The Delusionist by Grant Buday

It peaked at 9:00 with forty, forty-one if you included the janitor who had stepped in leaving his mop and bucket in the corridor. When Novak saw Cyril’s mother he insisted on taking her arm and touring her through the gallery, expansively acknowledging the virtues of every piece on the walls. She looked at Novak as if he was a talking cat, simultaneously intrigued and appalled. When it came to Cyril’s pictures he was especially effusive. His mother sucked her teeth and regarded the line drawings of fat naked men and skinny naked women. Her experience of art had been the blunt brutalities of Russian Formalism: smoke stacks, hammers and anvils, the fists and forearms of burly men, the sweaty breasts of bullock-shaped women. She began to weep. Novak opened his arms wide and embraced her and for a moment the two of them sobbed together while Cyril and Paul and Della and Gilbert stared. Then their mother shoved Novak away, sniffed once, elevated her chin and resumed her tour of the gallery alone, a solitary ship at sea.
    Only half the students showed up for the next class. Cyril presumed they were home sobbing in their rooms or hiding under their beds, or plotting revenge for the review that had appeared.
    While the work cannot be criticized for being what it is, that is to say amateurish, it can be criticized for being displayed. All the more so for being displayed in a gallery subsidized by taxpayer dollars.
    â€œJesus Christ,” said Gilbert, reading the review aloud to Cyril in case he’d missed it.
    Cyril, scalded, feigned indifference.
    â€œWe should find this bastard,” said Gilbert, whose tone of sincere concern could not mask a hint of sheer delight.
    Cyril understood. He hated him but he understood.
    â€œWhat did what’s his nuts say?” asked Gilbert, meaning Novak.
    â€œFail better next time.”



PART TWO — 1972
    In Which the Match Burns Twice



ONE
    SITTING IN THE BEER parlour of the Europe Hotel before his drawing session one evening, Cyril paged through The Province . It had been a lively spring. Howard Hughes was holed up in the Bayshore Inn, George Chuvalo had gone twelve rounds with Muhammad Ali right here at the Coliseum, and Novak’s buddy Elek Imredy had unveiled his statue Girl in a Wetsuit on a rock off Stanley Park. Cyril was intrigued by the hermit billionaire, admired the indomitable Chuvalo, and wondered if the statue shouldn’t have been holding an umbrella given its perpetual smear of seagull droppings.
    Cyril had discovered that two beers went down well before class. He grew relaxed yet not sloppy, adventurous yet not irreverent. He reached the Entertainment Section and spotted an ad for a live theatre version of The World of Suzie Wong . The West Bay Theatre Troupe of San Francisco was touring and Connie Chow had the starring role.
    â€œYou want front row?” The clerk showed him a laminated card depicting the seating plan.
    Cyril didn’t want front row, he wanted to hide as far back in the shadows as possible, yet be close enough to see everything. He pointed to the last row in the Lower Orchestra. “How about here?”
    He arrived early and drank two beers in the carpeted lobby. It was an older crowd, well-dressed, lots of jewelry and perfume, the conversations murmured and polite. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. He’d filled out, having grown broad across the chest and shoulders due to his carpentry work. He had thick dark sideburns as well as a blackened thumbnail where he’d been whacked by a board. The last time he’d been to the theatre was in high school when Connie was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . That audience had smelled of B.O. and bubblegum; this one smelled of dry cleaning and cigarettes. He was twenty-seven, ten years had passed since he’d seen her. These numbers stuck like poisoned darts and a bewildered confusion seeped through him: confusion at how quickly the