Calvin Baker - Grace

“The party was in a small, petit, petit club, maybe the size of this reception, and when Mr. Davis come, everybody shut up. He went to the front of the room, and still does not say anything, and he turn his back on us. It is like, fuck you, my appointment is with the music.

“He create a space that nothing can enter but pure music. He begin to play, and it is even better than at the concert, and no one say nothing the whole two hours. It was the best night of my entire life. And it is only because a spirit see me, and take me from the rain and put me in the concert, and the same spirit put me in the party. Life is like this, no?”

“When we seize it, my friend.”

“Or are fortunate and remember what gives us happiness, and see possibility to have it.”

We were friends after that, and his words were still with me the next morning when I left the hotel, easy-hearted and centered, to see Genevieve. On my way to her place I stopped to buy bread at our favorite pâtisserie , and oranges for juice from the fruit seller. It was still early when I reached the top of the stairs to the atelier, the quiet morning light streaming through the skylight in the hall, where I could hear her footsteps on the other side, so knew she was awake.

When I knocked there was no answer. I called out to her, full of a joy that had welled up inside of me for no seeming reason, but still she did not respond. I knocked again, louder, before fishing in my pocket for the key. As I turned it in the lock I heard unintelligible sounds from the other side, but the security chain was fastened and the door would not budge.

I rang her on the telephone, but could not reach her that way either, so thought she must have been wearing headphones, or earplugs. I wrote a note, and slid it under the door, before leaving her breakfast on the table outside in the hall and making my way back to the street.

When I returned in the evening the pastries were still there. I knocked again, and heard the sound of her moving around inside the apartment. I called out to her. Still there was no answer. I was worried by then, but told myself she was in a mood and just wished to be alone.

I returned the next day in late morning. There was still no answer, and I became consumed with dread. One of the neighbors heard me out in the hall and opened his door to see what the commotion was.

“Have you seen Genevieve recently?” I asked.

“No, but there has been an awful racket in the apartment all night. I do not know what it was.”

I tried my key again, but the security chain was still in place, and the door cracked only partway ajar.

“Genevieve,” I called through the opening. She did not answer. I pressed my eye to the crack, where I could see a horrible mess inside, as if something had exploded.

“Genevieve!” I heard her sobbing from deep within the apartment. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you alright?”

“Oui.”

“Do you want to let me in, baby?”

“Non.”

“Why not?”

“I do not want you to see me like this. You will be angry.”

“I will not be angry. I promise.”

“ Non, amour. Go away. I will call when I am feeling better.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be at the hotel.”

I heard her still crying from the other side. The neighbor remained in the hall, and I asked whether I could cross over from his balcony. He agreed and I went through his apartment with a feeling of slight embarrassment, but offered no excuses.

From the balcony I heard Etta James rising from lower down the hill, and saw Genevieve’s windows were open. I sprang over the wall separating the flats, and down along the widow’s walk. From my perch outside I could see the extent of the damage in the apartment, and my mind raced with worry. She had covered the walls with paint, and lashed string all around, with pieces of paper pinned to the string, and stacks of what looked like papier-mâché , crisscrossing the room in a maze of confusion, where she was seated on the floor amidst it all. She was still wearing the same clothes from two days earlier and obviously had not slept and was in the most awful way.

When she looked up and saw me on the balcony, she shrieked, and threw the water glass in her hand, which shattered against the window frame as I clambered inside.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I figured it all out, and wanted to make it before I forgot,” she said.

“What did you make?” I asked, tenderly as possible.

“It does not matter. I did not finish, and now you are angry because you think I did the wrong thing, and I have lost my concentration, so you have ruined it. I told you to leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I did not mean to ruin it.”

“It is too late. Do you want to see what you ruined?”

“Yes, show me what you made.”

“I know you were worried, because I do not work anymore, and thought I would be like some silly princess who does not do anything and does not know anything except how to wear jewelry, and takes everything for granted. So I wanted to show you all the meaning of everything. Here, see, are the cave paintings and here is the totem pole and here is the primitive perfection, with its ancient sacred magical power, and here is the perfection of the Goyas. Here is Tintoretto, and Michelangelo with all the known universe of God, and the choirs of angels and the saints and the kings and the pilgrims and the penitent and the sinners and the demons. Here is the modernism, and one of Picasso’s crying women, because every time he don’t know what to paint he makes his woman cry and because the people they love the suffering, and here is the surreality, and here the beautiful light from Corot and the perfect life force from Manet and here is Degas looking at his girls and here is Matisse and all the immaculate colors and the object is here and the form is created and the form is destroyed here by the photo that makes realism into something else, and the abstract is here with pure consciousness and here all the pop things and cartoons for the Americans, and on the wall is Guanyin Bodhisattva and, next to it, there, you will see, is the Virgin, and the suffering the people love so much and here is the creation and it is all the meaning because if you look from here are the eyes that are not gone from the world. Okay I will take the pills again now, and now you know all before we marry but first I wanted to show you this, the entire world. It is everything, almost everything, before the pills make it stop.”

I felt knifed through the core and stood frozen with pain; afraid for her and afraid of her, and in awe of the sheer amount of energy that had poured out of her, as I navigated that divine madness, not knowing what I should do. I reached her at last, but she only bit down on her lip anxiously, and turned and went straight away to the bathroom, before emerging with a bunch of pills, which she took with water from the faucet.

“How long has it been since you stopped taking them?”

“Two weeks,” she said. “I will be fine again. You will see. But perhaps it is you no longer love me, because I do the wrong thing, the crazy thing. But the crazy thing is necessary.”

“I still love you,” I said.

“Okay, we go now.”

“Where?”

“To the hospital,” she answered, as I tried not to cry and kissed her wild, wild eyes.

I stayed with her until I felt confident she would be all right alone, before leaving one afternoon, two weeks later, to meet Davidson, whom I had not seen since dinner at the restaurant.

“How are things with Genevieve?” he asked sympathetically.