prologue.
phoolan devi apparently had a propensity for rather strong language. that was not considered particularly lady-like in uttar pradesh, india. her poor low-caste family only owned a tiny piece of land to grow their food and a lot of it was occupied by an old neem tree. the real problems began for phoolan devi when her asshole male cousin maya din mallah decided to cut the tree down. phoolan devi was tremendously fond of that tree, became pretty upset and hurled some of that strong language at her cousin, and not just once but over a period of some days. as well, she organized the village girls into a sit-in around the tree. from that point the situation quickly spiralled out of control. village elders eventually dragged the girls away and phoolan devi was apparently beaten unconscious with a brick.
soon after that nasty incident, phoolan was forced to marry a bastard named puttilal, three times her age, who raped and beat her. she ran away several times unsuccessfully until she was returned to her family in disgrace. the asshole maya din mallah arranged for her to be charged with theft, jailed for a few days in a nearby prison to teach her a lesson. she was once again abused, then warned to behave herself before being released. phoolan was briefly returned to her bastard husband but that did not go well. by then she was all of sixteen and the year was 1979.
some say she was kidnapped by the gang of dacoits because of her wild nature. others say she simply wandered away and joined them willingly. she later simply said it was fated. whatever might’ve been the case the leader, babu gujjar, desired phoolan and, when she repeatedly refused his advances, tried to rape her. the gang’s second in command, vikram, stopped the rape, killed babu gujjar and assumed command. in spite of both being married to others, vikram and phoolan became inseparable.
hardly a few weeks later the gang attacked the village of phoolan’s bastard husband. she herself dragged her husband into the street, stabbed him repeatedly and left him to die with a note stating that any man who marries a little girl will be subject to a similar fate. he survived the attack but lived the rest of his life as an outcast and a recluse.
gang members taught phoolan how to fight and shoot. she could soon beat big men without a problem, she participated in looting and kidnappings. around that time rumours circulated that phoolan devi gave birth to a girl. whether untrue or the child was kept secret, no kid of phoolan’s was ever actually found although rumours persisted. eventually, phoolan’s presence created a lot of jealousy, squabbling and in-fighting erupted and vikram was shot to death. phoolan was locked up in a room where she was yet again repeatedly raped and beaten. with the help of one of the gang members, however, she managed to escape after a few weeks.
a new gang was formed with phoolan as its leader. a series of robberies and looting took place all across the region. phoolan was said to only target the wealthy and share with the poor. the media glorified her struggles against a feudal patriarchal system. about half a year after her escape, phoolan attacked the same village where she’d been held captive. although none of the men who raped her were there, over twenty men of the same group were rounded up and summarily executed. in spite of the massive hunt that ensued the bandit queen, as she then became known, evaded capture for two years. she was shielded and hidden by the poor folks in the district.
in 1983 the bandit queen surrendered to the police. but her trial did not take place for eleven years, during which time she underwent a surgery for ovarian cysts. that procedure also included a hysterectomy. the doctor was said to have later joked that ‘we don’t want phoolan devi breeding any more phoolan devis.’ she was released from jail in 1994, even entered politics a couple of years later but on 25th of july, 2001, phoolan devi was assassinated. she was shot five times outside her delhi home and the culprits were never found.
the wake-up call.
jean-marc never really had trouble sleeping until the last couple of years. when his wife left ten years back it was unsettling for sure, but he literally lost no sleep over it. even after his daughter cut off all communications, it didn’t keep him up at night. this was different. this was essentially his life, his very soul.
it was great being known as a great painter. it was rewarding being rewarded by the academy for his body of work over the years. only i knew he’d trade the adoration, the money, the awards for some semblance of the inspiration that used to constantly course through his system. he’d give it all up to recapture his previous brilliance, to paint even one painting worth putting his signature on, perhaps even for one good night’s sleep.
