...a deathly serenade...

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
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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