I heard once more from Inspector Bernard Latrelle. He expressed me a large envelope. When I opened it, a color photograph fell out, along with a brief handwritten note:
This photograph documents an object reported missing in April, 1970. If you ever find it, I would swim the Atlantic to see it.
Yours, B. Latrelle
I picked up the photograph and took it outside in the sun. After studying it, I called Dr Prowse at the institute, then Danbury, and finally Harry.
“We’re going to the institute, bro.”
“Haven’t you had a rough enough time, Cars? You don’t need to see Jeremy. And I sure don’t.”
“We’re not seeing Jeremy. We’re seeing Trey Forrier. You want to be there, Harry, trust me on this one.”
I lay in the back seat during the drive up, lost in thought, barely speaking. Harry and Danbury shot each other glances, but asked no questions of me.
Vangie allowed all three of us to meet with Trey Forrier. We went to his room, stark, nothing more than a bed, a chair, a desk, and a battered leather trunk in the corner. The walls were white.
“Harry, this is Trey Forrier.”
Harry held out his massive hand. Forrier studied Harry’s face for several seconds, then, surprising me, reached over and gently touched his palm. I leaned against the wall and clutched the envelope.
I said, “There are two things I want to talk about, Trey. A piece of your art was outside the walls. It had my face on it, a simple, perfect drawing. Do you know how it happened?”
Forrier cupped his chin in his hand and thought for a long time.
“Je crois qu’il est arrivé il y a déjà des années. J’y suis venu, j’ai rencontré votre frère…”
Danbury again translated between us, making conversation as effortlessly as if Forrier and I were speaking directly. “I think it happened years ago. I came here, met your brother. He was sad because he had no photograph of you. You were still angry at his crimes and refused to send him one. Sensing the depth of his pain, I offered to draw you for your brother.”
Forrier went to the trunk in the corner, opened it.
“When I arrived, I was allowed a few personal belongings. Among them these small studies…” He produced a few pieces of painting on canvas, held them up. The colors were glorious. He turned their reverse sides to us, white canvas.
“He advised me when you were coming for a visit some years back. I peeked out my window as you passed my door and took a mind photograph.
“I practiced sketching you on the back of one of my studies, happy to put it to use. I worked in pencil. Such pointed items are not allowed, but they are here, of course. When your brother was happy with your face I created a lasting drawing for him with pen and paper. He keeps the drawing in his desk and looks at it often. It is his favorite possession. He will never tell you this.”
The room began to shimmer. I closed my eyes; swallowed hard. Forrier said, “I always erased the studies. I did not want it known that I draw. The doctors will pick at me if they find out.”
I now knew what had happened, thanks to Lydia’s boasting. “The art was stolen.”
“Thieves are everywhere. Several of my scraps disappeared.” He pointed to the trunk. “I now keep it locked.”
“The Eiffel Tower was behind me in the drawing, Trey. Why?”
“A view from a little park. It was my favorite place so long ago. Jeremy told me of your difficult childhood, and I decided to place you somewhere happiness could be found.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“What is your second subject?” Forrier asked.
I pulled the photo out of the envelope, set it on Forrier’s desk. Harry and Danbury drew close. “My God,” she whispered. Harry just stared, stunned into silence.
In the photo, the color faded somewhat, the paper brittle, a thirtyish Trey Forrier - a decent-looking man with blazing eyes in a normally shaped face - stood in a studio to the side of a large painting. In the bottom quarter, the painting was a nightmare jumble of skulls and blood and excrement and destruction, the section revealed in the mask. Golden worms spun through the carnage.
A quarter of the way up, the painting began to change: horrific blacks and reds and umbers lightened. The chaos was replaced by a sense of calm. The worms began spinning themselves into a shimmering figure both human and ghostlike.
Forrier stepped close. Tapped the photo with a delicate finger.
“Les vers sont la lumière de la creation…”
“The worms are the light of creation, the seeds of the soul. They learn to crawl amidst death and filth. It is necessary to the journey, how they learn the direction of heaven.”
By mid-point in the painting the figure stretched skyward, ascendant. The central form seemed to glow, the light as pure as the silvery luminescence of Vermeer. In the upper third of the painting, the transformed figure exploded into light and color, the richness of Chagall, the raw power of van Gogh. It was as though Forrier had mixed his paint with photons. Despite the intensity of the expression - or perhaps because of it - the painting emanated a transcendent sense of peace and harmony. It was a journey that ended well.
