SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Meeting Gaia

To reach Gaia Blumenthal's late 15th century Venetian palace-museum, which stood slightly off the waters of the Grand Canal, one walked through a courtyard filled with cascading creepers, oleander, and pots of fern.

The Palazzo Pazzi had long been associated with the illustrious Florentine family for whom the Medici church of San Lorenzo Pazzi Chapel was named. The Pazzi Chapel was the site of Lorenzo's wedding to his Orsini bride and also the oraisons of Michelangelo. A branch of the Florentine Pazzis, moving to Venice, built the magnificent palace in which, since the late 1940's, Mrs. Gaia Blumenthal had dwelled.

As they entered the foyer though an arched doorway framed by panels of opalescent art glass, Arthur, looking past the Brancusi sculptures and two Braques greeting them, glanced overhead to behold a vaulted ceiling decorated with Venetian mosaic in earth tones encrusted with gold, which matched the marble-inlaid-with-alabaster motifs of the walls. They paused briefly, then headed for the great hall.

Overhead light from above provided by an enormous crystal chandelier in classical renaissance style contained two tiers of electrified candles that were reflected in over 500 Baccarat crystal and antique French pendeloques, ending in a brass base finished in gold ormolu. It was under this impressive piece that Gaia Blumenthal stood, dressed in exotic robes – a gown of metallic threads with shoulder patches of bright colored silk and underarm gussets, diamond-shaped sections of cloth sewn under the armpits edged with braid and lavishly encrusted with sequins.

The robe, of a vivid rose-lilac hue, decorated with curvilinear arabesques, ended in a small train. She wore ropes of bright pearls around her neck together with a tabara, the broad sleeves of her costume peaking in a lappet which flapped to partially conceal hands, except when she lifted them to gesture in delicate circular movements.

Although Arthur was well-prepared for the formidable woman and had looked forward to this moment with inordinate expectation, he found the impact of her presence overwhelming.

There was a timeless quality to her; one had the sense that she was neither young nor old. Immediately one was drawn to her clear amethyst eyes and the titian hair like spun copper, to the bell-like musical voice that welcomed them in mellifluous tones. He thought of Jolie Gabor, Mystinguett, Marlene Dietrich, Ninon de Lenclos, Sarah Bernhardt, Francois Villon's poem Ballade de la Belle Héaulmière, les grandes cocottes in the Colette tradition whose fascination remained in tact, perhaps even increased with passing years. There was something unusually alluring and mysterious about such women -- softly veiled, chimerical, as if they defied gravity by their miracle of endurance -- and by their seeming to be beyond ruination, disease, decay or deterioration.

One could allude to their "secrets" -- the late Mae West allegedly drank a quart of fresh sperm a day to maintain her youthful skin – hence she was surrounded, in her Rossmore Street dwelling in Hollywood's Hancock Park, by all those musclemen as a source of supply. One could claim these women of a certain age had all kinds of hormone shots, plastic surgery and miracle drugs, but the fact remained that they had endured, had outlasted, and through that sheer act of survival asserted a strength of will.

Gaia Blumenthal had prevailed through two global wars – had experienced the cosmic battles of two great continents, had outlived her generation. While she did not seem ancient there was a quality to her of – what was it, Arthur wondered, confronting her now as the bewitching hour of crépuscule flecked through the mosaics, sending refracted light into the chandelier to be reflected back into the mirrors and then to fall on Gaia Blumenthal's wrinkle-free, smooth creamy skin, compelling eyes and red-gold hair -- a quality of everlastingness, yes, that was it.

How many nights of passion had been hers, how many acolytes had lain with her in incredible initiatory experiences, to receive the ancient Devic Odalisque secrets which were within her range of powers, contained in the temple of her body, the pleasure grotto of her vaginal cavity? How many wild steeds had she ridden to ecstasy and enlightenment? All that mattered now was that he reach her, that he put his message across to her sympathetic heart.

For an impetuous split-second, Arthur wanted to quote the immortal bard's lines, in tribute to Gaia: "Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety/But she makes hungry where most she satisfies/ For the vilest things become themselves in her/ that the holy priests bless her, when she is riggish."

Recognizing the impulse as gauche, Arthur stepped forward and smiled. "Mrs. Blumenthal -- I'm Arthur Hartmann."

"Arthur -- I'm so happy to meet you."

"Mrs. Blumenthal, I -- "

"Please call me Gaia."

"Gaia -- I'd like you to meet Donna Lotz."

His heart was pounding, nor did he have the taste to explore the Picassos, Derains, Gris, Tanguys, Ernsts or Giacomettis which at any other moment would have impinged, for now there was nothing more riveting than the octogenarian wonder of a woman whose bejeweled hand still held his,

"Howard Born -- Born Yesterday."

Arthur heard the booming baritone from the east wing, over at the end of a long foyer where a large green Carrara marble fireplace ornamented with onyx and round antique mirrors stood. Oh, no, he thought, chagrined. Don't tell me.

"Come va? Molto lieto."

"Bonsoir."

Arthur sighed, resigned that he and Donna were to share yet another social occasion with the Three Musketeers of Beekman Place.

Garrison Cupp squinted at them, then greeted them with a degree of cordiality. He appeared relaxed, with a crystal cocktail glass in his hand in front of the 15th century fireplace. Many of the other guests, a dozen in all, would appear to be Europeans. There was much greeting and introductions all around. Before any further social amenities, Arthur was compelled toward Matisse's Odalisque in Orange. He must see it. They moved on to the west wing.

A shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with rosettes and shield-bearing colophons together with three large rondel paintings embedded in the ceiling, its dark green painted surface and shallow gold coffers stimulating the effect of fine old leather binding provided an effective setting for the magnificent, compelling 6 by 8 foot canvas that was Henri Matisse's chef d'oeuvre.

Arthur was immediately drawn to the sidelong glances of calm and the haunting aura of nostalgia that complemented the mood of simplicity and aloneness and contrasted with a vivid sharpness of outline, even an angularity, in Matisse's rendering. The Odalisque's eyes were thoughtful yet forthright and alive, but her feelings were concealed in the secret recesses of an ordered, almost silent beauty. The painter had captured perfectly a moment of elegant spontaneity and discretion, had created surprising juxtapositions with his background colors -- sour citron, acid veridian, rich golds and coppers that mingled adroitly yet did not detract from the essential orange draping.