jean-marc simard was a mountain of a man though he was actually only about five feet, eight inches and relatively thin. but when he walked in a room the ceiling seemed to lower and people noticed. since the balding became more pronounced he kept his hair cropped totally short and usually under a cap. he liked to wear a nice sports-jacket over top of a less nice hoody, jeans with boots. he had a certain style and people noticed. at the start of this story, however, people were noticing less and less simply because he hardly left his home up in the back-woods of west quebec. some people, though very few, wondered what had changed although of course nobody checked. i didn’t need to check. as his agent and perhaps his last friend, i knew.
his winding driveway led up to the front of his studio that used to be a garage. the lawn was cut, not groomed. the beautiful b.c. fir siding needed to be re-stained in the worst way. the roofing shingles were lifting. it was a nice house with large front deck, lovely if unkempt garden, quiet, private, perched somewhat majestically on a hill. walking into jean-marc’s studio could tell you much about his state of mind. in years past there’d be vibrant colourful paintings hanging on nails all over the walls, sitting on easels or leaning against what furniture was there. there’d always be a few half completed works, in progress or drying. there’d always be a few wrapped, waiting to be shipped to one collector or another, one client or another. now there was none of that.
in the entrance an old photo of his daughter still hung on the wall, slightly lopsided, one he still kept of him with wife, daughter and their dog together by a lake, happy. there was a framed letter from leonard cohen, several old cards advertising gallery openings he’d had in montreal and new york tacked up along with a dylan album cover. on the far wall an oversized clock displayed the wrong time, the batteries having run out of juice long ago, a metaphor for jean-marc if ever there was one. heavy cabinets running the length of the main room was filled to overflowing with all manner of stuff. in sharp contrast to all that, the studio itself was virtually empty. the off-white pock-marked walls were pretty much bare. what canvasses there were seemed desolate, neglected, a few lines, some splotches of colour. one had an angry tear. another had been clearly blacked out roughly in frustration. there were many weathered, dusty and stained gallery catalogues lying on a small table. most telling of all were the empty bottles near the one faux leather sofa.
past the studio there was a doorway and stairs that led to the sub-basement, a big bunker of a room where stacks of paintings lay haphazardly in row upon row. some huge paintings leaned against concrete walls and behind those was a rusted water-heater, a pump, an out-of-service air exchange system, then many more paintings filed in side-by-side where they’d obviously been for years if not decades. in the room after the studio, after the sub-basement but before the stairs up to the rest of the house, on the faded green dirty inside-outside carpet stood a wood-stove with a huge pile of wood nearby. nearby that was a thread-bare grey sofa on which lay jean-marc.
the beginning of this story was the end of those days, although we didn’t know it at the time. jean-marc had been lying on that ridiculous sofa for hours. he hadn’t been drinking. there was nothing left and perhaps fortunately he just didn’t feel like walking down to the store, really didn’t want to see anyone. i’d brought him some groceries a day or two earlier. i never brought wine, booze or cigarettes. he had to get those himself. he most often just lay on that sofa in that room with that wood-stove which was too old to be insured. the room had dirty white walls except behind the stove. that was red brick. there was a small counter and sink close to the stairs. when i mentioned that i may have been his last friend it was not an exaggeration. he had managed to alienate most everyone through the years and he periodically had a go at me as well. i just didn’t really care or held onto a vague hope that one day he’d miraculously snap out of the funk he’d sunk into. i hoped that for both our sakes. because we were both running out of money.
it hadn’t always been like that of course. jean-marc’s studio used to be a hub of activity. there used to be crowds of people in and out: family, friends, neighbours, painters, artists of all types, all shapes and sizes. there used to be plenty of money, food, wine. no matter what happened in his private life or around him the studio had remained a place of frenetic social and creative energy. he was usually busy, often spectacularly animated, unpredictable. clients i brought might be witness to unimaginable dramas.
