totality of the

missing senses’ very sensation that night; I truly

was enraptured somehow by a relinquishing of

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my lack of a sense of taste. In the morning I held

this thought dear—I gathered evidence, and

questioned the particulars of the situation. And

weighed a few perspectives in the grey matter and

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA eventually settled on to a considerable point. I

A

thought that it (the experience) manifested

through a lust for a perfect anarchist feeling; that

was very much harnessed by way of Lucia’s

participation and in turn the retelling of her rape.

—There were three men, one with a moustache,

she quivered as I ate the eggs, —I was quiet. The

small one comes up to me, because it’s late maybe

he feels big, like Napoleon...I couldn’t... stupid

fucker. I just continued to listen, remaining quiet

but in a deeply juxtaposed position now (the

experience). I am against the wall...and the small

one is swearing at me in Arabic and I am swearing

back, the little fucker is upset because I am not

interested, I tell him to go away...I couldn’t... as

she spoke this now I noticed the developing of a

wry smile, that I imagined was similar to the type

of smile David mustered in Samuel, when he was

told: That the people had fled from the battle, and

that many of the people were fallen and dead, and

Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. Though

they say David then mourned these deaths, but I

always begged to differ. For me he smiled. I always

remembered this scripture, being one of my only

true childhood memory’s; mostly because I think

childhood was sentimental, boring and usually full

of nonsensical patterns people often tried to

connect to some sort of meaning. If anything does

mean anything—in a childhood that I wouldn’t

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even want to think about let alone anything else—

is that the book of Samuel always played on my

memories ever since that one summer when I was

left with this scripture being the only one ripped

out, left fully intact, and crayon less after another

child’s panicked attacks. I think I read it back to

front a hundred times, somewhat by force too, like

a forced party trick. —I spit in his face; you know?

...It goes into his eye, continued Lucia in the

midst of the multiplicity of my mind’s roving eye;

I am thinking about a number of things, as I

mentioned, along with the thought that there

seemed a strong effect of an increase in rape

culture. Though I am still slowly eating now. —He

is a coward...he looked like he is from Rabat...like

a villager, because he calls his friends over, who

are bigger...One is very how you say? She said,

looking at me whilst I tried not to participate (I

start to wish I was like a wall flower), and after a

few seconds of my silence she soon carries on

stuttering and talking reluctantly however:

He...have muscles the big guy without the

moustache, I think his name is Ahmed, the small

one calls him Ahmed, anyway... they come over

and push me around, I don’t scream but the cars

are just going by like no problem. They rip my top

and push me against the wall and then push me

against this car...it happened so quickly, but it felt

so long, and the one with the moustache is the

most quiet one, but he is first to...they are

strong...if it was just the stupid little one I could

have killed him, I kick him in the dick and he is

more angry now... I think she wanted to stop by


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now, standing up, but I was in the experience or

an experience in itself and felt compelled to get

her to continue, especially since I had a few more

bites of egg left. I then asked her: How did they

look? I told you... she said sitting back down,

One, I think I’ve seen him before, I don’t know

but he was the one with the moustache, who was

just fucking me! And he didn’t even smile or

anything, like he was going to fetch milk...at least

the one without the moustache was making all

the noise, the stupid little one is so angry he is

just holding me down with all his strength while

the other two just fuck away! She didn’t seem

tainted as much by the sexual act in itself, cool by

it in a way, I thought to myself as I decided to

calm her down (noting that even high-octane

atmospheres needed valleys), but she seemed

more erotically charged now: taking heavy

breaths that came across as the same had when in

the thick of her heated sex. If anything else she

seemed embittered by what came across as a

distinct feeling of powerlessness—Her constant

repetition of: I couldn’t. I had only just finished

those eggs by this time but the violence of the

situation acts in a strange way: did she cum? I

wondered, but I didn’t ask her this, even though

the thoughts occurred that if a person is raped,

might that person let themselves enjoy the third

or fourth time of its single happening? Would an

orgasm accuse itself? I savoured the taste of the

eggs, feeling fortunate that I had used three eggs,

like some bliss I had only experienced in

Anarchistic happenings, at the time. Of course

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Anarchy was to me, put simply, rebellion against

authority and liberty in your own ways. And

there was something anarchistic about the chaos

of the experience: the collateral damage of

liberty, evil and the rapists’ ways. Even if her

retelling did not amount fully to be reflective of

some sort of perfect Anarchism, in my eyes—as

the feeling was a much slower one, that negated

the joy of outright Anarchism (intellectual or

otherwise)—the experience was so distinguished

in itself that I savoured every taste— something

told me that I should. In a way I knew this, yet

hindsight is like a beast in itself isn’t it?

Afterwards we drunk heavily, she sniffed a little

white, and we even had, especially in lieu of what

had been said earlier, a vicious frenzied amount

of sex. And especially in reflection of the time

(about a month before) that Lucia decided to

leave in the middle of an encounter because I

refused to hit her, Hard enough, she had said. So

since then I had become accustomed to throwing

her around a bit and really using some force. I

wondered if this should still be the case, at the

time, being that she had just told me what

happened to her that previous Friday in tears,

whilst taking lonely looks outside the window,

before I had started and finished making then

eating those eggs. But if anything the sex became

much nastier (by her command): hair pulling,

slapping, plus she liked it when I would squeeze

her left nipple, not her right nipple, just her left

nipple, and it even bled once, which she just

laughed at and said that I done a great job—


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AAA

Contradictions. In the morning though she

seemed as if she had had enough of talking. She

ignored my question with an inaudible mumble,

and then walked to the shower, sipping the rest

of a bottle of beer as she walked in. I soon

followed her into the shower to just see how she

is. I stood and watched the water caressing her

skin, her curvaceous buttocks, her crevices for

what seemed a moment, but it may have been

minutes, before she turned and noticed me

standing at the doorway. She asked if I wanted

fellatio, just as the noise for morning prayers

sounded. I said I was fine. As she was leaving I

said goodbye, and I saw a tear in her eye, so I

then tried to stop her but before I could, she was

gone in a hurry after leaving me with the

affirmation that I didn’t truly care. And the

thought that life, regardless of the choice to live

it or not, required essential elements: such as

focus, attention and care. And I was becoming

more aware of this truth. With no answer on the

phone, later on in the morning I thought I would

look for her, but I ended up changing my mind.

After she had left I kept thinking of, firstly those

eggs (the experience), and then her brother: I

retold the story of him losing his arm to myself,

and the part which confused me most was the

relationship between Ahmed and a man she only

referred to as G. Apparently, G had befriended

Ahmed at an awkward time in life—he was

around seventeen at the time and their Father

had just died in a very dubious fashion I couldn’t

quite fully gather: My mom wouldn’t cook meat

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anymore, said Lucia in the non sequitur fashion

that was quickly typical; always resisting,

speaking with her bottom lip half bitten, and

then adding: He was typically French... Which

didn’t make things any clearer, but in a

fragmented way I came to understand what she

was trying to say: it was this way of

communicating or just nothing, not that I

forced any issue—we had quickly become used

to one another, and that was something

seemingly regular—at face value—but in reality

much more than can be asked for in a world

when the procession of time really dawns on a

person’s life and what truth really is, as it did

this morning. In her way I gathered that her

Father was not happy at the time of his demise

— He was just so depressed, she had mumbled

another time, I thought, I remembered. Perhaps

Ahmed became lost after this happened and

this is where G became involved. I held—Just

like all communications it was mired in the

difficulty of conveying the essence of the matter

without misunderstandings. I got the

impression that G was a central figure in

Ahmed’s life, and a mystery in itself. I did know

that G met Ahmed quickly after Ahmed moved

to Tangiers from Rabat at a Mosque close to

Sidi Bou Abib. Muslims are often very much

indoctrinated by the concept of togetherness or

for men brotherhood, which, by habit only, has

sequential ramifications—Bonds are formed on

the basis of Allah, large prayer groups, the

Prophet Mohammed, and amongst other things

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sometimes just a simple disliking of Pork even.

Allah and Mohammed was one thing, but why the

constant degradation of the Pig? What did the Pig

ever do to really deserve such treatment? I

considered, perched on the bed. Plenty of

Muslim’s drank, used drugs, but the mere mention

of pork would leave the same sinners up in arms.

But this fixation of togetherness, as opposed to the

singularity of religion being an exclusive personal

entity, caused Ahmed to start living with G and to

his attendance of a contentious prayer group. This

prayer group had a problem: it had been

rumoured that an Imam had a secret affinity for

Pork bought from Rabat, as it was still difficult to

get Pork in Tangiers. G did not take too kindly to

the knowledge of this, especially since this same

Imam had taken it upon himself to call out G on a

few issues relating to this so called ‘prayer

group’—which had been formed in 2001 by G and

an Algerian called Mustapha—with alleged

extremist undercurrents. Though Lucia failed to

explain much about this, what she did say was that

G had quite a reputation around the Mosque,

primarily based around two incidents. The first

involved four other men and the second involved a

Lebanese woman. Regardless of whether either of

these incidents were formless or not, the situation

came to a head one day when G and the Imam,

suspected of loving pork, had an argument in the

Mosque. The day after this, the Imams house was

vandalized. I then assumed that Ahmed had done

this as some sort of initiation, if I remember she

used the word initiation herself. So from this

153


point he was an ardent supporter of G and

anything that was deemed disrespectful of their

Prophet or an affront. G had held that Ahmed

had spiritual insight and that he should be treated

as such. Maybe this developed the relationship in

some sort of strange fashion. So for Ahmed to

then suffer the loss of an arm due to surgical

complications after getting caught in an electrical

fire, apparently instigated by G, seemed very

strange, chaotic even. The silence of the room

made me think; just staring at Lucia’s blouse,

which she had left behind, I thought: There was

something, of course, eventful to chaos; although

it compensates and provides its own swing of

morality— it has its own scent and texture and

fabric seeps into the thinking person’s being like

nocturnal creatures that enliven in the dark—The

slowness and nature of elements that disregard

each other and cater to nothing? Seems to govern

the order and swing of events. As if explaining to

myself, I thought that these remnants of the way

things were back in Europe had begun to fester

now, it seemed: I couldn’t be certain that all ties

were broken, mostly because things could remain

ambiguous amongst Anarchists. But their links

are less existent by my certainty that it served no

real purpose to establish such connections, I

thought, serves no real purpose, and I knew this

via a trickling feeling that serenaded me and

nauseated me... —Though I then tried to think

only of being without: stripping life of everything

—Maybe this was a way of reconnecting things, I

couldn’t be certain. All that remained, that

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morning, was seemingly these primal instincts

weaving a web around habits that seemed to have

captured my being—into a hermetic life within a

room primarily consisting of an African sun light

shining dusty particles through a light peach

curtain, a toilet with a sink where the water

splutters as if choking... Regardless of my

surroundings, which I didn’t totally disregard or

regard, at least the possibility of trying to recreate

the making of those eggs still existed—As

harrowing as Lucia’s story had been, in the grand

scheme of life it was, just another notch on a

bedpost enamoured with endless stories of

molestations, revenges, corruptions, stupidities

and more—The lives of those in an average squat

(that I had witnessed first-hand) could detail the

dark mystery of at least twenty complete normal

lives (normal being what can only be referred to

those in the distilled furnace of an autonomous

nothing).— These ideas provided a recoil within

me, to an extent, and I then tried, cooking the

eggs exactly as I had the previous evening, being

sure to do exactly as I had done: using the same

bowl, same amount of eggs: three, the same

amount of oil in the frying pan: two tablespoons,

two knobs of butter within the eggs, a splash of

milk, a pinch of salt and lastly an onion. I did this

being careful to consider all the elements of the

ingredients, but I couldn’t remember how long I

had fried the eggs after I had poured the contents

into the frying pan. I thought this is why I failed, I

hoped. Adding, significantly, that I was there

cooking alone in the apartment, without Lucia

155

and her catastrophe, and this specifically halted

the process and the taste— highlighting the

consideration that any given moment was so

excessively nuanced; the very nature of life’s

events can take on a completely different hue

with only a small alteration to them. Though, in

fact, I think it was the amount of oil, I held

hunched over the small table. I just couldn’t taste

the eggs like I did the previous night. It was

unnerving that I couldn’t gain purchase on

perfectly recreating the atmosphere or feeling—

sure it may seem obnoxious to you, but let me

explain somewhat: to lose a sense is a monstrous

affliction, it really is a tragic disability to have to

endure—it is a form of anosmia, I may say,

though I could still smell somewhat, strangely;

whenever anything was transferred into my

mouth I couldn’t fully perceive it and the echoes

of this not being so were strikingly loud in the

blood silence of the room as the morning moved

into the afternoon.


