By Roald Dahl

1952

  THAT year-1946-winter was a long time going. Although it

was April. a freezing wind blew through the streets of the city, and

overhead the snow clouds moved across the sky.

  The old man who was called Drioli shuffled painfully along the

sidewalk of the Rue de Rivoli. He was cold and miserable, huddled

up like a hedgehog in a filthy black coat, only his eyes and the top

of his head visible above the turned-up collar.

  The door of a cafe opened and the faint whiff of roasting chicken

brought a pain of yearning to the top of his stomach. He moved on,

glancing without any interest at the things in the shop windows---perfume, silk ties and shirts, diamonds, porcelain, antique furniture,

finely bound books. Then a picture gallery. He had always liked

picture galleries. This one had a single canvas on display in the

window. He stopped to look at it. He turned to go on. He checked.

looked back; and now, suddenly, there came to him a slight uneasiness.

a movement of the memory, a distant recollection of some.

thing, somewhere, he had seen before. He looked again. It was a

landscape a clump of trees leaning madly over to one side as if

blown by a tremendous wind. the sky swirling and twisting all

around. Attached to the frame there was a little plaque, and on this

it said: "CHAIM SOUTINE (1894-1943)."

  Drioli stared at the picture. wondering vaguely what there was

about it that seemed familiar. Crazy painting. he thought. Very

strange and crazy-but I like it . . . Chaim Soutine . . . Soutine

... "By God!" he cried suddenly. "My little Kalmuck, that's who

it is! My little Kalmuck with a picture in the finest shop in Paris! Just

imagine that!"

  The old man pressed his face closer to the window. He could

remember the boy--yes, quite clearly he could remember him. But

when? When? The rest of it was not so easy to recollect. It was so

long ago. How long? Twenty-no, more like thirty years, wasn't it?

wait a minute. Yes--it was the year before the war. the first war,

1913. That was it. And this Sourine, this ugly little Kalmuck, a sullen

brooding boy whom he had liked--almost loved--for no reason at all that he could think of except that he could paint.

  And how he could paint! It was coming back more clearly now,

the street, the line of refuse cans along the length of it, the rotten

smell, the brown cats walking delicately over the refuse, and then

the women. Moist fat women sitting on the doorsteps with their feet

upon the cobblestones of the street. Which street? Where was it the

pay had lived?

  The Cite Falguiere, that was it! The old man nodded his head

several times. pleased to have remembered the name. Then there

was the studio with the single chair in it and the filthy red couch that

the boy had used for sleeping; the drunken parties, the cheap white

wine. the furious quarrels, and always, always the bitter sullen face

of the boy brooding over his work.

  It was odd, Drioli thought, how easily it all came back to him

Now, how each single small remembered fact seemed instantly to

remind him of another.

There was that nonsense with the tattoo, for instance. Now, that

was a mad thing if ever there was one. How had it started? Ah, yes

--he had got rich one day. That was it, and he had bought lots of

wine. He could see himself now as he entered the studio with the

parcel of bottles under his arm-the boy sitting before the easel and

his (Drioli's) own wife standing in the center of the room, posing

for her picture.

  "Tonight we shall celebrate." he said. "We shall have a little

celebration, us three."

  "What is it that we celebrate?" the boy asked without looking

up. "Is it that you have decided to divorce your wife so she can marry

me?"

  "No." Drioli said. "We celebrate because today I have made a

great sum of money with my work."

  "And I have made nothing. We can celebrate that also."

  "If you like." Drioli was standing by the table unwrapping the

parcel. He felt tired and he wanted to get at the wine. Nine clients

in one day was all very nice, but it could play hell with a man's eyes.

He had never done as many as nine before. Nine boozy soldiers and

the remarkable thing was that no fewer than seven of them had

been able to pay in cash. This had made him extremely rich. But the

work was terrible on the eyes. Drioli's eyes were half closed from

fatigue, the whites streaked with little connecting lines of red; an

about an inch behind each eyeball there was a small concentration

of pain. But it was evening now and he was wealthy as a pig, and

in the parcel there were three bottles--one for his wife, one for his

friend, and one for him. He had found the corkscrew and was

drawing the corks from the bottles, each making a small plop as it

came out.

  The boy put down his brush. "Oh Christ," he said. "How can

one work with all this going on?"

  The girl came across the room to look at the painting. Drioli

came over also, holding a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other.

  "No! "the boy shouted, blazing up suddenly. "Please--no!" He

snatched the canvas from the easel and stood it against the wall. But

Drioli had seen it.

  "I like it."

  "It's terrible."

  "It's marvellous. Like all the others that you do, it's marvellous.

I love them all."

  "The trouble is," the boy said, scowling, "that in themselves

they are not nourishing. I cannot eat them."

  "But still they are marvellous." Drioli handed him a tumbler

full of the pale-yellow wine. "Drink it," he said. "It will make you

happy."

  Never, he thought, had he known a more unhappy person, or

one with a gloomier face. He had spotted him in a cafe some seven

months before, drinking alone, and because he had looked like a

Russian or some sort of an Asiatic, Drioli had sat down at his table

and talked.

