ISBN 1-59201-021-0
Books Unbound E-Publishing Co.
http://www.booksunbound.com
Publication November, 2003
Cover Art by D. Lee
To Sculpt a Living Statue
Tal Boldo
Copyright
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences
are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental and not the goal of the author or Books Unbound.
Acknowledgments
Although writing is a solitary occupation, several people have played an important role in the creation of this novel.
Without the advice, support and love of my dearest friend and husband, Dan, this book would never have been written. For putting up with my despondencies when writing did not go my way, or forgiving my absentmindedness when it did--I owe him much.
For her support and keen advice, I am indebted to my sister, Stav. In fact, without her insight this story would have sorely lacked its proper ending.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Leslie Cholowsky, for her devotion to excellence. Her advice had always been beautiful in its simplicity and accuracy. Thanks to her patience and dedication, 20% of excess verbiage was shed from the text, crystallizing the events and message of the story. Few people have taught me so much in so short a time.
A warm thanks to Leigh M. Walker for his thorough review of the edited manuscript. His insight helped to smooth away many creases.
To the wonderfully talented, D. Lee, deep thanks for bringing the statue to life.
For recommending rewrites on an earlier version of this work, I am grateful to Sally J. Walker, Editorial Director at The Fiction Works. Her thoughtful response to my query, which included also copies of articles and recommended reading, opened magic casements for me.
Part I: 1980
 Chapter One
An Invited Guest Arrives Uninvited
I
It was February and it was hot, light spilling everywhere like bleached water, seeping into sidewalks and flowing over streets. A young man, exiting South Africa's Kimberly Airport terminal an hour before midday, seemed unprepared for this glare, and he sheltered his eyes with a flat palm the moment the sliding doors opened before him. He was carrying a single, small suitcase, the kind business travelers bring on the plane with them to save themselves the hassle of collecting their baggage. His steps were quick, although heavy, and the hand sheltering his eyes seemed to sink at the elbow with sagging energy, so that it cast an unsteady shadow over his stubbled chin. Like many tourists arriving from the winter of the northern hemisphere to the summer of South Africa, he came prepared for the wrong adversities, wearing a raincoat and sorely lacking a pair of sunglasses.
With squinting eyes, he approached one of the taxis lining the edge of the road and silently indicated where he wished to go by tapping his finger on the front of a frayed envelope. The thick cigar fuming between the lips of the driver nodded a reticent invitation, and the weary traveler slipped under the protection of the roof, seating himself in the middle of the long back seat, away from the windows and the glaring daylight.
With a triumphant honk, the taxi relinquished its place in the line of cars and screeched forward. "Welcome to the City of Ghosts." The one-eyed cigar grinned at its passenger in the frame of the rearview mirror, intoning the greeting as storytellers intone the opening line: once upon a time. The passenger, too tired to respond even to this latent promise of a tale, said nothing. He took a sketchbook and pencil from his coat pocket and with marked indifference drew the scenes passing before him. It was a forced occupation, as was revealed by his red rimmed eyes, which blinked with exhaustion. After a minute more of struggle to keep awake in defiance of the slow, inexorable sinking of his body into the comfort of the seat, his heavy head slipped back and his drooping eyelids closed.
He was startled into wakefulness by the gruff insistence of the driver, who was shaking him vigorously by the shoulder and blowing angry smoke signals his way. Despite this assault, the young man returned to reality with difficulty. His fingers fumbled in his coat pocket and retrieved a wallet. He offered a large tip as proof of good things to come and asked to be picked up in half an hour. The driver, entirely won over, puffed an assent and drove off, leaving the weary traveler standing on the sidewalk with his raincoat flung across one arm and his suitcase held in his hand.
Up the street, on both sides, blooming gardens and inviting facades stood proudly. But before him--dry, tired and ugly--slithered a path of broken stones leading to a peeling, damp house of chipped stucco. A thorny arch stretched over a missing gate where only rusty hinges remained to welcome arrivals. An empty bird fountain tilted by a broken bench, and a multitude of dry plants wove a rambling net over the parched earth. The whole scene seemed to convey the single, terse message: Stay Away!
In the first moments of shock and disappointment, the young man seemed about to oblige. He made no move toward the house but stood hesitating, shifting his weight from leg to leg, and glancing impatiently up at the glaring sun. Then after a minute, he shrugged defiantly and climbed the three steps leading up to the dead garden.