Simmering From a Series of Memory

I arrived to meet B around 2 in the afternoon,

still simmering from Lucia and memories of

those eggs. He knew her too, which meant that I

knew I could ask if he had seen her—There was

something hermetic about certain quarters of

society, which differed here—to a degree— in

comparison to my observations from living in

other parts of the world. People like B were not

really just hanging on street corners, lurking,

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AA

they were people that were known in inner

circles. Perhaps religion had a profound effect on

the outward appearance of society, here, but the

same primal instincts remained intrinsic, I

acknowledged to myself. If I can remember, she

was standing there before he arrived, or maybe

they came at the same time. B introduced her as

Leila then said: ...Don’t worry about her she’s

just decoration.

—Really... And that was my reply because I did

not know what to really say. Leila looked no more

than fifteen. Though her eyes had a dormant

appearance that looked the consequence of either

drugs or life. Either way you’ll get gotten won’t

you. It being the end of January meant that she

was dragging along a long cream sheepskin jacket

like a nuisance, with it unzipped you could see a

large pair of breasts underneath a tight navy blue

cotton blouse. As if I were elsewhere the thought

occurred that I had just typed in ‘Teen big

breasts’ and was then confronted with what I had

lustfully imagined, followed by their uncovering,

usually with some sort of gyrating, and then an

organ would be summoned for the use in a

variety of positions— Modern life. She said

nothing. Mohammed only had half of what I had

asked for. As if insurance, he had known where I

had lived from Lucia. I guessed. He said he would

meet me there in three hours or so. I then begun

walking through the market on my way back,

through Medina, full of antiquated houses with

colourful paint jobs as if vintage clothing; each

distinctive in its own way, stools full of fruit, and

157

vegetables, clothes and shoes. A man was

shouting at a screaming child in Maghrebi Arab

before the dusty footpath was then stomped on in

childish anguish complaint. I walked further on

and I then stood close to another bearded man

keeling over a steel heat, cooking chickpeas. I was

hoping to take in the smell, as if by some holy

chance the sensation overcame me. It didn’t and I

started to feel like the walls were closing in

instead; the speed of everything around me just

aided in an anxiety that had been on a natural

hum. I am at war with myself, I said to myself in

my head. I then begun walking a little faster

through the market, accepting that I always

preferred the night, I thought to myself: It is the

time that consists of the darker essence of life,

like a nocturnal realm it can envelope you in the

very nature of what life really consists of, so the

best things in life happen at night, the daytime is

just the time in between that rarely compensates

for the energy that is exchanged to deal with all

the antics that are thrown at you, no, the night

time is my calling: Where; the drunkards

embrace, the broken congregate, the lesser

conspire.


A Consumed Thought

When B arrived I realized he was fat. It came as a

surprise. I hadn’t noticed before this point. It

made me look at him anew. He had come all the

way to the door, using his chubby hands to knock

four times and then waited before I opened it and

158

let him in. She followed him in, just as she

appeared a few hours before, though her thighs

became more noticeable to me— Maybe it was

puppy fat, I considered. I wasn’t quite sure, and


A

nor can the loins: Is there such thing as a moral

arousal? I really doubted it: Every facet of our best

carnal desires is saturated in the dirt. Although

people can think otherwise and throw cliche ́d

words at the throne of desire, it was all very

cognitive and scientific. Though I still wondered,

call it a human reflex: that impervious ability to

have more shit thrown at you, to the point where it

becomes all rather exhaustive and fragmentary. Yes,

that feeling seemed to have arrived just as the world

became smaller—it precipitated after a boiling

period where solutions were seen from a narrow

point of view. And then this perspective yearned

for more; it nagged and had been nagging for weeks

before, months, years even. Expanding to the point

of nothing, as it was just so much, too much: this

perspective was like two trains running parallel

simultaneously and needing to bargain a position

on both. What does this bleeding yearning want? I

started to think. Was it a fragmentary response to

something I couldn’t put my finger on, or it could

have been a moral sickness: aiding and abetting in a

deep recess. I consigned this perspective to the

back of my mind, and just looked at Leila, the girl.

Walking to immediately sit on the edge of the

unmade bed— The decoration comfortably

159

warming a pair of my old underwear. B in his

usual jovial state smiled and grabbed my hand to

greet. He had started talking about what? I

couldn’t be sure at first. I was still consumed by

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Lucia so I interrupted him by it, but he just

shrugged and continued. —She is always cold, it

is as if the sun doesn’t exist, he said with one

hand on his stomach and the other hand still

clutching mine, awkwardly (for me). But do you

know what? Let me tell you what— The focus of

his conversation gnawed a subtle feeling of

jealousy: ever since I was young I failed at being

able to conjure enthusiasm for small talk— Always

holding the precept that, in a way, life can

comprise of two types of people, in this sense:

those who do and those who don’t. Those who do

indulge freely in small talk don’t severely suffer

life’s complexities, as they are too busy with life,

as opposed to those in the mire of what life

actually amounts to without distraction, as if

collecting thoughts alone in a dessert. An

overdose on what life is can have its adverse

effects, as I entirely noticed living amongst

Anarchists: the conversations of: Stalin, Marxism,

Political science, (to name a few issues), were all

ways in which conversations were often hijacked.

The surrealism of Antonin’s visions a stark

contrast—where reality is rarely consistent of

anything but sheer concern: Concern for the

environment, concern for political agendas or just

concern for the way in which people lived in a

squat—It was funny how a squat could be such a

160

hot bed for all of society’s most precious

concepts, theories and realities. And Antonin

primarily held the theory that most enlivened the

group I knew too well: true Anarchism, in its

purest form. Though I won’t talk about this now.

B’s trivial concerns had developed by now.

—Women don’t like anything, only the sex—

Misogynistic as he could have seemed, I looked

at Leila as she gently smirked.

—It’s cold... Her voice was pregnant, marked

with an expression of distinct apathy. Severely

opposed to Lucia, I compared, whose tone in

contrast smelt of blood, but, still, an intense

hope: there was something ready to happen to

her, for the way she would give herself to

laughter, was telling, because it was a tropical

laughter with an exotic high pitch-like screech at

its most extreme. I imagined her whole body

laughing in unison, altogether distancing the

mind, body and soul especially, from what could

actuality happen to her. It could have been angst,

I thought, for in Leila, speaking in Arab, the

efficacy of these roots belied so much more than

a general apathy, but a female centric apathy and

disdain that abounded from a society of very

complicated politics—of many Arab families

consisting of a matriarchal structure superficially,

with deep rooted historical masculinity forming

its truest stronghold.

—Why you cold today so much? Said fiercely as

B swung his arm to gesticulate. What’s your

problem?

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I then took a better look at her, her bare legs

careening between storied bed sheets and her

thighs in a pair of angel white denim shorts—

they were extremely white. I instantly took pity

on her, even though I had no real idea who she


was and of this relationship with Mohammed (I

just didn’t ask), there was just something about

those eyes...Even without the use of sentiment,

her eyes were an extreme saturation of a distant

eternity I knew full well. So I interrupted: I have

some of Lucia’s clothes here, walking to a pile

accumulated and sitting on top of a chair in front

of the small, rather shabby, oak table.

Take this, wear this, she is about your size.

Handing her a pair of Lucia’s blue jeans, she

stood up and took them before peering at B.

After a tense moment of silence, he waved her

away and she then walked into the bathroom,

very nonchalantly. B then gave me what I had

asked for: emptying a pocket and handing it to

me, whilst my periphery caught naked legs

exposed, through the door left ajar, and then

clothed. B, as if by habit, was continuing to talk

about things that punctuated a feeling that I was

watching myself where I was, without truly being

there. He only broke from this when his phone

rang and he answered it. Mohammed distracted

in the corner of the room on his phone, meant

that we shared a few words; Leila spoke them in

broken English, thanking me for the jeans as I

tried to ascertain what to say, but whatever I did

say led to her smiling, maybe she just wanted a

reason to smile, I thought, though it broke from

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the look in her eyes, momentarily. A bit like

Lucia she reverted to a pensive sitting face—this

ability to alternate between states was something

I found decadent that day; but there was always

something attractive about the wounded animal

—an emotional horror it could be, but the sex of

it haunted and was somewhat reminiscent of

Antonin’s charms too, I thought in a reverie...

Long Languid Letters

...Antonin; tall, slender, intelligent squarish face

—features loquacious in their own manner, had

long remained infamous. This was partly due to

directing a staging of Accidental Death of an

Anarchist, by Dario Fo in Brixton more than a

few years before I was in Tangiers. Allegedly—as

in most cases, infamy grows its roots and stems

within the soil of hearsay firstly, and secondly it

can then turn into mythology—the gossip

consisted of the belief that a number of Police

were beaten up at the staging of the play. So, a

mythology grew around the architects of this

happening, primarily around squats in turn, with

communists and, importantly, Anarchists. There

was something stylistic about the staging of this

particular play coinciding with authority being

challenged in this way. I knew him personally

only a few years after this incident but the dust

had not yet settled on the ideologies brought to

life, though it was rather strange that our first

few conversations, had in the squat off

Tottenham high road, were mostly about

163

conspiracies. Antonin spoke passionately about

nearly everything; it really had a sex to it;

fluctuating in the manner he spoke: smiling

ardently at an example of the uses of violence in

politics and then a scrunched-face explanation of

his views on Communism. And in a haunting way

Antonin would capture many other people, as

opposed to myself. I failed to fully buy into life’s

conspiracies stories. Though I often held that it

would give life such a collective energy: even

now, I think there’s something very romantic

about the theory that everything in the universe

is interconnected, whether it be evil or full of

virtue. In some ways I agree with certain ideas,

which abound to the central perception that

modern culture is at the hands of a numbing

quality... We would go in circles; Antonin would

usually suggest a time, sometimes someone else

would come along too. Discussions turned into

arguments, arguments turned into digressions,

melodramas turned into serious turns, and

eventually things became strange. Though I can’t

blame that entirely on him. I could always expect,

every three or four months—if I was not in the

same vicinity — for a message to arrive. And like

clockwork I had heard from a friend (Felicity)

just after B and Leila left, I read the message:


I didn’t want to write and mention what I think I

should, amongst other things. It hurts me to think it

slightly. Besides, what’s new? I moved from the squat

in East London to the one close to Brixton, Paolo’s

place? You know the one in the place that was a

164


A

carpet shop? I am there now, though strangely it is if

am still in East London: the conversations don’t seem to

differ so much, which I can’t complain of because it is

just a little impractical to practice such self- hate.

