The Map and the Territory Read Free Page B

Hvar, to open a business renting out sea scooters. Incidentally, one of the last projects that Jed’s father had dealt with before retirement concerned an invitation to bid on the construction of a prestigious marina in Stari Grad, on Hvar, which was indeed beginning to become a celebrated destination; only last year Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie had been seen there, and Jed felt an obscure sense of disappointment at the idea of this man abandoning plumbing, a noble craft, to rent out noisy and stupid machines to stuck-up rich kids living in the rue de la Faisanderie.
    “But what is this place notable for?” asked the Internet portal of the isle of Hvar, before replying thus: “There are meadows of lavender, old olive trees and vines in a unique harmony, and so the visitor who wants to get close to nature will first visit the small
konoba
(tavern) of Hvar instead of going to the most luxurious hotel, he will taste the local wine instead of champagne, he will sing an old folk song of the island and he will forget his daily routine.” That’s probably what had seduced SeanPenn, and Jed imagined the dead season, the still-mild October months, the ex-plumber sitting peacefully over his seafood risotto; obviously this choice could be understood, even excused.
    A little despite himself, he approached
Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons Dividing Up the Art Market
, which was standing on his easel in the middle of the studio, and dissatisfaction seized him again, still more bitterly. He realized he was hungry, which wasn’t normal after the Christmas dinner he’d had with his father—starter, main course, cheese and dessert, nothing had been left out—but he felt hungry and so hot he could no longer breathe. He returned to the kitchen, opened a tin of cannelloni in tomato sauce and ate them one by one, while looking morosely at his failed painting. Koons was undoubtedly not light enough, not ethereal enough—it would perhaps be necessary to give him wings, like the god Mercury, Jed thought stupidly; there, with his pinstriped suit and salesman’s smile, he reminded you a bit of Silvio Berlusconi.
    On the ArtPrice ranking of the richest artists, Koons was world number 2; for a few years now, Hirst, ten years his junior, had taken his place at number 1. As for Jed, he had reached 593 ten years ago—but 17 in France. He had then, as the Tour de France commentators say, “dropped to the bottom of the
classement
,” before disappearing from it altogether. He finished the tin of cannelloni and opened an almost empty bottle of cognac. Lighting his ramp of halogen lamps to the maximum, he trained them on the center of the canvas. On closer inspection, the night itself wasn’t right: it didn’t have that sumptuousness, that mystery one associates with nights on the Arabian Peninsula; he should have used a deep blue, not ultramarine. He was making a truly shitty painting. He seized a palette knife, cut open Damien Hirst’s eye, and forced the gash wider; it was a canvas of tight linen fibers, and therefore very tough. Catching the sticky canvas with one hand, he tore it in one blow, tipping the easel over onto the floor. Slightly calmed, he stopped, looked at his hands, sticky with paint, and finished the cognac before jumping feet first onto his painting, stamping on it and rubbing it against the floor until it became slippery. He lost his balance and fell, the back of his head hitting the frame of the easel violently. He belched and vomited, and suddenly felt better, the air circulating freely on his face, and he closed his eyes contentedly: he had visibly reached the end of a cycle.

PART ONE

1
    Jed no longer remembered when he had first begun to draw. No doubt all children draw, more or less, but as he didn’t know any children, he wasn’t sure. His only certainty was that he had begun by drawing flowers—in small notebooks, with colored pencils.
    On Wednesday afternoons generally, and occasionally on Sundays, he had known