Each weed-covered step shook resentfully under him, and the last of them cracked in an effort to trip him. The weedy path clung to his shoes and twined around his ankles. The filth-covered front door muffled the sound of his knock. He began to question the randomness of such neglect. Decay, like a living, reasoning creature, was denying him entrance, keeping him from the man who had invited him here. Tiredly, he prepared to knock more firmly, when the door suddenly opened and revealed the face of an old man--so old that he seemed never to have been young. A scrawny hand then followed the appearance of the face and waved the newcomer in impatiently, slamming the door shut behind him.
The young man now found himself trapped inside a dim, narrow corridor where faint strips of dusty light slunk in surreptitiously through the filth-coated, slender windows flanking the door on either side. Somewhat taken aback by the antediluvian appearance of his host, who in the darkness seemed even older than he had appeared at the door, he dropped his suitcase and raincoat on the floor and stretched a hesitant hand forward. "Mr. Eybic," he whispered, "I'm honored to meet you."
"Yes, yes, very well," grunted the withered man, turning his back on the proffered hand to lead the way through the elongated room and its musty odor of dry flowers and burnt candles.
As the young man followed silently in the shuffling footsteps of the older, he noticed just how short that man was, how thin and white, how his clothes hung loosely on his shriveled body, and how his joints protruded grotesquely through them.
Despite this frailty, the old man did not walk slowly forward but meandered erratically between the musty furniture until he reached a broken clock of gold and mahogany standing guard between two sliding glass doors. Through the dirty panes a stark garden showed, and from behind the still clock a ghostly arm appeared. The old man tried to conceal this strange object behind his gaunt figure, but his frame proved too thin. His guest craned his neck to the left and caught sight of a white cross towering over a white slab. So clean were the gravestones that they gave the impression of having been laid to rest that very day; although the inscription carved into them dated back to the 15th of August, 1965.
"Sit down, Mr. Delone," came the angry voice of the old man, whose eyes were looking from the young man to the grave with consternation.
"Please call me Christopher," answered his guest, reluctant to abandon his post.
"I must insist that you sit, Mr. Delone!"
"Yes, of course, where?" replied the young man slowly, as one who is considering another matter.
"Here, if you please," the old man indicated a pale yellow armchair, whose back was to the window.
The young man accepted the indicated seat without argument just as bells tolled outside, chiming the Westminster melody complete with twelve tolls.
"Damnable bells," muttered the old man. "These demons of time have been hounding me these thirty years. They began in the middle of the century; God willing, they will end with it."
"Do they toll every hour?"
The old man glared at his companion as if the latter had just pronounced a curse. "No, Mr. Delone, not every hour," he said gruffly, "Twice each day, at noon and midnight: the first to give the sinners time to repent. The second to haunt the dreams of those who hadn't." He chuckled quietly, looking at the grave, then turned to his guest again. "Why have you come here?"
Delone looked up at his host with such a degree of astonishment as nothing in the strange house had yet evoked in him. "Why have I come? We agreed I should!"
"We agreed on nothing of the kind. You would not take no for an answer. That's what we agreed on, and so...."
"And so," Delone interrupted incredulously, "you said yes? To humor me? Look, Mr. Eybic..." the name seemed to calm him, and he checked his words. "I apologize if I've offended you in some way. That wasn't my intention. You know how much I admire your work. I'm honored to be here talking with you."
Eybic said nothing.
"I can't answer your question," Delone spoke again to break the silence. "You must answer it for me."
"Answer for you? Tell you why you have come all this way from... where is it you said you were from?"
"The United States. New Jersey."
"That's far, isn't it?"
"That's far."
"Then you have come all this way to find something you didn't find there."
Delone relaxed and smiled. "I suppose so."
"And will you find it here?"
The young man looked up at the tired eyes and pale wrinkles. "I thought I already had," he said quietly.
"You mean our agreement?" Eybic glanced at his young guest and received a nod. "Our agreement," he repeated, "it calls for so much. I don't think I can give so much."
"Then, why...?" Delone said, rising.