Marxist revolutions! Lazy fuckers. These are my

people, regardless of the way in which the search to rid

our lives of cliche is ́ itself a strange cliche. Or it has its

own laws and I am just not able to disdain the lives

that many of the people I love choose to live. As you

know you meet nice people, twisted motherfuckers, you

meet true Anarchists too, which I live for. A girl I live

with (a Spanish girl) is a prime example of someone I

appreciate. You need to meet her, I have talked about

you and you are part of the soap bubble. I think she is

feigning mental illness, as if it is something to feign.

Because two nights ago when I was coming back from

Clive’s place in Hackney (he’s still with Charlotte, even

though she cheated again) I got back inside the house

and walked up the stairs, where she is at the top of the

stairs shaving off all her hair. It was down to her

bottom, really long brownish blonde hair. I was

engrossed you know? Just watching her do this, it was

more exciting than anything. It reminded me of a

Daniil Kharms story, so absurd, as why did she only

start to do this as I was walking up the stairs? Why

didn’t she have this panic attack alone? I am no

coward so I would say something to her but I really just

enjoy watching, a bit like you, in a way. I acquired

that skill from you; the way you people-watch is more

animated than the best films. You put the ridiculous

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into a scene like an Ingmar Bergman film. That one

time that French girl, Spanish guy and English guy

were just talking just outside Broadway Market and

you were commentating it was so dramatic, I don’t

know why you seem to decide on an outlook and you

behave like that when you can act like this. Which, like

a poem, is difficult to explain, I know, but if you read it

you may understand. This is maybe the writing form of

my mumbling. I don’t know. So I think we really miss

you, even though often you were very quiet as things

started to get a bit strange. No I am pretty sure that we

miss you actually. Between the first and second floors

of the place I am living in there is a lot of talk of these

small revolutions and rioting. You wouldn’t be able to

strangely participate and strangely be invisible the way

you do because people really want to see some violent

action, or perhaps you would just get your popcorn and

spoon! And use both. Even a month is a long time, for

me now. Do you know when you are coming back?

Since you left, maybe a week after you went, they

started talking about re-staging the Dario Fo play but,

I wasn’t sure about the situation. Anyway Antonin

decided he wanted to do it. So he did, planning to put it

on for a week in Chatsworth. You know Lee, the girl

from Cambridge? The rich girl posing as poor, (how

lucky we are...) well she decided to help Antonin, I

think mostly with money, but he accepted her help even

though Miles was dead against it too. I said I would

help out, and initially I did. I think it was something

you had told Antonin that made him really go full

throttle with this revolution. You can be quite

persuasive. So for a few weeks Antonin and the others

all rehearsed the play and he started to get more and


166

more adamant, I think it was because of the speech (I

call it a speech because if you can remember you were

the only one speaking for 25 minutes) you gave about

the pointlessness of a fake revolution, you called it. Lee

blames you. To be honest I’m not sure. As things

advanced and it was closer to the time of staging the

play Antonin became more and more megalomaniacal:

he wanted to control everything. It was getting really

ridiculous; I stopped believing in the beauty of the

intention. I think for me the play was becoming uglier

and uglier. So I told him this and we fell out. I was not

happy about the situation at all you know. Who does

he think he is, Bulgakov! I knew he was not right. And

he started acting more and more strange and there

was no consolation. Saying strange things, acting

strange. Maybe it was this pressure, all that true

anarcho stuff really might have gotten to him. I think

you played a part in this. Because he then had this

huge panic attack and he’s now sectioned at

Homerton. The police you know? It was this pressure

that seems to have only come from all your

conversations. He is writing and is adamant about the

idea of making a sculpture in the vein of that stupid

molding thing he carries around, you remember? Even

you with a spoon and popcorn I think you would just

be good for the situation. So when are you coming

back?

Let me know,

Felicity x

__________________

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I read this message and always knew that I had

persuasive qualities, but there was always a need

for the instrument you see: you can’t persuade a

lion to be a bear, or a goat to be a tiger. It just


wouldn’t work. So, I could admit to playing a role,

but I couldn’t be held fully responsible. In this

sense I found Felicity’s words very irritating, yet I

had come to expect this from her. She was very

Russian like in her wit and there would always be

a foreboding in our conversations, primarily due

to her storied past: with moves around Europe,

after being born in Russia, she was of a varied

class: perhaps a strange dynamic of being

reluctantly upper class with a determination to

being perceived as working class, even if she

didn’t see it this way, just as she accused Lee,

ironically. She also lived amongst the hipster

Berlin art scene for a few years, so that had its

affect too in shaping her, plus she worked in

immigration there too, which meant that she had

this enthusiasm for immigrants and small

revolutions, along with Performance Art, of

course. These factors were not totally a conflicted

issue for me, but it did expose certain problems

with the type of woman Felicity was. On one hand

she, like many feminist and punk women, usually

held ardent ambitions and strong opinions of

politics, especially. And on the other hand they

would say and do totally strange things quite

often, I thought. —Wouldn’t it be nice if guys just

walked around with their dicks hanging out, you

know? I remember she once said. You would stop,

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oh that’s a nice cock, oh where is this dick from?

And so on. It would be so refreshing. And so

amongst the conversations of serious issues, there

remained conversations like this. For me, it


A

created a political confusion. But I still considered

her a friend, if that word meant anything, until she

disappears again or something, I held. Anyway, I

thought that I couldn’t allow the concept of

Antonin’s insanity to manifest without the idea;

that for so many years he had been fastened to

ideologies that held on to the suspicion that

something mysterious was in everything, and that

things were connected to reflect some sort of

strange harmony. I disagreed with this and he

failed to appreciate the necessity of doubt,

accusing me of apathy in some way, I detested the

way in which he failed to realize the actuality of

agnosticism—I remembered when we went to an

Art Gallery in Shoreditch, and thought again of

how we had got there late, because Lee had

decided to get into another argument about

wasting grapes. Regardless we arrived, looked

around for a short time and, I thought the art was

not particularly interesting: it was what could be

expected and so the same type of people would

appreciate it and it would in turn regurgitate the

same things until we all died a bloody, but cliche ́d

death, probably holding a chi latte with skinny

jeans on, perhaps in the middle of a vegan rally. So

I wanted to leave, but as I was walking towards the

169

door a fat black girl then loudly tripped on a

sculpture, which consisted of a knife positioned in

some green molding with an African mask stuck

to the molding on its right side, and as Antonin

was stood in front of the piece of work it seemed

to fall at a rapid pace towards him, only missing

him slightly to then fall onto the floor. Danger

averted somewhat, Antonin took this as a real

happening: he became particularly connected to

this work and eventually befriended the American

Artist, Suki, but what became most strange was

his perception of the incident: to him it stood as a

connection to his hatred for gentrification, siting

the knife juxtaposing the African mask. Which

Suki reinforced by mentioning that this was what

she had intended the work to mean, even though

in the sheet of paper provided, back and front,

there was not a single mention of anything like

that, and I overheard her conversation with

Antonin. —It reflects the emotions between the

devastation of gentrification and the subtle

qualities in envy, said Antonin, quite impressively

I may add. It is very moving. —Well, yes it does,

said Suki as if readjusting herself in a higher

pitch. But it can mean whatever a person thinks it

means. I was checked out by the time she said this

—A cop out, I thought. He was so enamoured

with this piece of work that he bought it and kept

a piece of the molding on him, at all times. I

found this connection totally ridiculous, and very

much the way in which Antonin saw connections,

that were simply not really there, in my eyes. After

the gallery show I asked Felicity too and she


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agreed, especially in lieu of her disliking of Suki;

finding her stuck in a perpetual novelty, she said

about Suki and her Art. It never occurred to

Antonin that he should doubt Suki’s intentions. I

always remember that time because of that. And

since Felicity said those words, perpetual novelty,

I’ve often thought about their meaning. I often

repeat the words to myself slowly: p-e-r-p-e-t-u-a-l

n-o-v-e-l-t-y. Because it rolls off the tongue in a

way I find amusing, plus it kind of imitates a

realism I found to be a devastating analogy for

much of the life considered true.

Odd Representations Brought On

I decided to try and do nothing, and late

afternoon crept into the evening whilst I

inadvertently kept wondering of the Architecture

of a moment, oddly represented by eggs. I had not

truly slept a month; I had only taken very few

short naps that did little to amount to real rest or

even deep sleep. Hashish, Kif, marijuana and

bottles of wine sat on the table in the small

kitchen area along with the two note pads, and a

few more books I brought from London. I just

looked at the books: thoughts machinery in the

evening time quiet, disquieted by a pacing: up,

down, open the tiny fridge—the same contents the

last time— close the tiny fridge, and repeat. Yet,

this wholesome nothingness seemed like the only

agenda at times: calculating happenings, I

thought: I also shower, and I dress, and I eat and

then I fall into a resolute melancholy, only offset

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by these sporadic sensations—I ignore

responsibility. Yesterday became today and now

it had been seven days since I had heard from

Lucia, I mused. I was expecting her yesterday,

or even the day before. She seemed so fragile


the last time we met. In a way I lament the

arrangement, but that would have just

examined the loose threads of an attachment I

was, in reality, barely able to keep, bearing an

aching feeling that I just felt totally numb,

desensitized to so much of what was occurring,

which was probably the only reaction to have in

this whole ordeal. I wanted to feel impassioned,

I thought. As another night was approaching,

and the sound of the landlord walking up and

down the stairs attending to this-and-that had

reduced, the only thing I could hear were my

own thoughts really. And in them were the last

words of Jack Kerouac’s Tristessa ringing in my

ears. ... long sad tales about people in the

legend of my life... This part is my part of the

movie, let's hear yours—The onus being the

inherent thought of possessing some sort of

true path, similar to fate, if that is at all

believable. All that I knew laid on the bed was

that I had seen so much (the multiple lives

attested to that) but this Kerouacian idea of

grasping a certain life, especially in Tangier,

seemed even more estranged than ever before.

To the point where, now sat alone in this room,

I wondered what I was doing in Tangier. If I

had wanted chaos why I would sojourn to

Tangiers? I asked myself and had no answer, I

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thought. I then heard the door knock; it was a

faint childlike knock that I initially hadn’t fully

noticed, until another two knocks. I am

constipated with feelings of the experience,

Lucia, I thought; the loveless structure of

mystery had consumed so much. I quickly got

up, putting on a pair of shorts, and went to

open the door. Stood—innocent, tender—

there was Leila. And for all of life’s

complexity’s, even the stubborn part of me

couldn’t help but appreciate life’s simplicity at

times, I thought, just looking at her, like a baby

tugging at a mothers’ arm or just the rain drops

against a window, inside all warm. This thought

made me feel as if I was drunker than I was,

having been sipping slowly at a half full bottle

of Jack (a true hassle to get here I acknowledged

again)—Embarrassed slightly. I let her in,

watching her drag her jacket. I was now stood

in front of the door wondering why she was

there. I am holding the ashtray in my left hand,

smoking with my right. I then took a few pulls

and waited for her to speak. I assumed her

English was basic. And as she started I could

tell that she had to try hard, which she does

anyway.

—I...come...I want to see you...

—Really?

—Yes, she said taking a seat on the bed with

her legs immaturely spread quite open,

revealing bright pink underwear. This made me

feel as if I was being manipulated, but I didn’t

say this, instead I asked: Does he know you’re

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here? I took note of the time: it was late, 12:23am.