Like some harem beauty idling languidly in the carpeted luxury of a sultan's palace, she seemed transfixed, transformed, but the most interesting thing of all to Arthur was that the pose, similar to Ingres' Grande Odalisque in the Louvre, allowed for the rendering of the Odalisque dimples -- the only Matisse Odalisque painting to do so.

After giving full hommage to the Odalisque, they moved on to another collection highlight, Braque's Le Bonheur est Chose Legère. Sensing the presence of Garrison Cupp behind them, Arthur engineered Donna to a Giacometti sculpture grouping.


Tonight, it was apparent, would not be the proper moment to broach the subject of a loan for the Cupp Museum, or possibly to even show Gaia Blumenthal his slides or his floor plans; Cupp realized that he would have to do so later in the week when he invited her to a more intimate dinner. But being here tonight did give him a good idea of the large choice of art at his disposal. As he explored the works, he realized there was plenty here he would welcome in his museum. Singlehandedly Gaia Blumenthal had helped to shape every major artist among the Fauves, Cubists, Futurists, and Blue Riders, and her acquisitions, reflecting her rare taste and connoisseurship, bore the mark of a woman who closely identified with her works, who had known and encouraged each and every artist represented.

It was certainly an impressive sight, Cupp allowed. He knew when he and Gaia had a chance to really sit down together, they were sure to have much in common, because the very goal she had accomplished by launching the four schools that shaped modern European art was the exact same thing he was attempting to do on the other side of the Atlantic with contemporary painting. She would definitely understand and sympathize with his aims. And her acquisitions would offer him a wide range from which to choose -- Derain, Vlaminck, Von Dongan, Klee, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Balla, of course Matisse, Gris, Braque, Picasso -- and he hadn't even seen the whole museum yet.

"Don't you feel Braque was seeking to overcome the fleeting passage of time -- by attempting to immortalize it in this work?" Cupp turned to ask the lady at his side.

She was Dottoressa Violante Scaravaggi, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Padua, to whom he had been introduced moments ago, a handsome, aristocratic Italian woman in her late 40's with a strong patrician profile, dark hair, and the look of a vicieuse who remotely reminded him of opera singer Roberta Peters in the American Express commercials.

"Perhaps you are right," the professoressa replied, "but for me the highlight of the Blumenthal has always been Matisse's Odalisque in Orange. Have you seen it?"

"Yes, indeed. It's something I want to keep going back to."

"Shall we have another look then?"

"Let's."

On the way back to the Odalisque, they passed Gaia again. He marveled at her expressive lilac eyes, but the most remarkable thing about her, he decided, was that she was so spry, able to move without a trace of stiffness of the joints, arthritis or any of the usual deterrents of age. What, he wondered, was the secret of her sprightly, animated, youthful demeanor? Curiosity peaked him as he and the professoressa regrouped, past Le Bonheur and on back to the Odalisque.


Donna looked especially ravishing tonight, Arthur thought, reinforcing his conception of what an odalisque should be ... luscious, sensual, subtle, her long silky hair worn loose, her clothes muted Victorian colors. "You look like something off the palette of Monet, Manet, Degas -- " he complimented her as she moved to view the canvases with a sinuousness that did not deny her vulnerability. Tonight her hazel eyes and honey-colored hair almost seemed to match each other in the smokey, hazy museum light, and her skin glowed with a golden softness as she contemplated, through dark lashes, the Matisse Odalisque.

Could it be, Arthur wondered? She had the mark. How incredible it would be if Donna were an odalisque, and he had discovered her? He had concluded if she were an odalisque, she did not as yet know it as this was her first trip to Venice and she had never previously heard of Gaia Blumenthal. Wouldn't it be splendid if he could unveil a new odalisque? The tobacco shop had developed the photos overnight, but thought he had told them to print up some 3 by 5's, they had goofed, only made contact sheets --a big disappointment, but with a loop you could just make out the identifying indentations. He would look for the proper opening to show them to Gaia.

They paused by one of Mark Rothko's numbered canvases, which appeared to be sending messages to Donna. Arthur told her how he had known Rothko in the 60's in Manhattan, how they had been beer drinking buddies at a neighborhood hangout, Chinatown Charlie's, which had since been torn down, and how Rothko had encouraged him, had even taken him to his studio on West 53rd Street several times. Those were the days. Arthur allowed himself to sink into brief reverie. It all goes by so fast, he thought. Rothko a suicide, Chinatown Charlie's gone, so many other changes life had wrought. Blink and it's over. He hoped he would have the opportunity of finishing his tasks in life. How terribly important the link to the Odalisques was. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to become an acolyte. He must engage Gaia alone.

Arthur's sense of anticipation grew as he could scarcely wait for his private moment. Dinner on the garden pavilion was centered around a large rectangular table placed in the center of the room, to the side of which was a bolstered divan and tabouret. The semi al fresco surroundings were decorated with ferns and other potted plants, while the table was set with gleaming silver, expensive crystal and china, the latter which proved to be a rare 1887 Sevres design; in the center of the table in a crystal bowl floated gardenias, fresias, gladioli, and at each place setting was a small individual twig basket of peach blossoms wrapped with raffia bows. Napkins alternated colors in hues of lavender, mauve, pink and écru. In the candlelight, Gaia's mystery seemed heightened; it was as if she possessed a secret of life that went beyond the world of appearances.

Dinner, served by two footmen, progressed: terrine chèvre frais, accompanied by crusty freshly baked Italian bread, tiger shrimps with a delicious mayonnaise of lime sauce, garnished with water cress, followed by a vitello tonnato and a salad of fresh mozzarella together with newly picked basil, roasted peppers, fresh tomatoes and olive oil, the cheese unlike any one could obtain in the States. The wines included a sturdy Barolo, a pleasant Nuits St. Georges, and a rather elegant Palazzo al Bosco Riserva.