"To lure you here," the old man said simply. "Please sit, sit down," he waved his hand irritably. "Let me explain. You are young, barely eighteen? Twenty? Ahhh," he gestured dismissively, "What do you know of life? What can you possibly know at your age?" the old man's eyes slowly drifted up to the bare courtyard. "I can tell you about life! First it comes to you in gusts. And being so young and strong and very foolish, you think to yourself: Ah! This is life! Life is good! But one day the gusts grow fierce, and soon they blow the air right out of your lungs. Suddenly you are breathless. The air life gives you when you're young is so sweet you grow addicted. And when that air floats away, you stop living. I am an old, old man. I've known every current, every lull. My lungs are empty. But my mind... Ah!" An expression of undying grief settled over the tired, old face.
Delone sat again but in a different seat this time. There was a hard, wooden chair positioned beside the dead clock and facing the solitary grave. He did not shift its angle to the room but sat on it as it stood and spoke with his back to the old man. "You asked me here for a reason--"
"There was no reason," the other interrupted, "I never asked--"
"Then agreed," Delone returned the discourtesy, "and now I'm here to collect on a promise you made. Why did you go through the charade of testing my worthiness, as you had put it? Why did you ask me to send you a sample of my drawings if you had no intention of selling me one of your jewels? Why did you agree to my coming if you had no intention of honoring your promise?"
"I will honor it."
The young man turned breathlessly.
"On one condition," Eybic added quickly.
"What is it?"
"I will make you a jewel--any jewel you please--on condition that you help return to me a special diamond I lost many years ago. Any jewel you please! Free of charge! If you return that stone to me."
"What stone?"
"The Blue Coffin."
"I don't have such a stone."
"I know who does."
"Who?"
"Someone!" Eybic said as forcefully as if he had disclosed an actual name. "If you move away from that chair and sit where I asked you to sit before, I will tell you what I know."
Delone returned to the faded yellow armchair.
"You have heard, I'm sure, of the Hope Diamond," Eybic began his explanation. "The largest blue diamond ever found. It originated in the mines of Kollur in India and was sold to Louis XIV. He named it The Blue Diamond of the Crown; others have renamed it the Hope Diamond. To me it has offered no hope yet.
"My stone was once part of this large diamond. The court Jeweler, Sieur Pitau, was chosen by the French king to cut this stone. While cutting the stone, the jeweler stole a small piece of the diamond, and then gave it secretly to his lover as a token of his undying devotion, cutting it into a three carat coffin as an eternal reminder to her of the danger he had scorned. The small stone and the large share a quality no other stone in the world possesses. When they are exposed to light all day long, they glow red in the dark as if a fire were raging inside them. In daylight they are as blue as a fjord; at night they burn. Find me the coffin that glistens like ice in the day and flashes like a demon at night, and I will give you--make you--any jewel you desire."
In the silence that followed, the young man recognized an invitation to speak but could think of nothing to say.
Behind the wizened host, the shadows of a thorny wilderness penetrated the house through the slender windows flanking the front door, and cast insane shapes on the faded rug and the old furniture. Beside the door, something seemed to stir; and Delone, for a moment, mistook the old fashioned coat hanging there for a woman, or the ghost of one. He jumped from his seat; and Eybic jumped next, looking back eagerly.
"Nothing," the old man whispered to himself then turned to look at the young man again. "You say nothing to my proposal."
Delone's shoulders sagged, and he breathed in deeply to push them back. "I've flown thousands of miles to meet with a renowned, retired jeweler who, after reviewing my work, had promised to sell me a jewel if I brought enough money with me. I come to this jeweler and find he has no interest in money. That instead he wants some fantastic stone nobody's ever heard of. I'm tired, Mr. Eybic, perhaps we can continue our meeting tomorrow?"
"No!" the old man said harshly. "That stone is here, in Kimberly. I know. I know the signs."
"You know the signs," the young man repeated sadly, cynically. "Then why not go after it yourself?"
"I'm a tired old man, Delone. But I am not a mad one. Recently, there have been reports of a red demon hovering in one of our local gardens. It is the one adjacent to the church, where the bells were tolling. And since there is a graveyard on the other side, people have been too afraid to investigate. They will soon though. And when they do, they will find whoever it is who's wearing this diamond at night, hidden in that garden. Surely you're not afraid to go after it? You don't look like a man who believes in ghosts, Delone."
"But you do, Eybic."
"I do and know enough about them to tell you that this is not a ghost. Ghosts exist only in the living, the ones the dead leave behind. The abandoned ones, they are the parents of all ghosts. The ghost in the garden is without ties. Therefore, it is not a ghost."
