“Bravo, Maestro! Bon voyage, mon amour!” Burgeoning with wonderful talent, a true prodigy, wise beyond his years. Destined for a doctorate! Hear them say all around him how fulfilling his paintings are, how sonorous and soothing is his singing voice, an inspiration in this cold hard world.
Go behind the crowd, if you can manage to squeeze past their thronging shoulders, and you will see figures bent low in the shadows under trees in the outer arcade, afraid to speak of him.
“But why, mais pourquoi? Pray tell.”
Drop your defences and pretences and listen, make an effort to hear for the first time in your life, their stories of defeat and sorrow by his cunning. Don’t be so impressionable. Believe them for a day.
If they trust you enough to tell you they may say, of how they have plotted al together in their broken, simple ways to end this reign of travesty for good; for their good in receiving their justice and for the good at saving future victims from their fate.
“But how is this possible?” I hear you say. “He is famous, loved respected in all circles!”
Except for mine. I will tell you of the time he coached a timid victim into speaking out in letters written to her spouse, to only confiscate the whole sheaf of the letters and publish them under his name. With the proceeding credits he made it onto the Board of Healers and Therapists, so fuelled by this dull reason he assumes.
I can tell you of the time he bought two-hundred-and-fifty tubes of oil paint, three easels, thirty brushes, twelve litres of turpentine and a roll of canvas long enough to land a jet plane on, whereupon he donated it all to a poor and wildly possessed painter, who placed coloured strokes so well it was as though he could talk with his daemon plain as day. He locked the painter into a nine-room villa for a year and let him go to work.
When the year had passed he delayed unlocking the door for two weeks, by which time all the new paintings were transported away and the artist was never seen again because he vanished. The art world was predictably astounded all around by the maestro’s heart-felt images. He has been turning tricks like this all his life.
He’s likely a millionaire, at least in production and establishment backing. Two wives, no children as yet. What a pity, if you pity, that he has to be drowned in the harbour like an unwanted villain by all the poor, blind, huddled and speechless victims. See them cower.