Page 69 of Stay Awake
“Mirror Four,” he says. “That’s the title of the show.”
The name throws me. I don’t recall seeing a mirror at the exhibition. All I saw was a gagged woman with a burlap sack over her head, bound to a chair. I remember that her clothes were almost shredded. It was more a macabre horror show than anything to do with mirrors.
“What’s the significance of the name?”
“The exhibition is what I call a four-dimensional mirror,” he says quietly. “It signifies a metaphorical mirror that shows my audience for what they really are.”
“Which is?”
“Good. Evil. Banal. Maybe all three.”
“Usually in performance art, the artist is part of the experience. What’s your role in the exhibit?”
“I’m a voyeur,” he answers. “I arrange the experience and then I step back and watch. What happens next is in the hands of the audience. They can do whatever they like. Free the woman with the scissors. Cut her with the knife. Or walk away as you did, Liv.”
“I didn’t walk away. I observed and then I left,” I say defensively.
“There’s no such thing as being an observer. Doing nothing is doing something. Being passive has consequences.”
I roll my eyes, grateful we’re only talking on the phone and he can’t see me. As far as I’m concerned, Q’s experimental sensory experience is nothing more than heavy-handed social commentary. It’s fatuous,and it leaves me cold. Of course, I’m too polite to tell him that. Instead I ask him to tell me about his inspiration for the work.
“The Bible.”
“In what way?”
“What’s the greatest gift God gave humankind?”
I run through my lax religious education. “The Ten Commandments?”
Through the kitchen window, I see a white minivan stopping outside. Its engine idles noisily as the driver gets out and disappears into the entrance of the building across the street.
“Free will, Liv,” he chastises. “Genesis Two. God told Adam not to eat the apple. Adam had a choice. He could obey God’s order not to eat the apple, or he could exercise free will and eat it anyway. He chose the second option.”
I check the time. I really need to get ready or I’ll be late to meet Marco for our cycling trip this afternoon.
“How does the story of Adam relate to your exhibit?” I ask somewhat impatiently as I walk to my bedroom and take out a T-shirt and Lycra shorts.
“You had choices, Liv. You had free will. You could have rescued the woman in my exhibit. Instead you walked away. Why?”
“There were signs on the exhibit that said ‘Do Not Touch.’ I didn’t want to interfere or break any rules.”
“So you left? Because of a stupid rule?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Bystanders can be just as culpable as perpetrators.”
“Perhaps in real life,” I say. “In this case, it was an art exhibition. It wasn’t real.”
“The ropes. The duct tape. The gag. All were real.” He sounds offended. “The woman. She was a real woman bound to a real chair. With real blood in her veins. The hammer was real. So was the rope. You could have smashed the glass box with the hammer and taken outthe scissors to cut her bonds and free her. Instead you abandoned her there and left.”
He’s right. I should have cut the woman free. His accusation chills me. I want to tell him that his exhibition frightened me with its realism.
“I thought that was part of the performance. I didn’t know I had a role to play.”
“Everyone has roles to play. Sometimes we don’t know it until it’s too late. You were given a choice, Liv. Every choice has a consequence.”
I walk to my bedroom and glance out the window. The minivan driver comes out of the building across the street carrying a large box. He slides open the van door and puts the box on a rear seat before slamming the door shut and going around to the driver’s seat.