"Then you think someone is wearing the diamond in that garden at night?"
"I do."
"And you are too tired to find them and get this diamond yourself?"
"And too poor."
"Then money is called for after all."
"It is. I see that makes you feel better."
"It makes this whole conversation a little more real."
"Then you will do it?"
"Go after some obscure image floating in a church garden by a graveyard and offer its ghost all I own in the world?"
"Maybe this will change your mind," said the old man in response to the younger's cynicism, withdrawing to a narrow table that stood against the wall, laden with candles and empty picture frames. From one of the drawers he withdrew a small cardboard box, returned with it to his companion and placed it in his hand. "Open it," he said.
As the box seemed to be a solid cube, the young man's doubt of the old jeweler's sanity increased. He turned the worthless object over several times but found it to be plain and simple, a mere box of cardboard everywhere he looked. At last, he grew weary of the exercise and shook it forcefully with one hand over the other as if he were dispensing salt from a shaker. When something then fell into his palm, it startled him first by falling into it at all, then by gleaming at him as if it were possessed of an eye and of a mischievous spirit, and finally by appearing for what it was, a ring, devoid of a crown and yet beguiling in its beauty.
"The diamond belongs to this ring. This ring was made for it," Eybic said.
"Then you have seen this diamond?" Delone asked, still looking at the ring.
"I have touched it."
"Then you know it to be real."
"As real as this ring."
"And you want it for this ring?"
"For her to whom this ring was given once before."
"Will you give it away then?"
The old man chuckled quietly. "One cannot give away anything one gives to one's own soul. Will you help me complete this ring?"
The young man looked at the dead clock and thought of the grave it hid. "I'll get your stone for you," he said, rising to return the uncrowned jewel to its creator. It seemed to him as he neared the old man that perhaps the wrinkled eye had just winked at the grave; but the gesture was too quick to offer a clear impression.
"You'll see yourself out, won't you," said the host, keeping his face to the window.
"Sure," said his guest. "Then I'll see you when I have the stone."
"Yes," Eybic answered fervently, turning, "bring it to me when you have it. You will bring it to me?"
"I will."
The young man retraced the steps that had brought him into this mausoleum, passing by the soiled living room and the dust-coated table, by the lighted candles and the frames without faces, and finally by the decomposing coat hanging near the door, its lapel moth-eaten and its sleeve clinging by a thread.
He took his suitcase and raincoat from the dim corridor and stepped outside into the glaring sunlight.
Author's Biography
The Dry Facts
Tal Boldo was born in Israel in 1968 and was educated in England, Israel, and Canada. She has a Bachelors Degree in Literature from the University of Haifa, Israel. To Sculpt a Living Statue is her first novel. Her children's story, The Dragon and the Drought, will be published in 2004. She is also the author of the literary novel, Peeking Through Keyholes, and several short stories. Currently, she is working on a literary fantasy novel.
Ms. Boldo lives in North Carolina with her husband, son, and two dogs.
A Little More Personal...
I wrote poetry as a child, and even one short story that is still tucked somewhere between the pages of an encyclopedia, hidden so well that I never again found it. I remember that my poetry teacher used to make a great fuss about my poems, interpreting them in all sorts of strange ways.
Every year my poems were published in the school paper."What dazzling success...." Still, I could not have been very impressed, because I did not grow up thinking I would someday be a writer.
That decision came years later, when I was 24 going on 90. In preparation, I began to study Hebrew."Why Hebrew?" Because it took me two more years to come to the conclusion that I wanted to leave the land of my birth for a freer, more rational nation, and there to write in the richest language of all languages.
It was then that I began studying English, grammar, philosophy and literature. Lastly, I learned how to plot and create characters.
My first novel, To Sculpt a Living Statue, was completed seven years after I determined to be a writer. Perhaps, if I had known how long a process it would be, I would never have ventured. I like to think I would have anyway, though not from heroics so much as an inexorable need to write well.
As to the many rejections I had to endure--some polite, some creative, some insufferably arrogant, some not to the point--I learned from them all: about human nature, about my craft, about how maddeningly committed I was to attaining that elusive professional status of published writer. I have come to see rejections as simply part of the business, as are the glorious moments when an idea finds form in words that flow together like music.
Visit Tal's Website at http://www.talboldo.com
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