Pentimento: a dystopian Beauty and the Beast (5 page)

"I admire you for coming here on your own," he said as they walked, a little calmer now, probably trying to reason things. "I'm still wondering though what this Pentimento thing is, and how it could help me learn about the Beasts."

Iris finally stopped in front of a six-story building, mostly in a much better condition than the rest. Although damaged, the building looked like a construction site with ladders, ropes, and all kinds of machinery—mostly made of wood—gathered around it. Someone had built some kind of wooden steps that grew tangent to the building's surface, like ladders spread diagonally to the left and to the right. It looked like a zigzag of wood on the walls from afar.

“Who did this?" Colton raised his head.

"Who else? I did it."

"You?” Colton grinned, that curve of admiration loping on his lips again.

Iris nodded proudly. “My father taught me.”

“Your father knows about carpentry in a city made of steel and holograms?"

“A rare hobby, I know. He had been taught by his ancestors," Iris said. "I prefer you don't tell anyone. The Council get suspicious about anything unordinary."

"Being with you is illegal already," Colton smirked. He meant it with a good heart. "I've got blood on my hands already, and I'm not telling anyone anything. But Cody told me your father's hobby was painting."

"Cody told you a lot in such a short time," Iris said. "True, my father was some kind of painter in his youth.”

Colton still looked dazzled by the construction. "So why did you go through all the hassle to build this stuff? Why in here, and why is this building so important?"

“Well,” Iris sighed a little longer than usual. “My father never painted with a brush and then sold his glamour portraits for money. He practiced a forgotten art that had to do a lot with painting, though."

"And it has to do something with this building?" Colton inspected the building again, noticing the fading paint on its wall.

"Yes." Iris said, clasping her hands. As much as she liked Colton, telling him about her deepest passion was a tricky moment for her. What if he didn't like her hobby? That would have spoiled any future plans between them--although she believed she'd never see him again after today anyway. But Iris, being who she was, couldn't stop thinking about it. Her passion for her art seemed to have overruled any relationships in her life. If she'd break up with a boyfriend, she'd survive. But if her passion was taken away from her, she would have died. "This building has a lot to do with my father's painting hobby."

“Wow. I am curious," Colton said. "What is this art and what is it called?”

Iris noticed that some of the sparkling in his eyes had returned now, and she was happy about it.

“Come on, tell me. I’m curious,” Colton demanded.

“It’s called Pentimento, and it's kind of forbidden by the Beasts. It's a beautiful, but dangerous art.” Iris said, remembering the first time her father told her about what Pentimento was, and how it had changed her life and the way she thought about the Beasts forever.

When Iris was about five, a long time before her mother died, her father used to lock himself in the basement for hours while her mother braided her hair in front of the mirror. Iris wasn't blessed with good hair. It was naturally a bit stiff and hard to comb, blonde but not golden. Golden was always adored in The Second. Her hair grew much better in her adolescent years, if they had only waited and seen what this girl could do when she grew older. Her mother thought braiding Iris’s hair camouflaged its defect, and made her daughter look stylish. Iris didn't care about her hair. If the world didn't like it, they'd better just look away. What piqued her curiosity was what her father was doing downstairs.

She might not have been that interested if everyone in the house hadn’t been so secretive about it. Whatever Charles Beaumont was doing would be a great threat if the Beasts had known about it.

Iris had seen her mother fight with her father about the matter before. She’d be protesting that this hobby of his was going to expose them to the Council's wrath. Thus, the Beasts’.

“It’s the only thing that makes me happy,” Charles used to tell her mother. “And no one will ever know about it. My father did it and my grandfather did it. It runs in the family. I don’t care if the damn Beasts don’t allow it.”

“No one said they didn’t allow it,” her mother had explained. “I don’t think anyone even knows about this Pentimento. I just have a feeling that it breaks the Beasts’ first, and only, commandment.”

“I know what the first and only commandment is, mother,” Iris had tiptoed in and raised her hand, as if she were in class. “Can I recite it?”

