Diary of a Film Read online

  praise for Diary of a Film

  “A meditation on filmmaking, art, grief and privacy. Constructed with the skill of a watchmaker, with a precise, consistent pitch of intensity.”

  —Keith Ridgway, author of A Shock

  “Immersive … This is a wise and skillfully controlled novel that can be read in an afternoon, but which radiates in the mind for much longer.”

  —Financial Times

  “Diary of a Film is about how art ravages and redeems. It is about the responsibility artists bear both for their art and the world that must contain it; about the imperative to create something substantial in a world that moves too quickly to capture beauty to one’s satisfaction; it is about living an ideal, committing to a principle whatever the potential cost, leaping into love and trusting that it will hold you.”

  —Stephen Kelman, author of Pigeon English

  “A wonderful meditation on why we tell stories, and who gets to tell those stories—and the grief of your masterpiece belonging only to its audience once it’s finished. Sentence by sentence, one of the most beautiful novels I’ve read all year.”

  —Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby

  “A beautiful, poignant novel of love and longing … This tale of a director beguilingly captures the agony of making a film—and letting the public see it.”

  —Tim Robey,Telegraph

  “Niven Govinden’s Diary of a Film, his sixth novel, is also his best yet. Smart, sexy and cinematic (in many senses), it is a love letter to Italy and to film.”

  —Alex Preston,Guardian

  “Vicariously I experienced again the freedom to travel and visit a European city just to catch an exhibition, go dancing or merely escape the mundane for a weekend. Diary of a Film is about seeing the familiar in new ways, finding friends wherever we are and coming to terms with the past being the past. Set amongst the gourmet surroundings of a Northern Italian film festival, it reads like an elegy for a just-gone era.”

  —Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk

  “I truly fell in love with this book. It gifts the reader, offering complex human relationships, beautifully written; I felt a genuine sadness when each scene ended. Reading Diary of a Film, I was powerfully reminded of the depth of the human heart, and of the work which proceeds from it.”

  —Okechukwu Nzelu, author of Here Again Now

  “Govinden has created a work of taut and enveloping beauty, which gets to the heart of what it is to live an artistic life caught in the never-present of the piece just made and the piece as yet uncreated.”

  —Andrew McMillan, author of pandemonium

  “Govinden’s prose flows with the smooth lilt of a moving camera … an outstanding, luxurious novel.”

  —Michael Delgado i

  “Fall into its rhythms, and a few nights at a film festival will become an existential exploration of the creative process.”

  —Katie Goh, the Skinny

  Deep Vellum Publishing

  3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226

  deepvellum.org • @deepvellum

  Deep Vellum is a 501c3 nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013 with the mission to bring the world into conversation through literature.

  Copyright © 2021 Niven Govinden

  Originally published in 2021 by Dialogue Books, an imprint of Little, Brown

  First Deep Vellum Edition, 2022

  All rights reserved.

  ISBNs:

  978-1-64605-180-9 (hardcover)

  978-1-64605-181-6 (ebook)

  library of congress control number: 2021950360

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Front cover design by Luke Bird

  Cover Photo by Roger Bradshaw @ Unsplash

  Interior Layout, typesetting, back cover by KGT

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Diary of a Film 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  1.