there was the time jean-marc had a huge fight with his volatile spanish girlfriend nina. we could hear her high-heels pacing up and down on the wood floor upstairs. she slammed the door as she stormed out, hollering in spanish as she walked off the deck and across the driveway. she was a striking dark-haired beauty dressed in a low-cut red dress with black-lace, black fish-net stockings and black high-heels. the people i’d brought that day were wealthy folks from pennsylvania, quite excited to visit a real quebec painter in his studio. i had guaranteed them the genuine experience, the real thing, only i just didn’t know exactly how real jean-marc would make it. i never did know. he raised his arms in the air with a look of mild frustration, excused himself and exited the studio door to catch up with nina. she yelled at him, gesturing dramatically, flayed at him a few times in clear view of our guests until little by little they were hugging. jean-marc wrapped his arms around, she could not resist, he kissed her passionately. he walked her to the car. once she was seated, he leaned in the window for a final kiss goodbye before returning to the studio.
obviously we will never know how much if any of the rather lucrative purchases made that day were influenced by those scenes of the stereotypical life of a passionate painter. nina, actually, was not spanish at all. she knew some spanish but was born and raised on a neighbouring west-quebec farm. but that was jean-marc. one just never knew. scenes might be orchestrated for our benefit and his amusement, or not. i’d seen the same, or variations, more than once played out in english, french, and i recall thinking that the spanish was a nice touch. one never really knew what to expect. even as he moved into his early 50s there were no signs of the lethargy that had more recently swallowed him, no signs of his inability to manifest anything close to a creditable work of art. surely it had nothing to do with the dog.
his dog had become terribly old. napoleon was a remnant of jean-marc’s family days. he and his wife karen had gotten napoleon from the rrspca when daughter kaya was a kid. it grew to be a large furry friendly creature, eventually too old, incontinent, clearly uncomfortable and ‘that’ time just became painfully obvious. we were able to convince the local vet to make a house-call next day, as long as a grave was prepared in advance. so on that dank dark drizzly autumn day jean-marc went into his back-yard and began to dig, with napoleon watching. strangely, when jean-marc walked downstairs into his studio next morning he found napoleon lying on the concrete floor, dead.
it was around the same time that jean-marc began to, well, go to the dogs, metaphorically speaking. little by little the parties stopped. as his moods darkened the people began to stay away. he hardly painted. he hardly left the house. he simply seemed to run out of juice, so to speak. perhaps the dog leaving was some sort of trigger, a last straw. i don’t know. apparently he wasn’t sleeping hardly at all, drank too much. all i know is he just lay day after day on that stupid sofa deep within the complicated circuitous back-alleyways of his mind. until the phone rang.
jean-marc never answered the phone, hadn’t in months if not years. he just let it eventually go to voice-mail. his antiquated answering-machine was one of those he could hear the message being left, but he hardly paid attention and rarely responded. that one, however, that one caught him a little off-guard. an official-sounding voice announced that he was a detective shankar mallah calling from rcmp headquarters in ottawa, a member of some sort of anti-fraud task-force. “mr. simard,” the husky voice began. “we’d appreciate your assistance in a matter of what we believe to be counterfeit ‘jean-marc simard’ paintings showing up on the black market.”
it’s not about me.
the winter sun wasn’t particularly strong but it was spectacularly bright as i approached jean-marc’s house. that was one of those days you needed sun-glasses more than even in summer. he had a car. it was actually quite a nice car, one of those old saabs, black with moon-roof, all leather interior and wood-panelled dashboard. the head-liner was loose and kind of hanging down a bit on the passenger side. and it was usually dirty. he never washed the thing. that wasn’t anything new. jean-marc never washed a car in his life. his dad didn’t believe in spending the money for that and he didn’t believe in it either. the rain washed it periodically. but otherwise it was fine the way it was. he’d traded a painting for it. unfortunately the car had been sitting unused for so long the battery was dead. so more recently, on the rare times he wanted or needed to go somewhere, i had to drive.
i didn’t mind that. for me it was kind of a special occasion. it was a special occasion for jean-marc to wanna go anywhere at all and so i was only too happy to take him, even to the rcmp headquarters. we had in effect changed places over the past few years. i’d been the loner, the one who interacted socially primarily because i had to, out of necessity, for business. jean-marc was way more engaging, gregarious. strangely, the more he receded into his cave the more i came out of mine.