The atmosphere over dinner, contrasting with the grandeur and formality of the palazzo-museo and its luxurious surroundings, remained casual and convivial. Everyone expressed interest in hearing lore of Gaia's fabled past. With some reticence she spoke about artists she had known. Her first acquisition, she said, was a Georgia O'Keefe sold to her by Alfred Stieglitz, whereas her most recent one had been a canvas by the Corsican artist Charles Levier – by coincidence, a guest on Priscilla's boyfriend's yacht, the man who was supposed to be related to Napoleon, which Arthur supposed everyone in Corsica was.

"Von Donegan," Gaia reminisced, replying to a question, "was a lovely friend. His Dutch wife was a vegetarian, so they lived on spinach, kale and swiss chard. Poor Von Donegan would often escape to my flat for a decent meal. His wife always wore a coral brooch and had a lyric spinto voice. She was particularly touching as Liu in Turandot -- "

She recalled days at the Café de la Rotonde, le Dôme, la Cupole, and all the gatherings there.

"Brancusi! You know, at his atelier we always ate on counters that were covered with layers of white dust from his sculptures. Brancusi cooked the meals himself, using the same furnace, in the middle of the studio, that he used to heat up his tools and melt his bronze. Louis Aragon often joined us – he was not yet married to his beloved Elsa -- "

A dessert of sorbets with tuiles, thin curving almond slices, had been placed in front of them. "In 1924," Gaia continued her reminiscences, "the Compte de Beaumont organized the Soirées de Paris, rented Cigale, a music hall in Montmartre, and engaged Stravinsky, Lifar, Toumanova, Massine, Danilova, Picasso, Ernst, de Chirico, Miro and others for the décor, dance and music. It was the greatest ballet, and very social."


Cupp had found himself seated at dinner next to the dottoressa from the University of Padua, whom he learned was fully dedicated to scholarship and who he gathered was on a close friendship basis with Gaia.

"Do you speak Italian, Mr. Cupp?" the professoressa asked. Her moorish mystery seemed well suited to the air of the Palazzo Pazzi.

"Please call me Gary. No, I'm afraid that other than English and schoolboy French and Latin, I speak only Papayamento."

"Papayamento? I've not heard of that tongue."

"It's the official language of Curaçao. It's sort of a pigeon Dutch-Indian-African-Spanish and Portuguese, with smatterings of English, French and Creole overtones. It's a member of the Indo-European language tree, its basic root being Sanskrit."

"How fascinating. And how does it happen you speak this language -- Papayamento?"

"Well, you see, I lived for two years in Curaçao with a Norwegian girl."

"Oh, that certainly explains it, then."

After dinner Cupp relaxed with a tulip shaped glass of dark, smooth, rich tasting, sensuous, slightly prune-flavored port in one of the private dining areas of the palazzo-museum. He had passed through the assembly room, the refectory with its mosaic flooring and intricately carved coffered ceiling, and admired many paintings, including Modigliani's Sans Lendemain, to arrive here, where bisque moiré walls contrasted with a deep red marble fireplace that illustrated a procession of animals. Sliding doors leading to the museum they had just left were embellished with tiny nailheads forming charming arabesques, while round mirrors over the fireplace reflected romantic images of antique painted panels, the latter being reproductions of the Quattrocento Cantoria panels by Lucca della Robbia in the Sacristy of the Duomo in Florence -- a refreshing contrast to the 20th century art that comprised the museum.

Placed on a Steinway grand piano, as well as visible in other corners of this highly lived in looking room, where the guests now congregated, were many interesting photos of Mrs. Blumenthal at varying stages of her life, most of them taken in Europe. Cupp, now together with Aiuto and Born, rose to inspect striking mementos in the form of silver framed photographs: Gaia with James, Nora and Giorgio Joyce in Trieste, wearing a white linen day suit of broderie anglaise together with a saucy toque of the period; with Man Ray and Eric Satie, she in a black jet lace gown, jet dog collar and birds of paradise in her hair; with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, wearing Palm Beach palazzo pyjamas; dominating the picture alongside Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, Brecht and Helene Wiegel at the Romanische Cafe, in appliqued dolman sleeves and a doll sized hat with short veil perched coquettishly on her forehead; with Franz Werfel and Gustav Mahler, in yards of pearls and feather boas, together with a deep-crowned Gloria Swansonish hat; with Thomas Mann, Klee and Kandinsky, wearing a cape with baroque beading; alongside Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty, wearing, she said, a reconstructed 1912 Poiret of dazzling sea green and blue sequins, redone in the '20's to form a fringed lampshade skirt; the ages of Gaia, the '20's, the '30's, and on into other decades, here descending a curving grand stairway, there in cloth of gold gown, with amazon-inspired breastplate designs on her bosom, a train of gold fringe, long dangle earrings and a dramatic cigarette holder, sporting a headdress designed by Stravinsky's fiancée -- everything gleaming out at him from the polished silver.

"It is very interesting, is it not?"

Cupp turned to the dottoressa by his side. Together they strolled to the opposite side of the room and sat down next to each other on the divan. "Tell me more about your work," Cupp prompted. "It must be interesting at the University of Padua. I understand it's a fine school."

"It is one of the oldest in Italy, founded in the year 1222, a school that has graduated some of the highest thinkers of all time – Copernicus, Goldoni, Oliver Goldsmith, Casanova, Thomas Linacre, who founded the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fransisk Skorina, who introduced painting to Russia, William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, George Wirsung, discoverer of the pancreatic duct, and Giovanni Capodisttria, the hero of Greek independence. The Padua chair of mathematics was once held by no less than Galileo Galilei; and none other than the great Dante Alighieri, il nostro sommo poeta, came here as well."

"You're in distinguished company, I must say."

"Yes," her smile was suggestive, "but also the company here this evening I am enjoying very much."


At last Arthur was to happen upon the moment he had been waiting for. While Donna's attention was claimed by other guests, he confronted the Odalisque in Orange once again.