  I flew to the Italian city of B. to attend the film festival in late March. Our entry into the competition, a liberal adaptation of William Maxwell’s novel The Folded Leaf, had been officially confirmed, and I was expected to participate in three days of interviews and panels to promote the release, with a jury screening on the second evening. My co-producer Gabrijela had arrived at the start of the week to prepare; also the cast, who were busy hawking other projects, about which I was both curious and jealous. It’s hard to think of actors, good actors, as anything other than your own once you’ve worked with them. I knew they would be expecting me to see their films while I was there, wanting their betrayals to be blessed, and I anticipated that it would hurt as much as watching them with other lovers; a feeling especially pronounced when the new film was still warm on my lips. Eight months had passed since the production had wrapped and I missed their company, particularly the two leads, Lorien and Tom, who had a youthful ease that blended seamlessly into our production family. Nothing of the film could be changed at this point and I had made my peace with it, absorbing the heightened pressure of meeting strict deadlines in order to screen in this competition. There were other festivals through the spring and summer, but this was the one that mattered to me, having previously brought me luck and with it a sense of calm. But for all my confidence I arrived in the city feeling apprehensive. The trip had the air of both a working holiday and a funeral. There was excitement for the next stage in the film’s journey, one in which I envisioned only good things, but also a finality, for with it my participation would cease. It was for Gabi, the actors and their publicists to take the baton and run for the glory they dreamed of. I could return to my hometown of S., regroup, and retreat into my ideas. My first impulse on arriving at the airport was to have the car take me directly to the hotel, so keen was I to see Lorien and Tom again, to hear their voices and to feel their breath. I wanted to suffer their tender, respectful mockery, typical of young Americans who had been brought up well, but I was also aware that this would be the last time that I would play their loving God, and I wished to delay that. They had not yet seen the completed film so therefore a realm existed where they could not be disappointed in me. It wasn’t the first time that I explicitly sought the love of my actors. There’s an almost supernatural aura of openness, risk-taking and safety present in the shooting of some films that does not exist in others. As always we had been pressured by a tight shooting schedule and insufficient money, but The Folded Leaf was nourished by magic. It informed the breaking-light-of-dawn shooting and held its power over us until the end of the day. Drunk on its potency, it interrupted my sleep for much of the principal photography, so keen was I not to lose this holy atmosphere, fearing the mist would clear on waking. I am not a superstitious man – there is no room for the Ouija in filmmaking – but we were all touched by the same feeling, and simply wished this gift to stay. It was something I hoped was honoured in the final cut, and by which Lorien’s and Tom’s faith in me would be justified, as mine already was with them. I asked the driver to take me to the harbour, where the fishermen were delivering their catch, with the strict instruction to collect me at the same spot in half an hour. My late grandparents lived in a fishing village, so there was something resolutely familiar in watching the boats come in. Fishermen from the one trawler docked carried a procession of buckets to a line of trestle tables holding l
arge polystyrene boxes loaded with ice. I was taken back to childhood and the surprise of seeing what was there, watching now as the buckets were swiftly upturned, a shower of fish clattering in their new ice boxes. Then, as now, there was something depressing about being unable to compete with nature, and how much of its infinitesimal wonder could outsmart the camera. My film was set in the Italian countryside, and though the gardens were lit by angels, the fruit trees fulsome and glowing, they did not contain the life that tumbled before me. I thought of parental disappointment when a child follows a lesser path, only the state of the film was entirely down to my hands; I was no bystander, but responsible for all of it. The woman on the other side of the table was shouting at me for blocking the view of others who were waiting to buy. I was awake then to the laughter of the grounded fishermen as they sluiced the blood and guts from the cobbles with buckets of fresh seawater, and the attack cry of the gulls that hovered above. Get a move on, came one man’s voice. What’s he doing? asked another. Make your decision somewhere else, mate. I seemed to move further back into the crowd, but I knew that I would not leave without buying a fish, eventually taking what was left in the box, a grouper and a sickly-looking grey mullet, and going back to find the car. The bag was of the thinnest white plastic, gossamer to the touch, which allowed the rough texture of the grouper’s scales to graze my palms as I walked. I could have held the bag by its flimsy handle, but instead, I held out the package horizontally before me, as if making an offering to anyone who would stop and acknowledge my presence. My film was offered on similar terms. By walking into the hotel and the suite reserved for my first meeting with Gabi and the cast, and then subsequently with journalists and potential distributors, I too was making an offering, as pure and sincere as the catch turning rigid in my hands until I suddenly felt embarrassed, dumping the package in the gutter before we