“And here we go with the Beasts’ bloody commandment,” Charles rolled his hands, and his eyes. “How can they teach this to the kids in school?”

“I'm in kindergarten, daddy,” Iris had felt obliged to correct him. “Will go to school next year.”

Iris's mother had shot Charles a look of guilt, then knelt down and held her daughter gently by her arms. “Please do tell your father what you have learned, Iris.”

“The first commandant is,” Iris straightened her back and made sure her top button was closed, then coughed to clear her voice. “'Thou shall not question the Beasts.'”

“Good girl,” her mother rubbed her daughter's hair gently, avoiding Charles protesting eyes.

“In The Second we can live in prosperity and enjoy our lives under the sovereign of the Beasts. We are a nation of freedom, like no other,” Iris saluted her mother like soldiers do. “Every individual is free to think and do what he pleases, as long as they abide by the law,” she turned to her dad and rose a warning forefinger. “Never question the Beasts.”

Charles sighed and ruffled her hair, as he had no choice to object. “How do they teach this to kids?” he mumbled, and climbed down the stairs to his double door basement.

“Don’t be long,” her mother had told Charles, then turned back to Iris. “And because you've been a good girl, I'll now comb your hair, then braid it the way you like it.”

But then, Iris's mother got a call while doing her hair. Iris couldn’t resist the curiosity of climbing down to the basement. To her surprise, her father had kept the door open.

Iris tiptoed into the room. It was full of books and paintings of all kinds. She wondered why her father still had some paper-books, when nobody used them anymore because they were available digitally everywhere.

Still, there was no straight law against owning old books just because no one liked them. Paper notebooks and pencils were still sold in auctions, as they were considered antiques. Painters used them mostly as part of their artistic endeavors, which were too expensive for them and made art a rare practice.

Painter! Iris thought. Her father must have been a painter of some sort. But why was he secretive about it?

Iris snuck closer to see what her father was doing. He was wearing his thick glasses while bowing over a painting she’d never seen before. It was of a woman with an unusual smile. A very serene smile, Iris thought. The woman in the painting wore a black veil, and the painting was mostly of dark and yellowed colors. Iris’s father had tapped a sticker on its upper right. It was labeled, “Renaissance.” Iris had no idea what that meant.

It didn't matter though. What Iris was interested in was the woman's amazing smile. She noticed that however she changed her angle looking at the smiling woman, the woman still smiled back at her, as if standing right in front of her.

Charles also had a stack of different oils and brushes next to him, a small and round magnifier, and what seemed like a metallic torch, like the one she later kept in her locker at school. Charles wasn’t painting, but rather scratching the surface of the painting. Slightly. Carefully. Tentatively. And with love.

The painting seemed to be worth something that money couldn’t buy, an expression she had heard her father say to describe her when he was in a good mood, smoking his cigar and rocking on his favorite chair.

Iris took a step closer and craned her head to take a better look. Her father was pouring a few drops of a strange green liquid from a thin bottle on the painting, before scratching again. He waited for a moment, then breathed onto the painting’s surface, as if cooling it. Lastly, he used the magnifier to inspect the drawing.

Iris watched him let out a defeated sigh. He wasn’t impressed with the results—with whatever it was that he’d expected to happen to the painting after pouring the liquid on it. He took his glass off and leaned back, then stretched his neck. Iris had no time to retreat. As he craned his neck, Charles caught a glimpse of her.

“Iris?” he said with a welcoming tone.

“I-I’m sorry,” she took a step back. “I found the door open.”

“You aren't supposed to climb down here,” his face knotted, as he looked over her shoulder and back to her again. “How did you come down here? Where's your mother?” he whispered.

Iris’s eyes widened, trying to match her father’s conspiracy-minded mood. “She’s on the phone,” she whispered like Charles, not a pitch higher or lower. In fact, she tried to sound like him, which was too hard for her because he smoked, and his chest was full of garbage, like her mother used to say. Garbage in the chest thickened the voice.

“Do you think she will finish her call soon?” Charles raised an eyebrow, still worried her mother would come down and turn this into a dramatic soap opera.