I can only guess what she had been up to, I

thought, along with the idea that I was stepping

on shaky ground here, primarily being in a

foreign country. But the thought of my hands all

over her small petite body took over my mind. I

am governed, I assumed. I felt rather fickle by

now, as she begun to explain that I had done

something nice for her the last time I saw her,

ignoring my question and reminding me of those

pair of jeans, which seemed awfully strange being

that again she was wearing a short skirt and

nothing else from the waist down, besides the

rather childlike bright pink underwear. —Aren’t

you cold? She failed to answer again, just half

smiling and looking around the room. It may

seem appropriate to begin to ask her about this

relationship between her and B, right? Well

perhaps. I decided to forego the inevitable in this

case and disregard the consequences in this

sense. It did seem rather clinical now, maybe less

of an accident that she was sat in the posture she

was, as she starts saying: Money, everybody is

worried for money... Yes, it’s right, but I didn’t

want her to expect anything, especially with the

thought of B looming over my head. I sat on the

edge of the table and she started to explain how

she had forgotten her purse earlier in the day.

There was something visceral in the way she

spoke, I noticed; that she often repeated herself,

stuttering over longer words and so I tried not to

interject in order to let the natural progression of

things ascertain itself. Through the window the

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dark night contrasts the light summoned by this

low hanging dimly lit bulb. The atmosphere took

on an ethereal quality: she spoke in the manner

of a word jumble; like a poetess, in a sense, the

words sprang in different fashions: some against

one another; some in harmony. Again I was at war

with myself: I was not able to decide whether I

was complicit in what seemed destined to occur:

in some way I found myself challenging the

construct of the situation, I thought, probably

because without these needs I wondered how

much truth such desires can possess in

themselves.

—Let’s drink.

I didn’t know whether she said this or if I did, but

we started to drink: I still had two bottles of wine

left. I then sat on the bed, a wine bottle in hand.

She took off her jacket and hung it on Lucia’s

clothes on the end of the chair. We shared about

four swigs each of wine, whilst she kept on talking

in between. By the time I was going to open the

second bottle of wine we had started to fuck each

other senseless, as if we were making a secret

pact, or a prayer, like we were aiming to achieve

something more.

Constraints to Exuberance

In the first ten minutes of the taxi ride the only

thing she uttered was her address to the driver.

And I repeatedly failed in trying to coax her into

talking about what was happening, nor did I

receive an answer to whether she had wanted to

175

go to the Police (even those words annoyed me

even). I continued looking out of the window

again, holding on to the thought that she had

called me—that alone meant something—I

reminded myself. All I knew for certain was that


she was shaken and apparently had some money

stolen, and clearly been roughed up: she had a

cut on the top of her lip. After journeying past

the beach, we passed areas I was not familiar

with. The taxi soon stopped outside a few grey

apartments, Lucia quickly got out, and I paid

the driver and had to speed walk now to reach

her. Fiddling in her handbag, she huffed and

puffed before finally finding her key and I

followed with an arm on her shoulder, in order

to take some sort of lead—she tuts slightly,

turning around by my touch, averted eye contact

and concentrated on turning the key in the

door. A loud sound goes behind us, making her

jump; she looked totally fragile by now. —It’s

nothing, I reassure her whilst I turned and saw

an old man throwing rubbish into a large black

skip at the edge of the street. It’s fine. — I’m

just a little... she begun mumbling to then stop

with a grimace, as if she didn’t want me there,

and that she didn’t want saving, which I didn’t

buy into in the first place anyway, being that I

had no real idea of my feelings too. Nonetheless,

just the sound of her voice, as opposed to her

actions, told me that she needed me and I now

had to see to it that she was how she wanted to

be, I told her this, struggling to articulate.

Turning to continue walking up the stairs now, I

176

froze not knowing whether she would even let me

into her apartment. I wondered what I would

even find there. She turned and looked at me

stood at the bottom of the stairs and just looked

exasperated as if in a personal hell; closing her


AA eyes for twice as long as the natural blinking time

and then reopened them to then tilt her head,

turn around and continuing to walk up the stairs.

I took this as her way of talking—full drama—and

followed up two flights of stairs to a brown door,

number 17. As soon as we entered through the

door we were confronted by a slim man; who was

wearing tiny bright-green underpants and was

holding a red bowl, standing, watching a loud

television emanating pictures of what looked like

a soap opera. I couldn’t really tell. This man

paused.

—I haven’t seen you in a while, placing the red

bowl down on a side table and placing an arm on

his muscular hip, forming a clear triangle. I took a

moment to just look around at her apartment, just

like I imagined: there were clothes everywhere;

over a long brown sofa, flung on chairs, sitting on

the floor. Noticeably there is baroque feeling to

the setting. So this is your place, I said. Besides

the strangeness of what we were confronted by, I

was beginning to assume certain things: even

though I couldn’t smell much, I instantly sensed

that the room had a strange smell, it would have

taken more concentration for me to be able to tell

otherwise. She started to stutter slightly: O

hmmm...yes...okay...I forget... I remember the

reason why her English was quite decent for her

177

time spent in Northern Spain, strangely this is

where she said she had learned and it had its

drawbacks, I reminded myself. It was now an

unspoken unanimous decision that the

atmosphere was awkward: the man had two


triangles mounted on either hip, and Lucia was

stuttering, and I was just as confused, curiously

silent however. I guessed the man was Ahmed,

her brother. —This is Mustapha, she said though

walking into a bedroom across the living room

and trailing off. I am just...

And so it goes, I walked into this bedroom

consisting of a large mahogany four-poster bed,

with more clothes thrown everywhere, a red and

cream bohemian style rug So, to start with, this

was all that I really noticed, mostly I am still

perturbed by who I now know as Mustapha: who

was he and what is his relationship with Lucia? I

thought. And before I got the opportunity to ask,

Mustapha starts: This is just your friend right?

She took off her jacket and threw it on top of her

desk, and was looking thinner now; I noticed her

waist was closer to the bone, her cheekbones a

little more defined. Now at the edge of the bed

Lucia looked lost. Leila came to mind for some

reason. I started to compare the ways in which

they are both lost, and came to a tentative

conclusion that Lucia’s plight was deeper, less

sensual and utterly more insidious. Not unlike

Murphy’s Law entirely, just in some ways. But I

didn’t say any of this. I wouldn’t want to be

accused of enervation in some way, I thought. By

this I started to feel even more elsewhere,

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A

constipated by the thought that Leila’s broken

spiritedness was so much opposed to Lucia’s wry

smiles and quiet enthusiasm, which rather

confounded me, as if a reverie I wanted to pull

back. Leila said things that I truly believed she

was capable of; just after sex the day before she

had pulled away and began to stutter: I want to

kill myself... And I just listened. Mostly because

at first glance I assumed it was angst, but at closer

inspection I noted that it was very much

authentic: she was not in turmoil per say, Lucia

was in turmoil, Leila was a light dwindling, there

remained a difference, I thought just looking at

Lucia’s lip. Leila was like a paradise lost: full of

conversations with the devil entwined with

visceral poetry. They say the good die young. I

didn’t say much to what she had said in the dark,

as from that first night that we had just spent

together just sleeping, only for the next day to

come, it had become a habit. When I had awoken

from the first night she had gone. It was only that

evening that she reappeared at my door. Like

de ́ja ̀ vu it was around the same time of night

too.

Letter to The Lost

I find it quite cathartic to write you. It’s only because I

know it will be met with a certain deposition. I of

course sense certain illogical things but I can’t seem to

gather all my thoughts... I am now living with another

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girl that claims she is Syrian. I doubt everything,

because she can speak French, Italian and some

English. She has trauma from prostituting herself.

She told me it was for a year that she had decided to

become one and that in actuality it was the best year

of her life. Even in the bad times it was exciting, she

said, in a way you can’t experience often, I would just

fuck and fuck and fuck and I never was satisfied.

Every orgasm was just another piece in a puzzle I

could not finish, another piece of the story. I feel

invisible by it. And it is affecting me in an absurd

way. Antonin is still in Homerton. I really hate that

place. We told him that we were putting on the Dario

Fo thing and he seemed to come around to the idea,

but they’re talking about putting on some type of

weekly injection, because of all the trouble with the

police. I don’t know whether that will happen at the

moment but it’s the thought at the moment. The nurse

that is there when I go always seems as if she needs to

be a patient, she probably has never even heard of

Marxism or plays or whatever the police are saying

about him to the Doctors. Clive said that we could

break him out, but that just seems stupid to me. A

stupid man idea. The Spanish girl and me are now in

a thing, I think.

Felicity

x

Les Demoiselles D’Avignon

And it was only in Leila’s presence with me in

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my room, that I truly felt the idea of arriving back

to London—like the broken finding solace in the

broken. I countered that Lucia’s wings were

clipped, if anything, and there remained a distinct

difference, I thought as quickly as the day after

Leila first arrived, alone. It just occurred that my

mind was neither able to make a decision on either

of the two women here. There always remained an

option, I thought as Leila stumbled around more

sentences one Saturday evening, but it just

occurred that London represented something else

at the time, sure there was all that was happening

with Antonin, which I felt was drawing towards

me (rather than away), just bearing the severity of

the situation, yet it was Leila that provided the

thought (to leave for London) the necessary

lifeblood. I mentioned this to Lucia to check for

signs of pasture.

____________________

It was when I stood in between Mustapha and

Lucia that I noticed what was against the wall on

the same side as the doorway. It was a copy of

what I noted as Picasso’s Les demoiselles

d’Avignon, it’s quite large, I thought, I am startled

by it—I just looked at the picture: the primitivism,

the colours, the darkness of sexuality, and the

mood it emanated. I felt like I was intruding by it.

And I experienced an uncomfortable feeling;

increased nausea, something like the nausea

Sartre tried to explain via his character Roquentin:

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all encompassing. I interrupted whatever

conversation, or non-conversation, was

happening at the time. What made you put this

here? I said pointing. Which Mustapha and

Lucia both ignored, both being consumed in a

heated conversation in Arabic. I am put in a

state that only rivalled the experience, but in its

very opposition. I decided to confront this state

and examine the picture even further: to then

stare at; the relationship between these five

characters, the strangeness of the positioning of

this figure with her back towards us, the

vibrancy of the colours merging and coexisting,

the African feeling of the shapes, the small

pieces of fruit, the presiding figure of the

character at the back towards the right, again

the small pieces of fruit; which I start to

imagine the taste of.


The Morning Sun

Morning arrived (the sun was shining through

the open curtained window, like a veil), I

naturally awakened, and assumed Lucia was

somewhere in the apartment; I heard pots and

pans and thought of her. I got up and walked

out of the bedroom to find Mustapha shuffling

around in the kitchen area, oblivious. After the

initial hostile reaction of the previous day, I

decided to try and start conversation with him,

though I considered the situation quite

contentious and ambiguous for Lucia’s natural

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mystique (her often distant manner) leading to a

full life of a multitude of strange happenings only

retold inadvertently. I still encouraged myself to

make an effort, even though she had not

explained the relationship between the two of

them, apart from a few brief sentences

punctuated by moody sullenness I was not

remotely able to exercise her out of, excluding

the times we were having sex. She didn’t even

eat the previous day, her increasing gauntness

exuding a witch-like quality. Whilst he was

cooking, Mustapha spoke of trivial matters

politely stirring, subtlety, by my initial how-areyou?