Ever since he was a child he had reveled in the beauty and fascination of geometry, in triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons; Pythagoras's theorem enchanted him, and he had always felt that a natural sense of geometry should be firmly rooted in every great artist. Since his discovery of the significance of the Mark of Venus, the fosse or Odalisquian dimples, he had enjoyed applying to their likenesses as represented by painters throughout the ages a tape measure to determine precise dimensions, and had found significant geometrical truths to be contained therein.

Soft classical music was playing from the stereo. Arthur did not immediately perceive Gaia hovering at the doorway, watching him closely as he measured distanced between anatomical depictions on the canvas. Finding the measurements to coincide with figures already tabulated in his head, Arthur was elated. Geometric equations, circles, angles, triangles, and Pythagorean mathematics swarmed in his head. With a note of triumph to his voice, he muttered, "3.1415 -- it checks out!"

"Pi – as always – with an Odalisque -- "

Arthur looked up to see Gaia, a faint smile playing upon her lips. "You and I must talk," she said.

"Yes," Arthur replied, unable to contain his excitement. "I've come to Venice to see you -- and this -- " He indicated the Matisse. "Since last month, Gaia, I've been in a curious state. My link with the past is gone. I feel at once bereft and yet free. It's as if something is there waiting, something that wasn't open to me before. I believe -- " he lowered his voice, afraid of being overheard, "I fully believe it's the Odalisque."

He watched as her hand rose in a delicate gesture, exposing partially a slender arm that was covered by a broad, bell-bedecked sleeve ending in a long lappet. Brushing away a strand of unruly copper hair, she did not remove her violet gaze from him.

He continued, "I wrote you two letters which I never sent. I felt it was important to tell you these things in person. Whatever I know ... about the Odalisque ... is the result of painstaking research. And yet, at that, I know next to nothing. But I want to know, I -- "

"How can I help you?" her voice was gently encouraging.

"It's the Odalisque I'm after," Arthur said. "To know, to learn, to have the experience, to become an acolyte. Only you can lead me to the next step. My information is so limited. I realize the idea of the odalisque merely as a genre of painting or a harem concubine is useful to conceal the true meaning, to keep the riff raff, so to speak from realizing the incredible truth -- that women exist whose sensual natures are so highly tuned they surpass the ordinary woman, and that these odalisque women can take a man to undreamed of areas of eroticism, after which he is totally transformed."

Arthur raised his eyes toward the Matisse painting, as if seeing further inspiration from its depths, in order to convey his heart's desire to Gaia Blumenthal. "I know Henri Matisse was an acolyte: he wrote of the Odalisque, `I know they exist; I have seen them.' I realize that throughout history, some people have discovered tantalizing bits and pieces of information bordering on the real nature of the odalisque, they had inklings, they got whiffs; but the earthshaking truth, the complete knowledge, evaded them. Sometimes they tried to portray this in literature or art but essentially failed, not being truly au courrant. Voltaire, for instance, is a case in point. I'd stake my life on the fact that he was not an acolyte, despite his having written a book called The Odalisque, pretending -- a book which incidentally I read in the New York Public Library.

"Nevertheless, certain ideas may have either been filtered down to various sources throughout history, and/or some of these people could have overlapped. What I'm referring to specifically are the hetaerae of ancient Greece, in the time of Pericles, and the nayika or sacred women of India. Possibly also the vestal virgins, certainly in Tibet, perhaps in Rome as well, though there I'm not so sure. Even the geisha, and the whole idea of the cicisbeo, which is so very Italian, are, I concluded, bastard reflections of Odalisquian reality.

"There's a whole tradition among the ancients of the sacred harlot, which no doubt sprung up from Odalisque reality -- and that whole concept of feminine power in the sexual initiation. The Chinese, the Tibetans, the Indians, the Greeks -- all of them were aware of this power held by the female as initiator into the sexual secrets, which lay way beyond the realm of mere sexe ordinaire as practiced by the common man.

"The way I account for it is this," Arthur said. "There may have been a deliberate effort to conceal, and rightfully so, but much of it did filter down. Just look at the secret schools of the Troubadours, the Provençal poets, all these groups -- the Palmers, Palmieri, mesistersingers, jongleurs, giullari, jesters and freemasons and knights ... all of these people spoke a double and sometimes triple language. So the message is there for the person who can interpret. To the Provençal poet, love was `to serve, to fear, to conceal ...'

"It became obvious to me, all things considered, that these things can be interrelated and could easily and probably do overlap with the Odalisques, simply because the Odalisques are such an incredibly ancient order. It's almost mind-boggling to realize they are directly descended from the Devas, but even if I didn't know that, thanks to my father, at least I would have discovered it from Skeat. When I saw this confirmed, Gaia,” Arthur again lowered his voice, "it absolutely blew my mind. Then too, when I made the connection to Von Reichenbach with his Od force, which is the same root, I realized he was interrelated.

"Knowing as I do that there is something so potent, almost magical in the Odalisque erotic experience, that there is something in the rituals which open a man so that he is never the same, so that he can grow beyond himself, become greater than himself, it became obvious that I had to have this experience."

Gaia smiled again, seeming almost the patient mother to a small, excessively enthusiastic son. She said, "You're correct about the chain being unbroken from the dawn of time, and correct also about several distortions or bastardizations -- debased odalisque erotic art -- existing in history. And you're also right about the deliberate effort to conceal. I'm sure you understand why this is necessary -- "


Puzzling things were taking place tonight, of that Garrison Cupp was certain. With a nose acutely trained to intrigue, a result of many run-ins with the Mafia, the CIA, FBI, IRS and other subversive organizations, Cupp, tuned to conspiracy, could always sense the stirrings of anything sub rosa, thus in passing a few feet from the spot where Gaia Blumenthal stood talking to Arthur Hartmann, and pausing to overhear portions of their conversation, he was immediately convinced his instincts had been correct once again.

Moving slightly away to avoid suspicion, Cupp tried to catch a drift. It seemed they were talking now about Donna. Arthur was showing Gaia some photos of her, evidently the ones he had snapped on the Brenta cruise.