drove away. I looked at my gesture rotting in the sun until it was out of sight, hoping the gulls would sense that it was there and quickly destroy the evidence. Talons tearing through plastic to reach flesh and bone; pecking and chewing until nothing remained. The hotel, a grand palazzo converted in the early sixties, always felt like home. It was a repository for both my successes and my failures; rooms where I had celebrated with abandon or cried bitter tears when the work was misunderstood. Once I stepped into the lobby and made myself known the process would begin, unstoppable in its certainty and form. I had no memory of why I wanted to make this film, what impulse had driven me to push this project above all other contenders, or what it was in Lorien’s and Tom’s previous work which had spoken to me of their potential as leads. I was unable to pinpoint the hour of shooting when I first saw magic and was compelled even more to push through, so sure of the story I was telling; fearful, of course, but determined. If anything, I wished to run from it. I knew of an espresso bar a short walk away, where I could drink coffee at an outdoor table, smoke a cigarette, and give myself some final space before the onslaught, and in walking I felt a purpose regained. It was tucked deep in the backstreets where the district changed into a working hue, an important factor in me wanting to go there, for to be away from the tourist throng was to be among the living. In finding the place I grew more certain of myself. I heard the strength in my voice as I caught the barista’s eye and ordered a double; assurance in my posture as I leaned forward slightly, my palms lying flat on the counter. The craving for a cigarette did not fade but I was aware of the corrosive effect it would have on my voice, which needed to hold up for hours of interviews. I took my cup and found a space in a broken line facing the road, where it was possible to inhale the smoke of those sun-chasing customers: two men in their seventies, and a woman closer to me in age, middle fifties, each in their own space, minding their business. The sanctity of the smoker and the beauty of neighbourhoods, of pals and familiarity; the satisfaction of being in your corner of the world. I fought to have my film edited in my hometown of S. as I had done with previous films, but the new financial backers had insisted I worked in a larger city, vetoing the expense of shipping prints and other masters from labs and sound studios to the setup I had spent years building. I lived for three months in a nondescript apartment block ten minutes’ walk from the edit suite, a mostly business district that turned to a ghost town in the evenings. Twelve weeks of regimen, forensic and all-consuming, away from my family for longer than I would’ve liked, in an artificial environment where the pleasure of gentle neighbourhood repetition was cast aside for something greater. This was working life, one which I was used to, only I had felt more withdrawn than before; a mixture of my lonely domestic arrangements and the luxurious sterility of my setting. Standing outside here eclipsed the blue of the edit suite; the silence that could be found through a city’s white noise, the simple pleasure of coffee, with dappled sunlight hitting your face. This was where prosperity lay, not in the artificial nature of what I had filmed and submitted to the festival jury. I had to stop thinking this way: I’d made something beautiful but was struggling to accept this simple truth. Not for the first time; I’d had difficulty throughout my life with this. Do you want a cigarette? the woman asked. I have one here if you need. Am I making it that obvious? I said. I’m trying to be good, but the smell always gets the better of me. Ah! You’re an ex-smoker! There’s a saying that there’s no one worse than one who’s reformed, she said. In which case, I am profoundly guilty, I said. The woman was of a similar height and held my gaze as she spoke. When she reached into her pocket before holding a crumpled cigarette carton before me, she laughed, but in a way that was gently conspiratorial rather than disparaging and judgemental. She looked capable of that, too, in the flash of her eyes as a trail of teenagers on scooters thundered past, but in our interaction she was a nicotine comrade in arms; it was an international code that I had relied on many times over the years to break the ice. I could’ve spent the day at this spot, alternating between a barstool at the counter and catching what sun there was outside. I felt something toxic being drawn out of my system the longer I stayed there, my mood lifting, fears waning. The woman was good company, and we covered everything from the price of coffee to the gentrification of the city. We talked of the lack of street signs in the area and how that was both a curse and a blessing, keeping the tourists away, but also creating difficulty for those genuine guests of the vicinity. My mother is a very proud woman, she told me. When she came to visit my new apartment she walked in circles for over an hour rather than ask a stranger for help with directions. We lamented the spiralling graffiti though we appreciated the art of it, and the city’s failure to tackle the mountain of dog shit. I had a boyfriend in the eighties who was a graffiti artist, she said. He was one of those lost kids who wanted to disrupt. Disappear all night, and in the morning you’d hear of a new wall being covered in the city. He wasn’t one of the vandals you see now, those kids on bikes who tag their names or stupid slogans on the shutter of their local pharmacy or whatever. He was an artist without the knowledge or means to break into art. The streets were all he had. What happened to him? I asked. Some of the guys in New York and London who were doing that