having been one of three spawned by some pretty unpleasant people, i learned early on how to stay in my cave, both figuratively and literally. it was safe inside my mind, my room, and i liked it. mom was an angry lady whom i always thought could’ve had a role in ‘the exorcist’ or some such film. she didn’t beat us kids and we weren’t sexually abused or anything like that. we were simply treated to her relentless temper, a pretty lousy home-life. dad could get pretty ratty as well. mostly he was just ineffectual, a lawyer who buried himself in work. he told me once, not too many years ago, not long before he died, that he never ever considered divorce but that he considered murder on a regular basis. i presumed he was joking, only i’ve never been entirely certain. what i am certain about is my disdain for constant social contact stemmed from my childhood, as most issues do.
i managed somehow to work my way through to a general-arts degree which was in fact very general. i worked several jobs, a few years in a noisy printing shop before accepting a terribly boring government job that i was terribly excited about. i was married once, briefly, to a lovely lady who realized almost immediately that she’d made a terrible mistake. to her credit we remained friends throughout the process of separation and divorce, a process obviously made simpler because we had no kids. we shared the dog for a while until the dog also must’ve realized his mistake and refused to stay at my place at all. meanwhile i made a decent living as a civil servant languishing in that cubicle in an old building that’s since been condemned due to mould, until something odd happened. one of my co-workers, a tall pleasant florid fellow named cyrus mentioned he’d been to an art show at the trendy downtown ‘tangerine gallery’ where his wife had fallen in love with one of the paintings. unfortunately it was just too expensive. and for some unexplainable reason i said i knew the artist and could make it happen.
what’s really odd is that being so bold would’ve been out of character even if i actually did know the artist, which i didn’t. i’d never even heard of jean-marc simard. i didn’t really get out much in those days and certainly knew nothing about the art world. be that as it may, my co-worker got almost orgasmically happy. he really wanted to get his hands on that painting for his wife’s upcoming birthday. it was an easy matter to find out what, in fact, cyrus could manage and having created the expectation i really had no choice but to traipse on down to the gallery that evening.
the painting in question was both magnificent and strange. it was a large colourful work, of a lady sitting at a table cradling a large rooster in her hands. and it was euphemistically titled: ‘le coque. (the cock.)’ i could not take my eyes off it for a while. everything about it was magnificent and strange. it was startlingly colourful, vibrant, sensual, weirdly suggestive. the lady’s stylized face only hinted at beauty while her spiral breasts and elongated fingers holding the rooster hinted at a sexuality that held my attention longer than i was comfortable with. and it was extremely expensive. all the paintings hanging there were pricey by any standard but they also all seemed to call out to you. any one of them could make a whole room come to life on its own. the collection as a whole was almost too much for your nervous system, or mine anyway..
finding out his address was easy and i decided to visit next morning. it was about a forty minute drive from town up into the gatineau hills. i was met by a large shaggy barking dog as i made my way up the driveway. he sounded aggressive but his tail was wagging at the same time. jean-marc immediately came out of his studio to grab the beast, half dragged him into a fenced area before actually greeting me. he was dressed in old paint-covered jeans, plaid shirt and baseball cap.
in the studio i was taken aback by the sheer number of different subject-matters. i guess i assumed i’d find all figures like i’d seen at the gallery. but he painted landscapes, city scenes, he had a series of rock formations, animals, portraits that couldn’t possibly resemble actual people. hell, he even had a series of paintings of land-fills. i saw one lovely painting of a couple kissing in a window with a moon behind. then there was another of a couple having sex while not actually showing them having sex. it devolved into a hazing mass of colour in all the right places. some of his works were tremendously beautiful, others were slightly less so, even un-beautiful. on one wall there was a shimmering blue/white gatineau park winter scene with birds and a skier. on the same wall was one of a series showing the pillaging of the park. it specifically showed trees being bull-dozed, a deer running from hunters.
