The Delusionist by Grant Buday Page B

potential. Over the following weeks, Novak put the class through exercises where they drew with their eyes closed, with their opposite hand, where they drew whatever they were looking at as though it was upside down or imagined it from the opposite side.
    â€œThey say some dinosaurs had two brains,” said Novak. “One up here.” He touched his temple. “And one in their tails.” He held up his hand. “Let us develop a brain in our hand.”
    Novak brought in models. Rarely were they beautiful. There was a scarred and fat old man with a long beard, a withered female junkie who shivered and scratched, a body builder, an elderly woman who fell asleep, a native woman with beaded hair to her hips and who, afterwards, strolled behind them in a black and red robe inspecting their work. She paused behind Cyril and stood there for what seemed an eternity.
    â€œHuh.” Then she moved on.
    He evaluated that huh. It was not a harumph , or a sceptical hunh , but a bemused and perhaps even intrigued sound. He had focused on the drapery of her hair as if it was a theatre curtain.
    When Novak looked at Cyril’s sketch he did not say Huh he sucked his teeth. “Well, you know which end of the pencil to use.” Cyril was familiar enough with Eastern European bluntness to know that while it was not exactly a compliment neither was it a complete dismissal. “You are drawing what you think is there not what is there. I’ll give you a trick. If your drawing is going well you don’t need it. But if you’re stuck, this can help. Look for images. You understand? Maybe you look at our lovely madonna of the forest and you see that where her arm meets her shoulder there is a chicken.”
    â€œNot the chickens again,” she said, overhearing.
    Novak ignored her and spoke louder. “A chicken. Or tree. Or boot. You draw that chicken or tree or boot and in that way you build up the whole from the parts, and each part is its own shape.”
    Cyril discovered that his drawings began taking on what Novak termed interior architecture. He was excited. He began imagining a route forward, maybe even a show, a career. Yet why did a guy with Novak’s talent have to teach? One evening he asked whether Novak could make a living on his art.
    â€œAh, the honourable sir has enquired if I, Novak, could survive on the avails of my art alone. I could. But I choose not to. Why? Because I do not wish to become a bitter and loathsome creature. I prefer to remain the sweet boy you see before you now.” His mock beatific expression fell. He frowned. He had many frowns. He could frown musingly, sourly, angrily, whimsically, sadly, even joyously. He could laugh and frown at the same time. Now he frowned reflectively. “You must have talent. A thick skin. And, most important, luck. Luck, luck, luck. So much luck. To make luck you must be clever, or blessed. I know I am not blessed and I suspect I am not so clever, but I believe I have the sweet sad soul of a melted popsicle.”
    Cyril had no idea what any of that meant, but he was inspired.

    Sunday evenings Cyril visited his mother. Paul and Della would be there, and after helping with the dishes Della would dry her hands and inevitably discover her wristwatch and remember how early she had to get up in the morning and they’d escape, leaving Cyril and his mother to Ed Sullivan. She didn’t watch the Ed Sullivan Show so much as gaze at it the way she looked at the cemetery, with a distant and somewhat disdainful curiosity. She regarded José Feliciano as doubly handicapped because he was both blind and Puerto Rican. She liked Liberace’s sequinned outfits and rhinestone rings, though Victor Borge was her favourite because he’d made fun of Hitler in the ’30s.
    She had developed the gravity of a brick. There was some latent danger in her that put Cyril in mind of an unexploded shell that had sat buried for decades. It might