became superstars, no? He killed himself, she said. He was closer to his paintings than I thought. Preferred being in darkness. I’m sorry to hear that, I said. It was a long time ago, she replied. Another life. I can show you where a couple of the murals still exist, if you’re interested. She spoke with bravado to show that she had moved past her grief, but a shine in her eyes indicated how much the work still meant to her, and her incipient need to keep it remembered. I accepted immediately, from both curiosity and a sense that something greater would come from the invitation, whether in terms of the art or the ease of the woman’s company. My nervousness as a child had made a nervous adult. It had taken me until my mid-twenties to learn how to cast this aside; how my filmmaking would never flourish until I lost my shyness and was open to possibilities beyond the security of a film set. If a stranger asked you to see something new, you went without question, even if terrified. Finding
the courage to talk to people who interested you, romantically and in other ways. You learn these things as you grow comfortable in your own skin, but for me it was a conscious process to leave the safety of my head, and I was unexpectedly reminded of this in the woman’s offer. The opportunity had not presented itself in a long while. Or another time if you’re not sure, she said. Just giving you a chance to escape in case you’ve changed your mind. I have no idea what your plans are for the day. You look as if you’re expected somewhere else. What gives you that impression? I asked. You’re the only one here wearing a suit, she said. That’s not to say that no one owns a suit here. We’re not savages. But yes, the cut of your suit, and the fact that you keep looking at your watch. A man who’s either missed an appointment or is planning to miss one. It’s all the same to me. I won’t take it personally. I’m inundated with offers. She was neither sour nor frosty as she spoke, just straightforward with a dry sense of humour which made me like her even more. It was something the younger actors had to learn, to not take themselves so seriously. In my production company there was no room for hesitants, and in that regard she felt like a kindred spirit. I could almost see her working there, even though I knew nothing about her. We dinosaurs need to stick together, she said. Show these hooligans that they’re not the only ones who know how to live. In leaving the bar, she offered her hand to reflect the business nature of our transaction. I’m Cosima. When I attempted to reply she cut me off with a smile and gentle wave of her wrist. I know who you are, she said. We have televisions in these parts, maestro. We visit the cinema. You’re not so bad, raising her eyebrow as she spoke. Not so bad. I laughed in a way I hadn’t for a while. We left the bar and walked along the narrowing street which squeezed traffic out completely, and through a residential square flanked by a domed church and a butcher’s shop. The heart of Italy in twenty metres, she said, stretching out her arms. Prayer and blood. And food, I said. Yes, that too, she replied. This is a country that is never far from its guts. Past the butcher was an alley that wound behind the back of the church and its small graveyard – bones piled upon bones – and from there down a row of steps that led to a longer road. We were moving away from the residential area, towards the domain of garages and workshops, abandoned factories and boarded-up office blocks. In time, this too would be cleared, adding to the myth of the city – a reflection of the modernity it wished to embody, as well as the romance of what was left behind. We live in a medieval picture book, she said. You of all people should appreciate that. It’s why I enjoy coming here, I said, but this is more than a museum. The city has a pulse, you can feel it; the tensions and contradictions inherent in living somewhere with so much history. It’s a zoo, she said. And we’re the animals. Everybody gaping as you go about your business. You’re having a row with your lover on the way to work and everyone takes pictures, because a pretty girl crying on a bridge is the European cliché. You go for an eye appointment but you can’t get into the doctor’s office because a tourist has vomited on the front step, the handle and, somehow, the doorbell. So much beauty, so little time. Again, the raised eyebrow, and my prolonged laugh. She was special, this woman. We walked along a road of dead factories: hats, shoes, belts; the former pride of the city swallowed by larger global concerns, leaving in their place penury, nostalgia and the search for a new way of doing things. I almost heard the roar of the sewing machines and felt the noxious heat of the tanneries. My ears rang with the din of holes being punched through leather, of being studded with rivets or other decoration. I heard the slap of belt buckles on workshop tables and the gossip that passed between workers in their break room. She had taken me to a film set which was still very much alive. It’s not much further, she said. His mother used to work in one of these buildings as a machinist, so he was always hanging around here. Before he started doing graffiti, he used to sketch the factory skyline. Heaven above, hell below, he called them. Standing with our back to the road and the workshop frontage facing us, varying in size, some grander than others even in their dilapidation, I traced their outline with my fingers, as if this was the last opportunity to commune. For the artists of my generation, coming of age in the late seventies and early eighties, all our parents had come from these places. It was our common ground. The picture was a holy one: the din and a prayer. He’d take you here? I asked. We met here, she nodded. Bruno and I. I had a job