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A
self-portrait
By
Uat Kim Huong
 He
did not know himself what was it that gave him the gift.
He was one of the strangest phenomena in fine arts.
Everybody who viewed his paintings, including himself,
could smell whatever object it was that he’d painted.
Not the canvas, the oils, the pastel or the ink, but the
plants, or flowers, or persons. From The Candy Vendor
emanated the sweet fragrance of sugar and groundnuts;
from A Winter Afternoon at the Port, its
stevedores, half naked and sweating as they carried bags
of fertiliser, the oppressive odour of urea fertiliser,
sweat, the sea breeze, and even the garbage piled up on
the ship; from Kieu, the fragrance of perfume and
the smell of new silver ingots that the melancholy
prostitute, on the verge of tears, was holding in her
hand after the customer had left. It was extraordinary.
And his paintings sold like hot cakes. Excited by the
success, he stood painting all day long. Money came to
his pockets and floated around his house like fallen
leaves.
He bought a splendid house at the centre of the city.
His wife and children left their decrepit house in the
suburbs to stay with him and enjoy a modern life of
comfort. He let himself be carried away by the euphoria
of fame and wealth. Eager and cheerful, he wielded his
brushes with great skill. Wherever his eyes alighted,
they printed brand new bank notes. The demand for his
paintings by collectors could not be met though he
worked 18 hours a day. Only when he had purchased
everything for his house, when gold and bank notes
filled up his wardrobes and trunks and bank accounts did
he take a rest. Then the motto became "work little,
enjoy a lot." The price of his paintings, therefore,
rocketed. Each of his rare paintings was worth ten times
than in the past. He lived a life of leisure and luxury
he had never dreamt of before.
His pursuit of happiness through pleasure intensified.
With the offer of a free portrait, he could have a
beautiful woman’s soul. Overwhelmed because they could
smell her own fragrance in the painting, woman after
woman gave themselves to him. They waited eagerly for
him to make advances.
People feared and respected him, it was as if they were
standing in front of a sorcerer with amazing powers, not
in front of a truly talented painter. The greater the
fear and admiration, the better and rarer his paintings
came to be seen as. And in turn, he became infatuated
with the colourful world of debauchery. There was no
thought of giving it up. The greater his passion for
pleasure, the more skilful his art became. He was never
afraid of being short of money. He painted and amused
himself. He painted a flower seller standing in the
street waiting for a customer so that she could get some
money to buy something to eat and appease her hunger. He
painted the spoiled daughter of a big shot who was
trying to imitate bourgeois manners, slowly chewing her
chewing gum like an old woman chewing betel. There
seemed to be a halo around him. He realised that he was
a valuable man, a man of great importance, a man of the
crowd. He knew that he dominated the world of fine arts,
that he was a valuable asset for his village and his
country. Now, he wanted to take his magical art and
amaze the outside world with it. His dreams were of
increasing splendour, of even greater fame and wealth,
reeking of money, wine and women.
It was one of the most luxurious hotels in the city. He
was closeted in a room with a shy, innocent teenager.
The price had already been agreed upon. He opened the
bag that he always carried with him, and took out the
familiar tools of a painter and put them on the bed.
Then he took a canvas and fixed it on the wall with four
nails. He mixed up the water colours and busied himself
with other trivial things without uttering a word,
without even glancing at the girl. Having finished the
work, he turned out the fluorescent light and turned on
the night light. He came up to the girl and stared at
her, like a cat staring at an inoffensive guinea pig.
She was sitting motionless on the bed. She looked up
straight into the face of the naked man in front of her.