his paintings were not realistic, not abstract. i guess in my ignorance i thought of him more as an impressionist painter. but jean-marc, i soon discovered, rebelled against being labelled at all. he freely talked about his work, his experimenting, self-doubts, successes. he showed me the small knife he used more often than brushes. he told me that he often takes a photo, looks at the photo, throws the photo away and then begins to paint. i found jean-marc tremendously easy to know. i had no trouble or any hesitation in laying my cards right out on the table. he was open, flexible, even encouraging. we made a deal between us that was good enough for him, fantastic and so easy for me while still affording cyrus the birthday gift his wife was hoping for and probably dreaming of. and so began my new career and a long relationship with mr. jean-marc simard, but i digress.
the fake.
the winter sun wasn’t particularly strong but it was spectacularly bright as i approached jean-marc’s house. that was one of those days you needed sun-glasses more than even in summer. he’d been waiting, already had his great-coat on. he had his customary baseball cap, boots and was in fact wearing sun-glasses. at times past he would’ve insisted we have espressos before starting out. by then the idea of actually starting out, going out, was overwhelming and i supposed jean-marc just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
i left jean-marc off in front of the rcmp building before looking for somewhere to park my escalade. it wasn’t easy. not surprisingly jean-marc was sitting on a bench inside the door just waiting for me. sometimes, even though he was several years younger than me, it felt like i was with my dad. i introduced us at the large semi-circular granite-top counter, the consignor made a call and a large uniformed officer came down and ushered us into a room near the back of the same level. eventually a severe-looking smaller man in a dark suit entered. he introduced himself as detective robert moeller of the fraud department. his demeanour was my first real indication that this was considered a pretty serious matter. up until then i had kind of dismissed the whole affair as somewhat inconsequential. obviously i knew a simard painting was worth anywhere from forty to sixty thousand, but the closest we ever came to a problem was when some local artists complained about us advertising a studio show at the same time as the gatineau hills art-collective studio tour. i had no knowledge at that point how a black market in art even worked.
after thanking us robotically for coming in the detective started immediately peppering jean-marc with a bunch of questions, like did he know this person or that person, had he heard of this person or that person, had he any contact with this one or that one. jean-marc was clearly becoming increasingly uncomfortable. and when he asked both of us to account for our whereabouts during the past friday night i became uncomfortable as well. however, when he asked to look at our phones i jumped to my feet. “what the hell’s going on here?!,” i barked. “where’s detective shankar mallah? he asked us to come help simply in regard to some possible simard forgeries.”
detective moeller glared at me for a moment, a few long moments actually. he was perhaps sizing me up but by then i was totally alarmed. “firstly,” he began in a measured tone. “this is no longer a fraud investigation. detective mallah was discovered in the park beside dow’s lake bludgeoned to death. he had been beaten so badly it was hard to identify the body. so please mr. bryce sit back down.”
in the under-belly of the art-world, i soon learned, there are fundamentally two categories: forgeries and thefts, no doubt with many sub-categories, subterranean alleyways and subways through hell. the most famous unsolved modern-day theft is ‘the gardner art heist.’ on march 18, 1990, just after midnight, five paintings and a rembrandt etching were cut out of their gilded frames at the boston gardner art museum. originally modelled after a fifteenth-century venetian palace, it was the home of a phenomenally wealthy lady, mrs. gardner, who stipulated in her 1928 will that her home, full of some of the most valuable artwork in the world, be left as it was and open to the public. apparently it was left a little too open on that particular night and the empty frames remain on the walls even today. there also remains a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork.
forgeries are obviously created by unscrupulous but often brilliant painters. some have been even considered geniuses. hungarian painter elmyr de hory’s copies of degas, monet, picasso and matisse still sell at auction for over twenty-thousand dollars. he committed suicide in 1976 during an art fraud investigation poor fellow. john myatt’s forgeries of matisse, renoir and picasso, to name just a few, were sold at some of the greatest auction houses in the world. a british artist, he was jailed in 1995 for one year and his paintings and reproductions today go for over forty-five thousand. so he’s been rather luckier. sean greenhalgh, along with his sweet old parents olive and george, forged sculptures, paintings and rare artifacts for over two decades before being caught. their work is appreciated tremendously today as well. and then, of course, there’s reverend mark landis. not actually a priest at all, mr. landis is a cadaverous-looking, soft-spoken schizophrenic who often donned ‘the collar’, donated fakes to many enthusiastic and grateful museums and galleries around the united states. he was never prosecuted simply because there was no money involved. today he has gallery exhibitions of his original artwork and is the subject of a documentary entitled: ‘art and craft, about a donor of faked paintings.’