between my studies packing gloves into boxes. He used to hang around outside waiting to walk his mother home. Then there was a day when he wanted to walk me home, so that’s how it happened. Us. How does it make you feel to walk past these buildings? I asked. I too still lived and worked in my hometown, where monuments denoting success and failure assailed me at every turn. The public toilets where I first had the courage to explore my sexuality with others; parks and cafe tables where I had declared my love; cinema aisles where I had cried about them afterwards. Train platforms and airport hallways: the totems of my escape and of passions lost. My triumphs and heartaches were architecture, both inescapable and invisible depending on my frame of mind. We’ve already walked past the place because I didn’t want to point it out, she said. I try not to look for it. Reminds me of picking a wound. Wounds heal, I said, knowing this to be false, but feeling guilty of being led somewhere she didn’t want to go. I have to pass this way at least once a week whether I like it or not, she said. I take tourists on guided art tours of the city. Depending on their taste, we may end up at one of the two murals. His work’s been mentioned in a couple of books, but hardly anything exists to write about now. I do my part to keep him remembered. Creative acts should always be protected, I said. Good and bad. Otherwise how can the next generation learn? You’re a lucky man, maestro, she said. You have an army of people to shine a light on your work. Here, I am just one person, with guided tours and a book that remains unfinished, may never be finished. You write? I asked, the words at last identifying the essence between us. More than survivors of draconian phases in post-war European history, more than ageing punks or new wavers who had fought for democracy through art and protest and any technologies we could find, who made their dissent known by speaking out or standing by the sides of more courageous brethren, our common ground was that we were both artists, with a deeply felt need to create work in order to survive. I sit at my desk but nothing comes of it, she said. I’ve been sitting at my desk for years. Pen scratching on paper. Notebook after notebook filled. What happens to it? Who knows? I’m waiting for a day when I feel a greater strength in my hand. A force that gives me the courage to pull the threads from all the writings into a coherent book that is respectful of his talent and what we had. And you’ve written about other things? I asked. Of course! She laughed. I’m not deranged, she said. Holding a candle like some Queen Victoria. I wear black because once you’ve been a punk, you can’t dress any other way. Black’s our uniform, yes? So I’ve written stories, and a novel that no one cared for, and a book about a painter and photographer that people did care for, but these things were many years ago. Now I write for art magazines and museum brochures. My uncle left me an apartment which I sold a few years ago, so that’s enough. And you have the guided tours, I said. Yes, exactly, she said. It forces me to leave my desk and venture outside. To breathe the air, converse, show hospitality, all those things. I did it as a favour for one of the museum trustees who had a guest in town, then I repeated it for another colleague, and word started to spread. I have a website now and all that nonsense. We look at buildings, civic and public art, permanent collections, if that’s what they’re interested in, as well as some of the private works. I know a few people in the city who will let me show their treasures if I ask nicely. But not always the murals? I asked. No, she said. Those I play by ear, depending on their interest and attitude. If I show them other graffiti, on the subway and suchlike, and they’re dismissive, then I know to give the murals a wide berth. They deserve more than a cursory glance and a phone picture. At the end of the factory row the road twisted again, and we found ou
rselves on a narrow residential street, a line of skinny, turn-of-the-century apartment blocks, the tops almost appearing to touch in the small space, where sunlight worked hard to penetrate shadow. It was incredibly claustrophobic after the expansive space of before. I felt the darkness and anxiety of so many people living overhead. He lived here with his mother, she said, pointing to a block at the intersection of the street with a wider road. Fourth floor. A bedroom for his mother, and the sofa for him. There’s talk of tearing these down when they start clearing the factories but it hasn’t been decided. We walked towards the apartment block, slowly, as if negotiating the cramped space. There was no one around, adding to its oppressiveness, and challenging all disbelievers that the genesis of great art could be found here. We’ve arrived, she said, key in hand. The eyebrow again. I thought you said it was a public mural, I said, confused. I did, she replied, it’s in a public place. Why, are you nervous going into an apartment block with a strange woman? Not at all, I said, but for some reason I thought of my husband and child and whether I was giving them reason for further disappointment. It was unspoken, but both felt that I had not fought hard enough to edit the film at home; that there was something of the gypsy in my foundations which could not be tethered. They were believers in sleeping in the same bed every night and for me to do the same. Disorientation rippled through the house whenever I was away for extended periods, with each having to work harder to fill the lack. I felt this as deeply as they, driven by work, but restless and unhappy in my downtime; all the pockets that remained hidden from them, and kept out of my eyes and voice on our nightly FaceTime calls, or with greater effort