came over.
The new painting featured a life-size shadow of a human body in burnt or-
ange. It was not a realistic body but a soft outline like a gingerbread man
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
9 7
against a streaky green ground. The body was decorated with little red and
black bodies, Abbas’s alphabet people, his ideogram men laid out in lines like
the figures of an Egyptian wall painting. A rudimentary penis like a U had
been drawn in the wet paint with the pointy end of a brush to indicate that the
home body was nude and male. The figures in the stacks of art books on the
floor were finally having an effect. Or maybe it was the effect of Sunday after-
noons with Daniel.
“I like it,” said Daniel. “A city of bodies. A body of bodies. A body full of
other selves.” He liked it better the more he described it. “Yes, it does look
busy. But what’s wrong with that?”
“It is too loose. It needs tension to hold it together.”
“It’s all on the same plane. Did you want to keep it flat?”
“No. Not if flat is flabby.”
Sometimes Abbas treated Daniel as a layman, a visual idiot, which hurt.
But today Abbas treated him as a fellow painter, and Daniel was pleased.
“Maybe if you suggested a face in the head,” said Daniel.
“No, the face must remain blank.”
“What looks cluttered is where the figures spill out of the body.” Daniel
pointed to the right hip, where two lines of alphabet men continued past the
burnt orange into the green.
“I wanted to suggest freedom and overflow. But yes. It flattens the body
into the canvas. I will take it out.” Abbas knelt down, snatched up a palette
knife, and without pausing, dug into the green paint covered with beautiful
squiggles. It came up in a soft curl like cake frosting. Daniel couldn’t help
cringing in sympathetic pain.
“You didn’t want to think about it more?” said Daniel.
“No. The first thought is always the best thought.”
Abbas worked quickly, scraping out a small patch down to the canvas,
leaving the burnt orange part untouched. He wiped off the palette knife, then
took a tube of paint and a brush and began to lay a light green weave over the
open wound.
We must look so weird beside this picture, thought Daniel, like two naked
med students examining a cadaver.
Abbas disappeared back into his art, so Daniel went over to the sink to
9 8
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
wash off. The porcelain was covered in a black fungus of old paint. There was
no hot water, and Daniel scrubbed his crotch and stomach with an icy wash-
cloth. He wondered what the studio would be like next month, when the
weather got colder. He glanced over now and then to watch Abbas at work.
The man looked quite beautiful stretched over his canvas, one leg extended
back, half his weight resting on a locked arm—like a greyhound doing tai chi.
Their spouses talked as if they might be lovers, as if this could turn into a
messy, heated affair. No way, thought Daniel. We’re just two men who like to
jerk each other off and talk about our art. Well, only the art of one man. Yet
Daniel found Abbas’s selfishness oddly restful. He could imagine one day
wanting more from the man, but not now, not anytime soon.
When he finished getting dressed, he came over to say goodbye. Abbas re-
mained squatted by the canvas, delicately painting in the patch with a darker
shade of green, seamlessly matching the new brushstrokes with the old ones.
The orange body now stood completely free of the ground. There was still
clutter, but it was an orderly clutter, a contained busyness. The painting was
better.
“You know,” said Daniel, “you really should get yourself an American
dealer.” They had discussed this before.
Abbas did not look up. “If you will give us a few names, Elena can write to
them.”
“Or maybe I can write to them,” Daniel offered.
Abbas looked over his shoulder. “You would do that for another painter?
That is very generous.”
“Hey. We’re generous with our dicks. Why not be generous with other
things?” Daniel usually treated his gallery contacts like gold, but he felt he
could do a better job of selling Abbas than Elena did. “I should be going,” he
said before he offered anything more.
Abbas stood up to say goodbye. He didn’t touch Daniel—his forearms
and chest hair were already flecked with fresh paint scabs—but he held his
arms out from his sides and poked his head forward for a friendly kiss. His
mouth opened into Daniel’s mouth; their tongues lightly shook hands.
“Later,” said Daniel.
“Later,” said Abbas, and he promptly went back to work.