"You see," Cupp could hear Arthur explaining, "it's nearly impossible to pick up the dimples on a contact sheet. You might get a hint ... " He handed her a loop, over which she bent to examine the proofs. Cupp heard her complain about it being hard to see, even with the loop, to which Arthur replied something about yes, but Donna did have the dimples, though. What dimples? And why the hell were they so seemingly important? What the hell did it all mean?

Then Cupp, by mere inspiration, chanced to glance up at the Matisse Odalisque, and it struck him. Sure! Yesterday when he had observed Arthur photographing Donna's backside, he had become aware that she had dimples on her butt. Glory be, so did the fucking Matisse Odalisque. And yet, why should that be so significant? How come these two were making such a big deal over it?

Sensing from their glances in his direction that they had become aware of his presence, Cupp moved over to the left, where he pretended rapt absorption in a Modigliani, from where he able still to overhear a few further morsels of information.

Gaia said something about talking to Donna alone, how it was a very select process, only a few women in every age had the qualities ... and then, straining his ears, he heard Arthur say that he wanted to be processed, that he would pay any price at all. For what, Cupp was uncertain, but to be sure, something highly cloak and dagger was taking place here, something of serious import from which the average person was barred.

Cupp signaled to Howard Born, who, as was his general habit, had come to dinner this evening with a tiny recording device in his pocket. His men always carried spare equipment just in case, since over the years it had proven invaluable to always be prepared. Howie immediately caught Cupp's signal; their manner of communication, deeply ingrained with the years, needed no elaborate verbalizations, mere flicks of the eye often sufficing to relay what would take other people five minutes of conversation. Born flipped on the tape and Cupp knew they were in business.

"What cooks, boss?" Howie asked, brushing up against Cupp in the refectory.

"I'm not sure," Cupp relied, frowning. "Could be significant. We'll see later. We'll play the tape in my room."

"Problem's gonna be the background noise -- all the music, the crowd, the dogs barking outside -- "

"But we should get something," Cupp said. Anything was better than nothing at all. Cupp knew even a small portion could be telling.

Cupp wandered back in the direction of where Gaia and Arthur still stood. This time, pretending an interest in some Man Ray Rayograms to continue eavesdropping, he heard Arthur pose a question regarding secrecy, to which Gaia replied that the Odalisques all took vows of "silence on the nature of the eroticism."

"But surely some of the men talk?" Arthur said.

Gaia replied, "Men who become acolytes never talk about their personal Odalisque experiences, since they value them far too highly and the experience is so personal, so charged with meaning, that the acolyte wouldn't dream of telling anyone."

At that point Arthur said yes, but how about other guys, the dudes who may have heard about it but couldn't qualify for acceptance as acolytes. If they go so far as to be rejected wouldn't they talk? And (Cupp wondered if Arthur weren't taxing Gaia's patience with all these questions) Gaia told Arthur he'd be surprised; sometimes, she said, some of these guys might try to blab but most people out there who weren't among the cognoscenti just simply didn't believe them, thought the whole odalisque thing implausible, a big cock and bull story, so out of desire to not place themselves in a bad light, these guys shut up about it.

"Still," Arthur persisted, "some of it has leaked to civilization in one for or another. I mean the sacred harlot, the hetaera, and so forth, the tradition of a man being required, as he was in ancient times, to go to the temple once in his lifetime for the experience with the sacred woman, and that a woman had to give herself at least once in her life to a stranger, and so on."

Gaia explained that all this was true, that debased, profane, degenerate forms of the real megillah did come into existence but that the difference was like night and day. It was just like how the Catholic Church had borrowed from paganism and the mystery schools, that various groups had borrowed from the Odalisques, and thus the kind of thing Arthur was talking about was largely not the genuine article. Only the Odalisque, Gaia said, has the true original system, the genuine ability.

"I know it's expensive," Arthur said. "Frightfully, but -- "

"-- but also rightfully so."

Cupp was forced to move away when Gaia and Arthur cast furtive glances his way once again. But having heard enough to know he was in the midst of something important, he couldn't wait to play the tape, to see what he had missed.


"The whole reason I've come here," Arthur paused, allowing the import of his words to have full impact, "is because I want to be accepted as an acolyte, I want to have the Odalisque sexual initiation."

Gaia's deep sguardo reached him and held on him for what seemed like an eternity, and as Arthur felt himself being pulled into her powerful being, riveted to the beam of energy that emanated from her mysterious lavender orbs, it was as if he were caught in an eddying spiral current in which he suddenly felt sharp darts of white light, tiny sparks actually flying out from the corners of his eyes. The atmosphere of their joint field was so charged it nearly lifted him off the ground. The amazing thing was that gazing into her ageless eyes, spun as he was in a whorl of dizziness into heights he had never before been, the woman in front of him no longer seemed Gaia Blumenthal, 80 or more years old, she was all-woman, female incarnate, welcoming, encircling him, she was a youthful 23-year-old nymph whose vibrating, high energy light pulled and sucked at him until he thought he must be hypnotized, spellbound. Arthur's gaze held on her, galvanized.

At last, after a long silence, Gaia said, "Will you come to see me tomorrow?" Her mellifluent voice was low, conspiratorial. "Four o'clock?"

She touched his arm for a brief instant. Arthur could feel the electricity of the charge prickle him until the hairs of his hand stood on end.

Gaia raised a frothy, sequined, bejeweled sleeve to gesture toward the other guests. "We mustn't discuss this further tonight. You do understand. Now, I must see the others... "

His eyes followed her as she adjusted her silken tabara and swept away in the direction of the refectory.

Later, as Arthur and Donna bid Gaia goodnight, she said meaningfully to Arthur, "We’ll see one another -- soon."

And Arthur was conscious of a sweet contentment that poured over him, the likes of which he had not felt in his entire life.

SECRETS OF AN ODALISQUE - Cupp

Garrison Cupp woke on the dot of five, as was his habit each day. No matter what hour he might have gone to sleep the previous night, he never slept past five in the morning, a practice he had observed all his life. He was, after all, an Aries, a pioneer, a believer that the early bird catches the worm. For 47 years, Cupp had awakened with the conviction that it was the most important thing in the world to get up, because something absolutely fabulous was going to happen. The eternal optimist, he believed in the future, in his own place in the scheme of things, and in the important contribution he was making to society. This trip to Venice would fortify all expectations in that direction.