I just listened until he mentioned that he

would be going out in the afternoon to meet a

man he only referred to as Bon. So I asked about

their meeting, whilst noting that he had very

natural joie de vivre in the manner he conducted

himself. It was full of flippant wrist flicks and

expressive facial pronouncements. He began to

talk about Bon and what I came to know as

Berberism—it was something I had faintly heard

of, but not very much at the time. Apparently it

was a political-cultural movement that was

against Arabization and had a nucleus of a group

in Rabat. I found it quite invigorating to

understand that this very movement existed. So I

nodded along and he continued to describe, in

detail, what it was, concluding the purpose of the

movement he said: ...we are Moroccan, not

Arabs... I prompted him to say more as he

finished cooking yellowed curried chickpeas,

183


pieces of chicken and serving it with a few loafs

of pitta bread. He didn’t offer me any food

perhaps as I doubted he knew the full extent to

who I was, although he was so impassioned by

the topic of Berberism that I thought he was just

lost in the song of his thought. I could barely

smell this food. We continued to talk, ignoring

the necessity to have conversations about Lucia,

until he mentioned that he needed to go, a little

after he had finished eating. It had been a few

days since I had been to my own place. I owed

Yasin money so I decided I would walk back,

taking the time to appreciate my surroundings,

especially because it was during the night. Even

in the dark I kept noticing bits of debris—these

random fragments with stories of their own.

Eventually I arrived back to my building, where

there were three men standing outside, I

noticed. They were speaking in French and

smoking cigarettes. As I was walking past the

three men were staring at me, I nodded my head

slightly, only the one man stood wearing a black

leather jacket nodded back, the other two just

continued to stare, even the one wearing the

Kufi. In the lobby I didn’t hear or see Yasin, and

assumed he was somewhere else. I then walked

up the stairs to my room. She was just sitting

against the door just looking down at the floor,

and so I was taken aback, mostly with the

thought of B in my mind. —Leila. What are you

doing here? She didn’t bother to quickly get up,

and just stuttered: Where... have you been? I

hadn’t thought about her situation much that

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day, so I just opened the door, without a word.

—Well, you’re here... Standing and then

following me in, I could only muster these words,

or perhaps it was just a thought (I quickly forgot).

After ten minutes of talking I heard a loud knock

at the door, and she was jumpy by it. She made a

dash into the bathroom. I opened the door and B

was stood, but this time a shadow of a man is

stood also, he was not alone. He asked if I had

seen Leila and I told him no assuredly, which

seemed awfully fortunate that he had not turned

up fifteen minutes earlier. He didn’t interrogate

me, as much, but it seemed he wanted to by the

way he was looking around the room, but he

soon left. I decided at this point to try and

orchestrate her escape to London along with

Lucia, I thought it most pertinent to the situation

at hand. All that I would need was a fraudulent

passport and some persuasive tactics, it seemed.

The next day I set a plan in motion, and I gave

Leila an extra key in order for her to hide out

whilst I contemplated what to do.

Absurd Happenings Amounting To?

City nights instigated a certain feeling within me

(Tangier was no different) probably accentuated

by acquired similarities (imperatively language,

for one thing, and therefore culture) of France.

And then there was this contrast of the Arab

world too. By this I found the atmosphere quant,

but stifling to a degree. Just walking through the

city I was subjected to an endless array of

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emotions, I thought, like an affair in a sense; Not

even ants wage such wars within their

consummate ways; they eat, crawl endlessly,

copulate in droves and instil some wondrous

feeling in people, who call themselves poets, I

reminisce of as I continued walking the dark

African night. I was more than enlivened by the

thought of millions of happenings all developing

simultaneously and the Ant-like feeling that

could manifest in this very thought, I would too

easily instruct the wind if I had to, but I have no

desire, I thought to myself, beside the

consideration that doing this would prohibit an

ability to just watch happenings unfold. By this;

broken cars become worlds; fights between

strangers; wars. I had been walking at least two

hours without concern for time, I realized, just

these feelings swelling at will. I picked up a rock,

large enough to heave and large enough to create

havoc (I reckoned), and I held it in my hand. The

sight of this rather large SUV seemed to scream

something at me, and I blasted the rock into the

window. In my periphery I saw a woman walking

on the opposite side of the road, and I didn’t try

to hide what I was doing, I just did it. —You

slept with my wife! I screamed in the broken

Arabic I understood, before walking off. —What

are you doing? Screamed the woman opposite. I

repeated nothing, nor even flinched.

Wonderings of being caught up failed to entice

me, and they never materialized into any other

happenings this night, as I continued walking

back to my place with a distinct feeling of

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A

accomplishment, like a conceptual Artist achieving

the success of a piece alone, or a one man play

without an audience, or the concrete moving of

tectonics plates colliding; I felt less aligned to the

status-quo, however small this act was, this night

was less riddled by insomnia, not much, but in

some way, I found the body just a sentimental

entity by this. As such forms of chaos fed the body,

but failed to occupy a mind generally perturbed, I

thought this, but it may have come out of my

mouth in the middle of the night, in between

closed eyes —Even delinquents have their votaries.

Exotic Themes of Views

It was tempting to quickly judge the situation, as it

came full steam ahead: Lucia introduced him as

Ahmed and there I was sitting with not only him,

but G also. I had no idea this was the case until

afterwards. The living room was quite dark for the

light in many Moroccan homes was skewed by

certain architecture—I considered it baroque in

affect. Lucia was much more familiar with Ahmed

than I had presumed; she was gently chiding him

about the length of his hair, touching it and

accosting him to sit down right next to her. G

walked in, as I find out later, and is neither smiling

nor frowning. Both G and Ahmed were wearing

jalabiya’s, red and white, respectively. Lucia’s

nervous laughter at times jilts me, I thought. And

abounded to the presence of some heaven, I found

agnostic. To set the mood further would falsify the

anecdote, it was just a happening that can only be

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described in a clinical manner, rather than

finding cliche ś. G sat, after a few minutes he

began to stroke his beard, whilst still chewing

some tobacco. He was in the armchair and Lucia


and Ahmed were on the couch, with her doting, I

was sat closest to the door in another chair.

Mustapha had been sent away by Lucia a few

hours earlier and she had intended to make

amends for sibling disagreements they seemed to

have maintained for a time. G then started to

speak in a laconic voice that I instantly

considered hypnotizing: rhythmic and quite loud

also, as if the same voice for the call for prayers

was now closer. He was reading a passage of the

Quran. And even I was quite enraptured; there

was something about G, I considered the detail in

the way he spoke as rather specific, he

pronounced each word slowly and only looked up

at Lucia and Ahmed once or twice, just as he

begun. I think, at the time, that it would create a

scene if, for example, a glass smashed, but I deny

the thought for the look on Lucia’s face. This is

the first time I had seen such sincerity in the way

she was behaving. I was shocked that she didn’t

dismiss such a reading as unnecessary, but then

again, she too often prays, perhaps not five times

a day, but on many occasions I assumed she did, I

considered. When the room was quiet Ahmed

turned to Lucia and started to talk about the

negative consequences of what can only be

referred to as secularism. She did not chastise

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him; at this moment I estimated this type of

response, but it did not come. G was still chewing

his tobacco, nodding his head to some of the

things Ahmed was saying. This lasts for about

thirty minutes, before G stood up. Ahmed quickly

followed by standing and they both started

walking towards the doorway to leave the

apartment. I was only addressed once in the

entire conversation, and only Ahmed

acknowledged me. This intrigued me, even

though she was very much consumed in

comparison. Lucia thought someone was

following her. But the thought of leaving disgusts

her, she said the previous night. I thought an

escape would be best for her, and decided to

instigate again, and by the time G and Ahmed

had left, I noticed that she was emotionally drawn

out, by the way she slumped down into the seat

after her shoulders were held up, practically to

her ears. I made a few suggestions of where we

could live in London and the timing allowed

them not to be met with disdain.

Recognition to a True Extent

As a little more time passed I noticed a change in

Lucia now, sure I was secretly quite torn between

her and Leila and their ever-increasing

differences and abundant similarities, but it was

Lucia that had started to depend on completely

different elements. Although it was just the

setting (of our relationship) that had changed

from my place to her apartment, Lucia had

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started to fundamentally change. For one thing

she had become closer to Ahmed. And remarks

about the radicalization of her brother were soon

replaced by a quiet approach taken to

suggestions to their turbulent prayer group. She

told me the day before yesterday that she had

attended a group meeting with Ahmed and G. I

had no real opinion and said, fine. I should have

gauged what this could have meant, but I

considered this response as adequate at the time.

It is only after my presence of a bit more than a

few weeks spent in and around Lucia’s

apartment did I find out the true extent of

Mustapha’s relationship with Lucia. She owed

him money and he had no money himself, so this

meant Mustapha suggested he slept on her living

room couch to pay off the debt they had

accumulated in a yet to be defined manner. After

our conversation about Bon and Berberism, I

started to suspect that Mustapha was Gay. I

started to notice his general rhythm. Just

listening to him walking across the wooden

floorboards in Lucia’s apartment: clack, clack

clack, stop, clack, clack, clack, stop.

_____________________

This hope, (within Lucia) that I had always been

unable to pin point, had maybe become more

influential in her decision making processes,

especially since the day of the mugging, which

did bring us closer in fact, introducing me to her

life outside of the four walls of my dilapidated

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room and further into her world in Tangiers.

Though after this incident, she instantly made

excuses to not be alone, it was only few weeks later

that this disintegrated and she started

disappearing for longer and longer periods of


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time. I came to realize that her jaunts were not just

simple jaunts or the types I imagined, but rather

time for deep reflection, permeated by an

increasing obedience to prayers. I wanted to see

where she would go, so one Saturday when she

said she was slipping out to buy some bread, I

followed her, about twenty feet behind, just

caressing the corners of buildings and looking

ahead at her walking, though on this day she

actually did buy some bread, she still chose to

walk further than needed in order to do this, but

in her walk I sensed a different Lucia than the one

I was introduced to in the beginning. In place of

the hardened woman, I came to see a girlish

femininity, especially in the way she walked; arms

folded, eyes centered less prone to distractions or

even concern out of her inner parameters. I hadn’t

noticed that she would fold her arms in this way.

It could have been the way that she usually

walked: a distraction just around the corner, as if

her eyes wanted to see something completely

different to what she was confronted by. I got back

to her bedroom, Picasso’s painted eyes were still

staring directly at me, as if my soul sat perched

naked—The poetry of masculine desire. She then

told me that her feelings for me had intensified

nonetheless, and when she said this it looked like

she was split between two worlds. I distinguished

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the idea of life being so fractured or tried to.

To Taste Properly

Regardless of my ability to acquire taste fully, I

was still drawn to food even Moroccan food, as I

considered any food the only form of

reciprocated pleasure, as if intercourse but

without the melancholy of another material body

inducing some form of loneliness, but a richer

fabric of all that life truly considered. I

sometimes thought that I was found somewhere

here. This was why the experience located a

voracious footnote that I was concerned by; a

footnote that was cantankerous and just down

right rude by the time a few weeks had passed, as

I was still unable to even distinguish a melon

from a baby goat or Billy, in taste. Every taste

seemed like the last and this only encouraged

yesterday to feeling exactly the same as the day

before, as if lazily inscribed to a ridiculous way of

living. I had to understand the decomposing of

those simple eggs (of the experience) again, no

matter how silly it may have seemed, I thought

alone in my room. Mustapha called while I was

attending to Leila at my place, and invited me,

along with Lucia to Rabat for the weekend. I told

him I would be delighted, on the basis that it

would provide ample amount of time to establish

the true extent to what Berberism actually meant,

as Mustapha mentioned that he was going for the

sake of Bon and some sort of informal meeting

they had planned to host. Mustapha said that we

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could all stay with Bon as he had a place that was

close to the city centre and was quite large, as he

had inherited it from a wealthy relative who had

died two years previous. Neither Lucia nor

Mustapha had a car so we intended to take a bus


AA

that would take about four hours and meet Bon

there. I had thought the conversation had ended,

but Mustapha had more to add. —I wanted to talk

to you, but you have been gone for a few days, he

said before clearing his throat. ...Do you find

Lucia and Ahmed strange? —What do you mean?

