The Portrait by Willem Jan Otten

cigarette.
    It’s about Valery, she said. I’m working on a major portrait of him. For the newspaper. Quite revealing. Sensational facts. There are a few things I’m trying to find out. I already know most of it. And it suddenly occurred to me: as far as I know, you’re the last person he saw.
    Specht, Creator said hesitantly. I noticed he was being cautious. From the direction of his voice, I could tell that he had looked at me for a moment.
    You know some other Valery? Minke laughed.
    I thought, She laughs like a man, with that husky voice of hers.
    The paper’s going to publish it, my article, the moment he’s dead. That’s why I’m under so much pressure now.
    Dead?
    Creator gasped, seemingly for the same breath as me.
    Didn’t you know?
    And she told the astonished Creator what she knew. Incurable disease, a cancer that had been proliferating for years — that was why he went through phases of being completely bald. And now, after more than a year of intensive treatment, he had, according to her best sources, lost consciousness and was dying, if he wasn’t already dead. That was why he’d come to Rotterdam from Antibes; he was at the Erasmus Medical Centre. It really was a question of hours; she knew that for a fact.
    After an extended silence, Creator asked, When was the last time you saw him then?
    I think it was a couple of weeks after he came here.
    Specht, here?
    I could feel Creator’s brain racing. Since the telephone call from the Bald Man, as he called him, so long ago now, he had realised that the agreement was not a game.
    What are you playing dumb for? Valery was here — he told me that himself.
    Himself?
    I was sure Creator was thinking the same thing as me: Minke is trying to test me.
    She scowled. What difference does it make? He’ll be dead either today or tomorrow. And then you’ll get an avalanche of obituaries and articles. And facts. And you, according to my best sources, are the last person he met with.
    No. That would be you then, Creator said.
    Okay, me then.
    A silence fell.
    Brilliant wine, she said.
    I heard the glasses being refilled — this time by Minke, I think.
    I don’t know what you’re being so ridiculously secretive about, Minke said. There’s no law against seeing Specht.
    Creator cleared his throat. Only now did I notice that he, too, had taken the news very badly. He could hardly speak.
    Did he know he was dying?
    For more than a year now, Minke said.
    So that was it, I thought; that was what we saw. The beads of sweat, the failing voice, the distraught emptiness appearing in his eyes every now and then … when Specht was here commissioning Creator, he knew that he was carrying out his last acts … mercy, spare me … and those three sessions, when he tried to conjure Singer up before Creator’s eyes … perhaps they were his last great effort …
    I didn’t know, Creator said. I had no idea. Pas du tout .
    And he said, God, how could I be so blind?
    He kept finding it hard to grasp what he had just heard from Minke.
    You’ll be saving a life.
    What?
    Nothing, Creator said, nothing.
    He was bewildered. Never before had I felt so strongly that I was going through the same thing as him. I, too, was bewildered.
    Minke stubbed out her cigarette. What’s that noise?
    It’s started raining, Creator said. As promised.
    A broad rustling had started up in the garden.
    The commission, I thought. The commission. It was Specht who commissioned me! He was going to pick me up and see me! Then and only then would I know who I am now that I’m Singer. Who will I belong to if I can’t belong to the man who commissioned me?
    What did he come here for?
    Valery?
    I don’t know why you’re being so ridiculously cautious, Minke said. What difference does it make now? Any moment now, we’re liable to hear he’s dead, and you’re one of the last people who saw him.