“Incredible, Mr Forrier,” Danbury said.
“It was only a study,” he replied.
“A study,” Harry whispered, shaking his head.
“There are other paintings?” Danbury asked. “Please say there are.”
Forrier walked to his bed, sat. There seemed no more aura of madness in his manner.
“On a préparé mon affaire au procès…”
“My case was prepared for trial. There was evidence against me, though I had hurt no one. I could never hurt a soul. It is a transgression.”
“But you stopped protesting your innocence,” I said. “Admitted everything.”
“Me croyant fou, on m’a installé dans une cellule tout seul…”
“Believed mad, I was sent here. It was a revelation. Everything was white: the floor, the walls, the ceiling. I began painting on them.”
“You said you never did art here,” Danbury said, confused.
Forrier walked to the wall and began conducting. No, not conducting. He was wielding a brush, not a baton.
He was painting.
“I realized everything I wanted to do in painting was better without paint. Without canvas. Without brushes. Without people watching, waiting to steal your work.”
Danbury stared at the blank wall. “You mean that…”
Forrier nodded. “I have covered many of the walls with my art. It is a long process. But I am learning so much.” He nodded toward the photograph Latrelle had sent. “I am no longer sad about the painting taken by Marsden. It is crude and ugly compared to my new work.”
I opened the door and looked down the white hallway, from it branched other halls. There were resident rooms, meeting rooms, a cafeteria.
All white as snow.
I stepped into the hall and Trey Forrier followed. Harry and Danbury were right behind. I looked into the sea of white. “Tell me about your new work, Mr Forrier.”
“Comme toujours, l’art du moment final…”
Danbury said, “As it has always been: the art of the final moment. Where everything begins.”
I touched the wall, amazed. “And it’s all around us?”
Forrier held his arms out to the sides and spun in a circle with childlike delight. “On passe à travers le cœur de Dieu!” he laughed.
I turned to Danbury.
“He says we are walking through the heart of God.”
Still dumbstruck, we managed to thank Trey Forrier for his time and help. We left him in the charge of a guard and turned toward the door. We were three dozen feet away when Forrier called after us.
“Amis! Friends!”
We turned. From the angle and distance I could not see the damage to his face. He looked as happy as anyone I had ever seen.
“Le monde se sent hors de danger parce que j’y suis enfermé…”
Harry and I looked to Danbury.
“Trey says the world thinks it is safe because he’s in here. He believes he is safe because the world’s out there.”
Forrier waved and turned away. He paused, bent to amend an image on the floor, then disappeared into his room.
We walked into the parking lot. The sun was warm on our shoulders, the air sweet as honey. Danbury said, “Do you think - in some way - his painting really exists? On some level the walls of that horrible place are filled with images of indescribable beauty?”
Harry said, “If we believe it does, it does. That’s all it really takes, right?”
We got to the car. Harry opened the back door, waved us inside. “Why don’t you folks climb in back,” Harry said. “I’ll drive.”
We got in. Harry jammed the car in gear, spun in a circle, clipped a bush, straightened out and we escaped from the gray buildings. We were out on the main highway when Harry slapped the steering wheel and chuckled.
“Hey, Cars, remember when we had the car in the shop for the flat? Rafael was on the case?”
“I’m not senile, Harry, I remember. Why?”
The car veered as Harry bent forward, started patting under the dash, like feeling for something. “Four years back Rafe’s kid brother got tight with a gang. Kid had an ugly future if he didn’t get wised up fast. I took the kid home for a weekend and laid a little straightening into him; kid’s fine now, college. Rafe knows me a bit, knows what I like, figured he owed me a favor.”
“What? He put an extra spare in the trunk?”
Harry kept fiddling. I heard a click, like a switch snapped. Just like that, Muddy Waters thundered from speakers tucked somewhere out of sight. “We got tunes, bro,” Harry yelled over the music. “Just for every little now and then.”
“Ain’t we something,” Danbury said.
Harry grinned into the rear-view. “Settle in, cousins, we’re on the high road to home.”
Danbury snuggled against me. Kissed my cheek. Blew one to Harry. He laid the pedal flat and we roared to my place to catch the sunset, about all that’s left to do after a long walk through the heart of God.