—I mean...it just seems a little bit strange the way

they are together... —Is he there? —They went

out, no... —I’m a little lost. — Well...okay let’s

forget about it... I failed to understand clearly

what Mustapha was saying, beyond the initial

suspicions of Ahmed and G’s contentious prayer

group, my attempts to ascertain any more

information over the phone seemed to stumble

into mumblings that led to us just wishing each

other a good afternoon. After I hung up I

considered the conflict between Mustapha’s

beliefs in Berberism, even if it was latent, and

what seemed like Lucia’s preoccupation with a

holy alternativeness. I had yet to contemplate

some sort of impending strengthening of

relationship with her and Ahmed or a new

conflict. I only hoped, even if I attested to

Murphy’s Law (at most times), that it belied sense.

After I finished this call, I moved off the bed, and

looked down at Leila, and when I scratched my

scrotum to rid an itch she begun taking off her

knickers, which she had put on after taking a

193

shower. I told her that it was fine and that she

should perhaps take sex more serious, I had said

something to that affect. You act like it’s just

fucking. —Sex? Just taking off your underwear

and putting them back on, said Leila. The time in

between rarely changes anything. And when she

said this I found myself even more enlivened in

her brokenness, but I was still contemplating her

ever clearer morphine addiction. She was thinner

by now, but still addicted; at least a hit a day.

Though I was not fully enthusiastic about the

thought of teaching her or delivering her. No, I

thought, that would be the wrong way to go about

it. Plus, there was the added pressure of her

having to ask friends to get her drugs due to her

fear of B finding her and punishing her.

Regardless of this I was very much overcome and

wanted to fuck her, for the very poetic sensuality

of her strange words. I bent down and took off

her underwear myself and fucked her once from

behind in her pussy and then in her ass in the

missionary position, or perhaps the other way

around. In both positions she would, at times,

look back distractedly moaning, out of sync with

the moment. In the morning I met Lucia at the

bus station, as I was walking into the station and I

noticed her standing with her back towards me

gesturing in conversation with another woman.

The woman was, most noticeably, wearing a

brown hijab. I soon found out that this woman

was Ahmed’s wife to be, Rajib and as he walked

to where we all stood I was introduced to the

happening of all of us going to meet Bon, and


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Mustapha, who had gone the night before, in

Rabat. Saccharine, I thought, stood holding my

bag and Lucia’s in order for her to hold

Ahmed’s, who was trying to struggle with his

wife to be, Rajib’s bag. Like a circle of despair:

we were all trying to help the other, and in

doing so condescending each other; I could see

the pensive look in Ahmed’s eyes when Lucia

picked up his bag as we were called to board the

bus, for him to then pick up Rajib’s bag, and for

his wife to shuffle about as if broadcasting her

not knowing exactly what to do. Only when the

putting the bags into the carriage area did

Ahmed say something with slight gritted teeth.

—I can do it. And, stood watching, I assumed

Lucia’s doting was due to his disability: lacking

an arm is similar to lacking an ability to smell,

but much more blighted, I thought. But there

seemed more to this, I kept thinking to myself,

and this awkwardness only became more

translucent as the journey continued: Lucia

wanted to sit next to Ahmed so she squeezed

into the seat next to him and left Rajib, who I

instantly saw as a bystander to much of what was

occurring, and myself seated across from them,

sat next to each other; me at the window and

Rajib closer to the aisle, on the other side of

Ahmed and Lucia. This bus seating

arrangement seemed strange, and was only

made stranger by the occasion to observe this

form of Lucia, and Ahmed, who was distractedly

reciprocating by, often, smiling and then

touching Rajib’s arm sat on the armrest, which

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was a hassle as he had to use his right arm and

reach his whole body over the passage. I could

only really see his arm protruding out of his T-

Shirt, just the nub, and by this I kept wondering

if he would have found me staring at his

deformity, but he didn’t, as I was hindered by the

attention of Rajib seated next to me for much of

the journey. She kept asking questions, albeit

sparingly as if acknowledging an awkward silence

that was constantly developing and then

redeveloping, as if a pebble thrown on a placid

lake: erupting and then reverberating into

nothing. In conversation she was warm and I

could appreciate her appeal to Ahmed, in their

engagement, but I sensed an element of strict

obedience, in the way she seemed to pronounce

her piousness when she mentioned Ramadan.

You see it’s not as if I had perceived Rajib’s whole

personality on the basis of her religious attire,

quite the opposite really, it was the very way in

which she performed, I thought, that spoke to me.

For one thing, the conversation, after banalities

made of the weather and another passenger

eating a kebab a few rows down, was strange as

she started mentioning what she thought a

woman’s role was in society. The little she knew

of me, meant I was one of those Europeans, she

said flippantly, like Americans. But Morocco was

different she explained profusely. I listened but

was mostly taking the time to consider what

exactly this sibling relationship was all about,

regardless of the impromptu fashion Lucia and I

had arrived into each other’s lives, at this point I

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had been consumed by her. She had a beautiful

elegant way of dealing with people and situations,

perhaps her blueness made many situations seem

meaningless at this time and that sometimes made

her way soothing, sensual and calm. Although she

still had an erratic air to her: even on the journey

on three or few occasions I noticed her puffing

her cheeks, cutting her eyes and rubbing her face.

It was not through the whole journey that I spent

either conversing with Rajib or slyly though

attentively overhearing Ahmed and Leila’s

conversation. No, I spent much of the time staring

outside of the window. Looking at the changes

through Tangiers into more rural areas, noticing,

in particularly, the strange way an elderly woman

drove so aggressively. Right as the coach pulled

towards the right lane this woman was mouthing

what I guessed were swear words towards the

driver in front, who seemed to be ignoring the

woman and driving along without a change in

pace. There were also great expanses of green,

leading to more roads into more and more lives I

imagined as disparate as those living in the Cities,

cattle, chickens, electrical wiring, random houses

in peculiar surroundings etc. We soon arrived to

Rabat, a man, wearing what I knew as a Janjin,

stood up at the front and started to tell us all to

not forget anything on the bus. The hat made me

think of the remoteness and lengthy distance from

Tangiers (four hours), but then again I reminded

myself that Rabat was the Capital City, however

the Bus Station spoke more to this remoteness. It

was full of quirky action, antics and happenings:

197

men hustling to sell tickets, an assortment of

vendors sat perched (clearly unlicensed) on the

floor selling; gum, chocolate, packets of crisps and

so on. We gathered our bags, Lucia was in a less

of a helpful mood compared to the start of the

journey so she just took her own bag, leaving

everyone else free to retrieve their own

belongings, and then we walked towards the

roadside, Bon and Mustapha met us there. There

was only room for five people in Bon’s Land

Rover so Mustapha suggested we take a taxi also.

It was only two of us in the taxi, Bon, Lucia, Rajib

and Ahmed all got into the Range Rover. Sat next

to Mustapha in the back of the taxi I felt a strange

concoction of emotions, because it dawned on me

that he was happy to see me, and I wondered if he

had had any sexual thoughts of me as he spoke his

usual fast talk, tempered with allusions to

Berberism and then he started to speak about

Lucia, Ahmed and G, before I had to even ask.

—...I really am wary of him, he said of G, It’s

exactly what I am against... Did you know G was a

hypnotist? —Was he? —In the Nineties...I know

from another man who knew him years ago, and it

tells, you know? He has a strange air about him.

You know Lucia should... —Should What? I

asked, feeling exasperated and as if I had just

wanted to get to the true essence of all these

happenings, and so I even started to feel a way

about Antonin; and how he would tend to order

events as less of an injury. — For one thing, she

really needs to stay away from G., this prayer

group and... —And... —Well... We had then


198

reached Bon’s place as the taxi came to a halt next

to a large prominent cream building with a large

black gate in front of it. I followed Mustapha out

of the taxi, still waiting for what he had to say and

retrieved my bags before taking them into the


AA

house, walking through the gate. Inside now, the

house acquired a glamorous aesthetic by the look

of the furnishings; cream antique ottomans, wine

dark chairs surrounding a similarly coloured

dining table etc. These things were quite sparse in

their positioning and gave the impression that Bon

had chosen each piece with exactitude, that very

much was accentuated when he spoke. As he gave

us a tour of the house he told us about a few of the

pieces of Art that he mentioned he had bought: a

painting from Algeria, a red wine-dark rug with

engravings of flamingos, another painting from

Tunisia too etc. He eventually showed each of us

to our rooms. I walked in and stood in the centre

of the room, turning to look towards the landing

at Lucia and Ahmed talking, after a few minutes

she walked, slowly, into the bedroom. We

unpacked a few things in a silence that was only

broken by the sound from the adjoining room;

this inverted silence steadily confronted by the

throes of a clearly deepening relationship. There

was a laconic sound to Ahmed’s voice and we

could hear bits and pieces in this next room, him

talking to Rajib, Rajib talking to him and the

sound of the silence in our room offset. At first

they were discussing their impending Marriage,

and then they started talking about something else

I couldn’t make out. Perhaps I just don’t really

199

want to know, I said in my mind, but if I did, I

may have felt a schizoid paranoia by the situation

as it stood. Bon then peaked his head around into

the room, a floating head, just staring at us for a

moment and smiling his jagged teeth at us. He

said that he wanted to show us something in the

garden, and Lucia hardly responded, only

nodding her head slightly, so I said that we would

be down in a moment. I was tempted to ask Lucia

what was wrong, but I was afraid she would say

everything. I walked out of the bedroom alone

and after I reached the top of the stairs, I could

hear Lucia behind following. Bon then said that

we had to see this, and started walking, from the

landing at the bottom of the stairs, to the garden,

through the dining area, kitchen. Now at the

bottom of the garden I saw about five of them all

stretched out across the garden next to beds of

flowers. —They’re flamingos, you like them? Said

Bon excitedly of them. And I just looked: at their

wings (which were all clipped, apparently), at

their strange movements, at their distinct

exoticness: their long necks particularly. And as

Bon continued to explain how he had them

imported from the Caribbean I sat down and

observed Lucia, or tried to, without her noticing,

whilst feeling a sense of surrealism as if an axiom

to the image of the situation. She, at first just

watched the flamencos too and said nothing, not

even at my ebbing (I had said that they were so

exotic) did she respond much: a grunt or a sigh.

But there was something in the way that she

looked at them that I found sultry, unequivocal.