“No,” Iris giggled. “She’s talking to auntie, so the conversation might take until dinner.”

“Good,” Charles nodded. “Come closer. Let me show you my secret.”

“Really?” Iris jumped in place.

“Shhh,” Charles flung a warning finger. “Don’t raise your voice, and no matter what I show you, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

Iris nodded with a serious face.

“Not anyone,” he insisted. “Now come here.”

Iris approached the painting. The woman’s smile was still marvelous when she got closer. “Who is she, daddy?”

“No one really knows,” Charles sat Iris on his knees as he stared at the painting. “The painting is called the Mona Lisa though.”

“What a beautiful name,” Iris considered. "Can I have a name like that?"

Charles laughed. "You already have a better name. Iris." He looked into her eyes. Iris knew what her name meant. She'd always thought she was special in her parents’ eyes, and therefore the name came up.

“Did you paint this woman?” Iris wondered.

“I wish I had,” Charles chuckled. “I can’t paint. Someone drew it a long, long time ago.”

“How long?”

“I don’t really know how long,” Charles said. “But this painting has survived all the way since the ancients.”

“Wow. The people who lived here before the Beasts arrived?”

“Like I said, no one can know about this,” Charles said. “The Beasts don’t like anyone asking too much about the past.”

“And what were you doing with that liquid?” Iris reached for one of the bottles, but her father stopped her gently, cupping her hand into his palm.

“I was practicing a hobby of mine,” he said, as he put her down. “It’s called Pentimento.”

"Penti-?" Iris looked puzzled by the word.

"-mento. It's not purely an American name. It came from an old land called Italy, which we think drowned in the sea many, many years ago. Italy was famous for its notorious painters. Pentimento is a painters’ term,” he explained.

“What does it mean?” Iris couldn’t have been any more curious.

“It's hard to explain, but let me show you,” he said, and ushered her to another painting on another table in the basement. Iris's hand patted her chest unconsciously when her eyes came upon the painting. It was beautiful. Enchanting. A feeling like no other swiped over her soul when she saw it. She tilted her head up toward Charles, wondering if he'd realized how beautiful the painting was.

"Take a longer look," Charles patted her, kneeling next to her. "Take in the picture and set your mind free," he said.

Iris turned back, and allowed the oil painting to hypnotize her, wondering how old brushes and strokes could outlive the strongest of nations and still have such an impact on the observer.

The painting was of two lovers, holding hands and running side by side towards a fountain. The eagerness in their eyes was breathtaking. Iris could understand how important the fountain was for the two lovers. Love itself, as ambiguous as it had seemed to Iris before, was portrayed just perfectly. Iris might have been too young to understand it, but the emotions oozing out of the painting were unavoidable. The girl in the painting was a bit chubby with full cheeks, something the people in The Second weren't used to. Girls were taught from a young age that the slimmer, the better-looking. The boy was beautiful, and it was Iris's first time she could accurately match the word “beautiful” with a boy. The painting was actually much better than the Mona Lisa because it was Iris's first sight of lovers. She wondered if she'd ever find someone to hold hands with her like that. Someone who'd belong to her and she'd belong to him. Were they going to look as beautiful together?

"Where are they running to, daddy?" she said, feeling a little embarrassed, watching the painting in his presence. What if he realized how much she liked the sight of the boy?

"It's a fountain," Charles said. "The Fountain of Love." Iris shrugged, as if it could quench her thirst. Somehow, it could. For Iris realized in that moment that not all thirst was for water. "The painter is called Fragonard. Jen-honore Fragorand. So this is Fragonard's Fountain of Love. A painting that was worth a lot of money at some point."

"And now?"

"The Beasts have no interest in such art. They like everything metallic and dull, like you see all around you. They are not fond of oil, natural colors, and human art."

Iris turned back to the painting. Now that she had known the boy and girl were running toward the Fountain of Love, she felt something in her chest briefly, like a butterfly or something. It was tickly and a little uncomfortable, but she didn't mind it.

“So tell me, Iris. Do you
see
this painting?” Charles said.