What to do in the canal city when everyone else was still asleep presented no problem to Cupp, who had always been resourceful. First he showered and shaved, finishing those activities in about half the time they would take the average man, feats which were a keen source of pride to him. Next, glancing at the clock and seeing it was still only 5:20, he mixed up a batch of the sweet-smelling herbs bought at the Seven Sisters of New Orleans and Algiers, Louisiana, which he had brought with him from New York, to apply a henna poultice to his genital organs. While the treatment (good for increased potency) was taking effect, Cupp glanced through a pile of books: Fodor, Baedecker, Murray, Mary McCarthy's Venice Observed, Mrs. Ruskin's Effie in Venice. He could flick through several volumes in a matter of seconds and get the general drift of things. By the time he had sniffed out all the aforementioned tomes, the henna pack had dried.

Cupp washed it off, hiked up his pants, reached for his copy of Major Douglas' 1907 classic Venice on Foot, grabbed his tape recorder, and left his room at the Danieli. It was still not even six o'clock. He had accomplished a great deal this morning, while the majority of the world was still wasting time in bed.

Many people didn't realize it, but Garrison Cupp, with customary introspection and understanding, had come to know himself as a man constantly germinating, assimilating, sifting, sorting, working out relationships, putting pieces together, weighing, balancing, making comparisons, synthesizing -- activities which consumed him day and night; as a result, his concerns could never be those of the ordinary person; he could scarcely be expected to bog himself down with mundane problems like worrying about dirt, stains on clothing, frayed cuffs, or the fact that he might have accidentally worn the same pair of undershorts three days in a row or have forgotten about having his laundry done.

For close to three decades now he had been laying the groundwork for a major achievement, although the world at large was as yet unaware. However, one day they would hear what it was all about. Every one of his actions had its rationale, Cupp reflected, though it might not seem so to outsiders at first glance. Perhaps at present no one entirely grasped his particular mindset, his iconoclasm, his genius. But when he built his art museum, they would! Which was the greater part of the reason he was here in Venice.

Downstairs it was possible to obtain a decent albeit expensive breakfast of brioches, juice and coffee for under thirty dollars. He was the only guest. The morning mist having spread over the al fresco dining area, Cupp chose eating indoors, while glancing over yesterday's International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Rome Daily American. He was mildly perturbed by a mention of himself in the latter paper, which in its gossip column section, "Along the Via Veneto," announced his arrival in Italy -- "Prophylactics heir Garrison Cupp," they referred to him, no doubt taking cues from the stateside National Enquirer, which, during his last bastardy action, had heralded the story, "Prophylactics Heir Shuns Product That Built Family Fortune." This headline troubled Cupp for several reasons.

Theseus Prophylactics, Inc., of Elizabeth, New Jersey, represented only a small part of the Cupp family's interests, the larger portion which was begun on India rubber in the 19th century, spearheaded by his great-grandfather, Garrison Cupp, Senior -- or GC I. It had been his grandfather, Garrison Cupp Jr., or GC II, who had started Theseus, both as a sort of hobby and as a service to mankind. In the vanguard of lubricated tip contraceptives, Theseus had cornered a lion's share of the market, continuing to steamroll in sales well through the 1950's. Its popularity diminished somewhat with the introduction of the pill and later with the peaking of the IUD, but had picked up again recently with the plethora of bad press given female contraceptives and the onset of HIV/AIDS. Still, at no time had Theseus ever accounted for more than 12 per cent of the overall family income.

Cupp Tire and Rubber Co., the major earner, had always been the chief source of the Cupp wealth, whereas the Enquirer, and now the Daily American, made it sound like the entire family fortune had been made in birth control. Still, the Enquirer had been right about one thing -- Cupp did not use Theseus products.

Like his father, GC III, GC IV maintained a hands off policy toward family affairs. His father, a great gentleman-sportsman, habitué of Newport and Palm Beach, globe-trotting playboy and raconteur, had been a leading figure in polo, bridge, golf and backgammon, and an almost daily luncheon guest at 21, where he had his own statuette. Unfortunately GC III had died several years ago in a mysterious unsolved murder that had been hushed up, apparently the victim of a cuckolded husband in Florida.

Next it was Cupp's mother's turn. Having long been an admirer of William Van Alen's 1930 Chrysler Building with its many-splendored Art Deco touches, including its dazzling entrance of stainless steel, glass and black African marble, it seemed appropriate that Jessica Cupp, in 1966, had chosen this building for her suicide plunge.

That the world was a small place never ceased to amaze Cupp, who since landing in Venice two days ago had run into no fewer than two dozen people he recognized from New York, Hollywood, Florida and London. It was "the season," and everyone was here -- even two of Cupp's ex-wives. The next week would be replete with great balls, yachting parties, water festivities, and the film festival, held on the Lido, as well as the Regatta Storica on the Grand Canal. It was exciting to be a part of all this, and fortunately he was invited to several events. But above all, he was looking forward to meeting Gaia Blumenthal.

He had written her and received an answer. She would be expecting him. Having known both his father and his grandfather, she had recognized his name immediately. As soon as he had arrived in Venice, Cupp had rung her Palazzo Pazzi to invite Mrs. Blumenthal to dinner, but the person answering the phone had said she was fuori Venezia, out of town for a few days. He hoped she would return his call soon.

Finishing what the Italians called the prima colazione, Cupp seized Major Douglas and his tape recorder, to follow the Major's well-trodden path toward St. Mark's Square, where the streetsweepers and camerieri were just spiffing things up for the day's customers at Quadri's and Florio's. Already the mosaics gleamed in the emerging morning sun, the five great Byzantine domes a spectacle of eastern opulence, caught, as were the minarets, spires and arched windows, in the light of early day.

