The Tetrachromat (On HOLD)

Chapter 18. Artistic Choices

"Our Lord works in miraculous ways. He often guides us to the places where our talents serve the greatest purpose under the guise of chance." Father Nikifor wouldn't let the other man off the hook. "Could you spare your nephew to assist at the icon painters' shop in the mornings?"

Uncle Vasilii lifted his head, blinked, like a man coming out of a tunnel into the sunshine. "Let it be done."

"God bless," the monk said and turned to Besson. "Be at the shop with the first light. The master will expect you."

And then he left in the ripple of his black robes.

This is absurd! Drafting you into monastic ranks wouldn't help Vasilii's virility.

Besson didn't listen. Once the door closed behind Father Nikifor, he stared at it with his mouth ajar.

Okay, maybe I understood little about the period's matrimony, but I recognized a recruiter in search of talent when I saw one. He thinks you can be an asset for the monastery as an icon painter; I spelt it out for Besson.

The effect wasn't quite what I hoped for. A slow, dreamy smile spread over his features, comprehensible across all ages and cultures. This smile belonged to someone who was treated as useless, awkward, unfit all their life, then suddenly hailed as valuable just as they are.

The more Besson's heart swelled, the more envy tugged on mine. The usual consolation that my moment of validation might yet to come wasn't there to fall back on. Stripped of everything except for consciousness, I watched my alter-ego wrestle with his newfound significance.

The choices were opening up for him. The monastery in Uglich or Moscow. Icons or politics. Fight or flight.

Don't let it go to your head, I grumbled, but he did the right thing. He ignored me. He was happy and... ravenous. Like, literally, he was hungry. And, for once, he went to the table and chomped down on the leftovers of his uncle's meal before cleaning it up.

Afterward, we spent a restless night.

Besson was waiting for the sun to rise with a pounding heart.

I mourned my century and all of its bright promises to me, all of its advantages, that collapsed so damn fast, it made me wonder if they ever were real. Was my age simpler, kinder and more clever only in my imagination? Or worse: was my age fine, but like all ages, it tested those who surfed it, and I had miserably failed to keep up with its tides. The answer wouldn't come into my fractured mind.

***

The icon painters workshop was housed in its own building, with its windows facing east to take advantage of the morning light. It smelled of pigments, solvents to dissolve them, freshly cut wood, water, fresh and stale, candle wax... a sucking hollow born of last night's envy, that I had soothed, renewed itself under my heart... It smelled like a studio I had frequented, in a basement in Moscow; it smelled like the students' studios at the Academy. The best smells in the world.

The workshop looked like a studio too, with cleaned up spaces for those organized and the table full of color-stained rugs, brushes and sketches with charcoal. Instead of stretched canvas, here it was wooden boards.

The master—Kirill, according to Besson's breathless thought—was already waiting, even though Besson interpreted 'at dawn' liberally. The sun hasn't risen yet, only diluted the night's darkness at the horizon. The bell hadn't yet rung to the morning prayer.

I was surprised that Kirill beat Besson to it; I thought he would unlock the doors. Kirill, in his turn, seemed surprised that anyone showed up so early. He startled from a long table crowded with jars, mortars, pestles, a basket of eggs and pouches to turn on his stool and face Besson. Pleasantly surprised, it seemed, judging by the toothless smile that gaped in his unkempt gray beard. Bushes of similar gray, unkempt hair peeked from the unlaced collar of his loose linen shirt. Judging by the stains, he loved scratching his beard and chest when thinking.

"You're back, lad." A huge bald, wrinkled forehead overhung all of Kirill's features not hidden by the beard, but there could be no mistake. He recognized Besson. So, he must have been the Master who praised the painted eyes on dead Dmitrii.

"Aye." Besson drew in a huge gulp of this special air, looked around him like he couldn't believe it wasn't a dream and grinned. "I'm back."

"If you are here, make yourself useful. Fetch me blessed water." Kirill pointed a stubby finger at a small silver jar at the end of his table. His one foot tapped the box he rested them on, and he covered with his sleeve the mix he was working on. A secret pigment, I supposed. "Quickly, quickly!"

Besson dashed to grab the silver vessel and then to the corner with an ornate vat stood—blessed water. It was tall, the rim almost at Besson's mid-thigh, and almost empty. Besson had to bend over to fully submerge his jar. The water rippled over the silver, shiny dapples.

No! Not now! Besson released the jar and stumbled backwards from the call of the past. His pleas didn't even slow the familiar gray closing in on us.

Kirill turned on his stool toward the sound of Besson's tumbling body. "Lad? Lad, what is wrong with you? Why, God, why dost thou punish me so? Just when I found someone with a lick of understanding, he swoons from a whiff..."

The last thing I saw in the year 1591—now so familiar, I almost felt affection for it—was Kirill in grayscale, limping toward Besson and me. Kirill was a dwarf, I realized just before our tangled consciousness was yanked away to transit to a different time, different place.