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Lucia’s moodiness is not news to me, I held in

my mind, I only was truly familiar with this one

side of her, and became accustomed to the

fanciful aspects of her character only emanating

at random times, usually during sex, which she

remained consistent in. Though before the

evening came we spent more time amongst the

flamingos, with the wind blowing, and the sun

high in the sky. We rarely talk much, I

considered at this moment, and even the talking

we do is very much saturated in actions; our

actions are deeper than the sum total of all that

we had said to each other. And then Bon along

with Mustapha decided to host a meeting in the

living room after we had lunch in the garden. I

could have imagined that the lunch was

delicious, it looked so: bamyeh, tomato stew,

fried marinated chicken, saffron rice and some

bread. Bon, with exactitude, explained all the

ingredients in the stew: salt, onions, garlic,

pepper, paprika, all spice, lemon juice, sugar and

tomatoes. I found this explanation enticing and

wholly oblivious to my plight, I said to myself,

though I held this thought in and just nodded

along, eating. It was only in the evening that

things became even more interesting, it could be

said, as Bon and Mustapha were, of course,

hosting the gathering for their issues relating to

Berberism and I had mentioned to Mustapha that

I was interested in attending and he said that it

would be fine. Lucia was in the dining area when

the gathering started, where she was talking to

her brother. Rajib said she was tired, after

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Maghreb and so wanted some rest. The room

became full rather quickly. There was a lot of

chatter as I sat in a corner next to a sculpture: a

long languid brown wooden piece with a metal

base, primarily. These two distinct materials

juxtaposed together seemed most significant to

me, beyond the actual composition. It was still

very befitting of Bon’s character, which at this

time, came across as flippant, excessive and very

much what Mustapha had described as someone

of the Malamatiyya, (who were a Muslim mystic

group in 9th Century Khorasan that, primarily,

held the belief that outwardly piousness was

something to disdain, and rather kept their

beliefs private), so it was not strange to see Bon

smoking Kif, describing his different rather

secular Art pieces and often talking about sex

with an estranged partner. I distinctly noticed his

use of the word partner, and this remained

ambiguous from the first moment we had arrived.

Though I did not ask, in order not to draw

attention to my deficiency, I assumed the smell

within the living room as either rosemary or rose:

candles were placed sparingly around and had

been lit you see. And it imbued a sense of

occasion. Much of the conversation was a loud

stew-like happening of those speaking Spanish,

those speaking French, those speaking a form of

Arabic, those speaking Moroccan Berber and

small amounts of English. Though it all became

intelligible when everyone (eleven people, not

including me) centered on and about the main

living room couch, and Bon started to discuss

202

certain topics. Whilst I had no way of truly

discerning every aspect of what was said until

Mustapha would describe it to me, the sense of

community was clear to me. The passion also: a

man wearing a yellow sweater, who I later learnt

was a painter called Rafiq, was perhaps the main

culprit in his passion. He, after Bon introduced

topics, then started talking in French I could

understand, of the need for liberty with many

anti-Islamic undertones to his conversation. It was

quite enthralling, I kept musing. But this was

interrupted, as Rafiq spoke, when we heard loud

voices— It was Lucia screaming at Ahmed, who

then stormed out of the dining area through the

living room. I got up and walked into the kitchen

and saw her amongst the flamingos; she was

hysterically running around amongst the

flamingos screaming unintelligible words in a

chaotic manner that aroused a sensation in a

crowd that quickly grew. Like a spectacle in a

circus people just watched her chasing these

flamingos with her tits naked: bare, fleshy. I had

failed to reach her before she pulled down her

trousers, to then squat and defecate on the grass

next to the flamingos. I could hear Bon coaxing

his guests into the living room and telling them to

go on in embarrassment. From a certain angle the

flamingos were surrounding her as if to submerge

her into some sort of primal confliction, but from

another angel it looked like a performance Art

piece seen through a grainy VHS video—all

mayhem in slowed down motion...

203

Bizarre Estrangements

The tube arrived with a breeze whistling through

the humid air full of congested areas of varying

passengers all bustling and living their lives,

momentarily colliding with each other and at odds

with the general truth of the matter; the effects of

cosmopolitan congestion. The tube, now stopped,

saw a bevy of people enter it: tourists from Italy,

commuters from the local Euston area and of

course just general local travellers. And then the

exasperated people followed; they were the

passengers that wore their exhaustion more

blatantly; they walked slowly and were nonplussed

when their cheeks (butt, face), invariably, were

pushed against the window or something or

another: the psychological meanings of all that

occurs always has me amazed. Lucia was pushed

off the train, suddenly, surprisingly and boom;

She screamed, stood on the walkway as if

appearing naked to me her scream sounded like a

church bell or abrupt words spoken in a silent

movie; I heard every degree of her angst as the

other passengers just looked at her. I went ahead

home, trying to call her on my way (with no

response) when I could receive reception, and

waited for her to arrive back wet. As it was heavily

raining and the streets were of full of puddles:

small ones, large ones. It had only been two weeks

since we had arrived to London, but her scream

reminded me of Rabat and those flamingos: The

primal act of just mentally breaking down, the

poetry of it brought back memories of reading


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Leonara Carrington’s Down Below. That night she

had not arrived back and was not answering her

phone, which just rang and rang and rang. I did in

fact decide to distract myself. I left the squat and

walked towards Hackney, smoking a cigarette. I

took a side street so as not to walk into Dalston

and be confronted with these little Hipsters

prancing around. I had bought a bottle of

Teachers whiskey and had two or three cigarettes

left. The street was empty, notably so: nobody was

around, just cars lining the streets and the odd

light switch on. I had a hooded sweatshirt on and

I put the hood over my head. I rummaged around,

there was debris from outside a scaffolded house

and I saw a brick, as if theatre lights lit its form I

noticed this particular brownish pick brick. A new

looking brick for all those types, I supposed. I

picked it up, just as I had done before and heaved

it into the front of the nearest car window. But

this time I didn’t stop, I lit the front seat of the car

and just watched the seat start to burn for about a

minute, and then I walked off down the road.

Back away from Dalston with the sound of the

shattering of glass still fresh in my mind. That

week I had done, in total four more similar deeds.

Another brick into a car window, a large rock

thrown into an Art Gallery in Shoreditch, setting a

large bin alight which I pushed into the middle of

a road in Bethnal Green and I also threw a rock

into an apartment window on Queensbridge Road

—All done in the dead of the night. By the end of

the week I felt as if I purged myself from any type

of light and decided to entrench myself in a

205

darkness—A symbol (in action) of the very nature

of life, I told myself, as if an intersection. In a way I

started to hate Lucia, not for the obvious reason of

her disappearance but for the action of leaving

Tangier for London and therefore, inevitably

leaving Leila behind. The simple pleasure of her

young cunt came to me throughout the week, but

still being deeply consumed by Lucia I ignored

these thoughts or tried to. Though the image of

Rabat kept coming to me like a Helmut Newton

photograph — blue, it was all so very exotic...

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208

Yashu's Life

[commentary by Mary Bine]

1986 — 2015

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210

The Artist known as Yashu is a polarizing figure, and was

throughout his life. He oscillated between sheer madness

and extreme distillations of beauty in paint. His Early

work (p.9) was very much in the vein of Bonnard, and it

was said that Bonnard was a strong influence for him in

early interviews.

Though he soon started to penetrate the painting

world with ideas more related to expressonism and more

towards painters such as Matisse and Picasso. He had a

clear disdain, initially, for work that could be placed in the

field of over academic—he sought out influences as

disparate as literature and cabaret. The distinct notion of

his suicide perhaps means that his art is now saturated in

death...

'After Bonnard'

oil pastels on paper

21 x 29.7 cm

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'Portrait of Leila Dois with Black Hair'

Oil on canvas

60 x 80 cm

The oily remnants of admiration also can seep

into the realms of infatuation, assimilation

even. As Yashu was very much a person that

would pray at the altar of Leila, though this

portrait depicting her with a bird in one eye

and a cage in the other perhaps illustrates his

ideas on the soul of a woman very much

perplexed by existence, and as Franz so

poetically wrote, a tear in a life form...

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'Taking of Christ'


120 x 160 cm

In the mind shadows can grow, a bit in the

manner Jung often commented upon, the

distant smell of the mind astray with the

poetics of the everyday...Yashu, perhaps in

what can be referred to as his time in Euro

centric Religion, spent time in the bowels of

Christianity, where he then started to develop

paintings, and here a drawing on the subject

of Christ...though what exactly is occurring

in this work is very much a mystery...there

seems an array of happenings that can be

described as a reverie of mystique...

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'...spirits...'

oil on canvas

120 x 120 cm

One sense of light occurs in the dark, against the

notion of darkness perhaps Yashu's work is most

opulent, most stark, most glaring...here in this

painting that he entitled 'Spirits' Yashu delved into

a depiction that seems fragmented, of hands, feet,

breasts hanging and oblique...ideas careening

around Egyptian Gods and Goddesses saunter

around this canvas and orchestrate a world very

much more hard (objectively) then many other

works of Yashu's...

217

'After Otto'

oil on canvas

125 x 75 cm

The timing of this painting is unknown, though at

the time of Yashu's death, it lay around in front of

many other paintings stacked up against a wall in

his studio...The painting seems to declare a

worldview he didn't often commentate on in this

way...although he was quite known to often see

prostitutes however...

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219

'Yashu's Anger'

oil on canvas

160 x 120 cm

Behind the eyes, Solomon's words can spring,

beautiful bodies dressed in flowers with an ocean

of passionately opened mouthed that spring from

the fountain of Prometheus, or perhaps

Thor...Yashu had many inner demons that he

battled with, though he was able to pull out of his

soul a beauty that is so arresting, with strange

figures that press against the psyche and ask

questions as, what is a body?

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'Death of Ego'

oil on canvas

125 x 75 cm

It is very much a texture of Yashu's persona, the dire

straits of anxiety and the mania of a colourful

character that was always full of anecdotes and

ideas...The Ego, perhaps could be interpreted here via

the narrative of stress and worry, the plight of the

human condition that would often be obliterated by

Yashu's desire for ascendance into Deity heights of

feelings...the colours seem luminous and bright on the

dark background...

222

223

'Faces Screaming in The Wind'

oil on canvas

160 x 120 cm

Within the soul is the plight of our everyday

occurrences: dropped butter against kitchen floor,

failure to pay certain overdue bills, perhaps the death

of a cat...we seem to scream from the realms of an

innard world that we have only small amounts of

control over, the oceanic waves of emotions seem to sit

on tectonic plates that unfortunately ended in the

untimely death of a star, asunder into the ether of the

sky.

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225

'Four Women After Picasso'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

The gaps between the figures seep into your eyes, and

drape into the light of your pupils that before seem

ashen and dark, though not a darkness that is now

distinct in its allure...women in the boughs of love,

perhaps brought on by the taste of money,

power...Yashu finished this portrait after a year of

toiling on the subject of the woman, and was said to

have commented that the woman was the most

mysterious figure on the face of the planet, more so

than the Ghosts, the spirits...

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'Christ, Christ, & Breasts'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

Ton conspire, reach, go into, was often Yashu's

remit of activatae...he would sought out occassions

that would enable deliverance, knowledge,

suggestions that here, for example, ask eternal

questions that enliven more and more...the crevices

of fabric sitting on the bones, skin of a latent

Religiousity Yashu was experiencing at this

time...Don't go into the night...

229

'Berlin's Brothels'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

The taste of a painting is sometimes at the edge

of the canvas, although the middle can say just as

much, though within this rather murky world

that Yashu of course experienced, having spent

much time in Germany throughout his years, the

birds in the windowed blue sky are like sprinkles

of lemon squeezed onto a wound...

230

231

'The Clowns at Night'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

The prevalence of mouths offspring a general

community of motifs Yashu used to philosophise on the

the dark recesses of the soul, the Clowns assorted in

this painting a playing, shouting, laying in a manner

that accounts for a voluminous epic...as if the smell of

fatalism is at the end of the nose right up against the

eyes that visualise the night in a dramatic fashion as

this...

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233

'The Battle of The Night'

oil on canvas

160 x 120 cm

Faces vanishing into an expanse, teeth

obliterating the darkness, white eyes appearing

out of no-where, the tender pursuit into the dark

realms of the heart, channeling into a body that

splatters paint onto wood not out of luxury but a

need to depict that drama, the theatre of the

mind...