on the weekends when they visited. Maybe we were all in a similar state of pain and compromise, brought on by a distance of several hundred miles, but for my part, I hoped that they were mercifully unaware. She opened the entrance door and walked me through the hallway, deserted of life, no mail or concierge, the footsteps solely ours. There was no detritus or voices to indicate occupation, but no dust or neglect either. It was clean but bare. She waved her hand with the assurance of occupancy. Developers are buying up these blocks one at a time in readiness for when the factory redevelopment begins, she said. They’re all looking five, ten years into the future. No one has the permission to demolish anything yet, but it’s common sense that the more property they own will give them a stronger hand. The city wants to erase their ghost towns. They want the streets filled and prosperous, and they’ll do what’s needed to achieve that. And they own this one? I asked. I was confused about the key and at her ease in the place. Empty buildings were my stock-in-trade, but the coldness of this one gripped hard on my shoulder from the moment we entered, as if she had unknowingly opened a door onto her own sorrow. Not yet, she said. This particular building and the one next door are owned by a family of four children who cannot agree on anything, so while they bicker and plot against each other, I still have some freedom to get in. We crossed the tiled floor and then up some concrete steps leading to the central staircase and a wider space beyond. We’re going into the garden, she called. It was raining a few days ago, so I hope the ground isn’t too soft. She led me past a paved area where a small table was upended against the wall with two chairs. I brought those, but no one’s said anything, she said. There’s a caretaker in the basement who keeps things presentable, and accepts my weekly processions. Ah, so the table is for your guests, I said. And for me, she replied. Guests or not, I can sit here for an hour or so and look at the mural on good days. It’s there, can you see it? She pointed to the wall that bordered the scrub of grass before us, a pitch of maybe fifty metres, shielded in part by a cluster of pear trees, and a carpet of ivy on the neighbouring wall. I pay the caretaker every month to keep that at bay, she said, pointing to the ivy. I have dreams that I’ll turn up one day and the whole thing will be covered by tendrils and leaves. This still may indeed happen, I said. This is something you must accept. Filmmaking had taught me much about finality; how the obsession of a shoot, the freedom and pressure, friendships – or at least the tenor of them at that particular time – all ended. Living was learning to deal with endings in a way that did not hurt you more. The scope of the mural was evident from this distance; something of its form, how it curled outwards from its originating point at the far left, a tornado or cyclone, either trapping or expelling the best and worst of humanity, or what could be ascertained of it from the mind of a twenty-year-old child. From a black background, an unknown universe whose energy force was without measure, it swirled into our domain, and into it fell dancing girls, fireside babies and their newspaper-reading parents, gangsters holding up cars, and gap-toothed women rolling out pasta on kitchen tables. There were smoking monkeys, and aristocrats with their pants down; fishermen pulling on snagged lines, boom boxes pumping out gloves and belts rather than musical notes, and a jam of cars trailing into the abyss. All emanating from a cloud morphing with time into a plume of smoke, which led to the faintest linear scrawl along the bottom. The skyline of the factories and the ecosystem there. It was the life from this building and those nearby, transposed and commented on in the dead of night, over weeks, months. It was extraordinary. It was the heads that were the most striking, geometric blocks that only featured the eyes and mouth, the details concentrated solely in the actions and situations. It separated them as individuals while at the same time bringing them together: his people of the neighbourhood, and all the contradictions of the wider city. He did all this is in spray paint? I asked. The precision he has! His hand! I don’t know what I’d been expecting, feeling too warm and distracted by the depth of our conversation and from the pleasure of simply walking with someone you found agreeable. I had stopped thinking about what the paintings could mean, and the resonance they may hold. I was floored by the detail of it, and by the fact that the hands which created it were no longer here to create again. The world would not change on seeing this, but it was more than the work of a bored teenager. Its critical eye, its humour, needed to be seen. It pleases you? she asked. There was a note of childish hope in her voice, betraying the cool of her posture as she sat at the newly opened table and smoked a cigarette. I had moved closer to the mural to examine its detail, looking for signs of one idea leading to another; not so much the genesis I was after but more the sequence of events. It comes from an editor’s mind, the mindset I still had on just completing the film. I was forever looking for joins. I pressed my fingertips into the wall, and then my hands. I wanted to feel the texture of the brick through the paint, as well as the sheen of the spray cans themselves. I was guided by touch, the essence of what drove this boy, his wonder and anger. There are some similar sketches on paper, she said. Most are in black marker and a few with charcoal when he was conscious that he should be working the way ‘artists’ should. He got a box of slate from one of the old-timers in the workshop in exchange for delivering his lunch for a