Cupp always enjoyed a leisurely stroll of Venice's ancient Byzantine and medieval monuments, mingling with tourists, being jostled in the narrow alleys and byways, except that it was still too early for other people. Cupp moved on toward the Piazetto, toward the pink and white creamy marble Doges' Palace and the Sansovino Library, but buried in the Major's recommended route, he had somehow managed to become thoroughly confused, something that often happened to him; even between Madison and Park in Manhattan he sometimes found himself with no sense of direction.

Winging it, he came out somewhere in a back alley close to Venice's second most important canal, the Cannareggio, and as the location contained a bench, and since nothing more threatening than intermittent garbage gondolas and vegetable vaporetti intruded, he decided to plant himself here to embark upon his next hour's work.

"Art is not truth! Art is a lei that makes us realize truth! Nature and art are two different things; they cannot be the same ... through art we express our conception of what nature is not. You remove the traces of reality and the idea of the object is what leaves us with its ineffable mark ... "

Cupp read the quote, Picasso's, into the tape. It had to be the most profound statement about art, perhaps about the entire 20th century, that had been uttered. That the idea of a thing was more important than the thing itself (Ding-an-Sich?) was absolutely mind-boggling, sheer genius to have thought of, and suggestive of infinite permutation. Hadn't Plato said something similar? Could he ever get off on this!

For so many years now he had been toiling at a tome which was to reflect the roots and interactions of art, philosophy, history, fashion, manners, social attitudes, and ideals of the 20th century. This morning's taping demonstrated but one of the many methods he employed to come by his material for the opus magnum. This particular technique he referred to as his explication de texte, thanks to the waspish Valentin-Henri Texier, his beloved prep school French teacher. At Exeter students sat in a circle around what were called the "Harkness Tables," one of the main teaching distinctions at the school. Presiding over these tables, M. Texier would assign a passage of no more than a few lines for the explication. One would then dissect the words one by one for precise meaning, following which a commentary was in order in the form of precise critique.

This method of careful scrutiny, inaugurated in the French lycée by Napoleon in the early part of the 19th century, a method still used in France today, suited Cupp's intellectual bents to a "t." In his own variation, he would simply expound on his thoughts into the tape, then have a secretary type up what he had said, a lot of which was often pure crap and unusable, but some of which might sometimes contain a gem -- you just simply could never tell when a sentence or two here and there, uttered perhaps inadvertently, could take shape into an idea of major proportions. The thing was to keep talking.

Since Cupp worked hard at his projects, it distressed him to know that behind his back, people had the gall to snicker over him. Let them get up at five every morning to talk about Picasso's theories of art.

It also bugged Cupp no end that the painters he had selected for his personal art collection had yet to make their mark in the world. He had bought these unknown, emerging artists because he believed in them, then had done everything in his power to promote them. He still believed in them. There was his third wife, Trisha Stonemarten, for instance, who alongside Salvador Dali was, in Cupp's opinion, one of the two greatest masters of the second half of the twentieth century. Trisha attacked cosmic subjects in a style that was not derivative. While in the decade following their split he had continued doing his utmost to forward her career, despite the negative criticism of the many who undermined both her ability and the fact that she had taken him to the cleaner's in the divorce settlement, it was just tough to get a decent bite out of critics, museums, curators, galleries and private collectors.

He had really put himself out for Trisha, before, during and after the marriage, but for some unfathomable reason, her neo-cubist-abstract expressionist, quasi-dadaist/surrealist/minimalist canvases with their faint overtones of fauvism, pop artiness and impressionism that were midway between contemplative and disruptive, just didn't go over with the public. This, despite her being innately a true giant of the contemporary scene.

He had finally placed Trisha's canvases in a few small museums in Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and this, with considerable effort. Galleries the world over which had agreed to take her work (mostly with arm twisting, bribery, and always on consignment) never did more than tepid business on her. Sometimes he could not help the distinct feeling that some sinister force out there was against him. It had been ascertained that both the CIA and the Mafia had conspired against him in the past; now Cupp had to wonder what these two organizations might have to do with the problems he had confronted with his art.

So he was stuck with 22 rooms full of what clearly were the greatest unsung treasures of the 20th century, works he had paid a lot of money for, which by all rights should be appreciated and recognized -- but sadly, for which there was no market whatsoever.

The answer was to devise a market. Hence, the ingenious plan he was now hatching, by which he would be vindicated. This scheme would insure not only Trisha's and his other artists' reputations, but his own as well, with the added fillip of replenishing his dwindling estate. And furthermore, it would enable him to go down in history as a patron of the arts who had foresight and wisdom, who through thick and thin had stuck to his guns, who, refusing to allow himself to be influenced by public opinion, ended up being its prime mover and shaper. As the Medicis were to Florence, Cupp would be to the world, in this enhanced age of globalism.

Quite simply, the plan was that he would build an art museum. New York needed another one, and as it so happened, Cupp owned the land to build it on, property he had inherited. Primer real estate could scarcely be desired: a seedy hotel on 42nd Street, just off Times Square, in an area that was in the process of a renaissance. One of the big three insurance companies had recently offered him a handsome sum for the property, but the site was not for sale at any price, since it was the ideal location to build the museum that would be the apotheosis of his life, a museum totally dedicated to artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Times Square was perfection -- the museum would get all the subway and Port Authority traffic. This was a big gay area, and gays were enthusiasts of the arts. They might even manage to convert a few derelicts who were still hanging out in the environs -- particularly over on 8th Avenue. All in all, the project just had so many beneficial side effects that it had to go over big.

The main problem was going to be convincing the public to revere the works he planned to display there, largely his own personal acquisitions -- Trisha Stonemarten, to be sure, plus others of his proteges: artists like West Coast abstractionist Minerva Miller or the primitivist Lucille King; Dario J. Luis, whose specialty was the rendering of matador's assholes -- contrapunctual, highly ambitious conceptions; or even the tragic Anton Jacob, a past master (in both senses of the expression, since he was now deceased) of the last wave of cubism, who if the truth were told, had been able, at the top of his form, to give old Pablo a run for his money. Unfortunately Jacob had died penniless, his canvases were now next to worthless -- a terrible tragedy. Cupp had seven of them, now hanging in rooms on the third floor of his triplex -- an area no one but he himself had visited in the 18 months since his 5th wife Didi, an aspiring rock singer, had moved out.