  "You are a Russian?"

  "Yes."

  "Where from?"

  "Minsk."

  Drioli had jumped up and embraced him, crying that he too had

been born in that city.

  "It wasn't actually Minsk," the boy had said. "But quite near."

  "Where?"

  "Smilovichi, about twelve miles away."

  "Smilovichi!" Drioli had shouted, embracing him again. "I

walked there several times when I was a boy." Then he had sat down

again, staring affectionately at the other's face. "You know," he had

said , "you don't look like a western Russian. You're like a Tartar,

or a Kalmuck. You look exactly like a Kalmuck .

  Now, standing in the studio, Drioli looked again at the boy as

he took the glass of wine and tipped it down his throat in one

swallow. Yes, he did have a face like a Kalmuck-very broad and

high-cheeked, with a wide coarse nose. This broadness of the cheeks

was accentuated by the ears which stood out sharply from the head.

And then he had the narrow eyes, the black hair, the thick sullen

mouth of a Kalmuck; but the hands-the hands were always a surprise,

so small and white like a lady's, with tiny thin fingers.

  "Give me some more," the boy said. "If we are to celebrate,

then let us do it properly."

  Drioli distributed the wine and sat himself on a chair. The boy

sat on the old couch with Drioli's wife. The three bottles were placed

on the floor between them.

  "Tonight we shall drink as much as we possibly can," Drioli

said. "I am exceptionally rich. I think perhaps I should go out now

and buy some more bottles. How many shall I get?"

  "Six more," the boy said. "Two for each."

  "Good. I shall go now and fetch them."

  "And I will help you."

  In the nearest cafe Drioli bought six bottles of white wine, and

they carried them back to the studio. They placed them on the floor

in two rows and Drioli fetched the corkscrew and pulled the corks,

all six of them; then they sat down again and continued to drink.

  "It is only the very wealthy," Drioli said, "who can afford to

celebrate in this manner."

  "That is true," the boy said. "Isn't that true, Josie?"

  "Of course."

  "How do you feel, Josie?"

  "Fine. "

  "Will you leave Drioli and marry me?"

  “No."

  "Beautiful wine," Drioli said. "It is a privilege to drink it."

  Slowly, methodically, they set about getting themselves. drunk.

The process was routine, but all the same there was a certain ceremony

to be observed, and a gravity to be maintained, and a great

number of things to be said, then said again-and the wine must be

praised, and the slowness was important too, so that there would be

time to savour the three delicious stages of transition, especially (for

Drioli) the one when he began to float and his feet did not really

belong to him. That was the best period of them all-when he could

look down at his feet and they were so far away that he would

wonder what crazy person they might belong to and why they were

lying around on the floor like that, in the distance.

  After a while, he got up to switch on the light. He was surprised.

to see that the feet came with him when he did this, especially

because he couldn't feel them touching the ground. It gave him a

pleasant sensation of walking on air. Then he began wandering

around the room, peeking slyly at the canvases stacked against the

walls.

  "Listen," he said at length. "I have an idea." He came across

and stood before the couch, swaying gently. "Listen, my little Kalmuck,"

  "What?"

  "I have a tremendous idea. Are you listening?"

  "I'm listening to Josie."

  "Listen to me, please. You are my friend--my ugly little Kalmuck from Minsk--and to me you are such an artist that I would like

to have a picture, a lovely picture--."

  "Have them all. Take all you can find, but do not interrupt me

when I am talking with your wife,"

  "No, no. Now listen, I mean a picture that I can have with me

always ... forever .. , wherever I go . .. whatever happens, .. but

always with me , .. a picture by you. "He reached forward and shook

the boy's knee, "Now listen to me, please. "

  "Listen to him," the girl said.

  "It is this. I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back.

Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will

be there always."

  "You have crazy ideas,"

  "I will teach you how to use the tattoo. It is easy, A child could

do it,"

  "I am not a child."

  “Please….”

  "You are quite mad. What is it you want?" The painter looked

up into the slow, dark, wine-bright eyes of the other man. "What in

heaven's name is it you want?"

  "You could do it easily! You could! You could!"

  "You mean with the tattoo?"

  "Yes, with the tattoo! I will teach you in two minutes!"

  “Impossible!"

  "Are you saying I don't know what !'m talking about?"

  No, the boy could not possibly be saying that because if anyone

knew about the tattoo it was he--Drioli. Had he not only last

month, covered a man's whole belly with the most wonderful 'and

delicate design composed entirely of flowers? What about the client

who had had so much hair upon his chest that he had done him a

picture of a grizzly bear so designed that the hair on the chest

became the the furry coat of the bear? Could he not draw the likeness

of a lady and position it with such subtlety upon a man’s arm that

when the muscle of the arm was flexed the lady came to life and

performed some astonishing contortions?

  "All I am saying," the boy told him, "is that you are drunk and

this is a drunken idea." ,

  "We could have Josie for a model. A study of Josie upon my

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