234

235

236

'Ode To Rembrandt'

oil on canvas

24 x 18 inch

Oscillating between Old Master techniques and new

ways of seeing things, though he soon moved onto

less figurative works with his infamous 'Life

Exhibition', this painting was seen as one of the

main reasons of his popularity, as it was also used

on the Cover of Franz' Vanity. Ares and with the

millions it sold this image would soon transcend into

our minds, into our souls, into the realms of

hysteria...Rembrandt smiles from the soil that has

sifted into the sky...

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'The Cow, The Cow, The Cow'

oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm

The colourful pursuit, as if the Voltaire's

breath sits on the tongue and emanates into a

modern fauvist atmosphere tainted by Dubuffet

and brought to life by Yashu's storied hand of

childlike depictions of a cow, a man, a

leash...something so simples seems so joyful and

distant from the last call into the wind, the dial

up and hang up on life...the dial tones sitting

on leftover plans...

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240

'Christ & Magdelane'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

...the whiskey light drips around, whilst the

sounds of screams bellow out into the void, where

else the sounds of anecdote of Jesus persists, of

apparent sexual episodes that draw upon the idea

that it would be impossible to never have had an

erection, the female figure seems to be erased but

ever more present, the skin pink clothes the canvas

in a beauty that personifies a violence that, as

Franz often wrote of as a violent serenity...

241

242

'Ideas on Dalí'

oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm

The prevalence of figures is a distinct taste of

Yashu's busy mind: full of people doing this, that, the

other and then more, as the newspapers sat at the back

of his studio and sprinkled all around against canvas

with underlined stories, one in particular, that sat next

to this canvas mentioned two women living in Munich,

deciding that they would escape to a village after they

had robbed a bank in Frankfurt...

The two women were said, according to the

newspaper cutting, to have purchased a Dalí paining,

the 1933 Invisible Man and soon placed it on their

wall, which went perfectly well, especially in lieu of

being Lesbians on the run, when seven months after

they had accomplished a rather sordid deed as this, led

to a neighbour calling the Police for loud noises of

sexual intercouse, deemed unsavoury and

debauced...we even heard something about a sausage,

said the old lady, which consequently meant the Police

storming in were not just disabling dildos, passion,

lips, but then stumbling onto bank robber's loot...the

Dalí is now in storage in Dusseldorf...

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'Rubens with a View of A Figure'


120 x 160 cm

It seems rather strange to decipher beautiful

things as scary, though I often enjoy being

frightened...the hindsight taste of a little

rollercoaster sits on the tongue and generates a

surge of feeling...as the eyes move towards the

figure that seems to penetrate into the marrow,

through the iris, the daylight view of a dark skull

like figure with heart outside skin lurking in the

background of Biblical happenings that amount

to the wonder of time...

244

245

246

'Gold Pots'

pastel on card

15 x 20 cm

For a long while Yashu had started to use

Gold...Gold coloured paints, Gold coloured

card, Gold coloured papers...the colour

embodies thoughts that we can't help to align

with royalty, and allure...the elegance of

disappearing into the assortment of bodies

distilled in an enchanting Gold...Gold...Gold..?

247

248

'Yashu's Last Drawing'

pastel on envelope

10 x 15 cm

The mind moves astray into the world of

happenings...doodles whilst ordering Chinese food,

shopping lists soon turned into a sketch of what..?

the yellow just floats around the edge of the

envelope, the figure seems to be so Yashu, a childish

remnant of an adult purview that is able to tell us so

much more than an ordinary drawing in an

ordinary persons house, on an ordinary coffee table,

no Yashu wasn't ordinary and there seems

something death like about the last drawing

executed by Yashu, something functioning as a

scream from a nonchalant abyss...

249

'Agnostic Priest'

oil on canvas

60 x 80 cm

This painting was only unearthed after Yashu's

untimely death, where the words Agnostic

Priest were scrawled haphazardly at the back

on wood that also had the number of a woman

called Amirah...the power of the paint seems

hot, as if the spiritual journey of Yashu is

breathing on your neck, up against the spine,

into the ear hearing strange words like,

Church, Altar, Sex, Death, Forever...a

painting like this springs into the atmosphere

and speaks to the soul...yelling I'll never really

die anyway...Yashu, Yashu, our Yashua...

250

251

252

'Untitled (Murderer on a Blue Bench at night)'

oil on canvas

160 x 120 cm

The darkness just shouts from the smirk, the lone

figure that comes alive by the possible idea of a

narrative that comes together slowly...the little

specks of red, perhaps blood, the lurking frown /

smile, the hands sat on the lap as if innocent,

thought lurking beneath is the dark background

that regardless of its wholeness comes across so

maximalist as if a Dalí painting with a myriad of

bizare happenings, though the strangeness is more

human, more close, though so far into a soul that

you wonder..?

253

'Anarchy of Us'

oil & oil pastels on canvas

120 x 160 cm

This is one of Yashu's early paintings that he

made around the time he Leila and Franz were

becoming what they became, three heads on the

same body, the poet, painter, the writer...so it

seems to scream of more than usual, priests, police,

crawling bodies, as eyes pop out into a dark world

that also seems humorous too, and perhaps

childlike also, Karel Appel seemed to often be a

point of reference for Yashu, though the taste,

smell is all his, of which the wonder of being a

representation of their bond to disorder...Leila,

Franz, Yashu in this requiem like world of art and

poetics that would see their souls sift into the sky

reflected on the ocean of their work left behind...

254

255

'portrait of Yashu'

oil paint on canvas

120 x 160 cm

...the violence of life elicits a certain charm, the

splintered ocean of mania, the calm solitude of

multiple characters residing within the one body,

whole, but rather broken...millions and millions

of particles of matter that display the portrait of

who you are...you stare into the mirror and see

teeth, mouth, passion, the flight of will...the

precipice of persona...

256

257

'portrait of Leila Dois as a Nun'

oil & oil pastels on canvas

50 x 50 cm

...exile into flux, escapism into tectonic plates

of Religion..? here Yashu decided to playfully

depict Leila, his friend that had at this time

become a Nun, as a rather searching soul, one

breast careening out of the darkness, eyes

towards what exactly..? a veil covering a face

distinctly still enraptured but so different to his

only other portrait of Leila, the primal scream

comes across more charming here perhaps, a

little lost in a way, as if fluency in a world, but

at the same time an attraction to the nature of

sex, bodies, laughter at poetic occurrences seen

on streets...

258

259

'...clowns...'

oil on canvas

160 x 120 cm

One of the last paintings executed by Yashu, it sat

close to his distilled body as if a scream, a

manifestation of chaos in the paint sitting on wood,

where a lone figure, detached from a bunch of

clowns circling a lone clown, is eyeing a rope haning

off a light bulb...the soul reaches for a balustrade, or

even voice, the imperceptible pull of sweet

melancholy coiled up in the realms of allure, death a

few times, as Bukowski mentioned, before you can

live, though death lurks on the corner, resistance

seeks the soul, or the soul seeks resistance, depending

on push or pull, the violence of the serenity so tragic

of beauty cut down, short lived, though apparent in

its need for brevity perhaps, though Yashu sat

naked, a soul naked with just the remains of frisson

of light, electricity, drama...

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261

Leila's Last Published Piece

[entitled: Elysium In The Sky]

[Introduction by Max Brod]

Leila investigated the soul, the in-ward reach of

the spirit in ways that another person couldn't

even fathom, people rarely seek out the abyss in

such a brave way...so in this last published

piece she bravely distilled all the notions of

beauty her work often personified, though also

spoke of a darkness that would soon claim them

all...it included drawings too, which, at once,

seem childish, but in hindsight so so tragic, so

so gorgeous, and so so strange...

262


A

'I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam'

— Slyvia Plath, Collected Poems

...the soul hangs as if fruit on a loaded gun, just as old

women pass by holding shopping bags full of tinned

goods, tea bags, medicines that won't prohibit death,

but reach into the soul and light a candle...though the

river of happenings just now seem to leak, passing the

old lady now walking into the dusky air with time

only a remit or limitation of thought, where did

Auntie go..? Nun like stares at the sex of another,

beating like a gun,

wound...

...a man holding a caged macaw passing mumbling

about a fish with the other arm holding that of a

screaming child mentioning something or another

about dying without this Ice Cream, the Elysium of

desire starts so young, though when will the want

stop..? In heavan if I don't want or need anything am

I not just a Vegetable, leaves against meaty sweet

corn, or a mango that never ages like those on those

film sets..? where beyond the phospherance I

sometimes can see Marylin, though mostly I walk

along the night in the mind and saunter...

around...

...nestling along pavements where sounds mimic

connections where the gun is still loaded up against

passion fruit, though I smell hot soup emanate into

nostrils that also smell deceit, lies convoluted into

endearing monologues of desires to reenact some

happening, somewhere, someplace...the wired

convulsiveness of our ways offset by our own vices to

263

do...

...and be..?

...why will the night take me along the path of Kali

Yuga...? though the obliteration of sense seems so

melancholic sweet, like a hug under a strawberry

coloured duvet filled with the smell of yesterday,

though today I still walk along the pavements

contemplating the invisible happening we call death,

the strobe lights of an opening bar, the odour of the

mystique summoned by way of a workman carrying a

pink torso, like Sylvia speaks of, but my mouth moves,

mumbling into the night that soon moves into dawn,

along the canal watching a fleet of birds sift cold air

into the lightening sky where legs feel numb now from

wandering the streets... to then be sat against the soft

cushions with continuing thoughts of death doodling

this...

264

...asking...what does this mean God..? you seem

to know everything, and if you knew my choices

then did you not make them yourself..?

....though, without talking to God

now...instead to the Sky, I wonder

if this is a cloud..?

265

...or maybe we just amount to thoughts more carnal,

death after the dishonour of our skin into strangers arms

that know little of the santicty of the body, the soul, the

soothing piano of the mind...the piano keys that offspring

out of the bewilderment of the sky, the stars, the

flowers, the water, the little shadows against grains of

rice on a coffee table...

...perhaps a teeth devouring my

breasts like Goya is all that I want to

be, a violent desire...

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267

...though today i dreamt i could touch the sun, that i

could perhaps make the sun laugh...it could be so

lonely up there...beaming down on men walking

fresh tarmac drinking beer cans bought with the lasts

of their monies, eating the apple Eve supposedly ate

too...I don't want his rib thank you...

268

269

...though I wonder too, if this is

more me, then the mirrored

reflection that is so so wrong...

270

271

...but more pressing: who's to say that I'll die, though

the precipice seems rather close, with the breath of

wonderment I might ask the sky if it wants me..? it

could need me..? so perhaps it's best if I go, and arrive

to here again perhaps maybe as a butterfly with purple

wings spiraling into the ether...

...along with chimney smoke...

...the gentle romance of death, red lipstick on white

skulls drunk out of, like those Aghori...

272

...perhaps this is me staring at death, over there, over

here, over everywhere like mangoes going into the

night with suitcases of kiwis, perhaps to sell them...

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274

...or perhaps I could take over from God, build a

shrine and cause hysteria with humorous

digressions of ideas related to Slyvia's Mr Tomilio,

though the Child at the library said my drawings

looked like silly billy silly's, whatever that means, I

want to vanish into the sky where I could rest in the

ocean's true home...

...smiling in the cozy casket

ignoring the calls to come back

here and sit through another

episode on the idiot box, but in a

nocturnal honey dew of splendor,

the night-time glisten of

freedom...

275

...expanses of eyes sitting on a

canvas inside the canvas

watching its true colours chase

the sky...

276

...Leila Dois...

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...a deathly serenade...

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