Her beautiful round black eyes shone brightly, without
any fear, without any entreaty, without any regret. He
felt a chill run down his spine. His fingers, he knew
not why, seemed to be bewildered as they fumbled with
the buttons on her coat. Why was this, when he had
already paid in advance, and a big sum at that? He felt
increasingly embarrassed by the small buttons that were
the door to a new world. He swore as his efforts proved
futile. She heaved a sigh, pushed away his hands and
quietly unbuttoned her coat. Petrified, he stared at
her. Having taken off all her clothes, she calmly
stretched herself on the bed. He stood dumbfounded. All
of a sudden he heard her voice, "Are you the one who
paints paintings that smell?" Startled, he nodded. "You
will paint a portrait of me, won’t you?" He
hesitated, then said, "Why not, but only after we
have finished this!" She smiled, "You should
paint me before I become a woman." "Why?" he
asked. She sat up, and spoke clearly, "If you paint
me now, the painting will have no smell. Absolutely no
smell!" Taken aback, he frowned, and thought deeply.
Then he nodded, and said, "You’re right. I have
painted a thousand and one portraits of women with their
smells. But I haven’t done one with the smell of a
virgin girl." She shook her head. "Virgin girls
have no smell. Only when they have no smell they are
called virgins." He grimaced and nodded, "Maybe
so. But we should test whether there is no virgin girl’s
smell." She smiled derisively, "The painting will
have no smell at all." Provoked, his voice rose in a
shout, "Let me see." He stepped towards the
canvas on the wall. Her voice came from behind, "Why
don’t you make a self-portrait?" He startled as if
he’d been hit by an electric shock. He turned round and
stared at her in panic. He could hear his heart thumping
in his chest. And his body was soaked with sweat. He
asked in a distorted voice, "What... did you say?"
The girl raised her chin, her voice strident, "Have
you ever made a self-portrait?" He grimaced again,
his face suddenly hot, and he answered in an embarrassed
voice, "Perhaps... not yet." She smiled and stood up.
Her frail body was as white as the kapok cotton. Arms
akimbo, she said, "Then do it now. To see what it
will smell like. You must have a special smell! Paint it
now!" Her words were imperious. They made his legs
and arms shiver. For a moment he did not know what to
do. He sat on the cold shining floor, the blood draining
from his face. He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke
deep his chest. After three puffs, he recovered
somewhat. The girl was standing, still looking pure and
innocent. She was looking down at him with pity. He
tried to rise up, and said at length, "Go away. You
must get out of this room as quickly as possible. Put on
your clothes, quick, and see that everything has come to
an end. Come on, quick!" The girl smiled, put on her
clothes and gingerly walked out. Just before she closed
the door behind her, she looked at him with an arrogant
smile, "Don’t forget to make your self-portrait, Hmm?
The painting must have a special smell. Bye bye!" He
closed his eyes and put his hands to his ears. The door
slammed up with a cruel noise. He heaved a sigh of
relief and looked around. Only he remained. His shadow
was motionless on the wall.
He put on his underwear, went into the balcony for a
moment and returned to his room with his easel, canvas,
and water colours. He stood naked in front of the mirror
on the wardrobe. The canvas was near him. He looked at
his pale and weak body for a while. Then he started
making a portrait of the painter who made his paintings
smell.
Having finished the painting, he sniffed at it. Nothing.
He sniffed again and again. Nothing. Not even the smell
of water colours. He threw away the odourless but
colourful painting, and began working on another one.
Then he tried to smell and even lick it. Nothing. He
flung it aside and began working again... and again. The
sixth, seventh and eighth paintings were finished, and
he continued to paint until the wee hours of the next
day. But there was no smell emanating from the
self-portraits.
At nine o’clock in the morning, seeing that it was
extraordinarily quiet in the room, the waiter knocked at
the door to wake up the guest. There was no response.
The door was opened with a second key. The guest was
lying shrivelled up on the cold floor amidst a heap of
paintings. He was dead.
The odourless self-portraits was offered, but no one
dared to receive them. Someone suggested that they
should be placed in the coffin around his stiff corpse.
The doctors announced the results of the post mortem.
The subject had died of suffocation.
When the coffin was closed, all of a sudden a smell
burst out and filled the room. That was not his smell;
his wife and children insisted. It was the mixture of
all the kinds of smells - of places where he’d lived and
visited in his quest for fame, wealth and pleasure.
Translated by Hoang Tuy |
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