week. The guy thought he was crazy. To him, it was just old crap they had lying around; as familiar, necessary and hated as family can sometimes be. Why don’t you buy some nice expensive pens? I remember him saying. If you want to draw well, you’ll need pens instead of this rubbish. But I’m a drawer of rubbish, is what Bruno replied. Like for like. So he thought of himself as an artist, I asked, and not just a graffiti guy? He was starting to, she said. Before the end. Not something he discussed, more coming out during instances when he was asked. The first time I heard him say it was then, when we went to collect the slates from the old man, and I thought, Yes, you are. Just that simple definition made sense of his passion and his habit of disappearing. It made me happy because I realised that I understood him. In speaking, her expression had flowed from pained to contented, at peace with her conclusions. Her truth was the acknowledged one, affirmed by her boy, so this was why she had no regrets. I envied her. My family were my truth, but there were others during the making of films that could not be denied. The fire that came from creating work and the moths that flew into its orbit. Those beautiful, occasional moths that would derai
l me. The sketches were lost also? I asked quickly, for a flash memory from set pulled at me suddenly, and I needed to be drawn away from the thought before I cried out. It had been an early moment when Lorien and Tom had looked at me with such clarity in the seconds before we shot a scene, and how that was transmitted in the minute of action that followed. They were in a diner drinking their coffee and talking of very little which was outwardly important, but something in their emotional literacy clicked. They understood themselves and their characters in ways they hadn’t before. Each had long thought of himself as an actor, now they were understanding who they were as artists, enabling us to speak silently in that moment. Just those few seconds was all it took to set the overall tone of the film, and I could never forget the power of that. His mother gave me all the sketches, she said. She didn’t know what to do with them. I think their physical presence in the apartment was too painful. She had her photographs to worship, a shelf of albums above an altar she made. But the drawings. There was too much life there, too many fires. Don’t get me wrong, she talked about his art to whoever would listen. Her pride in her son was as consuming as her grief. She would drag people to the back garden to this mural, and the railway tracks on the outskirts of the grand station where the larger work remained. She made people take photographs. She bossed and bullied them towards which sections to give attention to, and to pay respect to its scope. He brought the personal to a place you thought of as impersonal, a shitty wall that bordered the rail tracks. His mother could handle this. But the sketches, she said, falling silent. I closed my eyes and imagined the gentleness of his hand as he worked from the sofa or the kitchen table. The tenderness of those memories must have been too much to share. Maestro! She had collected herself. Come and sit down, she said. You’ve been standing on the wet ground for too long. Winter’s over, I know, but I can still feel the chill. I don’t want to be blamed if you return to wherever you need to be with a cold. They’ll string me up. I went and sat across from her, took the cigarette offered and puffed at it weakly. You’ve gone very pale, she said. I’m not sure whether that’s down to the outdoors or what you’ve seen. I’m presenting a new film, I said, at the festival. I’m a dinosaur who still prefers to shoot and edit on film, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to get my own way. I’m still trying to process how I feel. And it has nothing to do with pride? she asked. Because I have a feeling that you take pride for granted, for to complete every film must be an achievement in itself. Look at me and my book! Scraps after scraps. You have nothing to worry about, maestro. Present your film and feel sure of yourself. It’s not always that simple, I said. Working with actors doesn’t necessarily make me a good one. I find it difficult to lie. What is there to lie about? she said. You wouldn’t say a film is complete if you didn’t believe it. Instead, you’re in purgatory and are fighting to accept it. That’s no cause to be miserable. Take heart from those who wish you well, because you’ll be surrounded by many champions tonight, I’m presuming. The maestro and his lions! Let those who want to attack attack. You have your film and nothing else matters. It was as strident a defence as I had heard for a long time. It was years since even one of my collaborators had mounted such a passion. When you find those with a talismanic quality, whose outlook aligns with yours, you must be wise to their value and find a way to hold that person close. How to explain this to Cosima in words that were not foolish? We had walked for two hours and in that time everything had changed. Instead, I said simply, You have faith where I have none. But this afternoon I will find it, dredge every rock and crevice until I find fragments to grasp. Climbing one step at a time until I feel my confidence restored. Until then, we walk? she suggested. Yes, I agreed. We walk. I looked at the mural for a final time before we left the garden while my guide finished her cigarette. It did not do justice to take pictures – an insult to the eye and heart – but I tapped repeatedly on my phone, moving from corner to corner until I had recorded everything in detail, and then, in rejoining Cosima on the terrace, I took a series of wide shots to capture the full length of the piece in situ. I knew that I would not return here and was compelled to record