excerpt
…grandly feted and on another day, he and Marsha visited the village that
had been his home. They walked up the Avenue of Princes and stopped
in front of number twelve – his home. In the garden, he saw a couple
talking with the gardener. Ken leaned over the garden wall, introduced
himself, and asked if he could look inside his old boyhood home. The
couple frowned, turned their backs on him, and walked into the house,
locking the door behind them.
The gardener said, “You’re Ken.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Francisco’s nephew.”
“How wonderful to meet you. But why are they so upset?”
“They think you’ve come back to claim the house.”
Ken laughed. “I just wanted to go inside and look. I thought it might
be very nice.”
“Oh no. People have been wondering when you would return to take
back what is yours.”
“I’ve never considered it mine,” he said.
They walked on through the village and then down to the beach. Nothing
had changed. The wall he and Francisco had built was still there and
still trapping the sand to create a beautiful stretch of beach. Even the
remains of Francisco’s cabin still clung to the cliffs.
They drove to Peniche, the home of their friend, the Count. Even here
Ken was recognized, not so much for himself, but for his father; a saint
according to the owner of a restaurant, who closed the café in celebration
of Ken’s visit and served up a feast for his honoured guests.
Back in Toronto, Ken settled into a routine that was continuously interrupted.
When he was not working on Isumataq he painted canvases
for the gallery and for the financial company’s new collection. His biggest
challenge was that the media liked him too much. They wanted to know
why he was meeting with presidents in Europe; they wanted to know his
plans – what was next? Too much good press was boring so they sought
out the malcontents – those who had accused him of appropriating a
culture that wasn’t his. He needled them until they fired back. He had
come back from his latest Arctic trip with letters from the grandmothers,
written in Inuktitut and translated into English, stating that they not
only approved of his art, but had also asked him expressly to do what he
was doing. The letters were tucked in a file that Ken suspected might be
useful one day.
Bad press was interesting but outrageous press was better. He had
about twenty unfinished paintings, stacked in a corner of the studio, that
he would likely never complete. He spread them out on the floor and
paced between them.
“What are you doing?” Diane asked, poking her head into the studio.
Manolis Aligizakis 