“obviously we don’t believe either of you gentlemen killed detective mallah but we have to follow protocol.” moeller was leaning against the window-sill while we slumped in our chairs. then with a hand across his brow to soothe himself he added: “anyway, we actually have a suspect in custody.” jean-marc, who’d been sitting silently, suddenly sat up perfectly straight and asked: “then what? aren’t you certain?” “well,” moeller spoke softly while now wiping his eyes. “the forger, the actual person mallah had been investigating was standing over the body, blood all over her feet and hands.” “a lady? i really do not understand,” offered jean-marc. “yeah right. that’s it. it’s hard to understand,” moeller said absently.
“are you kidding us detective?” i was standing then as he looked over, sort of smiled. “i wish i was. we can only assume mallah confronted her, she somehow got the drop on him, then beat the livin crap outta him. god knows how.” the detective pressed a buzzer on the wall near the door before adding. “also, it’s rather bizarre that she lives in a flat directly underneath mallah and his family. it’s gotta be her.” within another minute the same large uniformed officer who’d ushered us into the room ushered in a large canvas covered in cloth. he leaned it against the desk, removed its cover and ushered himself out without a word. jean-marc immediately began examining the painting up close, then from a distance, then close again. it looked to me like one of a series he’d done years earlier of rock formations. it was of huge boulders with a tiny house on top. the colours were earth-tones, muted. we’d done well with those. “is it one of yours?,” moeller asked after a while. jean-marc kept looking at it, transfixed even as he answered: “nope, it’s not mine.” then he added: “it’s better.”
the faker.
“may we see the lady?” jean-marc looked up for the first time, with a bemused expression as if the situation had not become dark, sinister. “not a chance,” moeller responded. “she’s not here anyway. she’s in a cell at the elgin street police station. but i’d like you to look at a few more paintings.” this time he took us to another room, a conference room of sorts. there were three paintings in one corner. he uncovered each of them in turn. and jean-marc examined each in turn. one of them looked like from the same series as the first, only larger. the other two were medium-sized winter landscapes, whites and blues with a couple lines of fencing, cows in the distance. they all looked genuine to me, only jean-marc soon nodded his disapproval. “no?,” i asked. “no, but that’s not it. these are not done by a forger, not really. they’re done by a master.”
when we left the building i couldn’t help but notice jean-marc’s demeanour had changed. as well, he walked along with me to the car. it may seem trivial, but he woulda normally waited for me to walk way out to the end of the lot, get my car and pick him up at the door. his demeanour had changed, he walked along with me and he was strangely excited. “we gotta go see this lady,” he said more than once. “ronny, let’s stop at elgin street.” “jean-marc,” i said with what i assumed was a sardonic smile. “firstly we won’t be allowed to see her and secondly you’ve forgotten that she may well have killed a man, presumably a large man, bludgeoned him to death as a matter of fact.” he waved away my objections as though both were completely inconsequential. and before i knew what was happening i was looking for a parking space on elgin street. i got lucky, found one large enough on only my second time round the block.
the police station at 474 elgin street is not a building i’d wanna have a date. it’s a grey cavernous cold sort of place. as soon as one enters through the heavy glass front doors one feels guilty or culpable or at least a person of interest. that’s in spite of the huge sign in the lobby that reads ‘working together for a safer community.’ i felt immediately less safe under the semi-suspicious gazes of all the police in the lobby, behind the granite counter and the security booths. it wasn’t easy to resist the ‘told you so’ as our request was summarily refused. jean-marc pointed out that he was the painter the lady had been copying. that didn’t make a bit of difference, only we were given the contact information for her solicitor.