The eight rooms upstairs were ideally suited for a recent new project he had undertaken -- indoor gardening, the growing of narcotic plants, magic mushrooms, soporifics, hallucinogens, aphrodisiacs, stimulants, hypnotics and other nepenthe. Here he could relax, tend and inspect his various species of psychotropic Psilocybe, dature metel, deadly nightshade and henbane, cannabis of different species, the opium poppy (papaver somnifora), his wolfbane, soma and peyote, the interesting Heimia syphilitica and Nymphaea ampla, as well as experiment in his small chemistry lab with extracting alkaloids. It was an absorbing creative outlet, but something he was keeping under cover -- it was, in fact, so top secret that even his closest associates, Aiuto and Born, as yet knew nothing about it.

But a propos of the art museum and the obstacle of getting the public to share his tastes, he had hit upon the answer to that one. The way was to hang his own fare alongside other, established works. Thus, over the past several years he had been corresponding with important private collectors and boutique museums, explaining to them that he wished to exchange ideas of mutual interest.

He had approached each collector as a fellow art enthusiast rather than a person who wanted something out of them. He had been prudent, scrupulous about never hitting anyone over the head, but merely feeling them out. Already he had canvassed collectors in the New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington areas. He had spent a delightful weekend with the Mellons in Pittsburgh and Virginia, to duly admire their acquisitions, which with due respects he honestly felt, despite their touted value, lacked the cachet of his own.

His father and Paul Mellon had been school chums who maintained a friendship over the years, due to a shared interest in horses. Finally on Sunday, after courting Mellon all weekend long in the tack room, paddock, ring and trails of his magnificent country dwelling, Cupp had cornered him to ultimately broach the subject of the projected museum. Mellon had been politely receptive, had all but endorsed the idea and had even offered to put Cupp in touch with his own people at the Mellon National Gallery and so forth. He had not said no to the possibility of loans. Now, if using Paul Mellon as bait he could hook Gaia Blumenthal, he would have it made.

As his museum would feature 20th century art, no loan could have greater impact than one from her. Her Palazzo Pazzi Museum, the works in which were valued at upwards of $500,000,000, was utterly unique. The Blumenthal owned Matisse's Odalisque in Orange, which was a good example of the type of painting he was going to need for the Cupp -- a real attention-grabber, something to which the critics would instantaneously gravitate.

Mrs. Blumenthal would be a joy to meet: she was one of those highly cultured, fabulous old women of a certain age of Hebrew persuasion, who like Misia Nathhanson, Alma Mahler Werfel, and Gertrude Stein before her, had been both inspiration, subject matter, muse, and source of unending support to countless gifted artists.

Secretly, though Cupp prided himself on his individualism and response to a different drummer, he nevertheless harbored a frustrated desire for the recognition of his peers.

The museum would provide this, of that he was certain. Thus, his great mission here in Venice was of utmost importance. The next few days would be crucial, in which he would solicit from Mrs. Blumenthal her cooperation, in the form of a promise or semi-commitment to offer some of her better-known works such as the Matisse Odalisque in Orange, to loan on a long range basis, say for a period of a year or more -- this would be ideal, would allow time for his museum to establish itself, after which all the artists of his own choice would have made their mark. For with their acceptance at a major museum, there would be no question of their value -- having a captive audience, their stock in the art world would skyrocket.

He saw no reason why Mrs. Blumenthal would begrudge him a few of her important acquisitions, since after all, it would be in the interests of humanity. The lady had had many years of personal enjoyment from her collection and she had in the past been known to make loans, so he could foresee no major obstacle. Others had responded; she ought to as well. After all, if Paul Mellon, for Christ's sake, had as good as said yes, what possible snag could there be? At any rate, he had brought along a batch of slides of his own works to show her, so she could get an inkling of what the permanent collection to be housed at the Cupp would boast.

Cupp had finished his morning's work on the book project, was pleased with his output and ready to return to the hotel to pick up Aiuto and Born. Along the way back he allowed for much pausing on bridges to better view the local scene and discover intriguing new delectibilities and amenities of the water, as well as out of the way rii, as Venetians called their canals. The squares and open market stalls, dappled with golden sunlight, were showing signs of activity.

"Le gambe! Le gambe!" the Venetians called out to him, "Legs! Legs!" as pressed to the wall in the narrow corridors, he hopped between the greengrocers and the fish shops, watching in the canals the fascination of refuse collection and fire engine gondolas.

Predictably, he became lost, first ending up somewhere around Verrocchio's equestrian statue of Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, then finding himself at the Arsenal. Having managed this morning to get a good view of all the many winged lions -- golden, marble, bronze and stone – that graced Venice, he came out to what, according to Major Douglas, would seem to be the Church of San Zaccaria, which allegedly contained the body of the father of John the Baptist, a place where priests in the 16th century had arranged nude bathing parties and nuns had entertained their lovers openly. When the police tried to raid the place, the sisters pelted them with stones. He wondered what, if anything racy, was going on there today. The place looked quiet enough.

Cupp ran his fingers through his long, bushy pepper and salt hair, contemplating pigeons, vendors, cafés. He was thoroughly mixed up now. But persevering, he ended up on the Riva degli Schiavoni and hailed a gondola to take him back to the hotel.

It was 9:30 – finally late enough to connect with civilization, to ring Gaia Blumenthal to see if she were back yet. He went to the phone in the Danieli lobby.

When the party at the other end heard Garrison Cupp was on the line, he said, "Oh, yes, Mr. Cupp. Mrs. Blumenthal phoned in and I gave her your message. She wishes you to attend a small dinner party she is hosting Wednesday evening. Why don't you bring your wife along?"

Cupp explained he was presently wifeless, but accompanied by two male companions. Would it be all right to invite them?

"By all means," the secretary replied. "Eight o'clock, then?"

"Wonderful," Cupp answered. "We'll be there."

Jubilantly, he hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. Only thirty-six hours to countdown!

Soon now, very soon, he was going to start seeing some real action.