something should my memory fail me. The chairs, the blossom giving promise of fruit on the pear trees, the back of the apartment block itself, its decay evident in the blistered paintwork and peeling window frames, and Cosima’s profile when she thought I was focusing elsewhere. I wanted a record of what I had seen and felt, as if I would need to prove someday that I was there. I thought you perhaps didn’t believe in photographs, she said. You took nothing of the factories or of the walk. I was enjoying the novelty of it. When I take my groups around, they spend more time playing with their phones than listening to what I say. I want to remember everything, I said, here. You understand? I do, she said. Come, there’s one more place I want to show you before we leave. Is there still some energy in those legs? There is, I said, filled with a lightness I could not give a name to. Good to hear, it’s a steep one so may test you. We walked the eight flights of stairs, four floors, to his old apartment. Two apartments on each floor; the communal space, as below, tidy and cold. Your first film, she said, with that famous shot of the young couple kissing on the tenth floor, with your camera in the lobby stairwell pointing up to reach them? We recreated that. Gave my camera to the woman who was the janitor at the time. Had a sharp eye, that woman. Sharp tongue, too, but she knew how to take a good picture. We used the space that ran through the middle of the stairwell, see? I had prints made for both of us. I’d like to see it, I said, knowing that it was as much for the composition of the shot as to see their young passion. It’s lost now, she said. His mother may have his copy, but I have no idea. All I have is the memory of the place. Of doing it. Fourth floor, fifth floor, Bruno would say after that, whenever he wanted a kiss. Come here, ’Misa. Put your books down and give me some sugar. Fourth floor, fifth floor. You have a key to this also? I asked. No, she said. This is my only failing. When his mother left the city, the apartment once again became the property of the landlord. The caretaker has all the keys, but to ask for access is to broach a line neither of us wants to cross. There is turning a blind eye in the garden and there is being complicit in a greater trespass. We are both fearful of the latter. You’re writing a book, I said. It’s perfectly above board. She looked at me steadily before replying, catching her breath so that those extra seconds gave her time to formulate her words. It’s how I want it, she said. Avoiding temptation. There are details I intend to omit from the books. Some memories need to be just for me. I’m not so selfless as to destroy myself for the sake of accuracy. She sat outside the door, her back against the wall, and motioned me to do the same. This is my protection device, she said, tapping her foot against the frame. A block of wood that stops me from going to pieces. Keeps my mind sharp, too. I sit here and remember the two rooms: the kitchen-living room, and his mother’s bedroom behind that. I think of his profile in the doorway, or his shape on the sofa as he bent down to draw. Or my feet pushing against the sofa’s edge on the afternoons I would sleep there, when his mother was still at work and I had called in sick. I remember the light from the other apartments hitting the ceiling on those afternoons. The two of us content to lie there in darkness. I think of the acoustics of the hallway, and how our laughter would ring – the anticipation of arriving and the satiation in leaving. These are the things I need to hold close. He painted in there too, didn’t he? I said, as if it had all become clearer. She nodded. On every wall. It was one of the ways his mother tried to keep him at home, she said. She was always so scared that he would get arrested, or worse, hit by a train when he was going back and forth across the tracks. And the work is similar? I asked. The need to know more was making me light-headed. I would take all the dizziness in the world to see another painting. I was frightened by the strength of the impulse and swallowed hard to lose it from my voice. After all you’ve told me, it seems unbelievable that there is still this unseen work. Most of it was work in progress, she said. Him trying things
out that could later be seen elsewhere. But there are other details. Portraits of his mother. Portraits of me. When she said this, the torture in her face was plain. We had gone too far for her to hide it. I fear the vacuum in opening the door, she said, to find what I remember has crumbled to dust. The erosion of the public murals I can accept, however much it pains me. Their location, the elements; both are out of my control. The sanctity of the apartment, however. I should say that it’s empty: all the furniture was removed after his mother left. It’s not the objects I fear, or the lack of them. I fear the space itself, that by standing in an empty room, my memories will turn on me, one cancelling out another until there is nothing left. Does that sound mad? Anything but, I said. There are times when you must batter down the doors closed to you, but equally there are those doors that shouldn’t be opened, or at least, opened with care. Do you truly believe that? she asked, and in her eyes confirmation that this was the right way to live. To survive. I do, I said. Art comes from imperfect places and its practitioners are as imperfect as the work they create. There is no right way. The truth in this was palpable. We stayed on the concrete floor and clung on to what felt real, the ghosts of the building and of promise lost. We silently acknowledged our respective faiths and embraced the coping mechanisms that allowed us to keep going. We held onto all this, and then, under the blessing of her past love, held onto each other.