excerpt
The next day, he purchased dozens of the type of red stickers lawyers
used as seals at the bottoms of contracts. All those years he had tried to
sell just one painting of the far north – now he had sold forty in two
hours – to two men out of several billion men on the planet.
He decided to keep Rocco, who was teetering on the verge of a nervous
breakdown every time he saw the bills coming in from caterers, florists,
and the liquor store, in suspense.
When he told Marsha he had sold some paintings, she asked, “How did
you do it?”
“I told my stories about the Arctic and why I was doing this.”
“I hope that one day you will be able to sell a painting without having
to tell a story.”
“Why?” Ken asked, feeling both shocked and curious by the statement.
“Paintings are supposed to speak to you quietly,” she said. “You
shouldn’t be a used car salesman.”
“Everything is a story,” he said, biting down on his anger. “It’s the only
thing we have. Every culture on earth has had only one thing – stories.
You love the movies, you love novels, you love magazine articles – they’re
all stories. What’s wrong with paintings being stories? Do you think van
Gogh and Michelangelo and da Vinci and Picasso would be known today
if it wasn’t for stories?”
Marsha opened her mouth and he waved his hand at her. “No – don’t
go into this. We’re not going any farther with this.”
The night before the opening, he paid a team of young people to spray
paint bright yellow Inuksuit on the streets leading to the Columbus Centre
and, finally, after he’d painted late into the night for eight months, the
day of the exhibition dawned. “I hope there isn’t a traffic jam,” he said to
Rocco, while laughing and praying there would be. Four or five hundred
visitors would make the show a triumph.
He arrived at the gallery early to oversee the hanging of the paintings,
fuelling himself on black coffee and adrenaline. At about eleven o’clock
a well-dressed couple walked into the gallery. The couple complimented
Ken on his work, purchased nine paintings and left as quietly as they had
come. Ken’s excitement mounted.
At seven-thirty, just before the doors opened, Ken put big red stickers
on the sold paintings, taking quiet delight in watching Rocco’s jaw
drop. The Portuguese Ambassador and Consul General were among the
first to arrive. The Italian contingent followed on their heels. Mayor David
Crombie was next and then the Federal Minister of Culture. Delegations
from various foreign consulates and embassies arrived along with
Toronto’s glitterati. By eight o’clock, the police had arrived to direct the
traffic, and Ken’s prayed-for car jam stretched down every artery…
Hellenic Canadian Literature 