durga devi’s lawyer, ms. dennison, was an obese and somewhat haggard-looking lady from ‘ontario legal aid.’ she must’ve been over-worked as well as overweight and seemed unsure about whether she should’ve opened the door to us. the office on queen street was crowded, busy. there were stacks of folders on every desk and people were buzzing all around. some were glued to computer screens and there were people sitting around an oval table in a small glassed-in conference room. dennison wore a dark blue suit with plenty of material, a white blouse and red and blue striped neck scarf.
once she understood our mission she relaxed. “you mind if we discuss the case outside? i could really use a smoke.” once outside on the sidewalk she lit up, took a deep drag and said: “whaddya wanna know?” i took the lead. “well, for starters, is she guilty of murder or just forgery?” “i’ll tell ya,” she responded.”on the one hand you got the deceased investigating durga for nearly a year. then strangely she moves into the same building as his family a couple months ago. she’s caught standing right smack dab beside the victim with his blood all over her. it sure as hell looks like the hunted had become the hunter.” “what did she say?,” i wondered. “durga says she found him like that and tried to save him doing cpr.” “so what’s on the other hand?,” jean-marc asked. “what?” “you implied there was another hand, like proving her innocence.” with a short wry laugh that wasn’t a laugh morrison stepped on her cigarette stub and answered: “come to the court-house thursday and you’ll see.” and with that she waddled back inside.
i don’t know why jean-marc was so insistent on going to the court on thursday but i agreed to drive him, of course. when i arrived, however, he was in his painting clothes. that wasn’t the surprise. he often lounged in his painting clothes. but he’d actually been painting. that was the surprise. he had actually been painting and he was excited. “ronny,” jean-marc exclaimed holding his arms up high. “all this time it’s been me. i’ve been the faker.” i walked past him into the studio. i had to see what he was finally excited about. and as soon as i saw it i simply stopped, stood still, couldn’t hardly move.
the painting was grotesque. it was a huge grotesque painting of a female lying on her back, legs wide apart with i guess a man on top. and the man-beast had a ginormous cock, a totally ridiculous cartoon-like out-of-proportion ginormous cock that was slightly inserted into the lady’s vagina. his facial features were more animal than human: wolf-like hair, as much a snoot as a nose, gritted teeth, bulging eyes, straining. his body was more or less human, created with little connection to reality: surreal strong shoulders and arms, bunionesque buttocks and bulging leg muscles with strangely small feet. the lady, clearly about to be massively impaled, was also clearly ok with it. in sharp contrast to her lover, she was at peace, accepting, receptive. she was not necessarily thrilled. she was just ok. her fundamentally featureless face seemed devoid of any expression with empty eyes. her multi-coloured hair was wild. her ample breasts flopped to each side, one arm around the man’s neck, the other straight to the side.
“well, that’s just fantastic,” i finally managed to say, shaking my head in dismay. “we’re gonna do really well with this.” jean-marc began to laugh. that had to be worth something, i reasoned. i hadn’t heard the guy laugh in a helluva long time. it was an inane laugh, rather a slightly unhinged laugh, but there you have it. he was happy, excited. and he was painting. “i will call this one ‘the feudal system,’” he announced as he went up to change into decent clothes. i kept viewing his creation. there was something truly unsettling, even disturbing about it. no doubt about that. normally a jean-marc simard painting of that size could should and would fetch well over forty thousand bucks. unfortunately, even tragically, i’d never be able to sell the thing, wouldn’t even want to. be that as it may, our drive down to the court-house was a lot more animated and fun than any had been in months or years.
court-rooms everywhere had two possible looks, as far as i’d ever seen. they’re either newer grey marble with light wood row seating or old brown wood with dark-wood row seating. the court-room at the city hall at the other end of elgin from the police station was the first sort, with harsh fluorescent lighting and thick heavy grey doors. all the interested parties were there before us other than durga devi or the judge. detective mallah’s wife must’ve been there somewhere but i didn’t know where. ms. morrison was at the front of course. the room was full with people still filing in behind us. we found space about two-thirds of the way back just as durga was being escorted in. as soon as we saw her it was spectacularly clear what was on ‘the other hand’.
durga was tiny, maybe not even five feet, maybe not even a hundred pounds. nobody in their right mind could believe that weak-looking little creature capable of beating up a strapping rcmp detective, killing him. older than jean-marc, probably around my age, she had long, wavy dark hair cascading over her sari. perhaps henna gave the hair a reddish tint. her eyes were sharp, not angry, just sharp. she looked tired, but didn’t seem overly anxious, it could be that she hadn’t quite grasped the situation. it could be that she also couldn’t imagine anyone thinking her capable of such an act. as well, she had a rather warm smile. she smiled at morrison who whispered something to her pointing in our direction. she turned around and smiled at jean-marc and i. frankly, that blew me away.
when the judge entered we stood up, sat down. coincidentally i knew him. judge fitzroy from fitzroy harbour. tall, thin, a family guy, a bit of a collector. i delivered the two simard paintings he purchased at a gallery we’d rented. i had a good time there at the fitzroy estate, had a couple of drinks, asked him what he did when he couldn’t decide a case. he told me he’d simply ask his wife. we had a good laugh but then he said: “yeah, you know i really do. she never even finished high-school but there’s someone with real intelligence, a simple logic and clarity of mind, better than me with all my law books.” i remembered him and that. jean-marc never met the guy. i wondered if fitzroy realized jean-marc was vicariously involved in the case.
that day was the first of a preliminary inquiry for judge fitzroy to ascertain if there was enough evidence to send it to a full trial with jurors and all the necessary procedures. she’d already pleaded ‘not guilty’. it remained for both sides to plead their case, more so for the crown to show sufficient reason to move forward. durga’s size made an obvious and immediate impression on everyone. the motive was as weak as they come. i mean, who kills over a few forged paintings? and her assertion that she was actually trying to help was certainly plausible. witnesses were called, questions were asked, statements were made, documents were presented. one day turned into three over a ten day period and we were there for each session. at the end of the second, as durga was being led out, she passed in front of us, hesitated and said: “i’m not copying you know, it’s a study isn’t it?” jean-marc said he knew.
the third day was the most interesting. the pathology examination determined no blow had been dealt mallah from behind, no discernible sucker-punch. he hadn’t been ambushed. and a doctor as well as a personal trainer both insisted durga was physically incapable of overpowering the six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred and twenty pound highly trained detective. the long and short of it was, judge fitroy from fitzroy harbour directed the police to make every effort to discover the real murderer. he felt very sure the monster was still at large and durga devi was free to go. i have no doubt the judge’s wife agreed wholeheartedly.
the kicker.
about five months later durga and i were eating breakfast when i got a call from the curator of ‘the royal foundation of toledo’ in spain. apparently they wanted to purchase that painting, that painting, ‘the feudal system’, offered sixty-thousand canadian dollars. jean-marc and durga painted together. he offered her part of his studio so she could use larger canvasses. her apartment was way too small. they worked in silence or talked, laughed, taught each other. he was back, fully alive and churning out some amazing and often outrageous creations. jean-marc got his car going. he even gave it a wash. she did that for jean-marc, for both of us really, in very different ways.
one cold winters evening with light snow falling, as we walked through the byward market, a big young stud-muffin coming toward durga and i got right up in my face. he and two buddies weren’t doing anything, didn’t want anything. they were just a bit drunk, being stupid young stud-muffins. he kicked my bag outta my hands sending it sliding along the icy sidewalk. “what the fuck you think you’re doing!?,” i barked. that’s when he got right up into my face but durga kicked his feet out from under him. it was so quick, so effortless and so completely unexpected that we none of us were entirely sure what had happened. the guy fell sideways, landed with a hard thud and for a moment we were all frozen in time.